Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

At least in FL since we have the "low wage but higher cost of living" status, you have a lot of cheapsake customers who see the "oh now that sandwich costs $12 before tax, I'll go someplace else for cheaper." A lot of customers are agreeing with business owners on the "short on help - blame Biden/Democrats since more people wanna sit on their ass home with our tax money." I seen that sign on various businesses in my area.

As I stated previously, FL voters did vote on a Min Wage Increase to $15 that will fully be in effect in a few years. After speaking with some smaller business owners, they are planning to have fewer people working for them/hire more family for free labor on top of raising prices. Their perspective: People will see that a starting course before a main course of a meal is $15, they will go somewhere else since people are cheap.

This and of course the FL Unemployment Payoff is the worse in the nation ($275 max per week up to 12 weeks), which a lot of voters and the FL GOP (even DeSantis) want to reduce the Unemployment pay out or get rid of it altogether due to business interest and the belief that government shouldn't help people and people should help themselves. But that isn't for everyone, FL State Senate was considering trying to raise the Unemployment payout but DeSants shot it down, saying tons of job openings and more/less said get off unemployment and get a job. Of course being mostly a service industry type of jobs with lower wages, it is not the best if you trying to put a roof over your head. Some might say this is shocking, but when you have people moving from NE Blue states to FL with the feeling that they are getting sick of tired of paying for taxes where people are taking advantage of it and they want people to earn their own money.

 

If anyone had any doubts about the what the COVID public "health" policy of the US government is all about the Biden speech about COVID should put those doubts to rest.
The president with the approval rating in the 35% range whose FDA administration just announced that the approval of COVID pills is coming this week does not tell American people anything about it.
That it will make them safer, that it is a significant progress particularly in the context of the Omicron supersonic speed of spreading, that people will be able to get treatment right after being tested. Nothing like that.
Instead the message is: get vaxxed or you are dead, and then get your booster or you are dead, and Omicron is deadly, yes deadly, do not believe any data, if you do, you are a bad person.
The reason is obvious: Profit to Big Pharma from the drug that is administered to only sick people is just a fraction of he profits from the vaccines mandates that extends to everyone and is supposed to permanent.

 

Not only that, but the complete global temper tantrum re: omicron when we knew basically nothing about it except that it existed. It's just pathetic at this point. Does anyone remember predictions at the beginning of the pandemic (by people that actually knew what they were talking about) that these types of viruses usually mellow out in about two years and become endemic? We're a few months away from that point, and it appears to be happening pretty much on schedule based on the latest updates re: omicron.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/south-africas-case-drop-show-omicron-peak-passed-81888933

https://khn.org/morning-breakout/omicron-patients-80-less-likely-to-be-hospitalized-new-study-finds/ (unfortunately the Bloomberg article itself is behind a paywall)

I honestly wonder why anyone trusts our public health officials and related agencies anymore. Seems many others agree: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/21/ame...al-response-to-omicron-creates-confusion.html.

You know things are jacked up when the normal discussions of preventative measures during literally every other cold and flu season are pushed to the wayside. Where is discussion around handwashing, ensuring you get good rest, increasing Vitamin C intake, eating healthy, etc.? During the entire pandemic, but especially now as we head into the normal cold and flu season. Why is the hashtag #naturalimmunity banned on Instagram? Why is any disagreement with the published narrative, regardless of the facts and evidence shared in support of the position, labeled as misinformation and blocked or removed? Why every time I search for an article on Facebook or Google or a video on YouTube am I presented with vaccine information popups and information panes telling me that vaccines are safe and effective? Why is the CDC taking out advertising space on YouTube videos saying the same?

It's like everyone is ignoring decades of science and pushing nothing but injections. Makes no sense, until you consider what @wormcycle mentioned above.

I hope history is unkind to decision makers and big tech for their actions over the past couple years.

 

Omicron might very well be the most contagious virus in known history. Easily in the top three.

Those sorts of predictions really weren't founded on anything solid, and you can't hold them up literally years later to predict the next few months. The evolution of the virus has involved variants with increased and decreased transmission, and increased and decreased mortality.

Nobody could have predicted omicron. I simply can't stress enough how insanely contagious it is, we've never seen anything like it. The fact that omicron seems to come with reduced mortality? Sheer luck.

