77 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, May 8, 2021”

  1. Biden and his crew have come up with the right strategy to destroy a substantial portion of the Trump base.

    Nobody is going to change the Bible thumping faction, but there were, or are, some tens of millions of people in Trump land who aren’t there because of their religion.

    They’re there because they’re scared for their jobs, their way of life, because they’re afraid of strangers, etc.

    And they’re there because they’ve been ready to believe what Trump and company has been telling them.

    But Trump’s days of doing the telling are just about over now, and from here on out, right up until the midterms, and right on thru to 2024, it’s the various state courts,federal courts, and individuals who are going to be doing the talking.

    I’m planning on stocking up on refreshments, lol, and keeping a very close eye on all these cases, and sending links to them to a substantial portion of my neighbors and acquaintances, lol.

    When enough people talk long enough, the general public eventually gets the message.

    1. OFM

      I don’t understand “destroy”

      Biden and his crew have come up with the right strategy to destroy a substantial portion of the Trump base.

      Do you mean alienate or undermine or reject or…..

      1. Figurative use of the language.
        Alienate or reject both fit.
        A lot of people who voted for Trump and his cronies are gradually waking up to the hard truth about him. There’s going to be a steady stream of bad news for him which just about guarantees a lot of them won’t vote Republican again anytime soon.

    2. what has Trump got to do with anything anymore?

      The Republicans, I hope, are focusing on the next election .

      Either that or be like our Labour party .

      forbin

      1. Don’t worry, the US is the only first world country without a Labor Party.

    1. Sturgy and the SNP have been trying to wheedle their way out of the 2014 vote ever since they lost it. By agreement before the vote it was going to be a once in a generation vote, ie 25 years before the next.

      SNP appears to be a single issue party these days.

      So IMHO the other countries of the UK should be asked by referendum to agree that the 2014 vote is now non binding and that a new indy vote to be allowed. But how can be binding this time? because so far the SNP appear to only want to agree to a “yes” vote , anything else will not be acceptable .

      So why bother? SNP could just declare UDI and go their own way tomorrow ( might be an issue internationally of course , Spain would not allow EU entry for one )

      Unless of course all the posturing is just to get more money from the Union….

      forbin

    2. For the benefit of the Americans and Canadians reading this blog, you should know that the numbr of Muslims in the UK amounts to 2 million, about 5 % of the population. You should recognise then that Hole in the Head’s use of the term “Englandistan” is an indication of a prejudiced and paranoid mentality. It would be rather akin to referring to the USA as Estados Unidos de America as a way to imply that the US is being “swamped”, “over run”, “infiltrated”, totally hispanified by an immigration of people with no sense of identification with real Anglo American democracy and civiisation. “Englandistan” is about as much accurate and deeply objectionable as calling, say Wisconsin or Manitoba as – if you’ll pardon the expression – Niggerland. H in H is correct to say that there is a good chance that Scotland will split from England, quite wrong to imagine Wales leaving the UK (around 30% of the population there aspire to independence),and may be correct when he predicts Northern Ireland will trnsfer from the UK to the Republic of Ireland. But Englandistan? This is a sign that he is likely a grubby disciple of that obnoxious pub bore Farage,or the paranoid journalist Melanie Phillips, or even a fellow traveller with Tommy Robinson, a nasty fascistic racist street agitator.

  3. Food price Index. We can see the recent rises in FPI is largely due to oil, specifically soy oil i believe. This may largely be due to the pandemic disrupting supply chains.

  4. 63 Up

    “An exploration of the lives of British children from different socioeconomic backgrounds who are revisited every seven years to discuss their experiences and hopes for the future…

    63 Up continues a groundbreaking documentary series with another gently eye-opening look at the human experience.”

  5. In the USA vaccination is dropping off quickly, far short of herd immunity type levels.
    Its not a supply shortage, its a mental shortage [nothing new here].

    This will prolong the pandemic here and prolong economic damage.
    But herd immunity will eventually be reached via a combination of vaccination and infection.
    All bets off if worse variants arise.

    I support the idea of requiring vaccination identity for public places and businesses with a public face-
    colleges, airplanes, restaurants, bars, grocery stores, indoor sports events, medical facilities, government buildings, etc.
    Some Universities have adopted this stance- including the largest in the country [the Univ of Calif and Calif State Univ systems].
    These kind of rules would be completely unnecessary if the proportion of ignorant or selfish individuals in the population was lower.

      1. C-19 Measures & Mandates: Fundamentally, A One-Size-Fits-All Attempt?

        Nature’s survival is our survival.

        If we get overrun, maybe not wearing a mask, getting a vaccine and/or whatnot is in a sense risking taking one for the team in terms of freedom, natural immune system exposure/evolution/robustness rather than (always) leaving one’s immune system to an external immunity agent (a vaccine), while helping to keep us in check, and therefore perhaps helping to enhance a future longevity for our species, as well as evolutionary splits to new species. (There are blue jays and then there are chickadees.)

        If you don’t like those and/or you feel vulnerable, then by all means, stay at home/out of harm’s way until the danger passes, then come out. That, too, is an adaptive strategy, but only one or a few. One size doesn’t fit all, despite what some might want to believe, and you also to believe.

