Tag: politics

The COVID epidemic really IS ending

12:27 pm

CDC infection detections of COVID
CDC graph

Though we all know that our fear-driven society and its power-hungry leaders will refuse to recognize this reality in order to permit life to return to a sane normality, the evidence now shows that the ’20-’21 winter season of COVID is now ending.

The big news is that there has been a drastic decline in reported infections since the beginning of the year.

According to the CDC COVID Data Tracker, there were 283,640 new cases on January 2, 2021. As of February 17, there were 69,165 cases. That represents a drop of 75.05 percent in six weeks — for all you fact-checkers out there.

First, we must recognize that the high numbers this season that seem to dwarf last year are caused largely by the increased effort to test everyone. The numbers also do not indicate COVID cases (where someone is sick from the disease) but include everyone who was tested and found positive, even if they were not sick at all. To call all positive detections as COVID cases is dishonest, and would have never been done in the past. Sadly, the idea of honest reporting has long disappeared.

Second, we must remember that these numbers are likely also inflated because it is financially advantageous for medical officials to report a coronavirus detection, even if it has not been clearly established. There has also been an effort to distort the numbers to make them seem worse than they are.

Finally, most news sources have been combining the statistics from last year’s COVID season with this year’s in order to inflate the numbers. This is bad reporting. The proper thing to do is to report them as separate seasons. If you did this you find that the numbers make the coronavirus not much different than the Hong Kong flu, when adjusted for population. It might be worse, but not unduly so.

For COVID, separating its annual seasons has been made more little difficult because the lockdowns and the insistence that everyone wear masks (almost all of which were worn improperly) I think caused a second unprecedented COVID summer season. That summer rise would likely not have happened if we had allowed people to behave normally in the summer weather, when such respiratory illnesses fade. Instead, everyone wore unsanitary masks that they touched constantly (increasing the changes they were exposed to the pathogen) while confining them indoors where such viruses prosper.

Regardless, the data strongly suggests this year’s coronavirus season is waning, as always happens with such respiratory diseases with the coming of spring. And certainly the arrival of vaccines against COVID is contributing to this decline as well.

All good news. Are you ready to cheer, or will you find ways to see only the half-filled part of the glass?

Nor is this news all. Two more stories in the past few weeks now give us a far better and hopeful sense of the disease’s scope and future.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Amazon blacklists book for criticizing transgender movement

11:25 am

They’re coming for you next: Amazon has removed a book from its inventory simply because it is critical of the movement by cross-dressers to be allowed to identify with the opposite sex, even when their sex remains entirely unchanged.

Amazon removed the bestselling book “When Harry Became Sally: Responding To The Transgender Moment” from its online store on Sunday, the book’s author announced.

Published in 2018 by then-Heritage Foundation research fellow and now-Ethics and Public Policy Center President Ryan T. Anderson, the book was an immediate bestseller, even on Amazon, according to the Washington Post. However, the online shopping giant removed the book on Sunday, Anderson tweeted. “I hope you’ve already bought your copy, cause Amazon just removed my book ‘When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment’ from their cyber shelves…. my other four books are still available (for now).

Amazon links to both the hard copy and Kindle e-book versions of the book show “page not found” signs. (RELATED: Parler Relaunches After Amazon Removes It)

Amazon did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.

I fear this is the future for all conservative books or any books that the modern bigoted left dislikes. Including my own. I therefore beg my readers to buy books from other booksellers, including my ebook publisher ebookit. We need to bypass blacklisters like Amazon.

Note too that I will not play the fake language game of this “transgender” movement. Just because you claim you are woman does not make you one. If a guy likes to wear women’s clothes that is his privilege. He is still a guy, however, and I won’t call him a “she” just because he demands I do so.

It is for this reason that I fear my books will soon disappear from outlets like Amazon. So be it. I will not submit to stupidity, bigotry, and the distortion of our language.

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Roscosmos head: Russia to launch 29 rockets in ’21

5:10 pm

Dmitry Rogozin, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, announced yesterday that they expect to complete 29 launches in 2021.

These numbers include all Russia’s launches, including the ones done for Arianespace in French Guiana. In my regular launch updates I don’t count those as Russian launches, as they are run and controlled by Arianespace, under Arianespace contracts.

