Wretchard.com

First the easy part.

Now the hard part.

AstraZeneca Warns of Covid-19 Vaccine Shortfall in Europe

The drugmaker blamed an unspecified manufacturing issue. EU leaders are facing scrutiny over what critics say has been a slow vaccine rollout.

The AstraZeneca disclosure also threatens a fresh reputational hit to the British pharmaceutical giant, which partnered with the University of Oxford in developing the vaccine. AstraZeneca is responsible for manufacturing and distribution of the vaccine, as well as regulatory approvals.

We never notice the lights that stay on, planes that fly on schedule, servers that stay up. Competence is inconspicuous.

Well there’s always the online Chinese gambling casino black market vaccination center.

Amazon “believes the best approach to an election would be conducting it in person, saying it ‘provided the NLRB with a safe, confidential and convenient proposal for associates to vote on-site, which is in the best interest of all parties—associate convenience, vote fidelity and timeliness of vote count.'”

Amazon Seeks to Postpone Alabama Unionization Vote

The technology company is pushing for in-person union ballots in place of a mail-in option that was allowed due to the pandemic.

Everybody comes … well not to Rick’s.

If you want to get a shot for the ‘Rona in the Philippines try the online Chinese gambling casino.

Black market for illegal coronavirus vaccines thriving in the Philippines

No coronavirus vaccine has been approved for general use in the Philippines, nor is one expected to arrive, officially, until at least February. But soaring demand among Chinese workers is driving a black market where vaccine doses are sold for many times the standard $30 price in China.

The bootleg vaccines aren’t limited to Chinese workers. In late December, President Rodrigo Duterte said members of the Philippine military had already taken the coronavirus vaccine from Sinopharm, a Chinese state-owned pharmaceutical company. Members of the president’s security group admitted they had received the shots, angering ordinary Filipinos who are grappling with one of the region’s worst outbreaks yet lack access to vaccines. (Sinopharm’s vaccine has been approved for general use in China, but not in the Philippines; the company did not respond to requests for comment.)

Harry Lime’s speech on selling blackmarket drugs.

Martins: Have you ever seen any of your victims?
Harry: You know, I never feel comfortable on these sort of things. Victims? Don’t be melodramatic. [gestures to people far below] Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax – the only way you can save money nowadays.

Ideals are inevitably embodied in institutions made up of people. But since people are flawed institutions consequently betray our trust in them.

The problem every man faces is how to maintain faith in a world full of betrayal. The dilemma can be avoided by denial but only temporarily. Unless it is eventually faced and solved it will lead to terminal cynicism where the only thing left to optimize is what you will sell out for.

Since nothing in the lying institutional world can be accounted fully trustworthy the only semi-solid footing left is culture. It may not be much but it is what’s left. In the end people are loyal, perhaps irrationally to their friends, the memories of childhood and of home.

‘One good memory ‘ wrote Dostoevsky, ‘can save you all your days’. What preserves us through the trauma of betrayal is not the rational but the irrational. In the end neither love nor salvation is a matter of calculation but of choice.

Shocking.

As the palmist said:

Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.

‘I Was Lied To’: Meghan McCain Lashes Out At Biden, Fauci And Amazon Over COVID Hypocrisy

Meghan McCain lashed out Friday at President Joe Biden, Dr. Anthony Fauci and Amazon, saying that everyone was sending mixed messages with regard to COVID-19.

McCain went on to say that she had been disappointed to see Biden and his family without masks just hours after he had signed an executive order mandating that masks be worn on federal property.

Gradually it is becoming clear that we’re living through the end of an era. The enormity of it is only now hitting home. The old certitudes are gone. We are adrift with no way back.

As governments contemplate managing the biology of entire populations, embark on social engineering and remolding the climate one might ask: what could go wrong?

Biosphere 2: What Really Happened?

More than two decades ago an alum joined seven other explorers to boldly go where no one had gone before: into a sealed, miniature Earth where they would have to survive two years on their own.

In the fall of 1991, I was sealed into an airtight, three-acre mini-world called Biosphere 2, a $150-million futuristic facility near the aptly named town of Oracle, Arizona. I joined seven other explorers in a daring, high-profile study of sustainability and the new science of biospherics—the study of closed systems that mimic Earth’s environment.

