[Update] About The Pseudo-Vax Executive Order For Private Companies: Southwest Edition

Reading about the situation with Southwest Airlines, I keeping seeing claims like this tweet.

The CEO is of course lying. Biden has not even issued an executive order for private companies. The “mandate” is just theatrics, it was designed to look like policy but isn’t because even an executive order would get challenged in the courts.

Not exactly… and it’s complicated. I’m pretty sure this person is talking about the announcement Biden made about mandating companies with 100+ employees require everyone to get pseudo-vaxed. It’s true that no such executive order has been issued.

But this one, dated September 9, 2021, has; and it is the one that the Southwest CEO has been invoking. This one applies to federal contractors, which Southwest is (mail, and likely other stuff).

This order promotes economy and efficiency in Federal procurement by ensuring that the parties that contract with the Federal Government provide adequate COVID-19 safeguards to their workers performing on or in connection with a Federal Government contract or contract-like instrument as described in section 5(a) of this order.

And how does the order enforce that? Here’s where it’s tricky, and the Southwest CEO is either an asshole or a liar.

(a) Executive departments and agencies, including independent establishments subject to the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act, 40 U.S.C. 102(4)(A) (agencies), shall, to the extent permitted by law, ensure that contracts and contract-like instruments (as described in section 5(a) of this order) include a clause that the contractor and any subcontractors (at any tier) shall incorporate into lower-tier subcontracts.

This isn’t a retroactive, unilateral change to existing contracts. It covers future contracts. The only way it could apply to existing contracts would be to renegotiate them with the contractor.

In the case of Southwest, either Southwest voluntarily renegotiated their contract and allowed the clause to be added (making the CEO an asshole putting his employees’ lives on the line), or it did not renegotiate. The clause would not be there, the mandates for employee jabs is nonexistent, and the CEO is a liar claiming the mandate exists and blaming the feds to deflect criticism and lawsuits.

Southwest can make this a condition of employment on its own, especially in right-to-work states, but then Southwest would be on the hook for any pseudo-vax adverse effects. That is what I think the CEO is trying to hide.

Added: Note that Delta isn’t doing the mandate crap.

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Your Daily Dose Of COVID-19 WTF

OK, this is disturbing. Let me start with a recap of the background.

The COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 PCR test, used to screen for ChinCOVID, was originally created without access to the actual virus. In very short form, they looked at a Chinese public database of what the Chinese said was a partial nucleotide sequence of SARS-CoV-2. Two sequences were selected from that. Then they assumed that a third sequence found in the original SARS virus would also be in SARS-CoV-2. They then prepared a series of reagents to detect those sequences.

That is what the CDC published.

While it turns out there serious problems with the creation of the test, in theory I would consider this an acceptable interim emergency test for what they thought at the time was a disease with a fatality rate of 10% or more. But as soon as physically possible, they should obtain an actual sample of the virus, an isolate, sequence it, and create a new test for sequences now determined to be in the actual virus (preferably sequences unique to SARS-CoV-2).

Now for the WTF.

This morning, I realized that the CDC has been revising their CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel. As of the seventh revision on July 21, 2021, this year, they still say

Since no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV were available for CDC use at the time the test was developed and this study conducted, assays designed for detection of the 2019-nCoV RNA were tested with characterized stocks of in vitro transcribed full length RNA…

Twenty months into the so-called pandemic, and they were still saying they didn’t have a sample of the actual SARS-CoV-2 virus to sequence. I repeat, WTF?

Why not?

Never mind the questions this raises about whether the PCR test really detects SARS-CoV-2 (or something else?), or if there is a SARS-CoV-2 to detect, think about the pseudo-vaccines. They were all developed prior to 7/21/2021, naturally.

They were developed on the assumption/belief/knowledge that SARS-CoV-2 has a nucleotide sequence that would code for a specific spike protein. They genegineered mRNA or DNA (depends on the pseudo-vax) to cause production of that specific spike protein.

But if as late as 7/21/2021 no one had the actual virus, how can they be sure SARS-CoV-2 uses that spike protein?

Someone please tell me, with links to supporting documentation, that someone has isolated SARS-CoV-2, and has confirmed the sequences (and thus the spike protein).

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Maxine Waters: I think I can explain it.

A few days ago, Maxine Waters, never noted for the high quality of her intellect, tweeted that her Twitter account had been deleted. Fox News notes that Waters still hasn’t explained her bizarre claim, what with the account still being there.

Personally, I think what happened is that she accidentally deleted her bookmark for her account.

Alternately, since she hasn’t tweeted since then, she may have accidentally reset her password, and deleted the confirmation password. She could have locked herself out.

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Economics Lecture: Is Psaki an idiot, or just hoping we are?

Time for a lecture on basic economics, I’m afraid. WH Press Liar Psaki just defended inflation as a good thing. A reporter was grilling her on chief of staff Ron Klain blowing off inflation as a “high class problem.”

