18 March 2023

Modern-day Portland problems: dealing with secondhand hard-drug smoke in public.  You'll not be able to avoid it anymore.

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Folks on SE Powell are bracing for the new massive tent city about to spring up.  My heart goes out to business in that area.

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A dollar doesn't get you that far in blue cities.  People have noticed that for a while.

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Civility continues to erode.  Is this a residual of the lockdown months?  A reaction to the perceived insanity of the world?  Greater accessibility to mind-altering and self-control-impairing substances?  Locally, I've seen it in the way drivers behave on the road.  More speeding, irresponsible maneuvers and road rage.  Civilization is fragile.  It seems we experience less gratitude.  Perhaps it's the decline of religion and spirituality.
 
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Little by little, people are waking up to the dangers of the mRNA "vaccine" products.  Good on the German health minister to admit he was wrong, and enact changes.

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"Far right"?  More like "proven right again".

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Because of the TikTok video revealing how to easily steal Kias and Hyundais with a USB drive, State Farm and Progressive Insurance will no longer insure them. 

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What's going on with vaccines?  Burundi is experiencing a polio outbreak because the vaccines are actually causing the disease they were meant to immunize against.  The nOPV vaccine is supposed to use an inactivated virus but in practice, it was active.

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Some fear that AI is going to lead to a whole slew of fake medical publications that may change medical practice, but turn out to be phony. There are some people who will resort to this to get publications, and now that it's much easier to do, journal editors are going to have a difficult time. Although at least one journal is encouraging the use of AI in manuscript submissions.

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17 March 2023

Sanity!  $1000/month giveaway idea seems doomed.

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Geeks are starting to freak out about AI.  Not only it's potential, but what it will mean to their jobs.

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Gotta wait a year for those Oregon EV rebates.  As with many other things in the state, the program is running out of money.

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Oregon legislature approves $200 million to solve the homeless problem.  I think the only ones we'll see who will benefit from this will be the many agencies who are poised to take that money.  Politicians forget that housing is a money sink.  After you build it, it needs to be maintained and administered.  And there's not enough money for that.

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More on Legacy Mt. Hood closing their birthing center.  They cite two main reasons for this: 1) the declining birthrate in the region, making it more difficult to justify the need, and 2) the vaccine mandate, which keeps many away from the healthcare profession.

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OPB discuss the great need for addressing Oregon's great mental illness crisis.  Of course, there is not enough money for this, but Oregon still decriminalizes mind-altering drugs of high abuse potential that contribute to mental illness.  That in itself is crazy, no?

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16 March 2023


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There's panic in tech companies and in universities amongst those who were working on natural language processing. The success of GPT-4 is generating despair in those studying something else.

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Makes sense.  As the city empties, criminals will seek targets in residential neighborhoods.

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The OHA doesn't approve of Legacy Mt Hood Medical Center closing their birthing center, even though it just has to happen because there is no staffing.  Hospitals are finding it hard to recruit nurses because Portland has a reputation for crime and homelessness, and no one wants to get the vax anymore.  So it's personnel shortages for the foreseeable future.

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Clever.  Africans are using Bitcoin without internet access.

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ODOT is officially doing away with the permit system to see the waterfalls on the Old Columbia River Highway.  Finally.

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15 March 2023


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Top causes of death for Americans 15 to 49 years:

What 30 years of open borders and liberal policies have done to the United States.  The country we grew up in no longer exists.

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James O'Keefe has formed a new venture - the O'Keefe Media Group.

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Will your doctor ask a ChatBot to complete his or her chart notes?  There's a company that hopes at least some will give it a try. 

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The Biden administration had to take pains to explain that no taxpayer dollars would be spent to guarantee SVB’s deposits and that the money would instead come from the FDIC’s insurance fund. While true in a technical sense, that fund is replenished by fees from banks all over the country, which in turn come from the fees that Americans pay to their banks all the time. In an indirect way, we all just bailed out Silicon Valley this weekend.
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If you'd ask me the substance that Rutgers scientists identifed that sparked life on Earth, I would never have come with "nickelback".

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Providence lost a lot money in 2022 - $1.7 billion.  Ouch.

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Gotta inform my favorite dry cleaning lady about this hazard.  Hope she's careful.

