[annatar1914]

Silly, but true. How else are these things decided?

@Potemkin ,

Why indeed? And the answer to that question is why the pandemic has ended this era of globalization and killed hundreds of thousands of people. Leaders have a responsibility to the common good, the public welfare, the nation as a whole both present and past and to those peoples unborn for the future.

Most politicians have not gone too far in restrictions, rather they have elected to do as little as possible during this pandemic.

[Rugoz]

Silly, but true. How else are these things decided?

Stop acting like a fool.

Western political philosophy has always concerned itself with how things SHOULD be.

And contrary to you I don't think that's entirely irrelevant.

[Potemkin]

Stop acting like a fool.

Western political philosophy has always concerned itself with how things SHOULD be.

And contrary to you I don't think that's entirely irrelevant.

How things SHOULD be? That would be communism.

Next question?

[QatzelOk]

Leaders have a responsibility to the common good, the public welfare, the nation as a whole both present and past and to those peoples unborn for the future. ...

No they don't. They have a duty to get elected. That's all.

If they can use media to convince "the public" that "good" means: doing what the 1% tell you... they can get major financing from an interested shareholder, with which to get elected.

You whore yourself out to corporations, and then they use media to "inform" the public that "common good" has been activated.

You are forgetting the role of MEDIA and of NARRATIVE in creating an artificial "common good" which isn't really common or good.

[Rancid]

That dirty disgusting Big Bird mother fucking communist asshole got the vaccine!

DEFUND PBS!

[Stormsmith]

Biden is still picking up the bill for people sickened by covid19 and of course, passing that bill on to taxpayers. Honestly, whether that's you or the uber weathy it's unfair when taking a vaccine would expect to seriously limit the bills. Since you still don't have a proper medical system, why not use that to your advantage and bill the phuckwits for not getting the free vaccine. If they're willing to risk their lives, let them also risk their homes. Maybe that will encourage them to vaccinate.

[Rancid]

Biden is still picking up the bill for people sickened by covid19 and of course, passing that bill on to taxpayers. Honestly, whether that's you or the uber weathy it's unfair when taking a vaccine would expect to seriously limit the bills. Since you still don't have a proper medical system, why not use that to your advantage and bill the phuckwits for not getting the free vaccine. If they're willing to risk their lives, let them also risk their homes. Maybe that will encourage them to vaccinate.

I think we shouldn't even admit them into the hospital. Fucking morons, let them die.

[QatzelOk]

I think we shouldn't even admit them into the hospital. Fucking morons, let them die.

I hope you and Stormsmith don't decide to "shoot em all and let God decide what to do" with unvaccinated people in your lovely neighborhoods that are doubtlessly chock-full of empathy and social conversations about serious subjects.

[AFAIK]

Singapore is doing that @Stormsmith

[Drlee]

Well. Today is a very sad day for me. My next door neighbor, a wonderful Christian man with a beautiful family, died of Covid. And not in a good way if there is such a thing as "a good way" from this disease.

Less than two weeks ago he was in robust good health. Then he and his wife were diagnosed with Covid and were being followed at home. I was unaware of this even though they literally live next door. I wish I had been. His daughter, who is a nurse, came out from the Midwest as soon as she found out to care for them and found both of them in a bad way. She found that he had severe clots in his legs. She had him transported to the hospital. I will just pause here.

This man was a treasure. The instant he found out that I was working with homeless people he started collecting clothes for them. He even went so far as to wash all of the clothes he collected, folded them neatly and got them ready for their new owners in a very respectful way. He was a man of deep personal faith. He was certain of his God and was true to following Jesus' admonition to love his neighbor as himself. He had a loving wife and family, a kitty and a dog that he loved. He was deeply involved in his fundamentalist church.

Sadly I believe he believed the anti vaccination rhetoric coming from his republican leaders. He was suspicious of the vaccines. He believed Trump and his followers and their downplaying of the severity of this disease. He trusted them...

By the time he was hospitalized the clots had claimed a leg which had to be amputated. Nevertheless the clots had become widely disseminated. I could post some crap about disseminated intravascular coagulation or Factor V or some other paper (I did not understand) that hit my inbox these past months but suffice it to say that his family got to talk to him over zoom for a few minutes before he died on Monday.

So is now the time to talk about freedom? Should I step next door talk with his wife and children about choice and government overreach? Maybe I should tell them about how there are microchips in the vaccines, that big pharma is making this up and that liberals are just trying to take everyone's guns away. And maybe I should remind them that mask wearing is just liberal virtue signaling and only a communist would insist that people wear them and get vaccinated.

But somehow this post doesn't feel the slightest bit cathartic to me. I am saddened that my good friend has died. I will miss him. I grieve for his loving wife who is adrift right about now. (And ill herself.) I am concerned for his daughter who I gave my stethoscope to today so she could monitor her mother who is not quite out of the woods yet. Though she is a nurse and has seen this pandemic up close you could still see the fear and grief in her eyes.

I am just tired of this disease. I am fighting it every day in my own minor way and I am very very tired. Spent the afternoon today calling around trying to find a place for a homeless woman who had tested positive and is symptomatic. I was having no luck when her O2 decided to tank and we had the paramedics transport her. Well she has a place to sleep now. Not exactly a victory, is it? I am having eye surgery tomorrow but have to be back in the clinic on Sunday.

So folks. Just give it up. If you are one of the unintelligent though confident fools who think this devastating disease is nothing but overblown political posturing and that your not getting vaccinated is making a political statement, just give it up. You will get this thing and you may die. Even if you are 20. Or maybe just lose a leg. Or be on oxygen for six months (so far) like my young sister in law.

