2021-12-17

Worthy

• 25 Anti-Mimetic Tactics for Living a Counter-Cultural Life - Epsilon Theory

• Overcoming Bias : We Don’t Have To Die

etc

• Biden Admin Releases Nearly 1,500 Secret Documents On JFK's Assassination | ZeroHedge

• Judge tosses $4.5B deal shielding Purdue's Sackler family from opioid claims

• Workers at candle factory file class-action lawsuit

• Enraged monkeys kill 250 dogs by dropping them off buildings out of revenge

• Mother gives birth to 'Tesla baby' while vehicle drives on autopilot

Horseshit

• America’s Future Depends on the Blockchain

• Kraft will pay you not to make cheesecake this holiday season

  The "Spread the Feeling" promotion will run from Friday to Jan. 4, but dessert devotees will have just two days to try to claim a spot. The company says that 10,000 online reservations will open at noon ET on Friday, and another 8,000 will become available at noon the next day.

• 'Anti-5G' necklaces are radioactive and dangerous, Dutch nuclear experts say

• Bitcoin ‘may not last that much longer,’ academic warns

celebrity gossip

• Via National File

COVID / VaxCult

• CDC advisers vote to narrow use of J&J vaccine due to concerns of TTS

  • CDC vaccine advisers vote to recommend Pfizer, Moderna vaccines over J&J's

• Covid threatens the Brain – from blood-clots to infected Neurons

• Omicron blindspots: Why it’s hard to track coronavirus Variants

• The CDC’s Flawed Case for Wearing Masks in School

• ‘Virtually every’ Covid omicron case at NY college was in fully vaccinated

• Is the Worst Over? Models Predict a Steady Decline in Covid Cases

• Omicron is dominant in wastewater samples in Florida county

• From blood clots to infected neurons, how Covid threatens the brain

• Breakthrough infections generate 'super immunity' to Covid-19, study suggests

• Study of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron superspreader event in Oslo

• More Cheery Omicron News | naked capitalism

  Forgive me for looking hard for the flaws in some of the optimistic takes on emerging information. While it’s possible they will be largely correct, the bias is overwhelmingly towards positive interpretations. Yet at this stage, the precautionary principle argues strongly for looking for and preparing for the downside, and easing up only when solid favorable findings comes in.

• Covid-19: Runny nose, headache, and fatigue are commonest symptoms of omicron

• I Canceled My Birthday Party Because of Omicron

• A Covid-19 'viral Blizzard' is about to hit the US, expert says

• Vaccine Holdouts in Army and Navy Will Be Dismissed, Military Says Archive link

  Some of those who are unvaccinated, however, have medical and administrative waivers or pending requests, or have already signed up for shots. But Army officials said that less than 1 percent of active-force members are in that category. Thousands of troops requested religious exemptions, but none have been granted, officials said.

  Each service branch set its own deadlines for compliance with the mandate, which was issued last August. The Air Force, with more than 325,000 active-duty members, hit its deadline on Nov. 2. Pentagon officials said this week that 27 airmen — all with less than six years of service — were the first believed to have been fired over vaccine refusals. The deadlines for the Marines and the Navy were on Nov. 28. The Army’s was on Wednesday.

• America Can't Beat Omicron One Booster at a Time

• Pfizer pushes back FDA submission for pediatric Covid vaccine

  American children under the age of five may not be vaccinated until mid-2022, as Pfizer said Friday that it’s going to now test a third dose of its Covid-19 vaccine in the trial. The decision comes as Pfizer announced non-inferiority was not met for children between the ages of two and five when compared to older teenagers in the current trial. Pfizer previously said it might apply for an EUA in this youngest population by the end of December or early next year, but now says that if the three-dose study proves successful, Pfizer and BioNTech expect to submit data to regulators to support an EUA “in the first half of 2022.”

• Omicron doubling every 1.5 days in parts of UK

• Fluvoxamine: Studies Proving Generic Drugs Can Fight Covid Are Being Suppressed

• Omicron largely evades immunity from past infection or two vaccine doses

• Pfizer and Biontech Provide Update on Ongoing Studies of Covid-19 Vaccine

• Pfizer Trial of Low-Dose Shot Fails for 2- to 5-Year-Olds

• Open letter from The BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg | The BMJ

  We find the “fact check” performed by Lead Stories to be inaccurate, incompetent and irresponsible.

