#At least it's only the covid vaccine he's refused and not every single one of them

[things-i-cannot-do-in-amitypark]

I know that actions during the pandemic make us think everyones a selfish asshole

and a lot of my research definitely supports this

but i was shocked off my high fucking horse at our very human tendency for kindness

and get this - its the population of my study that shocks me the most because here are 20-50,000 primarily middle to upper class parents in america who

paid their cleaning people/hairdresser/yard workers etc. every month they had to cancel

made 'cute' masks for kids from families who couldn't afford them so they wouldnt feel 'singled out' in school

refused to let mask deniers feel justified in their opinions and would loudly and publicly embarrass them with the 'power of Karen' (actual quote) until they left or covered up

tipped every person forced to work, no matter the service

rallied entire online communities into recognizing that our vulnerable populations are the most at risk – and even if you dont want to protect yourself, it is at the very least your duty to protect others.

put students mental and physical health above grades and test scores (GAP year #s are hella high)

bullied anyone online who so much as dared to claim Covid-19 was a hoax or something racist/xenophobic – if you think kids are quick to insult on the internet wait until you've seen a bunch of old ppl tell each other to fuck off in a comments section

in my expert opinion, mask/vaccine deniers getting beaten down by the Karens of the internet feels a bit like judging a costume contest for clowns where one shows up with a flower that squirts water and the other brings a gun,,,,,,,,,,,,both are dressed like clowns but only one is the fool

some fav quotes:

PARENT 1: "A lady posted on Facebook that she was tired of being verbally harassed by 'masked zombies.'"

PARENT 2: "You know what I’m tired of? The pandemic. Mask up, bitch."

"Not wearing a mask is basically telling everyone 'you owe me protection, but I don’t care about your safety at all.'"

"Look, time has no meaning. Is it 2021? Is it 2007? Am I alive? I dont know. My therapist doesn't know. Nobody knows but God and he and I aren't talking right now."

my point to all of this

(other than its 4am and adhd go burrrrrrrr)

never forget that the loudest voices tend to be the ugliest but we are first and foremost human and it is our capacity for kindness and desire to alleviate the suffering of others that binds us

the pandemic is awful and it'll have long-lasting effects we cant even begin to predict, but there is kindness in this world no matter what loudmouthed idiots on Facebook/Twitter claim

.....

(another really cool thing is how many adults are realizing they've been ROBBED of freedom and healthy mental/physical well-being in the name of CAPITALIST PRODUCTIVITY and ik thats been a huge DUH thing for a while but its so ingrained in the adult population because its 'how things have always been' and theyve never been allowed to experience otherwise but omfg so many of them took up new hobbies, had time for their kids, and felt 'happier and healthier than they have in years',,,,,,,,,,can i get a fuck capitalism)

#covid virus #covid 19 #research #personal #coronavirus #only like 10 ppl will see this but ahhhhhhhhhh #i expected so much depression from my study data and got punched in the face with people being people #just doing their best to understand our shit situation #each other #and what we can do to make things better #dont @ me with some sort of one dimensional nonsense about ppl #nuance baby #we eat it here #capitalism #society #parenting #adhd brain #let me sleep pls #not dp

[asklittlepip]

And yes, I do mean madness.

The rest is below the cut, because this is long as hell rambling...

Tell me, how else do you describe somebody thinking that not only are their political opponents drinking blood, but that it’s also from babies they stole or even aborted for that sacrifice. Who think that Trump is actually blessed by and sent by God. Who literally pray to him and collect idols of him. Who thought that JFK Jr. was going to come back to life or out of hiding or some shit and would become Donny’s VP. Even though Trump was also somehow still President because fake election and Biden was an imposter as well?

Almost every single conspiracy, no matter how outlandish, no matter how many times it was disproven, taken as gospel. 5G WiFi and windmills cause cancer. Vaccines, not just the COVID one, cause autism or give you AIDS and worse. All of them. Every Democrat, liberal, or anti-Trumper is also SOMEHOW being paid off. Including me. All of it.

They believe this. I have asked.

Yes, I also asked them about the supposed “Soros Bucks”, and they insisted it was how I paid my expenses, not my, you know, disability that I’ve had for decades long before all of this.

...

How the fuck is that not a cult of madness? At what goddamn point do you have to cross before you consider it obsession? And I have to deal with several family members who are now like this! Of course, they aren’t vaccinated, refuse to mask up, and continue to join in large indoors groups with those who take zero precautions as well. Not like I’m vulnerable when they’re around, or my mother, no. I should just shrug and act like it’s no big deal, right?

And I can’t just refuse to see them because it’d kill my mother, as it’s related to her thrice-weekly dialysis and.. additional details that are private and none of your goddamn business. So, no, I can’t ignore this.

It’s easy to dismiss when you aren’t living with this shit. Get back to me when someone you love puts a complete stranger above all else, even their own sick children, who are being endangered by their behavior. Someone who has lifetime issues with pneumonia, is a smoker, and has heart failure thanks to also having Marfan’s Syndrome..

Naw, I shouldn’t fucking worry that she’s refusing to take precautions against a plague that attacks the lungs and is known to cause cardiac damage. Who wasn’t like this until Trump, and who, let me be fucking clear, literally praises as though he were a deity. Yet, never acted this way before and was even a skeptic of such nonsense before 2016..

It’s only my older sister. And brother-in-law. And their kids, my niece and nephew whom I love deeply and are having these choices made for them. And even more, but at least they’re far away and not AS bad; but are you suggesting I should just.. not care? It’s so easy to not care, isn’t it?

Fuck that!

Meanwhile, I’ll go comfort my father over another person he knows.. used to know.. who’s having a funeral because they believed they didn’t need a vaccine, even as it shut down their lungs. They did, however, believe in Trump and his anti-malarial and horse dewormer instead. Oh yeah, and before they passed, they infected their wife, who also died, and then his brother killed himself in grief over losing them both.

But “it’s not a cult.” You just know more because you do. More than those who’ve been in them before, and see the patterns too. We’re stupid.

I’m done. Try not to become the next statistic. Bye.

#rant #fuck trump

[seymour-butz-stuff]

Mike Answers All Your Vaccine Fears

1. “I don’t trust this vaccine. Its development was rushed and it didn’t go through the proper trials and testing. I’m not against medicine. I trust aspirin because it’s been around for over a hundred years. This vaccine hasn’t even existed for a year.” THE TRUTH: Work on this vaccine began back in 2003 during the SARS virus outbreak. Scientists knew even before, in the 1980s, that coronaviruses were going to happen more often. So they got to work on inventing what would become a vaccine known as mRNA. This vaccine has been in development for at least 18 years! THIS IS NOT A NEW THING. When Covid-19 appeared in December of 2019, the scientists were ready and standing by with the vaccine elements. They knew something like this was coming. All they needed was the genetic structure of this particular virus. A brave Chinese doctor constructed its sequencing in his lab and, without the permission of his government, he then shared it with the world. It was all our coronavirus scientists needed to begin the trials of the vaccine they’d been working on for EIGHTEEN YEARS. Those trials began immediately and ran for nearly all of 2020. Because of the ways modern medicine and science have improved in this new century (did you know in the Covid vaccine you’re getting, there is NO speck of the Covid virus in it!) we were already equipped to bring Covid-19 to a halt. Except for one thing science couldn’t predict…

2. “I, and millions like me, do NOT trust the government.” THE TRUTH: Ugh. On this one, you are right. You should NEVER trust this government, that government, any government. One of my favorite quotes from the legendary investigative reporter I. F. Stone is, “All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.” If you are Native American, you don’t need me or anyone else to tell you that. If you are African American — my God, again, the list of lies and deception and cruelty is endless. White people need to be taught in school about the Tuskegee experiments, about James Sims, the lauded “father of modern gynecology,” who performed brutal experimental surgeries without anesthesia on enslaved African women in the 1800s.

And on and on. White people, do not think less of any Black person (or any person of color) who is skeptical of this vaccine. They have a 400-year history of knowing that the last person they should automatically trust is Whitey. Dr. Whitey. Scientist Whitey. Whitey in a Lab Coat. Officer Whitey. CEO Whitey. Nightly News Anchor Whitey. President Whitey. In his Whitey House. 

It is painful now to see how our racist legacy has manifested itself during this pandemic: Covid-19 has killed 102,000 Black Americans — 20% more than the rate at which white people die. The white supremacists must be loving this. I join with my fellow citizens who are Black in fighting this virus that seeks to kill them first. 

3. “I don’t trust the pharmaceutical companies nor do I trust the entire for-profit health care industry. I’m not taking something they tell me to take.”

THE TRUTH: I trust them less than you do. I made a film about these bastards (“Sicko”). Greed runs in their veins. Because our political and corporate leaders have constructed a society that has enabled two-thirds of us to live an unhealthy life, their brethren, the devils in the health care industry, have made trillions from our illness, our disabilities, our infirmities. They need us sick so that we spend money on ways to stay alive. They DON’T want us cured because where’s the profit in that?

Yet in the case of Covid, they really don’t want so, so many of us so dead. Dead men and women don’t need a plethora of costly prescriptions. Dead men and women don’t shop at Walmart and they don’t order from Amazon. Other than the overpriced casket, there is not much profit that comes from death. In the case of the pandemic, they need the citizenry alive to do the backbreaking work for slave wages — and then spend every dime of those wages so all that loot makes it back into the pockets of the one-percent. There are now nearly 700,000 dead Americans who aren’t spending anything! Corporate America needs this disease to go away. Yes, the stock market has set records, and yes, the real estate market is bananas. But the rich have learned this is only good in the short term. They need Covid to stop killing us so they can be the ones to get back to killing us — but killing us their way — slowly — very, very, very slowly. Like 70 years slowly. Squeeze every last bit of work out of us before the arthritis sets in and our only contribution to making them wealthier is our weekly purchases of adult diapers and canned pineapple.

The way to beat the rich and stop their scam is not for us to refuse the shot and die before our time. We need to live long enough so that we can imagine their proverbial heads on the spikes that line the wall at the city’s limits. Take the shot. Both of them. Live to see the day. 

4. “Trump’s inaction caused the spread of this disease — and then he tried to rush these vaccines through in order to help himself win the election. This is the ‘Trump Vaccine’ — I don’t want it in MY body!”

THE TRUTH: The top ten states with the highest rates of Covid death are all the ultra-red Trump states. That’s not how you win elections — by killing off your own voters. But he did it. Actually, the number of votes he barely lost Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin by - together, 44,000 - he helped kill more than that in those three states combined (52,000 deaths). No, the “Trump Vaccine“  was never his. Just like he didn’t “own the tallest building in NYC after 9/11,” nor was he ever “a billionaire.“ Get this vaccine, invented in part by a brilliant, persistent woman, Katalin Kariko, a scientist who was ignored for 20 years — she created this for us. Not Trump.

5. “So many people have died from the vaccine!” TRUTH: No, they haven’t. To spread this lie is to be an accessory to murder. That’s not you. Right? 

6. “My religion won’t let me take the vaccine.” THE TRUTH: Yes it will. God — all gods — not only approve of the Covid vaccine, He is the one who made it! Remember your lessons: GOD CREATED EVERYTHING! That’s why it says “Creator” on his CV. Take God’s gift into your upper arm and praise Jesus. Because, if you walk around unvaccinated, you will kill people. And that carries with it an eternal sentence of hellfire and damnation. C’mon! Stop hiding behind “religion.” NOT A SINGLE RELIGION, NOT A SINGLE DENOMINATION IN THE WORLD SAYS THIS VACCINE IS A SIN! Get your shots so we can party in heaven on earth! 

