No Agenda Episode 1371 - "Bald Nancy"

  No Agenda Episode 1371 - "Bald Nancy"
    "Bald Nancy"
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  Credits
    "Bald Nancy"
    Executive Producers:
      Sir Stoner Boner
      Sir Deathstar of the TAMO
      Sir Paul Schneider
      Mr Lips
      Sir Chris of Carmel-by-Sea
      Lieutenant Winters
      Amanda Headrick
      Sir Rounded by idiots
      Dude named Ralph
      Sir Wire of the Hidden Jewell
      Sir 12,000 Miles
      Cynthia Scholte
    Associate Executive Producers:
      Sir Tim of the Tunnels, Baron of Goat Island
      Maxwell Reeves
      Shane Hawk
      Will "Sir Senpai"
      Sir William of West Pennsyltucky
      Viscount Sir Peet Sneekes
      Vega Thomas
      Sir Combat Rock of The Idaho Highlands
      Anonymous
      Laurent Pelletier
      Lindsey Fox
      Keith McColpin
      Sir Gene, Duke of TX
      Lorcan Byrne
    Become a member of the 1372 Club, support the show here
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    Title Changes
      Sir Peet Sneekes -> Viscount
    Knights & Dames
      Anonymous -> Sir Stoner Boner
      Matthew Aitken -> Sir Deathstar of the TAMO
      Chris Collins -> Sir Rounded by Idiots
      Matthew Wilson -> Sir 12,000 Miles
    Art By: Nessworks
    End of Show Mixes: Sir Chris Wilson - Tom Starkweather - Rolando Gonzalez
    Engineering, Stream Management & Wizardry
      Mark van Dijk - Systems Master
      Ryan Bemrose - Program Director
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    Chapters: Dreb Scott
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  Cover Art
    Art By: Nessworks
  Shownotes
    Mass Hysteria
      Menticide Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
        the systematic effort to undermine and destroy a person's values and beliefs, as by the use of prolonged interrogation, drugs, torture, etc., and to induce radically different ideas.
      Parallel Structures
      Pavel explained ridicule is a powerful weapon
      Multi prong approach is needed
      Podcasts!
      Can Stimulating Brains Lead to Controlling Them? - WSJ
      Mind control friend's father nurse unvaxxed
      4Chan Op with some truth
        E8PDYgQUcAUvwH6.jfif
        #AskMeWhy
        BLM/ADL/HRN
      How Government Coercion works
        You started Thursday’s show talking about what scaring people into submission is going to look like this time. Well, here is an example of how they’re going to do it. Coercion. They know people will ignore any state and/or local lockdowns, so they’ll leave it up to the Federal government to mandate their rotten agenda. They will control by coercing private businesses by threatening to pull licensing, funding, and screaming about how they took PPP money. Of which, there was no stipulation to follow any covid guideline bullshit going forward. I personally did the paperwork and I know.
        A little background on USDA inspection in meat plants or slaughterhouses. For a product to bear the mark of federal inspection it must be processed in a facility that is USDA inspected. The mark of inspection is the little round circle (aka ‘bug’) with the phrase ‘U.S. inspected and passed by department of agriculture’ and an establishment number you find on packaging.
        To be awarded a Federal Grant of Inspection, the USDA requires a validated and verified HACCP program that covers all processes, along with supporting programs (sanitation, recall policy, listeria sampling, etc.). We obtained our full grant of inspection in July 2017 and are considered a very small processor with 9 team members. Prior to that, our business was state inspected. The difference between the two types is that when a plant is federally inspected, they can wholesale their products interstate; whereas a plant that is state inspected can only wholesale inside of the respective state. Regardless of a plant’s status, there is an inspector in charge that is assigned to each facility, and they are present Monday-Friday, at some point, during allotted inspection hours. If slaughter is involved, an inspector is always on the kill floor throughout the process.
        According to the CDC, we are in a ‘substantial’ community COVID-19 transmission area and it is being communicated to the powers that be that we have told our inspector in charge, ‘no thank you’ to us wearing masks in our facility. When our state mask mandate ended, our team decided that it was to be left to the discretion of the individual whether they want to mask.
        We don’t know what the ramifications will be if we refuse to wear masks in the presence of our inspector and as you will read, they have no plan in place for non-compliance. If it is determined that it is not safe for our inspector to be in a facility where we are not wearing masks, we will not be able to produce our product with the mark of federal inspection. I’m reminded of the final sentence of the quote by Pastor Martin Niemöller, ‘Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.’
        Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you so much for your time. Love is lit and thank you for your courage, gentlemen.
      Can Stimulating Brains Lead to Controlling Them? - WSJ
    Pfizer Marketing
      CDC Director’s husband scored $5 million in HHS grants
        Syndicated radio talk show host Howie Carr told Red State that Walensky’s husband Loren Walensky has managed to enrich himself as scientific co-founder and member of the Board of Directors at a company called Lytica Therapeutics, described as “an early-stage biotechnology company working on an innovative platform for developing next-generation antimicrobials.”
        That became very lucrative for the Walenskys, who became affiliated with the company in October 2019. Only four months later, the company managed to receive a grant in the amount of $16.9 million from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in order to “develop antibacterial peptides with broad activity against multidrug-resistant bacteria.”
        Information shows that only $5.3 million of that money was initially disbursed to the company, while the remaining $11.6 million is to be disbursed upon the achievement of “certain development milestones.”
        Link
      Osterholm wikipedia
      UK to use TikTok influencers to urge teens to get jab
        Downing Street will enlist TikTok stars to push teens to get vaccinated, even as critics note that the committee behind the decision to expand the inoculation drive has admitted it had sparse evidence for doing so.
        The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) announced on Thursday that the first dose of the Pfizer Covid vaccine will be offered to all 16- and 17-year-olds without needing the consent of their parents, reversing its own recommendation from just two weeks ago.
        The independent panel of experts, which advises the UK government on immunisation, had earlier said that the jab should not be given to minors unless they were over 12 and suffered from medical conditions that would make them vulnerable to Covid-19, or lived with someone deemed high-risk. JCVI said it will issue a recommendation about when the second dose should be administered at a later date.
        The NHS is now gearing up to give the shot to about 1.4 million children. To help with the effort, the government plans to assemble an army of Instagram and TikTok stars, as well as a fleet of ‘vaccine buses’ to drum up enthusiasm for the jab and make it easy for teens to get, iNews reported.
        Link
      DNA companies not advertising since da rona
      NBC sees 'worst case scenario' as Olympics ratings plunge amid 'woke' protests
      4Chan Op with some truth
        E8PDYgQUcAUvwH6.jfif
        #AskMeWhy
        BLM/ADL/HRN
      Criminal Country of the Netherlands now in LEGAL drugs
    Freedom Passports
      New Identity Authentication Requirement For Unemployment Spreads Across The Country
      Labor Minister Élisabeth Borne was clear:
        employees suspended because without a health pass will not be entitled to unemployment benefits
        Link
      Australian Covid Camps
      Mercola purged from archive.org
        Sorry.
        This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine.
      Freedom Pass vs Voter ID
        Voter ID hasn’t been a recent topic, but it’s interesting that states are willing togo to the
        creepy extent of collecting biometric data on people to get necessary government services, but to
        ask a voter to present an ID is racist.
    Tests
      Alternative - home test with internet verification coming!
      Sydney using 45 cycle count
    Variants
      Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens
        Our data show that anti-disease vaccines that do not prevent transmission can create conditions that promote the emergence of pathogen strains that cause more severe disease in unvaccinated hosts.
    Unvaccinated
      Guy K interview last vaxx question
      The only immunity the vaxx provides is for the manufacturers
      Jennifer Aniston Claps Back at Criticism Over Cutting Non-Vaccinated People Out of Her Life
      Offspring band member booted for refusing COVID vaccine on doctor's orders, even though he has natural immunity
      Far Right MAGAs are Finding Themselves Doxxed and Unemployable, Making Their Lives Difficult
    Mandates
      1 out of 5 emails is about mandates
        Hey Adam
        Well here in LA covid mandates are at the front gate. In fact we got a memo about how mandates are on its way, non vaxxed need to test twice a week, but wear a mask no matter what because vaxxed or not you can get and spread cv.
        I talked to my manager and told him how it doesn’t make sense only the unvaxxed need to get tested if everyone can get it. He plainly said it’s about making unvaxxed life annoying
      Obama's birthday party guests leave early because of traffic 'sh-- show'
      Obama 60th Michelle gender reveal
      United to require Covid vaccinations for its 67,000 U.S. employees
      VACCINE REQUIREMENT in KY
        A friend of mine got some grim news today.
        The hospital systems in Lexington,KY (both University of KY and Baptiste Health) are requiring all employees and contractors to get a vaccine in 6 weeks or lose their job. they have also said that religious exemptions are not a valid excuse and will not be accepted.
        They're mandating this because the systems have reached 75% vaccination among all employees. It's my belief that once they get 75% of the entire population of the US, we'll all be forced to get it, or not be able to work.
        This is the first time I've been legitimately scared through all this pandemic. I'm 28 and want to have kids.... I'm also a contractor for the military. Just praying that the rest of the country holds the line. My friend is not sure what he's going to do...
        All the best,
      If your employer fires you because you won’t get the COVID vaccine, don’t expect to collect unemployment - MarketWatch
        “This often means that they are let go due to a lack of work,” said Alana Ackels, a labor and employment lawyer at Bell Nunnally, a Dallas-based law firm.
        “Typically, an employee who is terminated for failing to comply with company policies is not eligible for unemployment benefits, which would include refusing to comply with a company’s COVID-19 prevention policies, masking requirements or vaccine requirements,” Ackels told MarketWatch.
        But an employee who has proof of a medical exemption or religious objection to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine may still be eligible to collect unemployment benefits if fired, said Rebecca Dixon, executive director at the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit that advocates for worker’s rights.
        Otherwise, refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, if your employer requires one, “is akin to an employee’s refusal to submit to permissible drug tests or participate in safety trainings,” said Ronald Zambrano, employment law chair at West Coast Trial Lawyers, a Los Angeles–based law firm. That is, such an employee, when terminated, would not qualify for unemployment benefits, Zambrano said.
        Link
    OTG
      Apple scanning emails for pr0n
        Have you heard about this scheme of Apples. Strictly for child protection (they say), for now.
        Though it doesn't seem to protect the children, anywhere in the world, that are being sexually
        exploited, in real time. Just going after anyone who happens to come across a photo of a sexually
        abused child. Whether they were looking for that, or not.
        https://tinyurl.com/bbnz46ak
        Here's the more complicated explanation by Ars Technica. Which forgets to mention that the NCMEC
        comes to kick down doors, after Apple finks on its customers.
        https://tinyurl.com/hyhzkf8n
        I hope you could understand that, better than I could. A lot of technical word soup, to me.
        Nothing is said about the age limit, that NCMEC decides on. Or any sexual lifestyle exceptions. Are
        gay adults and children exempt, I wonder? Are the likes of Jeffrey Epstein, and rich Democrats,
        exempt?
        And if Apple can use this system to hide a hash list database of sexual explicit photos, on users'
        devices. Why couldn't Apple also hide some of the actual photos, on there, too? To finger anyone
        they don't like, politically. Just burn anyone, for any reason, whenever it suits them. And the
        NCMEC and left wing press will do the rest.
        John Hopkins Univ. confirms my suspicions.
        https://tinyurl.com/5d3vze6b
        The public will never suspect (nor would the M5M allow them to), that anyone accused of having
        child abuse photos, was falsely set up. And I don't buy the idea that hashes can never coincide for
        more than one photo. There's just no way they can prove it can't happen. Nor prove, how seldom it
        can happen. And I don't buy that they can hash photos, so no alterations or flips, don't change the
        hash value.
        It sounds like comparing partial fingerprints, to full print records. And saying they never accuse
        the wrong person, of a crime, from just 50% (or less) of their fingerprints. But this has actually
        happened. Some people can have almost the same fingerprints, living thousands of miles apart.
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandon_Mayfield
        https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/myth-fingerprints-180971640
        And if Apple can hide a hash list of the CSAM images. What's to stop the Feds from hiding a hash
        list of sensitive documents, they're looking out for, on such devices? No more whistle blowers.
        I wonder when Microsoft will decide to build this into another version of Windows? At some point,
        the police might just come to arrest all the OTG people, running Linux. Because they're obviously
        hiding child porn. Right?
      The centralized email racket is getting worse
      Linux Mint Studio progress
    Arab Spring
      Egyptian bread price hike alarms the poor
    Podcasting 2.0
      Why does Glenn Greenwald have to build a network
    Supply Chains
      Big Tech is suffering from a ‘Great Resignation’ of workers, who say ‘It’s a good time to leave’ - MarketWatch
      Spirit Airlines Meltdown BOTG
        Still a couple of shows behind, but here's what is going on with Spirit as to why they are cancelling when there is no apparent weather event. This is too long for the show, but I thought you would be interested.
        This is the worst operational collapse I've ever seen, and is probably the worst ever in terms of the % of flights cancelled. American's problems are a much much much smaller % of the airline. Spirit has cancelled over 50% virtually every day since Monday and today will be close as well. Normally it is well under 1%.
        The FAA limits pilots to 100 flight hours per month, but 1000 per year. Crew scheduling is done on a monthly basis as a result, but not the exact calendar month. Crews bid their flights, called Lines, while junior crews don't bid lines (They are called Reserves) and are assigned flights. Less desirable lines (lots of wasted time in places crews don't want to be) don't get picked up by senior crew and go into "Open Time". Reserves are used both for Open Time and to cover operational disruptions. Because July is the most peak month of the entire year for travel it is very hard to staff because the airline flies as many flights as possible in the best month for selling tickets...plus it is very hard to hire pilots now because there has been an ongoing shortage as a result of a shortsited govt policy that changed after Colgan Airlines crashed in 2007. Finally the airlines are disincentivized from hiring extra pilots they won't need for a while after peak passes because with COVID who knows what is coming next.
        In a normal month a pilot flies 70-80 hours, but in July it always gets very close to the legal 100 hour cap. Middle July had an unusually high number of operational delays from weather and airport staff shortages, and Spirit drained their reserves which were already bare bones because of the issues above. When it got toward the end of the crew month (which was around Aug 4) not only did they not have any crews to cover operational problems, they didn't have crews to cover Open Time and started cancelling en masse. There were also very few senior crews able to accept overtime because they were already close to 100 hours, plus it's Summer and overtime is optional so nobody wants to work more.
        The cancellations became so heavy that new problems started to develop. A lot of crew "dead-head" which means they commute to the crew base because they live in another city, or are simply scheduled as a deadhead for operational reasons. When you cancel 50% of your flights your own crew can't get to their own flight and it starts a cascade effect. At this point the software systems run on the cheap to support a low cost airline couldn't handle the pressure and also went offline. The crew scheduling system requires 45 minutes to reboot and continually crashed due to being overloaded, as did the airline's website.
        Finally, the airline announced pre-COVID that it would move its System Operations Control (SOC) from Ft. Lauderdale to Nashville, SOC runs the airline on a day to day basis. It is like a trading floor with monitors showing airplane locations and delays, plus available reserve resources like crew and such, as well as handling passengers getting arrested, etc. The different groups (crew, station ops, maintenance, etc) yell out typically at each other to grab a resource to fix a problem. The move to Nashville was needed to deal with the growth of the airline and past evacuations of their SOC for hurricanes. During COVID they elected instead of moving to the new SOC, to a) have people work from home remotely, b) not move the SOC to Nashville, and c) open a second smaller SOC facility in Orlando with the facility split between locations. This proved to be disastrous as it was fine during COVID when planes were empty and pressure was low, but this Summer when things were bursting at the seams it became totally dysfunctional. Additionally, a lot of key people left either because of the upcoming move or the aborted move. The cancellations that continue to take place since the crew month ended earlier in the week are largely a result of the failure of a Zoom call-esque work environment in a teamwork driven area that can't function like that, but it is a stew filled with ingredients.
      Berkshire Hathaway’s operating earnings jump 21% as recovering economy boosts railroad, energy units
        Berkshire Hathaway’s operating income continued to rebound as its myriad of businesses from energy to railroads benefited from the economic reopening.
        The conglomerate reported operating earnings of $6.69 billion in the second quarter, up 21% from $5.51 billion in the same period a year ago, according to its earnings report released on Saturday.
        Overall earnings, which reflect Berkshire’s fluctuating equity investments, increased 6.8% year over year to $28 billion in the second quarter.
        Link
    More than covid
      North Texas pediatricians being overwhelmed with sick children
        "We're seeing increase winter levels of RSV, significant outbreak of hand foot and mouth virus, rhinovirus and even some summer flu," he said.
        And all of this is happening before school starts.
        "Quite the perfect storm, in my opinion," the doctor said.
        Link
    Build Back Better
      Infrastructure Bill Would Invest $500 Million in “Smart City” Surveillance Tech
        BURIED IN THE Senate’s bipartisan infrastructure bill is a grant program that would distribute $500 million to cities to experiment with sensors, autonomous vehicles, drones, and other technologies intended to improve urban living standards.
        Under the $1.2 trillion Senate infrastructure bill’s “Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation” initiative, state and urban planners would test how data-gathering devices and new vehicles can improve “transportation efficiency and safety.” The bill’s sponsors are especially interested in reducing traffic, enhancing access to jobs and health care, lowering pollution, and incentivizing private sector investments by working with communication service providers.
        But some are worried these technologies will only enable more government surveillance.
        Link
    Eviction Moratorium
      BOTG Renter / Landlord assistance
        From Georgia. Consider how one thing leads to another. You can't administer assistance without a call center. You can't run a call center when that bracket of workers is being paid to stay at home. And you can't build a call center without chips and, wait for it ... ask John. That's right, hard drives. But seriously in a state where the counties get the funds to distribute i am watching this in action. An IT division where the pandemic pushed many top members to quit or take new and higher pay, plus a lack of goods to build outfit a call center, and just recently getting staff to show up for jobs to take calls. The lines are long. The boards are over loaded and stuffs broke.
      Eviction Moratorium ruling explained
        I believe this covers, with links to rulings to from previous rulings, the events and rulings around the moratorium.
        Ultimately its a procedural caveat. The court didn't rule on the constitutionality of the mandate from the CDC. It simply denied the landlord's request for emergency relief.
        Kavanaugh did give an opinion after the fact:
        He said he agreed with the Friedrich's district court's ruling that the CDC had exceeded its authority by issuing a nationwide eviction moratorium. But he said that because the moratorium would expire in "only a few weeks" he would deny the application to lift the stay.
        "In my view," he added, "clear and specific congressional authorization (via new legislation) would be necessary for the CDC to extend the moratorium past July 31."
        So it requires the court to be petitioned for a ruling on the mandate.
        Link
    Dogs are People Too
      Peek Into Fauci's Closet Reveals Horrific Experiments on Beagles, Tests Left Dogs in Obvious Pain
        The agency used $424,455 in taxpayer dollars to support University of Georgia researchers who performed experimental drug tests on 28 beagles after infecting them with parasites, according to the Daily Caller.
        Documents obtained by the White Coat Waste Project showed that some of the dogs “vocalized in pain” upon being injected with an experimental vaccine.
        The beagles were reportedly set to be euthanized in June, but it is unclear whether that happened.
        Newsweek reported that the experiments were related to a disease called lymphatic filariasis and that the vaccine in question had already been tested on other animals.
        Link
    Pfizermectin
      Pharmacies and Ivermectin
        Just sharing our experience with C19 this week in Florida. Wife got it but mild case we were self treating with herbal tinctures but her doctor is one of few that will prescribe Ivermectin. Both of the major pharmacies here, CVS and Walgreens, refused to fill this script as a Covid treatment. We found a small independent pharmacy located inside the “black community” that would fill it for us. Totally disgusting that these corporations are interfering with Doctor’s ability to off-label prescribe.
    Real News
      The U.S. military on Tuesday arrested Microsoft founder Bill Gates
    STORIES
      Philip Morris Heats Up Race for Vectura With $1.4 Billion Bid - Bloomberg
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      Military Arrests Bill Gates - Real Raw News
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 12:36
        The U.S. military on Tuesday arrested Microsoft founder Bill Gates, charging the socially awkward misfit with child trafficking and other unspeakable crimes against America and its people.
        Sources within the U.S. Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps told Real Raw News that the military had spent months trying to find Gates, but the elusive billionaire had used his wealth and Deep State contacts to elude capture, somehow keeping a step ahead of the military's manhunt.
        But on Tuesday, July 27, Gates slipped up, and U.S. Marines were able to apprehend him at a property he secretly owned in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
        The charges against Gates cover a broad spectrum. He purportedly coerced the FDA into issuing emergency authorization on Covid-19 vaccines, knowing that the potentially dangerous pharmaceutical cocktail would not only endanger recipients but also scramble human DNA. JAG is also investigating whether vaccines contain synthetic nanoparticles manufactured by Microsoft and Swedish biotech company Biohax International. The military alleges that Gates stood to profit massively from vaccine sales. Gates, who has previously denied having a financial stake in the vaccines, earned at least $10 billion from the joint sales of the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccinations, according to JAG documents. JAG is holding Gates partly responsible for the deaths of 7,000 American citizens who died within 72 hours of receiving the drug.
        Moreover, the military has charged Gates with masterminding a child trafficking ring, which he ran with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. As reported by RRN on 20 May, U.S. Navy Seals operating under JAG authority stormed Gates' 492-acre ranch in northwest Wyoming and discovered a subterranean bunker where children had been temporarily housed prior to being sold into slavery. An SD card recovered at the scene showed a young girl in pajamas handcuffed to a bed and crying out for her mother. Off camera, a maniacal Gates could be heard encouraging the child to dress in high heels and lingerie so she could better please her ''new mommy and daddy.''
        That evidence, taken in tandem with Gates' vaccine fraud, prompted the military to launch a global manhunt for the socially awkward but ruthlessly dangerous nerd.
        Sources told RRN that Gates' wife Melinda played a crucial role in his arrest.
        ''Initially she was reluctant to fully cooperate, because she felt that knowledge of her involvement might jeopardize the fortune she aims to get from the divorce settlement, most of which has not been paid. But JAG has evidence proving that she had knowledge of the child trafficking and told her she'd be charged alongside Bill if she didn't cooperate. It turned out that Bill had been spamming her with enciphered emails only she could decode. He wanted to reconcile. The military used that to its advantage,'' our source said.
        Melinda finally answered him, our source added, and agreed to a meeting. She told Bill to name the time and place. In response, Bill Gates suggested a house he had owned in Myrtle Beach. Although the military had been conducting surveillance on all known Gates-owned properties, the Myrtle Beach house had escaped military notice, because Gates had purchased it under an alias.
        When Gates showed up, the Marines were waiting, our source said.
        He was taken into custody and is currently being detained at an unknown location pending transportation to Guantanamo Bay, our source added.
        (Visited 597,661 times, 5,772 visits today)
      New Identity Authentication Requirement for Unemployment Spreads Across the Country
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 12:29
        Pennsylvania now requires individuals filing for unemployment compensation to prove their identity before receiving payments.
        In an effort to prevent fraudulent claims which have plagued the online unemployment system, Pennsylvania has hired ID.me, a McLean, Virginia-based company, to authenticate users.
        Since 2020, some 27 states have hired ID.me for unemployment verification, including Pennsylvania, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.
        ''We are also now under contract with an additional two states. ID.me Spokesman Nicholas Michael told The Epoch Times. ''Our federal partners include the Department of Veterans Affairs and Social Security Administration.''
        Unemployment applicants in these states must submit to a new, more invasive level of vetting to receive payments.
        ID.me's online authentication process begins with a request for permission to use details from the user's credit profile and other public sources. Soon after that, the system requires users to consent to ID.me collecting their Social Security number and biometric data. The user cannot continue the process or receive unemployment without consenting.
        The fine print explains ID.me may collect facial biometrics and voiceprints.
        Users upload an image of a driver's license or passport, and a current ''selfie'' image taken with their smartphone. In some cases, a video selfie is used.
        ''We use these images to create a facial geometry or faceprint which we use for purposes of identity verification and to prevent the fraudulent creation of multiple accounts in a fraudulent manner,'' the agreement explains.
        Users may also be required to call ID.me and leave a voice recording that is used to create a voiceprint. ''We use this voiceprint for identity verification and to prevent the creation of multiple ID.me accounts in a fraudulent manner,'' the agreement explains.
        Collecting Biometric DataID.me stores a user's biometric data for use up to seven and a half years after they stop using the service, the agreement says. Users may ask ID.me to delete their biometric data, but the company may decline the request in some cases.
        ''ID.me will never share your biometric data with a third party except to protect you or others from identity theft,'' the consent agreement says.
        However, the agreement also says ID.me can share biometric data with its clients such as the Department of Labor and Industry to process unemployment claims, plus third-party service providers and ''other third parties where permitted by law, to enforce the terms, to comply with legal obligations or applicable, to respond to legal process (such as a subpoena, warrant or civil discovery request), to cooperate with law enforcement agencies concerning conduct or activity that we reasonably and in good faith believes may violate federal, state, or local law, and to prevent harm, loss or injury to others.''
        Batches of digital files containing the personal information of each person authenticated by ID.me are regularly sent to the state. The files contain an individual's full name, email address, phone number, Social Security number, date of birth, street address, city, state, postal code, gender, and a unique identifier.
        ID.me tracks the IP address, town, and time when users interact with the company.
        Where Is the Information Going?''It's overbroad and absurd considering the limited purpose the verification is supposed to further,'' Jeff Schott, a labor and civil rights attorney at the Scaringi Law Firm in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, told The Epoch Times. ''To me, it's wrong because you are entitled to those benefits and you have to agree to their terms, which exceed what is needed for the purpose for ID verification.''
        Schott says the law firm has fielded numerous calls about ID.me from Pennsylvanians applying for unemployment. The complaints generally fall into one of two categories.
        Some are people who are not computer savvy and through the pandemic, have been laid off for the first time in their lives. They need help navigating ID.me and worry about submitting to facial recognition and handing their Social Security number over to a third-party company.
        ''They want to know and where all this information is going and where it is stored,'' Schott said. ''Since COVID, people are more in tune with government intrusion in their lives, for obvious reasons.''
        Other folks are calling the law firm complaining ID.me rejected them, even though their information was legitimate.
        If there is a problem, ID.me says cases will be handled on a video conference by a ''trusted referee,'' but Schott said some clients have told him that the video conference never happened, others told him ID.me's trusted referees seemed more hostile than helpful, acting as if they were speaking with a fraudster instead of helping them solve the problem.
        About 90 percent of people verify their identity through the automated process in about five minutes, Michael said. Applicants' selfie photo or video is compared to the photo on their passport or driver's license through facial recognition.
        ''If the individual takes a blurry, or cut off image of their face three times, or uploads documents that have issues, we offer a live video chat session'--similar to a Zoom call'--with a live agent,'' Michael said. ''The individual can finish the verification process that way. No one is blocked by this step.''
        People who do not have a presence in records, are recent immigrants, or have no credit history have difficulty proving their identity online, he said.
        ''ID.me is the only vendor in the country that offers identity verification through a video chat with one of our trusted referees,'' Michael said.
        Pennsylvania first engaged with ID.me through an $800,000, one-year contract to authenticate Pandemic Unemployment Assistance applicants from September 2020-September 2021.
        In late July, Pennsylvania's Department of Labor and Industry informed applicants of regular (not pandemic-related) unemployment that they are required to verify their identity through ID.me to start or continue receiving payments.
        There is likely another contract to cover this new service but the Department of Labor and Industry was unable to produce it or say how much it is paying ID.me.
        Labor and Industry Spokeswoman Sarah DeSantis told The Epoch Times ID.me is subcontracted through Geographic Solutions, the company that manages the state's online unemployment system, which was recently updated. But Geographic Solutions spokesman Donald Silver told The Epoch Times the contract is between ID.me and the state.
        ''We'll have to defer to Pennsylvania L&I for information about the contract,'' ID.me Spokesman Nicholas Michael said.
        Ultimately, neither ID.me nor the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry would provide a contract or disclose the cost of this service.
        Beth Brelje
        Freelance Reporter
      New Identity Authentication Requirement For Unemployment Spreads Across The Country | ZeroHedge
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 11:39
        Authored by Beth Brelje via The Epoch Times,
        Pennsylvania now requires individuals filing for unemployment compensation to prove their identity before receiving payments.
        In an effort to prevent fraudulent claims which have plagued the online unemployment system, Pennsylvania has hired ID.me, a McLean, Virginia-based company, to authenticate users.
        Since 2020, some 27 states have hired ID.me for unemployment verification, including Pennsylvania, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming.
        ''We are also now under contract with an additional two states. ID.me Spokesman Nicholas Michael told The Epoch Times.
        ''Our federal partners include the Department of Veterans Affairs and Social Security Administration.''
        Unemployment applicants in these states must submit to a new, more invasive level of vetting to receive payments.
        ID.me's online authentication process begins with a request for permission to use details from the user's credit profile and other public sources. Soon after that, the system requires users to consent to ID.me collecting their Social Security number and biometric data. The user cannot continue the process or receive unemployment without consenting.
        The fine print explains ID.me may collect facial biometrics and voiceprints.
        Users upload an image of a driver's license or passport, and a current ''selfie'' image taken with their smartphone. In some cases, a video selfie is used.
        ''We use these images to create a facial geometry or faceprint which we use for purposes of identity verification and to prevent the fraudulent creation of multiple accounts in a fraudulent manner,'' the agreement explains.
        Users may also be required to call ID.me and leave a voice recording that is used to create a voiceprint. ''We use this voiceprint for identity verification and to prevent the creation of multiple ID.me accounts in a fraudulent manner,'' the agreement explains.
        Collecting Biometric DataID.me stores a user's biometric data for use up to seven and a half years after they stop using the service, the agreement says. Users may ask ID.me to delete their biometric data, but the company may decline the request in some cases.
        ''ID.me will never share your biometric data with a third party except to protect you or others from identity theft,'' the consent agreement says.
        However, the agreement also says ID.me can share biometric data with its clients such as the Department of Labor and Industry to process unemployment claims, plus third-party service providers and ''other third parties where permitted by law, to enforce the terms, to comply with legal obligations or applicable, to respond to legal process (such as a subpoena, warrant or civil discovery request), to cooperate with law enforcement agencies concerning conduct or activity that we reasonably and in good faith believes may violate federal, state, or local law, and to prevent harm, loss or injury to others.''
        Batches of digital files containing the personal information of each person authenticated by ID.me are regularly sent to the state. The files contain an individual's full name, email address, phone number, Social Security number, date of birth, street address, city, state, postal code, gender, and a unique identifier.
        ID.me tracks the IP address, town, and time when users interact with the company.
        Where Is the Information Going?''It's overbroad and absurd considering the limited purpose the verification is supposed to further,'' Jeff Schott, a labor and civil rights attorney at the Scaringi Law Firm in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, told The Epoch Times.
        ''To me, it's wrong because you are entitled to those benefits and you have to agree to their terms, which exceed what is needed for the purpose for ID verification.''
        Schott says the law firm has fielded numerous calls about ID.me from Pennsylvanians applying for unemployment. The complaints generally fall into one of two categories.
        Some are people who are not computer savvy and through the pandemic, have been laid off for the first time in their lives. They need help navigating ID.me and worry about submitting to facial recognition and handing their Social Security number over to a third-party company.
        ''They want to know and where all this information is going and where it is stored,'' Schott said.
        ''Since COVID, people are more in tune with government intrusion in their lives, for obvious reasons.''
        Other folks are calling the law firm complaining ID.me rejected them, even though their information was legitimate.
        If there is a problem, ID.me says cases will be handled on a video conference by a ''trusted referee,'' but Schott said some clients have told him that the video conference never happened, others told him ID.me's trusted referees seemed more hostile than helpful, acting as if they were speaking with a fraudster instead of helping them solve the problem.
        About 90 percent of people verify their identity through the automated process in about five minutes, Michael said. Applicants' selfie photo or video is compared to the photo on their passport or driver's license through facial recognition.
        ''If the individual takes a blurry, or cut off image of their face three times, or uploads documents that have issues, we offer a live video chat session'--similar to a Zoom call'--with a live agent,'' Michael said. ''The individual can finish the verification process that way. No one is blocked by this step.''
        People who do not have a presence in records, are recent immigrants, or have no credit history have difficulty proving their identity online, he said.
        ''ID.me is the only vendor in the country that offers identity verification through a video chat with one of our trusted referees,'' Michael said.
        Pennsylvania first engaged with ID.me through an $800,000, one-year contract to authenticate Pandemic Unemployment Assistance applicants from September 2020-September 2021.
        In late July, Pennsylvania's Department of Labor and Industry informed applicants of regular (not pandemic-related) unemployment that they are required to verify their identity through ID.me to start or continue receiving payments.
        There is likely another contract to cover this new service but the Department of Labor and Industry was unable to produce it or say how much it is paying ID.me.
        Labor and Industry Spokeswoman Sarah DeSantis told The Epoch Times ID.me is subcontracted through Geographic Solutions, the company that manages the state's online unemployment system, which was recently updated. But Geographic Solutions spokesman Donald Silver told The Epoch Times the contract is between ID.me and the state.
        ''We'll have to defer to Pennsylvania L&I for information about the contract,'' ID.me Spokesman Nicholas Michael said.
        Ultimately, neither ID.me nor the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry would provide a contract or disclose the cost of this service.
      Obama's birthday party guests leave early because of traffic 'sh-- show' | Fox News
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 11:37
        Published August 08, 2021
        The party's original guest list of nearly 500 people had been reduced to only "friends and close family" after an outbreak of COVID-19's Delta variantCelebrity guests have begun leaving former President Barack Obama's Martha's Vineyard "scaled-down" birthday bash, creating a "s''t show" of traffic congestion on the resort island.
        Singer John Legend, model wife Chrissy Teigen, and rapper Takeoff were seen leaving the ex-president's 29-acre Oak Bluffs seaside property just before midnight by a Post photographer.
        Legend was heard performing for the crowd Saturday evening, and the Migos MC was also rumored to have taken the raised stage set up on the sprawling estate.
        PHOTOS OF MASSIVE TENT AT OBAMA'S MANSION RAISE QUESTIONS OF 'SCALED BACK' BIRTHDAY PARTY
        In between musical acts, a DJ was heard playing "Ain't Nobody" by Chaka Khan, in honor of the 60-year-old man of the hour.
        A fleet of taxis were seen driving into the Obama residence to take party staff home, and a handful of SUVs possibly containing stars were also seen departing the shindig.
        A local Massachusetts police officer could be heard describing the vehicle situation in the town of 4,500 as a "s''t show" on his radio as the party began to wind down, according to the photog.
        The party's original guest list of nearly 500 people, in addition to 200 staff members, had been reduced earlier this week to only "friends and close family" after an outbreak of COVID-19's Delta variant in nearby Cape Cod.
        The 11th-hour decision '-- which led to the reported disinvites of former adviser David Axelrod and comics David Letterman, Larry David and Conan O'Brien '-- followed a report by The Post, which cited a source as saying the former president was creating a public health nightmare by trying to get 700 people to the island.
        Still, there was plenty of star power in attendance with Jay-Z, Beyonc(C), Steven Spielberg, Bradley Cooper, Don Cheadle, Erykah Badu, Steven Colbert and John Kerry photographed arriving for the party.
        Other guests included Bruce Springsteen, Tom and Rita Hanks, Dwyane Wade and Gabrielle Union, Eddie Vedder, and Questlove, who was slated to perform.
        CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
        Earlier in the day, the stars turned heads in the sleepy enclave, as the Hanks were spotted browsing through a bookshop in nearby Edgartown, where Legend and Teigen were also seen shopping.
        House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was spotted having lunch at the Winnetu Resort in Edgartown '-- where Spielberg was also seen taking selfies with fans '-- after she reportedly did not make the cut for the new streamlined guestlist.
        The Democrat's office did not immediately respond to the New York Post's request to clarify why she was on Martha's Vineyard.
      NBC sees 'worst case scenario' as Olympics ratings plunge amid 'woke' protests | Fox News
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 11:34
        Published August 07, 2021
        Experts have pointed to woke, anti-U.S. protests from American athletes as part of the lack of interestNBC is giving advertisers who bought airtime during the Tokyo Olympics extra commercials due to underwhelming ratings for this year's 2020 Olympic Games, fueled by a pandemic-weary population and backlash against woke athletes protesting the U.S. flag and national anthem.
        NBC Sports Chairman Pete Bevacqua insisted to the Associated Press that the network would still make money on the 2020 Olympics '' but left out details about how much.
        NBC's primetime coverage of the Tokyo Olympics on July 26 averaged 14.7 million viewers -- for a 49% drop compared to the equivalent night from the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and 53% less than the 2012 London Olympics. The opening ceremonies saw their lowest viewership since 1988.
        NBC'S TOKYO OLYMPICS COVERAGE SPURS 'ADVERTISER ANXIETY' AS VIEWERSHIP CONTINUES TO DECLINE
        United States' Megan Rapinoe kneels prior to the women's bronze medal soccer match against Australia at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Thursday, Aug. 5, 2021, in Kashima, Japan. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)
        Variety senior TV editor Brian Steinberg wrote that the drop has spurred "advertiser anxiety" which hasn't been eased by the news that legendary American gymnast Simone Biles withdrew from team competition and fan favorite Naomi Osaka was eliminated from the tennis medal competition.
        He quoted a media buying executive who said the early viewership numbers "clearly are not what NBC, our agency or our clients were looking for" from costly investment.
        "When you look at the numbers, it's hard to be pleased with them," Andy Billings, director of the sports communications program at the University of Alabama, told the AP. "It's probably NBC's worst-case scenario, but it's probably a worst-case scenario that they would have been able to predict months ago."
        NBC HAS 33-YEAR LOW VIEWERSHIP FOR TOKYO OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY: 'NOT A HAPPY' BENCHMARK
        Viewership has lagged behind the Rio coverage by roughly half on numerous nights of this year's competition.
        EUGENE, OREGON - JUNE 26: Gwendolyn Berry celebrates finishing third in the Women's Hammer Throw final on day nine of the 2020 U.S. Olympic Track &amp; Field Team Trials at Hayward Field on June 26, 2021 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
        And woke protests by American athletes condemning the U.S. or national anthem have done little to attract new viewers while alienating Republican spectators, according to Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute in New Jersey. The lingering effects of the coronavirus pandemic have also taken a toll.
        Last week, the university published a poll that found a third fewer Americans were interested in watching the games '' a whopping 43% of respondents said they had little interest in watching compared to just 16% who had a lot.
        ESPN WRITER TROUBLED BY AMERICAN FLAG AT OLYMPICS: 'I KEEP THINKING BACK ON THE CAPITOL RIOTS'
        And while 55% of Americans felt it was a good idea to hold the postponed 2020 Games this year, 36% said it wasn't.
        "The Olympic spirit is a bit dampened this year," Murray said. "The delay from last year and lack of spectators have taken the edge off the typical anticipation and excitement for this event. But the emergence of Black Lives Matter in the sports world has also led to a backlash among some Americans."
        United States' Kevin Durant (7) celebrates after their win in the men's basketball gold medal game against France at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Saturday, Aug. 7, 2021, in Saitama, Japan. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
        Not all athletes have protested the flag. The woke women's soccer team had to settle for bronze last week, but the U.S. men's basketball team took gold and star Kevin Durant derided media critics by telling one to "act like you're American."
        And U.S. wrestler Tamyra Mensah-Stock wrapped herself in the flag and declared "I love representing the U.S., I freaking love living here," after becoming the first female Black American wrestler to win Olympic gold.
        But images of other athletes protesting the flag and the anthem haven't helped bring back alienated viewers.
        USA's Tamyra Marianna Stock Mensah celebrates her gold medal victory against Nigeria's Blessing Oborududu in their women's freestyle 68kg wrestling final match during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Makuhari Messe in Tokyo on August 3, 2021. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP) (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images) (Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images)
        Just over half of the Republicans who said they weren't interested cited the political protests, and the same percentage of Democrats blamed the effects of the pandemic '' small crowds and less competition.
        And the university also quoted independents as opposing the protests.
        "The people we sent over aren't representing the country," one Maryland man, identified as an independent in his 40s, told the pollsters. "They're kneeling at the flag."
        He wasn't the only one who felt that way.
        CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
        "I don't want to see virtue signaling," a 45-year-old New Jersey woman, also an independent, said. "Be a proud American."
        The decline in TV viewers doesn't tell the entire story '' more people are watching online and via streaming platforms, where advertising revenue is significantly lower.
        Fox News' Brian Flood and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
      Can Stimulating Brains Lead to Controlling Them? - WSJ
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 11:15
        Since the early 20th century, the name of the Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov has been associated with the idea of brainwashing. Pavlov's experiments, in which he trained dogs to salivate in response to a signal such as a bell, showed that the mind could be conditioned to react automatically to stimuli. But he looked forward to a time when science could manipulate the brain directly. In a passage eerily accurate in describing today's neural imaging, he wrote: ''If we could look through the skull into the brain of a consciously thinking person'...then we should see playing over the cerebral surface a bright spot with fantastic, waving borders, constantly fluctuating in size and form, and surrounded by a darkness, more or less deep, covering the rest of the hemispheres.''
        We still don't have a precise topography of the brain in terms of specific thoughts or feelings. It's hard to imagine where one would begin if one wanted to surgically force someone to reveal a particular secret, or to persuade him or her to vote for a certain candidate. But since Pavlov's time, science has moved much closer to enabling direct physical control of the brain. In this century, neuroscientists' insights into memory, cognition, pleasure and pain may make coercive ''mind control'' a reality.
        The psychologist James Olds (1922-76), one of the founders of modern neuroscience, conducted an experiment at McGill University in 1953 in which he implanted electrodes deep in the brains of rats and started observing their responses to electrical stimulation at various sites. His key observation resulted from an accident: He missed the desired anatomical site slightly on one particular rat. After recovering from surgery, the animal was placed in a special chamber. Every time it went to a corner of the chamber, it received a small electrical stimulus to the brain, with each corner stimulating a different site. The rat kept returning to one specific corner, even skipping eating to hang out there and get the brain stimulation.
        Olds inferred that there was something pleasurable about receiving a shock at that site in the brain. Next he started training the rat to go to different parts of the box or to turn right or left before it could receive the desired electrical stimulation. Using this technique, Olds could elicit complex behaviors easily; Pavlov would have been envious about this shortcut to behavioral conditioning. Olds observed that ''Left to itself in the apparatus, the animal'...stimulated its own brain regularly,'' up to 5,000 times an hour.
        The mind-control possibilities for this intervention sounded almost limitless, but would it work on people? Psychiatrist Robert Heath (1915-99), of Tulane University, performed studies with human patients, including one code-named B-7, a 28-year-old man with severe narcolepsy. Heath implanted a series of electrodes in various areas of his brain and asked the patient what he felt after each area was stimulated. One area was so aversive that the patient intentionally broke the stimulus button so that he would never have to experience that sensation again.
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        However, the feelings evoked by stimulating a different site were intensely pleasurable. The patient learned that he could block an incipient narcoleptic attack by self-stimulating; he was able to control his symptoms so well that for the first time he was able to get a job. On the rare occasion that he fell asleep too rapidly to press the button, his friends knew that they could promptly wake him up by pressing it for him.
        At one point the CIA approached Heath, asking if he would work with the agency to study the brain's pleasure and pain system. He spurned the invitation, he told a New York Times reporter in 1977: ''If I had wanted to be a spy, I would have been a spy. I wanted to be a doctor and practice medicine.'' This kind of work, most of which was conducted in the 1960s and 1970s, has largely been shut down because of ethical concerns.
        However, the underlying neurosurgical techniques have continued to evolve. Fifty years after Heath's studies, procedures are less invasive, less risky and can be applied to very specific areas of the brain. Implanted deep-brain stimulators (DBS) are used by thousands of people with Parkinson's disease to help control their muscle movements, as well as for other conditions such as pain and epilepsy. There is ongoing interest in using such interventions on different sites in the brain to treat patients with psychiatric disorders, particularly patients with treatment-resistant depression.
        Deep-brain stimulation requires painstaking surgery and expensive equipment, suitable for an individual but hardly appropriate for group interventions. Is there a way of stimulating a group of people without implants? In her 1996 book ''Cults in Our Midst,'' Psychologist Margaret Singer described love bombing,'' an indoctrination technique used by some cults in which recruits are given so much flattery and adulation that they feel welcome and safe.
        The neuroendocrine equivalent involves a hormone called oxytocin that is manufactured deep in the brain. People release oxytocin when they are bonding with another; it is sometimes nicknamed the feel-good hormone. Early research found that it is increased during breast-feeding and during sexual intimacy. Subsequent research showed that oxytocin is also produced in other situations of closeness'--prayer, team sports, even when dog owners interact with their pets.
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        But there is a darker side to oxytocin. Experiments have found that it can stoke trust and cooperation within a group at the expense of distrust of people outside the group. Currently, the most effective way of administering oxytocin is through a nasal spray, but if it were possible to administer it orally or via aerosol, it could conceivably be used in group settings to increase attachment and thereby recruit new potential members of a cult or party. People might willingly join a group or adopt a new belief if it allowed them to receive pleasurable stimulation'--after all, addicts aren't particularly squeamish about what they need to do to obtain their drugs.
        On the other side of the coin, people might repudiate their old beliefs or identities to turn off painful stimulation, the way patient B-7 broke his stimulus button. When the dystopian movie ''A Clockwork Orange'' was released in 1971, audiences were stunned by its portrayal of the power of aversive conditioning. The advance of neuroscience means that such techniques are no longer just fantasies. So far they have been kept in check only by government regulation and medical professionals' sense of ethics. But governments are always seeking new weaponry, and history suggests that there will always be some researchers who close their eyes to the implications of their work or justify it as a way to protect society from looming threats. Their self-restraint may not always protect us from the dark potential of scientific coercion.
        '--Dr. Dimsdale is professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego. This essay is adapted from his new book, ''Dark Coercion: A History of Brainwashing from Pavlov to Social Media,'' which will be published Aug. 16 by Yale University Press.
