As you probably know, it snowed. Cue the apocalyptics. Both before, during and after. The after being the worst because by then you know it wasn’t apocalyptic. But it seems there are lots of people who can’t accept that it wasn’t. Who wanted it to be apocalyptic. They are like the people you see still “masking” up – years after it became obvious that catching a cold wasn’t a death sentence.
They seem to want it to be. At least, that’s how it looks.
In my area, the doom-saying began a week before the snow actually fell. “Historic” and “severe” were bandied about, almost lustfully. Then the snow fell. About three maybe four inches, plus some sleet on top.
It was the kind of snow that would have caused maybe a two-hour delay (remember those?) back in the day, when kids (and parents) kept the TV in the kitchen on to see whether the snow that was already on the ground would result in a delayed opening or – heaven sent! – a day off from school. This was once uncertain. It took a real blizzard to close down the schools. Today, it takes a prediction that it may snow to close the schools. And keep them closed, for days – because there might still be “patches” of snow or even ice on the roads.
Never mind that it’s fine. What seems to matter more is that it might not be.
I miss the ’80s.
More finely, I miss the general expectation that you dealt with a little snow instead of panicking like a sheep in need of a shepherd. Kids bundled up and walked – by themselves! – from their houses down the street to where the school bus would pick them up. Eventually. It was more usual than not for kids to just stand there. Sometimes, a parent might drive them down to the stop and sit with them until the bus came. But it wasn’t the usual practice. I do not recall any cases of death or even hypothermia. The bus had chains and the salty old lady who smoked Marlboro reds drove it got us to school because she could drive.
This, too, was expected.
Result? Most people could drive. Most drove rear-wheel-drive cars, too – because that’s what the majority of cars had back in the ’80s and before. There were a few front-drive jobs but not many. Even the economy cars of that time were still mostly rear-drive and none of them had locking rear axles or electronic traction aids.
People learned to drive because they pretty much had to.
Now that people don’t have to, they drive worse. It is a weird inversion. Or maybe it is cause and effect. A baby that is never expected to walk – that is taught it is only safe to crawl – may never learn to walk. 
Many are too afraid to even try driving if there’s any snow on the ground – even though the majority are driving all-wheel-drive or front-drive cars that can handle snow-driving much better than a rear-drive car, especially one without a locking differential. Just having most of the weight of the drivetrain over the driven wheels – as in a front-drive (and most AWD) cars is a big help.
And yet, so many seem helpless. Seem to want to be helpless. Eager to stay home. Proud of not “risking” the drive into town. It has become something like a cult, with the membership striving to show they are more “concerned” than others about “safety.” These are the people you sometimes see crawling along with their hazard lights on when there’s no reason to have them on. Other than it displaying how safely they are driving (and you’d better, too). 
It is easy to see where this will inevitably lead. A day will come when people will be told they have to stay home – because it might snow. It’s too risky – too unsafe! – for anyone to be out on the roads. Then it will be rain that keeps everyone off the roads. Maybe night-time, too.
It’s dark, after all.
And before you laugh – either at me or the prospect – keep in mind the state of the culture and its politics. The Safety Cult is now a mainstream religion – and most Americans are among the faithful. Just say the holy word – saaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety! – and watch them genuflect and cross themselves.
It is apostasy – heresy! – to be “unsafe.” It cannot be allowed.
Think of the children!
. . .
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Reply from below to Mr. Liberty:
I’m not going to spend a lot more time today, but I’m going to give you a decent paper that skips Vero cells and cell culture so you don’t have to worry about that as a confounding factor. It is a but a tiny fraction of the research I have done in the area.
This regards Taura Syndrome (TS) in shrimp. Here, the researchers complete Rivers’ Postulates, which is a more virally-rigorous version of Koch’s Postulates. They are pretty rigorous about controls and viral purifications/isolations.
I think you could say that they are lying (to what end?) or the photos are too grainy, but consider this: If this actually demonstrates rigorously that a that a biological entity that fits the description of “virus” is responsible for a disease in shrimp, then viruses exist. Period.
If not, what else do you need? Again, I have a whole book’s worth to say on this subject, though very limited time.
Have at it, scholar!
https://www.int-res.com/abstracts/dao/v23/dao023115
The standard of proof is the scientific method. Koch’s postulates is a proxy for the scientific method, but is not complete. River’s is mischaracterized as “which is more appropriate for “viruses.” However this is not true. River’s was developed because Koch’s would have made it impossible for “virology” to exist. River’s is very loosey goosey requiring only a disease association with “a high degree of regularity.” In other words, it allows for a fudge factor if there is no disease associated with it on occasion (That’s not science if it permits random findings on occasion)
Koch’s: 1) The pathogen must be present in all diseased cases but absent in healthy organisms, 2) It must be isolated and grown in pure culture, 3) It must cause the disease in a healthy, susceptible host, and 4) It must be re-isolated from that new host.
River’s: 1. Association: The virus must be associated with the disease with a high degree of regularity. 2. Isolation/Transmission: The agent must be isolated from the host (host fluids or lesions) and, when introduced into a suitable host, must induce the specific disease or form specific antibodies. 3. Filtration: The material used to inoculate the new host must be proven to be free from bacteria or other microorganisms (by filtration, etc.). 4. Reinfection: The same, specific disease must be produced in a new, healthy host using material from the initially infected experimental host. These postulates make the assumption that viruses cannot be grown on lifeless media and that, unlike bacteria, they require host cells for cultivation.
By the way, they don’t even apply River’s postulates to virus detection in alleged humans because, among other things, it would be unethical to apply the reinfection factor.
That said, I’ll review and give you my thoughts.
“loosey goosey”
Only twice in my life have I heard/read that term. Once, recently when my Dad was responding to me about drinking a teaspoon of DMSO, and here today.
Odd, that.
A glitch in The Matrix? Idk.
Here’s the alleged proof from that paper:
“Analysis of TS infected shrimp tissues by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) showed the presence of putative cytoplasmic virus particles
Further evidence that TS was virus caused was demonstrated at UAZAPC during a subsequent infectivity study in which SPF P vannamei were intramuscularly injected with diluted filtrates (loo, 10-~,10-4) prepared from previously frozen, TS positive shrimp carcasses.
Based on these findings, Brock et al. hypothesized that the disease was virus induced, that the virus was possibly a, member of the family Nodaviridae, and named the agent Taui-a syndrome virus.
To confirm the viral etiology of TS, 3 sequential infectivity bioas-says were conducted at UAZAPC with the objective of fulfilling the criteria of Rivers’ postulates (Rivers 1937)This report describes those studies, which demonstrate that TS is caused by a newly recognized penaeid virus.”
They ground up dead shrimp (which they assume had the “virus”) added in tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane-NaCl and then varying amounts were injected into 75 shrimp. Approx. 80% died within 5 days and none in the control group died. Ok. I will certainly agree that there was a strong correlation of death with those injected with the ground-up dead shrimp mixture, especially given the none of the 45 shrimp not receiving the ground up dead shrimp mixture died (at least within 5 days). Although, did the tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane-NaCl have anything to do with the morbidity? They probably should have controlled for that.
However, assuming that this study was legit and nobody’s lying and that the ground up dead shrimp mixture was the direct cause of the shrimp mortality, that does not mean what was injected contained a “virus.” That’s a leap based on the assumption that the ground up shrimp mixture contained a “virus.” Look at the quoted language I included above. It appears to me to be a case of begging the question: We inject virus containing tissue into the shrimp and it killed approximately 80% of them. Ergo, we proved the existence of a virus. Coming to a conclusion that what killed the shrimp is indeed a “virus” requires a leap of faith here. The “virus” was in no way isolated from the ground up shrimp tissue mixture. It’s just assumed to be in there because it appears the ground shrimp tissue killed most of the injected shrimp and none of the control shrimp. Definitely indicates that injecting ground up shrimp into apparent healthy shrimp is lethal, but how do we know it’s a virus?
Also, I would want to know more about who funded this study and whether they had an incentive to fudge anything or whether it was bought and paid for with a predetermined outcome in mind. It appears it was commissioned to disprove any liability by BASF for its fungicide: “The cause of TS was initially attributed to fungicide toxicity resulting from the use of 2 systemic fungicides, Tilt’ (Ciba-Geigy) and Calixin” (BASF), on banana plantations adjacent to affected shrimp farms (Lightner et al. 1994, Wigglesworth 1).” Were the ground up shrimp used to inject the healthy shrimp previously exposed to the BASF fungicide?
Finally, why is this limited to study of just 120 shrimp. Why did they have to inject the ground up shrimp mixture? That’s not how the purported virus is allegedly spread in the wild. Why not design an experiment where allegedly infected shrimp simply share the same tank and see if that condition is deadly? Why not use a control study where ground up healthy shrimp are injected into healthy shrimp to see if that might also be deadly as well. Perhaps the mere act of injecting biological material into a healthy shrimp might be deadly in and of itself. There’s no mention of that.
Here’s the full study if anybody’s interested:
https://www.int-res.com/articles/dao/23/d023p115.pdf
Hmmm. I address a study which is offered to show the existence of a “virus” and nothing but crickets from the expert virologists in the chat.
I’m still on the job, ML. Have patience. 😉
Mr. Liberty,
My friend… I’m almost wondering if we read the same paper. You’ve stated:
“The ‘virus’ was in no way isolated from the ground up shrimp tissue mixture. It’s just assumed to be in there because it appears the ground shrimp tissue killed most of the injected shrimp and none of the control shrimp. Definitely indicates that injecting ground up shrimp into apparent healthy shrimp is lethal, but how do we know it’s a virus?”
“Why not use a control study where ground up healthy shrimp are injected into healthy shrimp to see if that might also be deadly as well. Perhaps the mere act of injecting biological material into a healthy shrimp might be deadly in and of itself. There’s no mention of that.”
They did what you suggest. The language is indeed dense at times, so I’ll try and translate.
Healthy shrimp = SPF (Specific Pathogen Free) shrimp: Shrimp said to be free of a list of pathogens.
The ‘virus’ was *way* isolated/purified from the ground-up shrimp tissue mixture, as best as could be done. It was used to prepare the innoculum preparations known as TSV-2 and TSV-3.
They did inject “ground-up healthy shrimp” in to other healthy shrimp. It was called the “SPF control innoculum”.
The experimental process is given diagrammatically on page 117, and explicitly on page 117 and 118, but I’ll try and summarize plainly.
1. They take shrimp with the symptoms of Taura Syndrome and put ’em in a blender with a buffer solution. The macroscopic debris is removed by a few rounds of slow centrifugation. I.e. they spin the big stuff to the bottom of a tube and pipette off the fluid above which they suppose contains the pathogen, then they repeat. After most of the visible material is gone, they dilute the remaining fluid with salt water. They call this the “crude innoculum”.
2. They inject 30 shrimp with the crude innoculum and watch them get sick and/or die. After 4 days, they sacrifice the living shrimp for tissue studies and freeze the dead ones in hopes of extracting the hypothetical virus.
3. They take the aforementioned shrimp carcasses, apparently killed by Taura Syndrome, and blend them up as well for the viral purification. They reference another (paywalled) paper for the specific procedure, but it likely a number of centrifuge/ultracentrifuge procedures.
