BC SOCIETY
Saved by @Alex1Powell

global health policy in 2020 has centered around NPI's (non-pharmaceutical interventions) like distancing, masks, school closures

these have been sold as a way to stop infection as though this were science.

this was never true and that fact was known and knowable.

let's look.

 above is the plot of social restriction and NPI vs total death per million. there is 0 R2. this means that the variables play no role in explaining one another.

we can see this same relationship between NPI and all cause deaths.

this is devastating to the case for NPI.
clearly, correlation is not proof of causality, but a total lack of correlation IS proof that there was no material causality.

barring massive and implausible coincidence, it's essentially impossible to cause something and not correlate to it, especially 51 times.
this would seem to pose some very serious questions for those claiming that lockdowns work, those basing policy upon them, and those claiming this is the side of science.

there is no science here nor any data. this is the febrile imaginings of discredited modelers.
this has been clear and obvious from all over the world since the beginning and had been proven so clearly by may that it's hard to imagine anyone who is actually conversant with the data still believing in these responses.

everyone got the same R curve

https://t.co/5iPbLaBGZd
lockdowns were a panic response.

they came LONG after disease growth curves had rolled over and had no effect overall.

it's clear when you plot google mobility data vs disease curves.

(this is from may)
r2 was ~0. this was all proven by may and strongly argued by april.

this data is literally overwhelming. there is just no evidence that lockdowns work.
spain and netherlands had radically different responses

https://t.co/drxx2RqJtA
but got R curves that were all but indistinguishable.

this issue crops up everywhere.

mitigation has zero effect.
similarly, there is no evidence that opening again had any effect either.
and this was all known. every set of longstanding pandemic guidelines contra-indicated lockdowns.

https://t.co/sFdUYqPoZy
it's 50 year old pseudoscience and the clarity with which NPI was dismissed by everyone until this year when we suddenly abandoned 100 years of science and started making stuff up and moralizing about it as though it were canon is stunning.
the same is true of masks.

just last year the WHO surveyed this and found that community masking does not work.

nothing has changed.

https://t.co/viMzUEfWTH
the "studies" trotted out this year are so awful as to beggar belief. they are either nonsensical lab bench presumption devoid of clinical or social outcome, or they are contrived cherry picks lacking controls.

the CDC used this one. it's risible.

https://t.co/IBVypITIr8
CDC and gottlieb later pushed this study which is outright fraud.

https://t.co/qY66ZavM3N
and you can see piles of data from the swiss policy research institute here:

https://t.co/Vyqmmo0wIx
there is no sound evidence that community masking has any effect. the evidence they work as "source control" is entirely speculative and made up.

the fact that they increase, not decrease post op infection in surgical theaters is pretty damning.

https://t.co/Ivb7FxPtYj
and now that it's becoming clear that asymptotic spread is vanishingly rare, we can really put the final nail in the NPI coffin.

this is the vector these interventions mean to head off.

but it was never a serious source of infection.

https://t.co/aMRCAF7g9E
the simple fact is this: nothing we have done has made any meaningful difference

covid is seasonal and regional. when your season comes, it comes

NPI is not why california and peru and eastern europe did not get hit in the spring

it was just regional

https://t.co/NZYN1v9vsa
then your season comes and everyone moves together.

we've been mistaking baby oil for suncreeen in places where it was still night time.

then, noon came and it was revealed for what it really was.

https://t.co/Aq5WEWzR5L
this means that all this moralizing about "you just want grandma to die" and the censorship of evidence counter to this "big lie" that lockdowns work has been at best a disastrous mistake and at worst, a cynical ploy to wreak havoc and cover past errors.
politicians are now doubling and trebling down on lockdowns and masks because to do otherwise is to admit that they bought us $10 trillion of sugar water as medicine and wrecked our lives and livelihoods for no sound reason.

they will never do that.
this is why they have shifted the debate to morality and censorship: to mask the fact that the science and the data calls them liars.

repeat "i'm on the side of science" enough and scare people endlessly and you can generate social belief.

but it's pure propaganda.
these mitigations do not work to stop covid or to reduce overall deaths.

this is the most expensive peace time policy debacle in human history and they all want to do it again.

say no. stand up.

this is not medicine, it's poison.

this does not save lives, it wrecks them.
it's easy to sell false hope to scared people. there are whole industries that prey on the desperation of parents with sick kids.

but sometimes, there is just not much you can do however much you want control and want to "do something".

this is one of those times.
and we need to accept that.

many times, the best way to "do something" is to do nothing.

