42. The Basket
4.7.2023 The best of Rational Ground, Team Reality and many others...
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Note: I read a lot of Substacks each day. The Basket is intended to be a collection of the money quotes from the best of what I read. My goal is that you enjoy this service because it saves you time and quickly informs you. And my hope is that you find one or two articles that you click into because you want more.What you can find in this collection (these are my headlines, not the authors’):
Don’t Fight, Connect by Dr. Tess Lawrie
Fourth Turning Tipping Point by Jeff Thomas
Bragg Should Indict Hillary by Amuse
MSNBC Sucks by Matt Taibbi
By Complying We Empowered By Brian Mowrey
RFK For President by A Midwestern Doctor
Dumping Hands-On Lab by Dr. Byram W. Bridle
Respectable & Respectful by John Leake
Slow-Playing Monoclonals by Dr. Peter McCullough
“Prevented Deaths” Debunked By Math by TNK
Skidmore Paper Retracted by Rebekah Barnett
7 Jabs, 3 Infections by Vinay Prasad
Not How Freedom Works by eugyppius
Drug Sales Increasing After Vax by Aussie17
Lucky Bill Gates by Igor Chudov
Most Of What’s Published Is Wrong by Mike Donio, MS
mRNA Vaxes Through Food by Dr. Peter McCullough
Republicans Abortion Problem by Alex Berenson
Changing Of Definitions by Philip O'Reilly
Spike In Skull & Brain by Dr. William Makis
Don’t Fight, Connect by Dr. Tess Lawrie
we put our arguments down, our piles and piles of citations and videos and blogs and podcasts. We set them aside, and we invite our loved one to go fishing with us, or cook a meal with us, or join us in the garden to get our hands in the soil. Or, we hold their hand, or, if they permit it, we quite simply, give them a warm and loving hug.
In other words, we experience something together.
When we do or experience something together, we revive a sense of connection and that in turn, calms the nervous system. In that shared experience, the limbic brain that has been lit up by fear – of pathogens perhaps on our loved one’s side, or digital IDs perhaps on our own side – settles down and the frontal cortex, the part of our brain responsible for reasoning, comes back into play.
Duly calm and connected, we are finally able to step out of fear and back into love, peace – and yes, we naturally become more open to entertaining another point of view.
Fourth Turning Tipping Point by Jeff Thomas
a Fourth Turning is made possible by complacency…The deeper the complacency, the greater the oppression by leaders.
complacency is at its greatest in populations where there previously was the greatest prosperity. Therefore, in the present Fourth Turning, the countries that have been most dramatically impacted have been those that had previously been the most prosperous.
in the last year, we’ve seen moves away from the petrodollar, the US reserve currency, and increased applications to join the BRICS. Recently, Malaysia became the first country to announce that its preparation to step away from the US is now complete, and they are formally distancing itself from the US.
an increasing surprise reversal of the woke trend. And the key to it is that it has not emanated from the conservative side; it’s coming from liberals themselves.
even if it is to be defeated, it still has years to go. And the worst is yet to come. But the pushback is now quietly underway for the first time.
Bragg Should Indict Hillary by Amuse
the BEST way for Bragg to prove that his indictment of Trump isn’t a politically motivated prosecution would be for him to prosecute someone from his own party that has ALREADY admitted to committing the same crime during the same election.
Hillary Clinton hired the Perkins Coie law firm to draft opposition research about Donald Trump that would eventually become known as the Steele Dossier. According to the Federal Election Committee, Clinton made 40 payments to her lawyers between 1/2016 and 12/2017 totaling $5,281,161.49. Each of these payments, without exception, was accounted for as “LEGAL SERVICES”.
While there are no federal or state laws laying out requirements for accounting entries made between private organizations—there are federal laws that require specific detail for payments made by campaigns (Hillary paid for the research via her campaign).
Hillary has already admitted to falsifying business records in her various filings to the Federal Election Committee and to the State of New York—making it very easy for Alvin Bragg to make his case against the former first lady.
