Regarding a recent disturbance of sacred cows.

Recently some sacred cows were gored by Larry Correia. Sick of people leaving two-star reviews on his books because George Martin, David Gerrold and Patrick Rothfuss couldn't be bothered to finish their epic fantasies, Larry told their disapointed fans to suck it up and move on. Epically, as he usually does. 

But then, Chinese bot farmers decided that the Sacred Pillars of Fandom had been defiled and they needed to smear Larry. Again.

This rant is what my brain would do if it could. ~:D 

In the middle of said rant, regarding Rothfuss, Martin and Gerrold, Larry asks a question:

“How much did these vapid fucks screw over their own industry?” 

 

It may interest one and all to know that there is a number for that. The number is $8600.00. 

 

$8600 is the -median- (not the average, but the most common) annual income from writing in Britain. The bulge in the bell curve, as it were. Which means that Dead Tree published authors, generally, are not making any money. 

Their books, to put it plainly, are not selling. At all. (All those Hugo-beloved tomes? Nope. Not selling.) 

Which is not at all surprising, given the collapse of the retail book business. Which collapse was inevitable given the Woke TM garbage that passes for science fiction/adventure/fantasy these days. 

You guys know what the TOP SELLER is in comics these days? Manga. From Japan, you know. In translation, no less. Because why? Because Marvel and DC are all-Woke, all the time. Same for novels, but we don’t have sales numbers for those, because shenanigans. 

But you can tell, because authors are flipping burgers instead of writing. 

Now, is all this George Martin, David Gerrold and Patrick Rothfuss’s fault? Like, personally theirs? No. Clearly not. This is a publishing-wide phenomenon. 

But did they contribute to this decline? Oh yeah. That’s three BIG selling series that they just couldn’t be assed to finish, leaving BIG fandoms disappointed and pissed off to the point where they just stopped buying SF/F books. 

Look at it this way. My book sold hundreds of copies. Best case scenario, there are people waiting for the next one. (Its coming, I SWEAR.) If I were to crap out for some reason, those people would be mildly disappointed. 

GRRM has -millions- of fans. (I can’t understand why, but he does.) -Millions- of people are disappointed that he’s promised another volume and not delivered. 

That’s a pretty big deal. That level of disappointment has had an impact on the sales of other people’s books. Readers just gave up. 

And now the median author income is $8600 a year. Meaning the next Tolkien/Rowling/Correia is FLIPPING BURGERS so he/she can eat, instead of writing. Because time spent writing does not make any money. 

So, to quantify how full of shit China Mike and the Viletones are, they’re $8600 bucks worth full of it. That’s a lot of horseshit right there. 

 

 

Finally, something cool. Breakthrough in tiles.

Never mind the politics bullshit, this is actually interesting.

Previously, the least number of shapes required to tile a 2 dimensional plane with non-repeating patterns was two. Sir Roger Penrose invented his Penrose Tiles in 1974. They have a fivefold symmetry, which is supposed to be impossible in mathematics. They assemble to an infinite space and the patterns never repeat. Infinitely variable.

So now there has been discovered a SINGLE shape that does the same thing.

 

The Hat.

 

A quartet of mathematicians from Yorkshire University, the University of Cambridge, the University of Waterloo and the University of Arkansas has discovered a 2D geometric shape that does not repeat itself when tiled. David Smith, Joseph Samuel Myers, Craig Kaplan and Chaim Goodman-Strauss have written a paper describing how they discovered the unique shape and possible uses for it. Their full paper is available on the arXiv preprint server.

When people tile their floors, they tend to use simple geometric shapes that lend themselves to repeating patterns, such as squares or triangles. Sometimes though, people want patterns that do not repeat but that represents a challenge if the same types of shape are used. In this new effort, the research team has discovered a single geometric shape that if used for tiling, will not produce repeating patterns.

This, believe it or not, is a Big Deal. A completely novel way to tile the 2D plane with no repeating patterns. Amazing.

You're welcome. ~:D

"You people do not deserve freedom." Liberal Party of Canada

I've been saying this for years. The ruling principle of Canada in particular and socialists everywhere is: People are stupid. They must be controlled.

Someone at the National Post and the Spectator UK seems to have finally noticed.

A few days ago, Britain's Spectator magazine did a tremendous job of summing up all the intrigue, machinations, politics, and noise surrounding Chinese interference in Canadian elections. And it came to a remarkable conclusion.

"There are those who bemoan declining trust in our leaders. Here we see the damage that can be done by a leader who does not trust the public," wrote their correspondent Sam Dunning.

 They go on to cite a laundry list of Liberal Party scandals from the Rule of Pony era, and the response from the Shiny Pony always being a shrug of the shoulders, as if such things were beneath his notice and what's all the fuss about.

