Category Archives: Viva!

‘Unstoppable’: African swine fever deaths to eclipse record 2019 toll

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With world’s attention on Covid-19, warnings that lack of measures to contain pandemic could lead to culling of record number of pigs

The African swine fever (ASF) pandemic will be even worse this year than in 2019, say experts, warning that the spread of the highly contagious virus, which is fatal to pigs, is unrelenting.

With world attention on the human viral pandemic of Covid-19, concern is growing that countries are not focusing enough on halting the spread of ASF through better biosecurity practices, cooperation on intensive vaccine development, or transparency regarding outbreaks.

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Oglala Sioux Tribe president’s spokesman responds to South Dakota Governor Noem’s escalation of checkpoint issue — LRInspire

Pine Ridge – May 22, 2020 – On Wednesday, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem escalated her fued with the Oglala and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes. She announced that her team is investigating tribal checkpoints meant to protect the reservations from COVID-19 and that’s she’s asking President Trump to help resolve the issue.

Oglala Sioux Tribe president’s spokesman responds to South Dakota Governor Noem’s escalation of checkpoint issue — LRInspire

“Déjà Vu”: Attorneys Say De Blasio’s Social Distancing Enforcement Is Stop-And-Frisk All Over Again

Not the Mayor per se – enough police who are rogue and protected by silence of otherwise excellent police and cowardice of elected officials. Francisco Garcia, seen in the black t-shirt and Yankees cap, kneels on a man's head after punching him during social distancing enforcement in the East Village

“The NYPD has engaged in a widespread practice of racially discriminatory law enforcement, analogous and in fact identical to the racially discriminatory practice of stop and frisk.” [ more › ]

Coronavirus uses same strategy as HIV to dodge immune response, Chinese study finds

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The novel coronavirus uses the same strategy to evade attack from the human immune system as HIV, according to a new study by Chinese scientists.Both viruses remove marker molecules on the surface of an infected cell that are used by the immune system to identify invaders, the researchers said in a non-peer reviewed paper posted on preprint website bioRxiv.org on Sunday. They warned that this commonality could mean Sars-CoV-2, the clinical name for the virus, could be around for some time, like…

Why Not Piss Away More Taxpayer Cash?

$3.8 billion a year for next ten years – free money for Israel to buy us made weapons. Arms industry welfare

In Saner Thought

Closing Thought–26May20

Our form of government is masterful at wasting money….from useless wars to programs of stupidity to giving cash away for no other reason that “they can”…..

One such give-away is to the state of Israel during the pandemic…..the Senate Bill is…S3176……

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee quietly passed a bill yesterday to give Israel a minimum of $38 billion over the next ten years despite the ongoing devastation to the U.S. economy caused by the coronavirus.

The bill – S.3176 –  will now go before the full Senate. Since the legislation has already been passed by the House of Representatives, if the Senate passes the bill, it will then go to the president to be signed into law.

The bill was passed by the committee under two unusual circumstances and with almost no public awareness.

First, Senate Committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-Idaho) refused to allow a live…

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The Gutting Of Social Security

Attack, attack and gut Social Security is GOP Dream scheme to re-enslave the elderly and disabled.

In Saner Thought

This one government program is one that many Americans use along with Medicare…..and yet almost every Congress has a plan to reform the program and in the process gut what little benefits American retirees actually get.

The GOP NEVER stops trying to destroy the program and will go to extreme lengths to do so.

Has anyone ever noticed the GOP with its extreme spending always looks to social security in the fight for a balanced budget and the fight against the rising deficit?

And they are at it again because of Covid-19…..they want to gut the program just a little more…..

A proposal by Sen. Mitt Romney to establish congressional committees with the specific goal of crafting legislative “solutions” for America’s federal trust fund programs has reportedly resurfaced in GOP talks over the next Covid-19 stimulus package, sparking alarm among progressive advocates who warn the Utah Republican’s bill is nothing…

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Cummings’ contempt for lockdown rules makes the public feel like fools | Fintan O’Toole

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The Catholic church in Ireland lost power by flouting the morals it prescribed. The Tory government risks a similar fate

It is not news that Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings treat rules with contempt. But there is one rule even they might be expected to obey, because it is crucial to the maintenance of power. Never, ever, make the people who place their faith in you feel like fools.

Or, to put it another way, never let the people who think they are making a sacrifice realise that in fact they are the sacrifice. Before breaking this rule so flagrantly, Johnson and his consigliere would have done well to consider the fate of what used to be one of the most powerful institutions on these islands: the Irish Catholic church.

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PEAT or PEAT MOSS

Shit You Don't Need

Garden centres are opening, wey hey!

First though, it’s been a longish old time since I bothered you all with my efforts to persuade you to a greener, less wasteful lifestyle… Apologies if you thought I’d given up on this. But quite frankly, apart from the fact that I’ve been drooping mournfully about the place like an ageing tulip, I’ve also felt somewhat reluctant to foist my blog on a world grappling with this coronavirus mullarkey. Haven’t you all got enough on your plate without me droning on about waste?

And then there’s the constant cloud of discouragement that hovers, ready to consume me. On good days, I get a ton of things done, other days I can’t lift my arse off the chair till 4pm. Then I hurtle about the place, trying to make up for the hours of dazed indolence. Much like many of you, I suspect, I…

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Putin Speaks, Officials Shrug, and Doctors Are Caught in the Middle – The New York Times TrumPutin PuTrumpin?

That things have gone so awry is a measure of the wide gap between image and reality in a country that revolves around what Mr. Putin calls the “power vertical.” This is the rigidly top-down — and, in theory, stringently efficient — system that he has spent 20 years building to replace the decrepit state structure he inherited from his predecessor, President Boris N. Yeltsin.

Tatiana Stanovaya, an expert on Russian politics, said the “power vertical” has always been a political project focused on protecting the Kremlin from opponents, not on delivering efficient administration for the public’s benefit.