If Internet algorithms can't tell the difference between criticism and advocacy, what's safe to report? Why one filmmaker believes "YouTube is unfit for the purpose for hosting journalism."
I have long covid. My dr. rx'd ivermectin in December and it was a gamechanger for me. Took me from so debilitated and ill I was about to hire help, to being ok to manage on my own. Not a cure, but a huge shift in the right direction. The fact that this drug has been politicized and propagandized makes me want to give up on this damn country.
How dare your body respond to a medication that the great and good of this country have declared to be a veterinary drug of no merit against this plague of our time. Shame.
Assuming this is true, that is another indication that long COVID is caused by long-term low-level infection being maintained in some organ(s). We know Ebola does this in testes. We know that West Nile Virus does this in kidneys, and it may be a major reason for idiopathic kidney failure.
One issue with long-term infections is that this is a way that viruses can adapt and mutate.
Woman going downhill, doc uses ivermectin as last resort, she quickly gets better and gets out of ICU. New doc in the non-ICU wing of hospital refuses to use ivermectin because he is very smarter than everyone else, and she goes downhill again, heads to ICU, and family has to sue to get her on ivermectin again. That works and she's safe today.
Doing really well. Eating a version of the GAPS diet to heal my gut, and all kinds of meditation and other things to calm down my nervous system. Currently no long covid symptoms, just super weak from 14 months of illness.
Ditto. Long covid here as well. But it was only the animal dosage version that did it for me. Also helped my exercise routine. Feel like I can run a lot faster/longer now.
I'm certainly open to the idea that Ivermectin might do something, and since it's essentially harmless and normally used to treat all kinds of parasitic infections in humans, I fully believe that a COVID sufferer has an absolute right to try it. (Were not talking about poisonous chemotherapy drugs, so the risks are minimal and certainly consistent with the kinds of risks that we expect individuals to routinely judge for themselves.)
I do agree with you, though, that there may be a placebo effect here or worse, just a coincidence. People recover from long COVID, so how are we to know that the recovery wasn't just coincidental? The same phenomenon is at work in a lot of areas of medicine. Consider back problems and herniated disks. If you herniate a disk and are in severe pain, you can be evaluated by your physician, be recommended for surgery, have the surgery, and do physical therapy, and in around six months, you'll fully recover. In the alternative, if you show regular improvement, you can wait and recover. Did the surgery actually improve your condition, or did time improve your condition? Who can say? (I mention the example because I personally experienced the problem. I had a herniated disk with nerve involvement so extreme that I had flank spasms mistaken for a potential kidney stone. After relief of initial pain and a course of muscle relaxers, I wore lower-back supports and experienced a gradual improvement over seven months. I had an uncle with similar back problems at a similar age, and he opted for surgery. Surgery comes with post-surgical restrictions on movement essentially identical to the restrictions imposed on me by the back pain and that I followed out of necessity, and the recovery involved physical therapy with a recovery timeline of around six months. In my personal experience, the recovery without intervention was identical to the expected period of recovery with surgical intervention.) The fact is that when we're suffering, we have a bias toward action to correct the suffering, and when you do something and an effect coincides with the action, you can easily reach the mistaken conclusion that the action caused the result, a result that may have happened as a part of the normal process of recovery.
I think that a lot of people fail to understand the basic idea in this case. You can't take one example of a person taking Ivermectin and recovering and conclude much of anything. People recover all of the time both on and off Ivermectin. How do we identify real effects if you cannot confirm them from individual responses? You have to look at large populations and search for statistical evidence of an effect.
With Ivermectin and other treatments, I'm not so sure that there are meaningful studies to support an effect. To be fair to the believers in Ivermectin, I don't think that the powerful are allowing the studies for fear of vindicating the faith of the dirty masses, and they should allow the studies. The best way to restore trust between people of different levels of expertise and understanding would be to encourage large-scale studies and make the results available for all to see. If Ivermectic be ineffective, you won't persuade all of the faithful, but an openness to investigate, a willingness to risk being wrong, and the humility to admit the possibility of error or actual error would go a long way toward convincing the persuadable who rightly wonder what supposed experts have to hide.
No personal disrespect to the poster with the screen name "Nell Goddin", but- naturalistic photograph notwithstanding- the uncheckable claims of a basically anonymous poster on the Internet about their own medical experience don't even count as series-of-one anecdote, in terms of credibility.
This is a simple matter of skepticism. When it comes to personal anecdotes on the Internet, there are rules for assessing veracity (which is never going to be more than conditional), and medical claims require a lot more evidence than most topics. They also tend to be resistant to skeptical inquiry.
This comment is not to be read as a dismissive hand-wave of the possible therapeutic value of invermectin. I'm given to understand that reasonably rigorous studies of various sorts are being run on its possible uses against covid, and I'm waiting for more evidence to arrive before granting full credence to one position or another.
Nell my close friend of 30 years ended up in ICU for 6 days with blood clots in both lungs. My friend took the Pfizer vaccine. He’s a real person not a statistic. The hospital reported to VAERS. This is a fact. Glad to hear you are getting better from long Covid.
"it tends to have the impact of further convincing people that they’re being lied to by mainstream news and partners in Silicon Valley, which in turn might lead to urging people in the opposite direction of the content moderators’ intent"
I can attest this is absolutely true. Pretty much EVERYTHING I read and hear in mainstream media sources relating to any issue of substance, I almost automatically regard as misleading (at best). I consider ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and FOX first and foremost as sources of misinformation and propaganda.
"Pretty much EVERYTHING I read and hear in mainstream media sources relating to any issue of substance, I almost automatically regard as misleading (at best)."
That reminds me of an anecdote that I heard about Richard Helms, the director of the CIA back in the 60s. When one of his son's friends told him that he got most of his news from the networks he replied "Ignore that crap - it is all propaganda."
Of course as the man behind Operation Mockingbird he would know. I don't think much has changed.
This article (cited below) may be the most well researched and assessed information regarding the Covid-19 virus I've encountered thus far.💡☠ Wouldn't it be novel we could all put aside dogmatic differences, and try to find agreement; just for the fun of it❔
Even with a site that attracts a huge quotient of indisputably bigoted and willfully ignorant comment writers, I can often find insight- not derived from the content per se so much as in terms of the mentality of the posters. There's no need for "reading between the lines" to obtain those insights; the writers often give away more than they realize, quite openly.
And, yes, there is often a "real-life Idiocracy" entertainment factor involved.
The CIA was (and I am sure still very much is) a fun place. Just finished Mary's Mosaic and now working on The Devil's Chessboard. Both highly recommended.
Stopped mainstream media couple of month's ago and get all my information from the internet now. Feel so much more accurately and better informed ever since. Will never go back!
If you think the Internet is something, hit the stacks of a well-stocked college library on the subjects you're most curious about. It's much, much easier to search and browse.
Its so curious how CNN, for example, and its lack of integrity gets confused with YouTube, in the sense that their content makers are, in the former case, 100% centralized and controlled, versus the latter, rather 100% decentralized and free to create as they wish (the ideal).
The fascinating thing about Alex Jones is he takes really good info not found anywhere else, and mixes it with batshit crazy. The end result seems to be that the good info is discredited as 'crazy Alex Jones conspiracy theories'.
And that way all the factual info he presented gets discredited too by lumping it in with the bay shit crazy. Gee what a great way to discredit real info. Gordon Duff over at Veterans Today uses the same template!
Except nobody predicted the flooding this week. I mean *absolutely nobody in public service or the media* foresaw the possibility of people dying in basements and on highways in NYC. But when they tell you a Superblizzardnado is coming... you can be sure they will close schools for 2 inches of snow.
I have even come to the point where when the accuse the Right of doing something, I consider it a giveaway to their own action. Not that the Right doesn't have its own problems. I didn't vote for Trump you understand, stupid, inchoate clown. Did I do that correctly Matt? or are we past that pro forma declaration yet?
If anybody is interested, Merck is developing Molnupiravir (MK-4482)as a therapeutic to treat COVID-19 infections. It is in Phase 3. Merck received a base award amount of $1.2 bil on 6/7/21 from the federal government representing 1.7 mil doses; do the math. Link to comparison of Molnupiravir v. Ivermectin: https://austinpublishinggroup.com/pharmacology-therapeutics/fulltext/ajpt-v9-id1149.pdf
Not surprisingly, the two are similar. With neither showing any serious adverse side effects. "Molnupiravir is a pro-drug of the novel active antiviral nucleoside analogue ... It's a broad spectrum antiviral agent. ... Ivermectin is a broad-spectrum, anti-parasitic, antibiotic and which has demonstrated broad-spectrum antiviral activity" ... Merck had the patent on Ivermectin until 1996. So it is not a coincidence that they have developed this very expensive drug, Molnupiravir, funded by the US taxpayer and which is similar. It follows, then, why there is so much disparagement of Ivermectin. If widely accepted, it could rain on Merck's parade and greatly embarrass BARDA. What I cannot grasp is that for the 10 months when the vaccines were being developed, certain caring, critical care physicians sought out existing drugs and developed protocols. These have been changed multiple times and are currently undergoing more changes to address the variants issue. The FLCCC Alliance recommends the use Ivermectin as part of more expansive protocols which they have developed for the prophylaxis and treatment of COVID-19 at all stages by both the vaxxed and the un-vaxxed. These physicians should be lauded, not abused.
J&J did the same thing with Ketamine. (Off-patent since ~1982) IIRC, its an isomer of Ketamine, re-branded "Spravato" (esketamine) and is now many multiples more expensive. We keep falling for the same old crap. :-(
The only good-ish news here is that generic ketamine can still be prescribed cheaply and “off-label”. I’m a prescriber and that’s what I do when I think ketamine will be helpful. Have many colleagues who do the same. All the excellent research is on generic ketamine, with a much smaller body of evidence on esketamine/spravato. Are: Ivermectin, this next part is here-say, but would love to know if anyone here has encountered these situations… A pro-ivermectin pharmacist friend of mine told me that major pharmacies have been refusing to fill ketamine prescriptions that patients bring in from verified medical providers as policy. Further, he claimed that the providers who prescribe it are being flagged and reported (to whom, I’m not sure). Anyone know the veracity of these claims?
The only good-ish news here is that generic ketamine can still be prescribed cheaply and “off-label”. I’m a prescriber and that’s what I do when I think ketamine will be helpful. Have many colleagues who do the same. All the excellent research is on generic ketamine, with a much smaller body of evidence on esketamine/spravato. Are: Ivermectin, this next part is here-say, but would love to know if anyone here has encountered these situations… A pro-ivermectin pharmacist friend of mine told me that major pharmacies have been refusing to fill ketamine prescriptions that patients bring in from verified medical providers as policy. Further, he claimed that the providers who prescribe it are being flagged and reported (to whom, I’m not sure). Anyone know the veracity of these claims?
Bingo...I've been following the application of ivermectin for long-term covid in Israel. There has been notable success...again, never really followed by mainstream, commercial media here...a profit motive is likely.
Posting comments full of disinformation while complaining of the same is disingenuous (to put it mildly).
1. Molnupiravir and ivermectin are NOT similar chemically.
2. They do NOT have the same mechanism of action.
3. Molnupiravir is NOT the only antiviral nucleoside analog - remdesivir, fapipiravir and a few others belong to the same group, all of them tried as a treatment of Covid-19.
4. Merck is NOT the only pharma company developing antiviral drugs with this type of activity (inhibitors of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase). A connection with ivermectin exists only in your imagination.
And no, I'm not associated in any way with Merck or any other pharmaceutical company or any company working on Covid-19 treatment.
Now to ivermectin.
There are 7 studies on prophylactic use of ivermectin, all of them small and therefore subject to various biases. All reported favorable results with ivermectin vs control, but all used different protocols (doses, frequency, duration, combination with other drugs, reported outcomes). Carvallo study - the darling of ivermectin crowd - actually used a combination of weekly ivermectin with a nasal spray of carrageenan. Without control groups that had only ivermectin or only carrageenan. As it was pointed out repeatedly (and should be obvious to anyone with scientific background), that's a terrible study design. You never know what worked - ivermectin or carrageenan or both.
It's even worse with mild COVID cases - half of about 10 studies found no difference between ivermectin and control. Again, with the caveat that all of them were small, poorly designed, used completely different protocols, and are pretty much useless in terms of development of a treatment protocol. The only reliable data on ivermectin is in the treatment of severe cases in hospital setting, where it is clearly beneficial. There are no published studies on ivermectin efficacy in "long Covid" treatment, but both for severe cases and for "long Covid" doctors will readily prescribe it as a compassionate use drug.
So, to summarize...
There is no conspiracy between doctors, CDC and pharma companies to prevent people from accessing a cheap life-saving treatment. Ivermectin will be prescribed to you if its use is justified (like in the case of severe or "long" Covid). There is no advantage to ivermectin as compared to vaccination, and there is no reason for people to start dosing themselves with ivermectin as an alternative to vaccines.
Especially since ivermectin - like any other wide-spectrum anti-parasitic drug - is not without problems. It's been learned from many decades of using ivermectin in tropical countries (look up "Mectizan Donation Program") that it is associated with higher rate of asthma and skin allergies, like eczema and atopic dermatitis. Especially in children. And repeated treatment with ivermectin induces resistance in helminths (worms). Remember, ivermectin is not only a "horse dewormer", it's also a safe and cheap dewormer of other farm animals. Last thing you want to do is start using it indiscriminately, like antibiotics were used in the past. Anybody wants to pay a premium for their food? Or go back to the time when all meats had to be cooked through and through, until nearly inedible, to avoid helminth infection?
Hi Tashaj, Whatever you say about Molnupiravir and Ivermectin is fine with me. You can trash my comment until the cows come home. You're the boss. You know it all. Me? I'm more impressed by results. And by the 64 trials and 31 randomized controlled trials which support Ivermectin. So regardless of how you cherry-pick the data, I'll just keep taking my doctor-prescribed dose twice a week. Along with the suggested supplements. And I'll keep wearing an N95 indoors in public places. And so far, in an area which is dense with Delta, I have avoided infection. PS I am well over 65 years of age, to boot.
Thanks for the solipsistic update on your superhero-like methods deployed and successes realized in your battle with Coronazilla. Boorish. Almost beyond belief, but...
No. Tess Lawrie’s peer-reviewed meta analysis doesn’t even rely on the studies you and the subject of Matt’s story both like to pretend are the heart of the argument. And talking about using ivermectin post hospitalization makes clear you don’t understand the disease course of covid at all. Also, if you want to pretend that a coordinated nationwide campaign to dismiss ivermectin as a “veterinary” pharmaceutical in every headline, then you are best naive if not outright lying.
I think it’s time to divest doctors of the right to prescribe and let patients decode for themselves, as is done in many countries. It’s okay if you disagree, but it doesn’t matter if you do.
"a coordinated nationwide campaign to dismiss ivermectin as a “veterinary” pharmaceutical in every headline," - did you leave out "there is not"? Because it's plain for everyone to see. Even Ryan Grim of Intercept, who used to be pretty good. I really wonder where the memo came from and how it's enforced. Any journalistic whistle-blowers out there?
Yes, typo. Oh the answer to your question can be easily found. Look at the article on how the FDA manipulates the media in the recent issue of Scientific American.
Tess Lawrie has been "decoded" as an uber-quack, which indeed she is--in spades. Not to mention a quack-grifter. And the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) is little more than a criminal organization committing wholesale fraud.
And while we divest "doctors of the right to prescribe and let patients decode for themselves," why don't we go ahead and divest auto mechanics of the right to overhaul transmissions and perform brake jobs. Let the motorists of the land decode for themselves, I say!
