I wrote recently that The Daily Expose seemed to be favoring Russia. They wrote articles stressing the legitimacy of Russia's casus belli - the ongoing artillery strikes in Donbass, the consideration of NATO membership and the biological warfare laboratories. While there was substance to the second two, and the first was a question of opinion, none of them remotely rose to the level of justifying an invasion.
Moreover, as has been abundantly clear in retrospect, Putin had long been looking for an excuse to re-extend Russia's domination over Ukraine. Whatever the history, in an about-face they published this quite balanced article today.
To win an industrial war – and depending on definitions this is the first one to be fought since World War II or Korea – a nation requires a number of factors:
· adequate military hardware
· a trained standing military
· the ability to conscript additional military
· the technological ability to adapt and create new weaponry
· high morale – a sense of purpose
· the economic wherewithal to support the war effort
· logistics capacities to supply the soldiers in the field with food, fuel and weapons
While the Russian military looked formidable on paper, the lack of training, maintenance, logistics and especially morale have been telling on them.
I wrote about artillery a week or so ago. The top Russian general, Gerasimov, was wounded by shrapnel when he visited Izyum. Homans' account was that it was a guided shell. That sounds like one of the PGK – projectile guidance kit – fuzes being used by NATO. Welcome to Ukraine, General.
Ukrainians have high morale. They have a great deal of international support, and extremely strong backing from members of the Ukrainian diaspora. I received a request from Ihor Mulyk to post this link to his request. This blog is small enough and local enough I think I can accede to such requests without getting swamped.
Here is a link to our Facebook Page with me on my Ukie (Ukrainian) Project 1 Madone.
I am not looking for corporate sponsorship, but if you would be kind enough to spread the word through your vast network we would greatly appreciate it and it may help our fundraising efforts.
Team Covid is not giving up. Bill Gates has a new book out. I am certainly not going to put money in his pocket by buying it., This scathing review by German Covid expert Eugyppius is sufficient. If Gates thinks that the establishment's response to this man-made panic, this artificial epidemic, was appropriate that is all I need to know. Follow the link. His one sentence summary is "Like its author, How to Prevent the Next Pandemic breaks new ground in being terrifying, tedious and obtuse all at the same time."
Team Covid includes a number of ringers in its membership. Your Local Epidemiologist pretends to be just the girl next door, who happens to have access to world-class graphic designers. If you follow this link, you find:
Deaths in the U.S. continue to nosedive. Today we’re reporting 321 deaths per day, and we expect to reach the milestone of 1,000,000 total deaths soon. The Kasier Family Foundation updated their preventable deaths analysis last week. Since vaccines were readily available (June 2021), we’ve lost 234,000 Americans to SARS-CoV-2 that could have been prevented. In March alone, we lost 14,800 Americans to a vaccine-preventable disease.
Thanks to base rate bias (see my previous post here), the more people vaccinated the more deaths we will see among vaccinated. This also shows that vaccines aren’t perfect, and transmission is, in fact, still important to track.
This lady is probably as articulate of an advocate for the vaccines as any you will find. However, I find her statistics, such as the one above, to be cherry picked in just about every case. She refuses to consider that the vaccines might be anything other than an unmixed blessing. She has never conceded that there are adverse reactions to the vaccines. Notice that she is so casual, in writing about rate bias above, that the more vaccinated people there are, the more vaccinated people will die. It should be just the opposite if the vaccines worked!
If nothing else, there is a trade-off between the risks and benefits of being vaccinated. You have to look at all cause mortality. Which is what Steve Kirsch does in this link. Among many others. Simply reading all the stuff he posts would be a full-time job.
On the home front, I discovered the problem with my camera. On the manual focus setting, it is possible to move the focus beyond infinity. While beyond infinity might sound wonderful, in reality it's simply fuzzy. Zoriana continues to demand that I take her bicycling every day. The weather is good – why not?
That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the new routine of music lessons is working out pretty well with the strong men taking the two kids on Monday and Wednesday, the good-looking woman enjoying a few hours to herself on those mornings as her mom watches Marianna, and the kids happy to spend the time with their father. The teen years will usually change that – I had better enjoy it while I can.
You write: "Notice that she is so casual, in writing about rate bias above, that the more vaccinated people there are, the more vaccinated people will die. It should be just the opposite if the vaccines worked!"
No, that's not how the math works. The vaccines are not 100% effective.
Let's say we have a population of 10,000 people, and a deadly pandemic where 20 percent of people who contract the disease die. At first, no one is vaccinated, and if 1000 people catch the disease, 200 of them die.
Then a vaccine is developed. Let's say it's 80% effective at preventing death. If all of the population had had the vaccine initially, only 40 of the original 1000 would have died (20% x 200), reducing the death rate to 4% from 20%.
Then 90 percent of the population is vaccinated. Everyone is exposed to the virus and varients. Of 9,000 vaxxed, 360 die (4% x 9,000). Of the unvaxxed, 200 die (20% x 1,000).
Antivaxxers scream "More vaccinated people are dying than unvaxxed! Vaccines are killing peope!" When in fact, if no one had been vaxxed, 2,000 would have died.
Yes, this is an oversimplification. But not as oversimplified as saying "vaccines don't work because vaccinated people die."
You write: "Notice that she is so casual, in writing about rate bias above, that the more vaccinated people there are, the more vaccinated people will die. It should be just the opposite if the vaccines worked!"
No, that's not how the math works. The vaccines are not 100% effective.
Let's say we have a population of 10,000 people, and a deadly pandemic where 20 percent of people who contract the disease die. At first, no one is vaccinated, and if 1000 people catch the disease, 200 of them die.
Then a vaccine is developed. Let's say it's 80% effective at preventing death. If all of the population had had the vaccine initially, only 40 of the original 1000 would have died (20% x 200), reducing the death rate to 4% from 20%.
Then 90 percent of the population is vaccinated. Everyone is exposed to the virus and varients. Of 9,000 vaxxed, 360 die (4% x 9,000). Of the unvaxxed, 200 die (20% x 1,000).
Antivaxxers scream "More vaccinated people are dying than unvaxxed! Vaccines are killing peope!" When in fact, if no one had been vaxxed, 2,000 would have died.
Yes, this is an oversimplification. But not as oversimplified as saying "vaccines don't work because vaccinated people die."