Wealth Not Health

The US health system operates for profit. As a result, the US COVID response has been an utter failure. The goal has been ever more profit, not preventing the spread of the virus and protecting people. From selling and exporting record amounts PPE last winter while telling citizens they don't need masks to insisting on developing our own test (for big pharmas sake) delaying testing in the US for months. By contrast Thailand ginned up their tests within hours, and now have a rapid test. US lockdowns were started too late to be really effective and the rapid re-opening once profits were impacted expanded the spread. However, what bothers me the most is the lack of simple preventative recommendations like taking vitamin D.

Excellent hour conversation among Vitamin D experts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD_96ybTMNE

Vitamin D is such a pivotal part of our metabolic machinery and that of course...includes the functionality of our immune system. It can be the difference between life and death, quite literally. Why aren't we all talking about this? Good question - and it's answered in this super conversation!
Dr. David Grimes is a treasure, and here he's joined by the learned Dr. David Anderson and Chris Williams - we cover it all!

One of these doctors claimed there is no known case of symptomatic COVID in anyone with a vitamin D level of 40 ng/mL or 100 nmol/L.

If everyone took 2,000 units of vitamin D a day, it could shift the curve from average blood levels in the mid-50s to about a 110 nmol/L (44 ng/ml), which some estimate could add years to our life expectancy. Data derived from randomized clinical trials have convinced some influential experts, such as Harvard’s Chair of Nutrition, that we should shoot for this kind of range, levels that about nine out of ten people fail to reach because it may necessitate taking 1,800 to 4,000 units of vitamin D a day.

https://nutritionfacts.org/2019/04/30/what-is-the-optimal-vitamin-d-level/

Last week I featured Dr. Marik's FLCCC team's prevention protocol which involves vitamin D plus a synergistic cocktail of inexpensive, readily available supplements.

So rather than inform the people about best strategies for prevention, we've been misled from the start. The most recent truth twisting by Dr. Falsie came out this week when he revealed he explains the science after looking at polls and deciding how much of the science to reveal...changing his story with the polls. Jimmy explains...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uENyOGnUH8c (17 min)

Of course the big news are the new vaccines. John Campbell does a good job describing the three major vaccines here in the western world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-jqf6i5OLc (28 min)
Oxford AstraZeneca $2.18 per dose (Normal refrigeration too)
Pfizer, $20
Moderna, $22.06 to $38 per dose
The FDA isn't even going to evaluate the AZ vaccine until April, despite having manufacturing facilities operating in the US and peer reviewed scientific studies.
(notes below the clip at the link)

As the vaccines become distributed will you be required to have certification to fly or access other venues? Some people are concerned we may have to wear yellow stars or some such means of identifying vaccinated individuals. Sounds like another way to divide us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSNqcBNeGk0 (4.5 min)

Combining science with common sense isn't common. This approach may be a day late and a dollar short. https://zdoggmd.com/david-katz/
You can listen to this excellent hour long discussion or page down to open the transcript

Why a holistic public health approach driven by reducing TOTAL pandemic harm just makes sense. David L. Katz, MD, MPH FACPM, FACP, FACLM is the founder and former director of Yale University’s Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center (1998-2019); Past President of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine; President and Founder of the non-profit True Health Initiative; and Founder and CEO of Diet ID, Inc. He is a Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine; the American College of Physicians; the American College of Lifestyle Medicine; and Morse College, Yale University.
On the COVID pandemic, he has advocated consistently for a policy of total harm minimization by means of risk-stratified interdiction efforts.

I started shopping around and found the Preventive Medicine Residency Program at Yale. And so I did a second residency in preventive medicine public health, focused on chronic disease epidemiology, and the rest, as they say is history. My career clinical teaching research has been focused on adding years to life, adding life to years. Over recent years, it’s also been very much focused on the health of the planet. There are no healthy people on a ruined planet and seeing the big picture.
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the best way to do that is to match the protection, match the remedies to the nature of the threat. The nature of the threat is gonna vary with risk factors. We have some inkling about that. It was pretty clear out of Korea, old age is a risk factor. So we’re gonna be really careful with old people. Old age and frailty is an extreme risk factor. We had caused to know very, very early on, we should’ve put firewalls around our nursing homes. 40% of the mortality in the US has been in nursing homes. That’s incredible.
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it’s important to know my day job is all about nutrition, diet, and chronic disease. And by the way, colleagues and I published a couple of papers in the journal of emerging infectious disease on the prevalence of cardio-metabolic risk factors that massively increase the risk of bad COVID outcomes. And mostly they are lifestyle driven in particular, bad diet, lack of exercise, smoking to a lesser degree.
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I have colleagues at a company called Everest Health. They have this very elegant COVID risk calculator. You can actually get specific percent probability of hospitalization, ICU, or death based on the details of your health and age. So every individual in the country should have had access to that information. And you should be able to get that information about other members of your household. And you enter that in and it drops you into, here are the recommendations for your family. This is the work. I mean, it does sound like a big project. This could have been built in two weeks and we’re talking, it’s sort of been done months and months and months ago. And everybody would have been benefiting from this information since last February, March.
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you have some latitude to decide what best fits your particular industry or business or location. And then finally, what can be deferred to individuals should be deferred to individuals. We should empower people. And then when you get to that third level of hierarchical responsibility, it’s not just about telling people what to do, it’s empowering them with options and understanding. And so here’s how you can protect yourself and your loved ones based on your specific risk tiers.

