2023-03-25
Irrational humans
I would have thought that a deadly pandemic would have united the human race to a common cause to defeat an enemy killing so many people. However, instead of the pandemic joining us, it divided us even further.
The evidence shows that the vaccine reduces your overall chances of dying by a considerable amount. Nevertheless, I daily see attacks on the vaccine as if it were some sort of plague. People have a right to make poor choices, but the amount of misinformation is vast, which affects people's ability to make decisions.
If COVID had a smallpox death rate then I don't think there would be any argument. Everybody would be lining up for the vaccine, regardless of any potential side effects. However, a death rate of 1% (or less) is still pretty significant if you or a loved one is the one who dies.
This has caused me to reflect on why humans are so irrational. I am seeing what I think is a common factor in how people make decisions. This ties into politics. I have long noticed people are much more intense about the things that they are opposed to. I am calling this the "boogeyman factor." The thinking is that those people over there are going to do something that we don't like so we are going to fight them no matter what. People naturally focus more on adverse outcomes because fear is the most powerful motivator. On the other hand, if you are a happy person who has few worries, which is almost no one, then you might not have much need for politics.
In our current era, we have become very tribal, with no middle ground or nuance. Ask anyone, regardless of party, about politics and they will name at least one evil person that needs to be defeated. It is human nature to need an enemy that we can fight, and in recent years we will vilify just about anyone.
When it comes to the vaccine there are quite a few "boogeymen", whether that be Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, "big pharma", or the government. There are a great many people who are thoroughly convinced that evil forces are trying to hurt us, by one means or another, so they are unwilling even to consider the vaccine because it comes from an evil source.
Once people make up their minds, confirmation bias becomes very strong. They will look only at evidence that supports their position while ignoring evidence to the contrary.
--
Best wishes,
John Coffey
The evidence shows that the vaccine reduces your overall chances of dying by a considerable amount. Nevertheless, I daily see attacks on the vaccine as if it were some sort of plague. People have a right to make poor choices, but the amount of misinformation is vast, which affects people's ability to make decisions.
If COVID had a smallpox death rate then I don't think there would be any argument. Everybody would be lining up for the vaccine, regardless of any potential side effects. However, a death rate of 1% (or less) is still pretty significant if you or a loved one is the one who dies.
This has caused me to reflect on why humans are so irrational. I am seeing what I think is a common factor in how people make decisions. This ties into politics. I have long noticed people are much more intense about the things that they are opposed to. I am calling this the "boogeyman factor." The thinking is that those people over there are going to do something that we don't like so we are going to fight them no matter what. People naturally focus more on adverse outcomes because fear is the most powerful motivator. On the other hand, if you are a happy person who has few worries, which is almost no one, then you might not have much need for politics.
In our current era, we have become very tribal, with no middle ground or nuance. Ask anyone, regardless of party, about politics and they will name at least one evil person that needs to be defeated. It is human nature to need an enemy that we can fight, and in recent years we will vilify just about anyone.
When it comes to the vaccine there are quite a few "boogeymen", whether that be Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, "big pharma", or the government. There are a great many people who are thoroughly convinced that evil forces are trying to hurt us, by one means or another, so they are unwilling even to consider the vaccine because it comes from an evil source.
Once people make up their minds, confirmation bias becomes very strong. They will look only at evidence that supports their position while ignoring evidence to the contrary.
--
Best wishes,
John Coffey
2023-03-24
2023-03-21
Perspective
Sometimes it is nice to have perspective. Our Milky Way Galaxy is 105,000 light-years (617 quadrillion miles) across.
This is an artist's rendering based on astronomical data. It is difficult to see everything because interstellar dust gets in the way. We used to think that our solar system was closer to the edge than it actually is. This was revised a few years ago.
I wondered why there are spiral arms. All the stars in the spiral arms should be moving at different speeds depending upon their distance from the center, so you would not expect them to clump together into a structure. The technical explanation as to why this happens is quite complicated, and there are multiple reasons for it. The Milky Way is so big that it has smaller galaxies orbiting around it, and their gravitational influence is part of the reason that the arms form.
In about 2.5 billion years, the Milky Way Galaxy will begin to collide with the bigger Andromeda Galaxy. Eventually, the two galaxies will merge into a larger galaxy.
2023-03-19
2023-03-17
2023-03-16
2023-03-15
2023-03-14
2023-03-11
2023-03-09
Tucker Carlson: Here is the truth
I would really like to trust Tucker Carlsen, but I can't. He repeatedly engages in conspiracy theories. His modus operandi is to spin partial truths to outrageous levels and then claim that there is a conspiracy to hide the truth.