First thing, COVID is airborne, and hand washing does nothing. To transmit the flu, someone literally has to be able to hock a big loogie onto someones face. Omicron is more like some smoking a honking huge cigar, and anybody who can smell the smoke will get infected. The transmission and virulence of omicron is unprecedented.

Second thing.... What blinkers are you wearing that you haven't heard all the messaging to avoid the virus, and improve general health? Masks and social distancing are the direct equivalent to hand washing, with the reality that COVID is airborne. Our health authorities are telling people to get/stay healthy all the time. Even under the strictest lockdowns, they were telling people to get out and get exercise.

History will be cruellest to those who actively promoted prolonging the pandemic.

 

WHO held a meeting in 12/2019 called the Global Vaccine Safety Summit
1st video is WHO vaccine marketing to the masses,
the 2nd video, 1 week later, is WHO reality,
3rd video is antivaxxer reality according to WHO.
And 4th is further comment on the lack of safety studies by the WHO.
https://rumble.com/vnva8j-who-safety-marketing.html
https://rumble.com/vnvaed-who-safety-reality.html
https://rumble.com/vnv9yl-misinformation-is-not-misinformation.html
https://rumble.com/vnva2z-vaccine-safety-studies-needed.html

 

That is very encouraging that finally there are voices in WHO who are prepared to engage in a meaningful education about the benefits and risks of vaccination. People who understand that the liars in power labeling everybody who questions their lies as misinformation, and heavy censorship are not working anymore.

 

Not even going to bother.

 

I hope Omicron brings an end to this pandemic. No doubt people are all very tired of it, but pandemics don't come with timetables nor do they care about anyone's feels.

I think what will matter, and which I have not seen discussed much as it is still to soon to know, is whether infection with Omicron confers good immunity to the other strains in circulation (mostly Delta currently) or not. We know neither a months old two shot vaccine regimen nor previous infection confer good immunity against Omicron. If Omicron gives everyone a nice big boost of immunity with a much lower rate of severe disease, that could be the end of this pandemic. If Omicron does not confer good immunity to other strains, then it basically just means everyone is going to get Omicron this winter, and then the pandemic will continue on as it was.

Fingers crossed.

 

That's a very good point.

We've known for a long time that the combination of infection then vaccination, or vaccination then breakthrough infection, offers the strongest immunity. I think we can be extremely optimistic that omicron will do the same, at least in the short term, and it could give a decent respite if lots of people get it with minimal hospitalisations.

But could it 'end' the pandemic? I'm not so sure.

Yep, absolutely.

 

Take undiscovered resource estimates with many billion barrels of salt - having done them I can tell you how embarrassingly unconstrained the uncertainties are. For shale plays (the bulk of the US undiscovered) they're extremely so, because the reservoir properties are really on the edge of allowing the oil to be technically, let alone economically, recoverable, and the tiniest changes in assumptions make huge differences in the results. Historically, recoverable reserve estimates for unconventional plays have typically been way over what's been extracted before the play goes off the boil and drilling moves elsewhere.

The numbers vary quite a bit by play (and within a play) and it's been a couple of years so I might be out of touch, but if someone tries to sell you a shale opportunity that's supposedly profitable at $50-55 I'd recommend walking away very fast. Shale production is so capital intensive that as soon as drilling starts, costs rocket; and it's so petrophysically marginal that as soon as production starts, recovery rates (and therefore profits) rapidly decline. Yes, JR and his peers did overspend when prices were high, not so much as to flood the market but enough to make the US a net exporter, to attract the majors into the plays, and to suggest to OPEC that it was in danger of losing its price-setting ability. So OPEC's response was just as you said, and everybody now seems to understand that it'll happen again if US production looks like ramping up too much (which is what I was trying to say in my previous post).

Until other forms of energy can meet all our needs, I agree that oil (and gas) production capacity should be widely distributed and that price stability - or at least predictability - is desirable. As greedy as its members are, OPEC knows that the oil price can't go too high (at least, not for long periods) without encouraging other oil producers and other forms of energy, which will get cheaper over time as they scale up (as has happened, as you mentioned, with solar and wind in North America), so it controls its production so prices are most of the time within a window acceptable to it (except for short periods of boom/bust influenced by outside factors eg pandemics). So OPEC's behavior is actually a damper on price swings. Non-OPEC governments also play a role in this: it's governments, not producer companies, that make most of the money out of hydrocarbon production, and by adjusting taxes, royalties, production share etc., they can have a big influence on the proportion of local vs imported product and therefore on prices at the pump (quite apart from any direct production or import controls or sales taxes they might levy). I should have been more explicit that it that it was these sorts of considerations rather than 'green' ones that were the focus of my question to @crenca as to his thoughts on the influence of policy on energy costs.

