Thursday, September 30, 2021

Snow on the Mountains

The rain a couple nights ago left snow on the mountains.

Have You Ever Bought Something And Discovered It Was Far More Capable Than You Realized?

Like buying a pickup truck and discovering it also flies and works as a submarine?

I bought the Losmandy G811G (the second G got Gemini, the computer control system).  I thought I was buying a GOTO system where you aim at a couple stars and press ENTER to tell it where everything is and from there you can say take me to M13, and it skews across the sky to it.

As I go through the instruction videos on YouTube I find myself increasingly flabbergasted at its capabilities. 

Side Effects of the Vaccine

 I was just looking at the VAERS database.  For all COVID vaccines they report 42,821 serious side effects in 2020-21.  Out of 392 million doses, this does not seem so high.  (0.01% of vaccinations.)  Of course, we have no idea how many of these side effects were coincidental; might this person have ended up in the hospital anyway even without the shot?  Even compared to COVID-19's death rate, this is trivial.

There are risks for everything you do.  Drive to the store; a drunk might hit you and kill you.  Go for a brisk walk and have a heart attack.  (Been there, done that.)  Go shooting and a defectively loaded cartridge might tear your gun apart sending fragments in to your skull.  Move to Detroit...

A 0.01% severe side effect rate is not terribly risky.


Some have pointed out that perhaps only 10% of side effects are being reported to VAERS.  Probably true.  My fatigue for a day or two and my wife's more serious discomfort for several days did not get into VAERS.  But I am sure the serious side effects are much more likely to get reported.   Even if only 10% of serious side effects are reported (which seems unlikely) this is still .1% of vaccinations are causing serious side effects. 

Please, if you are incubated you cannot read my blog.  Get vaccinated. 

This 2011 report "Electronic Support for Public Health–Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (ESP:VAERS)"  found:

Adverse events from drugs and vaccines are common, but underreported. Although 25% of ambulatory patients experience an adverse drug event, less than 0.3% of all adverse drug events and 1-13% of serious events are reported to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Likewise, fewer than 1% of vaccine adverse events are reported. 

Again, I would expect less serious side effects to get less attention than serious side effects.  But at the high end of that 1% (which would include the far more commonly reported less severe side effects), we would still be seeing at most 1% of vaccinations producing severe side effects.  

Some conspiracy buffs imagine these vaccines as white genocide so that China can occupy the U.S.  If so, they are not working very well.

The latest errors from some group called America's Frontline Doctors:

Today the facts remain the same: SARS-CoV-2 poses virtually no mortality risk to people up to 70 years old. For those beyond 70, survival approaches 95%, and with early treatment is nearly 100% survivable.

False.  The breakdown of COVID deaths by age is here. Death rates are definitely much lower in lower age ranges.  But even in the 18-29 year group, there have been 2092 deaths (2021) and 1481 (2020).  Mortality is not the only relevant measure.  Intubation is no fun.  When I awoke from heart surgery, I was still intubated; I was strapped to the bed to overcome the natural desire to get that tube out of there.

Most friends who have had COVID describe it as like either a very bad flu, or sometimes not quite as bad as flu.  But a lot of people do end up miserably sick and hospitalized.

Today the problems with the "vaccines" remain the same: none have been studied for long-term effects, and the short-term toxicity is alarming. The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), run by the CDC, shows over 15,000 deaths following COVID vaccines.

False.  I went to the VAERS data tool.

Suggested Citation:
United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Public Health Service (PHS), Centers for Disease Control (CDC) / Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) 1990 - 9/24/2021, CDC WONDER On-line Database. Accessed at http://wonder.cdc.gov/vaers.html on Oct 1, 2021 10:23:11 AM


Query Criteria:
Date Report Completed:2020; 2021
Event Category:Death
State / Territory:The United States/Territories/Unknown
Symptoms:DEATH
Vaccine Products:COVID19 VACCINE (COVID19)
Group By:Vaccine Type; Symptoms
Show Totals:True
Show Zero Values:
False

Deaths: 6,459.  Out of 392,000,000 doses that is .001%.  There are 869.7 deaths per 100,000 population each year.   In a population of 322 million people that would be .001%.  So we have no idea how many of those deaths if any are because of the vaccine.