7. “I have a medical/health condition that my doctor says I shouldn’t get the vaccine.”

THE TRUTH: No, you don’t. We now know there is no medical condition that prevents you from getting the vaccine. Stop with the “I’ve got a note from my doctor” bullshit. Get the damn vaccine — or you risk the chance of REALLY needing a doctor. Calm down. Relax. We love you. I’ll take you to Walgreens myself and hold your hand for those three seconds. Let’s live. Let’s not kill. Let’s be part of a world we are now going to fix and save.

Together.

If everyone is vaccinated, this virus is toast. If we don’t get everyone vaccinated, this much I’ve learned:

#covid #coronavirus #vaccine #vaccines #anti vax #anti-vax #antivaxx #antivax #anti mask #anti-mask #antimask #vaccination #vaccinations #pandemic #plandemic #covid-19

[juuls]

Pharmacist/Me = 1 🏆 Doctor/Nursing Staff = 0

Thank you in advance for reading this rant. I’ve been really frustrated and just needed to get this off my chest, and today at least I had a wonderful knight in a white lab coat. 🩺❤️‍🩹🥽🥼💪🏻

Content warnings and squicky squicks: (further down there is) an image of a medical vial with a clipped image of a more benign part of a syringe, health conditions (endometriosis, fibromyalgia), menstrual cycles and associated terms such as bleeding and other things, lack of empathy in my specific healthcare system, hysterectomies, pain, swearing and losing patience. Most important warning: self-administered syringes and injection discussions of legal medications (Depo-Provera) approved of by professionals and properly researched. P.S. this may sound rather Karen-like but I would never do this to someone’s face. Online ranting and acknowledging where I could do better is not the same as screaming in public for bossy requests or comps, etc. Ew.

Another ‘warning’… pharmacists being kick-ass allies and giving a damn about their patients.

I’m really annoyed because (and I know healthcare and scheduling is a clusterfuck right now, but…) for over a month now I’ve been trying to get an appointment in person to get this injectable medication that is, yes, birth control, but is also used for endometriosis in my case. And I have severe endometriosis (exacerbated severely by fibromyalgia, siiiiigh) to the point I bleed enough and lose so much I have to go to the hospital when my care is not properly preventative… like in this case, and the pain is unbelievably severe also to the point I’ve spent time in the hospital, including my 11th Christmas Eve and Day. I started this injectable medication at 13 because it was the only thing that came close to helping reduce my endometrial tissue. Even a hysterectomy wouldn’t help as much, unless they decided to go the super invasive route and remove all the organs (or parts of them) that had become ‘infected’ by the tissue. Again, tissue where it’s not supposed to be, and it causes extreme pain as the tissue tries to flush out of my body each period, even if it’s attached to, like, my pancreas. Just no. That does not work at all. No. That is not fun.

SO. I’m 31, nearing 32, and the doctor’s office knows this. I’ve had the same doctor since I was 10. Been on this medication nearly non-stop for just shy of two decades (with appropriate precautions such as bone density tests) because of the absolute severity of the pain and my inability to function when it hits… which can be months at a time of non-stop bleeding and morning sickness-level nausea and vomiting, migraines and the occasional complete inability to move—in other words, it’s debilitating.

My doctor (even the nurses, as it’s in large print at the top of my file in the system) knows all about this. They’re supposed to call me if I’m overdue by a certain margin (I get they’re busy but months and months???). But my doc’s also a bit of an airhead (albeit a smart one when he focuses) and takes forever to reply to anything on time, even when it’s a severe issue, but not severe enough to go to the hospital. But it’s gotten to the point where the nurses say to go to the ER and then the ER nurses and doctors there get SUPER pissed off (AT ME AND SOMEHOW NOT AT MY DOCTOR/NURSES AND THEIR ORDERS) at the ‘waste of time’, and it’s just a clusterfuck.

Oh yeah, and that ER visit while I was overdue for my injection? Internal intestinal bleeding along with a lovely, even if small, perforation in my fucking uterus from the growth of endometrial tissue. I MEAN COME ON — WHAT IN THE HELL. Totally preventable if they fit me in when I called literally over a month ago.

But I will not change my doctor (the other docs at the practice know what is going on and have offered to take me on, but they don’t have the experience with myself and my conditions or the history, but they can do little else because of professional conduct—it’s between myself and my doc) because he is the only one who treats me with humanity and understands fibromyalgia, endometriosis, pre-MS and pre-RhA/PsA, endo-related IBS, (ulcerative) colitis, and other neurological conditions with any degree of empathy. (See, I told you I’m a mess!) There is no way I’m switching offices in the perpetual shortage of doctors in Canada moving elsewhere for m o n e y (plus Covid-19 being a teen hooligan and constantly coming back to wreck more goddamn shit, including everyone’s sanity, then setting things on fire like the real hooligans in my village have been doing this summer — I mean… what in the hell!?!?), so with all that in mind I actually thank my lucky stars. So I put up with a lot of this shit because he treats me, besides him being an airhead, like an actual human being deserving of compassion and care and quality of life despite my severe disabilities and pain. So.

I’m usually treated really well (even if they often think I’m a nuisance for daring to be severely chronically ill/in pain all the time) so I try to be patient and good and understanding when I can.

But his STAFF (I know they’re busy and I’ve been patient but they’ve been so awful honestly to the point I cried hard enough my dad noticed my red eyes and frustration-tear fracks on my face)! And the doc himself’s inability to reply to notes on time even when urgent and when he knows the circumstances (I admit I am a bit of a hard patient so I can understand if he just kinda ignores me sometimes, honestly). But in this case I was THREE DAMN MONTHS LATE for my injection and they’ve always called in the past when I was coming due if it looked like I hadn’t scheduled an injection, so that I was all on time and squared away and didn’t risk severe pain and damage to my already-fucked hormonal system (learning I couldn’t have kids was absolutely heartbreaking, let me tell you, but even a hysterectomy in that case would solve nothing — this is by far the easiest option, especially considering how my fibromyalgia would fuck with my post-surgery recovery and leave me with lasting pain for years if not decades; sigh).

Anyway. So. After some ridiculous levels of back and forth and some truly remarkable levels of lack of compassion (she kept giving me the exact same, word for word response in a bored tone UGH) considering the severe pain I was in (I was told, in front of OTHER PATIENTS AND STAFF, that I could just wait until I talk to the doctor myself at my next phone appointment and then schedule my injection for my next MONTHLY followup — 4.5 months overdue at that point, it would’ve been — because, and I quote, ‘am used to dealing with pain because of my fibromyalgia and years of dealing with it and other conditions’ which they named in front of others!!!!!!!! what. the. fuck. But I kept my cool because I know all these people, my mom taught their kids music, they’re a fixture of the community, etc. and I refuse to be a Karen…. At least externally.

But here comes the nice part that makes me love our new (okay, he’s been here like 5 years but still, in a small town that’s pretty new lmao) pharmacist that much more. Rasik was aware of my frustration with the doctor and nurses and was even the one who brought to my attention that, at the time, I was 2 months late for my injection and he was a bit concerned since he’s privy to how much pain I exist in without throwing in one or more knives directly into my womb, ovaries, tummy, hips, and other areas my endometrial tissue has taken root. He’s such a sweetheart and he really does care for his patients— the work he does with my father’s diabetes (the tricky one where you’re not obese) management is above and beyond the call of a pharmacist and I will forever be grateful for that alone, never mind how he cares for me.

So I went in today to pick up another medication, after yet another frustrating stop-over at the nurses’ desks, and he suggested I ask for my injectable medication (it’s Depo-Provera, by the way) and the syringe plus the two tips necessary — I’m actually familiar with this since I had to learn epinephrine injections from an early age (not Epipen) and how to give testosterone daily to my ex-husband (sorry not sorry, dude, but congrats on your first kid *grouchy thumbs up*). But yeah! Legally he’s not allowed to suggest I give it to myself, but he was getting super fed up with the nurses and doctors dragging their feet and ‘being assholes with little empathy’ in his own words, so I took the hint and requested my vial plus syringe, as well as the drawing and injection gauge needles…. which he gleefully filled for me, and I reiterated that it was ‘fully my idea, not yours, Rasik, because everyone knows I’m dumb and would never think it’s you if something happened’ (I’m not dumb and I’ve given injections to others many times looool).

Long story short: HERE’S TO PHARMACISTS AROUND THE WORLD, BEING AMAZING AND CARING FOR THEIR PATIENTS AND ‘BENDING BUT NOT REALLY BENDING’ THE RULES TO MAKE SURE THEIR CLIENTS ARE CARED FOR PROPERLY. They are amazing and deserve every last bit of your courtesy, especially when they pull double duty every. single. day. because of Covid and their subsequent boosters. (i.e. boosters in the form of humans who are fucking stupid if they have no medical reason not to get the vaccine… I mean JFC.)

Rasik? You are amazing and I am 100% going to find you some Indian-Canadian (or North Indian; I believe that’s where he’s from originally) treats or desserts or make some myself after slyly asking his assistant what he leans toward liking.

Be kind to one another, yeah, but… my goodness: be kind to those who can truly make a difference in your health, sanity, and even life or death.

Pharmacists, volunteers, and frontline health workers: the true heroes of these times.

Thank you so much. So very much.

💜💙🇨🇦👨🏽‍⚕️❤️‍🩹🙏🏻

P.S. … now I just gotta stab myself intramuscularly after making sure there’s no air bubbles and etc., and swap out to the proper gauge needle (different, smaller, to draw from the vial, larger to inject so that it goes in more quickly and, oddly enough, hurts less haha). I don’t think air bubbles are as much of an issue as when injecting intravenously (ummm I have a doctor uncle and grandma nurse and nurse friends, so shush 😆). But I’ve done this for others and animals so I should be good! :)

I’m a smart enough cookie even if I’ve lost a few nibble-size pieces around the edges. 😉😘 buahaha

Cheers to my pharmacist!!!! You are amazing and I can’t wait for the pain and months and months of bleeding to settle down.

