Free Republic

There is a lot in the latest investor letter from Greenlights Capital (as usual available to professional subscribers) – which ended Q1 up 4.4%, a solid performance in a quarter when most of his peers, the S&P included, were deep in the red – including the usual updates on the hedge fund’s latest position changes, but what we found most notable was David Einhorn’s latest thoughts on the Federal Reserve. We excerpt these below: * * * To start with a quote for a change, Vladimir Lenin said: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades...

The coronavirus pandemic solidified the idea people don’t have to show up at an office to get work done. That fresh reality has led to a growing number of people relocating to more affordable cities across the country. But while the development is beneficial to remote — or so-called Zoom — workers, it is leading to rent increases in areas where newcomers are settling in. And in some cases forcing low-income residents to leave the neighborhood.

A strange disease, as yet unidentified, has killed almost one hundred people in Sudan, a country already groaning under a number of plagues of near biblical proportions. In November, the South Sudan Health Ministry began reporting deaths from a mysterious illness that, to date, has killed at least 97 people, mainly the elderly and children aged between 1 and 14. In response to the reports, the World Health Organization (WHO) sent a rapid response team to investigate. The main symptoms that victims are experiencing include diarrhea, high fever, joint pain, vomiting, body weakness, loss of appetite, and chest pain. The...

The idea behind the upcoming session of the World Health Assembly, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, was to start sketching out a new world order to handle future health crises, NPR reported last month.Tedros was referring to the convening of a special session of the World Health Organisation’s (“WHO”) governing body – the World Health Assembly – on 29 November to begin talks on a new global treaty covering pandemics.“You need laws and rules that bring obligations to countries. That’s what we miss. And I hope countries will agree to a binding pact so that pandemics can be managed better,” Tedros...

...bubonic plague may have reached England before its first recorded case in the Mediterranean via a currently unknown route, possibly involving the Baltic and Scandinavia...The Justinianic Plague is the first known outbreak of bubonic plague in west Eurasian history and struck the Mediterranean world at a pivotal moment in its historical development, when the Emperor Justinian was trying to restore Roman imperial power.For decades, historians have argued about the lethality of the disease; its social and economic impact; and the routes by which it spread. In 2019-20, several studies, widely publicised in the media, argued that historians had massively exaggerated...

the virus is our enemy. We need a modicum of clarity here. If the virus was deliberately seeded into this country, it is not the enemy—it’s the weapon. The enemy lay elsewhere. If we are to be open-minded, we must consider that while China halted all travel and grounded all domestic air travel in February 2020 to contain the pandemic, it continued international flights unabated until March 27. With less supporting evidence is the assertion of a high-ranking Chinese defector that the virus was intentionally released in October 2019 into the World Military Games in Wuhan.

So a few days ago we all got notice from our beloved (not) president that we all must be vaccinated. How many are having this trouble? Just want to discuss because I want more outlet and sources.

Surrounded by fires, parched by drought, and shut down by the pandemic – residents of California’s scenic South Lake Tahoe thought they’d endured everything. That was until this week, when the US Forest Service announced it was closing several popular sites after discovering bubonic plague in the chipmunk population. The federal agency announced this week that “based on positive plague tests” in the rodent population around hiking areas, it would close the well-trafficked Taylor Creek Visitor Center and nearby Kiva Beach through Friday. The closure includes some of the region’s most spectacular hiking spots, which meander through forested glades speckled...

Highlights Yersinia pestis is discovered in a 5,000-year-old hunter-gatherer from Latvia Y. pestis emerged ∼7,000 years ago at the beginning of the Neolithic The infected individual might represent a case of septicemic plague due to zoonosis Summary A 5,000-year-old Yersinia pestis genome (RV 2039) is reconstructed from a hunter-fisher-gatherer (5300–5050 cal BP) buried at Riņņukalns, Latvia. RV 2039 is the first in a series of ancient strains that evolved shortly after the split of Y. pestis from its antecessor Y. pseudotuberculosis ∼7,000 years ago. The genomic and phylogenetic characteristics of RV 2039 are consistent with the hypothesis that this very...

By now, it’s become quite evident that the western half of the U.S. is facing one of the worst megadroughts in decades. We’ve spoken about fallow land and drying up reservoirs, but the question remains what happens next? Well, it’s not great, and it’s straight out of the playbook from the 1930s Great Depression when the same parts of the U.S. were transformed into a desert, triggering a grasshopper plague. A.P. News said federal agriculture officials are set to launch one of the largest grasshopper-killing campaigns in three decades amid an outbreak. The insects belong to the suborder Caelifera family...