The events of January 6th were terrible and by definition an insurrection. People on the right who I would normally respect have tried to spin this as a peaceful protest. Maybe for some, but it took a violent riot to break into the capital.
2023-03-08
Life Before the Internet… You had to do WHAT!
This should be self-evident, but I grew up (mostly) before computers, microwave ovens, CD's, DVD's, and VCR's. High tech was a stereo system, transistor radio, or color TV.
2023-03-07
M2 Mac Mini
I have come to believe that the M2 Mac Mini is a con and this is what we have come to expect from Apple. If you want the coolness of Apple products, then you have to pay the Apple Tax. The M2 Mac Mini is successful because Apple does a really good job of hyping its products.
I want a faster computer than what I have now, and the M2 is most definitely faster, but the base model has four times less memory and storage. Upgrading is cost-prohibitive because of what Apple charges for those upgrades, which I think is an insult. Once you buy it, you have a computer that is not upgradeable, won't run my Windows games, and could die in five years due to SSD failure that can't be repaired.
I recently saw a gaming PC on sale for $700. Not only did it have a faster processor, more storage, and 32 gigs of RAM, but those components can be replaced if they fail. Any decent PC could last up to 10 years.
There are mini PCs that can give the Mac Mini a run for its money. I'm holding out for the AMD 7940hs, which should be at least as powerful if not more so.
There are use cases, like content creation or app development, where the M2 processor with a memory upgrade might make sense.
COVID Numbers are down
The COVID numbers were somewhat steady for months, but have turned downward. We have gone from about 500 deaths per day, which seemed significant to me, to only about a hundred.
I was at the Columbus, Indiana hospital yesterday when they dropped their mask mandate.
Does this mean the Pandemic is over? Not for some people, but the rate of the disease doesn't seem very threatening right now.
This is not what I thought would happen. COVID is very good at both spreading and mutating, and given the number of people who aren't fully vaccinated, I thought that we would be dealing with this for many years.
I used to watch "Physics Girl" on Youtube. Her Long COVID has become so severe that it has become life-threatening. This is from an infection that she had eight months ago.
2023-03-04
Faraday Cage Physics EXPLAINED using 1843 Ice Pail Experiment and History
This topic interests me because I wonder what we would need to protect ourselves from an EMP attack.
2023-03-03
2023-02-27
Re: "Dilbert" Comic Strip BANNED Because of What Creator Scott Adams Said
https://youtu.be/6klhrni7fYg
It isn't helpful to further sow division.
The "I love White People" shirt the YouTuber is selling is a big disappointment because it is something the KKK would say. It is definitely coming across as racist.
I would rather say that I love all people, or all lives matter.
It isn't helpful to further sow division.
The "I love White People" shirt the YouTuber is selling is a big disappointment because it is something the KKK would say. It is definitely coming across as racist.
I would rather say that I love all people, or all lives matter.
2023-02-26
Human Trafficking vs Human Smuggling
I find this interesting...
"If a smuggler brings an illegal immigrant over at a non-designated point of entry, they are liable to pay a fine, be imprisoned for up to 10 years, or both. However, this is for a single smuggled immigrant. The punishment can multiply. In addition, the following consequences can occur:
If a person is seriously injured or put into jeopardizing situations, the prison sentence rises to up to 20 years
If the smuggling results in death, the imprisonment can increase the number of years to life in prison."
https://www.lawfirm1.com/removal-proceedings/immigrant-smuggling/
https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report/2017/CSReport-13-1.pdf
"If a smuggler brings an illegal immigrant over at a non-designated point of entry, they are liable to pay a fine, be imprisoned for up to 10 years, or both. However, this is for a single smuggled immigrant. The punishment can multiply. In addition, the following consequences can occur:
If a person is seriously injured or put into jeopardizing situations, the prison sentence rises to up to 20 years
If the smuggling results in death, the imprisonment can increase the number of years to life in prison."
https://www.lawfirm1.com/removal-proceedings/immigrant-smuggling/
https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report/2017/CSReport-13-1.pdf
2023-02-25
2023-02-24
2023-02-23
Dianna Cowern Physics Girl
This is popular Youtuber, Physics Girl, Dianna Cowern
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sOhdQNjmK_U
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sOhdQNjmK_U
Reportedly, she has been suffering from "Long COVID" since July. She has made this public.
Things got worse and she went to the ER last week.
She is clearly suffering because of this. I have long believed that COVID is something that we should take seriously. It is not an ordinary disease. It is not just the cold or a bad flu.
