Analytics

Sunday, May 4, 2025

Post #7192 J

 Pandemic Report

The latest weekly CDC stats:


The nationwide stats continue to improve but individual locations may differ. For example, Taiwan is going through a surge, and Congresswoman Waters' sister has passed from COVID. Politics continues to be a focus with DNI's Tulsi Gabbard focusing on Fauci and Wuhan lab funding. It looks like HHS under RFK Jr is trying to change vaccine approvals, including boosters, placebo testing and universal COVID or flu platforms bypassing reviews. China is responding to Trump Administration Wuhan lab leak bashing by pointing fingers at the US for COVID. A lot of local/state COVID relief spending and/or research funding cuts.

Other related news items include:

  • "Scientists have found that receiving a COVID-19 booster shot in the same arm as the initial dose triggers a faster and more effective immune response, thanks to primed macrophages in nearby lymph nodes"
  • "VA study: Pfizer COVID booster 68% effective against hospitalization"
  • " A new study from Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, and Cardiff University, UK, led by Marcus Buggert, docent at the Department of Medicine, Karolinska Institutet (Huddinge), has identified a set of proteins in the blood of people with Long COVID"
  • "New antiviral compounds show broad protection against COVID-19 variants"
  • "COVID-19 puts kids at increased risk of kidney, heart and gut problems"
  • "BNT162b2 vaccine not only targets COVID-19 virus, but may also help reduce and control innate inflammation"
  • "Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine Linked to Fewer Adverse Effects in Health Care Workers and First Responders"
  • "Moderna says FDA has been constructive, but delays flu/COVID shot"
  • "COVID-19 linked to surge in US maternal mortality"
  • "A clinical trial is underway to assess the effectiveness and safety of sipavibart, AstraZeneca's long-acting monoclonal antibody designed to provide protection against Covid-19, as a potential treatment for Long Covid"
  • "Long COVID has unique symptoms, persistence not seen in flu, pneumonia,"
  • "UVA researchers discover distinct immune changes in Long COVID survivors"
  • The prosecution of COVID relief fraud and other crimes continues:

Other Notes

Bloger statistics somewhat inflated but daily posts are mostly not reaching double digits. On Twitter/X no major impression tweets, but as I write I'm within a handful of 100 followers fot the first time ever.

I haven't written about television lately beyond my regularly watched scripted weekly pro wrestling shows. But I also watch a sitcom spinoff of Young Sheldon, Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage. Finally, I've recently followed the long-running singing competitions, American Idol and The Voice.  I didn't pick up initially on the ABC revival of Idol, and its winners haven't charted for some time, but it surprises me like when James Taylor recently did a mentoring gig. However, I largely stopped listening to Top 40 15 years ago; for the most part I barely recognize up a quarter of selections (almost no country or hip-hop/rap). I really don't want to rate singers on my familiarity with their material. Almost none of them have a compelling melody or hook.

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Post #7191 M: Dumb BLEEP of the Week; DOGE Can't Fix Congress... But It Must Be Fixed! ; Stossel on Retroactive Climate Tax

Quote of the Day

The great aim of education is not knowledge 
but action.
Herbert Spencer  

Dumb BLEEP of the Week

DOGE Can't Fix Congress... But It Must Be Fixed!

Stossel on Retroactive Climate Tax

Choose Life

Musical Interlude: 1960 Top 100 Hits

IMAGE OF A GIRL ~ The Safaris

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Saturday, May 3, 2025

Post #7190 M: No Border Patrol Agent is Illegal; Milton Friedman's warning to DOGE; McClanahan on Here We Go Again? Judicial Tyranny

 Quote of the Day

None but a fool worries about things 
he cannot influence.
Samuel Johnson

Milton Friedman's warning to DOGE

McClanahan on Here We Go Again? Judicial Tyranny

No Border Patrol Agent is Illegal

Choose Life

Musical Interlude: 1960 Top 100 Hits

The Little Dippers - Forever

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Friday, May 2, 2025

Post #7189 M: Why The USA Is WAY Better Than Canada; McClanahan on The Roots of Jefferson's Union; Government can’t be trusted to fix any problems

Quote of the Day

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, 
but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
George Bernard Shaw

Why The USA Is WAY Better Than Canada

McClanahan on The Roots of Jefferson's Union

Government can’t be trusted to fix any problems

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Jon Russo via Townhall


Musical Interlude: 1960 Top 100 Hits

Down By the Station~The Four Preps

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Thursday, May 1, 2025

Post #7188 M: McClanahan on On the Road to Authoritarianism? ; FBI Raids Wrong House - Terrorizes Innocent Family; Free trade expert takes down the best arguments for tariffs

 Quote of the Day


McClanahan on On the Road to Authoritarianism?

