Jabbed, Stabbed, And Confabbed

"We are not against vaccines and in no way anti-vaxxers, rather, we support vaccines once developed properly."     - Paul Alexander

 

I have heard many reasons that people are giving for getting jabbed for coronavirus. 

I find them as odd and troubling as the celebrity endorsements and government lotteries that cajole people into buying in to today's medical tyranny.

These justifications are an understandable result of being terrorized for over a year by the unholy trinity of government, big business, and relentless mainstream media coverage. 

Fear and anxiety rule the day.

Here are some of the reasons I have heard from both the news and personally.

"I want to travel with my daughter."

"I want to see my family."

"I want to see my friends."

"It is required for my job."

"It's mandatory at the university."

"So we can 'open up'."

"I don't want to be an anti-science selfish outcast."

"It will kill my grandma if I don't get it."

"I want to go to the pub." 

The way I see it, there is only one single reason one should get any vaccine: 

"To lessen the suffering resulting from serious disease."

This is not a reason I have frequently heard in the push to vaccinate the entire human population. 

If it is mentioned, it is an afterthought.

We have every reason, given past transgressions, to distrust just about everything corporations, their media, and any government (especially the US govt) has to say about anything.

When did we become so trusting?

"Big Pharma's actions protect industry profits over public safety, far too often."

Now Big Corrupted Pharma is telling us that "there is no alternative" to their questionable complex and essentially untested solutions. 

TINA. I have heard that before.

That's the official catch phrase of capitalism. 

When it comes to our health, I don't find that reassuring. 

There are ALWAYS alternatives, and often they are simpler, cheaper, safer, and more efficacious.

But they may not be more profitable, and therein lies the problem. 

The health of the economy is given more importance than the health of the people.

Since 2020 we have all been jabbed, as in "punched, especially with short, quick blows". 

This whole pandemic thing has stabbed us in the back, then knocked us on our heels. 

The mass of humanity is reeling and grasping for the ropes of normality. 

Our thinking has been clouded by chronic fear through media-fuelled lies and censorship. 

The only reason one should have to be vaccinated is to prevent serious suffering from disease. 

Vaccines should never be used as forced bargaining chips to trade for rights and freedoms that never should have been taken away in the first place.

Never before has any pandemic been countered by shutting down all of society, then vaccinating every single person on Earth.  

Why now?

As usual, follow the money.

All pharmaceutical companies are racketeering corporations. You only have to look at their massive out of court settlements and fines for criminal and civil offences. 

Here are just a few recent examples:

GlaxoSmithKline (2012) settlement $3 billion ($1bn criminal, $2 bn civil: False Claims Act).

Pfizer (2009) settlement $2.3 bn (False Claims Act).

Johnson & Johnson (2013) settlement $2.2 bn (False Claims Act).

Abbott Labs (2012) settlement $1.5bn (False Claims Act)

Eli Lilly (2009) settlement $1.4 bn (False Claims Act).

TAP Pharmaceutical Products (2001) $875 million (False Claims Act).

Please note: I am not an "anti-vaxer"... or at least I wasn't until the whole botched coronavirus response. 

There are valid reasons for being wary.

See here for "The Long Shadow of the 1976 Swine Flu Vaccine ‘Fiasco’".

The only victims of that almost-pandemic were the 45 million people who received "unnecessary vaccinations", and the thousands of vaccinated that experienced serious adverse side effects, including nerve damage and death. 

 

Shutting Google Ads Down

I don't have any advertising on my blog, nor will I ever have. I dislike advertising wherever it pops up, and it pops up everywhere. 

That is why I have a new obsession when I am on line. It may be as useless as a finger in a leaky dike, but it feels good.

When I navigate to web pages I am interested in, I take a moment to scroll down and close every single Google ad.

How many will there be? It varies, but there are usually lots. All Google. They are taking over, and I am not the only one that doesn't like that.

They are collecting data on how people interact with their advertising, so I am sending a message. 

"You suck, and the advertisers using you suck. I shut you all down."

I am not sure of the degree of usefulness of this practice, but it feels very satisfying.

Google, I am shutting you down, one crappy ad at a time!

I just look for that little x in the top right corner of any Google ad and close, close, close to my brain's content.

I can't make them pay taxes, and I can't break them up into manageable bits, but I can keep them off my blog, and I can shut them down in my online world.

Can I do more to hit this monopoly in the extra large pocketbook? Yes, I think so.

Unfortunately, this blogging platform is owned by them, and I would like to do something about that some day.

Have you migrated a blog from Blogger to another platform, like Wordpress? Was it daunting? 

For now I will be content to continue shutting down their annoying advertising, but I am keeping them in my "must change this" category when it comes to blog hosting.

