(CNN) FDA warns of potential rare nerve complication with Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine. Quoting,

“Today, the FDA is announcing revisions to the vaccine recipient and vaccination provider fact sheets for the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) COVID-19 Vaccine to include information pertaining to an observed increased risk of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) following vaccination,”

Guillain-Barré Syndrome has infrequently been linked to vaccination, most famously with the 1976 swine flu outbreak. In clinical settings, unrelated to vaccination, one cause is well understood. Refer to (PubMed) Campylobacter jejuni infection in Guillain-Barré syndrome: a prospective case control study in a tertiary care hospital.  (full text here) Quoting,

The commonest implicated causative organism the world over is Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni).

C. jejuni is a bacteria.  The coat of campylobacter jejuni contains antigen sub sequences common with human nervous tissue. Antibodies created by the immune system cross-react with nervous tissue. This autoimmune response, not the bacteria itself, causes GBS. Presence of the bacteria itself in the vaccine is neither expected or required; the antigen sequences, molecular chains, are sufficient to provoke GBS.

The 1976 swine flu vaccine was cultured in eggs. In poultry, C. jejuni is endemic. Sterile eggs are required, but sterile-chain failures occurred with unknown frequency. C. jejuni was never isolated from the vaccine, though with the coincidence of mechanism and event, C. jejuni  contamination remains the leading hypothesis to this day.

In five-part Johnson & Johnson, Explanations for Clotting ?, I developed a hypothesis, left incomplete. Part 5 set the stage for unwritten Part 6: nucleation of platelets, with subsequent clot formation, around focal bacterial infections in the cerebral venous sinuses. But there was at that time no legitimate reason, surviving Occam’s Razor, to introduce bacterial infection. Since the literature does not support viral infection as a cause of platelet nucleation, Part 6 remained unwritten.

With GBS as a clue, there is enough to look at bacterial contamination of batches of PER.C6, the human cell line used to culture the adenovirus vector. If it exists, it won’t be  C. jejuni, which is far too conspicuous. This is not an easy job.

For a very few special cases, the light microscope you last saw in high school remains a clinical tool. But a microbial contaminant of PER.C6 would likely be too small and too fugitive to visualize except after the fact. The detection of novel pathogens remains a research topic.

Possible batch dependence of Astrazeneca clotting hints at a similar mechanism.

Takeaway: Explanations linking the J&J shot to  both CVS thrombosis and GBS could be linked by bacterial contamination. 

Pasteur: “Chance favors the prepared mind.”

 

 

 

Prior to Delta, studies of breakthrough COVID in vaccinated individuals indicated low viral load. The implication is that breakthrough cases are unlikely to be infectious.  This may not be true with Delta, a bullet point for a Pfizer booster.

Refer to (Rxiv, pdf)  SARS-CoV-2 B.1.617.2 Delta variant emergence and vaccine breakthrough . Quoting from the abstract,

In an analysis of vaccine breakthrough in over 100 healthcare workers across three centres in India, the Delta variant was responsible for greater transmission between HCW as compared to B.1.1.7 or B.1.617.1 18 (mean cluster size 3.2 versus 1.1, p<0.05)….Whilst severe disease in fully vaccinated HCW [health care worker] was rare, breakthrough transmission clusters in hospitals associated with the  Delta variant are concerning and indicate that infection control measures need continue in the post-vaccination era.

Let’s interpret.

• An infection cluster is a bunch of cases in the same place around the same time.
• Although it’s hard to tell who gave COVID to who, a cluster is statistical, not absolute evidence that COVID was passed around the cluster.
• All the workers were vaccinated, though the vaccines used were not quite as stellar as those in common use in the U.S.
• Statistically, vaccinated workers were infected with Delta, and infected other vaccinated workers.
• Certainty (statistical, confidence) grows with time. If you’re a decision maker, you have to pick a point in time.

