Interesting News, Articles & Stuff

[macbill]

A Daily Pill to Treat Covid Could Be Just Months Away, Scientists Say - KFF Health News

At least three promising antiviral treatments for covid-19 are being tested in clinical trials, with results expected as soon as late fall or winter.

khn.org

This was the worst slaughter of Native Americans in U.S. history. Few remember it.​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/09/26/bear-river-massacre-native-americans-shoshone/

 

[macbill]

Covid’s Hidden Toll: One Million Children Who Lost Parents

Covid’s Hidden Toll: One Million Children Who Lost Parents — The Wall Street Journal

As virus claims primary caregivers, grandparents and aunts step in to care for kids; ‘I’ve had to become their mom’

apple.news

 

[cybrguy]

I must say while it is somewhat disturbing to see the number of LEOs around the country resigning due to covid vaccine mandates, there is another important and very positive side to this. This will end up being a fairly painless way to root out a lot of the garbage wearing a badge. A LEO who rejects science and doesn't care about the well being of the public shouldn't be an LEO and I am all in on their leaving the force.

Dozens Of Massachusetts State Police Troopers Resigning Over COVID Vaccine Mandate, Union Says

The State Police Association of Massachusetts (SPAM) said dozens of troopers have submitted their resignation papers as a result of the state's COVID vaccine mandate.

boston.cbslocal.com

 

[Razhumikin]

I must say while it is somewhat disturbing to see the number of LEOs around the country resigning due to covid mandates, there is another important and very positive side to this. This will end up being a fairly painless way to root out a lot of the garbage wearing a badge. A LEO who rejects science and doesn't care about the well being of the public shouldn't be an LEO and I am all in on their leaving the force.

Dozens Of Massachusetts State Police Troopers Resigning Over COVID Vaccine Mandate, Union Says

The State Police Association of Massachusetts (SPAM) said dozens of troopers have submitted their resignation papers as a result of the state's COVID vaccine mandate.

boston.cbslocal.com

Mass State Troopers are a particularly bad batch of law enforcement

 

[florduh]

This is one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. About a dozen CIA Officers/"diplomats" have reported experiencing symptoms like fatigue, tummy aches, and headaches after being stationed in Cuba, Vietnam, and China. They're calling it "Havana Syndrome". Bafflingly, their explanation for this is that America's enemies have developed a super secret energy weapon. One problem. There is no evidence any weapon like this could plausibly exist...

Claims of Microwave Attacks Are Scientifically Implausible

There’s little evidence for an unknown weapon being behind “Havana syndrome.”

foreignpolicy.com

The evidence for microwave effects of the type categorized as Havana syndrome is exceedingly weak. No proponent of the idea has outlined how the weapon would actually work. No evidence has been offered that such a weapon has been developed by any nation. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and no evidence has been offered to support the existence of this mystery weapon.

Isn't it possible that if your job involves doing evil shit for the CIA, maybe the part of your soul that still exists is making your tum-tum hurt, and drowning out that feeling with booze and novel pharmaceuticals is making you fatigued? Or is it more likely that Cuba or Vietnam developed a superweapon so advanced it breaks the laws of physics, and leaves no trace of its existence?

If Vietnam is developing weapons a century more advanced than ours, what the fuck are we giving these people like a trillion a year for?

The press is just going along with the laughable death-ray narrative. And the dummies in Congress...

House passes bill to help diplomats, officials hit with Havana Syndrome

Episodes of the condition include that of a diplomat in Vietnam last month ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit.

www.nbcnews.com

Every fucking one of them voted to provide free medical treatment and financial assistance for a totally imaginary disease, caused by a made up laser gun. Something like 50,000 Americans die every year because they lack access to affordable healthcare for real diseases. These pricks won't lift a finger to help them. CIA spooks already get free healthcare.

 

[Planck]

I must say while it is somewhat disturbing to see the number of LEOs around the country resigning due to covid vaccine mandates, there is another important and very positive side to this. This will end up being a fairly painless way to root out a lot of the garbage wearing a badge. A LEO who rejects science and doesn't care about the well being of the public shouldn't be an LEO and I am all in on their leaving the force.

