God bless you Alex! I think I would have told him to do his own damn research, but you eloquently answered his questions with backup while also giving a bit of a jab (no pun intended 😉).
It's important to confront bullies. They're persistent, and won't surrender after one loss, but if we ignore them, they think theyre winning. Eventually they get it.
I read it and immediately knew you meant natural immunity. This AP fact check hack will undoubtedly not realize that and attempt to use it against you.
My email is selective - spam for some from Alex, my inbox for others. It seems to spam el gato more than Alex, but since it also spams Amazon I think my email (AOL via Verizon) just sucks.
"I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hand of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscope’s, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."
Man. I was a kid between the 80s and early 90s that anxiously waited for the weekly dubbed new episode of Cosmos, presented by Carl Sagan, on my country's television.
It enormously shaped my vision of the world, my studies, and my professional choices.
It is sad to see the same program being remade and presented by that sycophant DeGrasse. What a difference in integrity and humility between Sagan and him. Sagan was never arrogant, yet you could feel the authority and truth in his words.
Sorry, Sagan was many things, but humble was not one of those things. Great science mind, but quite the huge ego with an eye for the coeds. To channel Sagan in all his glory, he was deeply . . . human.
On a scale of Max Born begin 0 on the humble scale and Carl Friedrich Gauss being a 10, I'd still place Sagan at around 4.
I'd always toyed with making a graph of Ego on the X axis, Intellect on the Y axis, and plotting the various great minds of the 20th century on it. Something like... (mostly spitballin here)
Gauss - 10/10
Sagan - 4/6 (what he lacked in sheer intellect he made up for with his language and communication skills)
Great quote. Another one I love--from Richard Feynman. "I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned". (More or less).
Feynman was not only a century-class genius, he was fearless and gifted with the ability to make the most complex subject simple. His "Lectures on Physics" is a classic. I have a copy.
Once upon a time, I was an "adjunct professor" at a local tech college. I would ask them if they had ever heard of some current sports figure, rapper, etc. Nearly 100 percent. Have you ever heard of Richard Feynman? Norman Borlaug? Dick Morley (I was teaching a class on PLC programming. PLC's run virtually every automated manufacturing line in the world. He invented it.). No one had a clue.
The whole experience was sad and frustrating. Vast waste of human resources. As I said, generally perfectly fine minds. But, how in the H do you teach electronics to someone that wouldn't have passed my ninth-grade algebra class? There was no way to catch up.
Long ago, far away, I was a graduate assistant at a major university. Teaching Analog Computation--which really dates me. Analog computers were fantastic but are dead as the dodo bird.
Engineers are generally marginally literate--when it comes to writing. I told them in the first class that I WOULD get a complete sentence from everyone in the class. Being an Engineer, we aren't talking John Stuart Mills--it has to begin with a capital letter, end with a period and having a subject and a verb. That there was a column in the grade book that would get a check when I got the complete sentence and they would not pass unless there was a check in that column. I never actually failed anyone, but I batted about 50 percent in that column.
When I started at the tech college, I laid down the same rule. Gave up on the effort forthwith. Hopeless cause. The Engineering students of 50 years ago knew what a sentence was, these kids had no idea. Their reading comprehension was generally in about the third grade.
Massive waste of human capital.
BTW, most of these people had pretty decent high school grades. Insane.
Funny that ole Carl would say that - as people of his world-view have been the major CONTRIBUTORS to the development of the very conditions he decries... If he'd really been that concerned about this - he would have not advocated and supported those that advocated the very policies which have led us to the place where we find ourselves.
That's what I was thinking. When people in the US or anywhere lose their Judaeo-Christian beliefs and worship "the Universe" we lose any basis for moral behavior. And despair is the result. The heavy use of meds in the US is a symptom of that.
His materialist world view leads to moral anarchy. Which we now are seeing unfold. With the best of intentions, neither he nor Feynman were inquisitive enough to see there is no way the universe could have come into being without a Creator. Their world view is one of despair.
I'll agree as an atheist that I didn't foresee all the problems the removal a cohesive binding around a singular faith would entail, but that doesn't mean we should cling to superstitions solely because losing them would mean we just find another superstition that may be worse.
As much as all of this sucks right now, I would much rather live in the superstitions of 2020 than the superstitions of 1690.
Interesting take. So I guess all the morally bankrupt superstitions being pushed on people now, men are women, women are men, gender is a mindset, all whites are inherently racists. Man is the center of the universe. How you feel trumps the realities and hard facts of life. The alternative, there’s something out there bigger than you, understand that and serve that higher power and you will be rewarded. Yeah, today’s superstitions are much better.
Jim, true! I have a few good friends who tell me they're atheist and I'm always struck by how (in my view) it would sound much more human and humble if they claimed agnostic, b/c if you "know" for certain there is no God, you must know so much about everything else, including why I'm
apparently hallucinating when I see so much to the contrary. I'm an A+ moron in many ways, but I've seen so many cool great amazing things in this world (Also a few bad things, like that raging asshole Fauci) (Ha, made myself laugh. Told ya I'm a moron!)
Agree that as we shed our superstitions it turns out we are just finding new ones (as you pointed out, Gender Theory, Anti-Racisim, etc) which indicates to me the evolutionary importance mankind has of having to cling to SOMETHING.
I'm just not convinced that the old ones are much better than the new ones. But it is fascinating watching from the sidelines what happened to us when moved on without a replacement. (It's part of the reason I still put my kids through Catholic school)
There was a South Park episode some 15 years ago where they depict a dystopian future of warring factions of Atheists fighting over which is the "True Science" and it seemed ridiculous then but prescient now.