The concerns of this paper overlap my own. in Delta Strain; the Rough Ride Begins, I wrote,

Yet it allows the possibility that in Arkansas, and even in locales with borderline vaccine uptake, such as LA, community infectivity may overwhelm the protection of the vaccine.

It may be worse. A few more mutations could threaten regions with high vaccination rates. We must rid ourselves of the idea that the COVID threat is stationary. It appears to evolve faster than our thinking.

If you’re in media, you probably want to hear it from an authority. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, though somewhat tarnished by a poorly performing model, is a source. Search for “Vaccinated People Can Spread the Delta Variant.” Independent has “Warning that fully vaccinated may be spreading Delta variant as cases rise across US.”

(CNBC) WHO urges fully vaccinated people to continue to wear masks as delta Covid variant spreads. Quoting,

“People cannot feel safe just because they had the two doses. They still need to protect themselves,” Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products, said during a news briefing from the agency’s Geneva headquarters.

“Vaccine alone won’t stop community transmission,” Simao added. “People need to continue to use masks consistently, be in ventilated spaces, hand hygiene … the physical distance, avoid crowding. This still continues to be extremely important, even if you’re vaccinated when you have a community transmission ongoing.”

Two bureaucracies in conflict: WHO versus FDA/CDC. Who are we to believe? Credibility whiplash is the price of public health communicating with the public in a highly managed way. Officials may think of minimizing near-term risk, yet COVID destroys assumptions at a rate too rapid to build credibility. All that’s left is immediate motivation:

• WHO has few doses, but plenty of masks.
• FDA/CDC has plenty of doses, rejected by common ignorance.

With the Delta debacle, WHO-speak  will be a little more durable than FDA/CDC-speak. This has not always been the case. But it may augur yet another crisis in credibility, if we have to go to full-mask lockdown. This is the price of managed communication:

You’re just fine if you do this…It was last week’s advice. Do this instead.

Only one player is sure of what it’s doing: COVID-19. With jabs and feints that belie its brainless, roulette-wheel mutations, it uses managed communication by health authority against the speaker, a grotesque genomic performance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree with Pfizer; a booster shot will be necessary. It would be beneficial if it existed now.

The reasoning is given in Delta Strain; the Rough Ride Begins, with links to napkin calculation #3.

While CDC/FDA are dedicated to science, their response to Pfizer is uncharacteristically brittle. Their difficult task is convincing refusniks that any vaccine now is better than none, or  a later, improved one.

The dialog is abnormally simple, but we will get the booster.

 

I am an artist. This entitles me to make inane comments about Hunter Biden’s art, but I will resist. My comments will  be permissive and supportive. Biden’s art,  like Art Brut,  is media intensive, strongly shaped by the limitations and imperatives of the media. Biden’s media is ink. I painted Violet Rain, below, with mixed media. Biden blows with a straw; I flung ink with a wet brush. The clouds and dim sun are in oils, for ease of blend and glaze. In each case, the physical properties of drip and run complement the hand of the artist.

(Violet Rain. Click to enlarge.)

This is not about Hunter Biden the person; it’s about his art. Art is storied with personal redemption and destruction. I’ll take Hunter at  his word it’s about redemption. Larry Kudlow disagrees: (Fox) Kudlow rips Hunter Biden’s $500K paintings as ‘fraudulent’, ‘scam Art’.  He compares Biden’s work to his wife’s, Judith Pond Kudlow, “detailed pieces of natural realism” which have all the freshness of Miss Havisham‘s wedding cake (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations.)

Biden has no formal training. In stark contrast, Mrs. Kudlow runs the NYK Academy, which replicates a  pre-Impressionism 19th century French education, “…based on the Cours de Dessin developed in the 19th century by Charles Bargue which was used by Jean-Leon Gerome to train artists at the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris.”

Kudlow accuses Biden of high crimes and misdemeanors, but his aged brain may just be out of sync with anything newer than Impression, Sunrise (1874). It may not be too late for him to attend Salon des Refusés. Maybe Biden’s art is too new?

