A landmark

I’m pleased to be able to announce that SocialGalactic surpassed 1,000 daily posts for the first time in its very brief history yesterday, 9 January 2020. There were 1,133 new posts, to be precise. The crushing will continue. Once we get the necessary badges created, we will start inviting the creator-specific subscribers, including Feed the Bear, The Legend, and Grow or Die subscribers.

In other news, I am contemplating a change to the Castalia Deluxe / Castalia Library lines as we finalize the covers. At present, the favored approach for the latter favors the Latin, as opposed to the Italian I’d originally suggested.

  • Castalia Deluxe —> Castalia Library
  • Castalia Library —> Libraria Castalia

I think both will look very good on the spines. If you are a subscriber of either leatherbound line, please share your opinion in the comments.

Speaking of SocialGalactic, an artist there has created what may be one of the strangest “advertisements” for a “televised” show ever produced. I have to admit, I like it.

My first Nobel Prize

I would have thought it would be in Economics, perhaps even Literature, but it appears my first Nobel Prize will be in Physiology or Medicine. You see, everyone is understandably concerned about Corona-chan, but then it occurred to me, as we all know, race is just a social construct:

To further understand the special population of ACE2-expressing AT2, we performed gene ontology enrichment analysis to study which biological processes are involved with this cell population by comparing them with the AT2 cells not expressing ACE2. Surprisingly, we found that multiple viral process-related GO are significantly over-presented, including “positive regulation of viral process” (P value=0.001), “viral life cycle” (P value=0.005), “virion assembly” (P value=0.03) and “positive regulation of viral genome replication” (P value=0.04). These highly expressed viral process-related genes in ACE2-expressing AT2 include: SLC1A5, CXADR, CAV2, NUP98, CTBP2, GSN,HSPA1B,STOM, RAB1B, HACD3, ITGB6, IST1,NUCKS1,TRIM27, APOE, SMARCB1,UBP1,CHMP1A,NUP160,HSPA8,DAG1,STAU1,ICAM1,CHMP5,D EK, VPS37B, EGFR, CCNK, PPIA, IFITM3, PPIB, TMPRSS2, UBC, LAMP1 and CHMP3. Therefore, it seems that the 2019-nCov has cleverly evolved to hijack this population of AT2 cells for its reproduction and transmission.

We further compared the characteristics of the donors and their ACE2 expressing patterns. No association was detected between the ACE2-expressing cell number and the age or smoking status of donors. Of note, the 2 male donors have a higher ACE2-expressing cell ratio than all other 6 female donors (1.66{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} vs. 0.41{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} of all cells, P value=0.07, Mann Whitney Test). In addition, the distribution of ACE2 is also more widespread in male donors than females: at least 5 different types of cells in male lung express this receptor, while only 2~4 types of cells in female lung express the receptor. This result is highly consistent with the epidemic investigation showing that most of the confirmed 2019-nCov infected patients were men (30 vs. 11, by Jan 2, 2020).

We also noticed that the only Asian donor (male) has a much higher ACE2-expressing cell ratio than white and African American donors (2.50{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} vs. 0.47{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} of all cells). This might explain the observation that the new Coronavirus pandemic and previous SARS-Cov pandemic are concentrated in the Asian area.

Therefore, to significantly improve the resistance of the population to Corona-chan and end the risk of a global pandemic, all that is necessary is for the Asian men in the areas at risk of infection to begin identifying as African-American women.

I shall await my Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with serene confidence.

Is Boeing going down?

Boeing just posted its first significant loss in a long time:

Boeing reported its first annual loss in more than two decades as costs from the 737 Max crashes rise sharply. Boeing said it lost $636 million in 2019, marking the company’s first annual loss since 1997 and in stark contrast to the profit it posted in $10.46 billion in 2018 — before a second crash grounded its best-selling planes worldwide.

The dismal results come as Boeing is struggling through the crisis stemming from two crashes of its 737 Max that killed all 346 people aboard the flights. The manufacturer this month suspended production of the planes, which regulators grounded in March after the second of the two fatal flights.

