Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[CGVT]

A 4th of July song my daughter wrote.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Very cool!

[THE_WIZARD_]

Wiz would never do anything with chickens other than fry them to a crispy and delicious tastiness.

However he has been placed on a national watch list for those who can't control themselves around tractors.

Correct

[Jeff Buchanan]

The news from S FL is rather bleak. Last night, the condo that collapsed with debris sitting on top of 124 probably very dead bodies was completely brought down in a controlled explosion - not the kind of 4th of July "fireworks" you wanted to see. Two other beach front condos have been judge unsafe by engineers who inspected them under emergency orders from the governors office that floated down to local officials to implement. Occupants were forced to evacuate.

Its a mess with builders, code enforcement agencies and local governments getting heavily scrutinized to assess blame. There is plenty of it to go around - just what the truly culpable, and there are some of those, want to have happen to avoid accountability. Unknown how all this will play out but the whole thing is tragic on a personal level. Stories abound of people who lost everything and escaped with their lives but only the clothes they had on their backs. Long road to recovery.

Meanwhile Elsa, now finding landfall in the most NE portions of Cuba as a tropical storm, will head to the FL straights between Cuba, the FL Keys and S FL. It's a sloppy storm that goes up and own in strength. It is forecast to slide up into the Eastern side of the GOM, just brushing the most southern of the FL Keys then curve inland to make landfall somewhere in the Tampa - St. Pete area but lots of uncertainty to exactly where it will fall and how strong it will be. Most forecasters are saying 65mp max - at the top end of a tropical storm probably less. Rain and flooding > risks than wind. I'm on the East side of S. FL and we're out of the cone. Will have some rain and gusty winds, that's all.

[lineygoblue]

I'm wondering how many more buildings in that area will be found to be unsafe. That could turn into a massive problem if the foundations of those buildings are being compromised by the limestone underneath them.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Well, yes. I'm not an architectural engineer but I know enough to (1) oppose high rise apartments and condos (> 4 stories) when I have a chance to oppose them in public hearings. (2) As I said for myself and warned others here - don't buy beach front condos.

Developers in S. FL are a sleazy bunch. Frankly, their sleazy everywhere. There's already emerging stories of pay-offs to S. FL code inspectors and money finding it's way into the hands of Commission members who have a say on whether a new building goes up or doesn't. Developers that still have a financial interest in newer condos are going to take a bath but in reality, as soon as those fuckers are done with a building and can hand it off to a condo association (not the builder), they do it ...... leaving poor construction, corner cutting and "contractor surprises" (what I fondly call a fuck up) and plummeting property values to the condo association and the idiots who spent hundreds of thousands, often millions, of dollars to have an ocean view from 15 floors up.

When we bought just recently here, we looked at high rise condos (not on the beach) that had been built in the early 80s. You actually wanted to consider those built in the late 70s - and there were some in this particular development - because they already had their 40 inspections. Owners are frequently assessed $20 to 50K per unit for repairs to bring the building up to code. That was the case where in one building, essentially rebuilt, all the balconies and all the windows had to be replaced to meet code. You can examine all matter of records if you want to buy into one of the condo units. The property management companies, there are three of them in the community we looked at, have good reps on code compliance and keeping up maintenance and repairs. It can be done and not all condos in S. FL are a wreck and poorly managed. Needless to say we didn't buy there. We're now in a single family home.

[Kapture1]

[Jeff Buchanan]

This headline isn't getting massive coverage:

Israel reports Pfizer vaccine only 64% effective against variants.

...... and that's a good thing. If you see this pop up on your news feeds the whole story is a bit different. In fact, it's a lot different.

The vaccine protected 64% of people against the illness between June 6 and early July, down from a previous 94%. The drop was observed as the delta variant was spreading in Israel, the Health Ministry said. It also coincided with the lifting of virus restrictions at the start of June.

Despite the indications of increased infections, the data also showed the shot is protecting people from severe illness. Its effectiveness at preventing hospitalization fell to 93%, according to the Health Ministry, compared with at least 97% in an earlier government study.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...rate-ynet-says

Couple of pints here.

• There is a definite shift in how the US press, even the global press is framing the pandemic. That is demonstrated in how this headline was usually modified in my news feeds this morning with a different slant that reflects the actual facts and even then it is back page stuff. Didn't even make the front page of BBC World News.
• The actual facts should surprise no one. Neither mRNA vaccine promised to keep people from catching SARS2 only that it would keep them from getting seriously ill and/or dying. There's no question that these vaccines are delivering.
• While some vaccinated people are getting re-infected with Delta variants, symptoms are mild. Most new cases are in the unvaxed. Deaths attributed to COVID in vaxed people are over 50 and have comorbid conditions. Moreover this is rare.

In a piece related to these two points, the UK government announced yesterday that it will be lifting most mitigation measures on July 19th. Boris Johnsen announced that, (paraphrased) "we are going to have to learn to live with the virus and deal with outbreaks as best we can. We cannot repeatedly shut everything down when case numbers rise. It is two costly on multiple levels. Conservative MPs have been urging Johnson to do this for a while. Labor calls it reckless.

