We know that the risk to children from COVID is very low, even if they get it. But we love our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren so very much that any threat to them feels terrible. I want to protect every single child from any harm that could ever come to that child, but of course that’s impossible. It would certainly help to know the real risks of COVID to children, and to know the relative risks the vaccine poses to them.
I had heard that a healthy five-year-old died from COVID. His tragic story is somewhat more complex than that, it turns out. It can be summarized by saying that a previously healthy 5-year-old boy contracted a number of infections seemingly simultaneously, and one of them was COVID. He died, and it’s not certain why he succumbed to so many infections or which was the one that killed him, if indeed there was one.
Dr. Marty Makary is a medical expert and professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Carey Business School. His research team “worked with the nonprofit FAIR Health to analyze approximately 48,000 children under 18 diagnosed with Covid in health-insurance data from April to August 2020.”
After studying comprehensive data on thousands of children, the team “found a mortality rate of zero among children without a pre-existing medical condition such as leukemia.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean that no child on earth has ever died from COVID itself. But it’s also been clear from the start that the number of such children must be extremely low – which is no comfort to a family which has lost a child.
Biden is being told that the way to win the next election is to force the Republicans to own the January 6th “insurrection”, by maximizing the disgusting conditions of imprisonments and penalties and publicly shaming the defendants, or even better to goad the conservative patriots into another more violent incident that could be laid at Trump’s doorstep. Thus, creating national division is the Democrats’ path to victory.
I would have thought they’ve already created national division enough. But yes, the heightening of the divisions and tensions is indeed a goal of this administration. And I also agree that the government would dearly love to provoke another easily controllable incident such as January 6th to be used for maximum propaganda advantage to label the right (and Republicans) as violent terrorists who need to be suppressed in the strongest ways.
What’s more, I have come to believe that even now there probably are several groups around the country that could be described this way: anywhere between two and seven disaffected and frustrated young men sitting around talking with at least that many FBI undercover agents about some sort of violent demonstration which the agents have spearheaded, planned, and organized for them.
The resulting demonstration/riot/attack will be allowed to proceed, with the FBI providing not just the leadership but also the training, most likely only to the point where the others can either be arrested and charged (as in the Michigan Whitmer kidnapping situation) but before any destructive action has occurred or even been attempted. Alternatively, the action will be allowed to go forward to the point where something more overt will happen, as on January 6th. But even then, there will never really be much danger to anyone except the group doing the protesting, because if things get out of hand violence will be used on them.
That I have gotten to the point of believing that sort of thing is highly possible is a sad commentary on the events of the last few years. I’m not fond of far-fetched paranoid conspiracy theories, but sometimes the evidence points too strongly in a certain direction. There is little question in my mind that the groups that participated in January 6th were heavily monitored by government agencies prior to the incident, and it is clear that the Capitol police and other protective forces were not allowed to be there in the proper numbers to thwart what was about to happen. It’s also clear that the Democrats and the MSM were poised to take full propagandist advantage of January 6th from the start, and that they did. We know the results so far.
It should be shocking to see a *media outlet* try to create new ways to enable media outlets to be sued and punished because of the views they air, but there's nothing shocking about it, because the leaders of the crusade to restrict speech in the US are liberal journalists.
In the title of this post, I said this was done by the media as a tool of competition. That’s the case, but of course it’s not solely that, and not even primarily that. The MSM is not in the business of giving us news, except about the most simple and non-political things (although come to think of it, what’s allowed to be non-political these days?).
The “journalists” of today are in the business of propaganda in service of a cause. That cause is leftism. Those remaining journalists or pundits who are not in service of that cause, and especially ones who actively oppose it, are not considered part of the team and are fair game for any attack. Most members of the MSM don’t see Tucker Carlson or any other media figure on the right as colleagues. They see them as enemies to be smeared and silenced.
