Ignore the conspiracy theories and get vaccinated

 https://www.timesnews.net/opinion/editorials/editorial-ignore-the-conspiracy-theories-and-get-vaccinated/article_7fae8cac-5c2b-11ec-9aa1-7bf340463674.html

The conspiracy theories about COVID and its vaccines run the gamut of what sounds possible but isn’t, and fantasy. They include that the disease is being manipulated by the deep state, is a plot by Big Pharma or doesn’t even exist. The naysayers “believe” the vaccines can alter your DNA, cause infertility or kill or damage cells, or contain 5G tracking chips.

If you believe any of these things, it would be a waste of your time to continue reading. Have a nice day.

The rational among us know that vaccines won’t prevent you from getting any of the current COVID variations, and the same is likely true for new variations. But vaccines will prevent the vast majority from getting serious disease and dying, because at some point you’re almost assuredly going to be exposed to COVID.

Canadian COVID-19 vaccine study seized on by anti-vaxxers — highlighting dangers of early research in pandemic

 https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/covid-19-vaccine-study-omicron-anti-vaxxers-1.6315890

A Canadian study that vastly underestimated the protection COVID-19 vaccines provide against the Omicron variant has been revised — but not before it spread widely on social media by anti-vaxxers, academics and even the creators of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine.

Dr. Vinay Prasad, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of California-San Francisco, also shared it on Twitter, asking why the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC) would advise a booster for Omicron at all.

Judge errs because of bad mazel of litigant

 Rashi Sanhedrin (33a)פטור מלשלם - אלמא מה שעשה עשוי ומיהו פטור מלשלם דכיון דמומחא הוא מזלא בישא דההוא גברא גרם ליה למיטעי:

An expert dayan who errs is exempt from paying because the error was caused by the bad mazel of the litigant

למה המשגיח המליץ לתלמידו ללמוד פסיכולוגיה?

 https://www.kikar.co.il/412754.html

הוראת המשגיח הגה"צ הגרא"א דסלר לתלמידו בקשר ללימודים אקדמאים: "ראוי שתבחר בפסיכולוגיה" והסיבה לכך; והתבטאות הסבא מקלם על המושג 'חכמה בגויים' (היסטוריה)

New study finds Ivermectin ineffective in treating COVID-19

 https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-697027

Ivermectin is ineffective in preventing severe illness in COVID-19 patients, according to a new peer-reviewed study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Friday.

The open-label study examined 490 high-risk patients with COVID-19 at 20 public hospitals and a quarantine center in Malaysia. The patients were 50 years and older with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections, comorbidities and mild-to-moderate disease. The patients were split into a control group that received standard of care without Ivermectin and a group that received standard of care plus Ivermectin.

Charlie Munger on journalism: 'We have suffered a huge loss here'

 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/munger-newspapers-crazies-161659824.html

"I have my favorite crazies, and you have your favorite crazies, and we get together and all become crazier as we hire people to tell us what we want to hear," the billionaire said. "This is no substitute for Walter Cronkite and all those great newspapers of yesteryear. We have suffered a huge loss here. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s the creative destruction of capitalism, but it’s a terrible thing that’s happened to our country."

Hydroxychloroquine: A Morality Tale

 https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/hydroxychloroquine-morality-tale

Raoult is a fascinating, eccentric, theatrical figure. He couldn’t be more colorful—a maverick who delights in opposing conventional thinking, his peers, and followership in science. He has hair to his shoulders, a long, pointed beard, and looks like a medieval knight in a lab coat. He loves a fight. At 68 years of age, he rides a Harley to work. He still treats patients. He sees himself as more like a philosopher or anthropologist than a typical French scientist, and teaches epistemology, the study of how we know that we know things, to his lab scientists, He believes an ever-increasing homogeneity is ruining scientific thought. He told Paris Match:

French scientist who promoted one of Trump’s favorite coronavirus cures set to be replaced

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/didier-raoult-hydroxychloroquine/2021/09/17/a56c5bd4-1574-11ec-a019-cb193b28aa73_story.html

Many of Raoult’s colleagues disagree with his assertion that he is detached from politics. In an open letter last month, several leading French doctors condemned Raoult after he shared a conspiratorial text that implicitly called for the execution of doctors considered to be in line with government views. It followed a string of attacks by anti-vaccine activists on French vaccination centers and coronavirus testing tents over the past months.

