Do you seriously fucking think we will just ‘bounce back’ from this situation we all find ourselves in?
Forget it. It’s delusional to expect we’ll recover from this ‘event’. Paradigm shifts are like tipping points in the climate system. You can only see them in the rear view mirror and most of them are irreversible.
There was a strong school of thought that we were facing the early stages of collapse before this “Black Swan” appeared. Last September we interviewed French rocket scientist and systems thinker Arthur Keller on his conclusion and wonderful You Tube presentation “Collapse, The Only Realistic Scenario” The collapse Arthur foresaw is unfolding as we speak and dutifully ‘self-isolate’.
I’ve just entered my 6th decade on this planet. What we are witnessing is unprecedented in all human history. Never before in history have the emperors told the serfs to “stay home and we’ll pay you.”
No one. Absolutely no one is in control and no one has ever been here before. Think of the mediocrity we have ‘leading us’ as this predicament unfolds. If you think Boris and Donald are going to lead us out of this mess you have rocks in your head.
I was three years old when a magic bullet entered the back of President Kennedys head and blew his brains out in the same direction the bullet entered ! Miraculous it was, apparently. Murder Most Foul
The last vestiges of fake democracy in that country were finally extinguished with that ‘magic bullet’ and to this day the dominant culture has instilled such an extreme version of ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ in people ensuring that it is ‘normal’ to accept the impossible and you’re a conspiracy theorist to point out the bleedingly obvious deception. Go along with the charade if you wish but I won’t play that game. No one can convince me that infinite growth on a finite planet is sustainable. Our chickens have come home to roost. Lock, stock and two smoking barrels.
As I grew up, I heard my parents denouncing the Vietnam war, I’ve seen war myself in Mozambique and the occupied six counties of Ireland. I know what it smells like. I’ve seen the destruction and the psychological damage done to those communities. Remember, “No soldier returns from war uninjured”.
During my entire lifetime, imperialist capitalism has been raping and pillaging the planet, wiping out indigenous cultures every where it goes and grinding the natural world into dust. Of course it has a fucking end point. The unsustainable can’t be sustained forever. Everywhere has been raped and plundered. There are no far off undiscovered lands left to be exploited. All the low hanging fruit has been plucked, we’re circling the drain. This is what the end game looks like.
Organised, psychopathic, Armani clad gangsters have been gaming the system all my life and now they have lost control like all junkies eventually do.
Why the fuck are you all acting surprised?
Never before have I seen governments telling their people to “stay home and we’ll post you a cheque.” All of a sudden they have magical money, like the bullet we discussed earlier, that they have just plucked from the sky and they are raining it down on the banksters in the trillions and on the ‘self-isolated’ in the thousands. Notice a recurring theme here? Money for nothing and the chicks for free.Cognitive dissonance reins supreme.
When governments all around the world are giving away money you know that they have lost total control. Becareful, you could be killed by helicopter money.
Let’s have a think about what this ‘timely’ virus has achieved.
Contemporaneous with the outbreak of the virus the global economy was on life support. The US Fed’ has been pumping trillions of brand new dollars into the system to try and keep the ponzi scheme going and it staggered along until the game changing ‘Self Isolation’ took effect. Never before has a populace been so effectively corralled. The protests in France extinguished overnight. Protests around the world wiped out completely as Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan continue to be bombed into the dark ages as the military industrial complex bank the contemporaneous profits as the weapons are used and orders placed for more. Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia and China all sanctioned for not kowtowing to the “Empire of Chaos”.
The independent states listed above have been moving to de-dollarize their economies. They started to trade oil in anything but the greenback. Before this ‘event’ the dollar was teetering on the brink of collapse and then out of the blue, a distraction.
The monsters murdered Muammar Gadaffi because of his plan to create a gold backed dinah to trade oil in and his unflinching support for the African Union. The next distraction will be war against the independent states, it’s what funds Wall Street.
In his novel “The Sun Also Rises” Hemingway describes how the end comes about when you lose everything. One character asks;”How did it happen”, the other responds “Gradually and then suddenly”. Ring any fucking bells?