Biden and Democrats rush to reopen schools in new year as COVID-19 death toll climbs.

These grim predictions were echoed by President-elect Joe Biden in his brief remarks Tuesday, when he said, “We will lose tens of thousands more lives in the months to come.” Infections over the holidays, he added, “will produce soaring death tolls in February,” and “we might not see improvement until we are well into March.”

Biden, however, proposed no emergency measures to prevent this catastrophe. On the contrary, he reiterated his plan to open up the majority of schools by mid-April, imperiling the lives of millions of children and educators. Underscoring this, Biden has chosen Connecticut School Superintendent Miguel Cardona, an outspoken advocate of reopening public schools, as his secretary of education.

A study of government mitigation efforts in 41 countries published in Science magazine last week found that closing schools and universities reduced the spread of COVID-19 by 38 percent, and closing nonessential face-to-face businesses reduced transmission by 18 percent. But the Biden administration has rejected any national shutdown. Instead, he is hell bent on returning students to classrooms so their parents can be herded back to workplaces to produce corporate profits.

The new and even more infectious strain of the virus which emerged in the UK, but has now been discovered in the US, Japan, Germany and other countries, appears to be more transmissible among children, who up to now have had lower infection rates than adults. According to the Office for National Statistics in the United Kingdom, secondary schoolchildren, particularly those in Year 7 to Year 11, are seeing the highest rate of infection among the entire population.

Glenn Greenwald explains how "big tech" is censoring COVID information.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSVNm7XbnYA (36 min)
more here: https://unherd.com/thepost/tech-censorship-how-paranoid-should-we-be/

The pandemic has brought this issue to the fore even more visibly, with channels and videos regularly being taken down having been judged as dangerous to public health, and the YouTube CEO announcing earlier in the year that anything that fell foul of WHO guidelines would be removed (notwithstanding that organisation’s patchy, to say the least, record during this pandemic).

“It’s incredibly dangerous,” says Greenwald. “What competency do tech giants have to arbitrate over science and health policy? … How did they get into a position of some sort of philosopher-king to be able to sit in judgement as overlords of our discourse and decree not only what is permissible but what is true and false when it comes to highly complex questions such as how to manage a pandemic, or whether vaccines are safe and effective, or whether the balances of a lockdown are justified by their cost? These are incredibly complicated decisions that a society ought to be debating.”

There is not a more powerful story about the suppression of truth and good journalism than Julian's plight. I'm ashamed of the US and UK for this absolute travesty.

The UK courts will decide on Monday January 4 whether WikiLeaks founder and journalist Julian Assange should be extradited to the United States. He faces a life sentence on charges under the Espionage Act for exposing war crimes and coup plots, torture and other human rights abuses, state corruption and spying.

A decision to extradite is all but assured. The hearing was a pseudo-legal travesty which saw Assange’s basic democratic rights trampled. Presiding district judge Vanessa Baraitser has treated Assange with undisguised hostility throughout the proceedings. Her supervisor, Lady Emma Arbuthnot, is married to a government figure named personally in the WikiLeaks exposures.

A decision either way will be met with an appeal, leading to months or even years more legal battles. All the while, Assange will be kept imprisoned in Belmarsh maximum security prison in London, at grave risk to his life.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/31/assa-j01.html

Regular readers know I often focus on diet because I think it is the path to good health. This is another aspect of our poor health which in part has caused our horrible COVID outcomes. We have been misinformed about what and when to eat. Dr. Aseem Malhotra is one of my mentors. This wide ranging conversation includes explanations of how corporate capture has driven these damaging recommendations and our resulting poor health.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtm9x25Jh_M&t=1m30s (1 hour)
Another good conversation
Tim Noakes - Carbs Do Not Satisfy Hunger They Stimulate It
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5au-PIuh7cs&t=1m28s (1 hour)

As to when to eat Jason Fung was my mentor. He is putting out nice short lessons if anyone is interested in exploring the health benefits of a narrow eating window.
A beginners Guide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqZsS03dlPk (10 min)
How it works for weight loss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzFpMpi58mY (10 min)
Three top tips https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W96LOxnlwTw (15 min)
He shares a different success story and strategy in each video.