        Fitting one size onto everyone is likely the least effective for our long term survival. But, as a slight aside, that seems to mesh well with the nation-state doctrine/mentality of a giant umbrella over a kind of pseudotribe…

        Remember; ‘We’re All In This Together.’…

        Well, we are and/or until we aren’t.

        It is possible that, in an alternate reality or timeline, a proto-human anarchist culture has already landed on Gliese 1061 c or Ross 128 b while maintaining the natural integrity of its home world.

        1. Corrections in the above comment:

          “If we get overrun” means ‘if we overrun the planet’ (population overshoot). We apparently already have.

          “a proto-human anarchist” should instead read, ‘a post-human anarchist’.

    2. What do the 12 states with the lowest percentage of adults vaccinated have in common?
      [hint- it is not those with most bushels of soybeans grown]

      And herd immunity will be achieved, either the easy way with vaccination, or the hard way with infection.
      Duration of immunity achieved by either method is an unknown, as is the possibility of a continual train of variants.

      1. The 12 states with the lowest vaccination rate are all states that voted for the billionaire who paid no income tax. I guess that doesn’t bother them.

    3. Oh, boo hoo a liberal has a sad because unbrainwashed Americans won’t inject unknown unproven poisons into our bodies or carry around unconstitutional vaccination cards just to prove we are good little sheep of the state.

      1. We have the stupid like the young-earth creationist.

        And below them, we have the even stupider the flat earthers.

        But there are even stupider people on this earth, that is people like Danny Brave.

      2. I came across this comment somewhere a couple weeks ago, don’t remember where, but it seems appropriate
        ——
        “Funny how the same people screaming about losing their imagined rights over necessary precautions in a global pandemic were mostly the same people who have spent the last twenty years compliantly and quietly giving up huge chunks of even bigger Rights going back to all the Patriot Act-styled laws which were passed a generation ago by now?   They screech about “vaccine passports”, but quietly submitted to special driver’s licenses being required to do all the same things with, like fly on planes or enter Government buildings.  They cite bogus claims about how detrimental to one’s health wearing a mask in public is, but go right along with allowing some ten-buck-an-hour Homeland Security employee to X-Ray them before being allowed into everything from airports to middle school basketball games.   They happily submit to emptying their pockets, removing their shoes, getting their water and shampoo bottles confiscated, have their wives and daughters and girl friends be ogled by security personnel watching them pass through scanners which effectively reveal what they look like underneath their clothing.  They are OK with the dreaded Deep State rifling through their financial transactions, their Emails and phone records, none of which they now have the right to even be informed of when those searches are conducted, or why.  All of that apparently doesn’t concern them.   But ask them to wear a tiny little mask.
..and it’s time to get the guns out and water the Tree of Liberty.  And none of them can even begin to see that THEY’RE the sheeple, instead of the masked and vaccinated LIbtard’s they hate so much.”

        1. I always get amused by a certain contingent of USA citizen who uses the term “sheep” or “sheeple” unironically. They also typically fall under the Christian banner, which last I checked, involved Jesus shepherding his flock of followers, like sheep, no less.

          I bet seatbelts in cars were some government plot to control the sheeple in nefarious ways too.

        2. In my opinion being forced to wear a mask is not worth breathing my own carbon dioxide and damaging my heart with a lack of oxygen. Ask your cardiologist what lack of oxygen does to you in the long run. Why are you suppose to get your heart rate up in exercise? Please think clearly about what you know are real facts about your own body verses what they are telling you, the recommendations don’t even make sense.

          1. Pops, the one cubic inch, or less, of air trapped between your face and mask, is minuscule compared to the rebreathed air trapped in your windpipe and other tubes between your lungs and nostrils. You should do more research before you post such lame excuses for not wearing a mask.

            1. Is this Pops from the ‘Peak Oil’ site?

              I should get a t-shirt done this summer that says, ‘No Mask; No Covid’.
              …Because a sign noticed in the window of one shop said ‘No Mask; No Service’.
              I could have developed a natural immunity to it and don’t even know. I guess if/when I get C-19, it is then that I might know.

              Anyway, there are many other issues with masks other than Pops’. Let’s see if I can summarize some of them…

