TBR News July 8, 2020

The Voice of the White House
Comments: “Here we have more semi-literate nonsense from what claims to be the ‘main line’ media but which has become a cess-pit of rampant nonsense. Yet the public loves nonsense. Many people believe Jesus, if he existed at all, will be coming back from the dead to take them on a picnic or that vaccine causes hair loss and hammer toes, or that Donald Trump has an IQ over ten and was sent to the US by God Himself to save us all!

• Global shares waver on coronavirus fears
• Churches Were Eager to Reopen. Now They Are a Major Source of Coronavirus
• Puerto Rico, Still Reeling From Old Disasters, Is Slammed by Covid-19
• Will the Coronavirus Forever Alter the College Experience?
• Tom Hanks has ‘no respect’ for people not wearing masks
• United States registers record daily tally of new cases – 260,000
• Do donkeys spread coronavirus?
• Corona surge blamed on disease-spreading chickens
• New corona stats show huge surge in Malta: ten in hospital
• Trump says drinking Drano “sure cure” for surging virus
• Wearing space suits on trips to market will protect against virus
• Smoke from barbecue fires can spread corona virus
• Corona virus vaccine rejected by millions of anti-vaxxers
• Corona virus spreads to Antarctic; millions of penguins infected!
• All retail businesses in New York city go bankrupt as virus surges
• Warning of serious brain disorders in people with mild coronavirus symptoms
• US coronavirus: US expected to hit three million coronavirus cases
• Total US coronavirus cases expected to hit three million today
• US officially notifies WHO of its withdrawal
• Sharp increase in UK child sexual abuse during pandemic
• S. tops 3 million known infections as coronavirus surges

The Table of Contents

• Trump’s troubles in Arizona mount with coronavirus surge
• Coronavirus and the plague: The disease of viral conspiracy theories
• Coronavirus myths explored
• COVID-19 myths, busted
• Could this be the next global disease?
• The CIA’s Frauds
• Anti-vax movement is based on an ‘entirely fraudulent publication’: NIH chief Francis Collins
• Testing for class and character

Trump’s troubles in Arizona mount with coronavirus surge
July 8, 2020
by Josepph Ax
Reuters

– Arizona has served as a southwestern bulwark for Republicans for decades, voting for a Democratic presidential candidate only once since 1948.

But a surge of coronavirus cases in the state and President Donald Trump’s uneven response to the pandemic have compounded the troubles already facing his re-election bid.

Since Trump won Arizona in 2016, suburban voters in the country’s fastest-growing county, Maricopa, have soured on him, the state’s Democratic-leaning Latino population has continued growing and transplants from more liberal places have helped Democrats add 60,000 more voters to their rolls than Republicans.

Now the intensifying pandemic – Arizona on Tuesday reported its highest daily total of deaths yet – is endangering Trump’s support even among some Republican-leaning voters. Randy Olsen, 65, voted for Trump in 2016, but he plans to support Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 election.

“He’s disrespecting the experts,” Olsen said of Trump’s response to the virus, noting his refusal to endorse face masks. “He’s looking out for himself only and isn’t looking out for anybody else.”

Chuck Coughlin, a Republican strategist in Phoenix, said Trump’s handling of the crisis was costing him with key demographics in Maricopa County, including older voters and well-educated suburban whites. The county includes more than half the state’s population.

“I expect it’s very damaging with that portion of the electorate that Trump needs to persuade,” Coughlin said.

Since the end of May, Biden, a former vice president, has led in four of five state polls and holds an average advantage of 3-1/2 percentage points in a state Trump carried by the same margin four years ago, according to the poll-tracking website RealClearPolitics.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Samantha Zager said the president’s record in Washington, plus the large Republican Party field operation in the state compared with Biden’s nascent team, would deliver Arizona for Trump again.

Trump chose Phoenix for his first official trip out of Washington after the pandemic in early May and returned two weeks ago. His campaign has more than 70 staffers on the ground and has held more than 2,000 events, Zager said.

But Biden’s campaign increasingly views Arizona as a top target, part of a growing national shift in his favor in recent months. Campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon told campaign volunteers that she mentions the state so often it has become a joke among her staff.

“It is a true battleground state for the presidential for the first time,” she told a Biden fundraiser two weeks ago.

NEW PATHWAYS TO VICTORY

While the trio of historically Democratic Rust Belt states that carried Trump to victory in 2016 – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – continue to garner attention from both parties, polls suggest Sunbelt states like Arizona, Florida, North Carolina and even Georgia have opened new pathways to a Biden victory.

Democrats are confident they can replicate the winning formula of Kyrsten Sinema, who in 2018 became Arizona’s first Democratic senator in more than two decades.

Like Sinema, Biden is a moderate who eschews liberal proposals such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

Biden could benefit from the popularity and campaign infrastructure of Democratic Senate candidate Mark Kelly, a former astronaut who has held a double-digit lead in recent surveys in his race against Republican Senator Martha McSally.

In a briefing for reporters in May, O’Malley Dillon said she planned to focus both on increasing turnout and persuading voters who previously voted for Republicans not to support Trump, with a special focus on Latinos and voters under the age of 30.

Strategists in both parties said suburban voters, particularly women, who polls show have shifted away from Trump would determine whether Biden can carry the state.

Other Democrats argue, however, that Arizona’s Latino population, which has grown three times as fast as the white population since 2014, is the more crucial voting bloc.

Latino voter turnout rose to 49% in 2018 from 37% in 2008, according to state and federal data compiled by One Arizona, a coalition of 23 organizations focused on Latino civic participation.

Biden has been criticized for not doing more to attract Latino support. But Hispanics’ growing disapproval of Trump’s performance, which according to Reuters/Ipsos polling increased to 43% in June from 23% in April, could create an opportunity for Biden.

Chuck Rocha, a former adviser to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign who runs a Latino-focused independent political action committee, Nuestro PAC, said focus-group testing showed the coronavirus was boosting anti-Trump sentiment among Latinos, who have been disproportionately hurt by the pandemic.

The group will launch a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign focused on Arizona in the coming weeks, Rocha said. Priorities USA, a pro-Biden super PAC, is airing Spanish-language ads in Arizona blaming Trump for failing to contain the virus.

“The pandemic has changed the dynamics of everything,” said Chad Campbell, a former Democratic state lawmaker. “The fact that Donald Trump is spending time and money here this early on shows you how much trouble he’s in.”