FBI Raids Wrong House - Terrorizes Innocent Family

Free trade expert takes down the best arguments for tariffs

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Tom Stiglich via Townhall

Musical Interlude: 1960 Top 100 Hits

Bobby Vee - Devil Or Angel

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Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Post #7187 M: Great Moments in Unintended Consequences (#18); McClanahan on How to Reform the Supreme Court; Police Raid Wrong House, Sends Owner to Hospital

 Quote of the Day


Great Moments in Unintended Consequences (#18)

McClanahan on How to Reform the Supreme Court

Police Raid Wrong House, Sends Owner to Hospital

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Al Goodwyn via Townhall

Musical Interlude: 1960 Top 100 Hits

The Browns -- The Old Lamplighter

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Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Post #7186 Social Media Digest

Twitter/X

' s="twitter-tweet">

Francis was hostile to any limited revival of the traditional Latin mass. The late scholarly Pope Benedict was far more tolerant of liturgical diversity. Francis was a partisan pope who sought to repress conservative influence in the hierarchy.

— raguillemette (@raguillemette) April 26, 2025 5168688996561203?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 23, 2025 s.js" charset="utf-8">

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Post #7185 Rant of the Day: Hegseth's Inexcusable Violations of Military Security Standards

 In my limited past exposure as an IT military contractor I've probably had to take over a dozen trainings, never mind annual refreshers over OPSEC, personnel recovery and data classification/security, including testing requirements. I believe every federal employee and contractor takes a cyber awareness challenge/annual refresher, which covers topics like privacy concerns on social media like location info on photos, PII, PHI, and securing your workstation, government data, and government devices. You are asked to evaluate classifications of mixes of details, what may be shared with friends or loved ones, the recipient's need to know, proper channels for communication.

Hegseth's knowing participation in unsecured signal chats, talking specifics of planned operational details of sensitive military operations in Yemen or elsewhere is breathtaking in audacity and chutzpah. As if telegraphing upcoming military strikes in the original Signal chat including a journalist isn't obvious enough, consider this headline: "Houthi rebels have shot down 7 US Reaper drones worth $200 million in recent weeks." You cannot tell me that Houthis' air defenses would not find timely information on US attacks useful.

What's amazing is that Hegseth knows that Signal is not an approved channel for military communication, he used information from a secured channel to propagate to Signal, and he had to jump through hoops to get the app installed. This is after such notable scandals like Sarah Palin doing Alaska state business with an external email vendor and Hillary Clinton while Secretary of State using a personal email server, despite official policy.. Even in Trump's recent classified documents case, "Several of those documents, though, were allegedly shared with visitors to his golf club in Bedminster who had no security clearance." That Hegseth didn't vet all the members of his initial Signal disclosure, i.e., the journalist, is bad enough: "Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed plans about a military operation against the Houthis in Yemen on a second Signal group chat, this one on his personal phone and including his wife, lawyer and brother, three people familiar with the chat told CNN."

Hegseth's sham defense is little more than gaslighting his unauthorized disclosures by conveniently arguing disclosures weren't detailed enough to count; that's knowing rubbish. He would not have passed the military trainings I myself have gone through, and I think his own subordinates would be sanctioned for such breaches. He is not demonstrating the maturity and judgment I expect of military leadership. It validates my opposition to his nomination, and the POTUS should terminate him for cause.

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Post #7184 M: McClanahan on Why is National Review Helping Democrats? ; SOHO Debate: Are the Palestinians systematically oppressed? ; EXCESSIVE FINE: $100k for Parking on Your Grass

 Quote of the Day


McClanahan on Why is National Review Helping Democrats?

SOHO Debate: Are the Palestinians systematically oppressed?


EXCESSIVE FINE: $100k for Parking on Your Grass

Choose Life

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Steve Kelley via Townhall


Musical Interlude: 1960 Top 100 Hits

White Silver Sands - Bill Black’s Combo

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Monday, April 28, 2025

Post #7183 M: Dumb BLEEP of the Week; Genetic Revolution; What's causing toxic masculinity?

 Quote of the Day


Dumb BLEEP of the Week

Genetic Revolution

What's causing toxic masculinity?

