Trusted Propaganda Initiative

 https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/2020/trusted-news-initiative-vaccine-disinformation

With the introduction of several possible new Covid-19 vaccines, there has been a rise of ‘anti-vaccine’ disinformation spreading online to millions of people.

Examples include widely shared memes which link falsehoods about vaccines to freedom and individual liberties. Other posts seek to downplay the risks of coronavirus and suggest there is an ulterior motive behind the development of a vaccine.

I wonder if pursuit of power, profit and submission of the masses  are "ulterior motives? 

I guess not, since it is obvious that these are major motivations --  as they always are, however even more so in a "crisis". 

Rahm Emanuel, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste".

Inflation Can't Go On Forever

 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/12/28/inflation-interest-rates-thomas-hoenig-federal-reserve-526177

Here is a little article showing some of the famous economists that have stated versions of the title of this blog. 

A cursory look at recent history is that we are somewhat on a repeat of the Sorry Seventies unfortunately including a hapless president rivaling and maybe even exceeding Jimmy Carter in his incompetence. 

I grew up with my dad constantly assuming that we would have a return to the 1930's when he grew up. He always was looking for the next depression, and to him, it never happened because the periods of decline were much less severe than the 1930's. I like to say that history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.

From 1966 to 1982, the stock market was flat.

In January of 1966 the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a level of 990. It would continue trading in a range of roughly 600 to 1,000 over the following 17 years. It once again reached 990 in December of 1982 before finally breaking out and heading higher.

That certainly isn't a "depression", but were something like that (or worse) to repeat, it would change a lot of Boomers lifestyles. 

Between 2008 and 2014, the Federal Reserve printed more than $3.5 trillion in new bills. To put that in perspective, it’s roughly triple the amount of money that the Fed created in its first 95 years of existence. Three centuries’ worth of growth in the money supply was crammed into a few short years. The money poured through the veins of the financial system and stoked demand for assets like stocks, corporate debt and commercial real estate bonds, driving up prices across markets. Hoenig was the one Fed leader who voted consistently against this course of action, starting in 2010. In doing so, he pitted himself against the Fed’s powerful chair at the time, Ben Bernanke, who was widely regarded as a hero for the ambitious rescue plans he designed and oversaw.

Extraordinary events tend to have extraordinary results ... often results that are at least unexpected in some quarters. 

Is Election Integrity Undemocratic?

 https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/ensuring-election-integrity-anti-democratic/

According to basically 100% of of European countries -- if you read the whole article, election integrity is critical to democracy.

When it comes to absentee voting, we Americans, accustomed as we are to very loose rules, are often shocked to learn that 35 of the 47 European countries—including France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden—don’t allow absentee voting for citizens living in country. Another ten European countries—including England, Ireland, Denmark, Portugal, and Spain—allow absentee voting, but require voters to show up in person and present a photo ID to pick up their ballots. It isn’t like in the U.S., where a person can say he’s going to be out of town and have a ballot mailed to him.

Mexico believes you ought to know your vote actually counts. 

...Mexico recently instituted strict reforms. Voters must present a biometric ID—an ID with not only a photo, but also a thumb print. Voters also have indelible ink applied to their thumbs, preventing them from voting more than once. And absentee voting is prohibited, even for people living outside the country.

Wow, with such harsh "voter suppression" measures, the number of people voting must have really dropped in those repressive countries.

Those who oppose election integrity reform here in the U.S. often condemn it as a means of “voter suppression.” But in Mexico, the percent of people voting rose from 59 percent before the reforms to 68 percent after. It turned out that Mexicans were more, not less, likely to vote when they had confidence that their votes mattered.

Democrats, the media, and the State Bureaucracy oppose any voted integrity measures in the strongest terms.

Here, for instance, is President Biden speaking recently in Philadelphia, condemning the idea of voter IDs: “There is an unfolding assault taking place in America today—an attempt to suppress and subvert the right to vote in fair and free elections, an assault on democracy, an assault on liberty, an assault on who we are—who we are as Americans. For, make no mistake, bullies and merchants of fear and peddlers of lies are threatening the very foundation of our country.” Sadly but predictably, he went on to suggest that requiring voter IDs would mean returning people to slavery.

The horror of it! Nearly all the people in Europe are living in SLAVERY! Just ask Joe (on one of the few days he is coherent). 

What kind of "bullies, merchants of fear and peddlers of lies"  have suggested that mail in voting encourages (and has been demonstrated to) enable massive voter fraud? Well Jimmy Carter for one -- and though he is definitely a "peddler of lies", I really can't imagine anyone calling Jimmuh a "bully". 

Sixteen years ago, in 2005, the Carter-Baker Commission on Federal Election Reform issued a report that proposed a uniform system of requiring a photo ID in order to vote in U.S. elections. The report also pointed out that widespread absentee voting makes vote fraud more likely. Voter files contain ineligible, duplicate, fictional, and deceased voters, a fact easily exploited using absentee ballots to commit fraud. Citizens who vote absentee are more susceptible to pressure and intimidation. And vote-buying schemes are far easier when citizens vote by mail.

