Or... is it backwards science: those with high pesticide levels have bodies that are already malfunctioning and therefore the pesticides cannot be eliminated?
A blood test calculates risk through exposure to pesticides. Those with highest exposures had double the risk of developing this fatal neurological disease.
...Scientists have developed a blood test that can calculate a person’s risk of developing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, by measuring exposure to environmental toxins.
Pesticide Exposure Doubles Risk of ALS
For this study, researchers analyzed over 250 blood samples from people in Michigan with and without ALS. They calculated each person’s ALS risk and survival outlook using levels of 36 persistent organic pollutants (POPs).
POPs are hazardous chemicals that can persist in the environment for years before breaking down. They also accumulate in fatty tissue, magnifying concentrations up to 70,000 times over background levels. The risk from POP exposure is called the exposome. It refers to total exposure from external and internal sources.
Pesticide mixtures containing POPs like polychlorinated biphenyls, which are industrial products or chemicals, and certain organochlorine pesticides, which are synthetic pesticides used in agriculture, were most associated with ALS risk, according to the study.
...The collective effect of environmental toxins, exposures, and even lifestyle factors play a “very significant role” in increasing ALS risk...
... Herbicide Exposure Already Linked to ALS
Research published in 2022 found that the increased ALS risk in people who are physically active outdoors, including farmers, gardeners, sportsmen, and women, is “intimately linked” to widely used glyphosate-based herbicides used to control broadleaf weeds and grasses. However, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maintains that glyphosate poses no health risk based on current use...
WIND: great. When I was a kid, we used to ride our bicycles behind the “fogger truck” spraying DDT—so cool. I wonder what my DDT level is...! And then there is my heavy metal exposure.
IMO, this sort of thing is why you should be eating whole unprocessed foods and avoiding wheat in particular (in all forms)—wheat is bad enough on its own (and not just the gluten), but most of it is also contaminated with glyphosate—recklessly and fecklessly sprayed on it to speed drying before harvest! Your government thinks that is just fine. Since they work for industry, not you.
Why do more and more findings like this keep popping up? Because it is now “safe” from being burned at the stake professionally. Are the studies good science? Mabye not, but IMO they match reality and are thus likely to be directionally accurate.
Different side effects were linked with different doses.
Females and young adults are at an increased risk of suffering from side effects after COVID-19 vaccinations. People who take three doses as compared to two may present different side effects, a Japanese study finds.
The study published on Scientific Reports in November studied 272 hospital employees who received the Pfizer vaccine as a second dose between January to June 2022.
None of the participants had a prior history of COVID-19 infection, and all of their symptoms were examined and diagnosed by doctors at the hospital.
...Health Practitioners Report Similar Findings
Doctors and other studies have reported similar demographics in patients who report symptoms post-vaccination.
Additional vaccines also create a cumulative effect such that people who have taken more shots tend to be at a greater risk of worse symptoms, internist Dr. Keith Berkowitz, who has treated over 200 long COVID and post-vaccine patients, told The Epoch Times. [WIND: get your COVID booster today along with RSV and flu shots!]
...
WIND: safe and effective? No, the greatest medical scandal in history when the totality of damages are looked at from a risk assessment standpoint (something most doctors are wholly incompetent at assessing, BTW).
Here late in 2023, the hype and hysteria has evolved to the “triple threat” of RSV and influenza and weak-sauce COVID—those first two have been with us forever. Fearmongering is back in style. RSV can kill a few babies (a very few) and very weak people, but is basically a common cold for most of the population. The flu is modeled (not measured) and the flu vaccine looks like a scam to me.
I got COVID once or zero times in April 2020 and never again, in spite of repeated exposure at home (daughters and wife, 3 times) with zero precautions taken. It was and is a pandemic of the vaccinated. I did not and never will get a COVID “vaccine”, ditto for the (poorly tested) RSV and (seeming scam) flu jabs. But... since most Americans eat garbage and have terrible health, maybe they ought to.
Lifelong damage?
Because of my auto-immune situation (recently greatly improved), the very first question my doctor asked me on a recent visit was “were you vaccinated for COVID?”. He wanted to know because a lot of his vaccinated patients had developed auto-immune disease. Put another way, permanent life-changing damage likely caused by the “vaccine”. Foolish doctors— the CDC website make it very clear that such things are just random. Nothing to see here.
Evil scum at colleges
No, I am not talking about the Hamas supporters, though that is assuredly worse.
Two of my young+female daughters were forced by the vicious lowlifes at their colleges to be “vaccinated”. And then got COVID anyway, possibly because of the “vaccine”. My wife was vaccinated. And then got COVID anyway, possibly because of the “vaccine”.
Since when is forced medical care an acceptable ethical standard? It never has been, and never will be. Any doctor supporting it ought to lose their license permanently.
Over the years of my various web sites, I’ve had plenty of emails that are less than constructive. It is also why I never added the time-sink of a discussion board. It took me a lot of wasted time and emotional stress to become efficient at dealing with unproductive emails. I’m still learning, but my COVID posts forced me to hone my skills. See my process for evaluating emails at the end of this post.
“Tells” for cognitive dissonance
This simple checklist courtesy of Scott Adams would have saved me a lot of headaches had I been consciously aware of it some years ago.
To this I would add the anti-intellectual destroyers of trust and insight:
Labeling eg “____ denier”, “____ apologist”, “spreader of misinformation”, “narcissist”, etc, plus the usual “ist” terms. A form of ad-hominem, but a scorched earth approach, so worth calling out separately from regular insults. Anyone using this has no argument, the goal is to batter and destroy, not to learn or interact.
Threats eg “will never subscribe/read again”. Manipulative person lacking an argument and too psychologically broken to ever formulate one.
Appeal to consensus (as the basis for the argument)— truth by popular vote, anti-science/anti-logic. A person stating something is true by consensus not only lacks an argument, but lacks the intellectual ability to form one.
Context dropping — deliberate or ignorant omission of important details, personal circumstances, timeframe, quality of evidence, etc.
