The Real Reason for the U.S/Israel-Iran War

Many people like to approach this as a Zionist thing--and it certainly appeals to Zionism. But the truth of the matter is that Netanyahu wants Israel to be the tollbooth for all the oil in the region. Israel wants the power to shut the world's oil on or off and effect world markets, and it wants other Gulf Countries to pay for this. By forcing Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, they can go to those who were dragging their feet and get them to seal this deal. 

If the other countries were smart, they would understand that pipelines are pretty easy to blowup. None of the Middle East has been able to protect itself from Iran. Personally, if I had a neighbor who could beat me up, I wouldn't go picking fights with him/her all the time. 

My questions are twofold: Why is the United States helping with this? Is it (as some have hinted) because our President is scared of even more things that Israel agents have on him beyond Epstein? He shouldn't be since former President Clinton showed you won't be impeached for sexual immorality or lying on the stand. I think that the President is helping Israel manipulate markets. On April 1, everyone in the news knew that President Trump was going to make an announcement at 8 pm--an odd time. That he was going to make this announcement was known for over 24 hours and promoted. In the morning of April 1, while markets were opened, it was rumored throughout the news that he was going to announce an end to the war in Iran. Gas prices were affected accordingly. Then, the announcement came and it said nothing except we were absolutely not ending the war. 

Most people think stocks have to go up to make money on the stock market. This is not true. Stocks can go down and people can make money on them by short selling. Short selling works best, of course, when you know what the market is going to do and you can guarantee it is going to drop. 

My second question is: Why does the world ignore that the U.S. and Israel are obliterating citizens, just as Israel did in both Palestine and is doing in Lebanon, but when Iran attacks civilians in retaliation, they are committing war crimes? Ever since the United States decided to drop to atomic bombs on civilian cities in Japan, war has shifted from two armies fighting each other to one army wiping out the civilians of another country. In Korea, we killed refugees. In Vietnam, we attacked unarmed civilians and dropped Agent Orange on them. How can any American complain about war crimes when we measure our own actions with a different stick? 

Today's warfare is even worse. People are not making the decisions as to what targets to hit in Iran, Palestine, or Lebanon. The 4000+ AI centers scattered throughout the U.S. are doing it for our military. They are choosing what to target, and they are choosing to target girl's schools, universities, and pharmaceutical companies. Many troops following orders end up scarred for life because of the evil things they are told to do. When will Americans put a stop to this and execute any commanding officer that authorizes a civilian target?

(AI was used to help generate this image, and hours were spent by the author editing it.)

America--No Longer a Democratic Republic

The Founding Fathers of the United States set up a clear system of checks and balances between Congress, the Courts, and the President. However, since that start, we have been eroding that balance. At first, it was the switch from senators being elected by state legislature to being directly elected. By the early 1900s, it was further eroded by excluding or making it nearly impossible for third parties and independents to get on state ballots. Since NATO, Congress has slowly given up its sole right to declare war and has looked the other way as presidents executive ordered their way around things. 

In the past ten years, Americans have seen government supported online censorship and AI-algorithms that intentionally censor certain topics or create a soundbox where people only see information they support pushed back at them--making them more likely to believe false theories as they see them promoted over and over again. 

I in no way shape or form believe Trump is like Hitler, but he certainly seems to be trying for that image right now. There are a few similarities. When Hitler invaded Austria, the rest of the world looked the other way and claimed Austria wanted it. (Obviously,  The Story of the Trapp Family Singers had not been published, but one would think governments might have realized no country in the history of the world has ever been like, "Oh-oh-oh!! Colonize me!! Please! Please! Please!" It took several countries before the rest of the world was like, "Hmmm, maybe we shouldn't let him go unchecked like that." Now, we are invading many countries and setting up puppet governments. This is no different than colonizing them.

The United States has also been selling its balanced government to its intelligence agencies--as have most countries. If you think about it, no agency should ever be doing something so secret that its country's leaders are not told about it, but that is what our intelligence agencies have been doing for over half a century. I am not talking about military intelligence, which I believe is very important, but this is general intelligence operating outside the military. U.S. agencies were staffed with Nazi's who were basically given pardons for their war crimes if they came and worked for our government--including in research, teaching, and intelligence areas. What did these people who apparently had no problem acting outside the laws do? Well, one of the main jobs of our intelligence agencies have been to take over other countries and interfere in their elections--all in the name of "democracy." The also form alliances and share information with the intelligence agencies of other nations. 

Now, congress has become obsolete. The people who have been in are apparently too old and too tired to care that Trump will spend $1 trillion every three months just to invade and put a puppet government in Iran, Venezuela, and other countries. The puppet government in Ecuador has already been there for a while. Hegseth talks about the Monroe Doctrine while ignoring that we can't have troops around the world, start a war with Iran, taunt China in its own waters and train troops for Ukraine if we are following the Monroe Doctrine. He isn't practicing the Monroe Doctrine--he's empire building, which is in complete opposition to the Monroe Doctrine.

While Trump lets Hegseth do whatever he wants, Congress lets Trump do whatever he wants. Why? I think they believe they can escape the American wrath by pushing it all on Trump. But a Congress that ignores Trump is a Congress that supports him. A Congress that refuses to act when the people of the United States want them to act is a useless instrument.

In my opinion, Trump is more like Chairman Mao. He has surrounded himself with his own soundbox that tells him what he wants to hear. But when the U.S. Navy has to attack a ship that was granted protection to participate in a military display with the United States by India, that doesn't show a strong military. That shows a military that is so broken and defunct it can only attack dirty or risk losing. If that ship had been aware it was not protected, we would not have murdered the people on it so easily. In fact, as much as I am glad we aren't putting boots on the ground, not doing so shows how afraid our leadership is that it will get its butt kicked.