Typically, the larger material is done away with using some slower centrifugation, then the ultracentrifuge is used. A few very-high-g (ie.e 200,000 x g = 200,000 times the force of gravity) spins of the material in a solution force remaining larger microscopic material (theoretically containing viral particles) to the bottom of the tube in a “pellet”, then the above solution is discarded. Smaller molecules (such as toxins and biochemicals) originally in the animal material should be discarded with this step. This is repeated a few times.
Next, the remaining microscopic material is put into a tube along with a “sucrose gradient” to further purify what they believe might be viruses. The sucrose gradient is a solution with an ever-greater concentration of sugar towards the bottom. The remaining debris (cell parts, proteins, viral particles etc.) is separated primarily according to density. After hours of this step, things are as separated as they likely will ever get. The portion of the fluid in the tube believed to contain possible viral particles (bands are sometimes visible) is removed, the presense of nanoscopic particles (viral particles or virions) is confirmed with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and part of that portion is saved for further innoculations (TMV-2). Another part undergoes CsCl gradient centrifugation to even better determine the density of the particles and perform more electron microscopy.
*Phhew*
4. They make the control innocula. They perform all the same steps as above with healthy (SPF) shrimp. They obtain a “virus-free and cell-free” suspension (meaning to me that they checked for these possibilities with TEM, though it’s not stated explicitly). They dilute it with some salt-water to make the “SPF control innoculum”. They also make another control innoculum consisting solely of heat-sterilized salt-water in the same concentration as the other innocula.
5. 30 healthy shrimp were injected with the TSV-2 (purified virus) innoculum, 15 got the SPF innoculum and 15 got the saline control. They kept the control groups in separate aquaria.
6. Like in the first part, they watched for sickness in all the shrimp. After 5 days post infection, the experiment ended. The sick shrimp were fixed (preserved) for tissue examination and the dead shrimp were removed and frozen to make more infected innoculum (TSV-3)
7. A viral innoculum was prepared from the dead-sick shrimp from the last procedure using the same purification procedure as above. It was called TSV-3 as previously stated. The undiluted suspension was confirmed to contain supposed viral particles using TEM. The final experiment was conducted by injecting 15 shrimp with TSV-3 and 15 shrimp were injected with the SPF-control innoculum.
So, “ground-up healthy shrimp” were used *and* supposed viruses were purified, crudely at first and then rigorously twice.
Why did they inject them instead of trying for a more “natural” innoculation? At this point, likely to make damn sure the shrimp were exposed.
Experiments with natural routes of infection would be done later:
https://www.int-res.com/articles/dao2007/79/d079p183.pdf
Finally (for tonight, long goddamned day) The paper doesn’t state that it was supported by BASF. It says it was funded by a grant from the “US. Dept of Agriculture, CSRS, to the Gulf Coast Laboratory Manne Shrimp Farming Consortium”, whatever that is.
I’ll end with this, though, and it’s one of the central tenets of virology, separating what a ‘virus’ does from what a toxin does. A toxin can’t reproduce itself or cause an organism to produce more of it. Hence the importance of a few iterations of innoculations/infections. The idea of a toxin is mentioned, but they state “That the TS agent was unaffected by the inherent dilution factor, caused by serial passage through 3 groups of test shrimp, indicates that it replicated in the exposed hosts and, thus, rules out the possibility of a toxic etiology.”
Indeed, a toxin present in the original shrimp would be present in such an infinitesimal quantity in the 3rd group of shrimp, having gone through 3 purification steps and 2 more sets of animals, that it would be rendered inconsequential and those shrimp should’ve been fine.
Anyway, I’m out for the night, having completed my unpaid virology lesson.
That was interesting. Stick a needle in me and inject me with some shrimp snot, and I might get sick and die, too.
Show me the study where they took some perfectly healthy shrimp living in a fish bowl ( a healthy fish bowl!) and added, ‘the virus’ to the water and the shrimp got, ‘it’.
Anyway, my battery is drained too. I appreciate your effort. I disagree with your conclusion. May, The Truth, see the light of day.
So far, it’s all manipulated bullsheet. Page after page.
Ok. So in my haste to review the paper and comment on it (about an hour in total time) I missed that they ground up healthy shrimp for a control. Ok., my bad. But why inject them and not just expose them as what is purported to happen in the wild? Were the original unhealthy shrimp exposed to toxins from the BASF fungicide before they were ground up? You say to make damn sure they were exposed. But as helot says: “Stick a needle in me and inject me with some shrimp. . and I might get sick and die, too.” If I expose my hands and face to auto antifreeze, it’s generally harmless, but if I ingest it, I die from liver failure.
More importantly, how was this assumed virus ever isolated from the ground up shrimp tissue? The authors are still asking us to just make an inference that “virus” was in it the ground up shrimp because the injected ground up shrimp killed 80% of the healthy shrimp. Show me the “virus” in that mixture. Where is it?
By the way, there’s no question that the paper does not say it was supported by BASF. That’s not how fake science would be done. Pfizer doesn’t directly fund research to show efficacy of its poisonous products (Covid vax, statins, etc.). Rather it funds or controls a third party (like the CDC of the AMA, AHA, etc.) to do its dirty work. But don’t get caught up in these ancillary critiques. The bottom line is that they did not prove a virus exists, they just assumed what killed the shrimp was a virus. They only actually showed a great likelihood that injecting ground up tissue from sick shrimp kills the majority of those injected.
There was a movie (and I’m forgetting the name of it) where a woman is found on a development site in southern CA. Her dead body was sunken into the ground so that top of her body was at grade level. There was heavy construction equipment all over the site including heavy rollers (what used to be called steam rollers). The apparent mystery how she died and how she got pressed into the earth like that. It was clear to me that she was laid face down and then they ran the roller over her body. It was totally obvious given the heavy equipment nearby. Much later in the movie it was revealed that she was thrown out of a plane and the force of her body falling at speed caused here to be pressed into the earth.
This is an example of an incorrect causal assumption being made “because it’s just so obvious.”
“The portion of the fluid in the tube believed to contain possible viral particles (bands are sometimes visible) is removed, the presense of nanoscopic particles (viral particles or virions) is confirmed with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and part of that portion is saved for further innoculations (TMV-2). Another part undergoes CsCl gradient centrifugation to even better determine the density of the particles and perform more electron microscopy.”
When they have a picture of this supposed virus, how do they know it’s indeed a virus? What does a virus look like? If they isolated and purified this virus as you say, why not dump it into a tank with healthy shrimp and see if it kills them? Ok, maybe even inject the “nanoscopic particles (viral particles or virions)” in them? Why didn’t they do either of these?
Mr. Liberty,
(I believe you’re thinking of “Mulholland Drive”, if I remember correctly)
Again, I am perplexed. Did you not read what I said, if not the paper?
The suspected viral particles are shown in the electron micrographs in the paper. They were the only objects found in the that particular fraction of the centrifuge tube, which was the *only* thing injected into the shrimp (in Bioassays 2 and 3).
What does a ‘virus’ look like? In this case, it is reported:
“The successful isolation and preparation of cell-free viral suspensions was confirmed by TEM analysis. Observations of virions with icosahedral shape, a diameter of 31 to 32 nm, and approximate buoyant density of 1.337 g ml-I corroborate the previously reported findings of Brock et a1 (1995)”
Also, keep in mind that the shrimp that were also injected with “dead shrimp snot” or whatever you’d like to call it, but from *undiseased* dead shrimp, did not get sick.
Note that the shrimp that got sick did *not* just get randomly ill. They had all the hallmarks of Taura Syndrome:
“Furthermore, intramuscular injection of cell-flee suspensions of the isolated virus induced both clinical signs and histopathological lesions that are
characteristic of TS (Figs. 5 to 8). The complete absence of mortalities or histological lesions among the control shrimp (Bioassays 2 and 3), injected with sterile saline or with the acellular, virus-free suspension prepared from SPF shrimp, provides further evidence that the viral agent causes the disease.”
So, regarding “maybe even inject the ‘nanoscopic particles (viral particles or virions)’ in them?”: That exactly what they did!
Regarding the fungicides, they state: “However, these fungicides do not induce histological lesions characteristic of TS when experimentally administered to P. vannamei by injection, ‘per OS’ or through waterborne exposure… In addition, TS epizootics of pond-reared P. vannamei have been reported and confirmed in areas where bananas are not grown and neither of these chemicals is employed.”
“If they isolated and purified this virus as you say, why not dump it into a tank with healthy shrimp and see if it kills them? ”
For one, you could do that, but it might take a shitload of work isolating all that virus to be successful. They didn’t know exactly how it’s transmitted, and the work done is this paper is meant to link Taura Syndrome to a newly-discovered virus, not establish transmission routes.
For two they state “…That TS could be induced in specific-pathogen-free (SPF) Penaeus vannamei after 5 to 6 d of feeding on minced, TS infected tissue.”
So in the wild, it’s a possibility that diseased shrimp are eaten by other shrimp.
For three, in any case, transmission studies were done later, like I said:
https://www.int-res.com/articles/dao2007/79/d079p183.pdf
…Though that study uses quantitative PCR, immunostaining and confocal microscopy to prove its case, and I *know* I’ll the get the “PCR?! That’s all fake! Hoax!” because of its use during the time of the ‘Rona. Sad, because it’s a valuable and amazing tool.
But, if you were to understand these tools, you’d see that paper further elucidates how transmission might occur in the wild. Sick shrimp (or crabs) are put with healthy shrimp and their viral load is measured over the course of many days. The confocal microscopy shows how the virus permeated tissue.
I’m not going to sit here and try and explain that shit all day, though. It is left to the curious investigator.
Thank you for this. It’s far more interesting and edifying than Bio 101 was back in engineering school. The one thing I remember from that about viruses was the TA teaching the class mentioning that they didn’t actually know what viruses were and that they weren’t alive.
You’re welcome, Ernie!
I’m not sure when you went to school (not to be mean!) but we have pretty decent ideas about what viruses are and how they work these days. Biology, molecular and cell biology, and virology are much more advanced these days than some would care to acknowledge, which is fine, but it all takes some effort to understand, and that can lead some to, shall we say, other avenues.
Luckily, I know that if I need an engineer, there seem to be plenty here for consultation!
That was in the late 80s- the morning in America before the mourning in America.
Why they must defend the virus myth: Control.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-15505857/cdc-monitoring-outbreak-nipah-virus-india.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/south-carolina-measles-outbreak-texas/
All justified by 60 dead shrimp in 1995.
Ummm, no. That’s a wild extension, isn’t it? I picked one paper that was meant to be relatively clear, cover the scientific requirements and be easily digestible.
Time to move on to the day’s other matters.
Have you noticed how they (and other corporate media funded by Big Pharma) used the line “Most of the patients with measles are unvaccinated” as if they’re once again trying to get people afraid of UNVACCINATED people and frighten them into lining up and getting themselves and any children they have VAXXED. Sounds like a repeat of COVID hysteria from a few years ago.
Yup. Simply propaganda to, among other things, support the numerous “vaccines” which are schedule for every human on earth. There are various accounts as to how many vaccines they recommend during a human’s lifetime, ranging 15 to 70. Assuming 20 (and ignoring “boosters”), multiply that times 9 billion people with a low estimate of $10 for each equates to $1.8 trillion!!!
There’s no way they’ll allow this myth to be debunked. They’re willing to spend billions of dollars to protect it. Most, if not all, big pharma companies are convicted felons. Assuming they would act in good faith is an absurdity.