      Le Parisien on Twitter: "La ministre du Travail ‰lisabeth Borne a (C)t(C) claire : les salari(C)s suspendus car sans pass sanitaire n'auront pas droit aux allocations-ch´mage 'ž¸ https://t.co/t17urGdPHn https://t.co/KE67atovFv" / Twitter
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 10:58
        Le Parisien : La ministre du Travail ‰lisabeth Borne a (C)t(C) claire : les salari(C)s suspendus car sans pass sanitaire n'auront pas d'... https://t.co/swrZBhfUqa
        Sun Aug 08 09:21:53 +0000 2021
        Svetlana Zubkov : @le_Parisien Encore heureux ! Ces pauvres cons n'ont qu' se faire vacciner !
        Sun Aug 08 10:57:30 +0000 2021
        pamela : @le_Parisien Connasse tu gagne bien ta vie toi tu es a vomir ðŸ¤®
        Sun Aug 08 10:56:30 +0000 2021
        Huncho : @le_Parisien Pourquoi elle n'est pas la retraite cette mamie
        Sun Aug 08 10:55:56 +0000 2021
        Raymond LASCIENCE : @le_Parisien @ElleMisss Comment croire que ces gens veulent notre bien ?
        Sun Aug 08 10:55:30 +0000 2021
        Jol_Sia : @le_Parisien De pire en pire...
        Sun Aug 08 10:55:08 +0000 2021
        Be Yourself : @le_Parisien Bon courage ceux qui voudraient d(C)passer la borne dans la connerie la plus abjecte
        Sun Aug 08 10:54:48 +0000 2021
        Jol 62 ans retrait(C) vaccin(C) c(C)libataire. : @le_Parisien Avec la COVID 0 pas de suspension pas de pass sanitaire .On confine tout le monde, on teste tout le m'... https://t.co/tr1q4wtGGJ
        Sun Aug 08 10:54:11 +0000 2021
      A giant trial of COVID-19 treatments is restarting. Here are the drugs it's betting on | Science | AAAS
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 01:23
        A suspected COVID-19 patient receives care in Turku, Finland, the first country to join Solidarity's new phase.
        RONI LEHTI/LEHTIKUVA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES By Kai KupferschmidtAug. 5, 2021 , 1:25 PM
        After months in the doldrums, one of the world's largest trials of COVID-19 treatments is finally restarting. Solidarity, a global study led by the World Health Organization (WHO), will test three new drugs in hospitalized COVID-19 patients: the cancer drug imatinib, an antibody named infliximab that is used to treat autoimmune diseases, and artesunate, an antimalarial.
        The medicines have been shipped to Finland, the first country to have all approvals in place, says John-Arne R¸ttingen of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, who chairs the study's executive group. ''I expect that the first patients will probably be recruited there any day,'' he says. Other countries could soon join SolidarityPlus, as the new phase has been dubbed; more than 40 are in the process of getting ethical and regulatory approvals.
        When the original Solidarity trial started in March 2020 it was a first: an effort to test drugs in dozens of countries simultaneously in the middle of a pandemic. By late in the year it had delivered verdicts on four treatments'--none showed a benefit'--but then became mired in negotiations with pharmaceutical companies and regulatory delays. ''It's great that Solidarity is proceeding with randomized clinical trials again, as they have already made an important contribution to our therapeutic approach during the pandemic,'' says Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. ''We can't be at all complacent about needing better therapies for patients with severe COVID.''
        Related Although COVID-19 vaccine development has been a huge success story, only two drugs have proved to reduce COVID-19 mortality in hospitalized patients. In June 2020, the United Kingdom's Recovery trial found that dexamethasone, a cheap steroid, reduced deaths in that group by up to one-third. In February, Recovery investigators announced that tocilizumab, a monoclonal antibody that blocks the receptor for interleukin-6, reduced mortality a bit further. Both drugs work by dampening the overshooting immune response in severely sick patients.
        The new drugs also target the immune system rather than the virus itself. In the severely ill patients included in Solidarity, it's probably too late for an antiviral drug to work, R¸ttingen explains. (Monoclonal antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, for example, are most effective when given before serious disease develops.) But sicker patients could benefit from additional drugs that target the immune system, says Anthony Gordon, a critical care specialist at Imperial College London. Although dexamethasone broadly dampens the immune response and tocilizumab powerfully shuts off one particular pathway, ''There are still other pathways that we can block and maybe make a difference,'' Gordon says.
        Imatinib, an oral drug used to treat some leukemias and other types of cancer, can also protect the epithelium lining the alveoli, where oxygen crosses from the lungs into the blood. A placebo-controlled trial in 400 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the Netherlands, published in June, showed patients on the drug spent less time on ventilators and were less likely to die. Although not statistically significant, the data were encouraging enough to spur larger studies, says Gordon, who is part of another international trial called REMAP-CAP that is also planning to test the drug.
        Infliximab is an antibody given as a single infusion that blocks tumor necrosis factor alpha, a pivotal signaling molecule in the immune system, and is used to treat autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. Some observational data from large patient populations suggest the drug can also protect against COVID-19, R¸ttingen says.
        Artesunate, an injected derivative of artemisinin and a powerful killer of malaria parasites, has also shown some antiviral activity in laboratory studies of SARS-CoV-2. But Solidarity is testing it because of another effect: The drug appears to reduce inflammation and counteract signals that attract immune cells into tissues. That could stop the immune reactions that damage the lungs in severe COVID-19.
        Solidarity's revival was a long time coming. In October 2020, it published results from more than 11,000 patients in 400 hospitals that deflated hopes'--and punctured hype'--by showing no benefit for four treatments: the HIV combination therapy lopinavir/ritonavir, the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, interferon-beta, and Gilead Sciences's antiviral drug remdesivir. The remdesivir arm was continued for a while to gather more data'--full results are expected in the coming weeks'--but by late January all arms had been stopped.
        An independent expert committee picked the three new drugs soon after. The delay is due partly to negotiations with the manufacturers to ensure that the drugs would be available at affordable prices worldwide if they turned out to work, R¸ttingen says, and partly due to the time needed for regulatory and ethical approvals in participating countries.
        ''We have definitely seen that there was a strong willingness to sort of work outside the normal system and really speed up processes in the beginning of the epidemic, and that seems to be less the case now,'' R¸ttingen says. That's understandable, he adds, ''But it also demonstrates that these processes are not fit for emergencies. We need fast-track systems for the future, in all countries.''
      Senate Infrastructure Bill Would Invest $500 Million in ''Smart City'' Surveillance Technology
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Source: The Intercept
        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 00:54
        Buried in the Senate's bipartisan infrastructure bill is a grant program that would distribute $500 million to cities to experiment with sensors, autonomous vehicles, drones, and other technologies intended to improve urban living standards.
        Under the $1.2 trillion Senate infrastructure bill's ''Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation'' initiative, state and urban planners would test how data-gathering devices and new vehicles can improve ''transportation efficiency and safety.'' The bill's sponsors are especially interested in reducing traffic, enhancing access to jobs and health care, lowering pollution, and incentivizing private sector investments by working with communication service providers.
        But some are worried these technologies will only enable more government surveillance.
        ''This is a form of surveillance, often involving police, that invades privacy, deters protest in public places, and all-too-often disparately burdens people of color,'' said Adam Schwartz, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organization. ''It is unfortunate that the bipartisan infrastructure bill would invest a half billion federal dollars in these troubling surveillance technologies, without adequate privacy safeguards.''
        The infrastructure bill '-- which is currently stalled amid debate over cryptocurrency regulation '-- doesn't mention police involvement, but Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, said law enforcement often tries to get its hands on data collected by transportation departments. The ACLU has worked with city councils across the country to pass laws ensuring community oversight of new surveillance technology, and Marlow said the new bill must guarantee that governments applying for grants gain the consent of local residents. ''It is critically important that we focus in, and center the opinions of, the people who live in those communities to hear what they think,'' he said.
        The proposal does include some safety mechanisms, such as prohibiting license plate readers, but Schwartz and Marlow agreed the protections don't go far enough to prevent law and immigration enforcement from accessing collected data. ''When you're talking about transportation data, movement of people, that is information that is very, very hard to de-identify and prevent reidentification,'' Schwartz said.
        The idea for the grant program borrows from the futuristic ''smart city'' concept that local governments nationwide and around the world '-- including in South Bend, Indiana, under the mayorship of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg '-- have adopted in hopes of revitalizing business, health, and safety in poorer and congested communities. Often cheered on by major technology corporations seeking lucrative contracts, the concept envisions using high-speed networks of shared sensor data, known as the Internet of Things, to help manage the flow of people, commerce, and energy at reduced costs.
        Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York, the second most powerful Democrat on the House's Energy and Commerce Committee, has been a proponent of smart city technology and argued the infrastructure bill actually doesn't go far enough. Clarke told The Intercept in an email Thursday that while she's glad the bill would issue grants and create an online resource center to help local governments, ''we need a coordinated effort by the entire federal agency apparatus to support the adoption of smart community infrastructure and technologies that will take our communities into the 21st Century.''
        In order to accomplish that, Clarke said in the upcoming budget reconciliation process she will advocate for the more robust federal support outlined in the ''Smart Cities and Communities Act'' she and Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., introduced in May. Endorsed by the Software Alliance that represents Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, and others, the bill would authorize $1.1 billion to aid technology adoption, arguing that American cities are lagging behind local governments around the world, which are poised to spend $41 trillion over the next 20 years.
        Clarke and DelBene do propose getting civil liberty organizations involved and preserving data privacy, but they don't call for prohibitions on specific technologies like license plate readers or curtailing law enforcement access to certain information. ''As technology becomes increasingly woven into the fabric of civil society and municipal functions, we must ensure that proper safeguards are in place from the onset to protect our civil liberties,'' Clarke said today.
        While announcing their bill earlier this year, the two lawmakers pointed to the environmental and health benefits of technologies being implemented across the country, like localized sensors to better predict weather and reduce flash flooding in Seattle or smart street lights to save on energy costs in Spokane. They also noted apparent security benefits, like Boston's deployment of a ''sensor-based gunfire detection system'' or Los Angeles's addition of bike lanes and officers where data showed there were dangerous intersections.
        Meanwhile, Los Angeles's rollout of smart technology has come under close scrutiny from activists. Last year, the EFF and ACLU sued the city's transportation department for requiring electric scooter rental companies to share riders' real-time GPS data with government officials. They argued the government could use this location data to identify people and that information could ultimately be shared, stolen, or subpoenaed. The lawsuit followed California's controversial deployment of license plate readers as well.
        Marlow of the ACLU said it could be possible with very strict regulations in place to have cities use smart technologies to improve urban living standards without opening the door to more police surveillance. More importantly, though, ''it really should not be up to the ACLU or Congress or anyone else thinking in a macro sense what is and is not acceptable levels of risk,'' he said. ''All of that should be placed within the people who live in those communities.''
      Michael P Senger on Twitter: "Gates: "The source isn't gonna change the need for masks and vaccines'...so all countries can'...be more like Australia." (6th lockdown) "Flu and common cold'...get rid of those as well." "Do you want to know how this started?"
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        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 00:47
        Michael P Senger : Gates: "The source isn't gonna change the need for masks and vaccines'...so all countries can'...be more like Australia."'... https://t.co/B52hWFDhfl
        Thu Aug 05 21:17:46 +0000 2021
      Far Right MAGAs are Finding Themselves Doxxed and Unemployable, Making Their Lives Difficult
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        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 00:13
        Politics - News AnalysisBy Nicole James August 6, 2021
        Normally we would blast employers who fired people for their political views. Imagine an employer firing a liberal for just being liberal down south (or anywhere, really) and then flip the mirror and think about it. But normally political views don't come with riots on the Capitol and crazed rants on social media about what one is willing to violently do to ''socialists'' and ''communists.''
        If the issue was nothing more than holding employees accountable for their actions, it would be all be simple, but it's not. The Washington Post has a report focusing on a masked couple from the Portland area that verbally attacked a journalist, who then uploaded the video on YouTube and Twitter. From there, the couple was doxxed and fired:
        Two days later, Dawson lost his job as an ironworker, his employer citing his actions in D.C. His wife, Michelle, uploaded a tearful self-shot video to Twitter announcing his firing, and later that month she was asked to hand in her vest and badge at a Walmart in Battle Ground, Wash., where she worked as an online-order fulfiller. She thinks she was fired over her politics but acknowledges that she had missed a substantial amount of work because of back problems.
        But this isn't an isolated incident that happened to this couple. It is happening all over:
        Stay up-to-date with the latest news! Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
        The disclosure online of Dawson's personal information '-- a phenomenon known as doxing '-- is part of a growing effort by left-wing activists to punish members of far-right groups accused of violent behavior by exposing them to their employers, family and friends. The doxing of Dawson highlights the effect the tactic can have '-- unemployment and personal upheaval followed by a new job that pays much less than his old one '-- but also the limits of the technique: Dawson is unrepentant for his role in galvanizing a mob to harass Jedeed and continues to espouse far-right views.
        If it is happening all over, it could easily become a bigger problem. One is taking a person who is already shown to be violent and volatile, making that person an even bigger danger because they don't change or moderate their views. The sensible step might just light a match:
        ''From a practical perspective, I feel like being unemployable is going to push him in a more extreme direction,'' Jedeed said. ''On the other hand, you shouldn't be able to act like that and then have nothing happen to you.''
        So there it sits, a classic dilemma. On the one hand, you need to keep people accountable for their behavior. On the other, there are so many that it is very difficult for authorities to track and keep an eye on these people. One can put them on a ''No-Fly'' list and increase security in areas, but there are far too many soft targets.
        This is what happens when one unleashes a virus in a country, an epidemic of extremism. This is also why countries try to nip extremism in the bud. But in this case, Trumpism elevated too fast, mostly over the last two years of his term when Trump himself got more volatile. Too late. It is dangerous for all of us now, including conservatives.
      If your employer fires you because you won't get the COVID vaccine, don't expect to collect unemployment - MarketWatch
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        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 23:48
        Each day more employers are telling employees they need to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to work in person or risk being fired.
        On Thursday CNN revealed it had fired three unvaccinated employees for violating the company's vaccine requirement for in-person workers, according to an internal memo signed by Jeff Zucker, the cable network's president, and obtained by the New York Times.
        Unlike millions of Americans who were laid off during the pandemic, the three former CNN employees likely won't qualify for unemployment benefits, employment law experts told MarketWatch.
        CNN parent company WarnerMedia, a unit of AT&T T, +0.07% , declined to comment on the firings.
        In most states, individuals have to prove they're out of work through no fault of their own to collect unemployment benefits.
        ''This often means that they are let go due to a lack of work,'' said Alana Ackels, a labor and employment lawyer at Bell Nunnally, a Dallas-based law firm.
        ''Typically, an employee who is terminated for failing to comply with company policies is not eligible for unemployment benefits, which would include refusing to comply with a company's COVID-19 prevention policies, masking requirements or vaccine requirements,'' Ackels told MarketWatch.
        But an employee who has proof of a medical exemption or religious objection to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine may still be eligible to collect unemployment benefits if fired, said Rebecca Dixon, executive director at the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit that advocates for worker's rights.
        Otherwise, refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, if your employer requires one, ''is akin to an employee's refusal to submit to permissible drug tests or participate in safety trainings,'' said Ronald Zambrano, employment law chair at West Coast Trial Lawyers, a Los Angeles''based law firm. That is, such an employee, when terminated, would not qualify for unemployment benefits, Zambrano said.
        Ultimately, ''this could lead to tens of thousands of people across the United States without work or access to unemployment benefits because they refuse to get vaccinated,'' Zambrano said.
        What if employees quit because they don't want to get vaccinated?Quitting over refusal to get vaccinated when an employer requires it appears unlikely to improve one's chances of securing unemployment payments.
        ''If you quit because of the mandate then you'd have to have good cause attributable to the employer in order to collect unemployment benefits,'' Dixon said. ''Good cause is usually viewed from that of a reasonable person. Given the overwhelming evidence of the safety of the vaccine, it's likely that good cause would not be found'' in the case of a person who quits a job because of a vaccine mandate.
        That said, state workforce departments can update ''eligibility requirements such that, depending on the circumstances, employees fired for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine could be eligible for unemployment benefits,'' Ackels said.
        The Department of Labor didn't respond to MarketWatch's request for comment.
        Economic Report: How workers quitting is a signal for economic recovery
        The Texas Workforce Commission, noting that ''[e]very unemployment insurance claim is reviewed on a case by case basis'' and that ''what happens in an unemployment claim is dependent upon the individual facts,'' said that an employee ''may be eligible for benefits if you were fired for reasons other than misconduct.''
        The commission, while noting that most people who quit jobs are deemed ineligible for unemployment compensation, observed that it is possible to qualify if it is demonstrated that they quit ''for good cause connected with the work.''
        Officials at the commission did not indicate whether any individuals fired from a job for refusing to be vaccinated had qualified for unemployment benefits or whether any employer have been charged, as the commission suggested was possible.
        ''Businesses concerned about being charged for unemployment benefits should check the latest guidance from their state unemployment commissions to confirm whether an employee fired for refusing the vaccine would be eligible for benefits,'' Ackels said.
      COVID-19 in Iceland: Vaccination Has Not Led to Herd Immunity, Says Chief Epidemiologist
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        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 17:26
        While data shows vaccination is reducing the rate of serious illness due to COVID-19 in Iceland, the country's Chief Epidemiologist ž"r"lfur Gu°nason says it has not led to the herd immunity that experts hoped for. In the past two to three weeks, the Delta variant has outstripped all others in Iceland and it has become clear that vaccinated people can easily contract it as well as spread it to others, ž"r"lfur stated in a briefing this morning.
        The current social restrictions will remain in place until August 13. The Chief Epidemiologist says the government must make the final call on next steps in response to the current wave of infection. Health authorities have sent a formal memorandum to the government expressing concern about the heavy strain on the healthcare system cause by the current record rate of infection.
        The following is a lightly-edited transcription of Iceland Review's live-tweeting of the briefing.
        On the panel: Director of Civil Protection V­°ir Reynisson and Chief Epidemiologist ž"r"lfur Gu°nason.
        Yesterday's numbers have been updated on covid.is. Iceland reported 108 domestic cases (38 in quarantine) and 1 at the border. Total active cases are at a record 1,304. 16 are in hospital.
        The briefing has begun. V­°ir begins by saying that the long weekend has passed without any large violations of regulations but it will only come to light in a week or two whether the gatherings last weekend have led to infections.
        ž"r"lfur takes over. He reviews the reason restrictions were lifted last June: at the time infection rates were very low, a majority of the nation was vaccinated and there were regulations at the border ensuring a minimum of infections would cross the border. Vaccination rates are high in most groups, though only 10% of those 12-16 have been vaccinated.
        What has happened in the past two to three weeks is that the Delta variant has taken over all other variants in Iceland. And it has come to light that vaccinated individuals can contract it relatively easily and spread infection. Sequencing has shown us that the origin of most domestic infections can be traced to group events such as clubbing in downtown Reykjav­k or group trips abroad. We'll have to wait and see whether the current restrictions will suffice in curbing this current wave.
        There are however indications that vaccination is preventing serious illness. Around 24 have had to be hospitalised in this wave, just over 1%. In previous waves, that figure was 4-5%. However, 2.4% of unvaccinated people that contract COVID-19 now are hospitalised.
        Authorities have decided to offer those who received the Janssen vaccine a booster shot of Pfizer. There are plans to offer 12- to 15-year-olds vaccination in the near future as well. There are still some 30,000 unvaccinated people among older groups and they are more at risk. That could cause strain on the healthcare system. We must also consider that there is additional strain on other patients when there are lots of COVID cases, says ž"r"lfur.
        ž"r"lfur says we must remember that the COVID-19 pandemic is not close to being over and will not be over until it's over everywhere. We must be ready to face new challenges that come up in the process. We know what works to curb infection. We can fight COVID-19 if we stand together and reach a consensus on what needs to be done.
        The panel opens for questions. ''What needs to happen for you to tighten restrictions, ž"r"lfur? You don't sound very positive at the moment.'' ž"r"lfur says he has not decided on measures beyond August 13. He is in discussions with the Health Minister, and it is the government that must decide whether it is necessary to impose tighter restrictions. ž"r"lfur adds that at this time he will likely make recommendations in a different format than the memorandums he has previously sent to the Health Minister.
        ''Can you give us information about how many people were vaccinated among those who have been hospitalised in this wave?'' ž"r"lfur says around half of those hospitalised have been vaccinated. The two that have been placed in the ICU are unvaccinated. It's not possible to draw broad conclusions from this data but vaccination appears to reduce serious illness generally.
        ''What is the reason that you are considering vaccinating children at this time?'' ž"r"lfur says that he has discussed it for some time and children in at-risk groups have already been vaccinated. There is also evidence that the Delta variant causes more serious illness among them.
        ''Is there a possibility that children that contract the Delta variant will need hospitalisation?'' ž"r"lfur says that children generally have milder symptoms and none in Iceland have been hospitalised in this wave. However, there is data from abroad of children needing to be hospitalised due to COVID-19.
        ''Do you not want to urge the government to strengthen the healthcare system?'' ž"r"lfur says of course, and the Director of Health has discussed that often at these briefings but it doesn't happen overnight. What we can do in the short term is to curb infection rates, which will reduce strain on the healthcare system. ž"r"lfur says: We must keep in mind that people can develop long-term symptoms despite not needing hospitalisation from COVID-19 infection. That's something that we don't have long-term data for yet but will come to light.
        ž"r"lfur says health officials have sent a formal memorandum to the government expressing concerns regarding strain on the healthcare system and the National University Hospital. ž"r"lfur expresses disappointment in the discourse regarding the National University Hospital, he feels the media has been dismissing healthcare workers' concerns. Healthcare workers are those best positioned to evaluate the hospital's strain and capacity, he says.
        ž"r"lfur: our main project now is this wave that we have to tackle. Regarding the borders, we must think long-term about how we can minimise infections crossing the border. Then we must consider how we want things to be domestically and what people's tolerance is for restrictions. But it's a fact that the more this wave of infection spreads the harder it will be to contain.
        V­°ir takes over to close the briefing. We know what we have to do: prevent infections, and protect the borders so that we can live as freely as possible within Iceland. We can see that many people are out of patience toward restrictions but unfortunately, this is not over. We don't have to agree on everything but our message must be clear. It is the virus that is the enemy. We must be good to each other and be patient, try to understand where others are coming from, V­°ir says. The briefing has ended.
      Sturgis Motorcycle Rally: 700,000 bikers arrive for potential covid-19 superspreader event - The Washington Post
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        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 17:00
        For the 700,000 people expected to descend on South Dakota's Black Hills for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, the slogan for this year's event after a year of pandemic restrictions and lockdowns is: ''We're spreading our wings.''
        ''People want to escape,'' said Jerry Cole, director of rally and events for the city of Sturgis, S.D., ''and they're escaping to South Dakota.''
        But as coronavirus cases are rising because of the highly transmissible delta variant and millions who remain unvaccinated, there is concern among health officials, residents and even attendees that one of the largest motorcycle rallies in the world, which began Friday, has the potential to become the latest superspreader event at a time when the resurgent virus is ripping across the United States.
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        The 81st annual motorcycle rally comes a year after roughly 460,000 attendees shunned masks and social distancing at an event that researchers associated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded ''had many characteristics of a superspreading event.'' At least 649 covid-19 cases were linked to Sturgis, but the true total was obscured as contact tracing was difficult after bikers returned to their home states.
        How the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally may have spread coronavirus across the Upper Midwest
        Although Sturgis's coronavirus case numbers are relatively low, the CDC has designated Meade County, which includes the city, as an area of ''high community transmission,'' advising residents or visitors to wear masks in public indoor spaces. About 37 percent of Meade County is fully vaccinated, according to the CDC, and more than 47 percent of South Dakota is fully inoculated as of Friday.
        Christina Steele, a spokeswoman for the city of Sturgis, told The Washington Post that the city is offering coronavirus tests, masks and hand sanitizer stations for anyone in town, but no mask mandate is in place. The city has also signed off on a temporary open container ordinance in an effort to keep people outside instead of crowded together inside bars. Steele said those who are not vaccinated or who have certain underlying health conditions are putting themselves at risk, but the virus has not been a talking point among those who've flocked to the Black Hills.
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        ''The people visiting have said they come from states that have been in lockdown for so long and they just want to have a normal summer vacation without the worries of last year,'' Steele said. ''People here don't want to talk about covid. They want to have a good time.''
        Local clinics are still offering vaccines, including Johnson & Johnson's one-dose shot, to attendees who want to be vaccinated, she said. It can take weeks for a vaccine to strengthen a person's immune system.
        The concern over the coronavirus surge in Sturgis has not stopped Jeff Stultz from making the nearly 1,800-mile ride from Fayetteville, N.C., to attend the large rally for the first time. Stultz, 58, is vaccinated but said his wife was recently infected at an event in Dallas despite also being immunized. Neither he nor his wife will be wearing a mask, he told The Washington Post, because he thinks that the vaccine is the ultimate defense against infection.
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        ''I believe the vaccine really makes a difference,'' said Stultz, the national director of Broken Chains, a Christian motorcycle group for recovering addicts. ''The pandemic is horrible; I'm not someone who doesn't believe that. I don't want to get covid, but I'm not going to quit living my life when I'm taking the precaution that will save me.''
        In nearby Rapid City, S.D., doctors are expecting a busy week of trauma cases related to the rally, and one fatal crash already has been reported. The surge in covid cases linked to the delta variant poses another formidable challenge for the already stressed hospitals, Shankar Kurra, vice president of medical affairs at Rapid City Hospital, told ''CBS This Morning.''
        ''This could be a superspreader,'' Kurra said. ''We don't want it to be, but that is the reality.''
        The hyper-transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus has left would-be travelers uncertain. The Post spoke to an expert about how to safely make that call. (The Washington Post)Despite the potential for a surge in coronavirus cases, South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) has given her blessing to the motorcycle rally. The governor is supporting the large crowds expected for a 10-day event that generates $800 million in sales for the local economy, according to South Dakota's Department of Tourism.
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        ''Bikers come here because they WANT to be here. And we love to see them!'' Noem wrote on Facebook this week. ''There's a risk associated with everything that we do in life. Bikers get that better than anyone.''
        But some residents of the city of roughly 7,000 are concerned that this year's event, expected to be considerably larger than the 2020 edition, will lead to a jump in cases.
        ''The rally is a behemoth, and you cannot stop it,'' resident Carol Fellner told the Associated Press. ''I feel absolutely powerless.''
        The Sturgis rally is the latest large outdoor event to take place during the fourth wave of the pandemic. Weeks after the Milwaukee Bucks won their first NBA championship in 50 years, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services identified almost 500 people who contracted covid-19 after they celebrated with a sea of thousands of mostly maskless fans outside the stadium. In Illinois, the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District has asked the roughly 385,000 people who attended the Lollapalooza music festival to get tested for the virus. Those who went to the four-day festival in Chicago had to show proof of vaccination or a negative coronavirus test from the previous 72 hours.
        Summer music festivals have returned '-- just in time for the latest coronavirus surge
        Similar screening precautions are not in effect for motorcycle attendees at a rally that features rock and country music from performers including ZZ Top, Kid Rock and Clint Black. Matt Farris, a Nashville country artist performing during the rally, said in an email that it's been a dream of his to perform in Sturgis. He said he thinks the health and safety guidelines in place in Sturgis will be enough to prevent a potential superspreader event.
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        ''It's called the land of [the] FREE for a reason and I think we all agree on that,'' he wrote.
        Rod Woodruff said that many out-of-town visitors have thanked Noem and Sturgis for giving them a place to go that lacks many of the coronavirus restrictions that are in place in other cities. Woodruff, 75, is celebrating his 40th year as president of the Sturgis Buffalo Chip, a campground that hosts a concert series during the rally that serves as ''a tribute to true American freedom.'' He told The Post that events like the motorcycle rally and Lollapalooza were examples of people rejecting politicians and health officials who have tried to curb the surge in cases in recent weeks.
        ''I expect that when you have a virus and a pandemic that is expanding, you're going to have increased numbers, whether we have a party here or not,'' Woodruff told The Post.
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        For Stultz, the estimated 80,000 miles he had accumulated on a motorcycle felt like more of a risk than attending the Sturgis rally. Seventy miles outside Sturgis on Friday, Stultz said he was carrying coronavirus tests with him in case he felt any symptoms or needed to go into quarantine. He's hopeful others at the rally of hundreds of thousands will be as cautious as he is.
        ''The biker community thrives on freedom. I know there will be those ignoring the precautions, and I hate that,'' he said. ''I believe we should all do our part. The world is a tough enough place without covid.''
      We need Big Brother to beat this virus | Comment | The Times
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        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 16:47
        'H ands in the air! Step away from the Easter eggs!'' The Keystone Coppery of recent weeks has had some people muttering darkly that we are heading the way of a police state. Those who style themselves as defenders of ancient British liberties will soon have bigger fish to fry: the digital surveillance tools that government hopes to use to trace the infected. Prepare for dire warnings of state intrusion and an avalanche of Nineteen Eighty-Four quotes on social media warning that Big Brother is upon us.
        Yet if we are to beat a path out of this pandemic without destroying our economy, overblown concerns about threats to our liberties must be countered by pragmatism. To recover some semblance of normality before a vaccine is found,
      Menticide Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
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        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 16:16
        Top Definitions Quizzes [ men -t uh -sahyd ]
        / ËmÉ›n tÉËŒsaÉªd /
        noun
        the systematic effort to undermine and destroy a person's values and beliefs, as by the use of prolonged interrogation, drugs, torture, etc., and to induce radically different ideas.
        QUIZ
        ARE YOU A TRUE BLUE CHAMPION OF THESE "BLUE" SYNONYMS?
        We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms.
        Question 1 of 8
        Which of the following words describes ''sky blue''?
        Origin of menticide 1950''55; <Latin
        ment-
        (stem of
        mÄ'ns
        )
        mind +
        -i- +
        -cideWords nearby menticide Mentes,
        menthaceous,
        menthene,
        menthol,
        mentholated,
        menticide
        ,
        mention,
        Mentmore,
        mentoanterior position,
        Menton,
        mentonni¨reDictionary.com UnabridgedBased on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, (C) Random House, Inc. 2021
      Cancel Joe Rogan again: Twitter mob angry at podcast host after he blames jabs for virus mutations & blasts mandatory vaccination '-- RT USA News
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        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 16:02
        Angry Twitter users called for Joe Rogan to be canceled and Spotify held accountable for giving him a platform after he claimed vaccines may cause virus mutations and labeled mandatory jabs a step towards 'dictatorship.'
        Rogan's controversial statements have caused online frenzy on multiple occasions since he moved his super-popular podcast from YouTube to Spotify in a $100 million-plus exclusive deal last year to avoid censorship. The show instantly became one of the most viewed on the platform, with Spotify saying it was performing ''above expectations.''
        Back in April, the stand-up comedian and UFC commentator was trending on social media after suggesting young and healthy people didn't need to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, and warning that giving into cancel culture could eventually lead to a situation in which ''straight white men aren't allowed to talk.''
        Also on rt.com Prince Harry tells UFC's Rogan to 'stay out' of vaccine debate as British royal visits NFL stadium to urge world to get Covid jab He addressed the issue of vaccination once again in the latest episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, saying that, by trying to inoculate as many people as possible, the US government might actually be making the virus stronger and more dangerous.
        He based his claim on the findings of a peer-reviewed scientific paper published in the PLOS Biology magazine in 2015. Its authors said ''anti-disease vaccines that do not prevent transmission can create conditions that promote the emergence of pathogen strains that cause more severe disease in unvaccinated hosts.''
        Speaking about the so-called 'breakthrough cases' of inoculated people becoming infected with Covid-19, Rogan suggested that ''the very sort of environment that we're creating by having so many people vaccinated with a vaccine that doesn't kill off the virus, it actually can lead to a more potent virus. Try finding that story anywhere.''
        People are trying to cancel Joe Rogan because of this video where he cites a scientific study proving lab rats are more at risk than those who think for themselves. They are losing the narrative. pic.twitter.com/hECK3lsGze
        '-- Carlos Del Valle ðŸ‡ºðŸ‡¸'š--¸ (@cdelvallejr) August 7, 2021However, the US authorities insist that vaccination is the best way to stop the coronavirus pandemic, with President Biden's chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, reiterating last week that those, who avoid getting the jab ''are the ones that are propagating this outbreak.'' According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, more than 70% of adult Americans have so far received at least one shot of the vaccine.
        Rogan previously acknowledged he was ''not a doctor'' and his audience shouldn't look to him as a reliable source of scientific information. He also claimed he was ''not an anti-vaxx person.''
        During the latest episode, the 53-year-old also said those pushing for mandatory vaccination to be introduced in the US, ''are dumb. They don't understand human history.''
        According to the host, America became ''the first experiment in self-government that actually worked, and it created the greatest superpower the world has ever known.'' This success was achieved through ''freedom,'' he said, and ordering people to get a jab and carry vaccine passport would be going against the very principles the US had been built on. ''You're moving one step closer to dictatorship '' that's what the f*** is happening,'' Rogan said.
        "They're dumb, they don't understand history." - Joe Rogan on people calling for vaccine mandates"To the contrary, vaccination requirements, like other public-health measures, have been common in this nation." - unanimous, all-GOP 7th Circuit panel (appointed by Reagan & Trump) https://t.co/wcdkacy9Cl
        '-- Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) August 7, 2021Such comments didn't go unnoticed by Twitter users, who were appalled at Rogan not supporting the government's measures to contain the virus in the US, which is the world's worst-affected country during the pandemic, having reported over 35.7 million cases and more than 616,000 deaths.
        Many commenters were outraged, and demanded that Rogan be ''canceled'' once and for all. Others argued that, due to his influence on his audience, he should refrain from speaking on subjects of which he knows nothing.
        Joe Rogan really went on his show that 11 million people listen to and said that vaccines are causing covid mutations and the reason scientists aren't talking about it is because they're afraid of getting canceled. We are all going to die.
        '-- Jake Flores (@feraljokes) August 6, 2021Joe Rogan has made a career out of misunderstanding an article he skimmed and then repeating it loudly as fact to a massive audience. Then whenever he gets in trouble he says he's a comedian and no one should take him seriously, but millions of people very much so do.
        '-- Travis Helwig (@travishelwig) August 7, 2021Hi, @joerogan. I and a number of my doctor friends would totally come on your show and help you understand 1) the virus (SARS CoV2) is mutating, the disease (Covid) is not2) mutations will occur as long as the virus proliferates, ie as long as people don't get vaccinated'... https://t.co/CPfYeWS71P
        '-- Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD (@arghavan_salles) August 7, 2021The comedian's knowledge of world and US history was also called into question, with Twitter users reminding him about the democratic systems of ancient Rome and Greece, as well as prior mandatory vaccination campaigns in America that hadn't hampered the country's development at all.
        Gotta love really dumb people calling people dumb because they don't understand the ''history'' of the world they just made up. If every single country in the history of the world before 1776 was run by dictators, who invented democracy? Clue: it was the Greeks.
        '-- Snow Chi Minh (@SnoChiMinh) August 7, 2021Some pinned the blame on Spotify and suggested the platform should be held accountable for allowing the spread of what they called ''dangerous disinformation.''
        The fact that @Spotify continues to platform Joe Rogan in the face of a pandemic, despite his repeated use of their platform and money to spread dangerous disinformation, is unacceptable.I think it's finally time to cancel my Spotify account. https://t.co/hLqSNQTPwn
        '-- Kendall Brown (@kendallybrown) August 7, 2021There were many who supported Rogan, however. Hardcore fans of the podcast insisted that what he was saying was relevant and needed to be heard.
        I'll never understand the people who openly support more government control. Give us guidelines and allow us to have the freedom to decide for ourselves. That's how America works.
        '-- Connor Earl (@ConEarl) August 7, 2021What Joe Rogan said about vaccines causing variants is TRUE and if you don't believe him, just ask someone who's suffering from Delta polio.
        '-- Laurie Kilmartin- Aug 13-14 at Laughs in Seattle (@anylaurie16) August 7, 2021Others, like fellow comedian Josh Denny, simply defended Rogan's right to speak his mind.
        I love that all Twitter criticism of Joe Rogan boils down to jealous whining about the ''responsibility of his reach''He has that reach BECAUSE he speaks his mind.If you think your personal ''platform'' includes responsibility for your listeners, that's called a messiah complex.
        '-- Josh Denny (@JoshDenny) August 7, 2021Spotify apparently has no intention to restrict Rogan's self-expression, despite media reports that said some of its employees threatened to quit unless editorial oversight was deployed when it came to the airing of controversial shows such as his.
        Also on rt.com Woke Twitter gets mad as Joe Rogan says giving into cancel culture equals 'straight white men' losing their right to speak Speaking to the online news outlet Axios in late July, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said, ''Joe Rogan is just one out of eight million creators on the platform'... We have a lot of really well-paid rappers'... and, we don't dictate what they're putting in their songs either.''
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      Peek Into Fauci's Closet Reveals Horrific Experiments on Beagles, Tests Left Dogs in Obvious Pain
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 15:57
        Commentary Cameron Arcand August 6, 2021 at 5:06pm A government watchdog investigation has uncovered evidence of animal abuse involving the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is led by Dr. Anthony Fauci.
        The agency used $424,455 in taxpayer dollars to support University of Georgia researchers who performed experimental drug tests on 28 beagles after infecting them with parasites, according to the Daily Caller.
        Documents obtained by the White Coat Waste Project showed that some of the dogs ''vocalized in pain'' upon being injected with an experimental vaccine.
        The beagles were reportedly set to be euthanized in June, but it is unclear whether that happened.
        Newsweek reported that the experiments were related to a disease called lymphatic filariasis and that the vaccine in question had already been tested on other animals.
        Fauci has been one of the most prominent voices in the federal government's garbled response to the coronavirus pandemic.
        ''It's not just Wuhan,'' Justin Goodman of the White Coat Waste Project told the Daily Caller.
        ''Fauci's budget has ballooned to over $6 billion in taxpayer funding annually, at least half of which is being wasted on more questionable animal experimentation like these deadly and unnecessary beagle tests and other maximum pain experiments.''
        Goodman said Fauci needs to be held accountable for allocating taxpayer funds to such a heinous study.
        ''Fauci needs to be held accountable for this staggering waste and abuse overseas and right here at home. Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to pay,'' he said.
        Do you support animal testing?
        Yes: 8% (7 Votes)
        No: 92% (86 Votes)
        Greg Trevor, an official at the University of Georgia, told Newsweek that ''beagles are the standard dog model used in this type of research.''
        ''Because this disease currently has no cure, unfortunately the animals that are part of this trial must be euthanized. We do not take lightly the decision to use such animals in some of our research.''
        Animal testing is certainly nothing new, but it usually does not get this kind of publicity.
        This investigation is a disturbing reminder that taxpayers are essentially funding animal abuse.
        It should give bleeding heart liberals '-- the primary advocates of animal rights '-- a reason to be more aware of where their tax dollars are going.
        Fauci and the federal government need to prioritize the needs and interests of the American people above bizarre scientific experimentation.
        Good on the White Coat Waste Project for bringing these horrifying practices to light.
        SummaryMore Biographical Information Recent Posts ContactCameron Arcand is a political commentator based in Orange County, California. His "Young Not Stupid" column launched at The Western Journal in January 2021, making Cameron one of the youngest columnists for a national news outlet in the United States. He has appeared on One America News, and has been a Young America's Foundation member since 2019.
        Cameron Arcand is a political commentator based in Orange County, California. In 2017 as a school project, he founded YoungNotStupid.com, which has grown exponentially since its founding. He has interviewed several notable conservative figures, including Dave Rubin, Peggy Grande and Madison Cawthorn.In September 2020, Cameron joined The Western Journal as a Commentary Writer, where he has written articles on topics ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic, the "Recall Gavin Newsom" effort and the 2020 election aftermath. The "Young Not Stupid" column launched at The Western Journal in January 2021, making Cameron one of the youngest columnists for a national news outlet in the United States. He has appeared on One America News, and has been a Young America's Foundation member since 2019.
        Location
        Orange County
        Languages Spoken
        English
      Child Safety - Apple
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 15:38
        At Apple, our goal is to create technology that empowers people and enriches their lives '-- while helping them stay safe. We want to help protect children from predators who use communication tools to recruit and exploit them, and limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM).
        Apple is introducing new child safety features in three areas, developed in collaboration with child safety experts. First, new communication tools will enable parents to play a more informed role in helping their children navigate communication online. The Messages app will use on-device machine learning to warn about sensitive content, while keeping private communications unreadable by Apple.
        Next, iOS and iPadOS will use new applications of cryptography to help limit the spread of CSAM online, while designing for user privacy. CSAM detection will help Apple provide valuable information to law enforcement on collections of CSAM in iCloud Photos.
        Finally, updates to Siri and Search provide parents and children expanded information and help if they encounter unsafe situations. Siri and Search will also intervene when users try to search for CSAM-related topics.
        These features are coming later this year in updates to iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, and macOS Monterey.
        This program is ambitious, and protecting children is an important responsibility. These efforts will evolve and expand over time.
        Communication safety in Messages The Messages app will add new tools to warn children and their parents when receiving or sending sexually explicit photos.
        When receiving this type of content, the photo will be blurred and the child will be warned, presented with helpful resources, and reassured it is okay if they do not want to view this photo. As an additional precaution, the child can also be told that, to make sure they are safe, their parents will get a message if they do view it. Similar protections are available if a child attempts to send sexually explicit photos. The child will be warned before the photo is sent, and the parents can receive a message if the child chooses to send it.
        Messages uses on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo is sexually explicit. The feature is designed so that Apple does not get access to the messages.
        This feature is coming in an update later this year to accounts set up as families in iCloud for iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey.
        Messages will warn children and their parents when receiving or sending sexually explicit photos.
        CSAM detection Another important concern is the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) online. CSAM refers to content that depicts sexually explicit activities involving a child.
        To help address this, new technology in iOS and iPadOS will allow Apple to detect known CSAM images stored in iCloud Photos. This will enable Apple to report these instances to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC acts as a comprehensive reporting center for CSAM and works in collaboration with law enforcement agencies across the United States.
        Apple's method of detecting known CSAM is designed with user privacy in mind. Instead of scanning images in the cloud, the system performs on-device matching using a database of known CSAM image hashes provided by NCMEC and other child safety organizations. Apple further transforms this database into an unreadable set of hashes that is securely stored on users' devices.
        Before an image is stored in iCloud Photos, an on-device matching process is performed for that image against the known CSAM hashes. This matching process is powered by a cryptographic technology called private set intersection, which determines if there is a match without revealing the result. The device creates a cryptographic safety voucher that encodes the match result along with additional encrypted data about the image. This voucher is uploaded to iCloud Photos along with the image.
        Using another technology called threshold secret sharing, the system ensures the contents of the safety vouchers cannot be interpreted by Apple unless the iCloud Photos account crosses a threshold of known CSAM content. The threshold is set to provide an extremely high level of accuracy and ensures less than a one in one trillion chance per year of incorrectly flagging a given account.
        Only when the threshold is exceeded does the cryptographic technology allow Apple to interpret the contents of the safety vouchers associated with the matching CSAM images. Apple then manually reviews each report to confirm there is a match, disables the user's account, and sends a report to NCMEC. If a user feels their account has been mistakenly flagged they can file an appeal to have their account reinstated.
        This innovative new technology allows Apple to provide valuable and actionable information to NCMEC and law enforcement regarding the proliferation of known CSAM. And it does so while providing significant privacy benefits over existing techniques since Apple only learns about users' photos if they have a collection of known CSAM in their iCloud Photos account. Even in these cases, Apple only learns about images that match known CSAM.
        Expanding guidance in Siri and Search Apple is also expanding guidance in Siri and Search by providing additional resources to help children and parents stay safe online and get help with unsafe situations. For example, users who ask Siri how they can report CSAM or child exploitation will be pointed to resources for where and how to file a report.
        Siri and Search are also being updated to intervene when users perform searches for queries related to CSAM. These interventions will explain to users that interest in this topic is harmful and problematic, and provide resources from partners to get help with this issue.
        These updates to Siri and Search are coming later this year in an update to iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, and macOS Monterey.
        Siri will provide resources and help around searches related to CSAM.
        More Information We have provided more information about these features in the documents below, including technical summaries, proofs, and independent assessments of the CSAM-detection system from cryptography and machine learning experts.
      Apple's Plan to "Think Different" About Encryption Opens a Backdoor to Your Private Life | Electronic Frontier Foundation
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 15:33
        Apple has announced impending changes to its operating systems that include new ''protections for children'' features in iCloud and iMessage. If you've spent any time following the Crypto Wars , you know what this means: Apple is planning to build a backdoor into its data storage system and its messaging system.
        Child exploitation is a serious problem, and Apple isn't the first tech company to bend its privacy-protective stance in an attempt to combat it. But that choice will come at a high price for overall user privacy. Apple can explain at length how its technical implementation will preserve privacy and security in its proposed backdoor, but at the end of the day, even a thoroughly documented, carefully thought-out, and narrowly-scoped backdoor is still a backdoor.
        To say that we are disappointed by Apple's plans is an understatement. Apple has historically been a champion of end-to-end encryption, for all of the same reasons that EFF has articulated time and time again . Apple's compromise on end-to-end encryption may appease government agencies in the U.S. and abroad, but it is a shocking about-face for users who have relied on the company's leadership in privacy and security.
        There are two main features that the company is planning to install in every Apple device. One is a scanning feature that will scan all photos as they get uploaded into iCloud Photos to see if they match a photo in the database of known child sexual abuse material (CSAM) maintained by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). The other feature scans all iMessage images sent or received by child accounts'--that is, accounts designated as owned by a minor'--for sexually explicit material, and if the child is young enough, notifies the parent when these images are sent or received. This feature can be turned on or off by parents.
        When Apple releases these ''client-side scanning'' functionalities, users of iCloud Photos, child users of iMessage, and anyone who talks to a minor through iMessage will have to carefully consider their privacy and security priorities in light of the changes, and possibly be unable to safely use what until this development is one of the preeminent encrypted messengers.
        Apple Is Opening the Door to Broader Abuses We've said it before , and we'll say it again now: it's impossible to build a client-side scanning system that can only be used for sexually explicit images sent or received by children. As a consequence, even a well-intentioned effort to build such a system will break key promises of the messenger's encryption itself and open the door to broader abuses.
        That's not a slippery slope; that's a fully built system just waiting for external pressure to make the slightest change.
