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There is a giant commodities shortage in America right now thanks to the incompetence of our leadership class (including a Secretary of Transportation taking paternity leave for a baby he didn’t have), but one thing that has been in really short supply for a while is good apples. The shelves are bare; the only apples we see are rotten and wormy. We always hear about how the federal agencies, which are increasingly being used as the personal Stasi of the ruling caste to protect their positions, powers, and prestige against challenges by us peasants, are filled with hard-working professionals upholding...

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Its outlines are faint, only discernible at an angle, but the world’s oldest drawing of a ghost has been discovered in the darkened vaults of the British Museum. A lonely bearded spirit being led into the afterlife and eternal bliss by a lover has been identified on an ancient Babylonian clay tablet created about 3,500 years ago. It is part of an exorcist’s guide to getting rid of unwanted ghosts... ...As a world authority on cuneiform, a system of writing used in the ancient Middle East, Finkel realised that the tablet had been incorrectly deciphered previously. The drawing had been...

Ever since I joined the public conversation as a conservative writer, I’ve been called a fascist and a Nazi by smug, liberal know-nothings, sublimely confident of the truth of their ill-informed prejudices.So wrote Jonah Goldberg, in response to slander, in his George W. Bush-era Liberal Fascism. Goldberg has recently engaged in some sublimely-confident slanders of his own, scorning Trump-supporting Republican Party because of “its descent into asininity.” He anticipates Trump’s return as the party’s nominee in 2024, and the only way to head off that nightmare is another Democratic presidency that will protract the catastrophic progressive transformation of the country...

Brooklyn, we have a problem. The MTA spent $86 million on a state-of-the-art, NASA-like “bus command center” that has gone unused for more than two years because it’s already falling apart, The Post has learned. Transit officials have said the eastern Brooklyn command center, which replaces a smaller facility across the street, will serve as a “war room” for bus dispatchers. But the building has sat empty since former Transit President Andy Byford and other big-wigs held a celebratory ribbon cutting there in June 2019. With the building at Jamaica Avenue and Fanchon Place having suffered leaks, faulty heating and...

There are a great many unknowns and controversies associated with the COVID pandemic. Among the most urgent are those associated with appropriate therapeutic and prophylactic interventions. Some of the most intense disputes involve repurposed therapies — i.e., drugs that have been approved for treatment of some other condition being used as therapy for COVID. This is the case with the anti-parasitic agent ivermectin. Much of the controversy regarding ivermectin involves "evidence" that the drug has a benefit in treatment of COVID. Detractors will often use the hyperbolic claim that there is no evidence that ivermectin is useful in this setting....

Aspirin is one of those drugs that has been around forever. It is commonly used as a pain reliever, anti-inflammatory, and as a blood thinner. Surprisingly it may also have benefit in treating COVID. A paper in Anesthesia and Analgesia published last spring titled, “Aspirin use is associated with decreased mechanical ventilation, intensive care unit admission, and in-hospital mortality in hospitalized patients with coronavirus disease 2019.” This was a retrospective, observational study of adult patients admitted to multiple hospitals in the U.S. between March and July 2020, in the early days of COVID. The primary outcome addressed by the researchers...

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Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vetoed two Republican-backed election bills, arguing they "fail to advance" secure elections. "How do we provide safe and secure elections in our state if the governor can’t even agree that we should be ensuring dead people aren’t on our voting rolls?" a sponsor of one the bills, Republican state Sen. Michael MacDonald, said in a statement following Whitmer's vetoes on Friday. ...

Another shameful moment for Victoria Police caught on camera. On Saturday, police swarmed Princess Park in Carlton North, attempting to shut down a protest that never eventuated. Thousands of officers descended on the inner-city park confronting locals lawfully out enjoying the day. Sitting on a park bench with her husband drinking tea, one woman refusing to show ID police violently tackled to the ground. Mainstream media quickly photographed the woman as police had her pinned to the gravel, labelling her a protester. But none of them spoke to their alleged "protester". If they had, they'd know she was innocent.

...Currently, over 1 million doses of monoclonal antibody infusions have been given in the United States. Use of monoclonal antibodies gained steam during the delta variant surge over the summer when Florida and other states opened clinics to administer the drugs in an attempt to keep sick people out of overwhelmed hospitals. Monoclonal antibodies have been authorized for post-exposure prophylaxis, meaning they are used shortly after someone tests positive in order to prevent progression to severe disease. The antibodies range in effectiveness depending on type, but some have been shown in to reduce COVID-related hospitalization or death by up to...

