The April episode of Nature Bats Last featured an interview with Paul Gunter from Beyond Nuclear. The show is embedded here:
I asked Paul about what I believe was the murder of nuclear whistle blower Karen Silkwood. Paul reiterated my contention that she was murdered by agents connected to the nuclear industry. The police were obviously colluding with the murderers by turning a ‘blind eye’ to the disappearance of her evidence folder that she had with her enroute to a meeting with a journalist from The New York Times.
The Killing of Karen Silkwood: The Story Behind the Kerr-McGee Plutonium Case
“Challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. nuclear industry has asked the Trump administration to ensure nuclear workers, suppliers, and vendors will have access to nuclear plants and personal protective equipment (PPE) during the 2020 spring and fall refueling outage seasons and beyond.”
COVID-19 Threatens Outages Scheduled at 97% of U.S. Nuclear Sites in 2020
Chernobyl: Radioactive forest near nuclear plant catches fire
Ukrainian authorities say a forest fire is causing radiation levels to spike in the area of Chernobyl, a nuclear power plant that melted down in 1986. A Fire at Chernobyl is releasing large amounts of Radiation
“Fires are common inside the “Zone of Alienation”, a circle with a 30-kilometre radius that surrounds the old nuclear plant and is fenced in barbed wire.
But the current blazes are larger than normal and are stirring up radiation as they burn grass and forests.
Winds could spread fires to remnants of the nuclear plant and authorities are trying to protect the critical infrastructure in the exclusion zone: Radiation levels rise as fires burn near Chernobyl’s former nuclear power plant
Via Harvey Wasserman: “The COVID Pandemic has thrown America’s atomic reactor industry into lethal chaos, making a major disaster even more likely. Reports from “terrified” workers at a Pennsylvania reactor indicate vital precautions needed to protect them may not even be possible.” Terrified Atomic Workers Warn That the COVID-19 Pandemic May Threaten Nuclear Reactor Disaster
Paul mentioned that the NRA were allowing plant operators to extend workers hours and to defer repairs. Evidence for that insanity is embedded inthe following link; U.S. to Let Nuclear Plants Defer Repairs, Schedule Longer Shifts
Fairwinds.org has covered the refueling issue also:
COVID-19 & Nuclear Risk: Refueling Nukes Isn’t A NASCAR Pit-stop!
Many thanks to the team at PRN.FM who still managed to record the show remotely from the studio due to the lockdown. It’s taken a long time for it to have been uploaded to the archive which reminds me how tenuous our predicament has become. Imagine being banned off the streets in total lockdown and no internet. That time is coming, sooner or later. Think about it.
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 
More recent information about the fire near Chernobyl
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1268371/Chernobyl-fire-nuclear-power-plant-disaster-fires-Ukraine-fumes-Europe-radioactive-nuclear?fbclid=IwAR0Cto6cSClqWJ_VolzUbTSm0K1UuF6uks_NH53AYIkgRkQLEulRIFOjNu4
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23 cases and growing at this one Nuke plant
https://www.wrdw.com/content/news/Coronavirus-cases-grow-to-23-at-Plant-Vogtle-569580961.html?fbclid=IwAR1I0t2iOLP3zE63TQ3W7zoR_laayRaE0muJxqdmKFW-kGdk3Rm46-cLZBI
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Amazing (not) how all information of Covid cases within US nuclear facilities has vanished from the news cycle. After I did my first round-up stats, 3 weeks ago, NRC announced it would no longer make public the figures. There were a few leaks after that, but nothing for a while now except Vogtle, which is mostly a construction site. I envision hell-on-earth inside each of these death machines.