Reporting by Joseph Ax; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, Andrew Hay and Chris Kahn; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Cooney

Coronavirus and the plague: The disease of viral conspiracy theories
As countless coronavirus rumors circulate online, DW takes a look at some of history’s biggest conspiracy theories during pandemics.
by Christopher Nehring
DW

Contrary to what you might have heard, the novel coronavirus was not developed in a Chinese or US military lab. Albanians are not genetically immune to the virus. And Bulgarian Prime Minster Bojko Borissov does not have a mystical aura that protects him from contracting COVID-19 — even if a fortune teller has claimed so on national television.

Countless unsubstantiated coronavirus claims have been circulating lately, ranging from the entertainingly absurd to the shockingly outlandish. YouTuber Dana Ashlie, for example, recently posted videos online to explain what she claimed was the real reason behind the virus outbreak. Ashlie, who has hundreds of thousands of YouTube and Facebook followers, claimed that COVID-19 emerged because 5G mobile technology was rolled out in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the center of the outbreak.

With COVID-19, or SARS-CoV-2, dominating the headlines, it is hardly surprising that coronavirus misinformation is on the rise. That’s why the World Health Organization (WHO) has launched a dedicated website to dispel unsubstantiated claims about coronavirus cures and how the pathogen spreads.

Long history of conspiracy theories

Historically, the outbreak of pandemics has always been accompanied by the dissemination of rumors and conspiracy theories.

But what, exactly, defines the latter? Professor Michael Butter, who teaches at the University of Tübingen, says conspiracy theories tend to claim that a group is clandestinely plotting to control and destroy an institution, a country or the entire world.

The Black Death

In the 14th century, when the plague ravaged Europe, nobody knew how the illness had originated. Soon after, unfounded rumors surfaced that Jews caused the outbreak by poisoning wells in a bid to control the world. Jewish people were accused of being behind the plague — and were subjected to deadly pogroms and forcefully displaced.

1918 influenza pandemic

Between 1918-1920, the so-called Spanish flu killed between 25 and 50 million people — making it more lethal than World War I, which ended the same year the influenza pandemic began. As the origins of the virus outbreak remained a mystery until the 1930s, some people believed the pathogen had been developed by the German army to use as a weapon.

East Germany’s beetle infestation

When a Colorado potato beetle infestation in 1950 threatened to wipe out all of East Germany’s potato crops, the country’s socialist leadership was quick to blame the US. In an attempt to distract from its own failures, East Germany accused the US of having orchestrated the beetle infestation to sabotage its economy.

Operation Detrick

The onset of the AIDS epidemic in the US during the 1980s was accompanied by an elaborate Soviet disinformation campaign. In 1983, the Soviet secret service KGB spread the rumor that the US had developed AIDS at Fort Detrick as a biological weapon and tested it on prison inmates, ethnic minorities and gay people. It also claimed the US was deliberately deflecting blame by saying the disease had originated on the African continent.

In 1985, Russian-born German biology professor Jakob Segal even published a pseudo-scientific study to back up the conspiracy theory. And even though many biologists and medical experts dismissed the unfounded claims as nonsense, the conspiracy theory remains popular today.

Once again, the US is blamed

By the mid-1990s the Soviet Union had collapsed, and national health agencies had largely gotten the AIDS outbreak under control. At this time, however, Africa experienced a major Ebola outbreak. Many conspiracy theorists who had falsely claimed AIDS was created in US military labs, now claimed the Ebola virus was a bio-weapon developed by the US or Great Britain.

Another conspiracy theory in the US military and ticks. In 2019, Republican Congressman Chris Smith called on the Pentagon to release classified documents about a supposed weaponized ticks program. Smith referred to a recent book that claimed the program, which supposedly ran between 1950 and 1975, had allowed the tick-borne Lyme disease to get out of control.

Digital age amplifies misinformation

A whole host of diseases has been blamed on secret US biological weapons programs. Although some conspiracy theorists have suggested that COVID-19 is an artificially engineered Chinese bioweapon.

These, and other conspiracy theories, however, rely on arguments that are never weighted in evidence. The conspiracies tend to emerge in the early stages of a pandemic — when little is known about a pathogen’s origin and spread.

The digital revolution, meanwhile, has amplified the dissemination of rumors and disinformation. Online posts are shared much quicker on social media and through messenger apps than any medical or health authority can refute them. The digital age has allowed conspiracy theories to go viral.

COVID-19 can only be contained by studying it scientifically, practicing good hygiene and ensuring those infected receive adequate medical treatment. Similarly, education and media literacy, as well as good mental health, should be promoted to be in line with how we consume information in the digital age.

Some online trolls have even suggested downing a Corona beer to combat irrational coronavirus-related fears. While this has not been proven to help, it may provide a soothing effect in the meantime.

Coronavirus myths explored
Medically reviewed by Meredith Goodwin, MD, FAAFP — Written by Tim Newman

As coronavirus continues to make the news, a host of untruths has surrounded the topic. In this Special Feature, we address some of these myths and conspiracy theories.
June 17, 2020
Medical News Today

The novel coronavirus, now known as SARS-CoV-2, has spread from Wuhan, China, to every continent on Earth except Antarctica.

The World Health Organization (WHO) officially changed their classification of the situation from a public health emergency of international concern to a pandemic on March 11, 2020.

The virus has been responsible for millions of infections globally, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths. The United States is the most affected country.

As ever, when the word “pandemic” starts appearing in headlines, people become fearful — and with fear comes misinformation and rumors.

Here, we will dissect some of the most common myths that are currently circulating on social media and beyond.

1. Spraying chlorine or alcohol on the skin kills viruses in the body

Applying alcohol or chlorine to the body can cause harm, especially if it enters the eyes or mouth. Although people can use these chemicals to disinfect surfaces, they should not use them on the skin.

These products cannot kill viruses within the body.

2. Only older adults and young people are at risk

SARS-CoV-2, like other coronaviruses, can infect people of any age. However, older adults and individuals with preexisting health conditions, such as diabetes or asthma, are more likely to become severely ill.

3. Children cannot get COVID-19

All age groups can contract SARS-CoV-2.

So far, most cases have been in adults, but children are not immune. In fact, preliminary evidence suggests that children are just as likely to contract it, but their symptoms tend to be less severe.