I think the best path to healthy food is to grow it for yourself if you have the space.
Urban homesteader Charlyn Ellis explains how she grows a variety of fruits and vegetables on her property and tries to stay within a 100 mile radius of her home to meet her family’s year-round food needs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qAvySy9_xs (8.5 min)

I use a deep mulch garden system similar to this fellow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QHzB1aFwX4 (10 min)
I've been mulch gardening (with straw primarily) for over 30 years in the same garden. I spread manure prior to mulching. As a result, the soil is in excellent condition...full of life. Here's another example of a deep mulch garden illustrating soil health.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2brHfHPusac (6 min)

He's back with an interesting take on the way to accumulate wealth.
He explains how he makes a living from numerous income sources.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf8cr59D7L4 (16 min)

I understand I'm fortunate to have a pension from my years in the classroom. We certainly are not rich, but I sure feel wealthy (and healthy).
My buddy has a good saying, "The less you want, the more you'll have".

Adding animals into the mix actually improves the soil. Here's a yard chicken operation in FL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7V4dq7C4itA (7 min)

It's been a few months since we've shown you our Animal System and how it's been working out for us. We've been having great success with these Chickens and Geese; they've been building soil and fertility. The grass also hasn't been needed to mow in over a year!

Plus the gain of excellent protein in the form of eggs and pasture raised meat.

The US most innovative farmer Joel Salatin describes his creative cow/pig operation to make compost. His interns take us to the pig pastures to move the pigs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSNqcBNeGk0 (40 min)
This is the most creative farm of which I'm aware.

A sensible approach to improve our health would be a national M4A program...
There's been a push for a M4A vote in the house Force the Vote

Comedian Jimmy Dore has exposed a collection of self-styled leaders of progressive media as imperialist hacks joined at the hip with the Democratic Party and NATO.

It’s no coincidence that the pundits who are circling the wagons around AOC and seething at a comedian for pushing for a Medicare For All floor vote are also a bunch of pseudo-left imperialists. They’ve positioned themselves as guard dogs and gatekeepers of the Democratic Party, a pro-war, pro-Wall Street political cartel that fights the authentic anti-imperialist left harder than it takes on right-wing Republicans.

If there’s anything positive to take away from this episode, it’s that we now know who’s part of the struggle to improve the lives of working people in this country and ends wars abroad – and who’s standing in the way.

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/24/pseudo-left-imperialists-healthcare/

Jimmy's credible push to force the vote is indeed being attacked by the pseudo-left.
Cenk's ineffective argument explained by a new commentator (at least new to me)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze3fyN4R4aQ (11 min)
and another from Ryan Grimm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_zHPEI7dZo (11 min)

The effort to give $2000 checks to working Americans was undermined by the dims when they conceded to allow son of a Mitch to tie the check to a couple of poison pills.

McConnell contemptuously refused to hold a vote on the $2,000 economic relief check, claiming that most people did not need it. He then set the Senate machinery in motion for a veto override on the military spending bill. When the first procedural motion came before the Senate on Wednesday evening, the vote was 80-12 to begin consideration, with the vast majority of Democrats, as well as Republicans, siding with McConnell over Sanders.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/31/sand-d31.html

You get $600 and an F U from son of a Mitch as the MIC gets another bonus.
Covid-19 catch-22: Regime-change policies come packed with US pandemic relief
The US Congress’ $900 billion Covid-19 relief bill was packaged with $1.4 trillion in omnibus spending that includes tens of billions for war, weapons, and regime change abroad, from anti-Russia and anti-China initiatives to $3.3 billion for Israel’s military.

US protects global empire during pandemic, not its own population
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, discusses the connections between the global US empire and the record US death toll during the coronavirus pandemic. "We're really not doing anything very well or right, and that's a consequence in part at least of our fascination with an attempt to maintain and even expand this empire that we've created since 1945," Wilkerson says. He also discusses the breakdown of US-Russia talks on expanding a key nuclear weapons treaty, and new revelations about the Bush administration's drive to invade Iraq.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XoTySFXt94 (26 min)

When it comes to present-day policy, the relevant fact is that we are the nation that failed in both Vietnam and Iraq. Along the way, we lost our status as the planet’s dominant industrial power. Meanwhile, Washington forfeited its authority to mobilize the American people for war. More recently, cleavages stemming from class, race, religion, gender, and ethnicity, split the country into antagonistic factions. Al Gore was merely premature when, as vice president, he famously mistranslated the nation’s motto as “out of one, many.”
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however gussied up or camouflaged, imperialism no longer retains the slightest legitimacy. Peoples once classified as inferior, usually on the basis of skin color, no longer tolerate outsiders telling them how to govern themselves. Few Americans are willing to acknowledge the imperial motives that have long shaped this country’s global policies. The Vietnamese and Iraqis opposing the U.S. military presence in their midst entertained few doubts on that score; hence, the fierceness with which they defended their right to self-determination.

https://scheerpost.com/2020/12/29/joe-biden-must-learn-from-americas-fai...