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23 and counting;
https://www.wrdw.com/content/news/Coronavirus-cases-grow-to-23-at-Plant-Vogtle-569580961.html?fbclid=IwAR2P6O49jdNeY1te1Qb7eAg2zOxGDrckxewu3aE3BLdD7k0wxGnURkxCb_s
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Chernobyl still burns:
https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/30198/chernobyl-still-burns-forest-fires-ukraine-nuclear-radiation/?fbclid=IwAR2cskILnHe8Tz9wyYnklTOc8YQ6h21Rca_0Q-lOwxtuaxcQdTKUUjT3DnI
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Covid and nuclear courtesy of Radio Ecoshock;
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Nuclear Hotseat continues the coverage of the convergence of nuclear and Covid 19
http://nuclearhotseat.com/2020/06/16/tim-judson-on-covid-nuclear-letters-to-pence-bob-alvarez-on-us-nuclear-policy-the-election/
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Kevin, I thought you’d get a chuckle out of this one. I most certainly did, but then though about it for a while and realized Trump will probably pardon them IF they even get convicted. But then I am a pessimist! But one with good reason I think…
Ohio Nuclear Power Scandal
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/24/ohio-nuclear-power-scandal/
The U.S. Attorney’s Office and FBI this week charged the speaker of the Ohio House of Representative and four others in a $61 million scheme to use $1 billion in ratepayers money to keep two decrepit nuclear power plants operating.
And, said the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, David DeVillers, at a press conference after the arrests Tuesday: “This is by no means over. We are going to continue with this investigation.”
Those charged were involved in a “Conspiracy to Participate, Directly or Indirectly” in the scheme “through a Pattern of Racketeering Activity,” declared the “Offense Description” that headed an 81-page federal “Criminal Complaint.”
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NOTE: No doubt that EVERY one of these monstrosities are the same; political corruption underlying the whole rotten industry. But one can only hope that these fu*ks get served a portion of humble pie…
sealintheSelkirks
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This is going to boggle your mind.
So if you don’t have a local radio playing and/or a cell phone on 24 hours a day every day, you will no longer be able to know that the nuclear reactor upwind of you has broken and you are being irradiated.
Then of course they were given ‘extensions’ past their expected life spans. Then their output was increased. Nothing to see here!
sealintheSelkirks
Point Beach Reactor Courts Disaster with Sirens Turned Off
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/08/16/point-beach-reactor-courts-disaster-with-sirens-turned-off/
A change to “emergency response” has been made at the 50-year-old Point Beach nuclear reactors on Lake Michigan south of Green Bay, Wisconsin. The operators, NextEra Energy Point Beach (NextEra), have turned off the site’s disaster warning sirens.
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The local weekly paper just published my CoVid reply to the crowd of imbecile ‘Mothers Against Masks in Schools’ protest demonstration at the Board of Education building that was front page 16Aug with two photos of happy smiling right winger Trumpie moms holding signs says FREEDOM. They spelled it wrong of course, should have been FREEDUMB.
The paper does not put issues up on their website for months due to being such a marginal economic success, nobody would buy them, so it will be half a year before the last 8 weeks go up as the latest one on their site is from April2021.
Been a nasty 8 weeks, Kevin. So I thought I’d post most of my letter to a friend up in Bonner’s Ferry Idaho of the insanity I’m hiding from on this property. Quotes are from the covid articles in the paper since 16Aug with my Letter to the Editor in 30Sept issue. She’s one of the thinking people that live in this area…we talk frequently. There are intelligent beings here but most are not as visible or vocal as I seem to be.
So here it is, lots of quotes from hospital people and I’m cutting some stuff:
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Delta is screaming through the population here, Tri-County health reported the all-time high of hospitalized Covid in the little local ones on Sept. 23rd, again breaking the record of a couple of weeks earlier and a couple weeks earlier than that! And the big regionals in Spokane are in fucking dire straits, too.
I picked up both the Sept 23rd and 30th Independent paper… and, like the three I think I quoted to you (Aug 26th/Sept 2 & 16) it’s only getting worse the last two weeks of Sept. The 23rd said we are near ‘crisis care’ levels, battlefield triage, what your hospitals went to which is let the sickest die which is why Idaho flooded our hospitals. Ours don’t have the beds or the personnel to deal with our own sick now. The Colville & Chewelah Providence Chief Administrator is quoted saying “unprecedented strain on the system, highest number of patients since the pandemic started, overwhelming majority unvaxxed.”