Strawberries Over A Full Moon

One of the joys of early summer in Nova Scotia is fresh, local strawberries. Red and plump, juicy and sweet.

We bought a flat (8 pints or 4.5 L) of strawberries from "The Valley" in the neighbouring county. 

Beautiful berries at a good price means doing some early season processing. Last year we made jam which turned out really nice. We still have two jars left.

This year Linda wants to pick some rhubarb from our neighbour's ample patch and make strawberry/rhubarb jam. 

It wasn't coincidental that we bought our berries on the day of the first full moon of summer - it was a planned celebration.

Tonight, at 9:30 pm here, we watched the Strawberry Moon rise over the woods in the SE, and savoured a bowl of the first berries of summer. 

It was a berry bash with a light show to boot, and it was magical.

Happy summer, people. I don't know about you, but we are going to enjoy it like it is our last.

The Profits Must Go On

The scenario in the comic above doesn't seem so much funny as simply a sad fact.

The capitalist crisis of 2008, when we started this blog, was bad enough. Fast forward to 2021 and the centre is flying apart in every direction.

Between then and now (1789 posts later), it felt like The-System-To-Which-There-Is-No-Alternative (or "resistance is futile" as the Borg said in Star Trek) was moving in for the final take-over of the planet. 

I could feel something had changed, my spider senses tingled ominously. 

What did it for me is that I could see that the powerful and deluded weren't even trying to hide their lies and propaganda any more. 

Now, they were manifesting their twisted reality shift by speaking it out loud as if it had already happened, thus using a good technique for an evil purpose.

Now they are offering us million dollar lotteries and other goodies to shuffle through cattle gates, tickets to the New-And-Improved-End-Of-The-World Spectacular clutched in our bony fingers.

With great fanfare the big Opening Up is about to be unleashed upon the world no matter what, and it's going to be Great.

They promise - if we give them just one more multi-trillion dollar chance, this time capitalism will get it right. 

In the meantime, don't worry - keep shopping. 

To the end.

Happy Solstice, everyone. 

The Thousand Acre Woods

What does one do when the garden is in, home responsibilities are taken care of, and a stretch of glorious down time comes into view?

This is what I do - go for a hike in the thousand acre woods.

Behind my home at the edge of the old field, the proverbial deep, dark forest begins. I stand in front of it, a wall of green rising into the sky above.

I feel like knocking respectfully before I proceed.

Step into these trees and the contrast is stark. On a hot sunny day it is dark, cool, and soothing in here. 

I am instantly distant from all that ails the world. 

Transported, everything slips away.

I move freely with wonder and delight in my natural state.

Unbound. 

Here one can be alive in the purest sense, witness to Nature's silent and expressive language. 

In the thousand acre woods I honour my tree nature, my water nature, my rock nature, my mosquito nature.

When my hike is over, I step out of the forest "a new man", as my dad used to say, ready for whatever life brings.

Cut The Crap

Crap defines our modern crapitalist age, but I have never specifically defined it for myself, or NBA readers. 

So I took a crack at defining it in a way that made sense for me.

Crap

(n) 1. a pile of shit (literally and figuratively) 2. worthless junk and/or pointless things and activities 3. the technical term for anything that doesn't have survival value.

Example: "The stuff in most people's garages is crap - real piles of waste."

 

(adj) (crappy) worthless, terrible, shoddy, pointless, etc... 

Example: "Our crappy system is going to kill all life on this planet."

See decrapping (v). making something simple and beautiful again.

Example: "Wow. Your house looks great after your major decrapping project." 

We are going to need to cut the crap, and change the crapitalist system that spews it out endlessly, if we are to save ourselves.

No one needs more waste. 

No one.

None.

 

This Is Your Brain

This is your brain.

This is consumerism.

This is your brain on consumerism.

Any questions?

The Crack Cocaine of Consumerism

Most addictive drugs flood the brain with dopamine. Shopping does the same thing, but online shopping does it more, making it more addictive.

Online shopping can stimulate as much or more dopamine production in our brains as in-store shopping. If shopping at the store is heroin, online shopping is heroin laced with fentanyl. 

In some cases digital consumerism can cause twice as much neurotransmitter as shopping bricks and mortar, making it twice as dangerous.

Researchers are finding that attaining a reward is not the main thing that boosts the brain chemical that regulates our impulse to seek out pleasure. 

Anticipation of reward also releases a rush of feel good chemical.

Ordering and waiting for a package builds anticipation. Anticipation causes dopamine release. Dopamine makes us feel good.

But it is not all good. 

A dopamine rush can negatively affect our ability to control our impulses. This can be dangerous while spending money. 

