December 29, 2020

And the Dumb Shall Speak

This from Steven Schueler

A 'stupid' society is more easily controlled. Bread and Circuses works best on the uneducated.

Yes, We're Getting Dumber, but Why?

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The Woke War of the Sexes

This from Willis Eschenbach:

When I was a kid I was a Cub Scout, then a Boy Scout. It was great.

Recently, though, the Gender Warriors have forced the Boy Scouts to remove "Boy" from their name and to add programs for girls ...

However, caving in to the mob never ends well. In the latest edition of "Get Woke, Go Broke", the "Scouts" are being sued by ... this is too good ... the Girl Scouts.

What other lunacy from the Genderacists can we expect next? We've already seen men who wear dresses get put into women's prisons, where they've raped a number of women ... duh. What do you think this will do to the number of prisoners who suddenly decide to wear dresses?

Yep. You're right.

And we've seen men in prison successfully demand that you and I, the taxpayers, have to provide money for surgeons to cut off their marital tackle and give them a pair of DD breasts.

"Genitoplasty" alone costs around $18,000. Then there's the new breasts, and creating an artificial vagina, and the hormones, it can add up to $100,000.

So next time you're wondering if you can afford medical care for your kid, your parent, or yourself, think about that $100,000 and weep.

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The Barr Resignation

This from Richard Cronin:

I’m still trying to figure out Barr’s resignation. Of course, Barr has been called Trump’s lackey.

With Barr out of the way, I hold out hope that John Durham has something substantive in his investigation but he needs to be seen as separated from Barr. Certainly, sedition was committed in Crossfire Hurricane. Biden was present at such meetings.

We know Durham has deposed Christopher Steele. Who else ? Perhaps Durham has even convened grand juries, with indictments in hand.

Again, I realize that this may be just wishful thinking.

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Trump and the Impoundment Control Act

Timothy Birdnow

A friend forwarded a message suggesting that Donald Trump has somehow outmaneuvered the Democrats with this "Covid Relief" bill. The arguement is that Trump, having signed the bill and simply lined out what he doesn't like, is now invoking the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which it is claimed will allow him to edit the bill to his heart's content.

Wrong. The President does not have a line-item veto. It's not in the law. This is the equivalent of saying he has one and only Trump figured it out.

The ICA was put in place as a way to compel the President to spend money as Congress determined, not the other way around.

From Congress's own budget website:

Frustrated with President Richard M. Nixon’simpoundment of congressionally appropriated funds, Congress reasserted its budget authority. By shifting the federal government’s fiscal year from July 1 to October 1, Congress gained the time to respond to the President’s annual budget message and properly legislate federal spending. The act created both the House and Senate Budget Committees and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The CBO was charged with gathering data and estimates and supplying the committees with proper information to assist the federal budget process. The House Budget Committee became a standing committee on July 12, 1974, in the 93rd Congress (1973–1975), but it did not organize until August 14, 1974. Albert Ullman of Oregon served as the first chairman of the committee.

There is more:

Put simply, if the President wants to spend less money than Congress provided for a particular purpose, he or she must first secure a law providing Congressional approval to rescind the funding in question. The ICA requires that the President send a special message to Congress identifying the amount of the proposed rescission; the reasons for it; and the budgetary, economic, and programmatic effects of the rescission. Upon transmission of such special message, the President may withhold certain funding in the affected accounts for up to 45 legislative session days. If a law approving the rescission is not enacted within the 45 days, any withheld funds must be made available for obligation.

A 2018 Government Accountability Office legal opinionholds that if the President proposes a rescission, he or she must make the affected funds available to be prudently obligated before the funds expire, even if the 45-day clock is still running. This means, for example, that the President cannot strategically time a rescission request for late in the fiscal year and withhold the funding until it expires, thus achieving a rescission without Congressional approval.

Deferrals

The ICA defines a "deferral” as withholding, delaying, or – through other Executive action or inaction – effectively precluding funding from being obligated or spent. The ICA prescribes three narrow circumstances in which the President may propose to defer funding for a program: (1) providing for contingencies; (2) achieving budgetary savings made possible through improved operational efficiency; and (3) as specifically provided by law.