  • HN thread

• Omicron Gets Around Previous Covid Infection, Study Warns

• Booster at least 80% effective against severe Omicron

Culture War / Re segregation / Faith Fights

• Dungeons and Dragons: Wizards of the Coast Removes Problematic Lore

  • Dungeons and Dragons Is a Case Study in How Capitalism Kills Art

• Follow-up on the moderation issue | Inside Rust Blog

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• President Daniels responds to Chinese student's harassment | purdueexponent.org

  “Joining the Purdue community requires acceptance of its rules and values, and no value is more central to our institution or to higher education generally than the freedom of inquiry and expression,” Daniels said in the email. “Those seeking to deny those rights to others, let alone to collude with foreign governments in repressing them, will need to pursue their education elsewhere.”

  • HN thread

    • (Nov 30, 2021) Even on U.S. Campuses, China Cracks Down on Students Who Speak Out — ProPublica

  • In response to President Daniels' letter and Chinese Community : Purdue

  • Purdue president calls harassment, intimidation of pro-freedom Chinese student ‘unacceptable.’

• TikTok school shooting threat “challenge” rattles country

  • Schools across US cancel classes over unconfirmed TikTok threats

  • TikTok says it’s removing ‘alarmist warnings’ about school violence

Media / ShowBiz / Censorship

• The death of Reddit’s Santa is a loss for all of us

• The Disinformation Agents: NBC News Tells Four Blatant Lies in 2min Clip

  Corporate media outlets are attempting to rehabilitate their shattered image by depicting themselves as the bulwark against the rising tide of disinformation. It is an understatement to say that this righteous cause is a scam. That its motive is power and control over speech and thought — to eliminate dissent and discredit competition — rather than a noble quest for truth is almost too self-evident to require explanation. No human institutions should be trusted with the inherently tyrannical power they seek to arrogate unto themselves: to decree truth and falsity with such authoritative power that views they have decreed "false” become prohibited, off-limits, even worthy of punishment.

• Formula Journalism gets noticed

• Longtime CNN producer John Griffin's devices seized 17 months before child sex trafficking arrest | Fox News

  • Different person: BREAKING: Project Veritas reveals ANOTHER pedophilia scandal involving a CNN producer | The Post Millennial

• How Russia tries to censor Western social media

TechSuck

• Who’s Behind Web3?

• TikTok streaming software is an illegal fork of OBS | Hacker News

• Google Drive could soon start locking your files

• Excellent: How to avoid layout shifts caused by web fonts – Simon Hearne

• 300k MikroTik routers are ticking security time bombs, researchers say

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation

  • HN thread

• Will the Reddit Army Show Up for Reddit Stock?

• How Amazon Crushes Small Business

• Gummy Bears Give Russia Economist Inside Track on Inflation

• Ray Dalio warns Fed’s hands are tied and higher U.S. inflation is sticking

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government | The White House

• Vaccine Makers Funneled Undisclosed Cash to Democrats and Republicans in 2020

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• FBI Investigation Into Alleged Michigan Governor Kidnapping Plot Got Complicated

  A continuing BuzzFeed News investigation reveals new information about how Chambers' business, along with an array of issues involving other FBI agents and informants, has bedeviled the prosecution. Those issues may well affect the course of the trial. But beyond the integrity of the case, the problems are serious and widespread enough to call into question tactics the FBI has relied on for decades — and to test the public’s trust in the bureau overall.

• Judge rejects Purdue Pharma's $4.5B opioid settlement

• Crypto exchanges keep getting hacked, and there's little anyone can do

• Bay Area Car Owners Leaving Trunks Open While Parked Amid Wave of Car Break-Ins

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• Russia hands draft security pacts to US, expects quick talks

• US accuses China of developing 'brain control weaponry' Archive link

• Engineer accused of attempting to pass US secrets to Russia

• The costs of cutting Russia off from SWIFT

• U.N. chief urges action on 'killer robots' as Geneva talks open

World

• China lists 100 topics citizens can't include in online vids • The Register

• France shuts down nuclear plants – gas and power prices shatter records

• A domestic newspaper warns of the Russian space program’s “rapid collapse”

• Turkey suspends stock trading as currency strain spreads through markets

Health / Medicine

• Flu vaccines don't match the main circulating flu virus strain, researchers find

• Animal protein intake is inversely associated with mortality in older adults

• FDA says abortion pills can be sent by mail

  • FDA makes abortion pills permanently available through mail and telehealth

• Side effects surface in 40% of patients on Biogen's Alzheimer's drug Aduhelm

• Bayou Renaissance Man: A nurse reader describes the state of her hospital

• Alzheimer's drug aducanumab not approved for use in EU

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Lessons from science fiction on how to fight climate change

• European supermarkets pull beef products linked to Brazil deforestation

• Wood burners cause nearly half of urban air pollution cancer risk – study

• Global Coal Power Expected to Hit Record Despite Climate Fight

• California's poison oak problem may be getting much, much worse