A new study out of Princeton University reveals that 48 out of the 50 largest cities in the United States have experienced riots associated with the Black Lives Matter movement since late May.
Despite the leftist media’s obsession with calling the fiery violence ‘mostly peaceful’, the data indicates that most cities are seeing some violent unrest.
The intent of the study appears to have been to bolster the ‘mostly peaceful’ narrative, as it notes that the perception of the trouble may have been influenced by “political orientation and biased media framing” as well as “disproportionate coverage of violent demonstrations.”
The findings are difficult to ignore, however, with almost every major city having experienced rioting.
Princeton University group studies 3 months of Black Lives Matter protests. Intent is to show they are ‘overwhelmingly peaceful.’ But report reveals nearly 570 violent demonstrations–riots–in nearly 220 locations spread all across country. https://t.co/it60GBbTZTpic.twitter.com/Ph8iECyHIf
The rise of violence in large cities is a contributing factor in an ongoing exodus. A recent survey carried out by the Manhattan Institute found that two in five New Yorkers want to leave the city.
Figures show that shootings have doubled and murders are up 50 per cent on the same period last year in New York.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3byz4BQ Tyler Durden
Putin Critic Navalny Removed From Medically-Induced Coma As Condition Improves Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/07/2020 – 10:55
Nearly 2 weeks after he collapsed during a plane bathroom shortly after takeoff, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has finally been awakened from an artificial coma, according to the doctors at the Berlin hospital where the notorious Putin critic is being treated.
He is reportedly responding to speech, though his condition remains severe.
Doctors at Charite, the hospital where Navalny is being treated since being airlifted to Germany after allegedly being “poisoned” with “military-grade Novichok”, a powerful nerve agent developed by the Soviet Union, say his condition has improved, and he is slowly being weaned off mechanical ventilation.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said last week that Moscow is the likely culprit behind Navalny’s “poisoning”, even as the Russian government has argued that if Novichok truly was used, More bystanders would have been sickened, including Navalny’s fellow passengers who initially tended to him.
“It remains too early to gauge the potential long-term effects of his severe poisoning,” Charite said in a statement.
Brussels-backed politicians in Germany are seizing on the poisoning of Navalny as an opportunity to try and sabotage the nearly completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would guarantee supplies of Russian gas for Germany, something that Merkel has championed despite intense opposition from EU bureaucrats.
“YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO FILM!” is a cry you hear incessantly at protests in Portland, Oregon, always shouted at close range to your face by after-dark demonstrators. You can assert that, yes, you can film; you can point out that they themselves are filming incessantly; you can push their hands away from covering your phone; you can have your phone record them stealing your phone—all of these things have happened to me—and none will have any impact on their contention that “YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO FILM” and its occasional variation, “PHOTOGRAPHY EQUALS DEATH!”
I cannot say who came up with these anti-camera battle cries. But it’s easy to understand why protesters use them: to shape the narrative the country sees about the protests. And that narrative, in my estimation after many weeks covering street clashes in a city where I lived for 15 years, is 90 percent bullshit.
I wondered, the first time I attended the protests at the federal building back in July, who all these young people with PRESS emblazoned on their jackets or helmets were. I asked one such guy who he worked for.
“Independent Press Corps,” he told me. As it turned out, dozens of other young PRESS people happened to work for the same outfit, which I at first assumed was a fancy way of saying “I want to report stuff and stream it on my Instagram.”
This turned out to be naive. The IPC is an organized group in league with the activists, and it is usually their footage you see streamed online and recycled on the news: mostly innocent protestors being harassed and beaten by police.
The police indeed have tear-gassed and beaten people; there has been brutality. It is equally true, but featured less prominently in the news coverage, that activists spend hours every night menacing and setting fires to police stations and other institutions: City Hall, Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters, and last week Mayor Ted Wheeler’s apartment building (until he agreed to move out).
With the PRESS crew recording part of the story and the “YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO FILM!” crew harassing other journalists, the result can be a misleading view of the protests. It’s a revolution via the cellphone video they allow you to see.