Don’t you find it interesting how people who call themselves LIBERAL and may have been critical of Big Pharma and its tremendous influence over the federal government once upon a time now act like Pharma’s biggest cheerleaders after COVID?
Let’s just say for the sake of arguemnt, that it is the unvaccinated spreading measles. One big elephant they refuse to look at, are all the hordes of illegal aliens and their illegal children infiltrating the country and schools. You can sure as hell bet none of them are “vaccinated”. Better to blame the un-vaxed child, whose mother did her research and thought better of it. And good grief, I remember having measles and chicken pox! Survived both, and now have life-long immunity. But also, another elephant, is that most moms today are vaccinated. That means they cannot confer natural immunity to their children, the way moms back in the 50’s and 60’s (and before childhood vaccines became prevalent) did. The solution? More of what does not already work (vaccines)…
Arrrgh! Fruit bats again! LOL.
But I’m totally fucking out of control, Mr. Liberty. 😮
I was in high school 1988-1992. We had ZERO snow days. Not a one, all four years. Did we not have snow? We had plenty, they just never closed school. Though it was a private school, so they do have to take complaints more serious, unlike public ones. And to most of my classmates folks back then, they wanted school open. And it was.
Today I work (maintenance guy) for my high school. We have had two snow days already, most public schools have had 4 or 5 already. Though one was an “e learning” day and the rest will be too. So only one true snow day.
Public schools didn’t have near the amount of snow days back then too. Back then in my area, most schools both private and public had outside bus (private companies) operators, they didn’t do it in house like they do now. And those bus companies always managed to operate. So they could have school, if the buses got out, it was one less excuse for cancelling. Actually one of the private bus operators went to my church, and he took pride in always operating. He also parked his buses in a garage overnight, so getting started was a bit easier (AKA planning ahead, something rarely done now).
Couple things have changed since then. Snow plowing isn’t done nearly as well as it once was. It just isn’t. Another thing, most schools took their bus fleets in house, and they are much quicker to shut down. Most buses aren’t parked in a garage at night either, so just getting started is going to be harder.
There is also “E learning” now a days. So kids, even when they have a snow day, are stuck on their computers for most of the day. IMHO e learning isn’t that great. But the school doesn’t have to make up for too many snow days anymore. Back in the day, if you had more than one or two, you started to lose spring break days to make up the lost days.
Interesting, what part of the country are you in that, “Couple things have changed since then. Snow plowing isn’t done nearly as well as it once was.”
…Cause, here in Iowa, they are like, On Top of it. Especially, on school bus routes. I mean, those roads are cleared off lickety split, clean as… way more better than roads in the 80’s, that’s for sure.
…Maybe, your property taxes are lower? I’d take that, over clear roads, any day.
I heard the local news on the radio telling kids not to EVER venture out on frozen ponds. Too dangerous! It might not be frozen solid enough! They even went so far as to tell us that in Oklahoma, the ponds are NEVER frozen enough to venture onto! Absolute BS.
Dude, when we were kids, we did it ALL THE TIME. It was a thrill when the pond started to crack (sounded like thunder), and everyone scrambled to get back to shore before you fell through (never did).
One of our favorite ponds was adjacent to a house with an aggressive German shepherd who may or may not be running loose. One time, we were on our way through and that damned dog attacked. We ran for the creek that fed the pond, and I looked back and the dog was jumping up on my friend Ryan. Well, being the good friend that I was, I kept running lol. When we got back to my house, I asked how he got away and he said as soon as the dog hit the ice, he was able to get away. He looked back and saw the dog slipping and sliding.
Memories…
The funny thing is, my stories are tame compared to my dad’s. And his are tame compared to his dad’s.
No offense Philo, but in cold climates, falling through can be a death sentence.
There’s always 1-3 deaths per year in my areas from walkers to snowmobiles going through.
And I always did it too in my youth, and went through a few times, but luckily I hit bottom in each case, but had no idea how deep they were which is absolutely dumb.
“in cold climates, falling through can be a death sentence”
“You take a chance getting up in the morning, crossing the street, or sticking your face in a fan.” – Frank Drebin
My theory about ‘afraid of everything’ is population density related.
In our suburban area of a mega metro area, it’s half decent cause we’re on the line of suburb/rural, but go 10miles towards metro (heavy suburbs) and it’s amazing the difference.
What woke me up, was our rural place in a western mountain area. They don’t even plow much, only the little slopes in the little town that are near stop signs. The level roads don’t get plowed. You are expected to tamp the snow down yourself with the car. You are expected to know how to drive, or you don’t. No salt either, just cinders. Major County roads do get plowed but no where near as fast as populated areas. You still see 20+yr old cars around that wouldn’t survive in the rust belt. I don’t remember the kids getting off school, except maybe a 1ft+ snow storm. And the towns kids all walk, only the remote County kids get a bus. It’s refreshing. 1000’s of areas like this in middle america. It has calmed my soul.
ohhh, and newcomers that complain about this and that related to these things usually don’t last long. They either learn the hard way, or move out (1-2 years typically).
There’s places here in Wisconsin that won’t get plowed. The problem with not plowing paved roads when it’s below 0 for so long is it turns to ice pretty quick and just kind of stays until it starts to melt in April. Then what always seems to happen is all that moisture ends up inside the already cracked pavement and BOOM! It explodes and there are massive holes everywhere.
Yah, gravel roads. They’re unattractive, but practical.
…But, there’s a certain kind of class of people, who don’t like ’em.
The method Montana once used to make roads passable in the winter is to not plow but rather spread gravel when it’s falling. The snow is compressed into ice with gravel embedded. As long as it stays cold the gravel/ice road is like driving on sandpaper. Not anymore, though, they’re just as bad as any eastern or southern state with the plows and salt. Our cars used to need windshields every year but they would take decades to rust. But we’re as bad as Ohio or Pennsylvania now.
They encourage, condition the masses to accept and mandate helplessness, as the helpless are much more easy to control.
People where going nut that it was going to snow and I know this country was done in 2020 was at a large store probably 100 people only 2 other with no mask one older woman about 60 and a woman about 40 if that’s the only people no afraid I know this country is fucked these people are cowards so afraid of death guess they don’t know Jesus Christ.
I remember seeing a woman with a shirt that said “keep calm and trust God” during COVID. She was wearing a mask too. Could she not see the irony??
Drive safe, stay safe be safe! If it helps the young people I work with go 24/7, drive and travel everywhere-even to european countries and Japan and aren’t afraid of life at all.
My relatives back east stocked up on supplies, sure but definitely werent concerned then on the storm day went out shoveled snow and were glad to have the day off so they could hang out with friends.
I just don’t see anyone really paying attention to the news anymore. Their yakking goes in one ear and out the other.
My sister is pretty liberal so I asked her what she thought of all the news blasts. She said it was very helpful of the news to let people know anout the incoming storm to give them the opportunity to get stocked up and cancel any travel plans they might have made. To keep them safe. Lol I didn’t point out that these people she’s talking about (we are in CA) have been through winters before and use the same weather appa we do so they to know how to do all this and don’t need hysterical news reports and storms with first last and middle names. It just goes to show the perception of life between liberals and the rest of us is 180 degrees apart.
One advantage of one wheel drive is that by the time you get your car moving on snow covered roads, the red light runners are already through the intersection. 🙂
There’s also this: As I’ve mentioned before here, the obsession with Saaaaaaaaafety! and being afraid of everything is one of the effects of a society that has stopped believing in and worshipping God.
As I’ve also mentioned before here, when you stop believing in and worshipping God, it doesn’t mean you believe in and worship nothing—it means you believe in and worship anything.
Safetyism is one such thing people believe in and worship instead of God. So are environmentalism and healthism.
That’s why we see safety, health, and environmental issues treated not with cool and careful scientific analysis, but with heated religious fervor.
Another reason is that when you stop believing in God, you believe that this life is all there is. Therefore, you see death as “The End” and as something to fear, and you must take whatever measures you can to avoid death—even if it means you never truly live.
This is so tiring , the line that if you don’t believe in the (Abrahamic) God that you will “you see death as “The End” and as something to fear”. Seriously no. Some of the most devout Christians I know are the biggest adherents of the “safety” cult, my mom among them.
“Safetyism is one such thing people believe in and worship instead of God” which is always your version of God, Big Daddy who sits in judgement, who punishes, whose “wrath” is visited on those who stray from the path. An abusive parental relationship if there ever was one, and not one that everyone wants.
I am getting tired of arguing about religion as it should be a personal thing, but it’s hard to just let this incredibly stupid argument go.
Anti-Christian edginess. So bold and brave. It’s what all the cool kids are doing.
Not being anti Christian just pointing out the fallacy that safety obsession has anything to do with lack of religious belief as the most religious in my extended family are the most obsessed with safety. What I also find is that the same people are the ones who find even the mildest criticism as an assault on the beliefs. Your comment only confirms that observation.
Metal Queen,
What would be entertaining (if these people didn’t hold public offices) are the Christians who rail against the Islamic. There was a church in the town down the road whose Sunday sermon placard read something like “The reason morality is declining is because people keep legalizing sin”. What does that mean? Why, it seems to mean we should have Sharia Law!
It truly seem that many Christians have much more in common with Islamists that they think. Even the same god, just differing PR guys.
With due deference, Metal Queen, if you’re so “sick and tired of arguing about religion,” perhaps you should be the one to initiate the cure to your malady — and take your own advice — by refusing to engage such discussions. After all, it take two to create an argument.
Being tired of something does not me I don’t want to engage the conversation when I consider something blatantly wrong. And I find the attitude that safeyism is due lack of belief in the Abrahamic god to be wrong and dishonest.
The over sensitivity by certain Christians to any pushback on their opinions is no different to the “woke” or the Muslims they love to condemn.
I get where you’re coming from. I see organized religions as a very old con for social control. Now they are being phased out for the new con, Science. There are plenty of people who don’t want to let the old con go. You can’t blame them. I feel the same way about gold and silver. A very old con, phased out in favor of paper fiat, now being phased out in favor of digital.
Yo MQ,
I thought the proper AND all “inclusive” …term was …
“SKY DADDEY”….Thus you’re not guilty of any particular sectarian discrimination..Just saying..
The point is, people worship safety, health, science, and the environment as a religion. If you believe, at least God provides the hope of salvation, grace, and eternal life—environmentalism, safetyism, science, and healthism are just doomsday cults that demand one sacrifice after another—including the sacrifice of your life. And then when you make those sacrifices, and you don’t get what you sacrificed for, well, too bad for you then.
The “hope” you claim is not based on any evidence either but on “faith” based on religious texts that others may not find convincing even if they were raised with them. Religious beliefs are not the issue, it is the view that (insert.problem here) is caused by the lack of beliefs by others. THAT is what I find objectionable and will continue to call out.
Sshhh. Eric. Dude. There’s day trading to be done and the kids have soccer at 3.
The whole Saaaaaaaaaaaaaafety thing was even exploited during COVID and COVID jab mania. Remember the narratives from corporate media and the globalist elite (Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, etc.) such as “Nobody is safe until everyone is safe!” or “Nobody is safe unless everyone is vaccinated!”
The decades long regime of multiple doses of different “Recommended vaccinations” for children from birth to 18 years of age was also framed as “Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety!”, and people who declined such “Recommended vaccinations” for their children were invariably smeared as UNSAFE, ANTI-VAXXERS, SCIENCE DENIERS, or THREATS TO PUBLIC HEALTH.