I'm all for "Sky Cake"[1] in moderation, if it gets you through your life, great. I draw the line when anyone tries to force their desert on me, and that includes all the superstitions you mentioned above.
Faith is the opposite of superstition. Superstition is what we're seeing unleashed now, as Jim points out below. St Thomas Aquinas was the theologian to make it clear that faith and reason are married.
Israel is very religious and succumbed to this pseudoscience as willingly as Americans. Italy, very religious, look where that got them. South America? Same.
Even if I were to buy the argument that our lack of faith allows mental parasites to more easily take hold (something I do partially agree with) - the mass hysteria of Covid was not impeded by religious faith unless it turns out the Amish anabaptist faith turned out to be the "true" faith as they are among the few groups who didn't buy into this obvious bullshit. Maybe Jehovah's Witnesses too? Did they mask up?
Michael, I was unable to "like" your comment so Im writing that I love the Sagan quote and very much like your defense of Sagan ("he died 25 years ago"), I was kinda surprised to read a few commenters who like Sagan's prescient quote, but are upset that he didn't also head this whole dystopia off.
Perhaps if he didn't get sidetracked with the LSD Dolphin Program in the 70's he might have had time to stave off this dystopian nightmare? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7ruBotHWUs
Ha! True Michael, but at least he saw it coming. I have friends (not dumb) who can't even see it now, even though it's practically punching them in the face every few minutes.
Such a great discussion beginning with the Sagan quote. Love it when this happens. I googled the Sagan quote to make sure it was accurate and Snopes was the first hit when the quote went viral in reference to Donald Trump and science.
The Snopes piece quoted Matt Novak:
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan[s] [Fauci] [TPTB] power over you, you almost never get it back."
The bamboozle is punching yours and my friends in the face.
Man, you made my day with this passage by the one and only Carl Sagan. Thank you. I love you commenters...you really make this wonderful life that much better....Alex's posts and his followers have been a part of my lifeline these past 27 months. Bless all of you!
Hi Jesse, it comes from his final novel "The Demon-Haunted World", p25 of the hardcover 1st edition. I highly recommend the book, even audio is great (narrated by Cary Elwes).
Other favorite passages below, read these and ask yourself if "The Science^TM" we say "practiced" the last two years remotely resembles the type of science Carl Sagan spoke of:
>My parents were not scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought they are central to the scientific method.
>It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it.
>Naturally people try various belief systems on for size, to see if they help. And if we’re desperate enough, we become all too willing to abandon what may be perceived as the heavy burden of skepticism. Pseudoscience speaks to powerful emotional needs that science often leaves unfulfilled.
>Pseudoscience differs from erroneous science. Science thrives on errors, cutting them away one by one. False conclusions are drawn all the time, but they are drawn tentatively. Hypotheses are framed so they are capable of being disproved. A succession of alternative hypotheses is confronted by experiment and observation. Science gropes and staggers toward improved understanding. Proprietary feelings are of course offended when a scientific hypothesis is disproved, but such disproofs are recognized as central to the scientific enterprise. Pseudoscience is just the opposite. Hypotheses are often framed precisely so they are invulnerable to any experiment that offers a prospect of disproof, so even in principle they cannot be invalidated. Practitioners are defensive and wary. Skeptical scrutiny is opposed.
>Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which best fit the facts. It urges on us a delicate balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything-new ideas and established wisdom….. When we are self-indulgent and uncritical, when we confuse hope and facts, we slide into pseudoscience and superstition.
>One of the great commandments of science is, “Mistrust arguments from authority.” (Scientists, being primates, and thus given to dominance hierarchies, of course do not always follow this commandment.) Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else.
>There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths. That openness to new ideas, combined with the most rigorous, skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, sifts the wheat from the chaff.
>One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
Natural immunity is and has been the way to go. Anecdotally, my family and I all had Covid in Nov/Dec 2020. We've lived a completely normal life throughout the pandemic including lots of travel both domestic and international. We still have not been reinfected and in fact, I still tested positive for antibodies a few months back. The fact that natural immunity has been ignored since day one is criminal.
Same! Same timing of infection. We live a normal life. We don’t disinfect anymore, no sanitizers, no masks. We get dirty- don’t want those nasty chemicals and no reinfection! Meanwhile, i have jabbed and boosted friends who keep getting sick and reinfected. Yes anecdotal but soon anecdotal will be hard to ignore. Keep fighting the good fight!!
The vaccine wasn't required where we went. Some locations required a covid test to enter. Coming back to the US, we had to take a test within 72 hours. I think on our last trip they changed it to within 24 hours...
Similarly, I don't take health advice from restaurant owners, grocery store owners, airlines, cruise lines, festival operators, golf courses, etc.
The idea that someone would get jabbed with an untested, rushed-to-market experimental gene therapy so they could partake in some optional, voluntary activity is astounding stupidity, IMO.
I will make a phony vaxx card to play golf, however. I mean...I *would've*, yeah, that's what I meant. I *would've*...
If I did it - not saying I did, only if I did - then it would only have been to be able to hit golf balls OUTSIDE, at a range, OUT OF DOORS, even though they required me to be vaxxed...in order to hit golf balls, that's right, OUTFUCKINGSIDE.
Hypothetically.
Other than that, I (hypothetically) refused to use it to patronize restaurants and any other establishment or activity that required the jabs, and, I (hypothetically) took note of those places and vowed NEVER again to set foot in them or to give them even one red cent of my money, not even for takeout orders. They are dead to me.