I looked to see if there is an update on her condition. Nothing yet.
2023-02-21
2023-02-18
2023-02-16
Brain injury after vaccination
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZhzWzoPB3M
John Coffey 0 seconds ago:
It is not clear to me that the vaccine causes an excess number of these cases. There is an assumed causality that is not proven.
The U.S. Government statistics show a much lower overall death rate among the vaccinated.
The quoted study concludes with ...
"Neurological manifestations following the SARS-CoV-2 vaccination have been reported, and although they are few in number, healthcare professionals should be alert to their presentation as a high vigilance and rapid response to these events are the need of the hour. Further investigations are required to establish a definitive causal association with the currently recommended vaccines. Until then, the benefit of protection against COVID-19 for both individuals and society is far greater than the hypothesized risk of these adverse events."
John Coffey 0 seconds ago:
It is not clear to me that the vaccine causes an excess number of these cases. There is an assumed causality that is not proven.
The U.S. Government statistics show a much lower overall death rate among the vaccinated.
The quoted study concludes with ...
"Neurological manifestations following the SARS-CoV-2 vaccination have been reported, and although they are few in number, healthcare professionals should be alert to their presentation as a high vigilance and rapid response to these events are the need of the hour. Further investigations are required to establish a definitive causal association with the currently recommended vaccines. Until then, the benefit of protection against COVID-19 for both individuals and society is far greater than the hypothesized risk of these adverse events."
2023-02-15
2023-02-14
2023-02-12
2023-02-11
2023-02-10
Yes, masks reduce the risk of spreading COVID, despite a review saying they don't
An updated Cochrane Review published last week is the latest to suggest face masks don't work in the community.
However there are problems with the review's methodology and its underpinning assumptions about transmission.
An RCT comparing occasional versus continuous use of respirators in health care workers showed N95 respirators and surgical masks were equally ineffective when only worn occasionally by hospital workers. They had to wear them all the time at work to be protected.
We also combined only apples and apples in a meta-analysis of two RCTs conducted in exactly the same way and measuring the same interventions and outcomes. We found N95 respirators provide significant protection against respiratory infections when surgical masks did not, even against infections assumed to be "droplet spread".
https://theconversation.com/yes-masks-reduce-the-risk-of-spreading-covid-despite-a-review-saying-they-dont-198992
However there are problems with the review's methodology and its underpinning assumptions about transmission.
An RCT comparing occasional versus continuous use of respirators in health care workers showed N95 respirators and surgical masks were equally ineffective when only worn occasionally by hospital workers. They had to wear them all the time at work to be protected.
We also combined only apples and apples in a meta-analysis of two RCTs conducted in exactly the same way and measuring the same interventions and outcomes. We found N95 respirators provide significant protection against respiratory infections when surgical masks did not, even against infections assumed to be "droplet spread".
https://theconversation.com/yes-masks-reduce-the-risk-of-spreading-covid-despite-a-review-saying-they-dont-198992
2023-02-09
2023-02-08
2023-02-07
2023-02-05
Richest Comedians in world 2023💰🙂
Check out the richest one...
John Coffey
0 seconds ago
That's not Mel Brooks. That's Carl Reiner.
2023-02-04
2023-02-03
COVID vaccines slash risk of spreading Omicron — and so does previous infection
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgrMzvasrm8&t=1100s
"Decreases in transmission of the delta variant were greater after two BNT162b2 vaccinations"
"The team found that among individuals with COVID-19, those who received at least one vaccine shot were 24% less likely to infect close contacts"
"This study confirms that COVID-19 vaccination reduces the risk of delta variant infection and also accelerates viral clearance in the context of the delta variant. However, this study unfortunately also highlights that the vaccine effect on reducing transmission is minimal in the context of delta variant circulation. These findings have immediate public health implications. Higher vaccination coverage rates need to be achieved because indirect protection from vaccinated to unvaccinated people remains suboptimal."
"Pfizer vax did reduce transmission of early variants"
"Researchers in the United Kingdom reported in a February observational study that Pfizer's vaccine helped cut transmission of the alpha and delta variants."
"Fact check: Vaccines protect against contracting, spreading COVID-19"
"Scientific studies show that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine reduces transmission"
"However, when booster vaccine doses reduce the risk of infection (as shown in the study by Spitzer et al2), then these boosters will also prevent transmission. As with all infectious diseases, the pathogen is required to cause the disease, and SARS-CoV-2 infection is the sine qua non for COVID-19. Prevention of infection results in prevention of potential onward transmission from all individuals who are spared the infection."