Where is, “The whole Saaaaaaaaaaaaaafety thing”, Not exploited?
That ugly blob is everywhere.
And, if it does not appear to be there, it’s hiding in the bushes waiting to jump out at you and give you a ticket, if it can.
Get a load of this Helot……the following story coming out of the UK is also framed as Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety….
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/britain/the-uk-rolls-out-largest-national-ai-surveillance-program/
You Can’t make this sheet Up: ““You can’t enjoy any of your liberties if you’re not safe,” she warned.”
[Schools really don’t teach people anything these days, do they?]
Gee Whizz, “For 20 years we’ve been talking about Big Brother societies, maybe for even longer than that, I just really reject that analysis.”
Good for her. /Sarc OFF. She rejects what her elders have tried to warn her about and now she’s advancing the fuckery of tyranny.
For sure, they’ll try and do that evil sheet here, as well.
Fucking Monsters. …May she, and those like her, find salvation. Redemption, would be good, too. Doubtful, but one can hope.
Unfortunately, under the Trump 2.0 administration, we could eventually see a similar AI surveillance system rolled out in the U.S if it’s not already. I’m not aware of too many Americans, Left or Right, speaking out against it here.
RE: “I’m not aware of too many Americans, Left or Right, speaking out against it here.”
It’s not a problem here, yet. That said, if it’s not a, Left or Right issue, it’s often embraced here in the Land of the Flea & the home of da Slave.
Yah, Plantir could make a bundle.
Do the younger generations give a shit if they’re being made into slaves?
….Time will tell.
I saw a video of a young Gen-Alpha chicka who has come of age calling Gen Z and Millennials, old.
She seemed like, she gave a shit & wasn’t liking it.
There was a poll somewhere recently indicating that younger voters are fed up with BOTH of the major political parties, and I’d have to agree with that sentiment.
I guess, we can only, hope.
Hi Helot:
I have become worn out from arguing with the bootlickers over the last view days but I would hope everyone should stop and read this from Gary Barnett.
https://garydbarnett.substack.com/p/the-us-has-become-a-hellhole-and
The trouble is of course that this is not limited to the US and some countries such as the UK are even worse. I wish I could see a way out on the horizon.
He’s right of course. Another soul off the reservations who sees the big con. You might find comfort from the late Alan Watt’s archived talks, as I have. From 2006-2021, when he died.
https://cuttingthroughthematrix.com/radio/Alan_Watt_CTTM_Blurbs_JanFeb2021.html
Any talk he gave is equally relevant, because the plan hasn’t ever changed. I think we’re supposed to get stuck on the current thing and lose the big picture..
Don’t let the red hats discourage you. Having more of them here only means that Eric has struck a nerve. I come because every other place has proved itself to be a limited hangout, save for this one place and the archives of the late Alan Watt. Take care, Metal Queen. Listen to some Nevermore if you get pissed off; that’s what I do.
Hello Helot & John; Years ago, I read an asinine article of a UK driver receiving a speeding ticket in the mail. It was deemed that said driver reached the next street camera (from the last one he passed) “too fast”, and therefore, must have been speeding, even though said infraction was never caught on camera. Something like this does not surprise me in the least.
Isn’t that just all obscene? The U.K. has flipped it’s lid and gone plumb Loco Bat-Shit Crazy.
Logan’s Run, style. …Wishin’ to become Daleks? …Do you suppose every Englishman would wish to be a tiny shriveled up Dalek? …A junior Darth Vader?
‘Meet the First Daleks!’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YR8fp0RF8o
This sounds like what I’ve been researching – this is another weapon tested in Gaza. From the NY Times article “Israel’s A.I. Experiments in Gaza War Raise Ethical Concerns”:
In the past 18 months, Israel has also combined A.I. with facial recognition software to match partly obscured or injured faces to real identities, turned to A.I. to compile potential airstrike targets, and created an Arabic-language A.I. model to power a chatbot that could scan and analyze text messages, social media posts and other Arabic-language data, two people with knowledge of the programs said.
Many of these efforts were a partnership between enlisted soldiers in Unit 8200 and reserve soldiers who work at tech companies such as Google, Microsoft and Meta.
https://archive.is/iSPnV#selection-781.0-785.162
In that story, they use the AI to assassinate someone they feel was involved in their false flag, taking out an additional 125 people as collateral damage. That is the system they’re selling in the name of safety.
While I don’t like much about U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, I sure do respect the way she shrugged this off and was not fearful in the face of The Safety Cult saying, “…You need to get checked!…” “She needs to go get checked!” “Please, it’s about your safety!”
She says, “Yeah. It smells really bad. We’re gonna keep talking.”
“I learned at a young age, you don’t give in to threats. You look them in the face and you stand strong.”
‘Man arrested after spraying Ilhan Omar with substance at Minneapolis town hall’
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/man-douses-ilhan-omar-unknown-012714916.html
Whoops, I wrote, “While I don’t like much about U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar,”
That’s not true. Other than her very respectable moxie in the above video (is that staged?) I cannot think of a single other thing I like about her. …Just wanted to clarify
‘Ilhan Omar’s Multi-Million Dollar ‘Winery’ Doesn’t Have an Address, Social Media, or Working Phone that.’
https://rumble.com/v74xauo-ilhan-omars-multi-million-dollar-winery-doesnt-have-an-address-social-media.html?mref=1htl22&mrefc=4
Ilhan “the bitch” Oman is a true piece of shit. She is the most detestable member of the “Jihad Squad.” I am so sick of her obnoxious comments about people she diagreees with or has problems with. She needs to STFU and stop letting her brother spread her legs.
She shrugged it off because she probably paid someone to do it.
Testosterone. The answer to every question.
Really? I thought is was estrogen. Isn’t that what every testosterone seeks out?
…Final answer, Alex?
A.k.a. family.
Indeed, Griff!
I was thinking about that in the context of this discussion. Are the young guys of today afraid? Did their balls ever drop? The effeminate, neurotic obsession with “safety” disgusts any man whose balls did drop.
Of course, guys like us didn’t get strapped into saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety seats as kids and we free-ranged by ourselves after school until it got dark outside. Oh, the humanity!
You might get a chuckle out of this short video. I would have loved to have been the kid (“…Later Dude”…) rafting down this snowy hill. Can you imagine a parent (let alone kid) doing something like this? Prob’ly not. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/J8K2XHbIJ-k
Loved it!
But the guy probably had child protective services sicced on him…
From what I understand, the Nipah virus gonna get all of us soon.
From what I understand, you’ve bought into a long con which is difficult to escape from.
‘Unmasking the Viral Paradigm’
https://drsambailey.com/unmasking-the-viral-paradigm/
Oh Lord, another viruses don’t exist, Sam Bailey acolyte. And the earth is flat. And United Airlines is spraying the sky with Aluminum.
Oh how very C.I.A. of you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Bought-into-the-system.
I would be very surprised if you’re not wearing a face diaper as you type.
Morning, BAC!
The virus thing interests me because it’s one of those things that’s difficult for a layman to fact-suss on his own. I mean, I have never seen a virus. Or a germ, for that matter. Secondary effects and common sense tell me such things are real, however. The most persuasive everyday evidence being that I have repeatedly over the course of my life caught a cold – or so it seems – via close contact with someone who already has it. The wife or girlfriend or a kid or a friend coughs and sneezes and within a day or two you have the same cold. This suggests something has been transmitted via proximity/contact with the already sick person.
I have also seen images of viruses and while I grant these could be fake, I doubt they are. One of the most wearying consequences of “COVID ” is that it’s become reasonable to mistrust science. It gives traction to the craziest “theories,” such as Flat Earth. It makes my teeth ache.
Morning Eric –
Full disclosure, I spent part of my career doing biomedical research, including the use of bacteriophages (viruses!) to express and study antibody proteins. I’ve handled viruses.
During Covid, the world went ape shit. This put the liberty army in motion to try and debunk the central tenet of an infectious virus making its rounds. Out of the woodwork came bloggers like Jon Rappaport, who made his case that sars-cov2 did not exist. A variant of that is a New Zealand crackpot named Sam Bailey, who claims that viruses don’t exist.
So we have a full population of folks now repeating claims of these bloggers. They use terms like “terrain theory” and “germ theory” and Koch’s postulate” but can’t actually explain what these terms mean, without help from Google or ChatGPT. Threy just throw them out there because they fit the no virus narrative. Mind you, none of these folks have even heard of the Journal of Virology, for example, much less opened it and read an article or two.
They say odd things like illness is just the body purging toxins. Or that viruses (which don’t exist) are just the body packaging those toxins for removal.
They ignore households apparently all purging toxins in sequence. They ignore villages in the Congo who all apparently sequentially purge toxins by liquefying their organs and then bleeding from their eyeballs or dying.
They ignore J&Js covid vaccine, delivered by an infective but attenuated adenovirus. They’ve never heard of the ongoing clinical trials that use viral delivery vehicles for gene therapy that literally cures congenital deafness. Go find the heart strings pulling videos of four year old kids, born deaf, that can now hear and speak because a virus helped correct a broken gene.
Look, I’m not going to change minds. I don’t even want to. It is what it is. I only wish those who put forth such positions back them up with something more authoritative than Sam Bailey.
Roger all that, BAC –
It is quite something to be alive at a time when a kind of reversion to Dark Ages thinking (if you want to use that word) is supplanting critical thinking. How long before people start wearing goatskin chaps and dancing around fires?
RE: “How long before people start wearing goatskin chaps and dancing around fires?”
You just described those who believe in germ theory.
Funny/odd, how you’re religious in this.
6 years later and no lessons learned. No humility at all. Still defiantly talking your book on here. Wow. I guess those exorbitant suburban CT property taxes don’t pay themselves. Eric wonders why idiots still run around wearing masks to this day. It’s because of folks like you. Thanks a lot. Keep up the bad work.
What lessons, Funk? Enlighten me. That viruses don’t exist? What does what I have written have to do with masks? I guess my exorbitant CT property taxes (are you jealous?) clearly have made me not understand your cryptic and pointless post here. Got something? Debunk me, with scientific evidence, and not some dipshit blog post you happen to agree with because of confirmation bias. Whatever, dude. Get therapy, or masturbate, you seem to have anger issues.
Sorry BAC. That’s not how it works. You can’t just make a claim that “I worked with viruses” therefore they exist. You have to back up your claim that virus exist with proof. You can’t just assume the existence of something and then demand that somebody prove the negative. That’s a total inversion of the scientific method.
I studied “viruses” extensively in 2020 (probably engaging in hundreds of hours of reviewing the so-called science that they exist) and was shocked to find that none of it proves existence of anything known as a virus. It’s all bullshit like the other propaganda narratives that are constantly being peddled. Similar bullshit is the cholesterol CAUSES heart disease, or that eating red meat will cause a heart attack, or that 60% of your diet should consist of grains, of that you should consume “healthy” seed oils, anthropomorphic climate change is an existential threat, Israel is not engaging in genocide, Maduro was a threat to the US, members of the media, Hollywood actors, pop stars and members of congress are not being blackmailed and bribed, etc.
If you worked with viruses you should easily be able to provide proof of their existence. I look forward to the links to that proof.
Something tells me that no type or level of proof will ever suffice. That your mind is made up. I guess I was just playing with yellow liquid all those years. Like I said, I’m not trying to change minds, and in your case, I suspect, I can’t or won’t. So no proof from me will be forthcoming.