Remind me again why humans are the only mammals (animals?) with monthly fluxes? UGH wtf ever. 🙃

#pharmacist #pharmacy #doctors #nurses #birth control #sorta #endometriosis #pain #chronic pain #menstrual pain #x100 #preventative care #depo-provera #canada #canadian healthcare #socialized medicine #it has its issues but covid certainly isn’t helping #will still x3000 take it over the United States because come on #and yes i lived there for years so I can pass that judgment #thank you so much rasik #pharmacists are true allies #tw: needles #tw: syringes #tw: drugs #i guess? #tw: dumb healthcare #lol

[blog-cosmosuniverse1]

Dr. Peter McCullough: The State of COVID Treatment

Story at-a-glance Cardiologist, internist and epidemiologist Dr. Peter McCullough discusses why a key aspect of care — early treatment — has been missing from the pandemic With no hope of early treatment, McCullough believes that most people became conditioned to wait for an injection COVID-19 injections are waning in effectiveness and linked to an unacceptable number of serious injuries and deaths McCullough is among a growing number of experts who believe COVID-19 injections are making the pandemic worse; indiscriminate vaccination is driving mutations, as the virus is mutating wildly to evade the injections At 53:40 in the video, you can view McCullough’s early treatment regimen, which initially includes a nutraceutical bundle, progressing to monoclonal antibody therapy, anti-infectives like HCQ or ivermectin, antibiotics, steroids and blood thinners

The video above,1 featuring cardiologist, internist and epidemiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, is packed with sound logic, data and action steps that have the potential to turn the pandemic around — if only more people would listen.Recorded at the Andrews University Village Church in Berrien Springs, Michigan, August 20, 2021, this presentation deserves to be heard, and I urge you to listen to it in its entirety. It will make you question why a key aspect of care — early treatment — has been missing from the pandemic.McCullough, editor of two medical journals who has published 650 peer-reviewed papers, said this has been the first time in his career when he saw medical providers not offering early treatment for a disease.Early COVID Treatment Saves Lives The standard of care for COVID-19 has been to withhold treatment until a person is sick enough to be hospitalized. It typically takes two to three weeks for someone with COVID-19 to get sick enough to be hospitalized, and during that time early treatment can be lifesaving.The rationale was that there have been no large, randomized trials conducted to know which treatments are safe and effective, but as McCullough said, "We can't wait for large randomized trials … Something got in the minds of doctors and nurses and everyone to not treat COVID-19. I couldn't stand it." He and colleagues worked feverishly to figure out a treatment — why didn't national health organizations do so also?"Our government and other governments, and the entire world, has not lifted a finger to reduce the risk of hospitalization and death anywhere," McCullough said, pointing out the irony: "If there was a kid with asthma, would we let the kid wheeze and choke for two weeks before the kid has to go to the hospital? No, we give the child medications. We don't have randomized trials for every single thing that we do."2 McCullough and colleagues realized that there are three major phases to COVID-19. It starts with virus replication, which then triggers inflammation, or a cytokine storm. This, in turn, leads to blood clotting. If enough micro blood clots form in the lungs, a person can't get enough oxygen and dies. It's a complex process, and no single drug is going to work to treat it, which is why McCullough uses a combination of drugs, as is done to treat HIV, staph and other infections.Only about 6% of doctors' decisions in cardiology are based on randomized trials. "Medicine is an art and a science, it takes judgment. What was happening is, I think out of global fear, no judgement was happening," McCullough said,3 referring to doctors' refusal to treat COVID-19 patients early on in the disease process.Doctors Threatened for Treating COVID-19 Around the world, the unthinkable is happening: Doctors are being threatened with loss of their license or even prison for trying to help their patients. French doctor Didier Raoult suggested, early on, putting up a tent to try to treat covid-19 patients. He was put on house arrest. He has promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), which initially was available over the counter — until France made it prescription only.4In Australia, if a doctor attempts to treat a COVID-19 patient with HCQ, they could be put in prison. "Since when does a doctor get put in prison to try to help a patient with a simple generic drug?" McCullough said. In South Africa, he added, a doctor was put in prison for prescribing ivermectin.In August 2020, McCullough's landmark paper "Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 Infection" was published online in the American Journal of Medicine.5The follow-up paper is titled "Multifaceted Highly Targeted Sequential Multidrug Treatment of Early Ambulatory High-Risk SARS-CoV-2 Infection (COVID-19)" and was published in Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine in December 2020.6 It became the basis for the home treatment guide.While some physician organizations have stepped up and are treating COVID-19 patients, "The ivory tower today still is not treating

patients. The party line in my health system is, do not treat a COVID-19 patient as an outpatient. Wait for them to get sick enough to be admitted. Because my health system … follows the National Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control, period." Conditioned to Wait for an Injection With no hope of early treatment, McCullough believes that most people became conditioned to wait for an injection. "We became conditioned, after about May or so, to wear a mask, wait in isolation and be saved by the vaccine. And wait for the vaccine. And all we could hear about is the vaccine."The injections were developed, but they're different than any prior vaccines and have been losing effectiveness while causing an unacceptable number of serious injuries and deaths. For comparison, in 1976, a fast-tracked injection program against swine flu was halted after an estimated 25 to 32 deaths.7According to McCullough in the video, if a new drug comes on the market and five deaths occur, the standard is to issue a black box warning stating the medication may cause death. With 50 deaths, the product is pulled from the market, he says. Now consider this: The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database showed that — for all vaccines combined before 2020 — there were about 158 total deaths reported per year.By January 22, 2021, there were already 182 deaths reported for COVID-19 injections, with just 27.1 million people vaccinated. This was more than enough to reach the mortality signal of concern to stop the program, McCullough said."We've already crossed the line of concern January 22. And if there was a data safety monitoring board — I know, because I do this work — we would have had an emergency meeting and said, wait a minute, people are dying after the vaccine. We've got to figure out why."8It's standard to have an external critical event committee, an external data safety monitoring board and a human ethics committee for large clinical trials — such as the mass COVID-19 injection program, but these were not put into place."This is something we've never seen in human medicine — a new product introduced and just going full-steam ahead with no check on why people are dying after the vaccine," McCullough said. On two occasions, the CDC and FDA — in March and in June — reviewed the data and said none of the deaths are related to the vaccines. "I think this is malfeasance," he stated.Fast-forward to July 30, 2021, and VAERS data showed 12,366 Americans have died after a COVID0-19 injection.9 In an analysis of COVID-19 vaccine death reports from VAERS, researchers found that 86% of the time, nothing else could have caused the death, and it appears the vaccine was the cause.10The Spike Protein Is Dangerous Your body recognizes the spike protein in COVID-19 jabs as foreign, so it begins to manufacture antibodies to protect you against COVID-19, or so the theory goes. But there's a problem. The spike protein itself is dangerous and known to circulate in your body at least for weeks and more likely months11 — perhaps much longer — after the COVID jab.In your cells, the spike protein damages blood vessels and can lead to the development of blood clots.12 It can go into your brain, adrenal glands, ovaries, heart, skeletal muscles and nerves, causing inflammation, scarring and damage in organs over time. McCullough also believes that the spike protein is present in donated blood, and they've notified the Red Cross and the American Association of Blood Banking.Messenger RNA (mRNA) platforms have been under study for years, in most cases being designed to replace a defective gene, which could potentially be used for cancer or heart failure treatment, for example.In November 2020, however, Pfizer, in a joint venture with Germany-based BioNTech, announced that their mRNA-based injection was "more than 90% effective" in a Phase 3 trial.13 This does not mean that 90% of people who get injected will be protected from COVID-19, as it's based on relative risk reduction (RRR).The absolute

risk reduction (ARR) for the jab is less than 1%. "Although the RRR considers only participants who could benefit from the jab, the absolute risk reduction (ARR), which is the difference between attack rates with and without a jab, considers the whole population. ARRs tend to be ignored because they give a much less impressive effect size than RRRs," researchers wrote in The Lancet Microbe in April 2021.14McCullough believes the mass injection campaign is an incredible violation of human ethics, in part because no one should be pressured, coerced or threatened into using an investigational product.No attempts have been made to present or mitigate risks to the public, such as giving it only to people who really need it — not to low risk groups like children and young people and those who are naturally immune to COVID-19 due to prior infection. "I think this is the most disturbing thing," he said.The Injections Don't Stop COVID-19, Can Be Deadly The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) posted online July 30, 2021, details an outbreak of COVID-19 that occurred in Barnstable County, Massachusetts — 74% of the cases occurred in fully vaccinated people.15Indiscriminate vaccination is driving mutations, as the virus is mutating wildly to evade the injections. Their effectiveness, too, is rapidly waning. A study published in medRxiv, using data from the Mayo Clinic Health System, revealed that during periods of Alpha and Delta variant prevalence, Moderna's injection was 76% effective while Pfizer's effectiveness was only 42%.16A little-known fact is that Moderna's jab has three times the dose of Pfizer's, but, curiously, health officials aren't even discussing this or giving the public updates on which of the three injections work "best." The narrative is simple and straightforward — get an injection, any injection.Yet, as McCullough noted, the virus has mutated, and the vaccines aren't working the way health officials had hoped: "The vaccines don't stop COVID-19, at least not completely, and they're not a shield against mortality."17Similar to VAERS, the U.K. maintains a "Yellow Card" reporting site to report adverse effects to vaccines and medications.18Tess Lawrie, whose company The Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy has worked with the World Health Organization, analyzed U.K. Yellow Card data and concluded that there's more than enough evidence to pull the injections from the market because they're not safe for human use. The report stated:19"It is now apparent that these products in the blood stream are toxic to humans. An immediate halt to the vaccination programme is required whilst a full and independent safety analysis is undertaken to investigate the full extent of the harms, which the UK Yellow Card data suggest include thromboembolism, multisystem inflammatory disease, immune suppression, autoimmunity and anaphylaxis, as well as Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE)."Early Treatment Is Crucial McCullough is trying to get the word out about the importance of early treatment of COVID-19. Early ambulatory therapy with a sequenced-multidrug regimen is supported by available sources of evidence and has a positive benefit-to-risk profile to reduce the risk of hospitalization and death.At 53:40 in the video, you can view McCullough's early treatment regimen, which initially includes a nutraceutical bundle. While you're recovering at home, open your windows and get plenty of fresh air and ventilation in your home.If symptoms persist or worsen, he recommends calling your doctor and demanding monoclonal antibody therapy. The treatment progresses to include anti-infectives like HCQ or ivermectin, antibiotics, steroids and blood thinners.If your doctor refuses to treat COVID-19 in the early stages, find a new one and/or visit a telemedicine clinic that will help, as "the prehospital phase is the time of therapeutic opportunity."📷McCullough is among a growing number of experts who believe COVID-19 injections are making the pandemic worse. They "have an unfavorable

safety profile and are not clinically effective, thus they cannot be generally supported in clinical practice at this time."Logically, this is clear, but McCullough believes we're dealing with a mass psychosis that is preventing people from seeing the light. "The whole world is in a trance," he said, adding:20"Things are getting disturbingly out of control and it's in the context of the virus. It is clear … we are in a very special time in the history of mankind. Whatever is going on, it is the entire world … every human being in the world. It appears to have a program.The program … is happening to promote as much fear, isolation, suffering, hospitalization and death in order to get a needle in every arm, at all costs. That is what's going on, and no one in this room can disagree."

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 5, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Last night, in a speech to honor Independence Day, President Joe Biden used his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic to defend democracy.

Biden urged people to remember where we were just a year ago, and to “think about how far we’ve come.” “From… silent streets to crowded parade routes lined with people waving American flags; from empty stadiums and arenas to fans back to their seats cheering together again; from families pressing hands against a window to grandparents hugging their grandchildren once again. We’re back traveling again. We’re back seeing one another again. Businesses are opening and hiring again. We’re seeing record job creation and record economic growth—the best in four decades and, I might add, the best in the world.”

The president was referring, in part, to the jobs report that came out on Friday, showing that the nation added a robust 850,000 non-farm jobs in June.

But he was also talking about how the United States of America took on the problem of the pandemic. Coming after two generations of lawmakers who refused to use federal power to help ordinary Americans, Biden used the pandemic to prove to Americans that the federal government could, indeed, work for everyone.

The former president downplayed the pandemic and flip-flopped on basic public health measures like masking and distancing. Unlike most European and Asian countries, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, the Trump Administration sidelined the country's public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, considered to be the top national public health agency in the world. Trump downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus out of fear of hurting the stock market, and turned over to states the process of dealing with this unprecedented crisis. The U.S. led the world in COVID-19 deaths. More than 603,000 Americans have died so far.

When he took office, Biden had already begun to use the government response to coronavirus as a way to show that democracy could rise to the occasion of protecting its people. The day before his inauguration, President Biden held a memorial for the 400,000 who had, to that date, died of COVID-19. He put Dr. Rochelle Walensky, a renowned infectious disease expert, at the head of the CDC and reinstated the CDC at the head of the public health response to the pandemic. And he made vaccines accessible to all Americans. Fifty-eight percent of American adults have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus; 67% have had at least one shot. The U.S. has one of the highest vaccine rates in the world and is helping to vaccinate those in other countries, as well.