Their conclusion:

When it comes to China, we see the same ingrained paternalism. Trudeau knew there was a problem with Chinese interference; the Prime Minister's Office had reports that Chinese money was being funnelled to Liberal candidates in federal elections, national security agencies had warned that Chinese Canadians were being recruited to assist in distributing illegal donations, and to vote for preferred candidates in nomination races.

But Trudeau's reaction was to keep silent and keep Canadians in the dark. Why? Maybe Trudeau is a traitorous villain who allowed China to do their worst. But the more obvious explanation from his past actions is that he didn't think Canadians needed to know. In his arrogance, he almost certainly thought he and his party were not only best to handle it, but that they could learn little from anyone else's input.

This is the core of the thing, which the authors do not address directly. They blame it on Shiny Pony narcissism, which while certainly true, falls short of the reality.

Reality is that Freedom, capital F, is for the Great and the Good. The leadership of the nation, you know. People who know what's what. For the rest, there is Obedience. Capital O, which stands for "shut up and get back in line you filthy peasant."

Naturally they don't trust the sheep. Sheep are too stupid to live. The job of the shepherd is to guard the flock and keep it in line. The job of the flock is to be fleeced for the shepherd's benefit. Of what use is freedom to a sheep?

That's us. We are the sheep in this saga. That's the governing principle of your country, normies. How do you feel about that?

The stupid. It burns.

I haven't posted anything since January, there hasn't been anything sufficiently surprising to amaze me or sufficiently stupid to gain my ire. Until now.

The Idaho Supreme Court has vacated a Mountain Home man's conviction for felony drug possession and delivery after it ruled that a police drug-sniffing dog trespassed and conducted an illegal search by putting its paws on his vehicle, prompting the search that led to his arrest.

The court issued its decision Monday, with three of the five justices in agreement and two dissenting.

The case centered on the 2019 arrest of Kirby Dorff. According to court documents, the officer said Dorff was stopped by a patrol officer in Mountain Home after Dorff drove across lanes of traffic without using a signal. A second officer arrived with a police K-9 named Nero who was trained to detect illegal drugs.

While Dorff explained to the first officer that he didn't have a valid driver's license or proof of insurance in the vehicle, Nero began sniffing around the car. Police body camera footage showed the dog jumped up against the car multiple times, including once when his paws rested on the driver's side door and window as he sniffed the "upper seams" of the car, officials said.

Oh noes, the dog put his front feet on the car! Like dogs never do that.

The legal opinion:

 Justice Robyn Brody in the majority opinion wrote that justices weighed whether the dog's intrusion on the exterior of Dorff's vehicle constituted trespassing as it would have if the dog had entered the interior of the vehicle.

Ultimately, Brody wrote, she and justices John Stegner and Colleen Zahn agreed that the exterior of the vehicle is protected by the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unlawful searches. They said the drug-sniffing dog "intermeddled" with Dorff's personal effects by jumping up on the car.

"Intermeddling is the difference between someone who brushes up against your purse while walking by and someone who, without privilege or consent, rests their hand on your purse or puts their fingers into your purse before your eyes or behind your back," Brody wrote.

According to the majority opinion, it doesn't matter that the unlawful search included the exterior of Dorff's property or was performed by a drug-sniffing dog.

The dissent:

 Bevans in a separate opinion reiterated his view from an earlier case that a drug-sniffing dogs canine instincts aren't the same as intentional police intrusion.

For justices to equate a drug-sniffing dog "instinctually jumping onto the exterior of a car" to a government agent placing a tracking device on a vehicle "stretches logic beyond the breaking point of reasonableness," Bevans wrote.

The dissent, unsurprisingly, is a longer version of what I said. Dogs jump up on shit when they're excited. That's how they are.

The real issue, apparent from the utter stupidity of the majority opinion and the fact that the news article doesn't mention it, is that the Court does not want police to have drug-sniffing dogs present at traffic stops. Or possibly to have them at all. Because politics, at some level or other, has created two opposing factions. One faction represented by the majority opinion, one by the dissent.

The problem with letting courts decide things is that they invent stuff like this to disguise that they're really doing something else. Somebody doesn't want Idaho police to have dogs, or they want less drug dealers in jail, or they just want to fuck over Idaho by letting criminals have a free hand. But they can't get the votes to do it in the legislature. So they get their bros onto the court, and they do it that way.

Oh and Mr. Dorff got booked again in February 2023. Going by his picture he's a real pillar of the community.

"It'll be fine." nuclear version

Every once in a while, you find something so egregious that you can't let it pass without comment. There is nothing so important in this world that you can trust the maintenance men to do it right, not even a nuclear submarine.

