April 19, 2020
Once again an unelected judge has brought a pipeline to a screeching halt by ruling that the Clean Water Act overrides the Army Corps of Engineers.
From the article:
The order, issued in Northern Plains Resource Council v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, No. 4:19-cv-00044-BMM (D. Mont.), held that the Corps failed to consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service (the Services) as required by Section 7(a)(2) of the ESA.This provision of the ESA requires federal agencies "to insure that the actions they authorize, fund, or carry out do not jeopardize the continued existence of endangered or threatened species or destroy or adversely modify critical habitat,†and its implementing regulations require federal agencies to consult with the Services when their actions "may affect†a listed species or critical habitat.50 C.F.R. § 402.14.The Corps had conducted voluntary programmatic consultation for prior 5-year iterations of NWP 12, but maintained that NWP 12 would have no effect on ESA-listed species or critical habitat because NWP 12’s conditions do not authorize projects that might have such effects without first completing project-specific consultation. When the Corps reissued NWP 12 in 2017, it conducted no further consultation based on the same no effect rationale.
So once again a single judge can cost Americans and the investors in these projects vast sums of money in the interest of a dubious protection of endangered species
Bear in mind these projects have not been determined as impacting endangered species; the burden of proof is to prove they WON'T so impact. There is a small chance they might. And so projects are canceled based on a maybe and a might - by a black robed hoodlum.
There are few things as environmentally friendly as a pipeline. It does little to disturb wildlife or habitats. Unlike trains or trucks which actually do pose a threat to an ecosystem, a pipeline is largely benign. But it doesn't matter; the goal of the radical environmentalists is to reduce available energy, period. Killing a pipeline is a no-brainer to them. It has nothing to do with the environment and everything to do with social engineering.
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Powers in Jefferson City are calling for "immunity certificates" to reopen the state of Missouri.
From the Kansas City Star
People who have previously had a viral infection (symptomatic or not) carry virus-fighting cells called antibodies, which remain in their bloodstream. A serology test tells us if these people have developed antibodies to the virus. Past exposure and recovery make it much less likely that these people will get ill from the virus.
People who have antibodies to the current coronavirus could then receive what have been referred to as "immunity certificates†by the press. Awkward as the term might sound, that is precisely what they would be. Obtaining this information for as many people as possible would be the most effective tool to curb the spread of the disease since social distancing measures were put into place. It would allow us to continue to bend the curve until a vaccine and treatment are finally developed.
Medical privacy was and is a big issue, and if you don't have one of these certificates you are announcing "unclean" to the world.Furthermore, if you impose this for a disease, what is to stop you from imposing this for another disease? I remember the AIDS epidemic; we were told we could not track people with AIDS because of the "scarlet letter effect". But they are happy to place a scarlet letter on people now for NOT getting sick.
And when all is said and done this could be extended to other areas of life. At what point will it be required we have papers to allow us to work? Prevent us from gainful employment until the government certifies us? China has a "social credit score" system in which you can be denied employment or other things (like transportation)
Is this still a free country? Guess not.
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April 18, 2020
Here is an essay from Smithsonian about why the "experts" are almost always wrong.
From the article:
In 2005, Tetlock wrote a book about expert prediction called "Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?†In it, he explains that not only are experts often wrong, but they’re nearly never called out on it. The New Yorker explains:
When they’re wrong, they’re rarely held accountable, and they rarely admit it, either. They insist that they were just off on timing, or blindsided by an improbable event, or almost right, or wrong for the right reasons. They have the same repertoire of self-justifications that everyone has, and are no more inclined than anyone else to revise their beliefs about the way the world works, or ought to work, just because they made a mistake.