 

This bickering is getting old. Can we change the subject? No one minds is going to change and I just got an iPhone 13 like a iSheep thinking about getting a "grande" latte from Starsmucks....and oh god no not the Starsmucks!!!! I can get better coffee from less from the Eastern Euro Cafe down the block.

New topic: How to get @crenca to stop the hatin and love the ear rapping? I mean IEMs.

 

That's easy, just something that is around HD6.. level technicalities without any BA or what have you wonkyness. The Zen pro could very well be it.

We're in Atlanta waiting for our connection back to El Paso, and a Delta pilot just waved to my 7-year-old daughter as he was being pushed back and we were staring out the window. Sort of reminded me of that Seinfeld episode, but different.

 

just adding to the sideshow of expressing less prickish input. My dad was a commercial airline pilot, and as a child, flying D2 standby was something I cherished, even though flying D2 meant I (as a 7 year old) had to wear a miniature blazer and a hilariously small clip-on tie. watching those giant magnificent machines defy gravity and trundle into the sky was always something that kept me glued to the window glass at any airport. And to know that there are folks who drove those planes that *knew* that any kid with a nose smooshed into the glass, fascinated, 100% deserved a wave "hi!" from those two tiny humans who were having the pleasure of an office in the sky is just so cool.

 

Because of all the batshit bullcrap that people spout about the immune system? Especially about strengthening it, which very likely involves taking their therapy, buying their books, and swallowing their supplements --- or, at least, subscribing to their dietary dogma. Or stick a jade egg up which ever orifice is available to your gender.

Yes, we have natural immunity. If we didn't we'd never live long, let alone as long as some of us have. In the weakest, wimpiest of us it is actual the thug of our bodies. There are some things, though, that it has always found difficult to beat and survive, hence the science of immunology and the wonder of vaccination etc.

Our immune systems are already tough enough, except when they aren't, and those people who are telling us that it is good enough to strengthen them, apart from my objections mentioned, should recognise that if twenty oranges a day (or whatever) can improve our resistance to covid, then, probably we should have started that ten years ago. As we didn't, best to just get vaccinated.

As someone who always had an interest in natural/alternative medicines, over a wide field going as far out as spiritual healing and even (the rationalist's bete noir) homeopathy, I'm horrified at the shitfest that that field has turned into. Before they talk about the admittedly far-from-perfect world of big pharma, they should take a better look in their own mirrors.

 

@wormcycle and @zonto , you both hit on issues that Dr Peter McCullough brought up in an interview with Joe Rogan a couple weeks ago. He was involved early on with testing treatments for Covid, and as soon as they confirmed that certain antivirals and vitamin regimens were highly effective, the pushback became intense. There never was any other interest in solutions other than pushing vaccines.

 

Is McCullough still pushing hydroxychloroquine? Maybe the "highly effective" regimens he's talking about just weren't actually effective when they were rigorously studied.

 

He mentions that it’s effective in combination with other stuff when given at the right time. I also believe that was the drug where the rigorous negative study was sponsored by a company or organization that was previously unknown and quickly dropped off the planet as soon as the study was done. It’s an interesting interview. If you’re interested in a different viewpoint, it’s worth listening to.

 

There have been multiple trials around the world that found hydroxychloroquine ineffective, vague insinuations of people profiting from suppressing it not withstanding. I find "different viewpoints" less useful than hard scientific evidence when it comes to medical treatment, so I'll skip the interview.

 

Which is why no work has been on drugs that help to protect people from covid as soon as they catch it? And why it has not just been discovered that Heparin (a common blood thinner) just might prevent the virus from getting further than our nasal passages?

Oh, wait. It turns out that people and pharma companies are researching all sorts of things.

One of the problems with all sorts of things is that people, non-medical folk (and sometimes the doctors too, like that French guy) get emotionally invested in their pick of the bunch. Hydroxychloroquine might have been a thing. It wasn't. But now there's like a church of hydroxychloroquine. Bleach injections might have been... Oh wait, ok, ok, that's going toooo far