The IPC and other documentarians who are deemed sympathetic to the activists’ cause agree on certain principles. You do not show activists’ faces. You only show activists in a defensive position: responding to, rather than inciting, violence. You enhance what can appear to be police brutality, e.g., activists defending themselves with homemade shields, often bearing the anarchist circle-A, against police. The shields are largely ineffective for personal defense, but extremely effective for optics, and that’s precisely the point. If a member of the IPC is arrested, he or she will be protected.
Reporters seen as not sufficiently sympathetic to the cause—which is defined by the Ten Demands for Justice, and includes most notably the abolition of the police—will be followed, be harassed, have their notes photographed and their phones blocked or stolen. (All these things have happened to me in the last month. A photographer friend has been repeatedly doxxed and placed on a list of “enemies.”)
If you forget any of these rules, you can just refer to the handy Google spreadsheet of approved journalists and suggested behavior. The spreadsheet contains names, Twitter handles, and ways to financially support the journos who make the cut.
Note who the people on this activist-approved list are writing for. Sergio Olmos, who made IPC’s list of approved journalists, is freelancing as a man on the ground for The New York Times.* Freelancer Robert Evans, whose early tick-tock of events on the ground I have admired, tweeted on July 19 that the burning of the Portland Police Association was “the single biggest win so far.” When questioned why, he replied that protesters have been “tear-gassed and beaten” for weeks.
The burning of the Portland Police Association building was a well coordinated and executed action, with minimal casualties by protesters. The PPA is trending nationwide. This might be the single biggest win of any action in the Portland Uprising so far.
— Robert Evans (The Only Robert Evans) (@IwriteOK) July 19, 2020
Unmentioned in his tweets: Protesters have been setting fire to the building for hours on many nights throughout the summerbefore a police response materializes.
These protester-approved journalists are producing much of the news you see about the protests, with an assist from the national press. Kate Shepherd isn’t on the list, but she was previously a sympathetic reporter for local Portland media, and she is now filing such stories for TheWashington Post, with headlines like “Portland police arrest a hate crime survivor and Wall of Moms organizer in crackdown.”
Meanwhile, Portland has become a political football, with Donald Trump essentially running his presidential campaign against Democratic mayors like Wheeler, tweeting that “Portland will never recover with a fool for a Mayor. He tried mixing with the Agitators and Anarchists and they mocked him. He would like to blame me and the Federal Government for going in, but he hasn’t seen anything yet. We have only been there with a small group to defend our U.S. Courthouse, because he couldn’t do it.”
Both sides are getting their information through purposely bottlenecked media reports, and the results are predictably distorted and dangerous.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/335nLx5 Tyler Durden
Massive Search After US Navy Sailor Goes Missing Aboard Aircraft Carrier In Arabian Sea Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/07/2020 – 10:10
The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, which operates out of the Middle East and Persian Gulf region, has announced that a massive search is underway for a missing sailor in the Arabian Sea.
The sailor is detached to the the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and disappeared on Sunday, when he or she was reported missing, possibly having gone overboard.
Aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in the Indian Ocean previously, via US Navy.
The Fifth Fleet issued a statement saying that “the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68) & guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) are currently conducting search & rescue operations in the North Arabian Sea following reports of a missing U.S. Navy Sailor, Sept 6.”
“The Sailor has been listed as Duty Status Whereabouts Unknown on board aircraft carrier USS Nimitz,” it added. Navy personnel have been combing through the super carrier as the mystery deepens.
As of Monday the unnamed sailor’s status is still unknown as rescue and recovery efforts continue.
Status Update: “The search & rescue efforts for the missing USS Nimitz Sailor are ongoing in the North Arabian Sea.
USS Nimitz called man overboard @ 6:47pm local time on Sept 6 after personnel aboard the ship were unable to locate the Sailor following a shipwide search.”
A subsequent follow-up indicated there was a “man overboard” alert on Sunday evening, but appears this report was issued as a result of the sailor not be found, rather than personnel actually witnessing or confirming this to be the case:
“USS Nimitz called man overboard @ 6:47pm local time on Sept 6 after personnel aboard the ship were unable to locate the Sailor following a shipwide search.”
At the moment the sailor’s name is being withhold in accord with Navy policy.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3jSgQhG Tyler Durden
Crude Hits 2-Month Lows As Saudi Price Cuts Signal Demand Woes Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/07/2020 – 09:52
Crude prices slid 1.5% on Monday, declining to levels unseen since late June, after Saudi Arabia announced a round of price cuts as global demand struggles to recover from the virus pandemic.
