Today's Dumbassery

It just doesn't make any sense to me that people would go so far out of their way to find shit that could easily bring them harm, and shame their families.

No mention in the Times of the penalties people can face for this kinda shit.

See The Conversation for more on that:

NYT: (pay wall)

Instagram User @AntiVaxMomma Charged With Selling Fake Vaccine Cards

The charges highlight how a black market for counterfeit Covid-19 vaccine cards has grown as the Delta variant fuels the latest wave of the coronavirus.

A New Jersey woman who used the Instagram handle @AntiVaxMomma was charged in a conspiracy to sell hundreds of fake coronavirus vaccination cards over the social media platform, Manhattan prosecutors said on Tuesday.

The allegations against the woman, Jasmine Clifford, 31, were unveiled in Manhattan criminal court. Prosecutors said that Ms. Clifford sold about 250 forged cards over Instagram.

She also worked with another woman, Nadayza Barkley, 27, who is employed at a medical clinic in Patchogue, N.Y., to fraudulently enter at least 10 people into New York’s immunization database, prosecutors said.

There was a warrant out for Ms. Clifford’s arrest, but she did not appear in the courtroom on Tuesday. She is expected to be charged with two felonies related to the scheme, in addition to the conspiracy charge, which is a misdemeanor.

Ms. Barkley, who did appear in court, was charged with a felony, as were 13 people who purchased the cards, some of whom worked in hospitals and nursing homes. A lawyer for Ms. Clifford could not immediately be reached for comment. Theodore Goldbergh, a lawyer who represented Ms. Barkley at the appearance, said that she had been released on her own recognizance but declined to comment further.

Beginning in May, prosecutors said, Ms. Clifford, who described herself online as an entrepreneur and the operator of multiple businesses, began advertising forged vaccination cards through her Instagram account.

She charged $200 for the falsified cards, prosecutors said. For $250 more, Ms. Barkley would enter a customer’s name into New York’s official immunization database, enabling him or her to obtain the state’s Excelsior Pass, a digital certificate of vaccination.

Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, released a statement that called on Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, to crack down on fraud.

“We will continue to safeguard public health in New York with proactive investigations like these, but the stakes are too high to tackle fake vaccination cards with whack-a-mole prosecutions,” Mr. Vance said. “Making, selling, and purchasing forged vaccination cards are serious crimes with serious public safety consequences.”

A spokesman for Facebook said the platform prohibited anyone from buying or selling vaccine cards, that it had removed Ms. Clifford’s account at the beginning of August, and that it would review any other accounts that might be doing the same thing, removing any it turned up.

A popular TikTok user, @Tizzyent, highlighted Ms. Clifford’s scheme in a viral video this month. A spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office said that the video had not led to the charges against Ms. Clifford and the others, and court documents indicated that Ms. Clifford had been under investigation since June.

The charges against Ms. Clifford and her collaborators underscore a black-market industry for counterfeit vaccination cards that has come roaring into existence this year.

With only about 52 percent of the country fully vaccinated and a significant minority of Americans skeptical of the vaccines, forged cards are offered up on messaging services like Telegram and WhatsApp, as well as social media platforms like Instagram. Counterfeits have been spotted for sale on Amazon and Etsy.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said this month that its officers in Memphis had seized more than 3,000 forged cards in 2021 so far. Earlier this year, the National Association of Attorneys General sent a letter to the heads of Twitter, Shopify and eBay asking that they take immediate action to halt the sale of the fake cards on their websites.

Concerns about forged cards have risen as states, cities and corporations have shown more willingness to mandate vaccinations for certain activities and groups.

Earlier this month, New York City announced that it would begin to require that workers and customers at indoor restaurant dining rooms, gyms and performances have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine.

Last month, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the city’s more than 300,000 employees would have to get vaccinated or undergo weekly testing, prompting some pushback from unions, which are now in negotiations with the mayor’s office over the details of implementation.

