Practical Eschatology: Meme of the Day: Shock Therapy

Wednesday, February 15, 2023

Meme of the Day: Shock Therapy

Some News Stories You Might Have Missed:

"Africa Didn’t Follow WHO’s Pandemic Script. Guess What Happened?"--The Burning Platform. Even though African nations have the lowest jab rates in the world, but have suffered no ill effects, the WHO is still urging them to inject more of their population. From the article:

   The statements made by the WHO contradict a number of real-world situations. For starters, while developed nations with high jab rates struggled with COVID-19 throughout much of 2021 and 2022, Africa avoided this fate, despite its single-digit jab rate.

   Scientists are said to be “mystified” as to how Africa fared so well, completely ignoring data showing that the more COVID-19 shots you get, the higher your risk of contracting COVID-19 and ending up in the hospital.

   Over the past year, researchers have been warning that the COVID-19 jabs appear to be dysregulating and actually destroying people’s immune systems, leaving them vulnerable not only to COVID-19 but also other infections.

   It stands to reason, then, that Africa with its low injection rate would not be burdened with COVID-19 cases brought on by dysfunctional immune systems.

   Secondly, variants have gotten milder (less pathogenic) with each iteration, albeit more infectious (i.e., they spread easier).

   So why is the WHO worried about “the risk of new variants creating large waves of serious disease and death in populations with low vaccination coverage”? What is that “risk” based on?

   And, since COVID-19 infection keeps getting milder, and has had a lethality on par with or lower than influenza ever since mid-2020 at the latest, why is it still a “crucial priority” to accelerate delivery of COVID-19 treatments?

   As a reminder, according to a Sept. 2, 2020 study in Annals of Internal Medicine, the overall noninstitutionalized infection fatality ratio for COVID-19 was a mere 0.26%.

   Below 40 years of age, the infection fatality ratio was just 0.01%. Meanwhile, the estimated infection fatality rate for seasonal influenza is 0.8%.

"America Forgot the 1918 Flu. Will We Also Forget Covid?"--Wall Street Journal. An excerpt:

   My grandfather, Walter Kirschner, was born in Philadelphia in 1910, the sixth of eight children. His wife, my grandmother Rebekah, was also born in Philadelphia, in 1907; she was one of 10 children. Most of my grandparents and great-aunts and -uncles, all born between 1900 and 1913, lived into their 80s or 90s. I knew them well.

   In other words, I was raised among old people who, as young people, had seen their world rocked by the flu. When they were children or young adults, the Spanish flu pandemic hit their hometown harder than anywhere else in the U.S. On just one day, Oct. 18, 1918, 759 people died of flu in Philadelphia, according to John Barry’s definitive history, “The Great Influenza.” That same month, the month my grandfather turned eight, Mr. Barry writes that “the Bureau of Child Hygiene publicly begged for neighbors to take in, at least temporarily, children whose parents were dying or dead. The response was almost nil.” Bodies decomposed in their beds, with no one to remove them.

   The poor and immigrants—like my grandparents’ families—were hit hardest. So it stands to reason, doesn’t it, that some of my family got sick, or watched a neighbor or schoolmate get sick or die? But I don’t know for sure. Despite having spent thousands of collective hours with my grandfather and grandmother, with my uncles Gabriel and Sidney and Henry (and the other Henry), my aunts Nettie and Ruth and Ann, and numerous others—not to mention their spouses, all Philadelphians—I never heard any of them mention the Spanish flu. Not once.

   That absence has me wondering how Americans will remember Covid-19 once it is finally behind us, or when it has become a manageable nuisance. Right now, it’s hard to imagine it will be regarded as anything less than a generation-defining phenomenon, like the antiwar protests of the late 1960s, the AIDS crisis of the 1980s or the attacks of 9/11. But I think it’s just as likely that it will disappear from our consciousness, as the influenza pandemic of 1918-19 did.

   The Spanish flu was deadlier than Covid-19 and was more likely to kill those in the prime of life, yet it has been largely obliterated from historical memory. As Alfred W. Crosby noted in his 1989 book “America’s Forgotten Pandemic,” the Spanish flu was omitted from all the great midcentury American history textbooks, including volumes by Samuel Eliot Morison, Henry Steele Commager, Richard Hofstadter, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and C. Vann Woodward—all men who had lived through the pandemic.

   The Spanish flu killed perhaps 50 million people worldwide, the equivalent, as a percentage of the population, of 200 million people today.

   The one major textbook that Crosby could find that mentioned the pandemic, Thomas A. Bailey’s “The American Pageant” (1956), gave it one sentence and, Crosby says, “understates the total number of deaths due to it by at least one half.” Today, a U.S. history student is still unlikely to learn about the 1918-19 pandemic. The latest, 17th edition of “The American Pageant,” by David M. Kennedy and Lizabeth Cohen, mentions the pandemic on two pages.