Would you like it if your bank would allow cash withdrawls from your account without photo ID? How many times are you required to show a photo ID? Flying, increasingly buying liquor, shipping a package via UPS, checking into a hotel ... the list just keeps getting longer. 

So we know that insuring voter integrity doesn't reduce voting -- it tends to INCREASE it because people know their vote counts.

Other than a history of voter fraud and a strong desire to continue and increase it,  it seems impossible defend measures like HR1. Therefore, the media mostly ignores what is actually in it, and merely repeats the obvious propaganda that it is racist, voter suppression and somehow a "return to slavery".  

The linked short article is worth the read.

 

Expodentially Misunderestimated

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/12/deep-meaning-of-expodentially.php

Joe Biden likes to say "expodentially" -- who knew?  Democrats looking human (stupid if Republicans do so) is something ignored by the Democrat media for obvious reasons - it would be simply WRONG to make lite of our glorious leader. 

https://twitter.com/i/status/1470189441738326017

OTOH, everyone knew about "Bushisms" ... in fact, there was a calendar of them. 

There was once a comedian named Norm Crosby that made a good living through malapropisms back when the nation had a sense of humor. I'm quite certain that this clip would be enough to get him Cancelled today. 

Losing a sense of humor is a strong sign of "progress" toward totalitarianism. As "progress" proceeds, poking fun at potentates can become criminal. 

The Order of Time, Carlo Rovelli

 https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-meaning-of-time

The link as per usual is to a more detailed professional review. 

Most people are aware of Einstein's theory of relativity -- time is relative to your frame of reference.

An aside -- isn't it interesting that everyone seems to accept that Einstein's theory is a THEORY, even though is has been tested in a number of ways -- one being that using very accurate clocks, one "stationary" relative to the plane, and a very fast plane, it can be shown that "time" travels more slowly as "objects|" move faster. 

The scare quotes are because what we "see" is not necessarily "reality". Everything we see is relative to our perspective and speed. From the perspective of the house builder, "the flat earth" is true enough, while we know that from the perspective of an astronaut on the moon, the earth is a sphere. Which is "correct"? It is a matter of perspective. 

 "Science" is ALL theory from a given perspective. It is as correct as the next test, or change of perspective. It is a useful tool, something only to be "trusted" within boundaries of perspective.

I find that to be the useful takeaway from the Rovelli book.

... But in physics, once we start to look at what exactly the difference is between past and future, it’s extraordinarily slippery. In the past, the universe seemed to be in a very peculiar state. Physicists use the expression ‘low entropy’. So because there was this low entropy in the past of the universe, that’s the only source of difference between the past and the future. But low entropy is itself a slippery thing because it implies a state of order!

If the difference between the past and the future is just a natural disordering of things, the question becomes: why were things ordered in the past? Who ordered them? And this is still a mystery.

It reminds me of the quote from Spinal Tap member Nigel Tufnel that is inscribed on the wall at the Stonehenge visitors center which made me laugh out loud: "no one knows who they were or what they were doing ..."

There "seems to be a natural ordering of things" ... nobody knows why, or how. Religion is often derided as "the God of the gaps" ... but so is "science", a proffered replacement for religion. The set of things we don't "know" is much larger than the set if things we at least believe we do. 

Largely, Coke (religion) has been replaced with Pepsi (science), and the marketers have largely made science  "the choice if a new generation". 

All The Tea In China

 https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/all-tea-china-how-england-stole-worlds-favorite-drink-and-changed-history-sarah-rose

The linked review covers the basics. 

My biggest insight acquired from the book was how the English enjoyment of tea in which the water is boiled, killing microorganisms, and being a mild stimulant, may have been a significant  factor in England being more innovative and economically successful than nations whose favorite drink for enjoyment and killing the nasty little beasties was wine or beer, which are mild depressants.

One may be a bit more alert after a cup of tea vs a beer! 

I find term "stole" to be a bit moralistic. "Industrial espionage", or mere natural "oh, I see this thing, I wonder how they do that" with various levels if copying, espionage, etc are as old as the first spears, knives, bows, etc. 

Attempted copies at various levels are a constant in technology ... consider this shot of the US Space Shuttle vs the Russian Buran. Notice any similarity? 

While the Chinese may have come out on the short end on tea, they are decidedly the experts in technology acquisition (industrial espionage) today!

Was the theft of the secrets of tea "the greatest theft of intellectual property in history" ?  Perhaps, but Ih would think that the theft of the secrets to create an H-bomb by the USSR, or the technical transfer of rocketry knowledge through the immigration / immigration by Germans like Wernher Von Braun allowed the US to reach 

The book has at least for a bit made me revisit tea -- realizing (correctly) that it was black tea that I would prefer. Let the testing begin 

Pfizer Jab 75 Years To Independent Review

FDA Says we only need to wait 75 years for independent review of often mandated jab.

Well, that is the one we took because my wife would lose her job if she wasn't vaccinated. 

“If you find what you are reading difficult to believe—that is because it is dystopian for the government to give Pfizer billions, mandate Americans to take its product, prohibit Americans from suing for harms, but yet refuse to let Americans see the data underlying its licensure,” Siri said.