Nonetheless, there should be an increase in the number of Russian launches in ’21, as they should resume OneWeb launches that were halted last year due to that company going into bankruptcy and then recovering. That bankruptcy meant that Russia’s total launches last year were less than half what they predicted.

The increase in ’21 does not mean Russia will successfully complete 29 launches. Rogozin and Roscosmos have for years routinely overstated their goals, and I think they are doing so again. I expect Russia to complete around 20-25 launches by the end of the year. If they top 25 it would make ’21 their best year since ’15.

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Bloomberg editorial: Scrap SLS!

8:38 am

I wonder who has said this before? In a scathing Bloomberg editorial yesterday, the news service called for President Biden to scrap the Space Launch System (SLS) and let private enterprise do the job instead.

The editorial’s opening sentence will sound very familiar to regular readers at this website:

Why is the U.S. government building a space rocket? In particular, why is it building a space rocket that has cost nearly $20 billion and counting, is years behind schedule, relies on outdated technology, suffers by comparison to private-sector alternatives, and has little justification to begin with?

That a major leftwing news source is beginning to endorse private enterprise and lambast SLS is a further sign that the political winds are blowing hard against this giant wasteful boondoggle. Should anything at all go wrong in its upcoming test schedule expect to see more such calls, coming from even more unlikely and unexpected places.

The lumbering thick-headed Washington political community is beginning to finally move towards the right conclusion, only a decade late.

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Today’s blacklisted American: The sci-fi publishing company Baen Books

11:11 am

They’re coming for you next: Because of a single hit piece falsely claiming that a forum run by the long-established science fiction publishing company Baen Books was “fomenting insurrection” (the new buzzword of the brainless left being used to silence dissent), the publisher’s web-based operations were threatened with shutdown.

As a result Baen was forced to close-down, it says temporarily, that forum.

Yesterday some nobody, wannabe writer, social justice twit released a hit piece “expose” about how posters on Baen’s Bar were fomenting insurrection or some such nonsense. It was the usual [expletive deleted] hit piece (the sad part is, by saying the usual, half the country immediately knows exactly what I’m talking about). It was lots of pearl clutching over regular people not toeing their arbitrary political lines, misquotes, errors, quotes taken out of context, and some flat out lies.

However, this was clearly part of a coordinated attack in order to materially harm our business, because immediately after the hit piece was released complaints were filed with the various internet companies Baen uses for services to pressure them into kicking us off the internet. This hit piece was presented as “evidence”. Without going into details the companies then contacted Baen about these “serious allegations” so last night Baen temporarily took down the Bar forum to protect the rest of the company from being deplatformed.

The link provides lots of background, including the publisher’s response and statements of support from a number of published authors from across the political spectrum.

The internet companies who immediately kow-towed to these storm-troopers and threatened Baen Books deserve nothing but contempt. If they were truly American, they would have told the complainants to go jump in a lake. Don’t like what people are writing in the Baen forum? Either join the conversation and refute what they are writing, or go somewhere else. Don’t try to blackball someone just because you disagree with them.

Instead, these corporate internet platforms joined the two-minute hate and threatened Baen with blacklisting. To my mind the people at those platforms are not Americans, but narrow-minded petty dictators who either like oppressing people who disagree with them or live in constant cowardly fear which requires them to join the mob when it seeks violent retribution.

We need to know who these internet platforms are. Now. This will allow free Americans to begin searching for alternatives.

And if we don’t get those alternatives we will soon face a situation where any complaint against a publisher will lead to that publisher being shut down and its books flushed down the toilet, simply because someone doesn’t like them.

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A historian’s memorial to Rush Limbaugh

5:46 pm

I originally posted the essay below a year ago when we first learned that Rush Limbaugh was seriously ill with lung cancer. With his passing today, I think it needs to be reread, with an addendum at the end.

A historian’s memorial to Rush Limbaugh (February 4, 2020)

It was very strange to me to hear yesterday’s sad announcement by Rush Limbaugh that he had been diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. In the last six months or so my mind had actually been contemplating the fact that Limbaugh had been doing his show for more than three decades, was in his late sixties, and was not immortal. I had been trying to imagine what it would be like when he was no longer a fixture in the daily news reporting cycle, and I had been failing. I couldn’t imagine it.