Tetlock points out that while we’re terrible at predictions, experts fall into two "cognitive styles†when they’re making those predictions: foxes and hedgehogs. The Huffington Post summarizes:
The article argues expertise is often wrong in most fields, not just politics.Foxes know many things while hedgehogs know one big thing. Being deeply knowledgeable on one subject narrows one’s focus and increases confidence, but it also blurs dissenting views until they are no longer visible, thereby transforming data collection into bias confirmation and morphing self-deception into self-assurance. The world is a messy, complex, and contingent place with countless intervening variables and confounding factors, which foxes are comfortable with but hedgehogs are not. Low scorers in Tetlock’s study were "thinkers who ‘know one big thing,’ aggressively extend the explanatory reach of that one big thing into new domains, display bristly impatience with those who ‘do not get it,’ and express considerable confidence that they are already pretty proficient forecasters.†By contrast, says Tetlock, high scorers were "thinkers who know many small things (tricks of their trade), are skeptical of grand schemes, see explanation and prediction not as deductive exercises but rather as exercises in flexible ‘ad hocery’ that require sticking together diverse sources of information, and are rather diffident about their own forecasting prowess.â€
I would agree, and I would further agree with the "foxes over hedgehogs" business. Liberals are generally hedgehogs, smug in their narrow field of vision. Conservatives are generally foxes, knowing a great many things from different aspects of life.
I never make the mistake of deferring to self-styled experts uncritically. I've seen how they are wrong far too often.
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A friend on Facebook asked why so many movies are made and so many of them stink. I answered and he reposted my comment, so who am I to not do likewise? Here is what I said:
"A lack of creativity bespeaks a decadent and decaying society. It's happened in most nations near their ends. It's happening across the globe now because we have become corrupt. Nobody can tell a joke anymore because of political correctness. Nobody can create a real character for the same reason. Obscenity has become the substitute for wit. And globalism makes it impossible to deal with subjects or institutions that strike at the heart of who we are, so everything winds up bland and insipid. How do you make a good movie when you can't actually identify bad guys as such? Moral and cultural relativism makes that impossible. And since so many subjects are now taboo the writers have to fall back on the very tired cliche villains - like Christians, or capitalists. They keep cranking this crap out because the Globalists, the Progressives, etc. want to reinforce their message to the public. But nobody wants to watch yet another movie about how bad white male Christians are. People want inspiration and meaning in their stories. You can't get that from what will be produced. I would also like to point out that most movies are made with China - a quarter of the world's population - in mind, and the Chicoms won't allow anything in that they find unacceptable."
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Death estimates are now in the range of a typical flu season. "Protests have broken out across the country in recent days over the lockdown strategy, with demonstrators in states like Minnesota and Michigan turning out to push back against what they see as an overreach from their state governments. They have seen the backing of President Trump who has tweeted out calls to "liberate" those states.â€
Top Coronavirus Model Significantly Lowers Estimates of U.S. Deaths in New Projection
From the article:
The University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) lowered its projectionof total deaths from 68,841 (with an estimaterange of 30,188 to 175,965) to just over 60,308 (with an estimate range of 34,063 to 140,381) in an update published Friday.
The institute said that change was partially driven by both higher estimates in states like New York and New Jersey, and lower projections in states like Massachusetts, Connecticut, Georgia and Florida.
"By incorporating the trend in cases alongside COVID-19 deaths in our model, many locations are now predicted to have longer peaks and are taking longer to move down the epidemic curve to zero deaths,†a statement from the institute said. "Subsequently, these places now have higher projections for cumulative COVID-19 deaths through the first wave.â€
The projection is significantly lower than prior estimates from the IHME, which last month was predicting 84,000 deaths from the virus.
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The more fundamental disease involved in this pandemic is affluenza. Too many people have lived well for too long and do not know or understand that any other type of existence is possible. They think we can shut the economy down for "as long as it takes" with no repercussions. They don't grasp just how terrible it can get. "But if it saves just one life" is the kind of reasoning employed by children. A lot of things take lives - not just a virus. And everyone is going to get catch it anyway at some point as nobody lives in a bubble (well, except those with immune disorders who actually live in bubbles).
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What is it with liberals and pretty female icons?
Land-o-Lakes Erases American Indian "Butter Maiden" from Packaging
Wonder how long before they get rid of the sexy, bosomy St. Pauli Girl?
I remember when feminism demanded we see and recognize women. Now they want to erase them.
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09:31 AM
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They want the public to suffer as punishment for supporting President Trump and for living better than the rest of the world. And they want the economy in shambles in the hopes that the public vote them back into power. This should not just disqualify them but should drive them into hiding!