Will the American people care enough to vote for and run as independents to get these good-ol'-boys out and get real people in? I hope so, but it might be too late. Terrorists have struck American soil before, and Iran is reportedly the biggest state sponsor of terrorism, but our leaders think attacking their country and taking out their leaders is fair game. This time, however, we are working with an underpaid military made up of mostly new rejects so they can meet their recruiting goals. It is spread across the world and the U.S., and we just took out a beloved religious leader. 

The Noble committee showed wisdom beyond Trump's bluffs about ending wars (that actually are still going on). Instead of going down as the President of Peace, he will go down in history as the President who was responsible for World War III while Congress looked the other way. 

World War III--Vietnam on a Whole New Level

 As most of us go about our day, we are unaware of a little reported massive military provocation taking place. You see, the United States has convinced NATO nations to mobilize in a "training exercise." This mobilization is not about "deterrence" according to Lt. General Michael A. Loh, Director of the U.S. Air National Guard. It is about preparing our troops to go against a "great power." Can anyone guess what that "great power" is? The U.S. has in effect mobilized almost its entire military force to Europe and the Pacific.  

I am reminded of another king who wanted to show foreigners all his riches. In 2 Kings 20:12-19, King Hezekiah wanted to also display his power and riches to Babylon. The prophets told him afterward he was going to lose everything he showed them. And he did. 

I am shocked--although I shouldn't be--that Americans are blind as they were in the days before Vietnam. At that time, we weren't fighting in Vietnam to start with, we were just moving our troops to surrounding countries for support. When the Pentagon Papers were released, it was discovered the Gulf of Tonkin incident that made Americans unite and accept the entry into war was known about months prior to it happening. Now, we have documents that were released showing our Special Forces are already in Ukraine. 

I get that only a couple sentences are devoted to Vietnam in our history books, but how many times are Americans going to rally behind destroying a country with "weapons of mass destruction" and give up the lives of their children for war? How many times are Americans going to think they can easily win a war against the Taliban or North Vietnamese--or another "great power" for that matter? How many times are Americans going to believe if they lose this one country--Korea, Vietnam, Ukraine--"democracy" everywhere will fall? 

We have environmentalists destroying artwork and protesting against global warming--but where are the environmentalists when we are going to ship depleted uranium rounds to Ukraine and cause a nuclear pollution incident worse that Chernobyl? That radiation hit the U.S. Do you think this radiation won't?

Our military isn't what it was. We have had years of spending cuts in all the wrong places. Those who join no longer get free meals and uniforms--soldiers pay for them from money automatically withdrawn from their checks. Anyone who has been in or followed things like the development of the F-35 knows the equipment we have doesn't work well and is being held together by ingenuity in some cases. In the 1990s, for example, soldiers were using Vietnam era rifles whose safeties didn't work. Although our military budget has ballooned since then, it goes for "developing" new toys, like the F-35, that have no real function because of all the bugs still not fixed after more than a decade and are more like a Ferrari that you don't drive to work everyday.

The Pentagon, who is our governments primary advisors about war, is also not what most Americans believe it is. It does not contain military personnel interpreting intelligence data. Instead, it is mostly staffed by CEOs from weapon manufacturers. These people leave their jobs, work at the Pentagon shaping war policy for a bit, and then return to them. 

That Congress is not aware--or doesn't care-- is a tragedy. Granted, most of them are so old they would not have children under 25 who could be drafted and they would simply send their grandkids to college or Canada to avoid it. You can get your degree as a lawyer and join the military during war without having to worry you will actually see combat. For most Americans, this isn't an option for our kids. We lost half-a-million soldiers during WWII. Worldwide there were 15 million soldier deaths and 38 million civilian deaths. Although WWII was fought in Europe and the Pacific, if we start WWIII, I can guarantee China and Russia will make sure we feel it at home. 

To end the Korean War after 3 million people died during the fighting, we split North and South Korea apart. How easy would it be to do that to Ukraine now, before the bloodbath includes our kids?

It Has Only Taken Two Years for Scientists Today to Start to Figure Out What They Knew Right After the Spanish Flu

 Well, look at that, our modern scientists finally figured out what they knew right after the Spanish flu—lockdowns failed to stopCOVID-19 deaths and spread, and limiting gatherings might have increased COVID-19 deaths. Some scientists are also finally admitting that COVID-19boosters don’t help, either. Granted we have known for decades that mRNA shots are only effective for about 3 months in humans and we knew that although large numbers of antibodies were produced right after vaccination but those numbers did not effectively stop the virus after about 1 month—Guess what? we are working on our fourth booster one year on here in the West. With the serious side effects now finally being reported, we have to ask if these experimental non-vaccines that don't prevent you from getting or giving COVID-19 are worth it. I am not an alarmist or a conspiracy theorist. I never have been. But from the beginning, I have said and continue to say that what we are doing—lockdowns, masks, fake vaccines—is making the COVID-19 problem worse based on hundreds of years of science that we have thrown out the window—and now science is finally being able to publish the truth—albeit in a limited manner. Not that the world is listening--Kiribati just enacted lockdown and others are still in lockdown mode or just now coming out of it. The persons and countries who first suggested lockdowns should be made to pay the rest of the world for their un-scientific sins.

You want COVID-19 to go away, well, there is a simple answer—stop testing. If we tested for flu as much as we tested for COVID-19, the numbers and deaths from flu would be 10 times higher than what we have. But we don’t test everyone who walks into a doctor’s office for flu or mandate everyone who shows up to work with flu symptoms get tested for it before being allowed back to work. And that is what is really killing our economy and supply chains and hospitals and every other place. The problem is that the available jobs we have are being falsely created temporarily to meet demand while people are out sick with COVID—whether they are sick or not. Our actually job situation is in a much worse place than what they are telling us. In addition, stopping testing will make COVID-19 and the money and power that came with it disappear.  April is the next spike, let’s see if the CDC decides to relinquish its power over the world or not.