Boeing reported a loss of $2.33 per share for the fourth quarter of last year. Revenue in the last three months of the year dropped 37{de336c7190f620554615b98f51c6a13b1cc922a472176e2638084251692035b3} to $17.91 billion compared with $28.34 billion in the year-earlier period.

The debacle’s costs to Boeing are rising to more than $18 billion, the company said, roughly double what it outlined in the previous quarter. That amount includes an additional $2.6 billion pretax charge to compensate airlines and other 737 Max customers because of the grounding. Boeing had taken a $5.6 billion pretax charge in the second quarter to compensate its customers.

The company recently reported its worst annual sales figures in decades and it handed the crown to the world’s biggest aircraft manufacturer to its rival Airbus.

For some reason, this article reminded me of when Enron reported a surprise loss of similar proportions back in 2001.

In October 2001, Enron reported a loss of $618 million— its first quarterly loss in four years. 

Due to the massive debt these megacorporations carry, it doesn’t take much to take them down once things start to go south. Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy only two months later. I’m not saying Boieng is in anywhere nearly as bad shape as Enron was, but the synchronicity may be worth noting.

Is the coronavirus weaponized?

Anonymous Conservative is, as is his wont, deeply suspicious of the coronavirus, but he is not alone in this:

Harvard epidemiologist says he is not saying the Corona virus was bioengineered as a bioweapon, but a new study analyzing the full genome says it does have a center segment in its genome encoding a special protein to get it into human cells, and that center section does not appear to have indices of having gotten there through normal natural random mechanisms:

BOTTOMLINE: 1) Seafood market not the source. 2) This RNA #coronavirus mutates really fast. 3) has unusual middle segment never seen before in any coronavirus. 4) Not from recent mixing. 5) That mystery middle segment encodes protein responsible for entry into host cells.

The thing that concerns me is that I knew the impeachment was the result of desperation on the part of the hunted. If we consider the possibility that a) the coronavirus is a bioweapon and b) the release of the coronavirus was intentional, that would tend to indicate considerably more desperation on the part of the same people.

Another failed “peace plan”

I don’t know why U.S. presidents waste their time on this nonsense:

US President Donald Trump unveiled his “Deal of the Century” peace plan on Tuesday in the White House, giving Israel full control of the settlements and Jerusalem as its undivided capital. The plan also established a Palestinian state.

The plan, Trump said, has the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main political rival, Blue and White head Benny Gantz.

“If [the Palestinians] are genuinely prepared to make peace with the Jewish state,” Netanyahu said in his remarks at the unveiling ceremony, “Israel will be prepared to negotiate peace right away.” Trump said that the United States will recognize Israeli sovereignty over any land that “my vision provides to be part of the State of Israel” and will require the Palestinians to recognize Israel as the Jewish state and to agree to solve the refugee problem outside of Israel.

The prime minister is expected to vote on Sunday at the Cabinet meeting to immediately apply sovereignty to the territories in Judea and Samaria.

In other words, the Israelis are confirming the long-held beliefs of the Palestinians concerning the settlements, and they doing so with the blessing of the United States. How is this substantially different than the scores of Indian treaties that lasted until the settlers decided that they wanted more Indian land?

And who seriously regards this as a peace plan? Of course the Palestinians won’t accept it.

Israel has a right to exist. Its right of conquest is no less, and no more, illegitimate than any other nation’s right to land it has won through military victory. But it does not have a right to exist in peace; that has to be won separately, through convincing neighboring parties that peace is in their interest. And while I could certainly be wrong, I don’t see how this “Deal of the Century” is likely to be of much interest to any non-Israeli parties.

The rotten fruit of National Review

Crazy Days and Nights retro-outs William F. Buckley:

This deceased writer/publisher of a well known magazine that still runs was also known for having a television show. His manner and speaking style were mocked on sketch comedy shows many times.

He preferred sexual relations with men rather than with women but like a lot of men of his generation he could not acknowledge this and so married and had children. In addition, the audience he cultivated would not have accepted this.