              – Some masks don’t really work because of their ineffective material
              – Masks make some people breach the recommended social distance
              – Some people fiddle with the masks and so touch their faces
              – Some masks are made of potentially dangerous material
              – People more often than not look bloody stupid in them and like a planet of zombies, freaks, paranoids or nature-phobics or something. It’s pretty trippy.
              – Animals don’t wear masks and we are often the cause of many of their problems, rather that because they are not wearing masks
              – You don’t get an immune system by forever wearing masks and sanitizing your hands, etc.. That habit could transcend itself into something like an obsessive compulsive disorder
              – Masks are often not worn properly and are even pulled off once the person gains admittance to a place that requires them.
              – Masks could make people committing crimes harder to identify (‘Their mask had little neon-colored hearts all over it.’)
              – Mask litter
              – Masks may harbour and amplify other pathogens
              – Sometimes they make it harder to hear someone talk
              – Some people might get panicky with one on, like they are being smothered or something
              – Can we adapt a mask to wear as a thong or baby’s diaper? Or is it not as adaptable as it could be?
              – They say masks are better than nothing, but they could also be worse than nothing
              – People in Western countries look closer to women wearing burqas and whatnot.
              – You can’t really see what someone looks like, so it can be a crimp in one’s dating life for example.
              – Can viruses enter through the eye regions?
              – Fauci may have backpeddled on the to wear or not to wear a mask issue
              – Life is free; people kill others and their environment and other animals with their cars.
              – There may be a group or more of health professionals that have suggested that the more vulnerable stay locked down, while the rest continue as normal.
              – Many seem to wear them all day on the job and I wonder about the long term effects of doing that.
              – Masks help bring yet more of the control freaks out of the woodwork: ‘Where’s your mask? You have to have a mask. Etc.’
              – Perhaps I missed a few, but there’s the list for now.

            3. Granted, some are interspersed with sillinesses, but not all. But that’s part of the point; that this whole mask thing is a bit asinine/insane, like so much of the behaviour of a species I’m increasingly embarrassed/humiliated about being a member of.

          2. “In my opinion being forced to wear a mask is not worth breathing my own carbon dioxide and damaging my heart with a lack of oxygen.”

            Somehow, surgeons manage to cope.

            Here’s a video with some actual measurements.
            A doctor based in Dublin, Ireland, made a video showing him wearing six face masks to set the record straight on masks and their impact on oxygen levels.
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5npQivAmcE

            1. Yeah, it’s pretty funny that our big-brained friend says “ask your cardiologist”, apparently unaware that cardiologists often wear masks as part of their job.

            2. The Vast Inside-Out Hospital For The Psychiatric Species

              So let’s all walk around on a giant planetary open-air hospital pretending that we are all health professionals who need masks– and more. It’s not that far from reality anymore.

              I can fashion a placard that reads something like, ‘Help Save Our Dwindling 8 billion: Wear a Mask! Follow The Floor Arrows! Stay Six Feet/Two Meters Apart! Stay Home!’ to stand at a noisy, polluted, plantless street corner with.

            3. On submarines we breathed elevated levels (well above atmospheric levels) of CO2 for months at a time with no apparent ill effects. Bubbleheads have been doing that for decades. Just one of hundreds of lame excuses for not doing something so simple.

            4. “We evolved with viruses (etc.) and are even part virus apparently. These masks, to me, represent how detached as a species we’ve become to our planetary home, Earth. Very sad. And that Musk wants some people to go to Mars, a dead planet, while we slowly murder ours. Anyway, the C-19 sociopolitical responses appear very disproportionate to the disease, which is in part why many are suspicious. If C-19 wasn’t weaponized, it still appears to have been at least opportunized, perhaps in large part due to global economic and environmental issues related to energy/fossil fuels. Working on such things as bat viruses and in questionable ways as they ostensibly did or still do in places like Wuhan only underscores part of the concern, irrespective of whether C-19 was a deliberate or accidental lab escape or not. And then along comes these weird so-called vaccines. We create our own apocalypses too. We don’t necessarily need bats, pangolins or asteroids.” ~ Borbolactic (comment section)

          3. Pops is a good example of why all children should attend high school, at minimum.

            1. Hickory could be providing good hints for why/how we can get, for examples, ‘aboriginal/First Nations’ children taken from their homes and cultures and thrown into boarding schools and governments turning into authoritarian dictatorships.

              Thank you, Hickory.

              Feel ‘free’ now to go and play with your wood.

          4. for the record,

            “Examination of the literature revealed much of the published work on the matter to be quite dated and often studies had poorly elucidated methodologies. As a result, we recommend caution in extrapolating their findings to contemporary surgical practice. However, overall there is a lack of substantial evidence to support claims that facemasks protect either patient or surgeon from infectious contamination. More rigorous contemporary research is needed to make a definitive comment on the effectiveness of surgical facemasks.”

            Source

            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/

            yes its dated 2015

            and

            “While a surgical mask may be effective in blocking splashes and large-particle droplets, a face mask, by design, does not filter or block very small particles in the air that may be transmitted by coughs, sneezes, or certain medical procedures. Surgical masks also do not provide complete protection from germs and other contaminants because of the loose fit between the surface of the mask and your face.”

            source

            https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-infection-control/n95-respirators-surgical-masks-and-face-masks

            yes they still recoomend you should use a mask, but details are of interest

            1. The short version-
              Masks help with large droplets.
              Masks are poor with small droplets (aerosols), unless the masking is very high grade.
              To avoid exposure to virus in aerosol size particles you must be far away from the source (greater than 20 ft indoors) and keep the time to a minimum.

              If you would rather get infected, don’t get vaccinated and don’t go near where people wear masks. And go to a republican indoor event. That is your best bet.

            2. C-19 Mandates: Safe-Spaces & Snowflakes Redux

              For added protection, forgo the car, etc., wear a proverbial straight-jacket and live in a proverbial windowless padded cell. With internet access of course, if only for that window into consulting with those in other padded cells and to get as many as possible into them– including their children.