On May 15, 2020, the WHO released a commentary about an inflammatory condition, affecting children and adolescents, that may have links with COVID-19.

The condition, called multisystem inflammatory condition, has features similar to Kawasaki disease and toxic shock syndrome.

Scientists currently know little about this condition, but research from May 2020 suggests that it is rare, “probably affecting no more than 1 in 1,000 children exposed to SARS-CoV-2.”

4. COVID-19 is just like the flu

SARS-CoV-2 causes an illness that does have flu-like symptoms, such as aches, a fever, and a cough. Similarly, both COVID-19 and the flu can be mild, severe, or, in rare cases, fatal. Both can also lead to pneumonia.

However, the overall profile of COVID-19 is more serious. Different countries have reported different mortality rates, and the case fatality rate in the U.S. appears to be around 6%.

Although scientists are still working out the exact mortality rate, it is likely to be many times higher than that of seasonal flu.

5. Everyone with COVID-19 dies

This statement is untrue. As we mentioned above, COVID-19 is only fatal for a small percentage of people.

In a recent report, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that 80.9% of COVID-19 cases were mild.

The WHO also report that around 80% of people will experience a relatively mild form of the disease, which will not require specialist treatment in a hospital.

Mild symptoms may include a fever, a cough, a sore throat, tiredness, and shortness of breath.

6. Cats and dogs spread coronavirus

Currently, there is little evidence to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 can infect cats and dogs. However, in Hong Kong, a Pomeranian whose owner had COVID-19 also contracted the virus. The dog did not display any symptoms.

Scientists are debating the importance of this case to the outbreak. For instance, Prof. Jonathan Ball, a professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, says:

“We have to differentiate between real infection and just detecting the presence of the virus. I still think it’s questionable how relevant it is to the human outbreak, as most of the global outbreak has been driven by human-to-human transmission.”

He continues: “We need to find out more, but we don’t need to panic — I doubt it could spread to another dog or a human because of the low levels of the virus. The real driver of the outbreak is humans.”

7. Face masks always protect against coronavirus

Healthcare workers use professional face masks, which fit tightly around the face, to protect themselves from infection.

Disposable and cloth masks can protect against droplets, but neither can protect against aerosolized particles.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that all people wear cloth face masks in public places where it is difficult to maintain a 6-foot (2-meter) distance from others. This will help slow the spread of the virus from asymptomatic people and those who do not know that they have contracted it.

When wearing a mask, it is essential to continue with other precautions, such as not touching the face and practicing physical distancing.

Instructions for making masks at home are available here.

Surgical masks and N95 respirators provide greater protection, but these are reserved for healthcare workers only.

8. Hand dryers kill coronavirus

Hand dryers do not kill coronavirus. The best way to protect oneself and others from the virus is to wash the hands with soap and water or an alcohol-based hand rub.

9. SARS-CoV-2 is just a mutated form of the common cold

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses, all of which have spiky proteins on their surface. Some of these viruses use humans as their primary host and cause the common cold. Other coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV-2, primarily infect animals.

Both Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) began in animals and passed into humans.

10. You have to be with someone for 10 minutes to catch the virus

The longer someone is with a person who has it, the more likely they are to catch the virus themselves, but it is still possible to catch it in under 10 minutes.

11. Rinsing the nose with saline protects against coronavirus

There is no evidence to suggest that a saline nose rinse protects against respiratory infections. Some research suggests that this technique might reduce the symptoms of acute upper respiratory tract infections, but scientists have not found that it can reduce the risk of infection.

12. You can protect yourself by gargling bleach

People should never put bleach in their mouths. There are no circumstances in which gargling bleach might benefit a person’s health. Bleach is corrosive and can cause serious damage.

13. Antibiotics kill coronavirus

Antibiotics only kill bacteria. They do not kill viruses.

14. Thermal scanners can diagnose coronavirus

Thermal scanners can detect whether or not someone has a fever. However, other conditions, such as seasonal flu, can also produce a fever.

In addition, symptoms of COVID-19 can appear 2–14 days after infection, which means that someone who has the virus could have a normal temperature for a few days before a fever begins.

15. Garlic protects against coronaviruses

Some research suggests that garlic might slow the growth of some species of bacteria. However, COVID-19 is caused by a virus, and there is no evidence to suggest that garlic can protect people against COVID-19.

16. Parcels from China can spread coronavirus

From previous research into similar coronaviruses, including those that cause SARS and MERS and are similar to SARS-CoV-2, scientists believe that the virus cannot survive on letters or packages for an extended period of time.

The CDC explain that “because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures.”

17. Home remedies can cure and protect against COVID-19

No home remedies can protect against COVID-19. This goes for vitamin C, essential oils, silver colloid, sesame oil, garlic, fish tank cleaner, burning sage, and sipping water every 15 minutes.

The best approach is to adopt a good hand-washing regimen and to avoid places where there may be sick people.

18. You can catch coronavirus from eating Chinese food in the US

No, you cannot.

19. You can catch coronavirus from urine and feces

It is unlikely that this is true, but the jury is currently out. According to Prof. John Edmunds, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine in the U.K.:

“It isn’t a very pleasant thought, but every time you swallow, you swallow mucus from your upper respiratory tract. In fact, this is an important defensive mechanism. This sweeps viruses and bacteria down into our gut where they are denatured in the acid conditions of our stomachs.”

“With modern, very highly sensitive detection mechanisms, we can detect these viruses in feces. Usually, viruses we can detect in this way are not infectious to others, as they have been destroyed by our guts.”

However, it is worth noting that some research concludes that viruses similar to SARS-CoV-2 might persist in feces. A recent research letter in JAMA also concludes that SARS-CoV-2 is present in feces.

20. The virus will die off when temperatures rise in the spring

Some viruses, such as cold and flu viruses, do spread more easily in the colder months, but that does not mean that they stop entirely when conditions become milder.

As it stands, scientists do not know how temperature changes will influence the behavior of SARS-CoV-2.

21. Coronavirus is the deadliest virus known to humans

Although SARS-CoV-2 does appear to be more serious than influenza, it is not the deadliest virus that people have faced. Others, such as Ebola, have higher mortality rates.

22. Flu and pneumonia vaccines can protect against COVID-19

As SARS-CoV-2 is different than other viruses, no existing vaccines protect against infection.