"New research suggests COVID-19 vaccines can slow the spread of disease, even with Omicron"
"Early data suggest infections in fully vaccinated persons are more commonly observed with the Delta variant than with other SARS-CoV-2 variants. However, data show fully vaccinated persons are less likely than unvaccinated persons to acquire SARS-CoV-2, and infections with the Delta variant in fully vaccinated persons are associated with less severe clinical outcomes. Infections with the Delta variant in vaccinated persons potentially have reduced transmissibility than infections in unvaccinated persons, although additional studies are needed."
"Instead, it's the principle that the UKHSA identified above: if you don't get infected in the first place thanks to a vaccine, you can't spread it. Once you're infected, you still can"
2023-02-02
Why Are American Health Care Costs So High?
Third-party payers constitute most of the healthcare. Reportedly, around 60% of healthcare is paid for by the government. The problem is there is very little free market competition. Nobody knows how much their healthcare costs, or if there might be a cheaper option.
One solution would be medical savings accounts with price competition.
One solution would be medical savings accounts with price competition.
Significant Events
Until recently, the most significant thing to happen in my lifetime was 9-11. It had a profound effect on this country and its foreign policy, and it also had a profound effect on me because I went to work for a defense contractor. It also temporarily brought Americans together to fight a common enemy.
In terms of the number of people affected, 9-11 is small potatoes compared to the COVID-19 pandemic. There have been 675 million cases worldwide, with 6.76 million deaths. In the United States, there have been 104 million cases with 1.1 million deaths. Roughly 1 out of every 300 Americans has been killed by COVID-19. However, when it comes to fighting the disease, this common enemy did not bring us together but made us more divided.
Perhaps the most important thing in the world right now is that we don't get into a nuclear war with Russia or China or any other potential adversary. Since this is not likely to happen, I'm not too worried about it.
So the second most important thing in the world is how we handle the COVID-19 pandemic both personally and in terms of public policy. The actions we take could save or cost lives.
Most people today see the pandemic in the rearview mirror. The public seems very lax. People stopped wearing masks. President Biden has declared May 11th the end of the COVID emergency. However, I think that it could be naive to think that COVID is over. We currently have around 500 deaths per day. New mutations keep popping up and some of these might not be so bad, but there is always the potential for a new deadly strain to arise. The XBB 1.5 variant is so infectious there is a possibility that everyone will get it, and it has killed 1,600 New Yorkers since December 1st.
I suspect that we will be fighting COVID for the rest of our lives.
Almost nobody has time to read scientific literature. This is one reason we pay politicians to make policy so that we don't have to sort through all the details ourselves. And most people are fine with that. However, only 68% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, with around 21% having never been vaccinated.
I am personally angry with the anti-vax crowd because they seem to only think about themselves. There are some very small risks associated with the vaccines, so many people assume that if they are young and healthy that they are better off not getting vaccinated. These assumptions may not be correct, since many young healthy people also have died from COVID-19. However, the reason for my consternation is that the anti-vax crowd seems to not care at all about people like my elderly mother whose health issues would make her extremely vulnerable to COVID. If a person chooses not to be vaccinated, then they are choosing to likely spread COVID to someone else, because the R factor of the Omicron variant is 3.4. In the past, anything with an R factor of 1 or higher was considered serious.
I like to say that the anti-vax crowd cherry-picks their data, but that is being generous. For the most part, they don't look at data. They see statements on social media, Youtube, and fringe conspiracy-theory websites made by very questionable people, and they believe in some of the most absurd positions as if they were gospel. I have spent 2 years fighting vaccine misinformation on the Internet, but I give up because apparently, you can't reason with irrational people.
I see claims every day that I know have been debunked by at least one scientific study. The most recent one is that the mRNA vaccines don't stop the spread of the disease. There are studies that say otherwise.
Some commentators who I would normally respect think that the government has been lying to us this whole time. They are calling for the prosecution of government officials for their "COVID lies".
What the data currently shows is that there is much lower overall mortality for people who have been vaccinated. There is a small health risk with the vaccines, but COVID-19 is no ordinary disease. It attacks every organ in the body. The health complications from COVID are far more dangerous than the vaccines.