Dozens Of Massachusetts State Police Troopers Resigning Over COVID Vaccine Mandate, Union Says

The State Police Association of Massachusetts (SPAM) said dozens of troopers have submitted their resignation papers as a result of the state's COVID vaccine mandate.

boston.cbslocal.com

 

[florduh]

The Havana Syndrome coverage might be the thing that finally breaks me.

The CIA evacuated an officer with 'Havana Syndrome' symptoms from Serbia, report says, as the US intensifies investigations into the mysterious illness

The unnamed intelligence officer was suffering from serious injuries, The Wall Street Journal reported.

www.businessinsider.com

Symptoms include nausea, headaches, vertigo, and memory loss.

The press is just gonna keep printing this absolute bullshit without mentioning that the concept of a laser gun that makes people's tummies hurt is fucking absurd? Man. Back in my day, at least Colin Powell had to hold up a bottle of Grey Poupon at the UN and call it uranium to sell the Iraq War. Now, anonymous CIA spooks can blame their tum-tum aches on a laser gun, and we just have to take their word on it? An advanced weapon that defies our understanding of physics, developed by third world countries...

Let's say I take the ray gun idea seriously for a second. Cuba, Vietnam, Venezuela, or Russia spent a huge amount of their extremely limited resources developing a physics-bending superweapon. A weapon that makes its targets... feel a little crummy? Really? The entire press and our whole government fell for this?

Here's my explanation: one CIA agent in Cuba felt like shit, because he works for a famously evil organization. His tummy hurts, he feels tired, and gets headaches. He blames it on the laser gun. His colleagues, who also always feel like shit, jump on the bandwagon. This creates a panic throughout the intel community, until every spook who has a headache or feels fatigued believes they were hit by a death-ray.

Isn't that a more plausible explanation than Cuba, a poor country we've fucked with for decades, secretly developing weapons 100 years more advanced than ours? If Cuba can advance science that far without anyone noticing, we should just surrender to them now.

 

[BrianTL]

Isn't that a more plausible explanation than Cuba, a poor country we've fucked with for decades, secretly developing weapons 100 years more advanced than ours? If Cuba can advance science that far without anyone noticing, we should just surrender to them now.

This whole thing sounds pretty funny, and full disclosure I havent clicked the links or looked into it whatsoever so I have opinion on it

but it sounds entirely ridiculous just from your post and I trust that is a fairly accurate summary

Probably complete bullshit - the ONLY way something like this would be possible is if somebody else (China, Russia) were to come up with this tech. and put it in the hands of people in Cuba / Nam and let them go to town.

If that were a remotely true scenario - I highly doubt it - but I would expect them to just leave it in the hands of their own operatives, stick them in Cuba and let them roast our guys all day long.

 

[Tranquility]

Here's my explanation: one CIA agent in Cuba felt like shit, because he works for a famously evil organization. His tummy hurts, he feels tired, and gets headaches. He blames it on the laser gun. His colleagues, who also always feel like shit, jump on the bandwagon. This creates a panic throughout the intel community, until every spook who has a headache or feels fatigued believes they were hit by a death-ray.

Isn't that a more plausible explanation than Cuba, a poor country we've fucked with for decades, secretly developing weapons 100 years more advanced than ours? If Cuba can advance science that far without anyone noticing, we should just surrender to them now.

CUBA Unexplained Events Investigation--Final Report
The report is not conclusive on what exactly happened. But, SOMETHING happened that cannot be explained easily by the CDC.

 

[florduh]

This whole thing sounds pretty funny, and full disclosure I havent clicked the links or looked into it whatsoever so I have opinion on it

but it sounds entirely ridiculous just from your post and I trust that is a fairly accurate summary

Probably complete bullshit - the ONLY way something like this would be possible is if somebody else (China, Russia) were to come up with this tech. and put it in the hands of people in Cuba / Nam and let them go to town.