Brent crude was trading at $42, down 68 cents or, -1.5%, after contracts sank on Sunday evening to $41.51, the lowest levels since July 1.
WTI is more notably back below $40, its weakest since June.
Saudi Arabia slashed Oct. Arab Light crude prices for shipments bound to Asia and the U.S. in the latest sign that global fuel demand is waning in the back half of the year.
“Saudi Aramco reduced its key Arab Light grade by a larger-than-expected amount for shipments to Asia in a sign that fuel demand in the largest oil-importing region is wavering. The company also lowered prices to the U.S. for the first time in six months,” reported Bloomberg.
Further compounding demand fears, Chinese crude imports have declined for the second month in August, suggesting the world’s largest importer will purchase less crude in Sept. and Oct. than it did in May and June as refiners run out of quota after a surge in buying earlier in the year.
Even with the lowest Saudi crude prices in four months, it wasn’t enough to entice buyers into bolstering demand in the region. Only about 40% of Asian refiners, big buyers of Saudi crude, said they’d purchase more of the Kingdom’s crude.
Readers may recall that an alliance between OPEC and Russia, otherwise known as OPEC+, eased production cuts in Aug. to 7.7 million barrels per day as prices rose following the crude crash in March and April.
“Prices were perhaps overdue a bit of a correction,” said Paul Horsnell, head of commodities research at Standard Chartered, who spoke with Bloomberg.
Horsnell said, “the demand recovery coming in a bit flatter than early expectations has been one of the key themes in fundamental data over the past couple of months.”
Despite OPEC+’s initial supply cuts, which are now being augmented by cuts to prices as well, Saudi hasn’t seen an expected rebound in demand, suggesting that Aramco’s expectations for a “V-shaped” rebound were a little too rosy. Much of the world remains awash in crude and fuel supplies as virus outbreaks have emerged in Europe, parts of Asia, and the U.S. continue to weigh on demand.
Commodities analyst at ANZ said, “with the Labour Day (holiday) in the U.S. officially marking the end of the summer driving season, investors are also facing up to the fact that demand has been lackluster, while inventories remain at elevated levels.”
Russian Deputy Energy Minister Pavel Sorokin was recently quoted by Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper as saying global oil demand might not get back to 2019 levels for another ‘two to three years.’
As the recovery narrative is dealt with another blow, oil price volatility has climbed back to late-July levels.
We recently quoted OilPrice.com, which highlighted three reasons (another supply glut, virus uncertainty, renewables boom) on why oil prices may remain depressed. Slumping commodity prices, and the recent plunge in global stocks, is just another sign that the global rebound is faltering.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/32YOeMI Tyler Durden
Labor Day is a celebration of the labor movement and its representation of the interests of workers in American society. Unions have historically been a force for good as workers fought for better conditions. But 2020 has brought us a reality check about just how toxic organized labor—in the form of police and teachers unions—can be. These organizations aren’t solely responsible for the ongoing disaster that is this year, but they’ve done their best to make it worse.
On September 4, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, which represents sergeants in the New York City Police Department, tweeted: “He we go America this is what a first class whore looks like RITCHIE TORRES. Passes laws to defund police, supports criminals, & now because he’s running for office he blames the police to protect what he voted for. Remember Little Ritchie? Meet LYING RITCHIE @RitchieTorres”
Later deleted, the semi-coherent and typo-ridden slam targeted New York City councilman and congressional candidate Ritchie Torres for his allegation that city cops were engaged in a “slowdown” to protest police reform efforts like the ones he supports. The tweet’s take-no-prisoners tone is an only slightly exaggerated variation on the usual police union responses to proposals for law enforcement limits and accountability.
New York City’s Police Benevolent Association, which represents rank-and-file officers, opposes standardized penalties for police misconduct. In July, it joined in a lawsuit with unions representing firefighters and corrections officers to block the release to the public of records of police officers who have been disciplined.
The union representing New Jersey state troopers similarly sued to keep disciplinary records secret. San Francisco’s police union filed a lawsuit challenging the city’s right to revise its use-of-force policy. California police unions joined together to defeat a bill that would have barred officers guilty of serious misconduct from further police work.