Choose Life

Musical Interlude: 1960 Top 100 ?Hits

Village of St. Bernadette - Andy Williams

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Sunday, April 27, 2025

Post #7182 J

 Pandemic Report

The latest weekly CDC statistics:




We continue to see improvement in recent surge statistics overall, but your location may vary. Rock legend Santana had to cancel Texas  tour dates due to infection, a golfer leading a tournament had to drop out, Pakistan is experiencing a wave and Australians are preparing for a nearing winter surge. The rogue Trump Administration continues to make news, pushing the lab leak hypothesis of COVID origin, cutting funding for new vaccines,  RFK, Jr. arguing autism is worse than COVID, which he argues mostly affects the old; he's also looking at possibly removing the covid vaccine from childhood schedules. It looks like protein-based Novavax is back on track for full approval with additional data requests.

additional related news items includes:

  • "New vaccine targets sugar shield to protect against multiple coronaviruses"
  • "Unvaccinated kids face up to 20 times higher risk of long COVID"
  • "Invivyd secures $30 million loan for COVID-19 antibody development"
  • "Could this Molecule be ‘Checkmate’ for Coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2?"
  • "Global clinical trial tests two anti-inflammatory drugs for long COVID"
  • "New Study Finds No Link Between COVID Vaccination During Pregnancy and Birth Defects"
  • Legal and political COVID issues:
    • "Sunsetting of COVID-19 Paid Emergency Leave Law"
    • "BlueCross nears settlement with employees fired for refusing COVID-19 vaccine over religious reasons"
  • The battle against misinformation continues, including
    • " Japanese study does not report explosion in deaths among COVID-vaccinated"
  • Prosecution of COVID relief fraud and other crimes continue, including
    • "U.S. border agent is charged in COVID-19 business loan fraud scheme"
    • "Memphis woman sentenced to federal prison for healthcare, COVID-19 relief fraud"
    • "Suburban Chicago officer indicted in alleged COVID-19 relief loan scheme"
    • "Spokane Valley Couple Guilty Of Fraud Charges In Connection To Covid-19 Relief Loan"

Other Notes

The blog had a modest pullback after an encouraging first week or so back from my hiatus. I published my first post-hiatus essay yesterday with a reasonably good pageviews. However, most of my recent daily posts failed to reach double digits. My X following has risen to as high as 90 which is I think exceeds even the original account, However, I was informed my account was labeled which is ambiguous but may be a suspect, like spam status, which seems to limit the reach of my tweets, I did have 3 recent 1K+ tweets over a couple of days, almost 21K+ in total.

It seems I'm continuing to run into weird issues with Thunderbird email client. In one case, it seemed to lose track of my local mail folders, which it wouldn't let me reset. In the other case I had to install on my new laptop which I am using at rehab. I had to reset my calendar to enable the today's pane option and address book via Google. I think on my desktop I originally did it via add-ons, but it turns out these can be done through an option via the File menu.

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Post #7181 M: Dumb BLEEP of the Week; Trump's Monetary Policy Favors the Wealthy over Ordinary People; Trump Deports Innocent Citizen

 Quote of the Day


Dumb BLEEP of the Week

Trump's Monetary Policy Favors the Wealthy over Ordinary People

Trump Deports Innocent Citizen

Choose Life

Musical Interlude: 1960 Top 100 Hits

A Million To One - Jimmy Charles

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Saturday, April 26, 2025

Post #7180 Commentary: The Passing of Pope Francis

 During my recent month hiatus from the Internet I've informally had a growing list of rants, including Zelensky's visit to the Oval Office, Hegseth's use of SIGNAL chats, Trump's tariff wars, Trump's attack on the Fed, and the Trump attack on Harvard. I'll be writing on these and other topics but it is impossible to ignore the current topic.

Let me point out to less familiar reader that I have been critical of Francis in past posts and tweets. I'm not going to retract those criticisms here (and I'll summarize shortly), but let me point out here I have never disputed his authentic leadership of the Church in faith and morals and admired his pious simplicity and his charismatic outreach to certain minority groups like gay Catholics and migrants. In terms of the former, he has avoided the trappings of privilege like living in the more luxurious papal apartments and wanted a modest casket and burial place.

But Francis is divisive. I believe I've posted this anecdote a while back. One of my adult nephews had posted on Facebook a puff piece on the pontiff. I had become annoyed by Francis' derivative strawman critiques of capitalism and wrote a critical comment. I didn't get notified with any reactions to my post so I went back to the original--only to discover my nephew had deleted my comment. I don't mind people disagreeing with me but I'm incensed at being censored. When confronted, he was unapologetic, not wanting my negativity raining on his parade; I did respond to his disrespect but we've since reconciled.

