Prior Covid Infection Is As Effective At Preventing The Virus As Vaccination, U.K. Study Suggests Forbes

Aspirin lowers risk of COVID: New findings support preliminary Israeli trial Jerusalem Post. Note the date

Idiocracy: how the decline in human intelligence is undermining democracy

Science increasingly suspects the proliferation of harmful nerve toxins in recent decades is to blame for a downturn in our IQ levels — and this is threatening not just our health but our very system of governance. 

By Julian Cribb Oct 19, 2021

TechCrunch: “A new research paper written by a team of academics and computer scientists from Spain and Austria has demonstrated that it’s possible to use Facebook’s targeting tools to deliver an ad exclusively to a single individual if you know enough about the interests Facebook’s platform assigns them. The paper — entitled “Unique on Facebook: Formulation and Evidence of (Nano)targeting Individual Users with non-PII Data” — describes a “data-driven model” that defines a metric showing the probability a Facebook user can be uniquely identified based on interests attached to them by the ad platform. The researchers demonstrate that they were able to use Facebook’s Ads manager tool to target a number of ads in such a way that each ad only reached a single, intended Facebook user…”

Better Off Dead

Andrew Denton investigated the stories, moral arguments and individuals woven into discussions about why good people are dying bad deaths in Australia – because there is no law to help them.

Better Off Dead is produced for Thought Fox, in partnership with The Wheeler Centre.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has added one new location to its list of "very high" risk travel destinations this week.

The ultramodern city-state of Singapore has moved up from Level 3, or "high" risk for Covid-19, to Level 4, the agency's highest risk category.

CDC places ultramodern city-state at highest travel risk for Covid-19

The Deepest Deepfake of All

Spinoza’s God: Einstein believed in it, but what was it? Prospect Magazine.

  Chemicals in plastic containers, cosmetics linked to risk for earlier death in study.

WELL, THIS IS THE 21st CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Star Trek alum William Shatner, 90, becomes the oldest man to travel to space. Shatner “became the oldest person to ever to reach the edge of space — the Kármán line, which is 62 miles above Earth — on Wednesday when he traveled on Blue Origin’s New Shepard 4 for the 10-minute commercial flight. Shatner was emotional after he landed, saying, ‘Everybody in the world needs to do this.’”

JOSH BLACKMAN:  “Let me be very clear here: there is no “binding” Supreme Court precedent holding that vaccine mandates are reviewed with rational basis review. The Michigan court was correct that lower courts have read Jacobson in this fashion.”

How COVID Killed Criticism

Pauline Kael would be appalled at the spectacle of film writing nowadays. Journalists meet actors and gasp in awe. The wise editor has given up on demanding hacks ask good questions, and just invites actors to interview other actors. - The Spectator

Missing millions: Tax gap jumped to $33.5 billion ahead of pandemic

By Jennifer Duke

October 21, 2021

Nearly $34 billion worth of tax was not paid in the year before the pandemic hit with small businesses and individuals responsible for the majority of the missing money.

The Australian Taxation Office estimates there was a 7.3 per cent gap between collected tax and what was expected to be brought in during 2018-19 or about $33.5 billion. This was up from $32 billion the year before.