None of this is unusual. “Over the past five years, as demands for reform have mounted in the aftermath of police violence in cities like Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore and now Minneapolis, police unions have emerged as one of the most significant roadblocks to change,” The New York Timesnoted in June. “The greater the political pressure for reform, the more defiant the unions often are in resisting it.”
What is remarkable is that the examples above all came after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd and sparked protests calling for changes in the way police go about their business, especially in minority communities. In context, the unions’ response looks like even more of a raised middle finger to an angry public.
In the following months, many of those protests have turned violent. Maybe the riots would have happened anyway; you can’t cripple an economy and sideline much of the population with lockdown orders without provoking consequences. But police unions played a big role in bringing us to this point by resisting every effort to make law enforcement less confrontational and intrusive. And their continuing resistance to reform pours fuel on the fires burning in many American cities.
Teachers unions, too, bear responsibility for worsening the catastrophe known as 2020. It’s a union’s job to protect the health and safety of its members. But teachers unions consistently went far beyond that mandate, choosing to play politics and push an unrelated anti–school choice agenda rather than focusing on reasonable accommodations in the middle of a national crisis.
As New York City officials struggled at the end of August to get schools reopened with precautions in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the United Federation of Teachers engaged in brinksmanship, leaving parents uncertain as to when, or whether, their kids would be able to resume educations cut short in the spring. The next day, city officials caved and school reopening was pushed back 11 days, subject to union conditions.
Teachers at Arizona’s J.O. Combs Unified Community District conducted an organized sick-out, leaving families scrambling at the last minute.
United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) demanded wealth taxes, police reform, and a moratorium on charter schools as necessary preconditions for reopening public schools. The union settled for concessions that were more job-related.
“Teachers won newfound respect at the start of the pandemic as parents learned just how difficult it was to teach their kids at home,” Politiconoted of the flurry of union arm-twisting across the country. “But teachers unions now risk squandering the outpouring of goodwill by threatening strikes, suing state officials and playing hardball during negotiations with districts.”
Even as they hold children’s education hostage, teachers unions want to keep the kids themselves as prisoners, unable to choose other forms of learning beyond the walls of hobbled government schools.
The UTLA, along with other unions and Democratic Socialists of America, calls not just for a moratorium on charters, but also on voucher programs that help families pay for private school. They’re not alone.
“The Association opposes voucher plans, tuition tax credits, or other such funding arrangements that pay for students to attend sectarian schools,” the National Education Association (NEA), the country’s largest teachers union, says in its 2019–2020 resolutions. “The Association also opposes any such arrangements that pay for students to attend nonsectarian preK through 12 private schools in order to obtain educational services that are available to them in public schools to which they have reasonable access.”
Additionally, the NEA insists that homeschooling “instruction should be by persons who are licensed by the appropriate state education licensure agency, and a curriculum approved by the state department of education should be used.” That would severely restrict the availability of DIY learning and eliminate its attractiveness for many families seeking something different from government schools.
The kind of power wielded by organized police and teachers, particularly their ability to defy calls for change, comes courtesy not only of these unions’ lock on large and powerful tax-funded services, but also their grip on the major political parties.
Police unions are key players in the Republican Party. This year, to nobody’s surprise, they are publiclybacking President Donald J. Trump for reelection.
Political candidates who hope for endorsements, funding, and volunteers from these labor unions tend to do their bidding. That means that police reform is off the table for most Republican officeholders, while educational choice is anathema to many Democrats. Such union-fueled obstructionism is awful at the best of times. But in 2020, as law enforcement and government schools alike are consumed by their own flaws, the unions and their cronies make a difficult time worse by hampering efforts to fix serious problems and by standing in the way of people’s efforts to experiment with alternatives.
Labor Day may be an opportunity to celebrate the labor movement. But there’s nothing to cheer in the conduct of police and teachers unions.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3jRfwvq
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Labor Day is a celebration of the labor movement and its representation of the interests of workers in American society. Unions have historically been a force for good as workers fought for better conditions. But 2020 has brought us a reality check about just how toxic organized labor—in the form of police and teachers unions—can be. These organizations aren’t solely responsible for the ongoing disaster that is this year, but they’ve done their best to make it worse.