As I suspected. You employ the tried and true cop out of “nothing I should you will change your mind.”
This is exactly what people say when they can’t prove something.
“nothing I show you. . .” rather
Delusional…
Geb,
Ad hominem attacks aren’t arguments. If all you have to say is “delusional” – without explaining why – then you haver nothing to say.
I provided a select paper at top, BAC. Not sure it’ll make a dent, but hey, what the hell? Check it out if you have interest in the subject.
“What does what I have written have to do with masks?” -BAC
They tell us a deadly pandemic existed because of a “novel virus” and that they only way to protect yourself is to stay 5 feet apart and wear a mask to prevent “transmission of the virus” until the holy vax is created (and by the way stay masked even after the holy injection).
Hmmm, I wonder what the existence of viruses could possibly have do with masks? That’s a real riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. And we’re supposed to just take your word for it that viruses exist without any proof?
Instead, you demand that Funk Doctor Spidock prove the negative, “get therapy, or masturbate” as he “seem[s] to have anger issues.” Now who exactly has the anger issues?
The gaslighting from this character is unbelievable. And he’s only a low level associate. No wonder no one higher up has been prosecuted or sent to the gallows yet for their crimes against humanity.
Funny. 🙂
It’s always annoying (intelligence insulting) when somebody feigns misunderstand of a clear and obvious point in order to avoid addressing it. I suppose the act of doing so speaks for itself though.
Hey BAC,
I went to considerable length in argument and conversation with these guys (notably Mr. Liberty, Funk Doctor Spidock and Helot) regarding viruses, “germ theory” etc.
Small attempts at explaining the history, challenges and science of virology were futile, so I began a point-by-point refutation of Dr. Sam Bailey’s 2022 paper on SARS-CoV-2 and virology in general, known as “A Farewell to Virology”.
I spent many hours compiling research and finding specifically things that Bailey said don’t exist or were never done. I have enough research now to write my own book on the subject, and might just do that some day.
I even wrote a little bioinformatics program (and would release the code for transparency) that shows how well the protein sequence of the Tobacco Mosaic Virus capsid protein matches what is coded by the RNA within.
Ultimately, I had too much to do in life with work, homesteading and continuing my own education. Also, the findings would be difficult to post on Eric’s forum.
Teaching virology and molecular biology on the libertarian car-guy site had to ride the bench.
BaDnOn:
I almost always appreciate the perspective you offer in your posts, but I totally disagree with you on your point here. When we had those discussions, you said you we’re planning on providing proof in the near future, but you never did. You said you got busy with other things, which is perfectly acceptable and I don’t hold it against you in any way. You owe me nothing. However, you offering a refutation (although I don’t recall your refutation) of somebody’s attempt at trying to prove a negative (Dr. Sam Bailey in your example) does not equal the rigor of scientific method in proving its existence. Even if you conclusively show Dr. Sam Bailey uttered only gibberish, that cannot prove viruses exist.
I agree that discussing the existence of viruses on this forum may be challenging, but that doesn’t give one license to expect others to take a commenter’s word that viruses exist. All I asked of BAC was to provide links that he believes prove the existence, but he’s either unable or not willing to do that.
I’m not close-minded about this at all. I only seek the truth. If the truth is that viruses exist, I will gladly accept it, but I can’t find anything conclusive on it. Thus, my position right now is that they do not exist.
My mindset is very much the same regarding claimed moon landings. by what I have seen, it appears that it was faked and assume it did not happen. That notwithstanding, if conclusive proof were somehow provided I would gladly accept that it was real.
I’ll try and be succinct, Mr. Liberty.
Dr. Bailey makes claims regarding the tenets of virology including that it does not and never did follow the scientific method or possess the scientific rigor of which you speak.
My task is therefore to both acknowledge what shortcomings there have been and demonstrate that these claims are (largely) incorrect, showing that good scientific work has been done and that it is a folly to believe that viruses do not exist or don’t do what they’re said to do. But this isn’t done solely by throwing literature at the layman but by considerable explanation of its contents. It also must be done with respect to the accumulation of knowledge and research throughout time. No modern virology paper begins with stating “Here we shall prove that viruses exist” (which isn’t strictly what science does anyway) and no historical paper uses the extensive tools and findings of myriad investigations over the years.
It is therefore a daunting task to complete if one is to be comprehensive and convincing. I have not completely abandoned the prospect, but it is not a priority at this time.
One of the biggest problems with “virology” is that they do not employ the use of a control study in the quest to identify a virus. More concretely, they do not have one perti dish with snot (what contains the presumed virus), the antibiotic, the bovine serum, the cells (be it green monkey, human-cloned lung cells, or embryonic human kidney cells), etc. and another petri dish with everything but the snot to compare the two. In other words, they simply combine these ingredients in one petri dish and wait a few days to see if the cells have been damaged (what they call “cytopathic effects”). If there are these “cytopathic effects” they jump to the conclusion that the snot had “virus” in it and that it was the sole cause of the “cytopathic effects” on the cells
How do we know that the presumed “virus” in the snot was the cause of the “cytopathic effects” without being able to compare it with a petri dish without the snot? Maybe it was because of the antibiotic or the bovine serum, or perhaps it was a result of organic tissue being left for days at 99 degrees without any ATP (i.e. energy source) to survive?
There are a host of many other problems with this method as well, including but not limited to that’s not how people are alleged to “catch” viruses from others. It is supposes that the virus is somehow in the air on on surfaces and that it somehow gets into the mucosa of others and then causes sickness. Yet, we’re told it does this without using antibiotic, bovine serum, etc. (the stuff they put in the petri dish). And, how do these supposed “cytopathic effects” on cells cause sickness? Wouldn’t this simply kill some cells in the mucosa and that would be it? How does it cause a fever, nausea, aches, “loss of smell and taste,” fatigue, looooooong covid, etc?
Why don’t they try to get volunteers to allow snot from an allegedly infected person to see if they get sick? I bet some people would agree to this for the right amount of money. No, can’t do that. That would be unethical, you know. Well, they did this with the so-called Spanish Flu a century ago and they could not get those recipients to be sick.
There are just too many holes in the “virology” story.
Mr. Liberty,
Reply at top to get out of the weeds. 😉
Why is it my burden to prove they exist? I gave you a few examples – look up DB-OTO, a gene therapy that uses AAV viruses as a delivery vehicle. Look up literally any article in the Journal of Virology. You want pictures, there are thousands of electron microscope images of them online. Look at images of DNA or RNA gels extracted from viruses. Read their published genome sequences in Genbank. But I’m sure you won’t do any of that because it’s all fake, or put out by big pharma, or by the NIH/CDC and so is automatically fake and based on lies, or is AI generated in your view. You have a comeback or answer for literally everything I could offer you and have offered you. You stand in opposition to long-settled science, and thousands of good scientists who don’t work for the man, and who have devoted their careers to virus research. To clinicians who risk their lives treating horrible things like Ebola and hantavirus in places you will never go. That’s all fine, but why the visceral reaction? Why does a virus have to be a conspiracy theory? Why do you, who doesn’t know me or what I have done, get to sit there and tell me I never handled a virus? So I obviously faked my research, right?
Ooooh Eboooooooola! I leave this link here, not for you who can’t stand the thought of a mundane knowing anything about, or sharing that knowledge in a lowly blog, the mystical world you inhabit, but for anyone else reading who might like to know more about the so-called Ebola “virus” and the travails of the “clinicians” sent to Africa to help cure “it.”
https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2022/01/12/ebola-shattering-the-lies-and-the-fakery/
BAC: I see you’re personally hurt by my request for proof. You say trust the long-standing science. You exclaim conspiracy theory. Then you appeal to emotion about that “clinicians who risk their lives treating horrible things like Ebola and hantavirus in places you will never go.” Of course none of this proves anything. Please give me a link to any article, study, etc. which proves the existence of a virus and I will specifically address it.
Stating that big pharma uses a, attenuated virus to deliver a vaccine or gene therapy does not prove the existence of a virus. That’s just a story -a claim made by big pharma. Nor does “any article in the Journal of Virology.” Pictures offered as proof of a virus are also not helpful either. What is a picture of an actual virus supposed to look like? Is it a spikey ball like the cartoon drawings I saw in 2020 that they tell me is the “Covid virus?”
I also know how it’s alleged that DNA or RNA gels extracted from “virus.” I discussed the perti dishes in this chat. All they do is presume a virus was in the snot and it is the cause of alleged cytopathec effects. Then the draw a pipette form this perti dish mixture, extract a small and very incomplete portion of what they presume to be the RNA or DNA sequence from the virus (without distinguishing whether is contains, the snot, bovine serum, antibiotic, cell tissue, etc. or a combination thereof) and then apply a computer algorithm to assemble what it presumes is the majority remainder of the RNA or DNA sequence. Then they store this presumed and computer generated sequence “in silico.” Viola! Here’s the existence of the virus -“in silico!” Give me a break.
I’m not questioning your research, per se, or questioning the existence of viruses. But I do wonder if you actually personally examined the Tobacco Mosaic Virus under a microscope or if you just used a pre-existing photo of it when conducting your analysis? [Not trying to be contrary, just underscoring the point that it’s imperative to “question everything” and not accept things at face value — especially where the so-called “scientific” establishment is concerned.]
Hey Jason,
I did not put the TMV under a microscope. Yet.
I actually do have an electron microscope I will seek to refurbish and make live again. But that’s down the road a bit.
I *have* actually thought of using TMV to do a comprehensive study showing it is a virus and does cause the Tobacco Mosaic disease. One big concern of mine is that it’s purported to be both contagious and resilient as all hell. It can’t hurt animals, but I’m living off-grid and trying to farm my way to self-sufficiency. TMV doesn’t only infect tobacco, but many plant species, so if I were to proceed with such a study, I’d have to be damn careful.
Yes, I could probably put it under the microscope and sequence the RNA without much danger as long as I took great care. This would be a couple years down the road, at least, however. Without showing that it causes the disease, however, it would be of little use to argue that viruses exist. An electron micrograph of a virus is easy to produce. If you were to ask me to prove cows exist, I could go find some today and take pictures. That might convince some, but some would want video, DNA samples etc. to prove that they aren’t paper-mache constructs or large dogs in costume or whatnot. This is why the realities of virology can be difficult to convey.
We’re told a mask will protect you. 🙂
Once again, we get the: It’s too complicated for me to explain viruses, besides, whatever proof I gave you would not be enough to satisfy you because your belief systems won’t allow you to be convinced, so just take my word for it. You don’t need proof; trust the science because I know.
I ain’t buyin’ that line of reasoning from anybody. I will accept only the rigors of the scientific method.
The burden is not on people like Mike Rappaport, Sam and Mark Bailey, Tom Cowan, Mike Yeadon, etc. to disprove viruses are real. Show the evidence? There is none. Never isolated or purified. Tissue sample always mixed in with monkey kidney cells, antibiotics and other chemicals.
Several experiments with sick people trying to infect non-sick people. Never proven. So-called Spanish Flu times, prisoner volunteers introduced to sickest of patients coughing into their mouths and noses, mucous of sick people placed into nose of healthy volunteers, some even injected with sick man’s tissue. Nothing, no transmission. And your so-called trials never include controls.