If that were a remotely true scenario - I highly doubt it - but I would expect them to just leave it in the hands of their own operatives, stick them in Cuba and let them roast our guys all day long.

I'd be more open to this not being a joke if the Pentagon or CIA could explain how a weapon like this could even plausibly work. Any scientist who works with microwaves, lasers, or just simply understands physics says it's impossible. No one in the media has quoted them in months. They're just taking the CIA's totally incredible word on it.

Like the more skeptical article I posted said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Thus far not only is there zero evidence a tummy-ache ray exists, there's no evidence it can even plausibly exist on earth in 2021.

Russia has more money than Cuba, but they're still a poor country. I can't see them sinking billions into this. China is rich, but I still don't see them spending serious cash to develop a super weapon that makes random CIA agents experience hangover symptoms. Like, why?

I just learned the term "mass psychogenic illness". It sounds like a far more believable explanation for Havana Syndrome than a secret weapon that defies all known laws of science.

What Is Mass Psychogenic Illness?

Sometimes people in a group start to think they might have been exposed to something dangerous, like a germ or a toxin (poison). They might get signs of sickness like headache, dizziness, faintness, weakness or a choking feeling. If many people in the group start to feel sick at about the same...

www.aafp.org

Sometimes people in a group start to think they might have been exposed to something dangerous, like a germ or a toxin (poison). They might get signs of sickness like headache, dizziness, faintness, weakness or a choking feeling. If many people in the group start to feel sick at about the same time, we might think they have mass psychogenic illness. The group might be a class in a school or workers in an office. Mass psychogenic illness is sometimes called mass hysteria or epidemic hysteria.

On a lighter note, I can't wait for the first "Havana Syndrome" strains to start hitting dispensaries.

 

[Knewt]

I'd be more open to this not being a joke if the Pentagon or CIA could explain how a weapon like this could even plausibly work. Any scientist who works with microwaves, lasers, or just simply understands physics says it's impossible. No one in the media has quoted them in months. They're just taking the CIA's totally incredible word on it.

Like the more skeptical article I posted said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Thus far not only is there zero evidence a tummy-ache ray exists, there's no evidence it can even plausibly exist on earth in 2021.

Russia has more money than Cuba, but they're still a poor country. I can't see them sinking billions into this. China is rich, but I still don't see them spending serious cash to develop a super weapon that makes random CIA agents experience hangover symptoms. Like, why?

I just learned the term "mass psychogenic illness". It sounds like a far more believable explanation for Havana Syndrome than a secret weapon that defies all known laws of science.

What Is Mass Psychogenic Illness?

Sometimes people in a group start to think they might have been exposed to something dangerous, like a germ or a toxin (poison). They might get signs of sickness like headache, dizziness, faintness, weakness or a choking feeling. If many people in the group start to feel sick at about the same...

www.aafp.org

On a lighter note, I can't wait for the first "Havana Syndrome" strains to start hitting dispensaries.

Perhaps what ever caused this was discovered by accident, thus no money spent on that particular research.

 

[florduh]

Perhaps what ever caused this was discovered by accident, thus no money spent on that particular research.

Maybe. But they'd still have to pay to produce the headache ray and deploy the hijinks squads. Not every country has limitless cash to spend on this stuff. And to what end exactly? Risking war to give random CIA agents hangover symptoms? Nothing about this makes sense.

And it seems insane that there would be no evidence this sort of weapon exists. From Foreign Policy,

That may be, but it would be hard to keep the development of this kind of weapon secret. The military and associated industries are often proud of their innovations. We have heard regularly over the past 40 years of the progress of fitting a laser into an airplane, and the jet suit is popular—even if it only has fuel for about 10 minutes of flight. It’s rare that the government classifies every aspect of research surrounding a classified topic. University research on the interaction of microwaves with the brain would have been sponsored and published, and the National Academies committee would have found many more than its paltry dozen references. Although the central work on laser isotope separation was classified, the ultraviolet spectrum a colleague and I measured passed classification restrictions and was published.