Sadly, Biden’s art is not immune to the opposite criticism, too old. (Washington Examiner) Is Hunter Biden’s art worth $500,000? Here’s what a curator has to say, is dense with criticism, rendered by Jeffry Cudlin, art professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art.  His target was Biden’s inner motivation as stated to Artnet in We Spoke to Hunter Biden About His New Life as a Full-Time Artist, and His Personal Quest for ‘Universal Truth’ Through Painting. Quoting,

“I don’t paint from emotion or feeling,” Biden said in the interview. “Which I think are both very ephemeral. For me, painting is much more about kind of trying to bring forth what is, I think, the universal truth.”

Cudlin’s response:

“How much of that value is due to the art itself? That’s easy. None of it.”…“The last time artists said things like this,” according to Cudlin, “was maybe circa 1955. It’s a modernist trope, and modernism at this point is a period style, having effectively ended sometime by the end of the following decade, around 1968.”

Post Modernism replaced Modernism, so Biden’s art is too old? Too new and too old? Too old and too new? What are we to make of this war of experts? Could Biden have avoided this by clamming up?

For why Cudlin would use this blurb to fashion an indictment, refer to a delightful little book by Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word, in which he wrote,

Art made its final flight, climbed higher and higher in an ever-decreasing tighter-turning spiral until… it disappeared up its own fundamental aperture… and came out the other side as Art Theory!… Art Theory pure and simple, words on a page, literature undefiled by vision… late twentieth-century Modern Art was about to fulfill its destiny, which was: to become nothing less than Literature pure and simple”.^[4]

Which is what you just read of Jeffry Cudlin. Now you need another book, The Orange Balloon Dog: Bubbles, Turmoil and Avarice in the Contemporary Art Market. The book jacket blurb:

Within forty-eight hours in the fall of 2014, buyers in the Sotheby’s and Christie’s New York auction houses spent $1.7 billion on contemporary art…. A painting… featuring four lines from a Francis Ford Coppola movie stencilled in black on a white background, sold for $28 million…baffling activities …exchange of vast amounts of money and what nudges buyers…delves into the competitions that define and alter the value of art in today’s international market, …Thompson also warns of a looming bust…

The entire universe of buyers of high-end art consists of roughly 1300 individuals. Vast quantities of speculative art are in dark storage in free ports  around the world; scarcity is artificial. The art market is highly manipulated, and inefficient, even though appreciation  is a major goal for the 1300. But are they smart?

Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the 1300 hundred.

Smart, maybe. Tough, definitely. Market manipulation is so the norm, and so extreme, courts have exonerated the accused, with “plaintiff should have known better.” How is price set? Ashley Mears explains by analogy in Pricing Beauty: The Making of a Fashion Model. The value of a painting, or the rate of a fashion model, is not intrinsic to the art or the model. It’s set by a closely knit subculture, of dealers or agencies, invisible to the consumer.

Kudlow and Cudlin are correct. Biden’s art, or anybody’s art, has no intrinsic value, which is acquired when the 1300 set the investment value. From there, it goes into dark storage until some bond trader decides to buy a little soul, or in Biden’s case, “universal truth.”

If you are not Hunter Biden, an anecdote will help. In an early class at SVA, I painted a female nude on a blanket, on a 5 x 5′ canvas the instructor had dug out of the trash. By end of class, the lady still had no hands. Clearing the sidewalk like a snowblower, I marched it, hands held high, up 7th Avenue  from 21st to Penn Station. It got the approbation always  given to ladies on canvas, the phrase, monotonously repeated, “Not bad. Not bad at all.” On New Jersey Transit, she took up 3 seats.