The ICA requires that the President send a special message to Congress identifying the amount of the proposed deferral; the reasons for it; and the period of the proposed deferral. Upon transmission of such special message, the funds may be deferred without further action by Congress; however, the deferral cannot extend beyond the end of the fiscal year in which the special message is sent. The ICA language on deferrals is long-standing budget law that allows the Executive branch to delay the obligation or expenditure of funding only for the specified reasons rather than policy reasons.

In other words Congress must still approve the President's redlining.

Basically Trump caved on this. He wants to make it look like he's doing something, but he doesn't want to queer the Senate runoffs and at the same time he needs to look like he's fighting this kind of corruption. So he kicked the can down the road, invoking a little used provision that ultimately will require Congresional approval.

Don't think this is going anywhere.

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December 28, 2020

A sustained effort is under way to deny children access to literature

Dana Mathewson

Not only has the Left endeavored to dumb our youth down over the last umpteen years, they are now making no secret of it. Denying knowledge of the past is reprehensible.

From Fox News:

A sustained effort is under way to deny children access to literature. Under the slogan #DisruptTexts, critical-theory ideologues, schoolteachers and Twitter agitators are purging and propagandizing against classic texts—everything from Homer to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Dr. Seuss.

Their ethos holds that children shouldn’t have to read stories written in anything other than the present-day vernacular—especially those "in which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm," as young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman writes in School Library Journal. No author is valuable enough to spare, Ms. Venkatraman instructs: "Absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed, risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric."

Ridiculous! How are the young to understand that such ideas once existed -- and still do, and be able to form their own opinions about them -- with or without the "help" of their teachers? Frankly, I believe this is all just a dodge to excuse teachers from having to teach.

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A Hoist on Own Petard

Warner Todd Huston

Oh, this is hilarious. Anti-Trump politician claimed Trump lied about voter fraud, then found out that his own address was used to vote illegally.

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Trump Pardoned Fewer Than Any but One

Timothy Birdnow

Despite much wailing and gnashing of teeth by liberals Donald Trump has actually pardoned fewer people than his predecessors.

From Zero Hedge:

As Trump has pardoned some relatively high profile individuals such as Roger Stone, General Mike Flynn, and Paul Manafort, the liberalati has got its gender-neutral panties in a bundle over these "digusting", "corrupt", "cronyism" actions.

It turns out however that, even including the recent surge, PewResearch reports that Trump has used his clemency power less often than any president in modern history (apart from Bush Senior), according to data from the U.S. Department of Justice.

President Trump has granted clemency or pardoned 98 people in the last four years (76 pardons and 22 commutations). Obama, by comparison, granted clemency 1,927 times during his eight-year tenure, including 212 pardons and 1,715 commutations.

In terms of total executive clemency actions, Obama granted the most since Harry S. Truman

The only modern president who granted clemency less frequently than Trump is George H.W. Bush, who granted 77 pardons and commutations in his single term.

Once again the media is lying about this President.

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Baby It's Cold Outside - in Siberia

Timothy Birdnow

Baby it's cold outside.

Apparently, it is in Siberia where temperatures are expected to drop to record lows below minus fifty over the new year.

A while back a climate scientist named Judah Cohen tried to blame cold temperatures in Siberia on global warming. I wrote about it here.  If we hear about this record-breaking cold at all I suspect it will be in the context of Cohen's "it's cold because it's hot" argument.

See also https://tbirdblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/its-not-cold-because-its-warm-judah.html

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Biden Plans to Suppress Conservatives

Warner Todd Huston

Biden Planning to Destroy the Right by Outlawing Conservatism in Schools, Banking, Society, More

Tim adds:

https://tbirdblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/its-not-cold-because-its-warm-judah.html

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Earthquake Cause of Warming

Timothy Birdnow

Carbon Dioxide keeps sliding as a cause for warming.

