DID YOU LOOK UNDER THE SOFA CUSHIONS? THAT’S WHERE MINE ALWAYS TURN UP. A Billion Years of Time Are Mysteriously Missing. Scientists Think They Know Why.
Archive for 2022
January 29, 2022
TESLA IS TOP DOG: Survey: Which EVs Are Leaving Drivers the Most Satisfied?
BUT THEY WERE A GREAT SUCCESS AT RUINING LIVES: Lockdowns Did Not Save Lives, Concludes Meta-Analysis.
NICHOLAS WADE: The New Lysenkoism. Scientific American’s broadside against E. O. Wilson fits a fashionable, science-denying trend. It’s the same woke trend that led to terrible coverage of science during the pandemic by SciAm and other once-reputable publications.
GET IN SHAPE: Bowflex SelectTech 552 Adjustable Dumbbells (pair). #CommissionEarned
HMM: Stool samples reveal microbial enzyme driving bowel disease. “Ulcerative colitis, a subtype of inflammatory bowel disease, is a chronic ailment of the colon affecting nearly one million individuals in the United States. It is thought to be linked to disruptions in the gut microbiome—the bacteria and other microbes that live inside us—but no existing treatments actually target these microorganisms. In a study publishing on January 27, 2022 in Nature Microbiology , researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have identified a class of microbial enzymes that drive ulcerative colitis, and have demonstrated a potential route for therapeutic intervention.”
Faster, please.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China, Russia to start building lunar research station by 2026.
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: Gloria Steinem: Saving Babies From Abortion is “Patriarchy,” Pro-Life People are Like Hitler.
This just in: Hitler was not exactly a pro-life dictator.
THIS SEEMS UNSURPRISING: Study: People with serious mental illness had care disruptions during pandemic. “People on Medicare with severe mental health disorders saw disruptions in treatment services during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, a study published Friday by JAMA Network Open found. In March 2020, when the pandemic began in the United States, outpatient visits for mental health treatment services for those covered under the government-funded healthcare plan were down 20% compared to March 2019, the data showed.”
Back in 2020, when most of the shrinks in town quit seeing patients or would only do telehealth, the Insta-Wife went to work at a clinic to see patients in the flesh because there were people who really needed face-to-face treatment. I was proud of her.
Of course, Brady could always do a Brett Favre, and parachute in at a later date to a team (or two) that’s desperate for a veteran QB.
HUGE: Africa may have reached the pandemic’s holy grail. “Jambo, who works for the Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme, knew the total number of cases was going to be higher than the official numbers. But his study revealed that the scale of spread was beyond anything he had anticipated — with a huge majority of Malawians infected long before the omicron variant emerged. ‘I was very shocked,’ he says. Most important, he says, the finding suggests that it has now been months since Malawi entered something akin to what many countries still struggling with massive omicron waves consider the holy grail: the endemic stage of the pandemic, in which the coronavirus becomes a more predictable seasonal bug like the flu or common cold.”
And they got there without lockdowns, or mandatory masking and vaccination. Go figure.
GAMES JOURNALISTS PLAY:
Now, it’s possible that while they reached out to comment at the last minute for some reason, he’s not wrong that it’s often an attempt to honestly say you asked for a comment without actually having to get a comment.
And based on the way Maddow framed his response on her show—in a manner made to look particularly flippant but also to hide the games her staff played—I’d be very surprised if that’s the case.
Yet what Maddow forgets is that if this were done by email, then Redfern has a copy as well. Only a fool would think he wouldn’t release it.
And only an even bigger fool would think that someone like me wouldn’t grab hold of it and make a thing out of it.
Meanwhile, people like Maddow and her buddies and MSNBC and CNN seriously wonder why the American public doesn’t trust the media anymore. They’re shocked and appalled not to be held in the highest esteem.
But why would anyone hold them as such?
Look, I get having to reach out at the 11th hour to get a comment from someone. But when you actually get that comment, don’t play games with it to try and make that person look bad.
Then again, what else should we expect from Maddow?
See, the problem is that the American public wouldn’t lack trust in journalists if so many activists weren’t pretending to actually be journalists. That’s all Maddow is. She’s a progressive operative masquerading as a news commentator. She has no interest in the truth, just what she can buffalo the American public into believing.
At least MSNBC doesn’t pretend to be neutral, so Maddow has that going for her, at least.
CNN gets no such excuse, and they play the same kind of games.