Biden recalled that the United States of America was based not on religion or hereditary monarchy, but on an idea: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights—among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

We have never lived up to that ideal, of course, but we have never abandoned it, either. Those principles, he said, “continue to animate us, and they remind us what, at our best, we as Americans believe: We, Americans—we believe in honesty and decency, in treating everyone with dignity and respect, giving everyone a fair shot, demonizing no one, giving hate no safe harbor, and leaving no one behind.”

But, he said, democracy isn’t top down. “Each day, we’re reminded there’s nothing guaranteed about our democracy, nothing guaranteed about our way of life,” he said. “We have to fight for it, defend it, earn it…. It’s up to all of us to protect the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the right to equal justice under the law; the right to vote and have that vote counted; the right.... to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and know that our children and grandchildren will be safe on this planet for generations to come… the right to rise in the world as far as your God-given [talent] can take you, unlimited by barriers of privilege or power.”

Biden’s speech recalled that of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on June 5, 1944, upon the fall of Rome during World War II. It was Italian leader Benito Mussolini who articulated the ideals of fascism after World War I, envisioning a hierarchical world in which economic and political leaders worked together to lead the masses forward by welding them into a nationalistic, militaristic force.

In his 1944 speech, FDR was careful to explain to Americans how they were different from the Italian fascists. He talked about “Nazi overlords” and “fascist puppets.” Then, in contrast to the fascists’ racial hierarchies, FDR made a point of calling Americans’ attention to the fact that the men who defeated the Italian fascists were Americans from every walk of life.

And then he turned to how fascism treated its people. “In Italy, the people have lived so long under the corrupt rule of Mussolini that in spite of the tinsel at the top—you have seen the pictures of it—their economic conditions have grown steadily worse. Our troops have found starvation, malnutrition, disease, a deteriorating education, a lower public health, all byproducts of the fascist misrule.”

To rebuild Italy, FDR said, the troops had to start from the bottom. “[W]e have had to give them bread to replace that which was stolen out of their mouths,” he said. “We have had to make it possible for the Italians to raise and use their local crops. We have had to help them cleanse their schools of fascist trappings….”

He outlined how Americans had anticipated the need to relieve the people starved by the fascists, and had made plans to ship food grown by the “magnificent ability and energy of the American people,” in ships they had constructed, over thousands of miles of water. Some of us may let our thoughts run to the financial cost of it,” he said, but “we hope that this relief will be an investment for the future, an investment that will pay dividends by eliminating fascism, by ending any Italian desires to start another war of aggression in the future….”

FDR was emphasizing the power of the people, of democracy, to combat fascism not only abroad but also at home, where it had attracted Americans frustrated by the seeming inability of democracy to counter the Depression. They longed for a single strong leader to fix everything. Other Americans, horrified by FDR’s use of the government to regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, and promote infrastructure, wanted to take the nation back to the 1920s and in so doing had begun to flirt with fascism as well.

As he celebrated the triumph over democracy in Italy, he was also urging Americans to value and protect it at home.

Biden, too, is focusing on how efficient his administration has been in combating the coronavirus to combat authoritarianism both abroad and at home. With its support for the Big Lie; congress members like Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who openly associates with white nationalists; and its attack on voting rights, the modern-day Republican Party is moving rapidly toward authoritarianism. But the former president botched the most fundamental task of government: protecting its people from death. In contrast, more than 60% of Americans approve of how Biden has managed the coronavirus pandemic, with 95% of Democrats approving but only 33% of Republicans in favor.

Biden’s approach appears to be helping to solidify support for democracy. A recent PBS Newshour/NPR/Marist poll showed that two thirds of Americans believe democracy is under threat, but 47%— the highest number in 12 years—believe the country is moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, that number, too, reflects a difference by party. While 87 percent of Democrats say the country is improving, 87 percent of Republicans say the opposite.

Biden conjured up our success over the coronavirus to celebrate democracy: “[H]istory tells us that when we stand together, when we unite in common cause, when we see ourselves not as Republicans or Democrats, but as Americans, then there’s simply no limit to what we can achieve.”

—-

Notes:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/07/05/remarks-by-president-biden-celebrating-independence-day-and-independence-from-covid-19/

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/07/02/june-jobs-unemployment-shortage/

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/561513-67-percent-of-adults-have-received-at-least-one-shot-of-covid-19-vaccine

https://docs.google.com/document/d/162VvK8TyM_3xNJbZtd0vLcNiLuK1bzpV0zqcD8o0TuM/edit

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/2-out-of-3-americans-believe-u-s-democracy-is-under-threat

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From an American #Heather Cox Richardson #history #fascism #democracy #WWII #1920 #COVID-19 #global pandemic #vaccination

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: January 2021

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of January 2021 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

Once again, we knew that Donald Trump wasn’t going to take losing well, but when a legion of his most boneheaded supporters storm the Capitol demanding the election result be overturned because a certain thin-skinned orange gobshite had spent several weeks screaming about electoral fraud and, by the way, also set the date of January 6th for some major event, even Mike Pence couldn’t sanction his buffoonery any longer - especially when said buffoonery involved him saying “I love you” to people who were guilty of sedition and, by the way, murder - all of which led to him finally, finally, getting the boot from various social media platforms

...all while Lauren Boebert appeared to be trying to help out the insurrectionists by livetweeting the location of Nancy Pelosi, presumably because Boebert forgot about that Glock she claims to take to work with her every day and was looking for a convenient meat shield, which naturally has nothing to do with her tweeting the day would be like 1776 earlier that morning

...but the real victim in all of this was Melania Trump as it interrupted a photo shoot she was doing, which she somehow thought it was a good idea to mention several days later in a statement riddled with two opinions: “both sides” and “me, me, me” which shows she didn’t realise the optics of rearranging the china as Washington burned around her

...but according to Laura Kuenssberg it was merely a “scuffle” at Congress, as opposed to an organised group attempting to stage an armed insurrection against the government complete with at least one member carrying zip ties

...and finally, we had Ian Austin reminded us that he’s still alive by saying the exact same thing would have happened in the UK with Jeremy Corbyn supporters storming parliament, as if that happened in the four years Corbyn was wishing Austin would go away, then did go away, but sadly didn’t go away

Once again the Tory government think they know better than virologists, epidemiologists and pharmacists with their one-two punch of thinking they can just mix and match the various vaccines available rather than give people two doses of the same vaccine, but they further weaken any chance of vaccination succeeding by ignoring Pfizer’s recommendation the second dose be given within three weeks of the first by adopting a policy of the second dose is given three months later, and it it’s just as likely to be the less effective but cheaper Oxford vaccine they get a dose of

...swiftly followed by the BBC did their bit to encourage people to get vaccinated by reporting a story of a nurse getting a dose of Covid six weeks after her first vaccination jab not by reporting how she was three weeks overdue for the second dose (or, if you prefer, six weeks before her second one) but simply saying that people vaccinated can get Covid, which goes beyond the BBC’s sociopathic inability to criticise Tory fuckups into being downright fucking dangerous - as does their putting sentient testicle Toby Young on Newsnight to say how we’re all overreacting as it's not as bad as all that

Of all the things proven liar Boris Johnson should have said when the UK’s Covid death toll officially passed 100,000 (as opposed to unofficially, which would have been last December), “We have done our best” was not it, because if their best includes not going into lockdown in order to protect landlords, having Dominic Cummings dictate herd immunity in spite the fact that you need vaccinated people for it to work, refusing to have quarantine at airports until July, thinking it would be a bright idea to tell people it’s their patriotic duty to go to the pub, giving them £10 vouchers to go to restaurants, putting children going back to school ahead of any concerns about every single school could become a petri dish and countless other horrifically mismanaged instances, then we should be kept up at night dreading what their worst would be

The fact that Chartwells were given a contract to provide free school dinners with a budget of £30, and the supposed lunches that arrived had £5 worth of food in them which begged the obvious question where the other £25 went, is appalling - but not surprising, as the Tory government gave them the contract and, equally unsurprising, Chartwells was founded by a Tory donor, and equally unsurprising their response to their grift being exposed was to tell all the public school clients they cater to a pack of lies while hoping nobody found out about them doing so...which worked about as well as you can guess

Something possessed the EU to ramp up the row over the AstraZenica vaccine not passing the rigorous tests for over-65s by threatening to trigger Article 16 and limit the number of vaccines that Northern Ireland received, and that something was it was hopelessly misguided as it allowed the Tories to get their hapless response to the pandemic off the front pages for a few days and let the Leave headbangers say this is why we left the EU...in spite this threat would have never been in play if we were still in the EU

There is no way to make jokes about Kellyanne Conway posting what was, in effect, revenge porn photos of her 16-year old daughter, because that sentence is so far out there that it is borderline incomprehensible

In the space of less than twenty seconds proven liar Boris Johnson claimed that there was no prior warning of the new strain of Covid, he had the SAGE paper stating it was coming which was handed to him last September held up in his face, and then said the government acted accordingly.  Yes, you read that right, he claimed the government acted accordingly to something they had no prior warning about, which is literally impossible, all in the space of ten seconds

In the latest hire by the BBC which is cause for both comment and concern, they announced their new chairman would be Tory donor Richard Sharp, whose credentials for the position are being Rishi Sunak’s ex-boss at Goldman Sachs, donating at least £400,000 to the Tory party, and having no background in journalism whatsoever

Smirking bully Priti Patel said that the UK should have closed its borders in March 2020 in order to prevent the spread of Covid.  Presumably she forgot that she was a.) Home Secretary in Marsh 2020 so could have done that, and b.) Home Secretary when she said that the borders should have been closed as that indicates she doesn’t know what’s going on

The terrifying world which Alison Pearson lives in has now started to cross over into our reality due to her responding to one of the four people she hasn’t blocked on Twitter calling her what she is - namely a liar - by siccing the Torygraph’s lawyers on them claiming libel, doing the usual cry bully tactic of learning the person she is harassing works for GlaxoSmithKline so promptly went to their CEO demanding he be fired, and howling about the hate campaign being waged against her - while telling the person, who was saying he was thinking suicidal thoughts after the pile-on that Pearson had instigated even after he had deleted the tweet and apologised , that “You’re finished”

Someday in the future, scholars will study Ted Cruz responding to Biden rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement within hours of getting his feet under the Oval Office desk by pontificating about how terrible it is that Biden is more interested in the citizens of Paris than the jobless of Pittsburgh and wonder just how somebody who doesn't know why the Paris Climate Agreement was named the Paris Climate Agreement ever got to be a senator

...and judging by how Lauren Boebert also latched onto this brainless rhetoric, not only can it be asked how she got to be a senator when she had the opportunity to actually realise Cruz’s mistake, she also begs the question how she can be a senator after her publicly trying to use Nancy Pelosi as a meat shield during the Capitol riots

Unifying force Keir Starmer stated that Labour should be devoting their time to fighting the Tory government rather than fighting court cases, somehow forgetting that by breaking the guidelines of the EHRC report (which he pledged to follow without question months before it was published) is the reason that they’re fighting court cases, and just so happens to be the reason why people are asking how a meeting attended by Starmer, Angela Rayner, Len McCluskey and others either didn't have a single person taking notes, which is David Evans’ entire defence, or they did take notes by quite conveniently lost them