I knew all this was bunk from the beginning and questioned why the CDC, which I completely trusted prior to March 2020, was lying or at least misleading people from everything to the concentration of their bleach water to masks—but I have lost too many friends because of their bunk to say I told you so. Now, I know that a lot of people made money off of us—the poor who couldn’t afford to rent out an entire hotel during lockdowns or throw a party on their yachts or buy the best foods or get moved to the front of the health care line and get a private room in a hospital. The problem is that they have done it at the cost of our lives. I really don’t mind rich or privileged people having more things or opportunities than me. But when those people are getting their money by inflicting more suffering on the poor, I have a serious problem with that. It takes great restraint to not curse them as more of my unvaccinated friends are being denied medical care after getting COVID-19 from some hapless,vaccinated sheep who believed he or she could go out with COVID-19 symptomssince they received these fake “vaccines.” And frankly, I don’t really care if you are vaccinated or not—if you are sick, whether its from “vaccine” side effects or a minor cold—stay home. Also, keep in mind that mRNA vaccines were not used because they could be quickly developed- China developed 2 traditional vaccines in the same time it took us to pump mRNA and adenovirus vaccines out. They are being used because they are cheap. Name one time when something "cheap" worked as well or better than the real thing.

President Biden Apparently Doesn't Know the Definition of "Total Unanimity"

 Several news agencies report that NATO is completely in agreement with our choice to invade: SEe for example, Fox, the Hill. Really? "Unanimity" means "agreement by all people involved." Croatia is in NATO. It's president has said that if the United States goes to war with Russia over Ukraine, Croatia will drop out of NATO. Now, although the Croatian president is not the Croatian's NATO contact, he has full control of the military--if he doesn't send troops and drops out of NATO that is what will happen. I suppose since Croatia will no longer be a member that would return the "total unanimity" but as of right now many nations see the United States as the aggressor here. 

Keep in mind that way back when the first revolt broke out in Ukraine, the president that was ousted had been elected in a legal, U.N. supervised election... and the U.S. funded his removal. Since then, we have dumped billions into equipping and training our Ukrainian puppet government--will Americans ever get tired of this scenario that started with Korea and Vietnam? Hunter Biden, who was no longer employable in the U.S. because of his dishonorable "general" discharge from the military was given a cushy job in Ukraine because he was the vice-president's son. When Burisma was investigated, former Vice-President Biden said if Ukrainian officials didn't drop the charges, the U.S. would withhold aid... and then bragged about doing so on television. Last year, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, when our government was printing money like there was no tomorrow--increasing inflation--we gave Ukraine, out of the goodness of the American people's hearts, more than half a billion dollars! This didn't go to the people of Ukraine, by the way, this went to their military, so they could attempt to retake the land Russia has refused to release: The parts of Ukraine that are populated by Russian citizens. 

The biggest question should not be whether the other NATO member countries are willing to go to war over non-NATO Ukraine just to keep U.S. secret dealings there secret. After NATO's failure in Afghanistan, they were already questioning the alliance. The real question is are Americans willing to sacrifice their children to the war effort? Consider the fact we already have American troops on the ground "training" Ukrainian military--I don't think the current Administration cares what Americans, or any other European nation, wants. 

The worst thing is that the Pentagon is not filled with time-tested military generals. No, it is filled with defense contractors all set to make money off any war. These are the people telling us we have to go to war with Russia... 

Blood Clots and Vaccine Safety

 Yes, previously when mRNA vaccines were given to animals, they developed blood clots from the vaccines. Since none of the new vaccines, including the ones with adenovirus instead of mRNA, have been tested for safety and effectiveness in a random control trial that produced significant results, no one should believe they are getting a safe vaccine. Nor should anyone believe they are getting a well-tested, effective vaccine. Effectiveness could only be determined if during the trials 30,000 people had come down with COVID-19 (vaccinated + placebo groups). Fewer than 180 came down with it. Further, trials were stopped one week after people received their second shots. Moderna specifically stated that it was going to stop all placebo groups as soon as it got FDA approval. This destroys the experiment and any data that may now come from it and is one of the worst kinds of vaccine fraud. 

So, when my friend's neighbor dies of a blood clot after getting the vaccine, my eyebrow raises. When European countries stop vaccines because of blood clots, I take notice. This fits with what we know about mRNA vaccines and it fits with a push to "get everyone vaccinated ASAP." Big guys have a lot of money invested in these vaccines, and with Facebook squelching all reports of adverse effects and VAERS - the nations data gathering system for vaccine side effects- not being talked about, it seems like they are trying to make as much as they can before the house of cards finishes collapsing.

The house of cards has already started to fall. Norway detected an unusual number of people who died from the vaccine. The EU has noted a spike in blood clots. The US noticed an uptick in allergic reactions and the FDA warned the vaccine makers about it. Still we plod on-- VACCINATE! VACCINATE! VACCINATE!

I have had a lot of vaccines in my life. I have never had my entire arm swell up nor have I had to miss a day of work because of them... granted the vaccines I have had spent decades being researched for safety and effectiveness before they were released. 

In the US, you cannot sue a vaccine maker, but you can be reimbursed for medical expenses by the US government if you have an adverse reaction to a vaccine. The problem is that the COVID-19 vaccines are "experimental." They are not FDA approved--nor have they undergone the necessary trials to become FDA approved. Why would they need to? They were given emergency use status and the companies not only have no liability for their products but also are being promoted everywhere using Nazi propaganda techniques. They will never get FDA approval because they are neither safe nor effective. If they were safe and effective they would not have stopped the trials prior to achieving significant results that would have given them FDA approval. 