23. The virus originated in a laboratory in China

Despite internet rumors, there is no evidence to suggest that this is the case. In fact, a recent study demonstrates that the virus is a natural product of evolution.

Some researchers believe that SARS-CoV-2 may have jumped from pangolins to humans. Others think that it might have passed to us from bats, which was the case for SARS.

24. The outbreak began because people ate bat soup

Although scientists are confident that the virus started in animals, there is no evidence to suggest that it came from soup of any kind.

25. 5G helps SARS-CoV-2 spread

As the world becomes more connected, some regions are rolling out 5G mobile technology. A raft of conspiracy theories appear wherever this technology sets foot.

One of the most recent theories to emerge is that 5G is responsible for the swift spread of SARS-CoV-2 across the globe.

Some people claim that 5G helps viruses communicate, often citing a paper from 2011. In this study, the authors conclude that bacteria can communicate via electromagnetic signals. However, experts dispute this theory, and SARS-CoV-2 is a virus, not a bacterium.

Wuhan was one of the first cities to trial 5G in China, which helps explain the origin of some of these theories. However, Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou also rolled out 5G at a similar time.

It is also worth noting that COVID-19 has significantly impacted countries with very little 5G coverage, such as Iran.

26. Drinking alcohol reduces the risk of infection

In response to a series of myths surrounding alcohol and COVID-19, the WHO released a statement. In it, they explain that although alcohol can disinfect the skin, it does not work the same way inside the body.

They explain that “consuming any alcohol poses health risks, but consuming high-strength ethyl alcohol (ethanol), particularly if it has been adulterated with methanol, can result in severe health consequences, including death.”

In a fact sheet on the subject, they write that, “Alcohol use, especially heavy use, weakens the immune system and thus reduces the ability to cope with infectious diseases.”

Because alcohol is associated with a number of diseases, it may make people more vulnerable to COVID-19.

27. Injecting or consuming bleach or disinfectant kills the virus

Consuming or injecting disinfectant or bleach will not remove viruses from the body.

Dr Wayne Carter, Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham’s school of medicine in the U.K., writes that “[d]isinfectants and bleach are strong oxidizing agents, useful to kill bacteria or viruses when they are deposited on surfaces, but these agents should not be ingested or injected. These agents can cause severe tissue burns and blood vessel damage.”

Dr. Penny Ward, Visiting Professor in pharmaceutical medicine at Kings College London, U.K., explains, “Drinking bleach kills. Injecting bleach kills faster.”

28. You can catch coronavirus in swimming pools

According to the CDC, there is no evidence to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 spreads between people through the water in swimming pools, hot tubs, or water playgrounds. If these facilities disinfect their water with chlorine or bromine, this should inactivate the virus.

That said, as with all public areas, people can still catch the virus from others who attend these facilities. The virus can spread through inhaling respiratory droplets in the air and coming into contact with surfaces.

The CDC say that people should continue to protect themselves both in and out of the water by staying 6 feet (2 meters) away from others and wearing cloth face coverings when not in the water.

People who operate pools should take extra care to clean and disinfect all facilities.

COVID-19 myths, busted
There’s one thing on everyone’s mind at the moment. COVID-19. Unfortunately, this also means that there are a lot of rumours and myths going around. That’s why we’ve created a list of commonly-shared myths, demystified by our Babylon doctors.
June 22, 2020
babylonhealth/UK

Myth 1 – The virus that causes COVID-19 is man-made.

The virus that causes COVID-19 is a zoonotic virus. This means that it originated from an animal. It’s likely to have jumped the species barrier to humans. This process of jumping species was probably how the virus that causes COVID-19 came about. It was not made in a lab.

Myth 2 – Hand sanitizers don’t work to kill the virus that causes COVID-19.

Whilst this is true for a few strains of viruses, for example, the norovirus that causes stomach bugs, it’s not the case with coronaviruses. Using a hand sanitizer that contains at least 60% alcohol will kill the virus that causes COVID-19.

Myth 3 – Pets can transmit the virus too.

There is no evidence that the virus which causes COVID-19 can be transmitted by pets. That said, it’s still early days and scientists are keeping a close eye on things like this. So you should always wash your hands properly after touching any pets.

Myth 4 – Heat, applied to the skin or taking a hot bath will kill the virus.

Once a virus is in your body, it is down to your immune system to kill it off. Hot baths and hot drinks won’t be able to reach or kill the virus because it lies within cells inside your body. Your body regulates its temperature very carefully and won’t allow it to raise much, despite hot drinks and baths. The best way to kill the virus, if you may have come into contact with it on your skin, is by washing with soap and water or using hand sanitizer.

Myth 5 – You can prevent the virus spreading by gargling bleach.

Gargling bleach can cause irritation of your mouth and food pipe, sometimes even leading to internal burns. There’s also no evidence that regularly gargling with anything (whether it be bleach, hot drinks or water) will prevent you from being infected by the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. Disinfecting surfaces with bleach can be helpful to stop the spread of coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2 which is the virus that causes COVID-19.1

Myth 6 – Eating garlic will help prevent you from catching the virus that causes COVID-19.

Eating a healthy and balanced diet with fruit and vegetables, including garlic, is always a good idea. But there is no evidence that eating lots of garlic is going to prevent you from getting COVID-19.]

 

Could this be the next global disease?

Smallpox (also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera) is a highly contagious disease unique to humans caused by two virus variants called Variola major and Variola minor. V. major is the more deadly form, with a typical mortality of 20-40 percent of those infected. The other type, V. minor, only kills 1% of its victims. Many survivors are left blind in one or both eyes from corneal ulceration, and persistent skin scarring – pockmarks – is nearly universal. Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300-500 million deaths in the 20th century. As recently as 1967, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 15 million people contracted the disease and that two million died in that year

Edward Jenner developed a smallpox vaccine by using cowpox fluid (hence the name vaccination, from the Latin vaca, cow); his first inoculation occurred on May 14, 1796. After independent confirmation, this practice of vaccination against smallpox spread quickly in Europe. The first smallpox vaccination in North America occurred on June 2, 1800. National laws requiring vaccination began appearing as early as 1805. The last case of wild smallpox occurred on September 11th, 1977. One last victim was claimed by the disease in the UK in September 1978, when Janet Parker, a photographer in the University of Birmingham Medical School, contracted the disease and died. A research project on smallpox was being conducted in the building at the time, though the exact route by which Ms. Parker became infected was never fully elucidated. After successful vaccination campaigns, the WHO in 1980 declared the eradication of smallpox, though cultures of the virus are kept by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States and in Russia. Smallpox vaccination was discontinued in most countries in the 1970s as the risks of vaccination include death (~1 per million), among other serious side effects. Nonetheless, after the 2001 anthrax attacks took place in the United States, concerns about smallpox have resurfaced as a possible agent for bioterrorism. As a result, there has been increased concern about the availability of vaccine stocks. Moreover, President of the United States George W. Bush has ordered all American military personnel to be vaccinated against smallpox and has implemented a voluntary program for vaccinating emergency medical personnel who would likely be the first people to respond in case of a bioterrorist attack

Smallpox is a serious, contagious, and sometimes fatal infectious disease. There is no specific treatment for smallpox disease, and the only prevention is vaccination. The name smallpox is derived from the Latin word for “spotted” and refers to the raised bumps that appear on the face and body of an infected person.