Fuck the shot. We spend thousands every year traveling and will take our money to countries that aren't recovidarted. Who wants to go to a place like Canada or NYC where covid vax nanny brown shirts walk the streets looking for those without a face diaper?
I have a sibling who had all the symptoms, but tested negative 4 times. Now, 3-4 months later, is experiencing issues with the heart and strange test numbers. Her doctors say…”oh those tests are NOT reliable…you DEFINITELY had it”
Funny, the FDA is using those same tests to determine that avian flu has spread through millions of chickens across many states simultaneously, causing them all to be destroyed.
No test results required if you’re an illegal immigrant. They have more rights than we. Sickening really. Yet the media has so squelched the true voices of Americans…. We have no voice.
As a 65 y/o Covid survivor of the original strain who has enjoyed 15 months of pretty good health since then I will anecdotally stand with my natural immunity. No toxic witches brew for me. At the time, it just didn't seem right so once I had it and got better (not minimizing the experience as it was no fun but similar to past respiratory flu infections) I equated it with why get the flu shot just after I had the flu? Now I feel pretty smart ... :) Anyway, I am not anti vax in the traditional sense it's just these mRNA shots are so far out of bounds and the mandates were senseless government overreach that people were suspicious and double wary by then. Now it looks like we un-shot are all pretty smart. Sad for the others that swallowed the lie but sometimes, you learn the hard way. And I see hard times coming for millions. Tragic.
I wasn't an antivaxxer before but I'm leaning that way now. Vaccines are a racket. They don't have to cure anything. No way to know for sure they ever prevented your catching any disease. Big money in bad medicines.
Mostly agree. Some old proven vaccines like Polio have done well. The new trend of having a shot or pill for everything possible is a racket. Look how many class action lawsuits have been settled by Big Pharma. But this time is different and we must trust them ... NOT.
I will be 70 soon, so we're in the same boat, and had the same experience with the Wuhan as you did, fever, which broke in the night, lack of energy for about a week, then I was good. I'm also not an anti-vaxer, I've pretty much gotten every vaccine my doctor recommended. But I have a terrible fear and foreboding when it comes to this one. The real crime, should everything go tits up, is what recourse do those people have who had it forced upon them. And just how deadly will it be.
Your making the right call. Seems every day another 60 something “dies in there sleep” or some other form of “unexpectedly”. A lot of Hollywood types, who for sure took the jabs, I doubt you can walk on any movie set without having them. From day 1 this was a disease of the weak and sickly. Any relatively healthy person was gonna be just fine. Only since the mass jabbing have people been dying younger and under odd circumstance.
I'm with you 100% - What happens to people I care about that were forced into this situation through employer mandates etc..? We could be looking at mortality numbers off the charts plus birth / pregnancy issues never before seen in modern times. Who will be held accountable? Where is the justice? Tragic.
Just saw a friend I hadn’t seen in over a year, had 2 strokes after the jab, her docs first question, “are you jabbed” when she said yes, he said that it caused her strokes. She saved her son from getting them to join the coast guard like he was going too. After that he said forget it.
I'm no doctor but it's a question worth asking. And, in your line of thinking, what about other viruses. Ebola, HIV, Hunta, virus gonna virus, and if the door is open what's to stop them as well.
Fact checkers are what Edward was pointing out on steroids:
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
...
In almost every act of our daily lives ... we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons ... who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
I have similar conversations with people and I usually keep it simple.
First, I claim the vaccine has failed. They told us it would stop transmission and infection. It did not and no scientific paper was written to explain why all the previous papers and studies were wrong.
Second, they claim the vaccine would lead to herd immunity and this is the second reason why they are forcing everyone to be injected.
Both of those claims were false and no retraction was given. They are even now still forcing people to take the two year old injection or not get a job?
Please Angelo why are people being coerced to take an injection that does not prevent infection or transmission and does not give you herd immunity?
Right Yukon! These mongers at the gate always simply shift the goal posts when they need and never taking ownership of what they claimed originally. No one ever holds them to REAL account. They simply shift the narrative and have an excuse every time.
Agreed. If the vaccine stops transmission, why is it not stoping transmission? You told us it stop transmission and infection and gives us herd immunity and it did not. Why should we believe you when you tell us it reduces death?
Sadly many many people today. My sister-in-law works at some pharmaceutical company in Cambridge Massachusetts and she was talking about how at first she questioned the vaccine but then looked at "the data" and saw it was perfectly safe and got her two shots, and her two kids, both under the age of 18, got their two shots. Then she got the Delta variant. I mentioned to her at least now she has natural immunity which is better than vaccinated immunity, and she looked me right in the eyes and said "well I don't know that..... I'm still getting the booster."
My cousin is super smart and a RN yet still believes cult doctors. Medical community eventually will come around they should be particularly upset for the deliberate lies
There's a subconscious ideological angle to it. Vaccination provides a sense of affirmation to, or initiation into, the humanistic collective, like a baptism. The risk of potential harm makes it all the more fulfilling. It's food for the soul of starving collectivists, many of whom are trapped in a solitary lifestyle of hyper-individualism, brought about by addiction to personal electronic devices. These devices are the arch right-wing nemesis they sense is disrupting the ideological balance, but cannot connect the dots. Their subconscious is screaming, and their conscious mind can't figure it out.
"Hey Angelo! Now show us the email inquisitions you laid upon Fauci, Walensky, Bourla, and other Covidiots after THEY each uttered patent lies and provable falsehoods? AND, show us their answers.