Logical fallacies— many logical fallacies sound reasonable because of the way they are presented, fooling even smart people. Some can be extremely useful for gaslighting people, eg absence of proof is proof of absence, one that fools most everyone and therefore a powerful tool implented by not looking for what it is undesirable to find/understand/discover.
The above should be separated from logical fallacies. While logical fallacies may be employed when cognitive dissonance holds sway (and/or precipitate it), in general logical fallacies are an error in reasoning and can be debunked. But debunking a logical fallacy may precipitate cognitive dissonance, or result in denial of the logic, since it is painful to experience CD, so doing so is usually useless, better to not even engage.
Categorizing the clues
Consider the general categories into which these can be grouped (some more than one):
Evasion: changes topic, persists in mind-reading (failure to ask/clarify), analogy, "complicated can’t summarize", "So..." straw man. Mean spirit: ad hominem labeling, threats, repeated mind-reading (never asks/inquires). Anti-intellectual: changes topic, world salad, appeal to consensus, context dropping, analogy, "So.... " straw man.
Cognitive dissonance can sometimes cause a brain reboot (fascinating to observe), resulting in word salad, though some public personalities seem to be permanently afflicted with it, whether speaking or tweeting. See Scott Adam’s take on word salad.
True Confessions
Some of the “tells” are true confessions as to personal character. They are a gift of sorts, sparing you the time and effort of dealing with the broken brains out there.
It is one thing to evade the issue, but quite another to use Labeling, Threats, Ad-Hominem. These Nasty Three are a red alert that you are dealing with a unstable/aggressive/vicious person. No productive conversation is possible. Add a filter to auto-delete that person’s emails. If approached this way, you also get a “free punch” (figuratively speaking), but indifference via silence speaks more eloquently.
Mind-reading is all too easy to do (eg misinterpretation, assumptions, team play). But when it repeats and makes no attempt to ask/clarify, add it to the Nasty Three, because it is a form of ad-hominem attack that repudiates your very essence, your thoughts—erasing your existence and replacing it with a hallucination.
Immunity — nope
Everyone is subject to cognitive dissonance. Me, you, everyone. The key is how often we succumb to it, and if we self-correct and have taken the time to constantly question one’s assumptions.
The more honest you are with yourself and others, and the more knowledge you have of the list above and similar, the more likely you are to recognize it in yourself. Always check your premises, and consider it a huge win if you find yourself in error (and correct it). While correcting a false premise can be uncomfortable, it ultimately means being happier, healthier, smarter, fairer, etc. It’s not your mistakes that count, but how you address them that matters.
Aan AI could codify all this and in real-time let us know we are experiencing it? It would be a fantastic psychological biofeedback tool. But it looks like AI’s are being trained to be so biased as to be caricatures, and in the end they are just parroting whatever is fed to them.
Our society today is so full of competing narratives that it can be difficult to know what is true or false, e.g., scientific studies, medical advice, the “news”—generally useless much if not most of the time. Checking premises is therefore a never-ending process, never a once-off. Don’t settle on cognitive commitments without serious intellectual effort.
Here’s a tool from The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense @AMAZON: when experiencing a communication that seems strange or even outlandish, always ask yourself “what could that be true of?” (the other person’s context?). Admittedly this can be difficult and I often have trouble applying it (takes a conscious effort), but it can be a powerful way to avoid an immediate knee-jerk reaction and learn something useful.
Save yourself time dissecting emails
Time/frustration saver for separating the wheat from the chaff and rat turds.
This process is what I actually do when I receive emails.
Consider the subject of the email first. Sometimes it’s all you need to know.
Consider the overall structure. Setting aside on-topic technical discussions, longer emails correlate strongly to a high level of emotional and/or intellectual investment. Not good or bad by itself, but it’s a strong signal that special attention is warranted.
Check the last part first for any of the signs of cognitive dissonance, because the pattern of <friendly><ad-hominem sucker punch> is often how it goes. Usually there is some ridiculously obvious variant of “but...” that is laughably obvious.
If it passes these checks, read it. But stop as soon as you hit any of the signs of broken brain.
It has been my experience that when I hit any instance/form of the Nasty Three that what follows will escalate into ad hominemt. Stop reading there, because the first 'tell' is all you need to know.
Most studies are BS, and many are outright fraudulent. And if you read about them in the propaganda orifices (formerly known as “news”), they will ALWAYS be misrepresented. So be careful there, in general.
It was and is a pandemic of the vaccinated in which vaccination might have helped a few frail people, while damaging millions in small and large way, while enriching Big Pharma at massive expense by you and me (taxpayers).
People who recovered from COVID-19 were better off than those who received a COVID-19 vaccine, researchers find.
... People who received a vaccine were nearly five times as likely as the naturally immune to test positive for COVID-19 during the Delta era and 1.1 times as likely to test positive for COVID-19 during the Omicron era, researchers in Estonia found.
The vaccinated were also seven times as likely to be admitted to a hospital for COVID-19 amid the spread of the Delta variant and two times as likely to be admitted to a hospital during the Omicron period, when compared with the naturally immune, the researchers found.
...
WIND: back in August 2020, I called it a “pandemic of the vaccinated”. Seems correct. Which is not to imply other things—surely some people benefitted from the COVID Jab. But
Caution: it’s suspicious when no discussion of how the study assessed things, meaning that were the comparisons done right by adjusting for similar cohorts? Or were “the vaccinated” considered only on that basis, leading to a strong self-selection bias? The article is poorly done in that sense; you’d have to read the original paper to find out.
How many millions have lasting health issues (or died) from the COVID “vaccine”? We’ll probably never know, but the toll has and will be horrific for that and many other reasons. Any proper risk assessment would have to deal with that huge 'elephant' along with claims like those made above.
Most studies are BS, and many are outright fraudulent. And if you read about them in the propaganda orifices (formerly known as “news”), they will ALWAYS be misrepresented. So be careful there, in general.
However, this one is in IEEE*, matches my lived experience and so I’ll accept its findings along with brain-scan proof since it confirms the obvious to anyone actually living life.