I’ve been closely following the progression of the virus around the planet and thanks to Albert Bartlett I am aware of the danger of the exponential function. This virus will probably eventually infect us all as the rate of infections is now exponential and governmental responses have always been too little, too late ensuring it’s spread. Remember it’s always the economy first, the inhabitants last.
Health systems worldwide are collapsing at the beginning of the catastrophe which has many months or years to run. Our complex system of ‘On demand’ supply networks depend on Business As Usual to maintain the flow of everything we take for granted being available and as you may have noticed BAU shut down recently. Already some nations are banning grain and other food exports.
I simply cannot see how Western culture can continue as millions of people start dropping dead around us and the entire human population of the planet are living, eating, drinking and working in fear. This soulless system isn’t designed to survive these dynamics. Nor are the fragile humans caught up in the maelstrom.
I’m not ‘Fearmongering,’ I’m laying out what I see before me without the manic attachment to sugar coating our predicament that this culture has incubated. Unsupported ‘positivity’ is delusion, I’m more inclined to hope for the best and plan for the worst.
To quote Joanna Macy from her essay “The Greatest Danger”;
“Because of social taboos, despair at the state of our world and fear for our future are rarely acknowledged. The suppression of despair, like that of any deep recurring response, contributes to the numbing of the psyche. Expressions of anguish or outrage are muted, deadened as if a nerve had been cut. This refusal to feel impoverishes our emotional and sensory life. Flowers are dimmer and less fragrant, our loves less ecstatic. We create diversions for ourselves as individuals and as nations, in the fights we pick, the aims we pursue, and the stuff we buy.”
Convert whatever resources you have into food asap. There is zero guarantee that this set of living arrangements will hold together much longer considering the threats we know it is under with the next ‘Black Swan’ hovering in the wings about to appear.
If this event hasn’t already tipped us over, either the next one or the one after will. They will continue to appear thick and fast.
On that note, I’ll get back to early stage runaway abrupt climate change. Remember that other, non-linear existential threat we face?
My co-host on Nature Bats Last and I have been drawing attention to the loss of the Aerosol Masking Effect from the shut downs happening around the planet. Professor McPherson sums up that aspect of the predicament below;
Good luck everyone, the predicament can only be worse than we know.
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
This is what happens when capitalism dominates over common sense and the ‘Precautionary Principal’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/21/system-has-collapsed-india-descent-into-covid-hell?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR0bgxArK1mJ1kps2FA0NkMmIH-E42BRTRNglnor8IbEiUaaLyU1XLWOCPU#Echobox=1619005174
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(this reply froze so hopefully this isn’t a double post)
Yeah, much more aggressive and infectious and now killing 20 & 30 year olds with this new mutated variant of Covid that has hit there. And Brazil’s variant is roaring through their population. Both countries still have their ‘Trump neoliberal leader’ which makes it all worse.
Funny that India is calling this their 2nd Wave while in the US I’m reading that we are starting to experience what is being called a 4th Wave. At first the US MSM was calling them ‘surges’ instead. But is it when new variants hit that should be a new wave or what? Too much misinformation and contradictory information about that. 1918 pandemic had 3 Waves.
We’ve got cases of the South African, both British, the Brazilian, and the California mutated variants in the US. This new India one sounds vicious… Dead healthy young people is going to scare the crap out of populations and this India variant will somehow make it here sometime soon I’d imagine. And New Zealand is closer…so probably you’ll see it especially with the open borders with Aus happening I’m thinking.
But that’s India people in the US will cry, it’s a 3rd world country without the best health care in the world available like the US…IF you can afford incredibly expensive insurance or are rich enough to pay the for-profit corporate hospitals of course. Which at least 1/5 of the 331 million people in this country don’t have…
That’s the big difference from the 1918 pandemic; it didn’t start off killing young people along with the old. This one was more selective somehow. The 1918 virus killed in every age group with a 10% death rate right from the start.
