Texas’ 87th Legislature: 666 New Laws

 When you read today’s headline about the 87th TexasLegislature, if you know your Bible, you might feel a slight twinge of anxiety when the ‘Number of the Beast’ is used:

“On Wednesday, 666 new Texas laws will go into effect. Debated, passed and signed during the 87th Texas Legislature.”

This particular legislative session has been fraught with less than subtle religious undertones. So when the dark number ‘666’ popped up, it gave me ‘cause to pause’ at the irony — especially in view of current ‘Revelation reverberations’ in the fundamentalist community regarding current events.

Read:

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/31/new-texas-laws-september-2021/

Background story regarding 666:

https://www.sciencealert.com/what-is-the-secret-meaning-behind-the-devil-s-number-666-mathematics

Biblical History (page 464) —

follows APOCALYPSE NOW? on page 461

“Why is 666 the Number of the Beast?”

http://mis.kp.ac.rw/admin/admin_panel/kp_lms/files/digital/SelectiveBooks/Theology/3-%20Davis%20-%20Don't%20Know%20Much%20About%20the%20Bible.pdf

Note: Many people will not read the above historical background regarding the meaning of 666, instead preferring a mystical interpretation not grounded in the reality that John of Patmos experienced. Without context, meaning is lost and misinterpretations flourish, thus creating self fulfilling prophecies that resist God’s Will. 

Note: Even though Revelations wasn’t about our Latter Day times, it does fairly well represent what the Perfect Storm could be regarding that part of the world surrounding Jerusalem. If the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ever do ride, it will seem quite familiar to many.

Read “Bible” postings:

https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=Bible+&m=1

Covid: CDC and Media Omit Context In News About Breakthrough Cases

During July 2021, in the small resort town of Provincetown, Massachusetts, tens of thousands of GLBT visitors flooded in for an annual festival. Attending parties, going to bars and engaging in very personal activities “not mask friendly”, several hundred adults who were vaccinated wound up coming down with Covid. 

Though this is important information, how this was publicized was as ‘hinky’ as anything that went on during the festival. Proper context was not given. No mention was made in the mainstream media about the festival or even the town’s name. We were allowed to assume that the breakthrough cases were somehow totally typical and indicative of some heretofore unexpected weakness in the Covid vaccines, instead of a flagrant level of disregard for the danger from too close personal activities of a very large number of adults that resulted in inhaling very large viral loads of the very highly contagious Delta variant. 

One of the few articles I found that specified the town’s name and the name of the festival is:

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/scicheck-posts-misinterpret-cdcs-provincetown-covid-19-outbreak-report/

An article that provides real answers about breakthrough infections (from Consumer Reports):

https://www.consumerreports.org/covid-19/questions-about-covid-19-breakthrough-infections-answered-a8995775819/

AGW: Infrared and Visible Light Are Energy Waves

Not all waves of the electromagnetic spectrum are blocked by Earth’s atmosphere. For example, both infrared and visible light easily penetrate and strike the surface of our planet. Infrared radiation is felt as heat rather than seen. Visible light that is reflected is seen, but that which is absorbed is converted to heat via quantum mechanics — which is then slowly radiated away as infrared radiation (IR).

https://www.e-education.psu.edu/astro801/content/l3_p4.html

https://science.nasa.gov/ems

IR, though not optically visible to the human eye, is detectable by ‘thermographic cameras’. 

https://www.flir.com/discover/rd-science/how-do-thermal-cameras-work/

As IR passes thru the atmosphere, it does not interact with the lighter gases such as nitrogen and oxygen — however, heavier gases, such as water vapor and carbon dioxide, do interact with IR which slows it down. This causes an increase of infrared radiation (heat) in the atmosphere. This ‘blanketing effect’ is inaccurately known as the ‘greenhouse effect’.

https://science.nasa.gov/ems/07_infraredwaves

What Is Infrared?:

https://samslair.blogspot.com/2019/10/what-is-infrared-radiation.html?m=1

AGW postings by relevance:

https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=AGW&m=1

AGW postings by date:

https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=AGW&max-results=20&by-date=true&m=1

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Stupidity is an inability or unwillingness to learn from experience, whether it be direct or indirect. 

