más picante - Member - The Prepared

Reply to: News roundup for Fri, 25 Mar, 2022 Posted March 29, 2022

That’s an interesting graph as to oil prices. I like how it doesn’t explain why oil prices began to skyrocket for the last year or so before Russia invaded Ukraine. Oh well!

Reply to: News roundup for Tue, Mar 1, 2022 Posted March 1, 2022

The economic sanctions are largely milquetoast in light of the fact that Russia’s main export is oil and gas sales – it is the third-largest producer in the world. The US buys 500k barrels from them per day, and Europe gets 40% of its natural gas from Russia (50% for Germany). You’ll note that no one is proposing stopping this, particularly Germany, which relies on that gas due to them shutting down their nuclear reactors. Even if they did, it would simply result in the west purchasing more of these resources from the Saudis. In such a case, China would most likely pick up the slack for Russian demand since their leadership has tacitly supported this invasion (China is Russia’s largest trading partner already). China, Russia, and their allies also have their own alternative to SWIFT in place, lessening the consequences of booting them from that. I wouldn’t expect any of this stuff to get Russia to back off. In fact, it may provoke them further. Rats mostly leave you alone until you corner them, and then, look out. And these rats are heavily armed. Finally, as a general note, take all corporate media coverage of this conflict with a grain of salt. We don’t really know what’s going on there, and there is a lot of propaganda, as well as a natural instinct to root for the underdog, coloring the coverage. The term “fog of war” exists for a reason. I think we in the west have become complacent that other countries will “fall” as easily as Iraq or Afghanistan (not that those had good endings for us, either), which may be leading to 99% of the DC establishment openly advocating for provoking Russia further. This is becoming suicidal.

Reply to: News roundup for Tue, Feb 1, 2022 Posted February 2, 2022

“Food prices are higher than they’ve been in almost five decades. Extreme weather has been the primary cause of the price increases that we’re seeing. Wheat production has been hardest hit, with a decline in output from the US of 40%.” While certain crops may be affected by weather, this happens every year – something is always in shorter supply depending on where it’s grown and how that area happened to be affected that season. But this source has an obvious climate-focused agenda. “Extreme weather” is just one of a basket of factors. There are shortages of nearly everything that consumers purchase, and you can’t just blame weather for lack of patio furniture or semiconductors. There are numerous articles on supply shortages that have been posted here and elsewhere which explain the scope of this problem.

Reply to: News roundup for Fri, Jan 28, 2022 Posted January 28, 2022

I’m still not sure why we are allowing the Feds to monopolize the purchase of mABs after they’ve demonstrated a willingness to either play politics with them or severely under-order. The complete lack of focus on therapeutic options by our public health officials is downright scary. Telling people to get vaccinated is all well and good, but that isn’t the end of the discussion as we know the vaccines are leaky at best (explaining why case numbers in highly vaccinated countries like Israel and Denmark are through the roof). Those most at risk of a bad reaction to the virus need an option other than “stay home and take Tylenol, come to the hospital if you’re about to die”. We have had mABs that perform very well, and 1/3 of them continues to do so against Omicron, but they are being ignored.

Reply to: Want to build your own ham radio antenna? The KM4ACK kit makes it easy Posted January 23, 2022

Thanks Josh. If you DIY, the DX Commander is also a great choice. If you can cut wire and solder spade connectors, you can do it, and it’s a full fledged multi-band HF antenna (<1.5 SWR up to 80m).

Reply to: News roundup for Friday, Dec 3, 2021 Posted December 3, 2021

While individual water consumption is a factor, it’s a drop in the bucket (pun intended) – the vast, vast majority of California’s water is used for agriculture. In particular, one single family, the Resnicks, control more water than is used in LA and SF combined and utilize it to grow crops like almonds and pistachios (among other things) which aren’t particularly suited to an arid climate. Of course, they are strongly entrenched in the Democratic party and are thus considered untouchable. So yeah, go plant a cactus, little people. Meet the California Couple Who Uses More Water Than Every Home in Los Angeles Combined