There are two clinical forms of smallpox. Variola major is the severe and most common form of smallpox, with a more extensive rash and higher fever. There are four types of variola major smallpox: ordinary (the most frequent type, accounting for 90% or more of cases); modified (mild and occurring in previously vaccinated persons); flat; and hemorrhagic (both rare and very severe). Historically, variola major has an overall fatality rate of about 30%; however, flat and hemorrhagic smallpox usually are fatal. Variola minor is a less common presentation of smallpox, and a much less severe disease, with death rates historically of 1% or less.

Smallpox outbreaks have occurred from time to time for thousands of years, but the disease is now eradicated after a successful worldwide vaccination program. The last case of smallpox in the United States was in 1949. The last naturally occurring case in the world was in Somalia in 1977. After the disease was eliminated from the world, routine vaccination against smallpox among the general public was stopped because it was no longer necessary for prevention.

Where Smallpox Comes From

Smallpox is caused by the variola virus that emerged in human populations thousands of years ago. Except for laboratory stockpiles, the variola virus has been eliminated. However, in the aftermath of the events of September and October, 2001, there is heightened concern that the variola virus might be used as an agent of bioterrorism. For this reason, the U.S. government is taking precautions for dealing with a smallpox outbreak.

Transmission

Generally, direct and fairly prolonged face-to-face contact is required to spread smallpox from one person to another. Smallpox also can be spread through direct contact with infected bodily fluids or contaminated objects such as bedding or clothing. Rarely, smallpox has been spread by virus carried in the air in enclosed settings such as buildings, buses, and trains. Humans are the only natural hosts of variola. Smallpox is not known to be transmitted by insects or animals.

A person with smallpox is sometimes contagious with onset of fever (prodrome phase), but the person becomes most contagious with the onset of rash. At this stage the infected person is usually very sick and not able to move around in the community. The infected person is contagious until the last smallpox scab falls off.

 

The CIA’s Frauds

July 8, 2020

by Patrick McCann

Some of you have heard of the “Stuxtnet virus.” This is a secret virus that, to all intents and purposes, has been used to disrupt the Iranian uranium program by destroying their German-built centrifuges. Security experts at Symantec and Kaspersky Lab are in agreement this was a joint American/Israel state-sponsored effort involving intense research and development on a particular model of the PLC and the software used to program it We have discovered that the entire operation is planned and run by the CIA but is currently located in Vancouver, Canada so the U.S. would have plausible deniability if any of this ever got out. Work on the Stuxnet virus began in the spring of 2009, with the specific intention of targeting the Siemens controllers, whose design was well known and whose software and firmware controller logic was well known.

Stuxnet has four main components. The first spreads the virus through a print network, another to distribute the virus by loading itself onto USB drives, and the other two are rootkits for giving it administrator-level access to the system and to alter code being written to PLCs., a Programmable Logic Controller, a bank of processor-controlled virtual relays that link control systems to industrial machinery. The PLC has a processor-based central unit that runs an event-driven program to control the switching. This program can be entered manually on the PLC’s keypad, but in the case of Iran’s facility, it’s created using the editor software on a laptop and copied to a USB drive that was later plugged in to the PLC’s central unit.

In order to conceal its actuial intent, the worm initially spreads indiscriminately, but in the Iranian case, included a highly specialized malware payload that is designed to target only Siemens Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems that are configured to control and monitor specific industrial processes

Byres Security believes the people behind Stuxnet were trying to achieve something bigger by extensively reworking the PLC’s code. This;, of course, is in line with inside information that that Obama, through Cass Sunstein is attempting to find a way to shut off any part of the Internt that he and his people deem as “overly revealing,” or “harmful to National Security” (here read ‘the government’s wishes’.) Shutting down the Iranian centrifuges was a joint American/Israeli project, via the CIA and its ally, SAIC but planned future attacks are purely domestic and reflect both the enemies of the White House and the CIA.

The entire operation is controlled, firstly by the CIA and through them,, a company named SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation) which, in turn, has set up another front called the Cipher Exchange Corporation. This is run by a former Indian naval intelligence officer and code specialist, one Raj Mohindir Srivastava. But this entire operation is heavily involved with some former CIA lunacy called “Operation Stargate” which once was termed “Remote Viewing.” This was the child of one Ingo Swann, a mountebank and close friend of the even crazier L. Ron Hubbard of Scientology infamy! http://www.webmasterworld.com/search_engine_spiders/3988078.htm?highlight=msg4029425

http://www.tonews.com/thread/1051902/hsv/tech/help_tracking_a_virus_source.html

http://www.ipillion.com/ip/65.110.29.8 turns up the fact that it is a Port Coquitlam address used by a company called Cipher Exchange Corporation. Their web-site:

http://www.cipherkey.com/ is that of a typical CIA front organization. It says nothing.

SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation), is an American technology applications company headquartered in the United States and who works for a number of U.S. federal, state, and private sector clients. It works extensively with the United States Department of Defense, the United States Department of Homeland Security, and the American domestic and foreign intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, as well as other U.S. Government civil agencies and selected commercial markets.From 2001 to 2005, SAIC was the primary contractor for the FBI’s unsuccessful Virtual Case File project. SAIC relocated its corporate headquarters to their existing facilities in Tysons Corner in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, near McLean, in September 2009. As part of its outsourcing solution, SAIC has development centers in Noida and Bangalore, India. Scicom Technologies Noida was acquired by SAIC in September 2007.