Meanwhile, because of this, people don’t trust the media anymore. Hell, I’m part of the media and I don’t trust it, so I can hardly blame anyone else.
It’s been that way for a while, it just keeps getting worse:
BECAUSE THE CDC ISN’T IN THE SCIENCE BUSINESS. OR IN THE HEALTH BUSINESS. Why Can’t the CDC Admit There Is No Solid Evidence To Support ‘Universal Masking’ in Schools?
In an Atlantic article published this week, Margery Smelkinson, an infectious disease scientist who works for the National Institutes of Health, highlights the lack of evidence in favor of school mask mandates. “Two years into this pandemic, keeping unproven measures in place is no longer justifiable,” she and her co-authors write. “We reviewed a variety of studies—some conducted by the CDC itself, some cited by the CDC as evidence of masking effectiveness in a school setting, and others touted by media to the same end—to try to find evidence that would justify the CDC’s no-end-in-sight mask guidance for the very-low-risk pediatric population, particularly post-vaccination. We came up empty-handed.”
Vinay Prasad, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, makes the same point more emphatically in a recent Tablet article. Forcing students to wear face masks “isn’t a matter of protecting children, their teachers, or their grandparents,” he says. “It’s delusional and dangerous cultlike behavior.”
We’ve seen a lot of that lately.
THIRD AS MANY ‘VERY HAPPY’ AMERICANS AFTER YEAR OF BIDEN: No, it’s not a push poll, it’s the latest data from the General Social Survey that finds only 19 percent of Americans describe themselves as “very happy” in 2021, compared to 31 percent back when that Trump guy was in the White House.
And Tristan Justice of The Federalist notes that “according to the Pew Research Center in November, no baby boom is expected anytime soon. Only about a quarter of non-parents under the age of 50 reported they were ‘very likely’ to have children, down from 32 percent in 2018. Forty-four percent said they were ‘not too likely’ or ‘not at all likely’ to have children whatsoever.”
These are indicators of plunging civil and social coherence, friends, and we better pay attention.
RULES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Northern Illinois University officials party maskless while forcing mandates on students.
Northern Illinois University leadership reminded students heading into the new year to follow state and university guidelines that require face coverings indoors.
But administrators, faculty and alumni were not as keen to follow those requirements throughout a series of December events, according to photos compiled by The College Fix.
In one instance (pictured) President Lisa Freeman went maskless while cheerleaders and band members were forced to wear masks.
The university and alumni association deleted most of the albums, videos and photos after Fix inquiries.
Transparency!
TALK ABOUT GOOD LUCK: The photographer saw a Cheetah walking toward him. And then they hugged?
WE SHOWED YOU OURS, NOW IT’S YOUR TURN: House Republicans want the White House to make public the full transcript of Biden’s telephone conversation earlier this week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
HIGHER EDUCATION JUST GETS CREEPIER: Have you or a loved one been ‘affected’ by ‘free speech?’ Colorado State University has resources to help.
DEBRA SAUNDERS: I just signed up for Spotify: And I’ve never listened to Joe Rogan. “If critics can’t challenge Rogan on the substance of his claims on COVID and climate change in a forthright debate, shame on them. The fact that any controversial positions invites a stampede of cancellations shows how dispirited political debate has become in America.”
A DOJ COVERUP: Durham Court Filing Reveals DOJ Inspector General Horowitz Withheld Key Evidence From Special Counsel.
A new court filing by special counsel John Durham reveals that Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz concealed crucial information from Durham in connection with the ongoing prosecution of Michael Sussmann, a former attorney to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The filing also reveals that Horowitz failed to disclose that his office is in possession of two cellphones used by former FBI general counsel James Baker. The phones may contain information that’s important to the Sussmann case, as well as to a separate criminal leak investigation of Baker that Durham personally conducted between 2017 and 2019.
Horowitz first came to public prominence in June 2018 when he issued a report on the FBI’s actions leading up to the 2016 presidential election. Horowitz followed up in December 2019 with another report on the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation and the bureau’s pursuit of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
Durham’s filing on Jan. 25 involves discovery issues surrounding Sussmann’s upcoming trial for allegedly making a materially false statement to the FBI’s then-general counsel James Baker. As part of Durham’s discovery obligations, the Special Counsel’s Office met with Horowitz and his team on Oct. 7, 2021, and subsequently requested any materials, including any “documents, records, and information” regarding Sussmann that may have been in the possession of the Office of Inspector General (OIG).