Oh boy, did Wall Street cheerleaders not take it well when r/WallStreetbets exposed to the entire world that the stock market is little more than a game people play with other people’s money - because the teams the Wall Street cheerleaders support started losing, and all it took was a few Redditors investing in Gamestop and Bed Bath & Beyond 

Nice of Shaun Bailey to remind everyone that he’s a Tory by giving his suggestion for how the homeless could get on the property ladder, namely by saving a minimum of £5000

Clearly Marjorie Taylor Greene didn’t get the memo about the Streisand Effect, as the first thing she did after taking her seat in the House of Representatives was go on a mass deleting spree of Facebook posts - which only served to draw attention to her video saying that Nancy Pelosi be executed for treason, her track record of spreading conspiracy theories about the Parkland and Sandy Hook shootings, and her claims that a Jewish space laser is responsible for the 2018 California wildfires

Insufferable self-promoter Jess Phillips got her 2021 off to a good start by tweeting out that, as Britait has happened, we should shut up and accept it.  To the surprise of nobody other than insufferable self-promoter Jess Phillips, this led to a lot of people saying that, no, they will not accept an advisory referendum somehow being bolted onto the Ten Commandments, especially as numerous things that were promised wouldn’t happen such as a border in the Irish Sea, leaving Erasmus, losing freedom of movement, leaving the Common Market have all happened

It is wrong to say that smirking bully Priti Patel has lost 150,000 police files.  The actual figure is closer to 400,000 - which begs the obvious question as to what those files were, for example if those files also happened to fall under the same category as the ones that 55-year old ex-minister Mark Francois might want to have disappear for the sake of convenience

At last CD Projekt Red took some responsibility for Clusterpunk 2077 being such a cyberfuck...if by “taking responsibility” you mean “taking responsibility, dumping it all on the QA testers, and saying that everyone should blame them for everything” - and then with perfect comedic timing CD Projekt Red released an update for Clusterpunk 2077 that was so broken they had to release a hotfix for their broken patch

Expenses-fiddler Robert Jenrick decided that the most important thing to protect in the United Kingdom at this exact moment in time is...statues.  Not key workers, not the vulnerable, not any human life at all.  Statues.

So either Rafael Behr wrote a column for The Guardian where he tried to blame Jeremy Corbyn for his heart attack which saw Guardian higher-ups remove that passage from their print edition but forgot to remove it from the online version of the article, or The Guardian deliberately left the passage in the online version of the column in order to get some form of engagement from rage clicks while allowing Behr to act as if he is suffering some great injustice

Of course it wouldn’t take long for Steve Baker to try and claim some spurious victory for Britait, namely him claiming that tampon tax he spent so long fighting against being abolished is proof of the sunlit uplands of our post-EU nation...which ignores the fact that a.) It had nothing to do with the EU in the first place, and b.) The fact that Baker voted to keep it in place in a 2015 Commons vote

Employer of the year WWE went for an interesting twofer, as one minute they were proudly stating that WrestleMania would go ahead with a prospective 30,000 in attendance without any concerns for social distancing or any other Covid preventative measures, and the next telling the wrestlers on their roster that they would not be supplying them with Covid vaccines at the exact same time the NBA were floating the idea of providing vaccines for all their players

Make no mistake, the criticism that Erik Lamela, Sergio Reguilon, Giovani Lo Celso and Manuel Lanzini have received due to the four of them flouting lockdown regulations to attend a New Year’s party is justified - however, the fact that Duncan Castles tried to chase a headline by claiming that Lo Celso and Lamela had tested positive for Covid in a swiftly-deleted tweet is a new low for the noted barrel scraping rumour monger

Self-awareness sceptic Laurence Fox was entirely predictable in his response to the news that talkRADIO had been booted from Youtube for repeated violations of their ToS, specifically the part about spreading Covid misinformation, screaming the usual things about being “cancelled” - and then, within hours, responded to the BBC announcing a plan of educational programming to help during Lockdown III by saying he will be shielding his children from being “indoctrinated” by the BBC’s “left-wing bias” - which not only means he’s cancelling the BBC, but also had people remember that Billie Piper has custody of his children so it's not like he can even enforce his rules on what his children can and cannot watch

...by the way, Fox said nothing about Lord Sumption appearing on the BBC’s Question Time (the same show where failed actor on the grift Laurence Fox announced his new career as a clueless right wing irritant) where he told a woman with bowel cancer that her life wasn’t valuable, it was merely less valuable as she has less life left.  Yes, that is eugenics getting free airtime on the BBC, thanks for noticing

Somehow the best choice of words the BBC could find when reporting the death of Phil Spector was “talented but flawed” as if murder is some character flaw instead of, oh I don’t know, a criminal activity?

You would have thought that Twitch would have simply retired the PogChamp emote permanently in the wake of Gootecks going all insurrectionist, but no, instead they thought of having a rotating cycle of emotes of various creators, in spite of those creators telling them this would be a bad idea - and those creators were proven right when Critical bard was inundated with racist and homophobic abuse in his chat that led him to close his social media profiles when he was selected for rotation, with Twitch doing fuck all about it

Fashion editor no matter what she claims she is Hadley Freeman had a really clever take about The Sopranos...actually, no she didn’t, she had an absurd belief that it’s the exact same show as Sex in the City but people overlook it Because Misogyny, and when she was lambasted for missing the point so badly she had noted dipshit David Baddiel rushing in to her rescue to mock those getting “triggered” by her insipid take while saying he never liked The Sopranos because, as he isn't an Italian-American mobster, the show did not speak to him - in other words, he made himself a subject of equal mockery

...but there was no sign of Baddiel when Hadley Freeman then jumped on the BidenErasedWomen bandwagon alongside the TERFs of Twitter as soon as Biden got his feet under the desk, which also happened to show hard centrist extremist Freeman say how she thought Trump did far more for women than Biden ever has, which as takes go is so bad that the best explanation is that she briefly forgot the difference between the words “for” and “to”, before she then deleted the tweet and tried to deny ever posting it with increasingly nonsensical explanations that rapidly looked uncannily like gaslighting

...although David Baddiel wasn’t quite done being a bellend, as he was soon yukking it up with professional victim Rachel Riley about his latest book which accuses the entire progressive left of antisemitism

The oppressed underclass known as Manchester United fans really showed their colours, first by responding to a loss to Sheffield United by sending racial abuse to Axel Tuanzebe and Anthony Martial on social media, and a couple of weeks later responded to a draw with Arsenal by sending racial abuse to Marcus Rashford, because apparently when your team drops points the most important thing is to look for which member of your team you can racially abuse

And finally, oh so finally, we have Donald Trump and his discovery of electoral fraud at last - electoral fraud that consisted of Donald Trump calling Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger demanding he change the result and all he needs is Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes while also saying that he had proof of vote-counting machines being removed early...and when told they were still in Georgia, changed his lie to say the inner workings had been removed without anyone noticing.  By the way, the only reason anyone knows about this is because Raffensperger told Trump that he wouldn’t release the call to the public if Trump didn't say anything about it - so, of course, the Orange Overlord took to twitter, ran his mouth, and the Washington Post had one hell of an exclusive as a result

#dickheads of the month

[ecotone99]

[SP] The Great Easter Egg Crisis of 2020

The old woman sat at a high-rise bar, looking out over the sprawling city below. A fat cigar hung from her lips. She took a deep drag, the smart smoke working into her lungs, repairing damage from a lifetime of breathing polluted air.

Her unwanted companion stood silently. Just another rich kid. But one waiting expectantly for an answer.

“That was a long time ago, and I’ve done my time. How’d you track me down anyway?”

The kid skirted the question. “It’s a school project. I’m trying to put together a story. Something gritty yet intimate.”

She inhaled again. “It’s all in the archives somewhere. Go digging.”

The kid slowly shook his head. “Without the personal details, it’s just old history.”

She looked the kid over. Why not. If she could get something out of it, anyway.

“Buy me a drink. Top shelf.”

The kid nodded reluctantly.

May as well go all out. She gestured over a robot bartender and ordered the most expensive thing on the menu. The robot dispensed it on the spot, ice cold in a tall glass.

She savoured a mouthful. It was excellent. She could feel the virotherapy agents working almost immediately, massaging at decades of DNA damage. It wouldn’t last, but sure as hell felt good.

The kid looked at her expectantly.

She sighed. “You know about the outbreak in 2020? Covid-19. For some it was the end. For others, a new beginning. I saw it as a chance to make money. A lot of money.”

She took another drag on the cigar, and washed it down with more of the drink. “SARS. Swine Flu. Ebola. We’d heard it all before, and the threat of a pandemic seemed almost routine. Life was calm at first, but slowly the hysteria crept in. People hoarding food. Stockpiling toilet paper. Ridiculous stuff. Each little crisis fueled by social media. It’s different these days, but back then people didn’t understand the risks of living your life online. Mob mentality took over. It quickly became chaos.”

She paused, trying to remember the exact wording. “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals.”

The kid looked at her, impassive. Too young to understand by about a century.

“It’s a quote. Look it up.” The kids eyes went a little dimmer as he accessed the ‘net in his head. She interrupted and the kid snapped back to reality. “Do it later.”

She continued on. “So we got an idea. I suppose I should say I got an idea, but it took a team of us to pull off. Most were in it for the money. Some just wanted to cause trouble. That was a thing, back then. Coronavirus was our tinder, and fear of missing out was our spark. Little ripples of panic were already in effect. Shortages would come and go, stock prices jumped up and down. But how could we make it work in our favour?”

She stared, waiting until the kid answered. “Easter Eggs. I know that bit.”

She growled back. “You really don’t. There’s nothing like it anymore. It was a cluster fuck of corporations bastardising ancient beliefs for profit. Pointless conspicuous consumption in chocolate form.”

The kid retreated into his head, looking for meaning in the unfamiliar words. “Consumer whores, right?”

The old woman laughed, and coughed, and laughed again. “Exactly.”

She took another swig of the drink, calming her throat. “The only thing more powerful than consumerism was fear. And the world was primed for it. Outbreaks in almost every city. Shortages, both real and imagined. And just a few weeks out from a holiday celebrated by half the world. You’ve never eaten an easter egg, I presume?”

The kid shrugged. “I tried to recreate one with the food printers. I don’t get the appeal.”

She nodded along. “Either do I kid. Always hated Easter. Maybe that’s why I didn’t feel bad about what we did. Those damn eggs. Churned out by the millions in China. Each one trapping a little breath of air inside. We weren't sure the plan would work, but in the end it was easy. A faked video of a sick worker coughing over an easter egg production line. And a single tweet.”

She shook her head, breathing out through her nose. “We thought we’d need to push to get it viral. But no. Society was ready to bubble over. The media ran with it - a precious holiday was under attack. People were angry at Asia, angry at the government, angry at corporations, angry at each other. And we were ready. We seeded counter campaigns supporting businesses of our choosing. ‘Buy safe, buy local’. Anything forgein was boycotted. People tried to stock up on Easter eggs, beating the rush. Production was increased, but prices quickly climbed out of control. The savvy ones looked ahead, wondering about chocolate futures and next year's eggs. They invested, and stock prices grew. As the rest of the market tanked, our stocks were a shining beacon of hope. The fear of missing out kicked in even harder and the prices doubled. Then tripled. Along the way, the supposedly contaminated eggs all tested clean, and the video was declared a fake. But it was too late.”

She smiled at a plan gone even better than expected. “By Easter, the chosen companies were trading at one hundred times our buy in. We’d leveraged every dollar we had on the shares and were filthy rich. We cashed out, ready to disappear before it all came crashing down. We’d defrauded the world, and thought we’d gotten away with it.”