A slightly drunk 40’ish bachelor had spent the evening lamenting he was still single. He persistently wanted her on his wall. I explained she didn’t have hands yet.  He didn’t care; how much did I want? Thinking to get rid of him, I said, “a grand.” He was thinking  of “more like a hundred bucks.”   We then proceeded to argue about improvements. I proposed adding a Martian with a ray gun; he wanted more women. When I got to Trenton, it was too big to fit in my car, so the garage office admired it for a few days. They thought it was “not bad, not bad at all.”

This is  how value is established. My Lady on a Blanket is worth a hundred bucks. Top that, Hunter Biden!

Readership has been exceptionally heavy today/tonight. Where I live, you could have made love under the stars, or enjoyed a Whitley Strieber alien visitation, yet you chose to read Intel9 instead. So why the distance? Bring it inside!

Writing this blog is cold, solitary, lonesome work, which is why I so often include O/T humor.  Let me show you how to make something every newsroom needs, a balloon dog.

contact a/t name of th/is do/main.

We continue from US intelligence community releases long-awaited UFO report; the Classical Limit & Metaphysical Limit; Part 1.

Hypothesis: The recent vintage of UAPs are Chinese drones, launched from submarines. We reverse engineer in the manner of  Russia’s Hypersonic Missile; Reverse Engineering Secrets of Avangard.

Let’s imagine we’ve gone several rounds of  sensor development, the data is pouring in; correlations are noted by advanced data fusion / AI. Things are looking good, except for one thing: We  haven’t a clue what it means. Let’s proceed from the mundane to the exceptional, and thence to the remarkable/magical. Into which categories would the ultimate explanation fit?

• Pilot disorientation, by adversary manipulation of the expectations of an encounter. It is exceedingly hard for a well trained pilot to accurately judge relative position and velocity when some of the norms of a typical encounter are missing or distorted: size, shape, speed.
• Sensor spoofing, possibly using advanced dielectric materials for optical stealth, and other incremental advances in technology.
• A novel use of mainstream technology, with some novel innovations.
• Quantum leap technology. Within the realm of science, but with a technology gap, hard for an investigation to bridge.
• Technology beyond  current knowledge of the physical sciences. Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.
• Something way outside the box, as in not-of-our-universe.

Per Occam’s Razor, an explanation towards the top of the list is preferred to those further down. Yet there are factors that push down from the top.   The authors of  Preliminary Assessment  are daringly confident that the sensors of the public-release videos were working properly.  Multiple pilots observed in daylight while in radio communication, and the sensors saw what they saw. Observations from surface platforms corroborate.

This is basic to the story. With a blog like this, there  is no basis to go against story. So we  run with it. If the story changes, we can revisit what follows. This is a tiger-team exercise, to develop an explanation close to the top of the list, with minimal discounting of observations.

The discounting takes the form of these assumptions:

• In none of the encounters were the objects observed in all aspects, at all angles. The objects controlled the angle of presentation relative to all observers.
• Reports of extremely high velocity, particularly gain of altitude, or hyper maneuverability relative to an F-18, are consequent to distortion of  norms of a typical encounter:  size, shape, speed.

This is all that is required to attempt reverse-engineering a Tic Tac.  Hypothesis: The recent vintage of UAPs are Chinese drones:

• Propulsion is provided by cold-air turbines spun by massive neodymium rare-earth permanent field motors.
• Special lithium batteries with extremely high discharge rates power the motors. This is compatible with short mission duration. No observations of more than brief mission length have been reported.
• China is a world leader in lithium and rare earth technologies.
• Directional control and lift is provided by thrust-vectoring.
• The simple white shape that provokes comparison to the candy is a stealth shield not present in every aspect. It may have optical stealth optical and/or radar stealth. Have a look at  some pics of a horseshoe crab. The dorsal surface is smooth, round, stealthy. The ventral surface exposes the crab for what it is, a messy mass of explicit anatomy.
• The shield may enhance maneuverability.
• In descent, the UAP may reach much higher maximum speed than otherwise. This may bias other observer estimates of flight characteristics.
• Suggested reporting name: Shànzi.