On September 4, the Sergeants Benevolent Association, which represents sergeants in the New York City Police Department, tweeted: “He we go America this is what a first class whore looks like RITCHIE TORRES. Passes laws to defund police, supports criminals, & now because he’s running for office he blames the police to protect what he voted for. Remember Little Ritchie? Meet LYING RITCHIE @RitchieTorres”
Later deleted, the semi-coherent and typo-ridden slam targeted New York City councilman and congressional candidate Ritchie Torres for his allegation that city cops were engaged in a “slowdown” to protest police reform efforts like the ones he supports. The tweet’s take-no-prisoners tone is an only slightly exaggerated variation on the usual police union responses to proposals for law enforcement limits and accountability.
New York City’s Police Benevolent Association, which represents rank-and-file officers, opposes standardized penalties for police misconduct. In July, it joined in a lawsuit with unions representing firefighters and corrections officers to block the release to the public of records of police officers who have been disciplined.
The union representing New Jersey state troopers similarly sued to keep disciplinary records secret. San Francisco’s police union filed a lawsuit challenging the city’s right to revise its use-of-force policy. California police unions joined together to defeat a bill that would have barred officers guilty of serious misconduct from further police work.
None of this is unusual. “Over the past five years, as demands for reform have mounted in the aftermath of police violence in cities like Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore and now Minneapolis, police unions have emerged as one of the most significant roadblocks to change,” The New York Timesnoted in June. “The greater the political pressure for reform, the more defiant the unions often are in resisting it.”
What is remarkable is that the examples above all came after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd and sparked protests calling for changes in the way police go about their business, especially in minority communities. In context, the unions’ response looks like even more of a raised middle finger to an angry public.
In the following months, many of those protests have turned violent. Maybe the riots would have happened anyway; you can’t cripple an economy and sideline much of the population with lockdown orders without provoking consequences. But police unions played a big role in bringing us to this point by resisting every effort to make law enforcement less confrontational and intrusive. And their continuing resistance to reform pours fuel on the fires burning in many American cities.
Teachers unions, too, bear responsibility for worsening the catastrophe known as 2020. It’s a union’s job to protect the health and safety of its members. But teachers unions consistently went far beyond that mandate, choosing to play politics and push an unrelated anti–school choice agenda rather than focusing on reasonable accommodations in the middle of a national crisis.
As New York City officials struggled at the end of August to get schools reopened with precautions in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the United Federation of Teachers engaged in brinksmanship, leaving parents uncertain as to when, or whether, their kids would be able to resume educations cut short in the spring. The next day, city officials caved and school reopening was pushed back 11 days, subject to union conditions.
Teachers at Arizona’s J.O. Combs Unified Community District conducted an organized sick-out, leaving families scrambling at the last minute.
United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) demanded wealth taxes, police reform, and a moratorium on charter schools as necessary preconditions for reopening public schools. The union settled for concessions that were more job-related.
“Teachers won newfound respect at the start of the pandemic as parents learned just how difficult it was to teach their kids at home,” Politiconoted of the flurry of union arm-twisting across the country. “But teachers unions now risk squandering the outpouring of goodwill by threatening strikes, suing state officials and playing hardball during negotiations with districts.”
Even as they hold children’s education hostage, teachers unions want to keep the kids themselves as prisoners, unable to choose other forms of learning beyond the walls of hobbled government schools.
The UTLA, along with other unions and Democratic Socialists of America, calls not just for a moratorium on charters, but also on voucher programs that help families pay for private school. They’re not alone.
“The Association opposes voucher plans, tuition tax credits, or other such funding arrangements that pay for students to attend sectarian schools,” the National Education Association (NEA), the country’s largest teachers union, says in its 2019–2020 resolutions. “The Association also opposes any such arrangements that pay for students to attend nonsectarian preK through 12 private schools in order to obtain educational services that are available to them in public schools to which they have reasonable access.”
Additionally, the NEA insists that homeschooling “instruction should be by persons who are licensed by the appropriate state education licensure agency, and a curriculum approved by the state department of education should be used.” That would severely restrict the availability of DIY learning and eliminate its attractiveness for many families seeking something different from government schools.
The kind of power wielded by organized police and teachers, particularly their ability to defy calls for change, comes courtesy not only of these unions’ lock on large and powerful tax-funded services, but also their grip on the major political parties.