Study Suggests Great Earthquake Cause of Arctic Warming

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Wikileaks Dump

This from Anne Overit:

Wikileaks just dumped all of their files online. Everything from Hillary Clinton's emails, McCain's being guilty, Vegas shooting done by an FBI sniper, Steve Jobs HIV letter, PedoPodesta, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Bilderberg, CIA agents arrested for rape, WHO pandemic. Happy Digging! Here you go, please read and pass it on..... https://file.wikileaks.org/file/... These are Clinton’s emails: https://file.wikileaks.org/file/clinton-emails/ Index file! https://file.wikileaks.org/file/?fbclid=IwAR2U_Evqah_Qy2wxNY12FMqFC5dAFUcZL5Kl4FIfQuMFMp8ssbM46oHXWMI Send to everyone you can as fast as you can!

UPDATE:

Here is another link. Hopefully it will work better.

Index file! https://­file.wikileaks.org/­file/­?fbclid=IwAR2U_Evqah_­Qy2wxNY12FMqFC5dAFUc­ZL5Kl4FIfQuMFMp8ssbM­46oHXWMI

And

https://­file.wikileaks.org/­file/clinton-emails/


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December 27, 2020

Is Identity Politics "Sustainable"?

Selwyn Duke

My latest.

Excerpt:

With "sustainability ” being a big woke word today, a question arises: Is identity politics sustainable?

Case in point: With vice-president- suspect Kamala Harris’s Senate seat having been filled, activists are filled with consternation because the choice is the wrong sex and race — at least for some people.

These people aren’t concerned about whether California governor Gavin Newsom’s pick, Secretary of State Alex Padilla, is competent. There is and was no talk about his philosophy on government’s role; life issues; foreign policy; regulations, the Sexual Devolution; or, perish the thought, the Constitution. Instead, the focus is on his being Hispanic.

Group identity was a major focus prior to his selection, too.

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Follow WHAT Science?

This from George Marlatt:

I was listening to Newt Gingrich discussing the statistical abnormalities in the 2020 election. Newt referenced statements by top mathematicians at MIT and other Prestigious universities. I don't think it is necessarily a good move to cite these experts because the statistical abnormalities are obvious to anyone who has studied elementary probability and statistics. There are engineers who use statistics for quality control on a daily basis as well as actuaries in all he various insurance businesses and business people and even farmers who watch and understand trends and sampling theory. The new vaccine for covid will be approved based on statistics. We are told to believe that CO2 is causing global warming based on questionable statistics. The statistics questioning the voting process are more conclusive than the statistics which will be used to certify to Covid vaccine.

Richard Cronin adds:

Recall that Pence has "plenary powers” over the Electoral process in the House and we have "dueling ballots” submitted by the contested states. Pence has a full understanding of the national security issues regarding foreign election interference, which cannot be shared publicly nor even to members of Congress. Lord knows that Congress-vermin

selectively leaks info to serve the entrenched interests of the Democrat/ Republican duopoly.

Pence can and will show that Georgia has violated both Georgia state laws, the GA state Constitution, federal laws, and the U.S. Constitution in by-passing the singular power of the GA state legislature to set their election processes. Both governors and courts of the contested states have acted illegally. Pence will refuse to accept the votes of Georgia.

McConnell is powerless.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/12/its_for_mike_pence_to_judge_whether_a_presidential_election_was_held_at_all.html

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Memories of the Ebola Outbreak

Timothy Birdnow

I sometimes amaze myself. If I weren't so humble I would be forced to boast all the time!

Case in point; during the Obama era I wrote about his mishandling of Ebola and my points are even more prescient today.

From Canada Free Press:

It has taken five days for authorities to get around to decontaminating the apartment of Liberian Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan.



Five days with a level four hot bioagent alive and well in a crowded apartment complex.

And when they finally got to it they hired a private firm that specializes in chemical spills, not deadly biological agents. Why wasn’t USAAMRID, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, sent in? This clearly was a job for military involvement, since they have had experience with this sort of thing AND they have protocols in place.

Ebola is a tough virus and can survive for a long time outside of a host.

Meanwhile Trump has been universally bashed for his "mishandling" of Coronavirus. The hypocrisy and short  memory is astonishing.

I continue:

Why are we not stopping people from coming from countries suffering from the outbreak?

Well, for starters, the Obama Administration removed quarantine restrictions on immigrants and visitors.

According to Breitbart:

"The Obama administration withdrew updated quarantine regulations in 2010, prompting questions about how the policy change may have impacted the current Ebola situation.”