* A slight non-zero credibility, vs the disgraced zero-credibilityJAMA and Lancet and BMJ. BTW, BMJ is easily remembered as (intellectual) “Bowel Movement Jockeying”.
Since the pandemic began in 2020, Zoom video teleconferences have become a new normal for many people’s working life. Now a study finds that these virtual meetings exhaust the brain more than face-to-face communication.
“The personal implications of Zoom fatigue extend far beyond mere tiredness,” says study co–senior author René Riedl, an information systems researcher at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria in Steyr and Johannes Kepler University Linz in Austria. “Individuals grapple with increased stress levels, a reduction in productivity, and a pervasive sense of disconnection.” [WIND: witness poor lubin' Jeffrey Toobin enjoying his TDS “privately” ! But who can blame him?]
In addition, “On a broader social scale, the consequences materialize as a potential deterioration in the quality of communication and collaboration, impacting both professional and personal relationships,” says study co–senior author Gernot Müller-Putz, a biomedical engineer at Graz University of Technology, in Austria. “The absence of nuanced nonverbal cues in virtual interactions inhibits the richness of communication, making it challenging for participants to fully engage and connect in a meaningful way.”
... We found that after 50 minutes of videoconferencing, significant changes in physiological and subjective fatigue could be observed.
...
WIND: maybe zooming isn’t so bad: it only takes 5 seconds with some people in person. Conversely, face-to-face can be energy generating. At least with the right person.
DUH! Did we really need a study for this? Yes, because children and idiots need studies to be forced to see what is obvious, and without such studies, the workplace misuses and abuses will continue. Such studies are ammunition for improving one’s work environment. My kids in college are forced to endure up to 3 hours long (!!!) of shitty boring zoom classes where even the best teacher sucks, setting aside the dreck of the occasional social justice commando nut-job.
Video conferencing is too-often a destructive and degraded form of communication. But when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Yes, 'zooming' has its plusses for some purposes (why do I have to bother saying that?). But most of the time it is a tool of abuse that Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss would have relished. The problem is that very few people have the judgment to realize that audio only (phone call) is often better. Not unlike the bad judgment of using bold and shadow and outline fonts when the Mac first came out—when plain text was much more readable.
And of course there is the privacy issue: why should I have to share my personal space. particularly in a work/professional relationship? That might be fine for doctors, etc, but I loathe it—both ways—I don’t want to see or be aware of other people’s weird shit or political flags etc any more than I’d want it at the office. Or, maybe I don’t feel like wearing a shirt because it’s 95°F !
From the first time I used Zoom*, the lack of eye contact and non-verbal cues were hyper irritating to me, as well as looking up the noses of the Clueless who have no idea how to position a camera or light anything properly. And having to stare at a small screen also is terrible ergonomically sure to result in injury over time. All while demanding cognitive resources.
In a video call, boring people are extra boring, and interesting people are distant and no longer very interesting. Corporate types... yes it can get worse. Voice quality with echoes and speakerphones is often terrible, degrading the one reliable source of non-verbal cues (yes, it’s 80% stuff and 20% words). All so you can see a shitty tiny talking head in a little square box.
Maybe OnlyFans users are more satisfied? Like I said, there are appropriate uses.
A phone call (audio only) allows greater mental concentration and lower cognitive load. I can, for example, close my eyes in order to listen more attentively. I once had a doctor who did that in person when responding to a question. Yes, it’s a thing, for some. I cannot attend properly to what is being said on a zoom call—the cognitive load is too high albeit on a level that’s not conscious. I expect that’s true of most people.
Think that’s not a real thing? Eight weeks after a brain injury, I once rode 100+ miles of a double centuryclosing my eyes on every uphill 3-4 seconds at a time, because my brain could not handle the visual input after having been fried by descending 2000 vertical feet on shadowed gator-skin pavement with potholes. This worked miracles, and I finished just fine. The brain uses HUGE amounts of glucose and energy for visual processing. It is extra hard computing for the brain to stare at a talking head on a screen vs in person.
Good luck with those techno-freak headsets that Apple and Meta are producing—a godawful invention with superb applications—speciality stuff—and piling-on the mental illness for most eg increasing escape from reality. I hope to never have to use them for any reason whatsoever. The real world is so much better, if you know how to live it.
* Luckily, I might one of the most video-conferencing-minimizers alive today. Since 2020, I’ve used it twice, or perhaps 3 times. Well, maybe 4, I don’t remember. I despise it so much that I use it only when the other person requires it for some reason.
Connect and charge all of your devices through a single Thunderbolt or USB-C port.
How effective for adults? Surely that is a more important cohort, since the elderly in particular are at high risk, particularly in combination with RSV and/or COVID.
For many years, I religiously* got a flu vaccine—and most years the flu too! Then, over a decade ago, I stopped getting the flu vaccine and have not had the flu for at least 10 years. Doesn’t that make you wonder? Maybe I just got healthier that’s possible.
* Having been credulous to the point of faith as in being a “believer” in what the medical field told us forever, as most younger people are, thinking that vaccines were a wondrous miracle of modern science.
During the 2022–2023 flu season, the influenza vaccine was less than 50 percent effective at preventing emergency department/urgent care visits and hospitalizations among children and adolescents, according to a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The analysis, published Nov. 16, 2023, in Clinical Infectious Diseases, found the seasonal influenza vaccine was only 48 percent effective overall at reducing the risk of influenza-A-associated emergency department (ED) or urgent care (UC) visits, and only 40 percent effective at preventing hospitalizations.
...Findings Identify Associations, Not Causal or Inferred Effectiveness
Linda Wastila, professor and Parke-Davis chair of geriatric pharmacotherapy with a doctorate in health policy, told The Epoch Times in an email that she found the study a bit confusing and the authors’ claims of effectiveness against preventing emergency room and hospital admissions a "bit of a stretch."