   Popular culture did at least as poor a job in commemorating it. The Spanish flu killed perhaps 50 million people worldwide, the equivalent, as a percentage of the population, of 200 million people today. Yet there is no great film about the Spanish flu pandemic, and the literature is sparse. Katherine Ann Porter’s novel “Pale Horse, Pale Rider” (1939) and William Maxwell’s novel “They Came Like Swallows” (1937) offer the principal treatments by major writers. Then there is John O’Hara’s short story “The Doctor’s Son,” which ran in The New Yorker in 1935, and Willa Cather’s minor 1922 novel, “One of Ours.”

   At the time, people remarked upon this gap in the literature. “Novels, one would have thought, would have been devoted to influenza; epic poems to typhoid; odes to pneumonia,” Virginia Woolf wrote in her 1926 essay “On Being Ill.” But she was lamenting the general inattention to illness in literature, which she attributes to the fact that fiction writers concern themselves with affairs of the mind rather than the ordeals of the body. The flu pandemic was less than a decade in the past, yet it did not seem to loom larger in her mind than typhoid or any other malady.

   Nobody seems to have a good answer for why the extraordinary, worldwide die-off of 1918-19 imprinted so little on our collective imagination. “The whole issue of how quickly it was forgotten is one that historians have not really grappled with,” said Naomi Rogers, who teaches the history of science at Yale. John Barry concurred: “No satisfactory explanation,” he wrote to me in an email, when I asked about this forgetfulness. “No research that I know of” on its causes, he added.

   The best theory I’ve encountered is that the pandemic simply couldn't compare with World War I. The whole civilized world turning on itself in an orgy of warfare was more traumatizing than an act of nature; it demanded more of a response. It was an event that poets cared about and that political leaders had answers for (the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations). It seemed like something mankind could, with diligence, prevent from recurring.

   Acts of God are, I think, more forgettable than our own acts. Even though we can mount a response to pandemics—immunologists, working overtime, made great strides in response to the pandemic of 1918-19, even if they did not have the tools that Covid scientists had a century later—there is an inherent futility in the face of disease. It will always be with us, in a way that, we dare to dream, war and human cruelty might not.

In that light, I wonder if we’ll look back on the present moment and remember Black Lives Matter and the polarization around the Trump presidency, the war in Ukraine and the rise and fall of Twitter, rather than Covid-19. If that’s the case, I would say we have cause to celebrate. Past generations’ reluctance to talk about influenza—not to mention diseases like polio, which terrified my parents in their youth and whose effects are still visible in the limps and disabilities of old people I know—should not, I think, be read as stoicism or avoidance, but as adaptability. Forgetting is one of the great human gifts; we cannot reasonably carry with us all the wounds of our past. Especially since, alas, there is always more suffering around the bend.

I'm sure that the authorities will soon be wanting the public to forget Covid as more and more comes out about how harmful was the government's reaction to it and how harmful is the vaccine becomes more apparent. We are already seeing the Left wanting everyone to forgive and forget how vicious and hateful they were toward anyone that didn't get vaxxed or wear masks.

Yes. Yes they did: "Did the FBI collect the fingerprints of unvaccinated NYC teachers?"-- American Thinker. From the lede:

One year ago, New York City fired over 1,430 city employees who refused to take the COVID vaccine. Several of those workers filed a class action lawsuit against the City. During that lawsuit, the teachers’ attorney introduced a sworn deposition stating that, when teachers refused the vaccination, the city flagged them as “problems” and handed their fingerprints over to both the FBI and the New York criminal justice system.

I don't know if it is evidence, but it is certainly suggestive: "EVIDENCE: Government sent deadlier covid 'vaccines' to red states to depopulate conservatives"--NaturalNews.com. From the lede:

Mike Yeadon, the former head of respiratory research at Pfizer, and independent researcher Craig Paardekooper have sourced Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) data on vaccine deaths and injuries in the United States showing that “red,” or conservative-leaning, states are seeing, on average, twice the number of covid “vaccine”-related deaths compared to “blue,” or liberal-leaning, states.

Demographic winter: "45% Of Women Are Expected To Be Single And Childless By 2030, Per Recent Projection"--Evie Magazine. From the article:

We're told by our culture that a woman who is unmarried and has no children is empowered and in charge of her own life. She has escaped the unnecessary burden of raising a family and being a slave to her husband. At least, that's what our society has convinced us. Sadly, many women have adopted the modern feminist lifestyle and have chosen to sleep around, abort their baby if they unexpectedly get pregnant, and swear off marriage. But these cultural trends are going to have a tremendous impact on the future of American society. Morgan Stanley estimates that 45% of women in their "prime working years" (ages 25 to 44) will be single and childless by the time 2030 arrives.