The report entitled "Digital Dopamine," presented results from interviews and surveys of 1,680 shoppers from the US, UK, Brazil, and China in 2014. 
From the report: 

 

"Seventy-six percent of people in the US, 72 percent in the UK, 73 percent in Brazil, and 82 percent in China say they are more excited when their online purchases arrive in the mail than when they buy things in store.”

The bottom line is that online shopping is the crack cocaine of consumerism. That's the real reason they have been relentlessly pushing us toward it for decades.

What isn't acknowledged enough is that consumerism on steroids comes with dangerous side effects for consumers, communities, and the entire planet. 

If we don't break free of the advertising/marketing-consumerism complex we'll get stuck seeking selfish pleasures instead of helping others and developing our own creative gifts and moral character. 

Only you can set yourself free.

Once you know more, 

you'll say, 

"No more!"

Dirty Tricks Dept.

“Disinformation Playbook.” It sounds sinister, and it is.

This disturbing term was coined by the Union of Concerned Scientists 50 years ago, although corporate malfeasance has been a thing for a lot longer. 

How much longer? Corporations have been around since medieval times, so about that long.

The Catholic Church is thought by some to be the first ever corporation, and their dirty tricks across the centuries to this very day are infamous.

Malfeasance is synonymous with misconduct, misbehaviour, misdoing, and wrongdoing, all of which are things too many people are willing to do to make a buck. Or win souls. Or both.

The "Disinformation Playbook" describes the strategies dirty tricks departments use to manipulate, attack, or create doubt about science and the scientists conducting important research that is unfavourable to their interests.

More broadly, these tactics are used against any and all truth-tellers that threaten power and profits, regardless of who or where they are.

Here are the 5 parts of the Dirty Tricks Playbook, with an example of each from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

The Fake – Conduct counterfeit science and try to pass it off as legitimate research.

"In an attempt to reduce litigation costs, Georgia-Pacific secretly ran a research program intended to raise doubts about the dangers of asbestos and stave off regulatory efforts to ban the chemical. The company used knowingly flawed methodologies in its science as well as publishing its research in scientific journals without adequately disclosing the authors’ conflicts of interest."

The Blitz – Harass scientists who speak out with results reviews inconvenient for industry.

"Rather than honestly dealing with its burgeoning concussion problem, the National Football League (NFL) went after the reputation of the first doctor to link the sport to the degenerative brain disease he named Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy."

The Diversion – Manufacture uncertainty about science where little or none exists.

"The top lobbyist for the fossil fuel industry in the western United States secretly ran more than a dozen front groups in an attempt to undermine forward-looking policy on climate change and clean technologies."

The Screen – Buy credibility through alliances with academia or professional societies.

"Coca-Cola quietly funded a research institute out of the University of Colorado designed to persuade people to focus on exercise, not calorie intake, for weight loss."

The Fix – Manipulate government officials or processes to influence policy inappropriately. 

"After meeting with and listening to talking points from chlorpyrifos producer Dow Chemical Company, the EPA announced it would be reversing its decision to ban the chemical that is linked to neurological development issues in children."

These are only some of many, many examples of how corporations corrupt all the checks and balances that are supposed to keep us safe and healthy.

In a society where power and profits are paramount over the health of people and the planet, such a playbook should come as no surprise. 

We are constantly bombarded by religious, business, and government misinformation, and have been for a very long time. 

Learning more can help us avoid companies we would rather not support with our purchasing choices. 

Dirty tricks should not be rewarded, or covered up.

Sipping And Dripping

Hummingbirds humming

and 

sip, sip, sipping.

Rain falling

and 

drip, drip, dripping.

Fixing Is Fun

Not a pretty repair, but it works.

A great way to economize and extend the life of things is to fix and repair them when they break down or wear out. It makes best use of resources, and lowers the cost per use of the item.

Cost per use is a good way to think about the things one buys. It helps in comparing the expense of individual things, and puts that expense into perspective. 

The idea is to make things last, then fix or repair if they break, then make them last even longer. 

The longer things last the more we can use them, and the less the cost per use will be.

One problem with wealth is that as humans get more of it they tend to fix and repair less and replace more. Things that could be fixed are tossed instead.

My trimming scissors are an example of the many repairs I have made to things around the house. As far as repairs go it is somewhat crude, but so far it has been working perfectly. 

Very wabi-sabi. 

New scissors: $25 - 80 dollars. True cost including externalities? Much more.

Materials for repair: One free rubber band I took off some produce and threw into my resource drawer in the kitchen.

Fixing and repairing is a fun, creative challenge, and taking the time to do so shows an appreciation for the gifts bestowed upon us by Nature.

Seen that way, each repair is a prayer of thanks to The Mother Of Us All.