Reports of people who AWARE that they had the virus continuing to go out into the community were also recorded. Providence Hospital PR Info Officer Beth Hodges quote: “We are seeing people get sick and then expose other people quickly.”
WTF? ON PURPOSE? These morons are TRYING to get people sick? To what, show that Trump was right it’s just the flu???
The press release goes on to say the health district and the hospitals are “overwhelmed” and the most recent deaths will not be the last. Ya think? …that “We are rapidly spiraling to a point where public health and hospital settings cannot keep up with the community’s COVID needs…nor other needs.” It added that the situation will continue to get worse unless people make a conscious effort to stay home when sick, mask up, get tested, and get the vaccine.
Somehow I don’t think any of that is going to happen. One in four cars coming in for testing at the Colville hospital drive-up site is positive… Overall “morale is low, medical people are tired, frustrated, emotional” and the decision to go to Crisis Care would be made by the State or regional level, not individual hospitals. “We’re close, we’re teetering day by day and how long can you keep pressing on our system before the dam bursts” she said.
We’ve got Texas, Idaho, Nevada all trying to transfer cases to Washington because our hospitals are so good. Alaska is trying to shift the sick to Washington, too…. EMTs in the area have been using personal cars to respond to emergency calls (non-covid I assume)…how’s that for fucked up? The ambulance service is swamped. Another issue is long-haul, sick people are reporting symptoms weeks and months or longer after testing positive.
This was all out of the Sept 23rd paper.
The Sept. 30th paper printed my Letter to the Editor that I wrote in response to the absolutely moronic shit spewed by the anti-mask crowd that picketed the Chewelah Board of Education building with two pictures that were on the front page of August 26th’s paper that just pissed me off. I could/should have taken more time but it triggered my outrage I think. Did I tell you about this already? I don’t remember. Sorry if I’m repeating myself.
The utter stupidity quoted…I couldn’t take it! You know a woman named Teagan Ewens? She said “We are not asking permission to choose what is right for our children. We are performing our absolute duty as parents to protect our children from harm.” Wearing a Cougars shirt…and the smiling happy mothers group all holding signs with FREEDOM etc etc. FREEDUMB would have been a better spelling.
So they didn’t print it until now a month later. After every paper since16Aug being screamingly bad news of this disease. Isn’t anybody paying attention?
But they did without editing a single word which surprised me. I think Jared is using my words as a foil to say what he as publisher can’t publicly say without getting people around here really pissed off at him. As he told me once when I sent in one that reamed the behavior of the ski hill management, he can’t do that as he’d lose his advertisers. Yeah, Stevens County…and no, he didn’t print that one! But he and I have talked often over the years and he knows me somewhat and has put in three articles about my written work; the Lunch Counter Trilogy novella on riverbreak.com, the North American Riversurfing Summit in Bend story, and my new Massacre Sites book. They did put a title on my Letter I didn’t write, though.
Somehow I’m thinking it won’t go over real well around here but you know what? I don’t care. Reality in the last five weeks in this paper has been absolutely scary as shit gets worse and worse.
I’m very tired of stupid. And I’m not the only one but people who are wearing masks and are vaccinated are scared of the violence of these people. Too much is coming out of attacks by anti-mask types on people who say anything they don’t like. Italian blackshirts of 1920s Italy and brownshirt behavior in 1930s Germany comes to mind but one would have to actually know some history to realize this.
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This is what they printed:
Get the COVID vaccine or stay home (their title!)
When I was a kid there were older kids in the neighborhood that caught a virus that withered a leg. Just shriveled them and crippled them for life. Polio Virus seemed to only show up in summertime. There was another virus that used to kill people everywhere called Smallpox Virus. Throughout written history it killed millions.
We stood in line at school, 1st grade, and drank a vaccine to defeat Polio created by a man named Salk who stated he didn’t own the vaccine, the people of the world owned it. Know anybody who has Polio? Nope. Now corporations own vaccines not public health. What a mistake this is! Get corporate greed out of medicine.