A submarine, the most survivable naval combatant, is severely disadvantaged in situational awareness, compared to vulnerable surface ships. This high altitude platform, deployed and retrieved with high frequency, is of particular advantage to a state with thin global monitoring assets.

Could the drone descend to ocean surface at extreme speed and survive impact with water, an incompressible fluid? With some compromise of  observer claims, and some new technology, it may be possible.  As impact nears, the turbine enters full power reverse, creating a cushioning bubble of high pressure air contained and maintained by the turbine intake.

Whether or not this explanation approaches correctness, it has an important purpose. It must be thoroughly disposed of before  moving against Occam’s Razor, further down the list.

To be continued shortly.

 

 

 

(CNN) Local officials sound the alarm over another possible wave of Covid-19 infections. Quoting,

In Arkansas, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation, cases are surging, officials said…”The vaccine, as well as continued practicing of social distancing and masking when that is necessary, are our pathways out of a third surge of Covid-19,” Patterson said.

The advice of Dr. Cam Patterson leaves “when that is necessary” undefined. A prediction of vaccine breakthrough percentages, which might help decide, is given in Delta Strain of COVID — We’re in for a Rough Ride; Napkin Calculation #3,  and validated in The Royal Pharmaceutical Society; Delta Strain of COVID; Napkin Calculation #3.  Quoting,

A breakthrough infection percentage of between 5X and 10X the percentage of hospitalized patients, breakthrough of 20%-40%. compared to 5% for the viruses of the original Phase 3 study.

This is not contradictory to the established effectiveness of vaccines. Yet it allows the possibility that in Arkansas, and even in locales with borderline vaccine uptake, such as LA, community infectivity may overwhelm the protection of the vaccine.

Though vaccines are a great boon to the individual, experience with Delta is lacking in communities with high levels of vaccination, which may experience community levels of infectivity well above background. Discretion is the better part of  valor.

I’m putting my mask back on. You are invited to do likewise.

 

(CNN) US intelligence community releases long-awaited UFO report. PDF here: (DNI) Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.

If all goes well,  a determined investigation will ensue, with an eventual answer to a question. The question may be in flux, the final form delivered as part of the answer. What eventually constitutes an answer may be dog-tired familiar, or strangely incomprehensible.

The report is the first consensus of DoD, the intelligence community, and NASA that asserts:

• Human fallibility and sensor artifacts are not  by themselves a sufficient explanation for the bulk of observations reported to the predecessor program, the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP).
• UAPs may constitute a threat to national security.
• Commitment  to a response.

If the consensus  becomes resolve, there will follow:

• Investment in analysis of historical and future report data.
• Investment in hardware, per future “UAP R&D Technical Roadmap.”

Resolve is new. In the past, resolve had enemies:

• From 1948 to recent, the USAF ran  various tiny UAP (then called UFOs) programs, embarrassments to the mainstream, distractions from the problem of nuclear deterrence, which had not yet reached the formulaic perfection of MAD. The 50’s were a time of inter-service rivalry and cutthroat competition for congressional attention, when even pocket programs were viewed as threats by larger ones.
• Until recent, the only  technology likely to record UAPs was radar, which remains notoriously vulnerable to atmospheric phenomena and flocks of birds.  The few photographs are of questionable provenance.
• With an absence of good instruments, reliance on  untrained observers, imaginative individuals, frauds and lies substituted for objective recording.

Since 1985, sensors have have evolved from bulky-insensitive-deficient-expensive to small-agile-marvelous — and even cheap. The initial requirement may be met by off-the-shelf commercial hardware. Even unmodified cellphones may be of use.

If resolve holds, an iterative experiment results:

• Design  new sensors for data collection. See CNN) James Clapper on UFOs; Let’s do Hyperspectral Imaging.
• Deploy the sensors on airplanes, ships, and hot sites, a major job involving hundreds or thousands of platforms that may carry them.
• Analyze the data,. to narrow  scope of explanations of UAPs.
• Based on the success or failure of the deployments, go to “Design” and repeat.
• When we’ve done enough of this, we have an outcome – or futility.