              Demonize those (Republicans, heretics, witches, the blasphemous, etc.) who question, or simply don’t bother with your scriptures, etc..

              Be SJW, be Woke, Cancel Culture.

        3. I think the overreaction to perceived threats from the Middle East has to do with the fact that men in the region have a lot of facial hair. Facial hair is a secondary sexual characteristic that suggest masculinity and potentially aggression. It’s part of the deep-seated desire to control the limited resource of female reproductive organs.

          It’s noticeable that people who scaremonger about of Middle Easterners are also intent on controlling female sexual activity, suppressing women’s health clinics and so on. They think Putin is manly from posing with no shirt on. It’s the same primitive urge that dominates nearly every mammal society.

          At the same time, these people display no fear of North Korea, because East Asians are neotenous and lack big bristling beards. The fact that they are trying to develop nuclear warheads and ICBMs seems too abstract.

          Covid-19 has no facial hair so they can’t perceive it as a threat. Instead the attack the messenger, a male human and potential mating rival or a female human that can’t be controlled and is therefore despised (like the fox and the sour grapes).

          1. “I think the overreaction to perceived threats from the Middle East has to do with the fact that men in the region have a lot of facial hair. Facial hair is a secondary sexual characteristic that suggest masculinity and potentially aggression. It’s part of the deep-seated desire to control the limited resource of female reproductive organs.” ~ Alim

            I had always just assumed it was racism.

      3. The constitutionality (and duty) of government requiring and enacting certain measures during epidemics has been upheld by numerous courts since the 1830s. After almost 200 years, you had better come up with a better argument than invoking the Constitution lest you make yourself look utterly ignorant of history and anything “constitutional”, eh?
        Or maybe you don’t REALLY give a shit about the Constitution? Which is it Danny Boy??

        1. On the Anarchist Response to COVID-19
          The case against submission to arbitrary measures in the name of Public Health

          “The underlying premise behind lockdowns, closures, and curfews is that these efforts can stop the spread of SARS-COV-2. But can they accomplish this? This is a nuanced question. First, we would acknowledge that if you could isolate every human in their own bubble, yes, you could burn out probably many diseases (while causing a variety of new harms). But that isn’t how a mandate functions in reality… the fact is that modern civilization requires a massive amount of daily labor in order to prevent it’s immediate collapse, and that labor requires human beings to come into contact with each other, and to travel great distances.

          Everything from farm work, to long haul trucking. Power plant operation to plumbers making house calls. Doctors must go to hospital, as must the janitorial and kitchen staff. Fertilizer factories must keep producing for the following season, and so too must the sprawling data centers remain operational for all the white collar professionals to be able to meet via Zoom. Then there are the Amazon warehouses and Wal-Marts! How could we lockdown without our daily deliveries? The list of industries and institutions that cannot close if we expect to have heated homes, drinkable water, functional electric grids, drivable roads, and every other support system of modern life, is very long, and each of them requires human beings to keep them functional. This fact alone means there could never be a 100% lockdown of the population.
          […]
          Remember too, these massive lockdowns were never intended (in most places, at the outset) to eliminate Covid19. They were intended to ‘flatten the curve’, which translates to, ‘slow the spread’ of SARS-COV-2 so that hospitals would not be overwhelmed. It should be noted that most hospitals in most locales, never faced this threat, and that even if it is a good idea to prevent hospital overrun, plans to prevent such a scenario would need to be local, not national, or even statewide. As the year progressed, slowly, the perception of the intent of lockdowns has blurred, and politicians and their selected experts have been consistently extending shutdowns, now shifting the rhetoric to focus on the eradication of the virus. This is unacceptable in that it is likely impossible…”

          1. Arguing whether or not certain measures are effective and claiming those measures are not constitutional are not the same thing.

            1. Danny may be onto something– the spirit seems there– and doesn’t have to give a shit about any constitution. He can bypass it and, if he wishes, check out the well put-together library at that link.

  6. Sunday morning trivia. BTW, it is said that in 2019, China’s cement industry emitted 823 million metric tons of CO2.

    THE GREY WALL OF CHINA: INSIDE THE WORLD’S CONCRETE SUPERPOWER

    “Since 2003, China has poured more cement every two years than the US managed in the entire 20th century. Even after a dip in recent years, China uses almost half the world’s concrete. The construction sector – roads, bridges, railways, urban development and other concrete-and-steel projects – accounted for one-third of the expansion of the Chinese economy in 2017.

    China is already home to the largest concrete structure in the world – the Three Gorges Dam across the Yangtze River. Sometimes touted as China’s “new Great Wall”, the dam includes 27.2m cubic metres of concrete. Li Yongan, general manager of the Three Gorges Corporation, declared in 2006 that the dam was “the grandest project the Chinese people have undertaken in thousands of years”.