I also have a mark on my arm from the Smallpox vaccine. Nobody young has those marks because we BEAT Smallpox. Worldwide everybody got the shot.
My oldest grandpa survived the 1918 Pandemic while fighting the German Army. He watched his volunteer US Army buddies die coughing in the trenches of France. I heard his stories.
I ran a fiberglass repair shop for 20 years wearing REAL masks, 5 pounds of protection from lung disease. You think these skimpy masks are even worth complaining about?
To those anti-mask/vaccine people: Please don’t go to the hospital if/when you catch this disease. You HAVE made that choice and shouldn’t take the chance at living away from people whom you infect by taking a hospital bed they need to live. Don’t be selfish, take responsibility, stay home. Like your 14th Century European ancestors, keep waving those flowers in you face to keep away the ‘bad air’ of the Black Death virus. It worked so well then.
seal morgan
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Yep, I snarled. No doubt about it… well, that is a possibility, too, by the MAGATS around here. We’ve got people with Covid running around deliberately getting people sick so if somebody they infect dies, doesn’t that equate with premeditated murder? Or at least manslaughter…So get someone sick who dies what should be the consequences?
The nursing home up in Colville just had 52 cases in the last two weeks, and 22 in staff. 33 of the residents who caught it were fully vaxxed so they were breakthrough cases, Delta variant of course. Four who weren’t and one who was died. That’s almost a 10% death rate, 9.6 or so.
The Sept. 30th paper said Chewelah is still only at 41% vaxxed, 39% in Colville.
I walked into Safeway yesterday and got 15 feet into the store before realizing that fully half the customers had no masks on. Yes I was in an N95, I don’t wear my surgical ear-loop ones when I walk into public buildings around here. Not that I go anywhere much anyway. But people were crowded together in the checkout lines, two feet apart at best. Safeway is NOT enforcing the state-wide indoor mask mandate whatsoever though all their employees were masked. Not at the post office because I saw at least one woman behind the counter with no mask on! It’s a FEDERAL mandate there…
This is insane behavior, Carrie. Looney-Tune level. Cognitively impaired level.
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That’s most of it. One county hospital system nearby, Okanogan County, has gone to ‘Crisis Care’ already and more are ready to tip over the edge.
Kevin, I live around mad weasel people with a serious case of mouth-foaming rabies, Kevin. Sorry I took up so much space. Wish me luck.
sealintheSelkirks
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And here we go again. The US NRC is being sneaky since we’re all busy with the insanity of a Fascist Coup in Progress, Omicron infections skyrocketing and parts of the country have so many out sick that they are closing due to lack of personnel. But the nuclear-supporter gov watchdogs have used it to plan to move all of the ‘Heavy Nuclear’ waste to New Mexico and Texas by train, truck and barge. You know, consolidate it all where nobody gives a shit (Texas is definitely a place where nobody gives a shit!). Wow. This plan is so impressive that I don’t understand how nobody thought of this before!
Oh wait, they have. Isn’t this a re-package of earlier plans? Since the Nevada under-the-mountain site sort of failed (building on a fault is rather unsettling), this could be the answer we have all been waiting for!
Plans for Mass Shipments of High-Level Radioactive Waste Quietly Disclosed
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/07/plans-for-mass-shipments-of-high-level-radioactive-waste-quietly-disclosed/
How far is your house or apartment from a major highway, or railroad line? Do you want to play Russian roulette with radioactive waste in transit for 40 years?
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What could possibly go wrong? And no Kevin, I don’t want to to start writing the huge list you can think of!