The Royal Navy used superglue to repair a nuclear reactor, with an urgent investigation being ordered into the matter.

Maintenance workers used the glue to fix a damaged nuclear reactor on a Trident submarine while it was dry docking for a refurbishment and refuel at HMNB Devonport in Plymouth.

The submarine carries Trident ballistic missiles and is one of four nuclear powered nuclear submarines.

It was discovered by engineers while they were preparing to set the reactor to full power.

Workers are accused of supergluing bolt heads back on instead of properly replacing them.

Emphasis mine.

The article doesn't go into any detail about what bolts these were or where they were missing from, but it sounds like Frick and Frack twisted a few bolts off and glued the heads back on to make everything look nice. If they were on some non-critical item like a wiring bracket or similar, this is a tempest in a teapot. On the other hand, if it was in a pump body, pipe flange or something like that, it could potentially sink the ship. The wrong thing breaks at the wrong time, it can go kaboom.

Still, the mere fact that some asshole glued the heads back on to cover up what they'd done means that now they have to go check every bolt. Almost worse than deliberate sabotage, really. Somebody will likely go to jail.

From my cold, dead kitchen...

Yes, they really are coming for your gas stove.

The full-court press to scare people about a perfectly safe kitchen appliance found in nearly 40 percent of U.S. homes and a ubiquitous feature of restaurants nationwide has been years in the making and is part of a carefully cultivated campaign.

Long story short, this is an example of Leftists using the same techniques from gun control in a different subject area. As laid out in the article, a few Lefty propagandists at UCLA, Stanford, the Rocky Mountain Institute and the Sierra Club are providing scary-looking statistics so that Leftist politicians in New York State and Los Angeles can have a shot at banning the use of fossil fuels in your house.

So no, gas stoves do not cause 12.7% of childhood asthma as claimed recently by the Rocky Mountain Institute. Just the same as a gun in your home does not double your risk of becoming a victim of homicide, as claimed by some asshole in the Annals of Internal Medicine. And no, electric induction stoves are not "better" than gas stoves. That's another pile of bullshit propped up by the same propaganda campaign.

Same assholes, same lies, different subjects.

Update: The Rocky Mountain Institute is good buddies with communist government of China. Shocking, right?

Scooby-Do remake 2023. How bad could it be, you ask?

Here we are on the 12th of January and I've finally found something so stupid I need to mock it. The Scooby-Do remake called Velma on HBO streaming.

Before we get started with the mockery, just imagine for a second what's going to be in a 2023 version of Scooby-Do.  What do we expect?

There will be pointless swearing, race-race-race, gay-gay-gay, and not much else. Oh, and it won't be funny. Right?

Right.

"Velma never goes the full Archer route of adult animation, and mostly refrains from using the word "fuck," lest kids get ahold of the remote. But the series' writers find clever (if inanely goofy) ways to work around those constraints, like in one episode that takes place at Crystal Cove's Fog King Festival. Get it? Fog King? Keep going.

"Mostly refrains," uh huh. Pointless wearing, check.

"The series also recasts its central crew with some much-needed diversity. Mindy Kaling voices Velma, now the daughter of two Indian parents, one of whom has gone missing. And Shaggy (who now goes by his birth name, Norville), is a biracial newspaper nerd voiced by Sam Richardson."

Race-race-race, check.

"Yes, after hinting at it across two seasons of Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated and giving Velma a woman to crush on in 2022's Trick or Treat Scooby-Doo!, Velma finally gets to be the queer icon that legions of fans have assumed her to be for decades."

Gay-gay-gay, check!

"Some punchlines completely sneak up on you, like Velma asserting, "The only other person who's ever found me irreplaceable is the captain of my tug-of-war team.""

Not funny, checkity-check-check.

In a town like Crystal Cove, the murder of a busty mega-babe is front-page news. It could mean that all of the city's hottest residents are in danger, causing Fred (Glenn Howerton) to worry about his beloved Daphne's safety. The serial murders of Instagram-perfect co-eds are the catalyst for Velma's funniest running joke, reducing its titular character to an absolute dumpster of a woman who has to wade through a sea of sexpots to be heard. These gags double as cutting jabs at the franchise's history, which more often than not reduced Velma to a homely, sexless brainiac in a shapeless sweater as a foil to Daphne's curvy figure and bombshell red locks.

Nothing else going on, hell yeah.

In other words this is the feminazi flogging of a whole herd of dead Leftist horses by a suddenly brown and gay Velma Dinkly, accompanied by a suddenly brown Shaggy, with tons of stupid Leftist shit from the people who brought you three other Netflix series full of stupid Leftist shit. Oh, and shipping Velma and Daphne. Exactly what we expect. Like they can't help themselves.