PCR? Ramp up the cycles to 35 and 40, find anything you want in a computer database that matches a very small fragment from a previous computer constructed “virus”. All BS science. Fan Wu paper was the basis for the 2020 “Covid” scamdemic. A man from Wuhan exhibiting signs of pneumonia. They extract piece of lung tissue, mix with other chemicals, then sequence it, and match small fragment with a previous computer virus. Could have done with myriad of other fake viruses like HIV, Ebola, measles and declare a plandemic.
A few countries did absolutely nothing during scamdemic, didn’t take the IMF/World Bank deal – forced masking, shutdowns, Remdesivir, ventilators, vaccines, transgender promotion, porn promotion, sex education to 4 year olds, all jew cultural values in exchange for billion dollar loans. What happened in those places like Belarus and some African countries that did nothing? Leaders were executed, athletes banned from competing, threats of all-out war from the imperialist nations for defying the new world order demands. Why??? Why would they need to threaten these nations if there really was a deadly bug traveling the world, surviving long enough in host to pass country to country…what a powerful bug, doesn’t kill host!
Morning Eric!
“This suggests something has been transmitted via proximity/contact with the already sick person.”
Yep. And you could take your cold across the country into a completely different environment (fly from your cryonic hellscape to Phoenix where it is sunny and 75) and you could transmit that same illness to someone. You can watch while you improve while the people you’ve infected get the sniffles and descend to your previous low, and later they improve.
It is pretty suggestive of a possible “germ” and less so of an environmental cause, is it not? Could be demons or something though, I guess.
“And you could take your cold across the country into a completely different environment (fly from your cryonic hellscape to Phoenix where it is sunny and 75) and you could transmit that same illness to someone. You can watch while you improve while the people you’ve infected get the sniffles. . .” This is known as begging the question, which is when an argument’s premises assume the truth of the conclusion.
There are a lot of things we arrogant humans don’t know, can’t effectively perceive and simply can’t explain. I’ll stick with the scientific method.
Wow. Seems clear that your mind is closed to any possibilities other than the ones you’ve been trained in.
Except, maybe, demons?
What surprises me most is how aggressively you attack the ideas put forth by Dr’s Sam and Mark Bailey. Not just the ideas, but rather, how you attack their character, and their lack of falling in line with the prevailing, ‘consensus science’.
Yah, so very C.I.A, of you, all throughout this thread. Either that, or just a well trained seal? Idk.
I hoped you could break free. Maybe, someday, …when you have more time?
I wish you good fortune. And, the grasp of truth.
RE: “The most persuasive everyday evidence being that I have repeatedly over the course of my life caught a cold – or so it seems – via close contact with someone who already has it.”
Or, maybe, you’re both exposed to the same toxins?
That would cause the appearance of ‘catching’ something. Would it not?
A big dioxin release upwind from you?
Any number of molds this time of year?
Some sheet from Geoengineering fallout you both breathed in?
https://geoengineeringwatch.org/
Morning, Helot –
The exposed to the same toxins thing makes no sense to me. Or – rather – it makes less sense than my catching the cold from the person I came into contact with. Dawn’s job places her in situations where she comes into contact with kids and their parents, who are sometimes fighting a cold. She gets the cold. I – who only have come into contact with Dawn – then catch the cold from her. I did not come into contact with the people she came into contact with. How then could the toxins that (for the sake of discussion) made those people sick get me sick? Isn’t the more likely explanation that they got Dawn sick and then she got me sick? We live in the same house. She brings home a cold. I don’t have the cold. It seems unlikely to me that the house (mold, toxins) made her sick but not me… until a few days later. After she came home sick.
Germ theory vs terrain theory is something to look into for oneself. I found the book “Bechamp or Pasteur?” enlightening when I read it in the midst of covid times. Not Sam Bailey, Del Bigtree, or any other limited hangout “truther” slop, but a book about the actual men and their theories/experiments when this topic was thrashed out almost 200 years ago.
Quote from Bechamp:
“The general public, however intelligent, are struck only by that which it takes little trouble to understand. They have been told that the interior of the body is something more or less like the contents of a vessel filled with wine, and that this interior is not injured — that we do not become ill, except when germs, originally created morbid, penetrate into it from without, and then become microbes.
“The public do not know whether this is true; they do not even know what a microbe is, but they take it on the word of the master; they believe it because it is simple and easy to understand; they believe and they repeat that the microbe makes us ill without inquiring further, because they have not the leisure — nor, perhaps, the capacity — to probe to the depths that which they are asked to believe.”
Lumping the counter intelligence project of flat earth and the wholly legitimate field of geoengineering (widespread and incessant since about 1998) in with the terrain/germ theory seems intellectually dishonest. They are separate topics and nobody brought them up except for you.
Just one question BAC: do you believe in mask efficacy (the disposable kind) in stopping a virus?
No, I do not. One thing has nothing to do with the other. Viruses can exist, and paper and N95 masks are wholly ineffective as a means of stopping their spread.
I was just reminiscing about this during the storm. We used to walk to elementary and middle school because it was under a mile away. Walked neighborhood roads that were the last to be plowed.
Many days we walked to or from school in several inches of snow.
We’d get a 2 hour delay, so that was cool.
And the dump trucks would drop cinders. Everyone seemed to get around just fine. Dad would head out to work in his Torino without bothering to shovel the driveway.
I remember cinders, too. They stopped doing that around here. Long, long ago. Is it still done in other areas?
I did it on my path – ash/cinders from the wood stove give excellent traction on ice. The only argument against this practice is the fear of tracking it into your house. Of course those are the same fearful people who would never dream of wearing their shoes inside. Condition white.
It explains why (compared to kids today) I did not see too many fat kids running around. We were too busy, well, running around, using our bikes to get somewhere. So what if there was snow? Slow down? What was that? Stay home? Such was not a welcome place for many. The ironic thing is, compared to Winters back in the 70’s and 80’s, Winters today are not so bad.
100 percent, Shadow!
Virginia (I have lived here almost all my life) used to get heavier and more frequent snow and people used to deal with it much better than now. Probably because they weren’t egged on to be terrified of it, as today. The near-panic when snow is coming is comical – except it’s not because these people are learning to be terrified of everything, as per the article.
“ Virginia (I have lived here almost all my life). . . “
Maybe that helps explain why you’re so afraid of moving away from the tyranny?
Bobby,
I’m not afraid of moving away from tyranny. The point is there is no place left in this country that isn’t lousy with tyranny. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps you can educate me. Perhaps you will be able to tell me where I can move and pay less in property taxes – or even no property tax – and can legally shoot guns on my own property (and legally carry a gun off my property) and so on. I am sure you can cite a variety of states that are a little better with regard to one thing or another. But the are all worse in other ways.
Well said.
So basically what you’re saying is you are lazy and want me to do the research for you and give you the perfect place to live.
No thanks.
The simple fact is I’ve lived and traveled the world enough to have repeatedly encountered this behavior of a person having lived in a place all their life and believing there is no better place. Even to the point of whining to others about how lame such and such a place is. But when confronted with the option of simply seeking something better, all of sudden that place is the best place and they are afraid to take action.
You’re welcome to believe that, it’s a personal choice.
Sure makes it very hard to take you seriously.
Bobby,
So – no answer.
It’s easy to condemn people who have built a life and are living in an area where they have invested heavily, both personally and financially. Maybe you are affluent enough that you can afford to move anywhere you like; many of us cannot afford to do that.
You hint at places outside the US. That’s fine – and maybe true, in that there are no doubt places around the world that are better than places in the US.
It’s also easy to do that if you’re young and just starting your life. It is not as easy if you have built a life – and are too old to start over but too young to just retire.
It’d be helpful if, rather than condemn people you offered specific, constructive options.
There is honor in staying put, digging in, and fighting for the place you have invested a large portion of your life.
Fleeing can easily be seen as a cowardly option.
I think, Eric, there’s a lot of people who call themselves “libertarian” who forget that human beings aren’t robots. We have have lives, jobs that we value, great personal friends, neighbors, and family. Moving away to “escape tyranny” isn’t a black and white issue. Many of us actually value things such as these more than everyday politics. Unfortunately that us something that the autists can never understand.
I never once read anything from a libertarian which suggested human beings are robots.
How do you come up with that?
Also, what’s an, “autists”?
Amen, Logan –
Running away isn’t a great option, as I see it. At least, if the running away is within the USA. As I have written before, one state may be better in some respects than another but each are also bad in some other way. Certainly, moving can be an option at some point. But for many if us, it is an extreme option that entails leaving well-established homes, old friends and possibly job loss – these are not trivial things. Especially for people who have families. If you’re a young single person, then it’s obviously much easier. And that’s great – if you are young and single. But many of us no longer are.
It is not running away. It is understanding of reality.
Leave jobs? Slave much? All of the great stories of great men I have read in my life never started with them being stay at home woman-pussies who have to be next to family. No, they pack their families up and head out for greener pastures. Do they do the same thing for employment that they did back in NYC? No, they found their place in their new environment. Some struggle at first, others make the best of a situation because there is fire under their asses.
The truth is that “certainty” is comfortable. Staying in your own lane is comfortable. Griping but never doing anything, that is comfortable.
The simple fact is that i have more freedom than you right now. I am not growing cannabis, but I could if I wanted to. Can you say that?
When I left my beautiful home state, I knew I would have to go somewhere more beautiful and more free to make up for all of my life’s “equity” for being a dedicated Georgian. I am not young. I am Gen X. I am Alaskan now.
Yes, J – I actually can grow pot. Legally. I can also do much as I like on my land – more than in most areas, because my county does not have zoning laws. I have many reasons for staying – and cowardice is not among them. Spare me. Spare all of us. Your rhetoric is presumptuous, condescending and counterproductive.
And Im proud to be a Virginian
And I love my tyranny
Forget all the men who died
Serving Robert E. Lee.
And I proudly stand up
For the tyranny I receive today.
I really just love this land,
Screw you Trumpie dude.
J,
I do not love tyranny and actually have stood against it – and will continue to do so, I assure you. It serves no good purpose to belittle people who share (I hope) your putative contempt for tranny.
Well, I hope, J, that you simply did not run away to Alaska here, and then bring your left-wing liberal crap with you. That is what has happened to states such as Colorado and Montana. People just smart enough to figure out Communism does not work, but too damned dumb to leave it behind, but “try it again” somewhere else. The Anchorage area is not known as “Los Anchorage” or “North Seattle” for nothing, so I hope you found a nice area. But also, to think that such tyranny will not come this far north is ignorant at best. Alaska is “the last best place to run”, and then what if the same crap follows you? It also would not hurt to learn Russian. At the rate things are going in the lower 48, you may need to know how to at least say “Yes”, “No” and maybe “Hello”.
“Even to the point of whining to others about how lame such and such a place is.” -Bobby
It seems I have to remind commenters all the time that EP is not whining. He’s an expository writer. That’s what they do. That’s why we (at least those of us without an ulterior motive) come here to read his articles.
EP is most certainly NOT lazy, nor do I believe he wants you to do the research for him and give him the perfect place to live. If you have suggestions, that would be great, but I’m not sure why you want to recharacterize what he’s said or utilize ad hominem comments.
I was able to shoot guns on my property in the state I was born, raised, and became a home owner of 17 years. Then it was invaded by yankees. NY and NJ tags everywhere. Next thing I knew, we had flipped from 2 republican senators to 2 democrats. I did not wait around to become the next Illinois.
It was not easy to sell most of my belongings and my home, leave family behind, drive across 2 countries to get to Alaska. I was not affluent either.
