Author: Papa Giorgio

Dr. Bhattacharya Discusses Covid and Lockdowns with Dennis Prager

Published by Papa Giorgio

Dennis Prager interviews the co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, Jay Bhattacharya. Dr. Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He directs Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. Bhattacharya’s research focuses on the health and well-being of populations, with a particular emphasis on the role of government programs, biomedical innovation, and economics. Most recently, Bhattacharya has focused his research on the epidemiology of COVID-19 and evaluation of the various policy responses to the epidemic. He is a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document proposing a relaxation of social controls that delay the spread of COVID-19.

A worthwhile interview.

Here are some of the signatories of Great Barrington Declaration:

  • Martin Kulldorff, professor of medicine at Harvard University, a biostatistician, and epidemiologist with expertise in detecting and monitoring infectious disease outbreaks and vaccine safety evaluations.
  • Sunetra Gupta, professor at Oxford University, an epidemiologist with expertise in immunology, vaccine development, and mathematical modeling of infectious diseases.
  • Jay Bhattacharya, professor at Stanford University Medical School, a physician, epidemiologist, health economist, and public health policy expert focusing on infectious diseases and vulnerable populations.
  • Alexander Walker, principal at World Health Information Science Consultants, former Chair of Epidemiology, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, USA
  • Andrius Kavaliunas, epidemiologist and assistant professor at Karolinska Institute, Sweden
  • Angus Dalgleish, oncologist, infectious disease expert and professor, St. George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, England
  • Anthony J Brookes, professor of genetics, University of Leicester, England
  • Annie Janvier, professor of pediatrics and clinical ethics, Université de Montréal and Sainte-Justine University Medical Centre, Canada
  • Ariel Munitz, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
  • Boris Kotchoubey, Institute for Medical Psychology, University of Tübingen, Germany
  • Cody Meissner, professor of pediatrics, expert on vaccine development, efficacy, and safety. Tufts University School of Medicine, USA
  • David Katz, physician and president, True Health Initiative, and founder of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, USA
  • David Livermore, microbiologist, infectious disease epidemiologist and professor, University of East Anglia, England
  • Eitan Friedman, professor of medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Israel
  • Ellen Townsend, professor of psychology, head of the Self-Harm Research Group, University of Nottingham, England
  • Eyal Shahar, physician, epidemiologist and professor (emeritus) of public health, University of Arizona, USA
  • Florian Limbourg, physician and hypertension researcher, professor at Hannover Medical School, Germany
  • Gabriela Gomes, mathematician studying infectious disease epidemiology, professor, University of Strathclyde, Scotland
  • Gerhard Krönke, physician and professor of translational immunology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
  • Gesine Weckmann, professor of health education and prevention, Europäische Fachhochschule, Rostock, Germany
  • Günter Kampf, associate professor, Institute for Hygiene and Environmental Medicine, Greifswald University, Germany
  • Helen Colhoun, professor of medical informatics and epidemiology, and public health physician, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
  • Jonas Ludvigsson, pediatrician, epidemiologist and professor at Karolinska Institute and senior physician at Örebro University Hospital, Sweden
  • Karol Sikora, physician, oncologist, and professor of medicine at the University of Buckingham, England
  • Laura Lazzeroni, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and of biomedical data science, Stanford University Medical School, USA
  • Lisa White, professor of modelling and epidemiology, Oxford University, England
  • Mario Recker, malaria researcher and associate professor, University of Exeter, England
  • Matthew Ratcliffe, professor of philosophy, specializing in philosophy of mental health, University of York, England
  • Matthew Strauss, critical care physician and assistant professor of medicine, Queen’s University, Canada
  • Michael Jackson, research fellow, School of Biological Sciences, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
  • Michael Levitt, biophysicist and professor of structural biology, Stanford University, USA.
  • Recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
  • Mike Hulme, professor of human geography, University of Cambridge, England
  • Motti Gerlic, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
  • Partha P. Majumder, professor and founder of the National Institute of Biomedical Genomics, Kalyani, India
  • Paul McKeigue, physician, disease modeler and professor of epidemiology and public health, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
  • Rajiv Bhatia, physician, epidemiologist and public policy expert at the Veterans Administration, USA
  • Rodney Sturdivant, infectious disease scientist and associate professor of biostatistics, Baylor University, USA
  • Salmaan Keshavjee, professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, USA
  • Simon Thornley, epidemiologist and biostatistician, University of Auckland, New Zealand
  • Simon Wood, biostatistician and professor, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
  • Stephen Bremner,professor of medical statistics, University of Sussex, England
  • Sylvia Fogel, autism provider and psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and instructor at Harvard Medical School, USA
  • Tom Nicholson, Associate in Research, Duke Center for International Development, Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, USA
  • Udi Qimron, professor of clinical microbiology and immunology, Tel Aviv University, Israel
  • Ulrike Kämmerer, professor and expert in virology, immunology and cell biology, University of Würzburg, Germany
  • Uri Gavish, biomedical consultant, Israel
  • Yaz Gulnur Muradoglu, professor of finance, director of the Behavioural Finance Working Group, Queen Mary University of London, England