        All it would take to widen the narrow backdoor that Apple is building is an expansion of the machine learning parameters to look for additional types of content, or a tweak of the configuration flags to scan, not just children's, but anyone's accounts. That's not a slippery slope; that's a fully built system just waiting for external pressure to make the slightest change. Take the example of India, where recently passed rules include dangerous requirements for platforms to identify the origins of messages and pre-screen content. New laws in Ethiopia requiring content takedowns of ''misinformation'' in 24 hours may apply to messaging services. And many other countries'--often those with authoritarian governments'--have passed similar laws . Apple's changes would enable such screening, takedown, and reporting in its end-to-end messaging. The abuse cases are easy to imagine: governments that outlaw homosexuality might require the classifier to be trained to restrict apparent LGBTQ+ content, or an authoritarian regime might demand the classifier be able to spot popular satirical images or protest flyers.
        We've already seen this mission creep in action. One of the technologies originally built to scan and hash child sexual abuse imagery has been repurposed to create a database of ''terrorist'' content that companies can contribute to and access for the purpose of banning such content. The database, managed by the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT), is troublingly without external oversight, despite calls from civil society . While it's therefore impossible to know whether the database has overreached, we do know that platforms regularly flag critical content as ''terrorism,'' including documentation of violence and repression, counterspeech, art, and satire.
        Image Scanning on iCloud Photos: A Decrease in Privacy Apple's plan for scanning photos that get uploaded into iCloud Photos is similar in some ways to Microsoft's PhotoDNA . The main product difference is that Apple's scanning will happen on-device. The (unauditable) database of processed CSAM images will be distributed in the operating system (OS), the processed images transformed so that users cannot see what the image is, and matching done on those transformed images using private set intersection where the device will not know whether a match has been found. This means that when the features are rolled out, a version of the NCMEC CSAM database will be uploaded onto every single iPhone. The result of the matching will be sent up to Apple, but Apple can only tell that matches were found once a sufficient number of photos have matched a preset threshold.
        Once a certain number of photos are detected, the photos in question will be sent to human reviewers within Apple, who determine that the photos are in fact part of the CSAM database. If confirmed by the human reviewer, those photos will be sent to NCMEC, and the user's account disabled. Again, the bottom line here is that whatever privacy and security aspects are in the technical details, all photos uploaded to iCloud will be scanned.
        Make no mistake: this is a decrease in privacy for all iCloud Photos users, not an improvement.
        Currently, although Apple holds the keys to view Photos stored in iCloud Photos, it does not scan these images. Civil liberties organizations have asked the company to remove its ability to do so. But Apple is choosing the opposite approach and giving itself more knowledge of users' content.
        Machine Learning and Parental Notifications in iMessage: A Shift Away From Strong Encryption Apple's second main new feature is two kinds of notifications based on scanning photos sent or received by iMessage. To implement these notifications, Apple will be rolling out an on-device machine learning classifier designed to detect ''sexually explicit images.'' According to Apple, these features will be limited (at launch) to U.S. users under 18 who have been enrolled in a Family Account . In these new processes, if an account held by a child under 13 wishes to send an image that the on-device machine learning classifier determines is a sexually explicit image, a notification will pop up, telling the under-13 child that their parent will be notified of this content. If the under-13 child still chooses to send the content, they have to accept that the ''parent'' will be notified, and the image will be irrevocably saved to the parental controls section of their phone for the parent to view later. For users between the ages of 13 and 17, a similar warning notification will pop up, though without the parental notification.
        Similarly, if the under-13 child receives an image that iMessage deems to be ''sexually explicit'', before being allowed to view the photo, a notification will pop up that tells the under-13 child that their parent will be notified that they are receiving a sexually explicit image. Again, if the under-13 user accepts the image, the parent is notified and the image is saved to the phone. Users between 13 and 17 years old will similarly receive a warning notification, but a notification about this action will not be sent to their parent's device.
        This means that if'--for instance'--a minor using an iPhone without these features turned on sends a photo to another minor who does have the features enabled, they do not receive a notification that iMessage considers their image to be ''explicit'' or that the recipient's parent will be notified. The recipient's parents will be informed of the content without the sender consenting to their involvement. Additionally, once sent or received, the ''sexually explicit image'' cannot be deleted from the under-13 user's device.
        Whether sending or receiving such content, the under-13 user has the option to decline without the parent being notified. Nevertheless, these notifications give the sense that Apple is watching over the user's shoulder'--and in the case of under-13s, that's essentially what Apple has given parents the ability to do.
        These notifications give the sense that Apple is watching over the user's shoulder'--and in the case of under-13s, that's essentially what Apple has given parents the ability to do.
        It is also important to note that Apple has chosen to use the notoriously difficult-to-audit technology of machine learning classifiers to determine what constitutes a sexually explicit image. We know from years of documentation and research that machine-learning technologies, used without human oversight, have a habit of wrongfully classifying content, including supposedly ''sexually explicit'' content. When blogging platform Tumblr instituted a filter for sexual content in 2018, it famously caught all sorts of other imagery in the net, including pictures of Pomeranian puppies, selfies of fully-clothed individuals, and more. Facebook's attempts to police nudity have resulted in the removal of pictures of famous statues such as Copenhagen's Little Mermaid . These filters have a history of chilling expression, and there's plenty of reason to believe that Apple's will do the same.
        Since the detection of a ''sexually explicit image'' will be using on-device machine learning to scan the contents of messages, Apple will no longer be able to honestly call iMessage ''end-to-end encrypted.'' Apple and its proponents may argue that scanning before or after a message is encrypted or decrypted keeps the ''end-to-end'' promise intact, but that would be semantic maneuvering to cover up a tectonic shift in the company's stance toward strong encryption.
        Whatever Apple Calls It, It's No Longer Secure Messaging As a reminder, a secure messaging system is a system where no one but the user and their intended recipients can read the messages or otherwise analyze their contents to infer what they are talking about. Despite messages passing through a server, an end-to-end encrypted message will not allow the server to know the contents of a message. When that same server has a channel for revealing information about the contents of a significant portion of messages, that's not end-to-end encryption. In this case, while Apple will never see the images sent or received by the user, it has still created the classifier that scans the images that would provide the notifications to the parent. Therefore, it would now be possible for Apple to add new training data to the classifier sent to users' devices or send notifications to a wider audience, easily censoring and chilling speech.
        But even without such expansions, this system will give parents who do not have the best interests of their children in mind one more way to monitor and control them, limiting the internet's potential for expanding the world of those whose lives would otherwise be restricted. And because family sharing plans may be organized by abusive partners, it's not a stretch to imagine using this feature as a form of stalkerware .
        People have the right to communicate privately without backdoors or censorship, including when those people are minors. Apple should make the right decision: keep these backdoors off of users' devices.
      Barbie debuts doll in likeness of British COVID-19 vaccine developer | Reuters
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        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 14:44
        LONDON, Aug 4 (Reuters) - British coronavirus vaccine developer Sarah Gilbert has many science accolades to her credit but now shares an honor with Beyonce, Marilyn Monroe and Eleanor Roosevelt: a Barbie doll in her likeness.
        Gilbert, a 59-year-old professor at Oxford University and co-developer of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, is one of six women in the COVID-19 fight who have new Barbies modeled after them.
        Toy maker Mattel Inc (MAT.O) is recognizing them with a line of Barbie "role model" dolls.
        Gilbert's Barbie shares her long auburn hair and oversized black glasses, and she wears a sensible navy blue pantsuit and white blouse.
        "It's a very strange concept having a Barbie doll created in my likeness," Gilbert said in an interview for Mattel.
        An undated handout image of a Barbie doll made in the likeness of Sarah Gilbert (3d R), the Oxford University professor who co-designed the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, among a global lineup of women of healthcare sector honoured with a one-of-a-kind doll. University of Oxford/via REUTERS
        "I hope it will be part of making it more normal for girls to think about careers in science."
        Among the honorees are emergency room nurse Amy O'Sullivan who treated the first COVID-19 patient at the Wycoff Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, and Audrey Cruz, frontline doctor in Las Vegas who fought discrimination, according to Mattel.
        Other dolls include Chika Stacy Oriuwa, a Canadian psychiatry resident at the University of Toronto who battled systemic racism in healthcare, and Brazilian biomedical researcher Jaqueline Goes de Jesus, who led sequencing of the genome of a COVID-19 variant in Brazil, the company said.
        Lastly a doll honors Kirby White, an Australian doctor who pioneered a surgical gown that can be washed and reused by frontline workers during the pandemic.
        Gilbert chose nonprofit organization WISE (Women in Science & Engineering), dedicated to inspiring girls to consider a career in STEM, to receive a financial donation from the toy maker.
        Reporting by Lisa Giles-Keddie; Editing by Cynthia Osterman
        Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
      Remembering the Time Andrew Jackson Decided to Ignore the Supreme Court In the Name of Georgia's Right to Cherokee Land '' SustainAtlanta
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 14:44
        Beyond the Southeast''John Marshall has made his decision;
        now let him enforce it.''
        Those are the famous words uttered by President Andrew Jackson in relation to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall's 1832 decision in Worcester v. Georgia to strike down a Georgia law that imposed regulations on the comings and goings of white people in Native American land.
        This ruling was foundational in establishing the general idea that Native Americans have some degree of sovereignty in their interaction with U.S. governments. The words and actions of President Jackson in relation to the opinion is a historic event exemplifying the ever present debate over state and federal power and the role of the courts in our modern times.
        In the spring of 2014 the nation was stricken with Cliven Bundy fever. Mr. Bundy is the Nevadan rancher who not only refused to pay fees to the federal government for the right to graze on federal lands, but also sought an armed conflict with federal officials. It briefly ignited a debate over the role of the federal government in land management and ownership, particularly in western states where the federal government owns a large percentage of the land. The debate didn't last long, possibly because of Mr. Bundy's own antics and personal beliefs and possibly because the right of the federal government to assert such powers has long been established.
        Andrew Jackson ncpedia.org
        Justice John Marshall wikipedia.org
        The spat between President Andrew Jackson and Chief Justice John Marshall is an interesting hiccup in nation's evolving belief that the US Supreme Court has the authority to decide whether laws are constitutional. The conflict centered on arguments over states' rights as well as land ownership and use policies, but it also brought into question the entire idea of judicial review. The power of the US Supreme Court to interpret the US Constitution and review federal and state laws to ensure compliance is generally something we don't question today; it's fundamentally essential to the smooth operation of the country. Well back at the time of the Worcester decision, this idea wasn't so fundamental.
        Putting The Supreme in Supreme CourtThirty years prior to Worcester, the US Supreme Court issued what was arguably the most important opinion in the history of the bench. In Marbury v. Madison, the same Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the Supreme Court is vested with the power of judicial review; it has the ability to determine that a law is at odds with the US Constitution and therefore invalid. Today we view this power as one of the important ''checks'' on the government's lawmaking ability. After all, if the courts cannot decide that a law is incongruous with the Constitution then who can? The politicians who made the law?
        Establishing judicial review was especially important for the Court since it made the judicial branch highly relevant. The decision strengthened the separation of powers between the three branches and made the Constitution the cornerstone of lawmaking throughout the country. But the Court had to walk a fine line in establishing judicial review. At the time, the Supreme Court was a fledgling entity that had little relevance and whose daily functions were at the whim of whatever party was in power.
        See Related Article: Why Law Professors on the Right and Left Think Adding More Justices and Ending Lifetime Tenure Could Vastly Improve the Supreme Court
        In 1800 Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams to become the third President of the United States. The two were bitter rivals as Adams was the leader of the Federalist Party and Jefferson was the leader of the Democratic-Republican party. Prior to leaving office, Adams appointed many like-minded people to federal courts across the country as a means of preserving his party's influence on policy. However, the letter of commission for one William Marbury for Justice of the Peace of the District of Columbia was not delivered to him prior to Adams leaving office and Thomas Jefferson had no intention of delivering it.
        That gave way to William Marbury filing a lawsuit under the Federal Judiciary Act of 1789 to force Jefferson's Secretary of State, James Madison, to give him his commission. The Act allowed him to file the suit directly in the Supreme Court, where Chief Justice John Marshall was waiting with open arms. This was the opportunity he had been waiting for that would allow him to make the Supreme Court much more relevant.
        But the situation was tricky. Although Marshall was political allies with John Adams, he realized he needed to reach a decision that President Jefferson would want to enforce. Since the Supreme Court at that time had a fraction of the significance it has today, the president was largely free to ignore the ruling of the Court without suffering political or popular harm.
        Marshall began his opinion by stating that William Marbury was entitled to his commission; Secretary of State Madison had no discretion to withhold carrying out the lawful appointment of Marbury as Justice of the Peace. However, in a stroke of genius, Marshall dismissed the claim on procedural grounds, stating that the US Constitution did not give Congress the authority to enact a law that allowed William Marbury's type of lawsuit to be filed directly in the US Supreme Court; such a suit would have to work its way up the court system prior to reaching the Supreme Court. Marshall was able to satisfy his political party by declaring Madison's actions to be improper while simultaneously delivering a final ruling that pleased Jefferson enough to make him want to enforce it.
        Fast forward to 1832. Having firmly established judicial review with the ruling in favor of Jefferson's administration in Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice Marshall was free to rule against the new sitting president, Andrew Jackson, right? Well perhaps thirty years isn't enough time to let something set, especially when you're dealing with someone like Andrew Jackson.
        Georgia VS the Cherokee NationCherokee Territorywikipedia.org
        Throughout the 1820's Georgia worked tirelessly to remove the Cherokee Indians from their lands in the northern part of the state. It enacted laws that extended its jurisdiction over Cherokee territory, acquired tribal lands, and attempted to redistribute that land to non-native residents. Andrew Jackson was elected president in 1828 and joined Georgia in its quest to remove the Cherokee and other Native Americans from their land.
        In 1831 the Cherokee Nation challenged the Georgia laws in the US Supreme Court. Similar to the procedural grounds upon which Marbury v. Madison was dismissed decades earlier, the Court declined to the hear the case on its merits. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, the Court held that, since the Cherokee Nation was a ''domestic, dependent nation'' and not a foreign nation, the Court lacked jurisdiction.
        But a man named Samuel Worcester would throw a wrench in that decision. A minister from Vermont who worked as a missionary with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Worcester was assigned a post within the Cherokee Nation and took up residence in the Cherokee capital of New Echota. Worcester not only taught the Cherokee the words of the Bible, but advised them of their legal rights. Unsurprisingly, this sparked outrage from Georgia leaders as they saw Worcester as a linchpin in the Cherokee resistance. This prompted the state to enact licensing laws regulating how white people moved to and from the Cherokee lands. As a white person residing in Cherokee land without a license, Worcester and several other missionaries were retrieved from Cherokee land and imprisoned.
        This resulted in another showdown in the US Supreme Court. In Worcester v. Georgia, the Court seemingly reversed Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, holding that Indian nations were sovereign nations with inherent natural rights to land. As the Constitution grants the federal government the exclusive power to negotiate treaties with foreign nations, Georgia's laws were in direct conflict with the US Constitution and with existing treaties. The Court even cited previous pieces of Georgia legislation, including the Act of Cession of 1802, showing that the state had acknowledged the idea that Indian nations have a full right to the territory they occupy and that this right can only be extinguished in negotiation with the government of the United States.
        Painting by Robert Lindneux Depicting the Trail of Tearsgeorgiaencyclopedia.org
        Enter Andrew Jackson. Two years prior to the Worcester decision, he successfully convinced Congress to pass the Indian Removal Act. Despite his strong belief in states' rights and the power of each state to govern its own jurisdiction, the Act created a scheme which gave the president jurisdiction over Indian-state relations. This included the right to grant land west of the Mississippi River to Native Americans following negotiations with the tribes for their removal from eastern areas. Ultimately, Jackson wanted to remove the Native Americans from their land regardless of whether the means were in accordance with his own political beliefs. Unsurprisingly, when the Worcester decision was announced Jackson wasn't too pleased.
        ''John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.''Though President Jackson's exact words were a bit different, the sentiment remained. Enforcing the ruling would mean not only deviating from his own ideology, but alienating a state that shared his core beliefs. So he decided to undermine the system of checks and balances and ignore the ruling. Without the president's enforcement of the Supreme Court's ruling, the opinion largely meant nothing. Samuel Worcester remained imprisoned in Milledgeville and the militia of Georgia was free to encroach on Cherokee land.
        The Worcester opinion should have given the Native Americans much more leverage in future negotiations with the federal government. The decision, after all, established some degree of sovereignty and revoked the states' ability to take part in such negotiations. However, it had little effect since neither the President of the United States nor the State of Georgia showed any acknowledgement of the ruling. Subsequently, in 1835 the Cherokee Nation signed the Treaty of New Echota which would effectively remove them from Georgia. The US Army promptly initiated the Trail of Tears, forcibly relocating over 15,000 Native Americans from Georgia to Oklahoma. Over 4,000 lost their lives on the journey.
        Eventually the Georgia licensing law was repealed by the Georgia legislature after generating a public outcry over the continued imprisonment of missionaries and at the behest of new Governor Wilson Lumpkin.
        While the Supreme Court has historically applied different theories of sovereignty based on the issue, the underlying idea of Worcester remains intact: any diminution in sovereignty is reserved as an issue for the federal government, not the states. A state cannot interfere with internal tribal affairs unless the federal government has granted such authority; whether this power has been granted is a decision for a federal court.
        Nacoochee Mound Near Helen, GAtrailofthetrail.blogspot.com
        Ultimately, the actions of President Jackson to not recognize the opinion in Worcester had profound implications for Native Americans and for Georgia. Much of our lands in the Southeast and throughout the country bear the names of Native Americans and, being as such, these placemarks offer glimpses into a troubled yet rich history and lessons we should't forget.
        In the end, Andrew Jackson's story reveals the ease at which the foundation of our governmental structure can be eroded. One person, in a powerful position, deciding to challenge the political and legal norms that we've come to rely on can have a profoundly negative impact on the integrity of our legal and political system.
        On July 28 2016 this article was edited to include additional discussion regarding Marbury v. Madison.
        Categories: Beyond the Southeast, Law and Government
        Tagged as: Andrew Jackson, Cherokee Nation, Cliven Bundy, Georgia, John Marshall, Judicial Review, Marbury v. Madison, Oklahoma, Trail of Tears, US Supreme Court, Worcester v. State of Georgia
      Anti-Vaxxer Naomi Wolf Joins Donald Trump's Doomed Tech Suit
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        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 14:22
        Former President Donald Trump's legal crusade against big tech has a new ally: Naomi Wolf. The former Democratic campaign adviser, feminist advocate, and anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist has signed on as a co-plaintiff in the Trump-led social media lawsuit criticized as a doomed fundraising ''stunt'' by legal experts.
        In an amended complaint filed in federal court on Wednesday, Wolf says that Twitter blew up her personal and professional life by sharing her public tweets containing bizarre vaccine misinformation to news organizations and that the suspension of her account caused her to lose ''over half of her business model, investors in her business, and other sources of income.''
        Former President Trump and a number of his supporters filed class-action suits against Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube alleging that the companies were not private entities but an arm of the government engaged in suppressing their First Amendment rights. All three companies suspended Trump's accounts in the wake of the January 6 insurrection. Trump has since asked a federal court to grant him punitive damages, reinstate his account, and declare Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which grants limited immunity to social media companies for the content posted by users, unconstitutional.
        The suit comes as social media companies find themselves under new pressure to police anti-vaccine conspiracy theories as vaccine uptake has slowed and COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths have once again spiked.
        Wolf spent much of the pandemic sharing misinformation about COVID-19 in general and vaccines in particular. In one instance, she claimed that Moderna's vaccine was "not actually a vaccine but a software platform," Wolf wrote and explained that she understood "how dangerous it is to have a tech in one's body that can receive 'uploads.'" She also suggested that it was ''urgent'' for sewage systems to segregate "vaccinated people's urine/feces from general sewage supplies/waterways" due to an erroneous belief that they could present a health risk to drinking water.
        By June, Twitter apparently had seen enough of Wolf's colorful vaccine conspiracies and suspended her account.
        In her complaint, Wolf's primary objection appears more concerned with Twitter's explanations of why it suspended her account than the suspension itself. The author had ''countless personal and professional relationships damaged due to 'what she said on Twitter,' based on the erroneous claims made by the news outlets who used information apparently shared by [Twitter's] spokesperson.''
        The offending information cited by Wolf as shared by Twitter without her ''consent'' included her public tweets published to her over 146,000 followers.
        In the wake of the suspension, the ''multiple bestselling nonfiction'' author wrote that she ''has been advised that as a result of the negative news reports originating from Twitter's 'spokesperson,' that her upcoming book could not go to auction.''
        In an email to The Daily Beast, Wolf said she remains at odds with President Trump politics but signed onto the suit out in order to challenge what she says was a need to challenge ''censorship via private industry that is damaging to freedoms of speech and open civil dialogue.''
        ''I don't agree with all of the plaintiffs ideologically'-- just as I profoundly don't agree with Pres Trump ideologically,'' she wrote. ''But this is about a more important core American value that transcends partisanship. It's about freedom of speech.''
        Wolf, a feminist advocate and former campaign adviser to Bill Clinton and Al Gore, was joined by Wayne Allyn Root, a conspiracy theorist, conservative talk radio host, and occasional Trump rally opening act.
        Root, who has falsely claimed that the Democratic party murdered former DNC staffer Seth Rich and that the Las Vegas massacre was carried out by ISIS, complained in a court filing that deplatforming works.
        Root ''used his Twitter account as part of a promotion and marketing model that he had been using for over fifteen (15) years'' according to the amended complaint but Twitter's caused ''significant damage to Mr. Root and his brand.'' Twitter booted Root's account in February for violating its civic integrity policy, which bans election misinformation.
        The legal theory underpinning Trump's class-action lawsuit holds that social media companies have become arms of the government by virtue of Section 230 and Democratic lawmakers' criticism of their moderation.
        As The Daily Beast recently reported, Trump's attorneys reached out to Alan Dershowitz, a First Amendment advocate frequently tapped by Trumpworld for supportive commentary and legal advice, but even the usually Trump-sympathetic Harvard professor has expressed skepticism about the merits of the case and thus far declined to participate in the case.
        --Asawin Suebsaeng contributed additional reporting.
        Updated to add comment from the Wolf.
      Pharmacists Fight Off COVID Truthers Demanding Horse Medicine Ivermectin Instead of the Jab
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        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 14:20
        I t's not snake oil, literally. But as bogus COVID-19 miracle drugs go, horse paste comes pretty close.
        As coronavirus infections rage among the unvaccinated, those suspicious of the shot are championing a new supposed COVID-19 cure. Thanks to a dubious study of ivermectin, a drug used in humans to treat parasites like scabies, cranks have seized on the drug as the new solution to coronavirus prevention and treatment.
        Devotees have besieged pharmacists with prescriptions from shady online prescribers, forcing pharmacies to crack down and treat the antiparasitic drugs like opioids. As human-approved ivermectin prescriptions have been harder to come by, enthusiasts have taken to raiding rural tractor supply stores in search of ivermectin horse paste (packed with ''apple flavor!'') and weighed the benefits of taking ivermectin ''sheep drench'' and a noromectin ''injection for swine and cattle.''
        ''There is certainly a noticeable increase in calls to poison centers regarding ivermectin being misused,'' a Texas-based poison control specialist, who requested anonymity due to concerns of repercussions, told The Daily Beast via email. ''It's clear that a vast majority are associated with a belief that it will prevent or treat COVID. That said, I do want to be careful not to be sensational'--there's no epidemic of ivermectin overdoses in hospitals, but it's needless suffering given the lack of conclusive evidence of a benefit.''
        All to treat and prevent a disease for which there's a free and widely available vaccine.
        In some textbook cases, Facebook users have recommended using the drug against doctors' orders.
        ''Personally I haven't had this situation, but if I did, I would sneak horse paste into the hospital and would rub it into the armpit myself to save my loved one,'' a member of an ivermectin Facebook group advised another.
        Like the Trumpist miracle cure hydroxychloroquine before it, the hype for ivermectin comes against the advice of the medical community, which has been skeptical of the drug's purported benefits. Although ivermectin optimists point to a few trials of the drug on COVID patients, two of the flashiest studies have either been withdrawn or heavily criticized due to errors. A recent review of existing ivermectin studies by the medical research group Cochrane did not rule in the drug's favor.
        ''Based on the current very low- to low-certainty evidence, we are uncertain about the efficacy and safety of ivermectin used to treat or prevent COVID-19,'' the Cochrane report, released July 28 read. ''The completed studies are small and few are considered high quality ['...] Overall, the reliable evidence available does not support the use of ivermectin for treatment or prevention of COVID-19 outside of well-designed randomized trials.'' The report called for further randomized trials of ivermectin on COVID patients.
        ''Most overdoses will be mild and simply result in some gastrointestinal distress and maybe some drowsiness, but severe overdose can cause significant neurological toxicity,'' the Texas poison control worker said. ''The irony is, in a severe ivermectin overdose (which is rare, you really have to be slamming this stuff to achieve that) patients will end up needing to be intubated to protect their airway, meanwhile, a lot of them are taking the ivermectin to allegedly treat their COVID'... to avoid ultimately being intubated and placed on a ventilator.''
        As vaccine skeptics suck down tubes of horse paste and hit up poison control centers with calls, the FDA has patiently explained why people should not take medicine intended for livestock. Though they contain the same active ingredient approved for use in people, animal medications are ''highly concentrated because they are used for large animals like horses and cows, which can weigh a lot more than we do'' and as a result ''Such high doses can be highly toxic in humans.''
        That kind of scientific caution is hard to find on the internet, where users on Telegram, Facebook groups, and Amazon comments sections guide each other on how to find and use the drug and evangelize it to others.
        Facebook groups offer support and answers to users who are confused, scared, and ignorant. When a poster has a question about how to convert horse doses to people doses, commenters are only too happy to provide suggestions. Their answers may prove a threat to your liver health, but they fill the vacuum of information for those committed to exploring the frontiers of COVID medical quackery.
        Posters ask questions not readily answered by the legitimate medical community, like what size dose of the phoney miracle drug to give an 8-year old recently diagnosed with COVID-19. Group members respond with a chart that lists suggested doses in human-approved ivermectin tablets or ''notches'' for the markings on tubes of horse paste listed according to patient weight.
        The chart, a frequently pasted image in Facebook groups touting the drug, is sourced to Gustavo Aguirre Chang, a Peruvian doctor and evangelist for ivermectin's use in treating COVID-19.
        On Amazon, where customers can buy horse paste ivermectin without a prescription, purchasers speak in coded reviews to extol the drug's supposed benefits against COVID-19. ''My 'horse' had no negative side effects, and now he tells me he feels like a million bucks and is now COVID free,'' one customer wrote. ''If you are intelligent enough to be able to weigh yourself and smart enough to do fractions you can do this safely'' another assured readers.
        Amazon has become so popular as a source for horse-to-human ivermectin that the purchases are starting to warp the company's recommendation engines.
        Its popularity as a backdoor for people to obtain ivermectin horsepaste is so great that Amazon's recommendation systems now push customers to buy zinc, vitamin C, and quercetin'--other popular (and bogus) coronavirus home remedies'--alongside pulse oximeters, often purchased by those infected with COVID-19 to monitor their oxygen levels.
        ''This is actually the primary situation we get called about,'' the Texas poison control worker said. ''The big headache for poison control centers is that people are circumventing their physician and going to animal supply stores and acquiring ivermectin which can be purchased without a prescription with the understanding it's for large animal veterinary use only. However, this form of ivermectin is a 1.87% paste [in delicious apple flavor]'--it's so concentrated because it's formulated for 1,500-pound horses, not humans. Unless someone knows what they're doing, it's very easy to overdose on the paste.''
        When horse ivermectin isn't available, believers will scour the animal kingdom for other sources. On one forum, a European ivermectin fan complained that he could only find the drug in quantities approved for pet parrots, leading to an expensive cost-per-dosage. On Facebook, an ivermectin-curious woman shared a picture of ''sheep drench,'' asking if the ovine de-louser would help fight COVID-19. The bold label printed on the bottle warning ''NOT SAFE OR APPROVED FOR HUMAN USE, WHICH COULD CAUSE SEVERE PERSONAL INJURY OR DEATH'' in the image did little to deter curiosity.
        Off-label ivermectin requests are also hitting legitimate pharmacies, to pharmacists' displeasure.
        One pharmacist, who has worked in Missouri and Illinois over the course of the pandemic, said they'd received approximately 10 ivermectin prescriptions in recent months: an uncommon number for a drug typically used to treat scabies or serious lice infestations in humans. About six of those 10 prescriptions raised red flags, like weirdly large dosages or doctors who canceled orders when questioned.
        ''If I could verify based on current dosage information for its available indications that the prescription appeared to be for a valid diagnosis I would dispense with no issue,'' the pharmacist, who requested anonymity due to concerns of repercussions at work, told The Daily Beast. For the six unusual orders, the pharmacist called the prescriber. Half of those doctors never answered. Of the three that responded, ''two canceled the prescription'--one electronically and one verbally while on the phone. The third verbally confirmed it was for the treatment of acute COVID infection and did not deem to cancel it.''
        The electronic cancellation came from a prescriber far out of state, in California.
        An Arizona-based pharmacist told The Daily Beast that their pharmacy had been inundated with ivermectin prescriptions from America's Frontline Doctors.
        The group was founded in 2020 by Dr Simone Gold, currently awaiting trial on charges related to her alleged participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection, and pushed an anti-lockdown, pro-hydroxychloroquine agenda with the help of Dr. Stella Immanuel, the so-called ''demon sperm'' doctor who has professed a belief in aliens and ''reptilian'' overlords.
        After spending much of the pandemic touting hydroxychloroquine, America's Frontline Doctors now offers tele-health consults for $90 and directs prospective patients and visitors looking to get scripts for hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin filled to Ravkoo, an online pharmacy startup based in Florida.
        ''At the peak we were getting between 5-10 scripts per week. (Demon sperm 'MD' was calling them into our voicemail). Recently, it's been 1-2 a month thankfully,'' the Arizona pharmacist messaged The Daily Beast.
        ''Our biggest problem was when one other Rph [registered pharmacist] filled a script for it and the floodgates opened after that. Those being from the TX demon sperm MD (I forget her name, honestly). The office would never answer the phone when we called to question it but we would just write down the info and document it before we destroyed the rx.''
        Although the pharmacist had been able to reason with would-be ivermectin patients, some colleagues had found themselves facing ''ladies threatening to sue, being accused of overstepping our boundaries, etc,'' the Arizona pharmacist said.
        Pharmacies' reluctance to fill dubious ivermectin scripts has prompted America's Frontline Doctors to start recruiting plaintiffs for a lawsuit. The group published a plaintiff intake form on its website to screen for doctors and patients who've had pharmacies refuse to fill their ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine prescriptions.
        Still, at least one customer changed their mind after learning more about the drug.
        ''Only one person I spoke with actually agreed to not wanting to pick it up after she told me her friend referred her to the telemedicine appointment,'' the Arizona pharmacist said. ''She had no idea what she was getting or that it was useless.''
      Xsolla fires 150 employees based on big data analysis of their activity '' "Many of you might be shocked, but I truly believe that Xsolla is not for you." | Business News | MCV/DEVELOP
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        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 14:18
        Payment services company Xsolla has reportedly fired 150 of its employees, with workers in the company's office in Perm, Russia being terminated based on big data analysis of their activity (via Game World Observer).
        Making the situation worse, Xsolla CEO and founder Aleksandr Agapitov sent an email to the affected employees explaining the decision, revealing that they had been let go because they had been tagged as ''unengaged and unproductive employees.''
        A translated version of the email reads as follows:
        ''You received this email because my big data team analyzed your activities in Jira, Confluence, Gmail, chats, documents, dashboards and tagged you as unengaged and unproductive employees. In other words, you were not always present at the workplace when you worked remotely.
        ''Many of you might be shocked, but I truly believe that Xsolla is not for you. Nadia and her care team partnered with seven leading HR agencies, as we will help you find a good place, where you will earn more and work even less. Sasha will help you get a recommendation, including the one from myself. And Natalia will read you your rights.
        ''Once again, thank you for your contribution. If you want to stay in contact with me, please write me a long letter about all your observations, injustice, and gratitude.''
        This prompted immediate and predictable backlash: both for the layoffs themselves and for the tone of the email. According to ProPerm.ru, the company is investigating to find the employee who leaked the email.
        Following the layoffs, Agapitov held a press conference in which he explained that the mass layoffs were caused by the fact that the company has stopped showing 40% growth. Agapitov provided further details, including that the total number of laid-off employees could total 40% of the company's headcount across all of its offices.
        Following the press conference, Agapitov incited further controversy with a Tweet that roughly translates to ''Work your fucking ass off or get your fucking ass out.''
        Speaking with Forbes Russia, Agapitov revealed that 60 of the affected employees might stay with the company following discussions with their managers, while those who have been let go will keep their medical insurance and receive medical pay equal to four to six monthly salaries.
      Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens
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        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 14:16
        Open Access
        Peer-reviewed
        Research Article
        Andrew F. Read, Susan J. Baigent, Claire Powers, Lydia B. Kgosana, Luke Blackwell, Lorraine P. Smith, David A. Kennedy, Stephen W. Walkden-Brown, Venugopal K. Nair x
        Published: July 27, 2015 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198 AbstractCould some vaccines drive the evolution of more virulent pathogens? Conventional wisdom is that natural selection will remove highly lethal pathogens if host death greatly reduces transmission. Vaccines that keep hosts alive but still allow transmission could thus allow very virulent strains to circulate in a population. Here we show experimentally that immunization of chickens against Marek's disease virus enhances the fitness of more virulent strains, making it possible for hyperpathogenic strains to transmit. Immunity elicited by direct vaccination or by maternal vaccination prolongs host survival but does not prevent infection, viral replication or transmission, thus extending the infectious periods of strains otherwise too lethal to persist. Our data show that anti-disease vaccines that do not prevent transmission can create conditions that promote the emergence of pathogen strains that cause more severe disease in unvaccinated hosts.
        Author SummaryThere is a theoretical expectation that some types of vaccines could prompt the evolution of more virulent (''hotter'') pathogens. This idea follows from the notion that natural selection removes pathogen strains that are so ''hot'' that they kill their hosts and, therefore, themselves. Vaccines that let the hosts survive but do not prevent the spread of the pathogen relax this selection, allowing the evolution of hotter pathogens to occur. This type of vaccine is often called a leaky vaccine. When vaccines prevent transmission, as is the case for nearly all vaccines used in humans, this type of evolution towards increased virulence is blocked. But when vaccines leak, allowing at least some pathogen transmission, they could create the ecological conditions that would allow hot strains to emerge and persist. This theory proved highly controversial when it was first proposed over a decade ago, but here we report experiments with Marek's disease virus in poultry that show that modern commercial leaky vaccines can have precisely this effect: they allow the onward transmission of strains otherwise too lethal to persist. Thus, the use of leaky vaccines can facilitate the evolution of pathogen strains that put unvaccinated hosts at greater risk of severe disease. The future challenge is to identify whether there are other types of vaccines used in animals and humans that might also generate these evolutionary risks.
        Citation: Read AF, Baigent SJ, Powers C, Kgosana LB, Blackwell L, Smith LP, et al. (2015) Imperfect Vaccination Can Enhance the Transmission of Highly Virulent Pathogens. PLoS Biol 13(7): e1002198. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198
        Academic Editor: Christophe Fraser, Imperial College London, UNITED KINGDOM
        Received: January 15, 2015; Accepted: June 11, 2015; Published: July 27, 2015
        Copyright: (C) 2015 Read et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
        Data Availability: All data files are deposited in Dryad, doi:10.5061/dryad.4tn48.
        Funding: This work was funded by the Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health (R01GM105244) and by UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council as part of the joint NSF-NIH-USDA Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases program. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
        Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
        Abbreviations: c.i., confidence interval; MD, Marek's disease; MDV, Marek's disease virus; RIR, Rhode Island Red; SPF, Specific pathogen-free; VCN, virus genome copy number
        IntroductionInfectious agents can rapidly evolve in response to health interventions [1]. Here, we ask whether pathogen adaptation to vaccinated hosts can result in the evolution of more virulent pathogens (defined here to mean those that cause more or faster mortality in unvaccinated hosts).
        Vaccination could prompt the evolution of more virulent pathogens in the following way. It is usually assumed that the primary force preventing the evolutionary emergence of more virulent strains is that they kill their hosts and, therefore, truncate their own infectious periods. If so, keeping hosts alive with vaccines that reduce disease but do not prevent infection, replication, and transmission (so-called ''imperfect'' vaccines) could allow more virulent strains to circulate. Natural selection will even favour their circulation if virulent strains have a higher transmission in the absence of host death or are better able to overcome host immunity. Thus, life-saving vaccines have the potential to increase mean disease virulence of a pathogen population (as assayed in unvaccinated hosts) [2''4].
        The plausibility of this idea (hereafter called the ''imperfect-vaccine hypothesis'') has been confirmed with mathematical models [2,5''9]. Efficacy and mode of action are key. If the vaccine is sterilizing, so that transmission is stopped, no evolution can occur. But if it is non-sterilizing, so that naturally acquired pathogens can transmit from immunized individuals (what we hereafter call a ''leaky'' vaccine), virulent strains will be able to circulate in situations in which natural selection would have once removed them [2]. Thus, anti-disease vaccines (those reducing in-host replication or pathogenicity) have the potential to generate evolution harmful to human and animal well-being; infection- or transmission-blocking vaccines do not [2''9]. Note that the possibility of vaccine-driven virulence evolution is conceptually distinct from vaccine-driven epitope evolution (antigenic escape), in which variants of target antigens evolve because they enable pathogens that are otherwise less fit to evade vaccine-induced immunity. The evolution of escape variants has been frequently observed [4,10].
        The imperfect-vaccine hypothesis attracted controversy [11''14], not least because human vaccines have apparently not caused an increase in the virulence of their target pathogens. But most human vaccines are sterilizing (transmission-blocking) or not in widespread use or only recently introduced [4]. Moreover, unambiguous comparisons of strain virulence and the impact of vaccination on transmission require experimental infections in the natural host'--clearly impossible for human diseases. The situation is different for veterinary infections. Here, we report experiments with Marek's disease virus (MDV), a highly contagious oncogenic herpesvirus that costs the global poultry industry more than $US2 billion annually [15]. We test a key prediction of the imperfect-vaccine hypothesis: that vaccination will elevate the fitness of highly virulent strains above that of less virulent strains.
        Chickens become infected with MDV by inhalation of dust contaminated with virus shed from the feather follicles of infected birds. In a contaminated poultry house, chicks are infected soon after hatching and remain infectious for life [16]. The virus can remain infectious in poultry dust for many months [17,18]. As originally described, Marek's disease (MD) was a paralysis of older birds, but by the 1950s, ''acute MD'' characterised by lymphomas in multiple organs in younger birds was occurring. This became the dominant form of MD, with increasing virulence, characterised by more severe lymphomas and mortality at increasingly early ages and, under some circumstances, paralysis and death in the first weeks of life, well before lymphoma formation [15,19].
        MDV has been evolving in poultry immunized with leaky anti-disease vaccines since the introduction of the first vaccines in 1970 [15,19''24]. All MD vaccines are live viruses administered to 18-day-old embryos or immediately after hatch, and vaccinated birds can become infected and shed wild-type virus [25''28]. Wild-type MD viruses are so-called serotype 1 viruses. First-generation vaccines include a serotype 3 herpesvirus of turkeys called HVT; second-generation vaccines are a combination of HVT and SB-1, a serotype 2 isolate. Third-generation vaccines are based on an attenuated serotype-1 virus isolate CVI998, the so-called Rispens vaccine [15,19''24].
        ResultsViral SheddingOur first three experiments involved Rhode Island Red (RIR) chickens, a breed that has not been subject to the intensive selective breeding and outcrossing that characterizes modern commercial chicken strains. Specific pathogen-free (SPF) parent birds were unvaccinated, and so offspring used in our first two experiments were free from maternally derived antibodies. In our first experiment, we infected 8-d-old chicks with five strains of MDV chosen to span the virulence spectrum defined by Witter and colleagues [21,29]. The viral strains varied from the less virulent HPRS-B14, which killed 60% of unvaccinated birds over 2 mo, to the highly lethal Md5 and 675A, which killed all unvaccinated birds in 10 d (Fig 1, top panels). When age-matched birds were vaccinated 8 d earlier with HVT, the first MDV vaccine to go into commercial use, survival improved dramatically, with a few deaths occurring only late in the experiment, and then only in birds infected with the most virulent strains (Fig 1, top panels).
        Fig 1. Impact of vaccination on mortality and viral shedding of five strains of MDV.
        Experiment 1. Groups of 20 Rhode Island Red chickens were unvaccinated (dotted lines, light shading) or HVT-vaccinated (solid lines, dark shading) at 1 d of age and challenged with viral strains HPRS-B14 (black), 571 (purple), 595 (green), Md5 (blue), or 675A (red) 8 d later. Viral strains vary in virulence in unvaccinated hosts, and vaccination protects against death (top panels, with strains arranged in order of increasing virulence from left to right.). Vaccination suppresses the concentration of virus in dust, but by keeping hosts alive, prolongs the infectious periods of hyperpathogenic MDV (middle panels). This means that cumulative number of virus genome copies (VCN) shed per bird is suppressed by vaccination for the least virulent strain and enhanced by several orders of magnitude for the most virulent (bottom panels). Error bars and shaded regions indicate 95% confidence interval (c.i.) Raw data can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4tn48.
        https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198.g001
        We collected dust from the isolators containing infected birds and measured the concentration of virus genomes in the dust using real-time PCR. At contemporaneous time points, vaccinated birds shed fewer virus genome copies than unvaccinated birds infected with the same viral strain (Fig 1, middle panels). Those patterns reflected viral loads in the feather follicles (S1 Fig). Critically, the infectious period of unvaccinated birds infected with our two most virulent strains was less than a week because hosts died so rapidly. During that week, barely any virus was shed (Fig 1, middle panels). In contrast, the infectious period of the least virulent strains continued for the entire experiment (almost 2 mo). Thus, the least virulent strain shed several orders of magnitude more virus from unvaccinated birds than did the virulent strains (Fig 1, bottom panels). By preventing death, vaccination greatly increased the infectious period of the most virulent strains, increasing the total amount of virus shed by several orders of magnitude, and increasing it above that of the least virulent strain (Fig 1, bottom panels). Thus, the net effect of vaccination on both host survival rates and daily shedding rates was to vastly increase the amount of virus shed by virulent strains into the environment.
        Onward TransmissionTo confirm that virus shed into the environment was a robust proxy for overall bird-to-bird transmission potential, we co-housed birds infected with our three most virulent strains with immunologically-na¯ve sentinel birds (Experiment 2). When unvaccinated birds were infected with the two most lethal strains (Md5 and 675A), they were all dead within 10 days (Fig 2A), before substantial viral shedding had begun (S2 Fig). Consequently, no sentinel birds in those isolators became infected (Fig 2B) and none died (Fig 2C). In contrast, when HVT-vaccinated birds were infected with either of those hyperpathogenic strains, they survived for 30 days or more (Fig 2A), allowing substantial viral shedding (S2 Fig). All co-housed sentinels consequently became infected (Fig 2B) and went on to die as a result of MDV infection (Fig 2C). Thus, in accordance with the imperfect-vaccine hypothesis, vaccination enabled the onward transmission of viruses otherwise too lethal to transmit, putting unvaccinated individuals at great risk of severe disease and death.
        Fig 2. Vaccination enhances transmission of hyperpathogenic MDV.
        Experiment 2. Groups of ten birds were HVT-vaccinated (solid lines) or not (dotted lines) and experimentally infected with one of our three most virulent MDV strains, 595 (green), Md5 (blue) and 675A (red), and co-housed with ten unvaccinated sentinel birds. Vaccination prolonged the survival of experimentally infected birds (A), ensuring that sentinel birds became infected (B) and, hence, died (C). In B and C, solid lines denote sentinels cohoused with vaccinated experimentally infected birds and dotted lines denote sentinels cohoused with unvaccinated experimentally infected birds. Raw data can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4tn48.
        https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198.g002
        Interestingly, the viral strain 595 was slightly less virulent than the other two viruses (taking a day longer to kill half of the unvaccinated birds, and 6 d longer to kill them all) (Fig 2A). This slightly reduced mortality rate prolonged the viral shedding from unvaccinated birds, so that about 100-fold more virus was shed into the environment by the 595-infected cohort than from the cohorts infected by the two more lethal strains (S2 Fig). This was evidently sufficient for transmission, because all co-housed sentinels eventually became infected (Fig 2B) and went on to die (Fig 2C). Thus, slight reductions in lethality can be sufficient to allow onward transmission. Nonetheless, even for strain 595, vaccination led to more rapid infection of sentinels (Fig 2B; median time to positivity 9 d earlier than in unvaccinated birds, p < 0.05), thus increasing the rate at which secondary cases were generated, a critical determinant of both viral fitness and case incidence in a rising epidemic.
        Maternally Derived AntibodyThe high mortality rates we observed in unvaccinated chickens infected with our most virulent strains are due to early mortality syndrome, which involves the rapid onset of paralysis, disorientation and an inability to feed and move, followed by death [30''33]. In today's modern industry, parental birds are almost always vaccinated against MDV, which results in the transfer of maternal antibody to chicks. These antibodies appear to be protective against the early mortality syndrome [30''33]. This raises the prospect that vaccination of laying hens could also permit onward transmission of viral strains that would be too lethal to otherwise transmit from offspring birds. We tested this possibility with further experiments using our most (675A) and least (HPRS-B14) virulent virus strains, again in Rhode Island Red birds, but this time including chicks derived from hens vaccinated 4''5 wk prior to egg lay with a standard commercial Rispens vaccine (Experiment 3).
        Vaccination of hens enhanced the survival of offspring experimentally infected with HRPS-B14 (Fig 3A, p < 0.05). Maternally derived antibody had no detectable effect on the replication of that viral strain in the feather tips (S3 Fig panel A, p > 0.05) and, while it somewhat suppressed the amount of infectious virus shed into the environment early in infections (Figs 3B and S3B), it did not affect the rate at which sentinel birds became infected with HRPS-B14 (Fig 3C, p > 0.05) and few sentinels died (Fig 3D). Thus maternal protection had little impact on the transmission success of our least virulent strain.
        Fig 3. Maternal vaccination enhances viral shedding and onward transmission of hyperpathogenic MDV.