The complacency has settled in due to that difference. I see it in the 20 & 30 year olds around me. And then there is the just ‘tired’ of dealing with it problem, you know, masks suck? As if a goddam virus gives a crap about how annoyed our species is. I see a lot of mask wearing but then I see a lot of not mask wearing or noses not under the mask. It’s…astoundingly ignorant behavior.
And then I read this other article that was linked on the page you posted about the “laxity of people’s behavior.’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/22/covid-19-india-response-to-second-wave-is-warning-to-other-countries
Which is frighteningly close to what I’m seeing here; a return to ‘normal’ like I described in this county.
I don’t really have anything to say as these articles pretty much say it all, don’t they? Holy crap.
sealintheSelkirks
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This puppy is never, ever going away
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/28/crime-against-humanity-arundhati-roy-india-covid-catastrophe?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter&fbclid=IwAR2yYR1TiZW1y6JQm_yky1vD8oH_8qiHICZr6H8rjOusyFTQTvj-mTzmlDo#Echobox=1619651240
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And IF these get released without being heavily censored, just what do you think we shall find?
Democrats, Sanders Demand Biden Release Secret Covid Vaccine Contracts Inked Under Trump
“The Trump administration gave Big Pharma billions but refused to disclose full terms of these deals.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/04/27/democrats-sanders-demand-biden-release-secret-covid-vaccine-contracts-inked-under
Can we spell corrupt? Competing corporate behemoths for all the tax dollars they can squeeze out of the government, and I heard an ad on the radio about how people that ‘feel aches in their legs or shortness of breath etc…that had the Johnson & Johnson vaccine should consult their doctor immediately. Brought to you by Pfizer and some other name I forget. Hmmm. 6 J&J vaccinated women with blood clots in the brain that might possibly been caused by the vaccine (nobody is sure yet) shuts down after 6.8 million doses in the US…and their direct competitor puts out a ‘public health notice’ about how ‘dangerous’ it is. 6 people that MAYBE had complications from the vaccine? If people understood statistics they would NEVER get in a car. Ever. At all.
And no, it wouldn’t be good for the corporate business model to do what the Polio and Smallpox virus’ vaccines did. Killed them dead. This way the quarterly dividends will go on and on and on because they will always be a new variant making it’s way into the US so they can overcharge the shit out of us. How’s that for a perfect Capitalist program? Big Pharma is already talking about all the ‘booster’ shots they’re going to be making due to the mutated strains. Which will go on and on and on…
I was scheduled for the J&J vaccine on a Thursday, and when I walked in they said “oh we’re sorry, it’s been suspended pending investigation into its safety. You didn’t get a phone call from us?”
6 out of 6,800,000 shots MAY have done what? They’re still giving them out in Europe I noticed…
Maybe Cuba’s 5 vaccines will make it over the border so I can get one of them?? They came out with five on their own? Wow!
Nah, that’ll never fly with the wealthy who own the politicians. Have to keep those bribes rolling in…sorry, I mean campaign contributions.
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As for the article, oh man why is it that I can somewhat imagine the same picture conveyed by those words I just read happening here? We do have 331,000,000 in this country, it’s much bigger than most countries in Europe and Africa and the MidEast, and only about 31mil have caught it so far…
And you’re right, this isn’t going to go away “like a miracle” as Trumpie crowed. But then when he’s re-elected in 2124…about the time the 5th Wave circles the planet…they can write about it in India’s MSM….
sealintheSelkirks
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As I have said previously this bug is never, ever going away
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/world/2021/05/coronavirus-latest-on-covid-19-from-around-the-world-sunday-may-16.html?fbclid=IwAR1zEEzvUbLKbUlp4tTsJf4ZoCr4VKR-I_a9rx8rhgoYi1cdrP0kcoppzg8
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Gail has a similar perspective as mine.
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Interesting link as she hits on a number of questions that aren’t really being asked or talked about. After the Bolivian coup there was an interview with Musk who reportedly said that he didn’t much care and would support other coups to get the resources (Lithium) to continue making his fortune larger…
I’ve got that PDF link loading (oh so slowly on dial-up!) of the 2010 Rockefeller comment about creating pandemics to control population…reminds me of the Progress for a New American Century and not-indicted war criminal VP Dick Cheney talking about needing a new Pearl Harbor to control the direction of right wing corporate-Fascist america in 1998… But the link from Gail’s site says 54 pages. Ouch.