And, where the obama foot has trod it shall not retrod; our puissant majesty shall not rescind an order He hath given.

So America will not stop people from coming, even when there is a grave danger to the public health. Meanwhile, Liberia has announced it will shoot illegal, er, undocumented immigrants on sight.

They have also promised to prosecute Duncanfor lying to them. Sort of a horse and swinging barn-door situation. WE are the aggrieved party here; why isn’t America promising prosecution should this guy live? The fact is, he either will die or get very, very expensive medical treatment gratis.

The fact is Liberia and the other affected nations have no good reason to keep someone infected with Ebola from leaving the country and have every reason to wish it. A man like Duncan (who knew he was infected) will only cost Liberia money and threaten to spread the disease further. Better he be shipped off to the U.S., to become America’s problem.

There are almost 14,000 peopleholding visas to America in Liberia and other affected countries. If only 1% of visa holders are infected and make it here that would be 140 Ebola patients spreading the disease. Can we catch it all in time to avoid a pandemic?

And Duncan should never have been allowed here in the first place; he was living in Ghana, not Liberia, at the time, had family here, was unemployed. These are all red flags for a visa overstay. But the Obama Administration wants settlers - the more non-white, non-European the better. They want to colonize the U.S., and so a man infected with Ebola was welcomed with open arms.

And indeed Obama never sealed the border despite the horror of Ebola.

Why?

I believe that certain people inside the Obama Administration and FOOs - friends of Obama - are not concerned about the deaths of Americans in a horrible fashion, but rather believe you cannot make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Would they rather have people die horribly in a pandemic if it can be used to promote the kind of change they envision for America? In a way, a terrible disease is like a tiny soldier for revolution, marching to the attack on a corrupt and self-satisfied United States. We need to cull the herd and at the same time introduce new breeding stock. These people are eugenicists. They dream of creating a new people, and if that means a terrible disease has to be loosed for a little while…

That is, in my view, part of the lack of urgency by the Administration. Granted, politics is relevant too; Obama needs to keep the borders open to appease the Hispanics and cheap labor crowds, as well as the unions (which see this as a huge new pool of members). And of course Obama doesn’t want to be seen discriminating against black Africans. He also doesn’t want to admit there are any problems in his utopia.

And for the tinfoil hat community, it could be suggested that Obama may be able to use this to suspend the elections should it get out of hand, or even to declare martial law and put all those FEMA camps into operation. I don’t believe this is in the Administration’s mind, but I also don’t believe they haven’t at least thought of it. It has happened that the unthinkable has become reality; ask the German Jews about that.

I think there is a sense among the radicals who surround Obama that America deserves it, deserves to see what the Third World has had to endure all these years, and so they aren’t eager to act. Liberals are chock-full of Shadenfreud, and so many enjoy seeing us get ours. They will enjoy the pain a pandemic would bring.

And just as Obama neglected the Ebola outbreak now the Left/Media complex is desperately promoting the destruction of American businesses and freedoms with a draconian over-reaction to what is essentially a sometimes-killer cold.

But it serves the same purpose.

We can look at both incidents and see the same thinking at work.

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Stolen

Timothy Birdnow

Yep; it was a stolen election. Front Page Mag lays out the case.

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Busted!

Timothy Birdnow

They got it on tape!

Michigan Secretary of State Official Caught on Video Telling Volunteers to Count "Multiple Ballots with the Very Same Signature" During "Audit" of Votes in Antrim County

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Watch Out for Mutant Kids From Covid Vaccine

Timothy Birdnow

Well, well, well...

People Advised to Hold Off on Trying to Have a baby for a Period of Time after Getting the Covid 19 Vaccine

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Great Reset Catastrophe'

This from Jim Church:

Dr Antony Mueller, Professor of Economics at the Federal University of Sergipe in Brazil, says that the Chinese coronavirus ‘pandemic’ is being used as cover by the globalist elite to destroy small businesses and hasten a new world order based on "expertocracy, climate green religion, and brutal depopulation”.
This globalist elite — inspired by the World Economic Forum’s ‘Build Back Better’ campaign for a ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ and by the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 — are killing Main Street, together with thousands of jobs, by keeping economies across the Western World in near-permanent lockdown.
"Most people have not noticed yet because at the moment governments can afford to give them subsidies and welfare payments. But the question is: ‘For how long?’ We know this money is coming to an end and that it will soon be over. Next you will see massive unemployment all over Europe as one country pulls down another country.”
The coming economic crisis will be worse than any the world has seen before because all the countries in the Western world will become impoverished simultaneously and be unable to help one another.
"We are seeing the destruction of the economy in all Western countries — from the U.S. and Canada to New Zealand and Western Europe. 2020 as been a big catastrophe in the making. It’s just not here yet but it will be worse — much, much worse — than Weimar.”

Dellingpole: "Great Reset" Will Cause a Crash Worse than the 1930''s

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Arguing with Idiots, Covid Edition

Timothy Birdnow

On the group Watts Up With That on Facebook I had an interesting exchange with a person who clearly is a troll of sorts. Todd Huffman posted this llink to a Scientific American article (blocked by a paywall) which alleges to "debunk" claims that Covid 19 death rates are inflated.

Todd Huffman states:

Well, you guys think science is political. And it isn't actually. Not a good idea to throw out data you don't like

I respond:

Todd Huffman science was politicized when government took over most funding of it in the late '70's. Money is king everywhere, but especially in science where you either are funded or you fade away. The end result is funding goes to those who produce work pleasing to big government which means there is a built-in bias in all modern science. He who pays the rent is the boss. Governments want to acquire more power, more control, and more money. Produce "science" which aids that and you will get funding. And of course there is bias in how science is promoted. If two different studies contradict each other the one predicting doom will get all the attention while the one that says "well, yeah there's a problem but it's not that bad" will be dismissed. Everyone wants to make a big splash. Nobody wants to come up with negative data, for example.I would point out that George Floyd may well have been classified a Covid victim had his case not been so heavily publicized; he had Covid and he died of not being able to breathe.Oh, and any science article which refers to those with whom it disagrees as "fantasists" is nothing but propaganda.

Todd Huffman answers:

Timothy BirdnowThe problem is that it is hard to explain all those excess deaths if, as has been touted by many on here, there actually isn't anything going on. The jump in excess deaths points out both the direct and indirect effects of something happening. It could be that someone dies of, say, heart disease when they otherwise wouldn't have because they didn't get medical treatment as soon as they otherwise would have. But as one unpicks such explainations the nagging problem is - Why THIS year? Why is this year so special? The excess deaths are an over-count if your concern is the mortality rate of this specific agent - COVID-19, this is bracketed from below by the deaths directly attributed to COVID-19 as multiple independent sources who better understand this data report that those numbers are undercounts. The true answer would be between those figures (excess deaths and deaths directly attributed to COVID).

As for the big-money argument. It's an attractive argument to be sure. The problem is though that nurses aren't really that well-paid. And they are worked really very hard. And they are cracking under the strain of something that is filling up ICU beds all over the USA (and the world). Also, countries with fully socialized medicine, where there really isn't a profit motive, are also being strained to their limits at the same time. They might not be as terrible at dealing with the problem as the USA, but the strain is still there.

The problem of money in Medicine is a huge one, and one you won't solve with a private medical industry, ever, because that is exactly the POINT of priviatized medicine....mak

ing money so that market "efficiency" gives you the best health care for the least price. But that automatically introduces a profit motive straight into the system that cannot be extracted. That's a different issue than whether or not 3000 deaths a day are attributed to a known pathogen or not.


I reply:

Todd Huffman, you say "But as one unpicks such explainations the nagging problem is - Why THIS year? Why is this year so special? The excess deaths are an over-count if your concern is the mortality rate of this specific agent - COVID-19, this is bracketed from below by the deaths directly attributed to COVID-19" but the death rate for influenza and other such illnesses has dropped off, while Covid rates are up. What does that tell us? Seems to me it says Covid is being blamed for deaths from influenza and other such illnesses.

I'm not saying there is no disease, nor do I think are most people here. Just that it's being padded. I believe that once adjusted for population growth and inflation rates this is no worse than the '57 or '68 pandemics. What is different is the way we responded to it (with panic).

