Whither Belarus? When to return? Flu shot hesitancy

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Russia's expressed intention to let up on Kyiv should take the pressure off Lukashenko.  Since Belarus borders only Western Ukraine. "Europe's last dictator" has had to depend on Putin, and hence support him, whether he wanted to or not. The evidence has been that the Belarusian soldiers were not enthusiastic about fighting Ukraine.

Signs of normalcy are returning to Kyiv. The city buses have been running for a couple of weeks, though apparently on reduced schedules. A couple of days ago I saw a jitney bus – marshrutka. The circle line of the electric railway (Elektrishka) is running.  The ATB grocery chain said that they were opening up again.

Eddie, Zoriana and I went out yesterday to water the houseplants of our absent neighbors. In my opinion it is time to come home. Even when Kyiv itself was under siege, our neighborhood was never threatened for the reasons I anticipated. There is nothing here, and we are not on the road to anywhere. With the Russians apparently beaten back, it is time to resume normal life.

I need to venture out a little bit further today to see if I can find a hardware store. Oksana insisted that I prune the mulberry tree yesterday. Using a dull saw, dull pruning shears and a machete I got the job done, but the top of the tree looks like it was mowed with a wood chipper. I need to get proper equipment, and need to get a ball bearing race to replace the one that broke hauling sandbags.

I received an email from one of the occupied cities in the south. While I am sure that everybody's situation is different, the fact that this guy was able to get a message out indicated that he at least had electricity and Internet from time to time. While war is obviously dangerous, if you keep your head down, your odds of survival are still pretty good.

Alex Berenson is a voice of common sense.  In a post yesterday he described the way in which the success of the annual flu shots presaged the success of the Covid program.  I rolled his two diagrams into one in order to more dramatically show the effects of the annual flu shot program in reducing flu deaths.  Which was precisely – NONE!  Unless you consider increasing big pharma profits a success.

Of course, the flu shots have one significant upside that the Covid "vaccines" lack. Flu shots don't often kill you.

Berenson followed up with a post about how people quibbled that the population had gone up since 1960 and so on. Yes, there are always complicating factors. But if 200 million doses didn't move the needle any farther than we see on this graph, we still have to conclude that the vaccinations are pretty much pointless.  For what it's worth, Steve Kirsch today made a post about flu shots to the same effect.  Without any evidence beyond the skepticism coming from a lifetime's experience with big pharma, I gave up twenty years ago after about two shots.

Berenson doesn't even mention the other side of the coin – adverse effects. The VAERS database doesn't record too many adverse effects for these shots. The flu shots, like most vaccines, contain adjuvants. Some studies suggest that these chemicals can collect in the brain and other places and cause problems in the long term. We don't know.

I'm going with common sense. There is obviously not a compelling argument in favor of the flu shots. There are some unknown negatives. They are being pushed by big Pharma and the government, who have been known to lie to us. I'm not going to do it. Yes, I am vaccine hesitant. And not out of ignorance. My immune system evolved over billions of years to fight coronaviruses among other things. I'm going to trust it.

That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong man will soon be taking the kids for a walk as we listen to the retreating war front, the good-looking women will be working on the vegetable garden again, and the kids would certainly like to have some other kids around. Please come back.

Graham