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Not only is there no vaccine stockpile, there is a production bottleneck. Operation Warp Speed has morphed into Special Ops: Warp The Whole Enchilada.

There was certainly an expectation that once Biden took office, the vaccine roll-out would hit the ground running. But nevermind, very little was in place - no vaccines, no infrastructure, no database, no distribution. Nada.

So my question is how much of that was intentional and how much was just indifference. Right? Herd immunity, much?

None of this bodes well for the general public who are strapped for funds, houses, food, jobs. This is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak.

The Economics Lesson Taught by the Pandemic by Richard Wolff
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[video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcbAbwEFsk4]
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REPORT ALL INJURIES
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Standard Operating Equipment
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zip ties.jpg
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[video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbPa0QH_zxA]
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Bernie mittens.jpg

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It's your open thread, now...

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magiamma's picture

Biden Calls on Congress to End $40 Billion in Taxpayer Subsidies for Fossil Fuels

President Joe Biden said he plans to ask the Democrat-controlled Congress to pass legislation eliminating the tens of billions in taxpayer subsidies the federal government continues to hand Big Oil even as the planetary emergency wreaks havoc in the U.S. and across the globe.

"Unlike previous administrations, I don't think the federal government should give handouts to Big Oil to the tune of $40 billion in fossil fuel subsidies," said Biden. "I'm gonna be going to the Congress and asking them to eliminate those subsidies."

While the president did not offer specifics on what he would want a potential bill to look like, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and other progressive lawmakers introduced legislation last year that proposed ending direct federal subsidies to the fossil fuel industries.

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magiamma's picture

@magiamma
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many appointments this morn... talk as you will... be back in a coupla

take good care y'all

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Check out this info about millions of vax doses missing.

millions of doses missing due to Rump admin failure on records keeping

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magiamma's picture

@jbob
Missed your post. Good morning a few days late. Loll

Mia. Where the heck are all those vaccines. Really shows how veey much things can be fubar. The bureaucracy is so big that the parts are no linger working together. And how easy it is to mess with stuff. Maybe not an accident.

Take good care.

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lotlizard's picture

in Venezuela.

“Orange Man” used to refer to Boehner, then Trump — maybe this season it’ll be Hamiltonized and they’ll reimagine the character as a citrus-affine person of color…

“Mittens” used to refer to Mitt Romney, this season it’s Bernie…

This Season’s People by Stephen Gaskin

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magiamma's picture

@lotlizard
Belly laugh. Why not. That would solve a lot of problems.

Take good care.

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Sima's picture

@lotlizard Late to this but I'm all for it. Bernie is president!!! Power to the People!!

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If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so

Dawn's Meta's picture

team could have worked with before inauguration to put up a plan, work with state governors (outreach) prepare FEMA and the National Guard; ready with companies capable of manufacturing vaccines and PPE? No? Why not?

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

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magiamma's picture

@Dawn's Meta
I remember reading that the trump folks were not sharing the information that they had with the biden folks. So they could not get started. But it seems like a lot could have been put in place without the specifics.

Take good care and be well.

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Lookout's picture

Why oh why isn't the oxford/AZ vaccine being approved in the US? Cause it is non-profit $2/jab and equally effective wit the $20-30 Pfizer and Moderna jab. We have 3 O/AZ manufacturing facilities in the US. It is failure based on profit for big pharma, and the new prez is owned by them too.

Problems started with the Trump administration’s “fatal mistake” of not ordering enough vaccine, which was then snapped up by other countries, Topol said. Then, opening the line to senior citizens set people up for disappointment because there wasn’t enough vaccine, he said. The Trump administration also left crucial planning to the states and didn’t provide the necessary funding.
...
Rosa Schneider had jumped at the chance to make a vaccination appointment once she heard that educators like her were eligible in New York. A high school English teacher who lives in New York City but works in New Jersey, she said that a day before she was to be vaccinated on Wednesday at a city-run hospital, she got a call saying the supply had run out and the appointment was canceled.

https://www.wcia.com/news/national/us-vaccine-shortages-force-cancellati...

The incompetence of the capitalistic system where profit not outcomes are the goal.