..."I dislike using the term ‘cherry pick,’ but without randomization and/or matching of cases with controls, we cannot rule out explicit and/or implicit biases made at the site, principal investigator, and provider levels in identifying subjects," she said. "In sum, based on the lack of matched cases/controls and lack of statistical control for covariates and confounders, at best, this study’s findings reflect descriptive findings demonstrating associations, not causal or inferred effectiveness."
...
As reported by The Epoch Times, the CDC rolled out a digital ad campaign in September to rebrand the influenza vaccine and redefine expectations about what a yearly flu shot could and couldn’t do amid breakthrough cases. The agency’s new messaging is that the flu shot wouldn’t prevent a person from getting sick but would prevent severe illness should one still get sick.
This is similar to the shift in messaging adopted by U.S. regulatory agencies with COVID-19 vaccines when breakthrough COVID-19 cases started piling up among the vaccinated. U.S. health officials then admitted the shots did not prevent COVID-19 or transmission of the virus to others, and vaccine efficacy was redefined by whether the vaccine prevented hospitalizations and death.
...
This study was conducted by the CDC—which is currently marketing and promoting influenza vaccination—and its researchers and affiliates.
WIND: this is one of the worst studies you can find, with juvenile methodology, and yet it still could only show 48% efficacy. Any critical thinker would consider it the lowest level of credibility bordering on junk science.
Why would the CDC do a study which would be laughed-out of any serious medical discussion? Follow the money: it benefits the CDC (puffs up their perceived value/credibility) as well as their corporate sponsors.
I’m not saying that no-one should get the flu vaccine. But for most, it surely is an unnecessary risk and cost and waste of time, and from my experience might encourage the flu.
Tip: no vaccine is risk free. Worse, with vaccines given together, the risks are unknown (never tested in combination, ever!). Be smart, and never get more than one vaccine in any 2 week period. Any doctor who recommends otherwise is ignorant or an idiot or malicious—no scientific basis for making such a claim = medical malpractice.
Typical behavior. Pfizer and its ilk are companies that repeatedly do harm, as proven by the courts over and over and over. Court settlements are just a cost of doing business. False claims, withholding of risks, hiding data, faking data, etc, ad nauseum. Follow the money.
Connect and charge all of your devices through a single Thunderbolt or USB-C port.
I’ve used Lupine Lighting Systems lights for well over a decade now—best stuff you can buy—still riding the 4500 lumen Lupine Betty R (I have 3 of them!) which has been improved but even now a decade later remains the best light on the road that I’ve seen*, being brighter than many car headlights.
* I’d love to have the Lupine Alpha, which ups the brightness from 4500 lumens to 8100 lumens!
Daytime, I run the light and this has more than once caused a car to lurch as the driver sees me and instead of running into me stays instead in the driveway or similar. Always ride with a BRIGHT front light anywhere where traffic comes in from the side.
If you think you have a "good" LED light on your bike, think again—most of the stuff I see out there is garbage—too dim, too blue, poor beam spread, etc. Particularly ebike lights. With my Lupine lights on high on narrow roads, trucks have backed-up for me more than once and I can ride a twisty descent at 30 mph no problem.
A top-grade light is insurance. A mediocre one is better than nothing, but your life is at stake.
RunBikeLight
There are very few places you can buy Lupine lights. Here’s one:
In December 1953, the CEOs of America’s leading tobacco companies cast aside competitive rancor and gathered at New York City’s Plaza Hotel to confront a menace to their incredibly profitable industry. An emergent body of science published in elite medical journals cast doubt on the safety of cigarettes and threatened to destroy a half-century of corporate success. Joining them at the Plaza was John W. Hill, the president of America’s top public relations firm, Hill & Knowlton. Hill would later prove a decisive savior.
...Instead of ignoring or denigrating new data that found tobacco dangerous, Hill proposed the opposite: embrace science, trumpet new data, and demand more, not less research... Hill & Knowlton’s campaign for the five largest U.S. tobacco companies corrupted science and medicine for decades to follow, laying the foundation for financial conflicts of interest in science, as other industries mimicked tobacco’s techniques to protect their own products from government bans and regulations—later, from consumer lawsuits. While tactics have varied over time, the core strategy has changed little since tobacco wrote the playbook, providing a menu of techniques now employed across industries.
To position themselves as more science than the science itself, corporations hire academics as advisors or speakers, appoint them to boards, fund university research, support vanity journals, and provide academic scholars with ghostwritten manuscripts to which they can add their names and publish in peer-reviewed journals with sometimes little or no effort. These tactics create an alternative scientific realm that drowns out the voices of independent researchers and calls into question the soundness of impartial data.
To further undermine impartial scientists, industries secretly support think tanks and corporate front groups. These organizations echo and amplify company studies and experts, counter articles in the media, and launch campaigns against independent academics, often trying to get their research retracted or perceived as second-rate and untrustworthy to the public and media.
...Investigative reporters found that nearly half the members of a 2011 Academies report on pain management had ties to companies that manufacture narcotics, including opioids. A separate...
...Current Evidence and Primacy of Pharmaceutical Companies
In effect, the pharmaceutical industry has repurposed tobacco’s campaign by co-opting academics to sell drugs...
Perpetual Denial Machine
...Every attempt to control financial conflicts of interest and push for great transparency in science has been criticized by the scientific community, which seems perpetually satisfied with whatever ethics happen to be in place....
...At the heart of the matter lies money. As far back as 2000, experts questioned the ability of academic institutions to regulate financial conflicts of interests when they were so reliant on billions of dollars annually from the industry. In a 2012 symposium on conflicts of interest held at Harvard Law School, academic leaders noted that the problem has only grown more and more complex over time. University leaders avoid even discussing the imperative to regulate financial conflicts because they fear losing revenue.
Trust no experts, trust no doctor, trust but verify... that is if you somehow find objective information (how would you know?).
Many scientists are incapable of understanding and accepting that financial conflicts of interest corrupt science because they believe that scientists are objective and too well trained to be influenced by financial rewards, like all other human beings. In one example, researchers surveyed medical residents and found that sixty-one percent reported that they would not be influenced by gifts from pharmaceutical companies, while arguing that eighty-four percent of their colleagues would be influenced. One academic who researches conflicts of interest grew so irritated with scientists denying the science of financial influence that he wrote a parody for The BMJ that listed many of their most common denials.