Of course, if it means that r-selected females won't pass on their genes, it will be a good thing over the long run.

Election integrity in action:

Just a conspiracy theory? "Israeli firm 'sought to influence more than 30 elections around the world'"--Daily Mail Online.

   An Israeli firm sought to influence more than 30 elections around the world for clients by hacking, sabotage and spreading disinformation, according to an undercover media investigation published Wednesday.
   The firm was dubbed 'Team Jorge' by investigating journalists who posed as potential clients in order to gather information on its methods and capabilities.
   Its boss, Tal Hanan, is a former Israeli special forces operative who boasted of being able to control supposedly secure Telegram accounts and thousands of fake social media profiles, as well as planting news stories, the reports say.
   The investigation was carried out by a consortium of journalists from 30 outlets, including the Guardian in Britain, Le Monde in France, Der Spiegel in Germany and El Pais in Spain, under the direction of the France-based non-profit Forbidden Stories.
   It adds to a growing body of evidence that shadowy private firms across the world are profiting from invasive hacking tools and the power of social media platforms to manipulate public opinion and to sway voters.

"The State Department helped defund conservative websites"-- American Thinker. The State Department went to advertisers and suggested (wink, wink) that they might want to consider not advertising on the sites because the sites were, according to the Department, spreading misinformation.
"Left Wing Support Collapses After Berlin Re-Runs Election Over 'Errors'"--Breitbart.

   Support for left-wing parties has collapsed in Berlin after elections were re-run in the city on Sunday over “errors” in the previous ballot.
   An election re-run in the German capital of Berlin has seen support for the political right surge, with the centrist Christian Democratic Union (CDU) seeing a seismic ten-point rise over the previous ballot.
   Although the city had already seen elections take place in 2021, numerous “errors” and other anomalies in the voting process eventually resulted in the ballot being struck down in court, with the vote finally being re-run on Sunday.
   According to a report by Der Spiegel, this re-run has seen the mandates for every major left-wing party in the German capital decline significantly, with the three outfits that previously ruled the city — the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Die Linke, and the Green Party — all seeing their support drop between 0.5 to 3 per cent.

Fortunately for the left-wing government, they were able to find a batch of uncounted mail-in ballots casting the new election into doubt. Amazing how that happens.

Immigrants welcome: "U-haul driver told police murderous spree sparked by 'an invisible object' coming towards car"--Daily Mail Online. Weng Sor went on an hour long killing spree in New York using a U-Haul truck killing Yijie Ye and injuring 7 others after, he claims, he saw an invisible object nearly strike his vehicle, causing him to go into a rage.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: "Whistleblower: Grooming Gangs Preying on Girls on a 'Shocking Scale'"--Breitbart.

   Mostly Muslim child rape grooming gangs continue to prey on young girls throughout Britain a decade on after being exposed to the public, a documentary has claimed.

   Through a combination of access to more advanced technology and continued police “neglect of duty”, mostly Pakistani Muslim grooming gangs are still operating on a “shocking scale” in the United Kingdom, according to former detective turned whistleblower Maggie Oliver, who appeared in the GB News documentary Grooming Gangs: Britain’s Shame.

   A decade on from first being exposed to the public, Oliver warned that it was wrong to view the issue of grooming gangs only as a historical issue, saying: “This is going on today. We’ve been approached by 60 victims in the last three days who are currently being failed by the police.

   “It is not a historical problem. Very little has changed. We have seen trials. But all too often these children are still being judged and fobbed off and that is not good enough.”

Diversity, Inclusion and Equity: "ABOUT 35 BLACK-ON-WHITE HOMICIDES (GIVE or TAKE A FEW ASIANS): January 2023—Another Month In the Death of White America"--The Unz Review. The author adds: "We found just four white-on-black homicides, none of them murders."
I'm sure the solution will involve paying teachers more to do what they are already doing: "Baltimore: 23 Schools Have Zero Students Who Can Do Math at Grade Level"--Legal Insurrection.
The Biden crime family: "Jim Biden negotiated deal with Saudis 'because of relationship' to Joe"--Daily Mail Online.

   President Biden's brother was hired to engage in secret negotiations with the Saudi government on behalf of a US construction company because of his relationship with the then vice president, legal documents claim.
   Jim Biden was selected because Saudi Arabia 'would not dare stiff the brother of the Vice-President who would be instrumental to the deal,' bombshell affidavits obtained by DailyMail.com allege.
   Joe's younger brother Jim, 73, was at the center of a $140million settlement negotiation between Hill International and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2012.