Law enforcement officials have done what they can to crack down on fraud. Earlier this month, a Chicago-based pharmacist was arrested by federal agents and charged with the sale of 125 vaccination cards to 11 different buyers on eBay. The previous month, a naturopathic doctor in California was charged with a scheme to falsely record her customers as having received the Moderna vaccine.

New York’s Legislature recently passed a bill that would make it a state crime to falsify vaccination records. In an interview, State Senator Todd Kaminsky, one of the bill’s sponsors, said that counterfeit vaccine cards represented a growing threat.

“It was good foresight on our part to recognize that there were going to be those who would forge vaccine cards and create a public health danger,” he said.

@Tizzyent, the TikTok user who made a video about Ms. Clifford’s scheme this month, is an independent filmmaker in Florida who asked that he only be identified by his first name, Michael, because he had received threats for his videos in the past. He said in an interview that he had been fighting misinformation on social platforms for more than a year.

“It’s something that’s just a pet peeve,” he said.

He said that he had been alerted to a number of people selling counterfeit vaccine cards on social media, but that the @AntiVaxMomma scheme, for which she appeared to be recruiting collaborators when he stumbled upon one of her posts, seemed particularly advanced.

“A couple of days ago, a good friend of mine passed away from Covid,” he said. “When I see someone offering a workaround like this that’s putting everyone at risk, it’s horrifying to me.”

Roe v Wade

SCOTUS takes a nap - and goes 100% chickenshit by refusing to review the petition for an emergency stay.

So they disguise their bullshit activism, by actively deciding not to take an active roll in protecting a woman's right to make her own decisions about her own body.

BullChickenshit and passive aggressive is all that is.

Axios:

Unprecedented Texas abortion ban goes into effect

A law that bans abortions after six weeks, including in cases of rape and incest, went into effect in Texas on Wednesday.

Why it matters:

The law, one the most restrictive abortion bans in the U.S., prohibits the practice after a fetal heartbeat is detected — before many people know they are pregnant.

It also incentivizes individuals to sue anyone suspected of helping a woman obtain an abortion — and awards at least $10,000 to people who do so successfully.

Driving the news:

The American Civil Rights Union and several abortion rights groups this week asked the Supreme Court to temporarily block the ban. But the court did not act by the 1 a.m. ET deadline for the law to take effect.

 

Individuals representing those defending the law on Tuesday filed a brief urging the court to not intervene.

 

"A decision allowing the Texas law to take effect could signal that the high court is poised to topple precedents that now protect abortion rights until much later in pregnancy," Bloomberg notes.

Of note:

The Texas Legislature on Monday tentatively approved Senate Bill 4, which would limit patients who are more than seven weeks pregnant from accessing abortion pills, per the Texas Tribune.

 

Pills are currently allowed to be given to patients up to 10 weeks pregnant.

The bill also bans abortion-inducing pills from being mailed in Texas.

🎧 Listen: One reverend’s fight against a Texas abortion ban.

eggs ain't chickens

caterpillars ain't butterflies
And you got nuthin' to say

about nuthin' goin' on in my daughter's uterus

so fuck the fuck off, you fucking fuck

And to be clear, let's remember that "abortion bans" don't ban abortions - not for the country club set, or for anyone else who has the price of a plane ticket and the privilege of taking a coupla days off.

All this shit does is make abortion dangerous again.

This is what class warfare actually looks like.

COVID-19 Update

For Aug 1 - Aug 31, 2021

                New Cases            New Deaths

USA:        3,453,244                 10,793

World:     19,016,119                283,043

The first few paragraphs are all I really need on this one - NYT: (pay wall)

This Is the Moment the Anti-Vaccine Movement Has Been Waiting For

As the coronavirus began pushing the nation into lockdown in March 2020, Joshua Coleman, an anti-vaccine campaigner who organizes anti-vaccine rallies, went on Facebook Live to give his followers a rallying speech. He laid out what he thought the pandemic really was: an opportunity.

“This is the one time in human history where every single human being across this country, possibly across the planet, but especially in this country, are all going to have an interest in vaccination and vaccines,” he said. “So it’s time for us to educate.”