Indeed, scientists are among the most gullible people out there—those skilled in psychology (eg hypnotists and similar) know this.
The first piece of legislation passed by the new Congress of the United States of America after the ratification of the Constitution included a tariff on the import of foreign sugar. Although this tariff was passed as a means to raise the funds needed to pay the debts accrued during the Revolutionary War, coincidentally it also provided elaborate protections to the nation’s wealthiest farmers of sugarcane and sugar beets.
... To fully understand how governmental policies lead to adverse health effects, it is important to understand how the human body metabolizes different types of sugar.... fructose happens to bypass a key early enzyme in the biochemical pathway that can serve as a check on energy production. Therefore, a fructose molecule entering glycolysis becomes metabolized and stored faster and easier than glucose. Overall, excess fructose ingestion leads to excess fat in the body.
...Today, Americans consume an average of 130 pounds of added sugar per year, much of that coming by way of fructose... obesity has skyrocketed since the 1970s. The obesity epidemic continues to worsen, quickly approaching a 50 percent prevalence in the country.
Obesity can increase one’s chances of developing diabetes, heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, renal failure, serious infections (e.g., worse covid outcomes), osteoarthritis, stroke, blindness, different forms of cancer, and depression, and the list continues on. Obesity not only shortens life expectancy but also decreases quality of life, especially by putting financial strain on the individual...
...It is both sad and almost comical to have the American taxpayer subsidizing the sugarcane and sugar beet industries—which puts upward pressure on the price of sugar—to then subsidizing the corn industry in order to undercut these high sugar prices, only later for the taxpayer to be taxed again to fund Medicare and Medicaid in the government’s attempt to curb the health fallout from obesity.
...
WIND: these sorts of government policy malignancies (are there any other kind?) are hidden from just about everyone.
Eat whole unprocessed foods, preferably organic. Eliminate or minimize all other “foods” If it has any significant ingredient list, put it back onto the shelf. And strictly avoid all products with wheat as well as most grains. Try it for one month—your health will improve.
Yeah, I know that the “no free will” crowd will chime in here. But no one forces people to drive to Burger King every day.
Connect and charge all of your devices through a single Thunderbolt or USB-C port.
Alex Berenson is controversial in his take on COVID, but actuaries have to get their stuff right or insurance companies go out of business. If it comes to actuaries or experts (aka idiots or propaganda hacks), I’ll go with the professionals—the actuaries.
For years, mRNA advocates have tried to give the jabs credit for ending the pandemic, despite massive evidence they stopped working within months and the observational data showing lower deaths among the vaccinated is hopelessly biased.
But earlier this month, the Society of Actuaries released an updated report on deaths during the pandemic that shows what really slayed Covid.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t come from Pfizer or Moderna.
The Society of Actuaries... the folks who help insurance companies assess risk. Every few months, it has put out reports on trends in American deaths during Covid.
...
As you can see, Covid deaths were relatively low in the spring of 2021 - the happy vaccine valley, the brief period when the mRNAs worked as advertised.
They then soared in the summer, or Q3 2021. What’s notable is that they jumped in ALL ages, including the highly vaccinated (the bottom three bands, representing people 65-74, 75-84, and over 85).
And although Covid deaths fell in younger people through the fall and winter, they kept rising from their spring 2021 lows in the older people most at risk from Covid. As a result, overall Covid deaths rose too - roughly tripling between spring and fall 2021, despite all the boosters and the mandates.
This point can’t be emphasized enough: the soaring deaths in older people came even though nearly every senior in the United States was vaccinated.
...
WIND: there could be other explanations.
Be sure to get your 5th COVID booster... 5th time is the charm, so the experts say. I called it a pandemic of the vaccinated way back in August of 2021. Which it was, for multiple reasons. Mass hysterias never turn out well. Here’s a good read and more.
Oh, and don’t forget the flu vaccine scam or the new barely tested mRNA RSV vaccine—it’s safe and effective, trust the science:
Serious neurologic conditions, including Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), have been reported after RSV vaccination in clinical trials of older adults. It is unclear whether the vaccine caused these events.
Unclear to those who willfully avoid studying it properly.
Get 'em all at once (COVID booster, RSV, flu)—medical experts you betcha know that is just fine with no risk*, since it has never been studied oops that is not supposed to be said out loud. Oh, maybe finally it is in a small way, as the truth isn’t being told, rather it is presented as short-term and that is a falsity.
For the record, I am not anti-fax, just anti-stupidity. I have lots of vaccinations including shingles about two years ago, pneumococcus and all the usual ones, and even ones I am not at risk for (eg Hepatitis B)—my naiveté years ago led to that.
I have not gotten the flu vaccine for ~10 years. Since I stopped getting it, I have never gotten the flu again. Sheer good luck I guess—so say the experts!
The recycling myth – Save the planet by separating paper and plastic! – is a foundational falsity of the green movement.
By promising a relatively simple solution to an alleged problem, it has enabled the left to control behavior through a made-up morality that stigmatized dissent – Only bad people refuse to recycle.
...even liberal outlets such as the New York Times (“Your Recycling Gets Recycled, Right? Maybe, or Maybe Not”), NPR (“Recycling plastic is practically impossible — and the problem is getting worse”) and the Atlantic magazine (“Plastic Recycling Doesn’t Work and Will Never Work”) have finally admitted its failures.
...
WIND: maybe you won’t like the politics of the article above (read the NYT piece instead!), but that does not change the question: where does all this shit really end up?
OTOH, the NYT and NPR and The Atlantic have zero credibility, so that might not help reading those sources either. Where does one even find reliable information these days?
Psychological dysfunction is now valorized and embedded in our institutions. We need to understand what we’re dealing with.
