Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Monday, March 1. 2021

Monday morning links




 Former President Donald Trump repeatedly tore into President Joe Biden during his CPAC speech on Sunday over a variety of issues ranging from the crisis on the southern border to the millions of American children who are not in school learning.“Joe Biden has had the most disastrous first month of any president in modern history, that’s true,” Trump said. “Already the Biden administration has proven that they are anti-jobs, anti-family, anti-borders, anti-energy, anti-women, and anti-science. In just one short month, we have gone from America first to America last.”Trump slammed the Biden administration for their “callous indifference toward working families” by not prioritizing getting America’s children back




Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 09:06 | Comments (20) | Trackbacks (0)

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Ignored by Fake News Media: Joe Biden Is Completely LOST in Texas Even with His Handler in Tow (VIDEO): Joe's a PIKER. I ignore fake news media 24/7/365! Well, other than to POINT and LAUGH.
#1 Sam L. on 2021-03-01 09:58 (Reply)
re ‘The End Of Conservative Books’: Amazon Quietly Bans Books They Deem Offensive, ‘Hate Speech’

I saw a tweet the other day that basically said:

If we look at history, when has it been the Good Guys that burned books and censored speech?
#2 feeblemind on 2021-03-01 10:09 (Reply)
"Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen."

- Heinrich Heine
#2.1 JJM on 2021-03-01 16:41 (Reply)
I've quietly quit buying from Amazon. Two can play this game.
#2.2 vichris on 2021-03-01 18:01 (Reply)
But I'm also beginning to actively buy up "banned" books so my family will have this resource.
#2.2.1 Frances on 2021-03-01 23:36 (Reply)
re COVID and youth: THE LONG SHADOW OF AN UNLUCKY START

I think the professor's fears are greatly overblown. People are more resilient than that.
#3 feeblemind on 2021-03-01 10:11 (Reply)
It seems to be a strategy on Amazon's part: Offer books only in electronic format. And then quietly eliminate the offering of the book if it happens to exhibit traits of WrongThink.

Ironic that they should name their reading device "Kindle"

Maybe we should just call out the strategy of eliminating dangerous electronic literature by a new word: "Kindle-ing"
#4 Aggie on 2021-03-01 10:23 (Reply)
Cui bono when it comes to bombing Syria? Are they trying to create another migration disaster, not that they care about the innocents? I get that there is a chain of blame back to Iran but I still find it a stretch. Now that the Entrenched Bureaucracy has gleefully admitted to lying to, deceiving, and stonewalling Trump, is it fair to wonder if they did the same to Biden?
#5 Exasperated on 2021-03-01 10:46 (Reply)
I told a medical doctor friend of mine back in January about the WHO's changing-of-the-rules with respect to testing criteria. It was such an outrageously-understated change in the testing protocols, he had trouble absorbing it at first, and wanted confirmation it was indeed the WHO doing it.

"…”Users of RT-PCR reagents should read the IFU carefully to determine if manual adjustment of the PCR positivity threshold is necessary to account for any background noise which may lead to a specimen with a high cycle threshold (Ct) value result being interpreted as a positive result.” (The higher the CT value, the less likely you are to be detecting anything significant.)

“In short, logic would suggest we’re not in fact seeing a “decline in Covid cases” or a “decrease in Covid deaths” at all.

What we’re seeing is a decline in perfectly healthy people being labelled “Covid cases” based on a false positive from an unreliable testing process. And we’re seeing fewer people dying of pneumonia, cancer or other disease have “Covid19” added to their death certificate based on testing criteria designed to inflate the pandemic.”

So: Not just cases, but also the deaths that have been labeled "COVID" because of artificially-lowered thresholds for calling 'COVID-Positive'

Not saying it's some kind of sinister plot, but the 'Cause & Effect' is unmistakable. The reason for the 'Cause' may become clearer with time but I doubt it, which is a kind of 'tell' in itself.

I had dinner with that same doctor a couple of nights ago, and guess what: COVID cases are way way down in our country now.
#6 Aggie on 2021-03-01 11:03 (Reply)
...meant to say, "county"
#6.1 Aggie on 2021-03-01 12:00 (Reply)
One can not help but think that the entire world has been manipulated by the COVID masters. A rational mind can not help but look at the mortality rate of the virus and not scratch his head in bewilderment. How can a virus that is devastating to a mere 0.04% of the population, be so widely perceived as a killer of all that come in contact with it? I do not deny that the virus is real, I had it, I recovered, I didn’t need a hospital or even a doctor. Others did die, mostly the old and those with comorbidities.

Interesting and telling, is that this all started in China, in a lab that is known to get funding from the US via Dr. Fauci. Interesting that lockdowns, social distancing (a device inculcating irrational fear of others), and finally the mask were all set in motion with barley any debate. The media began the propaganda campaign almost immediately. Any dissenting voices were silenced; medical professionals were threatened with revocation of their licenses.

Communists and their disciples in the West, having no moral scruples against lying, and having openly declared war against the West, free market principles and the top prize: Christianity, seem to have used COVID as a blunt instrument in that war.
#6.2 B. Hammer on 2021-03-01 12:14 (Reply)
We shall see how curious the serious people are about this shift in test criteria and what it implies. But this is not an undiscoverable answer.

1. COVID tests have been based on a procedure that uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for detection of SARS-CoV-2, and the threshold for a 'Positive' test result is determined by Cycle threshold values (CT values).

2. So for each test that has been given, the CT value is a known data point - it must be, in order to pronounce a 'Postive' or 'Negative' test result. The data exists.

3. So by applying the new, lower CT value criteria to the existing data, we will then get new, perfectly valid numbers of COVID infection rates and also for deaths that may have been formerly attributed to COVID, but would not be attributed under the new criteria.