MSNBC Sucks by Matt Taibbi
That exchange between Nance and me was symbolic of a choice the network faced. They could either keep doing what reporters had done since the beginning of time, confining themselves to saying things they could prove. Or, they could adopt a new approach, in which you can say anything is true or confirmed, so long as a politician or intelligence official told you it was.
The Nance situation was symbolic of what happened at the network from the beginning of Trump’s term, really beginning in early 2017. It went from being a place where you had to be at least in the ballpark of demonstrably true to being a place where the factual standard was, “Whatever dogshit drops out of the mouth of any hack or spook.”
By Complying We Empowered By Brian Mowrey
No authority was granted to restrict family visits against resident wishes; all homes denying family were in fact in violation of Medicare compliance.
The “clinical and safety restrictions” for “other visitors” is not prescriptive. They are measures homes may choose to take, not that they have to take.
This is affirmed in the surveyor guidance: “If limitations are placed on a resident’s visitation rights, the clinical or safety reasons for the limitations and the specific individuals the restriction applies to must be communicated to the resident or resident representative in a manner he or she understands.”
Americans themselves responsible for lockdowns to begin with. We complied with this disaster; and by doing so, empowered it.
The whole point of conservatism is you do not suddenly change the world overnight because you are scared; rather, you assume the status quo has unperceived benefits.
RFK For President by A Midwestern Doctor
If RFK Jr. runs in the Democratic primary, his opponent will likely be someone who would face significant challenges running against an appealing candidate like RFK Jr. This is critical because it will allow him to become a front runner and force the vaccine debate into the public sphere long before voting even begins.
Similarly, many in America hold a strong preference for Trump, the leading Republican candidate, but also feel strongly about the vaccine issue. Because of this, it is very likely many Trump voters will support RFK Jr. in the primaries
as more time elapses, public opinion will turn more and more against them [covid jabs], and it is likely by the election the candidate who most clearly stands against them will have a huge advantage over his competition
RFK Jr. comes from an era when the government was much less corrupt, policies were much more reasonable, and society was much less polarized. The majority of voters, especially the elderly desperately yearn from a candidate like this to enter the picture
Dumping Hands-On Lab by Dr. Byram W. Bridle
My university (University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada) offers a molecular virology course for fourth year students….The administration of the department that runs this course is proposing to remove the in-person, hands-on laboratory component.
Hands-on training in diagnostic and research methods cannot effectively be replaced with theory-based teaching. To try to do so would be a huge mistake. A lack of transparent research, and profound misunderstandings of diagnostic methods and their limitations has been a foundational reason for the disastrous policies that were implemented throughout the declared COVID-19 pandemic.
Respectable & Respectful by John Leake
James Madison understood…“ambition must be made to counteract ambition” as a way to limit the power of government. It’s easy to lose sight of this when we feel disgust and contempt, but if we are going to avoid civil war in this country, we’d better not let these emotions get the better of us.
even Republicans and dedicated Donald Trump supporters should welcome Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s candidacy for the 2024 presidential election
Far better would be for a reasonable and honorable patriot like RFK, Jr. to make a contribution to moderating the party—to talking candidly about its problems and leading it back to integrity and prudence.
When the opposing candidates are both respectable and respectful, they can debate in good faith without producing all of the dreadfully hard feelings we witnessed in 2016 and 2020.
Slow-Playing Monoclonals by Dr. Peter McCullough
the pandemic response was not all about money—it was about vaccine ideology
The clear winner from OWS was its very first acute ambulatory product, monoclonal antibodies. Kip et al used electronic medical records and comparative data for those treated and denied monoclonal antibodies for acute COVID-19. The risk for hospitalization or death at 28 days was 4.6% in 2571 treated patients and 7.6% in 5135 nontreated control patients
Despite these impressive results, the US CMS has repeatedly pulled monoclonal antibodies off the market for predicted not actual losses in efficacy.
