(CNN) US investigating possible mysterious directed energy attack near White House. Quoting CNN,

Federal agencies are investigating at least two possible incidents on US soil, including one near the White House in November of last year, that appear similar to mysterious, invisible attacks that have led to debilitating symptoms for dozens of US personnel abroad.

A bookmark with links to 16 articles: (CNN)’Sonic attacks’ suffered by US diplomats likely caused by microwave energy, government study says. I am one of the dissenters to the microwave theory.  The White House is a particularly unlikely locale for a microwave attack.

Near the White House, the radio spectrum is subject to intense monitoring, in search of electronic espionage bugs that might communicate with nearby controllers. The surveillance receivers are very sensitive, because bugs transmit weak signals. At least some information from these receivers is recorded.

A microwave attack near the White House would inevitably leave a trace in the record of a surveillance receiver, either through direct detection, or inter modulation products. The microwave power levels required of a weapon tend to leak into  monitoring receivers,  leaving  traces, even if not by design.

A decade ago, it might have been possible, if the adversary had detailed knowledge of the monitoring equipment. But in the ’90’s, a chip innovation, the flash A/D converter, combined with software radio,  allowed monitoring, and recording the entire radio/microwave spectrum simultaneously, with no tuning required. This technology is now widely deployed.The equipment is surprisingly compact.

The electronic records of the surveillance receivers should indicate anomalies simultaneous with the presumed attacks — unless the discrimination software discards them as noise.

If you’d like to get started with detecting microwave weapons, you need 32 bucks:  NooElec USB Stick. It tunes up to 2.3 gHz, but should be sensitive to overload/intermod birdies at much higher frequencies. If one had been operating near the Ellipse, it would have blown the whistle.

If there are no indications, ultrasound might be worth another look.

We continue from Johnson & Johnson, Explanations for Clotting ?

Most immunizations are into the deltoid muscle of the upper arm.  In recent years, there has been increased interest in subcutaneous injection. This can result in more immune response with less antigen, or the reverse.  That tissue is more delicate, more susceptible to damage.  And there have been some tragic failures, when the immunization did not “take”. So whatever site is used in the clinical trials is baked into the usage.

The deltoid muscle is resistant to damage, and there is a simple “finger rule” to avoid hitting a nerve with the needle. Some muscle fibers die as a result of the injection, but they are replaced in days. The muscle has strong blood supply and high metabolic rate, which protects it from occasional bacterial pathogens.

A fraction of active material of the injection stays in muscle to “transfect” muscle cells, causing them to produce spike protein, which in turn induces immunity. Most of the injected material does not remain in place.  Muscle is so well supplied with circulation that most of the active material drains out. Another fraction drains through the lymphatic system, reaching the axial lymph nodes, in the armpit, where it may still make a contribution to immunity, if it can find suitable cells to transfect.

The remaining fraction enters the blood circulation. With a classical vaccine, consisting of inert materials, this fraction is lost; it makes no contribution to developing immunity and has no further effect on the body. The bulk of it is caught by the liver, degraded into less suspicious substances, and excreted.

We are going to accumulate Tinkertoy pieces that may be useful in building a hypothesis bridge from a place called Mystery,  to another called Prospect, spanning the River Doubt. If and when the bridge is complete, it will be a theory that can be tested. Cast a wide net at first. Keep  Occam’s Razor always within sight. Back in August 2020, I had some suspicion. There are some Tinkertoys in (CNN) More European nations pause AstraZeneca vaccine use as blood clot reports investigated, but I’m not eager to pick them up. If in the future, they make an Occam contribution, well and good; let them lie for now.

An adenovirus vaccine is not inert. Even though the vector cannot reproduce, it pries its way into cells. The fraction that enters the blood may not be benign. Adenoviruses are generally toxic to the liver; (BMJ) The promise and potential hazards of adenovirus gene therapy. Quoting,

What’s toxic about adenovirus vectors?

