2021-12-25

Merry Christmas!

Cool

• Key Milestones After Liftoff – James Webb Space Telescope

• Reverse-engineering a tiny 1980s chip that plays Christmas tunes

etc

• Immigrant family of 7 from Honduras died from carbon monoxide poisoning in Minnesota home, police say | Fox News

• America Would Be More Happy with More People

• Churches Have Been Closed, but Their Artifacts Live On

• After years of doubts, hopes grow that nuclear fusion is near

• California officials close beaches after man dies in shark attack

Horseshit

• MORE THAN 3,000 FLIGHTS CANCELED WORLDWIDE AS AIRLINES CITE COVID-19 STAFFING ISSUES

• Killed by a pill bought on social media: counterfeit drugs poisoning US teens

• Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

COVID / VaxCult

• (Nov 2021) The facts about fetal cell lines and Covid-19 vaccines

• On a Yacht Off St. Barts the Future of Covid Testing Is Taking Place

• Omicron may not be the final variant, but it may be the final variant of concern

• South Africa ends quarantines and contact tracing, and authorizes booster shots

• Locked-out New Zealanders outraged as visa scheme for rich foreigners resumes

• Some simple game theory of Omicron

• CIA’s Osama Bin Laden Vaccine Ruse Haunts Public Health Efforts

• Israel Considers 4th Vaccine Dose, but Some Experts Say It’s Premature

• The Babylon Bee Presents: COVID Christmas Carols | The Babylon Bee

• A Myth is Born: How CDC, FDA, and Media Wove a Web of Ivermectin Lies That Outlives The Truth

  Despite the alert and New Mexico’s unfounded pronouncements, no one has died from ivermectin poisoning among 2,112 cases logged by AAPCC from January 1 to December 14, 2021. Two percent of those reports, about forty-two, involved a “major” effect, an AAPCC bulletin states. Seventy percent were dismissed as having no effect, “nontoxic exposure,” and the like. Acetaminophen alone generated 47,000 reports in 2019 and led to 164 deaths, according to the AAPCC.

• New York State Shortens Covid Quarantine Guidelines For Essential Workers

• CDC shortens isolation time for health care workers with Covid-19

• Workers plead for people to get vaccinated

• Queensland’s chief medical officer warns the spread of COVID-19 is ‘essential’ and ‘necessary’ as the caseload climbs across Australia

• ‘Design and Healing’ Shows How Epidemics Lead to Innovation

• Researchers report loss of antibody potency against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant

• Ontario shatters all previous Covid-19 records with 9,571 new cases

• UK Does Not Advise Vaccines For 5-11 Year Olds, While US Starts To Mandate Them

• Nitric Oxide: The Missing Factor in Covid-19 Severity?

  Having successfully developed a nutritional formulation intervention based on nitrate, a nitric oxide precursor, the authors hypothesis is that both the comorbidities associated with negative clinical patient outcomes and symptoms associated with COVID-19 sickness are linked to the depletion of a simple molecule: nitric oxide.

Culture War / Re segregation / Faith Fights

• Algorithmic amplification of politics on Twitter | PNAS

  We present two sets of findings. First, we studied tweets by elected legislators from major political parties in seven countries. Our results reveal a remarkably consistent trend: In six out of seven countries studied, the mainstream political right enjoys higher algorithmic amplification than the mainstream political left. Consistent with this overall trend, our second set of findings studying the US media landscape revealed that algorithmic amplification favors right-leaning news sources. We further looked at whether algorithms amplify far-left and far-right political groups more than moderate ones; contrary to prevailing public belief, we did not find evidence to support this hypothesis.

• American Pravda: Vaxxing, Anthony Fauci, and AIDS, by Ron Unz - The Unz Review

Media / ShowBiz / Censorship

• A Dangerous Court Order Against the New York Times Archive link

  On Friday, however, a New York trial court judge broke from that precedent when he issued an order blocking The Times from publishing or even reporting further on information it had obtained related to Project Veritas, the conservative sting group that traffics in hidden cameras and fake identities to target liberal politicians and interest groups, as well as traditional news outlets.

  • Judge rules The New York Times must destroy documents and not publish reporting on conservative group

• Washington Post Grasps for New Direction as Trump-Era Boom Fades

TechSuck

• TSMC Wants To Make Intel Dependent On External Manufacturing - Wafer Supply Agreement Insights For AMD, Apple, Broadcom, Intel, MediaTek, Nvidia, and Qualcomm

• Russian-Made Elbrus CPUs Fail Trials, 'A Completely Unacceptable Platform'

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Thanks to the Chip Shortage, Texas Instruments Is Worth $170 B

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• Biden says "Lets Go Brandon"

  • Caller to Biden: Merry Christmas, Let's Go Brandon

  • "Jared’s full name and contact information were not immediately available.”

• The Worst Political Predictions of 2021

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• Wave of suicides hits Texas National Guard’s border mission

External Security / Militaria / Diplomania

• The USS William D. Porter: The Unluckiest Ship in WWII

  • Of course there's a counter view: USS William D. Porter, DD-579

World

• Why Authoritarian Regimes Bother with Elections

• Canada's public health agency admits it tracked mobile devices during lockdown

• Steam has been banned in China

• China hoarding over half of the world’s grain, pushing up prices

• Polish deputy PM says Germany wants to turn EU into ‘fourth reich’

• ‘Festival of shame’: Why China has cracked down on Christmas

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Earth Is Spinning Faster Now Than It Was 50 Years Ago.

• Fossil fuel combustion kills more than 1M people every year, study says