The old woman clenched her jaw, wrinkles deepening. “What happened next was pure bad luck. We couldn’t have known and it sure as hell wasn’t our fault. The chocolate in the ‘safe’ eggs was contaminated. The incubation was slow, but the mortality rate high. They didn’t even know what it was at first. Panic fueled speculation spun a thousand stories. Toxins from manufacturers cutting corners to meet demand. A Coronavirus mutation. Some sinister and ghastly biological weapon. People even looked to the skies, thinking of extraterrestrial horrors.”

She took a deep breath before continuing. “It was the global pandemic everyone had been afraid of, and had a terrifying fatality rate. Containment was impossible, hospitals were overwhelmed, and nothing slowed the spread. The death toll rose staggeringly fast. One hundred thousand. Five hundred thousand. By July there was over a billion dead, with no end in sight. No treatment, no vaccine, no cure. The old and the sick succumbed more easily, but it took young and healthy too. By the time the outbreak worked its way around the globe, two and a half billion people had died.”

She blinked, pushing back tears as she relived the memories. “I know you’ve seen the pictures. Watched the videos. But you can’t understand what it was like. Two and half billion people dead. Everyone lost someone close to them. Everyone.”

She stopped to take a deep breath “Have you experienced death? In your happy, sheltered life, has anyone died?”

The kid looked uncomfortable. “No. I had an aunt who tried to stop her treatments once, but the family wouldn't allow that.”

She looked at the kid with dull envy. “There had never been a tragedy like this. So much fear, so much anger. The world was drawn together, and grieved and raged and howled for blood with one voice. Our little Easter Egg fraud was uncovered, and we were hunted down. We burnt through our fortunes trying to run, trying to hide. But the world was single minded and we had to pay."

She wiped at her cheek. “I don’t know how I was kept alive until the trial. None of my co-conspirators made it. Death was too good for me, it seems. I was at the center of it all. Five billion survivors, cursing my name, demanding I suffer. They called me Patient Zero. That’s almost funny now.”

She looked the kid in the eyes. “I was terrified I would be tortured. Kept alive to feel the world's pain. I prayed for death. In some way what happened next was a miracle. It’s kind of fitting, don’t you think? A God’s honest Easter resurrection.”

She took a long slow drag of her cigar, blowing the spent smoke towards the kid. “Some people called them Angels. Friends and family, returned to the living. Others saw them as demons. That fitted better. The walking undead, climbing out of the ground. We’d spent half our lives obsessing over zombies and here they were. The reality was brutal, and another billion people died before they were stopped. Entire countries fell apart. The world staggered, and it felt like nothing could ever be the same again.”

She looked down at her drink, not sure where to next. “But humans are resilient, and we recovered. It almost seems trivial now. Nearly half the world wiped out, but that only took the population back fifty years. Life continued on, damaged but not broken. What little authority remained kept me in prison, but that was as much for my protection as it was a punishment."

She took one last swig. “I know some people see it as a blessing. Heaven on Earth, they say. I know I wouldn’t be alive today without the medical advances cajoled out of corpses that refuse to stay dead. Eternal youth.” She scowled. “At least for those who can afford it.”

She put down her empty glass, looking into it. “That’s all the memories you get for one drink. What’s this gritty yet intimate story of yours going to be called, anyway?”

The kid was already retreating inside his own head, but focused back momentarily.

“The Great Easter Egg Crisis of 2020”

“Jesus, that’s horrifying.” She turned back to the window, not really seeing the world outside.

submitted by /u/sywofp [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2xIISJD

#Blogger #Story

[chaoscodex]

Get your fucking Covid vaccines and boosters if you already haven't, and wear a god damn fucking mask.

As I type this, I'm sitting across from my dad, who got Covid back in January. He pushed through, but not without complications. He gets tired much quicker, of course, but there's worse. He's getting loopy tired, and it's bad. His words slur, and he talks really slow. His reaction times are incredibly dulled. He's been checked for the possibility of strokes, but his brain is completely clear.

The worst part? He is a 51 year old man who's in incredibly good shape. He plays volleyball almost every weekend. He flips houses for a living (which is very physically demanding). He's never smoked a single cigarette in his life, and drinks in moderation. He has a healthy diet, and avoids fast food as much as he can. He's healthy in every single facet, and always has been.

And Covid's turned him into a zombie.

He told me over the phone about what was going on with him, and I could hear it a tiny bit in his voice towards the end of the call. But nothing could have prepared me for what I saw tonight. No amount of words would have, or could have, been enough.

This is a man that I... I never thought I'd ever see him like this. At least, not until he was much, much older.

I love my dad. I always have, even though he wasn't always around. I always will, even after he takes his final breaths in this life. I would defend him past my own death and beyond.

But I can't do a thing about this. I can't defend him from this. Doctors don't have a clue what to do, and neither do researchers. Everybody everywhere wants a cure, but nobody has a lead, so nobody knows anything.

We're all confused as fuck, nobody knows what to do, and there's people like my dad all over the world suffering because dumbasses are refusing to do the easiest things in the goddamn world; get vaccinated, and wear a fucking mask.

It's not going to fucking cause Autism. There aren't tiny fucking microchips from the fucking government in the damn serum. There's no mercury in the shit, either. It has been tested hundreds of millions of times all around the world, and there have only been A LITERAL HANDFUL of severe complications, and almost every single one of those cases were in people who had a pre-existing issue that was exacerbated.

It won't kill your dumb ass. It'll hurt a teeny tiny bit for a few days (as long as you get either the Pfizer or Moderns vaccines, and not the J&J), and then go away as if nothing ever happened. Get your fucking vaccines and boosters.

Masks don't lower your blood oxygen level (SPO2). They physically cannot suffocate you unless you're shoving it down your trachea. They are used EVERY SINGLE DAY BY EVERY SINGLE SELF-RESPECTING MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL ON THIS FUCKED UP PLANET, and clearly they all live. They are used by the millions of people in Japan when they're not feeling well, to prevent their own sickness from spreading, AND THEY SURVIVE IT.

THERE'S LITERALLY NO REASON TO NOT WEAR YOUR MOTHERFUCKING MASK IN PUBLIC SPACES. Do whatever the fuck you want at home, but if you're gonna go out to a crowded area (where there'll be 3+ unavoidable people within a 2 meter, or 6 foot, radius around you) WEAR YOUR GOD DAMN, MOTHERFUCKING MASK!

My dad has to suffer because someone, somewhere, decided that it was in their best interest to go out unvaccinated and maskless during an ongoing pandemic. I can only hope that whoever that person was understands the severity of their mistake, and that they have my dad's blood and suffering on their hands.

Don't be them. Don't make their mistake.

Don't risk someone else's health and life just because you wanna go out. You gotta have some morals, right?

No? Well, if you don't care about others, how about you do it for yourself? Don't risk your own health and life. You only have one life.

Either way, I don't care. Just... Please.

Get your vax. Wear your mask.

Or the next person with blood on their hands will be you.

[tamekas-talk]

Run The World‘s Andrea Bordeaux Fired For Refusing Vaccination

Run The World‘s Andrea Bordeaux Fired For Refusing Vaccination If you're waiting on the return of Starz’s Run The World for season 2, you’re in for a major cast shakeup. Andrea Bordeaux, who played the Harlem crew’s resident lover girl Ella in the girlfriend comedy, has officially parted ways with the production over her failure to meet its vaccination requirements. Run the World premiered in summer 2021, introducing fans to a dynamic group of Black women thriving in Harlem. Creator Leigh Davenpor and collaborator showrunner Yvette Lee Bowser, positioned the series as the spiritual descendant of beloved shows like Girlfriends and Living Single. Bordeaux rounded out the ensemble cast. Also starring Bresha Webb, Corbin Reid, and Amber Stevens West. Unfortunately, Bordeaux won’t be reprising the role of Ella when Run the World returns for a second season. On February 5, Deadline reported that the actress had stepped away from the Starz series after reaching a standstill with Lionsgate Television regarding its coronavirus protocol. The company is mandating its cast and crews across projects to be vaccinated during the ongoing global pandemic. Bordeaux did not agree to the vaccination mandate. Ultimately releasing from her contract with the studio and the show. Bordeaux emphasised that she hadn’t walked away from Run the World but had actually been fired. A decision that she described as “heartbreaking beyond words.” shared via Instagram.

“My heart is with all of the people around the world who feel that they are losing so much due to their choice to stand in their convictions and to honor their deepest core beliefs,” she continued. “What I know for certain is that when you are leading with your heart and honoring the path that Spirit has laid out for you, nothing can be taken away that will not be returned 1000 fold.”

The former Run the World star is just the latest in a string of entertainers who have sparked controversy for questioning or even downright rejecting the science behind the coronavirus vaccine. In December 2020,  Black Panther’s Letitia Wright set Twitter ablaze after sharing a video taking issues with the vaccine. Weeks later, an anonymous report claimed that Wright had been sharing anti-vaccine sentiments in the set of Black Panther 2 (which the actress vehemently denied). Leading to conversations whether or not she should continue in the MCU as Shuri. An injury on set stalled production of the film for months, but Wright has resumed filming as of early January 2022. A strong hint that she might have ultimately agreed to be vaccinated. Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Iriving is also facing multiple penalties. Since revealing that he won’t be taking the vaccine despite the NBA’s evolving Covid policies for its players. The personal choice, which Irving has stressed is not anti-vaxx but about being true to what feels good for ” is a pretty costly one. New York City’s strict COVID protocol demands at least partial vaccination in public places (like basketball gyms.) Irving could be forced to pay $5,000 for every home game he misses due to being unvaccinated. 

Bordeaux, Wright, and Irving are not the only people taking issue with the vaccines. Vaccine hesitancy is a public health crisis that’s wreaking havoc on this country, especially within the Black community.

