2021-09-10

Cool

• Do not miss the rhinos hung upside down from helicopters: Sex can relieve nasal congestion, and other work honored by 2021 Ig Nobels. | Ars Technica

  Bulut et al. found that sex could indeed improve nasal congestion as effectively as nasal decongestant for up to 60 minutes, returning to baseline levels within three hours. Granted, a good 12-hour nasal spray would last much longer, but it's less fun. And some people might experience adverse effects from nasal spray, so having a natural substitution method for congestion would be helpful. The authors hope that there will be further studies to investigate whether masturbation has a similar effect for singletons.

  • https://www.improbable.com/2021-ceremony/winners/#ig2021

• PC DOS 1.1 From Scratch | OS/2 Museum

• Minamil: a minimal CNC mill. And friends. | Hackaday.io

Worthy

• Counterfeit Capitalism: Why a Monopolized Economy Leads to Inflation and Shortages - by Matt Stoller - BIG by Matt Stoller

  So what is actually happening? I’m not sure, but below I’m going to lay out some of the dynamics I’m seeing.

etc

• Overcoming Bias : Think of the (Alien) Children!

• NSF Announces 6 New Sci-Tech Centers to Address Vexing Societal Problems

Horseshit

• Imagine a Future Without Sex

• Hackers are leaking children’s data – and there’s little parents can do

celebrity gossip

• Covid vaccine pioneer: Scientists’ egos key barrier to progress

• Trump says he wants to box Biden on 9/11

• How Anthony Fauci Became a Superstar

• Jimmy Kimmel: Hosptials should treat vaccinated people before unvaccinated

• Tesla Model S Plaid just set world speed record for a production electric car

• Theranos’ greatest invention was Elizabeth Holmes

Obit

• Jay Leiderman Obituary: Lawyer to Anonymous Hackers Dead at 50

Culture War / Re segregation / Identdoctrination

• Invisible Ink Could Reveal Whether Kids Have Been Vaccinated

  Along with the vaccine, a child would be injected with a bit of dye that is invisible to the naked eye but easily seen with a special cell-phone filter, combined with an app that shines near-infrared light onto the skin. The dye would be expected to last up to five years, according to tests on pig and rat skin and human skin in a dish.

• Report: College Textbook Says People Who Oppose Lockdowns Caused COVID Deaths – Summit News

• The Surprisingly Strong Supreme Court Precedent Supporting Vaccine Mandates

• Miami physician orders patients to get the shot or find another doctor

• As a doctor, here’s my message to anyone who thinks it’s OK to deny medical treatment to those unvaccinated against Covid — RT Op-ed

• A Historian: Michael Taylor on Why We Need Classics

• Why Resist Blank Slate Thinking? For One, Look to No Child Left Behind - by Freddie deBoer - Freddie deBoer

  wonks of all types who work at nonprofits and in media conspicuously avoid discussing whether everyone has the same academic potential. When inherent ability is referenced at all in the literature it tends to be a vague handwave that does not factor into the final analysis. But if what we’re interested in is how people learn and why some succeed and some fail, this is totally nuts!

• Wealthy Black Families Still Suffer Segregation Fed Study Says

• The American Aristocracy Tries to Fight Racism. It's Not Working

• Despite 95% vax rate, Cornell has five times more Covid cases than last year

• (Dec 2020) Why Did So Many Doctors Become Nazis? - Tablet Magazine

• (July 2021) America’s Maoist Mutation

• Kentucky Lawmakers Scrap Statewide Mask Mandate In Schools

Media / Many Ministries of Truths / Censorship

• An Anti-Vaccine Book Tops Amazon's Covid Search Results. Lawmakers Call Foul

• Twitter to label 'good' bot accounts

• Why the world still loves 1970s detective show Columbo

• BBC Admits Syria Chemical Attack Documentary Had "Serious Flaws" | ZeroHedge

TechSuck

• Apple prohibited from blocking outside payment in Epic ruling

  + [Apple Trial Ends in Mixed Verdict After Epic’s Monopoly
  Allegations](https://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-trial-ends-in-mixed-verdict-after-fortnite-makers-monopoly-allegations-11631289792)
  

  • Apple wins Epic antitrust suit

• Apple fires Ashley Gjøvik, senior employee who alleged sexism at work

• Big Tech Has Made Billions Off the 20-Year War on Terror

• Wide-ranging SolarWinds probe sparks fear in Corporate America

• SpaceX: Amazon's protest is an irrelevant an irrelevant “diatribe”

• Some of the most iconic 9/11 news coverage is lost. Blame Adobe Flash

Economicon

• Janet Yellen warns US Treasury risks running out of cash in October

• A supply chain catastrophe is brewing in the US. : collapse

  About a week ago my 2018 Freightliner broke down. A critical air line blew out. The replacement part was on national backorder. You see, truck parts aren't really made in the US. They're imported from Canada and Mexico. Due to the borders issues associated with covid, nobody can get the parts in.