Ivermectin; IVM (red block) inhibits and disrupts binding of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein at the ACE-2 receptors (green). The green dotted lines depict activation pathways and the red dotted lines depict the inhibition pathways. The TLR-4 receptors are directly activated by SARS-CoV-2 and also by LPS mediated activation (seen during ICU settings) causing activation of NF-Kb pathway and MAP3 Kinases leading to increased intranuclear gene expression for proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines (responsible for cytokine storm) and NO release (responsible for blood vessel dilatation, fluid leak, low blood pressure, ARDS and sepsis). The NF-Kb and STAT-3 pathway activation is central to the pathogenesis and sequelae of COVID-19. STAT-3 physically binds to PAK-1 and increases IL-6 transcription. The annexin A2 at the cell surface converts plasminogen; PLG to plasmin under the presence of t-PA. Plasmin triggers activation and nuclear translocation of STAT-3. An upregulation of STAT-3 stimulates hyaluronan synthase-2 in the lung cells causing hyaluronan deposition leading to diffuse alveolar damage and hypoxia. STAT-3 also directly activates TGF-beta initiating pulmonary fibrosis; a typical characteristic of SARS-COV-2 lung pathology. The damaged type 2 cells express PAI-1 and an already hypoxic state also causes an upregulation of PAI (through Hypoxic inducible factor-1) along with direct stimulation by STAT-3. Simultaneous STAT-3 and PAI-1 activation inhibits t-PA and urokinase-type plasminogen activator leading to thrombi formation. Also, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binds to the CD147 on red blood cells and causes clumping. IVM in turn, binds to SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein and hence prevents clumping. T cell lymphopenia in COVID-19 can also be attributed to the direct activation of PD-L1 receptors on endothelial cells by STAT-3. IVM directly inhibits the NF-kb pathway, STAT-3, and indirectly inhibits PAK-1 by increasing its ubiquitin-mediated degradation. The natural antiviral response of a cell is through interferon regulatory genes and viral RNA mediated activation of TLR-3 and TLR7/8- Myd88 activation of transcription of interferon-regulator (IRF) family. For a virus to establish an infection, this antiviral response needs to be inhibited by blocking interferon production. The proteins such as importin and KPNA mediate nuclear transport of viral protein and subsequent IFN signaling. The SARS-CoV-2 proteins (ORF-3a, NSP-1, and ORF-6) directly block IFN signaling causing the surrounding cells to become unsuspecting victims of the infection. IVM inhibits both importin a-b (green) as well as the KPNA-1 receptors (brown) causing natural antiviral IFN release. IVM also inhibits viral RdrP, responsible for viral replication. IVM Ivermectin, ACE-2 angiotensin-converting-enzyme 2, LPS Lipopolysaccharide, TLR Toll-like receptor, t-PA tissue-like plasminogen activator, PLG Plasminogen, IMPab Importin alpha-beta, Rdrp RNA dependant RNA polymerase, KPNA-1 Karyopherin Subunit Alpha 1, NF-kB nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells, Map3Kinases Mitogen-activated Kinases, PAK-1 P21 Activated Kinase 1, STAT-3 Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3, PAI-1 Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1, HIF-1 Hypoxia-Inducible Factor
IVM Ivermectin, ACE-2 angiotensin-converting-enzyme 2, LPS Lipopolysaccharide, TLR Toll-like receptor, t-PA tissue-like plasminogen activator, PLG Plasminogen, IMPab Importin alpha-beta, Rdrp RNA dependant RNA polymerase, KPNA-1 Karyopherin Subunit Alpha 1, NF-kB nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells. The proteins such as importin and KPNA mediate nuclear transport of viral protein and subsequent IFN signaling. Winter is icummen in,Lhude sing Goddamm. Raineth drop and staineth slop, And how the wind doth ramm! Sing: Goddamm. Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us, An ague hath my ham. Freezeth river, turneth liver, Damn you, sing: Goddamm. Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,So 'gainst the winter's balm. Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm. Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM. SARS-CoV-2 proteins (ORF-3a, NSP-1, and ORF-6) directly block IFN signaling causing the surrounding cells to become unsuspecting victims of the infection. The natural antiviral response of a cell is through interferon regulatory genes and viral RNA mediated activation of TLR-3 and TLR7/8- Myd88 activation of transcription of interferon-regulator (IRF) family. The TLR-4 receptors are directly activated by SARS-CoV-2 and also by LPS mediated activation (seen during ICU settings) causing activation of NF-Kb pathway and MAP3 Kinases leading to increased intranuclear gene expression for proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines (responsible for cytokine storm) and NO release (responsible for blood vessel dilatation, fluid leak, low blood pressure, ARDS and sepsis).The natural antiviral response of a cell is through interferon regulatory genes and viral RNA mediated activation of TLR-3 and TLR7/8- Myd88 activation of transcription of interferon-regulator (IRF) family. For a virus to establish an infection, this antiviral response needs to be inhibited by blockin.g interferon production. IVM Ivermectin, ACE-2 angiotensin-converting-enzyme 2, LPS Lipopolysaccharide, TLR Toll-like receptor, t-PA tissue-like plasminogen activator, PLG Plasminogen, IMPab Importin alpha-beta, Rdrp RNA dependant RNA polymerase, KPNA-1 Karyopherin The damaged type 2 cells express PAI-1 and an already hypoxic state also causes an upregulation of PAI (through Hypoxic inducible factor-1) along with direct stimulation by STAT-3. Simultaneous STAT-3 and PAI-1 activation inhibits t-PA and urokinase-type plasminogen activator leading to thrombi formation. Also, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binds to the CD147 on red blood cells and causes clumping. NO release (responsible for blood vessel dilatation, fluid leak, low blood pressure, ARDS and sepsis). The NF-Kb and STAT-3 pathway activation is central to the pathogenesis and sequelae of COVID-19. STAT-3 physically binds to PAK-1 and increases IL-6 transcription. The annexin A2 at the cell surface converts plasminogen; PLG to plasmin under the presence of t-PA. Plasmin triggers activation and nuclear translocation of STAT-3. An upregulation of STAT-3 stimulates hyaluronan synthase-2 in the lung cells causing hyaluronan deposition leading to diffuse alveolar damage and hypoxia.
Nate: I cannot account for a single study by Dr. Carvallo, but what I can do is refer you here: https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/ where you can read extensively about the scientific rationale justifying the use of Ivermectin in COVID-19.
The Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) is little more than a criminal organization committing wholesale fraud. Pierre Kory and Joe Mercola are uber-quacks and sordid grifters on the double-make. Glad your healthy, but your personal anecdote is as meaningless as my anecdote documenting the scrape I healed by using a toothpaste/vaseline pumice.
It amuses me that you actually perceive that there are interests out there that would willingly pay me for the type of comments I make here. It embarrases me. Because when I check my online banking balance, I am SO TRANSPARENTLY not being paid for this shit. You're the expert---line me up some paid gigs and I'll split the proceeds 50/50 with you. Deal?
The most important issue in this piece is not whether ivermectin is an efficacious treatment for Covid. The biggest issue is whether we, as free people with freedom of speech and thought, are to be allowed to hear all sides and judge for ourselves. That's an issue that transcends YouTube. One of the most exceptional things about America is that the founders really trusted that the great mass of people could actually govern themselves, and that they could be trusted to speak and think freely. That concept flies in the face of most of human history, wherein those in power tend to hold tightly the reins of information, in the belief that people aren't to be trusted with "dangerous" ideas.
As Matt rightly notes, any attempt to censor simply leads people to believe that someone is hiding something. We should demand free and open debate on EVERYTHING to do with Covid, even theories that some might find absurd. Trust the people.. the truth will rise to the surface. You'll convert many skeptics if they feel that there is total transparency. To think otherwise is to adopt the thinking of tyrants and dictators.
They don't trust us with the information, so they censor or actually, lie. These are two bad things. One leads to loss of freedom; the other loss of trust. We need both freedom and trust.
"One of the most exceptional things about America is that the founders really trusted that the great mass of people could actually govern themselves, and that they could be trusted to speak and think freely."
The first part might be true if you define the great mass of people as white male property owners. As for the second, let's not forget the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts.
You must be grateful to live in a country whose self-correcting system allows the mass of people to continually move closer to its founding ideals. That means we have the wherewithal to fight ideas like the internment of Japanese citizens in 1941 by F.D.R., escalation of the Viet Nam war by LBJ and Nixon and Internet censorship today.
And yet, those so-called "self-correcting systems" failed to stop even *one of the things you mention above. And, the Japanese were not interned in 1941. Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7th, 1941 leaving three weeks remaining in 1941 to take retaliatory action. The U.S. declared war on Japan, Dec. 8, 1941.
According to nps.gov: "On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the US Army to remove all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast and imprison them without due process of law."
There is no real advantage in quoting history if we are not interested in the accuracy of our facts.
Doesn't change the essence of the argument. It also doesn't change the fact that these ideas keep coming up, such as banning free speech, or excommunicating vaccine resistors from society.
Wow you are SOOO TOTALLY GENIUS? I have LITERALLY never read ANYTHING about HISTORY before your COMMENT? which is SO TOTALLEH AHXMAZING. you must be a genius no srsly.
People who don’t pay taxes really cannot be trusted to choose tax rates for others. We’ve proven this. Race aside, having or not having skin in the game distorts democracy to the point of collapse.
I agree. But it's the people who "don't pay taxes" who are currently running the country into the ground. Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.---who entrusted these motherfuckers to choose our tax rates? Some skin in the game and some dog teeth in the pot---ya! Don't worry about race, though. They mostly white motherfuckers with nothin' but foreskin in the game.
Well that's a lie. The wealthy pay taxes. Corporations never pay taxes, wage earners do. You're spewing tropes and lies because you don't actually understand how this works.
Nicely observed. Even under that *stirring and *soaring Jeffersonian Statement: "All men are created equal ....." in Jefferson's day, "men" were *legally defined as: FREE.
WHITE. MALE. LANDOWNERS. OVER TWENTY-ONE. The *mistake of thinking that "All men are created equal.... even CAN be interpreted by today's standards without a string of pretzel logic that would break one's very *neck, is not only silly, but textbook definition naive. These facts *fully underscore many modern *misinterpretations of the "intent" of the Founders - people presuming a 21st Century interpretation of language written (in this example) in the mid-1700s.
Its insane to suggest that people who don't work, don't own land and don't produce anything of value, regardless of race or gender, shouldn't be allowed to vote.
It should also be insane to believe that these voters should have the right to vote for the removal of my property to be paid to them. The problem is that it isn't, in fact, its supported by a majority of the idiots we have voting today. Without defined rights, majority rule is tyranny by a different name.
"People who don't work...and don't produce anything of value..." You mean like hedge fund managers, investment bankers and Big Tech workers? And not to worry---nobody will be "voting" for the right to remove your property or my property or anybody's property. That will all be accomplished systematically and without any poll tallies. You and millions of others are, myself included, a few short years away from the great anthropocene frog march to the Yukon gulags, to cultivate root vegetables and work in the hydrogen factories, in the service of The New Climate World Order. So don't sweat it.
That was certainly the view of the Founders. One man, one vote style democracy was defined *by them as the equivalent of "Fifty-one percent mob rule". The way people think of "Democracy" today is FAR removed from the way it was considered at the time of its U.S. Founding.
And, Sir, what is, or is *not "insane to suggest" is a matter for you to take up with Thomas Jefferson, not with yours truly.
The Founders were not "whack" when they were dealing with Thirteen Rather Sparsely populated podunk little Colonies. Isn't is just a *bit "whack" to wrench the Founders out of their own time period when literally *most people were fully illiterate, and *then to judge them by the Standards of Today, with the land area of today's U.S. and possessions, and the FACT of 330 Million people ? Given the facts on the ground in the Founder's day, throwing shade upon their accomplishments says *far more about today's commentator than about the actual Founders themselves. The Founders did NOT walk on water. There.
That they did not anticipate things like today's Big Pharma ? They actually did, even tho no one in those days could imagine the Global Size and Clout of Big Pharma:
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
Thomas Jefferson
So, they didn't anticipate McDee's by name. What a bunch of dunderheads !
Yes, you've hit on a very interesting phenomenon: the idea that today's mid-wit students and professors are somehow qualified to judge not just those who are alive today, but also everyone who EVER LIVED. That, along with the idea that everyone falls into just two groups, victim or victimizer, is another tenant of Marxism.
Times change, but human nature doesn't. The founders knew that centralized, top-down power is the worst way of organizing a civilization. Power corrupts, and there is more money and more power concentrated in Washington DC than anywhere at anytime in history. The only real solution to corruption is to start chipping away at that power. Unfortunately, these people have many ways to defend their positions, and will not hesitate to use them, as we've seen.
You're a rather vague, opaque kinda guy. "Chipping away?" This sounds more like a strategy that Mary Poppins might employ to get Bert over for afternoon tea. And then once you urge us to start this "chipping away" process you seem to give up the ghost by declaring, with confidence lacking, that "unfortunately these people have many ways to defend their positions." No flanking maneuvers in your strategic handbag? I daresay, you're going to have a hard go of it enlisting others to bivouac with you with that sort of strategic hesitancy. I mean, I'm not suggesting a full-on banzai charge here, but if these people indeed "have many ways to defend their positions" as you say, something more than a few ice hammers will have to be put to use if victory is to be achieved and a short walk to the gallows forestalled. I mean, really...
"One more time, for all the old times...." Historical figures can be judged ONLY by the conditions and *contexts of their OWN time periods. So, before digging up all of the impotent name-calling such as "Marxist", et al, just NOTICE that judging people according TO their own time period is just *logically self-evident.
So, to whatever degree your ability for reading comprehension allows, or disallows you to *grasp the foregoing, I am not interested in addressing, because I learned in Logic 101 to waste no time with "Strawman Arguments".
If you would reread my comment, you would "comprehend" that I'm adding to your argument, not denying it. But you can't have a discussion with someone who just wants to argue at any price.
Your original thesis seemed to be that America has never been perfect, therefore there is nothing about our country that merits preservation. That's a much over-used rhetorical device that is as vile as it is false.
One MORE time. My "original thesis" is not a thesis. It is a fact of basic LOGIC, to wit: "We cannot accurately judge ANY historical figure OUT of the context of their OWN time period !" I just cannot *make it any more simple than that, and, this (really, I promise this time) is my *final effort in repeating that statement. Readers can either fully *ignore it, or do with it what they will, but I am *not going to continue going all "broken record" on it ! Thank you for the discourse.
That’s like saying that the past, present and future are each demarcated from each other and no comparisons or symmetries are acceptable. Geez, how would we know there was time or temporality other than the present??
The Founders most DEFINITELY did not trust "the great mass of people." And like it or not, the functioning of a healthy modern society depends on the work and judgements of experts. Unquestionably, Big Pharma and the entire edifice of the American health care system require extensive and revolutionary reform. In the meantime, allowing quacks, charlatans, grifters, and quick-buck artists in through the backdoor is, to say the least, NOT what the doctor ordered.
You're wrong on the Founders. They set a system in motion that was founded on principals that were pointing us toward freedom and justice.
"Experts" are great, but what do we do when so many experts disagree? Do we allow the government to choose which experts we can hear, and those whose opinions we're not allowed to hear? Over time, the truth does rise to the surface. If that isn't true, then we should simply acquiesce to the "progressive" (regressive) idea that we must be ruled by an elite group of experts, who feed us only what they want us to know.
Read more, comment less. I'm not wrong on the Founders. Read more, comment less. I've spent a lifetime reading and re-reading the many of the best secondary monographs on American colonial history.
"...They set a system in motion that was founded on principals [principles, not principals] that were pointing us toward freedom and justice." This is insipid--- mewling meaninglessness. It is not a refutation of my comment in any way. It's as airy and hollow as a Hallmark greeting card verse. Read the Federalist Papers, particularly Madison. I can also furnish you a long reading list of superb scholarship that will introduce you to the the founder's well-documented wariness of the common rabble. Read more, comment less. Opinions are worthless. Remember that the next time you have one.
"Experts" are great, but what do we do when so many experts disagree? Do we allow the government to choose which experts we can hear, and those whose opinions we're not allowed to hear?" Experts always disagree. When have experts not disagreed? That's what experts do best--disagree. To take your beloved founders as an example, they made a religion of disagreeing with one another.
If you don't like what a certain group of experts are offering, start reading some more. Less commenting, more reading. If you don't subscribe to the prevailing opinions or ideas, read some more so you're able to formulate your own coherent opinions, buttressed by documented facts, not cheaply manufactured propaganda. Read more, comment less.
Your scholarly devotion has devolved into Internet trolling and insults. For someone who holds their own scholarship in such high regard, you lower yourself to cheap insults.
The Founders' concern about the "rabble" lead them to form a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy. Does that mean they didn't trust the people? No. It meant they didn't trust the passions of the day, and wanted to slow things down with a more deliberative process.
You're extremely proud of your ability to read, perhaps you're the one who should search out more facts and opinions before you spout. Then you might not be so certain that "experts" should rule over the rabble.
Huh-uh. When a specific strain of "stupid" becomes anathema and too threatening to American elites, the first order of the day for state gauleiters will be to direct their propaganda field operatives to substack comment sections like this one.
So there’s a theory that if a bunch of chimps pound away at keyboards long enough, they’ll come up with Shakespeare. Now we can see that isn’t true. Hunter Thompson is dead.
I hate to be "WELL AKSHULLY" guy, but I'm gonna have to be.
Galileo was right, but only by accident. Resistance to heliocentricism had almost nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with science. The best science of the day indicated that Galileo had gone way beyond the data they had available. Most SCIENTISTS thought heliocentricism was wrong, based largely on older Greek work that was entirely reasonable based on the then current data. It wasn't until better telescopes provided more accurate data that a serious case for heliocentricism could be made.
How this applies to our present situation is left as an exercise for the reader.
Copernicus asserted heliocentrism on the basis of observations, likewise Bruno confirmed Copernicus’ “theory” on the basis of observations, and Galileo doubly confirmed the heliocentric model with observations of the Moon’s surface, of the phases of Venus, and of sunspots on the Sun, among other discoveries from observation, eg Jupiter.
This was the time when conceptualuzation was being criticized by induction via Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, etc. Galileo was under intense pressure from authorities, as the assertion of heliocentrism was considered heresy. So, it was not by accident that Galileo was right. See Feyerabend on Galileo.
eh, in the cosmological sense- beyond the orbital bias conferred by planetary revolution around a type G star- relative perspective applies; there's no objective reason why each of our personal locations on this planet is not, in fact, the "center of the universe."
The more important question is: what makes it important? For someone concerned with, say, satellite launches, the reality of earth orbit around the sun is proof of an imperative principle of physics; in considerations of the philosophy of being, it's practically irrelevant.
It's a terrible shame that the Roman Catholic hierarchy of the day was so insecure about early astronomical researches that they felt the need to pass sweeping judgements about the findings, and the discoverers.
If iv*rmectin was so ineffective, they wouldn't be so against it. Nobody cares about cranks who talk about how the earth is flat or if the moon landing wasn't real, or who advocate taking horse painkillers like ketamine to treat mental health issues - yet they're very concerned with shutting this topic down. Why?
Or how about "vaccine is ineffective". Two Pfizer shots Apr 15 and May 2; caught COVID with a positive test on 8/19. MIL had her J&J shot in late June, caught COVID with a positive test date of 8/24.
Outcomes for the two of us were totally similar with my wife's, who took no vaccine but IS taking ivermectin. Positive test on 8/24, asymptomatic now.
Try this one on: current policies dictate that after a positive COVID test, you're considered infectious and _no one can visit you_. My wife broke her leg last weekend and my MIL had some heart palpitations caused by overly thin blood as a result of the cold medications she was taking for COVID interacting with the warfarin she takes. In both cases I couldn't even visit them or act as an advocate in the hospital because I was going to catch the COVID I probably brought home to them in the first place and was definitely immune to.
I know public health policy is hard, but this is exceedingly dumb at this point.
Amen. I wouldn't say I've been ignoring policy, for example, I wear masks because they are easy and I dont want to cause a fuss, the people at my grocer don't get paid enough to deal with it, but at some point, ignoring the authorities becomes the only viable way of dealing with them.
I live in a lake community south of Charlotte, NC, so I am in SC but on the border with NC. NC has a mask mandate and SC doesn't. I simply refuse to go over the border for anything anymore, despite my typical errands being in both states. I just... can't. No more masking. I've switched my favorite grocery store from one that was in NC to one here and we are avoiding some of our NC restaurants and gym due to this.
They'd have a hard time justifying taking down the proceedings of the Michigan House. They (the online giants) all realize just how close to the edge of being winked out of existence they are.
I was not impressed with her claims, far too absolutist and just plain wrong on the main count: the vaccinated are not reeling from the Delta variant, the unvaccinated are.