“Prevented Deaths” Debunked By Math by TNK
World Health Organization (WHO) reports that as of Feb 17, 2023 there have been “756.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 including 6.84 million deaths.” This gives a global average case fatality rate (CFR) of 0.9%. At this rate, had the Covid vaccine prevented 14.4 million deaths in the space of one year, then it would also have needed to prevent 1.59 billion confirmed cases in that same year. But this is more than twice the total number of cases in three years, meaning that it would require a six-fold increase in the number of confirmed cases since the beginning of the Covid era. Therefore, based on the overall CFR, it is impossible that the vaccines prevented 14.4 million deaths.
for vaccinations to have prevented 14.4 million deaths, one would have had to prevent 11.52 million deaths among those over 65 years of age.
If the vaccines successfully prevented another 14.4 million deaths, then 32.6 million deaths would have occurred without the vaccines. For this many people to have died, it would have required all eight billion people in the world to have been infected with Covid, and a global average IFR of at least 0.41%. But a bulletin published by WHO estimated the IFR to be at most 0.23%, and it “might even be substantially lower than 0.23%.
Skidmore Paper Retracted by Rebekah Barnett
Skidmore has published over 80 peer reviewed papers. He says he has “never dealt with anything like this.”
On 5 April 2023, Skidmore announced that the editorial board of BMC Infectious Diseases has decided to retract the article.
The board’s problems lie in the conclusion drawn about the estimated number of Covid vaccine deaths. The criticisms are focused mainly on the way in which Skidmore extrapolated the number from the survey data.
The other major finding of the paper was an estimate of Covid vaccine deaths in the US up to end of December 2021: “With these survey data, the total number of fatalities due to COVID-19 inoculation may be as high as 278,000 (95% CI 217,330–332,608) when fatalities that may have occurred regardless of inoculation are removed.”
7 Jabs, 3 Infections by Vinay Prasad
it is profoundly stupid to approve drug products because you are worried about wasting supply.
Someone in the FDA or the White House is leaking to the press that the agency may grant EUA to the second bivalent booster soon to people over the age of 65.
This announcement would mean that an 65 year old person may soon be able to get at least 7 shots of COVID vax per this FDA. 5 regular old wuhan shots, and then 2 bivalent boosters. They may also have had COVID once, twice or three times!
Not How Freedom Works by eugyppius
You cannot confine, repress, terrify, and coerce an entire nation for three years, and afterwards maintain any hope of returning to the world as it was before.
Freedom is not the rule again.
The years since 2020 have proven that all it takes to confine the entire civilian population of a Western country to indefinite house arrest, is a viral pathogen no worse than pandemic influenza.
With the right media campaign, the state can close schools and most of the economy, force millions to accept dangerous and ineffective medications, all with the support of a substantial majority of the voting public.
Constitutional protections, democratic freedoms, bills of rights – these don’t matter, they are worthless.
All you need is a sufficiently scary virus and they can be immediately set aside. That is not how freedom works. None of us will ever forget this.
Drug Sales Increasing After Vax by Aussie17
If we look at CDC’s report, we can see that AFib is the most reported cardiovascular-related adverse event post-vaccination. So it makes sense that the sales of Multaq skyrocketed in 2022. Multaq is prescribed to prevent the recurrence of AFib (meaning, these patients had AFib earlier, and now they are on Multaq. So that’s one of the reasons there is a delayed increase in sales.
Cardiac-related drugs are hard to analyse because most of the drugs have gone generic (Beta blockers, ACE inhibitors, ARBs etc.). Unfortunately, it is challenging to get generic drug sales data.
We have identified six cancer drugs that showed “unexplained and sudden” increases in Sales after the country has been triple vaccinated. Furthermore, they come from different Big Pharma companies, so we know this is not a supply chain or a sales and marketing initiative-driven issue.
Lucky Bill Gates by Igor Chudov
Bill has moved on to climate change. Here, also, his investments proved to be very fortunate. Two months after he invested $12 million into a company making cow-burp-reducing seaweed feed supplements, the UK published a document about mandating supplements to reduce cow methane emissions.
Just as Pfizer Covid vaccine manufacturer BioNTech, in which Bill invested serendipitously in Sep 2019 and whose product was mandated by many countries, the “methane-reducing feeds” will also be mandated by the UK (and soon by more countries). Lucky Bill!