Police unions are key players in the Republican Party. This year, to nobody’s surprise, they are publiclybacking President Donald J. Trump for reelection.
Political candidates who hope for endorsements, funding, and volunteers from these labor unions tend to do their bidding. That means that police reform is off the table for most Republican officeholders, while educational choice is anathema to many Democrats. Such union-fueled obstructionism is awful at the best of times. But in 2020, as law enforcement and government schools alike are consumed by their own flaws, the unions and their cronies make a difficult time worse by hampering efforts to fix serious problems and by standing in the way of people’s efforts to experiment with alternatives.
Labor Day may be an opportunity to celebrate the labor movement. But there’s nothing to cheer in the conduct of police and teachers unions.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3jRfwvq
via IFTTT
India Overtakes Brazil As Home To World’s Second-Worst COVID-19 Outbreak: Live Updates Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/07/2020 – 09:30
Summary:
India surpassed Brazil
Delhi metro system reopens after 5 months
UK official declares lockdowns must be avoided
Australia sets timeline for vaccine
Russia says more vaccine testing to begin this week
Global cases top 27 million
* * *
Following its latest global record for most new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in a single day on Sunday, India has overnight finally surpassed Brazil as the country with the second-largest outbreak in the world.
As expected, the record 90,802 new cases India reported on Sunday were enough to push its total past Brazil’s. India also reported 1,016 deaths, with Maharashtra, home to the financial capital, Mumbai, remaining India’s worst-affected state. It had nearly 25% of India’s total infections on Sunday as it reported 23,350 new cases.
As promised, Delhi’s metro rail system reopened on Monday morning, despite the city having a five-day rolling average of cases over 2,500. The rail, which is seen as vital to Delhi’s economy, had been shuttered for more than 5 months, and its reopening is part of the broader loosening of COVID-19-related restrictions as PM Narendra Modi shifts his focus to saving India’s battered economy, which has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic, contracting nearly 24% in the three months to June, its worst performance since records began in 1996. The metro in Lucknow, capital of India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, also reopened on Monday for the first time since India’s lockdown was initially imposed back in March.
India now as 4.2 million cases, compared with Brazil’s 4.12 million.
India’s death toll is just over 71,000, leaving it behind Brazil’s, which is just under 125k.
As new cases in Victoria decline while officials extend a lockdown, Australian officials announced that a vaccine would be delivered by January 2021.
After the UK reported nearly 3,000 new cases yesterday, its biggest daily tally since May., Environment Secretary George Eustice warned Monday that the country would seek to avoid another lockdown “at all costs” during an interview with Sky News, where he emphasized testing, tracing and localized lockdowns as the key tools in the kit.
As Australia extends a lockdown in Melbourne even as cases finally start to decline, the country announced Monday that it expects to receive batches of a potential COVID-19 vaccine by January 2021.
Over in Russia, which remains in 4th place worldwide for most cases, officials told the TASS newswire that testing on the next batch of subjects would begin this week as Russia seeks international approval of its vaccine. On Friday, the Lancet, a British medical journal, ruled that the Russian vaccine appeared to be “safe and effective.”
Globally speaking, COVID-19 cases topped 27 million on Monday in the US, with global deaths hitting 883,339, per JHU.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2GtsocH Tyler Durden
Of course, because I’m a dreamer, I start off an essay like this with the idea that I should do an all-encompassing idea of COVID19, all around the world no less, for the rest of 2020, and beyond. Only to find that nobody, including me, even if I have a few advantages over most, could possibly do such a thing. So of necessity there’ll be this essay and many more to come. As the US elections set the world on fire.
I did make a list of what every government, every society and community should be ordering by now (and that would be already very late) Here they are: A billion rapid tests, a billion doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a billion doses of zinc, a billion doses of Vitamin D, and a zillion N95 facemasks. (I am not a doctor, but we do have doctors on this platform.)
Rapid tests: these things have been available for months, but have been obstructed by guidelines that say every test must be PCR, which take a long time to produce results, which test positive on dead virus etc. etc. Whereas rapid tests (there are several options) detect a virus load when it’s most likely to infect a third person (the no. 1 thing you want to find!, and moreover show a result in minutes and cost a few pennies each (don’t fall for the $5 a test thing!). You can do a paper test for everyone every single day.