There’s been some talk about running pipelines from the Great Lakes to dry areas by the way, read a couple of articles on that recently. BIG-ass pipelines! Guess drilling through the Rocky Mountains will be a snap, eh?
People really don’t understand the word ‘finite’ do they? Nor exponential.
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And of course the Covid Pandemic is ‘all better now’ here in the US it seems, at least as far as the ‘officials’ in DC are concerned as this is a quote from the radio messages that are being broadcast repeatedly all day long: “If fully vaccinated we can resume all the activities prior to the pandemic without physical distancing or wearing masks.” Don’t know if I posted this link from a dirt farmer in Maine:
Ruralist’s Lament: It’s Alive!
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/05/24/ruralists-lament-its-alive/
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But I do have all the answers to the resource needs. All we need to do is go find another couple of Earths, decimate the indigenous population, and start hauling all the resources back. Taking an idea from Mel Brook’s Spaceballs movie we can build a giant vacuum cleaner transformer that will suck up some other planet’s clean air, too! No problemo because, you know, we’ve got god on our side.
I’m heavy on the sarcasm today for some reason. Maybe it’s because of the massive windstorm that hit yesterday afternoon with probably 40mph gusts as the conifers were bending at 40 degrees of arc both ways…or more. There was so much crap in the air that I had to wear my clear lens nighttime snowboarding goggles from the dust & grit being carried in the wind. Pretty wild afternoon I must admit.
Or maybe it’s because I don’t see a damned thing changing and certainly not by any government entity nor will the Wealthy Class that rules the planet permit it if the change affects profit margins.
Big sigh.
Wow, the Rockefeller PDF finally loaded. Didn’t you just love the first paragraph from President Judith Rodin? She makes me feel so warm an fuzzy…
sealintheSelkirks
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One for the “No Shit Sherlock” files:
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/07/17/1017253134/tokyo-olympics-village-covid-19-cornavirus-athletes?fbclid=IwAR10rO6lHZ3Eh_XipW4XXNL7_qti11GLKHSo0bWM5cAJQLEFRVA_ntzlppk
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I’m under a ‘unhealthy air alert’ right now from particulates in the air that the stack of N95 masks I always kept in the tool room were for. But of course I’ve used most of those masks up in the last 18 months trying not to contract Covid from idiots who believed Trump when he said it was going to go away like a miracle…or Dr. Fauci when he said last year you don’t need to wear a mask who is now Biden’s medical man. WTF? There are none available for us peasants at any price except knock-offs coming in from China that don’t work. Might as well wear a napkin with tape on the corners as those cheap things…
I don’t know where this ‘haze’ (cute euphemism for TOXIC SMOKE-run away run away!) is coming from because there are fires out west of me, Oregon is burning, too, and their smoke sometimes blows this way. Canada’s forests are going up so some of this may be from one of those depending on high altitude wind patterns. So the few N95 masks I have left are doing double duty, Covid protection and particulate matter.
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But it ain’t just Japan, dude, This popped up about Aus:
Sydney Mockdown: The Delta Variant Strikes
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/13/sydney-mockdown-the-delta-variant-strikes/
“Dear customers, if you are standing there reading this sign you are part of the problem. STAY THE FUCK HOME! Best, Sydney.”
– Note on store front, Sydney, Twitter, July 10, 2021
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This extremely under-educated county that I live in has nearly NOBODY wearing masks anymore. I’m serious, it’s like…hell I don’t know what it’s like! I walk into the post office, nobody in masks except the people behind the counter. I walk back to the 2nd hand past the pizza & brew pub place with the open walls on the sidewalk and it’s full of people eating and drinking. I walk into the grocery store and I’m one of maybe 3 customers still in a mask. And I get funny looks from people like I’m the one who is stupid crazy! The Tae Kwon Do studio is open and full of kids punching and kicking and breathing really really hard on one another behind the big windows facing the street while their parents and visitors sit in the row of seats against the wall unmasked. The bars are open and musicians I’ve played with are asking if I want to come play a gig or a jam with them and I’m still having to say no and I tell them why and they shake their head at me because I just don’t get it, Covid is over it’s gone away like a miracle!
