Brought to you by the number 2…
Author: HP McLovincraft
Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.
Scientism is a plastic religion…
The Real Story of Rosa Parks 66 Years Later: What You Learned in School Is Wrong
Unjust laws will remain unjust until they are disobeyed by good people. Had brave individuals throughout history not risked imprisonment or worse to challenge tyrannical, racist, and immoral laws, society today, would be much less free — this rule is especially true for black people in America.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks made history by disobeying an unjust law that required people of color to yield their seats on the bus to white people. When the bus driver told the entire row of black people to move to the back of the bus because a white man boarded, everyone complied, except for Parks.
Parks was arrested and convicted for failing to obey the driver’s seat assignments. The events following her arrest, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the federal ruling of Browder v. Gayle which ruled that segregated buses were unconstitutional, would be a turning point in segregated America.
While Rosa Parks is certainly a large part of American history, her idea to disobey the unjust bus law was not entirely original.
Can you name the first woman who wouldn’t give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama? The answer is not Rosa Parks.
Rosa Parks’ decision to disobey that fateful day was inspired and, in fact, modeled after a 15-year-old hero named Claudette Colvin.
Nine months before Parks was arrested for her choice not to give up her seat, on March 2, 1955, this brave child, without the support of the NAACP, or Civil Rights groups, took a stand on principle alone and refused to give up her seat.
Paul, Cruz Call Fauci ‘Dangerous’ After Doctor Claims ‘I Represent Science’
Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) are saying Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top medical adviser to President Joe Biden, has become dangerous with his pronunciations after he claimed to “represent science.”
Appearing on CBS’ “Face the Nation” over the weekend, Fauci said that Republican senators who have criticized him are in the wrong.
“That’s OK. I’m just going to do my job. And I’m going to be saving lives, and they’re going to be lying,” Fauci said.
“They’re really criticizing science, because I represent science. That’s dangerous. To me, that’s more dangerous than the slings and the arrows that get thrown at me. And if you damage science, you are doing something very detrimental to society long after I leave,” he added later.
Fauci also specifically went after Paul, lumping him with others he said “spins lies and threatens and all that theater,” and also suggested Cruz should be probed for objecting to electoral results from a state on Jan. 6.
Will covid-19 vaccines save lives? Current trials aren’t designed to tell us
The world has bet the farm on vaccines as the solution to the pandemic, but the trials are not focused on answering the questions many might assume they are. Peter Doshi reports
As phase III trials of covid-19 vaccines reach their target enrolments, officials have been trying to project calm. The US coronavirus czar Anthony Fauci and the Food and Drug Administration leadership have offered public assurances that established procedures will be followed.1234 Only a “safe and effective” vaccine will be approved, they say, and nine vaccine manufacturers issued a rare joint statement pledging not to prematurely seek regulatory review.5
But what will it mean exactly when a vaccine is declared “effective”? To the public this seems fairly obvious. “The primary goal of a covid-19 vaccine is to keep people from getting very sick and dying,” a National Public Radio broadcast said bluntly.6
Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, said, “Ideally, you want an antiviral vaccine to do two things . . . first, reduce the likelihood you will get severely ill and go to the hospital, and two, prevent infection and therefore interrupt disease transmission.”7
Yet the current phase III trials are not actually set up to prove either (table 1). None of the trials currently under way are designed to detect a reduction in any serious outcome such as hospital admissions, use of intensive care, or deaths. Nor are the vaccines being studied to determine whether they can interrupt transmission of the virus.
Oxford Professor: Official Data Shows Face Masks “Made No Meaningful Difference” to Infection Rates
University of Oxford Professor Jim Naismith asserts that despite England dropping its mask mandate in July and Scotland keeping its rules in force, official data shows this “has made no meaningful difference” to infection rates.
Naismith goes on to argue that new face mask mandates imposed in England today are “unlikely to have much of an impact” in fighting off the spread of the Omicron variant.
Despite flatlining case numbers and declining deaths, partly achieved because England chose to lift lockdown restrictions in the summer unlike many European countries, mask mandates are once again back in force.
Face coverings are compulsory in shops, on public transport and numerous other venues arbitrarily chosen by the government.
Superspreadin’…
Ghislaine Maxwell trial – live: Accuser speaks as Clinton, Trump and Prince Andrew Lolita Express trips noted
Day two of the trial of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell is underway in New York City, as the 59-year-old faces charges related to her alleged involvement in financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex crimes.
Her first accuser, identified only as “Jane”, has taken the stand and testified that Ms Maxwell was in the room when Epstein sexually assaulted her when she was 14 years old.
Epstein’s longtime pilot Larry Visoski was cross-examined by the defence team about specific flights and passengers, following questioning by the prosecution regarding his work and access to Epstein’s properties.
He testified that passengers on Epstein’s plane included Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, Itzhak Perlman, Donald Trump, Chris Tucker, John Glenn, Kevin Spacey, and George Mitchell. Mr Visoski also said he never saw either Ms Maxwell nor Epstein being inappropriate with a minor in 30 years.
On Monday, prosecutor Lara Pomerantz told jurors at the Manhattan federal court that in the 1990s, Ms Maxwell would procure girls for Epstein via the “ruse” of a massage. In response, her defence said that Ms Maxwell was being made a scapegoat because Epstein’s death led her accusers unable to seek justice.
Try not to be shocked…
Researchers shrink camera to the size of a salt grain
Micro-sized cameras have great potential to spot problems in the human body and enable sensing for super-small robots, but past approaches captured fuzzy, distorted images with limited fields of view.
Now, researchers at Princeton University and the University of Washington have overcome these obstacles with an ultracompact camera the size of a coarse grain of salt. The new system can produce crisp, full-color images on par with a conventional compound camera lens 500,000 times larger in volume, the researchers reported in a paper published Nov. 29 in Nature Communications.
Enabled by a joint design of the camera’s hardware and computational processing, the system could enable minimally invasive endoscopy with medical robots to diagnose and treat diseases, and improve imaging for other robots with size and weight constraints. Arrays of thousands of such cameras could be used for full-scene sensing, turning surfaces into cameras.
While a traditional camera uses a series of curved glass or plastic lenses to bend light rays into focus, the new optical system relies on a technology called a metasurface, which can be produced much like a computer chip. Just half a millimeter wide, the metasurface is studded with 1.6 million cylindrical posts, each roughly the size of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
You must be logged in to post a comment.