  The wait time on the part was so long that my company elected to simply buy a new truck for me rather than wait.

  Two days later, the new truck broke down. The part they needed to fix it? On national backorder. I'll have to wait weeks for a fix. There are 7 other drivers at this same shop facing the same issue. We're all carrying loads that are now late.

• Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub Sue New York City over Commission Caps

• U.S. producer prices up 8.3% in August from a year earlier

• Companies Need More Workers. Why Do They Reject Millions of Résumés?

Poilitcks

• OSHA to require employers with 100 employees vaccinate or test workforce

  + [HN thread](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28474997)
  

  • Biden Exempts Over 600,000 USPS Workers From Federal Mandatory Vaccination Order | ZeroHedge

    According to the Washington Post citing a "White House official speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss not-yet-public portions of the president’s plan", U.S. Postal Service workers were not included in Biden’s executive order requiring all federal employees to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

    Curiously, shortly after the WaPo original reported about the USPS exemption, someone woke up Joe from his nap or got in touch with whoever really runs the country, and advised them that the natives may get restless at this glorious hypocrisy, and so a "senior Biden admin" told Yahoo that "U.S. Postal Service workers are subject to a rule to be developed by the Labor Department mandating coronavirus vaccinations for workers and weekly testing for non-vaccinated employees at companies with over 100 workers, a senior Biden administration official told CNN and the Washington Post."

  • Where Does Biden Get the Authority To Mandate Vaccination? – Reason.com

  • Biden Unveils Most Severe COVID Actions Yet: Mandates Vax For All Federal Workers, Contractors, & Large Private Companies | ZeroHedge

    "What more is there to wait for? What more to do you need to see? We've been patient, but our patience is wearing thin and your refusal has cost all of us."

  • Joe Biden’s Covid vaccine speech

    Then he promised to shield them against the evil people who are threatening their very lives: “We’re going to protect the vaccinated from unvaccinated coworkers.”

  • DoL to Boost Vaccine Requirements for Large Employers, Federal Workers

    • In Fascist Move, Biden Administration To Force Vaccine Mandates On Private Companies

    • Biden to ask OSHA to mandate vaccines at businesses

  • comment:

  Let's take Biden's facts at face value. CDC says the current running average is 12,156 covid hospitalizations per week 0. 175M vaccinated according to Biden. 1 in 160,000 hospitalized per day according to biden. Total US population is 328.2M, so 153.2M are unvaccinated. CDC says 1736.57 hospitalizations per day at present. 175e6 / 160e3 = 1094 vaccinated hospitalized per day. That leaves 643 unvaccinated people hospitalized per day. 153.2e6 / 643 = 1 unvaccinated per 238k hospitalized per day. If the President and CDC are not lying, then unvaccinated people are NOT the problem.

  • (Dec 5, 2020) Joe Biden: Covid vaccination in US will not be mandatory

  • (Jul 31, 2021) U.S. CDC chief says there will be no federal mandate on COVID-19 vaccine | Reuters

  • (May 3, 2021) OSHA Imposes New Guidance For Employer-Required COVID-19 Vaccines | 2021-05-03 | Engineering News-Record

    "If you require your employees to be vaccinated as a condition of employment (i.e., for work-related reasons), then any adverse reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine is work-related. The adverse reaction is recordable if it is a new case under 29 CFR 1904.6 and meets one or more of the general recording criteria in 29 CFR 1904.7."

  • Today the link COVID-19 - Frequently Asked Questions | Occupational Safety and Health Administration says:

    DOL and OSHA, as well as other federal agencies, are working diligently to encourage COVID-19 vaccinations. OSHA does not wish to have any appearance of discouraging workers from receiving COVID-19 vaccination, and also does not wish to disincentivize employers' vaccination efforts. As a result, OSHA will not enforce 29 CFR 1904's recording requirements to require any employers to record worker side effects from COVID-19 vaccination at least through May 2022. We will reevaluate the agency’s position at that time to determine the best course of action moving forward.