        Experiment 3. Groups of ten unvaccinated chicks produced by hens that were Rispens-vaccinated (solid lines) or not (dotted lines) were infected with viral strains HPRS-B14 (black) or 675A (red) and cohoused with sentinels of the same maternal antibody status. Maternally derived antibodies prolonged the survival of experimentally infected birds (A) and enhanced the amount of virus shed into the environment by the hyperpathogenic strain (B), making possible the infection of sentinels with the most virulent strain (C), which led to their death (D). Shaded regions represent 95% c.i. for unvaccinated (light) and vaccinated (dark). Raw data can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4tn48.
        https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198.g003
        However, presence of maternal antibody greatly impacted the transmission success of the most virulent strain (675A). As expected, the offspring of vaccinated hens survived for longer following infection with 675A virus than did maternally derived antibody-negative chicks (Fig 3A, p < 0.05). As we found in our first two experiments, very little of the highly virulent strain was shed from birds with no immune protection before they died (Figs 3B and S3). Consequently, no sentinels became infected (Fig 3C). But birds with maternal protection survived longer to shed more virus (Figs 3A, 3B, and S3B), so that all sentinel birds became infected (Fig 3C) and died (Fig 3D). Maternal vaccination was not as protective as direct vaccination of offspring (cf. Fig 3A with Fig 2A and the top panels of Fig 1). Nonetheless, vaccination of laying hens, like the vaccination of offspring, enabled the onward transmission of the hyperpathogenic strain from offspring (Fig 3C). Again, these data are consistent with the imperfect-vaccine hypothesis.
        Transmission between Commercial BirdsOur experiments above show that direct vaccination of birds or vaccination of parent hens makes possible the onward transmission of viral strains otherwise too lethal to transmit, and thus that unvaccinated individuals are put at increased risk of severe disease and death. However, in a modern commercial broiler setting, all birds in a flock would originate from vaccinated hens (and so would be positive for maternally derived antibody), and also be vaccinated. We thus set out to determine whether our most virulent strain could transmit to vaccinated sentinels, a necessary condition for persistence of hyperpathogenic strains in the modern industry (Experiment 4). To mimic the current commercial broiler situation, we obtained modern commercial broiler birds derived from Rispens-vaccinated hens and, at 1 d of age, we HVT-vaccinated all the birds we would experimentally infect. Those birds were then infected with our most virulent viral strain (675A) at 8 d of age. We cohoused those experimentally infected birds with sentinel birds, which were either HVT vaccinated or not. We performed this experiment twice. To accommodate changing regulatory requirements (see Methods), we did the first replicate with birds housed in isolators until 35 d of age, after which they were moved to floor until they were 11 wk old (Experiment 4a), and the second replicate with birds maintained in floor pens from 1 d of age until 7 wk of age (Experiment 4b).
        All sentinels became infected, irrespective of vaccine status (Fig 4A). Thus, vaccinated maternal antibody positive commercial birds shed wild-type virus that caused infections in both vaccinated and unvaccinated maternal antibody positive birds. Vaccination only slightly suppressed viral replication in the infections acquired by the sentinel birds (Fig 4B). Importantly, all sentinels, vaccinated and unvaccinated, became virus positive in the feather follicles, meaning that they themselves started shedding. Vaccination protected sentinel birds from death (Fig 4C), prolonging infectious periods by about 2 wk (Fig 4D; standard error of the difference ±3.2 d, F1,36 = 19.9, p < 0.0001). Thus, not only does our most virulent strain transmit between modern commercial broilers when they are vaccinated, the duration of shedding in the next step in the transmission chain is also increased by vaccination.
        Fig 4. Transmission of hypervirulent MDV to modern commercial birds.
        Experiment 4. Groups of ten modern commercial broiler chicks derived from Rispens-vaccinated hens were HVT-vaccinated at 1 d of age and experimentally infected with the hypervirulent MDV strain 675A. Those experimentally infected birds were co-housed with groups of ten sentinel birds from the same commercial stock (and thus also derived from Rispens-vaccinated hens) which were HVT-vaccinated (solid lines) or not (dotted lines). The experiment was performed twice (experiment 4a, red; experiment 4b, blue). Independent of their vaccine status, all sentinel birds became infected (A), with high levels of virus replication in feather follicles (B). Vaccination prolonged the survival of sentinel birds (C), and consequently their infectious period (D). In panel D, ''x'' denotes death because of MDV. Error bars, 95% c.i. Raw data can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4tn48.
        https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198.g004
        DiscussionMDV became increasingly virulent over the second half of the 20th century [19,21''24]. Until the 1950s, strains of MDV circulating on poultry farms caused a mildly paralytic disease, with lesions largely restricted to peripheral nervous tissue. Death was relatively rare. Today, hyperpathogenic strains are present worldwide. These strains induce lymphomas in a wide range of organs and mortality rates of up to 100% in unvaccinated birds. So far as we are aware, no one has been able to isolate non-lethal MDV strains from today's commercial (vaccinated) poultry operations [19,23]. Quite what promoted this viral evolution is unclear. The observation that successively more efficacious vaccines have been overcome by successively more virulent viral strains has prompted many MDV specialists to suggest that vaccination might be a key driver [19''24,34''37], though identifying the evolutionary pressures involved has proved challenging. There is no evidence in Marek's disease that vaccine breakthrough by more virulent strains has anything to do with overcoming strain-specific immunity (e.g., epitope evolution); genetic and immunological comparisons of strains varying in virulence suggest that candidate virulence determinants are associated with host''cell interactions and viral replication, not antigens [19]. The imperfect-vaccine hypothesis was suggested as an evolutionary mechanism by which immunization might drive MDV virulence evolution [2], but there has been no experimental confirmation. Our data provide that: by enhancing host survival but not preventing viral shedding, MDV vaccination of hens or offspring greatly prolongs the infectious periods of hyperpathogenic strains, and hence the amount of virus they shed into the environment.
        Our data do not demonstrate that vaccination was responsible for the evolution of hyperpathogenic strains of MDV, and we may never know for sure why they evolved in the first place. Clearly, many potentially relevant ecological pressures on virulence have changed with the intensification of the poultry industry. For instance, as the industry has expanded, broilers have become a much larger part of the industry, and broiler lifespans have halved with advances in animal genetics and husbandry; all else being equal, this would favour more virulent strains [28], so too might greater genetic homogeneity in flocks [38] or high-density rearing conditions [13], or indeed increased frequencies of maternally derived antibody if natural MDV infections became more common as the industry intensified in the pre-vaccine era (Fig 3) [39]. But whatever was responsible for the evolution of more virulent strains in the first place (and there may be many causes), our data show that vaccination is sufficient to maintain hyperpathogenic strains in poultry flocks today. By keeping infected birds alive, vaccination substantially enhances the transmission success and hence spread of virus strains too lethal to persist in unvaccinated populations, which would therefore have been removed by natural selection in the pre-vaccine era.
        The relaxation of natural selection against hyperpathogenic strains revealed by our experiments arises because vaccination enhances host survival. In serial passage experiments with a rodent malaria, immunity induced by whole parasite immunization [40] or vaccination with a recombinant antigen [10] also promoted the evolution of virulence. However, by design, those experiments did not allow host death to impact pathogen fitness, and so the evolution towards increased virulence was driven in a different way. Evidently, immunity in that system is disproportionately efficacious against less virulent strains. Our MDV experiments were not designed to test for within-host selection, but there is some suggestion that vaccine-induced immunity better controlled the replication of the least virulent strain (Figs 1 and S1). In principle, these two evolutionary pressures (within-host selection favouring virulent variants for their ability to evade immunity and vaccine-induced relaxation of between-host selection against virulence) could together generate very potent selection for more virulent strains [4]. Within-host competition between strains could add further selection for higher virulence [41,42].
        Vaccine failure in the face of virulent pathogens has been documented for at least two viruses other than MDV: feline calicivirus [43] and infectious bursal disease virus in poultry [44]. Both cases are also associated with long-term use of leaky anti-disease vaccines. Our data are also consistent with hypotheses purporting to explain virulence increases in two well-studied wildlife systems. First, strains of the poultry pathogen Mycoplasma gallisepticum in North American house finches have become increasingly virulent, probably due to the increasing incidence of partially immune birds after the bacterium emerged in finch populations in the 1990s [45]. Second, after well-documented declines in virulence following its release as a biocontrol agent in Australia, myxoma virus became increasingly virulent; that virulence evolution was most likely a consequence of increases in the genetic resistance and hence survival of wild rabbits in response to natural selection imposed by the virus [46]. In both cases, anti-disease protection induced by natural immunization (finches) or by genetic resistance (rabbits) prolonged the infectious periods of otherwise highly lethal strains. These cases and our data raise the prospect that a variety of disease mitigation technologies have the potential to drive virulence evolution, including disease-ameliorating drugs [7,47] or genetic enhancements of host resistance [48]. If these technologies prolong infectious periods of hyperpathogenic strains, as we have shown vaccination can, they too could create conditions favouring the emergence of highly lethal strains. This does not mean that such technologies should be avoided, particularly when alternative options are limited. Vaccination has massively reduced yield losses due to MD, despite the evolution [49]. However, when protecting all individuals is impossible, or evolution is ongoing, the use of additional transmission-blocking interventions such as improved hygiene might be essential.
        We suggest that the risk of outbreaks of hyperpathogenic strains be considered wherever disease interventions improve host survival without preventing pathogen transmission. Such situations might include vaccination against Newcastle disease [50] and avian influenza in poultry [51''53] and vaccination against Brucella in domesticated mammals [54], as well as genetic enhancement of agricultural animals including fish and poultry. Whether leaky human vaccines could also create the conditions in which more virulent strains can thrive will depend, among other things, on the selective factors currently preventing the emergence of hyperpathogenic strains in human populations. Our data emphasize that a comprehensive understanding of the impact of vaccines on pathogens cannot end with Phase III clinical trials or post-implementation studies of antigenic or serotype frequencies [2,4,10,55].
        Materials and MethodsVaccine and Challenge Virus StrainsThe HVT vaccine virus strain FC126 was second chick embryo fibroblast (CEF) passage stock from commercial HVT vaccine (Poulvac, Fort Dodge Animal Health). Commercial CVI988/Rispens vaccine virus (Nobilis Rismavac) was from Intervet. The challenge virus strains (seventh duck embryo fibroblast passage stocks) were a gift from Dr. A. M. Fadly (Avian Disease and Oncology Laboratory, United States). In the MDV literature, virulence (pathotype) is defined in terms of vaccine break-through [21,27,29], with virus strains categorized into pathotypes denoted as mild, virulent, very virulent, or very virulent plus (mMDV, vMDV, vvMDV, vv+MDV). In our experiments, we used up to five strains chosen to cover this spectrum. The strains were HPRS-B14, 571, 595, Md5, and 675A. HPRS-B14 has not been formally pathotyped, but would likely be categorised at the lower end of vMDV. The remaining four of these strains have been pathotyped as vMDV, vvMDV, vvMDV, and vv+MDV respectively [21]. Note, however, that for the purposes of the present paper, defining virulence in terms of vaccine resistance introduces semantic circularity. Consequently, in the main text and what follows here, we instead explicitly define (measure) virulence as lethality in immunologically na¯ve birds.
        For amplification of virus stocks, and to ensure there was no variation in virus passage history between experiments, 5-d-old Rhode Island Red (RIR) chickens were inoculated with 1,000 plaque forming units (pfu) of virus, via the intra-abdominal route. Lymphocytes isolated from spleens harvested at 14 d post infection (dpi) were cultured with primary CEF cells for 7 d, when cytopathic effect was clearly visible. The cells were passed two further times in CEF to produce virus stocks. The cell-associated virus stocks were titrated and stored in liquid nitrogen. CVI988/Rispens and HVT vaccines were administered via the subcutaneous route (neck), and challenge virus via the intra-abdominal route.
        Experimental Chickens and Experimental DesignAll studies and procedures involving animals were in strict accordance with the European and United Kingdom Home Office regulations and the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations 2012, under the authority of the Project Licenses PPL 30/2621 and PPL 30/3169. Birds were individually identifiable with wing bands and had access to water and a vegetable-based feed ad libitum. Any bird deemed to have reached the humane endpoint was culled. In the main text, the humane endpoint was taken as the time at which ''infection-induced death'' occurred. Chickens which reached the humane endpoint from 5''10 dpi (early mortality phase) showed a rapid onset of paralysis, disorientation, reluctance to feed, reluctance to move. and reduced weight gain. In our experience, this endpoint precedes natural death by less than two hours. Chickens which reached the humane endpoint from 15 dpi onwards showed a gradual onset of reluctance to feed, lethargy, and reduced weight gain. In our experience, this endpoint precedes death by up to 24 h. These endpoints, and our estimates of their timing with respect to viral-induced death, were arrived at from small-scale pilot experiments that determined the necessity for close monitoring because of the rapid onset of virus-induced death. Any bird that was found dead was reported to the UK Home Office. The majority of culled chickens showed enlarged spleen with gross lymphoid lesions. The prevalence of visceral lesions was broadly in line with those described by Witter (1997, his Table 4) for strains of corresponding pathotypes, despite differences in the breed and maternal antibody status of test chickens, and slight differences in the passage number of viral stocks.
        For Experiments 1''3, chickens of the outbred Rhode Island Red (RIR) breed were hatched from the eggs of specified-pathogen-free flocks maintained at The Pirbright Institute. Chicks hatched from the eggs of unvaccinated hens were considered free from maternally derived antibody against MDV, and are hereafter referred to as MtAb-neg chicks. Chicks having maternally derived antibody against MDV (MtAb-pos) were hatched from eggs collected from RIR hens 4''5 wk after these hens were vaccinated with one commercial dose of Nobilis Rismavac CVI988/Rispens MDV vaccine (Intervet).
        In Experiments 1''3, chicks were housed in positive pressure, high efficiency particulate air (HEPA)-filtered avian isolators (Controlled isolation Systems, US) within rooms in the Experimental Animal House at The Pirbright Institute, Compton. Chickens were monitored up to four times daily, and any chicken considered to have reached the humane endpoint was culled by cervical dislocation. When experiments were terminated, any surviving birds were culled. Post mortem examination was performed on all culled chickens and the presence or absence of gross Marek's disease lesions recorded.
        The isolators are designed to house 20 1-d-old chickens or five adult chickens. In groups in which mortality following infection was low, it was necessary to reduce crowding in an isolator at intervals, by culling some birds. In these cases, birds to be culled were randomly selected, and the number of infected and sentinel birds culled was arranged to maintain the appropriate infected:sentinel ratio. Any birds culled for the purposes of reducing crowding were not included in survival data calculations.
        For experiments 4a and b, commercial broiler breed chicks of the ''Aviagen slow growing broiler line'' were hatched from eggs supplied by Aviagen. Eggs were from CVI988/Rispens vaccinated hens, and therefore, all birds used were MtAb-pos as confirmed by ELISA (see below). We used different housing protocols for Experiment 4 from those adopted in Experiments 1''3 because regulatory requirements changed over the course of our studies, with work with adult birds in isolators becoming strongly discouraged. This meant we moved to floor-housing birds for at least part of Experiment 4, a condition that, anyway, more closely resembles housing conditions in the poultry industry. In Experiment 4a, birds were housed in isolators (as described above) until they were 35 d of age when groups were moved into floor pens within separate experimental rooms. Floor pens were constructed from metal barred caging panels that could have sections added to the layout to increase the pen area as birds became larger. Compressed straw pellets were used as bedding. In Experiment 4b, birds were housed within floor pens from 1 d of age in separate experimental rooms. To restrict the dissipation of dust and dander in first few weeks, the initial floor pen (measuring 1 m — 1 m) was partially contained using Perspex sheets attached to the wire caging to form a housing cube with open edges. As birds increased in size, additional non-Perspex covered cage sections were added to the initial cube to increase the pen area.
        Experiment 1: Effect of HVT-Vaccination on Shedding of Five Strains of MDVTwo hundred (n = 200) MtAb-neg 1-d-old chicks were randomly allocated to ten groups, each group of 20 chicks being housed in a separate isolator, with two isolators (A and B) per room (S1 Table). In each room, chicks in one isolator (A) were vaccinated with HVT at 1 d of age, while chicks in the second isolator (B) were not vaccinated. At 8 d post vaccination (dpv), all chicks were challenged with one of five strains of MDV, each strain being used to infect a group of unvaccinated chicks, and a group of HVT-vaccinated chicks (S1 Table). Doses of vaccine and challenge viruses were approximately 1000 pfu and 300''600 pfu per chicken, respectively.
        From each group, ten pre-selected chicks were feather-sampled [56,57] twice weekly until 55 dpi or until they reached the humane endpoint. Dust samples were also collected from each isolator twice weekly or until no chickens remained. Each time dust samples were taken, the pre-filter on the isolator air exhaust was removed and replaced with a new, clean filter. Within the isolator, the removed filters were shaken into a polythene bag to collect poultry ''dust,'' which was transferred to tubes and stored at ''20°C.
        Experiment 2: Effect of HVT-Vaccination on Transmission of Three Strains of MDVOne hundred and twenty (n = 120) MtAb-neg 1-d-old chicks were randomly allocated to six groups, each group of 20 chicks being housed in a separate isolator, and there being two isolators (A and B) per room (S2 Table). In each group, ten chickens were randomly selected to be the ''shedder'' birds (i.e., experimentally infected), while the remaining ten chickens were selected to be ''in-contact sentinel birds''. In one isolator from each room (A isolators), the shedder birds were vaccinated with HVT at one day of age. In B isolators, the shedder birds were not vaccinated. At 8 dpv all shedder birds were challenged with one of three strains of MDV. Sentinels were neither vaccinated nor challenged. Doses of vaccine and challenge viruses were approximately 2,750 pfu and 1,000''1,500 pfu per chicken, respectively.
        Sentinel birds are necessary to directly measure natural transmission rates, but once sentinels themselves become infectious, they make it difficult to determine how much virus is being shed by experimentally infected birds. For our studies of 675A, we therefore added two additional treatment groups (Groups 4A and 4B, S2 Table) by randomly allocating 20 (n = 20) additional MtAb-neg 1-d-old chicks to two additional isolators, with ten birds in one isolator being vaccinated as above (A isolator), and the ten in the other isolator not being vaccinated (B isolator). All 20 of those additional birds were then experimentally infected at 8 dpv, as above. The existence of these two extra groups allowed us to estimate the viral shedding rates for birds experimentally infected with 675A without any issue of viral contamination from sentinels. We did not, however, have the resources to run analogous extra groups for Md5 or 595, and so the dust data for those strains (S2 Fig) includes dust shed from sentinel birds, which may contain virus after about 20 d post-experimental infection, when the first sentinels began to become infectious (Fig 2, S2 Fig).
        Feather samples were collected from every shedder bird cohoused with sentinels twice weekly until 52 dpi or until they reached the humane endpoint. From 3 d onwards, at the same time points unless there were none alive, 150 Î¼L blood samples were collected from every sentinel into 3% sodium citrate. At the same times, dust was collected and stored as described above. For the analysis of the 675A data, we used the survival data for all 20 experimentally infected birds of identical vaccine status (i.e., pooling the relevant data from the Group 1 and Group 4 isolators), the dust data (S2 Fig panel B) from the Group 4 isolators and the feather data (S2 Fig panel A) from the Group 1 isolators (groups defined in S2 Table).
        Experiment 3: Effect of Maternally Derived Antibody on Shedding and Transmission of Two Strains of MDVSixty (n = 60) MtAb-neg 1-d-old chicks and 60 MtAb-pos 1-d-old chicks were randomly allocated to groups, each group being housed in a separate isolator, and there being two isolators (A, containing 20 chicks, and B, containing ten chicks) per room (S3 Table). In A isolators, ten chickens were randomly selected to be shedder birds (i.e., experimentally infected), while the remaining ten chickens were selected to be in-contact sentinels. At 9 d of age, all shedder birds were challenged with one of two strains of MDV; sentinels were not challenged. In each B isolator, all ten chickens were challenged with one of two strains of MDV, and these isolators were used for collection of dust so that shedding of MDV from ten infected chickens could be accurately determined without ''dilution'' by dust from non-infected sentinels. Doses of challenge viruses were 100''500 pfu per chicken.
        Blood (150 Î¼L) was collected from five pre-selected chickens from each of the B isolators prior to challenge. Serum was stored at ''20°C. Feather samples were collected from every shedder bird in the A isolators twice weekly until 52 dpi or until they reached the humane endpoint. From 3 dpi onwards, blood samples were collected from every sentinel bird at these same time-points (or until such time that no chickens remained). At each of the above time-points (or until such time that no chickens remained), dust was collected from B isolators and stored as described above.
        All tested chickens from the MtAb-neg group were negative for anti-MDV antibody (assayed by ELISA; see below), while all tested chickens from the MtAb-pos group were positive for maternal antibody.
        Experiments 4a and b: Transmission between Commercial BirdsIn both Experiments 4a and 4b, 40 (n = 40) commercial broiler breed chicks were hatched from eggs produced by CVI988/Rispens vaccinated hens and therefore all were MtAb positive. The basic experimental design for Experiments 4a and b was the same; four test groups of age-matched chicks; two groups acting as MtAb-pos, HVT vaccinated, experimentally infected shedder birds housed independently with one of two groups of MtAb-pos sentinel birds that differed in their vaccination status, i.e., either HVT vaccinated or not (see S4 Table).
        In both Experiments 4a and 4b, 40 1-d-old chicks were randomly placed into four groups across four isolators (S4 Table). In each experiment, all birds except the ten within each unvaccinated sentinel group were vaccinated with approximately 1,500 pfu HVT FC126 via the subcutaneous route at one day of age. At 8 d of age, the two groups serving as shedders were challenged with approximately 725 pfu of vv+ MDV 675A via the intra-abdominal route. Blood (150 Î¼L) and feather samples were collected twice weekly from all birds until 21 dpi and thereafter weekly. Dust samples were collected weekly from the housing air extract filters, as above.
        Preparation of DNA and Real-Time PCR for PBL, Feather, and Dust SamplesViral titres were assayed indirectly by PCR as follows. Peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) and feather tip samples were prepared as previously described [56,57]. Each dust sample was measured into triplicate 5 mg aliquots. Total DNA was prepared from each PBL, feather and dust sample using a DNeasy-96 kit (Qiagen), according to the manufacturers' instructions for extraction of DNA from cells (PBL) or from tissues (feather tips and dust). Real-time quantitative duplex PCR (q-PCR) to amplify the MDV-1 meq gene and the chicken ovotransferrin (ovo) reference gene was used for absolute quantification of MDV genomes as previously described [56]. This assay does not detect HVT vaccine virus. All reactions using feather tips or dust samples as target DNA contained 10 Î¼g bovine serum albumin to overcome the inhibitory effect of melanin pigment [56]. Standard curves, prepared using 10-fold serial dilutions of DNA from MDV1-infected CEF (for meq reaction) and non-infected CEF (for ovo reaction) and accurately calibrated against plasmid constructs of known target gene copy number, were used to quantify MDV genomes per 104 cells or per Î¼g dust.
        Measurement of Maternally-Derived Antibody against MDVEnzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was performed to measure maternally derived antibody against MDV in serum samples from hatched chicks [58]. Serum samples were tested in duplicate at 1:100 dilution on ELISA plates coated with MDV-infected or non-infected cell lysates. Serum from a non-infected chicken was used as a negative-control, and serum from an MDV1-infected chicken as a positive control.
        Statistical AnalysesAll data and the R code used to create all the figures are deposited in the Dryad repository: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4tn48 [59].
        For groups of chickens, mean values for virus genome copy number for PBL, feather tips or dust, were determined using the log10 transformed copy number for each individual sample. For feather tip data, 95% c.i. of the means were calculated using the t-distribution. For dust data, 95% c.i. of the mean data were approximated as ±2 standard errors. Plotted values of virus concentration in dust are for samples based on the cumulative dust shed since the previous plotted sample (when filters were last changed). For each sentinel chicken, the time at which MDV was first detected in PBL by qPCR (time to positivity) was recorded. Time to positivity was taken as the first sampling time at which the q-PCR Meq Ct value was <40 for successive time-points. Statistical comparisons of survival or time to positivity were made using the Mantel-Cox test applied to Kaplan-Meier survival curves plotted using GraphPad Prism v5.
        To assess transmission potential, a key component of viral fitness, we calculated the cumulative virus genome copy number (VCN) shed rate over the lifetime of an infection. Cumulative VCN shed is a good proxy for transmission potential because virus shed from feather follicles is the only source of infectious MDV, and because MDV-contaminated dust remains infectious for many months [16''18]. Cumulative VCN shed can be uniquely determined from three components; the dust shed from a bird over time, the concentration of VCN per unit shed dust over time, and the lifespan of an infection. We directly measured the latter two values in Experiments 1''3, and the former value has been previously estimated [28]. Details of how we used these measures to calculate cumulative VCN are given in S1 Protocol.
        In Experiment 4, we estimated viral genome concentration in feather follicles of sentinel birds. Because these birds were co-housed with experimentally infected birds, virus-negative feather shafts can become contaminated with dust from infected birds. We therefore set quantitative thresholds for virus positivity in feather pulp, as described in S2 Protocol. Duration of infectious period (Fig 4D) was taken as the time from when viral titres first exceeded this threshold until bird death.
        Supporting InformationS1 Fig. Vaccination suppresses but prolongs viral replication in the feather tips of experimentally infected birds.Experiment 1. Groups of 20 Rhode Island Red chickens that were unvaccinated (dotted lines) or HVT-vaccinated (solid lines) at 1 d of age and challenged with viral strains HPRS-B14 (black), 571 (purple), 595 (green), Md5 (blue), or 675A (red) 8 d later. Virus genome copy numbers were estimated by qPCR from the pulp of feathers plucked from individual birds. Error bars are 95% c.i. of the mean. Large error bars are from time points where few birds remained alive. Raw data can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4tn48.
        https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198.s001
        (EPS)
        S2 Fig. Vaccination suppresses but prolongs viral replication in the feather tips of experimentally infected birds, increasing total viral genomes shed into the environment.Experiment 2. Groups of 20 Rhode Island Red chickens were unvaccinated (dotted lines, light shading) or HVT-vaccinated (solid lines, dark shading) at 1 d of age and challenged with one of our three most virulent viral strains 595 (green), Md5 (blue), or 675A (red) 8 d later. Top panel shows virus replication in the feather follicles, middle panel shows virus concentration in dust collected from isolator filters, and lower panel shows estimates of cumulative viral genomes shed from an experimentally infected bird. Error bars and shaded areas are 95% c.i. of the mean. Note that estimates of cumulative viral genomes shed from vaccinated 595- and Md5-infected birds are biased upwards after around day 20, when sentinels began to shed virus (see Methods and S2 Protocol for discussion). Raw data can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4tn48.
        https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198.s002
        (EPS)
        S3 Fig. Maternal vaccination prolongs the replication of the most virulent strain of MDV in feather tips of infected chicks and hence shedding.Experiment 3. Groups of ten unvaccinated chicks produced by hens that were Rispens-vaccinated (solid lines) or not (dotted lines) were infected with viral strains HPRS-B14 (black) or 675A (red). Viral genome concentration in feather follicles (top panel) and in dust (bottom panel). Error bars are 95% c.i. of the mean. Large error bars in top panel are from time points where only two birds remained alive; after day 41, only one unvaccinated HPRS-B14-infected bird remained alive and so there are no error bars. Raw data can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4tn48.
        https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002198.s003
        (EPS)
        AcknowledgmentsWe thank A. Fadly (ADOL-USDA) for virus strains; Aviagen for eggs; staff of the Animal Services Department of The Pirbright Institute for provision of chicks and subsequent husbandry; A. Morrow (DEFRA) for triggering all this; C. Morrow (previously of Aviagen) for introducing AFR to the poultry industry; K. Crouch for initial experimental work; K. Atkins, T. Day, P. Dunn, S. Gandon, M. Mackinnon, S. Nee, and members of the Research and Policy in Infectious Disease Dynamics program of the Science and Technology Directorate, Department of Homeland Security, and the Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, for discussion; and K. Atkins, C. Jackson, P. Kerr, C. Morrow, and R. Woods for comments on the manuscript.
        Author ContributionsConceived and designed the experiments: AFR SJB CP LPS SWWB VKN. Performed the experiments: SJB CP LBK LB LPS. Analyzed the data: AFR SJB CP DAK. Wrote the paper: AFR SJB CP DAK. Conceived the study and raised the funding: AFR VKN.
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View Article Google Scholar 50. van Boven M, Bouma A, Fabri THF, Katsma E, Hartog L, Koch G (2008) Herd immunity to Newcastle disease virus in poultry by vaccination. Avian Pathology 37: 1''5. pmid:18202943 View Article PubMed/NCBI Google Scholar 51. Pantin-Jackwood M, Suarez D (2013) Vaccination of domestic ducks against H5N1 HPAI: a review. Virus Res 5: 21''34. View Article Google Scholar 52. Desvaux S, Grosbois V, Pham T, Dao D, Nguyen T, Fenwick S, et al. (2013) Evaluation of the vaccination efficacy against H5N1 in domestic poultry in the Red River Delta in Vietnam. Epidemiol Infect 141: 776''788. pmid:22846369 View Article PubMed/NCBI Google Scholar 53. Savill NJ, St Rose SG, Keeling MJ, Woolhouse MEJ (2006) Silent spread of H5N1 in vaccinated poultry. Nature 442: 757''757. pmid:16915278 View Article PubMed/NCBI Google Scholar 54. Moreno E (2014) Retrospective and prospective perspectives on zoonotic brucellosis. Frontiers Microbiol 5: 213 doi: 210.3389/fmicb.2014.00213. View Article Google Scholar 55. Fraser C, Lythgoe K, Leventhal GE, Shirreff G, Hollingsworth TD, Alizon S, et al. (2014) Virulence and pathogenesis of HIV-1 infection: An evolutionary perspective. Science 343: View Article Google Scholar 56. Baigent SJ, Petherbridge LJ, Howes K, Smith LP, Currie RJW, Nair V (2005) Absolute quantification of Marek's disease virus genome copy number in chicken feather and lymphocyte samples using real-time PCR. J Virol Meth 123: 53''64. View Article Google Scholar 57. Baigent SJ, Smith LP, Currie RJW, Nair VK (2005) Replication kinetics of Marek's disease vaccine virus in feathers and lymphoid tissues using PCR and virus isolation. J Gen Virol 86: 2989''2998. pmid:16227220 View Article PubMed/NCBI Google Scholar 58. Zelnik V, Harlin O, Fehler F, Kaspers B, Gobel TW, Nair VK, et al. (2004) An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for detection of Marek's disease virus-specific antibodies and its application in an experimental vaccine trial. Journal of Veterinary Medicine Series B-Infectious Diseases and Veterinary Public Health 51: 61''67. View Article Google Scholar 59. Read AF, Baigent SJ, Powers C, Kgosana LB, Blackwell L, Smith LP, et al. (2014) Data from: Imperfect vaccination can enhance the transmission of highly virulent pathogens. Dryad Digital Repository. http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4tn48. View Article Google Scholar 60. Bolch BW (1968) More on unbiased estimation of the standard deviation. Am Statistician 22: 27. View Article Google Scholar 61. Baigent SJ, Kgosana LB, Gamawa AA, Smith LP, Read AF, Nair VK (2013) Relationship between levels of very virulent MDV in poultry dust and in feather tips from vaccinated chickens. Avian Dis 57: 440''447. pmid:23901759 View Article PubMed/NCBI Google Scholar '‚ Related PLOS Articles has COMPANION The Need for Evolutionarily Rational Disease Interventions: Vaccination Can Select for Higher Virulence View Page PDF
      VAERS Latest Data Include 2 New Reports of Teen Deaths Following COVID Vaccine, as Total Reports of Deaths Exceed 12,000 ' Children's Health Defense
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        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 14:07
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        Data released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed the total number of reports (including foreign and U.S.) of deaths following COVID vaccination, across all age groups, surpassed 12,000.
        The data comes directly from reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.
        Every Friday, VAERS makes public all vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date, usually about a week prior to the release date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed.
        Data released today show that between Dec. 14, 2020 and July 30, 2021, a total of 545,338 total adverse events were reported to VAERS, including 12,366 deaths '-- an increase of 426 over the previous week. There were 70,105 reports of serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period '-- up 7,003 compared with the previous week.
        Excluding ''foreign reports'' filed in VAERS, 443,201 adverse events, including 5,739 deaths and 35,881 serious injuries, were reported in the U.S.
        In the U.S., 344.9 million COVID vaccine doses had been administered as of July 30. This includes: 139 million doses of Moderna's vaccine, 193 million doses of Pfizer and 13 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID vaccine.
        Of the 5,739 U.S. deaths reported as of July 30, 13% occurred within 24 hours of vaccination, 19% occurred within 48 hours of vaccination and 34% occurred in people who experienced an onset of symptoms within 48 hours of being vaccinated.
        This week's U.S. data for 12- to 17-year-olds show:
        15,741 total adverse events, including 947 rated as serious and 18 reported deaths. Two of the nine deaths were suicides.The most recent reported deaths include a 15-year-old boy (VAERS I.D. 1498080) who previously had COVID, was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy in May 2021 and died four days after receiving his second dose of Pfizer's vaccine on June 18, when he collapsed on the soccer field and went into ventricular tachycardia; and a 13-year-old girl (VAERS I.D. 1505250) who died after suffering a heart condition after receiving her first dose of Pfizer.
        Other deaths include two 13-year-old boys (VAERS I.D. 1406840 and 1431289) who died two days after receiving a Pfizer vaccine, a 13-year-old boy who died after receiving Moderna (VAERS I.D. 1463061), three 15-year-olds (VAERS I.D. 1187918, 1382906 and 1242573), five 16-year-olds (VAERS I.D. 1420630, 1466009, 1225942, 1475434, and 1386841) and three 17-year-olds (VAERS I.D. 1199455, 1388042 and 1420762).2,323 reports of anaphylaxis among 12- to 17-year-olds with 99% of casesattributed to Pfizer's vaccine.406 reports of myocarditis and pericarditis (heart inflammation) with 402 cases attributed to Pfizer's vaccine.77 reports of blood clotting disorders, with all cases attributed to Pfizer.This week's total U.S. VAERS data, from Dec. 14, 2020 to July 30, 2021, for all age groups combined, show:
        21% of deaths were related to cardiac disorders.54% of those who died were male, 43% were female and the remaining death reports did not include gender of the deceased.The average age of death was 73.2.As of July 30, 2,636 pregnant women reported adverse events related to COVID vaccines, including 912 reports of miscarriage or premature birth.Of the 2,533 cases of Bell's Palsy reported, 50% were attributed to Pfizer vaccinations, 43% to Moderna and 6% to J&J.483 reports of Guillain-Barr(C) Syndrome, with 40% of cases attributed to Pfizer, 35% to Moderna and 24% to J&J.121,452 reports of anaphylaxis with 44% of cases attributed to Pfizer's vaccine, 48% to Moderna and 8% to J&J.8,048 reports of blood clotting disorders. Of those, 3,428 reports were attributed to Pfizer, 2,910 reports to Moderna and 1,665 reports to J&J.2,018 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis with 1,275 cases attributed to Pfizer, 667 cases to Moderna and 71 cases to J&J's COVID vaccine.FDA eyes full approval of Pfizer vaccine by early next month
        The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accelerated its timeline to fully approve Pfizer's COVID vaccine '-- planning to complete the process by the beginning of September, people familiar with the effort told The New York Times.
        President Biden said last week he expected a fully approved vaccine in early fall. But the FDA's unofficial deadline is Labor Day or sooner, according to The Times.
        The agency said in a statement its leaders recognized approval might inspire more public confidence and had ''taken an all-hands-on-deck approach'' to the work.
        The FDA's move is expected to kick off more vaccination mandates for hospital workers, college students and federal troops.
        Federal regulators have been under growing public pressure to fully approve Pfizer's vaccine ever since the company filed its application on May 7.
        Vaccinated may play key role in aiding evolution of more dangerous COVID variants
        According to research published last week in Scientific Reports, vaccinated people may play a key role in helping SARS-CoV-2 variants evolve into those that evade existing COVID vaccines.
        Researchers identified three specific risk factors that favor the emergence and establishment of a vaccine-resistant strain. They are: a high probability of initial emergence of the resistant strain; a high number of infected individuals; and a low rate of vaccination.
        However, the analysis also showed the highest risk for establishing a vaccine-resistant strain occurs when a large fraction of the population has already been vaccinated but the transmission is not controlled.
        ''When most people are vaccinated, the vaccine-resistant strain has an advantage over the original strain,'' Simon Rella of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria, told CNN. ''This means the vaccine-resistant strain spreads through the population faster at a time when most people are vaccinated.''
        The data is consistent with a study released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which showed vaccinated people may transmit the Delta variant '-- now responsible for 80% of COVID cases in the U.S. '-- just as easily as the unvaccinated.
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        Delta variant more transmissible, not more deadly
        As The Defender reported Aug. 3, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said they are still trying to understand why the Delta variant is more transmissible than the original COVID virus strain.
        As COVID'--especially Delta variant'--surges among fully vaccinated, Brian Hooker, Ph.D., said the more variant deviates from original sequence used for vaccine, the less effective vaccine will be on variant.
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        ''There are certain mutations in the Delta variant that, for example, allow the virus to adhere to a cell more easily,'' said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO'S technical lead on COVID, at a press briefing July 30. ''There are some laboratory studies that suggest that there's increased replication in some of the modeled human airway systems.''
        The CDC warned lawmakers July 29 of new research indicating the Delta strain is more contagious than chickenpox. The variant also appears to have a longer transmission window than the original COVID strain, and may make older people sicker, even if they've been fully vaccinated, CNBC reported.
        Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E., Children's Health Defense chief scientific officer and professor of biology at Simpson University, said while the Delta variant is likely more transmissible, it's also likely less pathogenic.
        ''What we're seeing is virus evolution 101,'' Hooker said.
        He explained:
        ''Viruses like to survive, so killing the host (i.e. the human who is infected) defeats the purpose because killing the host kills the virus, too.
        ''For this reason, new variants of viruses that circulate widely through the population tend to become more transmissive but less pathogenic. In other words, they will spread more easily from person to person, but they will cause less damage to the host.''
        Hooker said the more the variant deviates from the original sequence used for the vaccine, the less effective the vaccine will be on that variant, which could explain why fully vaccinated people are getting infected with the Delta variant.
        But this isn't the case for natural immunity, Hooker explained:
        ''The vaccine focuses on the spike protein, whereas natural immunity focuses on the entire virus. Natural immunity '-- with a more diverse array of antibodies and T-cell receptors '-- will provide better protection overall as it has more targets in which to attack the virus, whereas vaccine-derived immunity only focuses on one portion of the virus, in this case, the spike protein. Once that portion of the virus has mutated sufficiently, the vaccine no longer is effective.''
        Offspring band boots drummer for refusing to get vaccinated
        Pete Parada, drummer for the Californian rock band Offspring, said he was ousted from the band because he refused to get a COVID vaccine, despite having already had COVID and acquiring natural immunity.
        In an Instagram post, Parada said:
        ''Since I am unable to comply with what is increasingly becoming an industry mandate, it has recently been decided that I am unsafe to be around, in the studio and on tour. I mention this because you won't be seeing me at these upcoming shows. I also want to share my story so that anyone else experiencing the agony and isolation of getting left behind right now knows they're not entirely alone.''
        Parada, who had COVID more than a year ago, said he was medically advised not to take the vaccine due to his ''personal medical history and the side-effect profile'' of COVID vaccines.
        Parada has a history of Guillain''Barr(C) syndrome (GBS), a serious but rare autoimmune disorder linked to multiple vaccines, including COVID vaccines.
        Parada said he was confident he could handle the virus again, but he could not handle another round of post-vaccination GBS, which dates back to his childhood and has become progressively worse over his lifetime.
        In a series of tweets, Parada said he unequivocally supports informed consent '-- ''which necessitates choice unburdened by coercion'' '-- and does not find it ''ethical or wise'' to allow those with the most power, including government, corporations, organizations or employers to ''dictate medical procedures to those with the least power.''
        Nation's largest employers mandate COVID vaccines
        Some of the nation's largest employers are mandating COVID vaccines, The New York Times reported this week.
        Tyson Foods this week told its 120,000 workers in offices, slaughterhouses and poultry plants across the country they would need to be vaccinated by Nov. 1, as a ''condition of employment.''
        Microsoft, which employs roughly 100,000 people in the U.S., said it would require proof of vaccination for all employees, vendors and guests to gain access to its offices.
        Last week, Google said it would require employees who returned to the company's offices to be vaccinated, while Disney announced a mandate for all salaried and non-union hourly workers who work on site.
        Walmart, the largest private employer in the U.S, Lyft and Uber mandated vaccines for white-collar workers but not for millions of frontline workers.
        The moves brought praise from the White House.
        ''I want to thank Walmart, Google, Netflix, Disney, Tyson Foods for their recent actions requiring vaccination for employees,'' President Biden said in a press briefing on Tuesday. ''Look, I know this isn't easy '-- but I will have their backs.''
        ''Others have declined to step up,'' Biden said. ''I find it disappointing.''
        151 days and counting, CDC ignores The Defender's inquiries
        According to the CDC website, ''the CDC follows up on any report of death to request additional information and learn more about what occurred and to determine whether the death was a result of the vaccine or unrelated.''
        On March 8, The Defender contacted the CDC with a written list of questions about reported deaths and injuries related to COVID vaccines. We have made repeated attempts, by phone and email, to obtain a response to our questions.
        Despite multiple phone and email communications with many people at the CDC, and despite being told that our request was in the system and that someone would respond, we have not yet received answers to any of the questions we submitted. It has been 144 days since we sent our first email to the CDC requesting information.
        Children's Health Defense asks anyone who has experienced an adverse reaction, to any vaccine, to file a report following these three steps.
      Well, Duh. This Is Why It Was Stupid in [Market-Ticker-Nad]
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        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 13:17
        Well, Duh. This Is Why It Was Stupid*
        I warned everyone.
        Now even CNN is on it, although they (like SAGE) think we're smarter than nature -- and evolution.
        They write that some variants that have emerged over the past few months "show a reduced susceptibility to vaccine-acquired immunity, though none appears to escape entirely."
        But they caution that these variants emerged "before vaccination was widespread," and that "as vaccines become more widespread, the transmission advantage gained by a virus that can evade vaccine-acquired immunity will increase."
        In a word: Duh .
        I know I've been banging on this drum since Covid-19 started but it is no-less important today, especially in the context of holding people accountable for killing several hundred thousand Americans and the economic destruction they brought upon the nation.
        To be sterilizing a vaccine must prevent infection . Since you never get infected you never replicate the virus and thus do not shed it. If you do not shed it the potential path of the viral life-cycle for that particular infection ends with you and thus you cannot pass on or cause a mutation. You are sterile against that disease; from the point of view of the virus you are a lifeless rock. Among commonly-used sterilizing vaccines are MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), Varicella (chicken pox), OPV (oral polio) and others. The only time that such a vaccine fails is when you do not build immunity (such as due to immune compromise.) This is extremely rare and the protection from such vaccines tends to be either decades-long or lifetime.
        A vaccine that is not sterilizing permits the virus to infect you and replicate and as a result you can infect others. Technically it is not a vaccine at all (which by definition prevents infection); it is a prophylactic therapy. Such a "vaccine" instead acts to reduce or eliminate symptomatic disease. You don't know you're sick and you don't get sick. You don't go to the hospital and you don't die. Unfortunately since you don't know you're sick but are infected and the virus is both replicating in you and shedding you are more-likely to spread the infection to others. All of the current Covid jabs are in this category and so is, for that matter IPV (injected polio vaccine -- the original Salk discovery.)
        During the original vaccine trials in the summer and fall of 2020 they deliberately did not test any of the recipients for asymptomatic infections. Only a person who developed a significant illness was tested. This has continued post roll-out with the CDC specifying that a close contact of a known case who was vaccinated did not need to quarantine or be tested until and unless they became symptomatic. They knew damn well, in other words, that the jabs were not sterilizing but did not want that data up for public debate because then those who have read history would be likely to make the connection to the present day and thus they did their level best to hide it. That has now blown up in their face with it being conclusively known that jabbed people in fact not only get infected but spread the virus to others.
        The problem with non-sterilizing vaccines is simply this: There is no safe means of mass-use of non-sterilizing vaccines so long as transmission within the community does or is likely to exist.
        Ever.
        There are no exceptions.
        This was known to public health officials and virologists seventy years ago and is why the United States used both IPV (injected polio vaccine) and OPV (oral polio vaccine) in sequence for polio until the 1990s. OPV produced sterilizing immunity but IPV did not. OPV had a very small (but non-zero, about 1 in a million) risk of causing polio because it was a codon-deoptimized live virus which, on rare occasion, would mutate back to its virulent form in the human body. So to mitigate that risk you got IPV first in the US (to prevent systemic infection; this was non-sterilizing ), then OPV which is sterilizing -- that is, it prevents not only getting sick from polio but also replicating and shedding the virus, thus giving it to others along with preventing the promotion of mutations that WILL eventually escape the vaccine .
        Had we done with polio what we're doing now with Covid -- IPV (non-sterilizing) use only with virus circulating in the United States -- it is very likely the virus would have mutated, escaped the vaccine and killed millions in America. Every single so-called expert knows damn well why we didn't do that with polio and how dangerous it is to attempt it. Indeed where polio still circulates but money is scarce they use OPV only (which is sterilizing) and accept the risk of the rare but possible active case it can cause for this exact reason.
        Again: This is not a "new idea"; it was in fact the only rational path of action and known decades ago, forming the very basis of our polio vaccination strategy. This combination strategy was necessary for polio but not for measles, for example, as the measles vaccine is sterilizing.
        ONLY A STERILIZING VACCINE IS SAFE TO USE ON A MASS POPULATION BASIS WHEN A PARTICULAR PATHOGEN IS CIRCULATING IN THE ENVIRONMENT.
        THIS IS NOT THEORY -- IT IS DECADES-OLD KNOWN MEDICAL FACT.