It is one thing to have an experimental vaccine available for those in the population who wish to take it or participate in the experiment. It is quite another to force an experimental vaccine on everyone in the World. So far, it hasn't been forced on anyone. But the vaccination passports in development should scare us all. There are many diseases more deadly than COVID-19--why haven't we had passports for any of those? Finish testing the vaccine and have significant results. THEN countries can decide if they want to force it on people and provide them with "Vaccine passports."

Hitler's Big Lie and the COVID-19 Pandemic

I have written a new book, filled with citations to help clear up the mystery surrounding all the COVID-19 misinformation. Here is the description:

 The misinformation surrounding COVID-19 has possibly been the largest since the propaganda created in Nazi Germany. With even the CDC first telling everyone not to wear masks and now telling everyone to wear them, it can be extremely difficult to discover just what is right and what is wrong. Who do you trust? This book, filled with more than 300 cited references, was written to help you find the truth. It is a must-read if you are confused or if you want to find out if you have been able to sort through all the lies successfully. 30% of all the profits from the sale of this book will be divided equally and donated to a local YMCA and a summer camp that have been hit hard financially because of the COVID-19 business closures.

You can find the book on Amazon at the following links:

Full color version paperback: https://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Big-Lie-COVID-19-Pandemic/dp/B08FP5V3JN/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&qid=1597677713&refinements=p_27%3AJennifer+J.+Reinoehl&s=books&sr=1-1&text=Jennifer+J.+Reinoehl

Color E-book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08G56JQVB

Black and white version paperback & black and white large print paperback--links to be posted within the next week or so. 

I am also going to be running some Goodreads Giveaways and will post those links as soon as they are ready. 

Why America Is NOT a Fascist Regime

Why Do News Agencies Keep Trying to Push Covid-19 is "More Deadly Than Flu"

I found this in the Washington Post in an article that is trying to scare people about COVID-19 despite the masses of serology tests that show many people have had this without symptoms. They are also trying to base their assumption there are asymptomatic carriers off of this bologna. '“I think it is the worst pandemic since 1918,” said Cecile Viboud, an epidemiologist at the National Institutes of Health’s Fogarty International Center, alluding to the “Great Influenza” pandemic that claimed an estimated 675,000 lives in the United States.' 

Later it says '“The death rate is much, much lower,” Cuomo said Monday, referring to the serology tests. He said the New York state rate appears to be 0.5 percent — which is one death per 200 infections.

That figure is still sobering to infectious disease experts. A rate of 0.5 percent “is way more than a usual flu season and I would think way more than the ’57 or 1968 [influenza] pandemic death toll, too,” Viboud said.'  

Apparently, Viboud is another epidemiologist who hasn't done his homework and who has no clue about infectious diseases. The CDC posted in 2017-2018 that the "pandemic" flu that year reached weeks of 10.8% case mortality.

Here is what Dr. Fauci said in 2005 about the bird flu, which had a 30%-60% case mortality rate:

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Be careful. And the reason we have to be careful is that the analogy between SARS and influenza is quite imperfect. Influenza is spread easily by aerosolize. SARS, with some exceptions, is spread by droplet. So that in order for me to infect you if I had SARS, I had to really be coughing and get visible droplets to contaminate you, is the usual way it’s spread. With influenza you can get infected from me even before I start to feel sick because there’s a period of 24, maybe even 48 hours where I’m incubating the influenza. And just the normal amount of spray that goes back and forth when people talk to each other, you can actually get infected.

Trump: The First President with the Audacity to Decrease Tax on the Rich While Increasing Tax on Poor with No Added Benefits for the Poor and then puts the Poor out of Business

So Donald Trump has big cojones. First, he decided to decrease the tax on the rich while increasing the tax on the poor. Had the poor people gotten expanded Medicaid or had HSAs (a rich person's extra retirement fund parading as health insurance) been made illegal or had mental healthcare been improved, I wouldn't be complaining. However, poor people don't even get relief from the nasty school lunches Michelle Obama felt were necessary to implement. Many of our children get to starve throughout the school day and come home to binge on unhealthy foods because of it, which is probably why obesity took a sharper climb upward after her "healthy" measures. Where our kids might have once eaten broccoli covered in cheese, they now toss their plain broccoli in the trash. But I digress.

After raising our taxes, the coronavirus hit. Now, for those of you who are hyped out on media, the facts are this: (1) Neil Ferguson should have his college degrees removed and his job at the Imperial College taken away. He created a model that did not use COVID-19 data, but that he recycled from his swine flu predictions. This was the model they are relying on when they say quarantine will help us. You remember the hundreds of millions that died during the swine flu epidemic? He predicted that. He also predicted tens of thousands would die from mad cow... So, he's an idiot, and all the governments of the world went with it. (2) Coronaviruses are NOT new. We have been dealing with them for about 50 years. (3) COVID-19 cannot be spread by asymptomatic carriers-- really. Look up scientific research on it in peer reviewed journals (not pre-publish sites). Hint: to officially declare a disease capable of infecting others, you need to do animal experiments to see if they can contract the disease from people who test positive but have no symptoms. One or two "case" or "observational" studies have been published with a handful of participants, but these amount to poor circumstantial evidence and many of them admit the "asymptomatic" carriers had symptoms. (4) Household transmission is the number one way coronavirus spreads. It is also the number one way ANY infectious disease spreads. AND THE GOVERNMENT LOCKED YOU IN YOUR HOMES. Understand now why numbers go up drastically and never go back down once a country locks down? (5) Quarantining healthy people was developed in the 1300s to combat diseases. It is the only preventative health care measure that we still use. (Didn't see anyone burning massive bonfires in the streets now, did you?) Because of this, there is much research behind it. Guess what? It has never worked. Think about it. Bubonic plague spread across Europe. Didn't matter what they did. Yellow Fever-same. Cholera--same. Doesn't "flatten the curve" either. There is absolutely NO scientific evidence for that. It is just one of those cutesy catch phrases to psychologically manipulate you.