I thought this was a neat concept...building Solar PV over India's numerous irrigation canals. All sorts of additional benefits too...cooling PV panels, decreasing algal growth in the water ways, and decreased evaporative loss.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix9LNZIbTpc]
10 min

Guess your swales are being put to the test...looks like lots of rain out your way. We got another 2" this week so far. Due another rain this weekend.

Have a good one, y'all!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Dawn's Meta's picture

@Lookout @Lookout In Europe there is a shortage and a tug of war with England over which countries get its production.

The Guardian

Edit to Add: In other news...
Proud Boys leader is an FBI informant

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.

@Dawn's Meta
is already in short supply with squabbles between EU and England over who gets how much and when. Link.

Pfizer and Moderna are being produced in U.S., one Michigan (Pfizer) and I don’t recall which state the Moderna is being made in.

It seems we will have a bit longer to wait for the AZ vaccine in the U.S., April being the optimistic guess, but it could be considerably longer depending on FDA review and approval.

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

Lookout's picture

@Dawn's Meta @ovals49

all around the world including Australian, India, Mexico and the US.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8391769/AstraZeneca-manufacturi...

Yes, the roll out is slow but should pick up in time.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

magiamma's picture

@Lookout
Yep to all that. Thanks for the solar canal video. It is what it is. Damnit. Why oh why, indeed.

Take good care and stay safe. ( got my first puncture - so there's that )

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Raggedy Ann's picture

The vaccine saga continues. Give people hope but pull the rug out from under them. It is why I'm not interested in a vaccine. It's just another control mechanism of the 1%. If they wanted to help us, we would be given what all the 1% have been given. Why is Herr Drumpf alive after contracting it? Why are all those Senators and Representatives still alive after contracting it? We are being duped - as usual. I'm just an observer.

Enjoy the day! Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

enhydra lutris's picture

@Raggedy Ann

1) Like all viral infections, the virus gets stronger hourly by reproducing rapidly, so the sooner detected and treated, the more edffective the treatment. If you get tested daily, or even more often, and treated immediately if if comes up positive, your chances are way better and take far less time.

2) Direct infusion of antibodies, either from survivors or mono-clonal ones. Both are "experimental" and in short supply, so only the chosen get them.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Raggedy Ann's picture

@enhydra lutris ! Cheers! Drinks

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

magiamma's picture

@Raggedy Ann

Clearly there are remedies that are available to the privileged of which we are not. It makes it easier if you don't want one because they aren't out there anyway. heh.

Take good care and have a good one.

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is a solid strategy for everyone. Using all the precautions and preventive measures in our toolbox might help and it certainly won't hurt. Here is a related article from the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/01/biden-is-now-in-a-ra...

The Biden administration is now running a race of vaccination versus variants—it must continue to suppress transmission, and vaccinate people, before more transmissible variants of the virus emerge. The winner of this race will depend on three unknowns: mitigation, evolution, and vaccine distribution.

Today, several key metrics are in decline, but overall community transmission remains at high levels.

Those high levels of ongoing infection make the standard tools of mitigation—social distancing, masks, and work-from-home orders—even more important to avoid continued deaths. Yet the allure of vaccination is beginning to stymie mitigation policy in some places

This makes me wonder if we should give mitigation a huge role, at least temporarily, with a very strong severe lockdown that includes financial support for everybody to make this strategy work. At the same time kick in with an efficient and effective vaccine program. That might give us the best chance to control this thing.

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magiamma's picture

@randtntx

Yes to mitigation. The Wolff video really lays out the different programs in the different countries and the ones that and could do mitigation were the places that had success - NZ, China, etc.

But we do not have the political cohesion to pull that off here. Thanks for the link.

Here's another one: https://www.dailyposter.com/p/states-ignore-new-data-showing-how

Hope your day is going well. Take good care.

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explores the pros and cons of declaring a Climate Emergency. https://www.salon.com/2021/01/28/38-countries-have-declared-a-climate-em...

Although it is past due to declare such a thing, it is an all-hands-on-deck situation we are in and I don't know how to else to make that clear but to declare it an emergency. There would have to be caveats and democratic participation by local communities would have to be one of the most important provisos.