    Li only had to wait seven more years to be outdone by yet another Chinese feat of concrete. In 2013, the eastern route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project opened, connecting the Grand Canal in China’s east with the capital in the north. The waterway has already cost around $80bn, making it the most expensive infrastructure project in the world. In the first phase alone, it has used more than double the amount of concrete in the Three Gorges Dam: 65m cubic metres. The project ultimately aims to transport fresh water a distance of more than 4,300km.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/28/the-grey-wall-of-china-inside-the-worlds-concrete-superpower

  7. News For The Non–NPC‘s

    Astroturfing COVID Agitprop

    “Your kids should know that their favorite Disney stars, Twitch video gamers and even ‘Sesame Street’ characters have been recruited to pimp the COVID-19 vaccine. One Instagram star and fashion blogger with 409,000 followers, South Carolina entrepreneur Whitney Rife Becker, spilled the beans on how ‘two vaccine campaigns paying thousands of dollars’ had contacted her to ‘go and get the vaccine and record it and take a selfie while getting the vaccine.’ She was asked to tell her followers how ‘excited’ she was to take the vaccine and to gush about ‘how much she would be able to do’ once she submitted to her shots. She was promised that an unnamed entity would ‘put money behind’ her Instagram videos or photo posts if she boosted the COVID vaccine.

    Becker rejected the offers, but many others have accepted the bribery. Sometimes, the quid pro quos mean cash. In other cases, the rewards mean VIP treatment. In Florida, Miami’s Jackson Health System threw vaccine parties for social media influencers who agreed to write positive posts or produce videos about getting the Pfizer vaccine. While there was ‘no payment made to any influencer’, the Internet stars and their ‘plus ones’ moved to the head of the vaccine appointment line. ‘Each influencer will be allowed to bring one spouse, partner, or relative who meets Florida’s eligibility requirement’ to the party, health officials informed a select group of social media stars.

    Joe Smyser, the head of a nonprofit called ‘Public Good Projects’, told Politico his outfit pays ‘microinfluencers’ to post about getting the COVID vaccine and compensates them ‘anywhere between tens to hundreds of dollars.’ The Oklahoma City-County Health Department has paid 35 young social media stars undisclosed sums to post government-approved COVID vaccine content and convince their peers that they need the shots to return to ‘normal’ life.

    This pay-for-play racket stirs fear, incentivizes herd thinking, stigmatizes independence, fabricates narratives, and facilitates subjugation of our young. The most important thing parents can do to keep their children free and healthy is to block their exposure to the Astroturfed COVID agitprop campaign altogether. Detox, deactivate, and deplatform them before they deplatform you. In a word: Unplug.”

    1. As I read the chart, NG was at 40%, not 44%. It’s up from 24% in 2010, an increase of about 16 percentage points.

      Meanwhile coal fell from 45% to 19% in the same time period, a decrease of about 26 percentage points.

      26-16=10. The other 10% was renewables: wind + (a little) solar.

      Since total output was more or less flat, these percentage points are also a measure of output

  11. Attitudes & Methods

    “Hole in Head. I get the point. Typical human rationalization.
    Its about the last kind of attitude that nature and humanity need.
    I reject it simply out a sense of good and bad.
    I know, how quaint.” ~ Hickory

    “Sure, I can do delusion when it suits me

    And I am under no illusion that just because I produce more electricity via solar than I use for home electricity and my yearly travel, that it is somehow environmentally ok. Its still a method of trashing the earth.” ~ Hickory

    1. “Getting back to the population discussion, it looks like China is peaking, and rapidly aging.”

      Yes but the census results have added pressure on Beijing to boost measures for couples to have more babies and avert a population decline.

      1. Right, but the population seems less than gung-ho. Also the demographics have already shifted, with the biggest population bulge already about 50 years old and a deficit of women in all under 60 age groups.

        The government’s only real hope of increasing the birth rate is a big sudden cultural swing in the 30-34 age group, and good luck with that.

        https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2019/

        1. Gung-Ho
          A 12th century farmer from what is now known as Sichuan province in China, was known in his time as one of the most enthusiastic persons ever.

          1. Not really.
            “a Marine observer in China studying the Chinese army [in 1937]. Carlson was impressed by how the Chinese troops worked together using a system of cooperation they called gung ho, which means work together.”

            1. There are two Chinese words that are pronounced almost the same, gonghe: ć…±ć’Œ means republic (literally public together) and ć·„ć’Œ which means cooperation, literally work together. Also, to add to the confusion, there is 淄搈 which is an abbreviation for industrial cooperative, literally work come together.

  13. It is amusing to hear all the ‘expert’ theories about how to handle the pandemic.
    The ‘inject disinfectant’ suggestion by trump during the presidential press conference didn’t get much traction as far as I know. Maybe some of his maga/Q disciples tried it. Got bleach?

    Others have suggested various methods to achieve immunity the hard way- wear no mask, get no vaccination, gather in groups and inside at will, survival of the fittest…]

    These suggestions are all made by people who are either
    – loners (they have no friends, family or community that they care about, or who care about them)
    – those who care only about themselves (the former president)
    – those who are completely uneducated in the field of public health. Completely.
    – those who are eager to watch and participate in a rapid form of destruction in their own time. They would like to see hospitals boarded up, dams broken, cities fall into the sea, mushroom clouds, insects with legs pulled off. and all sorts of things like this. They are destruction perverts.