Unsurprisingly in related news we hear that Hollywood movie earnings are down 48% since 2019, and that streaming earnings are similarly in the toilet. Because nobody wants to watch weirdos and perverts crap all over their childhood memories of Saturday morning cartoons.

Which is probably why Bleach is now showing on Disney+. Bleach is one of the biggest, longest running, most successful animation shows out there. The new season has been anticipated since ~2012. Disney+ scooped up the exclusive rights to stream it in North America. The reason they did it is that Crunchyroll is making money when all the other streaming services are cutting staff. Even the stupidest Hollywood maggot can see the difference in audience response between bog-standard anime and Woke ™ crap like Velma.

Here endeth the rant.

Merry Christmas!

Wishing I was in AZ! ~:D Christmas Ocatillo.

 

From all of us at Chez Phantom, to all of you out there in the big wide world, Merry Christmas!

Reminder, your phone is not -yours-.

Headline China, as they roll tanks to put down protests, the cops are using cellphone data to chase people after the fact.

A protester told CNN they received a phone call Wednesday from a police officer, who revealed they were tracked because their cellphone signal was recorded in the vicinity of the protest site.... When they denied being there, the caller asked: "Then why did your cellphone number show up there?"

Just remember, ladies and gentlemen, that your cell phone does not work for you. You pay for it, and you carry it around, but who it really works for is Apple or Google and the government.

Also, just in case you are an oblivious Normie and you are thinking "Ha, this is Canada! [or America, you Americans] That could never happen here!" I will remind you that it already happened here in February 2021 at Coutts border point in Alberta, at  Niagara Falls border in Ontario, and in Ottawa Ontario. Freedom Convoy. The cops recorded the location data for every phone in town.

For you Americans, January 6th 2020 is the date.

I mention those occasions because we have verification from court documents and testimony that these things occurred. The truth of the matter is that location data is recorded 24/7/365 and stored forever. Furthermore that location data gets data-mined for all kinds of information by both government and private concerns, the most obvious of which is advertising.

Day to day, none of us care about this. It's not important. But when a cop shows up and wants to know why you were at the corner of Spruce and Bruce at 2:30pm last Tuesday, you are suddenly going to care.

Just sayin'.

The Bill Comes Due...

 

Today's mood.

Today there is great gnashing of teeth, wailing and the rending of garments as the Canadian media has an abject paroxysm. Even Goldstein at the Sun is not immune.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford's use of the Charter's notwithstanding clause to override collective bargaining rights poses the same threat to democracy as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's use of the Emergencies Act to override the rights of people protesting vaccine mandates.

In Ottawa, the question is whether the government had no other means to end the Freedom Convoy than to invoke the emergency legislation, when no other federal government has felt the need to do so in the 34 years since it was passed, despite terrorist threats (see, for example, the days immediately following 9/11), highway and railway blockades and other economic crises.

In Ontario, the question is whether the government had no other alternative than to take away the bargaining rights of 55,000 unionized education support workers to maintain continuity and stability in the public education system.

Now, that sounds all very democratic and everything, but if I may recall a little piece of recent history, Ontario's teachers all went out on strike in 2020, two years ago. Right at the beginning of the pandemic. 

Yeah, you remember that right? February March 2020, when we all thought we were going to die, the teachers were having a nice little job action. Never let a crisis go to waste, uh huh.

So here we are, and the Ontario government has finally, FINALLY had it with these scammers. For those not familliar, the "notwithstanding clause" is the "FUCK YOU!" escape hatch built into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is known as the notwithstanding clause. Also known as the override clause, it is part of the Constitution of Canada. The clause allows federal, provincial or territorial governments to temporarily override, or bypass, certain Charter rights. These overrides are subject to renewal after five years.

Yes, that's right. You only have rights as long as the feds or a province lets you. As soon as those rights become inconvenient, NOTWITHSTANDING that the Charter says you have the right to collective bargaining, the province can pass a law that says "FUCK YOU!" and suddenly you don't have no rights at all. That's not really the province's fault, that's thanks to the fuckery involved in the Charter itself. The truth is that the government can do -anything- they want, legally. They can jail all the Japanese in the country, they can seize property and bank accounts, they can fucking well kill you if they want it bad enough, and nobody can legally say jackson.

(For you Americans, this is like the State of New York saying that the Second Amendment of the Constitution is void in NY because "FUCK YOU!" Historically this was known as the Sullivan Act. It took from 1911 until this year to get that shit struck down, but it did happen, finally. In Canada all they have to do is pass a new bill every five years and they are good to go.)

