Competitive white suburban parents quite happy about school shutdown

by philg

One of the scarcest commodities during coronaplague is honesty. Rich white Americans love to say that they are advocating the lockdown of poor Black Americans and the closure of schools for Black children for the benefit of poor Black Americans.

One of our Boston-area Deplorables refuses to be cast into this mold. He says that he is happy that Shutdown Karens are denying an education to children of color throughout the U.S. and also denying urban children the opportunity to train athletically. His primary goal right now is getting his white children, currently in high school, into elite universities (both parents are Ivy League grads), and where the New York Times sees deprivation (caused by the policies for which the New York Times has advocated) he sees reduced competition. Unlike their urban counterparts, his children have not had any interruption or slowdown in their learning . His children have not had any interruption in their elite athletic training (since dad was an elite college athlete and can train them himself whenever organized sports are canceled; plenty of space in their massive suburban house with fully equipped gym and multi-acre yard).

(In fairness to this Deplorable, he was not himself in favor of shutting down any schools. But now that the say-gooders have crippled millions of his children’s competitors, he is not shedding crocodile tears.)

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Bitcoin being pumped up a fraudulent Tether?

by philg

Suggested by a friend who ran one of the most successful investment funds in the U.S. for 20+ years…. “The Bit Short: Inside Crypto’s Doomsday Machine”:

The upshot [from looking at some money flows]: over two-thirds of all Bitcoin — $10 billion worth of it — that was bought in the previous 24 hours, was being purchased with Tethers.

This is unusual: if demand for Tethers were real, one would expect Tether Ltd. to combine together multiple USD deposits from investors into a single issuing block. Combinations like that shouldn’t add up to perfectly round numbers every time. What’s more, the supposed USD inputs (e.g., 401,431,056 USD in the top left transaction) are giving perfectly round Tether outputs (e.g., 400,000,000 USDT in the same transaction) in every block — regardless of the prevailing exchange rate or anything else.

The last nail in the coffin was when I found out about the lack of visible reserves. If Tether Ltd. really was taking in 1 USD for each Tether it issued, then it should have as many dollars in its bank account as there are issued Tethers. And it turns out we can check if that’s true! Tether Ltd.’s bank is Deltec bank in the Bahamas, and the Bahamas discloses how much foreign currency its domestic banks hold each month.

From January 2020 to September 2020, the amount of all foreign currencies held by all the domestic banks in the Bahamas increases by only $600 million — going from $4.7B to $5.3B. (The table is in Bahamian dollars, but the Bahamian dollar is pegged to the US dollar, so 1 BSD = 1 USD.)
But during the same period, total issued Tethers increased by almost $5.4 billion — going from $4.6B to $10B!
The implication was shocking: there weren’t nearly enough dollars in all the domestic banks in the Bahamas to back the Tethers that were floating around in the crypto market.

So this was crypto’s big short: Tether Ltd. was short of US dollars — to the tune of about $25 billion.

If you’ve been waiting for the right time to move to Puerto Rico (for the 4% tax rate) and sell those $millions in Bitcoin you’ve been keeping on a Post-It note, maybe this is the time!

(Disclaimer: I haven’t done my own research into the crypto market. I’m sure that if I were a Bitcoin billionaire I would have lost the password!)

Since the article mentions the Bahamas and it is almost MLK Day… statue of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Bimini (he was there in 1960 to write his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize):

(Photo from a January 2020 Cirrus SR20 trip, when it was legal to return to the U.S. without a COVID-19 test.)

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Norway tests the novel mRNA vaccines on the old/sick

by philg

Readers may recall If COVID-19 vaccines weren’t tested on likely COVID-19 victims, how do we know that they will reduce COVID-19 deaths? (December 27, 2020) in which I pointed out that the vaccines weren’t tested on the old/sick people whom COVID-19 has been primarily killing.

This just in… “Deaths spur Norway concern at Covid vaccine safety for vulnerable elderly” (Bloomberg via Irish Times):

Norway has expressed increasing concern about the safety of the Pfizer Inc vaccine for elderly people with serious underlying health conditions after raising their estimate of the number who died after receiving inoculations to 29.