sealintheSelkirks
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You’re going to love this:
Study Finds Cannabis Compounds Prevent Infection By Covid-19 Virus
https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajherrington/2022/01/11/study-finds-cannabis-compounds-prevent-infection-by-covid-19-virus
Compounds in cannabis can prevent infection from the virus that causes Covid-19 by blocking its entry into cells, according to a study published this week by researchers affiliated with Oregon State University. A report on the research, “Cannabinoids Block Cellular Entry of SARS-CoV-2 and the Emerging Variants,” was published online on Monday by the Journal of Natural Products…continues at link (or go to the Journal link there)
My comments about this on my home beach alt press site (had to explain to one woman who got hot and fluffy about marijuana):
https://obrag.org/2022/01/study-finds-cannabis-compounds-prevent-infection-by-covid-19-virus/comment-page
sealintheSelkirks
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This is just freaking amazing to read, Kevin, but why am I not surprised at the level of incompetence exhibited by corporate assholes whose only concern is to make more money no matter what the consequences are. Of course only the federal government will ‘insure’ these radioactive time bombs…
US Reactors Dangerously Operating Using Counterfeit Parts
The lead paragraph from Reuters was originally correct: “Most, if not all, U.S. nuclear power plants contain counterfeit or fraudulent parts, potentially increasing the risk of a safety failure…”
This hair-raising news is just one of the shocking findings in a set of seven reports released February 10 by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) Office of Inspector General (OIG), now headed by Robert J. Feitel.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/02/18/us-reactors-dangerously-operating-using-counterfeit-parts
sealintheSelkirks
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This just in. Obviously Chernobyl is incredibly contaminated as Russian soldiers are being evac’d out with radiation sickness. What I wonder is it from background like sleeping in tents or drinking water from a stream or did the concrete dome get cracked by the fighting?
Unprotected Russian soldiers disturbed radioactive dust in Chernobyl’s ‘Red Forest’, workers say
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/unprotected-russian-soldiers-disturbed-radioactive-dust-chernobyls-red-forest-2022-03-28/
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Wow. Driving huge military vehicles down abandoned dusty roads kicking up huge clouds of dust…digging foxholes for nighttime perimeters! How much more fucking stupid can dear leaders get?
Well, unfortunately for us all I’m afraid they can surely find even more stupid shit. That seems to be the nature of warrior politics…
sealintheSelkirks
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The Pentagon is releasing info to NOT start a nuclear war with Russia? How novel is that but somehow the latest news is looking much grimmer. The NATO/USA propaganda is ramping up like 2003 when it de-fucking-stroyed Iraq for Cheney & Wbush’s lies.
Pentagon Drops Truth Bombs To Stave Off War With Russia
Consortium News
Two leaked stories from the Pentagon have exposed the lies of mainstream media about how Russia is conducting the Ukraine war in a bid to counter propaganda intended to get NATO into the conflict.
The Pentagon is engaged in a consequential battle with the U.S. State Department and the Congress to prevent a direct military confrontation with Russia, which could unleash the most unimaginable horror of war.
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Questions Abound About Bucha Massacre
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/04/04/questions-abound-about-bucha-massacre/
The West has made a snap judgment about who is responsible for the massacre at the Ukrainian town of Bucha with calls for more stringent sanctions on Russia, but the question of guilt is far from decided, writes Joe Lauria.
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Looks like the Fascists are executing people they don’t like and blaming it on Russians at the same time videos of Ukrainians murdering captured Russian soldiers are not being talked about in the US MSM. Why am I not surprised?
Joe Biden said this in 1997:
Biden admitted in 1997 NATO expansion would cause Russian ‘hostile reaction
https://multipolarista.com/2022/03/08/biden-nato-expansion-russia-hostile-reaction/
Current US President Joe Biden admitted in a 1997 talk at the Atlantic Council that eastward NATO expansion into the Baltic states would cause a “vigorous and hostile reaction” by RussiaCurrent US President Joe Biden acknowledged in 1997 that eastward NATO expansion into the Baltic states would cause “the greatest consternation,” which could “tip the balance” and result in a “vigorous and hostile reaction” by Russia.
The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania did indeed become part of NATO in 2004. Estonia and Latvia directly border Russia, and frequently do military exercises with Western troops a mere 100 kilometers from the border.