Stupidity is a personal quality that demonstrates poor judgment resulting from an over abundance of irrationality and/or a consistent failure to learn from observing ‘cause and effect relationships’.

Stupidity is a generic term describing the manifestation (‘effect’) of ‘vibrations of irrationality’ (‘cause’ in ourselves and others which are not always immediately discernible). ‘Cause and effect’ are ofttimes separated by so much time that their relationship is not easily perceived — while at other times their connection is seemingly counter intuitive. Sometimes the cause is simply ‘unseen’ by the naked eye or the other physical senses, even though the effect is dramatically observable.

Search: ‘protection from stupidity’

Anabiel and Samhiel are two angels that heal stupidity. 

Prayer:

Anabiel and Samhiel,

Please cure me of my stupidity.

Please make me whole again.

Dear God, 

Protect me from stupidity,

most especially my own.

Help me to learn from my mistakes

and from the mistakes of others.

Ignorance, stupidity and evil are often hard to tell apart because they so often achieve the same results. Indeed, they often work in tandem because they complement each other so well.

Stupidity carries a high price.

Everyone is a potential victim of stupidity.

What should you do when confronted by stupid people? Do not engage. Do not try to correct them. Realize that they are a liability and put as much time and space between you and them as is humanly possible.

“Hanlon's Razor —

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

“If one stupid person can be a problem, a herd of stupid people is nearly invincible.” 

Related:

Unseen Realities:

https://samslair.blogspot.com/2021/10/covid-agw-spirituality-unseen-realities.html?m=0

Covid-19: Artificially Enhanced Origin

Covid-19 was generated by ‘gain of function’ research with a coronavirus in an underfunded lab in China. There was no malice in this — but there was incompetence due to arrogance and inexperience. In my opinion, this was, in part, fueled by China’s desperation to gain the ability to develop a vaccine against another virus, the swine flu virus which has decimated their hogs (the very same food source that they’ve been relying on to convert Brazil’s soybeans into a reliable protein source). Ironically, perhaps even karmically appropriate, the greed that helped decimate the Amazon forest generated a virus that could eventually reduce their need (in so many ways) for raising so many pigs in factory farms. Indeed, this virus (and others forthcoming) may yet help reduce the overall desirability of factory farms and other unsafe agribiz practices. 

Note: “Gain-of-function research has gone on for years and involves experiments that take viruses, or other organisms, and alters their genetic make-up to gain a new ability… the research is often intended to demonstrate how viruses could evolve in the near future, and give researchers something on which to test different medical treatments, like vaccines.”

Note: The variants of the Covid virus are not finished evolving. Indeed, the ‘genie is out of the bottle’, and it yet remains to be seen how many problematic variants will arise as a result of different conditions that it faces. There are still far more questions than answers. For example: will a variant that’s comparatively unaffected by vaccines pop up; will the Delta variant become more virulent (or less); etcetera, etc…

My comments related to Covid:

“Covid, Global Warming: Speed Bump —

Us: We can’t slow everything down just because of global climate change!

Mother Nature’s Response:

Oh Really?! 

Here’s a new virus. 

Have some practice.”

“The world is balanced on a knife edge of destruction every single day. You accept that, and you can just get on with things.”

And so, in the spirit of getting on with things, watch this encouraging video:

“Is the world getting better or worse?” 

A look at the numbers (18 minutes)

https://youtu.be/yCm9Ng0bbEQ

Ignorance is bliss only to the degree that one is genuinely ignorant of one’s own ignorance. However, very few of us are completely and totally ignorant, which is why fear creeps in around the edges and provokes anger and hatred as defensive mechanisms. Ignorance then proceeds to demonstrate that stupidity is not a virtue and that Darwin was right.