Having a hard time keeping up with the evidence of vaccine failure,a study out of Israel is basically saying the vaccines are making things worse,people dropping dead “suddenly “ or coming down with Covid 2 to 3 times in a row.You will never pop the bubbles of people living behind the gates of the gatekeepers .However at this time I seeing an incredible amount of speculation among general public and “normmies “ ,seems like a dam is about to collapse.
Same fate here. However my bubble dweller is in a rude awaking bad we finally caught the vid. Kids and I did fine, spouse still sick, still testing positive, six days in with three mRNA shots. We never even showed a pos Rapid Test. I can see the wheels turning….
Yes that’s the study,looks like Moderna didn’t vaccinate their control group like Pfizer did,fairly amazing that the “trust the science “ people don’t understand you need a control group.
I thought that the February DHS warning about "narrative change" (they blame "foreign actors") was about the obvious "vaccine" failure. Interesting if people ever get upset in mass probably not but who knows?
When Angelo was a child, his Mommy asked him what he wanted to do when he grows up - I want to be a fact-checker for the AP, Mommy. Oh for f**k sake, Angelo, as she wiped his arse.
This "fact checker" is obviously too ignorant to formulate a relevant question, so he asks you to explain generalities, which he will call "false" because he's too uninformed to understand your
response. This person is probably a recent graduate of a very expensive college.
he is constantly telling his parents that about the great new modern way of doing things as he passes them on the way to his bedroom/office in their basement
Thank you, Alex, for this very concise and professional (Journalistic), response to an obvious hack. I have a close acquaintance who is a surgeon. I've been sending him the articles you've posted on substack. He's definitely in your corner but when I've spoken to him on the subject it appears to be much worse than we think.
This is some of my favorite content as it sheds light onto the entire “fact checking” business. Who checks the fact checkers? Who are these “experts” Angelo is referring to? Find one guy or gal who disagrees with Alex, publish Alex as spreading “misinformation” and publish your AP story.
Obviously, Angelo will focus on THIS report, and dismiss references to any other study. I'm just wondering if he even knows what a anti-nucleocapsid whatever (too lazy to scroll to the top) is and it's function in immune defenses.
Dr. Robert Mallone explained it quite simply with how bypassing the natural method of detection and defense (through nasal passages) and shooting it directly into the body was like setting off an atomic bomb in the body. It didn't allow the body to properly develop a defense, and overwhelmed the body's immune system by the sheer magnitude of foreign bodies that in turn set up their own factories to create even more.
How dare someone offer an explanation for a phenomenon we are all observing?
I mean, I actually KNOW fully vaccinated people who were boosted, caught covid, and then went and got a second booster WITH THEIR DOCTOR'S APPROVAL. Why not fact check THEM?
I’ve heard of many folks in the Bay Area here. Boosted. Got Covid 1-2 this winter and spring and immediately for booster 2 as symptoms subsided. It’s almost like an addiction?
By the way, I see I wrote “herd immunity” when I meant “natural immunity” in my answer. I’ll tell Angelo!
Does not matter what you tell Angelo, he might as well be a bot
Fact check: true
God bless you Alex! I think I would have told him to do his own damn research, but you eloquently answered his questions with backup while also giving a bit of a jab (no pun intended 😉).
👏👏👏👏
It's important to confront bullies. They're persistent, and won't surrender after one loss, but if we ignore them, they think theyre winning. Eventually they get it.
Agreed!
I read it and immediately knew you meant natural immunity. This AP fact check hack will undoubtedly not realize that and attempt to use it against you.
I suspect those kind of mistakes are what they’re going for when they try to rush people with these deadlines. “Hey I can quote that!”
FYI: As a paying subscriber, I had to download the substack app to get your stacks...my email has decided to dump all of your mail into my junk box.
It even ignored my vip notifications
Same here. lots of stuff in spam.
My email is selective - spam for some from Alex, my inbox for others. It seems to spam el gato more than Alex, but since it also spams Amazon I think my email (AOL via Verizon) just sucks.
Substack Reader on a browser works well. I've never read posts or comments via email.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I like the app better but I'm still getting emails. So far.
Alex your substack account is impossible to find on duckduck today. This is a new thing.
I was about to correct you Alex - but I'm glad you corrected yourself. Cheers!
Did the UKHSA stop reporting the blood donor surveillance data when they stopped the infections/hospitalizations/deaths by vaxx status?
Gotcha !!!
The fact that the news media seems to think we need "fact checkers" is a tacit admission that they are mostly wrong to begin with.
Only actual facts need fact checking. The nonstop lies spewed by the dying legacy media never seem to be fact checked.
Carl Sagan, 25 years ago:
"I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hand of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscope’s, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness."
Man. I was a kid between the 80s and early 90s that anxiously waited for the weekly dubbed new episode of Cosmos, presented by Carl Sagan, on my country's television.
It enormously shaped my vision of the world, my studies, and my professional choices.
It is sad to see the same program being remade and presented by that sycophant DeGrasse. What a difference in integrity and humility between Sagan and him. Sagan was never arrogant, yet you could feel the authority and truth in his words.
Sorry, Sagan was many things, but humble was not one of those things. Great science mind, but quite the huge ego with an eye for the coeds. To channel Sagan in all his glory, he was deeply . . . human.
On a scale of Max Born begin 0 on the humble scale and Carl Friedrich Gauss being a 10, I'd still place Sagan at around 4.