Disney Has Jumped the Shark (Racist Wokism At Disney)

Published by Papa Giorgio

In an excellent article from CITY JOURNAL entitled “The Wokest Place on Earth“. Dennis Prager is flummoxed at the disgusting and immoral actions by Disney Corp. During the monologue Prager cannot remember the law professor he interviewed, Amy Wax is her name. (I have the interview HERE) The article she and Larry Alexander wrote is entitled: “Paying the price for breakdown of the country’s bourgeois culture” (PHILEDELPHIA ENQUIRER). An article regarding the response to Amy can be found at INDEPENDANT WOMEN’S FORUM (IWF).

I just wish to say I nor my wife have ever been a Disney fan… we view it as a cult in discussion between us. I have no idea why, however, now I have the urge to be evangelistic about others not liking Disney as well.

SIDE NOTE: the picture for the video is via BLAZING CAT FUR, a site BTW I love. Thanks BCF!

Disney “Responds”

The POST MILLENNIAL has a follow up to Disney’s response. Here is the Tweet by Christopher Rufo they commented on (with Mr Rufo’s additions – click to enlarge):

TWEET

DISNEY’S RESPONSE

MR. RUFO’S COUNTER

 

 

 

 

Biden’s BIG-Government

Published by Papa Giorgio

Here are the two articles mentioned in the below audio by Armstrong and Getty (Hour 1 Thursday, and Hour 3 – same day):

  • America’s Welfare State Is on Borrowed Time — Biden has fully embraced the mad goal of giving 98% of the population lavish benefits at no cost. (WALL STREET JOURNAL | THE RED LINE [no pay wall])
  • Democrats Are Killing the American Dream — Joe Biden’s American Families Plan replaces individual striving with middle class entitlements. (WALL STREET JOURNAL | BLACK REPUBLICAN)

REASON.COM has been on fire as of late:

 

 

CIA Recruitment Video (Armstrong and Getty – #WokeCIA)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Wow. One of the funniest parts is the “box checking” exercise this person engaged in just before saying she is not about “box checking.” Another point I heard from many is that there was no discussion of patriotism, or love of country or mission. Sick. WTF is the CIA doing? Self-imploding like everything else the Marxist Left touches (read here “Brennan”). ACE of SPADES has a good post. TWITCHY is always fun as well. DAILY CALLER’S piece is good.

If A Mistrial Happens On Appeal…. This Is Why

Published by Papa Giorgio

The judge in Minneapolis acknowledges Maxine Waters’ incendiary remarks. (Apr 19, 2021)

(I doubt a mistrial will come, but the above and below will be the reason if this trial is done again.) A couple things… this trial should have not been in the same town/state where the offense happened. And the jurors should have been sequestered. These two facts may provide a mistrial for the defense. LEGAL INSURRECTION notes a juror’s comments as well:

Well before the guilty verdict was announced in the Derek Chauvin trial earlier this week, there were concerns that fears of riots breaking out or jury members being personally targeted if they voted the “wrong way” would play a role in their deliberations, especially after some “news” outlets stupidly revealed previously unknown personal information on some of the jurors in the closing days of the trial.

Lisa Christensen, who was an alternate juror in the trial (but did not know she was an alternate until just before deliberations began), gave an interview to Minneapolis news station KARE 11 on Thursday where she provided the first insight the public is getting into what went through the minds of jurors before and during the trial. Some of the things she said during the interview raised more questions regarding the possibility that some jurors feared voting to acquit would hurt their city – or them.

