Media outlets that derided COVID lab-leak theory last year now scramble to save face

BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors calls to "end the imperialist project that's called Israel." pic.twitter.com/0PgEtPMpVx

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 28, 2021

Eisenhower

American, Southwest put off plans to serve alcohol after passenger disruptions, assault on board

• • Southwest Airlines says it’s delaying a planned return of alcohol sales on board.
  • The decision comes after one of its flight attendants was assaulted on board.
  • The FAA this week said incidents, some of them violent, against flight attendants have surged this year, even though passenger numbers are below normal levels.

American corporations seem to be following the federal government down a path that is increasingly disconnected from reality. Corporations like government are dependent on the American public and not the other way around.

On a Southwest flight recently, I found the instructions by a stewardess relating to masking to verge on rude and condescending. This is not the way to gain cooperation of a large group of people in a free country. The rise of unruly passengers seems to have a linear relationship to the rise in petty tyrant personalities from low-level people in a position of semi-authority. Push that saucy talk a little too far, and public cooperation will decrease. That is the point I think we have reached. Passengers on an airplane are customers. Treat them as such. If you don’t, expect push back.

Joe Biden’s Imaginary America

His policies seem designed for coastal enclaves that do not represent most of the country

Joel Kotkin & Wendell Cox:

“…Joe Biden’s ballyhooed “infrastructure” plan, coupled with unprecedented stimulus spending, is cast by the obliging media as being about the middle class but seems oddly detached from how the overwhelming majority of the middle class lives, which is in lower-density, automobile-dependent neighborhoods. This dynamic was intensifying even before the pandemic. But Biden’s plan seems mostly about serving the relatively small sliver of transit-riding apartment dwellers living in denser neighborhoods. Overall, dense residential areas accommodate no more than 10 percent of the nation’s population.

Rather than emulate Roosevelt’s New Deal, as Biden’s handlers insist, the plan renounces much of what drove it. The New Deal, whatever one thinks of it, was about improving the material quality of life for most Americans, such as by spreading the benefits of homeownership to an ever-broader part of the population. In contrast, the Biden plan focuses on permanent redistribution through ever more entitlements and dependency — something Roosevelt opposed. It is likely to reduce our competitiveness by boosting energy and regulatory costs as well as taxes.

Perhaps nothing better illustrates the Biden administration’s myopic sense of geography than its transportation priorities. Take urban transit. Biden has proposed a policy that, by some estimates, would allocate $165 billion for public transit (including urban rail — subways, light rail, and commuter rail) against only $115 billion to fix and modernize roads and bridges. Transit, which accounts for about 1 percent of overall urban and rural ground transportation, would receive nearly 60 percent of the money.

Echoing conventional progressive rhetoric, the administration’s transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, embraces the idea of getting Americans out of their cars and into trains and buses. For at least half a century, this has been a principal public-policy objective — and the results have been spectacularly unsuccessful. Despite the expenditure of more than $2 trillion and the construction of many new rail systems, transit’s share of daily commute trips dropped 44 percent from 1970 to 2019 (8.9 percent to 5.0 percent of the total). Even before COVID, working at home accounted for more commuting nationwide than did transit. Outside New York City, nearly 60 percent more people worked at home than rode transit in 2019, according to the American Community Survey. Transit accounted for less than 2 percent of all urban travel before COVID. The administration nonetheless is thinking about taxing vehicle mileage to pay for infrastructure, something that would be wildly unpopular outside the handful of dense urban cores where transit ridership is high…”

Death and double standards: Harder to attribute mortality to vaccine than to COVID?

“…Comorbidities are downgraded as causal factors in death when they overlap with COVID, whether the latter is verified or even merely suspected.

Stephanie Dubois, a British model aged 39, and Lisa Shaw, a BBC radio presenter aged 44, died within a day of each other due to serious thrombotic episodes after receiving the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. Neither had underlying health conditions.

Dubois’ case has now been referred to the European Medicines Agency (EMA), as she lived in Cyprus, but she left her own account of her tragic decline on her Facebook page:

May 6: “So I had the vaccination today! I hate needles, today was no exception … And now I feel horrendous … pizza and bed for me.”

May 14: “Woke up feeling fine and then within an hour I had full body shakes, all my joints seized, and I was struggling to breathe and was cold to the bone with a persistent headache and dizziness … Mum and dad came to look after me and took me for a Covid test, which thankfully was negative … but it still doesn’t explain what the problem is. Maybe I’m having a prolonged reaction to my Covid jab last week.”

That same day she was admitted to the hospital.

May 18: “Done being ill now … Couple more tests today! PS — I still don’t like needles — feeling tired.”

May 19: Dubois went into a coma.