But I Feelz! "Research Confirms the Stereotype: Liberals Confuse Emotion With Rationality"-- The New American. From the lede: "Liberals are not only more likely than conservatives to suppose that 'emotion is a feature of rationality,' a series of three studies has shown, but also apparently believe it should be. In fact, they consider emotions more “functional” (utilitarian, essentially) than conservatives do despite reporting less emotional well-being."
Leftists are evil: "Satanic Idaho group planning a 'gender affirmation ritual'"--KTVB.com. Even in Idaho you can't get away from it. The article begins: "Satanic Idaho is a self-described, 'atheistic altruistic satanic religious organization,' that has planned a 'gender affirming ceremony' to take place at the Idaho State Capitol." But get this: they don't believe in a literal Satan. So, if they don't believe in the entity which they allegedly worship, can they actually be a religious organization? Satan was a liar from the beginning and, as I've noted before, so are leftists.
Are your kids watching this? "Disney's wildly woke show Proud Family shames character for having 'white fragility'"--Daily Mail Online.
Speaking of racism aimed against whites: "University of South Florida adopts radical diversity program that segregates students by race"--Daily Mail Online. The program will also teach that white students should "feel bad for being white" as part of their "identity development". And they want us to believe that "the great replacement" is a conspiracy theory?

Related: "Berlin University Tells Students Not to Call Cops on Sex Offender. Can You Guess Why?"-- PJ Media. Apparently having white women call police about an immigrant sex offender would be racist, according to the university. Of course, if a group of German men were to give the sex offender an educational beat down, the full force of the German nation would be unleased to hunt them down.

Masks and lockdowns were good for the children: "A Shocking 30% Of High School Girls ‘Seriously Considered’ Suicide Last Year"--Nation & State. Suicidal ideation was also up among boys, although the rate was about half that of girls.
Skynet grins: "A military AI program successfully piloted a live F-16"--Not the Bee. Even legacy aircraft like the F-16 can make higher G maneuvers than pilots can handle, thus it will only be a matter of time before pilots are removed from high-performance aircraft.
But at least they aren't taking away anyone's guns! "What Constitution? State House moves to ban firing guns on private property"--Colorado Peak Politics. The bill would allow counties to pass ordinances prohibit the firing of weapons on private property with the only exceptions being for hunting or managing livestock. So bye-bye shooting ranges. This is the act of tyrants. They pass these laws even though they are unconstitutional because they want to wear down the opposition.
Speaking of petty tyrants: "More From Green Bay City Hall: City Officials Install Secret Video and Microphone Recording Devices in City Hall to Spy on Political Foes and Citizens ...Update: City Defends Spying"--Gateway Pundit.
Shoot first, ask questions later: "Latest three UFOs shot down likely not Chinese spy devices: US"--New York Post. If the statements from the Administration and the military are to be believed, they don't know what they shot down: could have been private research balloons, experimental aircraft (or airships), the house from "Up"....

Related: "Cockpit audio reveals F-16 pilots who shot down UFO over Lake Huron didn't know what it was"--Daily Mail Online.

Wait until this, or something like it, comes through the Darien Gap and across our unsecured southern border: "Now Marburg virus spreads to Cameroon"--Daily Mail Online. The two cases reportedly have no travel connections with neighboring Equatorial Guinea where the outbreak started.
Speaking of the southern border: "Arizona rancher denies killing Mexican shot dead by border"--Daily Mail Online. He claims that he came across a group of men dressed in camouflage and carrying AK rifles. One of the men pointed the AK at him and the rancher fired a warning shot. He later found the body. He indicated that he called law enforcement about the initial shooting and after he found the body, which suggests he was the "anonymous" person that initially contacted police.

More: "Arizona Rancher Held on $1 Million Bond Fired Warning Shots After an Armed Group of Men 'Pointed an AK-47 Right at Him'"--Gateway Pundit.

Christians need to be more like this and sue officials when they treat Christian complaints differently: "Muslim students force Minnesota college to close Iranian American artist's exhibition"--Daily Mail Online.

   A college in Minnesota temporarily closed an exhibition displaying veiled women in various raunchy poses after some Muslim students were offended by the art.

   The exhibition in Macalester College in St. Paul was put on by Iranian-American artist, Taravat Talepasand, 44, whose work challenges Islamic conservatism and the oppression of women.

   Items on display included drawings of women in niqabs and high heels lifting their robes to reveal underwear, as well as porcelain sculptures of similar women with huge exposed breasts.

   The exhibition opened on January 27 but the art was swiftly covered in black drapes after a group of students signed a petition suggesting that Talepasand's work inflicted 'deep pain' and 'perpetuated harm', reported the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

   The gallery remained covered for a weekend before it reopened with a content warning and frosted glass on some windows to prevent offended students or anyone else from seeing the art without first being made aware of its contents.