links 8/6/23

I try to pick links without paywalls, but occasionally things change after I pick the link. Other times I forget I have a subscription. For most of the Substack links, if it asks you to enter your email and subscribe, ignore the enter email box and click “just let me read” or “continue reading” (which ever it offers), and most of them will let you through to read.

California Panel Approves Reparation Payments for Black Residents Up to $1.2 Million Each

Spiraling in San Francisco’s Doom Loop

Owner of SF’s Largest Hotel, the Hilton Union Square, Is Walking Away, Surrendering It to Lender

California Electricity Bills Will Soon Be Based on Income. Here’s How It Might Work

Gas Lines Are Back Baby!

Navy doctors and dentists are told they owe 3 more years of service after military admits to another record-keeping error

The World Health Organization will take up the EU system of digital COVID-19 certification to establish a global system that will help facilitate global mobility and protect citizens across the world from on-going and future health threats.

We found half of interventional long covid studies did not even require prior COVID.

Lockdown benefits ‘a drop in the bucket compared to the costs’, landmark study finds

Kids in one school district in NJ were still being required to mask in April 2023

Did Covid-19 quarantines hide the flu?

study of 666 Rhode Island childcare centers from June 1st-July 31st 2020: Only 0.6% (4/666) of childcare centers had even possible evidence of secondary transmission & this was without child mask requirements

New Onset Multiple Sclerosis Post-COVID-19 Vaccination and Correlation With Possible Predictors in a Case-Control Study

District agrees to $400,000 settlement over COVID policies

If Your Toddler Isn’t Talking Yet, the Pandemic Might Be to Blame

Two years to late: New York lifting COVID vaccine mandate for health care workers

There Was No Pandemic in 2020

Korean nationwide study reports 8 cases of “sudden cardiac death (SCD) attributable to VRM [vaccine-related myocarditis] proved by an autopsy”

WHO Warns Of ‘Unusual’ Surge in Severe Myocarditis in Babies

Pfizer’s Maternal RSV Vaccine Clears FDA Advisory Committee

FBI misused surveillance tool on Jan. 6 suspects, BLM arrestees and others

Twitter Files Extra: The Covid Censorship Requests of Australia’s Department of Home Affairs

the prospect of reforming cancer trials

Mammography Screening Is a Failed Experiment

The Infomercial Comes to The Wall Street Journal

Chemical found in ‘widely used sweetener’ damages human DNA, new study says

US Military Is So Worried About Drug Safety It Wants to Test Widely Used Medicines

Shortage of lifesaving chemo drugs adds to cancer patients’ fears

Women who started the pill as teens have 130% higher rate of depression: study

Norway advises against child sex changes, joins Finland, Sweden, and UK in rejecting gender ideology

A reduction in long-term spatial memory persists after discontinuation of peripubertal GnRH agonist treatment in sheep

EPA v. The Grid

Electric cars losing their value twice as fast as petrol alternatives

Texas to charge EV owners $400 to register vehicles, $200 every year

Germany faces electricity shortages and can expect to see industries leave the country due to green energy policy ‘disaster’ that saw nuclear power plants ditched for renewables, business chiefs warn

The surface of the Greenland ice sheet has gained almost 600 billion tons of new snow since September 1, 2022… above the 1981-2010 average

Democrats accuse GOP of stoking culture wars with bills limiting gas stove rules

shows an armed security guard flanking surveyors as they enter private land without permission for a pipeline they don’t even have the permit to build yet.

Telomere Length Correlates with Life Span of Dog Breeds

Egyptian lawyer sues Netflix over Queen Cleopatra

At New Chicago Walgreens, You Can Only Browse 2 Aisles — The Rest Of The Store Is Locked Away

Lawyer apologizes for fake court citations from ChatGPT

A judge has denied the motion for preliminary injunction in our lawsuit challenging Washington’s “assault weapon ban,” saying that the banned firearms “allow a shooter to fire as fast as they can pull the trigger, unlike previous guns.”

2020: DEFUND THE POLICE! 2022: ITS ALL GREAT* crime rate 111% higher than nat’l ave* 2023: FUND THE POLICE!

Edmond parent files lawsuit after daughter ‘severely beaten’ in bathroom by trans student

Biden Admin’s $40m ‘Anti-Terrorism’ Program Targets Breitbart News, Conservatives

To Address The Loneliness Epidemic, The Feds Want To Control Your Town And Friends

I think of this often when I hear trust the science and trust public health officials. Oh like the ones who ran an actual Eugenics Board and sterilized women on the application of social workers? Like that?