Here claim that receiving the flu vaccine over several years sets the person up for more extreme symptomology makes no sense; it is as if prior vaccinations - a stronger immune system - is deleterious in the face of a new mutation.
In the case of COVID, the initial form or mutant is just as effectively countered by the vaccinations as are the subsequent mutations. There is not that much difference.
It is also absurd to claim that vaccinated persons are transmitting the virus. What is the action of the vaccination? catch and release? No, viral pathogens that enter a vaccinated person are destroyed by the immune system. A vaccinated person is neither symptomatic nor transmitting the virus: can’t get it can’t give it.
Exceptions like long COVID or people testing pos after vax should be examined more carefully for other diseases. Flu symptoms can arise from many other causes, e.g. allergies!
Bottom line: ER’s are flooded by the unvaccinated!
Really? Have you looked at Israel, UK, Seychelles? Their rates of infection mirror the rates of vax vs unvaxxed almost perfectly.
“ 95% of the severe patients are vaccinated.” Furthermore, “85-90% of the hospitalizations are in fully vaccinated people” and the hospital is “opening more and more COVID wards.”
Where's the data to back up your claims? Seems we can't get real data...CDC isn't counting breakthrough cases any more? Any contact tracing of those people? How do we know. The point is the narrative (as is your go-to) that only the unvaccinated are the problem and thus they MUST get vaccinated, is always the only argument!
It’s already been revealed that the “pAndemIc of tHe unVaccinAted” press release relied on pre delta data from March, to the shock of a number of scientists. Iverson had a little piece on it but I don’t think she talked in much detail. The cultists simultaneously claim the pandemic is spreading only among the unvaccinated AND the vaccines were never designed to limit spread to begin with. What?
Yeah, until the next strain comes around! I can't figure out if my immune system is awesome (mild cases) or awful (keep getting it). At this rate, I'll get the next varient but will probably not even notice. "Wait, I thought I had a sniffle there for a moment.. nah, I'm fine."
Right? I've been taking Vit C, Vit D, zinc and elderberry for the last 18 months. What to do to boost one's immunity was also dropped from social media in the early months. That will also confound and anger me!
I heard about a guy who was wearing a seatbelt and Still got injured in a car crash. Worse than somebody else who crashed who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.
So your hur hur hur response citing anecdotal evidence is pointless. The vaccine wasn't supposed to stop people from getting infected in the first place, it was only designed to lessen symptoms in the original COVID-19 virus. Its effect on Delta is spotty at best.
This lie to the American public, at least by omission, is further harming government credibility, as if it could get much worse. No one wants a booster shot that is not effective against Delta. No one wants a vaccine that doesn't stop you from getting the disease. Even if it is effective in that manner against the original COVID-19, that is not what is floating around now, and certainly not what will be floating around in 6 months if the medical professionals I talk to have any credibility.
It took getting the disease and then researching this to find out the answer, which is that we were all sold a bill of goods.
And follow the egos. Fauci has been beating the vaccine drum for decades. He was instrumental in spending gobs of money on a failed HIV vaccine and steering money away from therapeutics.
I wonder what he thinks the endgame is for him. If nothing else, the historians will get him. A big mea culpa now would probably have a better result long term.
And if it was supposedly to gain all these insights into bat-origin coronaviruses, as Peter Daszak told Fauci in his email, why do these people never seem to have a clue? What did we ACTUALLY get for the money we spent?
The Arpanet was a DoD funded research project. So was CPOF - it's the main C2 tool used in the Army for something like 15 of the last 20 years. So sometimes the research dollars produce results. But the DoD also invests in stupid things, as you cite above. Its location in China wasn't necessarily dumb from a national security perspective as long as nothing classified was transmitted, i.e. the data flow was all one way. The research itself probably was stupid.
No it is not. It is very intelligent. Wildlife, and bats in particular, are the primary reservoir of coronaviruses. SARS-1 came from bats. So, it is smart to support (cheap) research on bat coronaviruses. If we had not done this, we WOULD NOT HAVE ANY data on bat coronaviruses in China.
Hydroxy cloroquin and ivermectin are old drugs that are very safe and very cheap. Big pharma would rather have us using drugs like Remdesavir that cost $3,000 per treatment.
From same comment mentioned above (IM Doc on Naked Capitalism...)
"Remdesevir is loaded with all kinds of safety problems that I have seen with my own eyes. And it has the extra benefit of obviously not working – it literally does not do a god damned thing. Multiple studies have hinted at this."
It was my understanding that remdasivir was given early on with mixed results. At that time no one knew WHAT worked and so doctors were trying all sorts of things.
"The agency added that the NIH has also determined there are currently insufficient data to recommend ivermectin for the treatment of COVID.
Not actually correct – the NIH current status on ivermectin is there is not enough data to recommend OR to discourage its use. The NIH changed this recommendation in December of 2020 as previously the NIH status on ivermectin usage was to discourage its use. Usually the status in which ivermectin is now placed would be accompanied with all kinds of funds to study the true efficacy of the drug, to see if it is successful. That of course is not being done at this time.
Interestingly, 2 of our other COVID modalities have exactly the same recommend/discourage status. That would be remdesevir and outpatient monoclonal antibodies. EXACTLY the same status on both of these as ivermectin currently. The NIH states there is not enough evidence to recommend or to discourage the use of either of these.
And yet we continue right on with both the others without a blink of an eye.
A little math –
Ivermectin course for COVID is less than twenty dollars.
A course of REMDESEVIR is currently right at 8800 dollars.
An outpatient treatment with monoclonal antibodies is right at 23000 – 25000 dollars with all the infusion costs added."
Hat tip to IM Doc (commentariat on Naked Capitalism....best source for info on Covid I've found...)
major, controlled studies of efficacy going on, two in the US and one in Britain. So the FDA, or somebody with money, thinks it's worth a try - not at all what they're telling us. It would be unethical to trial a drug with no reason to think it might work.
Dude, I KNOW that you are fully aware that Big Pharma, and "unethical" are *not mutually exclusive concepts ! The "somebody with money" of your *own statement really was NOT, as you note, the FDA ! The FDA could even be the one to "initiate the action", but they are *not the motive power behind this SARS Co V 2 racket.
This idea that "they're censoring it so it must work" is stupid. I don't agree with the censorship and I don't know if ivermectin works or not (though I lean towards thinking it doesn't based on the principle of something sounding too good to be true probably being so). It makes perfect sense to me why someone who believes censorship is justified to save lives would want to stop what they see as a quack bullshit treatment being recommended online. If people think they're being protected by the ivermectin they took when they aren't, it could lead to people to avoid taking any other protective measures against Covid, thus spreading the disease to people who are at risk, or dying from it themselves.
My wife refused to get vaccinated but took ivermectin when she got Delta. I don't know what to say about it, the holistic treehugger types she works with are dead set against what they call 'unnecessary' vaccination. Their belief structures seem to be that the immune system is zero sum and if you attenuate it for one disease, you're making it less effective against others.
I don't feel confident enough to argue too hard against this, but I don't personally believe it. I got vaccinated and I probably have more vaccines in me than most - 2 heps, anthrax, probably one of the rare people that has had a smallpox booster in this century, a few others courtesy of Uncle Sam. Come to me with a needle with a vaccine in it and i'll offer up an arm.
It's just wrong. The immune system eventually wears out, if you live that long. By the time you are 112, you may be down to one or 2 clone lineages of B and T cells. So you won't mount a great response. But, the design of living organisms is that they are self-renewing colonies of trillions of cells that work together. The immune system can keep fielding new challenges just fine. In fact, allergies are an instance of immune systems not having enough to work on. So, kind of like a bored kid, those cells find SOMETHING to do. (Like the time when I, at the age of 7 got a saw for Christmas from my father. It was supposed to saw through steel and wood, anything. Bored me, I tried it out on my dad's rolltop desk... :-D It's funny now. It wasn't then. Anyway, an immune system without enough to do is something like that.)
There are people that inject snake venoms to the point that they are hyper-immune and can take a mortal dose of venom without serious harm. It still hurts terribly, but they recover in a day or so. The only indications I have on those people is that they have better health for longer lives.
If the Immune System eventually "wears out", then I am damned glad that no one seems to have Polio anymore ! I also had Chicken Pox, Mumps, and Measles the "old fashioned" way. With the exception of Shingles as a "gift" from Chicken Pox, Mumps, and Measles do not "come back" either ! This I have proven by taking care of children who also had Mumps and Measles in *spite of having also been injected with today's "foolproof" vaccines for BOTH !
As to "if you live long enough", that condition also applies to ALL males dying of prostate cancer. In my Seventies, I don't have a trace of it, but IF I LIVE LONG ENOUGH ...... what does *that mean ? When Methuselah becomes *MY little brother ? Sheeee-*IT ! ;-D ;-D
Indeed, they DO, but all that tells us is that "eventually *Somethin' gonna kill yuh ! I do not regard that as particularly "new" news.
Most old timers who are taken out by virus, usually go via flu going into pleuresy/pneumonia. But, there is *still falling down stairs ....etc. You get the drift ! ;-D
The commenter, previously billing himself on this queue as "Brian The Scientist", rarely bothers impeding himself with actual facts, altho he will *claim the knowledge of the gawds on most all subject of science. Brian finally "trimmed" his original self-chosen online handle when sufficient numbers of commenters proved him *wrong on the bulk of his "scientific" claims. So, consider this an "unofficial", and definitely "unsolicited" bit of background trivia. ;-D ;-D I would go with trusting your OWN experience, as I see that you usually do.
And, yes. Troops going to Vietnam were subjected to 21 Overseas shots, administered by *air gun as the troops were slow marched by the medics. Frequently "off target", the air guns could either administer the shot, OR rip a long divot in your skin due to the movement of the march.
They still used air guns at Benning but they had us stand still for them, thank goodness. Still a lot of shots in rapid fire fashion. All our upper arms were aching that night.
It was kinda funny in one respect. The soldier wielding the air gun on my left arm complained about how hard it was to get a shot in on my arm. I didn't tell him it was one of my prime insulin injection sites and had seen a LOT of needles. Since insulin dependent people aren't supposed to deploy and my G6 (the guy in that picture) went the extra mile to get me signed off by the divisional doctor AND tossed a little fridge into one of the ISU-90s (half a Conex, air transport container) to keep the insulin cold over where we were going.
I like to get all kinds of opinions. Some people I disagree with even when i'm soliciting same, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
By all *means, do all of your own research ! Yes ! I guessed that you probably *did remember Brian from the days of the longer title. I just posted under the principle of: "Better to *have redundant info and not *need it, than the obverse !" ;-D
Someone got a Presidential medal for refusing to approve it in its initial form for morning sickness, unlike in say Germany or Canada where lots of deformed babies were born. It only got approved in the US later for treatment of particular cancers with all kinds of safeguards against pregnancy or even semen going from man to partner, it can apparently be carried in there too. Even with all that, there are affected births every year. Because compliance.
It's got a side effect list that is quite long even if you ignore the teratogenic qualities. Causes circulatory issues, etc.
Public health is a funny thing. That adage about the freedom of your fist ends at my nose seems apropos. On the other hand, if you are going to use authoritarian measures like quarantines, you need to make a good faith argument that the solutions actually solve something.
That's been the thing missing here. Not even being able to discuss it (generally) is hardly helping.
That's the rub, isn't it? If the public health "authorities" have been shown to be absolutely incompetent, let alone lying and wrong, then the "your decisions affect other people..." arguments tend to lose validity because NOBODY SEEMS TO KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR PUBLIC HEALTH. Fauci told the country that masks were not necessary...and then admitted he lied to preserve supplies for health care workers. A noble lie but a lie none the less. Credibility cost was/is huge. Ivermectin is just the latest example...
As I think Taibbi is arguing (acknowledging his focus on censorship and the exchange of ideas), if we lived in a society that respected its members as free and capable, we could discuss these issues and find solutions.
We don't live in a society that respects its members.
It's too bad our wonderful 2-Party BOTH cut the hell out of public health (or anything public) in the name of "neoliberalism". So, the rich get richer and the rest of us get sick.
What if you can't have it? Typical American: "lotta want," not a lotta "need." Why not relocate to Bougainville Island? There you'll encounter few state-directed medical strictures. In fact, you're unlikely to encounter very little organized medical treatment there. Maximal freedom, minimal governance. You're occupying the wrong outpost...
If we could stop using the term "misinformation" for stuff we disagree with and is to be deconstructed by argument, that would be a win.
If everyone is so dumb that we think argument is ineffective, well, that sounds like a justification for totalitarianism, for which I can only have contempt. That leads nowhere good.
The problem with this is that thanks to my generation (GenX) coddling our children, and actively helicoptering them to never see and hear things that may be shocking, we've raised 3 generations now to have blinders on and not be able to think for themselves. Those generations are highly educated and can quote book material incredibly, but zero on the critical thinking and observational scale.
Now, I realize that is a broad brush stroke to use, and that not all fall into this, but enough that they get to get a voice, and that voice is loud. It's easier to put your fingers in your ears and scream "LA, LA, LA, LA" than to hear things that might make you actually think, or show empathy or compassion.
My stepfather (who moved in when I was 10, in 1979) used to say to me that I was book smart; but he was going to teach me to be street smart. He was a Korean war vet born in 1934. He brought his father to live with us, who had emigrated to the US from Italy when he was 2, in 1899. These were the male role models I had. Their attitudes had no resemblance to the BS today.
The broken noses and such I could probably have done without, but there was no question that the other lessons were valuable. Dealing with people you don't like or disagree with on a cordial basis is a great skill and necessary for peace between humanity. We don't always get our way and there is a point where trying to get that is self-defeating. Compromise for peace. But the same generations you identify mostly have no idea of what war is and what it does to their cozy lives.
Where were the FDA, YouTube, Facebook and all of our overlords as the the opiate crisis has swept the country? Silent. But a simple drug that the Sacklers and other greedy pharmaceutical companies can't make a fortune on?! Attacked, vilified and censored.
I'd really like to see whether people denied opiates just turn into straitlaced people or they just start abusing things more readily available, like booze. Considering that both things can kill you fairly readily, through different mechanisms, i'm not sure that is any kind of improvement.
My experience of substance abusers is that they choose the most convenient and readily available solution until something so bad happens to them that they put aside the addictions. "hitting rock bottom" is the common term.
With this kind of attitude toward substance abuse, I am sure you can understand how I think the whole concept of an "opioid epidemic" refers purely to supply of one particular intoxicant, without impacting the personal and social problems that cause substance abuse.
On an anecdotal note, i'd be happy if I could go to a suburban location on a business trip without being accosted by a girl that reminds me of a less washed version one of my mid-20s daughters trying to sell herself to me for a fix.
Reading your comment, it's apparent you have little information about addiction. If opiates are not available they don't "substitute" alcohol or a "readily available solution until something so bad happens to them that they put aside the addictions." If a prescription for opiates can not be obtained then fentanyl or heroin will be bought off the street. Hitting rock bottom for an opiate addict (as well as an alcoholic) can be the grave.
I worked as an RN in detox and rehab for 20+ years and addiction is a life-destroying illness. Once hooked -- particularly on opiates -- it's very difficult to overcome the cravings for the drug.
Addiction vs substance abuse - addiction is a shorter term manifestation of dependence on a particular substance or class of substances, as in opioids or tobacco. Substance abuse is a condition whereby you abuse substances to escape from the world you live in. Substance abusers can be addicts, or might not be. Being addicted to a particular thing is not necessarily life ending - I was a smoker for many years, quit and I have been chewing nicotine gum for years. I'm probably not going to die from that, even if I never stop. But I am addicted to nicotine.
A certain family member has taken street drugs, oxycodone, steals tramadol from people, and drinks when those things are not available. This person is not addicted per se to any one - there is no detox. But they are a substance abuser of a high order. Drinking and taking pills until they are completely blotto and pass out. You find bottles all over the house, shoved in closets and under sinks to avoid detection. Hidden pill bottles.
The only success rate is when people are good and ready to quit and nothing short of that works. Having the patience to wait for that is really hard.
Congrats - though to be sure this is something you did purely for yourself and not because someone would say "attaboy". I hope your will can carry you to wherever you want to go.
Regarding your first three paragraphs---probably the most impressive display of ignorance on a given subject I've encountered in these threads, and that's saying something. As for the final paragraph and your complaint, it sounds as though you ought to either conduct business in different neighborhoods, or examine more closely your presentation of self when entering those neighborhoods. Unless, of course, those "trips" to those "neighborhoods" are part and parcel of your "business."
Last point: I want to be clear that I generally don't respond to you because you're a fucking asshole, as the parent message clearly depicts. When I deliver the cut direct in the future, you'll know it's purposeful and why.
I asked a Las Vegas hooker once why she'd picked me off the sidewalk to accost. It happens quite a bit, and I never take them up on it. Her answer was "the smile". Maybe I should frown more, but i'm not going to do so for the benefit of prostitutes.
Let me be clear: I have lived with substance abusers. Many of them. Over many years. It's a sensitive subject and precisely the only reason I responded to one of your comments---the sum of which, those that I've read, strike me as the linguistic equivalent of whittling on the front porch. But judging from the quantity of wood shavings on the porch floorboards, you have a lot of company, so loneliness shouldn't be an issue.
And thank you for identifying the source of the vast emptiness in my life--the absence of your responses. And please alert me if---or when---you no longer consider me a fucking asshole. That'll be a---if not the---definitive sign that it's time to vacate these threads for good and maybe take up whittling on the front porch myself.
Censorship? Editing? Protecting? What is YouTube doing? Basically they are “protecting” their viewers from seeing anything they disagree with. They are not doctors or researchers, but they feel entitled to choose what viewers can see. We need platforms for videos that are not censored, and the public needs to muster up the courage to be exposed to things that are outrageous, abrasive, or outright wrong. Free speech requires open minds, courage, and lots of counterarguments. Protection is not part of it.
Well, we do have those platforms. There is the problem of the immense momentum that allowed a single player to achieve hegemon status. The other platforms don't get traffic. When searching any topic, who gets to pick where you go? Not an impartial engine; Google gets to tell you where to go. What does an open and fair platform system look like?
As you indicate, YT is not protecting anyone. YT is Zuckerb's creation which is tasked with controlling our exposure to ideas/discourse. Algorithms, my a--.