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According to the WSJ, people are already nostalgic for times just a few years ago when things were more affordable.  I noticed that they don't mention Trump.  No, they pine for the time period when Biden had just taken over, before he started doing any damage.  What media bias?

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PORTLAND IN THE NEWS:  HotAir describes life in today's Portland.  If you live in a house or apartment, better make sure that living units all around you are not abandoned by their owners.  Or your life will be hell.

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The media generally ignores small stories like this, but hopefully it will yield insights into how it all started.  The government wants to take over and probably bury it.
A key COVID-19 vaccine case is moving to the discovery phase after a U.S. judge rejected a bid by Moderna to dismiss some of the patent infringement claims against it.

Moderna and the government had argued that under 28 U.S.C. 1498, the claims should be dismissed and moved to the Court of Federal Claims. That would mean the government was inserted as the defendant, replacing Moderna, and leave the government responsible for paying any damages awarded.

Arbutus and Genevant sued Moderna in March 2022, asserting the company used technology Arbutus had already patented.  
That included a lipid nanoparticle system used by the COVID-19 vaccine to deliver spike protein into the body.

Moderna was aware of the patents and even tried to license them for other products, according to the lawsuit. Moderna didn’t try to license the technology for its COVID-19 vaccine, instead attempting to invalidate the patents and, when those efforts failed, using the patented technology anyway.
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The Japanese are also discovering the high death rate after vaccination was introduced, and that the government is strangely incurious about investigating it.

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They don't try to hide it anymore.  SVB and Signature Bank were Democrat supporters. 

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"Maybe just focus on running a bank?"  SVB donated $73.45 million to BLM, and Signature Bank gave a total of $850,000 to the organization.

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14 March 2023

Happy Pi Day!

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Fauci says that even a lab leak is, to him, an example of natural occurrence. I kid you not.

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Oregon's tax rates combined with the new Biden tax rates, put Oregon at number 2 in the nation for marginal tax rates.


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Here's a real shocker, and I'm surprised that this hasn't gotten more media attention.  Someone analyzed the mRNA bivalent vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, and found heavy contamination of plasmid DNA.  This is major, because we were told that the vaccine would not incorporate into DNA and change one's genetics.  Well plasmids are able to do just that.  It looks like the purification process was not done right.  Insertion of plasmid DNA into the genome could result in mutations, and could be inflammatory.  Plasmids can also linger for months to years.  This is just the beginning, and more research needs to be done to find out what this actually means.  But it could explain why some people get really sick and others don't.

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Who's running America?  Good question.

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Activists - you gotta love 'em, right?  While some in the city council of Portland tries to decrease the spread of illegal urban encampments, activists are now littering the city with tents to encourage tweaker occupuation.  Real nice.

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Democrats helping Democrats.  This is likely why the Fed changed the rules and bailed out California banks.

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San Francisco is in for a hot mess.  $5 million a piece in reparations?  Srsly?  Yeah, diversity, right?  As they say, never take down a fence without learning why it was built in the first place.  Crazy.

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13 March 2023

The financial world is roiling today.  Lots of opinions as to what's happening and what may happen.  Here's a quick and easy to understand summary of how it started.  Interesting that some say this is not a bailout, because it really is.  Both uninsured as well as insured accounts will be made whole.  New rules, huh?  Since Silicon Valley is heavily Democrat and they essentially prop up California, it's not surprising that rules are being bent for them.  Biden tries to reassure the nation that everything's OK, and we know everything he says is true, right?  Probably the one thing we know for sure is that the Fed will not hike rates nearly as aggressively as they forecast a few months ago.  And high inflation will likely be with us for a long time.  At least until we go into a deflationary spiral leading to a depression.  Oil prices are already declining, and might decline further since the Alaskan Willow project was approved.   People are fleeing to Treasuries - it's still not too late to get good 1 month rates, even thought it's off the high.

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Maybe Oregonians will get the right to pump their own gas.

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Incivility and vulgar profanity is the tactic of activism today.

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Gretchen Witmer admits now that her coronavirus policies were too draconian.  Yet they have already canceled their mask mandates and there are no vaccine mandates in place.  Even healthcare providers don't need to be vaccinated.  Neither do state employees.  But they're still in place in Oregon.  Why doesn't Oregon's governor look around and see that these measures are no longer needed, and stop them? 