“There are 13 deaths that have been assessed, and we are aware of another 16 deaths that are currently being assessed,” the agency said. All the reported deaths related to “elderly people with serious basic disorders”, it said. “Most people have experienced the expected side-effects of the vaccine, such as nausea and vomiting, fever, local reactions at the injection site, and worsening of their underlying condition.”

The findings have prompted Norway to suggest that Covid-19 vaccines may be too risky for the very old and terminally ill – the most cautious statement yet from a European health authority.

The Norwegian Institute of Public Health judges that “for those with the most severe frailty, even relatively mild vaccine side-effects can have serious consequences. For those who have a very short remaining life span anyway, the benefit of the vaccine may be marginal or irrelevant.”

(These folks could never get jobs working for Medicare or any enterprise that bills Medicare!)

On the other hand…

“The Norwegian Medicines Agency has communicated, prior to the vaccination, that when vaccinating the oldest and sickest, it is expected that deaths will occur in a time-related context with vaccination. This does not mean that there is a causal link between vaccination and death,” it added.

On the third hand….

“We have also, in connection with the reported deaths, conveyed that it is possible that common and known side effects of the vaccines may have been a contributing factor to a serious course or fatal outcome,” the agency said.

Vaguely related, my visit to Norway…

Let’s see if anyone can guess which part of Norway based on the photos below:

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Coast of Maine aerial photos: Saint George to Owl’s Head

by philg

Saint George to the Knox County Airport (KRKD):

Lunch stop at KRKD, home of the Rockefeller-grade Owls Head Transportation Museum. Thanks, Downeast Air, for the crew car.

Monument to lost sailors next to the Keag Store (our lobster roll source):

A TripAdvisor comment from Debi J, a September 2020 visitor:

NO social distancing at all!!!!! NO masks on staff, cooks or register persons or CUSTOMERS. Customers place take out orders and stand right next to the check out register while they wait for their food to be prepared. No limits to how many people may enter in the store, they had about 20 people in a tiny store, no way you could social distance if you wanted to. STAY AWAY IF YOU WANT TO REMAIN HEALTHY, IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME, UGH!!!

Some people would be happier if they stayed in Massachusetts! (with lots of social distancing and 8X the COVID-19 death rate compared to Maine)

Onward to Owl’s Head per se….

From our Boston to Bar Harbor, Maine trip in a Robinson R44 helicopter. Tony Cammarata was in back with a door removed and a Nikon D850. Instrument student Vince Dorow and I were flying.

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Human RFID chips for coronaplague contact tracing can also sense temperature

by philg

Readers may recall that I’ve been talking about fighting COVID via dog-style RFID chips in the necks of American humans (see RFID chips in the necks of college students for example and #Science proves that I was right (about the need for RFID chips in humans for COVID-19 surveillance) )

A friend who is expecting to adopt a puppy told me about a recent advance in the RFID chip world: Merck’s Home Again TempScan ($12 or $40 installed; the reader is $67) and competitors.

This would be perfect for a cower-in-place population that has happily surrendered its freedoms for what it hopes will be a slightly lower and/or slower COVID-19 death rate! Inexpensive sensors all over our built infrastructure can not only monitor who is getting near whom, but also whether anyone has a fever!

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Maine aerial photos: Boothbay Harbor and up the Damariscotta River

by philg

Our series continues … from the mid-October Boston to Bar Harbor, Maine flight in a Robinson R44 helicopter. Tony Cammarata was in back with a door removed and a Nikon D850. Instrument student Vince Dorow was with me in the front seats.

Boothbay Harbor and up the Damariscotta River:

Damariscotta, Maine and down to Muscongus Bay:

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The more that you sacrifice in the COVID-19 fight, the more you believe the fight was worthwhile?

by philg

Part of a holiday letter from a friend in the UK:

The British are, on the whole, law abiding. The stringent measures [against COVID-19] have worked quite well, and it reminds me of what the British historian A.J. P. Taylor said about British discipline. It is a little-known fact that during the war Britain evolved, voluntarily, a far more comprehensive state-directed society than was the case in Hitler’s Germany, or anywhere else for that matter.

The old Romans chose a dictator for a limited time when the country faced a crisis. The British chose Churchill. The dictator was given unlimited powers but could at any time be deposed by Parliament. Every aspect of life was state-directed: manpower, the economy, use of housing, agriculture, industry, compulsory female conscription, public health services, welfare – everything, everything within the life of the community. Even my mother, a concert pianist, had to join the WAAF – Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. And all the nation’s town-dwelling children sent off to the country.