Christensen, who lives in Brooklyn Center, told reporter Lou Raguse that she had “mixed feelings” about the possibility of being a juror when she filled out the jury questionnaire:

“There was a question on the questionnaire [asking if she wanted to be a juror] and I put I did not know. The reason, at that time, was I did not know what the outcome was going to be, so I felt like either way you are going to disappoint one group or the other. I did not want to go through rioting and destruction again and I was concerned about people coming to my house if they were not happy with the verdict.”

[….]

During the interview, Christensen made it clear that she believed Chauvin was guilty and says she would have voted that way had she been a part of deliberations. Her exchange with the KARE reporter as well as other statements she’s made to the media since then give me the feeling she had determined Chauvin’s guilty early on, but that’s just my impression.

This is my personal opinion, of course, but it’s hard to believe that fear of retaliation wasn’t present in the jury room on some level, even if it wasn’t explicitly discussed. If you’ll recall, during the jury selection process, some prospective jurors admitted to fears of being targeted by rioters.

Human emotions are what they are. Though they were partially sequestered throughout the trial, none of the Chauvin jurors could have possibly missed the destruction that happened in Minneapolis after George Floyd’s death, if not also the nightly rioting that happened in cities like Portland and Seattle.

Keep in mind, too, that it’s highly unlikely that any juror would openly admit that safety concerns played a role in their decision to convict. It’s not very often you see people who are put in the position of making decisions that impact others admit they voted the way they did because they were fearful of what might happen to them if they didn’t….

The CDC Is Lowering The PCR Test Cycle Thresholds

Published by Papa Giorgio

UPDATE BELOW IS DATED MAY 4th (2021)

The CDC is lowering post-vaccine case detection PCR test cycle thresholds to 28. It was 36-40 before, which “found” 10x [CORRECTION BELOW] as many false positive cases.

The CDC is not a medical organization. It is a political one. This is them shouting that fact.

— J.P.

  • CORRECTION I was wrong. The sudden lowering of the PCR cycle threshold by the CDC lowers the sensitivity not by 10x but by 1000x. It’s exponential. — J.P.

(RPT) What does this mean? Well, this means there will be a dramatic drop in cases under Biden.

UPDATE

The Facts:

  • The CDC is and will be collecting samples from COVID tests of vaccinated individuals to try and determine if the virus can breakthrough the protection of the vaccine. In doing so the CDC has specified a cycle threshold for PCR tests.

Reflect On:

  • Why a cycle threshold suddenly? Why not one prior to the rollout of vaccines? How many false positives have we seen as a result of no prior cycle threshold? Will PCR tests of the unvaccinated have this new cycle threshold?

The CDC is requiring that clinical specimens for sequencing should have an RT-PCR Ct value ≤28 when conducting tests for vaccinated individuals. “Ct” refers to cycle threshold.

According to Public Health Ontario,

The cycle threshold (Ct) value is the actual number of cycles it takes for the PCR test to detect the virus. It indicates an estimate of how much virus was likely in the sample to start with – not the actual amount. If the virus is found in a low number of cycles (Ct value under 30), it means that the virus was easier to find in sample and that the sample started out with a large amount of the virus. Think about it like the zoom button on your computer, if you only have to zoom in a little (zoom at 110%), it means that item was big to start with. If you have to zoom a lot (zoom at 180%), it means that the item was small to start with.

Why This Is Important: It’s been difficult to find what PCR Ct value tests have been using during this pandemic, and it’s important because at a value at 35 or more for example, an individual is more likely to test “positive” when they are not infected and/or do not even have the ability to transmit. This is commonly known as a “false positive.”…

(COLLECTIVE EVOLUTION)

 

Police Are Racist Against Whites (Using Leftist Logic)

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Much of the below is via THE CITY JOURNAL)

USING THE LEFT’S THINKING….

…. In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.

