Electric cars aren’t the future.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bPjc1ZhqVAA

Billionaire’s New Futuristic Mega-City

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RoONAlTfk80


John Coffey
1 second ago
Utopian visions always fail.


john o
10 days ago
Deserts are nature's way of telling you not to put a million people here.

Experimental Drug Deaths Russel Brand Joe Rogan JRE Clips

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/txrrK2VKefw

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/postmarket-drug-safety-information-patients-and-providers/vioxx-rofecoxib-questions-and-answers#:~:text=Vioxx%20is%20a%20COX%2D2,adults%2C%20and%20painful%20menstrual%20cycles.

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+many+people+did+Vioxx+kill%3F&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS856US856&oq=how+many+people+did+Vioxx+kill%3F&aqs=chrome..69i57.7735j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#ip=1

Irrational humans

I would have thought that a deadly pandemic would have united the human race to a common cause to defeat an enemy killing so many people.  However, instead of the pandemic joining us, it divided us even further.  

The evidence shows that the vaccine reduces your overall chances of dying by a considerable amount.  Nevertheless, I daily see attacks on the vaccine as if it were some sort of plague.   People have a right to make poor choices, but the amount of misinformation is vast, which affects people's ability to make decisions.

If COVID had a smallpox death rate then I don't think there would be any argument.  Everybody would be lining up for the vaccine, regardless of any potential side effects.  However, a death rate of 1% (or less) is still pretty significant if you or a loved one is the one who dies.

This has caused me to reflect on why humans are so irrational.  I am seeing what I think is a common factor in how people make decisions.  This ties into politics.  I have long noticed people are much more intense about the things that they are opposed to.  I am calling this the "boogeyman factor."   The thinking is that those people over there are going to do something that we don't like so we are going to fight them no matter what.  People naturally focus more on adverse outcomes because fear is the most powerful motivator.  On the other hand, if you are a happy person who has few worries, which is almost no one, then you might not have much need for politics.

In our current era, we have become very tribal, with no middle ground or nuance.   Ask anyone, regardless of party, about politics and they will name at least one evil person that needs to be defeated.  It is human nature to need an enemy that we can fight, and in recent years we will vilify just about anyone.

When it comes to the vaccine there are quite a few "boogeymen", whether that be Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, "big pharma", or the government.  There are a great many people who are thoroughly convinced that evil forces are trying to hurt us, by one means or another, so they are unwilling even to consider the vaccine because it comes from an evil source.

Once people make up their minds, confirmation bias becomes very strong.  They will look only at evidence that supports their position while ignoring evidence to the contrary.

--
Best wishes,

John Coffey

Collective Stupidity -- How Can We Avoid It?

This is an interesting discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25kqobiv4ng

Lex Fridman statement on dangers of AI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7vcA91Ec-c

Prince Harry doesn’t understand 1st Amendment

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rOALCY5BRlo

Republican questions why Hunter Biden hasn’t been prosecuted yet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKrx0RtYoww&t=14s

An expression of injustice

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Q4q0dwpwl60

Is inequity the same as injustice?

Bill Maher - Origins of covid #shorts

https://youtube.com/shorts/whm2_-ljzAY?feature=share

Brian Cranston ‘insults half the country’

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/we00gi5j2gw

Adverse Reactions from vaccines

Two days ago, MP Andrew Bridgen gave a passionate speech in the British Parliament about the harm caused by COVID-19 vaccines and made statistical claims that a person was more likely to be harmed by the vaccines than the disease they are trying to prevent.  This speech was followed by a rebuttal from another Member of Parliament.

The speech was replayed on Dr. John Campbell's Youtube channel.  The comment section from his video was at least a hundred to one in support of the anti-vaccine position.  I tried to add my own comments, but they were apparently deleted, twice.

There is a big misunderstanding about what is meant by Adverse Events and the systems in place to report them.  If you get a vaccine and then die in an auto accident, that doesn't mean that one event caused the other.  People are claiming that thousands of people have been killed by the COVID vaccine because they assume that all adverse events were induced by vaccination.  However, if you give the vaccine to hundreds of millions of people, some of them were going to have adverse events regardless of whether they were vaccinated or not.  This is especially true of the elderly and people living in nursing homes.