No country in the industrialised world had ever seen the likes of this total war mobilisation. Hitler quite simply could not risk imposing such restrictions on the German people, the restrictions, duties and self-denials which the British willingly accepted. When peace came this entire state-run apparatus was dismantled and the so-called full mobilisation left no lasting impression on society.

I am not sure we have all been dutiful and self-denying, but the results are there.

She has given up much of what formerly gave her life value and meaning. We’d met on a Northwest Passage cruise in 2019, for example. and she is a champion skier within her age group. She never married, has no children, and lives alone; quarantine/lockdown means solitary confinement. What is it that convinces her that the sacrifice was effective? It can’t be the numbers. The UK is near the top of countries ranked by COVID-19-tagged deaths (though masked-and-shut-for-10-months Massachusetts has a yet higher death rate).

Could it be the sacrifice itself that makes her think that the sacrifice was worthwhile?

From 2007:

and Oliver Cromwell, who never met an epidemiologist: “A few honest men are better than numbers”. But maybe he predicted American politics: “No one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going.”

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Our paranoid friend who fears Facebook’s power

by philg

A friend of a friend quotes Benito Mussolini (not as much like Hitler as Donald Trump, but perhaps better acquainted with Hitler on a personal level):

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

He wrote this on top of a tweet expressing concern about the power of an alliance between Silicon Valley’s Big Tech firms and the rulers of the U.S.:

As a demonstration of how irrationally paranoid this guy is for imagining that a combination of political rulers and corporate cronies would suppress his speech via deplatforming, Facebook has deplatformed him… Here’s what he got when trying to post an innocuous update:

(Confusingly, it says that he can’t “go live” despite the fact that he wasn’t trying to “go live”. Nor is he a business and therefore wasn’t attempting to advertise.)

What was the attempted update? “I’m really looking forward to President Biden’s wise leadership.”

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Maine coast helicopter photo series: Bath to Southport

by philg

The series continues… near the peak of foliage season (mid-October) we decided to fly from Boston to Bar Harbor, Maine, following the shoreline, in a Robinson R44 helicopter. Tony Cammarata was in back with a door removed (frosty!) and a Nikon D850. Instrument student Vince Dorow was with me in the front seats.

After departing Bath, Maine to resume the shoreline…

A “bad guy” lair:

The solar panels have been the subject of some debate among Facebook friends. Those who live in urban areas see the solar panels as virtue signaling. I see them as a source of backup power.

Onward to Southport:

Next: Boothbay Harbor.

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The UK’s new immigration system: a PhD in STEM has real value

by philg

Now that is it out of the EU, the UK is shutting down low-skill immigration (a boon to the rich; a bane to the working class). If you’ve been feeling like a failure for having a Ph.D. rather than a useful M.D. (see “Women in Science”), the new UK system will cheer you up!

From “The UK’s points-based immigration system: policy statement”:

We are ending free movement and will introduce an Immigration Bill to bring in a firm and fair points-based system that will attract the high-skilled workers we need to contribute to our economy, our communities and our public services. We intend to create a high wage, high-skill, high productivity economy.

We will reduce overall levels of migration and give top priority to those with the highest skills and the greatest talents: scientists, engineers, academics and other highly-skilled workers. Importantly we remain committed to protecting individuals from exploitation by criminal traffickers and unscrupulous employers.

We will replace free movement with the UK’s points-based system to cater for the most highly skilled workers, skilled workers, students and a range of other specialist work routes including routes for global leaders and innovators.

We will not introduce a general low-skilled or temporary work route. We need to shift the focus of our economy away from a reliance on cheap labour from Europe and instead concentrate on investment in technology and automation. Employers will need to adjust.

People will need 70 points to begin an application process. 20 of those can come from having a STEM PhD:

Separately, do the Republicans need some pitches like this one? Republicans say that they would be popular with Americans if not for Donald Trump, but wasn’t Trump the guy who brought out voters in 2016? Now Republicans have failed to win even a single Senate seat in Georgia, a fairly conservative state. Imagine if Republicans could explain in a clear manner what their proposed policies were designed to accomplish and how it would benefit the American working class, small business owners, and everyone else who isn’t securely on a local, state, or federal government gravy train.

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