It was right out of a science fiction movie, and unlike anything previously attempted on such a scale. Our goal was to spend those two years studying how a mini-biosphere—complete with wilderness areas, a farm and a group of humans—would work with as few outside inputs as possible. A privately funded venture, Biosphere 2 had three main goals—education, eco-technology development and learning how well our eco-laboratory worked. We also hoped to help NASA and other space agencies learn more about life-support systems for long-term space missions.

The Lost History of One of the World’s Strangest Science Experiments (Published 2019)

The hummingbirds were dying. Cockroaches were everywhere. And then Steve Bannon showed up.

The scientists Joel Cohen and David Tilman wrote, “No one yet knows how to engineer systems that provide humans with the life-supporting services that natural ecosystems produce for free.”

Melting icebergs key to sequence of an ice age: New study unravels long-standing climate mystery and provides insight into how our planet may change in the future

Scientists claim to have found the ‘missing link’ in the process that leads to an ice age on Earth.

In their study, the team propose that when the orbit of Earth around the sun is just right, Antarctic icebergs begin to melt further and further away from Antarctica, shifting huge volumes of freshwater away from the Southern Ocean and into the Atlantic Ocean.

As the Southern Ocean gets saltier and the North Atlantic gets fresher, large-scale ocean circulation patterns begin to dramatically change, pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and reducing the so-called greenhouse effect.

This in turn pushes the Earth into ice age conditions. …

Lead author of the study Aidan Starr, from Cardiff University’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said: “We were astonished to find that this lead-lag relationship was present during the onset of every ice age for the last 1.6 million years. Such a leading role for the Southern Ocean and Antarctica in global climate has been speculated but seeing it so clearly in geological evidence was very exciting.”

Antarctic icebergs reorganize ocean circulation during Pleistocene glacials

Iceberg-trajectory models along with multi-proxy evidence from sediment cores from the Indian Ocean show that northward shifts in Antarctic iceberg melt redistributed freshwater in the Southern Ocean during the Pleistocene.

New scientific model solves mystery: how could climate change occur without Republicans?

Without the vaccines the world would be in a bad place. The monster didn’t go away as we hid in the basement, it just made itself at home in the kitchen. The only way out is to shoot it with drugs.

Until a few months ago the authorities weren’t really sure the vaccines would work. Perhaps “two weeeks to flatten the curve” was a psychologically necessary device to mitigate our fears.

You can give it away, but can you invent it? It wasn’t govt that ultimately rode to the rescue, but human capital.

Biden says nothing can change the trajectory of Covid pandemic over the next several months

Biden warned on Friday that as the outbreak continues, “there’s nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months.” The president has repeatedly warned that the situation is likely to worsen before it improves.

From the Epilogue, HG Well’s War of the Worlds:

At any rate, whether we expect another invasion or not, our views of the human future must be greatly modified by these events. We have learned now that we cannot regard this planet as being fenced in and a secure abiding place for Man; we can never anticipate the unseen good or evil that may come upon us suddenly out of space. It may be that in the larger design of the universe this invasion from Mars is not without its ultimate benefit for men; it has robbed us of that serene confidence in the future which is the most fruitful source of decadence.

The big danger is the elites have learned nothing but that they must build back better and control more .

‘It’s a reality:’ Google threatens to stop search in Australia due to media code

The owner of Australia’s most popular search engine says it is prepared to shut the service down rather than pay media organisations for news content.

The $1.8 trillion search giant’s local managing director Melanie Silva told a Senate committee hearing on Friday that Google would shut off search in Australia if the government’s proposed media bargaining code becomes law. Experts said the threat is not idle, with Google likely fearful the code could set a global precedent.

Their statements need to be broadcast in full reverb.

You you you will will will obey obey obey.

Or else fall into the Pit of Oblivion.

Setting the tone.

Fury as Joe Biden removes bust of Winston Churchill from Oval Office

Downing Street today insisted it is up to Joe Biden how he decorates the Oval Office after the new US President removed a bust of Sir Winston Churchill, prompting fury from critics.

Reaction to Churchill bust removal muted for Biden after outrage for Obama

It had once been a transatlantic art scandal — or at least various actors of questionable intent would have you believe it was.

“You can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies.”
— Oscar Wilde

China Slaps Sanctions On 28 Trump Administration Officials, Including Mike Pompeo

In a statement released just minutes after President Biden took office, China’s foreign ministry said it was sanctioning those “who have seriously violated China’s sovereignty.”