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12 March 2023

There's a blood test for anxiety now.  Also, there's a journal Molecular Psychiatry.  Interesting.

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Not long ago I had my own Fermi moment. I looked at the world around me and asked: Where are all the polygamists?

Consider almost any past empire or civilisation — Mongol, native American, Chinese, Indian, African, old European — and you will find powerful men with many wives. It’s all over the Hebrew Bible. 90% (!) of hunter gather societies around the world practice some degree of polygamy.
Yet we look around today and… zilch?
Oh, polygamy is still here.  In modern times, the polygamy is just done serially, instead of at the same time.  Isn't that right, Mr. DiCaprio?

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Janet Yellen says no to a bailout for SVB.  But she's planning a special fund in case there are future bank runs.  But a bank run has already started at First Republic.

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The next generation of doctors will be browner, for sure.  But medical schools don't seem to care if they're admitting smart people anymore.  Instead, what counts is "equity" and "lived experience".  Hey, it worked for government positions, right?

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Reverse racism strikes again.  Zelensky won't have an appearance at this year's Oscars, because the Ukraine/Russian war is just between white people, according to producer Will Packer, who is, as you might expect, black.  Nothing really matters if it's just between white people, right?  And nobody bats an eye when sentiment like this gets expressed.  Oh well, interest in Ukraine is declining anyway, so it's just as well.

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Never put a pile of emergency savings where Democrats can get a hold of it. 

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Scarecrow Video in Seattle is going to liberate patrons from mask-wearing, and for some "this change will be a challenge"!  Sigh. As Voltaire said, "It is difficult to free fools who revere their chains."


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Desperate times call for desperate measures.  Some on the Left are freaking out at this Texan bill being considered.  I suspect that whether or not anyone gets any money from this, its purpose will have been served.  And that's the main point.


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Things are moving fast this weekend.  Signature Bank was shut down today.  It was a crypto-friendly bank, but Bitcoin has not been adversely affected.  Just yesterday, people were saying that the Fed would not change course on interest rates, but today, the consensus is that the Fed will have to lower its target, and the odds of a pivot are increasing.

11 March 2023

The American College of Physicians has announced that they have enlisted the help of the Coalition for Trust in Health and Science.  The latter has a myth-busting section where they combat the "myth" that the coronavirus vax has been associated with Damar Hamlin's injury.  The statement made was that "Nearly 95% of the roughly 1700 NFL players are vaccinated against COVID – none of them have had sudden death on the field."  Well, none may have had a dramatic on-the-field death like Damar, but there sure is a lot of players who are out for "undisclosed" reasons.  And why was Damar unwilling to discuss his condition?  Why say "that's something I want to stay away from".

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This chart is a bit misleading:


If you factor in the population of each principality, then LA doesn't stick out as much, and Portland looks bad.
Homeless/per population
  • Los Angeles county   - 0.0066
  • Seattle/King County - 0.0059
  • Portland                       - 0.0092
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Two excellent post-mortems on the SVB crash yesterday.  Here and here.  Or you can just watch the video:



Will Powell cut interest rates on Monday?  Mish doesn't think so.
 
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The woke mob has also destroyed Bon Appetit magazine. 

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The Oregon Symphony Waterfront festival, Oregon Brewer’s Festival, and Feast are no more.  More casualties to Ted Wheeler's city governance.  It's amazing that people just seem to take it. 

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Missed this last month, but the FDA agreed that cocoa flavonoids do have beneficial cardiovascular benefits.  But you're not going to get those benefits from eating chocolate bars.  Too much sugar and fat.  To get those benefits, the study participants used this product. 

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Why is UTC the abbreviation for Coordinated Universal Time?  It was a compromise.  The English-speaking countries wanted CUT.  The French wanted TUC. 

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10 March 2023

"Don't Portland my Oregon!"  Phrase of the day.
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Washington state bans assault weapons, so now they will only be in the hands of criminals.  The Second Amendment gets chipped away further.  Maybe places like fieldseats.com will the only place to go to get self-defense protection.  (You're not technically purchasing a gun.)  But AR-15 guns are surprisingly safe.  Americans are more likely to die from a lawnmower than an AR-15.