The Pfizer jab is the only one that has been approved by drug regulators. Approvals mean products have met a higher threshold of safety and effectiveness than those given emergency clearance.

We only experienced 6 weeks of really nasty coughs and fatigue from the jab. We had Covid last December, the jab was much worse.  

Biden Declares He Should Not Be President

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/11/bidens-covid-scorecard-is-worse-than-trumps.php

... during a 2020 campaign debate, Biden proclaimed: “Anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as President of the United States of America.” At the time Biden proposed this disqualifier from holding the presidency, the U.S. had recorded 220,000 covid deaths, according to the Journal. Since inauguration day, it has recorded 350,000. And counting.

The comparison is really unfair, because Biden has had the advantage of vaccines created by Trump's "Warp Speed" program during his entire administration. Of course, had Biden been president in 2020 we would have had ZERO Covid deaths. 

Furthermore, as the Journal reminds us, Biden promised to “shut down the virus, not the country,” and he claimed to have a plan to accomplish this. This was BS.

So was his statement that “if [Trump] had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the [220,000] people would still be alive.” Has any presidential candidate ever defamed his opponent so flagrantly on a matter of policy? If so, I don’t recall it.

Americans that predominantly listen to the MSM have no awareness of this. Biden's claims are taken as gospel when they are made, and when they prove to laughably wrong,they disappear down the memory hole.  The closest to Biden him being called on these howlers in anything approaching "mainstream" is something like this from the WSJ opinion page, which is behind a paywall??

Why is the country divided?

Nicomachean Ethics

 https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/books/review/book-review-aristotles-nicomachean-ethics.html

The link is to a review of the translation that I read by Harry Jaffa, a thinker I admire. 

Why read Nicomachean ethics? 

In my case it was because it is referenced so often in many of the books that I read, I became embarrassed that I had never read it. Now having done so,  I'd recommend reading something like "The Interpretive Essay" at the back of the translation I read instead. 

The book was written about 330 BC, which gives great creedence to Solomon's observation in Ecclesiastes 1:9

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun."

What is the good life? How can I be happy? What is the best society? What is virtue? How can I be virtuous?  What is the meaning of life given that we did? Is this it, or is there an afterlife? 

While Aristotle could have known of the Hebrew Bible, chronologically, there is no evidence that he did, 

One the first page of the interpretive essay, we have this quote from Micah 6:8"He has told you O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

While Aristotle would reject that statement because he sees there as being many "gods", and therefore many views of "the good", this work is a valiant, but ultimately confusing and questionable attempt to define "the good" or "how to be happy". 

As Jaffa says in the linked: 

The debunking both of Socratic skepticism (“the unexamined life is not worth living”) and of biblical faith (“Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”) has led to the crisis of the West, a chaos of moral relativism and philosophic nihilism in which every lifestyle, no matter how corrupt or degenerate, can be said to be as good as any other.

The Ethics at least makes a valiant attempt to escape pagan muli"god" relativism and that attempt is worthy of being oft referenced. For this of us that believe that history DOES matter, this is at least close to THE foundational work of our secular history.

For a Christian, the biggest realization is that Christ answers the "difficult questions" that Aristotle struggled and largely failed to answer. 

One of the many wonderful freedoms of Christianity is that our search for "happiness" and "virtue" are answered in Christ.

A Good Test For Voter Fraud

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/11/this-years-most-stunning-poll-finding.php

So Republicans have huge leads across the board in voter preference polling a year after the "election". Interesting. 

Obama got 69 million votes in 2008, the old record popular vote total (he got less in 2012). 

Trump received 10.1 million more votes in 2020 than in 2016. for a total of 74 million votes, a new record!

But, that dynamic, intelligent, compelling candidate Joe Biden got 81 million votes in 2020! Another new record! 

I don't think anyone would question that Joe Biden is a far more dynamic and compelling candidate than Obama was in 2008, so what could possibly account for this strange happening?

As we know, the only reason that Trump was elected in 2016 was Russian interference! 

As Hillary courageously said in 2019:

Clinton was asked whether it angers her that none of the current Democratic candidates invoke her on the campaign trail while Trump’s rally crowds still break out into “lock her up” chants.

“No, it doesn’t kill me because he knows he’s an illegitimate president,” she said. “I believe he understands that the many varying tactics they used, from voter suppression and voter purging to hacking to the false stories — he knows that — there were just a bunch of different reasons why the election turned out like it did.”

It has to be true, because it was published in the Washington Post! BTW Jimmy Carter, was quoted in the same article also saying that Trump was not a "legitimate president. . Carter should be eternally grateful that "legitimacy" doesn't depend on any standard of performance. 

Post 2020, we know that questioning the results of an election borders on treason, and must be suppressed on social media!

So if Republicans fail to win both houses in 2022, questioning that will be treasonous as well! 

The future of avoiding one party rule in the US depends on Senate defeat of HR1, which likely means it depends on Joe Manchin. 

If HR1 passes Democrat control of government will be "mailed in" perpetually.