By “educate,” he meant to spread misinformation about vaccines.

The approach that Mr. Coleman displayed in his nearly 10-minute-long appearance — turning any negative event into a marketing opportunity — is characteristic of anti-vaccine activists. Their versatility and ability to read and assimilate the language and culture of different social groups have been key to their success. But Mr. Coleman’s speech also encapsulated a yearslong campaign during which the anti-vaccine movement has maneuvered itself to exploit what Mr. Coleman called “a very unique position in this moment in time.”

Over the last six years, anti-vaccine groups and leaders have begun to organize politically at a level like never before. They’ve founded state political action committees, formed coalitions with other constituencies, and built a vast network that is now the foundation of vaccination opposition by conservative groups and legislators across the country. They have taken common-sense concepts — that parents should be able to raise their children as they see fit, and that medical decisions should be autonomous and private — and warped them in ways that have set back decades of public health advances.

There's a lot more of course, but basically it rehashes the point that these anti-vax fuckwads are a torch-n-pitchfork gang straight out of a Hollywood monster movie from damned near a hundred fucking years ago.

If I may - Penn & Teller on vaccinations:

The "End" Of A War - Again - Still - Whatever

We're always left with that one big bromide - "Don't blame the warrior for the war".

But in a country that beats its chest celebrating the super macho rugged individualist making his own way and holding himself accountable ultimately and solely to himself, I can only reiterate the one basic truth:

You don't have much of a war

if nobody shows up to fight.

Here's WaPo, choosing an Architecture Critic to sum up the platitudes for us. And while he does manage to hit on a coupla decent points, this piece (and the jillion others that will come out over the next god-knows-how-many-years) sounds a little like "never again", but actually begins the process that will make sure we'll be suckered right back into it next time, because it gives us a way to let ourselves off the hook by pretending we can be philosophical about the monumental multi-level waste of war.

Philip Kennicott:

The last U.S. soldier to board a military plane out of Kabul on Tuesday was actually a general, Army Maj. Gen. Christopher T. Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division. He is seen in several widely circulated images taken in the final moments of the U.S. occupation, including one in which he strides up the ramp of a waiting C-17 military transport plane. He is rendered in the monochromatic green of a night-vision scope, a solitary figure, alone for a moment on hostile ground. Behind him, a few lights still shine at the Kabul airport, now controlled by the Taliban.

This is the end of a 20-year war. That’s the meaning ascribed to this powerful but deeply fraught image, which has the potential to do lasting damage if we can’t separate its truth from its mythological power.

The truth of the image, as far as we know it, is precise but limited. While he may have been wearing “the last boots on the ground” by the definition of some journalists and politicians, he was certainly not the last American with feet on the ground. Americans remain in Afghanistan, some willingly, others not, and we will almost certainly be back one way or another.

And while the American military evacuation is now over, other countries and many NGOs continue to operate in the country. Donahue’s departure initiates a new age of American military and diplomatic absence, but it closes the book on few things that are essential to the daily lives of Afghans.

Thus, the ghostly green picture symbolizes not the end of a war, but the end of a mission. But images are subject to “mission creep” — the almost inevitable expansion of purpose that dogs so many military ventures — and it is tempting to use this as an iconic bow to wrap up a long and tragic chapter of American and Afghan history. By accident or design, this representation is perfectly constructed to give a sense of cinematic finality. Although the palette is green, it renders the world in black-and-white, like films made a century ago. The round format — not obvious in many reproductions which crop it square — suggests the classic “iris” shot used by directors in the age of silent movies to end a scene, or a whole film.

The basic trope — the last man on the ground — recalls an emotionally resonant idea of responsibility and even chivalry. The captain is the last one off a sinking ship. The general is the last one out the door as the United States turns off the lights in Afghanistan. War, which is always messy, brutal and chaotic, is represented by a scene of individual valor, which is an important but limited truth.

