Stephan: Anti-vaxxers are dying in astounding numbers, like lemmings committing suicide, I find it is amazing to watch this happen; MAGAt world really is a death cult.
Dying Covid patient Credit: AFP/Getty
COVID-19 is now the second-leading cause of death in the United States, despite the availability of safe, effective, and free vaccines. The promise of those vaccines showed itself when they first became widely available and COVID-19 dropped to be seventh on the list of causes of death. Then came the delta variant, and the levels of vaccination in the U.S. were not enough.
That proved deadly: A new study concludes that 90,000 deaths could have been avoided over a period of four months, from June through September, if more people had gotten vaccinated.
COVID-19 was the top cause of death in the U.S. for a period in late 2020 and early 2021, beating out the usual reliable No. 1 of heart disease. But by June, COVID-19 had dropped below cancer, accidents, stroke, and other respiratory illnesses—down by Alzheimer’s. Not anymore.
In September, according to the estimate released by the Peterson Center on Healthcare and the Kaiser Family Foundation, COVID-19 was the top cause of death for people aged 35 to 54, […]
Sumedha Gupta, Associate Professor of Economics, IUPUI - AlterNet/The Conversation
Stephan: In contrast to the anti-vaxxer world vast numbers of lives were saved through getting the vaccine.
Microbiologist Kerry Pollard performs a manual extraction of the coronavirus inside the extraction lab at the Pennsylvania Department of Health Bureau of Laboratories on March 6, 2020. Credit: Gov. Tom Wolf
More than 200 million U.S. residents have gotten at least one shot of a COVID-19 vaccine with the expectation that the vaccines slow virus transmission and save lives.
Stephan: The fate of the earth hinges on the vote of one man whose wealth is tied to carbon-energy. Joe Manchin needs to be voted out of office, but are the voters of West Virginia are up to that level of rational thought?
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin tool of the carbon energy industries.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin offered a lump of coal to his fellow Democrats after he demanded $150 billion in clean-energy initiatives be removed from a budget bill currently making its way through the Senate.
Senate sources confirmed to The Post that Manchin was “dug in” on climate issues.
“As a path forward there are two choices, compromise in some form or fashion or eliminate the climate aspect from reconciliation and work on it thereafter,” said one senior insider in the chamber.
Manchin has already expressed cost reservations about the $3.5 trillion budget package currently pending in the Senate. The $150 billion earmarked for climate initiatives would be used to convert coal and gas-fired plants to ones that operate with cleaner tech like wind, solar and nuclear.
Manchin has also made it known that he is opposed to a provision in the bill known as the Clean Electricity Performance Program, which rewards utilities that up their clean-energy supply — and punish those who don’t, the Read the Full Article
Norimitsu Onishi and Aurelien Breeden, - The New York Times
Stephan: The hallmark of all patriarchally-based religions is sexual dysfunction, and the Roman Catholic Church with its supposedly, but not actually, celibate clergy is the worse of the lot. This report about the French RC church is gobsmacking, and it is easy to understand why once deeply catholic France is turning it back on the church.
Easter celebrations in Paris last year. The Catholic Church in France has been weakened further than its counterparts across the world, especially in Germany and the United States, by the sexual molestation of children. Credit: Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA/Shutterstock
PARIS — The Catholic Church in France was once so powerful that it was considered a state within a state. In Roman Catholicism’s global hierarchy, France cemented its position as far back as the fifth century, when it became known as the “eldest daughter of the church.”
While Catholicism has ebbed across the Western world, its unrelenting decline in France is all the more striking given its past prominence. Now, a devastating church-ordered report on sexual abuse by the clergy released this week, after a similar reckoning elsewhere, was yet another degradation, further shaking what was once a pillar of French culture and society.
The report, which confirmed stories of abuse that have emerged over the years, shocked the nation with details of its magnitude, involving more than 200,000 minors over the past seven decades. It reverberated loudly […]
Stephan: I have been talking about the loss of biodiversity, whether Bees, butterflies, squirrels, or elephants. The decreasing biodiversity on earth has huge implications for the survival of humans, and we are completely failing to do what we need to do. If I were a young person today I would be furious with my boomer parents for failing to take this issue seriously. This report describs what may be good news, but we will have to wait and see.
A turtle that became caught in a fisherman’s net was released into the Watamu National Marine Park in Kenya last month. Credit: Brian Inganga/Associated Press
As 20,000 government leaders, journalists, activists and celebrities from around the world prepare to descend on Glasgow for a crucial climate summit starting late this month, another high-level international environmental meeting got started this week. The problem it seeks to tackle: A rapid collapse of species and systems that collectively sustain life on earth.
The stakes at the two meetings are equally high, many leading scientists say, but the biodiversity crisis has received far less attention.
“If the global community continues to see it as a side event, and they continue thinking that climate change is now the thing to really listen to, by the time they wake up on biodiversity it might be too late,” said Francis Ogwal, one of the leaders of the working group charged with shaping an agreement among nations.
Because climate change and biodiversity loss are intertwined, with the potential for both win-win solutions and vicious cycles of […]