Shaw’s family said in a statement: “Lisa developed severe headaches a week after receiving her AstraZeneca vaccine and fell seriously ill a few days later … She was treated by the [Royal Victoria Infirmary’s] intensive care team for blood clots and bleeding in her head.”

According to Britain’s medical watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), there have been 332 cases of blood clotting leading to 58 deaths from the AZ vaccine. Statistically, that is very small compared to the estimated 23.9 million first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and 9.0 million second doses administered in the U.K. by the same date.

The death of Dubois highlights how much harder it is to attribute deaths to the vaccines than it is to claim death by COVID. Deutsche Welle has even run a fact-check article on other cases titled “No links found between vaccinations and deaths.”

The German state broadcaster and publisher sought to debunk claims made in many other countries, including Italy, Austria, South Korea, Germany, Spain, Belgium and the U.S. In a case in a Norwegian nursing home, it quoted the EMA stating: “Pre-existing diseases seemed to be a plausible explanation for death. In some individuals, palliative care had already been initiated before vaccination.”

Statens Legemiddelverk of the Norwegian Medicines Agency claimed, “Every day, an average of 45 people die in Norwegian nursing homes … therefore, deaths that occur close to the time of vaccination is expected, but it does not imply a causal relationship to the vaccine.”

Figures for deaths attributed to COVID, meanwhile, are not scrutinized to the same level…”

Surprising sea ice thickness across the Arctic is good news for polar bears

“…This year near the end of May the distribution of thickest sea ice (3.5-5m/11.5-16.4 ft – or more) is a bit surprising, given that the WMO has suggested we may be only five years away from a “dangerous tipping point” in global temperatures. There is the usual and expected band of thick ice in the Arctic Ocean across northern Greenland and Canada’s most northern islands but there are also some patches in the peripheral seas (especially north of Svalbard, southeast Greenland, Foxe Basin, Hudson Strait, Chukchi Sea, Laptev Sea). This is plenty of sea ice for polar bear hunting at this time of year (mating season is pretty much over) and that thick ice will provide summer habitat for bears that choose to stay on the ice during the low-ice season: not even close to an emergency for polar bears…”

It’s almost as if the alarmists don’t know what they’re talking about. That doesn’t seem to prevent them from making bad prediction after bad prediction year after year.

Rand Paul: The science proves people with natural immunity should skip COVID vaccines

“…To dictate that a person recovered from COVID-19 with natural immunity also submit to a vaccine — without scientific evidence — is nothing more than hubris. If you have no proof that people who acquired natural immunity are getting or transmitting the disease in real numbers, then perhaps you should just be quiet. People are not getting re-infected in large numbers. And that’s not me saying so, that’s the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, quietly admitting that on its website. One thing they also admitted, while at first trying to hide it, was that there are no studies showing that getting the vaccine if you already have natural immunity is of any benefit at all. They can’t show that, because it has not yet been studied. It took my friend Congressman Thomas Massie to make them admit this, by the way. They originally denied their own studies on this…

…We know this. Doctors know this. Scientists who design vaccines know this. Vaccines are created to attempt to replicate the immunity we get from having been infected with a disease. I want all the science deniers to read that again. Vaccines are a replacement for natural immunity. They aren’t necessarily better. In fact, natural immunity from measles confers lifelong immunity and the vaccine immunity wanes over a few decades. I choose to follow the science with COVID, rather than submit to fear-mongering…”

Mask mandate and use efficacy in state-level COVID-19 containment

“…Containment of the COVID-19 pandemic requires evidence-based strategies to reduce transmission. Because COVID-19 can spread via respired droplets, many states have mandated mask use in public settings. Randomized control trials have not clearly demonstrated mask efficacy against respiratory viruses, and observational studies conflict on whether mask use predicts lower infection rates. We hypothesized that statewide mask mandates and mask use are associated with lower COVID-19 case growth rates in the United States.

Methods: We calculated total COVID-19 case growth and mask use for the continental United States with data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. We estimated post- mask mandate case growth in non-mandate states using median issuance dates of neighboring states with mandates. Results: Case growth was not significantly different between mandate and non-mandate states at low or high transmission rates, and surges were equivocal. Mask use predicted lower case growth at low, but not high transmission rates. Growth rates were comparable between states in the first and last mask use quintiles adjusted for normalized total cases early in the pandemic and unadjusted after peak Fall-Winter infections. Mask use did not predict Summer 2020 case growth for non-Northeast states or Fall-Winter 2020 growth for all continental states.

Conclusions: Mask mandates and use are not associated with slower state-level COVID-19 spread during COVID- 19 growth surges. Containment requires future research and implementation of existing efficacious strategies…”

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds

Rutgers Chancellor Apologizes for Condemning Anti-Semitism

As Biden Admin Pledges Millions in Aid to Palestinians, Hamas Leader Shows off Gun-Toting Child in Gaza Rally 

Democrats.