On Dec. 17, 2021, Horowitz’s office provided Durham with information that Sussmann had given the OIG information in early 2017, that an OIG “employee’s computer was ‘seen publicly’ in ‘Internet traffic’ and was connecting to a Virtual Private Network in a foreign country.” It isn’t clear what this information was about, why Sussmann would know about this information, or why he would have been interested in the internet activities of OIG employees.
It also isn’t known why Sussmann, a private citizen, would have been seeking out the OIG shortly after he was pushing information detrimental to Trump to both the FBI and the CIA.
At the time of the Dec. 17 disclosure, “the OIG represented to [Durham’s] team that it had “no other file or other documentation” relating to this cyber matter.” However, last week, Sussmann’s attorneys informed Durham that there was additional information, including the fact that Sussmann had met with Horowitz in March 2017 to personally pass along the information about the OIG employee’s computer VPN use. This meeting between Horowitz and Sussmann hadn’t been disclosed by Horowitz to Durham during their previous meetings and interactions.
It isn’t known why Horowitz would have taken a personal meeting from Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer. According to Bill Shipley, a former federal prosecutor, “[y]ou don’t generally just call the IG and get a meeting with him personally.” It also isn’t clear why Horowitz chose not to inform Durham of the meeting—particularly as it pertained directly to information that Horowitz’s office had been specifically requested to relay to Durham’s special counsel probe.
Sussmann’s attorneys further informed Durham that the VPN information had come from Rodney Joffe, a computer expert with close connections to the FBI. This was another material fact that hadn’t been disclosed by Horowitz. Joffe is of great import to Durham’s case against Sussmann and to the wider investigation into the origins of the Russia collusion investigation, since he was alleged to have provided Sussmann with falsified data about contacts between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank.
Those alleged contacts were used by Hillary Clinton and her campaign to push the narrative that Trump was compromised by the Kremlin. Durham had noted in a previous filing that “[Joffe’s] goal was to support an ‘inference’ and ‘narrative’ regarding Trump that would please certain ‘VIPs.’” A subsequent filing by Durham noted that these VIPs were “individuals at the defendant’s [Sussmann’s] law firm and the Clinton Campaign.” Joffe also is alleged to have been offered a high-ranking position in a Clinton administration.
The omission of information by Horowitz didn’t end with his meeting with Sussmann or the information on Joffe. Durham’s office has since discovered that the OIG “currently possesses two FBI cell phones” that belonged to Baker, the former FBI general counsel. Durham’s discovery of Horowitz’s possession of Baker’s two phones does not appear to have come through Horowitz or his office.
According to Durham’s filing, “in early January 2022, the Special Counsel’s Office learned for the first time that the OIG currently possesses two FBI cellphones of the former FBI General Counsel.”
Just routine stuff, no big deal.
TWO LOOKS AT THE EYE: Eyes are amazing organs that bring the world into our minds (especially if you happen to be David Hume!), but are they products of an intelligent design or of an evolutionary process? That’s the question posed this morning on HillFaith.
Professor Cornelius Hunter says the former. He has a PhD in Biophysics and Computational Biology. Professor Nathan Lents says the latter. He has a PhD in Molecular Biology.
These are two smart guys. Read both of them and I guarantee you will come away with a deeper appreciation for the miracle of sight, regardless of how you come down on the origins issue. I should tell you, too, both cases are a bit lengthy, but well worth the time.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: What if Russia turns off the gas? Europe assesses its options as fears mount over Ukraine crisis. Brad Templeton comments that the pressure goes both ways: “50% of Russians get their income from the government, which gets 43% of its revenue from oil and gas and is 1/3rd of the GDP. Putin rules only because Europe keeps sending him money to buy fossil fuel we want to stop burning. The analysis found in comment #1 considers what happens if Russia cuts off or is forced to cut off its gas pipelines, and the answer is it would be tough, but Europe would manage. But what if Europe stops paying, not now, but in the spring, when it has 6 months before winter to reconfigure to use imported LNG and other sources, re-boot their shuttered nukes, install more renewables and turn up all the non-Russian fossil fuel it can get its hands on? Hard, but not as hard as I thought, and the USA would pay because it’s cheaper than the military cost of conflicts like this going into the future. Putin might collapse as his people revolt as the money stops flowing. On the other hand, there is a risk he could do something crazy on the way down, like pull out his nuclear weapons. So there’s that. And China might weigh in with its might, not liking increased US/Euro dominance. The price of oil and gas would rise.”