I'd always toyed with making a graph of Ego on the X axis, Intellect on the Y axis, and plotting the various great minds of the 20th century on it. Something like... (mostly spitballin here)
Gauss - 10/10
Sagan - 4/6 (what he lacked in sheer intellect he made up for with his language and communication skills)
Feynman - 8/9
Max Born - 1/9
Fauci - 10/1
Einstein - 7/9
I wish they would release a remaster of Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, that's a great one too. Book is fantastic.
Great quote. Another one I love--from Richard Feynman. "I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned". (More or less).
I love Feynmans takedown of social science (which encompasses epidemiology). https://youtu.be/tWr39Q9vBgo
Feynman was not only a century-class genius, he was fearless and gifted with the ability to make the most complex subject simple. His "Lectures on Physics" is a classic. I have a copy.
Once upon a time, I was an "adjunct professor" at a local tech college. I would ask them if they had ever heard of some current sports figure, rapper, etc. Nearly 100 percent. Have you ever heard of Richard Feynman? Norman Borlaug? Dick Morley (I was teaching a class on PLC programming. PLC's run virtually every automated manufacturing line in the world. He invented it.). No one had a clue.
That makes me so sad yet explains so much
The whole experience was sad and frustrating. Vast waste of human resources. As I said, generally perfectly fine minds. But, how in the H do you teach electronics to someone that wouldn't have passed my ninth-grade algebra class? There was no way to catch up.
Long ago, far away, I was a graduate assistant at a major university. Teaching Analog Computation--which really dates me. Analog computers were fantastic but are dead as the dodo bird.
Engineers are generally marginally literate--when it comes to writing. I told them in the first class that I WOULD get a complete sentence from everyone in the class. Being an Engineer, we aren't talking John Stuart Mills--it has to begin with a capital letter, end with a period and having a subject and a verb. That there was a column in the grade book that would get a check when I got the complete sentence and they would not pass unless there was a check in that column. I never actually failed anyone, but I batted about 50 percent in that column.
When I started at the tech college, I laid down the same rule. Gave up on the effort forthwith. Hopeless cause. The Engineering students of 50 years ago knew what a sentence was, these kids had no idea. Their reading comprehension was generally in about the third grade.
Massive waste of human capital.
BTW, most of these people had pretty decent high school grades. Insane.
Funny that ole Carl would say that - as people of his world-view have been the major CONTRIBUTORS to the development of the very conditions he decries... If he'd really been that concerned about this - he would have not advocated and supported those that advocated the very policies which have led us to the place where we find ourselves.
That's what I was thinking. When people in the US or anywhere lose their Judaeo-Christian beliefs and worship "the Universe" we lose any basis for moral behavior. And despair is the result. The heavy use of meds in the US is a symptom of that.
He died 25 years ago. He, along with people like Feynman were the strongest opponents of letting pseudoscience masquerade as hard science.
https://youtu.be/tWr39Q9vBgo
His materialist world view leads to moral anarchy. Which we now are seeing unfold. With the best of intentions, neither he nor Feynman were inquisitive enough to see there is no way the universe could have come into being without a Creator. Their world view is one of despair.
I'll agree as an atheist that I didn't foresee all the problems the removal a cohesive binding around a singular faith would entail, but that doesn't mean we should cling to superstitions solely because losing them would mean we just find another superstition that may be worse.
As much as all of this sucks right now, I would much rather live in the superstitions of 2020 than the superstitions of 1690.
Interesting take. So I guess all the morally bankrupt superstitions being pushed on people now, men are women, women are men, gender is a mindset, all whites are inherently racists. Man is the center of the universe. How you feel trumps the realities and hard facts of life. The alternative, there’s something out there bigger than you, understand that and serve that higher power and you will be rewarded. Yeah, today’s superstitions are much better.
Jim, true! I have a few good friends who tell me they're atheist and I'm always struck by how (in my view) it would sound much more human and humble if they claimed agnostic, b/c if you "know" for certain there is no God, you must know so much about everything else, including why I'm
apparently hallucinating when I see so much to the contrary. I'm an A+ moron in many ways, but I've seen so many cool great amazing things in this world (Also a few bad things, like that raging asshole Fauci) (Ha, made myself laugh. Told ya I'm a moron!)
Agree that as we shed our superstitions it turns out we are just finding new ones (as you pointed out, Gender Theory, Anti-Racisim, etc) which indicates to me the evolutionary importance mankind has of having to cling to SOMETHING.
I'm just not convinced that the old ones are much better than the new ones. But it is fascinating watching from the sidelines what happened to us when moved on without a replacement. (It's part of the reason I still put my kids through Catholic school)
There was a South Park episode some 15 years ago where they depict a dystopian future of warring factions of Atheists fighting over which is the "True Science" and it seemed ridiculous then but prescient now.
I'm all for "Sky Cake"[1] in moderation, if it gets you through your life, great. I draw the line when anyone tries to force their desert on me, and that includes all the superstitions you mentioned above.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55h1FO8V_3w
Faith is the opposite of superstition. Superstition is what we're seeing unleashed now, as Jim points out below. St Thomas Aquinas was the theologian to make it clear that faith and reason are married.
Summa Theologica. YES
Israel is very religious and succumbed to this pseudoscience as willingly as Americans. Italy, very religious, look where that got them. South America? Same.
Even if I were to buy the argument that our lack of faith allows mental parasites to more easily take hold (something I do partially agree with) - the mass hysteria of Covid was not impeded by religious faith unless it turns out the Amish anabaptist faith turned out to be the "true" faith as they are among the few groups who didn't buy into this obvious bullshit. Maybe Jehovah's Witnesses too? Did they mask up?