This article in propublica broke my heart because it hits home. How do we face this climate emergency and not loose all hope.
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-climate-crisis-is-worse-than-you-...

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lotlizard's picture

@randtntx  
more important to their emotional balance than doing the consciousness-raising work needed to save the earth. The latter might have required them to rub shoulders and break bread with deplorables! Too much of a sacrifice! Much easier to spread lies about Russia etc. and quote the New York Times and The View to friends over brunch.

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@lotlizard . Imagine spending all that money that was paid to all the corporate media talking heads who were hyperventilating about Trump nonstop, and instead spend it on publicizing the specifics of our climate emergency. They could be equally as hysterical about the climate. It shouldn't hurt their ratings, they do after all love the drama of an emergency.

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magiamma's picture

@randtntx

but not sure we will step up in time.

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sunny here today.

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@randtntx

got a smile going on that a one
Wink

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enhydra lutris's picture

Santa Cruz, I'm sure). Lacking any kind of swale or anyplace to put one, water is already ponding in my rock heard adobe/serpentine soil. Tempted to go out with a fork and poke deep holes while I can just for aeration and future penetrability purposes.

It's clearly a stay indoors and get crap done day, but I also need to run out and get stuff, so will do that soonly to get it over with before crowds begin.

I love the emergency standard operating equipment though it does seem to lack any of those really long neck tourniquets.

Love the fake Huichol Bernie. (or, at least that's how I see it, but I'm a Huichol art fan)

Biden vax rollout oddly hilarious in that Vax is also antiquated hardware some of which is still probably in use by fed and state ugbmints, and plenty of the code for same is till in use on other hardware. I'll try to pop back in and discuss, but database chaos is a problem all across government agencies, governments (fed & states) and even industry, complicated by medical records privacy acts shabby program documentation, spaghetti code, ad hoc emergency patches and the fact that you also have vendors and providers with their own database chaos.

be well and have a good one.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

enhydra lutris's picture

@enhydra lutris
a helicopter auto-rotating toward a crash in 3, 2, 1 ... ).

People don't want their medical information shared, so there are laws restricting that. This will limit and hamper the ability to have state wide and nation wide databases. The ones that are built (if any) will almost certainly be saddles with cumbersome user-unfriendly and performance degrading security protocols and very likely the need for remote users to use VPNs to access them.

Keeping track of how many doses of what are where and how many are used and not replaced and how many are used and replaced and who gets them when will require databases despite the above restrictions and complications.

If we want people to be able to get shot one and shot two in different locations this all needs to be even more robust.

Every Federal Agency and many departments and divisions thereof has its own database, not as in its own instance of "the fed database" but as in the one they wrote and developed or paid somebody to develop for them. Interoperability is really far, far from guaranteed. Ditto most states, most hospital chains, medical insurance companies and the like. That is a major roadblock.

To rapidly get around that roadblock, one could create a universal database for all to use, with appropriate massive sekurity kludges, which will require all those players to reveal at least the structure of their databases, what tables and fields they use. Some are bound to be "trade sekret" and otherwise "proprietary", a lot of grief is fure to come from dealing with that for sure.

So, we're going to build a quick and dirty, with everybodies fields and damn the redundancy. Whose software? OK, skip that, use a flat file or good old .dbf, access with the user's choice of scripts, sql queries and things like awk, and build forms to automate that stuff. A lot of programming but very quick and easy with multiple programmers and modular programming techniques. Fine? Well, no, not even possible. Nobody owns flat files and probably nobody owns .dbf any more, we have a lack of a proprietary platform. Nobody can get royalties or charge for this, so it won't get done.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

magiamma's picture

@enhydra lutris

rain and more rain. Swale is swell. Will have to take some picks. Seems to be functioning. Totally amazed. But thrilled. Not complaining about the rain. We need a lot and a lot more. So bring it on. Not sure how the mud flows are faring. Will have to check and how full the San Lorenzo is, not only of water but of limb and trunks etc. Maybe I will go down and check during a lull. Bet the waves are awesome.

Yeah, databases are a bitch. Did some early work with them.

Be safe and take good care.

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Granma's picture

With almost solid cloud cover. I think we'll get rain later.
I have no plan for the day. I've been trying to update myself on any new information about virus treatments, completed studies.