There is a creeping sense that our society has turned upside-down. Healthy debate is replaced by activist hysterics. Speech is declared violence; violence is excused as speech. Masculinity is condemned as “toxic,” while men in dresses are celebrated in the public square. It feels as if we are in the midst of a society-wide mental breakdown.
...A strange new pattern of psychological dysfunction has infiltrated all our institutions, from humdrum bureaucracies to the highest offices. Wherever we turn, that creeping feeling sets in: our society is sick; our institutions are out of balance; our public life has been consumed by a cluster of disorders that appeal to our worst instincts and derange our most vital social functions.
...
If we are to find a way out, we must understand the peculiar logic and rationality of the Cluster B society. We must learn how to counter emotional falsification and how to say “no” with a renewed voice of authority. We must find a way to restore balance, order, discipline, sanity. If we do not, we will resign ourselves to a world gone mad. The spontaneous life and beauty that are the fruits of a more balanced society will be snuffed out by grim commissars administering a Cluster B pathocracy. Our self-governing regime would be over.
WIND: we live in a male-hating culture where young men in particular have no value. This starts early-on in systemically racist teacher’s union controlled schools, dooming millions of young people (both sexes) to a horrible life. But the young men take it on the chin.
In a new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now admits that it recommended COVID-19 vaccines for people who had recovered from COVID-19 despite the fact that CDC subject matter experts didn't have access to the underlying data.
WIND: safe and effective?
“Experts” = crooked propaganda shills. What ethically sound person would make a recommendation to the public without doing proper analysis. Which cannot be done without the data.
NEVER trust an “expert” who has even the remotest link to government largesse (eg grants), or any financial interest whatsoever in the matter. Are there any experts that do not fall into one of those two camps? A few, perhaps.
And in most cases, so-called experts lack the intellect rigor and/or desire and/or integrity to do a proper cost/benefits analysis. When your paycheck comes from not understanding something or its risks, the results are 100% predictable.
Known as partially hydrogenated oil, or PHO, one type of trans fat commonly found in commercial baked goods linked to heart disease and other health issues for years is about to be eliminated from the U.S. food supply.
...It started in 2015 when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruled that artificial trans fats were unsafe to eat. The agency gave the food industry three years to reformulate products and ensure an orderly transition in the marketplace.
...Starting Dec. 22, 2023, no products containing PHOs will be allowed on grocery store shelves....
...
WIND: why wasn’t it banned 20 years ago?
Trans fats are the ONLY fat for which credible evidence exists for driving heart disease.
Unsafe and here we are 8 years later and these feckless parasites waited this long to allow the profits of Big Food to run along merrily, while damaging millions. That’s how it works folks. Follow the money—the FDA works for Big Ag/Big Food/Big Pharma—not for the public.
Next up: seed oils, which turn into franken-fats when heated and/or oxidized/aged. Well, no, do NOT expect the FDA to take action there—WAY too much profit involved.
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About 12 years ago, I had a colonoscopy. To this day I am afraid to get another one, putting it off longer than is wise, because I had horrible ightmares and bad sleep for weeks afterwards.
In retrospect, I think the anasthesia damaged me.
When I raised this issue with my internist MD very recently, he not only affirmed my observation, but said that he too had suffered for a MONTH with brain fog after a colonoscopy—with the same kind of anasthesia (Propofol, if I have it right).
Don’t let the bastards give you propofanol which a lot of hospitals will—insist on Fentanyl. I did have that 5 years ago with no issues and felt normal within hours and with no other side effects. I guess I should get one again... but it still makes me uneasy.
IMO, propafanol is medical malpractice unless somehow indicated as very important for some specific reasons.
Surgery is linked to cognitive decline and changes in personality and behavior among a significant number of older Americans.
If you’re over 65, there’s a significant risk you will wake up from surgery as a slightly different person. Studies indicate at least a quarter and possibly up to half of this population suffer from postoperative delirium—a serious medical condition that causes sudden changes in thinking and behavior.
...
WIND: “delirium” mainly means: “made up term to hide our ignorance”.
The last two I had I did w/o anesthesia and without the drug that makes you forget the procedure.
For my second cataract operation about 25 years ago I also ditched the forget drug (cataract are always done with local)
There was no great pain in the colonoscopy, just a few cramps going around corners. I watched it on the monitor. Anesthesia is risky, esp for old people.
My mom went loony tunes for a week after having it.
I've had two ops with anesthesia in the last 20 years because it was unavoidable. Fortunately there were no bad effects that I noticed.
WIND: hmmm...
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The people included in the study suffered from headaches, tremors, muscle spasms, insomnia, sleepiness, vertigo, and difficulty in concentration.
Almost a third of individuals who received a COVID-19 vaccine suffered from neurological complications including tremors, insomnia, and muscle spasms, according to a recent study published in the journal Vaccines.
...Females Highly Affected...
...Despite studies suggesting the risk of medical complications, some experts continue to advise people to get COVID-19 jabs. According to John Hopkins Medicine, both Pfizer and Moderna are “highly effective in preventing serious disease, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19.”... <=== context-dropping in time, variant, willfully ignoring cohorts—narrative propaganda anti-science!
WIND: safe and effective?
And the propaganda campaign continues.
We now know that the COVID death numbers were over-inflated by at least 50%. I'm guessing it was in truth more like a factor of 4X. The whole COVID data situation is complete garbage in which previous practices were discarded in order to bolster the narrative.
Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk said Tuesday that it wasn't so much the COVID-19 virus that killed people hooked up to ventilators as secondary bacterial infections that caused a deadly form of pneumonia.
Mr. Musk made the remark in a wide-ranging discussion on Joe Rogan's podcast on Oct. 31, in which he brought up a key point first raised in a bombshell study that found secondary bacterial infections of the lung were a key driver of death in people diagnosed with COVID-19 and connected to breathing machines.
Mr. Musk said he spoke with several doctors about what mistakes were made during the first COVID-19 wave.
"They said, 'We put far too many people on intubated ventilators,'" Mr. Musk said. "This is actually what is damaging the lungs, not COVID," he continued. "It's the treatment. The cure is worse than the disease."