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

The Jeep Finally Needed New Brakes

 New front pads and rotors.  For 90K+ miles, that is pretty good.  This 2016 Jeep Renegade has been amazingly trouble free and made by FIAT!

Vaxracism!

9/23/21 Daily Wire:
"Chivona Newsome, an organizer with Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, led a protest on Monday at Carmine’s Italian Restaurant in New York City after a hostess denied entry to three black women last week because they would not provide proof of vaccination. The women, tourists from Texas, allegedly attacked the hostess and were arrested on charges of assault and criminal mischief."

Of course it is not racism.  Black refusal to get vaccinated is not because of racism.  Black mistrust of government healthcare is not entirely without reason.  But guess what?  Lots of conservatives are similarly mistrustful of the government and this is not okay?

Tuesday, September 28, 2021

Finally Here

Losmandy G811G.   I just need to put the 8" reflector on it.
It took longer than I expected because I lost on of 4-40 screws that hold the declination motor in place. It eventually reappeared.   Why not make them something so radioactive that they glow against the carpet pattern?

Astonishingly Good Explanation of an Automobile Transmission


 

Monday, September 27, 2021

What Are They Teaching Environmentalists Today

9/26/21 Daily Mail:

"Forestry student-turned-shaman, 30, faces nine years in jail for 'starting California's Fawn Fire' that has burned 8,500 acres and destroyed 41 homes: DA suspects she could be 'serial arsonist'"

It gets weirder.  Caltech grad in biology and chemistry.  Her excuse?
"after claiming the blaze was triggered accidentally while she tried to boil bear urine so she could drink it."

Is this some new fad that i missed?
"immediately known if she has an attorney who could speak on her behalf.  

During questioning by investigators, Souverneva, who previously worked as a scientist, but whose most recent job was as an SAT tutor, claimed that she had been thirsty whilst out hiking and found a puddle in a dry creek bed which contained bear urine. 

She then claims she attempted to filter the water using a tea bag but when that failed tried to start a fire to boil the water. Souverneva said that it was too wet to start a fire so she drank the water and continued walking."

Using a teabag? How do you identify bear urine from say cougar urine or fox urine?  The CRC handbook (yes I was a hopeless nerd when I went off to USC to study chemistry) has tables about rat urine.  Is identifying bear urine part of shaman school?

So many leftwing crazies starting fires.  Is global warming the problem?

These Fascists Are Going to Be All Surprised When Lone Wolf Attacks Start

 9/23/21 American Greatness:

Thomas Caldwell’s wife awakened him in a panic at 5:30 a.m. on January 19.

“The FBI is at the door and I’m not kidding,” Sharon Caldwell told her husband.

Caldwell, 66, clad only in his underwear, went to see what was happening outside his Virginia farm. “There was a full SWAT team, armored vehicles with a battering ram, and people screaming at me,” Caldwell told me during a lengthy phone interview on September 21. “People who looked like stormtroopers were pointing M4 weapons at me, covering me with red [laser] dots.”

Agents demanded that Caldwell, a former lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy who suffers from debilitating service-related spinal injuries, come outside and lay down in the grass.

“Someone grabbed my legs and dragged me through the grass. They threw me face down on the hood of the car, kicked my legs apart, put a chain around my waist and put me in handcuffs.” Caldwell said he looked up to see Sharon, his wife of 22 years, dressed in her nightgown holding her hands up with a sock in either hand. She, too, was covered in red dots from the weapons aimed at her. Sharon, 61, begged to put on her socks before they forced her outside in the cold. “I said a prayer, ‘Father, please don’t let them kill my wife,’” Caldwell said through sobs.

Caldwell was forced into the back of a police car for nearly 40 minutes; he asked several times what he was being charged with but FBI agents refused to answer. Eventually, Caldwell was led back toward his house. “I have a [collector] ’63 Thunderbird in my garage as a reminder of my grandfather, a retired Army colonel. An agent kicked one of the doors open and was leaning with his battle gear up against the car, scratching it up.”...