I'd also say there's two options here. Either a bunch of CIA agents are cashing in on a mass hysteria to get some paid time off. Or, the CIA is so bad at gathering intelligence that one of our adversaries developed a weapon so advanced, no scientist can explain how it would even work, right under their noses. If it's the second one, just shutter the CIA. What's the point?

Edit: I don't know why I didn't see this earlier:

The report is not conclusive on what exactly happened. But, SOMETHING happened that cannot be explained easily by the CDC.

@Tranquility there's nothing in that report that wouldn't be more plausibly explained by mass hysteria than space lasers. Headaches, tummy aches, fatigue? Shit, I've had Havana Syndrome for years. What's missing is any kind of evidence on the skin that any of these people were hit by an energy weapon.

I mean, maybe Russia is risking war to give CIA Agents hangover symptoms with future weapons. I've just seen no evidence to support that really incredible claim.

 

[scy123]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/party-penthouse-civil-forfeiture-action-bc-supreme-court-sept-24-movassaghi-lawyer-brother-1.6192147

 

[kel]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/party-penthouse-civil-forfeiture-action-bc-supreme-court-sept-24-movassaghi-lawyer-brother-1.6192147

Wow, no respect for anyone for anything with this one!!

I kept reading to find out how many of the party goers were dead or seriously ill from covid, but there's no info on that... I think it is safe to assume that it's zero. Can you imagine the furore if there was even just one person in hospital... or just one dead!!! Man murders party guests is a much more click enticing headline!

I am also struggling with this:

"six large parties with between 86 and 191 people attending, despite provincial health orders stating that no more than 50 people were allowed to gather in a private residence."

WTF difference does 50 or 100 or 200 people make? 50 is legal... but somehow covid only causes a problem when there's more than that?

I don't get it... wait... are we in the fake news thread?

 

[BrianTL]

Wow, no respect for anyone for anything with this one!!

I kept reading to find out how many of the party goers were dead or seriously ill from covid, but there's no info on that... I think it is safe to assume that it's zero. Can you imagine the furore if there was even just one person in hospital... or just one dead!!! Man murders party guests is a much more click enticing headline!

I am also struggling with this:

"six large parties with between 86 and 191 people attending, despite provincial health orders stating that no more than 50 people were allowed to gather in a private residence."

WTF difference does 50 or 100 or 200 people make? 50 is legal... but somehow covid only causes a problem when there's more than that?

I don't get it... wait... are we in the fake news thread?

That article is written very poorly IMO and difficult to follow.

Is the issue that he hosted parties? Or is the issue that his brother allegedly has ties to organized crime? Not sure how either of these justify civil forfeiture.

Are the "proceeds of crime" coming from a few thousand dollars in liquor receipts from the parties, or did the alleged criminal brother share his wealth in order to purchase the property?

A civil forfeiture action filed on Sept. 24 in B.C. Supreme Court states that at least some of the funds used to acquire or maintain the penthouse at 777 Richards St. were proceeds of "unlawful activity."

Give me a break...

 

[kel]

Yes, they are also good observations, I think it definitely qualifies as an interesting article

 

[florduh]

Maybe the press is starting to recover from their bout with Havana Syndrome.

A Secret State Department Report Says Microwaves Didn’t Cause “Havana Syndrome”

A declassified State Department report obtained by BuzzFeed News dismissed the theory that microwave weapons are behind the mysterious neurological injuries in diplomats worldwide.

www.buzzfeednews.com

Noises linked to mysterious injuries among US diplomats in Cuba were most likely caused by crickets — not microwave weapons — according to a declassified scientific review commissioned by the US State Department and obtained by BuzzFeed News.

Originally classified as “secret,” the report concluded that the sounds accompanying at least eight of the original 21 Havana syndrome incidents were “most likely” caused by insects. That same scientific review also judged it “highly unlikely” that microwaves or ultrasound beams — now widely proposed by US government officials to explain the injuries — were involved in the incidents.

The only remotely possible explanation for the Russian hangover gun theory is bullshit. So tell me another one, CIA.