Nope, I’m still going to hell. This whole situation still makes me laugh: Eric Adams asks judge to suspend New York’s “right to shelter” policy because this open border thing is just becoming too much to handle

NYC Mayor Eric Adams wants to install “resource kiosks” to stop thieves from looting retail stores

NYC Comptroller joined NYC Mayor and Department of Finance in limiting City of New York deposits at the two banks. The Comptroller also voted against designating three others that failed to submit required anti-discrimination plans

The phone-free are finding themselves unwelcome in more places

The Parents Saying No to Smartphones

BREAKING: Senator Chuck Grassley asks USDA-HHS to stop writing Dietary Guidelines until conflicts of interest are fully released 95% of last committee had at least 1 tie to food/pharma Guidelines need transparency to serve the people, not corporations

Lawmakers in the Empire State are following California, where the Assembly just approved a bill to ban key ingredients in certain candies.

THOUSANDS of fraudulent registrations found requesting absentee ballots on NY voter rolls: study

China Hacks Critical U.S. Infrastructure, Microsoft Says

Breathe less oxygen to live longer, study suggests

Twitter thread: Since the WaPo decided not to include this info in their article, here is a review of the books that were removed by the Forsyth County schools

Uber suspends diversity chief over ‘Don’t Call Me Karen’ events

Cavewomen may not have adhered to strict gender roles formed centuries after their deaths, now now these poor prehistoric women are non-binary

400 Grail blood test users were incorrectly told they may have cancer: report

Killer whales are sinking boats off the coast of Europe in orchestrated attacks

Homework Machine Hand Writes AI-Generated Assignments

Amazon Ring, Alexa accused of every nightmare IoT security fail you can imagine

Maybe there is *something* in the water….

Virtual fencing for beef cattle

The Great Electrician Shortage

This Skinny Toronto House Is Listed For Almost $2M & Has A Toilet In The Bedroom

Sheep to Shawl competition

Reserve Marine Foils DC-area Human Trafficking Ring Just Hours Before Fitness Test

The Sound of Freedom: History vs Hollywood

Women who fish are happier and healthier, study shows

Chronic wound healing using glass

Former Philly Starbucks manager wins $25.6 million after being fired for being white

A catatonic woman awakened after 20 years. Her story may change psychiatry.

Want to own a lighthouse?

Parrots learn to make video calls to chat with other parrots, then develop friendships, Northeastern University researchers say

The fastest family on earth

The improbable story of the bra-maker who won the right to make astronaut spacesuits

Brain scans of coffee drinkers suggest there’s more to feeling alert than just the caffeine

‘It’s been crazy’: Meet the I-75 cowboy who roped a steer in now-viral video


Links 7/1/23

According to educators, this will be a kind of lost generation: under-educated to the point where it drags down their future, and ours.

Last year this would have been classified as mis-information: The World Health Organization has tailored its COVID-19 vaccination recommendations for a new phase of the pandemic, suggesting that healthy children and adolescents may not necessarily need a shot but older, high-risk groups should get a booster

New Study on Long COVID in kids and young adults FAILS to link COVID to Long COVID

Twitter thread: I may never get over the fact one of the most important findings of the last 3 yrs: That transmission rates of infected people to others (secondary attack rate) was unrelated to # of vax doses received was buried in the supplements of this Danish study

Twitter thread: For 3 years, Americans have been given the impressions that Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, NYC, was the “epicenter” of overwhelmingly high patient volume fueled by sudden spread of covid-19.

Occupancy Data for New York’s Covid “Epicenter” Hospital Contradicts Perception

Were masks in hospitals a waste of time? Hated NHS policy made ‘no difference’ to Covid infection rates, study finds

Study finds that masking reduces blood ox, increases blood co2

CDC data shows wearing an N95 for longer than an hour at a time causes bad things

The Harms of Masking

Possible toxicity of chronic carbon dioxide exposure associated with face mask use, particularly in pregnant women, children and adolescents

Review shows mask-wearing may contribute to stillbirths, irreversible cognitive deficits in children, testicular dysfunction, and much more.

Switzerland stops the Covid vaccinations: All vaccination recommendations have been withdrawn, doctors can only administer the controversial vaccines in individual cases under certain conditions – but then bear the risk of liability for vaccination damage.

The “Covid Death” Reckoning

The Shifting Narrative on Vaccine Effectiveness

New Study Looks at Vaccine-Associated Cardiac Deaths in Young People

Healthy, athletic 14 yo girl dies 2 days post Pfizer dose 3 diagnosed w/”vaccine-related multiple-organ inflammation.”