Concerns about the vaccines' impact are somewhat understandable at least in our communities. Given the history of the medical industry exploiting Black patients. And the rapid spread of misinformation does have a real impact. Keep in mind, Black people currently make up a significant amount of the national Covid fatality rate. Concerns about the vaccines' impact are somewhat understandable in our communities. Given the history of the medical industry exploiting Black patients. And the rapid spread of misinformation does have a real impact. Keep in mind, Black people currently make up a significant amount of the national Covid fatality rate. According to CDC this is composed mostly of unvaccinated individuals. As the pandemic continues, it’s likely that studios will continue requiring their employees to follow CDC recommendations and company-wide Covid protocols. For some stars, the threat of possibly losing a bag just isn’t enough to get with the program. Some, are willing to pay the hefty price for opting out of getting vaccinated.  Do you think Andrea Bordeaux Fired For Refusing Vaccination is fair? Read the full article

#AndreaBordeaux #Fired #Mandates #MeganGood #RunTheWorld #Vaccination

[blog-cosmosuniverse1]

Dr. Peter McCullough: The State of COVID Treatment

Story at-a-glance Cardiologist, internist and epidemiologist Dr. Peter McCullough discusses why a key aspect of care — early treatment — has been missing from the pandemic With no hope of early treatment, McCullough believes that most people became conditioned to wait for an injection COVID-19 injections are waning in effectiveness and linked to an unacceptable number of serious injuries and deaths McCullough is among a growing number of experts who believe COVID-19 injections are making the pandemic worse; indiscriminate vaccination is driving mutations, as the virus is mutating wildly to evade the injections At 53:40 in the video, you can view McCullough’s early treatment regimen, which initially includes a nutraceutical bundle, progressing to monoclonal antibody therapy, anti-infectives like HCQ or ivermectin, antibiotics, steroids and blood thinners

The video above,1 featuring cardiologist, internist and epidemiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, is packed with sound logic, data and action steps that have the potential to turn the pandemic around — if only more people would listen.Recorded at the Andrews University Village Church in Berrien Springs, Michigan, August 20, 2021, this presentation deserves to be heard, and I urge you to listen to it in its entirety. It will make you question why a key aspect of care — early treatment — has been missing from the pandemic.McCullough, editor of two medical journals who has published 650 peer-reviewed papers, said this has been the first time in his career when he saw medical providers not offering early treatment for a disease.Early COVID Treatment Saves Lives The standard of care for COVID-19 has been to withhold treatment until a person is sick enough to be hospitalized. It typically takes two to three weeks for someone with COVID-19 to get sick enough to be hospitalized, and during that time early treatment can be lifesaving.The rationale was that there have been no large, randomized trials conducted to know which treatments are safe and effective, but as McCullough said, "We can't wait for large randomized trials … Something got in the minds of doctors and nurses and everyone to not treat COVID-19. I couldn't stand it." He and colleagues worked feverishly to figure out a treatment — why didn't national health organizations do so also?"Our government and other governments, and the entire world, has not lifted a finger to reduce the risk of hospitalization and death anywhere," McCullough said, pointing out the irony: "If there was a kid with asthma, would we let the kid wheeze and choke for two weeks before the kid has to go to the hospital? No, we give the child medications. We don't have randomized trials for every single thing that we do."2 McCullough and colleagues realized that there are three major phases to COVID-19. It starts with virus replication, which then triggers inflammation, or a cytokine storm. This, in turn, leads to blood clotting. If enough micro blood clots form in the lungs, a person can't get enough oxygen and dies. It's a complex process, and no single drug is going to work to treat it, which is why McCullough uses a combination of drugs, as is done to treat HIV, staph and other infections.Only about 6% of doctors' decisions in cardiology are based on randomized trials. "Medicine is an art and a science, it takes judgment. What was happening is, I think out of global fear, no judgement was happening," McCullough said,3 referring to doctors' refusal to treat COVID-19 patients early on in the disease process.Doctors Threatened for Treating COVID-19 Around the world, the unthinkable is happening: Doctors are being threatened with loss of their license or even prison for trying to help their patients. French doctor Didier Raoult suggested, early on, putting up a tent to try to treat covid-19 patients. He was put on house arrest. He has promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), which initially was available over the counter — until France made it prescription only.4In Australia, if a doctor attempts to treat a COVID-19 patient with HCQ, they could be put in prison. "Since when does a doctor get put in prison to try to help a patient with a simple generic drug?" McCullough said. In South Africa, he added, a doctor was put in prison for prescribing ivermectin.In August 2020, McCullough's landmark paper "Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 Infection" was published online in the American Journal of Medicine.5The follow-up paper is titled "Multifaceted Highly Targeted Sequential Multidrug Treatment of Early Ambulatory High-Risk SARS-CoV-2 Infection (COVID-19)" and was published in Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine in December 2020.6 It became the basis for the home treatment guide.While some physician organizations have stepped up and are treating COVID-19 patients, "The ivory tower today still is not treating

patients. The party line in my health system is, do not treat a COVID-19 patient as an outpatient. Wait for them to get sick enough to be admitted. Because my health system … follows the National Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control, period." Conditioned to Wait for an Injection With no hope of early treatment, McCullough believes that most people became conditioned to wait for an injection. "We became conditioned, after about May or so, to wear a mask, wait in isolation and be saved by the vaccine. And wait for the vaccine. And all we could hear about is the vaccine."The injections were developed, but they're different than any prior vaccines and have been losing effectiveness while causing an unacceptable number of serious injuries and deaths. For comparison, in 1976, a fast-tracked injection program against swine flu was halted after an estimated 25 to 32 deaths.7According to McCullough in the video, if a new drug comes on the market and five deaths occur, the standard is to issue a black box warning stating the medication may cause death. With 50 deaths, the product is pulled from the market, he says. Now consider this: The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database showed that — for all vaccines combined before 2020 — there were about 158 total deaths reported per year.By January 22, 2021, there were already 182 deaths reported for COVID-19 injections, with just 27.1 million people vaccinated. This was more than enough to reach the mortality signal of concern to stop the program, McCullough said."We've already crossed the line of concern January 22. And if there was a data safety monitoring board — I know, because I do this work — we would have had an emergency meeting and said, wait a minute, people are dying after the vaccine. We've got to figure out why."8It's standard to have an external critical event committee, an external data safety monitoring board and a human ethics committee for large clinical trials — such as the mass COVID-19 injection program, but these were not put into place."This is something we've never seen in human medicine — a new product introduced and just going full-steam ahead with no check on why people are dying after the vaccine," McCullough said. On two occasions, the CDC and FDA — in March and in June — reviewed the data and said none of the deaths are related to the vaccines. "I think this is malfeasance," he stated.Fast-forward to July 30, 2021, and VAERS data showed 12,366 Americans have died after a COVID0-19 injection.9 In an analysis of COVID-19 vaccine death reports from VAERS, researchers found that 86% of the time, nothing else could have caused the death, and it appears the vaccine was the cause.10The Spike Protein Is Dangerous Your body recognizes the spike protein in COVID-19 jabs as foreign, so it begins to manufacture antibodies to protect you against COVID-19, or so the theory goes. But there's a problem. The spike protein itself is dangerous and known to circulate in your body at least for weeks and more likely months11 — perhaps much longer — after the COVID jab.In your cells, the spike protein damages blood vessels and can lead to the development of blood clots.12 It can go into your brain, adrenal glands, ovaries, heart, skeletal muscles and nerves, causing inflammation, scarring and damage in organs over time. McCullough also believes that the spike protein is present in donated blood, and they've notified the Red Cross and the American Association of Blood Banking.Messenger RNA (mRNA) platforms have been under study for years, in most cases being designed to replace a defective gene, which could potentially be used for cancer or heart failure treatment, for example.In November 2020, however, Pfizer, in a joint venture with Germany-based BioNTech, announced that their mRNA-based injection was "more than 90% effective" in a Phase 3 trial.13 This does not mean that 90% of people who get injected will be protected from COVID-19, as it's based on relative risk reduction (RRR).The absolute

risk reduction (ARR) for the jab is less than 1%. "Although the RRR considers only participants who could benefit from the jab, the absolute risk reduction (ARR), which is the difference between attack rates with and without a jab, considers the whole population. ARRs tend to be ignored because they give a much less impressive effect size than RRRs," researchers wrote in The Lancet Microbe in April 2021.14McCullough believes the mass injection campaign is an incredible violation of human ethics, in part because no one should be pressured, coerced or threatened into using an investigational product.No attempts have been made to present or mitigate risks to the public, such as giving it only to people who really need it — not to low risk groups like children and young people and those who are naturally immune to COVID-19 due to prior infection. "I think this is the most disturbing thing," he said.The Injections Don't Stop COVID-19, Can Be Deadly The CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) posted online July 30, 2021, details an outbreak of COVID-19 that occurred in Barnstable County, Massachusetts — 74% of the cases occurred in fully vaccinated people.15Indiscriminate vaccination is driving mutations, as the virus is mutating wildly to evade the injections. Their effectiveness, too, is rapidly waning. A study published in medRxiv, using data from the Mayo Clinic Health System, revealed that during periods of Alpha and Delta variant prevalence, Moderna's injection was 76% effective while Pfizer's effectiveness was only 42%.16A little-known fact is that Moderna's jab has three times the dose of Pfizer's, but, curiously, health officials aren't even discussing this or giving the public updates on which of the three injections work "best." The narrative is simple and straightforward — get an injection, any injection.Yet, as McCullough noted, the virus has mutated, and the vaccines aren't working the way health officials had hoped: "The vaccines don't stop COVID-19, at least not completely, and they're not a shield against mortality."17Similar to VAERS, the U.K. maintains a "Yellow Card" reporting site to report adverse effects to vaccines and medications.18Tess Lawrie, whose company The Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy has worked with the World Health Organization, analyzed U.K. Yellow Card data and concluded that there's more than enough evidence to pull the injections from the market because they're not safe for human use. The report stated:19"It is now apparent that these products in the blood stream are toxic to humans. An immediate halt to the vaccination programme is required whilst a full and independent safety analysis is undertaken to investigate the full extent of the harms, which the UK Yellow Card data suggest include thromboembolism, multisystem inflammatory disease, immune suppression, autoimmunity and anaphylaxis, as well as Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE)."Early Treatment Is Crucial McCullough is trying to get the word out about the importance of early treatment of COVID-19. Early ambulatory therapy with a sequenced-multidrug regimen is supported by available sources of evidence and has a positive benefit-to-risk profile to reduce the risk of hospitalization and death.At 53:40 in the video, you can view McCullough's early treatment regimen, which initially includes a nutraceutical bundle. While you're recovering at home, open your windows and get plenty of fresh air and ventilation in your home.If symptoms persist or worsen, he recommends calling your doctor and demanding monoclonal antibody therapy. The treatment progresses to include anti-infectives like HCQ or ivermectin, antibiotics, steroids and blood thinners.If your doctor refuses to treat COVID-19 in the early stages, find a new one and/or visit a telemedicine clinic that will help, as "the prehospital phase is the time of therapeutic opportunity."📷McCullough is among a growing number of experts who believe COVID-19 injections are making the pandemic worse. They "have an unfavorable

safety profile and are not clinically effective, thus they cannot be generally supported in clinical practice at this time."Logically, this is clear, but McCullough believes we're dealing with a mass psychosis that is preventing people from seeing the light. "The whole world is in a trance," he said, adding:20"Things are getting disturbingly out of control and it's in the context of the virus. It is clear … we are in a very special time in the history of mankind. Whatever is going on, it is the entire world … every human being in the world. It appears to have a program.The program … is happening to promote as much fear, isolation, suffering, hospitalization and death in order to get a needle in every arm, at all costs. That is what's going on, and no one in this room can disagree."

[girlonfilmmovies]

Welcome to Friend Island: "Love Island US Season 3" and the Gaping Sores of America

So I foolishly thought that in the new year of 2021, the world would be in a better place than it was the previous year. After all, we were coming out of the "worst" of the most horrifying pandemic of the past century, a middling presidency that at that point served only a wealth of TV soundbites and less actual damage to the political system, and we were looking forward to a brighter future and a return to what some hoped would be "normal". The past was the past, and this was going to be a new moment.

Oh how naïve we all were.

As of this writing Covid-19 cases are hitting staggering new highs in the southern US, with Florida (of course) somehow hitting a record amount despite vaccines being easily available in the country for months. The death rates are at almost the same as last year. The middling disaster of the 45th president had one more trick up its sleeve, a firebomb brewing for dozens of years that went off in one of the most embarrassing fiascos of American political history. Misinformation has already implanted itself so thoroughly among half the country that people would rather die than admit they were wrong; the spread of such chaos being happily spat out through the algorithms of corporations only intent on raking in dollar signs. All the potential benefits that could have come from this once-in-a-lifetime moment are being briskly swept away: offices demanding their employees come back, no respect given to science and healthcare workers, the country's clearly weak infrastructure forced right back into action as if we didn't just see its gaping holes. The earth is dying and the people who actually have the resources do something about it instead have kickstarted a capitalist space race.

2021 has gone to show that old, toxic habits die hard.

Sigh.

Yeah, I watched Love Island again.