I would point out I've been waiting for eye surgery for months now, and other people have had to wait for surgeries for more serious things. There is a lot less treatment going on these days. I can't get in to see my lung doctor, for example.

I know a lot of nurses and most of them have been laid off by Covid, not are being overworked. Most of them tell me they aren't worried much about it. Yes, some in key spots - mainly ICU's where anyone suspected of Covid is sent, are over busy but the others are not busy at all. I did a stint in the hospital in October and they thought I might have it. I was told I'd be shipped up to ICU if I did. THAT is guaranteed to fill up a unit.

Talk of overcrowded ICU's doesn't really speak to this for that reason; it's natural they are full if we are putting anyone with a positive test there.

You also say "Also, countries with fully socialized medicine, where there really isn't a profit motive, are also being strained to their limits at the same time. They might not be as terrible at dealing with the problem as the USA, but the strain is still there."

 These countries have a completely different approach to the problem yet are at the same time busting at the seams with it. That suggests the approach itself is bad.

I get your point, but when you are a hammer everything looks like a nail. Everybody is following the guidelines from the WHO and other central authorities, and are getting the same results. On the other hand you had Sweden, which did nothing at all and yet is not seeing the high numbers of earlier. In fact Sweden has done better without any precautions than a number of other European countries. (It is often compared with Norway and Denmark, nations quite dissimilar in terms of the age of the population and the fact that a lot of Swedes visited Italy early on.) In point of fact there does not appear to be any real correlation between masking and lockdowns and the infection rate. IF any of this stuff were valid then it would be obvious. I think this speaks volumes about the claims being made - and puts the whole thing in doubt.

Socialized medicine perhaps has no profit motive, but it works as if it does as it's funding comes in the same way. America's system is not laizzes Faire, after all, but rather a quasi socialized entitity, so I don't know if there is much distinction. Certainly government is intimately involved in both, which undoubtedly influences how these entities count the cases and assign death causes.

Bear in mind, private medical research is what has given us the vaccine in the first place, and why the United States has been a leader in all medical research. Bureaucrats would still be arguing about what color the vaccine should be. Money in medicine itself isn't a problem. It's money directed in the service of the few. When government is paying they get what they want. And they want a lot.

And in this instance they want to use this as a tool to promote greater power and authority and more money. Just look at this latest "Covid Relief" package! That was a godsend to government because they could never have squandered so much money had they not had this "crisis" to allow them to do so.

At any rate, thanks for a courteous reply. We just disagree.

Oh, I would point out too that a number of cases of Legionnaires has been misdiagnosed as Covid. https://www.gpb.org/news/2020/08/04/how-legionnaires-disease-resembles-covid-19-and-how-the-pandemic-may-result-in-more And about the money in private healthcare, one must ask what forces are at work in socialized medicine to provide decent care? At least with private healthcare there is a profit motive to push for providing better care. In socialized systems the patient is pretty much nothing but a widget. In Britain, for example, you have to go blind in one eye from macular degeneration before they will give you an Avastin shot to save the other eye. In America you get both eyes treated because the doctors make a profit. In Britain they want to save money. Of the two money in private enterprise is at least competititve. I would add that I know of people who have lost limbs and even died at the VA hospitals because there was no profit in treating them. And again, America doesn't really have a free market healthcare system thanks to Mecicare and Obamacare. I myself was "death paneled" by my Obamacare policy because I needed a defibrilator for a time. I wrote about it here. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2012/06/the_valley_of_the_shadow_of_deathpanels.html It's what happens when any overly large entity is making these decisions. When you empower government to do it you are handing over your own life to bean counters.


Willis Eschenbach adds:

Here's the CDC Guidance:

===
"In cases where a definite diagnosis of COVID–19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID–19 on a death certificate as "probable” or "presumed.”
===

And of course, these are also put on the list of "COVID deaths".

Mitchell McAleer adds:

Heart disease deaths and cancer deaths declined by > 50% 2019 / 2020 winter season, it's a fucking miracle!!, NOPE, it's morons like you lying about covid death IFR. W H O CDC changed reporting SOP in march 24 this year, making the current CDC covid death count artificially hyper inflated nowhere near relevant compared to influenza IFR recorded over the last few decades.