The police fatally shot nine unarmed blacks and 19 unarmed whites in 2019, according to a Washington Post database, down from 38 and 32, respectively, in 2015. The Post defines “unarmed” broadly to include such cases as a suspect in Newark, N.J., who had a loaded handgun in his car during a police chase. In 2018 there were 7,407 black homicide victims. Assuming a comparable number of victims last year, those nine unarmed black victims of police shootings represent 0.1% of all African-Americans killed in 2019. By contrast, a police officer is 18½ times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer…..

(WALL STREET JOURNAL)

  • How many unarmed blacks were killed by cops last year? 9.
  • How many unarmed whites were killed by cops last year? 19.

THEREFORE, COPS ARE RACIST!!

Ergo, cops are racist against whites considering black [mainly young men] commit about 50% of all homicides. In Los Angeles, blacks commit 44 percent of all violent crime but make up 9 percent of the population.  In St. Louis, blacks are less than a third of the population but commit 90 percent of all homicides. In New York City, blacks commit about three quarters of all shootings although they’re 23 percent of the population.

Even if you allow the higher numbers — In 2020, the police fatally shot 18 allegedly unarmed blacks [24 whites] (unarmed being defined extremely loosely to include suspects grabbing an officer’s gun or fleeing in a car with a loaded pistol on the seat) — that represents 0.2 percent of all blacks who died of homicide in 2020, and an infinitesimal percentage of the 40 million blacks in the U.S. If the police ended all fatal shootings tomorrow, it would have a negligible effect on the black death-by-homicide rate, which is 13 times higher than the white death-by-homicide rate for decedents between the ages of ten and 43.

WANT MORE EVIDENCE THAT POLICE ARE RACIST TOWARDS WHITES?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, police killings of blacks declined almost 80% from the late ’60s through the 2010s, while police killings of whites have flatlined. A police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer.” Last year, according to The Washington Post, the police killed nine unarmed blacks. They killed 19 unarmed whites. In recent years, about 50 cops have been shot and killed annually in the line of duty. So, more cops are killed each year than are unarmed black suspects.

And yet they mow down white people!

NEED MORE EVIDENCE?

The youngest black professor ever to receive tenure at Harvard and recipient of an economics prize for “most promising American economist under 40” has just upended the conventional wisdom on police shootings.

There is no racial bias when officers fire on suspects, according to a new study by Prof. Roland Fryer – black suspects are actually less likely to be shot than other suspects.

The study looked at more than a thousand shootings in 10 major police departments, The New York Times reports. Fryer and student researchers spent 3,000 hours putting together data from police reports in Houston, Austin, Dallas and Los Angeles, as well as Orlando, Jacksonville and four other Florida counties.

Fifteen years of shootings (2000-2015) revealed these results:

In officer-involved shootings in these cities, officers were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked when the suspects were white. Black and white civilians involved in police shootings were equally likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both of these results undercut the idea that the police wield lethal force with racial bias.

When Fryer looked at Houston individually – because its police gave them reports for arrests “when lethal force might have been justified” – he found that

in tense situations, officers in Houston were about 20 percent less likely to shoot a suspect if the suspect was black. This estimate was not very precise, and firmer conclusions would require more data. But, in a variety of models that controlled for different factors and used different definitions of tense situations, Mr. Fryer found that blacks were either less likely to be shot or there was no difference between blacks and whites.

(COLLEGE FIX)

  • The only statistically significant differences by race demonstrate that black officers are more likely to shoot unarmed whites, relative to white officers. (Roland Fryer)

(MEGAPHONE FX)  They shoot whites more than blacks.

Using the Left’s logic?

Case closed.

Racists!

Obviously I do not think police are “racist” in any systematic way. But that isn’t the point in this post.

Are America’s Founding Documents “Racist”? (Biden Admin. VS. History)

Published by Papa Giorgio

There is just no way to really get across the years of reading on this topic in an audio or video form to respond to the bigotry and rewriting of history found in the Biden Administration. But I try with this somewhat long video. FIRST however, an article I suggest one read if a fan of Thomas Sowell is this one in the only political journal of note, THE CITY JOURNAL:

  • THE NONCONFORMIST: Over a lifetime of scholarship and public engagement, economist Thomas Sowell has illuminated controversial topics such as race, poverty, and culture.