Even though he is a central figure in the Justice Department’s shaky “conspiracy” case against the Oath Keepers, Caldwell said he never joined the group. He was approached by Stewart Rhodes during a post-election rally in Virginia. Rhodes told Caldwell he did “security” for conservatives and asked Caldwell if he would ever volunteer to help. He gave Rhodes his contact information....

But Rhodes, curiously, has not been charged although he is Person One in the indictments. (Darren Beattie at Revolver News has a few investigative reports on Rhodes and the Oath Keepers case.) Even more curious is how the FBI quickly identified Caldwell, accessed his social media posts and other contacts, sought a warrant, and arrested him less than two weeks after the protest when he never even entered the building and committed no serious crime

Rhodes was not indicted.  Why not?  Was he another FBI informant?  An agent provocateur? This is all beginning to smell of entrapment.  

The overheated rhetoric of the Oathkeepers and the 3%ers was always a little offputting to me, because it basically screamed, "Hey, FBI.  We are coming to overthrow the government!  Whatcha gonna do about it?"  If you wanted to drag in people full of good intentions but easily entrapped, this is how to do it.  

In 1775, the Revolutionaries in Boston had the good sense to not publicize their intentions, at least with any particular name.  The organizations that finally opened fire on the Redcoats were members of legally recognized organizations.  It would be hard to prosecute members of the legally mandated militia for being members of that militia.

What few hints there were in print were sufficiently coy to be lawful.  An article in the Essex Gazette wroite, “POWDER bears a very good price in this town; the people from all parts of the country, the fall past, having bought up almost all there was, to defend themselves against wolves, and other beasts of PREY.”[1]  The “beasts,” of course, were the royal government.



[1] Essex Gazette, January 10, 1775.  

Wolves.  Remember that.  Anyone that invites you to join a revolutionary organization might well be a good-hearted patriot.  I think it also likely he is an FBI agent or informant as appeared in the conspiracy to kidnap Gov. Whitmer.  "Lone wolf" attacks are nearly impossible for the government to prevent because there is no group of conspirators to infiltrate.  

Sunday, September 26, 2021

I Am Generally a Fan of Metric

But I saw this and had no choice:

Pride is An Awful Thing

 New York, N.Y. (1927)

11/11/1927: “Too proud to accept charity for herself,” the mother broken open the gas meter, which the gas company locked for non-payment, turned on the jets, killing her four children and herself.

Category: family

Suicide: yes

Cause: financial

Weapon: poison[1]



[1] "Faced By Starvation, Mothers Kills Four Children And Self," [Douglas, Ariz.] Douglas Daily Dispatch, Nov. 12, 1927, 1.

Speaking of pride, my wife comments on the overlap between narcissism, prosperity gospel, and pride.

If you are not a Christian you may not be aware of prosperity gospel: if I have enough faith I will be rich and healthy.  I think this is based on a misreading of the Scriptures.  

I have seen it lead to great destruction of Believer's faith.  "Mom did not recover." To which the promoters of prosperity gospel stick their foot in their mouth: "you clearly did not have enough faith."

Prosperity Gospel preachers (including many of the big televangelists, past and present) always emphasize that your faith involves giving money to their ministry.  Someone ends up prosperous.  Any guesses who?  (And yes I mean the televangelist with his own jet )  

A lot of the richest church leaders in the world are in Africa, where grinding poverty makes any strategy for achieving even modest poverty seem reasonable. 

Social Media Are Forvever

 




Saturday, September 25, 2021

How Did I Miss This?

1/27/21 Reuters:

Exclusive: Proud Boys leader was ‘prolific’ informer for law enforcement

"I Have a Good Idea. Let's Burn Down the ROTC Building!"

As an antiwar activist told me this is how to identify the FBI agent in your group. 


"As scores of Proud Boys made their way, chanting and shouting, toward the Capitol on Jan. 6, one member of the far-right group was busy texting a real-time account of the march.

The recipient was his F.B.I. handler."

As the article points the conspiracy charges are going to get a bit harder to stick.