"something" in this case has been a absolute disaster.

we panicked into unprecedented global self-harm.

it's time to stop. this is just making it worse

stay brave. stay free. stay safe.
apparently, the link i used for the asymptomatic spread study is down (crashed from so much traffic).

this is the article it cites.

https://t.co/dfPSqmTr20
also:

this is the methodology for policy stringency.

we can obviously debate weighting and values, but i checked it against the google mobility data i have used and it lined up quite well. the output looks reasonable to me.

https://t.co/OnAwKjhBVU

More from el gato malo

el gato malo
el gato malo
@boriquagato
anyone currently shocked by the fact that the politicians in power recant and reverse the views they held when they were in opposition (and vice versa) has simply not paid any attention to history.

that's 100% to be expected.

where you stand depends up where you sit.

always.


this latest biden refusal to commit to a view on packing SCOTUS until after the election is just this same phenomenon.

if he wins, he's for packing it. if he loses, he'll be against it.

this is because almost none of these people stand on any principles.

they just seek power.


this is why it's so hard to trust any of them.

and why shouldn't they act this way?

it's what we reward. we all accept their lies even when we KNOW they are lies. we elect them anyway.

we accept that all we ever get is the lesser of evils.

will biden pay any price? nope.


it's behavioralism 101

the fault lies not w/ these narcissistic liars & sociopaths, it lies with us

we're the ones electing them & putting up with monstrous & dishonest behavior because "it's not as bad as what the other guy would do."

those are the railroad tracks to tyranny.


it demands a question:

if the outcome of an election is so impactful that it can make or ruin your life or save or lose the republic (as many claim it is) is that not proof positive that the government is FAR too powerful?

do you really want to gamble for such stakes?
POLITICS
el gato malo
el gato malo
@boriquagato
from the "make orwell fiction again" files:

google has memory holed the great barrington declaration

not only have they wiped it from the top results, they have salted it with false claims about "climate denial"

it's pure, simple propaganda

here's bing (who plays it straight)


simple, right? here's the declaration, here's the wiki page.

you can see the authors, kulldorf, gupta, bhattacharya's names and know this this was written by medical professors at harvard, stanford, and oxford.

there's no slant, not editorializing, it's primary source info.

now let's have a look at google.

pretty different looking results, huh? not only do they not lead with the declaration itself or its authors, they lead with dishonest hit pieces.

they try to tie it to climate denial and fake science.

um, no. this is "fake search."


the google results for "great barrington declaration" are simply not search results at all.

it's a propagandistic hit piece ducking the science, ignoring the credentials of the authors, failing to show the declaration, and spinning it as some kind of fringe cabal of "deniers."


it's staggeringly blatant once you see it, but will anyone?

or will they be fooled by this because it's subtle and you think google is a search engine, not a radicalized editorial column.

and it's now EVERYWHERE.

reddit will not allow users to see
SOCIETY
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el gato malo
el gato malo
@boriquagato
"much of the social history of the western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good"

-thomas sowell

"hold my beer and watch this"

-andrew cuomo


though i suppose none of us should be surprised.

we live in a time when epidemiologists said that mass protests during a pandemic were OK so long as they were for "social justice"

massively delaying vaccine rollouts for the same reason seems like the next obvious policy.

how about this?

"anyone who needs to go protest racism, sexism, the patriarchy, or the police gets vaccine priority"

i hope i am joking.

i fear i may not be.
POLITICS
el gato malo
el gato malo
@boriquagato
did you consider checking the facts before buying into such hysterical claims?

this is LA department of health services hospital census. it's essentially identical to the levels from last year.

the media have had a severe tendency to overstate these issues. https://t.co/ktTPIbKcdQ


as you can see, visits to emergency departments have been quite stable for 4 months.


and ICU bed availability has been flat for the whole month of december.

keep in mind that 90-100% ICU capacity is normal this time of year and that all ICU's must be able to flex to 120% (by federal law) and most can hit 150%.


and if you will not take my word for it, just ask the CEO's of the hospitals in texas everyone was so breathless about this summer.

they were not worried. and they were


hospital census in LA seems to be about 3000 patients below where it was in july.

this seems to imply a drop in staffed beds which, contrary to the narrative is not from "exhaustion" but rather from people being laid off or staying home because kids are not in school.
HEALTH
el gato malo
el gato malo
@boriquagato
google censorship of great barrington declaration: update.

this morning, there was no link to it in a direct google search.

now, there is.

could this be because certain internet felines noticed this and @chiproytx and @tedcruz helped call them out on this?

we may never know.


but i'd like to think so.

the google page is still a mess. it's still mostly fringe publication hit pieces and conspiracy theories.

when "mother jones" is your top media result for a science search, well, that says it all, doesn't it?

yikes.

i mean, why would we trust THESE people instead of a reporter at one of the most partisan rags on earth? oh, wait..

they are not being censored for being wrong. they're being censored for being right and being credible

they're censored because the other side cannot rebut them


and that is simply not a thing we can or should tolerate, especially not in a search engine.

so remember this. look for it in the future. demand primary sources.

use other search engines.

bing seems to be seeking to inform, not to inflame and mislead.


if you missed it, the original thread was here:

(and yes, lots of people duplicated my finding this morning)

i'd be curious to see what they are all seeing
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Wow! Rare moment of truth at the UN as Miss Iraq Sarah Idan calls out Hamas terrorism, antisemitism taught in Muslim countries, and biased media.