Ok, I know this a vanity, but what is the difference between a bacterium(plague) which can be treated with antibiotics, and a virus(covid, flu) has to be eradicated by a vaccine?

The 17-year “Brood X” cicadas are hatching in such high numbers that they’re being picked up by weather radar in Virginia. “THIS is not rain, not ground clutter,” NBC meteorologist Lauryn Ricketts tweeted on Monday. “So likely CICADAS being picked up by the radar beam.” Pallozzi said the NWS has a weather radar located in Sterling, Virginia, in the same region as the radar map that Ricketts posted, and explained that the beams the radar devices send out rise the further they travel from the machine. So the beams are picking up the newly emerged cicadas on the ground near...

Coronaviruses are notorious for ADE reactions, where antibody presence potentiates the infection instead of protecting against it. Using that as a bioweapon is stupid because you will score "own goals" on your own people and there is no way to control that. As a result biological weapons generally are dumb; poison gas and such don't have this risk since it does not propagate but any disease does. The poster child for ADE in coronaviruses was an attempted vaccine for a feline coronavirus that often made cats very sick. The vaccine killed every one of them in the test when they...

"Everybody says each election is the most important in their history. But I think this election is one of the four or five most important..." Join us in listening to Victor Davis Hanson, the Wayne and Marcia Buske Distinguished Fellow in History at Hillsdale College. 1 hour video

In the Middle Ages, the plague caused tens of millions of deaths in Europe in a series of outbreaks known as the Black Death. And while it's extremely rare in modern times, the deadly bacterial infection is still around today — but how likely are you to catch it? This week, California reported its first case of plague in five years. The patient, a resident of the South Lake Tahoe area, is said to be recovering at home. And in July, a 15-year-old boy in western Mongolia died of bubonic plague that he contracted from an infected marmot. According to...

(South Lake Tahoe, CA) - El Dorado County health officials have been notified by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) that a South Lake Tahoe resident has tested positive for plague. The individual is currently under the care of a medical professional and is recovering at home. It's believed that the person, an avid walker, may have been bitten by an infected flea while walking their dog along the Truckee River Corridor north of Highway 50 or the Tahoe Keys area in South Lake Tahoe. Health officials are investigating the situation. According to El Dorado County Public Health Officer,...

Who Is Saint Rocco? Saint Rocco was born of noble parentage about 1340 A.D. in Montpellier, France. At birth it was noted that he had a red cross-shaped birthmark on the left side of his chest. As a young child, San Rocco showed great devotion to God and the Blessed mother. At an early age, his parents died leaving him an orphan under the care of his uncle, the Duke of Montpellier. Soon after, San Rocco distributed his wealth among the poor and took a vow of poverty. San Rocco dressed in the clothes of a pilgrim and departed...

While the WHO declares that there is nothing to worry about, China is sealing off entire villages and a man died in New Mexico from a rare form of the plague that once killed off half the world population. China sealed off several villages in Inner Mongolia in a second attempt to contain the spread of a new outbreak of bubonic plague. A man died in the region’s city of Bayannur from multiple organ failure after contracting the disease. Authorities in Bayannur said: “The place of residence of the deceased is locked down, and a comprehensive epidemiological investigation is being...

Navajo County Assistant Manager Bryan Layton said Friday that a man over the age of 55 was being treated for the disease amid an investigation into how it was contracted. The Navajo County Health Department encouraged people to avoid rodent burrows and keep dogs on a leash. Human symptoms of plague usually appear within two to six days of contact and include fever, chills, headaches and often a swelling of lymph nodes under the armpit.

From the year that brought us murder hornets, famine-inducing locusts and the global coronavirus pandemic, comes the latest airborne scourge: a 50-mile-wide swarm of flying, and mating, ants. The horny swarm currently copulating over England is so vast, it showed up on radar to the bafflement of meteorologists, the Telegraph reported Friday. Weather watchers initially believed the weird “droplets” on their radar screens were rain clouds. But that made no sense given the dry and otherwise cloudless weather being enjoyed below in London, Kent and Sussex, the report said. Britain’s Met office later cleared the mystery up in a tweet....