Reply to: News roundup for Fri, Nov 19, 2021 Posted November 19, 2021

In a trend that is baffling to me–Ireland and Gibraltar, two of the most highly-vaccinated regions on Earth, have imposed stricter COVID mitigation measures again. Perhaps this is in anticipation of seasonal trends, but it’s still slightly worrying to me. Why is this necessary if so many are already vaccinated? Waning immunity and a dearth of boosters? Why is this baffling? Oodles of data has been showing that vaccine-triggered antibodies only last 5-6 months tops. Endless boosters will be necessary, as well formula changes as the virus mutates further in the future. Same reason we get a flu shot every year. Why would this virus be different than the flu in that respect? Seems people were sold a certain bill of goods regarding the efficacy of these vaccines and are startled to learn that they don’t work much better than any other attempt at vaccinating against coronaviruses.

Reply to: News roundup for Fri, Nov 12, 2021 Posted November 16, 2021

Nuclear power is far less dangerous than any other method of generation. A good metric for the danger of an energy source is deaths per terawatt hour. Here are the stats, according to Our World in Data: Coal:30; Oil: 18.4; Wind: 0.035; Hydro: 0.024; Nuclear: 0.01-0.074. Nuclear doesn’t seem dangerous at all. In fact, by many estimates, rooftop solar panels kill significantly more people per TWh (terawatt-hour) than nuclear, because roof installations are so perilous. Approximately the same number of people die in mining and drilling operations EVERY YEAR than have EVER died from nuclear power, with 80% of all nuclear power deaths resulting from one incident – Chernobyl. The waste issue is also overblown. Reactors don’t just spit out waste willy-nilly, ala those barrels of glowing ooze on The Simpsons (which were mostly produced in weapons construction or science experiments, not in commercial power generation). They produce spent fuel rods, which are removed from the reactor and stored in heavy duty concrete barrels. All the spent fuel rods ever created in the US would barely fill one football field. We also have the technology to reuse these rods rather than store them, since they retain something like 90% of their energy even when “spent”. Other countries, like France, already do this. We don’t, because of misguided politics. We are not going to get out of this mess via renewable sources. All the rivers have already been damned. Solar and wind are not reliable sources of baseline “always on” power that everyone depends on. Opposing nuclear means either resorting to more fossil fuels (hence the rapid growth of gas turbines as nuclear plants are shuttered), or some fantasy low-energy future that will never happen, particularly with the high volume of people migrating from low-use third-world cultures to high-use western cultures.

Reply to: News roundup for Fri, Oct 8, 2021 Posted October 8, 2021

There are studies in virtually every aspect of Covid treatment that are questionable, depending on who you ask. Regardless, it is indisputable that IVM is nearly harmless in any reasonable dose, so even if it is only marginally effective, so what? We approve drugs for use all the time (say, for example, cancer drugs) that are only effective in <10% of cases. Hospitals are still administering Remdesivir which has even less proven effectiveness than IVM. And again, there are other therapeutics, formally approved for use, that are being ignored/sidelined because the only approved narrative is “get vaccinated”.

Reply to: News roundup for Fri, Oct 8, 2021 Posted October 8, 2021

The continued media suppression of therapeutic options for Covid is disturbing. Dr. Tess Lawrie et al. released a meta-analysis of the various IVM studies and concluded that “large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin” especially if it’s administered early on, which is what it’s proponents advocate. https://journals.lww.com/americantherapeutics/fulltext/2021/08000/ivermectin_for_prevention_and_treatment_of.7.aspx There has been almost zero media advocacy regarding Regeneron monoclonal antibodies, an indisputably beneficial treatment – again, if given early on. We are now seeing the media take a guarded approach against Molnupiravir, after touting it’s 50% reduction in hospitalizations just days earlier. The official narrative assumes that people cannot handle multiple ideas at once. That if we give credence to therapeutics, then people won’t get vaccinated. This is faulty logic. Both vaccines AND therapeutics have their place in treatment, particularly as the effectiveness of the vaccines is starting to dwindle and breakthrough cases and deaths are clearly occurring. People can handle news that vaccines work AND that there also might be other drugs that treat the disease.