So, the short is, you are not sacrificing yourself for your neighbor. True sacrifice would be overcoming your fear and allowing the 1/3 of the workforce that was laid off without ANY income for more than 6 weeks now, to go back to work. But everyone seems to want 60 million people and their families to die. I don't get that. Why would anyone be okay with that?

The big thing is that those 60 million people are the ones President Trump was taxing more by fiddling with personal exemptions. That's right: He increased our taxes and then put us out of work an decreased our income. Rest assured, the rich still got their paychecks through investments while the rest of us were laid off. He also reduced corporate taxes, causing more than 60 large businesses like Amazon to get tax credits!!! That's right, these rich companies actually get money back and end up with a zero tax bill regardless of how many billions of dollars in profit they make each year. This should be a further sore spot for all those small businesses that were forced to permanently close.

For kicks and giggles, you can check out some of these to see just what the government is spending money on while it ignores the fact poor people need useful programs to keep them from becoming destitute:
https://www.forbes.com/pictures/ejde45i/in-pictures-15-silliest-uses-of-taxpayer-money/#8c515f5374f2
https://reason.com/2019/04/15/happy-tax-day-here-are-6-infuriating-ways-the-government-spends-your-money/
https://www.rd.com/funny-stuff/wasteful-government-spending/
https://moneyminiblog.com/lists/stupidest-things-u-s-government-spends-money-on/
https://americansforprosperity.org/5-outrageous-ways-the-federal-government-has-wasted-your-money-part-iv/
https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/12/top-10-wasteful-government-expenses/

Our country was founded on capitalism--a capitalism where the best companies survive. However, we have become more of a socialist hybrid where the rich and the big companies get government handouts and the government makes more laws, like the executive orders that closed down small business during COVID-19, to force small companies to close. We complain about the high cost of healthcare, but then the government looks the other way when healthcare becomes a business so large it is traded on the stock market. Capitalist societies can only survive when they don't abuse their citizens and selectively favor those big businesses who need financial help the least. And if those businesses do need financial help to stay afloat, well, true capitalism lets them fall because we all know the small guy doesn't get a handout when he or she struggles.

When People in Charge Believe They Are God or the Voice of God

Sometimes, we appoint people to positions of power, and they let that power go to their heads. These people are frequently charismatic and well-spoken. However, their appointment affects their logic and reasoning skills. This can be especially dangerous when a medical authority stops looking at scientific research and believes he has found the answer to a health solution--even if that solution is extreme and not supported by facts.

The model example of this is Benjamin Rush. Benjamin Rush was a Founding Father. He was also one of the first doctors teaching at the first American Medical University. He held many high positions, but when Yellow Fever struck, he believed that he had the best idea for dealing with the plague. Bleeding patients had actually fallen out of favor in Europe. It was an old-fashioned method of dealing with disease by the 1790s. Supportive care was becoming the norm, but when Rush tried it he claimed it killed 4 out of 5 of his patients. He switched to the old tried and true method of bleeding and purgatives to make people throw up. Since severe yellow fever causes stomach bleeding, he saw that they would vomit "black bile" and felt he was doing his job to get rid of the excess. He still lost patients, so he took his measures to the next extreme. He drew so much blood from his patients, his front yard became a bloody mess--literally. He even caused the other doctors of his day to squirm. He prescribed ten times the amount of purgatives that any other doctor would prescribe. A battle between the doctors raged in the newspapers. Throughout it all Rush maintained that he never lost a patient once he enacted these measures. He believed that despite bleeding falling out of favor in Europe, America was a different place and therefore required different treatment methods. He believed there was only one disease--fever-- and there was only one treatment for that disease--aggressive bleeding. He believed God had divinely given him this idea. And he taught this to all his students and published books on it for other doctors to read.

That Rush had 5 assistants and 3 of them died during the Yellow Fever outbreak, makes the modern historian question his record. If he lost 0 of the patients he treated, how did he lose 60% of his assistants? One researcher traced as many of his patients as he could and discovered 46% of them had died from Yellow Fever. His school of medicine probably contributed to George Washington's death.
Although the debate during and after the Yellow Fever epidemic was harsh, he only was pushed into resigning from his position regulating public health. He kept his teaching job, and was almost appointed to another one, but Alexander Hamilton, one of his most vocal opponents blocked it. Rush had radical ideas, but unfortunately they were not founded on science. His zeal caused him to ignore the deaths he caused or perhaps his stubbornness caused him to keep killing others. His followers loved him regardless.

The result was that bleeding remained prominent as a treatment for more than 50 years--but only in the United States. Leaders are important, but it is also important to recognize when someone should not be in a leadership position, especially in medicine, and those people who make bad choices, such as when doctors supported smoking, they should be removed from their positions and more humble people placed there instead. Medical leaders must look at research and never assume they have all the answers.

Why Italy and the USA have failed the Covid-19 test (part 2)

The USA has also failed. Our CDC did not enact early testing. Testing from case 1 has taken a minimum of 3 days, unless you are rich. For some reason, rich people can still go on vacation and travel throughout the country, they can get tests even when they are not sick or seriously sick (which increases the chances of a false negative), and they can get the best healthcare if they do fall ill.

However, the fact is that the average American and his or her doctors must wait up to two weeks for test results. Covid-19 usually lasts 12-15 days. People are forced out of their jobs simply because they have been "exposed." It is a bit late for this. If you have mild symptoms, you are refused a test and told you "probably have it." This is a "precaution" but illogical. If, for example, almost 12,000 people in the state of Indiana have been tested because they had serious symptoms of the illness, and only about 2000 of them ACTUALLY HAVE IT, then our prediction rates are estimating 6x more cases than what we really have.