Now that cannabis is on the way to becoming legal in more and more states, let’s take a look at this:
A new study out of Denmark has found that, in the past 25 years, the number of schizophrenia cases correlated with cannabis use has increased: While only 2 percent of schizophrenia diagnoses in 1995 were associated with marijuana use, by 2010, that figure had risen to approximately 8 percent.
With the caveat that correlation is not causation, I still have no trouble believing that the potency of modern cannabis, and its widespread use, would be associated with a greater risk of schizophrenia.
“There is, unfortunately, evidence to suggest that cannabis is increasingly seen as a somewhat harmless substance. This is unfortunate, since we see links with schizophrenia, poorer cognitive function, substance use disorders,” study author and associate professor at the Copenhagen Research Center for Mental Health Carsten Hjorthøj told CNN in an email. “I think it is highly important to use both our study and other studies to highlight and emphasize that cannabis use is not harmless.”…
That cannabis users have an increased likelihood of becoming schizophrenic is well established, but researchers believe their findings show that the issue is worsening and becoming more widespread.
“Of course, our findings will have to be replicated elsewhere before firm conclusions can be drawn,” Hjorthøj said. “But I do feel fairly confident that we will see similar patterns in places where problematic use of cannabis has increased, or where the potency of cannabis has increased, since many studies suggest that high-potency cannabis is probably the driver of the association with schizophrenia.”
I don’t see that these findings will matter to cannabis users and potential cannabis users or to those spearheading the drive for decriminalization and/or legalization, though. I think that horse has left the barn.
The Michigan case is especially important because it increasingly appears similar to what may have been going on and what may still be going on with the January 6th “insurrection.”
I also noticed a few interesting details about the Michigan case in this article, such as:
Initially the group focused on discussing police abuse and fantasizing about fighting back, nurturing what an FBI agent in the case later described as ‘a grievance and hatred towards law enforcement,’ BuzzFeed reported.
They were angered by the police killing of black people such as Breonna Taylor and Eric Garner, and white people like LaVoy Finicum, a rancher killed by law enforcement during a standoff in Oregon in 2016.
Certainly not white supremacists.
More about FBI informant “Dan” and the group’s activities [emphasis mine]:
[“Dan”] first wore a wire on April 30, 2020 – when the group attended an anti COVID lockdown protest at the Michigan state Capitol, in Lansing.
The men wore ballistic body armor and held pistols and AR-15 assault rifles.
[Dan] heard chatter about storming the building, and, panicked, surreptitiously informed the FBI who were listening.
To his astonishment, the Capitol guards then stood aside to let the group inside the building, where they were photographed, fully armed, outside the offices.
At that Capitol demonstration the group met another protestor, a man named Adam Fox. They got the idea to invite him to join their group, and it was Dan (who was now second in command) who vetted Fox for the group by talking to him on the phone – from an FBI office. Fox became the most violent and militant of the plotters, and Dan was well aware of his attraction to planning violence from at least the time of that phone call. Not only that, but Dan took him under his wing against the later objections and doubts of some of the group:
One of the founding Watchman, Bellar, became convinced that Fox was out of his mind, BuzzFeed reported, and repeatedly shared those concerns with Dan, court testimony shows.
Morrison, the group’s commanding officer, also expressed reservations about Fox.
But Dan was sure to include Fox in group meetings and to develop his own personal relationship with him.
Fox began referring to Dan as his ‘brother,’ according to Fox’s former fiancé.
Dan’s role in the plot and in the recruitment and retaining of Fox is extremely disturbing.
Still more:
A few weeks later, Dan drove five Watchmen and 6,000 rounds of ammunition to Cambria, Wisconsin, for a national training exercise organized by Stephen Robeson – another person working for the FBI, who had organized in June 2020 a ‘national militia meeting’ in Dublin, Ohio.
Dan rented a Suburban for the weekend, paid for gas, and subsidized food and lodging for the group – all with money from the FBI.
Another FBI informant who was a leader and organizer of militia activities. Would these groups have remained much more loosely affiliated and disorganized had the FBI not been leading the show? I strongly think so.