Those who routinely receive flu shots are highly to become fully vaccinated against Covid. Noteworthy, also. is the fact that those who were immunized against the flu are somewhat less impacted by severe Covid effects.

Search: ‘flu shots covid protection’

“Immunization is a cornerstone of public health policy… Vaccines have transformed public health, particularly since national programmes for immunization first became properly established and coordinated in the 1960s. In countries with high vaccine programme coverage, many of the diseases that were previously responsible for the majority of childhood deaths have essentially disappeared…”

History of Vaccines: 

What Are Vaccines:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-00479-7

In my postings on Covid, I’ve emphasized the importance of the size of the initial infectious dose of viral particles as a critical factor contributing to the seriousness of the symptoms experienced. Then, when the Delta variant came on the scene with its hyper loads of quickly manufactured viruses, it was obvious that not only would the Delta variant spread more quickly but that, also, the percentage of asymptomatic cases would decrease. Additionally, the increased viral infectious load puts children at even greater risk — unvaccinated teachers are especially a danger to them. 

Covid (by date):

https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=Covid&max-results=20&by-date=true&m=1

Covid (by relevance):

https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=Covid+&m=1

Covid: Delta Variant Could Be Stalled

The Covid vaccines can hardly be called experimental at this late date, what with half of Americans being fully vaccinated and the vaccination program having been going for eight months. They have been declared as safe and effective as any vaccine can be by all reputable medical sources with millions of people in the United States having received the vaccines under the most intense safety monitoring in U.S. history. 

Note: It’s anticipated that the vaccines will be fully approved before the end of the year, which will be too late for many of the ‘vaccine hesitant’ to avoid the short term and long term effects of Covid. Also, the world wide pandemic rages on and will likely spawn variants that will further diminish both the vaccines’ effectiveness and the antibodies of those who have recovered, thus requiring new vaccines that will, once again, require FDA emergency approval, et al.

Info on Delta variant:

https://www.fau.edu/newsdesk/articles/delta-vaccines-faqs.php

Covid: Is COVID Vaccine Effective Against DELTA VARIANT?

COVID Vaccine breakthrough cases are popping up in the news. 

Is the Delta Variant responsible for breakthrough infections? 

Do the Vaccines still work? 

YouTube Video:

https://youtu.be/hIW73l-DfP8

Script:

“COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are on the rise again. Right now, there are 162 million Americans who are fully vaccinated. According to the CDC, less than two percent of people hospitalized with COVID are vaccinated. And get this - 99.5% of people who die of COVID did not get the vaccine. 

A COVID breakthrough infection is defined as someone who tests positive for COVID, with a PCR test, at least 14 days after being fully vaccinated. Several reports of breakthrough infections have been reported at the White House, Congress, Olympics, Major League Baseball, and more. I’ve seen people with breakthrough infections in the ICU, but not nearly as much as COVID patients in the ICU who did not get the vaccine.  

Stanford is among nearly 600 universities and colleges nationwide that have required students and faculty to be vaccinated against COVID before coming back to campus this fall. Stanford 7 Vaccinated Students Get Symptomatic COVID in a week span. 

Even before the delta variant showed up, we knew that the vaccines aren’t 100% effective. Based on the original studies, we knew that the mRNA vaccines with Pfizer and Moderna were about 95% effective at preventing severe COVID illness. This means that percentage is even smaller when you’re talking about preventing mild or asymptomatic infections. But the important thing you want to know is how effective the vaccine is at preventing severe COVID illness. 

But that 95% effectiveness was based on the original strain of COVID. Now, the scarier and more contagious Delta variant makes just about all the COVID cases in the US. 

According to this recent study, when people are infected with the Covid Delta variant, they have about 1000 times more viruses than previous versions of the covid virus. So all that viral load has the potential to overwhelm the immune system of vaccinated people. 

Another study that was just published in the NEJM also showed that the delta variant is slightly more likely to cause breakthrough infections:

Researchers found that after two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, it gave 88% protection against symptomatic disease caused by the covid delta variant, and that’s compared to 93% against the alpha variant that was first discovered in the UK.

