Author: Blazingcatfur

Lockdowns put us at the mercy of disease

We are experiencing a predictable perturbation in our ecological relationship with the organisms that are capable of causing serious disease

Fans of Little Women will know that Beth March died of the lingering complications of scarlet fever, but who would have thought that this bacterial disease would be in the headlines in 2022? Is this because we have left children who were born during, or just ahead of, the Covid pandemic with an “immunity debt”?

It is now widely acknowledged that lockdowns caused harm to our already stretched health service, with many of the direct consequences such as increased cancer and cardiovascular deaths being reported regularly. Most of these harms were entirely predictable. Less obvious was how some of the more indirect consequences of lockdown might play out, such as the effect on our relationship with other pathogens circulating within our communities.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China eats weird animals disease"

A Computer Can Now Write Your College Essay — Maybe Better Than You Can

We fed ChatGPT, OpenAI’s new natural language tool, college essay questions for the 2022-2023 academic year. Here’s what it wrote.

OpenAI debuted its latest language model, called ChatGPT, to the public last week. With a simple log in, anyone can talk to the AI for free, and, unlike its predecessor InstructGPT, ChatGPT can answer follow-up questions, admit mistakes, reject inappropriate requests and challenge inaccuracies. The buzzy new AI has already inspired a flurry of articles about what it can—and can’t—do, from creating a new language for slime beings called Glorp, to detecting vulnerabilities in code, to writing a biblical verse about how to remove a peanut butter sandwich from a VCR.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"AI - Artificial Intelligence", WTF?

Putting Out Fires – A night in the life of a Portland, Oregon, cop

It’s 9:45 on a Friday night, and I am just now sitting down in the roll-call room. I grab a back-row seat and look around. It’s not a full house. My ten fellow officers and I don’t even fill the last two rows of chairs. With the 11 of us patrolling one-third of the city, we are five officers below our staffing minimum. Three years ago, 18 officers would have covered the same area.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Depolicing", "Progressive Paradise"

EU corruption scandal: European Parliament offices searched

Belgian investigators searched offices at the European Parliament in Brussels on Monday, in a probe into alleged bribes from World Cup host Qatar.

It was the 20th search carried out since Friday and the parliament president, Roberta Metsola, warned MEPs that “democracy is under attack”.

Belgian police have charged four people, among them European Parliament Vice-President Eva Kaili, a Greek MEP.

Qatar has denied any wrongdoing and Ms Kaili’s lawyer says she is innocent.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inEuropean Union, Qatar

Elon Musk’s Twitter Files Dump

Elon Musk’s release of internal Twitter correspondence around the censoring of the New York Post’s blockbuster “Hunter Biden laptop” story merely confirms what most knew already — that Twitter under Jack Dorsey and Parag Agrawal was staffed with Democratic Party partisans who censored information they thought would damage their cause.

In a Tweet thread on Dec. 2, journalist Matt Taibbi exposes the smoking gun — the frantic attempts to claim without evidence that any reference to the NY Post’s story had to be banned from the platform because it might have come from “hacked materials.” This, we can see now, was never seriously believed, even inside Twitter, as the email exchanges make clear.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inTwitter

Fake covers of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo circulating in Russia

On November 28, the FRANCE 24 Observers team noticed an image of a fake cover of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo circulating on Twitter along with a caption in English that said, “France: Nazism is associated with Ukraine. Charlie Hebdo rolled out a special issue about the adventures of Ukrainian Nazis in Qatar. It’s a satire on the recent incident in Doha, where 3 drunken tourists painted Hitler’s moustache on the symbol of the World Cup.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Ukraine - Russia"

Pope warns he has seen ‘omens of even greater destruction and desolation’ for mankind

The Pope has offered a harrowing vision of the future, saying he has seen signs of an even darker time for humanity.

At a Mass at the Vatican, the Pope, 85, said on Sunday that he has a dire vision for the world with ‘omens of even greater destruction and desolation’.

The Mass was commemorating the feast of Our Lady Guadalupe, which fell yesterday. It commemorates the appearance of the Virgin Mary to a young man, Saint Juan Diego, in 1531 in Mexico City. The day is a national holiday in Mexico.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inPope Francis

Lockerbie: An atrocity that caused heartbreak around the world

It’s a simple thing, reading out a list of names, but its impact in a courtroom 22 years ago was devastating and unforgettable. Soon it could happen again.