Speaking of which [emphasis mine]:
By the end of July, Bellar told his fellow Watchmen he was buried in debt and leaving Michigan to move in with his father in South Carolina…
Morrison told the group that he too was temporarily stepping away from the Watchmen, owing to marital issues.
Dan was then left in charge.
The FBI then asked Dan to bring in as many people as possible to the kidnap plot.
Which he then proceeded to do, including some more informants as well.
Dan brought in two more FBI informants – ‘Red,’ a supposed explosives expert, and a man known as Mark.
The group surveilled Whitmer’s home again, with Red talking to the group about the explosives they’d need to pull off the kidnapping.
The FBI informants were the movers and shakers here.
The relevance to January 6th:
On June 15, Congressman Matt Gaetz wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, asking three questions regarding the ‘extent … [to which] the three primary militia groups … [were] infiltrated by agencies of the federal government.’
He wanted to know ‘how many federal undercover agents or confidential informants were present at the Capitol or in the Capitol during the ‘siege,” and ‘how many [of the unindicted Jan. 6 co-conspirators] worked as a confidential informant or as an undercover operative for the federal government.’
He has asked for a response by August 1.
When I first read about the Michigan plot the strong possibility of entrapment occurred to me, probably because of my legal training in the 70s. Going back to what I think was the only post I wrote at the time of the Michigan arrests (October 2020; note the timing in terms of possibly influencing the 2020 election) about the kidnap plot, it’s interesting in particular to look at the comments there.
The first one was from commenter “Richard Aubrey” and it went like this (October 9):
So the fibbies got a dozen nutcases to talk big. I feel better already. Somebody tell the folks in Wauwatosa that their troubles are over.
Could have been worse; five years ago, the fibbies got two jihadis to shoot up a cartoon exhibition in Garland, Tx. It being Texas, they were both dropped on the spot.
In many of these conspiracy cases that are halted before they are carried out, an undercover operative is part of the planning stage, and there often is a question of entrapment. The agents tend to know how to get around the charge of entrapment. It’s important to make sure the ideas don’t originate with the agent.
And Richard Aubrey also had this to say at the time:
Wouldn’t be the first time the feds have made use of a mental case to beef up their arrest numbers.
Wiki on the Garland, Texas shooting has a lot on the lawsuit against the feds. It was defeated when the court decided the agent was operating within the rules. Gives you an idea about the rules.
So we can pat ourselves on the back, for what it’s worth – which isn’t very much, unfortunately.
However, the extent of the involvement of the FBI in the Whitmer kidnap plot seems to be even bigger than I suspected. And significant FBI involvement in the Capitol “insurrection” of January 6th doesn’t seem the least bit implausible at this point.
But why bother? His state has been obvious since way before the 2020 election, and it’s even more evident now.
But if I neglect the stories, it seems like I’m ignoring them entirely. So I’ll just link to a couple of posts at other blogs that discuss some of the recent examples: see this and this.
As I’ve said before, I think Biden has been losing it for some time, but I also think he was always vacant, unintelligent, self-serving, and mendacious. I think he’s being highly influenced by other people, but he’s not so far gone that he doesn’t have at least some input, and not so far gone that he doesn’t have some very basic understanding of what’s happening. But he’s extremely far from being sharp-minded.
I find it astounding that half of the nation either doesn’t seem to know or doesn’t seem to care much if at all. I understand that they are being led to this by the intensely hypocritical MSM and Democratic Party, but it still leaves me gobsmacked. But if they really have come to believe (as they’ve been told) that Republicans and Trump are tyrannically demonic, they would probably find the present state of affairs more acceptable.