May we carbon units (who supposedly live in a democracy) weigh in on how we should be able to live our lives, or is that now over with because these boys figured out how to plug us into their collective. Humans are easily controlled, apparently.
Here's the biggest problem, and it doesn't just involve Youtube.
It involves Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, and Joe Rogan, and Jen Psaki, and Elon Musk, and Nancy Pelosi, and Mark Zuckerberg, and Tony Fauci, and Andrew Cuomo, and Ron Desantis, and Xi Jianping, and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus... the list can go on forever
Not one of these people or organizations is willing to say, "I don't know." Ever. Especially when they really don't know.
And most of the time, like most human beings on earth, they really don't know what they are talking about. They make shit up. And when they are wrong, they refuse to admit that they are wrong, because "it shows weakness" or some bullshit like that.
Even Albert Einstein didn't claim to have an answer to every question, and he was infinitely smarter than all of the people above, combined.
The mark of an intelligent person is the ability to say, honestly, "I don't know the answer." when that is indeed the case. The certainty with which today's media-politico denizens speak is almost certainly inversely proportionate to the truth.
I'm pretty sure I've heard Joe Rogan say he doesn't know things all the time. His regular line is, "I'm just a guy with some thoughts and opinions." The trouble seems to be that there is an expectation from some that he has a responsibility to be something more than he is, simply because of the size of his audience. Maybe...but I guess from my perspective that view begins and ends with an assumption that the critics of Joe Rogan know more than his audience and deem them untrustworthy when it comes to deciding what opinions they should listen to and act upon. I detest that notion to it's core, but I can understand why Joe's critics feel that way.
Nonetheless, I don't think he fits in your list very well. Trump, Clinton, Biden, Fauci, Cuomo, etc. are elected (or appointed) politicians with very specific responsibilities to their constituents...they absolutely would benefit from admitting they don't know things from time to time. Zuck, Musk, Rogan are just dudes. Smart dudes, but while I think as powerful people they should be careful with what they say, as should anyone, I'm not sure they have any responsibility to accuracy or truth beyond what their shareholders demand. User beware, as the saying goes.
Aside from that small nitpick, I agree with your point.
I don't love being a Rogan apologist, but I've been in so many conversations where my hyper-progressive friends, curse his name and accuse him of...something...which always seems to come down to his responsibility as a mouthpiece to 10 million people.
To me he's a painfully decent person who likes to talk to other people, especially standup comics and weirdos. I've appreciated his discussions with guys like Snowden, but most of his 'casts are just too long and dull to keep my interest.
The whole thing is so 'Howard Stern 1990' that I'm perennially surprised by how rabid the hate is. I may be wrong, but it just seems like more of the 'smart people hate what dumb people like' thing. (I don't actually think the people involved are smart or dumb, just giving the phenomenon a name)
Let me get this straight. Its not OK to censure a video skeptical of IVM, but perfectly all right to censure one that presents published evidence of its efficacy? You need to do some journalism work and not simply parrot the MSM. Read the evidence, talk to people on both sides, try to learn some science. Otherwise you are no different than Maddow. Izzy would be ashamed.
Hi Mitch, I am new to Twitter and hope that this doesn't turn into a Twitter fight. Matt did 'cover it". but only in the sense that he essentially took no position and repeated many Big Pharma talking points. He seems afraid to engage in the central issue "Does IVM work?". He seems to uncomfortable confronting this scientific question while he is fearless in confronting Big Business, Silicon Valley, etc. I understand that this is true for many people, but while some science is difficult to understand, clinical trials are relatively easy: two groups, one treated and one not. Sure there is some statistical analysis that my be intimidating to the laymen, but if he engaged serious scientists they could easily walk him through this. Even statistical information using the highly flawed Fisher p test would do the job for most people. There are subtle decisions in these studies, but if he would just read many of them he could get a first order approximation of whether they are evidence for or against the use of IVM. I am not asking him or anyone to conclude that IVM works, but simply that it may work, and therefore since in has an incredible safety profile, it should get a recommendation for use by the NIH--much like remdesivir, which doesn't work, and like their newly approved Alzheimer's drug which their own panel thought was worthless.
I think your comment is well taken, but I expect more from him.
I think you misunderstand what Matt is doing with this reporting. He is not reporting on the efficacy of Ivermectin or any other COVID treatment; he is revealing the daily assaults on open discussion of this and other issues by algorithm and partisan censorship on social and other media platforms. Whether Ivermectin has shown to be effective in this or that trial, or whether it has shown to be worthless, is not the subject of this article or the others he has written (at least three or four) that touch on the topic.
It is not his job to present both sides of the Ivermectin controversy; he's not actually covering it. He's covering the censorship controversy.
Mitch, I appreciate your position which is perfectly valid. Perhaps I should have been more precise. My view is that the most important question of our time is whether practical interventions that can ameliorate the horrific death toll exist. This may have blinded me to these issues of censorship which I still find secondary. Matt has the ability through advocacy to save lives, but perhaps his obsessions are different. But frankly, I think it is hard to argue that his current fascination with social issues, BLM, MeToo,, etc. is more important than doing the work that can change the course of this massive death train. I know that his sounds too preachy and judgemental--but there you have it. Best wishes. R
FWIW - COVID-19 is a tea party with crumpets and cream compared what could happen. A piece on biodefense for context. Good read. Covers things pretty well.
Bioterrorism and Biodefense for America’s Public Spaces and Cities
There is a long list of serious lab leaks of biologically dangerous material both here and in the Soviet Union. But as a molecular biologist I never imagined that an engineered coronavirus could or would cause such havoc. By the way, the Chinese have abandoned the story that it was a zootic transfer and they now blame Fort Detrick.
Yes, he has. Possibly too many times. I love TK, but this piece feels like filler material...gotta feed the beast, and media aggravation is always a good bet.
Ivermectin is only the tip of the iceberg. Medical bureaucrats are no different from other bureaucrats. Once in place, their priority becomes building a massive wall of proof that they are right. Not actually being right, simply proving diligence instead of achieving it. That has not changed in more than half a century.
What changed was the elites' sense of entitlement to rule over the rest of us. Trump committed the ultimate two sins: fighting back, and interrupting Clinton's coronation. The partisan elites already had big tech, public employee unions and legacy media on their side; all that was left to destroy Satan Incarnate was a pretext. COVID19 was a gift from the gods. Add medical bureaucrats to the mix and your coup is guaranteed to succeed.
But first, censorship. Fuller is one casualty; there are millions more. As soon as I learned in early January that a new respiratory virus had broken out in Wuhan and that Taiwan had closed its borders, conclusions were easy to reach. The last two dangerous respiratory disease outbreaks were both from corona viruses and originated in China. Both China and WHO were lying about human-human transmission. And the Wuhan lab had been China's center for biowarfare for decades.
I wrote about all of that, was condemned for spreading misinformation, and WHO fronted for China's lies. When social distancing guides came out, they were based on German research into bacteria in the late 1800s. We didn't have the technology then to detect virus particles in aerosols then. When we developed the technology we learned that the distance is eight meters. More writing, more condemnation and banning. Loss of long-held friendships because I was a fraud.
I did med school in Germany, practiced psychiatry there in the 1980s for a short while before returning to the US and leaving medicine. I'm not a research scientist nor bureaucrat, so I have no credibility. Except that we knew more than a hundred years ago how to deal with respiratory viruses: put all protective measures in place for the most vulnerable, probably the elderly and obese, put all infected patients outdoors or in extra-ventilated rooms, and ignore everyone else until we have more info. Suspensions and bans.
Interesting that you didn’t mention trump’s back-channel conversations with xi jinping, which were the basis for his announcing to the country that the warm weather would kill the pandemic. Among the WHO’s and faucci’s obvious cock-ups, that seems like a pretty big one, no?
You Tube is fine for animal videos and DIY stuff (my favorites) or other entertainment. It's not very hospitable as a journalism platform and becomes less so by the hour. I am so thankful for Substack and the movement over to Rumble and Odysee. Hopefully they won't be gobbled up by the evil one.
Yes, -How to test and replace the defrost timer on your refrigerator-YouTube is great. And I can recommend the Everyday Astronaut's 3 hour tour of SpaceX with Elon Musk. But anything 'controversial' -nope
I watch a bunch of cooking channels and crafting channels. I am also strangely mesmorized by car detailing and miniature building channels. Watching those is a great way to chill out before bed. I'm moving away from it for any political channels as well to direct owner-hosted sources.
Speaking of being "gobbled up", You Tube is also contraindicated in *my book simply due to the fact that it is owned by Google ! So, while you and I are there, hoovering up "silly little love songs", Google is *also there, hoovering up DATA @ Max Suction !
it is clear from reading across the MSM that there is a very strong agenda that has nothing to do with critical thinking or any deep analysis on many aspects of the pandemic and the coronavirus. There are very good clinical studies (available through google scholar) that do discuss the antiviral aspects of invermectin.
I don't particularly think it is usable as a front link treatment for covid for the reasons that many of the journal articles make clear. Nevertheless, it makes no sense to demonize people for talking about it or using it. Nor does it make sense to continually, as Fuller notes, refer to it as a horse dewormer, it does have other actions as most drugs do. it is also FDA approved for use in people as far as i know which the vaccines until recently were not, though of course there was an emergency use permit for them to be used.
Most people do not realize the tremendous conflicts that are ongoing in the medical community about a great many conditions. Chronic fatigue syndrome (now called ME/CFS) is still being dismissed by some physicians despite decades of research showing the reality of it. Chronic Lyme is as well continually said to be non-existent despite scores of thousands of people suffering from it (as they do with long covid) and a great many journal papers revealing the rationale for its existence. As Ed Yong in the Atlantic made clear, gaslighting is rampant in the medical profession about a large number of medical conditions that people suffer from, often for decades.
The thing i have appreciated about Taibbi and Greenwald is their commitment to open discussion. A number of vaccine specialists made the point, strongly, early on that hiding or downplaying the potential risk of side effects from the vaccines (which they were clear would exist) would hurt badly in the long run; it would simply make people more suspicious of experts. using the term "vaccine" was itself problematical. What we have is what is known as a leaky vaccine, this is quite different than something like the smallpox vaccine for instance which does in fact confer immunity. Leaky vaccines do not. The use of the term "breakthrough infection" is as well inaccurate. Leaky vaccines do not stop infections, they just alter severity and death rates; the organisms continue to modulate their structure to work around them over time.
Both sides of the issue are distorting the truth for their own ends; neither is very rational. in other words both are wrong about a great many things. the levels of dehumanizing vitriol make plain that other issues are involved. it is not just about the science.
anyway, thank you Matt for your work; there are far too few people who are willing to reason on these complex issues.
Don't think of it as a vaccine. Think of it - at best - as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be used in advance of illness.
And we want to mandate it? Insanity."
I would say he is right on all counts. Too bad that tweet got him permanently banned from Twitter - but you can find him here on SS.
You're probably at this point beyond any measurable degree of "enlightening," but the below links ought to at least offer you some much needed "leverage" in any effort you might care to undertake in extracting your head from your ass. Share with friends.
Your sources, Aunt Martha, are hilarious! He literally takes data, primarily from Israel, to make his points. You're right, there is not enlightening, Aunt Martha, that you can provide, but I can assure you that my ass helped me win some pickleball games this morning, as did my head which correctly placed in separate parts of my body!
The sources strike me as mundane media outlets, the kind that are a dime a dozen. They are also irrelevant. They merely transcribe Berenson's own words with basic reporting. Duck Soup is hilarious, not this kind of sawdust journalism. You're easily amused I can see. The rest of this post is oblique nonsense. Israel? Takes data? Stick to Pickleball, you silly man/woman/hermaphrodite.
I have long covid. My dr. rx'd ivermectin in December and it was a gamechanger for me. Took me from so debilitated and ill I was about to hire help, to being ok to manage on my own. Not a cure, but a huge shift in the right direction. The fact that this drug has been politicized and propagandized makes me want to give up on this damn country.
How dare your body respond to a medication that the great and good of this country have declared to be a veterinary drug of no merit against this plague of our time. Shame.
He's clearly a White Supremacist.
Assuming this is true, that is another indication that long COVID is caused by long-term low-level infection being maintained in some organ(s). We know Ebola does this in testes. We know that West Nile Virus does this in kidneys, and it may be a major reason for idiopathic kidney failure.
One issue with long-term infections is that this is a way that viruses can adapt and mutate.
Yep, I took ivermectin over 7 months after first having long covid symptoms. Seems like viral persistence was happening.
https://buffalonews.com/news/local/after-judge-orders-hospital-to-use-experimental-covid-19-treatment-woman-recovers/article_a9eb315c-5694-11eb-aac5-53b541448755.html
Woman going downhill, doc uses ivermectin as last resort, she quickly gets better and gets out of ICU. New doc in the non-ICU wing of hospital refuses to use ivermectin because he is very smarter than everyone else, and she goes downhill again, heads to ICU, and family has to sue to get her on ivermectin again. That works and she's safe today.
If you have a link to that story I would appreciate it.
So how are you now?
Doing really well. Eating a version of the GAPS diet to heal my gut, and all kinds of meditation and other things to calm down my nervous system. Currently no long covid symptoms, just super weak from 14 months of illness.
Improving diet and meditation to get well?! What anti-science, unproven, conspiratorial nonsense! The vaccine cures Long Covid, "like a lightning bolt:" https://www.huffpost.com/entry/long-haul-covid-vaccine_l_604f55b6c5b60e0725f91ed6
lol
Seems as anecdotal as IVM
Brian, you may find this interesting. Patterson is well credentialed. https://youtu.be/JwjJs5ZHKJI?list=PLCXya1JzWcnSCHNSipO8fWFonSWyyDQq5
Ditto. Long covid here as well. But it was only the animal dosage version that did it for me. Also helped my exercise routine. Feel like I can run a lot faster/longer now.
Sounds like placebo to me..
I'm certainly open to the idea that Ivermectin might do something, and since it's essentially harmless and normally used to treat all kinds of parasitic infections in humans, I fully believe that a COVID sufferer has an absolute right to try it. (Were not talking about poisonous chemotherapy drugs, so the risks are minimal and certainly consistent with the kinds of risks that we expect individuals to routinely judge for themselves.)
I do agree with you, though, that there may be a placebo effect here or worse, just a coincidence. People recover from long COVID, so how are we to know that the recovery wasn't just coincidental? The same phenomenon is at work in a lot of areas of medicine. Consider back problems and herniated disks. If you herniate a disk and are in severe pain, you can be evaluated by your physician, be recommended for surgery, have the surgery, and do physical therapy, and in around six months, you'll fully recover. In the alternative, if you show regular improvement, you can wait and recover. Did the surgery actually improve your condition, or did time improve your condition? Who can say? (I mention the example because I personally experienced the problem. I had a herniated disk with nerve involvement so extreme that I had flank spasms mistaken for a potential kidney stone. After relief of initial pain and a course of muscle relaxers, I wore lower-back supports and experienced a gradual improvement over seven months. I had an uncle with similar back problems at a similar age, and he opted for surgery. Surgery comes with post-surgical restrictions on movement essentially identical to the restrictions imposed on me by the back pain and that I followed out of necessity, and the recovery involved physical therapy with a recovery timeline of around six months. In my personal experience, the recovery without intervention was identical to the expected period of recovery with surgical intervention.) The fact is that when we're suffering, we have a bias toward action to correct the suffering, and when you do something and an effect coincides with the action, you can easily reach the mistaken conclusion that the action caused the result, a result that may have happened as a part of the normal process of recovery.
I think that a lot of people fail to understand the basic idea in this case. You can't take one example of a person taking Ivermectin and recovering and conclude much of anything. People recover all of the time both on and off Ivermectin. How do we identify real effects if you cannot confirm them from individual responses? You have to look at large populations and search for statistical evidence of an effect.
With Ivermectin and other treatments, I'm not so sure that there are meaningful studies to support an effect. To be fair to the believers in Ivermectin, I don't think that the powerful are allowing the studies for fear of vindicating the faith of the dirty masses, and they should allow the studies. The best way to restore trust between people of different levels of expertise and understanding would be to encourage large-scale studies and make the results available for all to see. If Ivermectic be ineffective, you won't persuade all of the faithful, but an openness to investigate, a willingness to risk being wrong, and the humility to admit the possibility of error or actual error would go a long way toward convincing the persuadable who rightly wonder what supposed experts have to hide.
No personal disrespect to the poster with the screen name "Nell Goddin", but- naturalistic photograph notwithstanding- the uncheckable claims of a basically anonymous poster on the Internet about their own medical experience don't even count as series-of-one anecdote, in terms of credibility.
This is a simple matter of skepticism. When it comes to personal anecdotes on the Internet, there are rules for assessing veracity (which is never going to be more than conditional), and medical claims require a lot more evidence than most topics. They also tend to be resistant to skeptical inquiry.
This comment is not to be read as a dismissive hand-wave of the possible therapeutic value of invermectin. I'm given to understand that reasonably rigorous studies of various sorts are being run on its possible uses against covid, and I'm waiting for more evidence to arrive before granting full credence to one position or another.
Here ya go, Mr. Skeptic. Long list of studies already completed. https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/FLCCC-Protocols-%E2%80%93-A-Guide-to-the-Management-of-COVID-19.pdf
Nell my close friend of 30 years ended up in ICU for 6 days with blood clots in both lungs. My friend took the Pfizer vaccine. He’s a real person not a statistic. The hospital reported to VAERS. This is a fact. Glad to hear you are getting better from long Covid.
Oh, only one item on a long list :) Thanks for the good wishes
Is there some country where good information and transparency is abundant, or better? Where?
"it tends to have the impact of further convincing people that they’re being lied to by mainstream news and partners in Silicon Valley, which in turn might lead to urging people in the opposite direction of the content moderators’ intent"
I can attest this is absolutely true. Pretty much EVERYTHING I read and hear in mainstream media sources relating to any issue of substance, I almost automatically regard as misleading (at best). I consider ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and FOX first and foremost as sources of misinformation and propaganda.
"Pretty much EVERYTHING I read and hear in mainstream media sources relating to any issue of substance, I almost automatically regard as misleading (at best)."