“The fact is the unemployment rate is about half what it was a year ago. So a year ago, people were in their homes. Ten percent of people were unemployed. Gas prices were low because nobody was driving. People weren’t buying goods because they didn’t have jobs. Now more people have jobs. More people are buying goods. That’s increasing the demand. That’s a good thing.”

Did you see what she did?

I suspect that a lot of people do think inflation is prices going up. But that’s just because prices are commonly used as a proxy to measure inflation. It’s a little more complicated than that, but not much. Let’s talk price. Continue reading Economics Lecture: Is Psaki an idiot, or just hoping we are?

I’m gonna have to call that attempted murder.

The Accountability Project reported on Facebook that staff at a Texas hospital put a plastic bag over a 17yo girl’s head.

This 17 year old young lady went to the emergency room in Odessa, COVID positive, because she couldn’t breath. She was humiliated and dehumanized by the staff. Aside from the warning on the bag not to place this over your head, as it could cause suffocation, this is just wrong. The bag is labeled equipment cover and has your typical warning on it. The girls mother said she complained of not being able to breath well, taking off the mask, and was asked to put it back on. The bag was over her head for roughly 30 minutes and she was instructed to save the bag for future use throughout the hospital.

Is “attempted murder” over the top?

This 17 year old young lady went to the emergency room in Odessa, COVID positive…

COVID positive. A common issue in the more serious COVID cases is difficulty breathing because the lungs aren’t exchanging air properly. Blood O2 level goes down. This is a bad thing.

…because she couldn’t breath.

Confirmed. Difficulty breathing. With that alone, medical personnel should have taken into account the very high probability that the girl’s blood O2 level is low.

Then she put on a mask. That would further lower her blood O2. She could already be getting down to dangerous levels.

Now, why do plastic bags get warning labels? Because putting one over your head can cause asphyxiation, meaning you don’t get enough oxygen, and CO2 is trapped in the bag.

Deliberately putting a bag over someone is already beginning asphyxiation is a clear attempt to complete the process.

Murder.

Rather than a plastic bag, they should have been giving her oxygen. If they were concerned about her spreading COVID, they could have used one of these.

Instead, they deliberately blocked her air.

Attempted murder.

‘Twere me, I’d file a criminal complaint, a civil complaint to the state medical board, and a malpractice lawsuit. But that’s just me, because I object to people trying to kill family members as a general rule. I’m an asshole like that.

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Mass Shooting

In Norway. Five dead so far, several injured. It should drop out of the news real quick, because:

  • No gun. Apparently he used a bow and arrows (one report said it might have been a crossbow).
  • Islamic terrorist, known to the authorities.Reports also said he’s Danish. But I can’t help but wonder if he’s a Dane of Middle Eastern descent.Update: No, he doesn’t appear to be.
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How ’bout that?

The blog is back up. Finally. This seems to happen around once a month, but usually only last a few hours. I think it’s the hosting company doing server maintenance. I can’t really complain much because it’s free hosting.

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Oh, my. Even for Waters, that’s stupid.

Maxine Waters announced that someone hacked her and “erased” her Twitter account.

She announced that ON her Twitter account. Which clearly hasn’t been erased.

Added: And her campaign account is still up.

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Things Are Getting Strange Around Here

We’ve got squirrels stealing ham bones from dogs, and fighting amongst themselves over who gets to eat it.

We have bipedal lizards.

And today, the bluejays started having conversations with woodpeckers. Not screeching at each other, a conversation.

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Buried Power Transmission Lines

357 Magnum has a pretty good post about why it isn’t as easy as many people think. There’s a good link and a video illustrating… issues.

The video is about Los Angeles doing a repair on a buried line back in 1989. I missed that when it happened. It took months and millions of dollars.

That system was a big steel pipe, with the 3 phase conductors run through it. The conductors were individually wrapped in layers of paper for insulation, then the pipe was pressurized with oil. The oil acts as a dielectric for additional insulation and heat management.

Watch the video for the details. One thing that wasn’t addressed in the video struck me. They eventually had to drain all the oil out of the ten mile pipe. I see problems.

I’m betting that was the same type of carcinogenic, PCB-ladened oil that used to be used in transformers. Disposing of that oil would have been a HAZMAT nightmare. Been there, done that. Smaller amount, though.

I used to work on troposcatter radios. They used… oh, I think 1,000 pound transformers, and they filled with that oil. And they leaked.

We finally got to replace them with non-PCB transformers, which were smaller, lighter, and more efficient than the old stuff. But cleaning up everything was a nasty cleansuit affair. The old transformers had to be sealed up. Everything we used — suits masks, gloves, wipes, cleaning solution — had to go into sealed barrels. And the barrels’ exterior had to be decontaminated.

You know, what with the PCB exposure, X-rays from the klystrons, and general radiation from spending years living at high altitudes, it’s a wonder I never got cancer. I’m glad troposcater is pretty a thing of the past.

I think oil-type buried power lines are also going the way of the dodo. It looks like the current preferred technique is heavy duty coaxial lines run through separate concrete ducts, with buried canble vaults for splice points. No oil. But it still costs as much as 15 times what overhead lines do.

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