I have looked at several peer-reviewed scientific studies on the safety of mRNA vaccines.  The vaccines are not completely risk-free, but the rate of adverse events attributable to the vaccine is very low.  The rate of myocarditis is about 1 in 50,000.  Roughly 90% of these cases were mild and easily treatable.  According to one study, you were about a thousand times more likely to get myocarditis from the COVID-19 disease than you were from the vaccine.

A study claimed that the rate of excess deaths from the COVID-19 vaccine is about 1 in a million.  Such a low number might be considered random noise.  This is roughly the same chance of you being hit by lightning this year.  In your lifetime, you have a 1 in 93 chance of dying in an automobile accident.

The data actually shows that you are significantly less likely to die if you are vaccinated.  This is the bottom line when it comes to vaccine safety.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status?country=~All+ages

The Truth About Climate Change

'Did Dr. Fauci Ever Explain To You Why He Didn't Believe The Virus Came From The Wuhan Lab?'

Lying Liars

11106 Southmost Blvd - Google Maps

I tried to find the southernmost area of Texas available on Google Street View.  I was curious as to what it would look like.  I found a border fence.  I expected the fence to be right on the border, but it is not.  The Rio Grande is on the border. 

https://www.google.com/maps/@25.8615366,-97.3771361,3a,90y,44.53h,97.14t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sHXo5hjQlvIVfyr4zrVu4pw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

As much as I favor a border wall, the fence is an ominous-looking sight. 

Going Forward

I have reached an age where I might only have 20 years left.  Possibly much less if I develop a major health problem.  If I try to live healthy, then I might live another 30 years or even longer.  Regardless, everybody comes to a point in their life where the road ahead looks shorter than the road behind. Eventually, that road is short enough that no matter how distant, the end is still in view.  This has a way of focussing the mind that wasn't there before.

This causes me to be pretty contemplative about what it all means.  I define my own life in terms of the things that I find valuable, and I'm not worried about any of the choices that I have made.

However, I look at humanity and I feel that in many ways we are worse off.  We face many crises.  In the worst-case scenario, we could get into another World War, with the possible use of nuclear weapons.  Or disease could rear its ugly head again and the next pandemic could be far worse.

However, I think that the more likely danger is financial.  Our government is so far in debt that we are rapidly going bankrupt, and this is a disaster from which we may never recover.  Other countries have serious financial problems as well.  Meanwhile, the cost of everything like housing, medicine, and education are becoming too much for people to afford.

I am very concerned about how divided we are.  We can't agree on basic facts.  It used to be that this country had certain founding principles that everyone agreed on, such as free speech.  However, there is no longer any common ground.  It used to be that no matter how much people disagreed, there still was respect for each other as fellow citizens.  Now your opinion can cost you your job, your safety, and maybe even your life.

Objective truth no longer exists.  People don't even try.  We are in a post-truth age where people believe whatever sounds good, and then claim that their belief is scientific.  Either the human race has become much more delusional, or it was never very rational to begin with.

I consider it my birthright to live in a free country.  Unfortunately, the world now is very different from the one I was born in.  We have long abandoned any notion of constitutional government with limits on its power.  Where this will lead us I don't know, but probably not someplace good.

Conservatives MUST Support Trans Youth If....

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/CYcJ0ZR8MvY

​John Coffey
28 seconds ago
What a load of crap. When was a child I had no clue about anything.


I don't support people's delusion that they are something that they are not. If I were to surgically alter myself to look like a dog, that would not make me a dog, no matter how much I wanted to be a dog.

This is all about forcing people to accept BS as a way of politically dividing the country. You can't force me to lie about your gender.

What Should You Do If Your Country Is Invaded? [Shorts]

https://youtube.com/shorts/uGdWMUgfiL8?feature=share

Scammers are now using AI to sound like family members. It’s working. - The Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/05/ai-voice-scam/

Konstantin Kisin on Woke Culture

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fE5T08fOF_w

Tucker Carlson: Here is the truth

I would really like to trust Tucker Carlsen, but I can't.   He repeatedly engages in conspiracy theories.  His modus operandi is to spin partial truths to outrageous levels and then claim that there is a conspiracy to hide the truth.

