Stephan: Several anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers have been sending me emails about a "Stanford/NIH study" saying masks don't work. Is any of it true? Well, here is the Snopes take on it.
Claim
A “Stanford/NIH” study concluded that face masks worn to prevent COVID-19 transmission do not work.
The paper was published by an exercise physiologist with no academic connection to Stanford University or the NIH in a journal that accepts “radical, speculative and non-mainstream scientific ideas.”
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Origin
As more than one year passes since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Snopes is still fighting an “infodemic” of rumors and misinformation, and you can help. Find out what we’ve learned and how to inoculate yourself against COVID-19 misinformation. Read the latest fact checks about the vaccines. Submit any questionable rumors and “advice” you encounter. Become a Founding Member to help us hire more fact-checkers. And, please, follow the CDC or WHO for guidance on protecting your community from the disease.
The journal Medical Hypotheses publishes extremely speculative notions without the burden of “traditional” peer review. The journal says it accepts “radical, speculative and non-mainstream scientific ideas provided they are coherently expressed.” […]
Stephan: The Fox propaganda operation which caters to christofascists, White supremacists, and morons has, in my opinion, become complicit in sabotaging America's attempt to get the Covid pandemic under control which, I think, should be criminally actionable. So I am awarding Fox, and Tucker Carllson, today's Republican Scum Award.
Credit: Shutterstock
On Monday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s segment went completely off the rails when he urged viewers to call child services on parents who are masking up their kids to protect them from COVID-19.
“Masks have always been incompatible with a free society,” said Carlson. “Masks are for the guilty. They’re signifiers of shame and submission.”
“Next time you see someone in a mask on the sidewalk or on the bike path, do not hesitate, ask politely but firmly, would you please take off your mask? Science shows there is no reason for you to be wearing it. Your mask is making me uncomfortable,” said Carlson. “We should do that, and we should keep doing it until wearing a mask outside is roughly as socially acceptable as lighting a Marlboro in an elevator. It’s repulsive.”
“As for forcing children to wear masks outside, that should be illegal,” said […]
Stephan: Here is some wonderful good news about the plastic crisis which plagues the earth and does such damage.
A research team has found a way to make biodegradable plastics actually disappear, unlike ones that only claim to break down. Credit: Agricultural Research Service
A research team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC), Berkeley has found a way to make biodegradable plastics actually disappear.
While biodegradable plastics have been touted as a solution to plastic pollution, in practice they don’t work as advertised.
“Biodegradability does not equal compostability,” Ting Xu, study coauthor and UC Berkeley polymer scientist, told Science News.
But by studying nature, Xu and her team have developed a process that actually breaks down biodegradable plastics with just heat and water in a period of weeks. The results, published in Nature on Wednesday, could be game-changing for the plastic pollution problem.
“We want this to be in every grocery store,” Xu told Science News.
What’s the Problem?
Humans have tossed 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic since the 1950s and only recycled 600 million metric tons, leaving 4.9 billion metric tons sitting in landfills or otherwise polluting […]
Stephan: This is appalling but not surprising. The truth is if I were a Black man I would never call the police about anything fearing that getting them involved would result in my death.
Baylor College of Medicine Director Richina Bicette on Sunday pointed out that receiving Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine is safer than living as a Black man in America.
Bicette made the remarks to CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield after she was asked if people should be worried about getting a blood clot from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
“I have a lot of things in this world that I worry about and the safety of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is quite low on that list,” Bicette explained.
The doctor went on to make a comparison between the risk of getting a blood clot from the vaccine to other more deadly things.
“The rate of developing blood clots from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine from what we’re seeing so far is about 2 in 1 million,” Bicette noted. “If you take your chances with COVID, the rate of developing a blood clot from having COVID infection is actually 147,000 in a million.”
“And that’s just talking about blood clots,” she added. “There are other things that we should be more worried about. In the month of April [of] this year in the United States alone, 50 Americans have been […]
Allyson Waller and Michael Levenson, - The New York Times
Stephan: Just since the Chauvin trial there have been multiple murders of Black men, and one Black teenage girl. There are so many of these it is hard to keep up. What does stand out for me is that all the other developed nations in the world somehow don't have police murders like this, or even shootings, so what is it about Americans? Training may part of the reason these murders occur, but I think it is deeper than that, and centers on the kind of people, particularly the men, that Law Enforcement agencies recruit and hire. Too many are just thugs and bullies drawn to the job because of the power it confers.
Isaiah Brown
A Virginia sheriff’s deputy shot and seriously wounded an unarmed man early on Wednesday morning, less than an hour after the deputy had given the man a ride after his car broke down, the authorities said.
The Spotsylvania County deputy had initially given the man, Isaiah L. Brown, 32, a lift to a house after responding to a 911 call for a driver whose car was not working at a gas station, the Virginia State Police said.
About 45 minutes later, the deputy responded to another 911 call for a “domestic incident” involving Mr. Brown and his brother, according to the State Police and a recording of the 911 call and body-camera footage.
After finding Mr. Brown walking in a road and talking to a 911 dispatcher, the deputy said, “He’s got a gun to his head.”
“Drop the gun now!” the deputy shouted. “Stop walking towards me! Stop walking towards me! Stop! Stop!”
Refer someone to The Times.
At least seven gunshots can be heard on the body-camera footage.
“The officer mistook a cordless house phone for a gun,” Mr. Brown’s lawyer, David […]