Much concern has focused on the direct toxic effects of adenoviruses, particularly as intravenous administration of the virus can induce acute liver injury, as shown in animal models. It is this effect which may have triggered the cascade of events leading to the death of the patient with OTC deficiency—

AstraZeneca/J&J know this well, and think they have their bases covered, with a comparatively minute quantity of vaccine reaching the liver. Maybe, maybe not. It may depend upon prior infections, which often leave live viruses, jailed, in the liver. Until something comes along with the key.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with CVST.  We’ll get to that. To be continued shortly.

In what follows, J&J and Astrazeneca are considered identical. The eventual explanation may fork into separate ones for each vaccine, but nothing’s showing now.

Let’s define some terms. The scientific method names two classes of explanation:

• Theory –an explanation that has a test, and can be proven false.
• Hypothesis — a good idea, with clues that point in a direction, with plenty of imagined glue to tie it together.

(BioSpace) COVID-19 Brief: Theories on the COVID-19 Blood Clotting and More Top Stories blurbs an incomplete theory, first described for  AstraZeneca  in this paper: Thrombosis and Thrombocytopenia after ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 Vaccination. It’s  better than a hypothesis but not a complete explanation either. Quoting from the blurb:

The leading theory appears to be an unusual and rare immune response similar to heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT), where the immune system makes antibodies to a complex of heparin and a protein known as platelet factor 4 (PF4). This causes platelets to form dangerous clots throughout the body. Some research has found that patients with clots had antibodies to PF4.

Antibodies were observed. They were created by the immune system in response to antigen which mimics portions of PF4 with pathological features. This antigen remains unidentified.

It was almost a complete theory. If part of the spike antigen made by these vaccines were shown to be the antigen by cross-reaction with PF4, it would be complete. An unreviewed preprint with good methodology, (ResearchSquare, pdf) Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein and Anti-Platelet Factor 4 Antibody Responses Induced by COVID-19 Disease and ChAdOx1 nCov-19 vaccination, shows that it does not cross-react.

So to be complete,  this “leading theory” requires that some other antigen, made by some other action of the vaccine, reacts with PF4. The BioSpace blurb offers this:

A research team out of the University of Griefswal…Their theory is that there are about 50 billion virus particles in each dose of the vaccine, and some might break apart and release their DNA. Like heparin, DNA has a negative charge that might help bind it to PF4, which has a positive charge. That bound complex might trigger antibodies’ production, which could signal the body to increase blood coagulation.

This is not a theory. It’s a completely legitimate hypothesis.  To describe it as a theory in a specialty website does no service to the subject. It erodes clear thinking.

Next: A few more hypotheses, which you may elaborate with your own imaginative, well-founded logic.

The law is a blunt instrument, but sometimes, justice is done. The problem of Black Lives Matter runs so  deep that the guilty verdict serves as an admission and a statement — but not as a solution. Previous articles:

• Police Brutality, Derek Chauvin, and the Death of George Floyd Part 1
• Police Brutality, Derek Chauvin, George Floyd, Rousseau’s Social Contract Part 2
• U.S. protesters call to Defund the Police.

Police brutality and racial discrimination have ample precedent in U.S. history, though we thought we had banished the worst of the past. Why has the social climate in the U.S. has deteriorated so much since 9/11?

• Delayed effect of external pressure from terrorism?
• Modest expansions of liberality by the Obama presidency, or awakening of latent racism by a Black president?
• Decline of the standard of living, bringing illegal immigration to the fore?
• Or is it the Web, which has spawned millions of tiny hate channels?

How much has changed!, since JFK’s inaugural (YouTube):

(click for full text) And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

The U.S. is not a failed state. It is a troubled state, with generosity and compassion under siege.

The argument for leaving is laid out in Trump Wants to Fire U.S. Commander in Afghanistan, in which I explained that the unsolvable part of the Afghan problem is civil, not military. Quoting,

The bare-bones boiled-down essence of modern government is just a few things:

• • Raise revenue by taxation.
  • Use at least some of the taxes to provide services.
  • Facilitate commerce.
  • The services provided justify the taxes enough for popular acquiescence.

You can add all the bells and whistles. But it’s the irreducible minimum. Anything less, and it becomes a protection racket.