And I’m in a county that can’t seem to crack the 22% vaxx rate…which means 78% of the people have and continue to refuse to get the “KILL SHOT” that will be activated by the 5G phone system when it turns on around here. And no I didn’t just make that up, I listened to this spew from the mouth of someone I know. Holy crap, Kevin.
I fully expect a massive new bout of sick and dying people sometime in the next few months. This came up (don’t know if I’ve posted it on another thread):
****Interesting comments on the Delta Variant from the Tweet feed of Dr. Bob Wachter, chair of the UCSF School of Medicine:
If you’re fully vaxxed, I wouldn’t be too worried, especially if you’re in a highly vaxxed region….
Unvaxxed may well do OK for a while, probably through summer [due to the large number of vaccinated people]. But fall/winter now scares me a lot, much more than it did 2 weeks ago….
For Delta, Pfizer dose 1 is only ~33% protective. https://gov.uk/…/vaccines-highly-effective-against-b-1… This creates 2 problems: 1) People stay vulnerable until after shot 2 (& many let guard down earlier); 2) Loss in efficacy for dose 1 points to some degree of vaccine/immune escape. And – though this isn’t proven – I’d worry that a fully vaccinated elder, or someone whose immunity stems from an infection >12 mths ago, won’t be sufficiently protected over time, if immunity falls below a threshold needed to thwart Delta….
For a vaccinated person, watch the Delta % in your region (currently ~6% in the U.S. & rising) & Covid cases in your community. https://cidrap.umn.edu/…/delta-variant-makes-6-us-covid… If you’re seeing more cases & more Delta, I’d restore some precautions (esp. if you’re high risk) – at least indoor mask wearing (if you’ve stopped; BTW, I haven’t) in places w/ unvaxxed/unmasked folks.
I’ll now bet we’ll see significant (incl. many hospitalizations/deaths) surges this fall in low-vaccine populations due to combo of seasonality, Delta’s nastiness, & “back to normal” behavior…
For me, Delta adds to my resolve to keep mask on indoors when unvaxxed/unmasked people may be around. And I’m getting psychologically prepped for some restrictions to return in fall (tho highly vaxxed places like SF will likely do fine). Nobody wants that, but the virus doesn’t care what we want. For unvaxxed, I wish you well but my sympathy is flagging. Your bad choice is looking worse.
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More links on Covid:
Ultra-Contagious Covid Delta Variant ‘Wreaking Havoc’ Worldwide
“This is devastating. And it didn’t have to happen. The world urgently needs a People’s Vaccine.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/06/29/ultra-contagious-covid-delta-variant-wreaking-havoc-worldwide
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Maryland Says 100% of Residents Who Died of Covid in June Were Unvaccinated
According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, more than 99% of all U.S. coronavirus deaths last month were among unvaccinated people.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/07/06/maryland-says-100-residents-who-died-covid-june-were-unvaccinated
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‘Pandemic Is Far from Over’: Largest US Nurses Union Urges CDC to Reinstate Federal Mask Mandate
“NNU strongly urges the CDC to reinstate universal masking, irrespective of vaccination status, to help reduce the spread of the virus, especially from infected individuals who do not have any symptoms.”
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/07/14/pandemic-far-over-largest-us-nurses-union-urges-cdc-reinstate-federal-mask-mandate
Declaring Covid-19 vaccines “not enough by themselves to combat the pandemic,” the nation’s largest union of registered nurses on Tuesday called on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reinstate the federal mask mandate.