As I've mentioned before, I was one of the few altar boys to span the transition of the Mass from Latin to the local language in the 60's/early 70's, part of Vatican II reforms. I still recall proudly leading the procession as the cross-bearer probably around 8 years old. The Latin mass, literally centuries old, did not intimidate me. There was something awesome knowing the mass was the same in every parish on earth was celebrating in the same tongue. It was more than the language. sometimes sung masses. the pomp and circumstance, votive candles, holy water, crucibles and incense; the Church now had the priest turn around and face the people, and the Church relaxed certain disciplines, including dietary.[I remember Mom would prepare my beloved breakfast of hard-boiled egg sandwiches because I didn't eat  before Mass at Catholic school to start the day.] I loved huge churches with stained-glass windows that seemed to hint of the presence of a powerful, mysterious God. The rituals, the beauty, Gregorian chants, the sense of community across time and culture: what I disliked, even at 8 years old, was not liturgical diversity, but the paternalism of forcing New Mass on us. It was similar to Coca Cola's disastrous decision to replace Coca Cola (Classic) with New Coke. I'm sure the Church knew a lot of faithful would stay with the existing liturgy if given a choice. While I've enjoyed the occasional guitar mass, I thought the Church's nature and extent of changes were too accommodative of a corrupt secular, sexually-obsessed culture. Still, a priest was a role model for a young Catholic boy, and my Mom created vestments from old beach towels so I could play saying mass. I should note not all conservative Catholics are traditional; my maternal uncle, a diocesan priest who had to speak and write seminary exams in Latin, had no such nostalgia for the old mass and customs. However, he did not want his bishop assigning him to a dying Franco-American parish because he also spoke perfect French

I remained an altar boy through high school, serving daily 6 am mass on base and heading the altar boys; in fact the chaplain gave me his 4 volume set of Aquinas' Summa Theologica as a graduation gift. I thought I had a vocation to the priesthood, a key reason I went to OLL and choose philosophy as a major. I actually had an initial interview with the Jesuits but they never followed up. 

But my apparent vocation had cooled in part because I started dating; plus I was increasingly alienated by an increasingly socially conscious Church, where sin, prayer and repentance made seemingly passing reference in homilies. For me, the "jump the shark" moment was at a UT/Austin where the campus priest reflected how we should embrace being mellow like Olivia Newton John.. But it was a variety of other things. I remember how my Catholic home room around fifth grade had "adopted" a black DC family and we tried to fill their wish lists. One that particularly caught my attention was the dad had a preference for Pall Mall cigarettes. I didn't like reinforcing bad dependencies. My own Dad had smoked the same brand as a USAF airman but had given up the nasty habit for Mom and our family. There are other changes. For example, the OLL sisters/nuns didn't all live in the convent or wear black habits. They often wore blouses and skirts with a prominent crucifix pendant. That didn't particularly bother me; I just didn't identify with the need to blend in with others in terms of clothing.

I myself haven't been to a Latin mass since chilhood, but I wanted the option. What surprises me is how many other prominent Catholic libertarians (Tom Woods, Jeffery Tucker, Lew Rockwell, etc.) love the Latin mass. 

We conservatives go beyond the liturgy, of course; for a good piece on the complicated issues between Pope Francis and the Catholic right, see here. One particularly notable example was Francis' morally ambiguous "who am I to judge [gays]?" None of us  reject the idea of "loving the sinner; hating the sin", We didn't want any confusion over the concept of  traditional, lifetime marriage and sexuality within the procreative context of marriage. Francis seemed motivated to accommodate leftist talking points as moral leader of the Church without the unpopular teaching to live a chaste lifestyle.  Francis also distanced himself from US bishops' attempts to deny pro-choice Catholic politicians communion.

But Francis has heavily identified with conventional leftist politics and Statism, including climate change activism and had made a scapegoat of so-called social darwinism he identifies with libertarianism. This is a knowing polemic which distorts the work of Herbert Spencer and others. I have debunked this in past posts. Tom Woods has written a key book on the Church and the free market, and I've clipped some of his relevant episodes below

Tom Woods Episodes

Ep. 54 Pope Francis on Capitalism

Pope Francis: The Political Pope

The Pope and Libertarians: My [Tom Woods] Response

Ep. 2214 Who Will Succeed the Disastrous Pope Francis?

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