So why is the PC Party of Ontario invoking this supposedly nuclear option? Hell if I know.

I suspect it is because the Ontario Teacher's Union and the Canadian Union of Public Employees are their political enemies, and they want to put the boot into them after getting jacked up in 2020. If so, I must say it is well-deserved. They fucked around, they found out.

Tiny irritations: The Rings of Power

Tiny hitch-hiking pricks.

One of the tiny irritations lately is the "Rings of Power" show on Amazon Prime. 

 The show itself is objectively rubbish, plenty of reviewers can attest to that. Some have admitted to falling asleep while trying to review it, one of them was an Amazon employee.

The ten minutes of episode one I had inflicted on me revealed a lot of time spent on costuming and cinematography, not much on characterization and building the world. Also, the producers trolling the audience with gay elves and MAGA rallies, just what one wants in a Tolkien story.

When you read the Silmarillion, Tolkien lays out how the world that includes Middle Earth came to be, why it is the way it is, and how and when it changed to be the way it was in the Lord of the Rings. He tells you who is who and how they got that way.The producers of course ignore all that and insert their own ill-conceived, fashionable nonsense, something we've come to expect from Hollywood the last twenty years. 

Irritating, but avoidable. I just don't look.

But then, adding to the stupidity, there are the wankers who fancy themselves 'fan intellectuals'. Today's irritation comes courtesy of the flopping camel, who presumes to ask: "Does Gandalf know the sun is a ball of flaming gas?"

Tolkien wrote that Gandalf was one of the Maiar, the spirits who sang in the choir that brought the universe into being. He knows it is not a ball of flaming gas.

"Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen."

Zzzzzzzzz.....

 

Salutations, readers. It seems it's been a month since I last posted. Mostly due to not really giving much of a shit about what's been in the news. 

Rings of Power on Amazon, sucks just like we all said it would. Critics admit to falling asleep watching it. Toldja.

Putin rattling his nukes, just like I said he would. 

Let'sGoBrandon mumbling incoherently on camera, just like we expected. There's still time for him to piss his pants on camera before November, so watch for that.

One thing unexpected, Let'sGoBrandon's puppeteers just shut down the entire Chinese computer chip industry. Like, bang. Done. Almost as if he's -begging- them to nuke the USA (or Taiwan, for that matter.) These people really are lunatics.

Meanwhile in Canada, our Dear Leader seems absolutely determined to bankrupt every single middle class family in the nation. They're not even pretending, they're just doing it and telling us all to shove it. Diesel is $209.00 a quart, whose interests does that serve? Expected.

Also the teacher with the huge fake tits is still teaching in Oakville despite the rather large protests, so there's that data point as well.  Fabulously expected.

Which I must say is boring, in a really evil sort of way. Fascists gonna fash, I guess... Keep your clothes and "accoutrements" where you can find them in the dark, friends. 

And keep some cash on hand. Remember, your local bank machine will not work if there is a power failure or a network crash. Nor will the gas pumps at the local gas station. (They don't have backup generators. Remember the last ice storm?)

Nanny News: Swords, knives, etc. can't be shipped to Canada now.

When is a sword the same as an ink cartridge?

 

 

Today in Liberal NinnyNanny News, we have sad tidings for Canadians with unapproved hobbies:

In recent years shipping swords around the world has become increasingly difficult and complicated – and most recently CANADA seems to have singled out swords as 'dangerous goods' and have started returning our shipments sent from the US to Canada, even singling swords out with their own 'dangerous goods' checkbox along with air shocks, guns, ink cartridges, knives, liquids, swords and the dreaded 'other' category.

The merit of this spurious decision is a topic for another time, but least to say that lumping swords in with Airshocks, ink cartridges and liquids generally suggests that the perceived threat of shipping a sword is that it will somehow get out of its scabbard, out of the box and start flying around in the cockpit causing mayhem.

While this is patently ridiculous, and with swords both being legal to own across both sides of the North American border, the fact remains that swords have been once again singled out by brainless and fearful bureaucrats and, unable to sustain the shipping costs and losses at our end, we are left with no choice but to – effective immediately – halt all US->Canada sword shipments until further notice.

This is the part I liked the best right here:

This has not cut off ALL our products from Canada – Darksword Armory, who are based in Quebec, can still ship for us and the cost remains entirely free. And for the time being, as they ship direct from the Forges in China, Project X, Forge Direct Japanese and Forge Direct Chinese are still able to ship to our Canadian customers.

Yes, that's right. You can't import a wall-hanger from Buffalo New York or Podunk Iowa, because that would be -dangerous-. Okay? Super unsafe. But you can import a custom-forged silk-slicing katana from Longquan China. No problem dudes. Government just decides they'll just stop those unseemly items at the border. Because damn Americans, am I right?! But not from China, because side deals.