THREAD: "Two years ago, I represented Iraq at Miss Universe. I posted a photo with Miss Israel on social media..."


"I was told to remove it and forced to denounce Israeli policies. I received death threats. Since then I can no longer return to my homeland.

Why did the Iraqi government fail to condemn the threats, or allow my freedom of speech?"

"The issue between Arabs and Israelis goes beyond policy disagreements. It’s deeply rooted in the belief systems taught in Muslim countries, which are anti-Semitic."

"Sadly, hatred & intolerance are reinforced by biased media. When I watched the news last month, why did they never report that the Hamas terrorist organization fired nearly 700 rockets at Israeli civilians in one weekend or that Hamas used Palestinians in Gaza as human shields?"

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1/People I know on the Right tend to be obsessed with the idea of "crimethink", taboos, and the (supposedly) oppressive, omnipresent enforcement of liberal cultural norms.

Why?

My new theory: A lot of it is guilt.

2/It's true that in some circles - the media, universities, many big corporations - liberal norms *are* enforced to some degree, and the enforcement has probably gotten stronger in recent years.

But I don't think this explains all of the Right's obsession.

3/The stereotype is that people on the Right tend to be more threat-sensitive. That would help explain the perception that liberal norm-enforcers are lurking everywhere, ready to pounce and anathematize anyone who makes a misstep.

But I don't think that's all of it either.

4/And of course, it's always fun - whether you're on the Right or the Left, or playing a video game, or whatever - to style yourself as the brave iconoclastic rebel fighting against the oppressive forces of blah blah blah.

But I don't think this is all of it, either.

5/The reason I think it's more than these things is that even *in private*, people on the Right express their "crimethink" ideas very gingerly and hesitantly.

I get the sense that they're not just afraid of external censure, but have also internalized liberal norms.
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There's been a lot of talk about the missionary killed by the natives of North Sentinel Island. They're probably so aggressive because of this weirdo, Maurice Vidal Portman. So here's a big thread about this creep and some facts from my decade-long obsession with the island.


The Sentinelese are often described as “uncontacted,” but this not strictly true. They had a very significant contact in 1880 with Commander Portman.

Portman, the black sheep third son of some minor noble, was assigned by the English Royal Navy to administer and pacify the Andaman Islands, a job he pursued from 1880-1900 with the full measure of his own perversity.


Portman was erotically obsessed with the Andamanese, and he indulged his passion for photography by kidnapping members of various tribes and posing them in mock-Greek homoerotic compositions.


During his 20 years in a sexualized heart of darkness, Portman measured and cataloged every inch of his prisoner’s bodies, with an obsessive focus on genitals.
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Dant\xe9 Stewart (Stew)
Danté Stewart (Stew)...
@stewartdantec
As many of you know, I was apart of the white evangelical tradition. I have talked about things I learned about being Black in white spaces. Now I want to say some things about what I learned about once being a Black evangelical returning back to the Black church.

A thread.

Spending years in white evangelical churches and schools, specifically from 2012-2018, shapes Black people in more ways than we would like to admit. It shapes us to diminish Blackness, devalue our people’s story, and always test what we have against the white logic and litmus.

This is particular reality for us Black men in that space. White Christians exploit our vulnerabilities, give us the room to speak, while simultaneously subverting and devaluing Black women and their struggles and their grievances. Opportunities abound for us and we take them.

We are invited into the meetings, we are given the mic, we are asked to lead groups on race, the Black church, etc. We are asked though often we actually haven’t read or thought deeply about each. We become a weapon. Profiting and policing/punishing those who get out of line.

All the while, white Christians feel good about themselves and other Black people are left to clean up the mess we’ve made, the ways we’ve made fools of Black folk, and the harmful ways we’ve learned to think, and to preach, and to be around us. It is profoundly depressing.
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This has been going around, links to support. At this point we should all be digging!

(1) “TEXAS something is not sitting right with me with Texas and it’s not just the weather.
I mean it really bothers me these millions of Texas families are suffering.
I couldn’t sleep actually...

(2) So I woke up this morning, made coffee and got to researching.
I started pulling Biden’s EO’s this morning and I found something buried in the Keystone Pipeline EO..... way towards the end of the doc.

(3) It turns out that the same day Biden shut down the Keystone Pipeline, he also lifted the security on our power grid for 90 days (Trump’s EO the year prior secured our power grid by giving China no access.)

(4) Here below is the snippet buried in Biden’s Keystone pipeline EO.
“c) Executive Order 13920 of May 1, 2020 (Securing the United States Bulk-Power System), is hereby suspended for 90 days.
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