The Last Frontier. Constitutional carry, low or no sales taxes depending on if you are in a city or not. No toll roads. No state income tax. Get paid to live here. You can shoot on your land if you get the right piece of property as well.
Yes, stuff is more expensive and it is cold. No place is perfect. However, we got around a foot of snow yesterday. Nothing was closed.
Hi J, yes, Alaska is indeed a beautiful state. It is just too bad that Anchorage (Los Anchorage/ North Seattle) is a liberal hell hole. Maybe the state can avert what has been done to the West Coast states. And then again, given the political climate, Russia just may come back and re-claim us. Who knows, maybe then, we would have cheaper oil and gasoline prices, because the good Ole US of A certainly is not giving us a break-and being right next to a pipeline, of all the dumb things.
Hi Shadow, I would disagree. While we do have too many Subarus running around, it isnt as liberal as my home state’s capital, in a very conservative state.
There are places so conservative here, you would think Alaska was part of the confederacy. I have seen the rebel flag quite a few times here.
Where I have seen them, there are off road trails everywhere. You also see dog sled teams training on them. This is probably the most redneck place outside of the South, except you laugh at the truck with huge rims and skinny tires.
That is encouraging to read, J. I just hope the now-liberal state legislature behaves itself this term. LMAO, who am I kidding, but it is a nice thought. I am sure the lower 48 is asking us to take our Winter back. I, for one, will not complain that we did not get freezing rain the 1st of the year.
This is my 3rd winter here. (Yes, that is how I now mark time). My first was a near record for snow for my area of Alaska. As a Southerner all my life, I felt like Lieutenant Dan. Bring it on! If this is everything you’ve got, I am down.
I know you are a bot.
LMFAO. That is cute. Apparently, I hit a nerve with my last comment to you regarding leaving your sh** where you left it, and not bringing it to Alaska. We have enough Commie lunatics here as it is. Lisa Murkowski, anyone? Puhleeze. Thank you for confirming you are simply another left-wing liberal who decided to infect another state that did not invite you, nor want you.
You fail for comprehension dont you? I am in Alaska because of all the uninvited liberals that moved in and swapped my state from Red to Blue.
I moved here to be an asshole to liberals like you.
J,
Please refrain from personal attacks – particularly those directed at long-time regulars here who have established that they are not “assholes.”
Wow, J, it just goes to show how little you really know about anyone. You cannot read between the lines in any way, shape or form. A liberal? Now that is too funny, and thank you for the chuckles this morning. You do not know a damned thing about me, and never will. The fact that you are so willing to personally attack someone you know nothing about, let alone try to find common ground with, says all I need to know about you as a person. You cannot peacefully debate others on a website without personally attacking them. What are you going to when SHTF and Russia comes over here? Cuss and swear at them? That would be fun to see. Therefore, I am done with you! Go find someone else to argue with. For it is apparent that you are here to divide-and-conquer, not have a friendly discussion about anything you personally disagree with here in the group. Which makes me wonder why you suddenly showed up on this site in the first place?
Hi J,
Shadow’s not a bot – and we’re (mostly) friends here, in that we’re mostly in alignment, philosophically. I try (it is hard sometimes) to remain calm when friends disagree with me on some question I consider important. But I try harder to remember that friends are not enemies!
Thank you, Eric. I may not always agree with everything you post (agree to disagree, at times), but how dull would life be if we all agreed 100%? I do not consider you an enemy for it. It is the ones who pretend to be your friend while they have the knife behind their backs that you have to take note of.
100 percent, Shadow!
I think it behooves us all to not fall into the trap of ideological rigidity – and the bizarre turn of mind that requires total agreement in order to be considered a friend.
Hi Eric, is there a delay the prevents one from posting? I cannot respond at the moment to you admonishment of me not to make personal attacks.
Is calling someone a liberal after they called me a commie, Murkowski supporting shit stain who was not invited or wanted an attack now?
Still, for whatever reason, I cannot respond to a direct statement admonishing me for insulting someone. I did not insult Shadow any further than labeling Shadow as a liberal after Shadow has used a lot of demeaning terms in my direction which Eric does not seem to notice.
Please Eric, re-read my post. I did not call Shadow an arsehat. Currently, I believe Shadow to be a butthead, but certainly not an arsehat.
If people can read for clarity, my statement clearly designates myself to be the asshole. People seem to read what they want to read around here.
That is fine. I do not care about most people’s opinions here. Like me, they are just assholes on the internet. Eric, however, I hold you to a higher standard.
All good reasons to choose Alaska, J. Some parts, Like Prince of Whales-Hyder county have no property tax or code enforcement as well. I’ve seen a fair bit of the state and am curious, if you don’t mind, not wanting you to be specific but maybe a general idea where you went. The Interior, Kodiak, Fairbanks and points north, Anchorage area, Kenia peninsula, inside passage, Southwest archipelago? And other than the cold and things being more expensive and sometimes not available what are some downsides of living there.
Shadow has talked a little about this before. For me, I have considered Alaska and may still pull the pin. Arizona will most likely turn communist at the next selection. I know there are some places in Alaska I probably wouldn’t do very well, especially in winter. Being a desert rat, I am pretty partial to sunshine. We have some land about 30 minutes out of Homer, in the middle of nowhere. It’s too remote for the wife and I’m not about to be a hermit. I’d be happy to hear Shadows take on this as well.
Hi Norman. I am an Arizona fan myself. Specifically Northern AZ. Just beautiful.
My first year here I was on the outskirts of Wasilla. Very rural. As in I am not going outside because mama moose and 2 kiddos are right by my truck at the moment rural.
Im in Anchorage at the moment living the “city life” and it is not bad. Sales tax here, especially on alcohol but I understand why. Anchorage is a dumping ground for indiginous rejects. Not trying to be mean because this is the best place for them to be as Anchorage has the most medical help for natives. However, you get the total west coast “bums on the corner” you find all along the left coast and natives do not do well with alcohol. Flip side is they do not send hammers to deal with community problems. We have the “safety patrol” and they deal with the “unhoused”, mental issues, etc. While “liberal”, I really appreciate they do not send hammers to deal with the down and out.
It is hard for folks to move here so I can say that I believe South Central Alaska to be the Florida Keys of Alaska. If you are conervative or libertarian, c’mon if you can get here.
Finally, sunshine. Best thing about winter here, mostly blue skies if it isnt precipitating. My home state was grey in the winter most of the time except for the pines.
Yes, J, the southern part of Alaska does have a bit more sunlight this time of year. In the Fairbanks/ North Star Borough area, they bottom out at 3 hours and 40 minutes of sunlight. And the Winters (way back when) used to be brutal: Dropping down to -70 below for weeks and months at a time. The Southern part of Alaska is not as cold, and there is not as much darkness. Not to mention there are some beautiful areas there, too.
Hi J,
When we moved into the Verde valley 15 years ago, it was like the land that time forgot. Pretty similar to the way it was when I grew up. Now it is filling up with welfare tourists spilling over from Phoenix.
We ran into a moose and her baby on the bike path outside Anchorage on the coastal Knowles trail a few summers back. It was pretty incredible. We waited as the mom and baby were lolly gagging across the trail. Of course some dumbshits came along and tried to get close for a selfie. They lucked out as the majestic beasts headed off into the briars. For someone whose never seen one up close they have no idea how huge they are
Anchorage is pretty cosmopolitan. It’s got everything needed. Wife is partial to it. We stayed in a condo downtown once and it’s a pretty walkable city in the downtown. Those natives are pretty mellow and easy going mostly congregating in the park and outside the weed store. That midnight sun from Anchorage all the way down to Homer is phenomenal, real wonder of the world stuff, never seen it anywhere else than Alaska.
I like Homer and environs for the fishing but the inner passage seems the most temperate. In some ways Juneau is a lot like Seattle without all the silly rabble. I could see myself getting through winter without a lot of difficulty there. Not sure about the rest of the state. Winters are always a struggle for me. Right now, in VV it’s almost like spring. We really missed not going to Alaska this summer. Spending a couple weeks on Kodiak is high on my wish list
Congrats on making the move up there and making it work.
Thanks Norman. I would have to say it is one of the best things I have done.
Throughout history, most people have never been further than 100 miles of where they were born.
In the state I was born, I have traveled almost every navigable inch (meaning the road went somewhere) except the area around Andersonville. I have laid eyes upon the GA guidestones multiple times just because I was passing by. Ga guidestones were about as remote GA as it got.
I drove through Gay GA. Nobody there looked homosexual nor happy in the Flintsones sense when I passed through.
But that is how I grew up. My grandparents would load us up and we would go for drives. Whether up in the NC mountains or down to Warm Springs where FDR hung.
Now that I am here. I love winter. I do not miss the heat and humidity. In fact, I will never revisit the South, where I was born, in the summer again if I can help it.
You guys. Man, J and his Walkman, yah, I did that in 80’s Califus, too. So fun.
Only just today did I see the video. (No cable, only radio, back then.)
‘Men At Work – Down Under (Countdown 1981)’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3w_zuWYtig
Totally, Not what I expected. But, it did seem fun & fits in with the friends I had at that time.
…Thanks for mentioning the Walkman and kicking off that flashback.
I wish the world today was more fun, like it was back then.
Well, Alaska is not called an “Arctic Desert” for nothing.
Didn’t realize you were from the south. It’s true that many good ole boys from down there don’t ever stray far from home. Going back generations and never going more than a few hundred miles away. I was lucky, like you. Got to see a lot of the country as a kid traveling every summer with the family. Spent three years between Ga and NC in the 80s and spent a lot of weekends visiting the surrounding states. There are so many cool places in this country I don’t know how anyone could be satisfied with just one. And then you find it and….Its Gone. Hope Alaska doesn’t get too Californiacated for you.
Hi Norman, I hope not too Californiacated as well. I did time in LA during my early tweens on visitation because my parents were divorced. Cali was cool then. I put my Sony Walkman on, put the Men at Work cassette in, and rode my 10 speed anywhere and everywhere.
To a young kid from GA, that was freedom. You cannot pay me to back to Cali now.
Lots of memories of Cali as well, J. Back then it truly was the golden state. The women, were the greatest in the world. Everyone was happy. Unlike today.
RE: “Verde valley”
Dang, so like, you live in, Bonanza?
Looks nice on a map. I never made it up that way.
Seems like a very insulated area.
The Mat-Su valley area (around Anchorage) has some good places. Sadly, Palmer just elected their first Democrat Mayor, so who knows what will happen to that beautiful area. But, there are places surrounding Anchorage that are nice, where you can commute to Anchorage, and/or travel beyond that (Seward Highway near the Cook Inlet), that are beautiful. You just are going to deal with the tourists in the Summer. Valdez is a fishing town, and if you do not mind knowing it had a 9-something (Good Friday Quake) back in 1964. The Kenai area is beautiful, as well, albeit, it had nasty fires (2019). Same with the Willow area (outside Anchorage), where you can still see the charred trees. Just remember that no one can drive up here. I thought other states were bad, but they seem to take a “here, hold my beer” approach to driving on ice and snow. Something that-for some reason-people lose the ability of in the span of 3 months. ‘Course whether the Russians will ever re-claim us up here one day is always the Million Dollar Question…
If you get the chance Shadow the state fair in Palmer will exceed your expectations. Sad if they turn full left. Probably a result of the California virus. It would be a great thing if new arrivals, in every state had to wait 10 years before they were eligible to vote. Might return some legitimacy to voting.