Five speech therapists in hoods and handcuffs were led away by security police in Hong Kong yesterday for distributing “seditious” children’s books that depict China as a malevolent wolf…
The gesture of defiance came after a crackdown on dissent and free speech in the territory under Beijing’s new security law. Hong Kong’s protest movement has been shut down by the threat of jail and independent media outlets have been hounded into closure…
Pro-Beijing newspapers and politicians have called the books an attempt to ‘poison’ the minds of children by promoting freedom from Beijing in the territory. A senior Hong Kong education official claimed that they had used fables to spread political propaganda. The two men and three women arrested, who are aged between 25 and 28, are accused of “inciting hatred among the public, especially small children, against the Hong Kong government and Hong Kong judiciary, inciting the use of violence, and encouraging disobedience of the law,” according to the police.
The redefinition of mere criticism of a leftist government into actionable “hate” speech and speech that constitutes “incitement to violence” or hurts people’s sensibilities has been a leftist tactic for quite some time. Our own leftist government is well on the way to something similar, as this news (which I also put in one of yesterday’s posts) indicates:
This is so creepy and manipulative from the US Attorney arguing to give a Jan 6 defendant longer prison time. Judge says the defendant was not accused of committing violence or causing injury. US Attorney says sure, but he "injured" democracy — and caused emotional injury! pic.twitter.com/5VDkoWgz2b
When China opened up to the West so many years ago, it was thought by many “experts” that it would result in the Westernization of China. I don’t think most people thought the influence would go the other way. Our own traditions of liberty were stronger then, but the left has been carefully undermining them for many many many decades.
Here’s a comment about the song “Dust In the Wind,” on the thread about the death of Robby Steinhardt, the violinist for the group Kansas:
Sorry Neo, but that is about the tritest sappiest song there is. As if the thoughts therein had never occurred to everyone on the planet before.
Taste in music – and lyrics – differ, as the music threads on this blog amply demonstrate. But I take issue with that particular comment, and I’ll tell you why.
It’s not that the song is an absolutely enormous favorite of mine, although I do like it quite a bit and so do gazillions of people around the globe. The fact that it’s a very popular song doesn’t make it trite and sappy nor does it mean it’s not trite and sappy. But I submit that it is highly unnecessary for a thought – whether in essay, poem, or song lyric – to be utterly original in order to be worth saying again. As Alexander Pope wrote:
True Wit is Nature to advantage dress’d
What oft was thought, but ne’er so well express’d;
Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.
The new version of the older thought (or the older truth) can serve to create an “aha!” moment in the listener or reader that is sometimes profound – a kind of resonance and vibration at a different speed or pitch. There are few original insights (which is in itself an unoriginal insight), but that doesn’t negate art. Nor is restating them in different form a case of the creator trying to imply that the thoughts “had never occurred to everyone on the planet before.”
In the Byrds’ 1965 song “Turn, Turn, Turn” (there was an earlier one in 1962, but it was the Byrds who popularized the song), much the same ideas are expressed but keeping the words in a much earlier form, that of the biblical Ecclesiastes. The song was also very popular, and I wounder how many people recognized the source. No matter; it bears repeating – and when set to music the same thoughts acquire a different aspect and touch a different part of the heart and mind.
Music can reach us on a deep level. So can words alone, but words set to music enter by a different avenue. Music alone or music with lyrics can cause tears in the listener in ways that the same words alone are sometimes less likely to do. It’s true of classical music or pop music, and some people respond better to one over the other although some people are very fond of both.
You don’t have to like “Dust In the Wind.” You are welcome to think it trite and sappy. But “trite” – meaning “hackneyed or boring from much use : not fresh or original” – and “sappy” – meaning “overly sweet or sentimental” – can be synonyms for “wise” and “meaningful.” I also submit that there’s nothing sweet or sentimental about the “Dust In the Wind” lyrics, but that’s not the point.
The thoughts in that song have been expressed so many times I could not even begin to list them. And yet people seem to want to express them again, in different form. I’ll close the post with one of the more famous statements of the idea. I could have selected any number of verses, but here are a few:
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes—or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two—is gone…
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.
Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies;
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies…
One Moment in Annihilation’s Waste,
One moment, of the Well of Life to taste—
The Stars are setting, and the Caravan
Starts for the dawn of Nothing—Oh, make haste!…
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