This is why we have run out of medical supplies. The lack of testing kits and testing ability has made it so that doctors err on the side of caution and wear protective gear 6x more often than necessary. It is still forcing doctors and nurses to use gear more than needed.

Now, we have rapid tests. This means that the number of cases will drastically increase, but we are still 1-2 months out before we will be able to test anywhere near the number of people we need to test each day (at this point). The WHO has stated repeatedly that the way to contain this disease is early detection--not mass quarantine, not more ventilators. The USA created an "emergency" situation by not testing and now is continuing to play on that emergency by enacting everything they can for "support" without actually doing what is really necessary: increase testing. The state of Indiana released information that one of its many universities was going to begin testing and expected to soon be testing up to 2,500 patients each day. Two weeks later we are testing less than 2,000 statewide. If students were back at their colleges instead of holed up at home, perhaps more universities could test. Although anyone can get Covid-19, I have found no reports of anyone under the age of 30 dying in the United States, yet, so this would be a wiser use of our resources.

On top of mass shelter-in-home orders and poor testing, the US has been putting out conflicting orders and statements that do not help calm the public. In some cases it is better to say "We don't really know yet, but we are working on it" instead of saying "We know this..." and then later saying "Wait, that wasn't right." A few states have responded well to calming the panic, for example, Georgia's Covid-19 website clearly shows that about 80% of the people who have died had pre-existing conditions. In another 15%, the status of preexisting conditions is unknown. Out of the current 102 deaths that are recorded, only 4 did not have a pre-existing conditions and all of these were over the age of 55. This isn't reassuring for the sick population over 55, but for the rest of us it should be. They also report the number of cases that are hospitalized, letting people know that everyone does not end up in the hospital. The neutral, calming, blacks, blues, and grays, make it more a page for statistics than sensation. The only thing I could complain about is that there could be a few more pie graphs.

On the other hand, you have Indiana, which gets an F in webpage design. At this time, they have the number of deaths in bigger font that is blood red. The yellow and blue fonts for number of tested and number of confirmed cases fade into the background. They do not report whether the people who have died had pre-existing conditions, and they break down newly confirmed cases by age, without any reference to whether the cases are mild, moderate, or severe. Instead of the light blue Georgia used in reporting the counties with only a few cases, which puts them in the background. Indiana again has opted for a light, reddish-brown that makes counties with even 1 case stand out on the map. How much did they pay for this fear inducing visual? Probably a lot more than Georgia's basic display. Of course the governor himself says the numbers should "put the fear of God in you." As someone who has studied pandemics, they don't. Nor should they make anyone afraid if they are looked at objectively in terms of other more deadly illnesses.

Increasing fear and panic across the USA instead of quieting it means that more people are going to commit abuse, more people are going to commit suicide, and more people are going to be casualties of Covid-19 than just those who contract and die from the disease. Issuing "emergency stay-at-home" orders instead of closing state and locality borders to prevent the spread, failing to test people quickly who go to the doctor with symptoms will increase spread and continue the lack of medical supplies, and failing to diagnose and treat people early will increase the deaths. If this virus were truly a threat, the USA would be in trouble.

Why Italy and the USA have failed the Covid-19 test (part 1)

If Covid-19 was Smallpox, Bubonic plague, or Polio, Italy and the USA would see over 30% of their population dead because of their poor handling of Covid-19.

Italy went on lockdown over 21 days ago when they were seeing 1,400 new cases each day. Now, they are seeing 5000-6000. Why? Because Covid-19 is spread primarily in hospitals and in households. Yes, 1/3 of its spread can be attributed to community settings such as the workplace and stores, but anyone who thinks we can lock an entire nation in its home with no access to food, services, or sunlight in 2020 is an evil dictator in the making. But we have just increased the number of household transmissions since people are forced together.

Covid-19 is also spread through droplets and things you touch. The only time it is spread through the air (aerosol) is during the process of someone being put on a ventilator and in the rooms where ventilators are used. We believe that the more virus a person is exposed to, the less likely they will survive with Covid-19. This is called "viral load." When you look at images from Italian hospitals, you soon realize that not only do they not have private rooms with people on ventilators, they sometimes have more than people in the same room on a ventilator. Each of those ventilators is spreading the virus throughout the room and increasing the number of viruses the people, including the healthcare workers, are exposed to. Even if you have a hospital solely dedicated to the care of Covid-19 patients, if viral load is a factor, these patients will all be exposed to a higher viral load and will have an increased chance of dying.

WHO has said from the beginning that early detection is the key. Although I completely disagree with mass quarantined/shelter-in-place/and stay-at-home for healthy people, I have long been an advocate for isolating sick people. If you have been following me, this was one of my biggest complaints about the way former President Obama dealt with the ebola outbreak.

In this case, the USA is now falling under the same out-dated methods of mass quarantine like Italy. Historically (even during the SARS outbreak), mass quarantine does nothing to change the final results beyond hurting children's education and the economy. Every time mass quarantine has been implicated in the past 700 years, its failure is always attributed to "those who don't listen." The problem is that if for 700 years people have never 100% listened to quarantine instructions, then why do we suddenly think it will happen now? Instead, we choose to hurt poor people economically, increase the chances of violence against people who are supposedly spreading the virus, and increase the risk you will catch it when a loved one comes down with it. Conveniently, no mathematical model includes the chances of these things happening.

We should be thanking China, not pointing fingers at them.