Looking out over the fault line from that quake, on the outskirts of Anchorage is amazing. The entire landmass just sloughed off and dropped down like 20+ feet. A real geological oddity, that.
I would pick Juneau as the best place for year round living except one thing gives me pause. You are very limited where you can drive from there. Basically landlocked without reliance on the inner-passage ferry system, which I believe comes in contact with Canadian customs and border patrol. No thanks on any dealings with them. I would probably get locked up if I tried to set foot in one of the queens colonies.
I have heard that the Palmer fairs are the best to attend, albeit, I have not ever been able to get there when the time was right. Me & a friend did a road trip down there last Summer, and it was a beautiful drive. Sadly, the couple at the B&B we stayed at (also gorgeous, and loved those Harleys sitting in the driveway), said that the Hatcher Pass area was clearing out a lot of trees, so as to construct a “Disney Land” of Alaska. I was wondering why there were so many “House For Sale” signs when me & my friend did the drive over the Pass? Apparently, many are seeing the handwriting on the wall, and are getting out while they can. Personally, I think anyone who moves up here should not be allowed to vote for 10 years, and no PFD’s for those ten, as well. But, we all know hell will freeze over first, and I have never been to Nome before.
Except, J, you make a valid point…for the other side. You left your home state (I am assuming Michigan, maybe Florida) New Yorkers tend to move everywhere…to escape the hell holes that they created. People are doing exactly what you are insisting causing once quiet, remote, “leave me the hell alone” rural areas to be invaded by the locust of liberal hive minds. They are leaving California for (once) libertarian utopias such as Arizona, Montana, and Idaho. New Yorkers are fleeing their cold winters for sunny Florida. Tennessee is receiving transports from Florida who have been priced out of their state by East Coast northerners. Guess what state is invading Alaska by the thousands? California. How long do you believe Alaska is going to hold? As Shadow stated, Fairbanks is already a liberal pig sty.
If the wolf shows up at your door are you handing him the keys? There is pride in fighting and standing your ground.
Eventually, there comes a time where there is nowhere else left to go. We should be changing minds, not addresses. To do that we stay and try to resist.
Amen, Raider Girl.
So glad to see you RG! I figured you were busy CPA’in things right now.
Nope, missed it, i am a GA boy. Fudge Calis.
Standing your ground when you have already lost it is a fool’s errand.
Tax season and my husband’s business is taking any free time I once had, hence, why I am posting at 3 AM. 😉
If it were me I would have stayed in Georgia. There are still areas where you can forget the world still exists and the weather is so much nicer. 😀
The weather is nicer? No, it is NOT nicer. In fact, it is miserable. The only weather that is “nice” is as if your air conditioner is running well.
When was the last time you climbed a ladder into a bank’s drive though on the South? It is miserable. Across the board it is a miserably hot job to perform.
Born Georgian, born again Alaskan.
Hi J,
I’m in the South – but in the mountains, at about 3,000 feet elevation. We get a few hot weeks in summer; but it’s generally moderate and I almost never have to turn on the AC. It was very different in Northern VA, where I used to live!
And I fear no Calis and their Subarua. Let wm come and be vegan and such. Dont care.
…and when the Calis follow you to try and destroy you, will you not care then? Or care enough to even fight back? Or are your truly just another liberal that ran?
I love this, RG:
“We should be changing minds, not addresses. To do that we stay and try to resist.”
Beautifully said!
My memories are similar, Dan –
We were lucky to be born in time. Before the fraus and simps took over.
We just didn’t realize how good we had it. No playground monitors ,made up games with our own rules. Could enter the school thru any door or window ( That actually could be opened, on the second floor no less).I use to leave the school in grade five and six to go to my buddies house near by, no one was the wiser. The teachers were mostly women and they were smoking Players in the staff room. We were smoking in the boys room or the playground.
The cunt cult of weather sends me, It’s always warmer or colder then then announced predictions…. feels like.
And the retards were segregated from the rest of the inmates.
Nova:
And how about the “feels like” temperature they use? This is just a cunt cult way of sensationalizing what is an otherwise tolerable ambient temperature. How is it that if I’m in NY and the thermometer says it’s 29 degrees out, it suddenly becomes a “feels like” temperature of 21? Fuck these assholes. When I walk outside in NY with an actual 29 degree temperature in NY, that’s exactly what 29 degrees in NY feels like, nothing more and nothing less. Oh, you say it’s windy and therefore it feels like a lower temperature that it would feel like if it weren’t windy. No, that just means it’s 29 degrees and windy. Now fuck off weatherman.
The everyday lies and manipulation (and even worse, the careless and wholesale adoption of the lies by John Q. Public) have become so exhausting.
I agree, I have noticed the trend of “wind chill” here too. Sometimes they even put this number first!
“Feels like”… no mf’er, tell me what it actually is!
Gotta push back a little bit here. Convection is an actual thing. That’s why car cooling systems have fans and air cooled engines have fins. There’s an equation to calculate wind chill based on temperature and wind.
I agree that saying “feels like” is faggy. Saying It’s 29 degrees with a wind chill factor of 21 degrees is fine.
Seem to want to be helpless. Eager to stay home.
Fear (real or not) is rewarded. Back when you had 3 channels and a few magazines, staying home was boring after breakfast. Now staying home means entertainment on the big screen! Infinite channels of TV! Video games! Social Media! Just like the COVID lockdowns, you’re just “making the best of a bad situation,” right?
And if you need to get some work done, well, that’s a fun Zoom call where you spend ten minutes giving out snow totals, or filling out the spreadsheet that normally takes 5 minutes spread out to 3 hours because you can’t concentrate on the couch with that 70″ screen blasting out Netflix.
Man, that all seems so,… stupifying?
Not outside?
No snow forts?
No sledding?
No ice skating (I never got that opportunity, tho)?
No motorcycling in the snow or on some ice?
And, no snow ball fights?
Not even, sliding across a sheet of ice in tennis shoes? (So fun. When you’re young.)
All the indoorness captivatedness you describe seems quite exciting at first glance, but after an hour, just like playing Atari, …doesn’t that sheet, ….bore people?
I guess, they’ve been perfectly conditioned?
‘Winter Lover vs Hater’ ‘Er is that, real man vs. soy boy? Idk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddauEKTlegE
I loved snow forts! It is up there with the blanket forts back in the day. Or the making a fort or rocket from a large cardboard box a refrigerator came in. Now…kids just stick their faces in phones all day long.
At summer camp we also made haybale forts. Some of them had several rooms!
I live about a tenth of a mile from an elementary school, and in a somewhat old-school blue collar type neighborhood in Indiana. We just had about 7″ of snow. I’ve seen ZERO snowmen or kids ever outside. In the late 90s early 2000s, us kids were ALWAYS outside. If we got too cold, we went inside for 30 minutes and go back out better dressed. Football, sledding, snow ball fights, etc. I feel bad for these kids now… garbage video games is all they do.
90% of the sidewalks aren’t even paved. No one cares, as no one is out. I just ran 3 miles yesterday in 8 degrees and a -15 wind chill. Someone did plow the path at that park and I’d love to give that person some money to bump up their thermostat another degree for a week…
I’m 38 and I sound like one of those old men that complained to us about walking uphill both ways in the snow yadda yadda… wow haha.
90% aren’t shoveled*
Ditto, Andrew!
After I get off the air in about 15, I’m gonna go for a run in the 13 degree cold. The streets are clear – of cars. So I have them all to myself!
Around here the kids don’t even get a snow day in most towns, instead they do “remote learning”, probably pushed by the teachers. When I was a schoolkid the joke was that the school wouldn’t close unless they couldn’t fine it under the snow.
We got 20” this last storm but at least it’s light/fluffy and easy to move. The media are already hyping a storm for the coming weekend. What gets to me is the constant cold, always in the teens with single digits windchill; my natural gas furnace is getting a workout too, hope all the greenies with their heat pumps enjoy wearing parkas indoors.
RE: “What gets to me is the constant cold, always in the teens with single digits windchill”
Yes, The Winds.
All the locals I’ve talked to around here say the winds didn’t used to be so constant and high m.p.h..
Give me a day of negative 20 degrees with No wind – ANY day – over a day at 10 degrees above Zero and 20 m.p.h. Arctic winds.
I’m with you, Helot!
I run. Running when it’s just cold out is or can be invigorating. But when it’s windy, it’s miserable. The wind pushes you around; makes it difficult to just Zen out and enjoy the run. I loathe wind almost as much as badge-lickers!
Eric, I’m sure you layer properly and specifically wear a mouth-vented balaclava when you run? I was toasty on my run in -15 wind chills yesterday. Run with the wind first, then against it later. Icicle eyelashes are a given, and a badge of honor.
Hi Andrew,
Yup, I do! Once I finish this cup of coffee and get a few things buttoned up, I’m headed out!
Relevant, and quite historically accurate:
2″ of snow and, “School’s closed due to the weather”
…”Meanwhile in 1986…”
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7jfMVKB-Hws
We got lucky.
Had the .5+” of ice hit it would have been devastating. There hasn’t been an ice storm of any size in the SE for some time. That level of ice would have brought down countless limbs and power lines due to that fact.
The Charlotte region got hit in ’02 by a similar storm and it was weeks before stuff was back to normal. Nashville took a pretty big hit on this one.
The reality is, if you think this is bad, wait until we have a war.
“ The reality is, if you think this is bad, wait until we have a war.”
This is why I’m worried, but not too worried, about another civil war: A country that freaks out over a foot of snow and freaks out over toilet paper isn’t a country that can handle a civil war.
There are a few school districts near me that haven’t had classes since the Thursday before MLK day. Different reason every day….too cold, snow, ice, wind chill. It’s completely ridiculous but it’s probably better for the kids. Or at least it would be if kids didn’t have phones.
Hi Auto,
Yup! I live near the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Parkway cops are notorious for closing the gates before it snows – just because it might snow. Sometimes, the gates stay closed for days. Just in case!
A century ago, weather satellites didn’t exist. Nor radar.
From time to time, devastating storms came out of nowhere, without warning: the Galveston hurricane of September 8, 1900; the Florida Keys Labor Day hurricane of 1935.
Fatalities were horrendous. Fortunately, such mass casualty events [a modern term] were rare. But in 1979, something truly awful happened. Not to people, but to a politician:
‘When it started snowing on January 12, 1979, one politician would also end up buried by the blizzard. Chicago Mayor Michael Bilandic was in a pitched fight for re-election and gave his own snow-response effort a glowing review.
“Let me tell you something, people are here from Buffalo,” said Bilandic. “They say the operation, they say that the operation in the City of Chicago is as good as any anywhere in the country.”
‘Unfortunately for Bilandic, during that blizzard, Buffalo might have done a better job. As Bilandic announced that snow removal was progressing well and that many streets were clear, his opponent, Jane Byrne, relentlessly pointed out that wasn’t true.
‘Six weeks after the storm of 1979, Jane Byrne beat the incumbent in a political event known to this day as “Bilandic’s blizzard.”‘
https://abc7news.com/archive/7933749/
Every politician in the Snowbelt, to this day, got the message: get out ahead of the storm. Err on the side of saaaaafety. Then you are immune from the brickbats of nay-sayers and spitball throwers like Jane Byrne.
Is everyone safe and warm? 🙂