Archive of entries posted on 13th February 2024

And Yet the Emu Is Still Going Strong After All These Years

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$12,250 Robocop Out of Commission in NYC After Only 4 Months
The Post Millennial | February 6, 2024 | Jarryd Jaeger

“Jarryd”?

New York City’s infamous “robocop” . . .

“Retirmentcop”?

. . . has officially ended its pilot program, according to an official from the city. The machine lasted only four months [[ two months of working ]] and cost $12,250.

Cyberyonara.

The 5-foot-tall 400lb security robot, K5, was introduced in October of last year to much fanfare from Mayor Eric Adams’ office, however, the public was not as impressed and it was stashed away in a vacant storefront just two months into the city’s six-month contract with its manufacturer, Knightscope.

“The K5 Knightscope has completed its pilot in the NYC subway system,” a spokesperson for the New York Police Department said in a statement earlier this month, per the New York Times.

Well, sure. I completed my pilot program stashed away in a vacant storefront after just two months. Standard Oppo-rating procedures.

Adams spokesman Charles Lutvik further explained that while K5 was working a 6-month contract, the decision to remove it from the subway after just two months was all part of the original plan.

Yeahhhh, point me to that where it said that in the proposal and design specs, and in the original press release.

“The Adams administration is constantly exploring innovative technologies that can advance the work we’ve done to bring down crime and keep New Yorkers safe while maximizing the use of taxpayer dollars,” Lutvak said. “We are reviewing options for the K5’s next deployment as part of the pilot.”

How about “Storage Wars”?

At a press conference in September, Adams touted K5 as the way of the future, saying, “eventually, this is going to be a part of the fabric of our subway system.”

… he said, combining weave with woof.

The city paid $12,250 for the contract . . .

from Fani Willis?

. . . and with K5’s midnight-to-6am shifts, that worked out to around $9 per hour.

6 hours x 30 days per month x 2 months = 360 hours.

$12,250 / 360 hours = $34 per hour.

“This is below minimum wage!” Adams quipped. “No bathroom breaks. No meal breaks. This is a good investment.”

Critics quickly countered Adams’ claims after seeing K5 in action. Despite its size, the massive, camera-equipped robot required as many as two human police officers to guard it at all times.

Just like Oppo! I’m a success!

Now I Have Definitely Heard Everything

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Woke History: Some Anglo-Saxon Warriors Were Trans, Claims Academic

… not for long, they weren’t, I’m betting.

Breitbart | 02/07/2024 | Kurt Zindulka

A British academic projecting “trans theory” onto the past has claimed that the graves of Anglo-Saxon warriors indicate that some among their ranks were transgender.

James Davison, a University of Liverpool PhD candidate and tutor of medieval history, has asserted that examining the graves of Anglo-Saxon warriors through the “lens of transness” suggests that there may have been trans warriors 1,500 years ago and that so-called transgender women may have been exalted in their society.

“Using approaches from trans studies – which acknowledge the potential for genders beyond a male-female binary in historical cultures – allows researchers to approach these burials more critically,” he wrote according to The Telegraph.

Davison claimed that deploying “the lens of trans theory and the 21st-century language of ‘transness’ has the potential to improve historians’ understanding of early Anglo-Saxon gender”.

“May have been” and “may have been” again in the same sentence do not sound like a solid foundation for a thesis. Oh, he’s a tutor? Well, I guess I’ll just defer to him, then.

Well, Now I May Have Heard Everything

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This is from the NIH website.

(I broke it up into paragraphs for easier reading.)

COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines: Lessons Learned from the Registrational Trials and Global Vaccination Campaign
NIH | Feb 11, 2024

Abstract

Our understanding of COVID-19 vaccinations and their impact on health and mortality has evolved substantially since the first vaccine rollouts. Published reports from the original randomized phase 3 trials concluded that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines could greatly reduce COVID-19 symptoms.

In the interim, problems with the methods, execution, and reporting of these pivotal trials have emerged. Re-analysis of the Pfizer trial data identified statistically significant increases in serious adverse events (SAEs) in the vaccine group.

Numerous SAEs were identified following the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), including death, cancer, cardiac events, and various autoimmune, hematological, reproductive, and neurological disorders. Furthermore, these products never underwent adequate safety and toxicological testing in accordance with previously established scientific standards.

Among the other major topics addressed in this narrative review are the published analyses of serious harms to humans, quality control issues and process-related impurities, mechanisms underlying adverse events (AEs), the immunologic basis for vaccine inefficacy, and concerning mortality trends based on the registrational trial data.

The risk-benefit imbalance substantiated by the evidence to date contraindicates further booster injections and suggests that, at a minimum, the mRNA injections should be removed from the childhood immunization program until proper safety and toxicological studies are conducted.

Federal agency approval of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines on a blanket-coverage population-wide basis had no support from an honest assessment of all relevant registrational data and commensurate consideration of risks versus benefits.

Given the extensive, well-documented SAEs and unacceptably high harm-to-reward ratio, we urge governments to endorse a global moratorium on the modified mRNA products until all relevant questions pertaining to causality, residual DNA, and aberrant protein production are answered.

Figure 1. Analysis of Pfizer trial’s weekly mortality over a 33-week period 

This representation of the Pfizer trial by Michels et al. [54] showcases the weekly count of subject deaths from July 27, 2020, to March 13, 2021. Solid bars denote BNT162b2 recipients, gray bars signify the placebo group, and hatched bars represent previously unblinded placebo subjects who later received BNT162b2. The solid line represents the cumulative death count for the BNT162b2 group and the dotted line for the placebo group. Image Source: Michels et al., 2023 [54]; Published with permission by authors under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Deed (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International)

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Figure 4. Cleveland Clinic study showing increased COVID-19 cases for subjects most “up to date” with mRNA vaccinations 

Cleveland Clinic study comparing cumulative COVID-19 incidence between “up-to-date” and “not up-to-date” individuals based on CDC-defined vaccination status. The plot includes point estimates and 95% confidence intervals along the x-axis. Image Credit: Shrestha et al., 2023 [100]; Open access, licensed under CC BY 4.0 Deed (Attribution 4.0 International)

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