Best wishes,
John Coffey
John Coffey
2023-02-01
“Objectivity Has Got To Go”: News Leaders Call for the End of Objective Journalism – JONATHAN TURLEY
Ted Glasser, insisted that journalism needed to "free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice." He rejected the notion that journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views "journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality." Thus, "Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it's hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity."
https://jonathanturley.org/2023/02/01/objectivity-has-got-to-go-news-leaders-call-for-end-of-objective-journalism/comment-page-1/
https://jonathanturley.org/2023/02/01/objectivity-has-got-to-go-news-leaders-call-for-end-of-objective-journalism/comment-page-1/
2023-01-31
Apple Working on 20.5-Inch All-Screen Foldable Notebook for 2025
it is still hard for me to get excited about tablet computers. This is described as a notebook, so does that make it a laptop replacement? If so, why would I need a laptop with no keyboard?
2023-01-28
2023-01-27
2023-01-25
2023-01-24
Crypto: The World’s Greatest Scam
I think that the title says it all.
Forty years ago people thought that antiques were a profitable investment. It was driven by a high demand for antiques, so people started looking at antiques as an investment. This was based on the "bigger fool theory", which was that you would buy the item solely as an investment, possibly paying more than its intrinsic value, and you hoped that there was a bigger fool out there who would pay you more money for it. The problem is that somebody is left holding the bag when demand goes down. This is a characteristic of many financial bubbles, the first of which started with tulips. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
The problem with crypto-anything is that it doesn't have an intrinsic value and the value is only driven by hype. As long as the hype continues, you can make money. But crypto doesn't have a use case that justifies its existence. Instead of being a useful alternate currency, it has turned into a get-rich-quick scheme.
2023-01-23
Vaccines Will Not Produce Worse Variants | Science | AAAS
'And past antibodies, there's the whole T-cell system - those T cells are looking to recognize human cells that have been attacked by the virus, whereupon they move in to kill them off before they can break open like a piñata and release a big pile of new viral particles. They are primed for this task by having pieces of viral proteins presented to them by other immune cells, and these T cells become specifically sensitized to the appearance of these in the future - these pieces get taken to the surface of infected cells by the MHC glycoproteins where the T cells can detect them. So you can see that in all of these cases, the key is protein surface recognition, which tells you how viruses can work their way around to evading such attacks. They have to change their surface proteins in such a way that they can still function, but that defeats that antibody/T-cell binding that the immune system has settled in on.
That's not so easy, because (for one thing) there are an enormous number of different antibodies involved (and an enormous number of T-cell recognition proteins). There are any number of ways to bind to a given protein target, and the adaptive immune system's whole function is to be ready for all kinds of targets and to hit them in all kinds of ways. And there's that constraint mentioned above: the virus still has to be able to function! Losing the entire Spike protein or mutating it completely beyond recognition would definitely evade vaccine-induced immunity, but it would also definitely produce a coronavirus that couldn't infect human cells in the way it's completely evolved to do. Coming up with a completely new infection route is (mutationally) extremely costly and complex, and not something that can be done "on the fly". Various coronaviruses use different human cell surface proteins to do their attack, but these have gradually developed and diverged over evolutionary time (hundreds of thousands, or millions of years) through untold numbers of tiny steps.
But it can be done, in principle. And as with everything in evolution, if it gets done at all, it'll get done by similarly untold numbers of individual mutants, and mutants on top of those mutants, until something appears that can both avoid being inactivated by the immune response and still infect cells and reproduce. There is no guarantee that such a virus can exist, and there is no guarantee that it can't. Evaluating the number of possibilies is frankly beyond computation - we didn't, for example, see the details of the Delta variant coming, and if you'd given someone that exact sequence last year, there's no guarantee that they would have been able to predict how much more infectious it would be.
The more chances you give the coronavirus to reproduce, the more mutations it will explore. Its proofreading system for reproduction is pretty good but not perfect, and that's where the mutations come from. It's a numbers game all the way. The virus is not thinking about how to evade vaccine-induced immunity; it's throwing stuff randomly against every available wall in every available direction, and whatever sticks gets a chance to go on throwing some more. Remember, an unvaccinated person is still mounting an antibody defense against the virus - they're just having to do it from scratch, rather than having a pre-primed leg up like someone who's been vaccinated. The longer these infections go on inside human bodies, the more bets the virus gets to put down on the table. The good news is that so far, there is not much evidence that the virus is doing much evasion inside a given person during the course of normal infection.
So one key way to cut down on the odds of a nasty mutant popping up is to just keep the virus from reproducing so much. Cut down on the number of people it infects. When it does infect people, cut down on the amount of time it spends reproducing inside the body. These countermeasures are exactly what a mass vaccination program does. Fewer people get infected in the first place, and when they do get infected, their disease course tends in the great majority of cases to be shorter and milder. A nasty variant is almost certainly going to come up by accident, so let's not have so many accidents going on constantly around the clock, around the world.