Bridgit Huddig adds:

I have a question. Why is the USA all cause mortality not anything unusual? As of Dec 23rd deaths for the year are: 2,851,438

2019 was 2,854,838 all cause mortality (Edit: citation found)
2018 was 2,839,205 all cause mortality
2017 was 2,813,503 all cause mortality
2016 was 2,744,248 all cause mortality

Todays number:
https:// www.cdc.gov/ nchs/nvss/vsrr/ covid_weekly/ index.htm
2018
https:// www.cdc.gov/ nchs/fastats/ deaths.htm
2017 and 2016
https:// www.cdc.gov/ nchs/data/nvsr/ nvsr68/ nvsr68_06-508.pd f
Edit: 2019 citation found
2,854,838 registered deaths.
https:// www.cdc.gov/ nchs/products/ databriefs/ db395.htm

Edward W Wagner adds

https://redstate.com/bonchie/2020/12/26/minnesota-lawmakers-say-covid-deaths-heavily-inflated-after-review-n300283\ ad

Tam Renee adds:

A person can go into the hospital, test positive for Influenza, negative for CV, but the symptoms the person has are "covid-like.” They can actually still be marked as a covid case, because their symptoms are that of CV. If they then pass away, that is marked as a CV death. The hospitals make a lot more money if that is a CV patient and not an flu patient.

Tim replies:

George Floyd tested positive for Covid and died of not being able to breathe. He was no doubt one of the rare instances where Covid was NOT blamed for his death on official documents.

Yes there is a pandemic but is it as bad as claimed? I do not think it any worse than the 1957 bug, or the '68. What is different is how we are counting the cases and death rates, and how we responded. As for vaccines, they are already saying Covid is mutating and how long will the vaccine be good for if that is the case? Seems to me we are setting up an eternal program here.A vaccine is fine if it works but it will probably not put things back to normal. The fact is, had we let the young and healthy catch it we'd be out of the woods by now. Sweden is doing pretty well, despite having refused to follow the insane economy-busting
path the rest of the world followed. Why is Britain, which has been very proactive, not done better than countries with less restrictions? In fact there is no evidence anything that was done has helped at all. It merely stretched out the pandemic.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:56 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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December 26, 2020

The Man Who Ended the Gladiator Games

Timothy Birdnow

Here is the story of Telemachus, a lowly monk who ended the Roman gladiator games.

From the article by Lawrence W. Reed:

By January 404, the remaining days of the western Roman Empire were numbered. Its decadence moderated slightly by the legalization of Christianity in the previous century, it would nonetheless fall like ripe fruit to barbarian invaders in 476. In 410, Rome itself was briefly occupied and sacked by the Visigoths. The place had largely become a moral cesspool run by brutal and often megalomaniacal tyrants—men who controlled whatever aspects of other people’s lives their whims fancied.

In this environment, Telemachus made his appearance. Rome was his destination after a long sojourn from Asia Minor. A stadium packed with raucous, sadistic pagans may not sound like a place that would attract a pious pilgrim, but Telemachus was on a mission. What happened on that fateful January day in 404 was recorded as follows by Bishop Theodoret of Cyrus in Book V of his Ecclesiastical History:

There, when the abominable spectacle was being exhibited, he went himself into the stadium, and stepping down into the arena, endeavored to stop the men who were wielding their weapons against one another. The spectators of the slaughter were indignant and inspired by the fury of the demon who delights in those bloody deeds, stoned the peacemaker to death.

When the admirable Emperor (Honorius) was informed of this he numbered Telemachus among the victorious martyrs and put an end to that impious spectacle.

Another account claims that as he raised his arms between dueling gladiators, Telemachus repeatedly cried out, "In the name of Christ, stop!” Yet another, though likely spurious one, reports that the spectators fell silent at the monk’s murder and then, one by one, quietly filed out of the stadium. There’s no real dispute over this central fact, however: Moved by those last, courageous moments of Telemachus’s life, Emperor Honorius immediately stopped the killing games of ancient Rome—forever.

Yes, one man can make a difference. Think about William Wilberforce as another example.

The courage to stand for what is right is tough, especially when everyone is against you. But it's absolutely necessary.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 10:20 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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