Most Of What’s Published Is Wrong by Mike Donio, MS
Approximately 18 years ago John Ioannidis put out his now landmark essay entitled, “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False”.
there are simulations that show it is more likely for a given research claim to be false than true. It is even possible that many are just measures of the prevailing bias.
The first thing that has a huge impact on the probably of a finding being true is statistical significance and the over use of what is known as the p-value.
If you have a small sample size and are observing a small effect this would be an underpowered experiment and if you use a p-value = 0.05 to establish whether you have a valid finding then Colquhoun would say that you would be wrong most of the time.
“Part of the problem is that no-one is incentivised to be right. Instead, scientists are incentivised to be productive and innovative.”
“with increasing bias, the chances that a research finding is true diminish considerably.” Therefore, bias is a considerable factor in determining the veracity of research findings. As well, bias is pervasive in scientific research today and takes many forms.
mRNA Vaxes Through Food by Dr. Peter McCullough
The nation’s food supply can be manipulated by public health agencies to influence population outcomes…Now an oral route of administration is being considered specifically for COVID-19 vaccination using mRNA in cow’s milk.
Zhang and colleagues have demonstrated that a shortened mRNA code of 675 base pairs could be loaded into phospholipid packets called exosomes derived from milk and then using that same milk, be fed to mice.
The mice gastrointestinal tract absorbed the exosomes and the mRNA must have made it into the blood stream and lymphatic tissue because antibodies were produced in fed mice against SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein (receptor binding domain).
mRNA technology has just entered a whole new, much darker phase of development.
Republicans Abortion Problem by Alex Berenson
the right has a terrible ideological inconsistency on abortion. If being vaccinated as an adult is a personal choice - and it should be - then having an abortion is too. This is not because I support abortion. I think it is the taking of human life.
As a country the United States does not want to ban abortion. Women are furious. And not just young women. Women over 60 are old enough to remember the original Roe v. Wade decision, and most of them never wanted to go back.
The Republican Party has now locked itself into two positions that the rest of the country strongly rejects - support for Donald Trump and opposition to abortion.
I have no idea how Republicans get themselves out of these traps.
But if they cannot, Democrats and the health authoritarians they support will gain more and more power, woke censorship will worsen, our failed pro-drug policies will expand, we will continue to invite millions of the world’s poorest and least productive people to make a mockery of our immigration policies and borders, and the leviathan that is the federal government - which now spends more than $6 trillion a year - will only continue to grow.
Changing Of Definitions by Philip O'Reilly
Putting aside slang and the natural evolution of language there is at least one other reason that the meaning of words changes and that is to spare peoples’ feelings or to be inclusive or if I may speak more broadly, to be nice. The desire to let people pick their own gender is one example of this.
Efforts to modify language are often less politically motivated and consequently less overt than the trans activists’ efforts. New words often arise when existing words take on negative connotations. “Moron,” “idiot,” and “retardation,” were once medical terms that, once popularized and turned into insults, had to be replaced by new terms.
The desire to spare people’s feelings is admirable however it does nothing in the long run as people will eventually adopt the new term as an insult such as when a person asks, “are you special?” as a way to imply stupidity.
Changing the definition of “women” will not make a biological male a female, it will just require the creation of new words that enable us to communicate effectively. “A rose is a rose is a rose,” or put less poetically, things are what they are. Perhaps we should learn to accept this and focus on building stronger people rather than obsessing over people’s feelings.
Spike In Skull & Brain by Dr. William Makis
extremely important paper from Germany
This paper proves that the SARS-CoV2 and COVID-19 mRNA vaccine spike protein enter the skull marrow, meninges and the brain parenchyma.
The spike protein disrupts the blood brain barrier.
The spike protein alone causes cell death in the brain, it activates complement and coagulation pathways that lead to blood clots, mini infarcts and brain bleeds, it causes inflammation, and local changes associated with neurodegeneration (dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Diseases)
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