...
WIND: very early on, I was sure that putting people on ventilators was killing them, it seemed highly suspicious, but why was it not obvious to doctors? Profits at hospitals—sedate and kill—follow the money.
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The current climate of shouting down views and cancelling people is the new (and much worse) McCarthyism, and will lead to the destruction of this country. Apparently there are some Musk-haters out there, misinformed by their propaganda sources and having their opinions assigned to them. I am sorry that so many people who deserve better are being abused by their “news” sources. Check your premises—today we have a cancellation and ad-hominem free-for-all on the “news” which is 100% propaganda when it comes to anything controversial, along with a dumpster fire on social media. As well, ALL articles on public figure are attack pieces with only one goal in mind and never a balanced view and invariably consist mostly of total misrepresentation of the facts. All public figures know this to be true.
Witness the firestorm in which remarks are intentionally taken out of context:
I suppose cognitive dissonance will not set in for the bulk of the population and most doctors, with plenty of rationalizations about COVID hysteria and rewriting of memories.
Think back to those grim days of mid-March 2020. Many things didn't make sense. There were screams about a new virus but no tests available for anyone to find out if we had the dreaded disease or not. The main question in everyone’s mind was, “How can I find out if I have this strange new bug?”
Hold on just a moment there. If there were no tests, how do we know that there was a reason to panic? If there were only a handful of positive tests, how do we know for sure that the virus wasn’t here and spreading months earlier? Maybe what they were calling COVID-19 was here for a year or more.
Was there really any way to know? Sure, we could have done seroprevalence tests on the population, but there were none underway. The one that came out earliest, in May 2020, showed that exposure had already happened by March, a fact which completely undermines the entire cockamamie policy response. The study was brutally attacked.
...Another strange fact of those days was that they kept screaming that there was no treatment. Well, are we sure of that? No one in official channels was looking for treatments. How do we find treatments? By talking to experienced doctors who treat patients. But every time one of them spoke out, they were quickly and brutally shouted down and denounced.
...There was a ton of prattle about a vaccine, but this never made sense of any history of such products...vaccine producers were given billions in tax dollars for development, all the privileges that come with “emergency use,” and wide indemnification against injury. Why is this not, and very obviously, an extremely bad idea?
...extreme relaxation of ballot rules over voting...would decide the election against President Donald Trump.
...intense censorship from all main social media accounts...
...Media was being nationalized, bit by bit; all important sectors of it, in any case—that which reaches the 99 percent....
...we’ve been presented with incredible evidence of how the government worked very closely with social media companies through third-party institutions that were themselves funded by the government. They flagged accounts for takedowns. This so-called switchboarding was deployed to hide censorship.
...In other words, it all happened at once. From what we can see, the turning point was March 13, 2020. That was the date of the coup. It was never announced. It just happened. The lockdowns and public panic were the dry ice deployed by magicians to hide their tricks...
WIND: most of what the public believed and still believes was and is complete bullshit. If it all looked completely insane, it was. Because it all had a purpose.
The public was not made aware that COVID-19 vaccines contained enhancer DNA sequences from the SV40 virus known to cause cancer in lab animals.
...billions of copies of spike, ori, and SV40 enhancer DNA were discovered in the Pfizer vaccine vials, Moderna vials were found to contain copies of ori and spike DNA. The SV40 virus is a DNA virus known to cause cancer in lab animals.
Talking about the study in a Nov. 11 Substack post, Dr. Malone said that plasmid DNA contamination in the vaccines is a “proven fact” that has been “acknowledged by the US FDA, Health Canada, and the European Medicines Agency.”
“In yet another clear breach of informed consent and labeling requirements, this was not previously disclosed to physicians, public health officials, or patients,” he wrote.
...
FDA’s 2009 “Guidance on Prophylactic DNA Vaccines: Analysis and Recommendations” states that concerns about plasmid DNA potentially integrating into the genome of the vaccine recipient and increasing the likelihood of issues like “malignant transformation, genomic instability, or cell growth dysregulation” were raised when DNA vaccines were initially introduced for clinical use.
It stated that a “tiny fraction” of the plasmids are expected to “integrate into the host genome, regardless of the method of delivery.”
...
In his Substack post, Dr. Malone called the FDA’s assertion of “no safety concerns” about the inclusion of residual DNA in mRNA vaccines “willful blindness.” He then highlighted the risks posed by residual DNA in vaccines.
“The most well-documented risks associated with such potential insertional mutagenesis are cancer (in the case of stem and somatic cells, particularly hematopoietic lineage cells) and birth defects,” he wrote.
WIND: the “‘host’ is you. And the child abusers who vaccinated their rapidly growing children.
Turbo cancers anyone? Trust your doctor? Safe and effective?
Rich-as-Croesus profits long having paid golden dividents to your abusers, we will not know for a decade or two just how badly or how many people were damaged.
But what do you expect? Numerous court cases (lost by Big Pharma) show that ethical dregs of humanity run Big Pharma. Children are targets too: Pfizer 'Knowingly Distributed' Adulterated Drugs to Children: Lawsuit. If a company can litigate for years and then pay out a relative pittance in penalties, it’s just a cost of doing business—follow the money.
Progress! Well, was it excreted or just stored in tissues? Blood levels are a medical jackass hack that don’t really explain the load.
With lead (Pb) still at 3.3 mcg/dL, that is still about 3.7X the ~0.9 that is “normal”.
And so much for the acccepted but clearly bogus medical claim that the half life of blood lead is 4-6 weeks; that math cannot hold up to what is seen here.
Why arsenic (As) oscillated like this dunno... bad tests?
Every time I get a test, I have to provide extra info... because of the state of California, which does nothing for me with respect to lead (or anything else)... fuck-off California you suck invading my privacy permanently now.
Heavy metals progress
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IMO, many if not the vast majority of today’s health issues are caused by slow poisoning via the food supply.
And it starts in childhood. With garbage-sold-as--food products ike applesauce eg a food with nil nutritional value consisting primarily of sugar.