Both doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine offered 67% protection against symptomatic disease. We’re still waiting on published numbers for the Moderna vaccine, but according to the company, its vaccine remained effective against the different variants. 

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine might be less effective against the Delta Covid and Lambda covid variants, but that study is yet to be published. It might be that those who received the J&J vaccine may need to get Pfizer or Moderna to protect against the new variants. So stay tuned on that. 

We know that those vaccinated have milder Covid illness compared to unvaccinated if they become infected. This is based on another study published in the NEJM that looked at more than 3,900 essential workers. It shows that fully vaccinated people are more than 90% protected against infection. Even partially vaccinated people are 81% less likely to become infected than people who haven't had been inoculated.

Vaccinated people appear to be less likely to spread the virus to others. After one or two doses of covid vaccine, those who got "breakthrough" infections had 40% less virus in their bodies and were 58% less likely to have a fever. They spent two fewer days in bed compared to unvaccinated Covid patients.

Then there is the question, if you’re asymptomatic and have been vaccinated, can you still spread the virus to others? 

We know the vaccine reduces the likelihood of carrying the virus. And if you are carrying the covid virus, we know that there would otherwise be a reduced viral load. So overall, it's less likely that you are transmitting the virus if you’re asymptomatic and you’ve been vaccinated. This is why the CDC says that fully vaccinated people still need to be tested if they have symptoms and shouldn't be out in public for at least 10 days after a positive test. This is actually being studied right now in 12,000 college students who received the Moderna vaccine.

And what about those of you who are vaccinated and are concerned about getting a breakthrough infection? 

If you were to get COVID, it's way more likely to be a milder course of the disease if you are exposed to many people, especially if they’re not vaccinated; you can wear a mask. The kind of mask to wear is another topic, but even a regular face covering would still be better at decreasing transmission compared to no mask at all.”

Doctor Mike Hansen, MD

Internal Medicine | Pulmonary Disease | Critical Care Medicine

Covid: Wuhan and Our First Impression of Covid-19

 https://www.cato.org/blog/misleading-arithmetic-covid-19-death-rates

In Wuhan, when the Chinese first realized they had the beginnings of a full blown epidemic in progress, the cases they were immediately fully aware of were those who were very obviously ill. Of this group, the ‘overall’ mortality rate was first thought to be about four percent. This is the figure we based our first impression of Covid upon. The large number of asymptomatic cases were not known about until later. So, it’s no wonder that we were so alarmed. After all, this mortality rate would’ve meant that about 13 million people would die in just America alone. Fortunately, the truth is much more livable — but, the impact of short term and long term Covid health problems is still tremendous. 

Note: Unfortunately, the asymptomatic cases are the main driving force behind the pandemic which is now amongst the unvaccinated.

Note: The above only references the original Covid strain. Its mutations, such as the Delta variant, are significantly more problematic. Face mask mandates in some vicinities where rates of vaccination are lowest will most likely become necessary again in the Fall — as predicted by the exponential increase of the Delta variant.

Covid: Delta Variant Unmasked In The Schools

To the greater degree that we remain both “unvaccinated and unmasked”, then we will achieve herd immunity faster — though, ironically, it’ll largely be on the backs of the “unmasked unvaccinated” — all because of the inconvenience in wearing a face mask. Unfortunately, the Delta variant is much more infectious and even kids wearing masks have to take them off to eat, etcetera. Those who refuse to wear a mask know what they risk. Additionally, the teachers and staff who are irresponsible will have to bear a karmic burden — “As ye sow, so shall ye reap”.

Note: Not all face masks are breathable. I had to try several kinds to find what worked for me. We have three people in my family and we each use a different kind. 

Note: Unmasked kids who catch the Delta Covid and take this home to unmasked unvaccinated families, will find out that the degree of seriousness of each case is a separate and independently unique ‘roll of the dice’.

Video, using infrared, shows spread of cold, flu and Covid viruses as we talk and breathe:

https://youtu.be/xEp-Sdgl9AU