That reminds me of an anecdote that I heard about Richard Helms, the director of the CIA back in the 60s. When one of his son's friends told him that he got most of his news from the networks he replied "Ignore that crap - it is all propaganda."
Of course as the man behind Operation Mockingbird he would know. I don't think much has changed.
Agreed! I shun the mainstream media and get all my information from the internet. Feeling a lot more accurately informed ever since.
Ditto. I'll read Matt's articles, but on most sites I prefer to go straight to the comments. People-generated discussion is way better than fake news.
@Danno
Boy, does THAT depend *specifically upon the comment queue.
@ Atma ✔
Now THAT is a perfectly placed asterisk mon ami.👍
This article (cited below) may be the most well researched and assessed information regarding the Covid-19 virus I've encountered thus far.💡☠ Wouldn't it be novel we could all put aside dogmatic differences, and try to find agreement; just for the fun of it❔
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/09/02/covid-19-as-bioweapon-the-origins-of-a-conspiracy-theory/
Enjoy🤩
EA
If the Techno-types want to offload the over-eaters, old and terminally gullible, they created the right tool.
Even with a site that attracts a huge quotient of indisputably bigoted and willfully ignorant comment writers, I can often find insight- not derived from the content per se so much as in terms of the mentality of the posters. There's no need for "reading between the lines" to obtain those insights; the writers often give away more than they realize, quite openly.
And, yes, there is often a "real-life Idiocracy" entertainment factor involved.
The Man Who Kept the Secrets.
The CIA was (and I am sure still very much is) a fun place. Just finished Mary's Mosaic and now working on The Devil's Chessboard. Both highly recommended.
Dull, duller, Dulles.
Reading Devils Chessboard now, nothing is as it seems, everyone has their own agenda in positions of power.
Well that's because they are.
Alex Jones has a better record for accuracy. (And he'd make a great metal vocalist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw8pz6OhPPM )
Alec Jones asserted Sandy Hook mass murder of 1st graders did not occur, he was taken to court and lost. He’s accurate?
Jones' involvement in Sandy Hook seemed every bit as suspicious as the event itself.
Stopped mainstream media couple of month's ago and get all my information from the internet now. Feel so much more accurately and better informed ever since. Will never go back!
If you think the Internet is something, hit the stacks of a well-stocked college library on the subjects you're most curious about. It's much, much easier to search and browse.
If you're into, you know, print.
They call it “programming” for a reason. ;-)
Its so curious how CNN, for example, and its lack of integrity gets confused with YouTube, in the sense that their content makers are, in the former case, 100% centralized and controlled, versus the latter, rather 100% decentralized and free to create as they wish (the ideal).
I've always said that about Alex, but I'm never quite sure who he's working for, either.
I wonder the same thing.
The fascinating thing about Alex Jones is he takes really good info not found anywhere else, and mixes it with batshit crazy. The end result seems to be that the good info is discredited as 'crazy Alex Jones conspiracy theories'.
And that way all the factual info he presented gets discredited too by lumping it in with the bay shit crazy. Gee what a great way to discredit real info. Gordon Duff over at Veterans Today uses the same template!
Yeah, Alex Jones is Bill Hicks.
I completely believe them when they say it's currently raining in New York, or that the Cubs won today.
You're leaving out their superb coverage of car chases. Credit where due.
Except nobody predicted the flooding this week. I mean *absolutely nobody in public service or the media* foresaw the possibility of people dying in basements and on highways in NYC. But when they tell you a Superblizzardnado is coming... you can be sure they will close schools for 2 inches of snow.
I have even come to the point where when the accuse the Right of doing something, I consider it a giveaway to their own action. Not that the Right doesn't have its own problems. I didn't vote for Trump you understand, stupid, inchoate clown. Did I do that correctly Matt? or are we past that pro forma declaration yet?
When I feel like drinking kool aid I watch th msm. Dont drink much of that poisonous coloured liquid anymore
If anybody is interested, Merck is developing Molnupiravir (MK-4482)as a therapeutic to treat COVID-19 infections. It is in Phase 3. Merck received a base award amount of $1.2 bil on 6/7/21 from the federal government representing 1.7 mil doses; do the math. Link to comparison of Molnupiravir v. Ivermectin: https://austinpublishinggroup.com/pharmacology-therapeutics/fulltext/ajpt-v9-id1149.pdf
Not surprisingly, the two are similar. With neither showing any serious adverse side effects. "Molnupiravir is a pro-drug of the novel active antiviral nucleoside analogue ... It's a broad spectrum antiviral agent. ... Ivermectin is a broad-spectrum, anti-parasitic, antibiotic and which has demonstrated broad-spectrum antiviral activity" ... Merck had the patent on Ivermectin until 1996. So it is not a coincidence that they have developed this very expensive drug, Molnupiravir, funded by the US taxpayer and which is similar. It follows, then, why there is so much disparagement of Ivermectin. If widely accepted, it could rain on Merck's parade and greatly embarrass BARDA. What I cannot grasp is that for the 10 months when the vaccines were being developed, certain caring, critical care physicians sought out existing drugs and developed protocols. These have been changed multiple times and are currently undergoing more changes to address the variants issue. The FLCCC Alliance recommends the use Ivermectin as part of more expansive protocols which they have developed for the prophylaxis and treatment of COVID-19 at all stages by both the vaxxed and the un-vaxxed. These physicians should be lauded, not abused.
J&J did the same thing with Ketamine. (Off-patent since ~1982) IIRC, its an isomer of Ketamine, re-branded "Spravato" (esketamine) and is now many multiples more expensive. We keep falling for the same old crap. :-(
Yes, Thomas. It's an old pharma practice called "Evergreening".
The only good-ish news here is that generic ketamine can still be prescribed cheaply and “off-label”. I’m a prescriber and that’s what I do when I think ketamine will be helpful. Have many colleagues who do the same. All the excellent research is on generic ketamine, with a much smaller body of evidence on esketamine/spravato. Are: Ivermectin, this next part is here-say, but would love to know if anyone here has encountered these situations… A pro-ivermectin pharmacist friend of mine told me that major pharmacies have been refusing to fill ketamine prescriptions that patients bring in from verified medical providers as policy. Further, he claimed that the providers who prescribe it are being flagged and reported (to whom, I’m not sure). Anyone know the veracity of these claims?
shoot- wish I could edit my comment. I misspoke: he claims pharmacies are refusing to fill *ivermectin* prescriptions (not ketamine).
That’s true with many drugs, but your doctors have been captured and only prescribe “the latest and greatest”.
The only good-ish news here is that generic ketamine can still be prescribed cheaply and “off-label”. I’m a prescriber and that’s what I do when I think ketamine will be helpful. Have many colleagues who do the same. All the excellent research is on generic ketamine, with a much smaller body of evidence on esketamine/spravato. Are: Ivermectin, this next part is here-say, but would love to know if anyone here has encountered these situations… A pro-ivermectin pharmacist friend of mine told me that major pharmacies have been refusing to fill ketamine prescriptions that patients bring in from verified medical providers as policy. Further, he claimed that the providers who prescribe it are being flagged and reported (to whom, I’m not sure). Anyone know the veracity of these claims?
Bingo...I've been following the application of ivermectin for long-term covid in Israel. There has been notable success...again, never really followed by mainstream, commercial media here...a profit motive is likely.
Posting comments full of disinformation while complaining of the same is disingenuous (to put it mildly).
1. Molnupiravir and ivermectin are NOT similar chemically.
2. They do NOT have the same mechanism of action.
3. Molnupiravir is NOT the only antiviral nucleoside analog - remdesivir, fapipiravir and a few others belong to the same group, all of them tried as a treatment of Covid-19.
4. Merck is NOT the only pharma company developing antiviral drugs with this type of activity (inhibitors of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase). A connection with ivermectin exists only in your imagination.
And no, I'm not associated in any way with Merck or any other pharmaceutical company or any company working on Covid-19 treatment.
Now to ivermectin.
There are 7 studies on prophylactic use of ivermectin, all of them small and therefore subject to various biases. All reported favorable results with ivermectin vs control, but all used different protocols (doses, frequency, duration, combination with other drugs, reported outcomes). Carvallo study - the darling of ivermectin crowd - actually used a combination of weekly ivermectin with a nasal spray of carrageenan. Without control groups that had only ivermectin or only carrageenan. As it was pointed out repeatedly (and should be obvious to anyone with scientific background), that's a terrible study design. You never know what worked - ivermectin or carrageenan or both.
It's even worse with mild COVID cases - half of about 10 studies found no difference between ivermectin and control. Again, with the caveat that all of them were small, poorly designed, used completely different protocols, and are pretty much useless in terms of development of a treatment protocol. The only reliable data on ivermectin is in the treatment of severe cases in hospital setting, where it is clearly beneficial. There are no published studies on ivermectin efficacy in "long Covid" treatment, but both for severe cases and for "long Covid" doctors will readily prescribe it as a compassionate use drug.
So, to summarize...
There is no conspiracy between doctors, CDC and pharma companies to prevent people from accessing a cheap life-saving treatment. Ivermectin will be prescribed to you if its use is justified (like in the case of severe or "long" Covid). There is no advantage to ivermectin as compared to vaccination, and there is no reason for people to start dosing themselves with ivermectin as an alternative to vaccines.
Especially since ivermectin - like any other wide-spectrum anti-parasitic drug - is not without problems. It's been learned from many decades of using ivermectin in tropical countries (look up "Mectizan Donation Program") that it is associated with higher rate of asthma and skin allergies, like eczema and atopic dermatitis. Especially in children. And repeated treatment with ivermectin induces resistance in helminths (worms). Remember, ivermectin is not only a "horse dewormer", it's also a safe and cheap dewormer of other farm animals. Last thing you want to do is start using it indiscriminately, like antibiotics were used in the past. Anybody wants to pay a premium for their food? Or go back to the time when all meats had to be cooked through and through, until nearly inedible, to avoid helminth infection?
Hi Tashaj, Whatever you say about Molnupiravir and Ivermectin is fine with me. You can trash my comment until the cows come home. You're the boss. You know it all. Me? I'm more impressed by results. And by the 64 trials and 31 randomized controlled trials which support Ivermectin. So regardless of how you cherry-pick the data, I'll just keep taking my doctor-prescribed dose twice a week. Along with the suggested supplements. And I'll keep wearing an N95 indoors in public places. And so far, in an area which is dense with Delta, I have avoided infection. PS I am well over 65 years of age, to boot.
Thanks for the solipsistic update on your superhero-like methods deployed and successes realized in your battle with Coronazilla. Boorish. Almost beyond belief, but...
No. Tess Lawrie’s peer-reviewed meta analysis doesn’t even rely on the studies you and the subject of Matt’s story both like to pretend are the heart of the argument. And talking about using ivermectin post hospitalization makes clear you don’t understand the disease course of covid at all. Also, if you want to pretend that a coordinated nationwide campaign to dismiss ivermectin as a “veterinary” pharmaceutical in every headline, then you are best naive if not outright lying.
I think it’s time to divest doctors of the right to prescribe and let patients decode for themselves, as is done in many countries. It’s okay if you disagree, but it doesn’t matter if you do.
"a coordinated nationwide campaign to dismiss ivermectin as a “veterinary” pharmaceutical in every headline," - did you leave out "there is not"? Because it's plain for everyone to see. Even Ryan Grim of Intercept, who used to be pretty good. I really wonder where the memo came from and how it's enforced. Any journalistic whistle-blowers out there?
Yes, typo. Oh the answer to your question can be easily found. Look at the article on how the FDA manipulates the media in the recent issue of Scientific American.
Try this one - actually found on Google News: https://www.opindia.com/2021/09/watch-alex-jones-takes-ivermectin-live-on-air-after-joe-rogan-uses-it-horse-dewormer-fda-cdc/. Try to ignore the Alex Jones part; he's a distraction. Of interest because it's an Indian point of view, and goes into the experience of Uttar Pradesh, their largest state, with Ivermectin - which they use a lot of anyway, and doubtless produce.
Which one? The "Observatory" on the lab-leak origin? I have that magazine, and the previous one.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-fda-manipulates-the-media/
Tess Lawrie has been "decoded" as an uber-quack, which indeed she is--in spades. Not to mention a quack-grifter. And the Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) is little more than a criminal organization committing wholesale fraud.
And while we divest "doctors of the right to prescribe and let patients decode for themselves," why don't we go ahead and divest auto mechanics of the right to overhaul transmissions and perform brake jobs. Let the motorists of the land decode for themselves, I say!
It’s vein opening time for you.
Which countries?
So no matter how you do the study, ivermectin does better than the control. Do you understand what you just said?
Have fun here - mechanism of ivermectin
Ivermectin; IVM (red block) inhibits and disrupts binding of the SARS-CoV-2 S protein at the ACE-2 receptors (green). The green dotted lines depict activation pathways and the red dotted lines depict the inhibition pathways. The TLR-4 receptors are directly activated by SARS-CoV-2 and also by LPS mediated activation (seen during ICU settings) causing activation of NF-Kb pathway and MAP3 Kinases leading to increased intranuclear gene expression for proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines (responsible for cytokine storm) and NO release (responsible for blood vessel dilatation, fluid leak, low blood pressure, ARDS and sepsis). The NF-Kb and STAT-3 pathway activation is central to the pathogenesis and sequelae of COVID-19. STAT-3 physically binds to PAK-1 and increases IL-6 transcription. The annexin A2 at the cell surface converts plasminogen; PLG to plasmin under the presence of t-PA. Plasmin triggers activation and nuclear translocation of STAT-3. An upregulation of STAT-3 stimulates hyaluronan synthase-2 in the lung cells causing hyaluronan deposition leading to diffuse alveolar damage and hypoxia. STAT-3 also directly activates TGF-beta initiating pulmonary fibrosis; a typical characteristic of SARS-COV-2 lung pathology. The damaged type 2 cells express PAI-1 and an already hypoxic state also causes an upregulation of PAI (through Hypoxic inducible factor-1) along with direct stimulation by STAT-3. Simultaneous STAT-3 and PAI-1 activation inhibits t-PA and urokinase-type plasminogen activator leading to thrombi formation. Also, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binds to the CD147 on red blood cells and causes clumping. IVM in turn, binds to SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein and hence prevents clumping. T cell lymphopenia in COVID-19 can also be attributed to the direct activation of PD-L1 receptors on endothelial cells by STAT-3. IVM directly inhibits the NF-kb pathway, STAT-3, and indirectly inhibits PAK-1 by increasing its ubiquitin-mediated degradation. The natural antiviral response of a cell is through interferon regulatory genes and viral RNA mediated activation of TLR-3 and TLR7/8- Myd88 activation of transcription of interferon-regulator (IRF) family. For a virus to establish an infection, this antiviral response needs to be inhibited by blocking interferon production. The proteins such as importin and KPNA mediate nuclear transport of viral protein and subsequent IFN signaling. The SARS-CoV-2 proteins (ORF-3a, NSP-1, and ORF-6) directly block IFN signaling causing the surrounding cells to become unsuspecting victims of the infection. IVM inhibits both importin a-b (green) as well as the KPNA-1 receptors (brown) causing natural antiviral IFN release. IVM also inhibits viral RdrP, responsible for viral replication. IVM Ivermectin, ACE-2 angiotensin-converting-enzyme 2, LPS Lipopolysaccharide, TLR Toll-like receptor, t-PA tissue-like plasminogen activator, PLG Plasminogen, IMPab Importin alpha-beta, Rdrp RNA dependant RNA polymerase, KPNA-1 Karyopherin Subunit Alpha 1, NF-kB nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells, Map3Kinases Mitogen-activated Kinases, PAK-1 P21 Activated Kinase 1, STAT-3 Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3, PAI-1 Plasminogen activator inhibitor-1, HIF-1 Hypoxia-Inducible Factor
Fred baby---you got it all wrong! Correction:
IVM Ivermectin, ACE-2 angiotensin-converting-enzyme 2, LPS Lipopolysaccharide, TLR Toll-like receptor, t-PA tissue-like plasminogen activator, PLG Plasminogen, IMPab Importin alpha-beta, Rdrp RNA dependant RNA polymerase, KPNA-1 Karyopherin Subunit Alpha 1, NF-kB nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells. The proteins such as importin and KPNA mediate nuclear transport of viral protein and subsequent IFN signaling. Winter is icummen in,Lhude sing Goddamm. Raineth drop and staineth slop, And how the wind doth ramm! Sing: Goddamm. Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us, An ague hath my ham. Freezeth river, turneth liver, Damn you, sing: Goddamm. Goddamm, Goddamm, 'tis why I am, Goddamm,So 'gainst the winter's balm. Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm. Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM. SARS-CoV-2 proteins (ORF-3a, NSP-1, and ORF-6) directly block IFN signaling causing the surrounding cells to become unsuspecting victims of the infection. The natural antiviral response of a cell is through interferon regulatory genes and viral RNA mediated activation of TLR-3 and TLR7/8- Myd88 activation of transcription of interferon-regulator (IRF) family. The TLR-4 receptors are directly activated by SARS-CoV-2 and also by LPS mediated activation (seen during ICU settings) causing activation of NF-Kb pathway and MAP3 Kinases leading to increased intranuclear gene expression for proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines (responsible for cytokine storm) and NO release (responsible for blood vessel dilatation, fluid leak, low blood pressure, ARDS and sepsis).The natural antiviral response of a cell is through interferon regulatory genes and viral RNA mediated activation of TLR-3 and TLR7/8- Myd88 activation of transcription of interferon-regulator (IRF) family. For a virus to establish an infection, this antiviral response needs to be inhibited by blockin.g interferon production. IVM Ivermectin, ACE-2 angiotensin-converting-enzyme 2, LPS Lipopolysaccharide, TLR Toll-like receptor, t-PA tissue-like plasminogen activator, PLG Plasminogen, IMPab Importin alpha-beta, Rdrp RNA dependant RNA polymerase, KPNA-1 Karyopherin The damaged type 2 cells express PAI-1 and an already hypoxic state also causes an upregulation of PAI (through Hypoxic inducible factor-1) along with direct stimulation by STAT-3. Simultaneous STAT-3 and PAI-1 activation inhibits t-PA and urokinase-type plasminogen activator leading to thrombi formation. Also, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binds to the CD147 on red blood cells and causes clumping. NO release (responsible for blood vessel dilatation, fluid leak, low blood pressure, ARDS and sepsis). The NF-Kb and STAT-3 pathway activation is central to the pathogenesis and sequelae of COVID-19. STAT-3 physically binds to PAK-1 and increases IL-6 transcription. The annexin A2 at the cell surface converts plasminogen; PLG to plasmin under the presence of t-PA. Plasmin triggers activation and nuclear translocation of STAT-3. An upregulation of STAT-3 stimulates hyaluronan synthase-2 in the lung cells causing hyaluronan deposition leading to diffuse alveolar damage and hypoxia.