One thing's for sure, we'll need to help each other. I thought this was a nice story. Iran is creating grocery stores in Venezuela. Anya takes us on a trip to one.
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/30/inside-irans-supermarket-venezuela/ (7 min)

The Russiagate zombie WILL NOT die....

Western media coverage has overlooked the key role of the CIA, MI6, and the NATO member state-funded outlet Bellingcat in generating the allegation that Russia’s FSB poisoned Alexei Navalny.

Russia’s FSB intelligence agency has been accused of poisoning opposition activist Alexei Navalny. While the allegation may prove to be true, Western media coverage has overlooked the key role of the CIA, MI6, and the state-funded outlet Bellingcat in generating it.

Western media outlets have failed to disclose that Bellingcat is funded by NATO member states, including the US via the National Endowment for Democracy, and that Bellingcat has a dubious record. In a leaked assessment, the UK government’s Integrity Initiative wrote: “Bellingcat was somewhat discredited, both by spreading disinformation itself, and by being willing to produce reports for anyone willing to pay.”

And few have paid attention to reporting by the New York Times that shortly after Navalny was flown to Germany for treatment, “representatives from the Central Intelligence Agency and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service provided members of the German government with details about the poisoning, including the identities of the Federal Security Service officers involved, that directly implicated the Russian government.”

https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/27/navalny-poisoning-cia-mi6-discredited...

Pushback rounds out 2020 by airing an unpublished interview with Stephen F. Cohen, the eminent Russia historian and scholar who passed away in September at the age of 81.
Stephen F. Cohen on Russia’s democratization and how US meddling undermines it
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/12/30/stephen-f-cohen-on-russias-democratiz...

Loti posted the best thing I watched this week. It is a sobering look at our future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQeK04WOGaA (1 hour)

Irreversible Collapse: Accepting Reality, Avoiding Evil
SUMMARY: The stability of the biosphere for mammals has been in decline for centuries and in unstoppable, out of control mode for decades. This “Great Acceleration” of biospheric collapse is an easily verifiable fact. The scientific evidence is overwhelming. Evidence is also compelling that the vast majority of people will deny this, especially those still benefitting from the existing order and those who fear that “accepting reality” means “giving up.” The history of scores of previous boom and bust (progress / regress) societies clearly reveals how and why industrial civilization is dying. Accepting that Homo colossus’ condition is incurable and terminal may be key to not making a bad situation catastrophically worse.

APPLICATION — TO AVOID BECOMING EVIL on a geological timescale, we must…
1. Minimize deadliest toxicity (nuclear, methane, chemicals).
2. Assist plants (especially trees) in migrating poleward.
3. Invest time, energy, and resources in all things regenerative, including thriving with LESS (less energy, stuff, stimulation), learning from and supporting indigenous wisdom and experience, and nurturing community eco-literacy and resilience.

CORE MESSAGE: Without an understanding of ecology, energy, and history, good people with the best of intentions will unknowingly propose and support policies likely to make a bad situation catastrophically worse. Or as an ecologist friend of mine likes to say, “If you don’t 'get' overshoot, you’ll misinterpret or misdiagnose virtually everything important.”

Pretty compelling evidence.

Peaceful acceptance isn't easy for some folks. I'm sad to say I agree with Dowd's take above...that we are past the tipping point. As I've said before, I accept that I will die. It is the nature of life. It is more difficult to accept extinction of the human species. The tragedy of our behavior is that we are dragging so many other species into extinction along with our own.

So how do we react to this reality of collapse? I want to close today with a look at a hopeful way to create a new future. Now this fellow is interested in selling you an acre in this ecological community, but his vision of what life should be is similar to mine. (11 min)

Our Final Stop while we were in Costa Rica in 2019, was at "Alegría Village" in San Mateo de Alajuela. Stephen Brooks gave us the tour of this amazing site and shared his epic vision with us.
For those who don't know who Stephen is, he has been involved with permaculture projects for over 20 years! He created The "Punta Mona Center for Regenerative Design", "Le Ecovila" and runs "Envision Festival"!

So friends, we're on our own. We are fodder for the profit mongers. Arm yourself with knowledge and weave the best path forward for yourself and your family. That's one reason I like this C99 community so much, because we constantly are sharing the untold stories...the stories they don't want you to know. As we move into the new year we need to plan how we will react to the coming economic catastrophe. I hope you're thinking about some food production...not because food supply will evaporate next month, but because the collapse like most empires will be slow...almost imperceptible. Create a hopeful future for yourself, because sadly TPTB are not going to help us commoners.

Be well. Don't let up your guard as COVID will continue to spread for the next few months. Find happiness where you can. Peace.