Biden got campaign cash from major Russia lobbyist prior to refusing sanctions on Russian pipeline

Another face plant for the dumb-ass media and Stupid woke Dems.

Imagine if Trump had done this.

“If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, ‘brethren!’ Be careful, teachers!” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“…Despite failings, Martin Luther King, Jr., was a man of remarkable vision. He stated this over 60 years ago. Back then our colleges and universities were centers of academic excellence, stressing the importance of finding knowledge through constant questioning and by challenging the conventional verities. Today? They are occupied by close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts.

Just as King’s “I have a dream” quote is missing from the King Memorial in Washington DC, this too is excised from the canon of King’s sayings, carefully unremembered…”

Original

 

CBS "climate specialist": It's critical the Earth not warm 1.5 degrees Celsius

CBS anchor: Why?

Climate specialist: Well b/c that's the number "we chose"#Science pic.twitter.com/k6ILumkfqI

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 28, 2021

Just as race-hustlers insist our great country is racist and the only way to fix it is to give money and privilege to Democrat constituencies, so too the climate-hustlers insist our great planet is about to burn up in a conflagration of carbon induced hell fire and the only way to fix it is to give money and privilege to Democrat constituencies.

As you listen to this “climate specialist” explain why the world may face new rounds of hurricanes, fires, storms, etc., remember the list below of the top 50 eco-disasters that never occurred.

1.  1967: Dire Famine Forecast By 1975
2.  1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989
3.  1970: Ice Age By 2000
4.  1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980
5.  1971: New Ice Age Coming By 2020 or 2030
6.  1972: New Ice Age By 2070
7.  1974: Space Satellites Show New Ice Age Coming Fast
8.  1974: Another Ice Age?
9.  1974: Ozone Depletion a ‘Great Peril to Life (data and graph)
10.  1976: Scientific Consensus Planet Cooling, Famines imminent
11.  1980: Acid Rain Kills Life In Lakes (additional link)
12.  1978: No End in Sight to 30-Year Cooling Trend (additional link)
13.  1988: Regional Droughts (that never happened) in 1990s
14.  1988: Temperatures in DC Will Hit Record Highs
15.  1988: Maldive Islands will Be Underwater by 2018 (they’re not)
16.  1989: Rising Sea Levels will Obliterate Nations if Nothing Done by 2000
17.  1989: New York City’s West Side Highway Underwater by 2019 (it’s not)
18.  2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is
19.  2002: Famine In 10 Years If We Don’t Give Up Eating Fish, Meat, and Dairy
20.  2004: Britain will Be Siberia by 2024
21.  2008: Arctic will Be Ice Free by 2018
22.  2008: Climate Genius Al Gore Predicts Ice-Free Arctic by 2013
23.  2009: Climate Genius Prince Charles Says we Have 96 Months to Save World
24.  2009: UK Prime Minister Says 50 Days to ‘Save The Planet From Catastrophe’
25.  2009: Climate Genius Al Gore Moves 2013 Prediction of Ice-Free Arctic to 2014
26.  2013: Arctic Ice-Free by 2015 (additional link)
27.  2014: Only 500 Days Before ‘Climate Chaos’
28.  1968: Overpopulation Will Spread Worldwide
29.  1970: World Will Use Up All its Natural Resources
30.  1966: Oil Gone in Ten Years
31.  1972: Oil Depleted in 20 Years
32.  1977: Department of Energy Says Oil will Peak in 1990s
33.  1980: Peak Oil In 2000
34.  1996: Peak Oil in 2020
35.  2002: Peak Oil in 2010
36.  2006: Super Hurricanes!
37.  2005 : Manhattan Underwater by 2015
38.  1970: Urban Citizens Will Require Gas Masks by 1985
39.  1970: Nitrogen buildup Will Make All Land Unusable
40.  1970: Decaying Pollution Will Kill all the Fish
41.  1970s: Killer Bees!
42.  1975: The Cooling World and a Drastic Decline in Food Production
43.  1969: Worldwide Plague, Overwhelming Pollution, Ecological Catastrophe, Virtual Collapse of UK by End of 20th Century
44.  1972: Pending Depletion and Shortages of Gold, Tin, Oil, Natural Gas, Copper, Aluminum
45.  1970: Oceans Dead in a Decade, US Water Rationing by 1974, Food Rationing by 1980
46.  1988: World’s Leading Climate Expert Predicts Lower Manhattan Underwater by 2018
47.  2005: Fifty Million Climate Refugees by the Year 2020
48.  2000: Snowfalls Are Now a Thing of the Past
49.  1989: UN Warns That Entire Nations Wiped Off the Face of the Earth by 2000 From Global Warming
50.  2011: Washington Post Predicted Cherry Blossoms Blooming in Winter

Top 50 eco-disasters that never occurred Assembled by Thomas Lifson