The reduction of the war to a solitary figure who looks a little beleaguered animates multiple narratives, especially the idea that leadership is a lonely business. It also recalls a story line common within the military: Soldiers do their duty, often in service to incompetent or unscrupulous civilian leaders. In this case, a general serves as the dutiful, common soldier in an image that implicitly says: We played our role and did our duty. Defeat is a political matter, not a military one.

As wars are increasingly fought with drones, it is tempting to underscore and celebrate individual valor, not just because it is worthy but because it appeals to romanticized ideals of how wars were supposedly fought in a less technological age. When the president and military leaders talk of managing the terror threat from Afghanistan with “over the horizon” capabilities, they almost certainly mean more drones, more satellites, more video screens and more decisions made from rooms thousands of miles from the battlefield. The “last boots on the ground” message elides that truth, tempting us to believe that war is still a symmetrical contest among men, not a battle fought on one side with machines and money, and on the other with terror and zealotry.

A year after the United States went to war in Afghanistan, Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff to George W. Bush, said: “From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August.” By “new products” he meant the looming war in Iraq, which was sold to Americans as easily winnable, with little hint of the long, bloody struggle that would follow. War, as a product, is always sold with an implicit end date, an inevitable victory, a promise of finality. Since the age of silent films, perhaps only one U.S. war, the one fought against Germany and Japan, has actually ended that way, but still the product sells.

It takes more than collective amnesia or delusion to keep buying the promise. It requires an emotional investment in the basic narratives of heroism and duty so profound that it limits critical thinking about the purpose, objectives and consequences of war.

This image captures an admirable sense of duty, and conveys a compelling sense of closure. But it says nothing about the consequences of war, either for U.S. personnel killed, injured or emotionally scared by the events of the past 20 years, or for the millions of Afghans for whom this was an unwanted and often brutal visitation.

Fact Check

Knowing what we know about the GOP's War On Smarts, there will be a lot more weird shit that we have to either ignore (at our obvious peril) or spend scarce resources in terms of time and energy chasing down and debunking.

Here's one - WaPo: (paywall)

No, the Taliban did not seize $83 billion of U.S. weapons

“ALL EQUIPMENT should be demanded to be immediately returned to the United States, and that includes every penny of the $85 billion dollars in cost.”

— Former president Donald Trump, in a statement, Aug 30

We don’t normally pay much attention to claims made by the former president, as he mostly just riffs golden oldies. But this is a new claim. A version of this claim also circulates widely on right-leaning social media — that somehow the Taliban has ended up with $83 billion in U.S. weaponry. (Trump, as usual, rounds the number up.)

The $83 billion number is not invented out of whole cloth. But it reflects all the money spent to train, equip and house the Afghan military and police — so weapons are just a part of that. At this point, no one really knows the value of the equipment that was seized by the Taliban.

The Facts

The $83 billion figure — technically, $82.9 billion — comes from an estimate in the July 30 quarterly report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) for all spending on the Afghanistan Security Forces Fund since the U.S. invasion in 2001.

In recent years, the spending has decreased. For fiscal 2021, about $3 billion was spent on security forces, which was similar to 2020.

Separately, the U.S. government spent about $36 billion on shoring up the Afghan government. The total bill for the Afghan project added up to more than $144 billion.

In any case, the $83 billion spent on the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) goes back two decades, including almost $19 billion spent between 2002 and 2009.

A 2017 Government Accountability Office report estimated that about 29 percent of the funds spent on the Afghan security forces between 2005 and 2016 went to equipment and transportation. (The transportation costs related to transporting equipment and for contracted pilots and airplanes for transporting officials to meetings. There appears to be no way to segregate transposition spending.)

Using that same percentage, that would mean the equipment provided to Afghan forces amounted to $24 billion over 20 years. The GAO said approximately 70 percent of the equipment went to the Afghan military and the rest went to the national police (part of the Interior Ministry).

That’s certainly a lot of money. Between 2005 and 2016, U.S. taxpayers paid for 76,000 vehicles (such as 43,000 Ford Ranger pickup trucks, 22,000 Humvees and 900 mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles known as MRAPs), 600,000 weapons and more than 200 aircraft, according to GAO.