Senate Democrats Block $250 Billion Expansion of Small Business Loan Program
Of course, if small businesses do not come back more people will remain dependent on the government aka them. They love that.
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I've been arguing for some time that the economic collapse this worldwide imprisonment was going to cause was worse than the disease. Well, much as I hate to agree with the United Nations...
U.N. Warns Economic Downturn Could Kill Hundreds of Thousands of Children in 2020
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Way overdue! This is a Constitutional issue and we need a swift ruling striking down these illegal bans.
Pastors Sue California Governor for Coronavirus Restrictions "Criminalizing the Free Exercise of Religion"
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A lot of people have already been exposed to Wuhan around the world - far more than the experts know of or admit to.
New Data Suggest Coronavirus isn't as Deadly as we Thought
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Yep!
The Stress Pandemic
[...]
"We did not close the world economy in 1957 when the world endured the Asian Flu pandemic, which caused 1.1 million worldwide deaths, 160,000 in the United States. The current estimate of COVID-19 deaths in the United States is around 60,000. The population of the United States in 1957 was 177 million. Today, it is 320 million. Who even remembers the Asian Flu? That will not be the case with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic.â€
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In a discussion about the Wuhan virus and the Big Lie an interesting side discussion broke out and it is worth reposting as a stand alone post.
Mike observes:
Roughly 60 percent of the over 600 sailors who tested positive so far have not shown symptoms of COVID-19, the potentially lethal respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus, the Navy says. The service did not speculate about how many might later develop symptoms or remain asymptomatic. "With regard to COVID-19, we’re learning that stealth in the form of asymptomatic transmission is this adversary’s secret power,†said Rear Admiral Bruce Gillingham, surgeon general of the Navy.
https://hmstypicallydefiant.blogspot.com/2020/04/ouch.html
Makes me wonder what happened to those people on the cruise ships that were not allowed to dock.Has anyone taken the time to see how many passengers aside from those who had the virus contracted it.
Bill responds:
Yes. All passengers and crew on the Princess ship were tested. Only 40% tested positive for the virus, which should have sounded the alarm about the "models" which were already circulating. If virus is as contagious as the models suggest the rate should have been 90% or more.
Further, of the 40% who contracted it, fewer than 10% (4% of total) required hospitalization, and only 7 people died. This should have totally destroyed the "models" in their entirety. These numbers, however, were ignored in their rntirety.
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April 17, 2020
There is a lot more to this article, which is found here https://pjmedia.com/trending/huge-the-uk-just-dumped-chinas-huawei-in-5g-tech-roll-out-citing-its-lies-over-coronavirus/ and which you really do want to read. 5G is important technology -- and is also at the center of a number of stupid conspiracy theories, which we can ignore -- but WE should be the ones developing it, not the Chi-Coms. 'Nuff said?Western democracies, especially the United States, just heaved a huge sigh of relief after getting word that United Kingdom PM Boris Johnson is dropping the controversial Chinese tech company, Huawei, as the nation's provider of 5G infrastructure.
Although Johnson was in support of the Chinese tech giant laying the non-sensitive portions of 5G infrastructure, he said China's lack of transparency about coronavirus made the communist-run country untrustworthy.
President Trump, Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and members of the so-called "Five-Eyes" countries that share intelligence information, brought huge pressure on the Brits to dump Huawei. The U.S. pressed hard for the UK to dump Huawei because of widespread speculation that China would use the 5G infrastructure to spy and use the remote command structure for blackmail.
Senator Ted Cruz has said that if the UK used Huawei it would be next to impossible to share intelligence information with the ally.
Earlier this week, Huawei, detecting a change of heart by the Brits due to anger over the coronavirus, sent a threatening letter to Johnson. Huawei's UK chief Victor Zhang told British leaders that pulling up stakes now would leave Britain in the "digital slow lane."
"There are those who choose to continue to attack us without presenting any evidence.Disrupting our involvement in the 5G rollout would do Britain a disservice."The company is believed to be directly answerable to, if not an implicit part of, the Chinese government.
The U.S. Department of Justice has begun a China Initiative to keep the communist behemoth from exercising its 5G advantage.