Misinformation across the web about coronavirus is rampant. Even things on the CDC webpage have been generalized and not helpful for this outbreak. But some things are clear and deserve to be posted:
(1) This is not a biological weapon. No country--China, the USA, or E-Swatini created this virus. As of yet, none of the coronaviruses found in any animal match this one with 99% of a DNA match, so we don't even know where the transition occurred from. Covid-19 could have even already existed in our population and just happened to be identified this year. We only know that several people who came down with the virus all worked at or visited a seafood market in China, Wuhan province. These are the first identified cases.
(2) Many Chinese people died from this virus, but their deaths have helped the rest of the world deal with it better. The death rate in China was elevated, but the overall death rate is now only 2.4%-3.9% depending on the source (and probably the country). In South Korea, the death rate is only 0.77%, less than the flu most years.
(3) American leaders are botching things, which is increasing the spread across the USA. --The CDC developed its own test, but it could not effectively process the test fast enough. Hospitals who tested sick people sent them home, only to call them back into quarantine 2-3 days later when they received the results of those tests. Everyone in the US is now entitled to a free coronavirus test, but some states, such as Oregon can only process about 45 tests a day--for the entire state! To make matters worse, this test only applies to people who can afford to see a doctor in the first place. With all the stupid HSAs in place the government is asking poor people to cough up the cash to pay for a visit to the doctor when many of them will only ever experience a low-grade fever and mild cough. The well-off will of course rush to their doctors in droves and pressure them to order the test. And, now China is so mad at us for blaming them for the outbreak (even though it was just a few stupid media outlets), that they are not going to help supply the chemicals needed for the kits, and these are running low.
(4) Even the CDC has admitted that closing schools at this point will not stop the spread of the virus and will increase the risk of older/at-risk individuals developing it since 40% of all children live with grandparents. Despite this, schools in many states, even those with as few as 10 infected individuals, have closed.
(5)Everyone is acting like this is the end of the world. Many people cleaning out stores are not doing it from their own fear, but instead they are doing it from greed--they want to make a buck selling the stuff online. Thankfully, at least some stores, are putting limits on the number of items you can buy.
(6) Cronavirus is subsiding in China, and WHO has produced a report that all policy makers should read to see how it happened there.
(7) According to WHO raw data, this is what the coronavirus looks like as of today. The red line is number of deaths per day (new) and the blue is newly reported cases each day:

Based on this, we should expect another slight jump in number of deaths per day in a couple days or so of this post. The only reason for the jump is that the number of people officially diagnosed has jumped drastically (probably due to improved global testing measures). However, many of these newly diagnosed people are probably mild in the symptom range (based on China's experience). If the spike on the left is not simply mild cases, than we will see a spike in about 8 days on the death chart.

(8) In the new coronavirus stimulus bill, there is evidence that Congress is planning to allow states to quarantine us 12 weeks without pay--since that number seems to be prominent. If it passes in the Senate, there will be no reason for states to not do this because our jobs cannot fire us during this absence. However, after 12 weeks of being closed, there is no guarantee that our jobs will still exist. 

(9) The current restrictions on the size of public assemblies that can meet are illegal based on past Supreme court rulings. Should people who are at greater risk attend public gatherings or go out frequently in public places--no. But government implemented restrictions on this are in violation of 1st and 14th amendment rights. In addition, if the government tried to implement a quarantine at this point, it would be difficult to prove the benefit (since quarantines increase the chance of transmission among families), and it would also be difficult to prove that a disease with a less than 0.77% fatality rate when handled correctly and when accurately monitored (ie both mild and severe cases are recorded instead of only the most severe), is severe enough risk for any quarantine. Note: the President and Congress cannot enact quarantines according to past Supreme Court cases, only states can do that, but they can only do it in times of extreme necessity--i.e. during illness with high mortality rates. .77% or even 3.9% is not a high mortality rate.

(10) Since 99% of all the deaths occur in people over the age of 50, the "at-risk" groups are people over 50 with those ailments (at least 99% of the time). I have not seen a break down anywhere on age and pre-existing conditions, but it would be interesting to see this kind of graphic to get a real idea of how a pre-existing condition combined with age affects the outcome of the disease. For example, of the ten people who died in the UK during this report, 8 were not only men (one risk factor) over the age of 80 (another high risk factor) but also had pre-existing diseases that increased their risk. In addition, the UK is no longer monitoring mild cases. They are letting the virus take its course. 

(11) There have been reports that coronavirus has a higher mortality rate and is more easily transmitted than influenza. This is simply not true, according to everything WHO has published. At the beginning of March, the mortality rate was estimated at between 3-4% (most papers misprinted this as 3.4%) They have stated as more mild cases (which usually go undiagnosed) are confirmed, this number will become lower. In places like South Korea, where they have been monitoring everyone at the rate of 10,000 tests per day, the mortality rate is 0.77%. I have also seen the news reporting that the mortality rate of flu is "only 1-3%" (at the beginning of the coronavirus scare) to now reporting the mortality rate is only 0.1%. The problem is that we can go back and look at the 2017-2018 report on the flu season by the CDC here. Although coronavirus does not really affect children, 20% of the children who had been vaccinated that year died from the flu. The overall mortality rate for the flu for that season was 10% (ten percent). It was the 8th biggest killer of people in the US and killed 55,627 people. In fact, if we take the worldwide numbers of 3-5 million cases of flu each year and a death rate of 290,000-650,000 deaths and do the math we get 6-21% (six to twenty-one percent) mortality rate. 

Climate Change? Or Environmentally Dangerous Farce?

For most people, warning bells should go off when they find a 17 year old at the head of the climate change movement. Do we not remember how well the Children's Crusade went? Research has shown that children are easily influenced by outside sources--much more so than adults. If you take people from childhood to adulthood and ask them to rate the riskiness of something (let's say climate change), and after they rate it you tell them that a bunch of adults rated it much higher even though the adults did not really rate it higher, then you let the person rate the risk again, older teenagers change their original views significantly, even more so than younger teenagers.