        In addition natural infection with Covid-19 is sterilizing. Being infected and recovering conserves the nasal and respiratory mucosal response which is where the virus enters the body. Natural infection also conveys both "N" (nucleocapsid) and "S" (spike) antibody knowledge and T-cell recognition but the "N" knowledge is much stronger as coronaviruses have evolved to evade the immune system with the "S" portion through millions of years. This is why they can infect you in the first place. The "S" portion undergoes mutation at a quite-rapid rate while the "N" portion is conserved. It was thus expected that prior infection would lead to durable (years to decades) of resistance and indeed that's exactly what we have found thus far. Indeed in a small study it was found that this recognition extended to the bone marrow in a large percentage of cases and in those people is likely to confer decades-long if not lifetime protection. This is not true for "S" induced immunity as it wanes rapidly and, far worse that is where the mutation is taking place and thus where escape risk lies.
        It was acceptable to issue EUAs for potentially non-sterilizing jabs to be used only by very high-risk individuals -- such as those in nursing homes -- with the understanding that they will fail to provide anywhere close to complete protection and might , over time potentiate worse outcomes. But with actual informed consent and on a l imited, not population-wide basis , that was defensible. This, of course, leaves aside the adverse event risk -- which we also know is much higher in these jabs, by a factor of 100x or more, than we have ever tolerated in any mass-use shot before.
        It was ridiculously and grossly negligent entering into the territory of depraved indifference to mass-vaccinate the population with non-sterilizing jabs. We knew very early on that eradicating Covid-19 was impossible; there are animal reservoirs, specifically felines (of all sorts), ferrets and likely others (now believed to include deer.) We have never eradicated rabies and never will for this reason; as long as there are animal reservoirs you cannot eradicate a virus as it always has a host and a means of transmission outside of human control.
        As such there was never, and will never be, a safe means to use non-sterilizing vaccines against this virus or any other coronavirus and the more jabs we deliver and attempt to compel the use of the worse the problem will get.
        Eventually we are very likely to get a mutation that entirely evades the jabs. That mutation will be caused by those who are jabbed since they are the only ones placing such mutational pressure on the virus. An unvaccinated person who gets infected places no such mutational pressure on the virus where a vaccinated person not only does they provide the exact pathway that virologists use to intentionally select for more-transmissible, virile or both mutations -- serial passage through cells that does not kill the host .
        What is potentially worse is that there is a developing body of evidence that those who previously had Covid and then get vaccinated may destroy their "N" protein recognition by doing so, ruining their previous nearly-perfect immunity. That we did not specifically prove that this did not happen before giving these shots to anyone with prior infection is outrageous. While the data on this is quite thin at present that there is a higher breakthrough rate in persons with prior infection than those who were infected but did not get vaccinated is what the data currently shows, which strongly implies that vaccination after infection actually screws you .
        The people who did all of this did so intentionally either by willful blindness or worse, with actual knowledge -- and the so-called "public health" authorities who continue to push this instead of banning it are intentionally doing so as well. Vander**** is just one example of this insanity but hardly alone -- Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Mayo, Cleveland -- they all know this is true, never mind the researchers at Ft. Detrick, the CDC and NIH.
        Until and unless we prove a vaccine against Covid (or anything else that is circulating) is sterilizing it cannot be safely used on a mass-population basis. That's the beginning and end of the discussion. There are no exceptions, ever, period. This was not even attempted to be demonstrated in the summer and fall 2020 Covid vaccine trials as the time period was too short to do so. We now know, factually that in fact there are zero sterilizing and effective options among the vaccines in use -- whether here in the US or otherwise.
        The only means to combat a pathogen absent sterilizing vaccination is to hit infections early and hard with whatever you have for the purpose of reducing viral load so as to produce durable, sterilizing immunity via infection . If you reduce viral load you reduce both the risk of pathology seriously injuring or killing the infected person and also reduce the forward transmission rate, Rt, of said virus.
        Only sterilizing immunity cuts off mutation and exerting mutational pressure via non-sterilizing vaccines not only promotes mutation by removing the signal an infected person has to self-isolate and reduce transmission risk (since you don't feel ill) it nudges the virus toward codons that will escape the protection in whole or part.
        In small groups of particularly high risk a non-sterilizing vaccine may be worth it but any use of one raises the risk of mutational escape and thus while attempting to protect that small group you may screw others. Attempting to accurately determine who "deserves" to get protected while someone else gets screwed is a discussion that damn well ought to take place out in public as it is the public at large that is the recipient of the screwing if it occurs!
        There remains a risk that drug resistance may arise which is why multi-drug regimes are important. As an example HCQ+Ivermectin which was formally registered as a trial and then never actually run, is (among other options) one such potential approach.
        When it comes to respiratory viruses as was the case with polio you need immunity via whatever source to take hold at the point of both entry and emission by an infected person . This is why OPV worked on a sterilizing basis for polio where IPV did not. IPV was injected; OPV was consumed. As a result OPV produced mucosal immunity in the gut and thus prevented both colonization and forward transmission. IPV, on the other hand, prevented symptomatic disease in the person immunized but did not express sufficiently in the gut mucosa to prevent infection, shedding and transmission.
        THE SAME APPLIES HERE WITH THE COVID JABS AND FOR THIS REASON THEY ARE AND ALWAYS WILL BE DANGEROUS, PROMOTING MUTATION AND ULTIMATELY VIRAL ESCAPE.
        If you get Covid and beat it since the point of entry is your respiratory mucosa you have strong and broad resistance focused there . That's sterilizing in more than 9 out of 10 persons and far more-durable than jab-based immunity as well. That is what the data tells us.
        It is wildly superior to a non-sterilizing vaccine because you are not only very unlikely to get the virus again you are also nearly-certain to be unable to infect anyone else if you do. This and only this is what cuts off mutational pressure.
        It's too late now; we're stuck with the stupid, particularly all the screaming harpies who went out and got jabbed despite being at very low risk of serious outcomes themselves, turning themselves into literal gain-of-function labs for the virus. If you took the jab, in short, unless you were at very high risk and thus it was justified on a personal mitigation basis you are, in fact, part of the body of individuals that are placing evolutionary pressure on the virus to evolve and ultimately evade the protection and screw not just others but you as well.
        Those who are claiming "well, I got jabbed, I got infected, but it would have been much worse if I didn't get jabbed" are the worst of the psychotics. First, the majority of Covid-19 infections are asymptomatic according to the CDC itself. Indeed they claim at least six people get infected for each detected infection. You may well have moved yourself from "I sneezed" to "I got pretty damned sick" by taking the shot. You don't know. But worse is that by taking the jab and then getting infected anyway you have now not just become a potential mutational factory you are one of the people causing what will ultimately become viral escape and the screwing of yourself and others because by definition if you got sick after vaccination the virus got into your system, it has now proved whatever occurred in you evaded the protection you had and then was emitted back out where others can catch it from you after that evasion took place.
        You were either the mutational factory or an intermediate host that screws the next person you share the love with!
        Not only did your protection against fail but, much worse, it's possible that said screwing will be enhanced by whatever residual antibody titer you may have since binding antibodies, if present (and which you intentionally put into your system) will still be present. Even more-seriously you put the spike protein and thus the antibody response not in your nose and throat but in your blood vessels and other organs where they can cause the exact disease progression that occurs when Covid-19 kills people. If you get a "break though" infection I hope you have your d-Dimer levels immediately checked because if not you may be a walking heart attack or stroke somewhere in the not-so-distant future with no other warning as a direct result of intentionally loading your body full of "protection" in the wrong place.
        This, and only this, is why I will not consent to such a jab under any circumstances until and unless there is hard science showing that a sterilizing option exists . That one, assuming the risk profile is reasonable, is one I might consider. Said jab today does not exist anywhere in the United States and I'm unaware of any scientific work showing that any of the current jabs are sterilizing irrespective of where they are manufactured and sold.
        Without sterilizing immunization against this disease the only sane approach is to attempt to interdict the progress of disease at first suspicion and evidence of infection instead.
        I am capable of reading both history and scientific papers, I know I'm right, the CDC, NIH, Vander****, Mayo, Cleveland and Johns Hopkins also knew for decades that I'm right and they have either all turned what formerly were scientific organizations into politically-driven soy-boy pieces of worthless and even harmful crap or, much worse, they're deliberately lying .
        If you were among the conned the only remaining question is what are you going to do with and to those who conned you?
        Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of "You're ****ed, fool."
      New guidance on vaccines and COVID testing for feds and contractors
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Source: FCW: The business of federal technology
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 12:45
        Workforce
        By Natalie AlmsAug 06, 2021The White House-led Safer Federal Workforce Taskforce issued additional question and answer style guidance on Friday addressing how exactly the recently-released vaccination and testing requirements will be carried out.
        The new information reflects policies laid down last week requiring feds to either be vaccinated or abide by strict masking and distancing protocols. This marked a reverse of previous task force guidance instructing agencies not to inquire about their employees' vaccination status.
        "Given the different safety protocols for individuals who are fully vaccinated and those who are not fully vaccinated, agencies need to ask about the vaccination status of Federal employees and onsite contractors," the website states.
        Federal employee requirementsEmployees will give that information via attestation, and anyone who lies or doesn't abide by safety protocols will be subject to discipline.
        Agencies should be asking all feds about their vaccination status, even those who are working remotely or teleworking, the guidance states. It doesn't clarify if unvaccinated feds who are not coming into the office will have to go through testing requirements mandated for unvaccinated individuals and those who don't provide their status, though.
        However, if agencies already have vaccination information about any of their employees, such as by being the vaccine provider to that employee, they don't need to ask those feds again, it says.
        The new taskforce FAQ includes the form that agencies should use, which is being called a "Certification of Vaccination form."
        Feds will have three options: "I am fully vaccinated," "I am not yet fully vaccinated," "I have not yet been vaccinated," and "I decline to respond." Employees will be able to submit a new form if their status changes.
        Agencies shouldn't ask feds to give additional documentation to prove their status, unless it is part of an agency investigation after receiving a "good faith allegation that strongly suggests that an employee made a false statement" on the form.
        A fed who claims to have been vaccinated but is exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms is not a reason to ask for documentation, the FAQ states.
        The new guidance also addresses privacy concerns.
        Agencies should only give vaccination information to "appropriate agency officials who have a need to know to ensure effective implementation of the safety protocols, which, in many cases, will include the supervisor level."
        Agencies can use their own systems to store these forms under existing Office of Personnel Management guidelines for employee medical files, according to the guidance.
        Contractors and visitor requirements Although President Joe Biden has noted his intention to include contractors in these new requirements '' and onsite contractors are already included '' the FAQ specifically notes that "agencies should not be collecting and maintaining contractor and visitor disclosures at this time unless an agency has a system of records notice that covers its collection of this information."
        However, the FAQ does address how agencies should deal with onsite contractors: "Agencies should provide onsite contractors with the Certification of Vaccination form when they enter a Federal building or Federally controlled indoor worksite."
        Unless they have an existing records system for this information, they'll direct onsite contractors to keep the completed form with them. They might potentially be asked to show the form when entering a federal building or a "federally controlled indoor worksite," or to show it "to a federal employee who oversees their work."
        As far as unvaccinated onsite contractors, they'll either need to be enrolled into the agency's own testing program, or show proof of a negative COVID-19 taken within three days before entering that building.
        Agencies are also allowed to work with their contractors to meet these new requirements, the guidance states, "such as by having the company certify that all onsite contractors are fully vaccinated."
        The certification and safety requirements are similar for visitors to federal buildings, who will be given a form to complete when they enter the building or in advance of arrival. Agencies won't store the information for now, unless they have a system of records notice that can cover this information, so they'll have to keep that form with them while they're onsite.
        Notably, feds visiting other agencies will be treated as visitors and have to fill out a new form, the guidance states.
        These requirements don't, however, apply to visitors coming to a federal building to apply for federal benefits.
        Labor Relations The taskforce also released new FAQs addressing labor management.
        Agencies are working to implement updated "Agency Model Safety Principles" issued by the task force along with the new requirements on vaccines and testing last week.
        There "may be" collective bargaining obligations for "impact and implementation" of these new safety principles and CDC guidelines, including over the vaccination requirements, the guidance states, but post-implementation bargaining may be used "where appropriate."
        "Since agencies need to act quickly due to the COVID-19 emergency and to protect the health and safety of onsite employees, contractors, and visitors, agencies are strongly encouraged to begin communicating with the appropriate union representatives as soon as possible and otherwise satisfy any applicable collective bargaining obligations under the law at the earliest opportunity, including on a post-implementation basis where appropriate," it states.
        For feds still working remotely or via telework, agencies should bargain before they return to the worksite, but if they have to come into work before that's done, they'll need to comply with the guidance, the FAQ states.
        The new FAQ specifically encourages agencies to share their draft plans with their unions "in order to provide a meaningful opportunity for the unions to consult."
        Agencies are able to authorize more "official time," or federal time spent on union work, for consultation and negotiation over what is currently authorized in their contract, the guidance says.
        Finally, if an existing contract with a union has more strict safety standards than CDC standards, agencies will need to "honor" the collective bargaining agreements.
        About the Author
        Natalie Alms is a staff writer at FCW covering the federal workforce. She is a recent graduate of Wake Forest University and has written for the Salisbury (N.C.) Post. Connect with Natalie on Twitter at @AlmsNatalie.
        IT Modernization
        OMB provides key guidance for TMF proposals amid surge in submissions Deputy Federal CIO Maria Roat details what makes for a winning Technology Modernization Fund proposal as agencies continue to submit major IT projects for potential funding.
        Worries from a Democrat about the Biden administration and federal procurement Steve Kelman is concerned that the push for more spending with small disadvantaged businesses will detract from the goal of getting the best deal for agencies and taxpayers.
      Pedo senator in Arizona
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Source: Vox Popoli
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 12:42
        There is literally zero chance that he's the only one.
        Arizona State Senator, Tony Navarrete, an openly gay Democrat and founding member of Arizona’s LGBTQ Caucus, has been arrested for child molestation. Phoenix Police confirm that Navarrete, widely considered a “rising star” within the Democrat Party, faces multiple counts of sexual conduct with a minor, among other charges.
        While few details surrounding the charges and arrest have been made immediately available, local media has confirmed with Phoenix Police that Democrat State Senator Tony Navarrete “was arrested on Thursday, Aug. 5, and charged with multiple counts of sexual conduct with a minor among other charges.”
        In the immediate aftermath of Senator Navarrete’s arrest for child molestation, his Senate Democrat colleagues had little to say, releasing a statement saying the caucus was aware of the arrest but had no comment on the situation. “We are aware one of our members has been arrested and are awaiting further details and for law enforcement to do its job. We will not have further comment at this time,” Senate Democrats said in a statement.
        This may have profound implications for the Arizona vote audit. Note that Navarrete is "an openly gay Democrat and founding member of Arizona’s LGBTQ Caucus." Quelle surprise....
        Not all gays are pedos, but a sufficiently significant percentage of them are to render it child abuse to permit them around children in any capacity. The fact that not every lion will devour a child doesn't mean it isn't child abuse to permit a child to walk into a cage occupied by a lion.
        National File has now learned that in 2019, Navarrete was deeply involved in the educational sector, and has worked with children, young teens, and has even “worked closely” with the Arizona Department of Child Safety.
        Predators go where the prey is. Remember, Navarrete wasn't a "rising star" despite being a pedo. He was a rising star because he is a pedo.
        Labels: freakshow, Judeochristianity, law
      Big Tech is suffering from a 'Great Resignation' of workers, who say 'It's a good time to leave' - MarketWatch
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 12:28
        A confluence of factors have led the rank and file at Big Tech companies to leave what were coveted jobs a decade ago for the potential riches of startups and young public companies, with some participants calling it the ''Great Resignation.''
        In much the same way that Apple Inc. AAPL , Google parent Alphabet Inc. GOOGL GOOG , Amazon.com Inc. AMZN , Facebook Inc. FB , and others lured workers from mature and seemingly staid tech giants like International Business Machines Corp. IBM a decade ago, a new generation of upstarts flush with cash from venture capitalists and Wall Street is aiming for their employees. More than a dozen Big Tech defectors recently contacted by MarketWatch said they were wooed by a potential for an initial public offering, the chance to make a splash at a smaller company, and the opportunity to escape the stigma of working at some of tech's biggest names.
        ''There has been a burst of activity [of people leaving]. If anything, the pandemic delayed decisions,'' says Raymond Endres, chief technology officer at Airtable, a low-code app-building platform he joined in mid-May after a decade at Facebook, most recently as vice president of engineering for Facebook Messenger.
        ''It is a good time to leave. There's a lot of funding, competition and great opportunities,'' Endres said.
        Some employees who recently left Big Tech are calling it the ''Great Resignation,'' and they blame COVID-19-related job burnout, which could also be a widespread problem '-- Microsoft Corp. MSFT research found 41% of the global workforce is weighing leaving their current employer this year. In tech specifically, about one-third of more than 2,800 information-technology professionals said they plan to look for a new job in the next few months, according to a recent Robert Half International survey, while employers posted more than 365,000 IT job openings in June, the highest monthly total since September 2019, according to trade group CompTIA.
        A confluence of factors have led to ''a Big Tech sojourn,'' Columbia Business School professor Adam Galinsky told MarketWatch. Workers at major tech employers are considering a jump to smaller companies because of pandemic burnout that has forced many to re-evaluate their jobs and seek more control; resistance to being forced to go to the office on a big campus at least twice a week; and frustrations at working within vast bureaucracies where change is glacial and outside criticism is fierce.
        Opinion: Some tech workers are leaving San Francisco. They won't be missed
        Ran Mokady left Amazon, where he was general manager of an Alexa division, to become chief product officer at Intuition Robotics, a startup working in AI and robotics for older adults.
        ''I was attracted to the mission; getting up in the morning and making people's lives better,'' Mokady told MarketWatch. ''The pandemic caused me to re-evaluate things, after sitting at home for a year.''
        A white-hot tech IPO market '-- there have been 84 offerings so far in the U.S. this year at $50.4 billion, compared with 65 in 2020 for $38.7 billion, according to Dealogic '-- has would-be employees lining up to make money, and an impact, in short order. In July alone, there were at least 30.
        ''There's lot of [IPO] money out there,'' says Kelly Soderlund, who decamped from software giant SAP SAP in December 2020 to join TripActions, a travel-management company. ''Employees have never been in such a position of power. It's an interesting inflection point within the market.''
        Read: The 20 best-performing IPOs of the past three years have returned up to 1,477%
        VC money is also at record highs. This year is on track to be venture's ''best year yet,'' according to PitchBook. Through June, $150 billion has been raised among about 7,000 deals, ahead of last year's record total of $164.3 billion in 12,362 deals. Nearly 200 megadeals at or exceeding $100 million closed in the second quarter, bringing this year's total to $85.5 billion across 385 such deals.
        Renchu Song, engineering manager at TigerGraph, left for Facebook last year but quickly returned. ''Working at a startup, you have more connection with employees, and things move faster,'' Song told MarketWatch. TigerGraph, which has also hired ex-Googlers, plans to increase its workforce this year to about 300 from 90.
        Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google representatives did not respond to emails seeking comment. Microsoft referred to its aforementioned survey of the workplace.
        Sometimes, workers come in clusters from another company. Consider Nestl(C) NESN subsidiary Freshly. Six executives '-- including its chief commercialization officer, senior vice president of brand and partnerships, and executive innovation chef '-- have come from Amazon since January.
        ''I thought I would be a lifer at Amazon,'' Freshly Chief Commercialization Officer Anna Fabrega told MarketWatch, commenting on her 10 years at the e-commerce giant. ''But this was a tremendous opportunity. I can have a far greater impact and more influence on the company's trajectory, which quite frankly was harder at Amazon.''
        Don't miss: How long will the Silicon Valley employees who can't work from home keep getting paid?
        Many mentioned the chance to have an impact at a smaller company, after years of massive growth at Big Tech companies. In November, Pat McQueen left Salesforce.com Inc. CRM after 17 years to lead operations and sales engineering at Copado, a startup in the developer tools market.
        ''I have a chance to build strategy at Copado, and not implement someone else's strategy,'' McQueen told MarketWatch. ''And I think Copado is on a path to being the next unicorn. It's pretty exciting.''
      Cryptocurrency brawl bogs down infrastructure bill, as Yellen and White House fight changes - The Washington Post
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 12:18
        The Biden administration is pushing back against a last-minute effort by a bipartisan group of senators to limit a proposal in the infrastructure bill to increase federal regulation of cryptocurrencies. The fierce lobbying push helped stall plans to finish voting on the bill Thursday night, and now it appears debate will stretch into the weekend.
        Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen spoke with lawmakers Thursday to raise objections to the effort led by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and two Republican senators to weaken the legislation's proposed cryptocurrency overhauls, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of private conversations. Yellen lobbied Wyden about the matter, the people said.
        Last month, the White House and Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) agreed to a proposal to require increased tax compliance for cryptocurrency brokers as a way to help pay for the bipartisan infrastructure bill. The deal came under intense criticism from cryptocurrency investors, who have argued it would give the Biden administration sweeping powers to virtually cripple the growing field of cryptocurrencies.
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        It was also rebuked by Wyden, Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), and Sen. Cynthia M. Lummis (R-Wyo.), who are pushing an amendment to the infrastructure bill intended to prevent the Biden administration from applying the new rules to a wide swath of actors in the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
        Which Biden priorities are included in the bipartisan infrastructure bill?
        Some senators had hoped to pass the bipartisan bill on Thursday night, but the debate bogged down and the cryptocurrency fight remained one of the unresolved issues.
        On Thursday night, as the impasse between Wyden and the White House appeared to deepen, Portman and Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) offered a competing amendment as a potential compromise. The Warner-Portman measure would exempt more cryptocurrency actors from greater regulation than the initial proposal, but fewer than Wyden, Toomey and Lummis want. The White House said publicly late Thursday it is supporting the Portman-Warner effort, as it would do less to limit the executive branch's new authorities over cryptocurrencies.
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        A Treasury spokeswoman declined to comment on Yellen's private conversations.
        FAQ: A detailed guide to cryptocurrency and why senators are concerned about the effect of the infrastructure bill
        ''We are grateful to Chairman Wyden for his leadership in pushing the Senate to address this issue. However, we believe that the alternative amendment put forward by Senators Warner, Portman, and Sinema strikes the right balance and makes an important step forward in promoting tax compliance,'' White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement provided to The Washington Post, noting the work of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).
        The issue has divided senators during the final dash to finish crafting a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructural proposal, and it has the potential to imperil already tenuous support among lawmakers for the bipartisan infrastructure package.
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        The episode also reflects the extent to which cryptocurrencies '-- which have emerged as a trillion-dollar industry from obscurity less than a decade ago '-- have begun to upend politics in Washington.
        The Senate is adjourned until Saturday, when lawmakers will try to reach a compromise and pass the infrastructure bill.
        The initial plan that set off the controversy, crafted by Portman with the help of Treasury Department officials, is aimed at increasing tax compliance in the purposefully opaque cryptocurrency sector. Estimates have found it would raise roughly $28 billion over 10 years '-- funding that is crucial for paying for the broader infrastructure package.
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        The proposed cryptocurrency changes consist of two key parts. One would include digital assets such as crypto in requirements to report payments worth more than $10,000 to the Internal Revenue Service. That idea has generated little controversy.
        The second part would clarify the definition of a broker for players in the cryptocurrency market, which would require them to file a type of 1099 form for transactions on certain kinds of digital assets.
        Cryptocurrency industry groups are largely open to extending 1099 reporting requirements to established crypto trading brokers, such as Coinbase, a publicly traded exchange platform for cryptocurrencies. But they have alleged that the legislation as written would also give the Biden administration authority to require the same of bitcoin ''miners'' who are crucial for validating transactions on the decentralized network, as well as software developers and others. Industry groups have warned that software developers and miners do not have the capacity to send 1099s to the IRS, because intrinsic to cryptocurrencies' function is that these kinds of producers have no knowledge of who their users are.
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        Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on Twitter that ''issuing more 1099s is a great idea'' and that Coinbase is happy to do so. But, he added, the bill's definition of brokers would appear to include miners and developers which ''makes no sense'' and could drive it outside of the United States.
        Portman's office has insisted the legislation is not intended to grant federal officials the authority to increase tax-reporting requirements for developers and miners. Not satisfied with that explanation, and to bind the administration's hands, Wyden, Toomey, and Lummis offered an amendment to specify in the law that ''nothing in this section '... shall be construed to create any inference'' that it applies to miners or private developers.
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        As the impasse appeared to threaten the broader infrastructure package, Warner and Portman proposed late Thursday night a new compromise measure. That compromise would prevent the new reporting requirements from applying to either traditional brokerages or a specific kind of cryptocurrency miner '-- the ''proof of work'' miner.
        Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are produced '-- or ''mined'' '-- in different ways. The most established form of cryptocurrency comes from ''proof of work,'' which requires users to solve a mathematical equation to validate transactions. Bitcoin, the best-known form of cryptocurrency, depends on ''proof of work'' mining. But other forms of cryptocurrency, including potential emerging rivals to bitcoin, are pursuing other methods of validating transactions on the decentralized network, and could prove less energy-intensive. Since these would be subject to the new reporting requirements under the Warner plan, even though the traditional forms of mining would not be, Wyden late Thursday bashed the competing amendment as ''government-sanctioned safe harbor for the most climate-damaging form of crypto tech.'' Other experts dispute that, however.
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        ''The Warner amendment puts a heavy thumb on the scale in favor of a more energy-intensive method of validating cryptocurrency transactions. It is surprising that a climate-conscious administration would endorse that,'' said Daniel Hemel, a law professor at the University of Chicago and tax expert.
        Jason Furman, a former Obama administration economist, said it is important for Treasury to have ''the flexibility'' to regulate cryptocurrency players who try to evade taxes on the increases in the value of their coins, particularly given the potential for future and unforeseen innovations in the sector.
        ''If the technology makes it impossible to know people's capital gains, then the technology should not exist,'' Furman said. ''It cannot just be the exchanges. You have to know from beginning to end how much someone paid for the coin, how much someone sold the coin for, and be able to match those two up.''
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        The fracas on Capitol Hill portends the bitter fight looming as the federal government considers how to further regulate cryptocurrencies. Yellen has previously warned of the dangers she believes bitcoin poses.
        ''To the extent it is used, I fear it's often for illicit finance. It's an extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions, and the amount of energy that's consumed in processing those transactions is staggering,'' Yellen said earlier this year.
        This week, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler made clear his desire to regulate digital currencies at the Aspen Security Forum and called for ''additional congressional authorities to prevent transactions, products, and platforms from falling between regulatory cracks.''
      Taylor or Austin for Samsung's $17 billion factory? It's possible
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 12:04
        Samsung has had a big presence in Austin for nearly 25 years, bought 258 undeveloped acres next to its corporate campus less than 12 months ago and obtained regulatory approval in January to reroute a nearby road '-- called Samsung Boulevard '-- that positions it to accommodate a possible major expansion in the city.
        All of that begs the question: If the South Korea-based maker of computer chips opts to build a new $17 billion factory in Texas, would it really locate it in Taylor, a small town about 25 miles away, instead of in Austin?
        Samsung has raised that possibility in applications to taxing entities in both locations that seek hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks over the next decade, saying a willingness to provide publicly funded incentives will be key to its deliberations over where to put the new state-of-the-art chip fabrication plant.
        But not everyone is sold on the notion that a potential choice of Taylor '-- a community of about 18,000 in eastern Williamson County '-- is more than just a negotiating ploy by Samsung to try to obtain the most advantageous incentive deal possible for a desired expansion in Austin, where the company currently has its largest operation outside South Korea.
        More: Experts say Central Texas still a strong option for potential $17 B Samsung factory
        More: Austin tax breaks sought by Samsung among biggest ever
        Austin is home to Samsung's only U.S. manufacturing facility, and the company also has a research and development center in the city. About 10,000 people work at its main Austin operations, according to the company, of which about 3,000 are direct Samsung employees.
        The company has said sites in Arizona and New York also are under consideration for the new factory.
        ''The idea that Samsung is even raising (Taylor as a possibility) I think is kind of to squeeze a tiny bit more'' in incentives out of the various taxing entities where its current Austin campus is located, said Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates, which is based near Boston and follows Samsung.
        Samsung "is trying to get the last ounce of negotiating leverage by raising Taylor as sort of a straw location," Kay said.
        The new Samsung factory and its estimated 1,800 high-tech jobs clearly would be transformational for Taylor '-- in addition to marking a huge upset win for it over Austin.
        But discounting Taylor's chances entirely might be a mistake.
        City of Taylor's appeal compared to Austin
        The community boasts a number of attributes that potentially make it ripe for growth, including an address within the trendy Austin metro area but with lower land costs and the lighter traffic that come with being on the outskirts of the sprawl, as well as proximity to Round Rock, Pflugerville and other fast-growing suburbs.
        Taylor '-- which counts the operations center of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the manager of the state's power grid, as a top employer '-- has been increasing in population, albeit at a pace well below the boomtown levels of Austin and some other surrounding communities.
        "It does not surprise me (that Samsung has named Taylor as a possible site for its factory), because there is some very nice land around" for development, said Floyd Zuehlke Jr., president of Floyd's Glass Co., a long-time Taylor business. ''And I don't think they will have a hard time drawing people from Round Rock, Hutto and Pflugerville to work there."
        Zuehlke, who employs about 160 people, said he likes Taylor's relatively central location between Austin, Waco and College Station, which are all places where his company does business in the construction sector.
        As the Austin metro area continues to expand, he said it's inevitable that more development is on the way for Taylor '-- even though he is among those who consider it possible in the case of Samsung that the city is merely a bargaining chip.
        "Big companies negotiate and play hardball. It could just be (that Samsung is saying to Austin), 'Hey, we have got options, and if we don't get what we want we will go over here,'" Zuehlke said. "I would think there's a great chance of that."
        Potential tax breaks for Samsung in Texas
        According to documents that Samsung filed with the Texas comptroller's office in January, the company is seeking taxpayer-funded incentives '-- valued at an estimated $1 billion to $1.8 billion combined '-- from the Manor Independent School District, Travis County and the city of Austin to build its new chip fabrication plant near its existing Austin campus.
        If it gets those tax breaks, the overall incentive package would rank among the 20 most expensive nationwide in at least 45 years, according to Good Jobs First, a Washington-based nonprofit that tracks government incentives to corporations.
        The tax breaks haven't been approved by any of the local taxing entities. The Manor school district and Travis County are considering applications from Samsung but haven't held public hearings regarding them yet, while Austin city officials have declined to say whether they've received a request for tax breaks from the company.
        In Taylor, Samsung is seeking a tax break valued at $314 million from the Taylor Independent School District, according to documents submitted to the comptroller's office last month. The company also indicated in the filing that it intends to seek incentives for the project from Williamson County and the city of Taylor, although it provided no estimate of their value.
        In addition, the company has said it would want incentives from the state should it choose either Texas location.
        "This regional public support will lower the operational and financial costs for a given site and make it possible for Samsung Austin Semiconductor to meet its operational and financial targets for the new manufacturing facility," the company said in its applications to both the Taylor and the Manor school districts.
        A Samsung spokeswoman declined to comment on the chances that Samsung might chose Taylor over Austin. Williamson County and the city of Taylor declined to confirm that they've received requests for tax breaks from the company.
        Devin Padavil, superintendent of the Taylor school district, wouldn't discuss the Samsung factory specifically, but he told the American-Statesman that he considers Taylor well-equipped to compete for and win major economic development projects in the region.
        "I have no concerns" about Taylor's ability to compete, Padavil said. "I think the community of Taylor is a gold mine for potential business '-- even neighborhood home development. It is a great community that's steeped in tradition and is for (economic) growth."
        The city is "becoming highly desirable for families and businesses" as the Austin metro area continues to sprawl, he said, so "any economic development that comes out here" would be making a good decision.
        Is Taylor still a longshot for Samsung factory?
        Still, if Samsung opts to build the new factory in Texas but picks Taylor instead of Austin, the company would be disregarding its local infrastructure built up over more than two decades in favor of starting from scratch in a small town. Some observers don't think that's likely.
        "My honest opinion is that this is a shameless gaming of local governments" to try to wrest more concessions to expand in Austin, said Nathan Jensen, a University of Texas professor who studies taxpayer-funded incentives to corporations.
        Kay, of Endpoint Technologies, said the taxpayer-funded incentives offered in the Taylor area would probably have to be huge '-- and eclipse those offered in Austin '-- to offset the efficiency and convenience of simply building and operating the new plant on the land Samsung already owns next to its existing campus.
        As of last month, Samsung hadn't bought land for the factory in Taylor, according to its application for tax breaks from the Taylor school district.
        ''At this point, it makes more sense for a whole lot of different reasons'' for Samsung to build the new chip plant in Austin, said Kay, who considers Austin the front-runner for the project, with the Phoenix area the likeliest alternative.
        Only Samsung officials know for certain how the company is leaning, however.
        When it comes to Taylor's chances, Zuehlke has reservations about the publicly funded incentives that might be needed for the small city to come out on top. But he said they probably would be worth it.
        "That always is a hurtful thing toward the businesses that are already there, when they see other businesses coming in that get tax breaks '-- it is kind of bitter to swallow," Zuehlke said. ''It sometimes doesn't seem fair, but it happens all the time"
        In the case of Samsung, he said, "I think there will be more benefits than not," even with the tax breaks.
      There's a big shift happening in the housing market '' Fortune
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        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 12:01
        The housing market is cooling as shoppers finally push back at record prices. Breakneck. That's the best way to describe the pace of the 2021 housing market. The bidding wars got so intense this year that home price growth set an all-time record.
        But the tide is turning.
        The rush of buyers into the housing market during the pandemic absolutely crushed housing inventory'--the number of homes on the market'--with that figure falling for 12 consecutive months. By April, housing inventory was down a staggering 53% from a year earlier. However, the trajectory has flipped: For two straight months the number of homes for sale has gone up. Homes listing on realtor.com rose 3% in May, then again by 9% in June. That's not all: We learned last week that new home sales are falling'--their pace in June was the slowest since the onset of the pandemic. Every indication is that the market is shifting a bit in buyers' favor.
        Why the sudden cooling? Home shoppers are finally showing some reluctance to pay top dollar.
        ''The housing market was too hot for its own good over the past year, and we've seen some buyers bump up against an invisible price ceiling,'' Ali Wolf, chief economist at Zonda, a housing market research firm, tells Fortune. A Zonda survey of homebuilders last month finds that 61% of builders are seeing more resistance from homebuyers.
        This buyer hesitation was expected. After all, home prices can't continue to grow at a 17% year-over-year rate indefinitely. At the end of the day, household budgets can stretch only so far.
        And more cooling could be on the way. As Fortune reported last week, the pace of real estate sales might slow as the last of the stimulus protections begin to lapse. The foreclosure moratorium, which prevented foreclosures on federally backed mortgages, came to an end on July 31. Next up will be the mortgage forbearance program, which allows some borrowers to pause their payments; it lapses on Sept. 30. That forbearance program still protects 1.75 million borrowers, or 3.5% of U.S. mortgages. Homeowners still hurting financially could opt to sell their home rather than restart their mortgage payments. Of course, if that happens, housing inventory would rise further.
        But cooling doesn't mean home prices will fall. In fact, the research firm CoreLogic forecasts home prices will climb another 3.2% by June 2022. Make no mistake: This is still a seller's market.
        ''It's important to note that many homes are still selling almost as quickly as they hit the market,'' Wolf says. ''The difference today is that there's been ever so slight softening in the number of homes undergoing a bidding war or selling above the ask price'...some homes are now selling below ask price.''
        The reason that research firms like CoreLogic think prices can go higher boils down to demographics. We're in the middle of the five-year period when the largest tranche of millennials, those born between 1989 and 1993, are hitting their thirties'--the age when first-time homebuying really kicks into gear. That's something homebuilders haven't been preparing for: During the 2010s, homebuilding tanked as builders struggled with the financial scars of the 2008 housing bubble and subsequent foreclosure crisis. Not to mention, the housing market is still benefiting from the perfect storm created by the pandemic: recession-induced low mortgage rates, coupled with remote workers who are willing to uproot in pursuit of affordable real estate.
      Dr. Anthony Fauci: COVID vaccine mandates to follow FDA full approval
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        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 11:36
        As soon as the Food and Drug Administration issues a full approval for a COVID-19 vaccine, there will be "a flood" of vaccine mandates at businesses and schools across the nation, Dr. Anthony Fauci told USA TODAY's editorial board on Friday.
        Mandates aren't going to happen at the federal level, but vaccine approval will embolden many groups, he predicted.
        "Organizations, enterprises, universities, colleges that have been reluctant to mandate at the local level will feel much more confident," he said.
        "They can say, 'If you want to come to this college or this university, you've got to get vaccinated. If you want to work in this plant, you have to get vaccinated. If you want to work in this enterprise, you've got to get vaccinated. If you want to work in this hospital, you've got to get vaccinated.'"
        Fauci doesn't see more lockdowns in the nation's future. They were issued early in the pandemic to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed, known as "flattening the curve."
        "The rationale for shutting down was that the hospital system would not be able to handle the surge of cases because everybody was getting sick," he said.
        With upwards of 70% of adults having had at least one dose of vaccine, the epidemic has shifted to one of the unvaccinated, he said.
        "When you walk into a hospital, what you're going to see is a lot of young people, some of whom are seriously ill, but you're not seeing an overwhelming outstripping of the capability of the hospitals throughout the country," he said.
        Lies, mistruths and death
        While he's attacked online and in conservative media every day, Fauci said he worries less about himself than for the nation as a whole.
        "This is a dystopian world we're living in," he said. The public is awash in lies and misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines, "they are being misled."
        The Backstory: My brother is one of millions who won't get the COVID-19 vaccine. I asked why. Here are his reasons, my responses.
        With COVID-19 cases rising among the unvaccinated as the highly contagious delta variant spreads, Fauci hopes people's "better angels" will prevail over the sea of lies on social media.
        Americans, he hopes, will say, "I'm not going to take any of this. I'm seeing everybody around me get sick and dying. Let me just go ahead and get vaccinated.'"
        Protecting children
        The delta variant has thrown the danger of COVID-19 to young children into sharp relief. In Tennessee, the Department of Health projects the state's children's hospitals are on pace to be completely full by the end of next week.
        The state's health commissioner, Dr. Lisa Piercey, said the delta variant is rapidly spreading among children, who are quickly showing symptoms after possible exposure, possibly amounting to a much faster incubation time than previous versions of the virus.
        Children under 12 are not yet eligible for the vaccine, so the adults around them must be their protection, Fauci said.
        At schools, everyone needs to be vaccinated, he said, teachers, assistants, janitors, "anybody who is anywhere near a child in what should be a protected environment of a school."
        Because in the current political environment that won't happen, Fauci said masks are the next best thing. Schools are crucial for children's mental health and intellectual, physical and social development, so it's important they stay open.
        "I would rather have a child be a little bit uncomfortable with a mask on and be healthy than a comfortable child without a mask in an ICU," he said. "It just doesn't make any sense to me why you would want to not protect the children."
        A 'smoldering' future for US
        The epidemic in the United States could be ended once and for all if everyone would get vaccinated, Fauci said. Barring that, he worries we're in it for the long term.
        "You will get a smoldering level of infection that will just go right into the fall, get confused with influenza in the winter and then come back again in the spring," he said.
        The unvaccinated will continue to get sick and some will die. The young and healthy are statistically not likely to become seriously ill if infected, but they don't live in a vacuum, he said. The more people who are infected, the more chance the virus has to mutate into an even more dangerous variant.
        When will everyone be vaccinated for COVID-19? Here's how the vaccine rollout is going
        "All of the sudden, your decision not to get vaccinated goes beyond your own vacuum and influences society," he said.
        That holds true for the world as well '' unless the virus is stopped everywhere, it will continue to mutate and could come back in a form that can evade current vaccines.
        That's different from many vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles, which doesn't mutate. And it's why getting vaccines to the rest of the world is critical.
        "If we're protected against measles here and there are a million cases of measles in Afghanistan or in India or in Uganda or in Kenya and somebody comes over here, it almost doesn't matter. But if we're protected against one group of (COVID-19) variants and a bizarre variant emerges somewhere in a low- or middle-income country, then we're vulnerable," he said.
        Fauci ended by emphasizing that while the COVID-19 vaccines are not perfect, they do one thing extraordinarily well '' keep people who get COVID-19 from becoming severely ill or dying.
        "The reason to get vaccinated is not so that you can go around without wearing a mask," he said. The reason is "because we don't want you to wind up in the ICU. And I can guarantee you 99% that if you get vaccinated, you are not going to wind up in the ICU."
        View | 47 Photos
      Israeli scientist says COVID-19 could be treated for under $1/day - The Jerusalem Post
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 01:29
        Prof. Eli Schwartz, founder of the Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Disease at Sheba, conducted a randomized, controlled, double-blinded trial from May 15, 2020, through the end of January 2021 to evaluate the effectiveness of ivermectin in reducing viral shedding among nonhospitalized patients with mild to moderate COVID-19.
        Ivermectin has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration since 1987. The drug's discoverers were awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in medicine for its treatment of onchocerciasis, a disease caused by infection with a parasitic roundworm.
        Over the years, it has been used for other indications, including scabies and head lice. Moreover, in the last decade, several clinical studies have started to show its antiviral activity against viruses ranging from HIV and the flu to Zika and West Nile.
        The drug is also extremely economical. A study published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Therapeutics showed that the cost of ivermectin for other treatments in Bangladesh is around $0.60 to $1.80 for a five-day course. It costs up to $10 a day in Israel, Schwartz said.
        In Schwartz's study, some 89 eligible volunteers over the age of 18 who were diagnosed with
        coronavirus and staying in state-run COVID-19 hotels were divided into two groups: 50% received ivermectin, and 50% received a placebo, according to their weight. They were given the pills for three days in a row, an hour before a meal.
        The volunteers were tested using a standard nasopharyngeal swab PCR test with the goal of evaluating whether there was a reduction in viral load by the sixth day '' the third day after termination of the treatment. They were swabbed every two days.
        Nearly 72% of volunteers treated with ivermectin tested negative for the virus by day six. In contrast, only 50% of those who received the placebo tested negative.
        IN ADDITION, the study looked at culture viability, meaning how infectious the patients were, and found that only 13% of ivermectin patients were infectious after six days, compared with 50% of the placebo group '' almost four times as many.
        ''Our study shows first and foremost that ivermectin has antiviral activity,'' Schwartz said. ''It also shows that there is almost a 100% chance that a person will be noninfectious in four to six days, which could lead to shortening isolation time for these people. This could have a huge economic and social impact.''
        The study appeared on the
        MedRxiv health-research sharing site. It has not yet been peer reviewed.
        Schwartz said other similar studies '' though not all of them conducted to the same double-blind and placebo standards as his '' also showed a favorable impact of ivermectin treatment.
        His study did not prove ivermectin was effective as a prophylactic, meaning that it could prevent disease, he cautioned, nor did it show that it reduces the chances of hospitalization. However, other studies have shown such evidence, he added.
        For example, the study published earlier this year in the
        American Journal of Therapeutics highlighted that ''a review by the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance summarized findings from 27 studies on the effects of ivermectin for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection, concluding that ivermectin 'demonstrates a strong signal of therapeutic efficacy' against COVID-19.''
        ''Another recent review found that ivermectin reduced deaths by 75%,'' the report said.
        BUT IVERMECTIN is not without controversy, and hence, despite the high levels of coronavirus worldwide, neither the FDA nor the World Health Organization have been willing to approve it for use in the fight against the virus.
        Prof. Ya'acov Nahmias, a Hebrew University of Jerusalem researcher, has questioned the safety of the drug.
        ''Ivermectin is a chemical therapeutic agent, and it has significant risks associated with it,'' he said in a previous interview. ''We should be very cautious about using this type of medication to treat a viral disease that the vast majority of the public is going to recover from even without this treatment.''
        During Schwartz's study, there was not any signal of significant side effects among ivermectin users.
        Only five patients were referred to hospitals, with four of them being in the placebo arm. One ivermectin patient went to the hospital complaining of shortness of breath on the day of recruitment. He continued with the ivermectin treatment and was sent back to the hotel a day later in good condition.
        The FDA said on its website it ''received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin.''
        The ''FDA has not approved ivermectin for use in treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans,'' it said. ''Ivermectin tablets are approved at very specific doses for some parasitic worms, and there are topical (on the skin) formulations for head lice and skin conditions like rosacea. Ivermectin is not an antiviral (a drug for treating viruses). Taking large doses of this drug is dangerous and can cause serious harm.''
        The World Health Organization has also recommended against using the drug except in clinical trials.
        IN CONTRAST, Schwartz said he was very disappointed that the WHO did not support any trial to determine whether the drug could be viable.
        Last month, Oxford University announced a large trial on ivermectin effectiveness.
        Schwartz said he became interested in exploring ivermectin about a year ago, ''when everyone was looking for a new drug'' to treat COVID-19, and a lot of effort was being put into evaluating hydroxychloroquine, so he decided to join the effort.
        ''Since ivermectin was on my shelf, since we are using it for tropical diseases, and there were hints it might work, I decided to go for it,'' he said.
        Researchers in other places worldwide began looking into the drug at around the same time. But when they started to see positive results, no one wanted to publish them, Schwartz said.
        ''There is a lot of opposition,'' he said. ''We tried to publish it, and it was kicked away by three journals. No one even wanted to hear about it. You have to ask how come when the world is suffering.''
        ''This drug will not bring any big economic profits,'' and so Big Pharma doesn't want to deal with it, he said.
        SOME OF the loudest opposition to ivermectin has come from Merck Co., which manufactured the drug in the 1980s. In a public statement about ivermectin on its website in February, it said: ''Company scientists continue to carefully examine the findings of all available and emerging studies of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 for evidence of efficacy and safety. It is important to note that, to date, our analysis has identified no scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies; no meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease, and a concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies.''
        But Merck has not launched any studies of its own on ivermectin.
        ''You would think Merck would be happy to hear that ivermectin might be helpful to corona patients and try to study it, but they are most loudly declaring the drug should not be used,'' Schwartz said. ''A billion people took it. They gave it to them. It's a real shame.''
        And not moving forward with ivermectin could potentially extend the time it takes for the world to be able to live alongside the virus, he said.
        ''Developing new medications can take years; therefore, identifying existing drugs that can be re-purposed against COVID-19 [and] that already have an established safety profile through decades of use could play a critical role in suppressing or even ending the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic,'' wrote the researchers in the American Journal of Therapeutics. ''Using re-purposed medications may be especially important because it could take months, possibly years, for much of the world's population to get vaccinated, particularly among low- to middle-income populations.''
