jaywalker2

I thought it was very good. Although currently only the Cam version is available, the quality of both the sound and video were very acceptable, at least for me. It focuses on the period in Dylan's life between 1960 when he arrived in New York and the famous uproar when he went electric at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. It's not strictly accurate, as various incidents have been changed or rearranged to create a narrative structure but still well worth seeing if you're a Dylan fan. I'm just disappointed that they left out his meeting with the Beatles, which I think is crucial for understanding why he went electric. I downloaded it from TGX

RIP David Lynch, passed too soon at 78. Blue Velvet is one of my favorite films and I fondly remember binge watching Twin Peaks when I lived in Japan.

By the way, most popular retirement destinations -- Malaysia, the Philippines, Panama, Ecuador, Portugal, Greecee, even France! -- don't tax expat retiree income. And to tax remittances of credit purchases is insane. That's not even income.

The US and Eritrea are the only countries in the world that based tax oblligation on citizenship rather than residency. I don't know what relevancy that has.

Targeting Chinese with families who want to get out of China

One Nation Under Blackmail, in two volumes by Whitny Webb. It charts the history of the interconnection among organized crime, the CIA, the political sphere and FBI, and Israeli intelligence in the US, leading up to the Jeffrey Epstein case (he allegedly had ties to Mossad and was engaged in blackmailing the rich and famous). Very long, very detailed, very interesting.

How many children have died from COVID-19? Among the 4.4 million COVID-19 deaths1 reported in the MPIDR COVerAGE database, 0.4 per cent (over 17,400) occurred in children and adolescents under 20 years of age. Of the over 17,400 deaths reported in those under 20 years of age, 53 per cent occurred among adolescents ages 10–19, and 47 per cent among children ages 0–9. Data correct as of December 2023. For more information, including age and sex disaggregated data,

Well, they don't. Vulnerable people get sick over and over perhaps but unvaccinated people probably get Covid at higher rates. I say probably because they're less likely to test themselves or seek medical care for milder cases, so it's hard to know the statistics for sure.

The CDC always errs on the side of caution. They would rather everyone have the same message rather than risk misinterpretations. Paul Offit discusses this. He was on the advisory committee when the bivalent vaccine was introduced and he was against recommending it because the data showed it didn't offer much more protection than the Omicron booster and so was unnecessary. The CDC went ahead and recommended it anyway, presumably because they didn't want people to start thinking boosters weren't necessary anymore. It's the same with vaccinating children. Children generally don't get seriously ill or die so it can certainly be argued they don't need the vaccine. But a couple of thousand children have died from Covid and thousands more have been hospitalized. So the CDC figures why risk your child's life, no matter how small the odds. You can agree or disagree with that depending on your point of view. But there has been ample evidence that people who got the original two shots and, perhaps, a booster, are sufficiently protected against serious illness assuming they are in good health and don't have any immune problems. I had two Astra Zeneca shots and that was it. But I never get ill so I wasn't worried. I did catch something last year that might have been Covid, though the PCR test was negative. It was mild and lasted about five days. I didn't even have to stay in bed.

No, you misunderstand the effect of vaccination. The antibodies may decrease but t cells continue to afford protection. Most people are probably fine with the original two shots and maybe one booster. Additional boosters are basically only needed for those with immune deficiencies.

This is what the CDC actually said about shedding: FACT Vaccine shedding is the release or discharge of any of the vaccine components in or outside of the body and can only occur when a vaccine contains a live weakened version of the virus. https://www.cdc.gov/covid/vaccines/myths-facts.html

That's why the safety monitoring exists. All vaccines are monitored for rare side effects after they have been released and the Covid 19 vaccines were the most heavily surveilled in history. That's how it was discovered that the J&J vaccines could cause thrombosis in rare instances (1 in 100000) and that the Astra Zeneca vaccine could cause blood clots (2 to 3 people in 100,000). It was also how the CDC identified myocarditis as a potential side effect of the the Pfizer (1.2 in 100,000) and Moderna (3 in 100,000) vaccines, particularly in young people between the ages of 15-24 (in most cases it healed quickly but there were some deaths). In fact, a special program was set up to assess vaccine safety called the Global Covid Vaccine Safety Project, which looked for adverse events by analyzing the healthcare data of 90 million vaccinated individuals. It focused on identifying rare side effects. You can read all about it: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X24001270

You either didn't understand what was being presented or didn't bother to read the paper ifully. It was talking about bacteria or viral based therapies. This is why covid vaccine shedding is impossible: https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/MIDHHS/bulletins/2e3a804 Even Kory couldn't come up with a coherent explanation for how Covid 19 vaccine shedding could occur. But that didn't stop him from taking money from his patients for treating it.

Shedding is one of the funniest tropes spun by antivaxxers. It was promulgated by Pierre Kory, who had one patient claim that she had imbibed the Mrna spiked protein while giving a BJ to her husband. Of course, Kory immediately set out to create a course of treatment. Last I read, he was charging over $2000 for a series of 3 online appointments to treat not just Covid, but what he calls "long vax" (because of course he doesn't believe in long covid), and vaccine injuries. None of his treatments have been subjected to random-controlled trials of course but that doesn't matter because he knows they work. Look how much money he's making after all. Kory was the first proponents of Ivermectin, citing an Argentine study that found 100 percent efficacy when Ivermectin was taken as a prophylactic. The study turned out to be, if not outright fraudulent, riddled with errors and fake data. Kory himself ended up getting Covid 19, as did Bret Weinstein, who had gone on Joe Rogan to tout the benefits of Ivermectin based on Kory's recommendation. Kory was one of the founders of the FLCC, and was making over $300,000 a year until he quit because his private Covid practice had become so lucrative. He's just one of the many antivaxxers who has become rich through his antivax activities while at the same time attacking big pharma for their lack of ethics and focus on profits.

Watched Anora, about a stripper who hooks up with the irresponsible son of a Russian oligarch and ends up marrying him in Las Vegas. She actually thinks she's struck paydirt until the parents arrive. Not a great film, but the performances are excellent and the twist at the end oddly touching. Another film in the popular modern genre of how the rich treat everybody else like trash.