Fact Check: Too True
Michael, I was unable to "like" your comment so Im writing that I love the Sagan quote and very much like your defense of Sagan ("he died 25 years ago"), I was kinda surprised to read a few commenters who like Sagan's prescient quote, but are upset that he didn't also head this whole dystopia off.
Perhaps if he didn't get sidetracked with the LSD Dolphin Program in the 70's he might have had time to stave off this dystopian nightmare? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7ruBotHWUs
Ha! True Michael, but at least he saw it coming. I have friends (not dumb) who can't even see it now, even though it's practically punching them in the face every few minutes.
Such a great discussion beginning with the Sagan quote. Love it when this happens. I googled the Sagan quote to make sure it was accurate and Snopes was the first hit when the quote went viral in reference to Donald Trump and science.
The Snopes piece quoted Matt Novak:
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan[s] [Fauci] [TPTB] power over you, you almost never get it back."
The bamboozle is punching yours and my friends in the face.
Darker than a lone steers tuchus on a moonless prairie night.
lovvve it!
Man, you made my day with this passage by the one and only Carl Sagan. Thank you. I love you commenters...you really make this wonderful life that much better....Alex's posts and his followers have been a part of my lifeline these past 27 months. Bless all of you!
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Thank you Al..I just subscribed to your workshop site..it looks interesting.
You are pretty much describing the “Eloi” of H. G. Wells’ “THE TIME MACHINE”
I still hide behind the couch when those damn morlocks appear lol
But only the OG movie! Same!
Yeah...the OG morlocks! All morlocks bug me though :)
We need to become the morlocks
WHOA
If this country just had a sit down read of The Demon-Haunted World I'm confident we could sort through this mass hysteria and come to our senses.
https://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469/ref=sr_1_1
Hi Jesse, it comes from his final novel "The Demon-Haunted World", p25 of the hardcover 1st edition. I highly recommend the book, even audio is great (narrated by Cary Elwes).
Other favorite passages below, read these and ask yourself if "The Science^TM" we say "practiced" the last two years remotely resembles the type of science Carl Sagan spoke of:
>My parents were not scientists. They knew almost nothing about science. But in introducing me simultaneously to skepticism and to wonder, they taught me the two uneasily cohabiting modes of thought they are central to the scientific method.
>It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it.
>Naturally people try various belief systems on for size, to see if they help. And if we’re desperate enough, we become all too willing to abandon what may be perceived as the heavy burden of skepticism. Pseudoscience speaks to powerful emotional needs that science often leaves unfulfilled.
>Pseudoscience differs from erroneous science. Science thrives on errors, cutting them away one by one. False conclusions are drawn all the time, but they are drawn tentatively. Hypotheses are framed so they are capable of being disproved. A succession of alternative hypotheses is confronted by experiment and observation. Science gropes and staggers toward improved understanding. Proprietary feelings are of course offended when a scientific hypothesis is disproved, but such disproofs are recognized as central to the scientific enterprise. Pseudoscience is just the opposite. Hypotheses are often framed precisely so they are invulnerable to any experiment that offers a prospect of disproof, so even in principle they cannot be invalidated. Practitioners are defensive and wary. Skeptical scrutiny is opposed.
>Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which best fit the facts. It urges on us a delicate balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything-new ideas and established wisdom….. When we are self-indulgent and uncritical, when we confuse hope and facts, we slide into pseudoscience and superstition.
>One of the great commandments of science is, “Mistrust arguments from authority.” (Scientists, being primates, and thus given to dominance hierarchies, of course do not always follow this commandment.) Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else.
>There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths. That openness to new ideas, combined with the most rigorous, skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, sifts the wheat from the chaff.
>One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
Thank you so much for this..and the book recommendation.
Natural immunity is and has been the way to go. Anecdotally, my family and I all had Covid in Nov/Dec 2020. We've lived a completely normal life throughout the pandemic including lots of travel both domestic and international. We still have not been reinfected and in fact, I still tested positive for antibodies a few months back. The fact that natural immunity has been ignored since day one is criminal.
Same! Same timing of infection. We live a normal life. We don’t disinfect anymore, no sanitizers, no masks. We get dirty- don’t want those nasty chemicals and no reinfection! Meanwhile, i have jabbed and boosted friends who keep getting sick and reinfected. Yes anecdotal but soon anecdotal will be hard to ignore. Keep fighting the good fight!!
If you're still a pureblood, how did you manage to travel internationally throughout the pandemic? Not a "gotcha" question! Just curious.
The vaccine wasn't required where we went. Some locations required a covid test to enter. Coming back to the US, we had to take a test within 72 hours. I think on our last trip they changed it to within 24 hours...
If I have to take a shot to go there then it isn't worth going.
Similarly, I don't take health advice from restaurant owners, grocery store owners, airlines, cruise lines, festival operators, golf courses, etc.
The idea that someone would get jabbed with an untested, rushed-to-market experimental gene therapy so they could partake in some optional, voluntary activity is astounding stupidity, IMO.
I will make a phony vaxx card to play golf, however. I mean...I *would've*, yeah, that's what I meant. I *would've*...
Phony vax card for a phony vaccine. Sounds fair to me!
IMO anyone who did this is in the right as this whole mandatory BS vaccine push is unconstitutional to the extreme.
If I did it - not saying I did, only if I did - then it would only have been to be able to hit golf balls OUTSIDE, at a range, OUT OF DOORS, even though they required me to be vaxxed...in order to hit golf balls, that's right, OUTFUCKINGSIDE.
Hypothetically.