**NOTE: But my thought on that is if they leave the bars and restaurants open nobody wears a mask in those and that is (from what I’ve read) the most likely places to become infected. Large crowds of unmasked people in closed buildings? What’s the point of a mask when the places you go to the crowd of people are NOT wearing a mask? How ridiculous is that or is it just me? Another article said that even vaxxed one can be inundated with the virus so heavily that it overwhelms the antibodies. After all the vaccines are NOT a cure as they were tested for only being able to stop serious illness:
Virus Z: A Thought Experiment
July 1, 2021
What’s striking about our thought experiment is how little reliable data we have about the transmissibility of our hypothetical Virus Z and the long-term consequences of its mutations.
https://www.oftwominds.com/blogjuly21/virusZ7-21.html
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So mostly I stay home, stay away from people who I know aren’t vaccinated, wear a mask when I go in anywhere no matter what. I haven’t eaten in a restaurant since…Feb 2020 I think it was. Haven’t played music in a bar since then, either. Some days I’m really glad that I’ve always been somewhat of a loner….But most people (at least around here) have completely given up paying attention. Since they don’t personally know people dead of Covid they aren’t affected? Or those that never have liked anything to do with science in the first place or the concept of a pandemic because it was all a leftie commie socialist plot to steal the election from Trump.
But that’s okay, the more of them that fucking die of this disease the better off the gene pool, right? Not to be too cynical or anything just kind of extending the thoughts of the Chair of the UCSF School of Medicine to their conclusion perhaps?
Weird looking clouds outside to the west as I just peeked out the curtains. They don’t really look like regular puffy cumulus-type clouds. Wrong color, too. But I have another couple of hours before I go out and check the thermometer. I’m not smelling smoke in this closed-up house but one can’t always smell smoke even when breathing in 2.5 particulate matter.
No shit Sherlock is all around me.
sealintheSelkirks
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Boris Johnston getting ‘Double Downed’
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What can one say to that other than there sure are a LOT of politicians’ faces that could be photoshopped onto that Boris face!
As usual I can’t watch it. And my damned email is still broken and won’t load even after the website program pops up. All it does is go around and around as if it’s loading but it never does. My web guy says it isn’t the program which is working fine so I went to a neighbor’s (who is vaxxed) and it loaded right up so he was correct it’s my computer or the dial-up server screwing with me. I’m not computer-literate so I can’t seem to find what’s wrong…been this way going on two weeks now.
Unhealthy air PM 2.5 and the sun is shaded red. Still weird clouds and I saw fire bombers droning west yesterday so there must be one going fairly close by. I found another partial box of N95 dust mask (not the respirator valve style) in the tool room so I’ve got just about 20 left plus two respirator ones. Still can’t smell smoke but with this red-tinged sunlight I’m sure it’s damned unhealthy outside but I have to open windows at night or the heat stays trapped inside. 102F/40C at 3pm yesterday… T-storms expected in a couple of days. Oh great, lightning in the driest conditions ever around here. Just what we need!
sealintheSelkirks
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This is but one reason this bug is never, ever going away.
The woman also ate at a popular Gold Coast restaurant and crewed six flights around Queensland.
She did not seek a test until Wednesday this week – nine days after showing symptoms on July 13.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/world/flight-attendant-delta-variant-went-dreamworld?fbclid=IwAR2Of7GTrAhCrrdM7m–iNf19e8KfKMcFovC6_Naj0chdQoJfRUVuqFUUcY
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Anecdotal info…unless you happen to live there I guess. A long-time friend up here just moved to Missouri a bit over a month ago due to her mom being old and needing help. Mom had moved back to her birthplace where other family support lived years ago. Jani was born in SoCal, has lived up here for about 20 years, and didn’t really want to go but family duty called.
Heard from her last week and this disease had gone wild in that un-vaxxed state (she’s vaxxed). It is over-filling hospitals again, and the medical staff are saying that the patients are younger and younger and much sicker than they were last year. It’s not just ‘old people’ anymore, not with Delta. And Brazil’s Gamma. A majority of newly stricken are under 40 now…and kids and teenagers. At least in that state. She also said that people are filling restaurants and gatherings and few are wearing masks. Two article links:
Engaging With Extremism
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/07/16/engaging-with-extremism/
In my research, I repeatedly hear the same refrain: “If people knew what I knew, they would believe what I believe.” Followed by: “We need more education.”