In a statement released just minutes after President Biden took office, China’s foreign ministry said it had decided to sanction those “who have seriously violated China’s sovereignty and who have been mainly responsible for such U.S. moves on China-related issues.”

The list of names features former Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar; former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro; former national security adviser Robert O’Brien; Kelly Craft, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; and Matthew Pottinger, who recently resigned as deputy national security adviser. Former national security adviser John Bolton and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon were also included.

New data shows that the Covid-19 vaccines currently on the market may not be as effective in guarding against new, more contagious strains of the coronavirus, giving “all the more reason” to vaccinate people faster, White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Thursday.

Dr. Fauci says new data shows Covid vaccines appear to be less effective against some new strains

Even if the vaccines are less effective against new variants, they’ll still likely provide enough protection to make them worth getting, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.

Boris Johnson says some evidence new Covid variant in the UK may be more deadly

There is “some evidence” a new Covid variant first identified in the U.K. could be more deadly than the original strain, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday.

Removed to garage after photo op.

‘We feel incredibly betrayed’: Thousands of Guardsmen forced to vacate Capitol

Guardsmen were later let back into facilities after an outry from lawmakers.

One unit, which had been resting in the Dirksen Senate Office building, was abruptly told to vacate the facility on Thursday, according to one Guardsman. The group was forced to rest in a nearby parking garage without internet reception, with just one electrical outlet, and one bathroom with two stalls for 5,000 troops, the person said. Temperatures in Washington were in the low 40s by nightfall.

“Yesterday dozens of senators and congressmen walked down our lines taking photos, shaking our hands and thanking us for our service. Within 24 hours, they had no further use for us and banished us to the corner of a parking garage. We feel incredibly betrayed,” the Guardsman said.

Photos of National Guard camping in parking garage spark anger as soldiers prepare to head home following inauguration

More than 15,000 National Guard members are preparing to leave Washington, D.C., and head home.

Thousands of Guard troops from all across the country poured into D.C. by the planeload and busload late last week, in response to escalating security threats and fears of more rioting. Military aircraft crowded the runways at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, carrying Guard members into the region in the wake of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Guard in DC forced to sleep in garages, sparking outcry

WASHINGTON (AP) — Images of National Guard soldiers camped in a cold parking garage after being sent to protect Washington sparked new calls Friday for investigations of the U.S. Capitol Police,…

Maybe academic freedom and autodidactism is the ultimate source of educational equality.

The Education of Batman

Where do you go to school to become something that hasn’t been invented yet?

Normalcy in US projected by second quarter — if no new mutations arise.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccinations – Statistics and Research

In our Data Explorer you can see our COVID-19 vaccination data — you can also visualize the latest data on confirmed cases, deaths, and testing.

When will the COVID-19 pandemic end?

McKinsey’s evolving perspectives on when will the COVID-19 pandemic end in the United States updated to examine how timing will vary around the world.

Transition toward normalcy in the United States remains most likely in the second quarter of 2021 and herd immunity in the third and fourth quarters, but the emergence of new strains and a slow start to vaccine rollout raise real risks to both timelines.

There’s information in these scenes but what is it? That we’ve turned the corner, are not in Kansas any more, or is this the new normal? I wrote on January 12 that: “I suspect significantly fewer are going to tune in, if not in America then at least in the rest of the world, not in protest or partisan pique but because the magic’s gone from Washington DC.”

Washington deserted after inauguration despite widespread fears of more violent riots

Joe Biden took the oath of office in the backdrop of an empty city, with Washington void of the crowds that usually flock to the capital on Inauguration Day.

Joe Biden became the 46th US president on Wednesday in a barricaded city, guarded by more than 25,000 troops and emptied of the spectators who usually throng to the quadrennial ritual.

The security precautions, along with a coronavirus pandemic that has prompted many to avoid public gatherings, left city streets largely empty.

“It’s, frankly, painful to see this, the whole city shut down,” former Republican Senator Jeff Flake told reporters as he arrived at the Capitol.

Biden promised a return to ‘normalcy,’ but it’s clear that’s not happening anytime soon.

Joe Biden ran for president as the moderate Democrat, the familiar face who wasn’t going to defund the police or steer the country headlong into socialism.

Suppose They Held an Inauguration and Nobody Came?