You copied Tucker’s announcement??
How 'bout furnishing sources, supplying quotes, using proper attribution. Then I'll "have fun."
Aunt Martha: I am sure that Fred could explain it to you, but for sure he could never understand it for you.
Fur shur, Gene, fur shur...
This needs a link. A confirmed pathway would be thorough proof.
Are truffles illegal? Are truffles drugs? Talk about credulous!
The fruit of some psilocybin mushroom species does take the form of truffles, yes.
Only one like?
I suggest you get over the notion of valuing "likes" as if they had some intrinsic worth.
"The only reliable data on ivermectin is in the treatment of severe cases in hospital setting, where it is clearly beneficial."
Buried in your comment you admit that much. How important is that benefit?
So, see, they aren't lying to us, are they?
Oh - wait a minute...
Thank you!
Thanks for that post!
None of which changes the Carvalho study
Nate: I cannot account for a single study by Dr. Carvallo, but what I can do is refer you here: https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/ where you can read extensively about the scientific rationale justifying the use of Ivermectin in COVID-19.
The Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) is little more than a criminal organization committing wholesale fraud. Pierre Kory and Joe Mercola are uber-quacks and sordid grifters on the double-make. Glad your healthy, but your personal anecdote is as meaningless as my anecdote documenting the scrape I healed by using a toothpaste/vaseline pumice.
You’re so transparently a paid whore there isn’t enough ivermectin in the world to clear up the parasites inhabiting your cooch. Best use kerosene.
It amuses me that you actually perceive that there are interests out there that would willingly pay me for the type of comments I make here. It embarrases me. Because when I check my online banking balance, I am SO TRANSPARENTLY not being paid for this shit. You're the expert---line me up some paid gigs and I'll split the proceeds 50/50 with you. Deal?
Hi Aunt Martha, your comment is duly noted although I reject it out of hand. Thank you for exercising your right to free speech.
This? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33031948/
holy crap--this comparison of the two drugs is some of the most unqualified, positive analysis I've seen--apart from the FLCCC folks themselves
Always nice to hear from Big Pharma.
🤣 Who cares what you think? 😆
The most important issue in this piece is not whether ivermectin is an efficacious treatment for Covid. The biggest issue is whether we, as free people with freedom of speech and thought, are to be allowed to hear all sides and judge for ourselves. That's an issue that transcends YouTube. One of the most exceptional things about America is that the founders really trusted that the great mass of people could actually govern themselves, and that they could be trusted to speak and think freely. That concept flies in the face of most of human history, wherein those in power tend to hold tightly the reins of information, in the belief that people aren't to be trusted with "dangerous" ideas.
As Matt rightly notes, any attempt to censor simply leads people to believe that someone is hiding something. We should demand free and open debate on EVERYTHING to do with Covid, even theories that some might find absurd. Trust the people.. the truth will rise to the surface. You'll convert many skeptics if they feel that there is total transparency. To think otherwise is to adopt the thinking of tyrants and dictators.
They don't trust us with the information, so they censor or actually, lie. These are two bad things. One leads to loss of freedom; the other loss of trust. We need both freedom and trust.
"One of the most exceptional things about America is that the founders really trusted that the great mass of people could actually govern themselves, and that they could be trusted to speak and think freely."
The first part might be true if you define the great mass of people as white male property owners. As for the second, let's not forget the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts.
You must be grateful to live in a country whose self-correcting system allows the mass of people to continually move closer to its founding ideals. That means we have the wherewithal to fight ideas like the internment of Japanese citizens in 1941 by F.D.R., escalation of the Viet Nam war by LBJ and Nixon and Internet censorship today.
@SoCalGuy
And yet, those so-called "self-correcting systems" failed to stop even *one of the things you mention above. And, the Japanese were not interned in 1941. Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7th, 1941 leaving three weeks remaining in 1941 to take retaliatory action. The U.S. declared war on Japan, Dec. 8, 1941.
According to nps.gov: "On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, authorizing the US Army to remove all persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast and imprison them without due process of law."
There is no real advantage in quoting history if we are not interested in the accuracy of our facts.
Doesn't change the essence of the argument. It also doesn't change the fact that these ideas keep coming up, such as banning free speech, or excommunicating vaccine resistors from society.
@SoCalGuy
No, it just shows that you are willing to "shoot from the lip" backing your arguments with *glaringly incorrect historical references. 'Nuff said.
OK, you win.
You're not "fighting" anything, you're huffing and puffing in the comment section of a substack newsletter.
Wow you are SOOO TOTALLY GENIUS? I have LITERALLY never read ANYTHING about HISTORY before your COMMENT? which is SO TOTALLEH AHXMAZING. you must be a genius no srsly.
People who don’t pay taxes really cannot be trusted to choose tax rates for others. We’ve proven this. Race aside, having or not having skin in the game distorts democracy to the point of collapse.
I agree. But it's the people who "don't pay taxes" who are currently running the country into the ground. Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.---who entrusted these motherfuckers to choose our tax rates? Some skin in the game and some dog teeth in the pot---ya! Don't worry about race, though. They mostly white motherfuckers with nothin' but foreskin in the game.
Well that's a lie. The wealthy pay taxes. Corporations never pay taxes, wage earners do. You're spewing tropes and lies because you don't actually understand how this works.
@kass
Nicely observed. Even under that *stirring and *soaring Jeffersonian Statement: "All men are created equal ....." in Jefferson's day, "men" were *legally defined as: FREE.
WHITE. MALE. LANDOWNERS. OVER TWENTY-ONE. The *mistake of thinking that "All men are created equal.... even CAN be interpreted by today's standards without a string of pretzel logic that would break one's very *neck, is not only silly, but textbook definition naive. These facts *fully underscore many modern *misinterpretations of the "intent" of the Founders - people presuming a 21st Century interpretation of language written (in this example) in the mid-1700s.
You’re an idiot, probably senile , and definitely store your shit in a bag in your dining room complete with date of dump and weight in grams.
Sevender...you're getting out of line...don't make me come after you...
You can’t get off the couch without tripping over your fat meat curtains.
Its insane to suggest that people who don't work, don't own land and don't produce anything of value, regardless of race or gender, shouldn't be allowed to vote.
It should also be insane to believe that these voters should have the right to vote for the removal of my property to be paid to them. The problem is that it isn't, in fact, its supported by a majority of the idiots we have voting today. Without defined rights, majority rule is tyranny by a different name.
"People who don't work...and don't produce anything of value..." You mean like hedge fund managers, investment bankers and Big Tech workers? And not to worry---nobody will be "voting" for the right to remove your property or my property or anybody's property. That will all be accomplished systematically and without any poll tallies. You and millions of others are, myself included, a few short years away from the great anthropocene frog march to the Yukon gulags, to cultivate root vegetables and work in the hydrogen factories, in the service of The New Climate World Order. So don't sweat it.
You forget your meds?
@Nick M.
That was certainly the view of the Founders. One man, one vote style democracy was defined *by them as the equivalent of "Fifty-one percent mob rule". The way people think of "Democracy" today is FAR removed from the way it was considered at the time of its U.S. Founding.
And, Sir, what is, or is *not "insane to suggest" is a matter for you to take up with Thomas Jefferson, not with yours truly.
Totally agree!! “The wisdom of crowds” was an interesting book.
So is “the madness of crowds”.
@SoCalGuy
The Founders were not "whack" when they were dealing with Thirteen Rather Sparsely populated podunk little Colonies. Isn't is just a *bit "whack" to wrench the Founders out of their own time period when literally *most people were fully illiterate, and *then to judge them by the Standards of Today, with the land area of today's U.S. and possessions, and the FACT of 330 Million people ? Given the facts on the ground in the Founder's day, throwing shade upon their accomplishments says *far more about today's commentator than about the actual Founders themselves. The Founders did NOT walk on water. There.
That they did not anticipate things like today's Big Pharma ? They actually did, even tho no one in those days could imagine the Global Size and Clout of Big Pharma:
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
Thomas Jefferson
So, they didn't anticipate McDee's by name. What a bunch of dunderheads !
Yes, you've hit on a very interesting phenomenon: the idea that today's mid-wit students and professors are somehow qualified to judge not just those who are alive today, but also everyone who EVER LIVED. That, along with the idea that everyone falls into just two groups, victim or victimizer, is another tenant of Marxism.
Times change, but human nature doesn't. The founders knew that centralized, top-down power is the worst way of organizing a civilization. Power corrupts, and there is more money and more power concentrated in Washington DC than anywhere at anytime in history. The only real solution to corruption is to start chipping away at that power. Unfortunately, these people have many ways to defend their positions, and will not hesitate to use them, as we've seen.
You're a rather vague, opaque kinda guy. "Chipping away?" This sounds more like a strategy that Mary Poppins might employ to get Bert over for afternoon tea. And then once you urge us to start this "chipping away" process you seem to give up the ghost by declaring, with confidence lacking, that "unfortunately these people have many ways to defend their positions." No flanking maneuvers in your strategic handbag? I daresay, you're going to have a hard go of it enlisting others to bivouac with you with that sort of strategic hesitancy. I mean, I'm not suggesting a full-on banzai charge here, but if these people indeed "have many ways to defend their positions" as you say, something more than a few ice hammers will have to be put to use if victory is to be achieved and a short walk to the gallows forestalled. I mean, really...
@SoCalGuy
"One more time, for all the old times...." Historical figures can be judged ONLY by the conditions and *contexts of their OWN time periods. So, before digging up all of the impotent name-calling such as "Marxist", et al, just NOTICE that judging people according TO their own time period is just *logically self-evident.
So, to whatever degree your ability for reading comprehension allows, or disallows you to *grasp the foregoing, I am not interested in addressing, because I learned in Logic 101 to waste no time with "Strawman Arguments".
If you would reread my comment, you would "comprehend" that I'm adding to your argument, not denying it. But you can't have a discussion with someone who just wants to argue at any price.
Your original thesis seemed to be that America has never been perfect, therefore there is nothing about our country that merits preservation. That's a much over-used rhetorical device that is as vile as it is false.
@SoCalGuy
One MORE time. My "original thesis" is not a thesis. It is a fact of basic LOGIC, to wit: "We cannot accurately judge ANY historical figure OUT of the context of their OWN time period !" I just cannot *make it any more simple than that, and, this (really, I promise this time) is my *final effort in repeating that statement. Readers can either fully *ignore it, or do with it what they will, but I am *not going to continue going all "broken record" on it ! Thank you for the discourse.
You're amazing. I agreed with you before, and I agree with you on that point now. Maybe it's time to adjust your meds.
That’s like saying that the past, present and future are each demarcated from each other and no comparisons or symmetries are acceptable. Geez, how would we know there was time or temporality other than the present??
Madison’s argument was that the Senate was needed to protect the people against its predictable ‘fickleness and passion.’
IVM was discovered in 2015 and they won a Nobel!!
The Founders most DEFINITELY did not trust "the great mass of people." And like it or not, the functioning of a healthy modern society depends on the work and judgements of experts. Unquestionably, Big Pharma and the entire edifice of the American health care system require extensive and revolutionary reform. In the meantime, allowing quacks, charlatans, grifters, and quick-buck artists in through the backdoor is, to say the least, NOT what the doctor ordered.
You're wrong on the Founders. They set a system in motion that was founded on principals that were pointing us toward freedom and justice.
"Experts" are great, but what do we do when so many experts disagree? Do we allow the government to choose which experts we can hear, and those whose opinions we're not allowed to hear? Over time, the truth does rise to the surface. If that isn't true, then we should simply acquiesce to the "progressive" (regressive) idea that we must be ruled by an elite group of experts, who feed us only what they want us to know.
Read more, comment less. I'm not wrong on the Founders. Read more, comment less. I've spent a lifetime reading and re-reading the many of the best secondary monographs on American colonial history.
"...They set a system in motion that was founded on principals [principles, not principals] that were pointing us toward freedom and justice." This is insipid--- mewling meaninglessness. It is not a refutation of my comment in any way. It's as airy and hollow as a Hallmark greeting card verse. Read the Federalist Papers, particularly Madison. I can also furnish you a long reading list of superb scholarship that will introduce you to the the founder's well-documented wariness of the common rabble. Read more, comment less. Opinions are worthless. Remember that the next time you have one.
"Experts" are great, but what do we do when so many experts disagree? Do we allow the government to choose which experts we can hear, and those whose opinions we're not allowed to hear?" Experts always disagree. When have experts not disagreed? That's what experts do best--disagree. To take your beloved founders as an example, they made a religion of disagreeing with one another.
If you don't like what a certain group of experts are offering, start reading some more. Less commenting, more reading. If you don't subscribe to the prevailing opinions or ideas, read some more so you're able to formulate your own coherent opinions, buttressed by documented facts, not cheaply manufactured propaganda. Read more, comment less.
Your scholarly devotion has devolved into Internet trolling and insults. For someone who holds their own scholarship in such high regard, you lower yourself to cheap insults.
The Founders' concern about the "rabble" lead them to form a representative democracy rather than a direct democracy. Does that mean they didn't trust the people? No. It meant they didn't trust the passions of the day, and wanted to slow things down with a more deliberative process.
You're extremely proud of your ability to read, perhaps you're the one who should search out more facts and opinions before you spout. Then you might not be so certain that "experts" should rule over the rabble.
Huh-uh. When a specific strain of "stupid" becomes anathema and too threatening to American elites, the first order of the day for state gauleiters will be to direct their propaganda field operatives to substack comment sections like this one.
Hmm. That bears repeating:
"we have the "mainstream is always wrong" fallacy, basically the same as an ad hominem attack."
So there’s a theory that if a bunch of chimps pound away at keyboards long enough, they’ll come up with Shakespeare. Now we can see that isn’t true. Hunter Thompson is dead.
1633 you tube suspends Galileo for his ridiculous, heretical misinformation that the earth circles the sun.
I hate to be "WELL AKSHULLY" guy, but I'm gonna have to be.
Galileo was right, but only by accident. Resistance to heliocentricism had almost nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with science. The best science of the day indicated that Galileo had gone way beyond the data they had available. Most SCIENTISTS thought heliocentricism was wrong, based largely on older Greek work that was entirely reasonable based on the then current data. It wasn't until better telescopes provided more accurate data that a serious case for heliocentricism could be made.
How this applies to our present situation is left as an exercise for the reader.
Copernicus asserted heliocentrism on the basis of observations, likewise Bruno confirmed Copernicus’ “theory” on the basis of observations, and Galileo doubly confirmed the heliocentric model with observations of the Moon’s surface, of the phases of Venus, and of sunspots on the Sun, among other discoveries from observation, eg Jupiter.
This was the time when conceptualuzation was being criticized by induction via Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, etc. Galileo was under intense pressure from authorities, as the assertion of heliocentrism was considered heresy. So, it was not by accident that Galileo was right. See Feyerabend on Galileo.
The Druids did a better job of sky science. Read "The Discovery of Middle Earth" by Graham Robb.
eh, in the cosmological sense- beyond the orbital bias conferred by planetary revolution around a type G star- relative perspective applies; there's no objective reason why each of our personal locations on this planet is not, in fact, the "center of the universe."
The more important question is: what makes it important? For someone concerned with, say, satellite launches, the reality of earth orbit around the sun is proof of an imperative principle of physics; in considerations of the philosophy of being, it's practically irrelevant.
It's a terrible shame that the Roman Catholic hierarchy of the day was so insecure about early astronomical researches that they felt the need to pass sweeping judgements about the findings, and the discoverers.
So what you are saying is... San Francisco is the new Vatican?
Copernicus published in 1543!
And yet it moves!
If iv*rmectin was so ineffective, they wouldn't be so against it. Nobody cares about cranks who talk about how the earth is flat or if the moon landing wasn't real, or who advocate taking horse painkillers like ketamine to treat mental health issues - yet they're very concerned with shutting this topic down. Why?
Three words: Emergency Use Authorization
Or how about "vaccine is ineffective". Two Pfizer shots Apr 15 and May 2; caught COVID with a positive test on 8/19. MIL had her J&J shot in late June, caught COVID with a positive test date of 8/24.
Outcomes for the two of us were totally similar with my wife's, who took no vaccine but IS taking ivermectin. Positive test on 8/24, asymptomatic now.
Shhh. Natural immunity is not to be discussed. It doesn't exist.
Try this one on: current policies dictate that after a positive COVID test, you're considered infectious and _no one can visit you_. My wife broke her leg last weekend and my MIL had some heart palpitations caused by overly thin blood as a result of the cold medications she was taking for COVID interacting with the warfarin she takes. In both cases I couldn't even visit them or act as an advocate in the hospital because I was going to catch the COVID I probably brought home to them in the first place and was definitely immune to.
I know public health policy is hard, but this is exceedingly dumb at this point.
Amen. I wouldn't say I've been ignoring policy, for example, I wear masks because they are easy and I dont want to cause a fuss, the people at my grocer don't get paid enough to deal with it, but at some point, ignoring the authorities becomes the only viable way of dealing with them.
I live in a lake community south of Charlotte, NC, so I am in SC but on the border with NC. NC has a mask mandate and SC doesn't. I simply refuse to go over the border for anything anymore, despite my typical errands being in both states. I just... can't. No more masking. I've switched my favorite grocery store from one that was in NC to one here and we are avoiding some of our NC restaurants and gym due to this.
I'm vaxxed as of mid June but saw this yesterday and it makes a lot of sense to me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DOOZpGA_VI
SHOCKED YouTube hasn't taken it down!
They'd have a hard time justifying taking down the proceedings of the Michigan House. They (the online giants) all realize just how close to the edge of being winked out of existence they are.