Investigators believe a 1,200-foot (366-meter) cargo ship dragging anchor in rough seas caught an underwater oil pipeline and pulled it across the seafloor, months before a leak from the line fouled the Southern California coastline with crude. A team of federal investigators trying to chase down the cause of the spill boarded the Panama-registered MSC DANIT just hours after the massive ship arrived this weekend off the Port of Long Beach... ...The DANIT's operator, MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, is headquartered in Switzerland and has a fleet of 600 vessels and more than 100,000 workers, according to the company....

[H/T Tatown] Andrew Bostom, MD, MS @andrewbostom 1/ Whistleblower: FDA and CDC Ignore Damning Report that over 90% of a Hospital’s Admissions were Vaccinated for Covid-19 and No One Was Reporting This to VAERS, by @AaronSiriSGhttps://aaronsiri.substack.com/p/whistleblower-fda-and-cdc-ignore-3e2?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=Whistleblower: FDA and CDC Ignore Damning Report that over 90% of a Hospital’s Admissions were Vaccinated for Covid-19 and No One Was Reporting This to VAERS - by Aaron Siri - Injecting Freedom (substack.com)12:24 PM · Oct 17, 2021·Twitter Web App Andrew Bostom, MD, MS @andrewbostom·12h Replying to @andrewbostom2/ Link to full letter to CDC and FDA: https://sirillp.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Letter-Re-First-Hand-Account-of-Covid-19-Vaccine-Injuries-and-Underreporting-to-VAERS-1.pdf… Andrew Bostom, MD, MS @andrewbostom·12h 3/...

Controversial Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot hit the headlines again after breaking her city's own mask rules to pose for a photo bare-faced at a basketball game. Lightfoot shared the snap of herself smiling, while surrounded by scores of fans - all of them masked - after the game at Chicago's Wintrust Arena Sunday night. 'What a moment. Congrats champs! A first but not the last for Chicago Sky' she tweeted while holding her arms in the air in celebration at Chicago's first WNBA title with a 80-74 win over Phoenix,' she wrote.

A Virginia prosecutor who ran on ending mass-incarceration in jails pushed to have a father who was dragged out of a Loudoun County school board meeting jailed on two misdemeanor charges despite him claiming his daughter had been raped. Scott Smith was photographed on June 22 being arrested and dragged out of the heated meeting with his torso exposed in Leesburg, Virginia after he protested its proposed transgender policies. The 48-year-old plumber was ridiculed on social media afterwards and was painted by the left to be a deranged, right-wing bigot.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has reportedly laid down new red lines for the Democrats’ multi-trillion reconciliation bill, this time making demands regarding the expanded child tax credit provision. Axios reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the matter, that Manchin informed the White House that the child tax credit must have an "established work" requirement and a family income limit in the $60,000 range if Democrats want his vote for the package. Those demands, Axios noted, would significantly weaken the child tax credit, which is one of President Biden’s key programs to assist working families. It would also bring down...

October 18th, 2021Memorial of Saint Luke the EvangelistL'Eglise Saint Dominique, Paris, France Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green First reading2 Timothy 4:10-17 ©Only Luke is with meDemas has deserted me for love of this life and gone to Thessalonika, Crescens has gone to Galatia and Titus to Dalmatia; only Luke is with me. Get Mark to come and bring him with you; I find him a useful helper in my work. I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak I left with Carpus in Troas, and the scrolls, especially the parchment ones. Alexander the coppersmith has done...

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Sunday slammed the Department of Justice’s investigation into schools, saying it unfairly targets parents. “What the attorney general is doing … is outrageous. It is such a violation of people’s constitutional rights to petition their government, to free speech,” Johnson said during an interview on Cats Roundtable with John Catsimatidis on WABC 770 AM. The DOJ and Attorney General Merrick Garland announced they would be investigating threats made against school board members and teachers after a string of contentious school board meetings across the country. Some parents have been protesting at school board meetings and...

On Friday, October 15, a conservative member of the British Parliament, David Amess, was brutally stabbed to death in a church in Essex by a man identified by police as being of Somali origin. Police have not yet released details of the crime. However, the British police announced that they are considering the attack as a terrorist act motivated by Islamic fundamentalism, and the investigation is led by the anti-terrorism police. The question that is begging for an answer in everybody’s mind is why?! What was the motive of the assailant to kill David Amess, and what group or government...

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has told the White House the child tax credit must include a firm work requirement and family income cap in the $60,000 range, people familiar with the matter tell Axios.