• "Not Now, Not Ever": RNC To Sue Biden Over Vaccine Mandate As GOP Governors Go Ballistic

• Rand Paul: Vaccine Mandates That Ignore Natural Immunity Should Not Be Adhered To | ZeroHedge

• Andrew Yang to launch a third party

• Skilled Workers Are Scarce, Posing a Challenge for Bidens Infrastructure Plan

• Did 9/11 Change the United States?

• The Justice Department is throwing a Hail Mary pass in its lawsuit against Texas' abortion ban

Crime / Police

• Stark Contrasts: RealClearInvestigations' Jan. 6-BLM Side-by-Side Comparison | RealClearInvestigations

• Federal Judge Acquits Professor Accused of Hiding China Ties

• LA police ask people they stop for their Facebook and Twitter account info

Security / Militaria

• Protein and Transpacific Power - by Fortis Analysis - Human Terrain

  Adding all of this up, we see that China has an astoundingly large quantity of protein to produce and import for its population. Taken together with the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s fears of social upheaval due to food insecurity (and the stain upon the party from the Great Leap Forward), the impetus for much of China’s belligerence in global fishing and crackdowns on commodities trading become clear. Broadly speaking, the confluence of supply side and logistics disruptions has formed into a perfect storm, where China cannot as readily meet its current food demand through production, trade, acquiring foreign food manufacturers, and even illegal activities such as illicit fishing.

• Hackers breached U.N. computer networks earlier this year

• The US-Saudi ‘special’ relationship 20 years after 9/11

Afghanistan

• Second Qatar Airways passenger flight takes off from Kabul

• Taliban 1.0, Chapter 2 - by Jonah Goldberg - The G-File

• Growing Use of Cryptocurrency in Afghanistan Poses Security Concerns

• 9/11 20 years later: Survivors still seek justice while Taliban retakes Afghanistan

World

• Russia Summons US Ambassador Over Election "Meddling" - Embassy Downplays Meeting | ZeroHedge

• Will Xi move on Taiwan? History warns he might: Niall Ferguson

• US committed to one China policy: Biden says to Xi

• Taiwan Navy launches 'carrier killer' with 28 missiles

• Ukraine spies tried to ensnare alleged Russian war criminals with a fake website

• A Twitter user insulted a German politician. Police then raided his house

• Garmin removed OpenStreetMap-based Russia map with occupied Crimea

Health / Medicine / COVID

• Major study finds convalescent plasma doesn’t help seriously ill COVID-19 patients.

• Johnson and Johnson’s coronavirus shot recipients feel left behind on boosters

• Are graphene-coated face masks a Covid-19 miracle – or another health risk?

• We’re Asking the Impossible of Vaccines

• The west has more vaccine doses than it needs–and no excuse not to share them

  Complete protection against infection has long been hailed as the holy grail of vaccination. It might simply be unachievable.

• Why many scientists say it’s unlikely that SARS-CoV-2 originated from a lab leak

• Teenage boys more at risk from vaccines than Covid, study finds

• A Covid-19 Vaccine Fractured Fairy Tale | Sharyl Attkisson

• Using Wastewater Surveillance Data to Support the Covid-19 Response

• Analysis of Covid-19 Mask Mandates on Hospital Resources and Mortality

• Dr. Fauci Finally Gets Exposed - by Emerald Robinson - Emerald Robinson’s The Right Way

  My question set off a firestorm in the media. I was denounced as a conspiracy theorist by several corporate media outlets. Vanity Fair ran crappy articles about it. I was the subject of lame fact-checks by bogus organizations. The antiquated TV news show 60 Minutes even had their correspondent Scott Pelley attempt to discredit my question in a segment that painted the nefarious “gain of function” researcher Peter Daszak as a hero.

  It turned out that I was right and all those media outlets were wrong. It's always been perfectly obvious that COVID-19 came from the Wuhan lab in China but America's national security state didn't want you to know your tax dollars were funding bioweapons research conducted by the Chinese Communist Party.

• FDA Removes Millions Of E-Cigarette Products From The Market—But Not Juul Or Other Top Brands

• Experts offer ‘weak’ support for marijuana to treat chronic pain.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• How the largest direct air capture plant will suck CO2 out of the atmosphere

• California needs to stop saying everything causes cancer

• Administration Advances the Future of Sustainable Fuels in American Aviation

• Earth’s tipping points could be closer than we think

• Google sets new water goals as droughts worsen

• Why potato milk may be the most sustainable option