Other than that, I (hypothetically) refused to use it to patronize restaurants and any other establishment or activity that required the jabs, and, I (hypothetically) took note of those places and vowed NEVER again to set foot in them or to give them even one red cent of my money, not even for takeout orders. They are dead to me.
Hypothetically, of course.
Fuck the shot. We spend thousands every year traveling and will take our money to countries that aren't recovidarted. Who wants to go to a place like Canada or NYC where covid vax nanny brown shirts walk the streets looking for those without a face diaper?
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Agreed! I know a few people who took the shot as soon as they could because they wanted to travel.
I know a few who really regret their short-sightedness in this regard
When I got sick with Covid, I never tested positive. My wife went through it pretty badly and finally showed positive after 5 days.
I have a sibling who had all the symptoms, but tested negative 4 times. Now, 3-4 months later, is experiencing issues with the heart and strange test numbers. Her doctors say…”oh those tests are NOT reliable…you DEFINITELY had it”
Funny, the FDA is using those same tests to determine that avian flu has spread through millions of chickens across many states simultaneously, causing them all to be destroyed.
Contrived/forced food shortages ???
Wow! I wonder how many other people had the same situation.
No test results required if you’re an illegal immigrant. They have more rights than we. Sickening really. Yet the media has so squelched the true voices of Americans…. We have no voice.
Don't ever believe you don't have a voice. That's something that can never be taken away as long as you choose to speak up.
Because it will take each of our voices together to overthrow this madness.
Thanks Justin. I do agree with you. Once our voices are totally ignored….. well, thank God for the 2nd Amendment.
The first amendment was about our voices... that seemed to be most important as a principle. :-)
I know lots of people who got around various rules
So do I...they were clever!
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You should ask Angelo if he thinks the press should be immune from civil liability for lying about medical treatments.
As a 65 y/o Covid survivor of the original strain who has enjoyed 15 months of pretty good health since then I will anecdotally stand with my natural immunity. No toxic witches brew for me. At the time, it just didn't seem right so once I had it and got better (not minimizing the experience as it was no fun but similar to past respiratory flu infections) I equated it with why get the flu shot just after I had the flu? Now I feel pretty smart ... :) Anyway, I am not anti vax in the traditional sense it's just these mRNA shots are so far out of bounds and the mandates were senseless government overreach that people were suspicious and double wary by then. Now it looks like we un-shot are all pretty smart. Sad for the others that swallowed the lie but sometimes, you learn the hard way. And I see hard times coming for millions. Tragic.
I wasn't an antivaxxer before but I'm leaning that way now. Vaccines are a racket. They don't have to cure anything. No way to know for sure they ever prevented your catching any disease. Big money in bad medicines.
Mostly agree. Some old proven vaccines like Polio have done well. The new trend of having a shot or pill for everything possible is a racket. Look how many class action lawsuits have been settled by Big Pharma. But this time is different and we must trust them ... NOT.
plus their suppression of any good medicines that they can't make a financial killing on. pun intended.
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MEDICINE, n. : a stone flung down the Bowery to kill a dog in Broadway.
— Ambrose Bierce
I will be 70 soon, so we're in the same boat, and had the same experience with the Wuhan as you did, fever, which broke in the night, lack of energy for about a week, then I was good. I'm also not an anti-vaxer, I've pretty much gotten every vaccine my doctor recommended. But I have a terrible fear and foreboding when it comes to this one. The real crime, should everything go tits up, is what recourse do those people have who had it forced upon them. And just how deadly will it be.
Your making the right call. Seems every day another 60 something “dies in there sleep” or some other form of “unexpectedly”. A lot of Hollywood types, who for sure took the jabs, I doubt you can walk on any movie set without having them. From day 1 this was a disease of the weak and sickly. Any relatively healthy person was gonna be just fine. Only since the mass jabbing have people been dying younger and under odd circumstance.
When I read about Ray Liotta, I wondered if he'd had the shots.
Don't know if the use of fetal cells in vaccines bothers you but many of the new ones are made using them. It's a no go for me.
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I'm with you 100% - What happens to people I care about that were forced into this situation through employer mandates etc..? We could be looking at mortality numbers off the charts plus birth / pregnancy issues never before seen in modern times. Who will be held accountable? Where is the justice? Tragic.
A surgeon acquaintance of mine expressed concern due to an increase in cervical issues among vaccinated women.
One of my best friends is an ER Doctor and he will not take the shots. Good enough for me.
Just saw a friend I hadn’t seen in over a year, had 2 strokes after the jab, her docs first question, “are you jabbed” when she said yes, he said that it caused her strokes. She saved her son from getting them to join the coast guard like he was going too. After that he said forget it.
Honesty and Timing…
Both sooooo critical.
I was wondering if Formant hpv would get a head start thanks to mRNA immunosuppressive properties
I'm no doctor but it's a question worth asking. And, in your line of thinking, what about other viruses. Ebola, HIV, Hunta, virus gonna virus, and if the door is open what's to stop them as well.
Fact checkers are what Edward was pointing out on steroids:
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.
...
In almost every act of our daily lives ... we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons ... who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
-Edward Bernays, Master of Propoganda
His book is a roadmap of what’s happening now.
I have similar conversations with people and I usually keep it simple.
First, I claim the vaccine has failed. They told us it would stop transmission and infection. It did not and no scientific paper was written to explain why all the previous papers and studies were wrong.
Second, they claim the vaccine would lead to herd immunity and this is the second reason why they are forcing everyone to be injected.
Both of those claims were false and no retraction was given. They are even now still forcing people to take the two year old injection or not get a job?