Don't believe for a minute Johnson doesn't have some solid facts to support that position. That the virus is peaking - running out of spike protein places to mutate - means it will recede on it's own with some help from vaccines and our own human immune systems capacity to learn about and fight the virus over time. That's exactly what happened with the Spanish Flu and then there were no vaccines. That has a happened with every pandemic or endemic causing virus in history going back to the Bubonic Plague in the 1300s.

https://apnews.com/article/europe-co...77606e6b1a369b

Speaking of facts, Johnson probably has at hand to back up his policy shift, I can't recall if I posted a link to this thread here on an article that uses some interesting, though completely valid math to demonstrate that a rise in case number secondary to the Deltas actually prove vaccines are working. That is because the rises are occurring with flat death rates and hospitalizations. Although it would be nice, I don't think the Biden administration led by the nose of an overly conservative CDC, is going to articulate a shift in policy like the UK has done in the US.

What we need to have happen to push this sort of policy shirt in the US along is stories about the fear of increased case numbers over the 4th followed in two weeks by stories it didn't happen. TBH, it probably will but you still have to watch out for the headlines that started this post though and examine any increased case number carefully. They will be highly regional, associated with low vax rates but most people won't be going to the ED, getting hospitalized or dying.

[Kapture1]

https://twitter.com/PrisonPlanet/sta...56564258799620


A behavioral scientist who wants mask mandates to continue forever freaked out and refused to answer the question when asked if her lifetime membership of the Communist Party informed her beliefs.

Susan Michie, who is advising the UK government as part of the SAGE scientific dictatorship which has had the country locked down for the best part of 15 months, was finally confronted during a segment on Good Morning Britain.

When she was previously asked for how much longer social distancing, mask mandates and lockdowns should continue, Michie said “forever.”

Despite Michie making innumerable appearances on television, not one single interviewer asked her about being a Communist until GMB host Richard Madeley broke the ice yesterday morning.


Susan Michie, who is advising the UK government as part of the SAGE scientific dictatorship which has had the country locked down for the best part of 15 months, was finally confronted during a segment on Good Morning Britain.

When she was previously asked for how much longer social distancing, mask mandates and lockdowns should continue, Michie said “forever.”

Despite Michie making innumerable appearances on television, not one single interviewer asked her about being a Communist until GMB host Richard Madeley broke the ice yesterday morning.



Richard Madeley: There’s a point I really have to put to you and you’ll be aware of this because there’s been a lot of commentary about this in the British media about you and it’s to do with your politics and you know what I’m going to ask you. You’ve been a member of the Communist Party for about 40 years now, you’re still a member, and we know that they’re statist. We look at Communist countries around the world and we see that they are tremendously top down dominant and controlled societies that they rule over. I just wonder – and I’m putting this question on behalf of those who wonder about your politics – if your politics actually informs your sense of control? It’s not just the medical arguments, but you have a kind of a political bent to want the state to tell people what to do?

Susan Michie: I’ve come on your program as a scientist, as do all people who come on to your program as scientists. They come on to talk about the evidence, relevant theories, how we approach our scientific disciplines, and you don’t ask other scientists about politics so I’m very happy to speak about science which is what my job is and to limit it to that.

RM: So you’re saying that your politics doesn’t inform your opinion on this subject?

SM: I’m saying that I agreed to come on this program as a scientist and I’m very happy to talk to you about the issues that you’re raising as a scientist which is the same for other scientists that you invite on to the program.

Michie’s attempt to squirm out of answering the question is transparently deceptive.

For a start, she isn’t a medical scientist or virologist, she’s a behavioral scientist.

In other words, Michie was one of the individuals responsible for brainwashing the British public using “mind control” and the weaponization of behavioral psychology at the start of the pandemic to make everyone overly terrified of a virus that in reality has a relatively low fatality rate.

The fact that the government used people like Michie to deliberately scare people using “unethical” and “totalitarian” tactics isn’t a conspiracy theory, it’s all been admitted.

Given that Michie effusively praised Communist China’s draconian response to the pandemic, which included welding people inside their own homes, grilling her on her Communist inclinations is perfectly reasonable.

She tweeted: “China has a socialist, collective system (whatever criticisms people may have) not an individualistic, consumer-oriented, profit-driven society badly damaged by 20 years of failed neoliberal economic policies. #LearntLessons.”

Making masks permanent is a an integral part of building the collectivist, Communist society that Michie yearns for.

As Toby Young highlights, the woke mob on Twitter rushed to Michie’s defense, with some even claiming it was “misogynistic” to question her extremist political beliefs.

[Hannibal]

Speaking of Communism -- this is what happens regularly in San Francisco, now that shoplifting has been decriminalized.

Just go into any brick and mortar store and help yourself.

This is what happens when Democrats run the show.

[Mike]

Good job by the police to take some cell phone footage of the incident. Maybe they can send it to the proper authorities?

[Hannibal]

Good job by the police to take some cell phone footage of the incident. Maybe they can send it to the proper authorities?

Theoretically, they could, but that would be racist.

[Hannibal]

BTW -- isn't it interesting how Fortune 500 companies have inserted themselves into all kinds of woke politics, but when it comes to some sort of basic insanity like the City of San Francisco actively refusing to protect their brick and mortar stores and acknowledge the concept of private property, they stay silent?

[Mike]

It’s certainly a new twist on “Get woke, go broke”, isn’t it?

[Hannibal]

I wonder why type of distorted and completely dishonest explanation our grandchildren will get about what's happening in San Francisco 50 years from now

"Well you see, little Johnny, the reason why San Franciso is a gigantic ghetto now is because of redlining practices and institutionalized racism".