The events of January 6th were terrible and by definition an insurrection.  People on the right who I would normally respect have tried to spin this as a peaceful protest.  Maybe for some, but it took a violent riot to break into the capital.

This stuff is ILLEGAL in Japan but OK in America!

A day in the life of a childless man!

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/GPcfGRtQRnA

Ha!

COVID Numbers are down

The COVID numbers were somewhat steady for months, but have turned downward.  We have gone from about 500 deaths per day, which seemed significant to me, to only about a hundred.

I was at the Columbus, Indiana hospital yesterday when they dropped their mask mandate.

Does this mean the Pandemic is over?  Not for some people, but the rate of the disease doesn't seem very threatening right now.

This is not what I thought would happen.  COVID is very good at both spreading and mutating, and given the number of people who aren't fully vaccinated, I thought that we would be dealing with this for many years.

I used to watch "Physics Girl" on Youtube.  Her Long COVID has become so severe that it has become life-threatening.  This is from an infection that she had eight months ago.

The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan? - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/

School board: Resign or be Arrested

On Sun, Mar 5, 2023 at 7:15 PM Albert wrote:
>
> https://youtube.com/shorts/qPEVM6A2xEw?feature=share

You know the saying, "Trust, but verify?"

The video gives the impression that child pornography is given to children.

It is helpful to have context.   The book in question is

https://www.amazon.com/642-Tiny-Things-Write-About/dp/1452142173

Mayor Craig Shubert made the statement during Monday night's board of education meeting after multiple parents complained about the content of some writing prompts contained in a book called "642 Things to Write About" provided to high school students who are taking a college credit course called Writing in the Liberal Arts II.

The book contains prompts such as, "write a sermon for a beloved preacher who has been caught in a sex scandal," "describe your favorite part of a man's body using only verbs," "choose how you will die," and "write an X-rated Disney scenario," according to Cleveland.com.

Other prompts asked students to "write a sex scene you wouldn't show your mom" and then "rewrite the sex scene from above into one that you'd let your mom read." It also asked students to drink a beer and "write about the taste" and to list what television shows would be on their DVR list if they were serial killers.

The book also contained less provocative prompts such as describing the worst Thanksgiving dish or writing about the perfect day as an astronaut.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/essentially-child-pornography-ohio-mayor-asks-school-board-resign-over-n1279277

Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh Tuesday released her decision, along with a blistering rebuke of the mayor in a six-page report detailing her office's investigation into the false claim and the scores of threats against school board members that followed.

The report concluded that the book — which contains no pictures, drawings or graphics — is not pornographic.

https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2021/11/16/prosecutor-hudson-mayor-craig-shubert-school-board-no-charges-642-things-to-write-about-book/6401620001/

The school's principal, Brian Wilch, said at the board meeting that the school learned about the prompts last Friday.

"We did not exercise due diligence when we reviewed this resource and as a result, we overlooked several writing prompts among the 642 that are not appropriate for our high school audience," he said at the meeting.

"We feel terrible. At no time were any of these inappropriate prompts selected or discussed but still they were there and they were viewable and you can't unsee them. So for this oversight, we did issue an apology today to our students' parents."

The principal said the school is in the process of collecting the book from students.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/essentially-child-pornography-ohio-mayor-asks-school-board-resign-over-n1279277

This almost looks like a political stunt, but I am not saying that it is.

In my opinion, high school students taking college-level courses are probably mature enough to deal with a book that has some text inappropriate for their age level.  The teachers could even point out that some parts are inappropriate and are not part of their assignments.

Of course, there may be better books.

--
Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

It's time to leave earth.