They took this one down. https://news.yahoo.com/youtube-removes-video-desantis-medical-123609052.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall
I admire her ability to throw woketard language right back at them.
So refreshing!
I was not impressed with her claims, far too absolutist and just plain wrong on the main count: the vaccinated are not reeling from the Delta variant, the unvaccinated are.
Here claim that receiving the flu vaccine over several years sets the person up for more extreme symptomology makes no sense; it is as if prior vaccinations - a stronger immune system - is deleterious in the face of a new mutation.
In the case of COVID, the initial form or mutant is just as effectively countered by the vaccinations as are the subsequent mutations. There is not that much difference.
It is also absurd to claim that vaccinated persons are transmitting the virus. What is the action of the vaccination? catch and release? No, viral pathogens that enter a vaccinated person are destroyed by the immune system. A vaccinated person is neither symptomatic nor transmitting the virus: can’t get it can’t give it.
Exceptions like long COVID or people testing pos after vax should be examined more carefully for other diseases. Flu symptoms can arise from many other causes, e.g. allergies!
Bottom line: ER’s are flooded by the unvaccinated!
You’re unusually low IQ. Even for someone with an “I believe” sign on his lawn.
Really? Have you looked at Israel, UK, Seychelles? Their rates of infection mirror the rates of vax vs unvaxxed almost perfectly.
“ 95% of the severe patients are vaccinated.” Furthermore, “85-90% of the hospitalizations are in fully vaccinated people” and the hospital is “opening more and more COVID wards.”
https://www.visiontimes.com/2021/08/08/israel-hospital-vaccinated.html
Israel's 20% Unvaccinated Now Account for Half of All Serious COVID-19 Cases
Looks like a fact-check issue, when the figure is 72 cases, it does seem relevant.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-covid-unvaccinated-half-serious-cases-delta-pfizer-1.10146662
Where's the data to back up your claims? Seems we can't get real data...CDC isn't counting breakthrough cases any more? Any contact tracing of those people? How do we know. The point is the narrative (as is your go-to) that only the unvaccinated are the problem and thus they MUST get vaccinated, is always the only argument!
It’s already been revealed that the “pAndemIc of tHe unVaccinAted” press release relied on pre delta data from March, to the shock of a number of scientists. Iverson had a little piece on it but I don’t think she talked in much detail. The cultists simultaneously claim the pandemic is spreading only among the unvaccinated AND the vaccines were never designed to limit spread to begin with. What?
https://publichealthinsider.com/2021/09/03/new-data-dashboard-tracks-covid-19-risk-for-unvaccinated-people-compared-to-vaccinated-people/
Yep. Got COVID the first time before vax was available, in May of 2020. Mild case.
Got the double vax this year and just recovered from the Delta varient. Mild case as well. Not getting the booster.
Wow! You should be anti-bodied to the max by now!
Yeah, until the next strain comes around! I can't figure out if my immune system is awesome (mild cases) or awful (keep getting it). At this rate, I'll get the next varient but will probably not even notice. "Wait, I thought I had a sniffle there for a moment.. nah, I'm fine."
Right? I've been taking Vit C, Vit D, zinc and elderberry for the last 18 months. What to do to boost one's immunity was also dropped from social media in the early months. That will also confound and anger me!
I heard about a guy who was wearing a seatbelt and Still got injured in a car crash. Worse than somebody else who crashed who wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.
So your hur hur hur response citing anecdotal evidence is pointless. The vaccine wasn't supposed to stop people from getting infected in the first place, it was only designed to lessen symptoms in the original COVID-19 virus. Its effect on Delta is spotty at best.
This lie to the American public, at least by omission, is further harming government credibility, as if it could get much worse. No one wants a booster shot that is not effective against Delta. No one wants a vaccine that doesn't stop you from getting the disease. Even if it is effective in that manner against the original COVID-19, that is not what is floating around now, and certainly not what will be floating around in 6 months if the medical professionals I talk to have any credibility.
It took getting the disease and then researching this to find out the answer, which is that we were all sold a bill of goods.
You, you wife, and your mother in law? Can’t argue with that sampling of the population!
Lets talk about the control groups that were intentionally destroyed for the mRNA vaccines. You know, "Real Science".
Well yeah, nothing but what you think is true is true if you can discredit everything as anecdotal except sanctified data.
Exactly. Follow the money.
And follow the egos. Fauci has been beating the vaccine drum for decades. He was instrumental in spending gobs of money on a failed HIV vaccine and steering money away from therapeutics.
He was instrumental in funding the research that caused the current pandemic.
OH SHIT DID I SAY THAT OUT LOUD?
I wonder what he thinks the endgame is for him. If nothing else, the historians will get him. A big mea culpa now would probably have a better result long term.
As was Collins and the DOD.
The idea that the DOD was funding viral research in China is rather mind-boggling in its stupidity.
And if it was supposedly to gain all these insights into bat-origin coronaviruses, as Peter Daszak told Fauci in his email, why do these people never seem to have a clue? What did we ACTUALLY get for the money we spent?
The Arpanet was a DoD funded research project. So was CPOF - it's the main C2 tool used in the Army for something like 15 of the last 20 years. So sometimes the research dollars produce results. But the DoD also invests in stupid things, as you cite above. Its location in China wasn't necessarily dumb from a national security perspective as long as nothing classified was transmitted, i.e. the data flow was all one way. The research itself probably was stupid.
No it is not. It is very intelligent. Wildlife, and bats in particular, are the primary reservoir of coronaviruses. SARS-1 came from bats. So, it is smart to support (cheap) research on bat coronaviruses. If we had not done this, we WOULD NOT HAVE ANY data on bat coronaviruses in China.
So, you’re the “crystal clear” explainer?
I think that eua thing has been debunked. The eua did not depend on suppressing information about other viable prophylactics
An EUA require non existent treatment alternatives.
Hydroxy cloroquin and ivermectin are old drugs that are very safe and very cheap. Big pharma would rather have us using drugs like Remdesavir that cost $3,000 per treatment.
Working in pharma, this is true. Remdesavir should not have been approved in my opinion. It's a lousy drug that barely works.
From same comment mentioned above (IM Doc on Naked Capitalism...)
"Remdesevir is loaded with all kinds of safety problems that I have seen with my own eyes. And it has the extra benefit of obviously not working – it literally does not do a god damned thing. Multiple studies have hinted at this."
Seems to agree with you.
Yeah. I looked at the data. It sucked.
It was my understanding that remdasivir was given early on with mixed results. At that time no one knew WHAT worked and so doctors were trying all sorts of things.
"The agency added that the NIH has also determined there are currently insufficient data to recommend ivermectin for the treatment of COVID.
Not actually correct – the NIH current status on ivermectin is there is not enough data to recommend OR to discourage its use. The NIH changed this recommendation in December of 2020 as previously the NIH status on ivermectin usage was to discourage its use. Usually the status in which ivermectin is now placed would be accompanied with all kinds of funds to study the true efficacy of the drug, to see if it is successful. That of course is not being done at this time.
Interestingly, 2 of our other COVID modalities have exactly the same recommend/discourage status. That would be remdesevir and outpatient monoclonal antibodies. EXACTLY the same status on both of these as ivermectin currently. The NIH states there is not enough evidence to recommend or to discourage the use of either of these.
And yet we continue right on with both the others without a blink of an eye.
A little math –
Ivermectin course for COVID is less than twenty dollars.
A course of REMDESEVIR is currently right at 8800 dollars.
An outpatient treatment with monoclonal antibodies is right at 23000 – 25000 dollars with all the infusion costs added."
Hat tip to IM Doc (commentariat on Naked Capitalism....best source for info on Covid I've found...)
I don't have a link to hand, but apparently there are THREE
major, controlled studies of efficacy going on, two in the US and one in Britain. So the FDA, or somebody with money, thinks it's worth a try - not at all what they're telling us. It would be unethical to trial a drug with no reason to think it might work.
@Charles
Dude, I KNOW that you are fully aware that Big Pharma, and "unethical" are *not mutually exclusive concepts ! The "somebody with money" of your *own statement really was NOT, as you note, the FDA ! The FDA could even be the one to "initiate the action", but they are *not the motive power behind this SARS Co V 2 racket.
This idea that "they're censoring it so it must work" is stupid. I don't agree with the censorship and I don't know if ivermectin works or not (though I lean towards thinking it doesn't based on the principle of something sounding too good to be true probably being so). It makes perfect sense to me why someone who believes censorship is justified to save lives would want to stop what they see as a quack bullshit treatment being recommended online. If people think they're being protected by the ivermectin they took when they aren't, it could lead to people to avoid taking any other protective measures against Covid, thus spreading the disease to people who are at risk, or dying from it themselves.
Yes. Ivermectin is a drug that if you get COVID, I would say to use. But get vaccinated FFS. It's not perfect, but Ivermectin is far less effective.
My wife refused to get vaccinated but took ivermectin when she got Delta. I don't know what to say about it, the holistic treehugger types she works with are dead set against what they call 'unnecessary' vaccination. Their belief structures seem to be that the immune system is zero sum and if you attenuate it for one disease, you're making it less effective against others.
I don't feel confident enough to argue too hard against this, but I don't personally believe it. I got vaccinated and I probably have more vaccines in me than most - 2 heps, anthrax, probably one of the rare people that has had a smallpox booster in this century, a few others courtesy of Uncle Sam. Come to me with a needle with a vaccine in it and i'll offer up an arm.
It's just wrong. The immune system eventually wears out, if you live that long. By the time you are 112, you may be down to one or 2 clone lineages of B and T cells. So you won't mount a great response. But, the design of living organisms is that they are self-renewing colonies of trillions of cells that work together. The immune system can keep fielding new challenges just fine. In fact, allergies are an instance of immune systems not having enough to work on. So, kind of like a bored kid, those cells find SOMETHING to do. (Like the time when I, at the age of 7 got a saw for Christmas from my father. It was supposed to saw through steel and wood, anything. Bored me, I tried it out on my dad's rolltop desk... :-D It's funny now. It wasn't then. Anyway, an immune system without enough to do is something like that.)
There are people that inject snake venoms to the point that they are hyper-immune and can take a mortal dose of venom without serious harm. It still hurts terribly, but they recover in a day or so. The only indications I have on those people is that they have better health for longer lives.
@Brian
If the Immune System eventually "wears out", then I am damned glad that no one seems to have Polio anymore ! I also had Chicken Pox, Mumps, and Measles the "old fashioned" way. With the exception of Shingles as a "gift" from Chicken Pox, Mumps, and Measles do not "come back" either ! This I have proven by taking care of children who also had Mumps and Measles in *spite of having also been injected with today's "foolproof" vaccines for BOTH !
As to "if you live long enough", that condition also applies to ALL males dying of prostate cancer. In my Seventies, I don't have a trace of it, but IF I LIVE LONG ENOUGH ...... what does *that mean ? When Methuselah becomes *MY little brother ? Sheeee-*IT ! ;-D ;-D
Thanks for putting this out there. Immune systems age like all the other body parts.
@Waiting
Indeed, they DO, but all that tells us is that "eventually *Somethin' gonna kill yuh ! I do not regard that as particularly "new" news.
Most old timers who are taken out by virus, usually go via flu going into pleuresy/pneumonia. But, there is *still falling down stairs ....etc. You get the drift ! ;-D
@HBI
The commenter, previously billing himself on this queue as "Brian The Scientist", rarely bothers impeding himself with actual facts, altho he will *claim the knowledge of the gawds on most all subject of science. Brian finally "trimmed" his original self-chosen online handle when sufficient numbers of commenters proved him *wrong on the bulk of his "scientific" claims. So, consider this an "unofficial", and definitely "unsolicited" bit of background trivia. ;-D ;-D I would go with trusting your OWN experience, as I see that you usually do.
And, yes. Troops going to Vietnam were subjected to 21 Overseas shots, administered by *air gun as the troops were slow marched by the medics. Frequently "off target", the air guns could either administer the shot, OR rip a long divot in your skin due to the movement of the march.
They still used air guns at Benning but they had us stand still for them, thank goodness. Still a lot of shots in rapid fire fashion. All our upper arms were aching that night.
It was kinda funny in one respect. The soldier wielding the air gun on my left arm complained about how hard it was to get a shot in on my arm. I didn't tell him it was one of my prime insulin injection sites and had seen a LOT of needles. Since insulin dependent people aren't supposed to deploy and my G6 (the guy in that picture) went the extra mile to get me signed off by the divisional doctor AND tossed a little fridge into one of the ISU-90s (half a Conex, air transport container) to keep the insulin cold over where we were going.
I like to get all kinds of opinions. Some people I disagree with even when i'm soliciting same, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
@HBI
By all *means, do all of your own research ! Yes ! I guessed that you probably *did remember Brian from the days of the longer title. I just posted under the principle of: "Better to *have redundant info and not *need it, than the obverse !" ;-D
She should have take Thalidomide. More effective than ivermectin.
Dale Carnegie would suggest you're an asshole. I agree.
Thalidomide was completely OKd by the FDA and CDC.
Someone got a Presidential medal for refusing to approve it in its initial form for morning sickness, unlike in say Germany or Canada where lots of deformed babies were born. It only got approved in the US later for treatment of particular cancers with all kinds of safeguards against pregnancy or even semen going from man to partner, it can apparently be carried in there too. Even with all that, there are affected births every year. Because compliance.
It's got a side effect list that is quite long even if you ignore the teratogenic qualities. Causes circulatory issues, etc.
Only if she is pregnant though … or if she is drowning in an ocean of stupidity
Great point. We have a lot more to learn about this virus and it’s treatments
((($$$$)))
They protest too much.
Interesting discussion by the two prime movers behind ivermectin and Bret Weinstein. https://odysee.com/@FrontlineCovid19CriticalCareAlliance:c/Weekly_Update_SupressionofGoodScience:3
How about letting us make our own decisions and deal with the consequences. AKA freedom
Your decisions effect people besides you.
And just how far do you want to take that line of reasoning? I want maximal freedom and minimal governance/state.
Public health is a funny thing. That adage about the freedom of your fist ends at my nose seems apropos. On the other hand, if you are going to use authoritarian measures like quarantines, you need to make a good faith argument that the solutions actually solve something.
That's been the thing missing here. Not even being able to discuss it (generally) is hardly helping.
That's the rub, isn't it? If the public health "authorities" have been shown to be absolutely incompetent, let alone lying and wrong, then the "your decisions affect other people..." arguments tend to lose validity because NOBODY SEEMS TO KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR PUBLIC HEALTH. Fauci told the country that masks were not necessary...and then admitted he lied to preserve supplies for health care workers. A noble lie but a lie none the less. Credibility cost was/is huge. Ivermectin is just the latest example...
As I think Taibbi is arguing (acknowledging his focus on censorship and the exchange of ideas), if we lived in a society that respected its members as free and capable, we could discuss these issues and find solutions.
We don't live in a society that respects its members.
It's too bad our wonderful 2-Party BOTH cut the hell out of public health (or anything public) in the name of "neoliberalism". So, the rich get richer and the rest of us get sick.
What if you can't have it? Typical American: "lotta want," not a lotta "need." Why not relocate to Bougainville Island? There you'll encounter few state-directed medical strictures. In fact, you're unlikely to encounter very little organized medical treatment there. Maximal freedom, minimal governance. You're occupying the wrong outpost...
That sounds nice. Maybe I’ll retire there.
No shit, Sherlock.
Who decides what I decide, if it isn't me?
If we could stop using the term "misinformation" for stuff we disagree with and is to be deconstructed by argument, that would be a win.
If everyone is so dumb that we think argument is ineffective, well, that sounds like a justification for totalitarianism, for which I can only have contempt. That leads nowhere good.
So true. Let’s air out our data and arguments
Michael Mann hardest hit.
His fraudulent shenanigans definitely put the Mann in Mann Made Global Warming.
I have fact-checked your comment and found it to be partially false and offensive to those who identify as mute.
Brutal. But I laughed so...
#humorisnotdead
The problem with this is that thanks to my generation (GenX) coddling our children, and actively helicoptering them to never see and hear things that may be shocking, we've raised 3 generations now to have blinders on and not be able to think for themselves. Those generations are highly educated and can quote book material incredibly, but zero on the critical thinking and observational scale.
Now, I realize that is a broad brush stroke to use, and that not all fall into this, but enough that they get to get a voice, and that voice is loud. It's easier to put your fingers in your ears and scream "LA, LA, LA, LA" than to hear things that might make you actually think, or show empathy or compassion.
My stepfather (who moved in when I was 10, in 1979) used to say to me that I was book smart; but he was going to teach me to be street smart. He was a Korean war vet born in 1934. He brought his father to live with us, who had emigrated to the US from Italy when he was 2, in 1899. These were the male role models I had. Their attitudes had no resemblance to the BS today.
The broken noses and such I could probably have done without, but there was no question that the other lessons were valuable. Dealing with people you don't like or disagree with on a cordial basis is a great skill and necessary for peace between humanity. We don't always get our way and there is a point where trying to get that is self-defeating. Compromise for peace. But the same generations you identify mostly have no idea of what war is and what it does to their cozy lives.
Ahhhhhh, but that's the entire point of calling it misinformation.
Where were the FDA, YouTube, Facebook and all of our overlords as the the opiate crisis has swept the country? Silent. But a simple drug that the Sacklers and other greedy pharmaceutical companies can't make a fortune on?! Attacked, vilified and censored.
Yes, that resonates.
I'd really like to see whether people denied opiates just turn into straitlaced people or they just start abusing things more readily available, like booze. Considering that both things can kill you fairly readily, through different mechanisms, i'm not sure that is any kind of improvement.
My experience of substance abusers is that they choose the most convenient and readily available solution until something so bad happens to them that they put aside the addictions. "hitting rock bottom" is the common term.
With this kind of attitude toward substance abuse, I am sure you can understand how I think the whole concept of an "opioid epidemic" refers purely to supply of one particular intoxicant, without impacting the personal and social problems that cause substance abuse.
On an anecdotal note, i'd be happy if I could go to a suburban location on a business trip without being accosted by a girl that reminds me of a less washed version one of my mid-20s daughters trying to sell herself to me for a fix.