Nearly all of the people — 99.5 percent — who are still dying from COVID-19 are unvaccinated.
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A Week Before The Opening Ceremony, Coronavirus Turns Up At Tokyo’s Olympic Village
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/07/17/1017253134/tokyo-olympics-village-covid-19-cornavirus-athletes
A cut:
…One year later, the pandemic is still here, driven in part by the delta variant, which spreads the coronavirus about 225% faster than the original version.
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225% FASTER? That’s…pretty freaking radical Kevin!
I’m seeing the same thing up here as Jani is in Missouri. Both areas are too similar, stocked with Trump-voting rightwinger devoted christian types. Even though my state is run by a Democrat, this area isn’t. When one doesn’t pay attention to reality, it tends to come back and bite you and that’s where my thinking is at so I’m still masking in any building I go into and who the hell cares what other people think? But I’m not going many places at all, mostly at home. Since I’ve never been much of a herd person, too much of a loner I guess, I see no reason to join in all the fun at this point.
My friend 2nd Hand store Kathy gave me present recently, a light blue t-shirt, and on the front it says in large bold letters in an interesting pattern of colors:
I’M NOT ANTI-SOCIAL. I’M ANTI-STUPID.
Question: is this too obnoxious?
She said that I’m the only person she knows who would wear a shirt like that. Doesn’t look like it was worn much (it’s used). The looks I get wearing it with the mask on going into the grocery store are priceless at this point.
sealintheSelkirks
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Anti-social doesn’t mean introverted or the like. It’s an actual psych. diagnosis:
“Anti-social behaviors are actions that harm or lack consideration for the well-being of others. It has also been defined as any type of conduct that violates the basic rights of another person and any behavior that is considered to be disruptive to others in society.”
Imagine how many of our fellow travelers fit this diagnosis… perhaps half? Yikes!
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The extremely anti-social is just your basic sociopath, eh? Oh my are there WAAAAAAY too many of those in the US as it seems to be a defining social mindset/characteristic throughout all income/educational levels/political party of the social pyramid. There are many very good people but there are so many…who ain’t!
And how very well directed by the wealthy totalitarians who control the strings. This was a good read today:
Disinformation Empire Says It’s ‘Fighting Disinformation’
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/07/21/disinformation-empire-says-its-fighting-disinformation/
{…But the mass media do not exist to share important information about the world. They exist to share important disinformation about the world. If they did not do this, the same U.S. empire which is decrying the spread of disinformation today would collapse into its own footprint.}
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Hey Kevin, lowest temperature in many weeks, 90’F at 3:30 this afternoon. Clouds came in, completely unpredicted yesterday but this morning it was “possible showers” which didn’t happen. Scary when this temp actually feels ‘cooler’ because it’s been so hot and people run out to do chores and it’s still major fire danger (from Extreme to Exceptional) and dryer than burnt toast here. Air is pm 2.5 that turns your eyes gritty and there’s a burnt ash layer I notice in the morning (still chilling down late at night so it all falls).
Expected back to triple digits by the weekend…
sealintheSelkirks
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“Scientists keep underestimating the coronavirus. In the beginning of the pandemic, they said mutated versions of the virus wouldn’t be much of a problem—until the more-infectious Alpha caused a spike in cases last fall. Then Beta made young people sicker and Gamma reinfected those who’d already recovered from COVID-19. Still, by March, as the winter surge in the U.S. receded, some epidemiologists were cautiously optimistic that the rapid vaccine rollout would soon tame the variants and cause the pandemic to wind down.
Delta has now shattered that optimism.”
https://www.newsweek.com/2021/08/13/doomsday-covid-variant-worse-delta-lambda-may-coming-scientists-say-1615874.html
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I went to a party with 14 other vaccinated people; 11 of us got COVID
https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion/op-ed/bs-ed-op-0804-breakthrough-covid-20210803-t32trfpiwzdf5okfar45f64whi-story.html?fbclid=IwAR0wGwK9EWsbpdZsDF8IZ_aMzIZJ3qQgvePnWBepZAqeLzdFoRYnWu9bjJI
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