We have this, we got this, but we’re not doing it. The answer from the politicians who have failed to grasp this reality will be: another lockdown! But there won’t be another lockdown. Or, there will be in some locations, but what good is that if neighbors don’t lock down? More on that in a bit.
Hydroxychloroquine (or ivermectin) and zinc -combined if you will with an antibiotic- for those who are infected or close to it, combined with a substantial increase in everyone’s vitamin D levels in your population -right now, you already lost half a year!- will bring down death and suffering enormously. Don’t listen to your doctor, listen to us.
A bit of -potential- harsh reality came to us today through a report from Washington University’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. They predict total deaths to triple globally, and double in the US, in less than four months from today.
U.S. deaths from the coronavirus will reach 410,000 by the end of the year, more than double the current death toll, and deaths could soar to 3,000 per day in December, the University of Washington’s health institute forecast on Friday. Deaths could be reduced by 30% if more Americans wore face masks as epidemiologists have advised, but mask-wearing is declining, the university’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation said. The U.S. death rate projected by the IHME model, which has been cited by the White House Coronavirus Task Force, would more than triple the current death rate of some 850 per day.
“We expect the daily death rate in the United States, because of seasonality and declining vigilance of the public, to reach nearly 3,000 a day in December,” the institute, which bills itself as an independent research center, said in an update of its periodic forecasts. “Cumulative deaths expected by January 1 are 410,000; this is 225,000 deaths from now until the end of the year,” the institute said. It previously projected 317,697 deaths by Dec. 1. The model’s outlook for the world was even more dire, with deaths projected to triple to 2.8 million by Jan. 1, 2021.
No, I won’t take back one word of what I’ve been saying about the best ways to tackle COVD19 over the past 8 months, for instance in April 15’s The Only Man Who Has A Clue about Nassim Taleb. He was still right, and that’s not going to change. But that doesn’t mean nothing has changed. Actually, a lot has.
Taleb’s approach, and that of his “co-conspirators” Yaneer Bar-Yam and Joe Norman, is as valid as it ever was, but that validity doesn’t last forever if it is not applied by those in charge of policy. It hasn’t been and today we’re way past the best-before date. Which, as we will see going forward, is highly unfortunate, because all the alternatives are -much- worse.
We’ve seen an entire world, and tons of governments in that world, caught with no blueprints and no playbooks for a coronavirus pandemic, despite having been warned about such a pandemic coming, for decades. And so they all went into “make it up as you go along” mode. With very little knowledge of what was going on, and what to expect.
With predictable failures as a result. But because the pandemic has largely played out on a national level, not international, they manage to keep their failures hidden behind a facade of “we listened to the best science”, “nobody could have seen this coming”, and “if only people had listened to (obeyed)” what we said all along.
As I explained in the Taleb piece, the first, the initial, scientists to refer to in a case like SARS-CoV-2 are not epidemiologists, because they are backward looking; they compare the little they know about a new virus with what they know about earlier ones. Even if it’s all essentially a mismatch.
Instead, the first people you consult are risk specialists; yes, like Taleb. To know what the -necessarily basic- steps are to take against something you know very little about, other than it is contagious and potentially lethal. One of the obvious steps is close your borders.Another is a lockdown. But a lockdown is not a lockdown is not a lockdown. If you don’t get it right, it’s useless, oppressive and even harmfully counterproductive.
That’s why blueprints and playbooks, written well before a pandemic happens, are so important. You should never leave those things up to politicians, who don’t understand the matter at hand, who will always have other interests in mind (the economy), and will therefore assemble a bunch of local epidemiologists in order to declare: we’re listening to science!
Most of these people mean well, but that’s not enough. And with that, we’re moving out of the summer time and into, what?, COVID 2.0? With Lockdowns 2.0? There is no need. Here’s what you do: Order a billion rapid tests, a billion doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a billion doses of zinc, a billion doses of Vitamin D, and a zillion N95 facemasks.
Not the crappy bluish masks everyone’s wearing today, that’s just a symbolic thing, but get the real thing, for everyone. How many has your government offered to you to date, while spending billions of trillions on the effects of the virus? Really, politicians are always useless when it comes to emergencies, because that’s not what they get elected for.