At least 100 arrested in police crackdown on Ottawa truck blockade

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/at-least-100-arrested-in-police-crackdown-on-ottawa-truck-blockade/

Police arrested scores of demonstrators and towed away vehicles Friday in Canada’s besieged capital, and a stream of trucks started leaving under the pressure, raising authorities’ hopes for an end to the three-week protest against the country’s COVID-19 restrictions.

By evening, at least 100 people had been arrested, mostly on mischief charges, and nearly two dozen vehicles had been towed, including all of those blocking one of the city’s major streets, authorities said. One officer had a minor injury, but no protesters were hurt, interim Ottawa Police Chief Steve Bell said.

Police “continue to push forward to take control of our streets,” he said, adding: “We will work day and night until this is completed.”

Those arrested included four protest leaders. One received bail, while the others remained jailed.

Fact check: Trucker prayer circle photo from Honduras in 2020, not recent Canada protests

 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/02/18/fact-check-trucker-prayer-circle-image-honduras-2020/6843347001/

The claim: An image shows a trucker prayer circle

Amid anti-vaccine mandate protests in Canada, an image purporting to show truckers praying and holding hands has surfaced on social media.

“Truckers gather to pray for guidance and protection,” reads text in a Feb. 16 Facebook post featuring the photo, which accumulated more than 1,900 shares in two days.

“I can’t recall (Black Lives Matter) doing this during any of their protests," the post's caption reads.

COVID reinfections far higher for recovered patients who shun vaccine: Israeli study

 https://www.timesofisrael.com/covid-reinfections-far-higher-for-recovered-patients-who-shun-vaccine-israeli-study/

Israelis who recovered from COVID-19 and were vaccinated with a single dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are far better protected against reinfection than those who only have natural immunity, a large-scale Israeli study found.

The study, published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, reported those who were vaccinated after infection were 82 percent less likely to contract the virus following their initial bout.

The study also found people who received a vaccine shot after recovering from COVID-19 were 76% less likely to have a symptomatic case of coronavirus than those who were unvaccinated.

Report accuses Reform movement youth director of sexual misconduct

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/322503

The report also found that the movement had knowingly hired clergy who had been fired from congregations for sexual misconduct, but not out of a desire to shield rabbis from accountability. “Rather, these employment decisions resulted from sincerely held beliefs in redemption and the process of teshuvah,” the report says, referring to a Jewish concept akin to restorative justice.

'I Work With Love Bombing and Gaslighting Victims—Here Are My Top 5 Red Flags'

 https://www.newsweek.com/i-see-love-bombing-gaslighting-relationships-1679479

Love bombing, gaslighting, and trauma bonding are all aspects in the same continuum of an abusive relationship. I now work with clients using a combination of psychotherapy and clinical hypnotherapy, typically women involved in high conflict divorces. In my experiences treating clients in abusive relationships, whether it's physical, sexual or emotional abuse, at the bottom of it, you are going to find these tactics.

The Canadian trucker convoy is an unpopular uprising

 https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22926134/canada-trucker-freedom-convoy-protest-ottawa

But while the protests are generating a lot of noise and attention, the eruption actually points up a counterintuitive fact: The Canadian far right is weak and ineffectual, especially when it comes to pandemic restrictions.

Canada’s provinces have generally employed strict Covid-19 measures such as school mask mandates and vaccine passports, including during the recent omicron surge. They have enjoyed broad public support in doing so; even the strictest restrictions are less controversial in Canada than in the US. The current demonstration is quite unpopular with the general public, divisive even inside the center-right Conservative party.

This doesn’t mean the movement will accomplish nothing. It has already contributed to a revolt against the Conservative party’s leader and is serving as an important organizing node for far-rightists. The border crossing blockage is putting more stress on the US-Canada supply chain, costing (by one estimation) $300 million a day in economic damage. Internationall