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) transitioned a Remote Viewing Program to SAIC in 1991 and it was renamed Stargate Project. STARGATE was one of a number of “remote viewing programs” conducted under a variety of code names, including SUN STREAK, GRILL FLAME, and CENTER LANE by DIA and INSCOM, and SCANATE by the eccentrics at the CIA. These efforts were initiated to assess foreign programs in the field; contract for basic research into the phenomenon; and to evaluate controlled remote viewing as an intelligence tool.

The program consisted of two separate activities. An operational unit employed remote viewers to train and perform remote viewing intelligence-gathering. The research program was maintained separately from the operational unit.

This effort was initiated in response to CIA concerns about highly unreliable reports of Soviet investigations of ‘psychic phenomena.’ Between 1969 and 1971, US intelligence sources erroneously concluded that the Soviet Union was engaged in “psychotronic” research. By 1970, it was suggested that the Soviets were spending approximately 60 million rubles per year on it, and over 300 million by 1975. The money and personnel devoted to Soviet psychotronics suggested that they had achieved breakthroughs, even though the matter was considered speculative, controversial and “fringy.” Using a declared, but fictional ‘Soviet threat,’ the CIA and other agencies have successfully deluded Congress, and often the White House, into heavily funding project that the agencies consider to be ‘cash cows.’

The initial research program, called SCANATE [scan by coordinate] was funded by CIA beginning in 1970. Remote viewing research began in 1972 at the Stanford Research Institute [SRI] in Menlo Park, CA. This work was conducted by Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff, once with the NSA and a later-identified Scientologist. The effort initially focused on a few “gifted individuals” such as the very eccentric Ingo Swann, an OT Level VII Scientologist. Many of the SRI “empaths” were from the Church of Scientology. Individuals who appeared to show potential were trained and taught to use talents for “psychic warfare.” The minimum accuracy needed by the clients was said to be 65%, and proponents claim that in the later stages of the training effort, this accuracy level was “often consistently exceeded.”

Ingo Swann born in 1933 in Telluride, Colorado, has been heavily involved with the bizarre Scientology movement from its onset and is best known for his work as a co-creator (according to his frequent collaborators Russell Targ and Harold Puthoff) of what has been called ‘remote viewing,’ specifically the Stargate Project.

Swann has described himself as a “consciousness researcher” who had sometimes experienced “altered states of consciousness.” In other words, Swann actually believed that “special” individuala can leave their body and travel through space..

Swann helped develop the process of remote viewing at the Stanford Research Institute in experiments that caught the attention of the Central Intelligence Agency. He proposed the idea of Coordinate Remote Viewing, a process in which ‘remote viewers’ would see a location given nothing but its geographical coordinates,. This bizarre project, was developed and tested by Puthoff and Targ with CIA funding.. Details and transcripts of the SRI remote viewing experiments themselves were found to be edited and even unobtainable.

A Dr. Silfen and Swann prepared an unofficial report of later out-of-body experiments and circulated it to 500 members of the ASPR, before the ASPR board was aware of it. According to Swann, Dr. Silfen has ‘disappeared’  (or like so many other Scientology stories, never existed) and ‘cannot be located.’ Swann claimed he searched diligently for her and begged help from all his Scientology friends. According to Swann, in April 1972 a move was made at the ASPR in New York to discredit him and throw him out because he was a scientologist

GONDOLA WISH was a 1977 Army Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) Systems Exploitation Detachment (SED) effort to evaluate potential adversary applications of remote viewing.

Building on GONDOLA WISH, an operational collection project was formalized under Army intelligence as GRILL FLAME in mid-1978. Located in buildings 2560 and 2561 at Fort Meade, MD, GRILL FLAME, (INSCOM “Detachment G”) consisted of soldiers and a few civilians who were believed to possess varying degrees of natural psychic ability. The SRI research program was integrated into GRILL FLAME in early 1979, and hundreds of remote viewing experiments were carried out at SRI through 1986.

In 1983 the program was re-designated the INSCOM CENTER LANE Project (ICLP). Ingo Swann and Harold Puthoff at SRI developed a set of instructions which theoretically allowed anyone to be trained to produce accurate, detailed target data. used this new collection methodology against a wide range of operational and training targets. The existence of this highly classified program was reported by columnist Jack Anderson in April 1984.

In 1984 the National Academy of Sciences’ National Research Council evaluated the remote viewing program for the Army Research Institute. The results were unfavorable.

When Army funding ended in late 1985, the unit was redesignated SUN STREAK and transferred to DIA’s Scientific and Technical Intelligence Directorate, with the office code DT-S.

Under the auspices of the DIA, the program transitioned to Science Applications International Corporation [SAIC] in 1991 and was renamed STAR GATE. The project, changed from a SAP (Special Access Program) to a LIMDIS (limited dissemination) program, continued with the participation of Edwin May, who presided over 70% of the total contractor budget and 85% of the program’s data collection.

Over a period of more than two decades some $20 million were spent on STAR GATE and related activities, with $11 million budgeted from the mid-1980’s to the early 1990s. Over forty personnel served in the program at various times, including about 23 remote viewers. At its peak during the mid-1980s the program included as many as seven full-time viewers and as many analytical and support personnel. Three psychics were reportedly worked at FT Meade for the CIA from 1990 through July 1995. The psychics were made available to other government agencies which requested their services.

Participants who apparently demonstrated psychic abilities used at least three different techniques various times:

• Coordinate Remote Viewing (CRV) – the original SRI-developed technique in which viewers were asked what they “saw” at specified geographic coordinates
• Extended Remote Viewing (ERV) – a hybrid relaxation/meditative-based method
• Written Remote Viewing (WRV) – a hybrid of both channeling and automatic writing was introduced in 1988, though it proved controversial and was regarded by some as much less reliable.

By 1995 the program had conducted several hundred intelligence collection projects involving thousands of remote viewing sessions. Notable successes were said to be “eight martini” results, so-called because the remote viewing data were so mind-boggling that everyone has to go out and drink eight martinis to recover. It is now believed that they drank the martinis before the sessions.

