In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

According to the UK Daily Mail, US Omicron cases have doubled overnight : The number of confirmed Omicron cases in the U.S. has nearly doubled in a period of 24 hours, and six Northeastern states saw a record number of daily COVID cases this week as the variant is now confirmed in 44 states, with New York hit the hardest. As of Saturday morning, there were 830 cases of the Omicron COVID-19 variant confirmed by DNA sequencing across the country, a 97 percent increase from Friday morning's tally. In reality, the true number of Omicron cases is much higher, as only 1 to 2 percent of all cases are sequenced for variant markers, but the testing data shows a disturbing national trend. The problem is that as is increasingly reported from Europe, the Omicron variant is far milder. The Daily Mail story continues at length to conflate Delta with Omicron, but its graphs simply illustrate another point I've been making: There's little difference between the late 2020 peak...

I comtinue to think we're going through an effort to reboot the scary flashing red circles of March 2020. Even the conserative aggregators are running clickbait headlines about a new "viral blizzard" : A former COVID-19 adviser for President Biden's transition on Thursday warned of a “viral blizzard” that is about to hit the U.S. as COVID-19 cases rise and concerns about the omicron variant continue to fester. Michael Osterholm, who served on Biden’s coronavirus advisory team during the transition, said in an appearance on CNN that the health care system could be overwhelmed as omicron becomes more prevalent in the U.S. "I think we're really just about to experience a viral blizzard," Osterholm told CNN's Erin Burnett. "I think in the next three to eight weeks, we're going to see millions of Americans are going to be infected with this virus, and that will be overlaid on top of delta, and we're not yet sure exactly...

A little over a year ago, President-elect Biden said this: [A] "very dark winter" is approaching as the U.S. coronavirus case count nears 10 million. "There is a need for bold action to fight this pandemic," Biden said in Delaware. "We're still facing a very dark winter." Biden, whose campaign against President Donald Trump made the coronavirus a main focus, pledged to "spare no effort to turn this pandemic around once we're sworn in on Jan. 20." Yesterday, a little over a year later, President Biden said this : President Biden on Thursday warned of a winter of "severe illness and death" for unvaccinated Americans as coronavirus cases spike across the country. Biden, in a meeting with medical advisers and Vice President Harris to discuss the pandemic, said the country was in a better position to deal with the omicron variant of COVID-19 because of steps taken to limit travel and increase ac...

Now that I've taken as good a look as can be had at the four Epstein assistants listed in the 2008 non prosecution agreement, Sarah Kellen, Nadia Marcinkova, Adriana Ross, and Lesley Groff, the one thing that strikes me is that they had little in common. One was a pilot, one came from an affluent hedge fund background, while two were groomed to be Epstein confidantes from their teens. About the only thing they all did was, at least now and then, schedule nymphets for massages with Epstein. However, not all seem to have participated in those massages. Here's my biggest question: how many $200,000 a year personal assistants does it take to schedule Jennifer for 11:00 if Heather can't make it? How many massages can a 55 year old guy handle in a day? Even at Epstein's most priapic, a dozen might be the upper limit, but hey, let's say it's 20. And it wasn't just these four who did the scheduling. Maxwell herself is alleged to have done it, and there were a...

The odd thing about the four women named in Epstein's 2008 non prosecution agreement is how unproductive it is to try to figure out what, if anything, they actually did all day. Adriana Ross is the best example. Just as the Maxwell trial began, the UK Mirror hyped , A former model accused of organising under-age girls for Jeffrey Epstein to abuse has left the US as the FBI is poised to make arrests. Adriana Ross, 36, who was once questioned about Prince Andrew under oath, was tracked down by the Mirror as she left her home in Miami, Florida. As she packed a case into a car she refused to answer questions about Andrew or her alleged role with Epstein. And when she later arrived at the city’s cruise terminal with her husband, she insisted: “I have nothing to say.” . . . On Friday night sources told the Mirror that papers were being prepared ahead of “several arrests”. But Ms Ross is now on a cruise of all things, where the FBI could pull her off the ship at will, an...

Lesley Groff is a more shadowy figure among the Epsein assistants named in the 2008 non prosecution agreement. Every indication is that, with an affluent and apparenty influential husband, she has been able to lawyer up and take advantage of the legal protections built around the Epstein enterprise followindg his arrests. She began working for him as an adult and does not appear to have been groomed or brought into his circle as a sex slave. Unlike many other Epstein associates, there's no indication she ever had a romantic relationiship with him. According to the Daily Beast, Lesley Groff was another Epstein assistant who allegedly coordinated travel for young girls, often calling to schedule “massages.” Though not directly named in Monday’s [2019 Epstein] indictment, the 51-year-old has been previously named as one of Epstein’s three female assistants. According to a 2005 Chicago Tribune story about executive-assistant pay, Epstein divulged his assistants made about $200,0...

According to Wikipedia , Nadia Marcinko, also known as Nada Marcinkova (Slovak: Naďa Marcinková) (born 1986), is a Slovakian-born pilot, flight instructor, and the CEO of Aviloop, an aviation website. She is known for her association with financier and registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as Ghislaine Maxwell. . . . Over the years, several news outlets have reported that Marcinko, previously known under the name of Nada Marcinkova, worked as a long-term assistant to Jeffrey Epstein and was a regular pilot of Epstein's so-called Lolita Express. It was reported that she was one of four of Epstein's accomplices (including Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, and Lesley Groff) that were given immunity from prosecution in Epstein's controversial non-prosecution agreement from 2008. The Guardian reported that Marcinkova was questioned in 2010 concerning Epstein, who was convicted of soliciting an underage girl for prostitution . . . According to the Miami H...