Gotta admire these people! Putting their beliefs into action-- righteous protest!

https://newrepublic.com/article/164062/sunrise-climate-activists-hunger-strike

https://twitter.com/HungerStr1ke/status/1451909487221166085?s=20

Good piece for the vaccine hesitant and those who wonder why they should get vaccinated even if they've had COVID, and for Republicans who keep complaining about why natural immunity doesn't get credit.

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/574284-natural-covid-19-immunity-is-powerful-but-kind-of-irrelevant

"Over 43 million Americans have reported cases of COVID-19. Many of them likely have some amount of natural immunity, and this kind of immunity can be quite protective, even without vaccination. Why does it seem that scientists are ignoring natural immunity in the national discussion of vaccine mandates and vaccine passports?

Natural immunity can, indeed, be powerful. Even before vaccines were available, individuals who recovered from COVID-19 had detectable T-cell responses, and reinfections were rare, at least prior to the emergence of the aggressive Delta variant.

However, the scientific community strongly recommends vaccination even in people who had COVID-19 infection. There are very good reasons for this. Every component of the immune response to the SARS-CoV-2 virus improves after vaccination, including antibodies and T-cells. In those with prior COVID-19 infection, vaccination can elicit important cross-variant neutralizing antibodies. And clinical protection improves after vaccination in people who had prior infection: In a recent study, people with prior COVID-19 who received even one vaccine dose had half the risk of a breakthrough infection than unvaccinated people with prior COVID-19. So, vaccination even helps those with prior COVID-19 (and everyone they interact with). "

Importantly

"Not everyone who has a case of COVID-19 will have natural immunity. In a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study of those with prior COVID-19 infection, 36 percent did not form any antibodies against the virus. This is in stark contrast to antibody formation in 100 percent of (non-immunocompromised) people who receive even one dose of an mRNA vaccine (Pfizer or Moderna), as impressively reported in the large vaccine trials. So, from a practical perspective, if a business or school is trying to figure out if someone is safe to be around, they can rest quite assured that someone who shows them vaccine proof is safe, but it would be nearly impossible to determine if someone with prior COVID-19 is safe. Beyond the logistical issues of proving that a person had prior COVID-19, how can they prove they're in the 64 percent who have some natural immunity?"

Not just the famous Aug 6th PDB, but there were at least 2 high profile FBI whistleblowers saying that their warnings were being ignored, including Colleen Rowley, who was in charge of the case of the 20th hijacker who was arrested before the attacks, Zacarias Moussaoui.

https://accuracy.org/release/9-11-cover-up-whistleblower-coleen-rowley/

http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,249500,00.html

Also keep in mind that the great Robert Mueller was in charge of the FBI at that time.

prior to 9/11. Mehdi Hasan reminds us.

https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1435398650541314049?s=20

I'd be willing to take a family in if needed

He said the Biden people should have kept other airports open to get people out and we should have started months ago.

It seems to me we put out notices for people to leave months ago.

I'm not sure how many airports we could have kept open with the 2,500 soldiers we had left there.

But this guy was really upset and complained about all the chaos.

He did and we should all praise our troops for the job they are doing.

But I'm not sure how we were supposed to make Americans leave early if they didn't want to go.

And for several reasons we couldn't really get Afghans out until the end.

So how can they have attacked us?
https://twitter.com/williamlegate/status/1430918950062264321?s=20

I remember the Biden people were telling non-essential staff to get out months ago.

And certainly once it was clear the Taliban was taking control, shouldn't they have gotten to the airport first?

Is it media types or what? They say thousands of Americans left in country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/climate/maine-recycling-law-EPR.html


The law aims to take the cost burden of recycling away from taxpayers. One environmental advocate said the change could be “transformative.”

Recycling, that feel-good moment when people put their paper and plastic in special bins, was a headache for municipal governments even in good times. And, only a small amount was actually getting recycled.

Then, five years ago, China stopped buying most of America’s recycling, and dozens of cities across the United States suspended or weakened their recycling programs.

Now, Maine has implemented a new law that could transform the way packaging is recycled by requiring manufacturers, rather than taxpayers, to cover the cost. Nearly a dozen states have been considering similar regulations and Oregon is about to sign its own version in coming weeks.

Maine’s law “is transformative,” said Sarah Nichols, who leads the sustainability program at the Natural Resources Council of Maine. More fundamentally, “It’s going to be the difference between having a recycling program or not.”

Long piece but quite good and I hope more states go this way

https://www.wired.com/story/what-you-can-do-solve-climate-change/

From there, the conversation naturally spiraled into the undercurrent of terror that comes with being alive today. Australia was ablaze, and the embers had barely cooled in the Amazon. A typhoon was encroaching on the Philippines. And that wasn't counting the countless other disasters underway in Africa and Latin America that never made the headlines. Even on our way in, we couldn't help but notice that it hardly seemed like December outside.

I could tell that it felt good to talk like this: open and honest about the experience of watching the world fall apart in front of our eyes. To say our fears out loud and have them, and ourselves, accepted and understood.

It was almost like I could see the weight lifting from our shoulders. But as that weight lifted, it only rose so far. It hung in the air, just above our heads like a heavy ominous cloud, until someone finally popped the question that brought the weight back down on us:

“But what can we, as individuals, do?”

The piece doesn't really offer any specific action items but still it's important that we all do SOMETHING, especially speak out to make this issue more pressing for lawmakers.