And no, face masks are not useless, but they certainly are outside. The risk of you getting infected – or infecting someone- are infinitesimal on the street. Unless someone spits or coughs in your face, but if that happens, that bluish mask won’t do much good anyway. So when I see a photo like this, of Japanese girls en masse wearing almost useless masks (only because the others do it too), I can only think: why don’t we teach people what works and what doesn’t? (I see the same thing here in Athens a lot too)
But so, yeah if your government won’t protect you with a billion rapid tests, a billion doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a billion doses of zinc, a billion doses of Vitamin D, and a zillion N95 facemasks., they’re going to be thinking Lockdown 2.0. And that is going to be a huge problem in many places. There are very big problems in Melbourne as we speak:
A strict lockdown in the Australian city of Melbourne has been extended by two weeks, with officials saying new Covid-19 cases had not dropped enough. Victoria State Premier Daniel Andrews said the restrictions would be in place until 28 September, with a slight relaxation. A gradual easing of the measures will be implemented from October. The state has been the epicentre of the country’s second wave, accounting for 90% of Australia’s 753 deaths. Australia has recorded a total of 26,000 cases in a population of 25 million. The greater Melbourne area entered a second lockdown on 9 July after a rise in cases. A 5km (3 mile) travel limit and night time curfew was imposed while shops and businesses were closed. The current stage four lockdown was originally set to end on 13 September.
2nd lockdowns are going to be hell to pay, for governments, for their citizens, for their economies. And they don’t have to be. If just everyone gets out the Fauci, “experts”, mood., and their potential connections to Big Pharma. Vitamin D and zinc and HCS look very promising. So does the Russian vaccine, but we don’t want it because, well, it’s Russian, and even more because it would deprive Gilead et al of huge potential profits furnished by western governments.
No, not all lockdowns are terrible. But a lock down should last maximum 2 months, or you will needlessly destroy your economy. Thing is, you must make sure it’s real, effective and short, not some Swedish or Dutch half-lockdown, or any of the half-assed US ones. A lockdown is either a lockdown or it’s not. But we’ve already passed that fase. Lockdowns in most locations will simply no longer be accepted.
Facemasks can have a real potential, but just as with lockdowns, only when applied appropriately, at the right time and under the right circumstances. I don’t subscribe to the right wing US idea that it is all just a bad joke and a means to oppress people. But if you order people to wear masks outside, where the infection risk borders on zero, and you order churches closed but not demonstrations or Target, you just show you understand neither the virus not your people. And then try and claw that one back.
Once again: tell your government to order – and have available ASAP: a billion rapid tests, a billion doses of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a billion doses of zinc, a billion doses of Vitamin D, and a zillion N95 facemasks. You may not be perfect, but your prospects are going to be a lot better than they are now.
Surveillance Camera Captures ‘Huge Pile Of Mail’ Dumped In California Parking Lots Tyler Durden
Mon, 09/07/2020 – 08:49
Several bags of mail were dumped in two Glendale, California parking lots, with one dumping caught by a surveillance camera, according to KTLA.
The second incident was captured on video outside 7Q Spa Laser & Aesthetics.
“It happened early in the morning, 5:40, and it was a Budget rental, big truck, that backed up to the parking lot. And they’re like, slowly, one by one, they’re dropping the packages,” said Lilia Serobian, one of the owners of the spa, adding that the “huge pile” contained various sizes of packages, and all of it was US mail.
According to the report, a spa employee found the pile of boxes and envelopes in the parking lot, after which police were called to the scene. A USPS manager collected the mail.
More U.S. mail was found in an alley less than a mile away from the spa, according to police. It was not immediately clear whether both piles were dumped by the same truck.
Postal Service investigators are looking into the dumping incidents, Glendale police said.
Inspectors will try to determine which post office — and specifically what route— the mail came from, as well as who rented the truck. –KTLA
The report comes amid a national dialogue over mail-in ballots for November’s election – with President Trump and his allies repeatedly claiming that the process would be tainted by corruption and cause huge delays.
“If you do universal mail-ins with millions and millions of ballots, you are never going to know what the real result of an election is,” Trump said last month, adding “It’s going to be a very, very sad day for our country.”
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/35f4OuQ Tyler Durden
