Government
Are You A Conspiracy Theorist?
Are You A Conspiracy Theorist?
Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Are you a conspiracy theorist? If you are…
Share this:
Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Are you a conspiracy theorist? If you are thoughtful and interested in public affairs, the media will say you are. And they will smear and dismiss you for it.
For more than half a century, certainly since the Kennedy assassination, anyone who notices patterns and missing pieces in public life, and attempts a possible explanation that suggests cover-ups or other nefarious dealing, is denounced as a “conspiracy theorist” and hence self-evidently wrong and probably crazy.
The trouble is that it is very difficult to make sense of public life today without some degree of speculation based on morsels of evidence. That’s because so much of the truth of things is hidden behind security walls.
Anyone who thinks the public has not been hoodwinked by some very powerful people is hopelessly naïve or not paying any attention. The sheer number of once-trusted institutions and individuals who have betrayed us is beyond belief. And this is true for a vast range of issues from war to economics to public health to academia and medicine generally.
In the case of COVID—by which I mean not the virus but the “whole-of-society” response—the rule-making power was transferred from public health to the intelligence community on March 13, 2020, with the emergency declaration. This is not a speculation. We have all the documents. Upon release, they were marked confidential.
It was a remarkable shift in the American system, away from representative democracy and toward rule by administrative bureaucracies. Those are the people who closed your churches and schools. They did it without a vote or polls. They somehow gained the power to do it while bypassing every institution of consent.
This wrapped the whole of the biggest mass attack on liberty in living memory in a blanket of secrecy. Even now, people are afraid to talk. You hear things but usually second-hand. The sources close to the operation keep everything under wraps because that is what they agreed to do. They live with this burden even now.
Yes, many secrets. There are still so many questions. And people are left to speculate. Was there one big plot or thousands and millions of little plots? Was this all directed toward an intended nefarious end (as so many say) or did it work more like an Ouija board, with no one in particular moving the planchette but rather reflecting the mind of the group?
Look at the word conspiracy itself. It derives from the Latin for breathe. It means to breathe together. Other words based on the same root are inspire (taking breath in, as if from God), aspire (to breathe upon with hope), and expire (to stop breathing).
To conspire doesn’t necessarily mean plotting. Or planning. Or scheming. It doesn’t even have to be driven by ill intent. It only means that the actors in the action know what it is they are supposed to do, as if breathing. They know their interests and can anticipate the actions of others without asking or being told. They gauge their own actions to coordinate with others.
In that sense, there doesn’t need to be a plot for there to be a conspiracy. There are certain things you know for sure. If tonight I attended a high-end cocktail party at an exclusive Boston country club, I know for sure that a way to scandalize the guests would be to express disgust at Pride Month. Doing that would cause people to avoid me for the duration and never be invited back. The topic doesn’t even need to come up at all. I can make a reasonable assumption—without knowing any other facts—that the people at this event are all tacitly on board with Pride Month. It’s a given. Is it a conspiracy? In a literal sense, yes.
To have a conspiracy theory is simply to speculate as to the reasons for the coordination. The theory does not have to point to a plan but rather map out the coordination of interests toward a goal. That’s not disreputable. It’s simply a matter of being smart. It indicates that you have your eyes wide open and are curious for answers. You are merely trying to figure out how it is that people come to breathe together, seemingly acting with unity of intent.
For years I conducted a choir of a special sort. We sang entirely without accompaniment and from a repertoire from the 16th century in which the beat is implicit most of the time. That meant that counting and comprehending the tempo depended entirely on an internal sense of timing. It has to be shared among the entire group. It is conveyed by the conductor in part but only as a guide and not the beat itself.
Internalizing the tempo is a much bigger hurdle than the notes themselves. If you cannot get the beat, the music simply does not happen. That beat has to come from within.
I learned over time that when I was doing a clinic with a new choir that had never sung this type of repertoire, it was best to begin with tempo exercises. I would take at least 30 minutes helping people comprehend the tempo without any sound. It needs to be built into the heart and mind. It’s the only way that one can make sense of the entrances and exits section by section. If we couldn’t get this part right, the music would never come together.
Once it does come together, the conductor can eventually become superfluous. Ideally, by the time I finished the clinic, which usually lasted a day, we could sing several large pieces without any conductor at all. I only needed to start and stop the music. In professional choirs that specialize in this music, they do not even need that. They conduct themselves with looks and glances. That’s all they need. (If you are curious as to how this works, here is a fine example.)
An illustration drawn from the COVID years came from a Trump press conference in which Fauci was standing behind him. Trump was saying something particularly strange. Fauci strained to keep from laughing and so covered his face. Now, he is a man of some discipline. Why did he do this? It was a signal to his friends in the media, pharma, and the whole gang that he was not on board with the Trump administration. He was showing them that he can be counted on to manage a response contrary to what the president wanted.