      Why was Tesla NOT invited to White House electric car summit? | Daily Mail Online
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        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 00:40
        Joe Biden on Thursday raised eyebrows by failing to invite the world's largest manufacturer of electric vehicles to his EV summit, after appearing to bow to union pressure.
        Biden invited to the White House the heads of General Motors, Ford and Stellantis - the Dutch-owned firm which makes Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep brands.
        The three firms are the three largest employers of members of the United Auto Workers union, which in April 2020 endorsed Biden, bringing the support of 400,000 workers.
        Tesla, whose Model 3, X and S cars alone make up almost 60 per cent of the U.S. electric car market, according to government data, does not have a unionized work force.
        Elon Musk, pictured in September 2020 visiting the site of a new Tesla factory near Berlin, Germany. The Tesla CEO was not invited to Biden's electric car summit on Thursday
        Biden has been championing electric cars since he took office as part of his bid to dramatically reduce carbon emissions
        'You don't hear a thing,' Biden said after taking a test drive of a Jeep hybrid vehicle
        The top electric vehicle made by the Big Three, GM's Chevy Bolt, only accounted for five per cent of EV sales in 2019.
        Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, tweeted that his exclusion from the meeting was 'seems odd'.
        When someone tweeted a meme of Musk outside the White House, holding up a sign reading: 'Hi. I make lots of EVs in the US', Musk responded with a laughing emoji.
        Teslas sold in the United States are made at its California plant, and are far more domestically sourced for parts than GM's Chevy Bolt. The Bolt gets about three-quarters of its components, including the expensive batteries, from South Korea.
        GM is building U.S. battery factories with partners that will increase its domestic content in the future, yet Tesla already gets 50-55 per cent of their components from U.S. factories.
        One man tweeted: 'Maybe if @elonmusk moved Tesla manufacturing to Mexico like Ford did for the Mach-E they would have a seat at the table?
        'Apparently good paying American jobs, making 100% Electric vehicles isn't enough to be shown as an example of how other manufacturers should behave?'
        Musk replied: 'Irony indeed.'
        Another Tesla fan tweeted: 'Unions exist because of previous discriminatory and unfair labor practices.
        'This is why $TSLA doesn't need a union. From Day 1, Tesla has treated their employees fair, compensating them for their hard work. Legacy Auto is already dead, inside & out.'
        Musk agreed, replying: 'Reality is total opposite of what detractors say! Biggest challenge is recruiting enough people to build cars. SF Bay Area essentially has negative unemployment, so people at our factory have several other job offers.
        'If they weren't treated well, they would leave immediately!'
        Tesla's factory in Fremont, California, uses 50-55 per cent of car parts made in the U.S.
        Among Biden's proposals announced on Thursday are incentives for electric car customers, to reduce the price. But the incentives would only be available for cars produced by unionized work forces, not Tesla's.
        Biden launched his third bid for the White House in April 2019 from a Teamsters' hall in Pittsburgh.
        'I make no apologies. I am a union man. Period,' he said.
        Labor organizations contributed $27.5 million to his campaign and other groups that supported him. His opponent, Donald Trump, took in less than $360,000 from those with labor ties.
        Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, was asked on Thursday if Biden deliberately excluded Tesla because their workforce is not unionized.
        'I'll let you draw your own conclusions,' she replied.
        She said: 'Well, we of course welcome the efforts of automakers who recognize the potential of an electric vehicle future and support efforts that will help reach the President's goal, and certainly Tesla is one of those companies.
        'I would not expect this is the last time we talk about clean cars and the move towards electric vehicles, and we look forward to having a range of partners in that effort.'
        Pressed on the Tesla exclusion, Psaki replied: 'Well, these are the three largest employers of the United Auto Workers, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions.'
        Biden, known for his love of cars, gleefully took a new Jeep for a spin around the White House grounds during the summit.
        Biden stuck to the paths as he passed a view of the Lincoln Memorial in front of the White House
        He signed an executive order aimed at making half of all vehicles sold in 2030 electric, and proposed new vehicle emissions standards on Thursday that would cut pollution through 2026, starting with a 10 per cent stringency increase in 2023 model year.
        'The future of the American auto industry is electric,' Biden said.
        The two moves are part of Biden's broader plan to fight climate change, in this case by targeting emissions from cars and trucks, while working to make the United States an industry leader while other countries move aggressively to dominate the electric vehicle market.
        The 50 per cent target, which is not legally binding, won the support of U.S. and foreign automakers, who said that achieving it would require billions of dollars in government funding.
        After signing the executive order on the South Lawn of the White House, he jumped into the waiting EV Jeep, which he proceeded to drive rapidly around the grounds, even honking at one point to let people know he was coming.
        'You see that sucker over there?' he told reporters, gesturing to one of the cars.
        'Nought to 60 in 4.1 seconds '' it's all electric!'
        Biden has repeatedly resisted calls from many Democrats to set a binding requirement for EV adoption.
        He has also refused, on the urging of the union, to follow California and some countries in setting 2035 as a date to phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered light duty vehicles.
        UAW President Ray Curry, who attended the event, noted the EV goal but said it was focused 'on preserving the wages and benefits that have been the heart and soul of the American middle class.'
        The president took his jacket off and ran to the Wrangler to take it for a spin after signing the executive order
        Biden spoke about electric cars and his eviction policy after his speech
        Biden told the crowd he will be the first to drive an electric Corvette when it has been manufactured
        Senator Gary Peters of Michigan agreed with Biden's decision not to set a hard deadline for phasing out gasoline-powered vehicles.
        'Flexibility is important, but at the same token you need to set ambitious goals,' Peters said.
        The executive order sets a schedule for developing new emissions standards through at least 2030 for light duty vehicles and as early as 2027 for larger vehicles.
        Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign, said the plan 'relies on unenforceable voluntary commitments from unreliable car makers..'
        He added: 'Voluntary pledges by auto companies make a New Year's weight-loss resolution look like a legally binding contract.'
        Meanwhile, U.S. regulators plan to propose revising former President Donald Trump's March 2020 rollback of fuel economy standards.
        Trump required 1.5 per cent annual increases in efficiency through 2026, well below the 5 per cent yearly boosts set in 2012 by President Barack Obama's administration.
      Jennifer Aniston Claps Back at Criticism Over Cutting Non-Vaccinated People Out of Her Life | Entertainment Tonight
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 16:46
        Jennifer Aniston is taking a stand. The 52-year-old actress drew criticism earlier this week when she told InStyle that she had decided to cut several people who opted not to get the COVID-19 vaccine out of her life.
        In a post to her Instagram Story on Tuesday, Aniston explained the reasoning behind her decision, after one fan questioned why she was worried about non-vaccinated people around her if she had received the vaccine.
        "Because if you have the [Delta] variant, you are still able to give it to me," Aniston wrote. "I may get slightly sick but I will not be admitted to a hospital and/or die. BUT I CAN give it to someone else who does not have the vaccine and whose health is compromised (or has a previous existing condition) -- and therefore I would put their lives at risk."
        "THAT is why I worry," she added. "WE have to care about more than just ourselves here."
        Last month, CBS News reported that, out of more than 160 million fully vaccinated people, the CDC found that 5,500 have been hospitalized or died.
        "The significance of breakthrough infections is people who are vaccinated can pass it on," Dr. Paul Duprex told the outlet. "What we should think about is not being that human petri dish, not allowing yourself to be the person that allows the virus to replicate out of control and change to the next virus of concern."
        Instagram / Jennifer Aniston
        In her original statement on the matter, Aniston spoke out against "people who are anti-vaxxers or just don't listen to facts," calling that belief system "a real shame."
        "I've just lost a few people in my weekly routine who have refused or did not disclose [whether or not they had been vaccinated], and it was unfortunate," she said to InStyle. "I feel it's your moral and professional obligation to inform, since we're not all podded up and being tested every single day."
        Aniston added that the situation is "tricky" because "everyone is entitled to their own opinion -- but a lot of opinions don't feel based in anything except fear or propaganda."
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      Offspring band member booted for refusing COVID vaccine on doctor's orders, even though he has natural immunity -- Society's Child -- Sott.net
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 15:54
        Pete Parada, drummer for the Californian rock band Offspring, said he was
        ousted from the band because he refused to get a COVID vaccine, despite having already had COVID and acquiring
        natural immunity.
        In an Instagram post, Parada said: "Since I am unable to comply with what is increasingly becoming an industry mandate, it has recently been decided that I am unsafe to be around, in the studio and on tour. I mention this because you won't be seeing me at these upcoming shows. I also want to share my story so that anyone else experiencing the agony and isolation of getting left behind right now knows they're not entirely alone." Parada, who had COVID more than a year ago, said he was medically advised not to take the vaccine due to his "personal medical history and the side-effect profile" of COVID vaccines.
        Parada has a history of Guillain-Barr(C) syndrome (GBS), a serious but rare autoimmune disorder linked to multiple vaccines, including COVID vaccines.
        Parada said he was confident he could handle the virus again, but could not handle another round of post-vaccination GBS, which dates back to his childhood and has become progressively worse over his lifetime.
        "The risks far outweigh the benefits," he said.
        Parada said he has no negative feelings towards the band. "They're doing what they believe is best for them," he said, "while I am doing the same."
        Parada explained:"There are countless folks (like me) for whom these shots carry a greater risk than the virus. Most of us don't publicly share a private medical decision we made with careful consideration with our doctor. We know it's not an easy conversation to unfold."If it looks like half the population is having a shockingly different reaction to these jabs than what was expected -- it's probably because their life experiences have have actually been shockingly different, and their reasons range from a conscientious risk/benefit analysis, to the financial inability to take time off work/lack of healthcare in the event of potential side effects to an understandable distrust in the system that has never prioritized the health and well-being of their communities."
        In a series of tweets, Parada said he unequivocally supports informed consent '-- "which necessitates choice unburdened by coercion" -- and does not find it "ethical or wise" to allow those with the most power, including government, corporations, organizations or employers to "dictate medical procedures to those with the least power."
        Parada encouraged others to make room for all perspectives and to refrain from dehumanizing, dominating or shutting down the voices of the vaccine-hesitant.
        Offspring has not commented on Parada's statement. Parada has played with the group since 2007, and is featured on their four most recent albums.
        Parada joins a number of vaccine-hesitant celebrities in the music world, including Eric Clapton '-- who suffered an adverse reaction to AstraZeneca's vaccine '-- Ian Brown, Richard Ashcroft, Van Morrison and Noel Gallagher, who have all voiced concerns over COVID vaccines.
      9/11 families to President Biden: Don't come to our memorial events
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        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 15:19
        Aug. 6, 2021, 4:30 AM EDT / Updated Aug. 6, 2021, 9:33 AM EDT
        By Courtney Kube
        Nearly 1,800 Americans directly affected by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks are opposing President Joe Biden's participation in any memorial events this year unless he upholds his pledge to declassify U.S. government evidence that they believe may show a link between Saudi Arabian leaders and the attacks.
        The victims' family members, first responders and survivors will release a statement Friday calling on Biden to skip 20th-anniversary events in New York and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon unless he releases the documents, which they believe implicate Saudi officials in supporting the acts of terrorism. The group says that as a candidate Biden pledged to be more transparent and release as much information as possible but that his administration has since then ignored their letters and requests.
        ''We cannot in good faith, and with veneration to those lost, sick, and injured, welcome the president to our hallowed grounds until he fulfills his commitment,'' they wrote in a statement obtained by NBC News.
        ''Since the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission in 2004 much investigative evidence has been uncovered implicating Saudi government officials in supporting the attacks,'' the statement says. ''Through multiple administrations, the Department of Justice and the FBI have actively sought to keep this information secret and prevent the American people from learning the full truth about the 9/11 attacks.''
        Among the documents the group seeks are supporting evidence found during a widespread FBI investigation into the attacks that examined alleged Saudi links and was completed in 2016.
        Brett Eagleson, whose father, Bruce, died at the World Trade Center, said he and his co-signers ''collectively are at our wits' end with our own government.''
        ''We are frustrated, tired and saddened with the fact that the U.S. government for 20 years has chosen to keep information about the death of our loved ones behind lock and key,'' said Eagleson, who is among a group of victims' relatives who filed a federal lawsuit accusing Saudi Arabia of being complicit in the attacks.
        While the 9/11 Commission report found that Saudi Arabia had been a ''problematic ally,'' particularly when it came to sharing intelligence, the investigation found no evidence implicating Saudi leaders in the attack.
        ''The Commission staff found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or as individual senior officials knowingly support or supported al Qaeda; however, a lack of awareness of the problem and a failure to conduct oversight over institutions created an environment in which such activity has flourished,'' the report said.
        It did, however, identify Saudi nationals as a major source of funding for Al Qaeda. The Saudi government has denied any connection to the attacks.
        Eagleson said he is convinced that senior leaders in the Saudi government knew about the planned attack and did nothing to stop it.
        Among the evidence he cites is the 2017 sworn testimony of former FBI Special Agent Stephen Moore, who was in charge of the Los Angeles Task Force Team for PENTTBOM, the FBI's investigation of the 9/11 attacks.
        ''Based on evidence we gathered during the course of our investigation, I concluded that diplomatic and intelligence personnel of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia knowingly provided material support to the two 9/11 hijackers and facilitated the 9/11 plot. My colleagues in our investigation shared that conclusion,'' Moore said in his affidavit.
        Brett Eagleson, a son of Sept. 11 victim Bruce Eagleson, sits in the dugout at a baseball field where his father used to coach in Middletown, Conn., on July 2. Jessica Hill / APThe administrations of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump also declined to declassify supporting documents, citing national security concerns. The Trump administration invoked the state secrets privilege in 2019 to justify keeping documents classified.
        ''Twenty years later, there is simply no reason '-- unmerited claims of 'national security' or otherwise '-- to keep this information secret,'' the group wrote. ''But if President Biden reneges on his commitment and sides with the Saudi government, we would be compelled to publicly stand in objection to any participation by his administration in any memorial ceremony of 9/11.''
        RecommendedEagleson said in an interview, ''The buck stops at the president.''
        He and his fellow 9/11 community members have been ''ignored'' by the attorney general, the FBI director and other senior officials in the administration, he said.
        Biden ''really needs to be the one to step up and take action,'' Eagleson said, adding that the families hope for a day when the president is ''working with us and not against us.''
        Eagleson said his group was optimistic after a letter from candidate Biden in October pledging transparency about the matter.
        ''I intend to be a President for all Americans, and will hear all of their voices,'' Biden wrote. ''The 9/11 Families are right to seek full truth and accountability. ... I will direct my Attorney General to personally examine the merits of all cases where the invocation of privilege is recommended, and to err on the side of disclosure in cases where, as here, the events in question occurred two decades or longer ago.''
        But most letters and attempts to reach the administration since Biden was inaugurated have gone unanswered, and now, Eagleson said, patience has run out.
        ''We had great hope that President Biden, who campaigned on bringing truth and trust back to the Oval Office, would value the lives and sacrifices of America's citizens over diplomatic relations with a country accused of mass murder,'' Eagleson said.
        A White House spokesperson said its Office of Public Engagement and the National Security Council staff have met with 9/11 victims' family members to discuss their document requests and ''hear their thoughts on policy priorities.''
        ''Our hearts are with the families who lost loved ones on 9/11, especially in these days preceding the 20th anniversary of the attacks,'' the spokesperson said in a Friday morning statement.
        The spokesperson noted that Biden has vowed to ask the Justice Department to resolve issues related to the former administration's invocation of the state secrets privilege, specifically that it be ''narrowly tailored'' and not undertaken to ''prevent embarrassment'' to a person or organization.
        ''We look forward to having more to share in the coming days about actions we are taking to ensure greater transparency under the law,'' the spokesperson added.
        Eagleson said he believes the U.S. government will not release the documents because of deep diplomatic and military ties between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
        ''Twenty years is way too long for anybody, especially thousands of American families, to learn the truth about what happened to their loved ones,'' he said, saying it was ''cruel and unusual that the government would keep us waiting this long.''
        Eagleson argued that the community of 9/11 family members, survivors and first responders did everything the government asked of it after the attacks. ''Now, 20 years later, when we need them, they are rubbing salt in an open wound and not giving us the documents,'' he said.
        ''It should not take this much fighting,'' he said. ''The president of the United States should be standing next to us.''
        Courtney Kube Courtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.
        Mike Memoli contributed.
      Universities Face Student Lawsuits Over Mandate...
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Source: The Drudge Report
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 13:44
        Hundreds of thousands of college and graduate students at public universities have been given a choice: Get fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or don't show up to campus in the fall.
        More than a dozen students have opted for a third option: Sue their school.
        Students have brought federal lawsuits challenging the vaccination requirements at major public university systems in Indiana, Connecticut, California and Massachusetts. The students, in several cases backed by antivaccine groups, are insisting they have a constitutional right to go to college in person and unvaccinated.
        The odds against the lawsuits are considerable, public-health law scholars say. Already a federal appeals court has affirmed Indiana University's vaccine requirement, a decision cited by other school defendants. When balancing public-health interests against individual liberties, courts historically have given state entities much deference.
        Still, the antivaccine legal effort represents one of the most significant tests in recent years of the government's power to press adults to get vaccinated, legal scholars said.
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        The battle over campus policies has become a flashpoint amid a resurgence of Covid-19 cases in the U.S. and contentious debate about how to lift the national vaccination rate. The threat of viral variants has led growing numbers of private employers to compel their workers to be vaccinated. New York City's mayor said it would soon require indoor diners and gym customers to show proof of vaccination.
        In the public sector, California and New York City officials are now requiring their workers to either be vaccinated or be tested regularly. The public university policies are more stringent for those students who don't qualify for exceptions.
        More than 200 public campuses require their students or employees to be vaccinated, according to a Chronicle of Higher Education database, which shows those schools clustered in regions that lean Democratic.
        The university systems facing lawsuits'--which also include the University of Connecticut, California State University and the University of Massachusetts'--have varying rules and exceptions. Generally, students can get waivers for medical reasons or because of religious objections, but they are subject to more stringent safety measures, including indoor mask-wearing and regular Covid-19 testing. Unexempted students have been barred from attending classes in person or from campus entirely. Most of the universities being sued don't currently allow full-time degree-seeking students to fulfill all their requirements online.
        The lead plaintiff suing the University of Connecticut, Nicole Wade, a 28-year-old college student and orthopedic specialist in the Army Reserve, said she was fearful of adverse reactions to the rapidly developed new vaccines.
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        ''I was always hesitant. It's just so new,'' said Ms. Wade, a mother of two children. ''There's no long-term data, so I just feel more comfortable waiting.'' She said it was unfair that faculty and staff are exempted from the requirement.
        In a court filing, the school said its measures to encourage vaccination are ''one tool among many that UConn has put in place to protect the health and safety of returning students.''
        Under the UConn policy, unvaccinated students may not attend on-campus activity in the fall unless granted waivers. The university said that as of July 23, it had granted most of the nonmedical requests for waivers, including ones submitted by two other plaintiffs in the case. Ms. Wade hasn't sought an exemption because of a ''lack of clarity about the policy itself,'' said her attorney, Ryan McLane. While the university said it was offering remote courses as an alternative, virtual classes are no substitute for in-person education, he said.
        The lawsuits against the universities claim violations of the right to bodily autonomy and assert that the safety risks of vaccination outweigh the public-health benefits. Antivaccine activists have focused on the public institutions, which are bound by constitutional restraints, and have brought lawsuits under the 14th Amendment and its protection of fundamental rights and liberties.
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        Most plaintiffs are students but not all. A 55-year-old George Mason University law professor is suing his school over its policy of denying merit pay increases to unvaccinated faculty members.
        Judicial challenges to governmental vaccination policies have a long history. Just a few years after English physician Edward Jenner discovered the smallpox vaccine in the late 1700s, a Vermont resident went to court in protest of a tax his town levied to help pay to inoculate its residents. By the turn of the 20th century, state courts had upheld compulsory vaccination in public schools.
        But it was Jacobson v. Massachusetts, a 1905 U.S. Supreme Court case, that set the most influential precedent.
        The dispute centered on a Massachusetts law enacted after a major smallpox outbreak authorizing local health boards to require adults to get vaccinated or pay a $5 fine. A Swedish Lutheran pastor named Henning Jacobson from Cambridge was jailed after he refused to get the shot or pay the fine. He argued that the smallpox threat had receded, but the Supreme Court upheld the law in a ruling that gave states broad license to combat health threats.
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        The lawsuits against the universities add new wrinkles. ''We haven't had to confront adult mandates very often,'' said Dorit Reiss, a public-health legal scholar at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Just how much judicial scrutiny should be applied to vaccination requirements isn't fully settled, she said.
        While higher courts have suggested that people have a constitutional right to refuse lifesaving medical treatment, such freedom has never extended to the right to refuse inoculation.
        Judicial hesitancy to second-guess university administrators was underscored in the Indiana University case. Guided by the Jacobson decision, a federal judge last month allowed the university system to impose its requirement, saying he wasn't persuaded by the student concerns over vaccine safety.
        The Chicago-based Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision Monday.
        ''Few people want to return to remote education,'' wrote Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook, a President Ronald Reagan appointee, denying an injunction. ''[W]e do not think that the Constitution forces the distance-learning approach on a university that believes vaccination'...will make in-person operations safe enough.''
        Write to Jacob Gershman at jacob.gershman@wsj.com
      United to require Covid vaccinations for its 67,000 U.S. employees
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        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 13:43
        United Airlines pilot Steve Lindland receives a COVID-19 vaccine from RN Sandra Manella at United's onsite clinic at O'Hare International Airport on March 09, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois.
        Scott Olson | Getty Images
        United Airlines will require its 67,000 U.S. employees to get vaccinated against Covid by no later than Oct. 25 or risk termination, a first for major U.S. carriers that will likely ramp up pressure on rivals.
        Airlines including United have so far resisted vaccine mandates for all workers, instead offering incentives like extra pay or time off to get inoculated. Delta Air Lines in May started requiring newly hired employees to show proof of vaccination. United followed suit in June.
        United's requirement is one of the strictest vaccine mandates from a U.S. company and one that includes employees who interact regularly with customers like flight attendants and gate agents.
        U.S. companies such as Facebook announced employees have to prove that they have been vaccinated to return to the office. Others are requiring them for only for certain workers. Walmart, for example, said last week that it will be required for corporate staff and management-level employees. Uber said U.S. office staff will need to be vaccinated to return to in-person work but stopped short of requiring them for drivers.
        Meatpacker Tyson Foods said this week its 120,000 U.S. employees must be fully vaccinated this year, though more than 50,000 already are.
        "We know some of you will disagree with this decision to require the vaccine for all United employees," United CEO Scott Kirby and President Brett Hart said Friday in an employee note. "But, we have no greater responsibility to you and your colleagues than to ensure your safety when you're at work, and the facts are crystal clear: everyone is safer when everyone is vaccinated."
        United Airlines employees must upload proof that they received two doses of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or one dose of Johnson & Johnson's single dose five weeks after federal officials give full approval to them or by Oct. 25, whichever is first, the executives said. Exceptions will be made for certain health issues or religious reasons, United said.
        The mandate does not apply to regional airlines that fly shorter routes for United.
        Many of United's employees have already reported they have been vaccinated, such as roughly 90% of pilots and 80% of flight attendants, according to company officials. United didn't say what the company's overall vaccination rate is.
        In comparison, about 60% of American Airlines' pilots are vaccinated, according to an Aug. 5 letter to members from their union, the Allied Pilots Association, which encouraged aviators to get vaccinated.
        United didn't say what the company's overall vaccination rate is.
        The decision was partly driven by concerns about rises in Covid-19 cases last year during the fall and winter, company officials said.
        Competitors Delta Air Lines, American and Southwest Airlines didn't immediately say whether they planned to mandate vaccines as well.
      Sharing videos on social media from Tokyo Games is not allowed -IOC | Reuters
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        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 13:33
        International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokesman Mark Adams speaks during a news conference in Rio de Janeiro February 26, 2015. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares
        TOKYO, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Sharing videos from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on social media is not allowed, even for athletes, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said on Thursday as it looked to protect broadcasters' rights.
        Jamaican double gold medallist sprinter Elaine Thompson-Herah was blocked briefly from Instagram on Wednesday after she had posted videos of her victorious 100 and 200 metres races to her 310,000 followers, violating broadcast rights for the Games.
        A Facebook (FB.O) spokesperson later said that while the content from Facebook-owned Instagram was removed, the suspension was wrongly applied.
        "We encourage people, we encourage everybody, to share still pictures of performances, but the video obviously belongs to the rights-holding broadcasters," IOC spokesman Mark Adams said.
        The IOC will receive more than $4 billion in broadcasting rights for the period, including the 2018 Pyeongchang winter Olympics and the Tokyo Games, much of which goes back into the Games and in supporting sports and athletes.
        The biggest single chunk of that money comes from U.S. broadcaster NBCUniversal - which has paid $7.65 billion to extend its U.S. broadcast rights for the Olympics through 2032.
        Adams said that 90% of the income from broadcasters that the IOC gets is redistributed. "That money comes to the IOC. We have to protect their rights and therefore the income which we can redistribute to athletes and sports."
        Social media has increasingly become a key way for audiences to engage with the Games.
        This year, athletes have posted viral TikToks from behind the scenes, including jumping on their much-discussed cardboard beds to debunk claims the beds were not strong enough to withstand vigorous activity and were therefore "anti-sex".
        But there are copyright and other restrictions on the kinds of online content that can be posted from the Games.
        Reporting by Karolos Grohmann; Editing by Himani Sarkar
        Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
      A Case of Immune Thrombocytopenia After BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination - Article abstract | American Journal of Case Reports
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 13:22
        Unusual clinical course, Unexpected drug reaction
        Eleanor R. King, Elizabeth Towner
        Department of Family Medicine, Ascension Providence Rochester Hospital, Rochester, MI, USA
        Am J Case Rep 2021; 22:e931478
        DOI: 10.12659/AJCR.931478
        Available online: 2021-06-11
        Published : 2021-07-21
        BACKGROUND: Immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) is an immune response that destroys platelets and increases the risk of bleeding, which can range from bruising to intracranial hemorrhage. ITP is a known complication of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In the first studies of the BNT162b2 messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 vaccine, there were no reports of ITP and the incidence of serious adverse events (AEs) was low overall. Here, we present a case of ITP as a complication of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine.CASE REPORT: Three days after receiving a second dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, a 39-year-old woman presented with a petechial rash on her trunk, legs, and arms, and fatigue and muscle aches. At the time of her hospital admission, her platelet count was 1000/µL. A peripheral smear showed profound thrombocytopenia. During the course of the patient's hospitalization, she was treated with 2 units of platelets, 2 infusions of i.v. immunoglobulin, and i.v. methylprednisolone. Her platelet count increased to 92 000/µL on the day of discharge and she was prescribed a tapered dose of oral prednisone. One day later, her rash had resolved and her platelet count was 243 000/µL. The patient recovered completely with no complications.CONCLUSIONS: ITP should be considered a severe AE of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. Knowing the early signs and symptoms of ITP will become increasingly important as more of the population receives this vaccine. Quick diagnosis and management are essential to avoid life-threatening bleeding.Keywords: Thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura, acquired, Purpura, COVID-19 vaccine
      Part of Wit and Wisdom Curriculum May Violate Tennessee's Critical Race Theory Ban, According to Moms for Liberty - Tennessee Star
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        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 12:13
        A parent coalition is concerned that the Wit and Wisdom curriculum, approved for use in 33 counties, may violate Tennessee's K-12 critical race theory ban. The coalition, Moms for Liberty of Williamson County, formed a parent-led deep dive team to examine the entire curriculum, including the accompanying teacher manuals. According to their findings, Moms for Liberty of Williamson County believes that one of the learning modules within the curriculum for second graders teaches content that was banned from K-12 education recently by the Tennessee legislature: that one race is inherently superior to another; that individuals should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress because of their race; that the U.S. is fundamentally or irredeemably racist; and the promotion of a division between or resentment of a race.
        Wit and Wisdom incorporates a type of education called ''social-emotional learning.'' The curriculum tackles history and complex topics such as segregation, animal reproduction, and death through the English language arts.
        One of the books highlighted by the deep dive team, ''Separate is Never Equal,'' discusses school segregation through a narrated version of one Hispanic woman's personal experiences of the issue. One character in the book goes into a lengthy diatribe about the educational, hygienic, economic, and social inferiorities of Mexican individuals.
        The deep dive team emphasized that the book never denounced these statements as false. They also pointed out that the teacher's manual instructed educators to introduce students to the book through illustrations first because of the content complexity. Educators are told to show students the illustrations of sad Mexican children behind bars while white children play happily in a pool, a sign that says ''No Dogs or Mexican Children Allowed '' Public Pool,'' and Mexican children eating food surrounded by flies and cattle in an electric fence pen.
        The illustration introduction is an exercise within the Wit and Wisdom curriculum called, ''Notice and Wonder.''
        Other Wit and Wisdom books for second graders discussed historical moments like the Civil Rights protests and Ruby Bridges, the first Black child to desegregate an all-white elementary school in the South. Content highlighted in these books as contentious included the photographs of fire hoses turned on Black protestors during the Civil Rights marches, and language discussing how the white crowd looked ready to kill Ruby Bridges.
        The deep dive team also noticed that the teacher's manual accompanying one of the books discussing Ruby Bridges teaches children the ''n-word.'' Educators are encouraged to do so by emphasizing the faint lettering that appears on a wall depicted in a Norman Rockwell painting.
        One repetitive theme that Moms for Liberty noticed was the tendency for this module of the Wit and Wisdom curriculum to characterize white people as a negative collectively. They relayed how the curriculum focuses on ''dark and divisive'' aspects of U.S. history for 9 weeks in 34 daily lessons.
        ''Without seeing the teaching materials involved in this module, one cannot begin to grasp the high level of manipulation being inflicted upon the young minds of impressionable second graders who do not yet have the level of maturity or capacity to think critically, nor enough knowledge of U.S. history and experience to provide adequate context to the narrowly-focused [Wit and Wisdom] lessons,'' wrote the deep dive team. ''The narrow and slanted obsession on historical mistakes reveals a heavily biased agenda, one that makes children hate their country, each other, or themselves. The relentless nature of how these divisive stories are taught, the lack of historical context and difference in perspective, and the manipulative way the lessons were designed to be taught all work together to amplify and sow feelings of resentment, shame of one's skin color, and/or fear.''
        Earlier this month, Moms for Liberty of Williamson County hosted a public event to present their findings for other grade levels that use the curriculum, from kindergarten to the fifth grade.
        Moms for Liberty is a national organization founded last year. Currently, it has 47 chapters '' 3 of which are in Tennessee. In addition to the Williamson County chapter, both Hamilton and Knox counties have a chapter.
        The state K-12 ban on critical race theory goes into effect on July 1. Tennessee's Education Commissioner, Penny Schwinn, promised to publish guidance on the ban by August 1.
        '' '' ''
        Corinne Murdock is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and the Star News Network. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to [email protected] . Photo ''First Day of School'' by World Bank Photo Collection CC2.0.
      Vaccine Hesitancy Linked to Decline in Vaccination TV Ads
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        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 12:09
        Television ads promoting the vaccine for Covid-19 have been airing on television since it became widely available. But a sharp decline in the TV spots appears to correlate to a persistent group of vaccine-hesitant Americans, or so suggests the reporting by CNN's Elizabeth Cohen.
        Appearing on CNN's New Day Friday morning, Cohen cited data from iSpot that tracks commercials across the broad spectrum of broadcast and cable television. ''With nearly a third of Americans opting not to get vaccinated, you would hope the ads would increase, educating people, letting people know the correct information rather than all the misinformation that's circulating on social media,'' she told Brianna Keilar.
        She then unveiled a chart that showed a sharp decline in pro-vaccination television spots from the middle of May. ''What they found is that the number of Covid-19 vaccine ads viewed on TV peaked in May and then went down steadily,'' she noted. ''That decline is really quite dramatic,'' she added before noting that TV viewing naturally always goes down in the summer.
        ''Still, that is a decline right at the time that you don't want a decline because there are so many people who need to hear this message,'' she said, before showing the sorts of ads that resonate best with Republicans and Democrats. Turns out that a spot featuring former presidents touting the benefits of the vaccine resonated very well with Democrats but not Republicans. A FedEx advertisement that showed the nation moving forward, not backward, and getting past the pandemic was a favorite among Republicans, according to research provided to CNN from iSpot.
        ''Let's take a look at the people who need to hear this message most,'' Cohen concluded. ''The Kaiser Family Foundation found in a recent poll said that people who say they definitely won't get the vaccine, 15% of Democrats say they definitely won't get it. 58% of Republicans say they definitely won't get it. So, there need to be ads obviously that really are geared towards Republicans since 58% of them say they definitely won't get a vaccine.''
        Nearly 70% of Americans have had at least one shot, though the new delta variant has not only spiked infection rates in states with largely unvaccinated populations, it has also led to an urgent call for more to get inoculated.
        Watch above via CNN.
        Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com
      Why mental health advocates use the words 'died by suicide'
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        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 11:45
        With the news this week of the deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, reactions and commentary are pouring in on social media. People who never met them are grasping for answers as to why these icons could meet such a tragic end. Specifically they may be asking, ''How could they do this?'' It's a common question in the aftermath of a suicide that, though typically innocent in nature, is loaded with crucial misunderstandings about suicide and, in some cases, mental illness.
        What exactly is the problem? Partly it's in the language. Asking ''how someone could do this'' puts responsibility on the victim, just as the phrase ''committed suicide'' suggests an almost criminal intent. Depression and other mental illnesses are leading risk factors for suicide. This is why mental health advocates usually employ the term ''died by suicide,'' as it removes culpability from the person who has lost their life and allows a discussion about the disease or disorder from which they were suffering.
        That said, suicide is rarely caused by one single factor. According to a Vital Signs report, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) researchers found that 54 percent people who died by suicide were not known to have a mental illness diagnosis. While many cases of suicide are attributed to mental illness diagnoses, other issues like relationship and financial stress and substance abuse contribute to rising rates of suicide.
        In the moment, what seems irrational can feel completely rational''In interviewing people who have [survived] suicide, what becomes apparent is that suicide in the moment that they attempt to enact it seems to them a very logical solution to their problems,'' says Dr. Anna Lembke, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences (general psychiatry and psychology-adult) at Stanford University Medical Center. ''Most often their problem is feeling profoundly unworthy, profoundly depressed and profoundly burdensome to others. What seems irrational from the outside in their mind is, in that moment, completely rational. And this thought of being a burden is a recurring theme that comes up again and again.''
        Dr. Rebecca Bernert, a suicidologist and the director/founder of the suicide prevention research laboratory at Stanford School of Medicine adds that research suggests that people ''at greatest risk for suicide may perceive themselves to be a burden or feel a lack of belongingness, even if this may be a harmful misperception.''
        Because this feeling of being a burden is so strong, suicide can be viewed as ''not a selfish act but almost a selfless act,'' by its victims, Dr. Lembke explains. ''There's a gross underestimation of the psychological impact of what a suicide will be, even to loved ones, and an irrational sense that [one's death] will help people, even those they love the most. This thinking is deeply informed by being in an altered mental state caused usually by depression or depression and psychosis.''
        Not every depressed person develops suicidal thoughts and not every person who dies by suicide is depressedNot everyone who suffers from depression will have suicidal thoughts. And not everyone who has suicidal thoughts will act on them. Why are some people more at risk than others? There's no one answer for this complicated issue.
        ''Suicide is a complex outcome of medical illness and a diverse interplay of risk factors,'' says Dr. Bernert. ''Though a symptom of depression, suicidal behaviors exist on a continuum of risk, ranging in severity from suicidal thoughts to attempts to death by suicide. Only a small fraction of those with depression will go on to die by suicide.''
        Dr. Urszula Klich, a clinical health psychologist who implemented suicide prevention training program in a previous role at Shepherd Center in Atlanta, Georgia, notes that in her current experience treating chronic pain patients (which she notes as a very high-risk category for suicide), ''Some patients, no matter how depressed they are, never have suicidal thoughts and never does their depression manifest to their being at risk for suicide.''
        Just as a depressed person may never become suicidal, a person who has never been depressed can become suicidal '-- seemingly out of the blue. But there is almost always, Dr. Klich says, some form of ''working up to the act.'' Sometimes a loved one can detect and intervene (successfully or not); sometimes they can't.
        ''If we take a look at the acquired ability or the so-called 'capability' a person has when completing suicide, we know they work up to the act. We see some things unfolding. They may have talked about it with someone, and that person will later recall them saying something odd. But we also see suicidal patients doing some sort of rehearsals,'' she says. ''They may not even be planning suicide, but they're playing around with the idea. Maybe, if they have a gun, they will take it out and load it and then unload it and put it away. Or, in the case of overdoses, they'll take out pills and count them,'' Dr. Kilch says.
        These ''planful behaviors,'' as Dr. Bernert puts it, signal a heightened risk, ''even if the act itself may appear differently.''
        If you know someone at risk, get specific with your questionsTo be clear, this doesn't mean that survivors of loved ones who died by suicide missed warning signs, because you can't miss signs if you don't know they're there; and as Dr. Klich points out, certain suicidal behaviors can only be aptly picked up on by trained professionals, especially in the case of those mentally rehearsing or visualizing '-- symptoms that can occur without the person's full awareness that this is indeed a kind of suicidal thinking. Additionally, because millions of Americans have depression and don't have with suicidal thoughts, it can be hard if not impossible to tell who is at risk and who is not.
        But if you're concerned about a loved one being at risk, you can possibly help by speaking up.
        ''Speak with your loved one about how they are feeling and encourage help-seeking by way of the many resources available, including the American Association for Suicide Prevention and American Association of Suicidology and confidential helplines,'' says Dr. Bernert.
        And be direct in your conversations when you can. Dr. Klich finds that because suicide is so stigmatized (and also, just a really tough thing to talk about), people tend to skirt around the issue, or even unintentionally steer victims of suicidal thoughts toward a reassuring answer.
        ''Very often people will say, 'you won't do anything, right?''' she says. ''I see this even in the medical field. Professionals will say to patients, 'you haven't thought about self-harm or suicide, right?' Who would answer positively in response to that? Not many people.''
        Maybe a better way to ask is to leave it open-ended and nonjudgmental. You might want to say, ''Are you having suicidal thoughts or imaginings?''
        An ongoing struggle to understandWhen we're grieving this kind of death, we'll likely have questions. Even now, perfect strangers are trying to put together a puzzle of what happened to result in these celebrity deaths, of what they missed, of why we had no idea of their possible struggles (not that they are any of the public's business).
        But if someone you did know has died by suicide caused by a mental illness and are looking for a way to understand it, consider Dr. Lembke's moving analogy.
        ''We talk about death with cancer and heart disease but not death when associated with mental illness,'' says Dr. Lembke. ''But some people do die from it. Suicide is like a massive heart attack of the brain.''
        If you're feeling triggered or at risk, please follow Dr. Bernert's advice:
        ''Confidential support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by way of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-TALK) or the Crisis Test Line,'' she says. ''These are available to anyone, whether in crisis or concerned about a loved one who is experiencing distress.''
      Mob Morality and the Unvaxxed - by Charles Eisenstein - Charles Eisenstein
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 11:42
        (A standalone Part 3 of a series. Part 1, Part 2)Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred.'' Joseph Goebbels
        We would like to think that modern societies like ours have outgrown barbaric customs like human sacrifice. Sure, we still engage in scapegoating and figuratively sacrifice people on the altar of public opinion, but we don't actually kill people in hopes of placating the gods and restoring order. Or do we?
        Some scholars believe we do. Following the thought of the late philosopher Rene Girard, they argue that human sacrifice is still with us today in the form of capital punishment (and incarceration '' a removal from society). Girard believed that human sacrifice arose in response to what he called a ''sacrificial crisis.'' The original sacrificial crisis '' the greatest threat to early societies '' was escalating cycles of violence and retribution. The solution was to redirect the vengeance away from each other and, in violent unanimity, toward a scapegoat or class of scapegoats. Once established, this pattern was memorialized in myth and ritual, applied preemptively as human sacrifice, and carried out in response to any other crisis that threatened society.
        In this view, capital punishment originated in human sacrifice and it is human sacrifice. It performs the same function: to forestall reciprocal violence through unanimous violence. It does so by monopolizing vengeance, truncating the cycle of retaliatory violence at the first iteration. This works whether the subject of execution or incarceration is guilty of a crime or not. Justice is a cover story for something more primal. Theologian Brian K. Smith writes,
        The subject of a modern execution might also be carrying multivalent significations. Among other things (i.e., racial and economic metonymic potentialities), such a figure might serve as the representative of all crime, of "disorder" and social "chaos," of the "breakdown of values," etc. Apart from any utilitarian deterrent effect capital punishment might have, it is one, rather drastic, response to a social problem '' illegal and illicit violence.
        In other words, what we rationalize in the language of justice and deterrence is actually a blood ritual, in which a person, whether guilty or not, becomes a symbol. Ritual springs up irrepressibly around executions: the last meal, the ''dead man walking'' to the special execution chamber, the witnesses, the medical procedures, the presiding physician, the signed papers, the last rites, the covering of the head, the precise timetable, the final words, and the exacting attention to detail all mark off the execution as separate, special'... sacred.
        Something Must be Done
        In a lucidly argued paper, legal scholar Roberta Harding offers several examples from the deep South during Jim Crow where judge, jury, and prosecutor well knew that the accused black man was innocent of the charge of raping a white woman. However, because the white supremacist social order was threatened by consensual interracial intercourse, they executed the accused anyway; if they failed to do so promptly he was lynched. Partly this was to set an example and terrify the black population, but partly it was because something had to be done.
        By the same token, it mattered little that Afghan villagers or Iraqi politicians had no culpability for 9/11; nor did it matter that bombing them would have no practical effect on future terrorism (except to further inflame it). Obviously, the United States was using 9/11 as a pretext to accomplish larger geopolitical aims. Yet it worked as a pretext only because of broad public agreement that ''something must be done.'' And, enacting the age-old pattern, we knew what to do: find some target of unifying violence that cannot effectively retaliate. I was dismayed in 2001 when, at Quaker Meeting of all places, one of the Quakers said, ''Of course, a forceful response of some kind is necessary.'' What, I wondered, does ''forceful'' mean? It means bombing someone. In other words, we must find someone upon whom to visit violence. He may also have mentioned addressing the imperialist causes of terrorism, but those were not the subject of ''of course.'' Nearly everyone instinctively took for granted the necessity of finding sacrificial victims. We were definitely going to bomb someone '' the only question was whom.
        The 9/11 attack exemplifies what Harding calls a triggering incident, which ''resuscitates dissensions, rivalries, jealousies and quarrels within the community,'' leading to a sacrificial crisis. A recent such incident was the murder of George Floyd. The latent conflicts it exposed have been festering for so long that it takes little provocation for them to erupt into an active crisis. The response to Floyd's murder is a classic illustration of the calming power of violent unanimity, as Derrick Chauvin's conviction and sentencing temporarily quelled the racialized civil unrest that the killing sparked. Something was done '' but only to quell the unrest, not to solve the complex, heavily ramified problem of police killings. It no more addressed the source of America's race problems than killing Osama Bin Laden made America safe from terrorism.
        Not just any victim will do as an object of human sacrifice. Victims must be, as Harding puts it, ''in, but not of, the society.'' That is why, during the Black Death, mobs roamed about murdering Jews for ''poisoning the wells.'' The entire Jewish population of Basel was burned alive, a scene repeated throughout Western Europe. Yet this was not mainly the result of preexisting virulent hatred of Jews waiting for an excuse to erupt; it was that victims were needed to release social tension, and hatred, an instrument of that release, coalesced opportunistically on the Jews. They qualified as victims because of their in-but-not-of status.
        ''Combatting hatred'' is combatting a symptom.
        Scapegoats needn't be guilty, but they must be marginal, outcasts, heretics, taboo-breakers, or infidels of one kind or another. If they are too alien, they will unsuitable as transfer objects of in-group aggression. Neither can they be full members of society, lest cycles of vengeance ensue. If they are not already marginal, they must be made so. It was ritually important that Derrick Chauvin be cast as a racist and white supremacist; then his removal from society could serve symbolically as the removal of racism itself.
        Just to be clear here, I am not saying Derrick Chauvin's conviction for George Floyd's murder was unjust. I am saying that justice was not the only thing carried out.
        Representatives of Pollution
        Aside from criminals, who today serves as the representative of Smith's ''disorder,'' ''social chaos,'' and ''breakdown of values'' that seem to be overtaking the world? For most of my life external enemies and a story-of-the-nation served to unify society: communism and the Soviet Union, Islamic terrorism, the mission to the moon, and the mythology of progress. Today the Soviet Union is long dead, terrorism has ceased to terrify, the moon is boring, and the mythology of progress is in terminal decline. Civil strife burns ever hotter, without the broad consensus necessary to transform it into unifying violence. For the right, it is Antifa, Black Lives Matter protesters, critical race theory academics, and undocumented immigrants that represent social chaos and the breakdown of values. For the left it is the Proud Boys, right wing militias, white supremacists, QAnon, the Capitol rioters, and the burgeoning new category of ''domestic extremists.'' And finally, defying left-right categorization is a promising new scapegoat class, the heretics of our time: the anti-vaxxers. As a readily identifiable subpopulation, they are ideal candidates for scapegoating.
        It matters little whether any of these pose a real threat to society. As with the subjects of criminal justice, their guilt is irrelevant to the project of restoring order through blood sacrifice (or expulsion from the community by incarceration or, in more tepid but possibly prefigurative form, through ''canceling''). All that is necessary is that the dehumanized class arouse the blind indignation and rage necessary to incite a paroxysm of unifying violence. More relevant to current times, this primal mob energy can be harnessed toward fascistic political ends. Totalitarians right and left invoke it directly when they speak of purges, ethnic cleansing, racial purity, and traitors in our midst.
        Sacrificial subjects carry an association of pollution or contagion; their removal thus cleanses society. I know people in the alternative health field who are considered so unclean that if I so much as mention their names in a Tweet or Facebook post, the post may be deleted. Deletion is a certainty if I link to an article or interview with them. The public's ready acceptance of such blatant censorship cannot be explained solely in terms of its believing the pretext of ''controlling misinformation.'' Unconsciously, the public recognizes and conforms to the age-old program of investing a pariah subclass with the symbology of pollution.
