Long, but as always VDH is worth it. Here are the beginning and end, to entice you to click on the link:
[AmericanGreatness] In the 1970s and 1980s, furor arose over our possible use of the "neutron bomb" that macabrely would "kill people, but not destroy property." The logic of the perverse weapon was that on allied and friendly European ground, outnumbered defensive NATO troops might radiate and destroy invading masses of Soviet armored troops by periodic detonations of low-yield thermonuclear shells, rockets, and bombs.
The ensuing blasts of heat would sear flesh, but would lack commensurate repercussion power to destroy most structures and buildings, and leave far smaller toxic radiation trails. In eerie Strangelovian terms, once the enemy was finished off, returning friendly troops and populations could sort their way among the mass dead to find their infrastructure intact—without "collateral" damage or fear of serious radiation sickness.
In some ways, COVID-19 was our neutron bomb. When we reach the now politically incorrect, taboo term "herd immunity" through vaccinations and antibodies, and when the virus ceases to be a pandemic, the lethal tally may have exceeded 600,000 Americans.
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[ZERO] A report released by The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (known as SIGAR) has found that the United States wasted billions of dollars on capital assets such as buildings, motor vehicles and aircraft in Afghanistan.
SIGAR conducts audits, inspections and investigations to ensure U.S. taxpayer money invested in reconstruction is spent efficiently and the agency aims to prevent waste, fraud and abuse of funding. The picture is not a good one, as Statista's Niall McCarthy notes, by the end of 2020, SIGAR reported that the U.S. has appropriated around $143.27 for relief and construction in the war-torn country since 2002 with the cost distributed across four key areas - security ($88.32 billion), governance and development ($35.95 billion), civilian operations ($14.87 billion) and humanitarian aid ($4.13 billion).
[GP] Joe Biden trashed Texas and Mississippi governors for reopening their states and ending mask mandates.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) on Tuesday announced all businesses in the state can reopen 100% and ended the statewide mask mandate.
"So today, I’m issuing a new executive order that rescinds most of the earlier executive orders. Effective next Wednesday, all businesses of any type are allowed to open 100%....also, I am ending the statewide mask mandate," Abbott said from Lubbock.
"Today’s announcement ensures Texans can tap into their own self reliance to seize the opportunities our state has to offer," said Abbott as he ended his presser. "God bless the State of Texas.
#3
The local news was full of people who disagreed with Abbott's order. Most said they would continue to wear masks or require others to wear them in their establishments.
Those that want to mask still can. Some who refuse to do so will be turned away at some places of business.
But the Governor will not stand in the way of a return to normal. I like that.
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/04/2021 7:10 Comments ||
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#4
Thousands of natural experiments now underway. Soon we'll have tons of solid empirical evidence to test the Corona freaks' propositinnthat masks which can't stop ash and other particulates can somehow miraculously block airborne droplets that are 10 or 20 times smaller.
Posted by: Marilyn Peacock8801 ||
03/04/2021 10:44 Comments ||
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#5
Texas just went through a week of extreme isolation because of the icy roads and storms. Keep an eye on folks that clustered in community warmth areas and the rest should have flattened the curve well enough.
[Fatherly] Do humans have a mating season? On the surface, it may seem like a silly question, as couples can decide to make a tiny human whenever they damn well please. However, a deep dive into the numbers show that this question may not be as ridiculous as it initially sounds and, in fact, data seems to indicate that there are actually specific times of the year where people are more likely to engage in the ancient and sacred art of reproduction, based largely on where you live.
Visme, a company that provides data visualization tools, gathered worldwide birth data between 2000-2015, which was provided by the UN, in order to create several charts which show countries’ most common birth months. The biggest takeaway is that, for the most part, the higher a country’s latitude, the earlier its peak birth month, as countries in the Northern Hemisphere see the highest number of births in July, August, and September.
And as you move down the map, the birth months move as well, with countries in the middle latitude or the "tropical zone" tend to see their births peak at the end of the year, when things are still warm. Meanwhile, countries in the Southern Hemisphere register their highest number of births at the start of the year, in the midst of their "summers," with some pushing all the way into March, April, or May.
Of course, for a baby to be born, they first have to be made, and Visme also uses its data to dive into when countries are most likely at their peak for conception. Based on the data, it’s clear that humans have a strong affinity for baby-making in the back half of the year, as 38 countries had their peak in July-December vs. only 14 countries peaking in January-June. Interestingly, April is the only month that does not appear be the peak of conceiving for any of the countries charted — so much for spring pollination.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.