I likewise use video from WALLBUILDERS creations, as well as video from the following Thomas Sowell channels on YouTube:

This video likewise compliments my previous posts:

Card/Krueger Study Destroyed via Larry Elder

Published by Papa Giorgio

I started to work on excerpting this exact section, then I thought I better check Larry’s YouTube:

  • Larry explains how the Left has pointed to this faulty study in order to push their legislation on raising the minimum wage.

HOUSING CRASH

Card/Krueger

Bill Maher On “COVID-19 ‘Panic Porn'” (Plus: Vitamin D)

Published by Papa Giorgio

I disagree with Bill Maher on the “Climate Change ‘denial'” thingy (now “Climate Emergency” — see Patrick Moore’s book “Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom” for instance), but this is a worthy rant of note:

  • Study: Majority Of Americans Grossly Overestimated COVID-19 Hospitalization Rates (THE FEDERALIST)

I also think he is partially correct on the weight issue. There are other factors as well. For instance,

…A Dec 11 article in Internal Medicine News is titled: “Vitamin D deficiency in COVID-19 quadrupled death rate.” A study by Dr. Dieter De Smet and colleagues from AZ Delta General Hospital, Roeselare, Belgium, looked at 186 patients hospitalized early in the pandemic, in March 2020, with severe acute respiratory syndrome and confirmed COVID-19.

Almost 60 percent of patients, 47 percent of women and 67 percent of men, were vitamin D deficient on admission (a level of 25(OH)D <20 ng/mL). The deficiency was worst in men with the most severe pneumonia. The correlation of vitamin D deficiency with death, with an odds ratio of 3.87, was independent of age or comorbidities.

The report, published in the American Journal of Clinical Pathology, notes that studies involving hundreds to thousands of individuals in the U.S. and Israel showed an association between prior vitamin D deficiency and the possibility of a positive PCR test. Studies involving tens to hundreds of patients in Iran, Germany, Israel, Spain, China, and the UK reported correlations between low vitamin D levels and intensive care unit (ICU) admission, ventilator dependency, and death.

Beside its role in calcium metabolism, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D stimulates defenses against pathogen invasion of the respiratory tract and inhibits the destructive “cytokine storm.” Deficiency has been associated with more frequent viral respiratory infections and asthma attacks.

More than a billion people worldwide are deficient, Dr. DeSmet writes.

About 20 minutes of daily sun exposure to a large area of skin, between 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m., is needed to make enough vitamin D. Darker-skinned individuals need more. As the weather cools, vitamin D levels will be dropping—note that “flu season” happens when vitamin D levels are depleted after winter sun deprivation. Adults may need 4,000 to 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 supplements daily.

More than 90 percent of nursing home patients are reportedly vitamin D deficient. This might help explain why they account for around half of COVID deaths though they represent less than 1 percent of the population. Does supplementation help? In a French nursing home, COVID survival in patients who had recently received an oral bolus of 80,000 IU of vitamin D3 was 82 percent, compared with 44 percent in those who had not (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.11, P = 0.003—see figure below)….

(MEDSCAPE | PECKFORD 42)

And,

  • One studyTrusted Source found that, overall, about 42% of people in the United States were deficient in vitamin D. The figure rose to 82% among Black people and 70% among Hispanic people. (MEDICAL NEWS TODAY)
  • Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) analyzed data from 235 people who were admitted to the hospital with Covid-19. They found that patients older than 40 years old were 51.5 percent less likely to die from the infection if they had a sufficient level of Vitamin D, which they define as being at least 30 ng/mL. (FORBES)

JANUARY ARMSTRONG & GETTY FLASHBACK:

“Isolation Kills Too” | Mary Daniel

Published by Papa Giorgio

On March 10, 2020, Mary Daniel went to visit her husband at the Rosecastle Assisted Living and Memory Care facility like she did every evening after work. Eight years ago, he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

What Daniel did not realize was the next day she’d be told she could not come back. She, like thousands of other Americans, could no longer visit her loved one because of lockdown measures.

“The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months,” Daniel said. “My fear was that… I was going to miss that window of opportunity where he knew me and knew our love.”

Mary Daniel eventually got in as a dishwasher at her husband’s facility, and her story gained nationwide attention. Discovering thousands of Americans in similar situations, she founded the group “Caregivers for Compromise—Because Isolation Kills Too.” And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis brought her onto his task force to reopen long-term care facilities.