It’s traditional to anticipate the possible outcomes before we design the experiment. The report lists these buckets:

• Airborne Clutter
• Natural Atmospheric Phenomena
• USG or Industry Developmental Programs
• Foreign Adversary Systems, which includes “non-governmental entity”.

Luis Elizondo, former head of AATIP, has a category in mind  that should not be lumped with “stealth Al-Qaeda drone”, or “Houthi hypersonic project.” There are many interviews of Elizondo on the web; see (CNN) Former Pentagon official: Real question is, what are we really dealing with?

Preliminary Assessment commits a category error of omission, by omitting the bucket “extraterrestrial.” Perhaps this is to be expected, since the authors replaced a four-letter word, UFOs with the polite equivalent, UAP.

Why did they engage in this travesty of a mockery of a sham? Ufology is historically a really trashy field. The authors are hoping for a fresh start. Ain’t gonna happen. They’ll be dogged by trash every step of the way.

Elizondo positions himself as close to ufology believer as one can without making the actual statement. From Project Sign in 1948 till  2007 AATIP inception, there are no collections that justify the vibe. Before modern sensors came along, the gold standard was an experienced pilot.

It is exceedingly hard for a well trained pilot to accurately judge relative position and velocity when some of the norms of a typical encounter are missing or distorted: size, shape, speed. The classics, belonging to the explainable category:

• Gorman dogfight, when a military pilot engaged a lighted weather balloon.
• Mantell Incident, when a military pilot likely engaged an extreme altitude Skyhook balloon, attempted to climb too high, ran out of oxygen, and died.

As with all sightings that lack sensor data, the explanations are probable, not factual. You have only what the pilot or controllers tell you, or the vague impressions of radar.  Elizondo’s AATIP was the first to include optical sensors.  Yet the press approach to Elizondo was classical; how did he come across? Quoting (Wikipedia) Luis Elizondo,

When in 2019 Elizondo was interviewed by Tucker Carlson, Elizondo stated that the government had fragments of a UFO, “then quickly invoked his security oath”.

In this and a couple other strokes, Elizondo trashed himself, trading the attention of the establishment for the favor of a Fox mob. Yet  his legacy, AATIP, had sensors, and is poised to undergo elaborate resurrection. With the vast advances of sensor technology, this Question of the Age may finally escape paradox.

Life now seems so simple: deploy sensors, tabulate and analyze data, obtain answer. What could stop us now?

For that, you must wait for Part 2, shortly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How good is Napkin Calculation #3 of the Delta variant breakthrough rate? As napkin calculations are partly intuitive, let’s compare. The media have provided a variety of numbers which are not comparable. Breakthrough that counts only symptomatic cases is not the same as breakthrough of test-positive cases.

A Scotland study has a comparable result: (The official journal of The Royal Pharmaceutical Society) Second dose of Pfizer and Oxford vaccines offer reduced protection against Delta variant of COVID-19, study suggests. Quoting,

Results of a Scotland-wide study have shown that the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine provides 79% protection against the Delta variant two weeks after the second jab, while the second dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine offers 60% protection.

From Delta Strain of COVID — We’re in for a Rough Ride; Napkin Calculation #3,

A breakthrough infection percentage of between 5X and 10X the percentage of hospitalized patients, breakthrough of 20%-40%. compared to 5% for the viruses of the original Phase 3 study.

79% for Pfizer, implying 21% breakthrough, is within the range of 20-40% predicted by the napkin calculation.  The Pfizer results indicate great benefit for the immunized individual. Whether the Pfizer shot will adequately suppress community transmission remains to be seen.

 

 

This blog is a means to that end.

contact a/t name of th/is do/main.