9/11

 Remember?

 

The fog lifts, and the enemy is revealed.

It's been common knowledge for some time now that the media and particularly social media and internet search engines are being censored. Not a week goes by without a story about some doctor, celebrity, author or what have you being shadow banned or having their social media accounts locked. We all know you can't post anything about Covid-19 by name without getting censored. Google search was constantly being caught dunking things, giving questionable search results, etc.

What we didn't know was why this was happening. Had all the media and internet companies gone whack? Was Zuckerbot losing his robotic mind? Was the Woke Plague taking over the world? Or was it shenanigans?

Well, now we know.

Washington, DC (September 1, 2022) – The New Civil Liberties Alliance, the Attorney General of Missouri, and the Attorney General of Louisiana, have filed a lawsuit that blows the lid off a sprawling federal censorship regime that will shock the conscience of Americans. The joint statement on discovery disputes in the lawsuit, State of Missouri ex rel. Schmitt, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., et al., reveals scores of federal officials across at least eleven federal agencies have secretly communicated with social-media platforms to censor and suppress private speech federal officials disfavor. This unlawful enterprise has been wildly successful.

Under the First Amendment, the federal government may not police private speech nor pick winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas. But that is precisely what the government has done—and is still doing—on a massive scale not previously divulged. Multiple agencies' communications demonstrate that the federal government has exerted tremendous pressure on social-media companies—pressure to which companies have repeatedly bowed.

Discovery has unveiled an army of federal censorship bureaucrats, including officials arrayed at the White House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, the Office of the Surgeon General, the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Communications show these federal officials are fully aware that the pressure they exert is an effective and necessary way to induce social-media platforms to increase censorship. The head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency even griped about the need to overcome social-media companies' "hesitation" to work with the government.

Shenanigans. There you go.

New study: Ivermectin reduces Covid-19 mortality 92%

What was that about horse paste again?

 

 

From one of the only decent sources of Canadian news these days, Small Dead Animals, (the other one being Blazing Cat Fur) there is news of a new study.

The abstract:

Background

We have previously demonstrated that ivermectin used as prophylaxis for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), irrespective of the regularity, in a strictly controlled citywide program in Southern Brazil (Itajaí, Brazil), was associated with reductions in COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and mortality rates. In this study, our objective was to determine if the regular use of ivermectin impacted the level of protection from COVID-19 and related outcomes, reinforcing the efficacy of ivermectin through the demonstration of a dose-response effect.

 

The results are quite profound.

 

Results

Among 223,128 subjects from the city of Itajaí, 159,560 were 18 years old or up and were not infected by COVID-19 until July 7, 2020, from which 45,716 (28.7%) did not use and 113,844 (71.3%) used ivermectin. Among ivermectin users, 33,971 (29.8%) used irregularly (up to 60 mg) and 8,325 (7.3%) used regularly (more than 180 mg). The remaining 71,548 participants were not included in the analysis. COVID-19 infection rate was 49% lower for regular users (3.40%) than non-users (6.64%) (risk rate (RR): 0.51; 95% CI: 0.45-0.58; p < 0.0001), and 25% lower than irregular users (4.54%) (RR: 0.75; 95% CI: 0.66-0.85; p < 0.0001). The infection rate was 32% lower for irregular users than non-users (RR: 0.68; 95% CI: 0.64-0.73; p < 0.0001). Among COVID-19 participants, regular users were older and had a higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes and hypertension than irregular and non-users. After PSM, the matched analysis contained 283 subjects in each group of non-users and regular users, between regular users and irregular users, and 1,542 subjects between non-users and irregular users. The hospitalization rate was reduced by 100% in regular users compared to both irregular users and non-users (p < 0.0001), and by 29% among irregular users compared to non-users (RR: 0.781; 95% CI: 0.49-1.05; p = 0.099). Mortality rate was 92% lower in regular users than non-users (RR: 0.08; 95% CI: 0.02-0.35; p = 0.0008) and 84% lower than irregular users (RR: 0.16; 95% CI: 0.04-0.71; p = 0.016), while irregular users had a 37% lower mortality rate reduction than non-users (RR: 0.67; 95% CI: 0.40-0.99; p = 0.049). Risk of dying from COVID-19 was 86% lower among regular users than non-users (RR: 0.14; 95% CI: 0.03-0.57; p = 0.006), and 72% lower than irregular users (RR: 0.28; 95% CI: 0.07-1.18; p = 0.083), while irregular users had a 51% reduction compared to non-users (RR: 0.49; 95% CI: 0.32-0.76; p = 0.001).