Commentary The increasingly fascistic American left is setting a trap for the rest of their fellow citizens—often termed …

Whenever a politician issues a call for unity two serious questions immediately arise:

1. unity in exchange for what?
2. who are the parties to the agreement?

Where existing political parties represent the great majority of the public “unity” can be achieved by coalition government, bipartisan agreement or other similar consensus mechanisms. However where parties have been abandoned by the general public, either a new party or a rebel alliance must be brought into the negotiations for discussions to proceed.

In an insurgency one of the principle obstacles to “unity” talks is the inchoate nature of the parties. Recall that many WW2 resistance groups were badly fragmented and remained so for years. Even governments can be badly divided. The Axis never formed a cohesive strategic or political front. The Allies did but only because opposition to Hitler held it together. Once Germany collapsed the Alliance fell apart.

Beside “who” there is the paramount question of “what”. Unity requires concession, horse trading and the deferment of irreconcilable differences. Without concessions the call for unity is a demand for surrender

But the price of unity is inevitably too high for the activists on both sides because while they pay lip service to unity what they really want is subjugation. As a practical matter unity is impossible when ideologues rule. In the immortal words of the Batman movie:

Alfred Pennyworth : You crossed the line first, sir. You squeezed them, you hammered them to the point of desperation. And in their desperation, they turned to a man they didn’t fully understand.

Bruce Wayne : Criminals aren’t complicated, Alfred. Just have to figure out what he’s after.

Alfred Pennyworth : With respect Master Wayne, perhaps this is a man that you don’t fully understand, either. A long time ago, I was in Burma. My friends and I were working for the local government. They were trying to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders by bribing them with precious stones. But their caravans were being raided in a forest north of Rangoon by a bandit. So, we went looking for the stones. But in six months, we never met anybody who traded with him. One day, I saw a child playing with a ruby the size of a tangerine. The bandit had been throwing them away.

Bruce Wayne : So why steal them?

Alfred Pennyworth : Well, because he thought it was good sport. Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.

The script returns to its central place in governance as Biden’s speeches are written by committee. But is he speaking through the committee or vice versa? Is it Milli Vanilli or Cyrano de Bergerac?

Writing a speech for Biden can be hell. And that was before the inaugural.

There is a heightened urgency to Biden’s inaugural speech, as he confronts multiple crises and seeks to bridge a deep political divide.

Biden has grown comfortable with chief speech writer Vinay Reddy and senior adviser Mike Donilon, who have helped him thread his narratives in a simple, grounded way. The president-elect has also leaned on Tony Blinken, his secretary of state designate, to help with the speech writing process. Incoming chief of staff Ron Klain is in the mix as well….

For his speeches, Biden receives advice — solicited and unsolicited — from a wide cast of luminaries, which in the past has included historian Jon Meacham. It was not entirely clear among aides if Meacham contributed to the drafting of the inauguration speech, though a source familiar with the process said he had consulted on the process.

On some speechwriter’s tomb the words may be inscribed. “How obvious it is now–the gift you gave him. All those letters, they were you… All those beautiful powerful words, they were you!.. The voice from the shadows, that was you…” Roxanne”

Cyrano’s ‘to be your own man speech’.

A finding that Covid was caused by a lab accident would be devastating to the health bureaucracy and pharma.

The World Needs a Real Investigation Into the Origins of Covid-19

A team of WHO researchers has arrived in China but won’t investigate the possibility that the coronavirus originated in a lab.

The world needs an inquiry that considers not just natural origins but the possibility that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, escaped from a laboratory. The WHO team, however, plans to build on reports by Chinese scientists rather than mount an independent investigation.

US Scientist Who Led Charge Against COVID Lab Leak Theory Admits He Was Trying To Protect Chinese Scientists

The U.S. scientist behind an effort to stymie debate on the possibility that COVID-19 accidentally escaped a lab said he did so to protect Chinese scientists.

Dr. Peter Daszak, the president of the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, orchestrated a statement published in The Lancet medical journal in February, prior to any serious research on the origins of COVID-19, condemning “conspiracy theories” that suggest the virus doesn’t have a natural origin.

The possibility cannot be entertained. From a strategic point of view a lab accident would be similar to an accidental nuclear strike during the Cold War, a scenario explored in the 1964 movie Fail Safe. The priority would be containment.

If someone — hypothetically — had definite proof Covid resulted from a researcher’s error it would be a biotech Chernobyl.