Reported intelligence gathering failures include:

• Joe McMoneagle, a retired Special Project Intelligence Officer for SSPD, SSD, and 902d MI Group, claims to have left Stargate in 1984 with a Legion of Merit Award for providing information on 150 targets that were unavailable from other sources. There is no support for the Legion of Merit story and less on the so-called ‘150 targets.’
• One assignment included locating kidnapped BG James L. Dozier, who had been kidnapped by the Red Brigades in Italy in 1981. He was freed by Italian police after 42 days, without help from the psychics. [according to news reports, Italian police were assisted by “US State and Defense Department specialists” using electronic surveillance equipment, an apparent reference to the Special Collection Service]
• Another assignment included trying to hunt down Gadhafi before the 1986 bombing of Libya, but Gadhafi was not injured in the bombing. One remote viewer said that the Libyan dictator was in Morocco but he was not. The “target” supplied by another government ‘remote viewer’ was a hospital.
• In January 1989 DOD asked the SAIC project about Libyan chemical weapons work. A remote viewer reported that ship named either Patua or Potua would sail from Tripoli to transport chemicals to an eastern Libyan port. Subsequent investigation by legitimate agencies disclosed that there was no such ship registered under any flag and that no chemicals has been transported to an eastern Libyan port.
• During the Gulf War remote-viewers suggested the whereabouts of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, but their information was not accurate and, at best, “confused” and “an obvious attempt to please” the DoD officials.
• The unit was tasked to find plutonium in North Korea in 1994, but the results were “totally incorrect” and “worthless.”
• During the US attack on Belgrade, a remote viewer “positively identified” the Chinese Embassy as an ‘important Serbian military headquarters.’ The U.S.immediately attacked it with serious diplomatic repercussions.
• Remote viewers also vainly attempted to find SCUD missiles and secret biological and chemical warfare projects, and tunnels and extensive underground facilities in Iraq as the justifying evidence for an invasion. None of this material “had the slightest worth” and was “completely delusional.”

The US ‘STARGATE” program was sustained through the support of Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., and Rep. Charles Rose, D-N.C., who were convinced of the program’s effectiveness. However, by the early 1990s the program was plagued by uneven and “often bizarre” management, poor unit morale, divisiveness within the organization, poor performance, and few, if any results that could be considered accurate.

The FY 1995 Defense Appropriations bill directed that the program be transferred to CIA, with CIA instructed to conduct a retrospective review of the program. In 1995 the American Institutes for Research (AIR) was contracted by CIA to evaluate the program. Their 29 September 1995 final report was released to the public 28 November 1995. It was highly negative in nature. The final recommendation by AIR was to terminate the STARGATE effort. CIA concluded that there was not a single case in which ESP had provided data used to guide intelligence operations.

In June 2001 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) paid SAIC $122 million to create a Virtual Case File (VCF) software system to speed up the sharing of information among agents. But the FBI abandoned VCF when it failed to function adequately. Robert Mueller, FBI Director, testified to a congressional committee, “When SAIC delivered the first product in December 2003 we immediately identified a number of deficiencies – 17 at the outset. That soon cascaded to 50 or more and ultimately to 400 problems with that software … We were indeed disappointed.”

While Ingo Swnn was obviously neither normal nor rational, the head of the Vancouver project, Raj Mohindir Srivastava..is a former Indian navy cryptographer with past connections to  SAIC Srivastava, whol lives in Coquitlan, British Columbia, is officially listed as working for a firm called FSS International operating in Vancouver, BC. This firm was founded by Srivastava himself and has no address or telephone number listed in that city. Technical papers authored by Srivastava  listed as from his “Vancouver office.” It should be obvious that this firm is a shell or front.

Anti-vax movement is based on an ‘entirely fraudulent publication’: NIH chief Francis Collins
February 9, 2020
by Adriana Belmonte
YahooFinance

Last year saw the largest number of measles cases in the U.S. since 1992. Several medical experts have indicated that much of the increase is due to low immunization rates as a result of vaccine misinformation.

One common misconception about vaccines is that they cause autism. This came about after Andrew Wakefield, a doctor who was later stripped of his medical license, published an inaccurate study in 1998, claiming a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and children with autism. His study was debunked in 1999 and fully retracted in 2010.

Unfortunately, however, the damage was done, according to Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“The whole eruption about whether the measles vaccine causes autism started on the basis of an entirely fraudulent publication which was admitted later to be fraudulent and has been retracted,” he told Yahoo Finance’s editor-in-chief, Andy Serwer.

“But you can’t seem to get that rumor put to bed even now, more than 20 years later, after hundreds of thousands of children have been carefully studied and that consequence of autism has been thoroughly debunked. And yet, how many people out there are still worried about it once you start down that road?”

Collins made the comments during a conversation that aired in an episode of Yahoo Finance’s “Influencers with Andy Serwer,” a weekly interview series with leaders in business, politics, and entertainment.

‘The anti-vaxxers are really good at using social media’

Social media plays a major role in disseminating this misinformation. In January, Buzzfeed reported that Facebook (FB) was still allowing anti-vax ads on its platform, despite the company earlier stating that it would try to curb the flow of misinformation.

Facebook responded to the controversy by stating to BuzzFeed: “Facebook does not have a policy that bans advertising on the basis that it expresses opposition to vaccines. Our policy is to ban ads containing vaccine misinformation.”

“The anti-vaxxers are really good at using social media,” Collins said. “They sometimes run circles around us at NIH and CDC, because of the way in which they can quickly spread information that sounds really quite terrifying and cause parents to begin to question whether their children should have that measles vaccine.”

Social media platforms not only allow vaccine misinformation to run rampant, but also general misconceptions about health and medications. A woman in Colorado lost her 4-year-old son from the flu, after deciding not to give him the prescribed medication for it known as Tamiflu. NBC News reported that she had consulted with a Facebook group she was a part of, Stop Mandatory Vaccination, for “natural remedies” and members suggested things like breastmilk, thyme, and elderberry.

Facebook responded to the controversy by stating: “We don’t want vaccine misinformation on Facebook, which is why we’re working hard to reduce it everywhere on the platform, including in private groups.”

The anti-vax moment “deeply concerns me, and puzzles me,” Collins said. “I think anybody who knows the history of how the illnesses for which we now have vaccines have killed so many people, including many, many children — you just wonder: How could we take one of the greatest advances of human biomedical research and decide that I don’t want to use that on my child?”

‘They don’t recognize that this is not a trivial illness’

It’s not just measles vaccines that anti-vax parents are refusing to get for their children. Overall sentiment towards vaccines has shifted. According to a recent Gallup poll, 84% of Americans say vaccinating children is important, which is a 10% decrease from 2001. And 10% of adults still believe there is a link between vaccines and autism, a 4% increase from 2015.