Conclusion

Non-use of ivermectin was associated with a 12.5-fold increase in mortality rate and a seven-fold increased risk of dying from COVID-19 compared to the regular use of ivermectin. This dose-response efficacy reinforces the prophylactic effects of ivermectin against COVID-19.

 

Hospitalization rate reduced by 100% in regular users, that's a big deal. I've never seen a number like that in a study before. So either they're just lying, or they hit the jackpot. There is no indication at this time that they are lying, by the way.

And now a reminder, Ivermectin is banned in Canada. Your doctor will lose their license to practice if they prescribe Ivermectin to you for the WuFlu. You cannot order it from abroad, her Majesty's Customs will stop it at the border. They're spending a lot of money and burning good will by the truckload to make sure you can't get this stuff.

Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.

Fusion news: We have ignition.

Ladies and gentlemen; ignition has been achieved.

Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF) recorded the first case of ignition on August 8, 2021, the results of which have now been published in three peer-reviewed papers....

Ignition is a fusion reaction that produces enough energy to keep itself lit, according to the press release. This is not a self-sustaining reaction, where it keeps going as long as you keep adding fuel, but baby steps.

Bussard ramjets, baby! Dream big!

You can subscribe to a car now.

Yes friends, in the neverending parade of stupid ideas coming out of California, another new one stands out: electric car subscription.

In January a California startup named Autonomy began "stocking up on EVs from pretty much every company that makes them," reports Bloomberg (including Tesla, Ford, and Polestar). Their plan? Collect a $5,900 "start fee," then charge $490 to $690 a month for an electric vehicle subscription with up to 1,000 miles of driving (but with no maintenance or registration fees):

To me, $690 a month US sounds like a car payment on a Ford F-150. But these guys want to call it a "subscription" model. Presumably because it is a recurring, never-ending income stream.

That could be why auto executives are pushing to round up that sweet, sweet software revenue in smaller chunks. BMW, to much outcry, is selling an $18-a-month subscription for heated seats in the UK, and General Motors turned its OnStar voice navigation into a $1,500 "mandatory" subscription on every new Buick, GMC and Cadillac Escalade. Even without a la carte add-ons, one of the major forces propping up prices for used EVs is, ironically, their ability to update remotely — the same technology carmakers are using to nickel-and-dime drivers with subscription services.

I will tell you what. Being an ancient Boomer, having learned to drive on a Ford Pinto with a stick, most of the eeelectronic shit in cars these days is a pain in the ass.

I love digital engine control, that is a huge leap forward in technology. I'm a fan of the 10-speed electronic shift transmissions, those are great. ABS brakes, also great. But, and this is a big but, I still like my 5-speed stick-shift and basic tech old 2001 Dodge Ram 1500. It is an appropriate use of technology. Electronic engine control, ABS, both awesome. Stick shift, also awesome because I get to choose when it shifts. It doesn't decide when it is good and ready, which makes me crazy with automatics. There is a time during cornering when the power should come on, and they are always late. Always. Maybe I want to downshift as I slow for a corner or on a hill, that doesn't happen either. Maddening.

As to the rest of it, we've had power windows, heat and air conditioning in cars since the 1950s. It does not need to be electronically controlled by a CPU bigger than a 1990s mainframe on a CANBUS network as big as ARPANET. Seriously. If you want audio, stick an amplifier in there and plug in your cell-phone. You want a big screen, hang an I-Pad on the dash.

Maybe car-makes should stick to making CARS and leave the whole consumer-electronics universe to the people who do that. Outrageous notion I'm sure.

Justice is served: the axe falls at DC Comics

David Zaslav is the new sheriff in town.

Harley Quinn, Doom Patrol, and Titans [and Batwoman] are all up next on the chopping block and cancellation is apparently imminent. They will join the never started Wonder Twins on the DCEU scrapheap.

That is not all. Another high profile show is also about to be made to walk the plank while it is still in development. Greg Berlanti's Green Lantern.

The show was in the process of casting with Jeremy Irvine locked as Alan Scott back in June. Alan Scott became one of the few DC superheroes to come out as gay in 2012, before it was fashionable.

The one-trick-pony has never been a crowd favorite, and now the dismal audience response to "yet another superhero is gay/trans/gay-trans-furry" is being seen as a real live problem, not a symptom of gay-o-phobia in America. Because they're going to go stony frigging broke, for sure.

Contrary to the article, coming out as gay became fashionable in the comics in 1992. Immediately crashing and burning with the audience also became the done thing immediately after. Northstar came out as gay in Alpha Flight #106. I remember that. I have a copy of Alpha Flight #106. The book lasted until #130 in 1994 when it was cancelled. I do not have a copy of that one. I had stopped buying comics by then. Because they were boring. So very boring. Oh, my ghod.