...
a true vaccine-evading mutant is going to need a set of several mutations (off the existing variants) all at the same time. The vaccine-induced immune response looks like it's knocking down a lot of these intermediate-step mutations before they can keep on throwing off subsequent mutations on top of the first ones. These pathways are choked off before they can even get explored, and this "evolutionary smothering" is something that you don't see so dramatically when you're doing those in vitro experiments with specifically targeted small molecules mentioned at the top of this post. A broad antibody and T-cell response is a different thing altogether.
There is, then, every reason at both the population and individual level to expect that vaccination will strongly decrease the chances of a more dangerous coronavirus strain taking hold. If we'd had them earlier and were able to deploy them quickly and widely enough, we never would have seen the Delta variant in the first place. If we keep deploying them now, we will keep worse variants from even being able to form. Anyone who tells you that vaccines will make things worse is at best deeply misinformed and at worst lying to you for profit.'
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/vaccines-will-not-produce-worse-variants
That's not so easy, because (for one thing) there are an enormous number of different antibodies involved (and an enormous number of T-cell recognition proteins). There are any number of ways to bind to a given protein target, and the adaptive immune system's whole function is to be ready for all kinds of targets and to hit them in all kinds of ways. And there's that constraint mentioned above: the virus still has to be able to function! Losing the entire Spike protein or mutating it completely beyond recognition would definitely evade vaccine-induced immunity, but it would also definitely produce a coronavirus that couldn't infect human cells in the way it's completely evolved to do. Coming up with a completely new infection route is (mutationally) extremely costly and complex, and not something that can be done "on the fly". Various coronaviruses use different human cell surface proteins to do their attack, but these have gradually developed and diverged over evolutionary time (hundreds of thousands, or millions of years) through untold numbers of tiny steps.
But it can be done, in principle. And as with everything in evolution, if it gets done at all, it'll get done by similarly untold numbers of individual mutants, and mutants on top of those mutants, until something appears that can both avoid being inactivated by the immune response and still infect cells and reproduce. There is no guarantee that such a virus can exist, and there is no guarantee that it can't. Evaluating the number of possibilies is frankly beyond computation - we didn't, for example, see the details of the Delta variant coming, and if you'd given someone that exact sequence last year, there's no guarantee that they would have been able to predict how much more infectious it would be.
The more chances you give the coronavirus to reproduce, the more mutations it will explore. Its proofreading system for reproduction is pretty good but not perfect, and that's where the mutations come from. It's a numbers game all the way. The virus is not thinking about how to evade vaccine-induced immunity; it's throwing stuff randomly against every available wall in every available direction, and whatever sticks gets a chance to go on throwing some more. Remember, an unvaccinated person is still mounting an antibody defense against the virus - they're just having to do it from scratch, rather than having a pre-primed leg up like someone who's been vaccinated. The longer these infections go on inside human bodies, the more bets the virus gets to put down on the table. The good news is that so far, there is not much evidence that the virus is doing much evasion inside a given person during the course of normal infection.
So one key way to cut down on the odds of a nasty mutant popping up is to just keep the virus from reproducing so much. Cut down on the number of people it infects. When it does infect people, cut down on the amount of time it spends reproducing inside the body. These countermeasures are exactly what a mass vaccination program does. Fewer people get infected in the first place, and when they do get infected, their disease course tends in the great majority of cases to be shorter and milder. A nasty variant is almost certainly going to come up by accident, so let's not have so many accidents going on constantly around the clock, around the world.
...
a true vaccine-evading mutant is going to need a set of several mutations (off the existing variants) all at the same time. The vaccine-induced immune response looks like it's knocking down a lot of these intermediate-step mutations before they can keep on throwing off subsequent mutations on top of the first ones. These pathways are choked off before they can even get explored, and this "evolutionary smothering" is something that you don't see so dramatically when you're doing those in vitro experiments with specifically targeted small molecules mentioned at the top of this post. A broad antibody and T-cell response is a different thing altogether.
There is, then, every reason at both the population and individual level to expect that vaccination will strongly decrease the chances of a more dangerous coronavirus strain taking hold. If we'd had them earlier and were able to deploy them quickly and widely enough, we never would have seen the Delta variant in the first place. If we keep deploying them now, we will keep worse variants from even being able to form. Anyone who tells you that vaccines will make things worse is at best deeply misinformed and at worst lying to you for profit.'
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/vaccines-will-not-produce-worse-variants
2023-01-22
2023-01-21
Burger King Bankruptcy. Hundreds of Stores Closing. Why?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGi0MOuYYdo
I'm a fan of Burger King, mostly because of their good coupon deals.