In a speech in February that is well worth watching and reading (see below), Attorney General William Barr said fighting for technological supremacy is about national security and Western everyday life. Here are just some of the stakes Barr, a former telecom company executive and Chinese studies graduate student, mentioned in his speech.
5G technology lies at the center of the technological and industrial world that is taking shape. In essence, communications networks are not just for communications anymore. They are evolving into the central nervous system of the next generation of internet, called the "Industrial Internet," and the next generation of industrial systems that will depend on that infrastructure.Much of the discussion on the dangers of allowing China to establish dominance in 5G has been focused on the immediate security concern of using communications networks that China can monitor and surveil. That is, in fact, a monumental danger. For that reason alone, we should mobilize to surmount China’s drive to dominate 5G. But the stakes are far higher than this.
From a national security standpoint, if the Industrial Internet becomes dependent on Chinese technology, China would have the ability to shut countries off from technology and equipment upon which their consumers and industry depend. The power the United States has today to use economic sanctions would pale by comparison to the unprecedented economic leverage we would be surrendering into the hands of China.
...Some Americans think that all we are talking about here is analogous to the shift from 3G to 4G in our wireless networks.
The jump to 5G is a quantum leap beyond this. We are now talking about multi-Gigabits per second peak rates for both download and upload.
Devices of all kinds – some "smart,†some sensors collecting and transmitting data, and some actuators carrying out remote commands – can be dispersed and embedded in business and industrial equipment across a wide array of businesses, such as transportation, energy, finance, healthcare, agriculture, heavy construction, and so forth. 5G provides the command-and-control function for managing industrial processes.
As the world of 5G unfolds, we will be seeing not just smart homes, but smart farms, smart factories, smart heavy construction, smart transportation systems, and so forth. And a host of new emerging technologies, in addition to AI, will become interwoven with and dependent upon 5G and the Industrial Internet, including for example: robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing.
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Pastorius over at Infidel Blogger's Alliance has made a startling discovery - the Chinese put a loophole in the trade deal they signed with the U.S. back in November that let them out in the event of a pandemic!
From the article:
It said if there was any kind of "act of God pandemic" then they didn't have to make good on anything they had committed to buy from the United States. Within days, they announced the first corona virus.
So, did the Chinese know damn well that this thing was running around the world for six weeks before they shut down Wuhan?
Yes, they did.The more we look at this the more it looks like the Chicoms were at least not willing to let a good crisis go to waste.
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There appears to be more evidence the Chinese manufactured the COVID 19 virus.
From Fox News:
This may be the "costliest government cover-up of all time," one of the sources said.
The sourcesbelievethe initial transmission of the virus– a naturally occurring strain that was being studied there – was bat-to-human and that "patient zero" worked at the laboratory, then went into the population in Wuhan.
The "increasing confidence†comes from classified and open-source documents and evidence, the sources said. FoxNews has requested to see the evidence directly.Sources emphasized -- as is often the case with intelligence -- that it’s not definitive and should not be characterized as such. Some inside the administration and the intelligence and epidemiological communities are more skeptical, and the investigation is continuing.
So was it an intentional act? I don't know, but I'm not above entertaining the possibility. China would do anything if they had the chance.
Here is another source making this claim.
It appears the discoverer of HIV - Dr. Luc Montagnier - agrees.
From the article:
We knew that the Chinese version of how the coronavirus emerged was increasingly under attack, but here’s a thesis that tells a completely different story about the Covid-19 pandemic, which is already responsible for more than 110,000 deaths worldwide. According to Professor Luc Montagnier, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2008 for "discovering†HIVas the cause of the AIDS epidemic together with Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, the SARS-CoV-2 is a virus that was manipulated and accidentally released from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, in the last quarter of 2019. According to Professor Montagnier, this laboratory, known for its work on coronaviruses, tried to use one of these viruses as a vector for HIV in the search for an AIDS vaccine!
"With my colleague, bio-mathematician Jean-Claude Perez, we carefully analyzed the description of the genome of this RNA virus,†explains Luc Montagnier, interviewed by Dr Jean-François Lemoine for the daily podcast at Pourquoi Docteur, adding that others have already explored this avenue: Indian researchers have already tried to publish the results of the analyses that showed that this coronavirus genome contained sequences of another virus, … the HIV virus (AIDS virus), but they were forced to withdraw their findings as the pressure from the mainstream was too great.