Faraday Cage Physics EXPLAINED using 1843 Ice Pail Experiment and History

This topic interests me because I wonder what we would need to protect ourselves from an EMP attack. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVDCf9sz3fw

How I see the US after living in Europe for 5 years

Prelude to War

The Late Bronze Age Collapse was a widespread economic crisis from about 1200 to 1150 BC.  It happened because many countries ranging from Lybia and Egypt to the eastern Mediterranean were dependent upon trade with each other and war broke out disrupting that trade.

World War I may have been the most pointless war ever. A combination of an arms race between nations, conflicts in the Balkans, and military alliances created a situation where war was inevitable. Then the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand set off a conflict between Austria and Serbia. Other nations felt compelled to join because of their alliances. The war ended after 4 years and around 17 million military deaths.

Disease and war go hand in hand. Roughly two-thirds of the 620,000 military deaths from the American Civil War were due to disease. The Spanish Flu that killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide was spread by soldiers traveling between the World War I battlefields and their home countries.  The devastation from the disease was so great that it is partially responsible for ending the war.

We could be on the precipice of another world war.  China has made its intentions toward Taiwan clear, while the U.S. has promised to help defend Taiwan.  China has been very aggressive in violating the territorial waters of its neighbors by claiming ownership of the South China Sea and building artificial islands there and putting military bases on those islands.  China has also been aggressive in its economic alliances with other countries, often forcing them into deals favorable to China.  They will offer loans, and when countries can't pay back the loans, China will take over small parts of the countries such as vital seaports as part of a loan restructuring.

Meanwhile, Russia has invaded Ukraine, suspends participation in the last remaining nuclear treaty with the United States, and threatened to use nuclear weapons.  Putin has claimed part of Ukraine as Russian territory and has promised to use nuclear weapons to defend that territory.  The United States has given Ukraine $75 billion in assistance, making the United States a participant in the war.  Nine other countries are also giving aid to Ukraine.  

As a result of all this, China and Russia have increased their military and economic trade with each other.  Iran is also helping Russia.

Putin has claimed repeatedly that he is willing to negotiate an end to the war, requiring territorial concessions by Ukraine, but reportedly the United States has urged Ukraine to reject any agreement and fight on.

Russia's invasion was partially sparked by Ukrainian wishes to join NATO.  Russia was unwilling to tolerate a potentially hostile NATO in its backyard.  However, such an alliance was not in any way imminent.  It would have been a long way off.  I also think that Ukraine should have the right to form alliances for its own protection.

As much as I think that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is wrong, I don't believe that the war in Ukraine is in the national interest of the United States.  We are spending our treasure, and risking a possible World War if not a nuclear conflict over a country that is known for its corruption and human rights abuses.  I believe that Ukraine should have the right to defend its territory, but the country has very little impact on the United States.

I understand the desire to stand up to bullies and injustice.  However, going to war against a nuclear power, and a possible psychopath with his finger on the nuclear button should give us pause.  We could have negotiated a settlement months ago, and no matter how unjust it may seem, we should still do so.

Nobody suspected that Pearl Harbor would happen until it did.  The same thing could be said about 9-11.  It would only take one incident for events to spiral out of control, and we could find ourselves in a war that would cost tens of millions of lives.

We could be especially vulnerable to an EMP attack which would disable everything electrical that is not specially shielded. It wouldn't take much to send us back to the stone age.

The HORRIFYING Hunt of the Bison

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hoGUm_ZA1Ew

The Gin Craze

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5mVVDnzoFhM

The Case for Defending Scott Adams

I think that Scott Adams went too far.

Scott Adams

I would love for Scott Adams to be able to redeem himself, but I don't think he is helping himself. He comes off as fringe.

People are only watching because Scott Adams is a great satirist who made a great comic strip. However, he overestimates his importance and his ability to hold an audience. He sees himself as a spokesman over controversial issues, but his meandering rants are at least partially sleep-inducing. I think that he will find himself rapidly becoming less relevant. The more people talk about race, the more we build walls between people. I agree with Morgan Freeman who said that we should stop talking about it.  

Some Blacks have said worse things about Whites. I think that the best thing Scott Adams could do is to claim that he was engaging in Satire and that people didn't get the joke.

He doesn't think that he made a mistake.  He should acknowledge that he did something wrong.