Gas stove fumes and broken public health discourse
Before anyone is bothered by a political topic, let me say that this guy tries to be middle of the road, possibly slightly left of center by my standards. He tries really hard to examine all sides of the issue, and I think he does a really thorough job here.
I'm personally not fond of gas stoves because I don't like having an open flame in my home. My house came with a gas stove and I use it.
Some people were joking, and they really just meant this as a joke and it shouldn't be taken too seriously, "You can have my gas stove when you pry it from my cold dead fingers."
2023-01-20
This is pure EVIL. 😡 - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NrSbVdhw_Sk
If you search Google over what country Shell Oil is from, you get the United States, but Shell is a subsidiary of Shell PLC, a company from The Netherlands, which apparently has a headquarters in London. It was Shell PLC that was causing all the problems in Nigeria.
From what I can tell, it is more of an international company.
Our Offer to Steven Crowder
This is an interesting soap opera between The Daily Wire and Stephen Crowder, both of which are prominent conservative streamers. Although reportedly they were on friendly terms, Stephen Crowder took offense to an offer made by The Daily Wire to join their company and publicized their presumably confidential negotiations in an attack video.
I don't see how The Daily Wire is at fault here. If Crowder didn't like their offer then that should have been the end of it, or he could have tried to negotiate a better deal.
I think that even highly successful people let emotion cloud their reason, if not more so because they are highly successful. Ego gets in the way.
A few years ago, Youtube streamers were on the fringe of media. Now they are endorsing products in national ad campaigns. I watch more Youtube than any other media or streaming service.
2023-01-17
Toby Young | This House Believes Woke Culture Has Gone Too Far - 3/8 | Oxford Union - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5an38n1yNL0
Critical Race Theory emerged around 1960 as an offshoot of Critical Marxism Theory. Inherent in its doctrine is the idea that contrary opinions are a form of violence and should not be tolerated.
2023-01-16
US Safety Agency to Consider Ban on Gas Stoves Amid Health Fears - Bloomberg
"A federal agency says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-09/us-safety-agency-to-consider-ban-on-gas-stoves-amid-health-fears
'Then a member of that five-person commission suggested to Bloomberg News in a story this week that a ban on new gas stoves could be one of many options to be pursued in the future. But the member, Biden nominee Richard Trumka Jr., had previously failed to get his fellow commissioners to support even regulating stoves, as POLITICO's E&E News reported Tuesday. Instead, the commission plans to gather "public input" on stoves' health hazards and possible solutions.
"I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so," Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric later said in a statement.
By then, though, the issue had escalated to culture-war level.'
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-09/us-safety-agency-to-consider-ban-on-gas-stoves-amid-health-fears
'Then a member of that five-person commission suggested to Bloomberg News in a story this week that a ban on new gas stoves could be one of many options to be pursued in the future. But the member, Biden nominee Richard Trumka Jr., had previously failed to get his fellow commissioners to support even regulating stoves, as POLITICO's E&E News reported Tuesday. Instead, the commission plans to gather "public input" on stoves' health hazards and possible solutions.
"I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the CPSC has no proceeding to do so," Chair Alexander Hoehn-Saric later said in a statement.
By then, though, the issue had escalated to culture-war level.'
There is a pattern that I see repeated so often that it must be deliberate: An outrageous idea becomes public. There is a huge backlash. Then the political left claims that we didn't understand and they never wanted to do what they previously said that they wanted to do.
2023-01-14
2023-01-13
CDC identifies possible 'safety concern' for certain people receiving COVID vaccines | Fox News
"Rapid-response investigation of the signal in the VSD raised a question of whether people 65 and older who have received the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, Bivalent were more likely to have an ischemic stroke in the 21 days following vaccination compared with days 22-44 following vaccination."
"Neither Pfizer and BioNTech nor the CDC or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have observed similar findings across numerous other monitoring systems in the U.S. and globally and there is no evidence to conclude that ischemic stroke is associated with the use of the companies' COVID-19 vaccines," the spokesperson continued.
"Compared to published incidence rates of ischemic stroke in this older population, the companies to date have observed a lower number of reported ischemic strokes following the vaccination with the Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent vaccine. The CDC continues to recommend vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent COVID-19 vaccine for all authorized ages and indications."
In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for Pfizer said, "Pfizer and BioNTech have been made aware of limited reports of ischemic stroke that have been observed in the CDC Vaccine Safety DataLink (VSD) database in people 65 and older following vaccination with the Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent COVID-19 Vaccine by Pfizer and BioNTech."