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A point to ponder; what with California's illegal alien population and homeless how many more cases are there that simply aren't being reported? It may well be double what the official count shows. And the state government - more concerned with maintaining those shadow populations - may be complicit in covering the real numbers up. Oh, and it makes Governor Nuisance, er, Newsome look good too.
I know; a lot of people have been sick in the Yellow State, and likely Wuflu was there before anyone had heard of COVID 19. And people hang out in the sun a lot. But I still wonder if underreporting isn't the primary reason CA is so low in terms of this illness.
Yes California Remains Mysterious - Despite Weaponization of the Debate
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Well, well, well...so Biden was against desegregation before he was for it! And only now is that coming out? Bernie's gone and now the means to eliminate Biden is at hand too. Very convenient for the Democrats.
Letters from Joe Biden Reveal How He Sought Support of Segregationists in Fight Against Busing
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As Joseph Goebbels pointed out you don't tell a small lie because people will know you are lying. You tell a huge whopper because people will believe it since nobody would have the audacity to tell such a tale. Kinda like this Coronavirus pandemic; millions and millions dead! (Just like McDonalds "billions and billions served!") Turns out it's barely thousands. But they managed to get everyone to believe it by going really, really big.
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Greenville Mississippi has backed down on it's suppression of religion after the Department of Justice backed a lawsuit against the city.
Greenville ordered all churches be closed - and would not allow a drive in church service, ticketing the attendees with $500 per person citations.
According to Powerfline:
This was too much for the Trump administration. When the church in question responded by suing the City, the Justice Department, through its Civil Rights Division, filed a statement of interest in support of the church. In addition, Attorney General Barr issued a Statement on Religious Practice and Social Distancing.
The Trump administration took the following position, with which no American should find fault:
[E]ven in times of emergency, when reasonable and temporary restrictions are placed on rights, the First Amendment and federal statutory law prohibit discrimination against religious institutions and religious believers. Thus, government may not impose special restrictions on religious activity that do not also apply to similar nonreligious activity. For example, if a government allows movie theaters, restaurants, concert halls, and other comparable places of assembly to remain open and unrestricted, it may not order houses of worship to close, limit their congregation size, or otherwise impede religious gatherings. Religious institutions must not be singled out for special burdens.
(Emphasis added)
Greenville’s order did not meet this standard:
The City of Greenville fined congregants $500 per person for attending these parking lot services – while permitting citizens to attend nearby drive-in restaurants, even with their windows open. The City appears to have thereby singled churches out as the only essential service (as designated by the state of Mississippi) that may not operate despite following all CDC and state recommendations regarding social distancing.
So why am I unhappy wit this?
Because the language used by the Trump Administration was inadequate.
A church is NOT a restaurant or retailer or gas station. Those things are covered by the Constitution, certainly, but not in the same way as are churches. This is a Constitutional issue, not a simple matter of law. It's not that they weren't treated the same as other "businesses" (they weren't, but they aren't supposed to be) but that they were even lumped in with other businesses.
The Constitution is crystal clear on this "Congress shall make NO LAW concerning the Establishment of religion nor prohibiting the FREE EXERCISE thereof". The Supreme Court has ruled that this prohibition is not just a limit on the U.S. Congress but on every governmental entity. Every single one. That includes state and local governments.
You can't say that for a McDonalds or a Walmart.
That means any such restriction placed on a church is illegal.
Furthermore, the First Amendment also states the People have the right to "peaceably assemble". They were doing so in a legal, peaceable manner while exercising their right to freely express their religious beliefs.
This was a monstrous abrogation of the Constitution. I don't like the DOJ pressing these Mississippi Marxists with "fairness"; this isn't a fairness or equality under the law issue. This strikes at the very heart of America's fundamental civil rights.
Those rights are God given, not privileges extended by the state.
I am quite disappointed that the Trump DOJ did not file suit based on the unconstitutionality of this action.
By fighting this the wrong way they have provided relief, but they have allowed the reasoning - and the precedent - to stand. Not good at all.
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