And though the report didn’t definitively conclude what caused the injuries themselves, it found that “psychogenic” mass psychology effects may have played a role.

 

[Tranquility]

What are you gonna do, CRY about it? (Good God, NO!!! Any idea how much that will cost you?)

CPT Code 96127: How to Increase Revenue with This NEW Behavioral or Emotional Assessment

Woman charged for crying during surgery

 

[Planck]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/party-penthouse-civil-forfeiture-action-bc-supreme-court-sept-24-movassaghi-lawyer-brother-1.6192147

Fuck this Mohammad Movassaghi. He's fucked around, now he gets to find out.

 

[florduh]

Report: Up to half of $14 trillion in defense spending went to contractors - UPI.com

Up to one-half of the $14 trillion in Pentagon spending since the start of the global war on terror in 2001 has gone to defense contractors, according to a report released Monday.

www.upi.com

14 trillion on 2 wars of choice. About half of which was directly funneled to a handful of corporations. Basically no in power has ever balked at this price tag.

 

[macbill]

 

[kel]

Some thing just never change?

Quite a strong correlation...

Dropbox - File Deleted - Simplify your life

www.dropbox.com

(I hope inserting images returns soon - good luck fixing everything)

 

[BrianTL]

You know what the sad thing is, a "vaccine" should really have NOTHING to do with politics. What so ever. There is literally ZERO correlation unless people look for one.

Even more interesting is that former President Trump got the vaccine and encouraged all Americans to get it too, so I'm even more confused why this chart is implying Trump's influencing people to choose no vaccine? I dont see the relation there

Also interestingly enough, Florida, is one of the most vaccinated red states on that chart.

 

[kel]

You know what the sad thing is, a "vaccine" should really have NOTHING to do with politics. What so ever. There is literally ZERO correlation unless people look for one.

I think this sums up just how broken politics is in the world today.... they have 'had their chips' as they say, no one who has any modicum of intelligence or is capable of any critical thinking believes a _single_word_ out of *any* politicians mouth any more. They are all completely and utterly devoid of any credibility.

So when any of them stand up and say, "hey, there's this really bad virus, you should do this...", many people just laugh at them and look for the angle they are playing... which of course they totally are; the PPE scandal and the track and trace scandal are two extremely high profile easily verified instances of extreme greed and profiteering on the back of pain, suffering and death here in the UK. Which of course just throws thousands of tanker trucks full of highly flammable fuel on the conspiracy theory bonfires and ...

- then it's - oh look a fuel shortage!

Okay I am being silly in this last part of this last sentence, but the rest I believe accurately sums up why we are in this shit state of affairs where politics absolutely DOES have something to do with a vaccine and whether people take it or not!

p.s. Don't confuse the actual existence of a virus and a politician saying it exists - I don't believe it exists because BoJo the Clown tells me it exists, I believe it exists in spite of him telling me this, and every time he opens his mouth to try and tell me something my first instinct is to look for the lie, what he is covering up, how he can profit personally from it, etc.

 

[BrianTL]

I think this sums up just how broken politics is in the world today.... they have 'had their chips' as they say, no one who has any modicum of intelligence or is capable of any critical thinking believes a _single_word_ out of *any* politicians mouth any more. They are all completely and utterly devoid of any credibility.

So when any of them stand up and say, "hey, there's this really bad virus, you should do this...", many people just laugh at them and look for the angle they are playing... which of course they totally are; the PPE scandal and the track and trace scandal are two extremely high profile easily verified instances of extreme greed and profiteering on the back of pain, suffering and death here in the UK. Which of course just throws thousands of tanker trucks full of highly flammable fuel on the conspiracy theory bonfires and ...

Okay I am being silly in this last part of this last sentence, but the rest I believe accurately sums up why we are in this shit state of affairs where politics absolutely DOES have something to do with a vaccine and whether people take it or not!

Agreed, there is no credibility anymore. Whatsoever.

Just unfortunate, but the cats out of the bag now. At the Emergency Room they ask who you voted for and your answer determines where they put you. Political identity forever tied to your medical history

(Kidding, sarcasm)