Reading your comment, it's apparent you have little information about addiction. If opiates are not available they don't "substitute" alcohol or a "readily available solution until something so bad happens to them that they put aside the addictions." If a prescription for opiates can not be obtained then fentanyl or heroin will be bought off the street. Hitting rock bottom for an opiate addict (as well as an alcoholic) can be the grave.
I worked as an RN in detox and rehab for 20+ years and addiction is a life-destroying illness. Once hooked -- particularly on opiates -- it's very difficult to overcome the cravings for the drug.
Little information about addiction. Sure. Just a bunch of substance abusers in the family. But you keep on keeping on your assumptions.
With successes ranging in the sub 5%, it’s time to ask ourselves why we try. The overdose problem will solve itself if we allow it to.
Addiction vs substance abuse - addiction is a shorter term manifestation of dependence on a particular substance or class of substances, as in opioids or tobacco. Substance abuse is a condition whereby you abuse substances to escape from the world you live in. Substance abusers can be addicts, or might not be. Being addicted to a particular thing is not necessarily life ending - I was a smoker for many years, quit and I have been chewing nicotine gum for years. I'm probably not going to die from that, even if I never stop. But I am addicted to nicotine.
A certain family member has taken street drugs, oxycodone, steals tramadol from people, and drinks when those things are not available. This person is not addicted per se to any one - there is no detox. But they are a substance abuser of a high order. Drinking and taking pills until they are completely blotto and pass out. You find bottles all over the house, shoved in closets and under sinks to avoid detection. Hidden pill bottles.
The only success rate is when people are good and ready to quit and nothing short of that works. Having the patience to wait for that is really hard.
I gave up the booze 20 months ago, and the smokes 16 months ago. Something just clicked. I'm done.
Congrats - though to be sure this is something you did purely for yourself and not because someone would say "attaboy". I hope your will can carry you to wherever you want to go.
I come from a family of addicts and have my own addiction issues and 100% agree.
Regarding your first three paragraphs---probably the most impressive display of ignorance on a given subject I've encountered in these threads, and that's saying something. As for the final paragraph and your complaint, it sounds as though you ought to either conduct business in different neighborhoods, or examine more closely your presentation of self when entering those neighborhoods. Unless, of course, those "trips" to those "neighborhoods" are part and parcel of your "business."
Last point: I want to be clear that I generally don't respond to you because you're a fucking asshole, as the parent message clearly depicts. When I deliver the cut direct in the future, you'll know it's purposeful and why.
I asked a Las Vegas hooker once why she'd picked me off the sidewalk to accost. It happens quite a bit, and I never take them up on it. Her answer was "the smile". Maybe I should frown more, but i'm not going to do so for the benefit of prostitutes.
You obviously haven't lived with substance abusers.
Let me be clear: I have lived with substance abusers. Many of them. Over many years. It's a sensitive subject and precisely the only reason I responded to one of your comments---the sum of which, those that I've read, strike me as the linguistic equivalent of whittling on the front porch. But judging from the quantity of wood shavings on the porch floorboards, you have a lot of company, so loneliness shouldn't be an issue.
And thank you for identifying the source of the vast emptiness in my life--the absence of your responses. And please alert me if---or when---you no longer consider me a fucking asshole. That'll be a---if not the---definitive sign that it's time to vacate these threads for good and maybe take up whittling on the front porch myself.
Censorship? Editing? Protecting? What is YouTube doing? Basically they are “protecting” their viewers from seeing anything they disagree with. They are not doctors or researchers, but they feel entitled to choose what viewers can see. We need platforms for videos that are not censored, and the public needs to muster up the courage to be exposed to things that are outrageous, abrasive, or outright wrong. Free speech requires open minds, courage, and lots of counterarguments. Protection is not part of it.
Well, we do have those platforms. There is the problem of the immense momentum that allowed a single player to achieve hegemon status. The other platforms don't get traffic. When searching any topic, who gets to pick where you go? Not an impartial engine; Google gets to tell you where to go. What does an open and fair platform system look like?
Looks like Substack
Yeah, it does.
Don't use Google; it's censored, which means it's a lousy search engine. Plenty of alternatives - duckduckgo, Qwant, even Yahoo.
Google still has the best maps, though, despite some bad design decisions.
As you indicate, YT is not protecting anyone. YT is Zuckerb's creation which is tasked with controlling our exposure to ideas/discourse. Algorithms, my a--.
May we carbon units (who supposedly live in a democracy) weigh in on how we should be able to live our lives, or is that now over with because these boys figured out how to plug us into their collective. Humans are easily controlled, apparently.
YouTube along with Twitter are run by fascist. Agree with me or you die. Or get kicked off their platform
Here's the biggest problem, and it doesn't just involve Youtube.
It involves Donald Trump, and Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden, and Joe Rogan, and Jen Psaki, and Elon Musk, and Nancy Pelosi, and Mark Zuckerberg, and Tony Fauci, and Andrew Cuomo, and Ron Desantis, and Xi Jianping, and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus... the list can go on forever
Not one of these people or organizations is willing to say, "I don't know." Ever. Especially when they really don't know.
And most of the time, like most human beings on earth, they really don't know what they are talking about. They make shit up. And when they are wrong, they refuse to admit that they are wrong, because "it shows weakness" or some bullshit like that.
Even Albert Einstein didn't claim to have an answer to every question, and he was infinitely smarter than all of the people above, combined.
The mark of an intelligent person is the ability to say, honestly, "I don't know the answer." when that is indeed the case. The certainty with which today's media-politico denizens speak is almost certainly inversely proportionate to the truth.
I'm pretty sure I've heard Joe Rogan say he doesn't know things all the time. His regular line is, "I'm just a guy with some thoughts and opinions." The trouble seems to be that there is an expectation from some that he has a responsibility to be something more than he is, simply because of the size of his audience. Maybe...but I guess from my perspective that view begins and ends with an assumption that the critics of Joe Rogan know more than his audience and deem them untrustworthy when it comes to deciding what opinions they should listen to and act upon. I detest that notion to it's core, but I can understand why Joe's critics feel that way.
Nonetheless, I don't think he fits in your list very well. Trump, Clinton, Biden, Fauci, Cuomo, etc. are elected (or appointed) politicians with very specific responsibilities to their constituents...they absolutely would benefit from admitting they don't know things from time to time. Zuck, Musk, Rogan are just dudes. Smart dudes, but while I think as powerful people they should be careful with what they say, as should anyone, I'm not sure they have any responsibility to accuracy or truth beyond what their shareholders demand. User beware, as the saying goes.
Aside from that small nitpick, I agree with your point.
I know almost anything about Joe Rogan, except I have several times seen people like you declare he often admits "I don't know."
So it must be a thing with him.
I don't love being a Rogan apologist, but I've been in so many conversations where my hyper-progressive friends, curse his name and accuse him of...something...which always seems to come down to his responsibility as a mouthpiece to 10 million people.
To me he's a painfully decent person who likes to talk to other people, especially standup comics and weirdos. I've appreciated his discussions with guys like Snowden, but most of his 'casts are just too long and dull to keep my interest.
The whole thing is so 'Howard Stern 1990' that I'm perennially surprised by how rabid the hate is. I may be wrong, but it just seems like more of the 'smart people hate what dumb people like' thing. (I don't actually think the people involved are smart or dumb, just giving the phenomenon a name)
To be fair, Rogan claims to be an “idiot”. I think he’s hilarious and quite brave. (As many comedians *used to be.)
Let me get this straight. Its not OK to censure a video skeptical of IVM, but perfectly all right to censure one that presents published evidence of its efficacy? You need to do some journalism work and not simply parrot the MSM. Read the evidence, talk to people on both sides, try to learn some science. Otherwise you are no different than Maddow. Izzy would be ashamed.
Lighten up, Francis. Matt has already covered the Weinstein side of this: https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-bret-weinstein
Hi Mitch, I am new to Twitter and hope that this doesn't turn into a Twitter fight. Matt did 'cover it". but only in the sense that he essentially took no position and repeated many Big Pharma talking points. He seems afraid to engage in the central issue "Does IVM work?". He seems to uncomfortable confronting this scientific question while he is fearless in confronting Big Business, Silicon Valley, etc. I understand that this is true for many people, but while some science is difficult to understand, clinical trials are relatively easy: two groups, one treated and one not. Sure there is some statistical analysis that my be intimidating to the laymen, but if he engaged serious scientists they could easily walk him through this. Even statistical information using the highly flawed Fisher p test would do the job for most people. There are subtle decisions in these studies, but if he would just read many of them he could get a first order approximation of whether they are evidence for or against the use of IVM. I am not asking him or anyone to conclude that IVM works, but simply that it may work, and therefore since in has an incredible safety profile, it should get a recommendation for use by the NIH--much like remdesivir, which doesn't work, and like their newly approved Alzheimer's drug which their own panel thought was worthless.
I think your comment is well taken, but I expect more from him.
I think you misunderstand what Matt is doing with this reporting. He is not reporting on the efficacy of Ivermectin or any other COVID treatment; he is revealing the daily assaults on open discussion of this and other issues by algorithm and partisan censorship on social and other media platforms. Whether Ivermectin has shown to be effective in this or that trial, or whether it has shown to be worthless, is not the subject of this article or the others he has written (at least three or four) that touch on the topic.
It is not his job to present both sides of the Ivermectin controversy; he's not actually covering it. He's covering the censorship controversy.
Mitch, I appreciate your position which is perfectly valid. Perhaps I should have been more precise. My view is that the most important question of our time is whether practical interventions that can ameliorate the horrific death toll exist. This may have blinded me to these issues of censorship which I still find secondary. Matt has the ability through advocacy to save lives, but perhaps his obsessions are different. But frankly, I think it is hard to argue that his current fascination with social issues, BLM, MeToo,, etc. is more important than doing the work that can change the course of this massive death train. I know that his sounds too preachy and judgemental--but there you have it. Best wishes. R
FWIW - COVID-19 is a tea party with crumpets and cream compared what could happen. A piece on biodefense for context. Good read. Covers things pretty well.
Bioterrorism and Biodefense for America’s Public Spaces and Cities
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/200112458_Bioterrorism_and_Biodefense_for_America%27s_Public_Spaces_and_Cities
Hi Brian, A friend was the second in command at the Soviet Biowarfare site, Vector. So I am very aware of what has been done, both publically and in the classified world. Those interested in the subject should read a book by his direct boss:https://www.amazon.com/Biohazard-Chilling-Largest-Biological-World-Told/dp/0385334966
There is a long list of serious lab leaks of biologically dangerous material both here and in the Soviet Union. But as a molecular biologist I never imagined that an engineered coronavirus could or would cause such havoc. By the way, the Chinese have abandoned the story that it was a zootic transfer and they now blame Fort Detrick.
agreed!
That is not in Matt's wheelhouse and I hope he keeps it that way!
Yes, he has. Possibly too many times. I love TK, but this piece feels like filler material...gotta feed the beast, and media aggravation is always a good bet.
Whoosh.
Ivermectin is only the tip of the iceberg. Medical bureaucrats are no different from other bureaucrats. Once in place, their priority becomes building a massive wall of proof that they are right. Not actually being right, simply proving diligence instead of achieving it. That has not changed in more than half a century.
What changed was the elites' sense of entitlement to rule over the rest of us. Trump committed the ultimate two sins: fighting back, and interrupting Clinton's coronation. The partisan elites already had big tech, public employee unions and legacy media on their side; all that was left to destroy Satan Incarnate was a pretext. COVID19 was a gift from the gods. Add medical bureaucrats to the mix and your coup is guaranteed to succeed.
But first, censorship. Fuller is one casualty; there are millions more. As soon as I learned in early January that a new respiratory virus had broken out in Wuhan and that Taiwan had closed its borders, conclusions were easy to reach. The last two dangerous respiratory disease outbreaks were both from corona viruses and originated in China. Both China and WHO were lying about human-human transmission. And the Wuhan lab had been China's center for biowarfare for decades.
I wrote about all of that, was condemned for spreading misinformation, and WHO fronted for China's lies. When social distancing guides came out, they were based on German research into bacteria in the late 1800s. We didn't have the technology then to detect virus particles in aerosols then. When we developed the technology we learned that the distance is eight meters. More writing, more condemnation and banning. Loss of long-held friendships because I was a fraud.
I did med school in Germany, practiced psychiatry there in the 1980s for a short while before returning to the US and leaving medicine. I'm not a research scientist nor bureaucrat, so I have no credibility. Except that we knew more than a hundred years ago how to deal with respiratory viruses: put all protective measures in place for the most vulnerable, probably the elderly and obese, put all infected patients outdoors or in extra-ventilated rooms, and ignore everyone else until we have more info. Suspensions and bans.
"interrupting Clinton's coronation"
I think that's root cause of much of the animus we've seen, and of almost all of the extreme animus. Hell hath no fury...
Interesting that you didn’t mention trump’s back-channel conversations with xi jinping, which were the basis for his announcing to the country that the warm weather would kill the pandemic. Among the WHO’s and faucci’s obvious cock-ups, that seems like a pretty big one, no?
IIRC, that late 19th century “six feet” rule was due to TB.
You Tube is fine for animal videos and DIY stuff (my favorites) or other entertainment. It's not very hospitable as a journalism platform and becomes less so by the hour. I am so thankful for Substack and the movement over to Rumble and Odysee. Hopefully they won't be gobbled up by the evil one.
Yes, -How to test and replace the defrost timer on your refrigerator-YouTube is great. And I can recommend the Everyday Astronaut's 3 hour tour of SpaceX with Elon Musk. But anything 'controversial' -nope
I watch a bunch of cooking channels and crafting channels. I am also strangely mesmorized by car detailing and miniature building channels. Watching those is a great way to chill out before bed. I'm moving away from it for any political channels as well to direct owner-hosted sources.
@memento mori
Speaking of being "gobbled up", You Tube is also contraindicated in *my book simply due to the fact that it is owned by Google ! So, while you and I are there, hoovering up "silly little love songs", Google is *also there, hoovering up DATA @ Max Suction !
Lie-posuction
At the least, people should be posting a mirror of their channel on YouTube alternatives for when the algorithm occasionally goes haywire.
America is due for a good deworming. IVM for everyone!
Please, tell me this will basically be the plot from Tremors.
Worms abound! Let's be rid of them! Spring is a good time for deworming.
I for one, welcome our new Ministry of Truth.
Long live Lysenko!
it is clear from reading across the MSM that there is a very strong agenda that has nothing to do with critical thinking or any deep analysis on many aspects of the pandemic and the coronavirus. There are very good clinical studies (available through google scholar) that do discuss the antiviral aspects of invermectin.
I don't particularly think it is usable as a front link treatment for covid for the reasons that many of the journal articles make clear. Nevertheless, it makes no sense to demonize people for talking about it or using it. Nor does it make sense to continually, as Fuller notes, refer to it as a horse dewormer, it does have other actions as most drugs do. it is also FDA approved for use in people as far as i know which the vaccines until recently were not, though of course there was an emergency use permit for them to be used.
Most people do not realize the tremendous conflicts that are ongoing in the medical community about a great many conditions. Chronic fatigue syndrome (now called ME/CFS) is still being dismissed by some physicians despite decades of research showing the reality of it. Chronic Lyme is as well continually said to be non-existent despite scores of thousands of people suffering from it (as they do with long covid) and a great many journal papers revealing the rationale for its existence. As Ed Yong in the Atlantic made clear, gaslighting is rampant in the medical profession about a large number of medical conditions that people suffer from, often for decades.
The thing i have appreciated about Taibbi and Greenwald is their commitment to open discussion. A number of vaccine specialists made the point, strongly, early on that hiding or downplaying the potential risk of side effects from the vaccines (which they were clear would exist) would hurt badly in the long run; it would simply make people more suspicious of experts. using the term "vaccine" was itself problematical. What we have is what is known as a leaky vaccine, this is quite different than something like the smallpox vaccine for instance which does in fact confer immunity. Leaky vaccines do not. The use of the term "breakthrough infection" is as well inaccurate. Leaky vaccines do not stop infections, they just alter severity and death rates; the organisms continue to modulate their structure to work around them over time.
Both sides of the issue are distorting the truth for their own ends; neither is very rational. in other words both are wrong about a great many things. the levels of dehumanizing vitriol make plain that other issues are involved. it is not just about the science.
anyway, thank you Matt for your work; there are far too few people who are willing to reason on these complex issues.
Alex Berenson says it best in this recent tweet:
"It doesn't stop infection. Or transmission.
Don't think of it as a vaccine. Think of it - at best - as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be used in advance of illness.
And we want to mandate it? Insanity."
I would say he is right on all counts. Too bad that tweet got him permanently banned from Twitter - but you can find him here on SS.
Berenson is a conspiracy theorist that has been demonstrably wrong about pretty much everything related to COVID.
I am not sure what he has been wrong about, so please enlighten me.
As far as his last tweet, all of that seems factual. No?
In other words, you've got nothing except an ad hominem.
Do enlighten us with precisely what he's gotten "demonstrably" wrong.
You're probably at this point beyond any measurable degree of "enlightening," but the below links ought to at least offer you some much needed "leverage" in any effort you might care to undertake in extracting your head from your ass. Share with friends.
Berenson: Pandemic grifter.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/covid-contrarian-alex-berenson-says-even-if-im-wrong-on-coronavirus-its-useful-to-have-me
https://reason.com/2021/08/30/alex-berenson-twitter-ban-vaccine-covid/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/pandemics-wrongest-man/618475/
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pandemic-s-wrongest-man-alex-berenson-permanently-suspended-from-twitter/ar-AANR5vz
Your sources, Aunt Martha, are hilarious! He literally takes data, primarily from Israel, to make his points. You're right, there is not enlightening, Aunt Martha, that you can provide, but I can assure you that my ass helped me win some pickleball games this morning, as did my head which correctly placed in separate parts of my body!
The sources strike me as mundane media outlets, the kind that are a dime a dozen. They are also irrelevant. They merely transcribe Berenson's own words with basic reporting. Duck Soup is hilarious, not this kind of sawdust journalism. You're easily amused I can see. The rest of this post is oblique nonsense. Israel? Takes data? Stick to Pickleball, you silly man/woman/hermaphrodite.
https://ivmmeta.com
ME/CFS hero. https://www.virology.ws/mecfs/
This is what it takes. David Tuller should get a lot more press coverage. Help him if you can.