    Or any combination of the options listed here.
    Maybe I missed one or two.

    [note- death rate in USA is close to 2% and almost 600,000 are known to have died from Covid in 16 months]
    Had a fun mothers day gathering out back with a dozen friends/family- all fully vaccinated. Chance of subsequent hospitalization from Covid= zero.

    1. Social Engineering, With Hickory

      ” ‘inject disinfectant’ suggestion by trump during the presidential press conference didn’t get much traction as far as I know. Maybe some of his maga/Q disciples tried it. Got bleach?” ~ Hickory

      “Guilt by association can sometimes also be a type of ad hominem fallacy, if the argument attacks a person because of the similarity between the views of someone making an argument and other proponents of the argument…

      An example of this fallacy would be ‘My opponent for office just received an endorsement from the Puppy Haters Association. Is that the sort of person you would want to vote for?’ ” ~ Wikipedia

      “…a rapid form of destruction… hospitals boarded up, dams broken, cities fall into the sea, mushroom clouds, insects with legs pulled off. and all sorts of things like this… destruction…” ~ Hickory

      “Appeal to emotion… is an informal fallacy characterized by the manipulation of the recipient’s emotions in order to win an argument, especially in the absence of factual evidence. This kind of appeal to emotion is a type of red herring and encompasses several logical fallacies, including appeal to consequences, appeal to fear, appeal to flattery, appeal to pity, appeal to ridicule, appeal to spite, and wishful thinking.” ~ Wikipedia

      Aside from the fact that the stats can be cooked and/or misleading, that people– you know those you care for, like friends, family, community, etc.– would be on the same or a similar page doesn’t seem to occur to some people, either…

      But then, if they are advocating for forms of coercion like ‘vaccination identity’ ‘or else’, that would seem to stand to reason. ‘My way or the highway’.
      As if masks, lockdowns, and vaxxes work the way some might be lead/indoctrinated/agitpropagandized to believe.

      “GiveItAway:
      ‘It always intrigues me that people who advocate vaccination invoke Darwin to support their contention that those who reject vaccination will be eliminated from the gene pool, thereby confirming Darwin’s theory; when in fact the opposite is the case, because vaccination actually ‘blocks’ the operation of ‘the survival of the fittest’; in fact, if anything it promotes the survival of the naturally unfit and pushes evolution in a direction where the resultant phenotype will only be able to survive in increasingly artificial, man-made environments, increasing the likelihood of catastrophic obliteration.’…

      David Stockton:
      ‘‹Look around carefully. We are currently in the very place you elucidate i.e. an artificial, man made environment. And for better or worse, this shapes and controls our current and future genetic destinies just as much as nature which has over the past few billion years taken a single cell organism and turned it into you and I. It is a mistake to believe that Darwin was parsing conclusions when he penetratingly observed that it’s the environment you are in that drives evolution. Change is change regardless of whether it is by nature or by human contrivance.’

      GiveItAway:
      ‘‹I understand your argument, and yes you could classify the process of adaptation to ever-changing man-made artificial environments as ‘natural’ selection provided the two operate on similar time-scales, largely dictated by the latter (i.e. over genearations) so that some semblance of equilibrium is reached and changes of type can be incorporated into the germ line; otherwise conscious interventions such as vaccinations to circumvent disease processes that arise within that artificial environment are best seen as social engineering and ameliorative, because the conditions for their reemergence still exist. In fact what you’re doing is instituting an ‘arms race’ between the disease/pathogen and the vaccine producers, as more virulent strains of the pathogen are selected for. Moreover, from a holistic point of view, you would ‘want’ the original novel pathogen to infect the host to enable a symbiotic relationship to develop and thereby prevent more virulent strains from emerging. But with vaccination you’re laying the groundwork for perpetual war. And just like in military conflicts where arms manufactures are in the box seat, so to speak, in the public health arena it’s the vaccine makers.’

      ‘Food, more than vaccines and weapons, is the ultimate means of control. Plant more food for everyone and you’ll lose control.’ “ ~ EGeist (The Oil Drum)

      See also Five reasons why COVID herd immunity is probably impossible

      Quote:

      “Vaccines might change human behaviour

      At current vaccination rates, Israel is closing in on the theoretical herd-immunity threshold, Aran says. The problem is that, as more people are vaccinated, they will increase their interactions, and that changes the herd-immunity equation, which relies in part on how many people are being exposed to the virus. ‘The vaccine is not bulletproof’, he says. Imagine that a vaccine offers 90% protection: ‘If before the vaccine you met at most one person, and now with vaccines you meet ten people, you’re back to square one.’ “

      “Had a fun mothers day gathering out back with a dozen friends/family- all fully vaccinated.” ~ Hickory

      ”
      [note- death rate in USA is close to 2% and almost 600,000 are known to have died from Covid in 16 months]…

      Chance of subsequent hospitalization from Covid= zero.” ~ Hickory

      Zero? You think?
      Anyway, apparently, hospitalization in the USA, especially subsequent hospitalization, can be quite expensive, especially for those who can barely, or cannot, afford it. And then there is, or was, an apparent obesity and opioid epidemic, along with questionable PCR tests, death attributions/skews, etc..