Now it appears we might all be finally facing it. As they say, reality bites.

For those who have listened to him regularly these past three decades, the loss will be immeasurable. Without question Rush Limbaugh has been the best political analyst, from a conservative perspective, for the past half century. You might disagree with his opinions, but no one has been as correct and as pertinent and as thoughtful, consistently getting to the heart of every political battle, and doing it in an amazingly entertaining manner.

I first heard Rush Limbaugh back in 1988, when I lived in New York and was starving for a different and refreshing perpective on the news.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted American: Biden sign language interpreter blackballed for also translating for conservative outlets

3:30 pm

The cancelled Bill of Rights

They’re coming for you next: In a news article soon after Biden became president, the Washington Post demanded that a sign language interpreter be blacklisted from working in the Biden administration simply because she previously translated for conservative and pro-Trump organizations.

From the Post’s article,

[The interpreter] who appeared in the White House coronavirus briefing on Monday beside press secretary Jen Psaki was identified by deaf and hard-of-hearing advocates and Time Magazine, fueling questions about the White House’s vetting process and what could have happened if [she] misinterpreted Biden officials or inserted her own bias. No one has publicly disputed her interpretation, but many questioned why the White House would legitimize her by giving [her] the national platform.

…More than 3,500 people have signed a petition to have [the interpreter] banned from interpreting for the White House. Some indicated they intended to report her.

That petition now has 9,000 signatures, and it appears that the Biden administration is now blackballing her, as she has not been given any work by them since the Washington Post story was published. It also appears that she has since been harassed and slandered online as well.

I have removed the interpreter’s name because I do not wish to help these storm-troopers in their two-minute hate campaign.

As noted at the first link above,

It’s a blacklist, and, in a sad devolution from the days when the press was the enemy of such things, now our national press is the very conduit. Here is a woman who has done nothing wrong. Her only sin was working. Even the reporter [Meryl Kornfield] admits that there is absolutely no evidence that this woman has done anything wrong — anything but her job. Her interpretations to this point seem to be deemed faultless.

All this woman did was take work from any who called her, from both sides of the political spectrum. That’s not good enough for our modern Democratic Party and its army of jack-booted thugs. They must always ask this paraphrased question from the worst of the McCarthy era : “Have ever been a member of or worked for the Republican Party or any pro-Trump organization?” If the answer is yes, then your life must be destroyed.

Welcome to the modern leftist paradise, brought to us by the supporters of the Democratic Party.

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Russia denies visa to NASA manager in retaliation for claimed similar denial by U.S.

3:29 pm

Russian officials revealed today that they denied and entrance visa to a NASA manager in retaliation for what they claim was a similar denial by U.S. government of another Russian individual.

The Russians did not reveal the names of either official, or even the work they were involved in. It appears however that that Russian blocked from entering the U.S. was not involved in space work. We also do not know if this was done during the Trump or Biden administration.

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An update on coronavirus from an Arizona doctor

3:09 pm

My personal GP doctor in Arizona, Robert Lending, has for the last year sent out weekly detailed updates to his patients on the on-going COVID-19 epidemic. I thought I provide my readers his carefully researched doctor’s perspective, with his permission of course.

First he updates us on the state of the epidemic in Arizona:

The surge in AZ and in Pima County is over; with dramatic decreases in Cases, Case Fatality Rates (CFR), and Case Hospitalization Rates (CHR). The hospitalization utilizations including beds and ventilators, etc. are markedly decreased. {{{Tucson Medical Center is down to 10.5% Inpatient Covid-19, and they will resume elective surgeries.}}} The initial reductions began before vaccinations, but now may have been helped by the vaccinations. On the other hand, the virus acts as it will; independent of most of society’s attempts to control or modify it, no matter what the politicians and health department officials state. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted text matches what I have been saying for the past year, that the panicky effort to “stop the spread of COVID-19” was foolish, counterproductive, and entirely useless. And the evidence now a year later supports that conclusion. Nothing done by any government anywhere in the world has stopped the virus from spreading, whether it be lockdowns, masks, or quarantines. In the U.S. and Europe especially places that imposed fewer restrictions on their citizens seemed to fare about the same as places where the government stamped down hard. And those former places also had less negative consequences for their economies and for the freedoms of their citizens.