4. Will anybody do this? Seems like it would be a fairly straight-forward data dive. If it isn't done (and made public), then what does that say about pandemic management? What does that say about the opportunistic politicization of the pandemic? What does that say about The Science, if it isn't pursued? The Death Count has been the primary data underpinning the logic of the Great Shutdown.
#6.2.1 Aggie on 2021-03-01 12:34 (Reply)
Dr. Mina has done what you suggested. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html
QUOTE:
Officials at the Wadsworth Center, New York’s state lab, have access to C.T. values from tests they have processed, and analyzed their numbers at The Times’s request. In July, the lab identified 872 positive tests, based on a threshold of 40 cycles.

With a cutoff of 35, about 43 percent of those tests would no longer qualify as positive. About 63 percent would no longer be judged positive if the cycles were limited to 30.

In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles, Dr. Mina said. “I would say that none of those people should be contact-traced, not one,” he said.
#6.2.1.1 snopercod on 2021-03-01 13:53 (Reply)
Thanks! Hopefully someone will follow through with a study that gives us the big picture. I'd love to see comparative epidemic curves.
#6.2.1.1.1 Aggie on 2021-03-01 15:47 (Reply)
Regarding the review of Father... the film suffers from being reviewed by an irreligious, over-academicized, culture-grabbing peacock. All too common a problem for decades.

Ive never even heard of the film before i read Anthony Lane's review. Based on his review alone I would venture the writer and director - in an effort to allow it to ring true, modelled Anthony on God the Father Almighty - of course, immutable, the same yester...in reality - but to make his point in an effort to relate to the audience he ages. Not all elderly get dementia but it became a favorite vehicle recently, perhaps as a way to assuage our guilt at shutting them away. I digress...

Anne shares her name with the Mother of The Mother of God. That blessed soul yearned for the arrival of the promised savior. Anne of the film is awaiting a new nurse. Anne's threat to move to Paris should be read as rebellion toward God as it is the seat of Catholic rebellion and the most athestic place in Europe. St. Anne is not know for rebellion. Modernists always try to belittle faith, hope and piety and we should expect that in film. It is good to be challenged that way.

Father attempts charm with the applicant and claims artistic credentials when he is really an engineer. So consider the Isrealites - the first chosen as compared to the great universal expansion through Catholicism. God engineered the working of his worship and then inspired dressing of it in beauty. We could go on here...

Anthony's rage could easily be construed to be the filmmakers sad and hopeless understand of a God so disgusted with "everybody" and desire to withdraw from mankind.

There are more examples but im sure y'all get my drift. I suspect the film is a commentary all too prevalent these days that "God is dead and good riddence can we get on with the business of pleasing our ownselves, please". It must be so infuriating to be an artist trying to convey a deep message when the audience is packed with illiterate scholars.
#7 Jpac on 2021-03-01 12:42 (Reply)
Re: Amazon Quietly Bans Books They Deem Offensive, ‘Hate Speech’

I've resolved not to buy from anything Amazon unless I absolutely have to. When my Prime membership is up for renewal, I'll let it lapse.

I'll be buying more from Walmart (which also has a free shipping membership and a credit card with similar benefits), local vendors, and direct from producers.

I see no reason to support a company who is openly hostile to concepts of Western/American culture.
#8 mudbug on 2021-03-01 13:25 (Reply)
I am 100% in support of the women who oppose men trans'ed to women in women's sports.

However, we do all remember the endless arguments that women can do anything men can and that we need more women in the military, yada, yada, yada. The is a measure of schadenfreude to be enjoyed here. Probably some of the exact same women and women's groups have demanded that women be treated equal to men when they thought it would benefit them and now it's "you can't expect women to compete with men because they are genetically stronger".

There are some jobs that women cannot do effectively, such as fire fighting, policing, military and a few more. I do agree that we must have female police if for no other reason than that we have female criminals. We can choose to ignore the physical differences between men and women but we cannot ignore the consequences that result from ignoring those differences.
#9 Anon on 2021-03-01 14:51 (Reply)
Anon - that was just the screeching of some mindless feminists who never ever tried to do many of those jobs which are more suited to male-type-persons-of-the opposite-sex. Have daughters who are succeeding brilliantly in their chosen fields, but said fields are those where it's brains and not brawn which determine suitability. Wouldn't want any one of them to be trying to rescue me from a fire, and don't think they'd be successful at quelling a brawl. But where they are, they're really good. Though, I have to admit, the combination of brains and brawn is what is needed in a fair few occupations.
#9.1 Frances on 2021-03-01 23:46 (Reply)
Well, under today's critical theory, the idea that there was no real difference between Star-Bellied and Plain-Bellied Sneeches is simply perpetuating Star-Belly Supremacy. The Star Bellies, instead of sharing the beaches, should have been required to surrender a portion of the beaches as an exclusive safe zone for the Plain Bellies, and pay reparations for generations of Star-Bellied oppression.

The Lorax should have been speaking not only for the trees, but also the indigenous peoples of the forest.

The Cat in the Hat consistently made the assumption that all families were privileged with a moss-covered three-handled family credenza, even though he was obviously the token "Magic Minority".
#10 Another Guy Named Dan on 2021-03-01 14:54 (Reply)
Covid was a planned Russia, Russia, Russia extension. It wouldn't matter if latter we found the testing procedure to be in error or if we found the number of Covid deaths to be in error. Like Russia, Russia, Russia the plan was to pile on Trump with anything that might handicap the man and allow for mail in cheating. The McConnell and McCarthy team couldn't or wouldn't bother to catch on to the scam.
#11 indyjonesouthere on 2021-03-01 16:03 (Reply)

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