In the same way, the CDC and FDA did not need to get together with Pfizer and Moderna to map out a plan. They all knew each others’ interests and could anticipate each others’ actions. They are part of the same tribe. And that tribe is based on experience and trust. It was the same with media and tech. They joined in based on interest and class rank. The signals and instructions don’t need to be written down or negotiated. They are in the air and discernible by the most minor signs all around us.
In that sense, they “breathed together” like a high-end professional choir. No percussionist is necessary because the beat is already known and understood by all the singers.
In the same way, we saw remarkable coordination between the federal government’s planning and that of the states. The public health departments are all on the same email chains and attend the same annual conventions. They know how each other thinks. They were all waiting for the great pandemic. They had gamed it all out many times in the past and for at least a decade and a half. The only question was when to begin the exercise in real time—the moment when the piece of music was to begin.
Vast resources are being expended today to document everything that was happening behind the scenes via emails, texts, classified documents, and much more. We are discovering remarkable truths. And yet, in the end, the real conspiracy is not something one can ever fully document. It happens as if by autopilot or magic as an extension of a shared culture, sociology, and interest. The power elite know what to believe and even what to do without the necessity of any external plotting or direction.
That’s how really effective conspiracies work.
Government
Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study
Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study
Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
People with inadequate…
Share this:
Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.
A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.
Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels
Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.
In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.
According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.
But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.
“When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”
The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.
“It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”
The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.
1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID
COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.
Government
Walmart joins Costco in sharing key pricing news
The massive retailers have both shared information that some retailers keep very close to the vest.
Share this:
As we head toward a presidential election, the presumed candidates for both parties will look for issues that rally undecided voters.
The economy will be a key issue, with Democrats pointing to job creation and lowering prices while Republicans will cite the layoffs at Big Tech companies, high housing prices, and of course, sticky inflation.
The covid pandemic created a perfect storm for inflation and higher prices. It became harder to get many items because people getting sick slowed down, or even stopped, production at some factories.
Related: Popular mall retailer shuts down abruptly after bankruptcy filing
It was also a period where demand increased while shipping, trucking and delivery systems were all strained or thrown out of whack. The combination led to product shortages and higher prices.
You might have gone to the grocery store and not been able to buy your favorite paper towel brand or find toilet paper at all. That happened partly because of the supply chain and partly due to increased demand, but at the end of the day, it led to higher prices, which some consumers blamed on President Joe Biden's administration.
Biden, of course, was blamed for the price increases, but as inflation has dropped and grocery prices have fallen, few companies have been up front about it. That's probably not a political choice in most cases. Instead, some companies have chosen to lower prices more slowly than they raised them.
However, two major retailers, Walmart (WMT) and Costco, have been very honest about inflation. Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon's most recent comments validate what Biden's administration has been saying about the state of the economy. And they contrast with the economic picture being painted by Republicans who support their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.
Image source: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Walmart sees lower prices
McMillon does not talk about lower prices to make a political statement. He's communicating with customers and potential customers through the analysts who cover the company's quarterly-earnings calls.
During Walmart's fiscal-fourth-quarter-earnings call, McMillon was clear that prices are going down.
"I'm excited about the omnichannel net promoter score trends the team is driving. Across countries, we continue to see a customer that's resilient but looking for value. As always, we're working hard to deliver that for them, including through our rollbacks on food pricing in Walmart U.S. Those were up significantly in Q4 versus last year, following a big increase in Q3," he said.
He was specific about where the chain has seen prices go down.
"Our general merchandise prices are lower than a year ago and even two years ago in some categories, which means our customers are finding value in areas like apparel and hard lines," he said. "In food, prices are lower than a year ago in places like eggs, apples, and deli snacks, but higher in other places like asparagus and blackberries."
McMillon said that in other areas prices were still up but have been falling.
"Dry grocery and consumables categories like paper goods and cleaning supplies are up mid-single digits versus last year and high teens versus two years ago. Private-brand penetration is up in many of the countries where we operate, including the United States," he said.
Costco sees almost no inflation impact
McMillon avoided the word inflation in his comments. Costco (COST) Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti, who steps down on March 15, has been very transparent on the topic.
The CFO commented on inflation during his company's fiscal-first-quarter-earnings call.
"Most recently, in the last fourth-quarter discussion, we had estimated that year-over-year inflation was in the 1% to 2% range. Our estimate for the quarter just ended, that inflation was in the 0% to 1% range," he said.
Galanti made clear that inflation (and even deflation) varied by category.
"A bigger deflation in some big and bulky items like furniture sets due to lower freight costs year over year, as well as on things like domestics, bulky lower-priced items, again, where the freight cost is significant. Some deflationary items were as much as 20% to 30% and, again, mostly freight-related," he added.
bankruptcy pandemic trumpGovernment
Walmart has really good news for shoppers (and Joe Biden)
The giant retailer joins Costco in making a statement that has political overtones, even if that’s not the intent.