British Man Died of Rare Blood Syndrome Linked to AstraZeneca’s Vaccine

Elevated Rate of Facial Paralysis Identified After Pfizer COVID-19 Booster in Elderly: FDA

Chinese Load Cow’s Milk with mRNA Exosomes–Successfully Immunize Mice

Untangling The Adderall Snafu

Pfizer’s RSV Vaccine in Pregnant Women

Coincidences happen, but the fact that the IRS showed up at Matt Taibbi’s house the same day he testified before the new committee investigating weaponization of the federal government is both ironic and highly suspicious

Missouri v. Biden will test the government’s ability to suppress speech in the name of fighting ‘misinformation’

Biden rule will redistribute high-risk loan costs to homeowners with good credit

Biden Administration ‘Facilitating’ Trafficking Of Child Refugees, Florida Grand Jury Charges

Doctor shortages distress rural America, where few residency programs exist

The Paradox of “Clean” EVs and the “Dirty” Lithium Mining Business

EPA approves California rules phasing out diesel trucks

Biden Admin Going Full Steam Ahead with Light Bulb Ban

Japan Breaks With U.S. Allies, Buys Russian Oil at Prices Above Cap

Federal Court Blocks California City’s Gas Stove Ban, Turning Up The Heat on Democrats

New York becomes the first state to ban natural gas stoves and furnaces in most new buildings

Farmer: Wind turbine fire in rural Western New York caused contamination to family, livestock, and land

Tokyo winters have been cooling since 1984

The Internet Archive has lost its first fight to scan and lend e-books like a library

A proposed new law would give the government the power to filter what Canadians see in their news feeds, on YouTube and on social media

NYC jury finds Douglass Mackey GUILTY in first-ever meme trial after making memes that disparaged Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election

Transgender athlete research rejected after professor called trans women ‘males’

After Massachusetts superintendent candidate wrote ‘ladies’ in email, the School Committee rescinded its offer

Oregon mother sues after state refuses adoption for not affirming trans procedures

UN-linked report calls for decriminalization of all sexual activity, says children can consent to sex

Is having no social life as bad for you as smoking?

ChatGPT’s history bug may have also exposed payment info, says OpenAI

ChatGPT falsely accused me of sexually harassing my students

Schumacher family planning legal action over AI ‘interview’ with F1 great

Cracker Barrel follows Walmart’s lead in shuttering its remaining locations in Portland

Walmart closing half of their Chicago stores

Whole Foods FLAGSHIP San Francisco store shuts after just one year

REI to shut down Portland store

Professor Eric Stewart, accused of faking data that makes racism against black and hispanic Americans seem more common than it is, suddenly exits FSU.

Federal judges announce they will refuse to hire clerks from Stanford Law School

A major commodity trader received containers full of painted rocks instead of the $36 million shipment of copper it paid for

Sudan conflict threatens supply of key soft drink ingredient gum arabic

Manhattan garage worker charged with attempted murder after shooting thief. Oh wait, never mind.

The NYPD Can Now Shoot GPS Trackers at Your Car

Turn off Wi-Fi calling, VoLTE to protect your Android from Samsung hijack bugs

Hackers hacking computerized farm equipment

The Billionaire Who Controls Your Medical Records

Cop warrant orders Ring to cough up footage from inside this guy’s home

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors has quietly added a proposal on Tuesday’s agenda that seeks to “decarcerate” and “depopulate” LA jails by directing law enforcement & courts to vastly expand the use of “cite and release” & return to COVID emergency bail schedule.

This woman left her AirPods on a plane. She tracked them to an airport worker’s home

Man tracks down stolen truck using Apple Airtag

Turns out the 2017 Las Vegas shooter lost $1.5 million gambling just weeks before the shooting

Here’s how the media covered the arrest of a Florida kid who threatened to shoot up a middle school

If you may need a passport or to renew your passport in the next two years you need to get it done NOW.

Agatha Christie novels reworked to remove potentially offensive language

To comply with a new sesame allergy law, some businesses add — sesame

Indiana Public School Officials Admit Lying to Parents About Critical Race Theory

Fridge explosions, more, more

A Farmington man was denied homeowners insurance after describing a plan to disconnect his oil burner and replace it with a mini-split heat pump and pellet stove

Ohio School District Arms Staff

heist at Toronto Pearson airport leads to $20M in gold, high-value goods stolen

Dog allergen levels in homes with hypoallergenic compared with nonhypoallergenic dogs

Now, however, the state of Colorado has become the first to give farmers the legal right to repair their equipment without being forced to pay for a manufacturer’s repair teams.