        This program is well underway toward the Covid-unvaxxed, who are being portrayed as walking cesspools of germs who might contaminate the Sanctified Brethren (the vaccinated). My wife perused an acupuncture Facebook page today (which one would expect to be skeptical of mainstream medicine) where someone asked, ''What is the word that comes to mind to describe unvaccinated people?'' The responses were things like ''filth,'' ''assholes,'' and ''death-eaters.'' This is precisely the dehumanization necessary to prepare a class of people for cleansing.
        The science behind this portrayal is dubious. Contrary to the association of the unvaccinated with public danger, some experts contend that it is the vaccinated that are more likely to drive mutant variants through selection pressure. Just as antibiotics result in higher mutation rates and adaptive evolution in bacteria, leading to antibiotic resistance, so may vaccines push viruses to mutate. (Hence the prospect of endless ''boosters'' against endless new variants.) This phenomenon has been studied for decades, as this article in my favorite math & science website, Quanta, describes. The mutated variants evade the vaccine-induced antibodies, in contrast to the robust immunity that, according to some scientists, those who have already been sick with Covid have to all variants (See this and this, more analysis here, compare to Dr. Fauci's viewpoint.)
        It is not my purpose here, however, to present a scientific case. My point is that those in the scientific and medical community who dissent from the demonization of the unvaxxed contend not only with opposing scientific views, but with ancient, powerful psycho-social forces. They can debate the science all they want, but they are up against something much bigger. Rwandan scientists could just as well debated the precepts of Hutu Power for all the good that would have done. Perhaps the Nazi example is more apposite here, since the Nazis did invoke science in their extermination campaigns. Then as now, science was a cloak for something more primal. The hurricane of sacrificial violence easily swept aside the minority of German scientists who contested the science of eugenics, and it wasn't because the dissidents were wrong.
        We face a similar situation today. If the mainstream view on Covid vaccines is wrong, it will not be overthrown by science alone. The pro-vaccine camp has a powerful nonscientific ally in the collective id, expressed through various mechanisms of ostracism, shaming, and other social and economic pressure. It takes courage to defy a mob. Doctors and scientists who express anti-vaccine views risk losing funding, jobs, and licenses, just as ordinary citizens face censorship on social media. Even a non-polemic essay like this one will likely be censored, especially if I stain it with the pollution of the heretics by linking blacklisted websites or articles by the disinformation dozen anti-vaxxers. Here, let's try it for fun. Greenmedinfo! Chldren's Health Defense! Mercola.com! Ah. That felt a little like shouting swear words in public. You'd better not follow these links, lest you be tainted by their pollution (and your browsing history mark you as an infidel).
        To prepare someone for removal as the repository of all that is evil, it helps to heap upon them every imaginable calumny. Thus we hear in mainstream publications that anti-vaxxers not only are killing people, but are raging narcissists, white supremacists, vile, spreaders of Russian disinformation, and tantamount to domestic terrorists. These accusations are amplified by cherry-picking a few examples, choosing hysterical-looking photos of anti-vaxxers, and showcasing their most dubious arguments. If the authorities follow the playbook developed to counter other domestic ''threats,'' we can also expect agents-provocateurs, entrapment schemes, government agents voicing violent positions to discredit the movement, and so forth '' techniques developed in the infiltration of the civil rights, environmental, and anti-globalism movements.
        Concerned friends have advised me to ''distance myself'' from members of the Disinformation Dozen whom I know, as if they carry some kind of contagion. Well, in a sense they do '' the contagion of disrepute. It reminds me of Soviet times when mere association with a dissident could land one in the Gulag with them. It also reminds me of my school days, when it was social suicide to be friendly with the weird kid, whose weirdness would rub off one oneself. In grade school, this contagion was known as ''cooties.'' (In my early teens I was the weird kid, and only very brave teenagers would be friendly to me while anyone was watching.) Clearly, the basic social dynamic pervades society at many levels. A deeply ingrained gut instinct recognizes the danger of membership in a pariah subclass. To defend the pariahs or to fail to show sufficient enthusiasm in attacking them marks one with suspicion; the result is self-censorship and discretion, contributing all the more to the illusion of unanimity.
        Hijacking Morality
        The same kind of positive reinforcement cycle is what generates a mob. All it takes is a few loud people to incite it by declaring someone or something a target. A portion of the crowd goes along enthusiastically. The rest keep silent and conform in outward behavior even as they are troubled within; to each, it looks like he or she is the only one who disagrees. Writ large to the totalitarian state, the support of a majority of the population is unnecessary. The appearance of support will suffice.
        The mechanisms that generate the illusion of unanimity operate within science, medicine, and journalism as well as among the general public. Some conform enthusiastically to the orthodoxy; others complain in whispers to sympathetic colleagues. Those who voice dissent publicly become radioactive. The consequences of their apostasy (excommunication from funding, ridicule in the media, shunning by colleagues who must ''distance themselves,'' etc.) serve to silence other potential dissidents, who prudently keep their views to themselves.
        Notice that here I have not yet said what I personally think about vaccine safety, efficacy, or necessity (be patient); nonetheless, what I have said is enough for anyone to distance themselves from me to keep safe. If I'm not an anti-vaxxer myself, I certainly have their cooties.
        Someone on an online forum that I co-host related an incident. His children had a play date scheduled at their friend's house. A parent called him to ask if his family had been vaccinated. Politely, he said no, and his children were immediately disinvited.
        While this parent doubtless believed he was being scientific in canceling the invitation, I doubt science was really the reason. Even the most Covid-orthodox person understands that the non-symptomatic children of non-symptomatic parents pose negligible risk of infection; furthermore, since vaccine believers presumably trust that the vaccine provides protection, rationally speaking they have little to fear from the unvaccinated. The risk is vanishingly small, but the moral indignation is huge.
        Many if not most people get the vaccine in an altruistic civic spirit, not because they personally fear getting Covid, but because they believe they are contributing to herd immunity and protecting others. By extension, those who refuse the vaccine are shirking their civic duty; hence the epithets ''filth'' and ''assholes.'' They become the identifiable representatives of social decay, ready for surgical removal from the body politic like cancer cells all conveniently located in the same tumor.
        Social stability depends on people rewarding altruism and deterring antisocial behavior. These rewards and deterrents are encoded into morals and then into norms and taboos. Performing the rituals and avoiding the taboos of the tribe, and shaming and punishing those who do not, one rests serenely in the knowledge of being a good person. As an added benefit, one distinguishes oneself as part of the moral majority, a full member of society, and not part of the sacrificial minority. Our fear of nonconformity is born of ancient experience so deeply ingrained it has become an instinct. It is hard to distinguish it from morality.
        The fear operating in the ostracism of the unvaxxed is mostly not fear of disease, though disease may be its proxy. The main fear, old as humanity, is of a social contagion. It is fear of association with the outcasts, coded as moral indignation.
        In any society some people are especially zealous in enforcing group norms, values, rituals, and taboos. They may be controlling types, or they may simply care about the common good. They serve an important function the norms and rituals are aligned with social and ecological health. But when corrupt forces hijack the norms through propaganda and the control of information, these good folks can become instruments of totalitarian control.
        Those doing the scapegoating may honestly, even fervently, believe the narrative of ''the unvaccinated endanger others.'' Again, while I find the evidence to the contrary persuasive, I won't try to build a case for it beyond the hints I've offered already. As the saying goes, you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into to begin with. Furthermore, most of the citations I would use would come from blacklisted sources, which, owing to their heresy, are unacceptable to those who trust official sources of information. If you trust the official sources, why, then you trust their exclusion of the heretical information. When official sources exclude all dissent, then all dissent becomes a priori invalid to those who trust them.
        Consequently, much of the dissent migrates to dodgy right-wing websites without the resources to check facts and scrutinize sources. One would think, for example, that a highly credentialed scientist like Dr. Peter McCullough, a professor of medicine, author of hundreds of peer-reviewed articles, and president of the Cardio-Renal Society of America, would be able to find a hearing outside the right-wing media ecosystem. But no. He's been sidelined to places like the right wing Catholic John-Henry Westen show. I wish I could fine a link to this persuasive interview somewhere else, especially because there is actually nothing right-wing about McCullough's views.
        Tragically, the sites that host people like McCullough are quite often home to anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ articles that use the same tactics leveled at anti-vaxxers, tap into the same template of dehumanization and scapegoating, and lend themselves to the same fascistic ends.
        Moving the Masses
        For these reasons, I won't try too hard to substantiate my belief that '' and I may as well say it explicitly as a gesture of goodwill to the censors, who will thus have an easier time deciding what to do with this article '' the Covid vaccines are much more dangerous, less effective, and less necessary than we are told. They also seem not as dangerous, at least in the short term, as some fear. People are not dropping dead in the streets or turning into zombies; most of my vaccinated friends seem to be just fine. So it is hard to know. The science on the issue is so clouded by financial incentives and systemic bias that it is impossible to rely on it to light a way through the murk. The system of research and public health suppresses generic medicines and nutritional therapies that have been demonstrated to greatly reduce Covid symptoms and mortality, leaving vaccines as the only choice. It also fails to adequately investigate numerous plausible mechanisms for serious long-term harm. Of course, plausible does not mean certain: at this point no one knows, or indeed can know, what the long-term effects will be. My point, however, is not that the anti-vaxxers are right and being unjustly persecuted. It is that their persecution enacts a pattern that has little to do with whether they are right or wrong, innocent or guilty. The unreliability of the science underscores that point, and suggests that we take a hard look at the deadly social impulses that the science cloaks.
        To say that official sources exclude all dissent overstates the case. In fact, peer-reviewed publications and highly credentialed medical doctors and scientists concur with much of what I've said. Admittedly, they are in the minority. But if they were right, we would not easily know it. The mechanisms for controlling misinformation work equally well to control true information that contradicts official sources.
        The foregoing analysis is not meant to invalidate other explanations for Covid conformity: the influence of Big Pharma on research, the media, and government; reigning medical paradigms that see health as a matter of winning a war on germs; a general social climate of fear, obsession with safety, the phobia and denial of death; and, perhaps most importantly, the long disempowerment of individuals to manage their own health.
        Nor is the foregoing analysis incompatible with the theory that Covid and the vaccination agenda is a totalitarian conspiracy to surveil, track, inject, and control every human being on earth. There can be little doubt that some kind of totalitarian program is well underway, but I have long believed it an emergent phenomenon agglomerating synchronicities to fulfill the hidden myth and ideology of Separation, and not a premeditated plot among human conspirators. Now I believe both are true; the latter subsidiary to the former, its avatar, its symptom, its expression. While not the deepest explanation for humanity's current travail, conspiracies and the secret machinations of power do operate, and I've come to accept that some things about our current historical moment are best explained in those terms.
        Whether the totalitarian program is premeditated or opportunistic, deliberate or emergent, the question remains: How does a small elite move the great mass of humanity? They do it by aggravating and exploiting deep psycho-social patterns such as the Girardian. Fascists have always done that. We normally attribute pogroms and genocide to racist ideology, the classic example being antisemitic fascism. From the Girardian perspective it is more the other way around. The ideology is secondary: a creation and a tool of impending violent unanimity. It creates its necessary conditions. The same might be said of slavery. It was not that Europeans thought Africans were inferior and so thus enslaved them. It was that thinking them inferior was required in order to enslave them.
        On an individual level too, who among us has not operated from unconscious shadow motivations, creating elaborate enabling justifications and post facto rationalizations of actions that harm others?
        Why is fascism so commonly associated with genocide, when as a political philosophy it is about unity, nationalism, and the merger of corporate and state power? It is because it needs a unifying force powerful enough to sweep aside all resistance. The us of fascism requires a them. The civic-minded moral majority participates willingly, assured that it is for the greater good. Something must be done. The doubters go along too, for their own safety. No wonder today's authoritarian institutions know, as if instinctively, to whip up hysteria toward the newly minted class of deplorables, the anti-vaxxers and unvaccinated.
        Fascism taps into, exploits, and institutionalizes a deeper instinct. The practice of creating dehumanized classes of people and then murdering them is older than history. It emerges again and again under all political systems. Our own is not exempt. The campaign against the unvaccinated, garbed in the white lab coat of Science, munitioned with biased data, and waving the pennant of altruism, channels a brutal, ancient impulse.
        Does that mean that the unvaccinated will be rounded up in concentration camps and their leaders ritually murdered? No. they will be segregated from society in other ways. More importantly, the energies invoked by the scapegoating, dehumanizing, pollution-associating campaign can be applied to gain public acceptance of coercive policies, particularly policies that fit the narrative of removing pollution. Currently, a vaccine passport is required to visit certain countries. Imagine needing one to go shopping, drive a car, or exit your home. It would be easily enforceable anywhere that has implemented the ''internet of things,'' in which everything from automobiles to door locks is under central control. The flimsiest pretext will suffice once the ancient template of sacrificial victim, the repository of pollution, has been established.
        Rene Girard was, from what I've read of his work, something of a fundamentalist. I do not agree with him that all desire beyond mere appetite is mimetic or that all ritual originates in sacrificial violence, powerful though these lenses are. By the same token, I don't want to reduce our current acceleration toward techno-totalitarianism and a biosecurity state by just one psycho-social explanation, however deep. Yet it is important to recognize the Girardian pattern, so we know what we are dealing with, so that we can creatively expand our resistance beyond futile debate over the issues '' and most importantly, so we can identify its operation within ourselves. Any movement that leverages contempt in its rhetoric fits the Girardian impulse. Elements of scapegoating such as dehumanization, rumor-mongering, stereotyping, punishment-as-justice, and mob mentality are alive within dissident communities as they are in the mainstream. Any who ride those powers to victory will create a new tyranny no better than the previous.
        There is another way and a better future. I will describe it in Part 4 of this essay although the reader already knows what it is, by feel if not in words. This future reaches into the present and the past to show itself any time that vengeance gives way to forgiveness, enmity to reconciliation, blame to compassion, judgment to understanding, punishment to justice, rivalry to synergy, and suspicion to laughter. Transcendence is in the human being.
      New Apple technology will warn parents and children about sexually explicit photos in Messages | TechCrunch
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        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 11:36
        Apple later this year will roll out new tools that will warn children and parents if the child sends or receives sexually explicit photos through the Messages app. The feature is part of a handful of new technologies Apple is introducing that aim to limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) across Apple's platforms and services.
        As part of these developments, Apple will be able to detect known CSAM images on its mobile devices, like iPhone and iPad, and in photos uploaded to iCloud, while still respecting consumer privacy.
        The new Messages feature, meanwhile, is meant to enable parents to play a more active and informed role when it comes to helping their children learn to navigate online communication. Through a software update rolling out later this year, Messages will be able to use on-device machine learning to analyze image attachments and determine if a photo being shared is sexually explicit. This technology does not require Apple to access or read the child's private communications, as all the processing happens on the device. Nothing is passed back to Apple's servers in the cloud.
        If a sensitive photo is discovered in a message thread, the image will be blocked and a label will appear below the photo that states, ''this may be sensitive'' with a link to click to view the photo. If the child chooses to view the photo, another screen appears with more information. Here, a message informs the child that sensitive photos and videos ''show the private body parts that you cover with bathing suits'' and ''it's not your fault, but sensitive photos and videos can be used to harm you.''
        It also suggests that the person in the photo or video may not want it to be seen and it could have been shared without their knowing.
        Image Credits: Apple
        These warnings aim to help guide the child to make the right decision by choosing not to view the content.
        However, if the child clicks through to view the photo anyway, they'll then be shown an additional screen that informs them that if they choose to view the photo, their parents will be notified. The screen also explains that their parents want them to be safe and suggests that the child talk to someone if they feel pressured. It offers a link to more resources for getting help, as well.
        There's still an option at the bottom of the screen to view the photo, but again, it's not the default choice. Instead, the screen is designed in a way where the option to not view the photo is highlighted.
        These types of features could help protect children from sexual predators, not only by introducing technology that interrupts the communications and offers advice and resources, but also because the system will alert parents. In many cases where a child is hurt by a predator, parents didn't even realize the child had begun to talk to that person online or by phone. This is because child predators are very manipulative and will attempt to gain the child's trust, then isolate the child from their parents so they'll keep the communications a secret. In other cases, the predators have groomed the parents, too.
        Apple's technology could help in both cases by intervening, identifying and alerting to explicit materials being shared.
        However, a growing amount of CSAM material is what's known as self-generated CSAM, or imagery that is taken by the child, which may be then shared consensually with the child's partner or peers. In other words, sexting or sharing ''nudes.'' According to a 2019 survey from Thorn, a company developing technology to fight the sexual exploitation of children, this practice has become so common that 1 in 5 girls ages 13 to 17 said they have shared their own nudes, and 1 in 10 boys have done the same. But the child may not fully understand how sharing that imagery puts them at risk of sexual abuse and exploitation.
        The new Messages feature will offer a similar set of protections here, too. In this case, if a child attempts to send an explicit photo, they'll be warned before the photo is sent. Parents can also receive a message if the child chooses to send the photo anyway.
        Apple says the new technology will arrive as part of a software update later this year to accounts set up as families in iCloud for iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey in the U.S.
        This update will also include updates to Siri and Search that will offer expanded guidance and resources to help children and parents stay safe online and get help in unsafe situations. For example, users will be able to ask Siri how to report CSAM or child exploitation. Siri and Search will also intervene when users search for queries related to CSAM to explain that the topic is harmful and provide resources to get help.
      Novavax Is Now the Best COVID-19 Vaccine - The Atlantic
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        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 10:41
        Persistent hype around mRNA vaccine technology is now distracting us from other ways to end the pandemic.
        Alastair Grant / APAt the end of January, reports that yet another COVID-19 vaccine had succeeded in its clinical trials'--this one offering about 70 percent protection'--were front-page news in the United States, and occasioned push alerts on millions of phones. But when the Maryland-based biotech firm Novavax announced its latest stunning trial results last week, and an efficacy rate of more than 90 percent even against coronavirus variants, the response from the same media outlets was muted in comparison. The difference, of course, was the timing: With three vaccines already authorized for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the nation is ''awash in other shots'' already, as the The New York Times put it.
        Practically speaking, this is true. If the FDA sees no urgency, the Novavax vaccine might not be available in the U.S. for months, and in the meantime the national supply of other doses exceeds demand. But the asymmetry in coverage also hints at how the hype around the early-bird vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna has distorted perception. Their rapid arrival has been described in this magazine as ''the triumph of mRNA'''--a brand-new vaccine technology whose ''potential stretches far beyond this pandemic.'' Other outlets gushed about ''a turning point in the long history of vaccines,'' one that ''changed biotech forever.'' It was easy to assume, based on all this reporting, that mRNA vaccines had already proved to be the most effective ones you could get'--that they were better, sleeker, even cooler than any other vaccines could ever be.
        But the fascination with the newest, shiniest options obscured some basic facts. These two particular mRNA vaccines may have been the first to get results from Phase 3 clinical trials, but that's because of superior trial management, not secret vaccine sauce. For now, they are harder and more expensive to manufacture and distribute than traditional types of vaccines, and their side effects are more common and more severe. The latest Novavax data confirm that it's possible to achieve the same efficacy against COVID-19 with a more familiar technology that more people may be inclined to trust. (The mRNA vaccines delivered efficacy rates of 95 and 94 percent against the original coronavirus strain in Phase 3 trials, as compared with 96 percent for Novavax in its first trial, and now 90 percent against a mixture of variants.
        Read: The differences between the vaccines matter
        Pandemic-vaccine success, as I wrote last year, was never just about the technology. You needed a good vaccine, sure'--but to get it out the door quickly, you also had to have a massive clinical-trial operation going, and it had to be situated in places where the virus would be spreading widely at just the right time. Even if your candidate worked amazingly well, if you weren't testing it in the middle of a huge outbreak, you'd have to wait a very long time for the evidence to build.
        The precise timing of these studies mattered a great deal in practice. The Phase 3 clinical trials for Pfizer and Moderna, for example, were up and running in the U.S. by late summer 2020, and so they caught the nation's giant wave of infections in the fall. By the time Novavax had finished recruiting in the U.S. and Mexico, in February, case rates had been dropping precipitously. This fact alone, independent of any aspect of vaccine technology, did a lot to shape the outcome.
        Corporate strategy was another crucial factor. To ''win'' the vaccine race, a company would need to be able to produce high-quality vaccine doses reliably and quickly, and in vast numbers. It would also need to field the challenges of working with multiple regulatory agencies around the world. And it would need to do all of this at the same time.
        BioNTech, the German company that developed the Pfizer mRNA vaccine, could not have accomplished so much, so quickly by itself. Last October, the company's CEO, UÄŸur Åžahin, told German interviewers that BioNTech had sought out Pfizer for help because of the scale of the clinical-trial program necessary for drug approvals. That strategic partnership, and not simply the ''triumph of mRNA,'' was what propelled them past the post. (Moderna had the advantage of its partnership with the National Institutes of Health.) Consider this: The BioNTech-Pfizer first-in-human vaccine study appeared on the U.S. government's registry of clinical trials on April 30, 2020'--the same day as the first-in-human vaccine study for Novavax, which would be going it alone. In a parallel universe where Novavax had paired up with, say, Merck, this story could have come out very differently.
        In the meantime, the early success of two mRNA vaccines pulled attention away from the slower progress of other candidates based on the same technology. Just two days after last week's Novavax announcement came the news that an mRNA vaccine developed by the German company CureVac had delivered a weak early efficacy rate in a Phase 3 trial, landing below even the 50 percent minimum level set by the World Health Organization and the FDA. ''The results caught scientists by surprise,'' The New York Times reported. CureVac is the company that President Donald Trump reportedly tried to lure to the U.S. early in the pandemic, and the one that Elon Musk said he would supply with automated ''RNA microfactories'' for vaccine production. In the end, none of this mattered. CureVac's mRNA vaccine just doesn't seem to be good enough.
        The ''sobering'' struggles of CureVac perfectly illustrate what epidemiologists call ''survivor bias'''--a tendency to look only at positive examples and draw sweeping conclusions on their basis. When the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines triumphed, The Washington Post suggested that a bet on ''speedy but risky'' mRNA technology had paid off with a paradigm-shifting breakthrough. Anthony Fauci called the gamble ''a spectacular success.'' Such analyses usually had less to say about the non-mRNA vaccines that had gotten into clinical trials just as quickly'--and about the other mRNA vaccines that were hitting snags along the way.
        Now we've seen what happened to CureVac, and that some mRNA formulations clearly work much better than others. By one count, nine groups were testing mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in animal studies as of May 2020, and six were expected to be in clinical trials a few months later. By the end of the year, only BioNTech-Pfizer, Moderna, and CureVac had reached Phase 3 testing, compared with 13 non-mRNA vaccines. Of the nine mRNA-vaccine candidates that were already testing in animals in mid-2020, just two have proved efficacy at this point, while no fewer than nine vaccines based on more traditional technologies have reached the same mark.
        These other, non-mRNA vaccines have been widely used throughout the world'--and some could still make an important difference in the U.S. Although the U.S. has plenty of doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines available right now, demand for them has cratered. The Washington Post reports that in 10 states, fewer than 35 percent of American adults have been vaccinated. An international study of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation, published in May, found that among the most common online rumors were those alleging particular dangers of mRNA technology'--that it leads, for example, to the creation of ''genetically modified human beings.'' The CDC has also made a point of debunking the circulating falsehood that COVID-19 vaccines can change your DNA. For a time, it looked as though the Johnson & Johnson vaccine would help address this worry. It's based on a fairly new technology, but not as new as mRNA. However, concerns about tainted doses made at a Baltimore factory and the emergence of a very rare but serious side effect have pretty much dashed that hope. The Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine has reportedly accounted for fewer than 4 percent of doses administered in the country.
        Read: Microchipped vaccines, a 15-minute investigation
        In this context, the success of the Novavax vaccine should be A1 news. The recent results confirm that it has roughly the same efficacy as the two authorized mRNA vaccines, with the added benefit of being based on an older, more familiar science. The protein-subunit approach used by Novavax was first implemented for the hepatitis B vaccine, which has been used in the U.S. since 1986. The pertussis vaccine, which is required for almost all children in U.S. public schools, is also made this way. Some of those people who have been wary of getting the mRNA vaccines may find Novavax more appealing.
        The Novavax vaccine also has a substantially lower rate of side effects than the authorized mRNA vaccines. Last week's data showed that about 40 percent of people who receive Novavax report fatigue after the second dose, as compared with 65 percent for Moderna and more than 55 percent for Pfizer. Based on the results of Novavax's first efficacy trial in the U.K., side effects (including but not limited to fatigue) aren't just less frequent; they're milder too. That's a very big deal for people on hourly wages, who already bear a disproportionate risk of getting COVID-19, and who have been less likely to get vaccinated in part because of the risk of losing days of work to post-vaccine fever, pain, or malaise. Side effects are a big barrier for COVID-vaccine acceptance. The CDC reported on Monday that, according to a survey conducted in the spring, only about half of adults under the age of 40 have gotten the vaccine or definitely intend to do so, and that, among the rest, 56 percent say they are concerned about side effects. Lower rates of adverse events are likely to be a bigger issue still for parents, when considering vaccination for their children.
        Don't get me wrong'--the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been extraordinary lifesavers in this pandemic, and we may well be heading into a new golden age of vaccine development. (This week, BioNTech started injections in an early trial for an mRNA vaccine for melanoma.) But even the best experts at predicting which drugs are going to be important get things wrong quite a bit, overestimating some treatments and underestimating others. Pharmaceuticals are generally a gamble.
        But here's what we know today, based on information that we have right now: Among several wonderful options, the more old-school vaccine from Novavax combines ease of manufacture with high efficacy and lower side effects. For the moment, it's the best COVID-19 vaccine we have.
      Raging wildfire in California ravages tiny historic town | Climate News | Al Jazeera
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        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 00:47
        A gas station, hotel and bar were among many fixtures gutted in the town, which dates to California's Gold Rush era.
        A three-week-old wildfire engulfed a tiny Northern California mountain town, wiping out historic buildings and leaving much of the downtown in ashes, while a new wind-whipped blaze also destroyed homes as crews braced for another explosive run of flames on Thursday in the midst of dangerous weather.
        The Dixie Fire, swollen by bone-dry vegetation and 64kmph (40mph) gusts, raged through the northern Sierra Nevada community of Greenville on Wednesday evening. A gas station, hotel and bar were among many fixtures gutted in the town, which dates to California's Gold Rush era and has some structures more than a century old.
        Plumas County Supervisor Kevin Goss wrote on Thursday on Facebook that the fire ''burnt down our entire downtown. Our historical buildings, families homes, small businesses, and our children's schools are completely lost.''
        Flames consuming a house on Highway 89 as the Dixie Fire tears through the Greenville community of Plumas County, California [Noah Berger/AP Photo]Officials could not immediately say how many buildings were razed, but photos and video from the scene indicate the destruction was widespread.
        ''We lost Greenville tonight,'' US Representative Doug LaMalfa, who represents the area, said in an emotional Facebook video. ''There's just no words.''
        As the fire's north and eastern sides exploded on Wednesday, the Plumas County Sheriff's Office issued a warning online to the town's approximately 800 residents: ''You are in imminent danger and you MUST leave now!''
        The growing blaze that broke out on July 21 was the state's largest current wildfire and had blackened more than 1,305sq km (504sq miles). It had burned dozens of homes before making its new run.
        ''We did everything we could,'' fire spokesman Mitch Matlow said. ''Sometimes it's just not enough.''
        About 160km (100 miles) to the south, officials said between 35 and 40 homes and other structures burned in the fast-moving River Fire that broke out on Wednesday near Colfax, a town of about 2,000 residents. Within hours it ripped through nearly 10sq km (4sq miles) of dry brush and trees. There was no containment and about 6,000 people were under evacuation orders across Placer and Nevada counties, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
        The Dixie Fire levelled multiple historic buildings and dozens of homes in central Greenville [Noah Berger/AP Photo]Early in the week, some 5,000 firefighters had made progress on the Dixie Fire, saving some threatened homes, bulldozing pockets of unburned vegetation and managing to surround a third of the perimeter.
        More fire engines and bulldozers were being ordered to bolster the fight, Matlow said. On Wednesday, the fire grew by thousands of acres and an additional 4,000 people were ordered to evacuate, bringing nearly 26,500 people in several counties under evacuation orders, he said.
        Red flag weather conditions of high heat, low humidity and gusty afternoon and evening winds erupted on Wednesday and were expected to be a continued threat.
        Similar risky weather was expected across Southern California, where heat advisories and warnings were issued for interior valleys, mountains and deserts for much of the week.
        Heatwaves and historic drought tied to climate change have made wildfires harder to fight in the US's west. Scientists say climate change has made the region much warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
        More than 20,000 firefighters and support personnel were battling 97 large, active wildfires covering 7,560sq km (2,919sq miles) in 13 US states, the National Interagency Fire Center said.
      Apple to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse
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        Thu, 05 Aug 2021 20:45
        Apple unveiled plans to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse, drawing applause from child protection groups but raising concern among some security researchers that the system could be misused by governments looking to surveil their citizens.
        Apple said its messaging app will use on-device machine learning to warn about sensitive content without making private communications readable by the company. The tool Apple calls ''neuralMatch'' will detect known images of child sexual abuse without decrypting people's messages. If it finds a match, the image will be reviewed by a human who can notify law enforcement if necessary.
        But researchers say the tool could be put to other purposes such as government surveillance of dissidents or protesters.
        Matthew Green of Johns Hopkins, a top cryptography researcher, was concerned that it could be used to frame innocent people by sending them harmless but malicious images designed designed to appear as matches for child porn, fooling Apple's algorithm and alerting law enforcement -- essentially framing people. ''Researchers have been able to do this pretty easily,'' he said.
        Tech companies including Microsoft, Google, Facebook and others have for years been sharing ''hash lists'' of known images of child sexual abuse. Apple has also been scanning user files stored in its iCloud service, which is not as securely encrypted as its messages, for such images.
        Some say this technology could leave the company vulnerable to political pressure in authoritarian states such as China. ''What happens when the Chinese government says, 'Here is a list of files that we want you to scan for,''' Green said. ''Does Apple say no? I hope they say no, but their technology won't say no.''
        The company has been under pressure from governments and law enforcement to allow for surveillance of encrypted data. Coming up with the security measures required Apple to perform a delicate balancing act between cracking down on the exploitation of children while keeping its high-profile commitment to protecting the privacy of its users.
        Apple believes it pulled off that feat with technology that it developed in consultation with several prominent cryptographers, including Stanford University professor Dan Boneh, whose work in the field has won a Turing Award, often called technology's version of the Nobel Prize.
        The computer scientist who more than a decade ago invented PhotoDNA, the technology used by law enforcement to identify child pornography online, acknowledged the potential for abuse of Apple's system but said it was far outweighed by the imperative of battling child sexual abuse.
        ''It possible? Of course. But is it something that I'm concerned about? No,'' said Hany Farid, a researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, who argues that plenty of other programs designed to secure devices from various threats haven't seen ''this type of mission creep.'' For example, WhatsApp provides users with end-to-end encryption to protect their privacy, but employs a system for detecting malware and warning users not to click on harmful links.
        Apple was one of the first major companies to embrace ''end-to-end'' encryption, in which messages are scrambled so that only their senders and recipients can read them. Law enforcement, however, has long pressured for access to that information in order to investigate crimes such as terrorism or child sexual exploitation.
        ''Apple's expanded protection for children is a game changer,'' John Clark, the president and CEO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said in a statement. ''With so many people using Apple products, these new safety measures have lifesaving potential for children who are being enticed online and whose horrific images are being circulated in child sexual abuse material.''
        Julia Cordua, the CEO of Thorn, said that Apple's technology balances ''the need for privacy with digital safety for children.'' Thorn, a nonprofit founded by Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, uses technology to help protect children from sexual abuse by identifying victims and working with tech platforms.
        ___
        AP technology writer Mike Liedtke contributed to this article.
      Justice Department launches investigation into Phoenix policing practices
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        Thu, 05 Aug 2021 20:37
        Justice Department This is the third investigation DOJ has launched into local a police department since Biden took office.
        Aug. 5, 2021, 2:34 PM EDT / Updated Aug. 5, 2021, 3:30 PM EDT
        By Teaganne Finn and Pete Williams
        WASHINGTON '-- The Justice Department launched a civil rights investigation of the Phoenix police department Thursday, looking at whether police use excessive force, treat minorities differently, and deal properly with the disabled and homeless.
        Phoenix police face lawsuits and widespread complaints over their response to Black Lives Matter protests last year. One suit claims the police filed false felony charges after rounding up 124 people, chasing then and firing tear gas.
        Attorney General Merrick Garland said the investigation will examine whether officers use excessive force, engage in discriminatory policing, violate free expression, respond improperly to people with disabilities, and violate the rights of the homeless by seizing and disposing of their property.
        Garland and Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, said the Phoenix mayor and police chief were briefed on the investigation Thursday morning and pledged their full support.
        "When we conduct pattern or practice investigations to determine whether the Constitution or federal law has been violated, our aim is to promote transparency and accountability. This increases public trust, which in turn increases public safety," Garland said.
        The Justice Department earlier this year opened similar investigations of the police department in Minneapolis, following the death of George Floyd, and Louisville, Kentucky, after the death of Breonna Taylor.
        In August, Arizona released body camera video showing the arrest of a man who died in custody after he was held on asphalt for several minutes in 100-degree heat.
        RecommendedGarland said the issue of how police respond to calls involving people with physical or mental disabilities is an important one for the nation.
        "Our society is straining the policing profession by turning to law enforcement to address a wide array of social problems. Too often we asked law enforcement officers to be the first and last option for addressing issues that should not be handled by our criminal justice system."
        The attorney general also said states must do more to head off evictions during the Covid crisis. More evictions, he said, would add to the crisis of homelessness. He said the Justice Department intends to defend the latest moratorium on evictions issued by the Centers for Disease Control.
        Many legal experts have said the Supreme Court sent a strong signal in late June that the CDC lacks authority to impose such a sweeping moratorium.
        Teaganne Finn Teaganne Finn is a political reporter for NBC News.
        Pete Williams Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent who covers the Justice Department and the Supreme Court, based in Washington.
      MyPillow pulls ads from Fox News in flap over commercial linked to Trump claim
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        Thu, 05 Aug 2021 13:12
        Mike Lindell, chief executive officer of My Pillow Inc., speaks to members of the media while arriving to federal court in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, June 24, 2021.
        Joshua Roberts | Bloomberg | Getty Images
        MyPillow Chief Executive Mike Lindell told CNBC on Friday he is pulling ads from Fox News after the network said it wouldn't take one of his commercials promoting a symposium that will press election-fraud claims.
        MyPillow is one of Fox News' and Tucker Carlson's biggest advertisers. Lindell said he spent almost $50 million on the network last year and about $19 million this year to run his ads.
        "It's unfortunate Mr. Lindell has chosen to pause his commercial time on FOX News given the level of success he's experienced in building his brand through advertising on the number one cable news network," a Fox News spokesperson told CNBC in an emailed statement.
        Lindell told CNBC in a phone interview he made the decision to back out after Fox News declined to run a one-minute spot that promotes a cyber symposium, which he will be livestreaming from Aug. 10 to Aug. 12.
        "I pulled all of my ads. Every one," Lindell said. "If there are any stragglers today, it's a fluke."
        Since the 2020 presidential election, Lindell has pressed claims of widespread election fraud, with votes stolen from President Donald Trump. However, security and election officials have found no proof of such activity.
        The Wall Street Journal, which like Fox is owned by News Corp., first reported on the ad dispute. Quoting Lindell, it said the ad wouldn't mention Trump's claims of vote fraud. But the Journal noted that Lindell has said the symposium will prove that the election was stolen because of tampering with election machines.
        Voting-machine maker Dominion Voting Systems filed a defamation suit against Lindell and MyPillow in February. Lindell later filed a $1.6 billion countersuit.
        Fox News has also been sued by Dominion. It alleges the cable news network falsely claimed Dominion's voting machines were rigged during the 2020 presidential election. Fox News has moved to dismiss the suit.
        Lindell said earlier this year said that several retailers, including Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl's, stopped selling his products after he began voicing the election-fraud claims.
        "We lost 40% of our business in January and February," Lindell said. "I can't get that back. I can only try."
      Walmart mandates vaccines for workers at headquarters
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        Thu, 05 Aug 2021 13:09
        NEW YORK (AP) '-- Walmart is requiring that all workers at its headquarters as well as its managers who travel within the U.S. be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Oct. 4.
        The retailer based in Bentonville, Arkansas, is also reversing its mask policy for its employees working in stores, clubs, distribution facilities and warehouses. Going forward, they will be required to wear masks in areas with high infection rates, even if they have been vaccinated.
        The moves are part of a series of sweeping measures the nation's largest retailer and private employer announced Friday to help curb the spread of the virus and drive more of its workers to get the shot in the arm.
        The vaccine mandate excludes frontline workers, who the company says have a lower vaccination rate than management. But it's hoping that managerial employees, who represent just a fraction of its 1.5 million workers, will serve as inspiration.
        ''We're hoping that will influence even more of our frontline associates to become vaccinated,'' Walmart spokesman Scott Pope said.
        Pope declined to break out the vaccination rate for frontline workers and the rest of Walmart's employees.
        Walmart is also encouraging customers to wear masks in stores located in areas with surging cases and will be adding back signs at the entrances. It will also bring back so-called health ambassadors who will be stationed at the entrances and hand out masks.
        The company is also doubling to $150 the incentive it is offering to workers in stores, clubs, as well as other facilities like distribution centers, to get the vaccine. Those who already received the $75 incentive will receive another $75 in their paycheck dated Aug 19.
        The steps come three days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed course on some masking guidelines, recommending that even vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors in parts of the U.S. where the delta variant of the coronavirus is fueling infection surges.
        Walmart's move to require vaccinations of its workers at its headquarters follows Google's steps announced earlier in the week that it's postponing a return to the office for most workers until mid-October and rolling out a policy that will eventually require everyone to be vaccinated once its sprawling campuses are fully reopened. Google's announcement was shortly followed by Facebook, which also said it will make vaccines mandatory for U.S. employees who work in offices. Exceptions will be made for medical and other reasons.
        Various government agencies already have announced demands for all their employees to be vaccinated, but the corporate world so far has been taking a more cautious approach, even though most lawyers believe the mandates are legal.
        Delta and United Airlines are requiring new employees to show proof of vaccination. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are requiring their workers to disclose their vaccination status, but are not requiring staffers to be vaccinated.
        However, given Walmart's outsized influence on the economy, more companies could make similar announcements.
        In fact, following Walmart's announcement, the Walt Disney Co. said Friday it's requiring all salaried and non-union hourly employees in the U.S. working at any of its sites to be fully vaccinated. It said workers who aren't already vaccinated and are working on site will have 60 days from Friday to complete their protocols. Those who are still working from home will need to provide verification of vaccination before their return. Disney also said that all new hires will be required to be fully vaccinated before starting employment.
        ''Vaccines are the best tool we all have to help control this global pandemic and protect our employees,'' Disney said in a statement. Disney has about 200,000 employees but it is unclear how many of them are affected. The company based in Burbank, California, did not respond to questions
        Grocery chain Kroger announced Friday that it will be encouraging all customers, workers and suppliers, including those who received the shot, to wear masks at its stores. But the company said it will not be issuing a vaccine mandate for its employees.
        Ken Perkins, president of the retail research firm Retail Metrics, said that Walmart's move could serve as a ''green light'' to other companies to require vaccines, given its massive following and its location.
        ''It's based in the middle of the country,'' Perkins said. ''They speak to the lower-, middle-income shoppers and workers.''
        Walmart's dramatically shifting policy reflects the growing worry about the rising infection rates.
        ''We continue to watch with deep concern the developments of the pandemic and the spread of variants, especially the delta variant,'' wrote Donna Morris, Walmart's chief people officer, in the memo circulated to employees that was shared by the company. ''We know vaccinations are our solution to drive change. We are urging you to get vaccinated and want to see many more of you vaccinated.''
        In a separate memo sent to employees who work at the company headquarters, Doug McMillon, president and CEO of Walmart Inc., wrote, ''The virus is not over, and the delta variant has led to an increase in infection rates across much of the U.S.''
        The retailer has seen a ''positive response'' to the first financial incentive and is anticipating the sweetened perk will drive a similar response from workers, Pope said.
        He stopped short of saying that office workers who declined to be vaccinated would be terminated but said that Walmart is working through the process. He noted that the exceptions would be those who can't get vaccinated for medical or religious reasons.
        When asked why frontline workers won't be required to get the vaccine, Pope said that its approach with its large number of workers in frontline facilities has been ''to inform them, encourage them, make it easy and to reward then financially for choosing to receive the vaccine.''
        Walmart said it is also implementing a new process for verification of vaccine status for U.S. workers. It says it will share those details in the future.
        A few days after the CDC eased mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated people back in May, Walmart, along with a slew of other retailers, said it wouldn't require vaccinated shoppers to wear a mask in U.S. stores, unless state or local laws said otherwise. Walmart also said that vaccinated workers could go maskless.
        At that time, Walmart said that customers wouldn't be asked but rather held to an ''honor system'' regarding their vaccination status. Walmart workers who didn't wear masks also had to confirm they were vaccinated by filling out a daily questionnaire, though it was not requiring proof.
        ____
        AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to this report.
        _____
        Follow Anne D'Innocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio
      EXPLAINER: The law and science behind the CDC's eviction ban
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        Thu, 05 Aug 2021 13:08
        When the U.S. government enacted a ban on evictions, it did so through an unlikely agency: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
        The CDC has said the policy, first enacted in September and recently extended through the end of June, helps stop the spread of the coronavirus by limiting the number of people who lose their housing and have to live in shared housing, homeless shelters or on the streets.
        The ban has been praised by advocates for those at risk of being thrown out of their homes, but it has been met with stiff resistance from some property owners who say it is a constitutional overreach. Last month, a federal judge in Ohio concluded the agency lacked the authority to issue such a ban, the second such ruling.
        Here's a look at the moratorium, its rationale and what the research says about evictions and health.
        WHAT DOES THE MORATORIUM DO?
        The eviction moratorium is supposed to stop landlords and property owners from evicting renters who meets certain requirements, like making $99,000 or less in 2020 if you're an individual, or experiencing substantial loss of income. It's meant to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus through shared housing and unsheltered homelessness, the spread of the virus from one state to another, and support coronavirus response efforts.
        But eviction ban isn't stopping all evictions. They are continuing in some places, because of misinformation and legal loopholes.
        WHAT GIVES THE CDC THE ABILITY TO BAN EVICTIONS?
        The agency has said its authority comes from the Public Health Service Act, a nearly 80-year-old federal law that gives the federal government tools to stop the spread of communicable diseases.
        The act is clear about some measures the agency can take, such as isolation and quarantine of people who have or may have the virus. But it's less clear on other measures, like the eviction moratorium, according to some legal scholars.
        Larry Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University, said he believes the CDC has the legal authority to stop evictions, but acknowledges: ''This is definitely a stretch because the Public Health Service Act doesn't specifically mention evictions and traditionally CDC's power doesn't extend to housing.''
        WHAT DO OPPONENTS SAY?
        Those who have opposed the move in court have said the CDC doesn't have the legal authority to impose the measure, because the act doesn't explicitly mention evictions or housing.
        ''Our core argument ... was that the CDC lacks the statutory and regulatory authorization for the eviction moratorium,'' said Steve Simpson, outside counsel for the National Association of Home Builders, one of the groups suing the CDC.
        IS THERE A CONNECTION BETWEEN EVICTIONS AND HEALTH?
        Public health experts say there is an association between evictions and health problems, but it's hasn't been proven that losing a home causes them.
        Researchers have studied the relationship between housing insecurity '-- a term that captures evictions, threats of eviction, inability to pay rents or mortgages, and homelessness '-- and a range of health problems. They found that housing insecurity is associated with preterm birth and low birth weight, psychiatric hospitalizations and death.
        In a September study, researchers examined eviction case filings and infant health data in the United States and found that even the threat of evictions during a pregnancy is associated with higher rates of preterm birth and low birth weight.
        In a separate study, published a month later, researchers looked at eviction and pediatric health data in Chicago. They found that Black and Hispanic women had higher rates of very low birth weight, infant mortality, eviction filings and evictions than white women. They also found that neighborhoods with high rates of eviction also experience high rates of very low birth weight and infant mortality, though they couldn't prove that evictions cause these health outcomes.
        ''The health impacts of housing instability are extensive and severe,'' said Emily Benfer, a law professor at Wake Forest University. ''Housing instability also has a nexus with barriers to accessing opportunity and to livelihood and well-being generally.''
        WHAT ABOUT EVICTIONS AND DISEASE?
        There isn't much academic research on how evictions influence infectious disease.
        Benfer was the lead author on a paper published in February that examined the relationship between evictions, health inequity and the coronavirus. Benfer and her colleagues argued that modeling suggested that evictions and homelessness would exacerbate coronavirus spread and that halting evictions is an effective tool at slowing it.
        ''What we found was eviction during a pandemic increases the rates of COVID-19 transmission, infection and mortality, and is also resulting in health inequity among Black and Hispanic renters,'' Benfer said.
        ___
        The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
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      VIDEO - (150) Richard Johnson - Take a Shot at Staying Healthy - YouTube
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        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 13:45
      VIDEO - CDC Director Changes Her Story, Now Admits COVID Vaccines Don't Prevent Virus Transmission - Becker News
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        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 11:09
        CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has touted the COVID vaccines as a means to keep the public safe from the coronavirus. However, it turns out that the vaccines don't even prevent transmission of the virus, throwing into question whether taking the vaccines is a matter of public health, rather than a matter of personal choice.
        On Friday, Walensky made the admission to CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the COVID vaccines, which are still under Emergency Use Authorization, don't perform as well as advertised.
        ''Our vaccines are working exceptionally well,'' Walensky claimed. ''They continue to work well for Delta with regard to severe illness and death, they prevent it. But what they can't do anymore is prevent transmission.''
        In March, Walensky had made a claim that vaccinated people almost never carry COVID, which turned out to be patently false.
        CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky: ''Our data from the CDC today suggest that vaccinated people do not carry the virus.'' pic.twitter.com/9W1SHecSEm
        '-- The Recount (@therecount) March 30, 2021
        ''Our data from the CDC today suggest that vaccinated people do not carry the virus,'' she said. The CDC Director turned out to be entirely wrong.
        In late July, Walensky touted COVID vaccine passports as a 'path forward' for the country. Walensky praised European nations requiring ''health passes'' for citizens to get into public places, such as bars and nightclubs.
        ''You know, I think some communities are doing that,'' Walensky said. ''And that may very well be a path forward.''
        However, Walensky is lying. One of the least vaccinated major countries in the world, India, has a vaccination rate of 7.9%. The Delta variant surge came and went within the densely populated nation within weeks. The fatality rate has subsequently plummeted again without the aid of the COVID vaccines.
        In mid-July, Reuters reported that 68% of Indians have COVID antibodies, which have brought down the case and fatality rates on their own.
        ''Two-thirds of India's population have antibodies against the coronavirus, according to data released on Tuesday from a survey of 29,000 people across the nation conducted in June and July,'' Reuters reported.
        The CDC and the mainstream media will now do to India what they did to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis: Smear the government data. We saw how that turned out last time.
        The COVID vaccines have been held up as the only way to beat the virus. Now it looks like they are the equivalent of seasonal flu booster shots: They don't stop the flu, but they help those who are at-risk, such as the elderly and immunocompromised, avoid the most serious outcomes.
        A Swedish expert has even predicted that vaccine users may need a total of five shots, including boosters, to get the maximum amount of immunity. Compare this poor coverage with natural immunity, which is believed to be superior in terms of providing virus resistance.
        ''As with many vaccines, we know that there will be refill doses. It is not at all unlikely that we can end up in a position where you have to give recurring doses,'' vaccine expert Matti S¤llberg said in a Swedish publication.
        ''Then it's a third, fourth, maybe fifth dose,'' he explained.
        In early August, Senator Rand Paul obliterated the CDC's hysteria about the Delta variant. He appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight and cited eye-opening statistics that don't match up with the media's doom-and-gloom narrative.
        ''Let me just say this: the first, why would people who have recovered from COVID and have active antibodies and are therefore immune '-- they have natural immunity '-- why would they be forced to take an experimental vaccine to give them artificial immunity?'' Carlson asked.
        ''Yeah, there's no science behind it. All of the studies that have looked at natural immunity show that natural immunity has at least as good of an immunity as you get from a vaccine,'' he said. ''People have to realize that vaccines are based on what we learn from natural immunity over the last couple of hundred years, how the body responds to a foreign particle '-- a virus or a bacteria '-- and then we simulate that with the vaccine.''
        ''So the vaccine is simulating the natural immunity that I have, but Dr. Fauci discounts it,'' he continued. ''Thirty-five million people officially have had COVID, but really, conservative estimates, even the CDC, indicate another 70-some-odd million have had it. So really, it's over a hundred million Americans have had it. Probably 150, 160 million have been inoculated with the vaccine. Together, we have an enormous amount of success with immunity. In fact, the other day I saw that over 65 years of age, 90% of people have now been inoculated. So this is extraordinary success, and yet they say, 'Oh no, we have to inoculate your newborn in the hospital before you can take them home. It makes no sense and the science doesn't support it'.''
        ''There's one large study out of England, from Public Health England, 92,000 patients, and do you know how many people died in the vaccinated wing of this under age 50? Zero,'' Paul added. ''Do you know how many people died '-- there were 52,000 people unvaccinated '-- do you know how many people died? Six.''
        ''That works out to 0.08 percent, less than the flu. That's under age 50,'' he continued. ''Over age 50, there was about half as many people died as were dying last year. So the Delta variant is more transmissible but less deadly.''
        Such pesky facts aren't stopping the Biden administration from ratcheting up its strongarming of private businesses to force employees to get vaccinated or else, even as White House press secretary Jen Psaki earlier said it was ''not the federal government's role.''
        The COVID vaccinations are an end in themselves for the Biden administration, regardless of the COVID risk to individual Americans. Now that the CDC Director admitted that the vaccines don't prevent the spread of COVID, then it is no longer a public health issue, but one of personal risk mitigation that should be 100% between a patient and a doctor.
        NOW READ:
        White House Deputy Press Sec. 'Falls Apart' When Asked Simple Question About the Delta Variant
      VIDEO - p69 on Twitter: "@RWMaloneMD No way https://t.co/y4aCJTJGi1" / Twitter
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        p69 : @RWMaloneMD No way https://t.co/y4aCJTJGi1
        Sat Aug 07 17:10:45 +0000 2021
        Aleksandar KlipiÄ‡ S~1/r2 '¬…¸'ž¸ : @ShilyagovPavel @RWMaloneMD @SaveMyVideo
        Sun Aug 08 07:28:32 +0000 2021
        Lanette Harley : @ShilyagovPavel @RWMaloneMD Liars.
        Sun Aug 08 07:22:08 +0000 2021
      VIDEO - trumps doctor Vladimir Zelenko talks to israeli politicians and health minister about vaccine
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      VIDEO - Acosta: People shouldn't have to die so some politicians can 'own the libs' - YouTube
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      VIDEO - 'They couldn't take it anymore': Hospital workers quit amid Covid-19 surge - YouTube
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      VIDEO - Walensky's Husband Gets a Whopper of a Grant from HHS - 8.6.21 - Hour 2 '' HCRN
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        Howie talks to Scott Hounsell from Red State about his latest article that details the 5million dollar grant Rochelle Rochelle Walensky's husband received from the HHS.
        Download here.
      VIDEO - Newsmax's Emerald Robinson Gets Downright Rude With Jen Psaki and It Doesn't End Well for Her
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        Sun, 08 Aug 2021 00:11
        Politics - News AnalysisBy Jason Miciak August 6, 2021
        We will start off here by giving some credit to Newsmax's Emerald Robinson, well '' not so much credit to Robinson, as it is a reflection on Peter Doocy's need for the ''Gotcha'' question for Psaki that never ''gets'' him anywhere. Today it was Newsmax's turn and it wasn't so much the question, which was a decent one, it was the fact that she just would not shut up when the answer had been made clear to her.
        As usual, Mediaite sets up the transcript for us:
        Robinson then former Biden COVID-19 adviser Michael Osterholm, who said on CNN on Monday, ''We know today that many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out.''
        ''We need to talk about better masking. We need to talk about N-95 respirators, which would do a lot for both people who are not yet vaccinated or not previously infected.''
        And then the rumble: Upon Robinson mentioning Osterholm as ''one of the president's top COVID advisers,'' Psaki interjected with ''who's not a current adviser to the president.''
        Stay up-to-date with the latest news! Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
        That didn't slow Robinson down, ''But was, still notable, right?'' and from there she went on to explain that this fits along with what Gov. DeSantis has been saying, despite knowing full well that Biden could personally hand out a dozen N-95s and not require mask to be worn:
        PSAKI:
        ''I think you're confusing a few things there, but let me first say that Osterholm is not an adviser to the president, to the administration, to the White House, he doesn't work here. He's a private citizen and '... a public health expert.''
        ''But a lot of public health experts are out there speaking and good for them,'' she continued. ''I will say that we are going to continue to rely on the advice of medical experts in the federal government on what kind of masks we all should wear. What kind of masks kids should wear. If they change that advice, then the Department of Education will be working with schools to make sure that's implemented as a mitigation measure.''
        GET READY, PSAKI: ''The issue we have taken with the guidance of Governor DeSantis which he, of course, is fundraising off of, I think we should note, is that he is preventing schools and teachers and others from protecting themselves and the students in their classroom. And as a mother myself that's concerning and I'm sure it's concerning to mothers in Florida.''
        Robinson tried to follow up, Psaki wasn't having it: ''I think we're going to have to continue.'' Picking on the next reporter, Psaki said, ''Go ahead. I think we've got to continue. Go ahead.''
        Robinson either has trouble understanding English, Body language, or death stares, which are different than Death Stars, but not much in this case:
        ''You had a very long question,'' Psaki told Robinson. ''We've got to continue.''
        ''Go ahead,'' Psaki told the next reporter.
        ''I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Emerald, we're going to continue,'' said Psaki, causing Robinson to give up.
        Lord, grant me the patience that Jen Psaki has with Newsmax staffer Emerald Robinson pic.twitter.com/o2zE9VFMGN
        '-- Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 6, 2021
        What's that, 4-0 in favor of Psaki? Even Doocy usually noticed he's wearing the dunce cap after two, maybe three attempts. Emerald started strong but ended up getting her ass kicked globally. As they all do.
        ****
        [email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak
      VIDEO - UK to use TikTok influencers to urge teens to get jab after Pfizer-linked vaccine committee chair admits policy lacks evidence '-- RT UK News
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        Downing Street will enlist TikTok stars to push teens to get vaccinated, even as critics note that the committee behind the decision to expand the inoculation drive has admitted it had sparse evidence for doing so.
        The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) announced on Thursday that the first dose of the Pfizer Covid vaccine will be offered to all 16- and 17-year-olds without needing the consent of their parents, reversing its own recommendation from just two weeks ago.
        The independent panel of experts, which advises the UK government on immunisation, had earlier said that the jab should not be given to minors unless they were over 12 and suffered from medical conditions that would make them vulnerable to Covid-19, or lived with someone deemed high-risk. JCVI said it will issue a recommendation about when the second dose should be administered at a later date.
        The NHS is now gearing up to give the shot to about 1.4 million children. To help with the effort, the government plans to assemble an army of Instagram and TikTok stars, as well as a fleet of 'vaccine buses' to drum up enthusiasm for the jab and make it easy for teens to get, iNews reported.
        #ICMYI | The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has advised that all 16 and 17-year olds receive their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Professor Wei Shen Lim, COVID-19 chair for the JCVI, explains the advice: pic.twitter.com/UbbNOMVmQV
        '-- Public Health England (@PHE_uk) August 5, 2021The kid-friendly approach to promoting the Pfizer jab comes after social media observers highlighted the fact that JCVI chair Wei Shen Lim sent mixed signals about how the decision to offer the jab to teens was made.
        During a press briefing on Thursday announcing the policy, Lim said his committee decided to reverse its recommendation after ''carefully considering the latest data.''
        JCVI Chair Wei Shen Lim on jabbing children:'''...intention is for all the evidence to be published, but the evidence isn't necessarily in the hands of JCVI'...so wherever possible we encourage the evidence is published, but the timing is not in our hands'' ðŸ¤...ðŸ½''‚¸pic.twitter.com/ssnPotdB2S
        '-- Maajid Ø£Ø¨Ù Ø¹Ù…Ù‘Ø§Ø± (@MaajidNawaz) August 4, 2021But he appeared to back-pedal after a journalist asked if the committee would be publishing ''the evidence'' used in making its decision to allow 16- and 17-year olds to get the shot, in order to help reassure parents. Lim responded by stating that there was currently no evidence available to share with the public.
        The intention is for all the evidence to be published. The evidence isn't necessarily in the hands of JCVI. We have spoken to academic partners and to other people in other countries as well. So wherever possible we encourage that the evidence is published, but the timing is not in our hands.
        The committee's attempt to explain its decision led to head-scratching from the media. Sarah Knapton, the Science Editor at The Daily Telegraph, said that after sitting through two press briefings, ''I'm none the wiser about why JCVI has changed their advice. Not convinced they know either.''
        Well, after being in two press briefings about why 16 and 17-year-olds will now be vaccinated, I'm none the wiser about why JCVI has changed their advice. Not convinced they know either.
        '-- sarahknapton (@sarahknapton) August 4, 2021Essentially, JCVI has said it has changed its position because it now has greater certainty about the position it had last time...try and get your head round that one.
        '-- sarahknapton (@sarahknapton) August 4, 2021Others pointed to what appears to be a rather straightforward conflict of interest. While the JCVI claims to be an independent body, Professor Wei Shen Lim is part of a department at the British Thoracic Society that received more than £25,000 ($34,760) in funding from Pfizer. Lim declared the ''departmental interests'' in a 2021 audit, which stated that he had ''direct responsibility'' over the Pfizer-gifted funds. The British Thoracic Society is a charity that aims to improve treatments for respiratory and associated disorders.
        Governments around the world have urged people of all ages to get vaccinated, claiming that the more transmissible Delta variant may pose a greater risk. However, the disease has had a negligible effect on mortality among children. In the first 12 months of the pandemic, NHS data shows only 25 under-18s died from the illness.
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      VIDEO - EasyJet passengers mutiny to get CABIN CREW thrown off flight to Malaga | Daily Mail Online
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        Were YOU on board the flight or know one of the men involved? Email katie.weston@mailonline.co.uk
        EasyJet passengers staged a mutiny to stop two young black men being thrown off a flight to Malaga yesterday - and instead forced the airline to replace the cabin crew.
        Armed police were called to the flight from London's Gatwick Airport to Malaga after it returned to the gate following an altercation between the passengers and cabin crew during its taxi to the runway.
        Passengers on the flight say that the Easyjet crew overreacted when the two men 'huffed' after they were told to put their shoes on for take-off because they were sitting in an emergency exit row.
        When the flight reached the gate a female attendant contacted police to say there were two 'disobedient passengers' on board and four armed officers then entered the plane, confiscating the two men's passports and offloading their luggage.
        But the passengers objected en masse, and videos show them telling the men to 'sit down' and 'not get off' while protesting the stewardess' actions.
        Following customers' objections to the incident, the captain made a tannoy announcement telling them a replacement crew would be coming on board.
        EasyJet say that the crew was replaced because they exceeded their working hours and not because of the passengers' objections.
        All passengers remained on the flight, including the two men, before it headed to Malaga three hours after its scheduled departure time.
        Passengers on board have questioned whether the men's race played a factor in the crew's reaction, and said that the two men were previously 'polite' - but easyJet insist discrimination played no part in the crew's actions.
        The footage was filmed by Luke Gayle, 28, who said he was sitting three rows in front of the two men approached by the flight attendant.
        Speaking to MailOnline, he said the hostess asked the pair to put on their shoes and place their feet underneath the seats, adding: 'They huffed, but that was it.'
        He said: 'We were left waiting for two to three hours with no update - it was absolutely disgraceful.
        'I am a racial justice ambassador and I kind of know how unconscious racial bias works. Obviously it's very difficult in these situations to say it was a racial issue, it's difficult to prove that, however, was there some kind of unconscious bias there?
        'Because it seems so dramatic to call the police and have a plane with 160-odd passengers turn around and be delayed for someone huffing at them. I mean surely as cabin crew you are trained on how to deal with those situations effectively.
        The female flight attendant pictured alongside one of the police officers on the flight from London's Gatwick Airport which returned to the gate following an altercation between the passengers and cabin crew yesterday morning
        One armed policeman (left) shrugged at a passenger in bewilderment before saying: 'There's no need for me to interfere because there's no problem'
        'Everyone else on the plane was white from what I can remember, and they were the only three black passengers.'
        In one of the clips, a police officer can be seen shrugging at a passenger in bewilderment.
        The policeman is later heard saying: 'There's no need for me to interfere because there's no problem.'
        Towards the end of the footage, luggage is seen being unloaded from the plane, despite the two men - who were sat in a group of three - never being removed.
        Mr Gayle said: 'When four armed police officers came on the plane it was quite scary to see. We thought there was someone wanted on the plane.
        'They said they were there to prevent a breach of the peace and escort two men off the plane, but as soon as the man was asked to leave he attempted to and everyone said "no sit back down again".
        'My faith was then restored in humanity as the whole flight said it was unacceptable.'
        Customers have since complained to the airline about the incident, which delayed the flight, and their feedback is being reviewed, said easyJet.
        One of the men seen reaching for his bag before passengers object en masse, telling him to 'sit down' and 'not get off' while protesting the stewardess' actions
        Luke Gayle, 28, said: 'When four armed police officers came on the plane it was quite scary to see. We thought there was someone wanted on the plane'
        Customers have since complained to the airline about the incident, which delayed the flight, and their feedback is being reviewed, said easyJet
        A spokesperson for the airline said: ''EasyJet does not discriminate against any individual. Safety is our highest priority and there is nothing to suggest that discrimination played any part in the issue onboard.''
        'The primary responsibility of our crew is for the safety of everyone onboard.
        'An issue arose onboard the flight during taxi, the aircraft returned to stand and was met by airport police to resolve the issue before safely departing with all passengers onboard.
        'Our crew must ensure that safety requirements are followed by all passengers and as part of their role must check prior to take-off that everyone is compliant with these.
        'This is particularly important for passengers seated in emergency exits rows where crew ensure there are no loose items during take-off.
        Towards the end of the footage, luggage is seen being unloaded from the plane, despite the two men - who were sat in a group of three - never being removed
        'We are aware of the feedback from some customers onboard on how this was handled.
        'We take feedback of this nature seriously and have been in touch with them to discuss their experience and assure them that we will review this internally.
        'The safety and wellbeing of our customers and crew is our highest priority.'
        A spokesperson for Sussex Police said: 'Sussex Police responded to a call about passengers on board a flight leaving Gatwick Airport on Thursday (August 5) at 9.35am.
        'Officers boarded the aircraft to prevent a breach of the peace. The matter was resolved and dealt with by the flight operator.'
      VIDEO - Star Bellied Sneetches - YouTube
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      VIDEO - MASS PSYCHOSIS - How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL - YouTube
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      VIDEO - Albertan Patrick King Fights Covid Fine & WINS - But What Does It Mean? Viva Frei Vlawg - YouTube
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      VIDEO - Who's paying for these flights? Attorney explains process that takes immigrants to, from Abilene airport | KTAB - BigCountryHomepage.com
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        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 15:58
        ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) '-- Immigrants arriving at the airport and getting on a bus to go to a detention facility is routine work for ICE, but in Abilene, immigrants are both arriving and departing.
        ''It might be something related to the priorities of deportation,'' foreign attorney Douglas Interiano says.
        Once immigrants arrive to a detention facility, they wait to fight their case in court, and some immigrants get the chance of a bond hearing.
        ''It's on a case-by-case basis that you qualify for a bond hearing, because not everyone qualifies for it,'' Interiano says.
        At the hearing, ICE sets a fee that the immigrant has to pay to get out of the detention center, similar to bailing out of jail.
        ''Immigration and nationality law says it should not be less than $1,500,'' says Interiano.
        The price can be higher, and Interiano said family members usually pay the bond.
        After the bond is paid, ''you are released under custody or under supervision,'' Interiano says. ''It is because they might have determined that you are not a criminal, that you are not a risk of flight, and that you have relatives in the United States.''
        Those who are released are given a time frame to appear in court, but it doesn't have to be in Texas.
        ''It's a matter of jurisdiction,'' Interiano says. ''You can request to move your hearing to the jurisdiction where you are going to reside.''
        That's when immigrants travel to bus stops or through airports, like the one in Abilene, to meet with their family members or US sponsors.
        Interiano says the immigrants themselves, their families, or in some cases, employers, are the ones who pay for these flights. But in rare cases, ICE might chip in and pay instead.
        ''There will be instances when they want you out pretty quick, that's when they'll probably pay the plane ticket,'' he says.
        Some of the immigrants that are released don't go show up to their court hearings, but that doesn't mean they don't take place.
        ''Whenever that happens, under immigration law, it doesn't matter if you go to the hearing, the hearing will continue with you or without you, and what's gonna happen is they will deport you in absentia,'' Interiano says.
        But he also says the process must be considered as to why they didn't show up.
        It is because they are not being educated in terms of how the judicial system works in the United States,'' Interiano says. ''It is because they are so afraid and they think they may not have a chance to stay in the United States, because they have not notified the court of their change of address and the court ended up sending that to a different address.''
        We spoke to Rep. Jodey Arrington about the process, and he says he was unaware that it was happening. Click this link for more on Arrington's reaction.
      VIDEO - West Texas Ranchers weigh in on the influx of migrants crossing the border: 'It has to stop' | newswest9.com
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        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 15:33
        The Means family says since March, hundreds of migrants have crossed through their land.
        VALENTINE, Texas '-- Ranchers in West Texas are being impacted by the influx of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border.
        According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in June alone, there were more than 188,000 apprehensions.
        4,500 of those apprehensions have been in the Big Bend Sector.
        That is where the Alfred Means Ranch has been nestled, right near the Davis Mountains, since 1880.
        The family tells me migrants have been crossing through their land but not at the rate they are seeing now.
        Dozens of migrants every single month and the ranchers have had enough.
        ''It's more than an influx, in my opinion, it's an evasion," Shelly Means said. "And we are reaping the repercussions of it.''
        The Means family says since March, hundreds of migrants have crossed through their land.
        ''You just don't know who are these people are, you don't know what they would do to you or to someone else," Evan Means, the rancher's daughter, said. "We have them break water lines, break barns, fences are cut, gates are left open...they broke into our guest house and left the shower on for however long and we opened the door and the whole house is just ruined."
        The Means say Border Protection agents have told the ranch families to do what is necessary to protect themselves because they too are overwhelmed by the increase in migrant crossings.
        ''Just me going out on a morning walk...I've been asked to not do that anymore," Shelly said. "The people that are coming across aren't just the everyday people looking for a job anymore."
        Shelly worries about the type of people crossing through their land.
        "The people who are coming across are carrying drugs, they're child molesters, they're murderers," Shelly said. "You know it shouldn't be left up to us to decipher who's nice and who's not.''
        While Border Protection is just one call away, it is that in-between time that worries the Means family.
        ''If I was working with my horses, just at the barn or even at the house by myself and some kind of a big group came up," Evan said. "I don't know what I would...I don't know how far border patrol agents are and how far law enforcement agents are. ''
        Shelly took these disturbing images of migrants they have found injured on their ranch.
        Migrants hurt traveling through West Texas terrainThe Means often go from ranchers to caretakers.
        ''What happens to them in their travels is life and death," Shelly said. "Just the other day one of our friends that ranches south of Highway 90, his foreman was riding his horse down the road and saw two guys and realized it was immigrants."
        Shelly tells us it was a father and son, the son was 16 years old and the dad was trying to revive him.
        "It's horrible--this has to stop," she said. "We feel like it's our government's duty to protect the border and protect its people. Not only us but the people who are coming across. I mean they die of thirst, we help them every day in some way or another.''
        The Means family wants action. Shelly has started a group called Concerned Far West Texans for Legal Immigration.
        The group hopes to meet with Governor Greg Abbott in the upcoming weeks and get more resources for our area.
        The link to the group's website can be found here.
      VIDEO - Breakthrough Cases and Vaccine Passports - YouTube
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      VIDEO - Catholic League President Accuses Disney's Muppet Babies Of Child Abuse For Promoting "Sex Transitioning" With Episode Featuring Cross-Dressing Gonzo - Bounding Into Comics
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        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 14:08
        The latest episode of Disney's Muppet Babies has been accused of ''child abuse'' by Catholic League president Bill Donahue over how it depicts beloved series male mainstay Gonzo as a dress wearing princess, which he believes is an attempt to normalise the transgender ideology that ''a boy can be a girl, and vice versa.''
        Titled ''Gonzo-rella'', which tells a short story based loosely on the all-time classic tale Cinderella, the episode in questions sees Gonzo upset because he wanted to wear a ''princess dress'' to the Royal Ball, but the the girls said he wasn't supposed to because he's a boy.
        As the episode unfolds, Rizzo eventually reveals himself to be Gonzo's ''Fairy RatFather'' and grants the blue Muppet his wish, giving him a blue dress (akin to the one Cinderella has worn in countless iterations of the classic folk tale. most notably Disney's own animated version) to wear to the ball. However, In classic Cinderella fashion, the Fairy RatFather's magic eventually wears off, and at the strike of ''cake o'clock'', Gonzo-rella's dress disappears.
        By the end of the episode, Gonzo reveals to the other Muppets that he was the mysterious princess all along, saying that he didn't reveal this fact sooner ''because you all expected me to look a certain way.''
        Source: Muppet Babies, Disney
        The episode also reinforces the idea of using non-binary pronouns, as Piggy uses the ''they'' pronoun in reference to Gonzo's alter ego when recalling how the unknown princess had suddenly left the ball.
        ''We met the most amazing princess, but they ran away and all they left behind was this,'' recalls Piggy while showing Gonzo the shoe that was left behind.
        Given both that 'princess' is a title given to female members of a royal family and Piggy was referring to a singular individual rather than a group of characters, it's clear that Disney is intentionally using a non-binary pronoun to describe Gonzo-rella, even when the other Muppets had no idea that he was the princess.
        Source: Muppet Babies, Disney
        As of writing, the Muppet Babies clip for the ''Gonzo-rella'' episode shared on Disney Junior's official YouTube channel holds a negative ratio of nearly two, having received a little over one-thousand likes in comparison to more than 2.3 thousand dislikes.
        In regards to the episode, Muppet Babies executive producer Tom Warburton recently explained, ''Very early on, we wanted to do an episode where Gonzo just showed up to the Playroom wearing a skirt. And it was no big deal,'' whilst also expressing his desire that the episode ''inspires kids'' who watch the show.
        ''No one cared or questioned it because Gonzo is always 200% Gonzo 347% of the time,'' Warburton added. ''But then story editor/co-producer Robyn Brown and her team wanted to take it a step further and do a Cinderella story based on the idea.''
        ''And it was just SO wonderfully Gonzo. We hope he inspires kids watching to be 347% of themselves in their own way, too,'' the Muppet Babies producer concluded.
        Source: Muppet Babies, Disney
        However, shortly after the episode's airing, Catholic League president Bill Donohue released a statement calling out Disney and condemning the tale of Gonzo-rella as ''child abuse,'' based on his observation that the episode was encouraging kids to reject their sex.
        ''The Muppet character, Gonzo, has 'transitioned' to a girl, Gonzorella,'' wrote Donohue. ''That is why he is wearing a dress to the ''royal ball.'' He does more than wear a dress'--he instructs Miss Piggy and Summer that 'doing things a little different can be fun.'''
        Source: Muppet Babies, Disney
        Based on the premise that pretending to belong to the opposite sex shouldn't be fun, Donohue argues that the message Disney is sending comes off as abnormal, explaining, ''The message to children is: a boy can be a girl, and vice versa. Making this choice, they are told, is not something abnormal, it's just 'a little different. Moreover, it can be 'fun' to reject your sex and pretend that you belong to the opposite sex.''
        ''This needs to be called out for what it is: child abuse,'' the Catholic League president asserted. ''Anyone who is even remotely knowledgeable about what sex transitioning entails'--the physical and psychological problems that boys and girls experience are multiple'--knows how pernicious this process is. Seven in ten of those who transition are girls wanting to be boys, and the extent of their suffering is well documented.''
        Source: Muppet Babies, Disney
        Donohue was also disappointed in the little to no coverage conservative media has given to this news, praising New York Times best-selling author and political commentator Candace Owens as one of the few conservatives that timely condemned the Muppet Babies episode.
        ''The big disappointment is the lack of response from the conservative community (thank God we have some like Candace Owens who will not be intimidated),'' he expressed, adding that ''Genuine conservatives are concerned about the three 'M's,' namely, markets, missiles and morality.''
        Driving his point home, Donohue stated that ''In recent years, many have all but given up on the latter 'M.' Hence, the advent of Disney poisoning the minds of children.''
        Source: Muppet Babies, Disney
        As referenced by Donahue, Owens took to Twitter shortly after the episode aired to express her disappointment with the kid-oriented Disney show, deeming it to be sick and perverted in nature.
        ''I can't believe I'm tweeting this but.. they are pushing the trans agenda on children via muppet babies,'' wrote Owens on Twitter.
        ''This is sick and PERVERTED,'' She added. ''Everyone should be disturbed by predatory cartoons meant to usher children into gender dysphoria. Bring back manly muppets, anyone?''
        I can't believe I'm tweeting this but.. they are pushing the trans agenda on children via muppet babies. This is sick and PERVERTED. Everyone should be disturbed by predatory cartoons meant to usher children into gender dysphoria.
        Bring back manly muppets, anyone? pic.twitter.com/kvoig0y9N5
        '-- Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) August 2, 2021
        Donohue concluded his statement by calling out conservatives who choose to stray from controversial topics, declaring that such behaviour could only lead to things getting even worse.
        ''Anyone who thinks that things can't get much worse is a fool,'' Donohue concluded. ''If conservatives continue to retreat from controversial social and cultural issues, matters will only deteriorate. This is not about treating everyone with respect'--that is not the issue'--it is about shielding our children from those who want to sexually engineer them.''
        Source: Muppet Babies, Disney
        What do you make of Disney's decision to push their transgender agenda via the kid-oriented Muppet Babies show? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below or on social media!
      VIDEO - (10) Ran Israeli on Twitter: ""95% of the severe patients are vaccinated". "85-90% of the hospitalizations are in Fully vaccinated people." "We are opening more and more COVID wards." "The effectiveness of the vaccine is waning/fading out" (Dr. Ko
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 13:59
        Ran Israeli : "95% of the severe patients are vaccinated"."85-90% of the hospitalizations are in Fully vaccinated people.""We a'... https://t.co/6jbtnq7VsG
        Thu Aug 05 16:37:28 +0000 2021
        GatorFan : @RanIsraeli @newsisrael13 Look at the total numbers. If pre vaccine 1000 people had it and 100 were severe thats 10'... https://t.co/8qIUMjeedI
        Sat Aug 07 13:57:07 +0000 2021
      VIDEO - Pelosi doesn't like the follow up question from a reporter: "Did you not hear what I just said?" - YouTube
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 13:51
      VIDEO - Biden makes latest gaffe surrounding COVID vaccine info - YouTube
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 13:50
      VIDEO - What harm? White House's Psaki says her child is happy to wear mask 'all day' just to go to school & play with others '-- RT USA News
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 13:47
        White House press secretary Jen Psaki has dismissed concerns about whether long-term mask-wearing could do psychological harm to kids, arguing that her own child is glad to wear one ''all day'' just to be outside with others.
        Asked by Fox News' Peter Doocy on Friday about whether long hours in masks might have ''harmful emotional, academic, and psychological effects'' on children '' echoing concerns raised by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis '' Psaki rebuffed the question, arguing that her own ''personal experience'' showed otherwise.
        ''My rising kindergartener told me two days ago that she could wear masks all day, and she's just happy to go to camp and go to school,'' she said, adding that possible mental harms from masks simply are not a concern for the Joe Biden administration.
        We know there's a mental health impact of them not being in school, and we should take the mitigation measures needed in order for them to be in school, and in the classroom, including masking.
        Peter Doocy asks @PressSec if there's concern from health officials about the "emotional, academic, and psychological effects" of masking children in school:"No there's not... My rising Kindergartener told me two days she could wear a mask all day." pic.twitter.com/qXN2kIQ5yF
        '-- Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 6, 2021Psaki went on to slam DeSantis '' a Republican and vocal critic of mask mandates, lockdowns and vaccine passports '' accusing him of flouting public health advice and ''fundraising'' off of it, while also arguing that ''public health officials'' and ''not politicians'' should ''make decisions about how to keep my kids safe.''
        The Florida governor has refused to impose masking requirements for the state's public schools, despite a recently revised guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommending face coverings in areas with ''high'' viral transmission, including for the fully vaccinated. In a statement issued last week after a meeting with health experts, DeSantis insisted that parents must ''make their own choices with regards to masking,'' pointing to potential drawbacks of long-term face coverings.
        ''Experts have raised legitimate concerns that the risks of masking outweigh the potential benefits for children, because masking children can negatively impact their learning, speech, emotional and social development,'' he said.
        This should absolutely not be imposed. It should not be mandated.
        Also on rt.com Florida Gov. DeSantis vows to 'stand in the way' of Biden lockdowns and mask mandates Psaki's anecdotal approach to the masking question did not go over well with many observers online, some asking whether one 5-year-old ought to make policy for a country of more than 300 million people.
        Apparently 5 year olds are now making policy - seems fitting
        '-- don leshnock (@MeatF3Raleigh) August 6, 2021Taking advice from a kindergartener, are we? Brilliant.
        '-- Deb Ramey (@ramey_deb) August 6, 2021One critic cited her own 'personal experience' with her kids and masks, arguing that ''elementary school age children do not have mental capability'' to properly wear one, while others pointed out that the press secretary didn't bother to cite ''any type of data'' pertaining to emotional or mental impacts, apparently thinking a single example could settle the question.
        My kindergartner chews on his mask, making it perpetually wet all day '... I asked him not to do this . He says it keeps his face from getting hot '... tell me how this is a healthier alternative?? Elementary school age children do not have mental capability to properly wear a mask
        '-- Stacy (@hunnybunnyklee) August 6, 2021So any type of data to cite at all? Just not worried about it because of what a 5 year old told you?
        '-- Walter White (@HeizenbergBB) August 6, 2021A lot of children with disabilities cannot wear masks for varying reasons.The ignorance and apathy with which Princess Circle Back operates are disturbing.Jen Psaki is a textbook illustration of an ableist.
        '-- Erik N. Weber - Night Falcon (@ErikNWeber_NF) August 6, 2021Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
      VIDEO - Jewish Man Boasts How Jews Created the Convid Injections
        Link to Article
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        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 13:46
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      VIDEO - BOOM! Vax Passport Company's Horrifying History
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 13:27
        Rumble '-- Oh boy, you aren't going to like this. I go over the history of ENTRUST, the company that has the contract for the Digital Passports in the UK (coming soon to your country?) TO SUPPORT AMAZING POLLY: https://amazingpolly.net/contact-support.phpPolly's other video channel, MorePolly: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/uf6BHo1VNKbt/
        REFERENCES:DOCUMENTARY: The Silence of the Quandts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpQpgd_EeWY
        UK Vax passport article: https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/vaccine-passports-contracts-government-covid-two-years-2023-1127579
        BMW Breaks Silence on Nazi Past: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/bmw-dynasty-breaks-silence-its-nazi-past-2362634.html
        Klatten Quandt Billionaires Lives are Harder than You Think: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/bmw-billionaire-heirs-say-their-lives-are-harder-than-you-think-1.1276016
        Quandt Media Prize List: https://second.wiki/wiki/herbert_quandt_medien-preis
      VIDEO - CNN tracks down a super-spreader of Covid-19 misinformation - YouTube
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 13:13
      VIDEO - Elon Musk's Boring Company exploring underground tunnel to downtown Austin, airport | KXAN Austin
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 11:58
        AUSTIN (KXAN) '' Tesla CEO Elon Musk's The Boring Company recently met with the city of Austin to discuss a potential underground transportation tunnel from the Tesla Gigafactory to downtown Austin.
        The city's Development Services Department says the company provided them a high-level introduction of the proposed tunnel and sought to better understand permitting requirements. DSD confirmed the proposed tunnel would also run through Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
        A city spokesperson could not provide further details.
        The Boring Company has not responded to multiple emails and phone calls about the proposal in the last two weeks.
        The company has grabbed global headlines for its unique approach to digging massive tunnels for transportation and shipping. It opened an underground tunnel in Las Vegas earlier this year. The 1.7-mile Vegas tunnel transports visitors through the city's Convention Center.
        The Gigafactory, located in southeastern Travis County, is expected to be Tesla's largest auto assembly plant. Construction began last year, as Musk continues to zero in on the Lone Star State for expansion.
      VIDEO - Ben Shapiro Embarrasses Himself on 'Real Time with Bill Maher'
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Sat, 07 Aug 2021 11:45
        O n Friday night, two of the country's foremost Islamophobes sat across from one another on HBO to debate the issues of the day. In one corner was Bill Maher, a self-professed liberal who spends 90 percent of his Real Time show railing against Muslims, platforming conspiracy theorists and/or white nationalist trolls, and whining about ''cancel culture.'' The other had Ben Shapiro, the Daily Wire co-founder who, when he's not being an outrageous hypocrite or distributing films by producers with a long history of overlooking sexual misconduct, spends 90 percent of his time whining about ''cancel culture'' or ''owning the libs'' by saying hateful drivel like this:
        Twitter
        Twitter
        The last time Shapiro visited Maher's late-night show, the two culture warriors got along famously, with the comedian failing to challenge the equivocating pundit on his Trump flip-flopping or dubious claims that liberals were more intolerant than conservatives. On Friday, things were a bit more contentious, as Shapiro joined the program to promote his new book The Authoritarian Moment, about how the American left has become more ''authoritarian'' than the right.
        ''Your thesis is, the authoritarian moment is coming from the left. And I must say, when I read the book, I don't disagree with a lot of what you're saying'--I've certainly made that case myself'... I just wanted to know, where's the other half of the book?'' asked Maher. ''Yes, I agree with you: Woke Twitter has power'... it's just soft power. I just find it perverse that you find that less alarming than the kind of old-school authoritarianism that Trump and his ilk are going for.''
        Maher then cited Trump's attempts to overthrow the 2020 presidential election, including that time he incited a violent mob to storm the Capitol and do so on his behalf, as well as a recent poll from Business Insider saying that 47 percent of Republicans believe ''it may be time to take the law into our own hands.''
        Cue Shapiro, who employed his usual strawman: briefly acknowledging that that was indeed ''alarming,'' before arguing that Trump's attempts to subvert democracy weren't so authoritarian because Democratic institutions prevented him from doing so, before somehow drawing a line between 1/6 and the Black Lives Matter movement.
        ''It's a nice title for his book, and I think a lot of people who would assume that he's talking about real authoritarianism could be trapped into giving you $28.99,'' offered guest Malcolm Nance, a former Navy officer and current MSNBC contributor, who again brought up how Donald Trump commanded an insurrection, which he argued is far more authoritarian than ''Twitter gossip.''
        '' It's a nice title for his book, and I think a lot of people who would assume that he's talking about real authoritarianism could be trapped into giving you $28.99. ''
        When Maher brought up how Fox News host Tucker Carlson was hobnobbing with fascist leader Viktor Orban in Hungary, Shapiro ignored the question and instead countered with the time then-President Obama sat with then-Cuban President Raul Castro at an exhibition baseball game and CDC mask mandates (?).
        Once the subject got to critical race theory, with Shapiro falsely arguing that it is being taught to children across America (you can really only find it in law school), Nance had had enough, telling him, ''Is this what you do on your show? Because it sucks.''
        That quip prompted a visibly irritated Shapiro to say, ''You know, Malcolm, I'... I appreciate that, but I will comfort myself tonight by sleeping on my bed made of money.''
        Yes, he really said that.
      VIDEO - ValGlass2.0 on Twitter: "WTF does the Reserve Bank of Aus have to do with lockdowns and how would they know lockdowns will go into next year ðŸ§ are they the secret ''public health team'' we all hear about but never see? https://t.co/xtse8LazNI
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 15:43
        ValGlass2.0 : WTF does the Reserve Bank of Aus have to do with lockdowns and how would they know lockdowns will go into next year'... https://t.co/d5lQPwq0wI
        Fri Aug 06 10:14:44 +0000 2021
        Maggie Sweeney : @AussieVal10 If there is anybody out there who does not yet believe this was all planned they need to go and talk to themselves
        Fri Aug 06 15:39:40 +0000 2021
        wendala2u : @AussieVal10 It's a PLANDEMIC been in works for decades. They know people are waking up so they're pushing the Agenda asap.
        Fri Aug 06 15:28:26 +0000 2021
        Lupi : @AussieVal10 well here's the thing...(the international fractional reserve banking system has everything to do wit'... https://t.co/Qs1T3z4YIy
        Fri Aug 06 15:27:11 +0000 2021
        Margy D : @AussieVal10 Scenario indeed! All planned, hell do we even control the reserve bank? In lockstep with the globalis'... https://t.co/fB0rbqBcrR
        Fri Aug 06 14:58:00 +0000 2021
        Steve Xenos : @AussieVal10 It's all in the great reset and the fourth industrial revolution https://t.co/Kq9NowbB0l
        Fri Aug 06 14:31:59 +0000 2021
        emmanuel : @AussieVal10 Oh absolutely they would be, they all come under the umbrella of the Fed Reserve central banking system
        Fri Aug 06 13:53:18 +0000 2021
      VIDEO - (16) Gary Gensler on Twitter: "We must guard against fraud and manipulation, whether from big actors, hedge funds, or elsewhere. We are taking a close look at market structure to ensure our capital markets are working for investors. My discussion
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 13:17
        Gary Gensler : We must guard against fraud and manipulation, whether from big actors, hedge funds, or elsewhere.We are taking a'... https://t.co/x4NzCnJHSO
        Thu Aug 05 19:24:57 +0000 2021
        guavexsaft : @GaryGensler @andrewrsorkin The SEC has all tools to do something about this fraud. Why are you just talking and no'... https://t.co/qmaXHa1NYp
        Fri Aug 06 13:16:38 +0000 2021
        SeriouslyWTHH : @GaryGensler @andrewrsorkin Ha! The SEC is completely ignoring the financial crimes against retail investors of'... https://t.co/ykpczCGshb
        Fri Aug 06 13:16:20 +0000 2021
        Oscuro : @GaryGensler @andrewrsorkin Why do we have old videos of hedge fund managers like Jim Cramer publicly saying the se'... https://t.co/ggC1lVCFOm
        Fri Aug 06 13:12:40 +0000 2021
        JP : @GaryGensler @andrewrsorkin So why don't you do anything about it? Why let it continue to happen in broad daylight day after day
        Fri Aug 06 13:12:06 +0000 2021
        Hip Striker : @GaryGensler @andrewrsorkin Gary we support you, but need your support. Andrew Sorkin is a bad actor and a puppet.'... https://t.co/QAlmUMRUmd
        Fri Aug 06 13:08:05 +0000 2021
      VIDEO - How secure are New York's vaccine passport apps?
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 11:35
        Vaccine passport appsHow secure are so-called vaccine passports?
        NEW YORK - Most of us in New York City know we're less than two weeks away from having to prove we're vaccinated to dine or exercise indoors. Far fewer of us have figured out or understand exactly how we'll show restaurants and fitness studios we've received all of our shots.
        "I announced the Key to NYC pass and about five hours later the president of the United States endorsed it," Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday.
        The NYC COVID Safe app allows users to upload a photo of their COVID-19 vaccine card and then flash the image in the app to enter a vaccine-requiring establishment.
        "[It's] not connected to the Internet," de Blasio said. "Can't be hacked."
        Is that true?
        "No," Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.) founder and executive director Albert Fox Cahn said. "That statement from a technical perspective just doesn't make any sense."
        Cahn read NYC COVID Safe's terms and conditions and found the city's app Internet-enabled to document one's IP address every time one opens it. He also uploaded a photo of Mickey Mouse in place of his vaccine card and the app approved Mickey with three green checkmarks, leaving Cahn confused as to why the city developed its own app at all.
        RELATED: New York City launches vaccine passport
        "I think this is just more proof of the dysfunction between City Hall and Albany," he said.
        More than 3 million New Yorkers have downloaded the state's Excelsior Pass. And the governor announced Excelsior Plus on Thursday, allowing New Yorkers to use Excelsior at select locations around the world. But Cahn also worried for that app's security, hacking it '-- with a user's permission '-- in just 11 minutes.
        "Carrying the card itself is the simplest," de Blasio said. "Lot of people just have the card in their wallet."
        Get breaking news alerts in the FOX 5 NY News app. Download for FREE!
        On that, Cahn agreed.
        As of this writing, the city had yet to clarify whether the vaccine-exempt might dine or work out indoors, or how staff will verify international vaccination documents or prove a CDC card's authenticity.
        "The difference between vaccine cards and the app is the apps look more secure," Cahn said, "but the truth is they're just as easy to forge as that piece of cardboard."
        New York City's vaccine requirement to dine or exercise indoors takes effect Monday, Aug. 16.
      VIDEO - Mike Berg on Twitter: "Cori Bush: I'm going to make sure I have private security but defunding the police needs to happen. https://t.co/6jbv4HLlGs" / Twitter
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Fri, 06 Aug 2021 00:32
        Mike Berg : Cori Bush: I'm going to make sure I have private security but defunding the police needs to happen. https://t.co/6jbv4HLlGs
        Thu Aug 05 12:19:36 +0000 2021
        Chuck Goodspeed : @MikeKBerg Who the fuck elected her, you deserve her.
        Fri Aug 06 00:27:14 +0000 2021
        Chris Matthiesen : @MikeKBerg Will those private security be armed?
        Fri Aug 06 00:26:55 +0000 2021
        Nathan Schneider : @MikeKBerg Left-wing Margorie Greene.
        Fri Aug 06 00:26:11 +0000 2021
        Foghorn Leghorn : @MikeKBerg And little lefties still won't see what's right in front of them.
        Fri Aug 06 00:25:23 +0000 2021
      VIDEO - HotepGodDrelly on Twitter: "The Negro Community let's talk. New York vaccine mandates on all businesses , employees and customers. https://t.co/wVnfnf8mSl" / Twitter
        Link to Article
        Archived Version
        Thu, 05 Aug 2021 21:05
        HotepGodDrelly : The Negro Community let's talk. New York vaccine mandates on all businesses , employees and customers.'... https://t.co/6V44QO4DRo
        Tue Aug 03 18:14:15 +0000 2021
        J.S. Mcnerney : @HotepgodDrelly @ScottAdamsSays "Tried to tell Yall"Companies making this a condition of employment are accessori'... https://t.co/DBoebM6pB0
        Thu Aug 05 20:58:39 +0000 2021
        Tuco Benedicto Pacifico Juan Maria Ramirez : @HotepgodDrelly You are right. Plus, time is running out.
        Thu Aug 05 20:28:31 +0000 2021
        Freya Lewis : @HotepgodDrelly @ScottAdamsSays Important: https://t.co/CtOGxxpSnl
        Thu Aug 05 20:21:47 +0000 2021
        ðŸ‡ºðŸ‡²ðŸŽ¤ðŸ¸ SUPER-ELITE EMCEE ðŸ‡ºðŸ‡² #SuperStraight ðŸŸ§'¬› : @HotepgodDrelly can i rap with you
        Thu Aug 05 20:06:46 +0000 2021
        milio : @HotepgodDrelly Some please explain how people who can't get ID's (we're told there are lots) intertwines with proo'... https://t.co/LF5tAfIjJh
        Thu Aug 05 20:03:09 +0000 2021
        Goodsailor257 : @HotepgodDrelly Looks like we're going back to having to show papers...
        Thu Aug 05 19:52:14 +0000 2021
        Ain't No Circle Back Girl '­•¸ : @HotepgodDrelly They are looking to put us all in chains. They won't be made of iron but they will be chains nonetheless. Do not comply!
        Thu Aug 05 19:25:23 +0000 2021
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