“I think it is a matter of some complacency that people who are saying their children don’t need vaccines have never seen a child die of measles, and they don’t recognize that this is not a trivial illness,” Collins said.

WHO data indicates that nearly 20 million children in 2018 did not receive any measles vaccine, despite the fact that it’s between “97% to 98% effective,” according to NIH Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci.

According to 2017 data from the CDC, among children aged 19-35 months, 91.1% have received the Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR) vaccine, 91.9% have received the polio vaccine, 90.6% have received the chickenpox vaccine, and 83.4% have received the Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis (DTP) vaccine.

Measles was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, but the number of recent cases worries Collins that the disease will soon lose that designation.

“We’re not ending it. Not when so many are refusing vaccines, and we’ve lost the herd immunity,” he said, referring to protections unvaccinated individuals, like newborns, receive when a sufficient proportion of the general population is vaccinated.

“And we will see children — if something doesn’t happen — die in this country of a preventable disease called measles, of this resistance. It’s heartbreaking.”

Testing for class and character

If the statement is true add the points in parenthesis to your score. Scoring is given at the bottom of the test.

 

1. You’ve ever used an album cover or old envelope for a dustpan. (5 points)
2. You’ve ever put foil on your TV antennas to get better reception. (8 points)
3. You’ve ever had to use pliers to turn your TV on. (7points)
4. You had to come in the house when the street lights came on. (6 points)
5. You had a candy lady in your neighborhood. (5 + 5 extra points if your house was the candy lady)
6. If you can count more than five police cars in your neighborhood on a daily basis. (3 points)
7. If you ever had to pick your own switch or belt. (3 points for each)
8. If you’ve ever been beaten with an extension cord. (15 points)
9. If you have ever had to walk to or home from school. (2 points)
10. If you’ve ever passed someone a note asking “Do you like me?” or “Can I have a chance?” check _yes, _no or _maybe. (7 points)
11. If you have ever used dishwashing liquid for bubble bath. (9points)
12. If you have ever mixed up some Kool-Aid and the found that you didn’t have any sugar. (4 points & add 4 if you put the pitcher in the refrigerator until you got some sugar)
13. If you have ever played any of the following games. (2 points each): (hide and go seek, freeze tag, captain or momma may I?, or red light..yellow light..green light 123!)
14. If your neighborhood had an ice cream man. (2 points + 2 if he rang a bell + 5 if he played R&B)
15. If you remember any of the following candies. (1 point each): cherry clans, lemon heads, Alexander the grape, ring pops, Chico sticks, baked beans, candy cigarettes, powder packs with the white dip stick, big league chew, “Wine” Candy (jolly ranchers), jaw breakers, and candy necklaces.
16. If you refer to Now and Laters candies as “Nighladers”. (6 points)
17. If you’ve ever ran from the police on foot. (5 points + 5 if you got away)
18. If you remember underoos or the Wonder Woman bra and panty set. (6 points + 4 if you owned some)
19. If you’ve ever had reusable grease in a container on your stove. (5 points)
20. The batteries in your remote control are held in by a piece of tape. (5 points)
21. If you’ve ever used any of the following for drinking glasses. (3 points each): jelly jars, mayonnaise jars, mason jars, or peanut butter jars.
22. You’ve ever covered your furniture in plastic. (2 points)
23. The heels of your feet have ever looked like you had been kicking flour. (1point)
24. If you have ever worn any of the following fragrances. (1 point each): Brute, Hai Karate, Jean Nate, Old Spice, Chloe, English Leather, Stetson, Charlie, or Faberge’.
25. You’ve ever used Tussy. (9 points)
26. You’ve never been to the dentist. (10 points + 10 if you’ve never been to the doctor.)
27. You’ve ever wore clothes with the tag still on them. (4 points)
28. If you’re acquainted with someone with a name as follows. (3 points): Kay-Kay, Lee-Lee, Ree-Ree, Ray-Ray, etc.
29. You have ever paged yourself for any reason. (3 points)
30. You’ve ever worn house shoes outside of the house. (2 points)
31. You add “ED” or “T” to the end of words already in the past tense (for example, Tooked, Light-Skinneded, kilt, ruint, etc). (3 points)
32. You pronounce words like this (1 point for each example you can think of skrimps or strimps, skreet, axe (ask), member (remember), frigerator, etc.
33. You use nem’ to describe a certain group of people (for example Craig and nem’ or momma and nem’). (6 points)
34. You’ve ever had a crack across your windshield and never bothered to get it fixed. (3 points)
35. You’ve ever driven on a donut more than 2 weeks after your flat. (4 points)
36. You’ve ever asked a perfect stranger to take a picture with you and told your friends it was someone you dated. (3 points)
37. Your child drops his/her pacifier and you sanitize it by sucking it. (7 points)
38. If you’ve ever ran a race barefoot in the middle of the street at approximately 11 at night. (10 points)
39. You’ve ever left a social gathering with a plate. (1 point)
40. You leave a restaurant with silverware, sugar, and/or jelly. (8 points)
41. You think “red” is a flavor of Kool-Aid. (4 points)
42. You can’t hold a glass because of the length of your nails. (3 points)
43. The gold teeth in your mouth spell words. (8 points)
44. You don’t have your own place but your child has a leather coat and a pair of Jordan’s. (5 points)
45. If you’ve ever had to get to the driver’s side of the car through the passenger side door. (8 points)
46. You have ever slept in a chair to avoid messing up your hair. (7 points)
47. You constantly hit *69 and ask, “Did you just call here?” (10 points)
48. You won’t answer the phone if you don’t recognize the number on the caller id box. (7 points)
49. You know a child who can’t speak, but can do the “bank-head bounce.” (15 points)
50. You think Tupac is still alive. (20 points)

Scoring

0 – 30 – You have enjoyed a nice sheltered life in the suburbs.

31 – 60 – Hood movies have given you a little exposure.

61 – 100 – You may have visited the hood a few times or on weekends.

101 – 130 – You probably spent a few years in the hood, and moved to the suburbs.

131 – 160 – You’re the genuine article. You are no stranger to hood life.

161 – 200 – You are definitely, without a doubt an expert on life in the hood.

201+ – Congratulations! You are Ghetto Fabulous!