Readings from thermometers that have been averaged confirm that temperatures on the earth have risen since the first global network of temperature readings was established in 1850. That is a fact taken in its entirety, however, there are a few problems with this fact, such as the source years for the "average." One would expect this is an average of every year from 1850 until today, but it is not. It is usually a subset range instead of the full range. In other words, the numbers have been hand selected to give these results. To make matters worse, climate change advocates do not stop there with that fact. Instead, they start to make a bunch of claims that are not scientifically supported.

Unsupported claim #1: Humans caused this change. There are fossils of tropical plants under ice flows. That is a fact. If tropical trees existed in arctic Norway, the climate has changed drastically with or without human interaction. In fact, if humans effect the climate, they apparently made it much colder in Norway that what it was initially. Some non-human reasons for climate change: continental plate movement which is not constant throughout time, the fact the sun is getting larger, the number of solar flares. 

Unsupported claim #2: Since we have been recording temperatures since 1850 we have a long-term accurate record of temperatures showing that the climate is warming up. The first problem with this claim is that every scientist knows the more data points you have the more accurate your data. In 1850, there were relatively few data points to collect the global temperature of the earth. Livingstone had not even made it all the way across Africa nor had the entire continental coastline of America been charted. No there are about 30,000 points of data. At the same time, we have the second problem--thermometer accuracy. In the 1880s,weather thermometers were all mercury thermometers and the ones used were usually accurate to about +/-0.1 degree Celsius. Digital weather thermometers today are only accurate to about +/-1 degree Celsius. That is right--the temperature has supposedly changed about 1 degree Celsius since the 1900s and the weather thermometers today are only accurate (and require constant calibration to maintain their accuracy) to +/- 1 degree Celsius. The fact that mercury thermometers were being phased out right about the same time that global temperatures began to spike has not struck anyone as odd.


Unsupported claim #3: Methane/CO2 are causing climate change and increasing the Earth's temperatures.

Venus atmosphere (solar system poster child for global warming/climate change):

CO2 96.5%

Methane (undetectable)

Avg daily temperature: 872 °F

Mars atmosphere (“normal” planet):

CO2 94.9%

Methane (undetectable)

Avg daily temperature: -81 °F

Earth atmosphere:

CO2 0.04%

Methane 0.00017%

Average daily temperature: 58.62 °F

You may wonder why this hype about climate change is dangerous for the environment. For one, it takes the spotlight off true environmentally damaging activities done by corporations. These corporations can continue to pollute and still be labeled green because they have paid for carbon credits to eliminate the fictitious "carbon footprint" they are leaving. Instead, blame for the biggest evil on earth (i.e. "climate change") is placed on individual people and governments. Political action revolves around pushing for corporations to pay these fake "carbon credit" companies to continue their activities and for everyone to reduce our carbon emissions. Plants invariably resolve any excess carbon in the atmosphere. If you smoke in a green house, the smoke will effectively be dealt with by the plants.Instead of focusing on this silliness, we should focus on real pollution. I don't care how much carbon a factory is releasing; I care about how much the EMFs from power lines are polluting my environment. I care about dioxins and other cancer causing agents in my air, water, food, and household products. I care about an increase in sulfur in the air (something that climate change advocates want more of because they apparently feel anything they do no matter how damaging to the earth and its environment is better than doing nothing).

The climate will change. There is plenty of real scientific evidence showing us this. It is time people stopped focusing on one thing they cannot stop from happening and start focusing on pollution that happens and can be prevented from happening each day.

When Snopes Doesn't Do Enough Research

You have to love how things are pulled out of context to prove points on the Internet. Many have probably seen this quote from Christopher Columbus:

"A hundred castellanos are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general, and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls: those from nine to ten are now in demand and for all ages a good price must be paid."

This is used to support that Columbus was an awful man who encouraged those under him to rape and prostitute the natives. I found this on Snopes as one of the quotes supporting this claim is true.

I didn't research the rest of the supporting documentation after I discovered they pulled this out of context to suit their assumption. In most cases, Snopes provides a decent assessment. Even here, they allow you to read the original document. However, since they had access to the full document, I am amazed they didn't actually read it. Here is a fuller quote from the source (brackets denote where I have modernized the language a bit):

"...I would like to know how to remedy this, and all the rest of what has been said and what has taken place since I have been in the Indies...but [maintaining justice] and [extending the laws of] her Highness has [been keeping] me down. Now that so much gold is found, a dispute arises as to which brings more profit, whether to go about robbing or to go to the mines. A hundred castellanos are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general, and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls: those from nine to ten are now in demand and for all ages a good price must be paid. I assert that the violence of the [slander] of [disorderly] persons has injured me more than my services have profited me; which is a bad example for the present and for the future. I take my oath that a number of men have gone to the Indies who did not deserve water in the sight of God and the world."

Whereas the quote out of context makes it seems as if Columbus was bragging about his conquests (or at least reporting them without concern), the full letter shows he was an anguish that the people he brought with him were acting so lawlessly. I haven't seen anybody saying that Columbus was encouraging people to rob others using the above information, so why are they using it to portray him as a rapist.

Since his first voyage, he was hated by those under him. He was a devout Christian, who was more prone to giving things to the natives and punishing his own men. Those with him wanted to rape all they could from America and return as quickly as possible to Europe with their plunder. Much is talked about how Europeans brought diseases to the natives. This is completely true. However, little is said about the fact that the Europeans who came here also suffered from new diseases. Many of them died as well. When those Columbus brought to colonize the Americas came upon his last settlement (which had been razed by natives with no survivors), and Columbus led them to build another settlement when they were tired and hungry and only there for the gold, they were not happy. Then they started getting sick and dying like flies. People tried to steal ships to get back to Europe with what plunder they could carry. And when he prevented them from doing this, they accused him of atrocities. Ironically, we are now reviving those accusations and pulling things out of context to prove our "new" vision of him.