The agency also said that the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) managed by CDC and FDA has not seen an increase in reporting of ischemic strokes following the updated (bivalent) vaccine.
"Neither Pfizer and BioNTech nor the CDC or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have observed similar findings across numerous other monitoring systems in the U.S. and globally and there is no evidence to conclude that ischemic stroke is associated with the use of the companies' COVID-19 vaccines," the spokesperson continued.
"Compared to published incidence rates of ischemic stroke in this older population, the companies to date have observed a lower number of reported ischemic strokes following the vaccination with the Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent vaccine. The CDC continues to recommend vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent COVID-19 vaccine for all authorized ages and indications."
Indianapolis man killed in alleged road rage shooting on I-65
https://www.wrtv.com/news/local-news/crime/person-shot-in-apparent-road-rage-near-i-65-and-county-line-road
Once a week I briefly go westbound on County Line Road on my way to the Greenwood Chess Club after exiting I65 northbound. Here the victim was traveling eastbound after exiting I65 northbound.
2023-01-12
sleeping position prevents dementia
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Larry
Sleeping on your side is generally considered the healthiest sleeping position — this is because it gives good support for your spine, while also minimizing acid reflux.
On Thu, Jan 12, 2023 at 9:52 AM Larry wrote:
Sleeping in a certain position helps lower the risk of dementia, studies have found.
Sleep expert Narwan Amini said: "Sleeping on your side has been found to be the most beneficial position for your brain, with the position helping your brain to clear out interstitial waste faster than other positions.
"This leads to multiple benefits including potentially reducing the risk of developing neurological diseases such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's."
The sleeping position that slashes your risk of developing dementia (nypost.com)
2023-01-11
COVID vaccine related deaths
Andy Saffle
Well then someone needs to explain why the COVID Vaccinated men Are dropping like flies From Sudden Heart failure and that COVID Vaccinated men, for some odd reason have the highest Rates if Myocarditis ever seen...
Andy Saffle "Well then someone needs to explain why the COVID Vaccinated men Are dropping like flies From Sudden Heart failure".
This is a total lie.
With 200 million vaccinated people in the United States, a certain number of them are going to have adverse events regardless of whether they are vaccinated or not. The data showed a much lower death rate for vaccinated people, including non-COVID deaths.
John Coffey well that didn't age well did it.. I'm seeing 3 to 5 different #diedsuddenly stories daily. Mostly young athletes, men and women, died of some type of cardiac event... That MMA women prodigy who was 18 and literally just dropped dead.. her family released a photo of what the Morgue pulled out of her blood during embalming . I'm on top of this brother. I know of 200 others that have had similar clots pulled out during embalming... They only thing they have in common is the Covid Vaccine.. WHICH IS CAUSING MYOCARDITIS AND CLOTTING, and the manufacturers are admitting this.. they are also admitting this this MRNA tech.was never tested before release an authorization.. I'll gladly show some of the pictures of the clotting if you would like
John Coffey not even an hour difference and this one pops up( I know he isn't an athlete)
John Coffey here's another that popped this morning.. this guy definitely qualifies as an athlete
John Coffey
Anecdotal evidence is not scientific. People have been dying of heart attacks long before vaccines. The articles you quote don't mention the vaccine. Confirmation Bias causes people to believe Anecdotal evidence as proof because it confirms their preconceived notions.
We arrive at the truth through peer-reviewed studies that take into account how vaccines affect large groups of people.
The data shows that mRNA-vaccinated people have a lower death rate even from non-COVID illnesses. Whatever risk there may be is very low compared to the risk of COVID-19, which according to a study that I already quoted shows that the risk of myocarditis/pericarditis is 1000 to 2000 times higher with the disease than it is with the vaccine.
Although the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine was associated with rare blood clots, which caused it to be banned in some areas, there is no evidence that the mRNA vaccine causes blood clots.
Glenn Beck has trafficked in a ton of conspiracy theories. I don't consider him nor The Blaze to be a reliable source of information. You are being lied to by people who want to exploit you.
The most damning study I found said that the vaccine is associated with 2 deaths per million doses. Although that sounds high, that is low enough to be random noise when you consider that people die all the time from many causes. Meanwhile, in the United States, 1.1% of cases died from the disease with 1.1 million deaths. My cousin on her deathbed expressed regret about not getting the vaccine.
You can go through life believing in BS and that is your right. I just don't think that it is in your best interest. People who believe in these false theories put themselves and others at greater risk.
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