They found one medication that is 100% effective against the virus. BUT it comes from a sea squirt found only near a tiny island. It has previously been approved for use in certain cancer treatments.
If they are able to make it synthetically, that would be great. Otherwise, interesting, but not a solution.

The good news is that there are scientists in labs testing pretty much all known, approved medications against the virus looking for any that kill it. That is how the discovered the sea squirt one.

This points out to me once again that we cannot afford to destroy the global environment. We don't know what we may lose when so many plants and animals become extinct.

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magiamma's picture

@Granma

Good on you. Share what you can. Perseverance furthers. It does appear to be a race against the evolving variants. Really it could have been so much better. Hoping we do not destroy our planet and all the beings that live here.

Take good care and stay well.

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ggersh's picture

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

magiamma's picture

@ggersh
So sad. We have front row seats. The pictures say it all.

Take good care and stay safe.

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Therefore, it's useless to eat kumquats if you're hoping to increase your calcium intake.

That is all.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

magiamma's picture

@UntimelyRippd
Okay.

Take good care.

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Adding my own two cents, either we are looking at fraud in that the doses were never actually made and delivered, or they were delivered and hospitals, clinics, etc were taking the doses and jabbing relatives, close friends, church members, and others not on the official priority list.

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magiamma's picture

@MrWebster

That's a lot to lose so maybe they were not so very lost.

Take good care.

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enhydra lutris's picture

nasal spray and gargle as tools in staying healthy. However, commercially available povidone-iodine (betadine scrub)runs about 10%, which is for topical use. Anybody actually know the recommended dilution to get to what is in use for nasal and oral uses?

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris

from my research, .05% is recommended for nasal / gargle solutions.
That works out to about .5 ml per cup of water. A few drops.
Should have a slight orange color (using tincture).
You will know when it is too strong as a gag reflux ensues.
Go lighter to start. Especially in the snout.
A darker orange really kills the buggers when you have that thick
mucus in the back of the throat. Don't swallow!

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enhydra lutris's picture

@QMS

eyes, so I'll maybe mix a larger batch and stori it in something.

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris

but the iodine tincture is unstable in water
it lasts maybe a day, I try to mix only
enough for single use
a cup is good for about 3 gargles
works good

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magiamma's picture

@enhydra lutris
- not a chain pharmacy - 2%. Did not know that the tincture is unstable in water. Must adjust for that.

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@magiamma

the potency drops over a day or so. Never had problems with the eyes as EL mentioned. The mixture is far too mild to produce fuming of any sort. We have well water. Perhaps city water reacts?
No Know. Simple solutions work.

Cheers

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magiamma's picture

@QMS
2%, 47% h2o by humco - active ingredients - 2% iodine, 2.4% sodium iodine

I do about five drops from the dropper in 1 c h2o -

https://www.amazon.com/HUMCO-121316001-Iodine-Tincture-Percent/dp/B0773M...

I am sure you can find it somewhere besides amazon

edit to add - I use filtered water. There is the slightest smell and the faintest color.

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@magiamma

have 2% very small bottle. removed the stick and replaced with a squeeze dropper. about $5
enough to last a pandemic or two
Wink

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earthling1's picture

Got my first jab yesterday morning and still have no noticeable side effects. Moderna.
Got my seedlings started under a grow light. Peas, tomatoes, beans spinach, problano peppers, and broccoli. Gonna start early this year as the crocuses have already come up. This is the earliest I've ever seen them break through.
Broccoli is already 3" high.
Don't exactly know when I should get my second jab, but hope they don't run out of it before then. Wonder what would happen if I only got one jab?
Thanks for the OT.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

magiamma's picture

@earthling1

The clinic gave me a follow-uo appointment for my next one four weeks out and then it is another four weeks for full immunity. Mine was Moderna. It's four for Moderna and three for Pfizer per my nurse friend. I had a sore arm for two days. No biggy. They may also have a booster for variants. Was not going to get one but I want to see my kids. Still will be wearing a mask and distancing.

Just getting starts going. I remember crocuses coming up in Feb. in Eugene. So looked forward to them. I have paper whites just now and my camellia has been blooming since Dec. It's so confused.

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