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The insanity ramps up. How about…instead of a total nuclear war it goes asymmetrical? And EMP war with missiles being lit off 100-200 miles above totally destroying anything electrical within line of sight. It would take three over the US to do that; one off the West Coast, one coming up from the Gulf of Mexico over the Mississippi Valley, and one above the East Coast. And every single nuclear power plant in the US goes critical within hours and does a Fukushima China-Syndrome spew over vast portions of the country. Of course that would cause a retaliatory strike by the US at every perceived threat so if would end up a all-out war I think.
What else can one expect when government/military/corporations are run by psychopaths?
Kind of depressing news I’m reading today. You wanna here about the three NEW strains of Omicron that have popped up? BA.3, 4, and 5 plus Delta-Cron is looking pretty spooky…
sealintheSelkirks
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So here is the latest and NOBODY is going to like reading these. It’s a cut & paste from the reply I just posted on my home beach town alt news site OB Rag that brought Covid up today. Figured you wouldn’t mind.
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Yeah, people don’t seem to care because ‘it’s gone away like a miracle’ as one infamous politician predicted…but then he is a complete moron. DUH!
I know three people that are sicker than hell right now, self-tested at home so of course they are NOT in the gov figures. This is round two for two of them…
But it hasn’t. This has just been another lull is all. Duh again. The worst part of this is that we should know better, we have the science that the ancient Greeks didn’t have and KNOW how to break this pattern. But we don’t.
So here’s a link from a Scripp’s doc who did a wonderful job not saying out-loud what he was thinking. It was pretty obvious that he considers the US government a complete failure here. I agree with that thought. And the giddy citizens with no science background? Not a high standing, either.
Listen to the tone and watch the face because Omicron BA.2 is sidestepping vaccines, people! And is more infectious. BA.3 and BA.4 haven’t made it to the US yet…and they are WORSE.
This vid hopefully will feel like a slap in the face but pay attention to what he says is coming:
Why the fight against COVID appears to have stalled in the U.S.
May 16, 2022
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Then there is this fun fact; at least 15 million dead worldwide and that figure is probably an undercount as I’ve read other reports that are saying 18-20 million:
Morbid Matters: Estimating COVID-19 Mortality
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/18/morbid-matters-estimating-covid-19-mortality/
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I have NOT taken off the N95, not been in a restaurant since Feb. 2020, Haven’t played music live since then, either. Yes this completely sucks. I have 21 on my dead list the youngest being a former snowboarding student and wildlands firefighter and she died in 3 weeks at age 39. I’m now hearing from folks about what they are dealing with this:
Experts perplexed over number of people getting long COVID
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/experts-perplexed-over-number-of-people-getting-long-covid
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For those reading this that don’t understand the ‘Precautionary Principle’ I would suggest you look it up and really think about it.
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My oldest grandpa Merle’s Pandemic in 1918? It’s still with us.
The modern flu is a direct descendant of the virus that caused the 1918 pandemic
Mapping past pandemics could help us prevent future ones.
https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/modern-flu-virus-direct-descendant-of-1918-pandemic
Wear a mask, people. You don’t really want to be an extra in the movie Idiocracy II, the Revenge.
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So that’s what I posted, and I’m wondering what the comments (if any) will be. People really don’t like to be reminded that they are not as bright as they think they are; and that what they want to be true usually isn’t the case…
But I’m trying as best I can to raise the awareness because I DON’T WANT TO CATCH THIS SHIT! It’s purely selfish reasoning!
I did not post this. Already overloaded the attention spans probably, yes? Here’s one just for this site:
Smallpox used to kill millions of people every year. Here’s how humans beat it.
More contagious than Covid-19 and with a 30 percent mortality rate, smallpox was one of history’s biggest killers. Now it’s gone.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21493812/smallpox-eradication-vaccines-infectious-disease-covid-19
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And my computer mouse gave up the ghost. It was used when I got it (2nd hand store) but lasted for almost three years so not a bad buy for $3. I’ve got a friend down in Spokane right now going to thrift stores and she promised to keep an eye out for a couple. But I really feel awkward using this Logitech trackball mouse! So much slower and I keep losing stuff because my fingers have forgotten how to use it. This ancient weird thing is my emergency mouse because it still works.
We are so dependent on technology…
sealintheSelkirks
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