Bowyer’s Corner-A Forgotten Ancient Technique

The Gallery of Regrettable Foods

The World’s Blackest Cars

Awbi The Guardian Dog vs The Red Foxes

Little girl keeps stranded octopus alive till rescuers arrive

Sailing boat rescued by the Götheborg


Links 6/6/23

Significant rises in mortality do not pre-date major lockdown events, but rather coincide with them, or follow them very closely. From the same twitter thread: Even as late as April 30th — a point at which many practitioners were realizing default venting was dangerous, @ashishkjha was arguing in the NEJM that we needed more ventilators because they were preemptively venting patients awaiting test results who may not have even had Covid, not because they needed it, but to avoid even the possibility of aerosolization.

The U.K. Briefly Considered Killing All Pet Cats Early in the Pandemic

02/2020: People In China Throw Out Pets From Apartments Over Coronavirus Spread Fears

When a Renegade Church and a Zealous County Health Department Collide. A Church, The State, and a Holy War.

I hope it was more than 1 in 4 parents that lied about following this cruel and inhumane guideline

Single-use masks are mostly made of polypropylene (PP), which takes over 400 years to decompose.

02/2021: Central NY school district closes after many staff sick with side effects from Covid vaccine

the actual points made in the document, which include “Increased length of time spent in isolation/quarantine has been associated with increased symptoms of PTSD.”

teachers union pretended to be a small business and stole PPP money

Signs of waning were observed as soon as 2 months after (bivalent) vaccination……Among the chronically ill… vaccination did not reduce the risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes

Our use of antimicrobial cleaners spiked during the pandemic. Given the potential long-term health risks, it might be worth cutting back again.

In 80% of cases, the CDC exaggerated the severity of the pandemic. More.

Long Covid no more likely in people those whose first infection was with omicron than in people who’ve never had Covid, Swiss study finds

the mayor that refused to unmask toddlers now wants private business to not allow people with masks to enter due to sky rocketing crime

Why the Mental Health of Liberal Girls Sank First and Fastest, Whats behind the decline of teen mental health, The underreported rise in male suicide

The U.S. Maternal-Mortality Rate Soared in 2021

We Need an “Urgency of Normal” for Nursing Homes

Committee tells Board of Regent the lower scores are the “new normal”

Twitter Files #19

FBI’s D.C. Office Tried To Sic Local Agents On Innocents After Bank Of America Volunteered Gun Records

Visa, Mastercard pause decision to track gun shop purchases

R.L. Stine Refutes Report, Accuses Publisher of Editing ‘Goosebumps’ Books for Offensive Material Without His Involvement

Why I Decided to Update the Language in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Children’s Books

ADHD meds shortage, more

‘No foul play’ suspected in death of Georgia businessman whose body was found wrapped in a rug

DA drops most serious charge against officer who locked woman in police vehicle before it was struck by train

San Francisco board open to reparations with $5M payouts

UK woman Eleanor Williams, 22, who falsely accused group of men of raping and trafficking her, sentenced to eight and a half years in prison

Lunchables are going to be rolled out directly to students

Vermont Christian girls basketball team refused to play a rival team with a trans athlete

The Sad Truth about Jazz Jennings

an emerging fungus considered an urgent antimicrobial resistance (AR) threat, spread at an alarming rate in U.S. healthcare facilities in 2020-2021

Hospital Officials Sound ‘Hate Crime’ Alarm Over ‘Noose,’ But Surveillance Footage Tells a Different Story

Human Lab Rats

Masked dad accidentally tried to rob son at knifepoint

Twitter thread: a look at the commercial pilots shortage

Metallurgist pleads guilty to fraud after falsifying steel-test results for Navy submarines

The FBI took her life savings. Now she’s fighting to help others get theirs back.

Council fines roofer £300 for having empty crisp packets and sandwich wrappers in his van – because he doesn’t have a licence to carry rubbish

Fortunate Families? The Effects of Wealth on Marriage and Fertility

Extreme flood control measures

Dogs Of Chernobyl Are Now Genetically Different To Others In The World

To be abundantly clear, it is not a crime to give someone the finger

When your dog pays the mortgage

This Custom-Painted Porsche 911 is a Rolling Black Hole for Light, BMW X6.

3,000-Year-Old Greek Olive Tree in Greece Still Grows Olives

New Hampshire ducks ‘sled’ down snowbank

Pilot lands plane on a helipad


Links 5/1/23

Twitter thread with charts and links: A look at ED visits from before 2020 through 2022 and causes and outcomes. Of specific note: despite media reports otherwise Chicago had less ED visits in spring 2020 than in prior years flu seasons.