Share this:
As we head toward a presidential election, the presumed candidates for both parties will look for issues that rally undecided voters.
The economy will be a key issue, with Democrats pointing to job creation and lowering prices while Republicans will cite the layoffs at Big Tech companies, high housing prices, and of course, sticky inflation.
The covid pandemic created a perfect storm for inflation and higher prices. It became harder to get many items because people getting sick slowed down, or even stopped, production at some factories.
Related: Popular mall retailer shuts down abruptly after bankruptcy filing
It was also a period where demand increased while shipping, trucking and delivery systems were all strained or thrown out of whack. The combination led to product shortages and higher prices.
You might have gone to the grocery store and not been able to buy your favorite paper towel brand or find toilet paper at all. That happened partly because of the supply chain and partly due to increased demand, but at the end of the day, it led to higher prices, which some consumers blamed on President Joe Biden's administration.
Biden, of course, was blamed for the price increases, but as inflation has dropped and grocery prices have fallen, few companies have been up front about it. That's probably not a political choice in most cases. Instead, some companies have chosen to lower prices more slowly than they raised them.
However, two major retailers, Walmart (WMT) and Costco, have been very honest about inflation. Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon's most recent comments validate what Biden's administration has been saying about the state of the economy. And they contrast with the economic picture being painted by Republicans who support their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.
Image source: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Walmart sees lower prices
McMillon does not talk about lower prices to make a political statement. He's communicating with customers and potential customers through the analysts who cover the company's quarterly-earnings calls.
During Walmart's fiscal-fourth-quarter-earnings call, McMillon was clear that prices are going down.
"I'm excited about the omnichannel net promoter score trends the team is driving. Across countries, we continue to see a customer that's resilient but looking for value. As always, we're working hard to deliver that for them, including through our rollbacks on food pricing in Walmart U.S. Those were up significantly in Q4 versus last year, following a big increase in Q3," he said.
He was specific about where the chain has seen prices go down.
"Our general merchandise prices are lower than a year ago and even two years ago in some categories, which means our customers are finding value in areas like apparel and hard lines," he said. "In food, prices are lower than a year ago in places like eggs, apples, and deli snacks, but higher in other places like asparagus and blackberries."
McMillon said that in other areas prices were still up but have been falling.
"Dry grocery and consumables categories like paper goods and cleaning supplies are up mid-single digits versus last year and high teens versus two years ago. Private-brand penetration is up in many of the countries where we operate, including the United States," he said.
Costco sees almost no inflation impact
McMillon avoided the word inflation in his comments. Costco (COST) Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti, who steps down on March 15, has been very transparent on the topic.
The CFO commented on inflation during his company's fiscal-first-quarter-earnings call.
"Most recently, in the last fourth-quarter discussion, we had estimated that year-over-year inflation was in the 1% to 2% range. Our estimate for the quarter just ended, that inflation was in the 0% to 1% range," he said.
Galanti made clear that inflation (and even deflation) varied by category.
"A bigger deflation in some big and bulky items like furniture sets due to lower freight costs year over year, as well as on things like domestics, bulky lower-priced items, again, where the freight cost is significant. Some deflationary items were as much as 20% to 30% and, again, mostly freight-related," he added.
bankruptcy pandemic trump
When Military Rule Supplants Democracy
The Digest #187
Redefining Poverty: Towards a Transpartisan Approach
Students lose out as cities and states give billions in property tax breaks to businesses − draining school budgets and especially hurting the poorest students
Is the United States overestimating China’s power?
Biden to call for first-time homebuyer tax credit, construction of 2 million homes
GBPINR: Analysis and Projections for 2024
Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study
Biden defends immigration policy during State of the Union, blaming Republicans in Congress for refusing to act
Jack Smith Says Trump Retention Of Documents “Starkly Different” From Biden
-
Uncategorized2 weeks agoAll Of The Elements Are In Place For An Economic Crisis Of Staggering Proportions
-
Uncategorized1 month agoCathie Wood sells a major tech stock (again)
-
Uncategorized3 weeks agoCalifornia Counties Could Be Forced To Pay $300 Million To Cover COVID-Era Program
-
Uncategorized2 weeks agoApparel Retailer Express Moving Toward Bankruptcy
-
Uncategorized3 weeks agoIndustrial Production Decreased 0.1% in January
-
International1 day agoWalmart launches clever answer to Target’s new membership program
-
Uncategorized3 weeks agoRFK Jr: The Wuhan Cover-Up & The Rise Of The Biowarfare-Industrial Complex
-
Uncategorized3 weeks agoGOP Efforts To Shore Up Election Security In Swing States Face Challenges