Fast forward to now, and the Woke has taken over Hollyweird completely, leaving guys like David Zaslav bailing water out of the sinking ship as hard and fast as they can. He's looking at projects like the Netflix series Teen Titans and he's seeing that nobody is watching it. Remember that Netflix just did the same thing, cut a ton of Woke projects. I can tell you why nobody is watching, because the writing is gawd-awful. Make you cringe awful.

They have really accurate audience numbers. They know how many people watch those shows, how old they are, male or female, what time of day, what parts people fast-forward past, how many episodes before they watch something else, they know -everything-. And they KNOW the audience, meaning us people out here, hate it. We hate it. We're quitting Netflix in our thousands because we're not fucking well going to pay for it.

The comic book companies know it too. They have very immediate feedback from their sales numbers. They know what moves and what doesn't. Spiderman by Stan Lee and Jim Shooter sells>300,000 copies per issue. Black Panther by Ta Nehisi Coates sells 3,000 copies per issue, and that was only because Marvel forced the distributors to take it if they wanted Spiderman.

But what are they selling? Black Panther. Mr. Coates has had not one but two (2) comic books cancelled out from under him. They hired him AGAIN to author another one which tanked like a Panzer on a frozen lake at spring breakup.

DC Comics: same shit different pile, and worse sales numbers. Even Superman has shit numbers. Because its stupid, and boring.

 

So long, sweetheart.

Comic book stores devote all their shelf space to POP figures and anime figurines, manga, and back-issues of formerly popular comics. The new comic books, the ones that used to be right at the front, are relegated to the back corner of the store. Two or three copies of popular titles, usually. The days of 200-copy stacks every Wednesday are over, baby.

It very much seems that David Zaslav as president of Warner is going to drop the axe and fire up the diesel logging machine for DC Comics division. Rumors are circulating that he's going to fire them all. Burn it down to the last snowflake and sell the IP.

Oh well. We did warn them. We've been warning them since 1992. Guess they'll have to learn to code.

Newest scary thing: Self-driving TRUCKS!

Yes, your concerns about self-driving cars crashing are now last week's news. The new sweetness? Self-driving 18 wheelers wiping out on the highway at 65mph.

On April 6, an autonomously driven truck fitted with technology by TuSimple TSP -9.59%▼ Holdings Inc. suddenly veered left, cut across the I-10 highway in Tucson, Ariz., and slammed into a cement barricade. The accident, which regulators disclosed to the public in June after TuSimple filed a report on the incident, underscores concerns that the autonomous-trucking company is risking safety on public roads in a rush to deliver driverless trucks to market, according to independent analysts and more than a dozen of the company's former employees. A TuSimple spokesman said safety is a top priority for the company and that nobody was injured in the accident.

What's interesting here is that this truck crashed due to an unforced error that happened at highway speed. The details:

An internal TuSimple report on the mishap, viewed by The Wall Street Journal, said the semi-tractor truck abruptly veered left because a person in the cab hadn't properly rebooted the autonomous driving system before engaging it, causing it to execute an outdated command. The left-turn command was 2 1/2 minutes old—an eternity in autonomous driving—and should have been erased from the system but wasn't, the internal account said.

But researchers at Carnegie Mellon University said it was the autonomous-driving system that turned the wheel and that blaming the entire accident on human error is misleading. Common safeguards would have prevented the crash had they been in place, said the researchers, who have spent decades studying autonomous-driving systems.

For example, a safety driver—a person who sits in the truck to backstop the artificial intelligence—should never be able to engage a self-driving system that isn't properly functioning, they said. The truck also shouldn't respond to commands that are even a couple hundredths of a second old, they said. And the system should never permit an autonomously-driven truck to turn so sharply while traveling at 65 miles an hour.

Also mentioned is something that has bothered me about all the self-driving shit out there, shouldn't the robotic system instantly release the controls to the human driver? If it was me designing the thing, I'd have a -mechanical- system to make the computer control system stop functioning no matter what it is doing. You grab the wheel and the self-drive actuators are physically disengaged, like a standard transmission is disengaged by putting your foot on the clutch.

They don't have that. Like Tesla, everything is drive-by-wire. The computer decides if it will accept driver input, the driver doesn't decide shit. You can turn that wheel all you want, and if the computer doesn't like it, the car will not turn.

Because, according to the thinking of the engineers, the computer is the smart one. The driver is just some schmuck.

This is what the ancient Greeks called hubris. They had a whole goddess to take care of that, her name was Nemesis. She's juuuuust waiting for these guys to put a foot wrong. 

Update: Welcome Small Dead Animals! Thanks for the linkage Kate!