Please Angelo why are people being coerced to take an injection that does not prevent infection or transmission and does not give you herd immunity?
Right Yukon! These mongers at the gate always simply shift the goal posts when they need and never taking ownership of what they claimed originally. No one ever holds them to REAL account. They simply shift the narrative and have an excuse every time.
Agreed. If the vaccine stops transmission, why is it not stoping transmission? You told us it stop transmission and infection and gives us herd immunity and it did not. Why should we believe you when you tell us it reduces death?
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Naturally produced antibodies = bad. Vaccine induced antibodies = good. Who thinks like this?
Sadly many many people today. My sister-in-law works at some pharmaceutical company in Cambridge Massachusetts and she was talking about how at first she questioned the vaccine but then looked at "the data" and saw it was perfectly safe and got her two shots, and her two kids, both under the age of 18, got their two shots. Then she got the Delta variant. I mentioned to her at least now she has natural immunity which is better than vaccinated immunity, and she looked me right in the eyes and said "well I don't know that..... I'm still getting the booster."
🤦🤯🤦🤯🤦🤯
“The data”? Selective info to prove whatever your point is.
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My cousin is super smart and a RN yet still believes cult doctors. Medical community eventually will come around they should be particularly upset for the deliberate lies
There's a subconscious ideological angle to it. Vaccination provides a sense of affirmation to, or initiation into, the humanistic collective, like a baptism. The risk of potential harm makes it all the more fulfilling. It's food for the soul of starving collectivists, many of whom are trapped in a solitary lifestyle of hyper-individualism, brought about by addiction to personal electronic devices. These devices are the arch right-wing nemesis they sense is disrupting the ideological balance, but cannot connect the dots. Their subconscious is screaming, and their conscious mind can't figure it out.
😵💫😵💫😵💫
THEY
“Not I “ said the duck.
"Hey Angelo! Now show us the email inquisitions you laid upon Fauci, Walensky, Bourla, and other Covidiots after THEY each uttered patent lies and provable falsehoods? AND, show us their answers.
Whatcha got?"
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Having a hard time keeping up with the evidence of vaccine failure,a study out of Israel is basically saying the vaccines are making things worse,people dropping dead “suddenly “ or coming down with Covid 2 to 3 times in a row.You will never pop the bubbles of people living behind the gates of the gatekeepers .However at this time I seeing an incredible amount of speculation among general public and “normmies “ ,seems like a dam is about to collapse.
You’re absolutely correct, bubble dwellers (I’m married to one) don’t want to hear anything outside of their comfort zone
Same fate here. However my bubble dweller is in a rude awaking bad we finally caught the vid. Kids and I did fine, spouse still sick, still testing positive, six days in with three mRNA shots. We never even showed a pos Rapid Test. I can see the wheels turning….
This too...
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/328102
Yes that’s the study,looks like Moderna didn’t vaccinate their control group like Pfizer did,fairly amazing that the “trust the science “ people don’t understand you need a control group.
Yes... amazing indeed. Makes you wonder if it was plain ignorance, stupidity, or purposeful.
I thought that the February DHS warning about "narrative change" (they blame "foreign actors") was about the obvious "vaccine" failure. Interesting if people ever get upset in mass probably not but who knows?
I was sure of election cheating immediately yet many after even 2000 miles still believe election still "most secure" in history
Patrick B your link doesn't work
When Angelo was a child, his Mommy asked him what he wanted to do when he grows up - I want to be a fact-checker for the AP, Mommy. Oh for f**k sake, Angelo, as she wiped his arse.
😂🤣😂🤣 good one!!
This "fact checker" is obviously too ignorant to formulate a relevant question, so he asks you to explain generalities, which he will call "false" because he's too uninformed to understand your
response. This person is probably a recent graduate of a very expensive college.
Angelo is probably a 20 something, just out of college, I know everything, you know nothing, woke liberal.
he is constantly telling his parents that about the great new modern way of doing things as he passes them on the way to his bedroom/office in their basement
With colorful hair, a hipster beard, piercings, and Aether or Patagonia clothes his rich parents bought him.
Thank you, Alex, for this very concise and professional (Journalistic), response to an obvious hack. I have a close acquaintance who is a surgeon. I've been sending him the articles you've posted on substack. He's definitely in your corner but when I've spoken to him on the subject it appears to be much worse than we think.
This is some of my favorite content as it sheds light onto the entire “fact checking” business. Who checks the fact checkers? Who are these “experts” Angelo is referring to? Find one guy or gal who disagrees with Alex, publish Alex as spreading “misinformation” and publish your AP story.
Obviously, Angelo will focus on THIS report, and dismiss references to any other study. I'm just wondering if he even knows what a anti-nucleocapsid whatever (too lazy to scroll to the top) is and it's function in immune defenses.
Dr. Robert Mallone explained it quite simply with how bypassing the natural method of detection and defense (through nasal passages) and shooting it directly into the body was like setting off an atomic bomb in the body. It didn't allow the body to properly develop a defense, and overwhelmed the body's immune system by the sheer magnitude of foreign bodies that in turn set up their own factories to create even more.
How dare someone offer an explanation for a phenomenon we are all observing?
I mean, I actually KNOW fully vaccinated people who were boosted, caught covid, and then went and got a second booster WITH THEIR DOCTOR'S APPROVAL. Why not fact check THEM?
I’ve heard of many folks in the Bay Area here. Boosted. Got Covid 1-2 this winter and spring and immediately for booster 2 as symptoms subsided. It’s almost like an addiction?