Mearsheimer on the state of play in Ukraine

As of mid year 2023

Looking Ahead

I will address two main questions.

First, is a meaningful peace agreement possible? 

My answer is no. 

We are now in a war where both sides – Ukraine and the West on one side and Russia on the other – see each other as an existential threat that must be defeated. Given maximalist objectives all around, it is almost impossible to reach a workable peace treaty. Moreover, the two sides have irreconcilable differences regarding territory and Ukraine’s relationship with the West. The best possible outcome is a frozen conflict that could easily turn back into a hot war. The worst possible outcome is a nuclear war, which is unlikely but cannot be ruled out.  

Second, which side is likely to win the war? 

Russia will ultimately win the war, although it will not decisively defeat Ukraine. 

Estimating your risks

With    Hubbub

Check your health risks
Get personalized alerts

Need to give up some personal information but it might be a useful tool 

Some supplements that might be good for COVID

Suggested options

With some links to studies 

Reasons to remain COVID cautious

Including quite a few links

We wish things were different. We are dealing with the world how it is instead of how we wish it were.  We know that the world has moved on and is pretending that the data is not real, but the data is real.

…

The government is not going to infect our children. 

We'll believe the scientists, the actuaries and the insurance company risk advisers, and watch how the billionaires clean the air at Davos way more than paid off politicians and political appointees.

But the people that are manufacturing consent for mass infection in order to defend their financial interests are very good at what they do: 

• https://twitter.com/RageSheen/status/1607467253188132864
  
  

• https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1657064263578427392.html 
  
  

• https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1661355076227612674.html 

How much COVID is infectious?

A single virus (virion) is insufficient to cause infection but 10,000 almost certainly is 

PLOS has a study estimating the number of virions needed.  300 to 2000

Presumably a patient’s circumstances matter; overall health, immune system etc

We probed the transmission of COVID-19 by applying an airborne transmission model to five well-documented case studies—a Washington state church choir, a Korean call center, a Korean exercise class, and two different Chinese bus trips. For all events the likely index patients were pre-symptomatic or mildly symptomatic, which is when infective patients are most likely to interact with large groups of people. Applying the model to those events yields results that suggest the following: (1) transmission was airborne; (2) superspreading events do not require an index patient with an unusually high viral load; (3) the viral loads for all of the index patients were of the same order of magnitude and consistent with experimentally measured values for patients at the onset of symptoms

CO2 levels and COVID risk

Airborne transmission is one of the main routes of SARS-CoV-2 spread. It is important to determine the circumstances under which the risk of airborne transmission is increased as well as the effective strategy to reduce such risk.

…

our model can estimate R0 with an acceptable accuracy. In a typical outpatient setting, the required indoor CO2 concentration at which R0 does not exceed 1 is below 620 ppm with no mask, 1000 ppm with a surgical mask and 16000 ppm with an N95 mask. In a typical inpatient setting, on the other hand, the required indoor CO2 concentration is below 540 ppm with no mask, 770 ppm with a surgical mask, and 8200 ppm with an N95 mask. These findings facilitate the establishment of a strategy for preventing airborne transmission in hospitals. This study is unique in that it suggests the development of an airborne transmission model with indoor CO2 and application of the model to actual clinical practice. Organizations and individuals can efficiently recognize the risk of SARS-CoV-2 airborne transmission in a room and thus take preventive measures such as maintaining good ventilation, wearing masks, or shortening the exposure time to an infected individual by simply using a CO2 monitor.

June 2023 weather anomalies

From  Watching the world go bye

WTF is Happening? An Overview

As of June 10, 2023, worldwide data showed the remarkable concurrence of three dramatic climate events.

• The first WTF is in the Antarctic, where sea-ice extent is setting record lows daily
• For the second WTF … on June 10, for the third consecutive day global 2-meter surface temperatures breached the 1.5°C barrier…
• And the third WTF … North Atlantic Ocean temperatures have been setting unprecedented daily records, spiking to highs that are shocking climate scientists

Recap of pandemic actions

Let them eat plague…

For three years, we have been abandoned, misled, shepherded to our dooms. Millions have died. Hundreds of millions have been disabled. All the while, respectable faces with plastered-on grins breathlessly offer hopeful platitudes, assuring us we’ll all be ok. Just trust the system.

You could be forgiven for not realizing we’re still in the middle of a pandemic, considering the total absence of media coverage. If it was important, you’d surely be hearing about it, right? The last variant you heard about was likely omicron. The last you heard about vaccines was likely “we strongly encourage everyone to get boosted.” The last you heard about masks was that they work, but they’re not required. And why would you bother wearing masks anyway if, as the United States president himself proclaimed, “The pandemic is over”?

Here’s the truth: the pandemic is not over. It’s much worse than you have been led to believe. And unless you’ve spent the past several years reading scientific studies on the subject, it can be hard to convey just how wrong the public perception of COVID really is. Everything from how it’s spread, to how it’s prevented, to what it does once it’s in your body, is being tragically misunderstood.

Air cleaners

Factors to consider

From Joey Fox

Determining the amount of clean air necessary for your space is crucial when selecting an air cleaner. This measurement is commonly referred to as the Clean Air Delivery Rate (CADR), and it is typically quantified in cubic feet per minute (CFM), liters per second (lps), or cubic meters per hour (m³/h).

The industry-standard approach, as recommended by AHAM (Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers), is to use the 2/3 rule. According to this rule, the CADR should be 2/3 of the area measured in square feet. For instance, if your space is 300 square feet, the air cleaner’s CADR should be calculated as 300 x 2/3 = 200 CFM. This provides five air changes per hour in residential spaces with 8-foot ceilings, or 4.4 air changes per hour in most commercial areas with 9-foot ceilings.

Talking about COVID

A guide  to discussing issues 

We have the truth on our side. The government’s strategy is one of denial, negation, and lies. But presence, truth, and a vision for a better future will always be more compelling than a lie. Unlike what WHO is saying, our narrative is honest, consistent, and backed by science. Unlike the WHO, we value human life and are offering actual care. Denial as a strategy cannot work for long. People are seeking answers; we have to educate one another and offer a path forward. We have to keep one another safe.

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We believe in humanity. It is not true that most people are selfish, bad, stupid, ignorant, or unwilling to learn. Most people do not know what is going on, or feel powerless to stop it, or both. 

A great majority of people who have stopped taking Covid precautions have done so because they have been misled, because they are exhausted, and because we are in an information vacuum. In ways large and small, the U.S. government is downplaying Covid’s continued existence and evolution. The U.S. is not alone in this, and almost no matter where you are in the world – at this point in 2023 – your government is probably using the same violent tactics to downplay and minimize the pandemic.

The abandonment by our governments under the guise of “individual responsibility” has meant that harming others as the pandemic continues has been unavoidable for many, many people. Through public policy decisions, propaganda campaigns, and economic pressures, most of us have been forced to be complicit at one point or another; for example, many of us have been forced to travel for work, or have unmasked in a social situation under pressure (to our own deep regret). But many people who are presently engaging in reckless behaviors (like not wearing masks) are not fully aware of the consequences of their actions. Or if they are aware, they don’t feel empowered to act, or to face the truth. 

Individual risk assessment is nonsensical in an airborne pandemic with a disease that can be transmitted asymptomatically; we share the air and we all share this earth.