Do you follow E Woodhouse on Twitter? If you’re on Twitter you should. She’s finding all SORTS of interesting data on covid numbers. This time: Ohio (of all places) had a positive Covid test in Nov 2019 that was then excluded from the data sets. And Covid was in NYC in January 2020 at a minimum.

The plan is super simple: just keep taking these shots annually and we agree to never study them with an RCT. (quote from here)

Revisiting “Covid is a leading cause of death in children” … AGAIN. More (twitter thread with links and charts)

Yes, living through the pandemic was associated with some infant communication impairments

Research Covers How Masks Affect Listeners’ Comprehension

The New York Times admits that mask mandates did nothing

Study finds spike in suicide rates for Black adolescents, young adults in 2021

German Minister admits they went to far with Covid lockdowns

Study on the effectiveness of the C19 vax on college campuses never completed

Alcohol-specific deaths in the UK: registered in 2021 (up over 27% from 2019). Meanwhile the USA is up over 30% in 2021 vs 2019

Updated list of states that won’t force the C19 vax on school kids

Feb 2023: woman in rehab facility forced to wear diaper, given only tylenol for pain, because she tested positive for covid

A federal judge blocks a law that punishes doctors for ‘misinformation.’

Study confirms that NY’s covid policies caused more damage than they helped.

Gear Purchased by City as Part of $224 Million in COVID Contracts Auctioned Off for Just $500,000

The 112-Year Odyssey of Pertussis and Pertussis Vaccines-Mistakes Made and Implications for the Future. quote: Because of linked-epitope suppression, all children who were primed by DTaP vaccines will be more susceptible to pertussis throughout their lifetimes, and there is no easy way to decrease this increased lifetime susceptibility.

2016: Medical Errors now third leading cause of death in the USA

No actual data showing aluminum antiperspirant the cause of breast cancer

To be Republican is evil apparently. And god forbid you think Affirmative Action is a bad thing.

Tylenol during pregnancy may increase risk of ADHD, more, more

Connecticut Parents Arrested for Letting Kids, Ages 7 and 9, Walk to Dunkin’ Donuts

The Stranger Danger myth: The actual risk of a teen or child being abducted by a stranger and killed or not returned is estimated at around 0.00007%, or one in 1.4 million annually—a risk so small that experts call it de minimis, meaning effectively zero

A look at the exodus from public schooling

How Ideologues Infiltrated the Arts

Inmates should be able to donate organs or bone marrow in exchange for reduced time in prison, according to a proposed bill in Massachusetts.

Roomba recorded data ends up on Facebook

2010: Scottish sheep farms finally free of Chernobyl fallout

Transporting LiON batteries is no big deal right? Just ignore the car carrier fires….

Alligator-catfish hybrids

Man sues woman who rejected his affections

A short history of saturated fat: the making and unmaking of a scientific consensus

US food additives banned in Europe

A common artificial sweetener might be making you fatter and sicker, a new study says

Study finds common artificial sweetener linked to higher rates of heart attack and stroke

Planting trees in cities could cut heat deaths

Scotland’s wind turbines actually running on diesel.

The logistics required to travel in an EV

Proposed regulations on the energy efficiency of clothes washers and fridges

Ford’s new self driving car will repossess itself if you miss payments

What happens when Cheating becomes the norm?

More on the Twitter files

The family of T.C. Williams would like their $25,000 donation back from the University of Richmond. With interest it comes to $51 million

Some of those Chinese weather balloons might not have been Chinese after all

The Witch Trials of JK Rowling

James Bond books edited

Exercise more to live longer

Eurasian Eagle Owl now happily living in NYC’s Central park

Sewing pattern archive

Of all the conspiracy theories to come true in the last few years, the one that “birds aren’t real” was not one I expected

You Can Now Download 1,700 Free 3-D Cultural Heritage Models

FL suspends tax on baby care items.

NASA spies Martian rocks that look just like a teddy bear


How to make your Christmas Cactus bloom

There’s all sorts of articles on the internet about how to make your christmas/thanksgiving/easter cactus bloom when you want it to bloom. Most of them boil down to “put it in a cool and dark room and ignore it for a few months then bring it out”. That always gets me a dead plant, so I’d given up.

However one of the things that came out of me being repeatedly indisposed due to surgery was the discover that its WAY easier than that to make it bloom on command.

Just forget to water it for about two weeks.

Seriously, its that easy. Don’t water it for two weeks, and then give it a good soaking.

Poof! Bright pink flowers!

I’ve been so delighted by the discovery that I went out and bought a peachy/orange colored one. Its still a fairly small plant, but hopefully in a few months it’ll be big enough for me to do the same and I’ll have BOTH blooming!