There were 270 of them. The youngest victims were just babies. The vast majority, 190, were American; 43 were British. The rest came from 19 other countries. This atrocity caused heartbreak around the world.

The list was read out in a converted US military base at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, where through a deal negotiated in part by Nelson Mandela, a specially convened Scottish court was hearing the case against two Libyans accused of the Lockerbie bombing.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Islamophobia", Islam, Islam and violence, Islamization of the West

FTX fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried BEGS Bahamas judge to grant him bail because he’s too ‘depressed and vegan for jail’

A Bahamian judge is allowing Sam Bankman-Fried’s parents to leave court in the middle of his arraignment hearing to retrieve anti-depressants, Adderall and Zyrtec.

Bankman-Fried is accused of one of the ‘biggest financial frauds in American history’ – defrauding investors out of $1.8billion by convincing them his trading platform FTX was safe to use.

He is begging for mercy – asking for $250,000 cash bond – and claiming he can’t be thrown in jail because he is depressed and follows a vegan diet.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Digital Currency", Crime, WTF?

Oh, So That’s Why Biden Took the Deal to Get a WNBA Star Out of Russia

As we’ve noted here, when it comes to The Art of the Deal, Biden doesn’t have it, which was painfully exposed when he pulled the trigger on a bad deal to get back WNBA star Brittney Griner who has been detained in Russia for months. In February, Griner was jailed on drug charges, with vape charges containing cannabis oil on her person. It was for medicinal purposes, but it’s illegal in Russia. A months-long legal circus carried allegations that the Biden White House either didn’t know or care that an American was being detained overseas. It also didn’t help that Griner’s detention occurred just as the Biden administration and the rest of the West slapped sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"President Dementia AKA Joe Biden"

Nolte: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Climate Change Doc Opens to Humiliating $81 Per Screen

Did you know Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Lunatic) has a new movie out? Don’t feel bad. Neither did anyone else. Her Climate Change (which is a hoax) documentary grossed just $81 per screen.

Director Rachel Lears’ To the End screened at Sundance, features AOC and made its weekend debut on 120 screens.

On those 120 screens, it grossed just $9,667, which averages to $81 per screen.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inBatshit Crazy Progressives

What a creep…

Sam Bankman-Fried claims he’s victim of anti-Semitism and that his failed crypto exchange is SOLVENT and can cover $1.8B losses

Bankman-Fried was due to give testimony today about his doomed platform before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services.

Forbes obtained a written copy of the testimony he was expected to give.

It began: ‘I would like to start by formally stating under oath: I f****d up. I know that it doesn’t mean much to say that I’m sorry. And so I’m dedicating as much of myself as I can to do the right thing by customers.

‘When all is said and done, I’ll judge myself primarily by one metric: whether I have eventually been able to make customers whole. If I fail our customers in this regard, I have failed myself.’

But over the next 18 pages, he blamed anti-Semitism, lawyers and even his own ex-girlfriend for the breakdown of his company. 

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Digital Currency", Crime

‘This truck can’t do normal truck things’: YouTube star says towing with Ford’s new electric pickup is a ‘total disaster’ in viral video

It’s no secret that electric cars are becoming more and more popular these days. But will the EV trend carry over to pickup trucks?

According to Tyler Hoover — who runs the Hoovie’s Garage YouTube channel with 1.45 million subscribers — an electric pickup truck might not be a great option if you need to tow something.

In a viral YouTube video, Hoover tried to tow an old 1930s Ford pickup with his brand new Ford F-150 Lightning. The test didn’t go well, as the new electric truck used up way more range than expected.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inGreen-Scam

Harry and Meghan’s UK popularity plunges following Netflix series release

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s popularity in Britain plunged as their Netflix documentary series was released, according to a YouGov poll.

Just one-third of Britons – 33 per cent – now hold a positive view of Prince Harry, while three in five, or 59 per cent, hold a negative opinion of him.

It represents a 13-point drop since November, his joint lowest score since YouGov began tracking royal favourability in 2011.

Meanwhile, almost two-thirds of the public hold a negative opinion of the Duchess, representing a seven-point drop since November.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Woke Royals"