Of course, some of this equipment may be obsolete or destroyed — or soon may not be usable.

The SIGAR report shows that 167 aircraft out of an inventory of 211 were usable — but the Afghan Air Force (AAF) still lacked enough qualified pilots. One issue was that the Taliban targeted pilots for assassination.

Even more problematic, there were not enough maintenance crews to maintain the aircraft. “Without continued contractor support, none of the AAF’s airframes can be sustained as combat effective for more than a few months, depending on the stock of equipment parts in-country, the maintenance capability on each airframe, and the timing of contractor support withdrawal,” the report said.

With great fanfare, the Taliban has seized a number of Black Hawk helicopters, including ones that the United States had just shipped this year at the request of former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani. But only the first crew of Black Hawk mechanics had been trained, so the military “can field no more than one UH-60 per night for helicopter missions,” SIGAR said.

Meanwhile, as the U.S. military wound down its mission, it turned over facilities and equipment to the Afghan security forces — which may have added to the total seized by the Taliban. But Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., head of U.S. Central Command, said that before leaving Kabul airport on Aug. 30, the military “demilitarized” 70 MRAPs, 27 Humvees and 73 aircraft. “Those aircraft will never fly again,” he said. “They’ll never be able to be operated by anyone.” (Demilitarized is a term that means damaging in place, sometimes with explosives.)

“No one has any accounting of exactly what survived the last weeks of the collapse and fell into Taliban hands, and even before the collapse, SIGAR had publicly reported no accounting was possible in many districts,” said Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “In rough terms, however, if the ANDSF could not sustain it without foreign contractors, the Taliban will have very serious problems in operating it. That covers most aircraft and many electronics and heavier weapons.”

“One also has to be careful here,” Cordesman added. “The fact that Taliban fighters or cells of fighters get U.S. equipment does not mean it is pooled or shared. Factionalism and hoarding are the rule in Afghanistan, not the exception.”

The Pinocchio Test

U.S. military equipment was given to Afghan security forces over two decades. Tanks, vehicles, helicopters and other gear fell into the hands of the Taliban when the U.S.-trained force quickly collapsed. The value of these assets is unclear, but if the Taliban is unable to obtain spare parts, it may not be able to maintain them.

But the value of the equipment is not more than $80 billion. That’s the figure for all of the money spent on training and sustaining the Afghan military over 20 years. The equipment portion of that total is about $24 billion — certainly not small change — but the actual value of the equipment in the Taliban’s hands is probably much less than even that amount.

Today's Pix

click a pic

                                   

COVID-19 Update

Not buyin' it, Florida. You don't come in at the top of the list for New Cases, and then tell me there were no New Deaths.

Even with some pretty spotty reporting of the daily numbers, if the current trend continues (and figuring on spikes due to Sturgis and Hurricane Ida), we should top 700,000 dead Americans by Halloween.

And 5,000,000 dead worldwide.

Travel Guidance Explained - WaPo:

Every Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention delivers news for travelers — namely, which destinations they should avoid because of covid-19.

Last week, the Bahamas and St. Maarten were added to that list. Earlier this month, countries including France, Iceland and Greece found themselves in that “Level 4” category, which signifies that covid-19 is very high and people should stay away.

“Travel increases your chance of getting and spreading COVID-19,” CDC spokeswoman Caitlin Shockey said in an email. “You may feel well and not have any symptoms, but you can still spread COVID-19 to others. Staying home is the best way to protect yourself and others from COVID-19.”

At the same time, the State Department issues its own travel advisories, which factor in the CDC’s recommendations but also include other threats such as terrorism, civil unrest, crime and natural disasters.

“The U.S. State Department and CDC’s travel advisories are accurate and up to date,” Abinash Virk, an infectious-disease specialist and former head of the travel clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, said in an email. “They are reliable resources and extremely helpful to determine if travel to a certain location will be safe from COVID-19 perspective or not.”