Afghanistan has no legitimate economy.

Hence there is no way for the legitimate government to differentiate itself from the Taliban, save social values, which are not enough. We could stay there forever, as Lindsay Graham advised Trump. But when forever is over, the result would be the same. Liza Minnelli: Money makes the world go around.

(The Hill) Top general: Counterterrorism strikes in Afghanistan after withdrawal ‘harder’ but ‘not impossible’ Quoting ,

On Tuesday, [Gen. Frank] McKenzie also said he continues to have “grave doubts” about the Taliban’s reliability in upholding its commitments under the deal signed last year.

I have grave certainty that they won’t uphold. This will be a slaughter of the good. The   future reeks of the fall of Saigon, when our friends were falling off helicopter skids as they begged for rescue. I suspect that the slaughter of innocents bothers H.R. McMaster even more than the strategic retreat.

To remain would only delay the inevitable. Afghanistan is caught in the gyre of a primitive cultural ocean.  Eventually, China, and perhaps India will, in exploitation, bring some measure of humanity.

A legacy of attitude promotes Indefinite commitment. In 2001, the U.S. was the unchallenged superpower. Now it is challenged. We are not quite through that era, but we can see the sunset. Now, we must prioritize.

With the withdrawals, ceding large territories to the Taliban, costs are down. The cost of regaining control of the country approximates the $100BN/ year peak costs. But the budget bleed is not the deciding factor.

Afghanistan is not supplied by a sustainable air bridge. For gross tonnage, we rely on Pakistan, which has strong ties to China. The other bordering states are potential, if not actual, adversaries. U.S. troops could be isolated as hostages if hostilities occur elsewhere. Our presence in Afghanistan interferes with credible deterrence elsewhere.

This is not hawk versus dove. Most military, particularly those who are familiar with the hard truths of simulations, know this: A superior military can be destroyed by over-extension.

To those who idealize the U.S. posture without thought of strategic balance, there’s always common sense:

You don’t go into a gunfight with your nuts hanging out.

John Avlon takes on the medical establishment in video: These unlikely events are still more likely than a blood clot after the J&J vaccine.

All news teams encounter a  universal problem when the issue goes beyond the general competence implied by a modern, liberal education. Avlon’s team has grabbed statistics for a way into the problem. But as I wrote in AstraZeneca, What to Do?,

Statistics needs mechanisms. If peculiarities of cases are not correctly weighted, the statistical  threshold, surpassing chance, could be missed. Mechanisms  focus statistics.

Without the mechanism of these clots, the stats of the video are useless as reassurance. The FDA and CDC are concerned about adverse effects that are buried in noise of the unknown future. With mechanisms, you know what you are looking for. With knowledge of mechanisms, you can rule things out, like future mass casualties.

If you were to time travel back 60 years, to the time of dark ignorance preceding molecular biology,  to a med school class in tropical diseases, the prof might remark, if not in writing,  “Eventually, if an individual receives enough immunizations, the recipient will probably die.”

The current state of knowledge is vastly greater. Nevertheless, it might surprise that it is still  not possible to predict with certainty whether a particular virus, for which the genome is completely known, can reproduce in a particular host. The viral landscape remains shrouded in twilight, with at least the possibility of long term effects that must be ruled out by rigorous investigation. Statistics  by itself does not suffice.

The chance of widespread harm, from a vaccine administered to a mass population, is the nightmare of vaccinology. Here presents a hazard, on a scale Hippocrates could not have imagined, which reminds us of the first principle of bioethics: “First, do no harm.”

News teams cannot be expected to have specialist knowledge. They may rely on individuals who have been misqualified as competent on the issue. What systematic could a news team find useful to plug this gap? It’s worth taking a look at the (Wikipedia) Delphi method. Quoting,

Delphi is based on the principle that forecasts (or decisions) from a structured group of individuals are more accurate than those from unstructured groups.^[6]…

CNN, you might find it fascinating to assemble a group to address John Avlon’s question, and watch them work. Just by watching, you get insights into the structure of knowledge of the field in question.