Meanwhile, the evidence is that the epidemic in Arizona is fading. And as far as I can see, during its height it affected almost no one in the general population. Like the flu it impacted the elderly sick the most, but everyone else either didn’t see it at all, or if they got sick they almost always recovered.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter that the epidemic is fading and that a vaccine is now available. The unreasonable rules imposed during the panic remain in force, and likely will never go away. And I speak from experience. For example, in trying to schedule an appointment with another doctor, I was told by his office that even if I had tested negative for COVID, received the vaccine, and quarantined myself between its receipt and my appearance at the office, I would still be required to wear a mask.

Think about that. I would be totally healthy and have no symptoms and could in no way transmit the virus, and yet the mask would still be required. We are now a society that irrationally sees all other humans as a threat to be avoided, at all times.

As for the flu, Lending noted some very intriguing data.
» Read more

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Today’s blacklisted Americans: Ivy league students & teachers demand revocation of all degrees earned by Republican politicians

1:07 pm

The dead Constitution
The dead Constitution

They’re coming for you next: Both students and professors at a number of Ivy league colleges are petitioning their schools to revoke the degrees of numerous high-ranking Republican politicians, merely because they dared request an investigation into the many creditable allegations of voter fraud and election tampering during the November 3rd election.

The article outlines campaigns to blackball Republicans at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, among others. The Harvard campaign is typical, demanding that these Republicans be banned merely because they exercised not only their first amendment rights of free speech, but their duly elected responsibilities as elected officials.

Students and alumni of Harvard University are signing a letter, titled, “Revoke Their Degrees,” which asks Harvard’s leadership to take action against Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, and former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany by banning them from campus and stripping them of their degrees.

The Harvard petition argues that, by contesting Congress’ certification of the 2020 election results, these Republican officials “incited a violent attempt to overthrow the U.S. government.” Harvard University dropped Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) from her role on the university’s Kennedy School advisory committee because she contested the 2020 election results.

The article also notes that no such similar petitions have been instigated against any Democrats for challenging previous election results in 2000, 2004, and 2016. Nor have any petitions been put forth against the many Democrats who during the entire Trump adminstration were calling for a violent uprising against the government and Republicans.

The goal of these college brownshirts is therefore not to protect the election process or the Constitution. No, their goal is to dehumanize all Republicans and any positions they take on any subject. Make them appear evil so that no one will pay any attention to them. Then ban them so they have no power at all.

What I gather from this story however is the utter intellectual bankruptcy of these Ivy League schools. For any reasonable parent it would be insane to send your children there. Not only would these schools indoctrinate your child into leftist politics, it would also teach them to hate anyone who disagreed with them. Such an education is not something any parent should wish upon their children.

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Axiom raises $130 million in investment capital

11:41 am

Capitalism in space: The private space station company Axiom announced today that it has obtained $130 million in investment capital during its most recent round of fund-raising.

The funding will allow the company to expand, including doubling its current workforce of about 110 people this year, Michael Suffredini, president and chief executive of Axiom, said in an interview. It will also support quarterly payments to Thales Alenia Space, which is building the pressurized elements of the first modules. The company recently moved into a two-story building in Houston and is buying a new test facility, with plans to establish a campus at Spaceport Houston, also known as Ellington Airport.

“This is a really the major step for us,” he said. “The B round is typically where you get your first large investment, but more importantly than the money is the community of investors that you put together, so that future rounds are largely from those investors.” That group of investors, he said, was “a perfect fit for us and puts us in a good position, however we want to go forward.”

Suffredini also admitted that while helps get those first modules built for launch to ISS in ’24, they will still need “probably between half a billion and a billion dollars” to build their full private space station.

Sounds like a lot, eh? ISS cost about $100 billion, but that is not including the contributions of the U.S.’s international partners. It is also likely a conservative estimate, as it likely does not include any of NASA’s overhead in connection with the station. Construction officially began in 1994, but actually started a decade earlier when President Reagan first proposed its predecessor, the Freedom station, and those costs are not included as well.

So Axiom will build its private station for about a billion, and get it done in about five years. NASA spent anywhere from $100 to $200 billion, and took more than three decades to get it launched and built.

Which product would you buy?

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