Spices are likely your highest risk source of toxic heavy metals.
The FDA does not work for you. It works for industry.
What to Know About Lead Toxicity and Kids' Applesauce
2023-11-17
Hospitalization for acute lead toxicity can start at 45 mcg/dL
While it's not clear whether children exposed to recalled applesauce packetsopens in a new tab or window have suffered acute lead poisoning, pediatricians should take recent warnings seriously, experts told MedPage Today.
...
..So far, 34 cases of illness (across more than 20 states) possibly tied to cinnamon-containing applesauce packets made in Ecuador have been reported to the FDAopens in a new tab or window, and the lead level detected by the agency in a sample of one product was 2.18 parts per million -- more than 200 times greater than FDA's proposed action level for these kinds of products.
...the "amount of lead in the blood is not necessarily a good predictor of how much lead is in the brain, or how much lead has accumulated in the bone."...
...Nonetheless, there are "potentially lasting consequences from early lead absorption," he said. Much of the concern is focused on the potential for decline in cognitive function and changes in the brain...
WIND: the damage to brain and body start at far lower levels than the FDA takes note of. It might explain a lot in our society—the systemically racist teacher’s unions and schools do the rest of the job.
Eat whole unprocessed foods, preferably organic. If it has any significant ingredient list, put it back onto the shelf. And avoid all wheat products.
I think that oxidative and other stresses can overwhelm the toxic breakdown metabolism, especially in kids.
WIND: without a doub. Hence my comments on the slow-poison food supply and eating whole unprocessed foods. The body can withstand a lot of insults, but not when undermined by poor nutrition.
My country, and others, found there is no solid evidence supporting the medical transitioning of young people. Why aren’t American clinicians paying attention?
....
WIND: adults should be able to do (mostly) what they want. But we do not allow children, with their brains 10-15 years to maturity, to vote, or have legal status for all sorts of things, generally not even their own medical care. But they can now self-mutilate with lifelong consequences.
Too difficult to shoot on the Fujifilm GFX100 II, the iPhone 15 Pro Max had to make-do for this beautiful Salvelinus fontinalis out of Saddlebag Lake. They have sized-up more than I have ever seen them there ever since the California Department of Fish and Game halted the stocking of Onchorynchus mykiss, thus making far more food available and thus explaining the tens of thousands of fry in spring and summer that I observed.
The brook trout was first scientifically described as Salmo fontinalis by the naturalist Samuel Latham Mitchill in 1814. The specific epithet "fontinalis" comes from the Latin for "of a spring or fountain", in reference to the clear, cold streams and ponds in its native habitat. The species was later moved to the char genus Salvelinus, which in North America also includes the lake trout, bull trout, Dolly Varden, and the Arctic char.
Spawning was weeks later than I have ever observed over many years. Indeed, as of Nov 1, the brookies at 10K feet elevatoin were still loaded with eggs (females) and milt (males). I don’t know about the non-binary ones.
I had 4 or 5 trout dinners while in the area, always taking the 6-7 inch 'sardines', sweet and tasty unlike the larger ones which become tough and unsavory near spawning time.
Ready to spawn and bulging with eggs, this female about 11 inches is gorgeous. She went back unharmed, departed with vigor, and probably spawned by Nov 6. I caught several ~12-inch males. Brook trout are much harder to catch near spawning time because they are not feeding, only aggressively striking any intruder into their redds.
See also the video below.
Salvelinus fontinalis
f1.8 @ 1/400 sec, ISO 64; 2023-10-31 16:03:11 iPhone 15 Pro Max + iPhone 15 Pro Max 6.9 mm f/4 @ 6.9mm ENV: altitude 10085 ft / 3074 m
[low-res image for bot]
Video below, shot in 4K.
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After spending hundreds of hours studying the matter, I take a very dim view of statins and the ridiculous (and debunked) cholesterol hypothesis. The whole thing is a scientific scam lacking any credible causal evidence.
Statins, one of the most commonly prescribed and bestselling drugs in history, have shaped Western society's approach to treating heart disease.
...The side effects of statins, coupled with the drugs’ “failure to address the cause of cardiovascular disease,” have steered cardiologist Dr. Jack Wolfson to avoid prescribing them.
“Statins lower LDL, but they do not change outcomes in any significant fashion,” he told The Epoch Times.
...
WIND: actually, statins do change outcomes: they damage people’s quality of life, cognitive function, etc and might even cause ischemic events in the brain (strokes). Any benefits in the tiny cohort that might benefit are outweighed by the negatives. A total clusterfuck.
But... I am not a doctor, so do trust your doctor, most of whom naively trust the FDA and CDC (or at least want smooth sailing in their institution) along with the wholly corrupt medical establishment.
IMO 99% of doctors are beyond clueless about the quality of the evidence... actually they are not qualified to assess it, either on the basis of statistical training and/or critical thinking skills and/or a child-grade bullshit meter. It’s obvious in a conversation; blank stares and cognitive commitments based on non-thinking, non-analysis, non-everything, denial, self-protective reactions and rationalizations, etc. Honest cardiologists who have studied the matter will at the very least agree that there is no good evidence. The dishonest/ignorant/corrupt ones have ironclad cognitive commitments to their perverted “truth”, and are willing to harm you and yours for their own benefit.
Upgrade Your Mac Memory At much lower cost than Apple, with more options. Lloyd recommends 64GB for iMac or Mac Pro for photography/videography.
A new BMJ investigation reveals a "revolving door" between FDA officials tasked with regulating COVID-19 vaccines and the companies who manufacture them.
Two high-level regulatory officials with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) involved in vaccine oversight accepted jobs at Moderna just months after signing off on the licensure of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine, according to a British Medical Journal (BMJ) investigation.
...
WIND: that’s all you need to know about the validity of drug approvals of any kind—follow the money. Virtually all government institutions are corrupt beyond redemption because when you design a system for corruption, it becomes inevitable (only a matter of time).
Trust your doctor, who trusts the FDA and CDC guidelines?
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