Reply to: News roundup for Fri, Oct 1, 2021 Posted October 1, 2021

Why do we continue to ignore the seasonality/regionality of Covid? In 2020, waves lined up with the weather conditions based on region. Keeping in mind that the virus is most often transmitted indoors, it stands to reason that you would see waves peak in warm climates when people go inside where it’s air conditioned. Conversely, in cooler climates, waves peak in the winter when people go inside where it’s heated. Thus far 2021 has been the same – cases peaked this summer in the southern US, and are now declining as things cool down and people go back outside, while cases in the north went down as more people were outside. If the 2020 pattern repeats – and it should – cases will climb again in the north as the days get colder.

Reply to: News roundup for Tue, Sep 28, 2021 Posted September 29, 2021

Unlike smallpox or polio, which are sterilizing vaccines, people vaccinated for Covid still get Covid. The rate at which they do is arguable but Delta has undeniably caused a lot more breakthrough cases, and further mutations are sure to render the current vaccines useless eventually. It seems that much of the anger from the vaccination crusaders comes from the fact that their vaccines didn’t turn out to be the panacea that they were promised. Natural immunity is also quite common among healthcare workers, who have had to deal with the disease on the front lines since well before vaccines were available. Lambasting them now seems short-sighted, and firing them undermines public trust in this being a “pandemic” to begin with: you don’t fire healthcare workers during a pandemic.

Reply to: News roundup for Tue, Sep 7, 2021 Posted September 9, 2021

Do you have a link to those hospitalization numbers? Also, please explain how that has any reflection on risk vs. vaccination. If a child is hospitalized but comes out after a day or two with no lasting damage, that is still “less risk” than potential permanent damage to a young girl’s reproductive system or a young boy’s heart – these things are happening, and we have no long-term data as to what else can happen. The only children typically having serious problems with the virus are those with pre-existing conditions. This whole vaccine issue is approaching being moot anyway since the emerging variants like Mu are barely, if at all, affected by the vaccine, and the boosters are not yet true boosters but just another shot of the same thing you already had. It’s rather time to stop demonizing people for their own medical choices, regardless of whether you agree with them. You can lead a horse to water…

Reply to: News roundup for Tue, Jun 8, 2021 Posted June 9, 2021

Thanks Cia. I would add to this that the vaccines themselves are not without risk, and can cause things like myocarditis, encephalitis, and death. Without going too far down the rabbit hole, over 4800 deaths have been reported to the VAERS system, along with far, far more non-deadly side effects. VAERS is notorious for only capturing a very small percentage of these effects. Of course correlation != causation, which is basically the excuse they’re running with to explain these numbers. I’m sure they’re all just a coincidence. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html Per that link, the CDC is admittedly monitoring increased VAERS reports of myocarditis and pericarditis in adolescents and young adults after the MRNA vaccines, for example, so obviously they take VAERS reports seriously even while talking out of both sides of their mouth. Not even Pfizer (which is profit-motivated) is claiming Covid is a significant risk to children, they’re using the excuse that it helps stop transmission: Although data shows that severe #COVID19 is rare in children, widespread vaccination is a critical tool to help stop transmission. That’s why I’m excited we have begun dosing participants aged 5 to 11 in a global Phase 2/3 study of the Pfizer-BioNTech #COVID19 vaccine. — AlbertBourla (@AlbertBourla) June 8, 2021 The CDC reports a grand total of 309 deaths in the 1-17 age group since this pandemic began: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm The risk to healthy young children for Covid is infinitesimal, why purposely gamble with the side effects of the vaccine? The purpose of a vaccine is not only to be effective, but also safe. Everyone should weigh the pros and cons of getting one. If you’re in a high risk group, absolutely, go for it. The risks of Covid outweigh the risk of the vaccine. If you’re not in a high risk group, particularly young people, the risk of the vaccine is far higher than the disease itself. It just amazes me that people are told to consult with their doctors before taking fish oil supplements or starting an exercise program, but these vaccines, which are not FDA approved, are given out for free at baseball games. Disclaimer: I got the J&J shot myself back in April. No problems. Highly recommend that one if you’re in the market.

Adapting BOBs for family use

HAM: Just got my tech license. Which radio to buy?

Favorite Prepper YouTube channels?