Just get the vaccine. Just do it. Lie to your friends about it if you have to but get the vaccine. If not for yourself then for others who, like me, know just how much it sucks to lose your friend. And how much worse is sucks to know that his death was needless and pointless.

1000 dead per day as we speak.

[annatar1914]

No they don't. They have a duty to get elected. That's all.

If they can use media to convince "the public" that "good" means: doing what the 1% tell you... they can get major financing from an interested shareholder, with which to get elected.

You whore yourself out to corporations, and then they use media to "inform" the public that "common good" has been activated.

You are forgetting the role of MEDIA and of NARRATIVE in creating an artificial "common good" which isn't really common or good.

@QatzelOk ;

You might be assuming a number of things about my thinking, one of those being that I give two shits about the artificial and false narratives of Capitalism, of Liberal Democracy, of Modernism. I do not sir. No, my worldview is decidedly illiberal.

This pandemic was not planned by man, it happened. And I believe that it has struck a blow against these very things, even as it has unfortunately caused a lot of suffering and death. People have to understand that while their modern rulers are cowards at heart and don't directly intend any pain and suffering on anyone (but least of all themselves), these rulers directly are concerned with money, and so it is stability that they want.

Not every effort directed towards the common good, comes from good people who have altruistic motives of social love. But I'll take the good nonetheless wherever I find it.

[XogGyux]

At my place of work, we are catching a little bit of a breather. Last week only 2 people in the ICU, both of them admitted for covid but no longer contagious, just dealing with a rotten body now. I guess we dont have ICU covid patients for now.
Hopefully we are getting out of this, cautiously optimistic, I think if we make it through the holidays and late January without another crazy peak, we should be good. let's hope.

[wat0n]

It seems the FDA may change course and recommend a booster shot for the general adult population. Let's wait and see if that'll be the case.

[SpecialOlympian]

That dirty disgusting Big Bird mother fucking communist asshole got the vaccine!

DEFUND PBS!

Me, as a full grown man typing on Twitter: Thank you PBS. Now I have to tell my children about adrenochrome and frazzledrip to counter your propaganda. You are the real bad guys.

[QatzelOk]

My next door neighbor, a wonderful Christian man with a beautiful family, died of Covid.

Wasn't that the same neighbor who slid off his bike and was "saved by his helmet" during the debate on bicycle helmet laws?

Seems like your anecdotal neighbors have an agenda.

This pandemic was not planned by man...

Event 201, October 2019, NYC
...in which men plan a pandemic...

[annatar1914]

@QatzelOk , you said in response to my musings on what man is capable of and what is simply beyond him, in the context of this Pandemic;

Event 201, October 2019, NYC
...in which men plan a pandemic...

Planning a response to something that is a certain eventuality, is not the same thing as planning a pandemic.

[Drlee]

Wasn't that the same neighbor who slid off his bike and was "saved by his helmet" during the debate on bicycle helmet laws?

Seems like your anecdotal neighbors have an agenda.

I'm glad you find the death of my good friend comical. I am sure you find yourself endlessly entertaining.

[Potemkin]

I'm glad you find the death of my good friend comical. I am sure you find yourself endlessly entertaining.

It's just @QatzelOk being @QatzelOk. Everything is grist to his meme mill. Having been hopelessly alienated from the rest of humanity from an early age, it's what he uses instead of a heart. He copes with heartbreaking tragedy by converting it into a witty and stylish meme.

[Doug64]

I obviously didn't make the weekend, maybe this week....









@annatar1914, there's no real point in continuing our discussion, ti's clear we don't live in the same world, even if we are living on the same planet.

How do a minority of companies who profit from the pandemic keep the secret that the vaccine "doesn't work" away from every doctor and scientist in the world who could easily foil their plan?

It's not hard when you have a media that ignores and a social media that suppresses any evidence that makes the inoculation look bad.

Been researching masks. So basically the cloth masks many of us wear are about 30% effective. The crappy non-medical disposable masks you can get at ie: Costco are garbage. Apparently by far the best ones are medical grade masks like that you see athletes/coaches wearing on TV. They have a special plastic fiber weave. They're 95-98% effective.

The numbers I saw were 10-20% effective for the masks that everyone is wearing (like you say, garbage), 40-60% for the N95 masks.

That dirty disgusting Big Bird mother fucking communist asshole got the vaccine!

Unfortunately for those upset with Sesame Street, the show has regularly pushed vaccinations--they just haven't been a political hot potato before.

DEFUND PBS!

Agreed, there's no reason it shouldn't be funded by donations and its cash cows (like Sesame Street).

So, looking over the three pages since last Thursday, it seems no one has commented on the Biden administration*'s new "vaccine" mandate, or the quick response by (as of last Friday) 23 states filing cases in opposition in three different: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming in the 8th Circuit; Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah in the 5th Circuit; and Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia in the 6th Circuit. And of course, the equally quick stay of the mandate. I can't say I'm surprised, the courts don't even need to rule on the mandate's constitutionality because the Administration*'s use of OSHA's authority to issue temporary emergency regulations is risible--its own actions demonstrate that they don't believe the pandemic is an emergency, both because it took them months to write the "emergency" rules and because they put off those rules' imposition for more months.

Also, news you probably haven't heard of, the Washington Post's preparation of a hit piece on the White Coat Waste Project--an organization it has lauded for years as "an activist success story uniting right and left"--in order to protect Fauci.

[annatar1914]

@Doug64 , you said;

@annatar1914, there's no real point in continuing our discussion, ti's clear we don't live in the same world, even if we are living on the same planet.

I think that you will find that reality is not so easily dismissed as my words have been to your ears. A year from now let's look at what has changed and what has not. And keep in mind that perhaps I am more argumentative with those who I at least have some common ground with; the Liberal is beyond talking to at this point and there is no common ground.