https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/01/31/chad-carswell-kidney-coronavirus-vaccine/

Ya know… I feel like this story could’ve been a little more in-depth.

How does the hospital administration (especially the medical staff) feel about the recent paper showing that naturally-acquired resistance is better than having been vaccinated? Not that I recommend people go out and “get” natural resistance, but now that he’s been infected twice, do they still believe he should really get the vaccine? Do they believe the vaccine offers resistance to a wider spectrum of variants?

Also, is it possible that he just doesn’t really want to go on as a double amputee with diabetes?

He says he has doubts about how the vaccine was developed. Does he really believe that getting the vaccine is more dangerous than not getting a new kidney?

Chad Carswell, whom a hospital has denied a kidney transplant over his vaccination status, said he would rather “die free” than receive a coronavirus vaccine.

Of course, there’s always another paper saying the opposite: https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status/1487814184104517632?s=20&t=0Nb23dTkMXCVFKA4pJPUIA

5 days later…

So, five days later, I’m still thinking about Chad. Maybe this is the only control he has over things. He’s not in (easy) control of his diabetes, nor is he in control of the healthcare system that decides whether he gets a new kidney, nor is he in control of his bank that decides whether to loan him money for this, nor is he in control of the government that decides whether he has to wear a mask at the grocery store (well, he sort of is, because he votes, presumably, but he’s not in control of medical experts that recommend mask-wearing to his local government), nor is he in control of whatever company he works for (if any) that decides his working hours and conditions and assignments.

But, so far, one of the things he’s in control of is whether or not to get a vaccine. I’ve heard it said that people with little power (managers, in the contexts I’ve heard it in) always have the power to say “No.” So here we are. Maybe Chad has decided “No,” he will not get vaccinated, because that’s the only thing he can decide, and to say “Yes” would simply feel like going along with what everybody else is telling him to do (so, no decision, really).

Or is that too patronizing?

https://twitter.com/doriecp/status/1483992711816531968?s=20&t=xKt-j9KVPB3ct_kYqvAXOQ

SUPER-DUPER interesting. If this is accurate, $25 to promote three products under your viral tweet.

Dorie (@doriecp) Tweeted: I’ve always been curious how much people get paid to promote shit under their viral tweets… and now I know. https://t.co/IjCKzUMxI0

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/28/politics/twitter-lies-2020-election/index.html

Once again, we are reminded social media is garbage. I do try to follow people who have interesting/useful things to say on Twitter (and it’s like looking at the world through a cardboard tube – you miss a lot), but, in general, it’s crap. Facebook is worse.

«The civic integrity policy still exists, Busby said in an email, but it is “no longer” being applied to lies about the 2020 election in particular. Busby said that’s because the policy is designed to be used “during the duration” of an election or other civic event, and “the 2020 U.S. election is not only certified, but President Biden has been in office for more than a year.”

Lies about the 2020 election, however, have never gone away. In fact, they continue to play a major role in American politics.»

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/lazarus-hackers-use-windows-update-to-deploy-malware/

And yet, somehow, Java is the problem.

«North Korean-backed hacking group Lazarus has added the Windows Update client to its list of living-off-the-land binaries (LoLBins) and is now actively using it to execute malicious code on Windows systems.»

Two things I don’t care about in the same headline.

I really like these UFW tweets because they state the most amazing facts in unemotional language.

Well… here’s a rabbit hole.

https://twitter.com/pomeranian99/status/1484366811961323520?s=20

Clive Thompson (@pomeranian99) Tweeted: I dig reading old public-domain books from the 19th/18th centuries. So I made a little search tool *specifically* for that You type a query, it finds you one book that matches it — and presents it for instant reading Behold the “Weird Old Book Finder”: https://t.co/Yd23Lv7rk3 https://t.co/mI16dqaiuk

https://twitter.com/IGD_News/status/1484857721660719105?s=20

This was a fun read: https://itsgoingdown.org/antifascist-action-against-pf-dc-communique/

It’s Going Down (@IGD_News) Tweeted: Last month, the world laughed as Patriot Front neo-Nazis were stranded in DC. While many blamed disorganization or being lost – a new anonymous antifascist report – corroborated by PFs own leaked footage, shows the real reason: mass antifascist sabotage. https://t.co/Pzek3yLhps

(Also, see? They blog!)

So, we’re hearing about this new study that shows natural immunity is stronger than the vaccine.

I’m guessing the Infection Fatality Rate in the U.S. is around 1%. The VAERS number for vaccinations, which is a sketchy worst case (see below), is 0.0022%. So, given the vaccine is plenty effective, which procedure would you gamble on? (Not choosing is picking the 1% option, obviously.)

(Not to mention getting vaccinated reduces your personal IFR number way below 1%.)

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/risk-of-adverse-reaction-to-covid-19-vaccine-is-even-lower-than-you-think#Where-does-vaccine-misinformation-come-from?

«Many sources of false information will often cite the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

VAERS was established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1990 as an early warning system to detect potential safety issues with vaccines. It allows anyone to report adverse effects experienced after receiving any vaccine, including the COVID-19 vaccines.

According to VAERS, more than 520 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020 through January 10, 2022. During this time, VAERS received 11,225 reports of death (0.0022%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine.

However, this does not mean the vaccine caused these deaths.

“VAERS is unique in that it’s a system that accepts reports from anyone,” Morris said. “It can be a doctor or a hospital or a health department that reports a death that is timed after a vaccine, or it can be a patient or a family member of someone who had an adverse reaction or just had a reaction.”

“So it can be that deaths are reported that are completely unrelated,” she continued. “Deaths can also be reported that are actually false or that are clearly unrelated, but are reported based on timing or even based on malicious intent.”

Therefore, these statistics offer no insight into the actual cause of death in these cases.

The death of a 90-year-old nursing patient a few days after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine, for example, would be reported to VAERS. However, there are a number of other causes this person could have died from.»

IFR numbers: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/31/e2103272118/tab-article-info

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/world/europe/american-airlines-passenger-mask.html#:~:text=In%20May%2C%20a%20California%20woman%20on%20a%20Southwest%20Airlines%20flight%20repeatedly%20punched%20a%20flight%20attendant%2C%20bloodying%20her%20face%20and%20chipping%20three%20teeth%2C%20after%20she%20was%20asked%20to%20buckle%20her%20seatbelt%2C%20put%20up%20her%20tray%20table%20and%20%E2%80%9Cwear%20her%20face%20mask%20properly.%E2%80%9D

Do these people just get drunk and lose their self-control?

«In May, a California woman on a Southwest Airlines flight repeatedly punched a flight attendant, bloodying her face and chipping three teeth, after she was asked to buckle her seatbelt, put up her tray table and “wear her face mask properly.”»