Understanding the State Department’s updated travel advisories

But to navigate all the advice, experts say, travelers must read the details — and understand what the warnings describe.

What are the CDC’s levels?

The CDC has four levels that start at “low” and escalate to “moderate,” “high” and “very high.” A country or territory that does not provide data is categorized as “unknown.” No matter the CDC designation of your destination, the agency says everyone should be fully vaccinated before traveling.

Beyond that, the warnings start to escalate at Level 2, or “moderate” levels of covid-19. When a destination has a Level 2 status, the CDC advises that unvaccinated travelers who are at high risk for severe illness should avoid nonessential travel.

One step up, at Level 3, the CDC says all unvaccinated travelers should avoid nonessential travel. For destinations marked as Level 4 or unknown, the agency says Americans should avoid traveling there altogether.

How are the levels decided?

The CDC’s destination-specific recommendations are based on the number of new cases reported per 100,000 people over the past 28 days.

That metric is more useful than a case count alone because it gives a better idea of someone’s risk of getting infected, said Lise Barnard, a health-intelligence analyst at risk management firm Crisis24.

“This can be very informative when deciding when to travel, and travel should be reconsidered in countries with a high or very high risk of transmission, or to countries that have a higher risk profile [than] the individual’s country of origin,” Barnard wrote in an email.

People who are especially vulnerable to severe illness should also weigh their own risks, she said, even when traveling to a place that is rated at a lower level.

American tourists are back in Europe, but so are covid restrictions

How are the State Department’s levels different?

Because the State Department’s travel advisories are based in part on CDC assessments, it might put a destination on the same level, also on a scale of 1-4. But it might not. Level 1 means travelers should exercise normal precautions, which graduates to exercising increased caution for Level 2 and reconsidering travel for Level 3. Level 4 means “do not travel.”

“In addition to CDC’s advice, the department also takes into account logistical factors, including in-country testing availability and current restrictions on entry for U.S. citizens, when determining each country’s travel advisory level,” the department said in a statement. “So the department’s travel advisory level may not always match the CDC’s [travel health notice] level.”

Still, many countries are at a Level 3 or 4 according to both the CDC and the State Department, including destinations that are popular with American travelers. The State Department has put France and the Bahamas, for instance, in the same Level 4 (“Do Not Travel”) category as places that are not travel destinations, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Each State Department travel advisory specifies why a country is placed in a given level and what health, safety or security concerns to keep in mind.

“In our travel information, we warn people not to visit certain high-risk countries and areas both because of local conditions and because we are limited in our ability to provide consular services in those places,” the department said.

What are other sources to check?

Virk, of Mayo Clinic, recommended checking country-specific information about covid-19 on the World Health Organization’s website. She also said travelers should talk to a travel medicine expert to help them assess their risks.

“This is particularly important for individuals who have comorbidities that potentially increase the risk of severe COVID-19,” she said in an email.

The State Department publishes broader country information pages in addition to its travel advisories.

Those pages also include links to each embassy’s covid-19 page, which include entry and exit requirements, testing availability, vaccine information, curfews and other pandemic-related information.

What 6 health experts say about traveling amid the delta variant

What are the risks of leaving the U.S.?

Given the state of the pandemic in the United States, where community transmission is high in most counties, travelers might wonder whether traveling abroad is really an increased risk. But experts say there are many reasons to think carefully about going abroad.

“Even if the situation in the U.S. is less than desirable, traveling always poses a risk,” Barnard said. “New variants may emerge and can be transmitted when moving between locations, especially in areas with high transmission, as was observed with the emergence of the delta variant in India.”

And, the CDC says, travel increases the chance of contracting and spreading the virus.

“Travelers need to be aware that they can spread disease at their destination among people who may not have the same access to vaccinations and quality medical care,” the CDC’s Shockey said.

VAX UP

MASK UP

KEEP YOUR DISTANCE

WASH YOUR HANDS

stop making this harder than it has to be

Today's Reddit

Be nice