CNN: National Guard will be deployed across Kentucky to help overwhelmed hospitals. Health care workers high-fived when they heard the news

The National Guard is being deployed to Ken-fucking-tucky to aid the state overwhelmed with Covid.

All Americans are shouldering the burden of the anti-masked, unvaccinated. That’s the dictionary definition of socialism (a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole).

The same people who scream “liberals are socialists and we must destroy them. Send us money!” are creating a socialist state.

Read the article.

Socialism is evil, until the red-states benefit (which they do more than the blue ones), then we all collectively slide the rules, move the goal posts and shrug our shoulders.

All of this shit could have been avoided!

Study: Evolution now accepted by majority of Americans

One of my biggest hopes for the pandemic was for the general public to recognize science, and how it is able to observe, predict and solve problems. It’s clear that science is all around us, in our pockets, in our environment, in our heating and cooling, in our kitchens, hospitals, planes, trains, automobiles. We are surrounded by scientific advancements.

But the scientific illiteracy created a jungle of confusion regarding the pandemic. And despite all that science has done to help everyone, even the unvaccinated, anti-mask crowd, the politics continue to restrain progress.

There’s a level of complacency among the under-educated that cannot be ignored. But here we are.

After spending the last three weeks or so North Carolina and overhearing views which people wear on their sleeves, it has become more apparent that the resistance to basic science is worse than I imagined.

The below article gave me a glimmer of hope. I must point out, though, that the foundation of my deconstructed beliefs are unconnected to whether or not evolution is true or not. I’ve read/listened to and watched many debates between the two views of evolution vs. creation/intelligent design. Any doubt that creationists cast on any part of the theory of evolution falls flat after further research.

I hold a similar view of evolution as many believers view God: it’s there whether we believe it or not. The problem with this view of God is that apart from a few observations of beauty and complexity that seem to point toward a mysterious guide, it doesn’t make it a truth. It just makes it a pattern. Science takes that pattern and gives it a more sound platform that is able to observe, predict and solve problems with a much higher track record of success than, say, a deity.

The vociferous tendency in North Carolina to attach God to Creation and Humanity is frequent. And it’s difficult at times, and promotes a level of quiet in me to just observe and listen.

Here’s a snip from the article from the University of Michigan:

“Almost twice as many Americans held a college degree in 2018 as in 1988,” said co-author Mark Ackerman, a researcher at Michigan Engineering, the U-M School of Information and Michigan Medicine. “It’s hard to earn a college degree without acquiring at least a little respect for the success of science.”

The researchers analyzed a collection of biennial surveys from the National Science Board, several national surveys funded by units of the National Science Foundations, and a series focused on adult civic literacy funded by NASA. Beginning in 1985, these national samples of U.S. adults were asked to agree or disagree with this statement: “Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals.”

The series of surveys showed that Americans were evenly divided on the question of evolution from 1985 to 2007. According to a 2005 study of the acceptance of evolution in 34 developed nations, led by Miller, only Turkey, at 27%, scored lower than the United States. But over the last decade, until 2019, the percentage of American adults who agreed with this statement increased from 40% to 54%.

The current study consistently identified religious fundamentalism as the strongest factor leading to the rejection of evolution. While their numbers declined slightly in the last decade, approximately 30% of Americans continue to be religious fundamentalists as defined in the study. But even those who scored highest on the scale of religious fundamentalism shifted toward acceptance of evolution, rising from 8% in 1988 to 32% in 2019.

Miller predicted that religious fundamentalism would continue to impede the public acceptance of evolution.

“Such beliefs are not only tenacious but also, increasingly, politicized,” he said, citing a widening gap between Republican and Democratic acceptance of evolution.

As of 2019, 34% of conservative Republicans accepted evolution compared to 83% of liberal Democrats.

OPEN-SOURCE INSULIN: BIOHACKERS AIMING FOR DISTRIBUTED PRODUCTION

Science may have figured out how to produce insulin for as low as $6/vial, but America’s stupid pharmaceutical industry may fight tooth and nail to keep the prices high.

Dumb.

Now that OIF has the science figured out, the next step is to scale it appropriately. In a presentation from 2020, Louise Lassalle, the group’s communication manager, gave a breakdown of the equipment needed to make insulin on a medium scale — in bigger batches than are possible on the benchtop, but far, far smaller than what commercial biologics plants are capable of. It’s not cheap — about $1 million worth of gear. But, that investment would produce enough insulin for 14,000 diabetics, meaning that a functioning, community-level insulin factory could conceivably be funded for about $70 per person. And that factory would produce insulin at around $6 a vial, taking into account everything from raw materials to salaries, rent, and utilities.

Granted, there are huge and potentially insurmountable legal and regulatory hurdles with this plan. It may well be that the insulin industry, with a vested interest in keeping prices high — at least in the United States — will let fly their legal dogs of war, and shut this group down if they ever get close to realizing their goal. And they’ll certainly have to deal with the Food and Drug Administration if they ever expect to actually use their insulin on humans. On the other hand, the efforts of the Open Insulin Foundation and other biohackers working on alternative sources of insulin might just win in the long run, by showing that making insulin just isn’t as hard as we’ve perhaps been lead to believe, and that maybe scaling everything up to massive proportions isn’t always in the best interests of the consumer, even if it’s profitable business.

Read this article

NYTimes interviews Covid Freedom Fighters losing the war but winning the battle

I watched this video over the weekend and just saw that it was available via YouTube. The content shows people intubated and concerned over their health. But they chose not to hear the information about masks and vaccines.

One man had this response:

Christopher Green, 53, told The Times that he opted not to get vaccinated to protect his individual freedoms.

“I probably should have had a little healthier fear,” he said. “It needs to be taken more seriously. I mean, I don’t know how close I am to being a lot worse.” Green died nine days after he was interviewed by The Times.

At one point, Green said, “I’m more of a libertarian and I don’t like being told what I have to do. I’m still not completely 100% sold on the inoculation.”

Libertarian is the equivalent of a horrendously gullible person hiding behind a word that veils and distracts from his ultra conservatism. See Rand Paul. It’s like when Christians started the saying they are followers of Christ, because “Christian” had become such a pejorative term.

Read here for more.