Despite my... let's say mixed feelings regarding last year's shitshow, I couldn't help but admit that it was the closest thing that I've had to appointment viewing TV that I've had in a long time. In an era of streaming and DVR boxes, it's a bit of an actual feat to get someone who works a fulltime job (especially one with erratic scheduling) to go out of their way to watch something the second it premieres. Love Island brings the family together, so they can engage in our favorite pastime: pointing and laughing at young, dumb, fame hungry cis-hets.

Plus, the second season had offered a fascinating glance at how to contend with a pandemic while also trying to stage a typical dumb reality show. The tropical island villa was swapped for a luxurious hotel rooftop in Las Vegas -- a literal ivory tower of ignorant hedonism looking down upon a plagued nation. You could feel the sexual tension of the hot, hyper-sexual adults forced without physical contact for months finally allowed to relieve themselves the only way they know how: toxic relationships. It was trying so hard to be an oasis in a desert yearning for frivolous content, but the façade was clearly visible to the point of satire. It was a wonderful thing to experience firsthand as what I originally thought as merely me dipping my toes into the genre.

Season 2 was the show that we deserved at the time, a funhouse mirror reflecting all the callous stupidity that had led us to this moment in world history. It attempted to offer a happy ending, a look towards the future: a black couple finally winning a reality show, a first for such a mainstream program (both of them actually kind of turned out to suck, but shhhh...).

It also allowed America to completely break the hearts of people while watching them fall apart live on TV. It was cruel, it was stupid, but most of all, it was fun as hell.

Season 3 is not about torturing the competitors. It's about torturing us.

In all fairness, there were a couple of lovely positive developments for the series this season. While still struggling with racial diversity a little bit, as evidenced by them casting only one very specific kind of black man like five times, strides are being taken elsewhere in the lane of body diversity. Alana makes her debut as literally the first woman on this show who isn't a size 0-2, looking absolutely gorgeous in every single shot.

The almost aggressively heteronormative nature of the show is slowly being shaken by a more openly queer cast than previously expected -- multiple bisexual/pansexual contestants participated, even though there wasn't any overtly queer romance shown (also almost all of them were women, with them describing their sexualities being confined to streaming exclusive episodes, which isn't... great). It's certainly a step in the right direction for a show that unceremoniously shuffled off the only queer member of the Season 2 cast overnight once the internet found his gay porn shoot. Ironically, they also ended up booting off the most openly queer member of this cast too, the purple haired proudly pansexual TikTok-er Leslie, but for the more legal reason of smuggling weed into the villa.

It's not terribly surprising that both Alana and Leslie garnered a lot of positive attention both inside and outside of the villa -- they stand out so much against the otherwise predictable casting that we've come to expect from this show and white American media in general. Alana is a woman with actual curves who looks stunningly gorgeous in comparison to the monotonous supermodel figures of everyone else. Leslie almost falls into a stereotype from the way she appears: dyed purple hair, tattooed all over, obviously queer, vaping weed constantly, exuding the kind of chaotic yet weirdly fun energy that only a former stripper can. Yet she obviously grabbed the attention of the contestants because while people like her abound in real life, in the fantasy land of reality TV she's an absolute rarity, a far cry from the sanitized beauty pageant-esque standards that they seem to pluck girls from. The men are still dumb, bland, boneheaded idiots in this show, but by offering some actual variety, they get to actually pursue people they aren't "traditionally" supposed to, while an outsider audience member like me gets to see women like herself be offered up for titillation in the same way "conventionally attractive" women are.

It's kind of cool, even if it is just playing into the icky sexualization of everyone, but hey...progress?

In an odd "two steps forward, one step back" kind of situation, the show has somewhat dialed down the outrageously toxic relationships of last year into a more relatively subdued level of toxicity. Gaslighting/cheating is at least kept to a relative low in this season compared to the nightmare that was last year, although this year's ratio depends on how much of that corresponds with sexy Columbian boy Will's obviously flimsy grasp of the intricacies of the English language. He continued to be plagued by the cliquey-ness of the cast until the very end but his genuinely sweet couple with Kyra still did enough to sneak into the final two.

The actual main problem this year was an almost unbearably long love triangle between Cash, Trina, and Cinco that refused to solve itself for nearly a month. Cash and Cinco perennially kept flip-flopping in their feelings for each other, bouncing between failed partnerships despite so obviously being into each other. Trina ended up roped in as Cinco's partner for a while, a constant victim of his own lack of courage to make up his damn mind. Cash, freshly single and in horny jail (aka Casa Amor), coupled up with the handsome and mysterious Charlie.

Now we need to discuss how bizarre Charlie as a cast member. Not only is he the only member who is, looks, and acts like an actual adult, but he also seems to show no adherence to the rules of reality TV: he's very relaxed and unassuming, seems genuinely uninterested in the "game" aspects of the show, and only perks up during rare moments of actual romantic potential. He's a fascinating spanner to throw into the machine of Love Island, and once Cinco was eliminated in the competition, Charlie had to sit there while Cash only continued to openly and aggressively pine for a man who isn't even her current partner. Proving once again to be an anomaly in the cast, he actually decided to do something about this: he unceremoniously dumped fan favorite Cash like a sack of bricks, sending her home while hooking up with the previously mentioned Alana. This smart decision was met derisively by viewers, despite him being the only person there who actually acted like a fucking adult for once. Ironically, this got him and Alana into the finals, where they finished in last place with the same trademark lack of enthusiasm that we've come to expect from him.

I suppose now we need to uncork the problem of the season and by extension the franchise as a whole. You might have read that previous situation and thought, "gee, a fan favorite got tossed aside while a guy that everyone hated ended up making it into the final four? That seems weird."

But by that point it really wasn't at all.

See, the problem with the voting is that you don't usually get to pick who goes; the audience only gets to pick who to prevent getting kicked. At that point, the audience control is out of our hands and now into the contestants', and if there's one thing we all learned in high school it's that cliques are very much a thing. The contestants seemed dead set on booting anybody who was new the second they had the chance, so many potentially exciting people were so quickly thrown out. Instead of the exciting potential we could have seen, we got a love triangle sucking anyone nearby into doom, with everyone else being a relatively stable couple or part of the Jeremy/Korey wishy-washy railway. Casa Amor was an absolute bust, with people making half-assed couplings despite still being in love with somebody else (it speaks a lot to the weakness of the Casa Amor men that Olivia literally preferred to come back single than with any of those planks of wood).

Part of the problem did rely on factors that nobody could control at all though. "Romance novel come to life" Slade seemed like a threat with his rugged handsomeness, twangy accent, and classic southern charm, but had to quickly leave due to ambiguous family troubles. Similarly, the nearly perfect Josh and Shannon, who seemed like an obvious shoo-in winner by virtue of being probably the only actual relationship on the show, had to depart in the middle of the night due to the tragic death of Josh's sister. Aforementioned chaotic pansexual Leslie was unceremoniously removed in the middle of the night once they had realized that her classic vape pen was actually full of weed, an especially tragic circumstance considering she basically had Cinco wrapped around her finger and was about to bring that love triangle crashing down (also tragic because she has gone on record saying that she was fully crushing on Genny while they were both in there, robbing us of any potential of a queer couple).

But part of the pain as always has to do with how the producers control everything no matter what: what we see, what we hear, who gets the villain edit and who gets the hero edit. It's why they seem to play Jeremy as dumb hot surfer bro instead of the actual funny and charming guy he is. It's why Trina was treated as a bitch and Cash as a woeful victim despite the roles more often than not lining up the other way around. And most embarrassingly, it's how the biggest joke couple of the show ended up winning it all.

Now, look at this picture right here: the poses, the awkward hand holding, the very strange smiles between those two. No, this is not a picture of two teenagers going to prom together who just met only five minutes ago and are taking pictures on their parents' front lawn; these two are the winners of season 3, the supposedly "strongest" couple on the show. This is Olivia and Korey.

Korey is a charming boyish sweetheart by way of an absolute fucking dumbass. He's sort of like last year's beloved and wonderfully stupid Carrington: a very sweet and nice teenager who seems to have "13 Going on 30"-ed his way into an adult body. He's childish in a way that's very cute and friendly but also woefully unattractive to anyone who's an adult. Just like Carrington, he notched up a staggering amount of dates with pretty much every single beautiful woman that came into the villa, all seemingly very interested in him. Carrington, for as dumb and childish as he is, could bag anyone because he was outrageously confident too. Korey on the other hand seems incapable of making any decision, following any girl who pays him the time of day like a little puppy, constantly looking up to her with his big puppy dog eyes. It's very telling that for all the dates he had, almost none of them actually went anywhere because it's just not that appealing to anyone. If you're looking to win, he's not someone who can scheme and play the game. If you're looking for love, he's not going to cut it because he can't seem to even understand the concept of romance. If you're looking for a friend, he's probably the best damn one you'll get in that villa -- but as constantly established by everyone, this show isn't called Friend Island.

Olivia is a bit of a thornier subject. She habitually couples up with people that you can kind of tell she's not at all into. She started the first half relatively unassuming and not particularly interested in the men that she was supposedly attracted to. But you could basically see her panties drop when Slade walked in, ready for him to pull her up into the saddle and ride away into the sunset. But his sudden departure only left her more empty, desperately grasping onto whatever random attraction she could. She went off to Casa Amor single and had the gall to come back without coupling up with any of them (although once again, they really dropped the ball with the men compared to the stunning Casa Amor women). And somehow in the midst of all this wishy washy mess, she finally settled on the one single man who she hadn't coupled up with and supposedly suddenly had feelings for: lonely, little Korey.

As a watcher of two seasons of this shit, I've seen a lot of fake relationships, but this one is just ridiculous. The chemistry is really nonexistent; she seems more annoyed or at best partially amused whenever he tries to say anything genuinely sweet to her. She reacts like how you would when a little kid tries to tell you they have a crush on you, an adult: you just kind of go, "aw, cute, thank you!" and walk away chuckling. It's genuinely comedic in how tragic it is, a boy who thinks he's finally found someone when all she's found is a trip to the bank.

And what did the editors do? They tried their very best to sell this as genuine, as actual romance. We know what romance is -- we basically saw it with Shannon and Josh, and to a lesser extent Will and Kyra. And yet they whipped out that expert level edit to say, "wow, look at these two lovebirds, huh?" It's ridiculous, especially since only in the final episode did they suddenly remember that Jeremy and the stunning Bailey (aka the combination of Gal Godot and Ashley Judd circa-2001) were an actual couple and even they looked more real than the winning couple.

Love Island is, if nothing else, a reflection of America.

It's an outdated tradition desperately grasping to what's left of the typical western idea of romance. No matter how many beauty pageant contestants they pick, men like women who aren't size 2s, or with natural hair/skin, or with family-friendly occupations. Women are probably tired of the big muscle bound hunks they usually put on here, the nearly identical men that they seem to cast every single season who have all the looks but zero of the confidence or personality.

It's an example of how our choices are an illusion, how our influence can be easily overwritten by those in charge. Votes that don't matter when they change the rules on the fly, ripping out the actual choice of the people in favor of letting them decide what stays and what goes.

It's a testament that even in the face of a viral pandemic that's quickly turning into part two, as the lives of millions are being further destroyed across the world, there will always be some asshole who has more than you and looks better than you, vacationing on a tropical island stolen from its people, ignorant of everything else that's happening around them.

Love Island hates everyone. It hates it's contestants. It hates the viewers. It hates change. It hates me.

But I do still kind of love it.

#tv criticism #deepdives