He spent a lot of time with homosexual prostitutes from a specific procurer.  He would often tell his favorites that he would refer to them on his TV show by assigning them an obscure word, Latin or old English, and then use the word on his show that week.

The “intellectual force behind the modern conservative movement” was always a complete fraud. It may interest you to know that while I was signed by Universal Press Syndicate with the idea that I was the young right-wing writer most capable of filling in for his supposedly formidable shoes, I never thought that either his columns or his novels were very good.

In fact, I found both of them to be borderline unreadable, the columns in particular being masterpieces in sounding educated and intellectual without ever saying much of anything at all. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that modern conservatism went nowhere and accomplished nothing, as it is the rotten fruit of an inverted tree.

Amazon feeding data to Facebook

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that Amazon’s Ring automatically sends private user data to Facebook:

Amazon’s Ring smart doorbell surveillance product has been caught sending user data to Facebook and other companies without making Ring users aware their data was being shared. That’s according to an investigation from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). What’s even more alarming is Ring users are having their data sent to Facebook even if they themselves don’t have Facebook accounts.

The EFF examined Ring’s latest Android app and found that it had four unlisted trackers sending Ring user data back to four websites including branch.io, mixpanel.com, appsflyer.com, and facebook.com. This is despite Ring’s privacy policy, which purports to list all the trackers being used in its software. That privacy policy was last updated over a year and a half ago and doesn’t list three of the four new trackers discovered.

So what data is Ring sending to Facebook and other companies? The EFF says the information includes “the names, private IP addresses, mobile network carriers, persistent identifiers, and sensor data on the devices of paying customers.”

This really isn’t that hard. Don’t use smart home technology. It’s all spy-on-you-in-your-home technology.

Denying public charges

This tightening of immigration restrictions is a good first step.

The Trump administration will be allowed to tighten immigration restrictions with a policy that could see immigrants denied a green card if they are likely to receive public benefits, the US Supreme Court has ruled.

The 5-4 decision on Monday overrode the block on the policy imposed by a federal judge in New York and upheld by an appeals panel. The controversial new rule, which opponents have slammed as a “wealth test” meant to keep out immigrants from poor countries, can now take effect.

Last August, the Trump administration expanded the so-called “public charge” rule, which required immigration officials to turn away individuals likely to become primarily dependent on direct government cash assistance or institutionalization, to include a wider range of government benefits. A New York district court ruling blocked its implementation in October, which was upheld in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month.

Immigrants deemed likely to receive Medicaid (government health insurance), Supplemental Security Income, housing, or food assistance over a total of 12 months within any three-year period may be denied permanent residency under the new version of the rule. Immigration officials would examine applicants’ age, education, and ability to speak English, among other attributes, to determine their fitness.

The second step, of course, will be repatriating all resident immigrants who receive any government assistance. And for those who want to appeal to the poem on the Statue of Liberty as a counterargument, the obvious answer is to send all such indigent immigrants to the poet’s nation, which was not the United States of America.

Let each nation live up to its own standards.

The circle of diversity

This is why you should never let people to join or enter in the first place. Just ask any American Indian. Or, for that matter, any white resident of Detroit. Or soon, any white Democrat.

The foreigners who reside among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower.
– Deuteronomy 28:43

Bernie brings it

I knew that the Democrats were going to throw a sacrificial lamb at the feet of the god-emperor, but I assumed it would be a woman of color, not an elderly socialist jew.

One week before the Iowa caucuses, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is growing in strength and increasingly looks like the favorite to win the Democratic nomination.

Polling in Iowa is still tight and shows a four-candidate race between Sanders, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, making it clear the first-in-the-nation caucus battle remains anyone’s game.

Yet it is also clear that Sanders has a strong chance of coming out on top in Iowa, as well as in New Hampshire, which will vote just a week later. Such a result would make him the clear front-runner, and would likely unnerve parts of the Democratic Party uneasy about the progressive independent being their standard-bearer in the fall.

No wonder the Democrats are getting increasingly desperate. If Sanders is their candidate, President Trump might win both the Black and Hispanic votes.