      See also here.

      1. Yes. They are finding out about survival of the fittest the hard way in India.
        No laugh.

        Speaking of survival of the fittest… fittest is often about being smart. Like don’t walk off the cliff, and don’t put your hand in the fire.
        In the case of the pandemic smart is getting a vaccine.. that has a reward-risk ratio of over 1000 to 1
        In the usa 99.7% of the Covid patients in the hospitals have not had vaccination.

        1. I had already mentioned the below here:

          “If you don’t like those and/or you feel vulnerable, then by all means, stay at home/out of harm’s way until the danger passes, then come out. That, too, is an adaptive strategy, but only one or a few. One size doesn’t fit all, despite what some might want to believe, and you also to believe.”

          
The underlying issue being that we (perhaps not you) already knew early on what the death skew was— the older, sick and/or somehow ‘compromised’. This comes with the implicit recommendation (and explicit with some health professionals) that they could be ‘inverse quarantined’ (if they chose), while the rest (those who wished to) could go about their normal business with less disruption to their lives.
          The blanket responses had/has/will have detrimental effects, too, some of which have yet to play out and some of which some are suggesting may prove to be (verbatim:) ‘worse than the disease’.

          Arguing for a blanket one-size-fits-all response– and a draconian one to boot– and using the sort of mindless fear-mongering shit as in your comment above and as an ostensible echo of some of the agitprop of the legacy media seems rather reckless and irresponsible– and to work against more effective responses.

          With much that is diverse and complex, approaches that are more holistic and nuanced would appear the most sensible.
          This would suggest that not everyone stays at home, wears a mask, gets an injection of an experimental ‘vaccine’ or even stays more than 6 feet/2 meters away from another person. These sorts of things can be implemented on a societal level rather easily.

        2. “Speaking of survival of the fittest
 fittest is often about being smart. Like don’t walk off the cliff, and don’t put your hand in the fire.” ~ Hickory

          Idiosyncrasies can keep us alive and make new species over time too…

          Some people like to basejump, wingsuit, skydive, or just plain jump/dive off cliffs into the water below. Some like to firewalk or play with fire in different ways, such as ‘fire-breathe’ for a performance, or even by just passing a finger through a candle’s flame. Some like to rock/mountain-climb, ‘sword-swallow’, make rockets, or swim with sharks or ‘aggro’ dolphins, Etc..

          Do some of the aforementioned die while doing so? Of course. Do some people die after they step out the door of their homes, maybe into their cars? Sure. Do they sometimes kill people unconnected to them and their activities? Yes indeed.

          Fast-backwards to the era of the dinosaurs…

          There was once this dinosaur, or something like it, that perhaps jumped from high places, maybe tree-to-tree and/or off of cliffs and whatnot.
          Over time, some of its descendants started to form adaptations that made that particular activity easier and more effective, like maybe longer arms and fingers, stronger muscles in those and related areas, feathers and lighter bone-structures.

          Then, ‘one day’ something happened that wiped out all of the dinosaurs except that one.

          If some people want to do or not do things that seem to make less sense to others or in some kinds of contexts, it may nevertheless be that those particular people survive through wholly-new contexts that wipe everyone else out, including the ones that were playing it safe, or thought they were and, for example, ‘crutching’ themselves on all manner of ‘sociostructural/blanket supports’.

          There are still many issues with and questions about the vaccines, such as WRT their efficacies and dangers (long and short term), legal liability, feasibility/appropriateness in certain cases, motives (corporate, profit, patent, revenue) emergency status, level of research and availability; and with the C-19 virus, such as WRT mutations and the increasing likelihood that it may become endemic, if it already hasn’t, but we’ll leave it at that.

      2. Thank you, my little Papadum. Tee-hee.

        They appear, at least how and where they are applied, about as useful as some governments’ blanket ‘interventions’ in that regard.

        Nevertheless, as for cow urine for example, or perhaps any other urine for that matter, apparently, along with it being a generally sterile liquid, it does have some interesting properties, one of which may be as a ‘binder’ for an earthen floor (ditto with dung in one or more forms of architectural application– our own Stephen Hren may be aware of this and more), and another of which could be as, say, an ‘accidentally successful treatment’ in your video. There are already extractions from it– urea– added to other ingredients, that are used for similar and other purposes…

        “Urea is the chief nitrogenous end product of the metabolic breakdown of proteins in all mammals and some fishes. The material occurs not only in the urine of all mammals but also in their blood, bile, milk, and perspiration…” ~ Encyclopedia Brittanica

        “Urea is widely used as fertilizer and has other valuable uses such as diesel exhaust fluid and for resin fabrication. Human urine is a readily available and local source of urea that is overlooked due to the rapid hydrolysis of urea in fresh urine and wastewater, which makes its recovery challenging. Moreover, urea is a compound without an established method for recovery from urine or other waste streams. In this research, a novel two-step process of forward osmosis (FO) and membrane distillation (MD) was developed to recover the urea in fresh human urine.” ~ The Journal of Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology

        “Miscellaneous uses

        An ingredient in diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), which is 32.5% urea and 67.5% de-ionized water. DEF is sprayed into the exhaust stream of diesel vehicles to break down dangerous NOx emissions into harmless nitrogen and water.
        A component of animal feed, providing a relatively cheap source of nitrogen to promote growth
        A non-corroding alternative to rock salt for road de-icing. It is often the main ingredient of pet friendly salt substitutes although it is less effective than traditional rock salt or calcium chloride.
        A main ingredient in hair removers such as Nair and Veet
        A browning agent in factory-produced pretzels
        An ingredient in some skin cream, moisturizers, hair conditioners, and shampoos
        A cloud seeding agent, along with other salts
        A flame-proofing agent, commonly used in dry chemical fire extinguisher charges such as the urea-potassium bicarbonate mixture
        An ingredient in many tooth whitening products
        An ingredient in dish soap
        Along with diammonium phosphate, as a yeast nutrient, for fermentation of sugars into ethanol
        A nutrient used by plankton in ocean nourishment experiments for geoengineering purposes
        As an additive to extend the working temperature and open time of hide glue
        As a solubility-enhancing and moisture-retaining additive to dye baths for textile dyeing or printing
        As an optical parametric oscillator in nonlinear optics” ~ Wikipedia

        While success can come with failure as part of the experimental/scientific process (not exclusive to career scientists), I’m unsure smearing shit all over oneself will work for everyone– like blanket government interventions for everyone, BTW.

        Extracting urea from my own pee
        15-minute Video

          1. <3

            POO BRICKS: Students Develop Cow Dung Building Bricks

            “A group of students from Prasetiya Mulya Business School in Indonesia recently won the 2009 Global Social Venture Competition with their ‘EcoFaeBrick’, a quality, easily manufactured, low-cost sustainable building material made from cow dung. The bricks are not only 20% lighter, but they have a compressive strength 20% stronger than clay bricks and their production doesn’t rely upon devastating quarry mining techniques.”

            Digging In The Dirt, Peter Gabriel

      3. Collapse in real time . No money for cremation ,so the public is throwing the dead bodies in the nearest river as per rituals . Disturbing visuals . My take, the following will collapse very fast MENA , Africa , Latin America , India . Out of these Latin America might cross the finishing line with a lower level of complexity , for the others ” Heaven help ” .
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xDXsMP-Q_I
        From almost 3/4 months I have been warning that India is a candidate for collapse due to ” overshoot ” and LTG . Only Ron supported my view point . My bigger fear is now hunger and starvation in the second half of 2021 . 650 million have lost the means to livelihood ( I am not using the word income ) . Catastrophe awaits .

  14. Compound this! [proclaimed Gung-Ho]

    “Solar and wind power generation [global] capacity additions last year jumped by as much as 45 percent from 2019 to close to 280 GW, the International Energy Agency said in a new report, noting that the record pace of new solar and wind capacity additions will become the new normal after the pandemic.”

  15. Bright Green Lies
    Documentary

    “From the award-winning director of Sea of Life, Bright Green Lies investigates the change in focus of the mainstream environmental movement, from its original concern with protecting nature, to its current obsession with powering an unsustainable way of life. The film exposes the lies and fantastical thinking behind the notion that solar, wind, hydro, biomass, or green consumerism will save the planet. Tackling the most pressing issues of our time will require us to look beyond the mainstream technological solutions and ask deeper questions about what needs to change.”

    1. The ransoms are being paid in cryptocurrency, the preferred currency of kidnappers, extortionists, shady billionaires and criminals of all sorts.

      1. They have seemed to have learned from our capitalists.
        Bitcoin is taking dive– we shall see.

        1. Bitcoin is taking a dive? It’s 52% higher than it was on Jan 23rd, before Tesla waded in …

          1. It was over 60000, now 50000. Seems like less to me.
            Are we using different math?

  17. I’ve been curious to know if Syria had handed on some P800 Oniks cruise missiles to Hezzbollah. Might find out soon the way things are going.
    The oil tankers and port facilities at Ashkelon are well within range of the P800. Ashkelon is protected by the Iron Dome system, but that won’t deter a naval cruise missiles coming in on a circuitous route from the sea at 7 meters altitude.
    A cruise missile entering the protection dome would initially get tracked, but it’s speed, low altitude and flat flight trajectory likely would prevent it from being tracked long enough to be engaged.
    As well, The Iron Dome system’s missile uses a radar seeker that will not pick up a cruise missile amid ground clutter if it were looking down at the target. It was designed to intercept artillery missiles in a ballistic trajectory.
    The P800, as well as the C802’s that Hezz used in 2006, could also be used against off shore gas/oil rigs.

  18. DarkSide, Blamed for Gas Pipeline Attack, Says It Is Shutting Down

    Here is the interesting quote. “DarkSide said it had lost access to the public-facing portion of its online system, including its blog and payment server, as well as funds that it said had been withdrawn to an unknown account.”

    Along similar lines I read where some “Body” can track BC transactions. Maybe the US Cyber Command just stole all of their cash. Will help reduce the national debt.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/14/business/darkside-pipeline-hack.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

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