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Could pharmacies be dispensing fake drugs now?  Some ADHD patients are claiming that the Adderal they're getting is not the same.  They wouldn't do that would they?

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SARS-CoV2 origins info to be declassified?  While I think this is long overdue, I'm wondering why it's suddenly acceptable.

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You'd think the telehealth industry wants to kill itself in its pursuit for money.  Selling customers info to advertisers? No.

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What is Long Covid?  At this time, there aren't a definitive set of diagnostic criteria for this.  But I've observed that in 2020, when this condition was discussed, the defining presentation was that of a chronic fatigue that lasted long after the acute phase of the condition.  There were some reports of myocarditis as well.  Sometime after the roll-out of the vaccine, people began to associated it with myalgic-encephalomyelitis, and designated this as ME/CFS, as if it were the same thing.  Surveys were designed to elucidate risk factors for this condition, but it is interesting that questions involving the vaccine were directed to whether the vaccine prevented LongCOVID or protected against it, not whether it might have triggered the condition or made it worse.  Although it was acknowledged that vaccines could cause injury, when it came to LongCOVID, the recommendation made was to get fully vaccinated, as though it were scientifically impossible for the vaccine itself to contribute to this condition.  Some researchers from China presented data that genomically distinguished chronic fatigue from LongCOVID, although they shared some genes, the significance of which was unclear.  By 2023, it began to emerge that just having severe fatigue was different from having myalgic encephalomyelitis.  Only recently (this month) has it been stated that the vaccine might be a risk factor for what it is still referred to as ME/CFS.  Multiple episodes of COVID-19 are also a risk factor, and it seems (empirically) that recurrent/multiple infections are primarily seen in the vaccinated.  Those with natural immunity and unvaccinated have not reported being infected again.  Different vaccines have different risk profiles.  Most AEs are reported with the Astra-Zeneca vax.


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Who determines what becomes a slur?  It's complicated.

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9 March 2023

A couple of days ago, it looked like author R.L. Stine was fine with edits being made to his books to eliminate "offensive" content.  Turns out that he did not agree to this.  The edits were made without his consent.  They've already done this to Ian Fleming's Bond novels, and given that few seem to be complaining, will continue to do so.  Buy print books now, so they can't revise them.

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A new movie in the Alien franchise is being made.  Check out the cast.  The movie will probably not be called "Alien" because, you know, it's offensive to some.  So, it'll probably be called "Xenomorph". 

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Speaking of movies, check out Paramount's new StarTrek poster.  Where's Kirk?  Oh, yeah.  He's too far-right and had to be canceled.

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If you're not already getting your drugs from Mark Cuban's pharmacy, GoodRx, you really ought to.  It will save you money.  He's cut out the pharmacy benefits managers.

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Do you have a Ring doorbell?  You might want to read this.

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About 80% of Portland small businesses saw theft and/or vandalism this past year.  I'm guessing their insurance premiums increased, and maybe some no longer have policies?  I don't see things getting better, do you?  And riding the Max transit is getting to be like riding the subway in NYC.  No thanks, Lori.  We already have Ted Wheeler.


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I missed this story from December, but it is a doozy (if true).  How did your investments do this past year?  Did they do as well as the American Board of Internal Medicine?

How did they get that money?  And I didn't know that in 2014 they set up an account in a bank in the Cayman Islands.  The American Board of Pediatrics also made out quite well.

How did they get this money?  As you can see from the charts they provide, it doesn't seem to come from certification exams that they sell.  Could this have to do with why they are ready to censure physicians who pass along vaccine information?  They wouldn't sell out for money, right? 

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Well now Portland's homeless are punching holes in and possibly threatening the structural integrity of a bridge on-ramp.  That's just great.  What next?

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This is why neighborhoods don't want "behavioral health centers" in their neighborhood.  Sidewalk scuffles, people slumped on sidewalks doing drugs, windows smashes in.  Gets old, you know?

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Are you following the buzz about the J6 videotapes that Tucker Carlson release?  The co-chair of the J6 Select Committee just admitted that members did not actually see the videos themselves.  They left it to their staff.  These are Democrats, folks.  Meanwhile, prisoners rot in jail. 

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This is why we can't have nice things.  The scourge of TikTok is even hitting Japan.  If I were in the kaiten sushi business, I would get out fast.

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