iNow

Humans are dumb sometimes often and frequently

Your graph lacks labels on the axes or even a source to go find out. Are we looking at revenues? Rates? Number of people paying? Online submissions? Other?

Worse, they were cheerleading the vaccine when Trump pushed project warp speed to get it out sooner, then the moment Biden “won” the election they started poo pooing it. Now most try to walk a tightrope and say they support the vaccine but are against mandates. Maybe they’ll eventually progress to where progressives began. That’s what usually happens anyway

I’m good with effective response. That was my intended meaning anyway

And I’m appalled by how specious and bothersome your OPs so frequently are, but you don’t see me posting about it! Oh. Wait…. Nvm

Exactly, and the Nord Stream 2 pipeline into Germany seems to be the flashpoint right now in that space. It’s being politicized within the US by the likes of Ted Cruz saying it should be off the table in terms of sanctions. Yet another reason to move to clean energy I suppose. That’s my understanding, yes. It’s a bit like when far right activists pretended to be antifa and started vandalizing property during BLM protests. It allows for a narrative that big responses were justified because someone needed to stop those reviled antifa people. Well, same thing here. By sending in their own people, Russia sets a pretext for invasion. They’ve setup camps of operatives within Ukraine border to engage in “attacks” against Russian troops and even the Russian speaking / Russian supporting residents of Ukraine. On that basis, Russia can go in to stop those evil doers (who are, in fact, their own agents). As I noted above, Russian trolls are also already fabricating stories across social media suggesting they’re being provoked to going in by Ukrainians. It’s basically a chess move. They make it look like Ukraine deserved invasion so when they actually invade they can pretend their cause is juste. After all, they know the rest of us as John Q. Public will just argue about it endlessly since we can’t even agree on basic facts like the sky is blue or Biden actually won the US election online anymore. Indeed. Hell have some pissed off oligarchs max about losing a few billion rubles, but all will be fine whilst the common man takes the brunt. But better solutions seem to be in short supply since escalations too quickly go nuclear

How is this politics

Appreciate your read of the history jimmy, but this thread is intended more for forecasts of the future, specifically how the US might respond should these incursions happen. To that broader thread purpose: Yesterday there were several false flag operations conducted by Russia where they entered Ukraine and pretended to be Ukrainians acting in provocative ways (being denied of course, but intelligence across countries agrees that’s what happened). Internet troll traffic from Russia in parallel has heightened and is spreading disinformation in predictable ways. When this has happened in the past, it was usually less than 7 days away from more kinetic/real-world events starting. Tl;dr - It looks rather likely that something bigger will happen this week.

Yes

People who have been vaccinated seem to have a stronger immune response to the virus and that response appears to last longer over time. People who got the virus without vaccine and gave a natural immunity (not due to vaccination) seem to have a weaker immune response overall and that response doesn’t last as long over time… the immunity seems to fade. People who donate blood are more likely to be vaccinated than the general population overall. When we see vaccinated people still getting infected, it seems related to their body having a weaker immune response than their fellow vaccinated peers.

We can disagree about how much questioning there was, but cannot agree there was none. Safe drivers without vehicle accidents get better insurance rates. Medical insurance is similar. Consciously choosing behaviors like smoking or taking horse dewormer or avoiding vaccines is unsafe and it should be unsurprising that there are negative consequences for making such choices.

The difference is in intensity, not so much likelihood of infection. Boosted? You suffer a strong cold / flu and generally feeling like total crap for a few days. Unvaxxed? You likely will need ventilators and fluids to avoid death… IF there’s room in the local hospital to accept you.

3 distinct households / friends down the street from me have it right now. All were vaxxed and boosted

Indeed. The president of our state senate, in fact, is right now pushing legislation to jail teachers who happen to have a copy of one or two specific books in the library... saying teachers have a "sinister agenda" all because 2 or 3 books happen to be on the shelves in 1 or 2 libraries on topics harsh views of slave life and LQBTQ self-acceptance, but are instead being boogeyman'd with the base as "attempts to normalize sexual deviance, pedophilia, and incest." Lots of forward thinking stuff happening where I live, all while pig farms and agri-corporations keep dumping trash and chemicals into our waterways. Sorry... still off topic, but things aren't exactly awesome with our GOP leadership right now.

Pre-K in an elementary school that has Prek through 6th grade... within a district whose board VERY nearly voted last night to end the mask mandate (but thankfully extended it for at least 3 more weeks), but we may never know the actual source. Contract tracing is illegal in my state, along with vaccine mandates. My 8 year old is in that same school, but has had 2 vaccine shots (not yet eligible for booster, sadly) so time will tell. Get off my lawn!!

It's almost as if the flood of information to which we're exposed has reduced our experience of "object permanence" and it just disappears when it's no longer in front of us. No worries on the fatigue. I'm feeling it, too. Tying this back to the thread, it sure looks like my 4 year old who's too young for any vaccine shots has covid now and none of us slept last night. It's going to be an interesting holiday weekend for us all. Cheers.

I don't want to pursue this here in this thread since it's slightly off-topic, but interestingly the same thing occurs in our response to economic downturns. There were huge mistakes made in response to the Great Depression with austerity policies and the like, then when the Great Recession hit a little over a decade ago, all of the same types of voices tried to force us to implement austerity and make matters worse. In that and in this with public health issues, what old too often becomes new again... at least "new to me" for far too many folks.

Actually, tons of people did. This isn’t new. Social media and the ease with which bad actors can spread disinformation and echo propaganda across information consumption channels. Except even private insurers here in the US are charging more / covering less for unvaccinated folks, both in premiums and in rejected claims for reimbursement. Private employers are even charging employees higher insurance premiums when unvaccinated. Delta Airlines is one off the top of my head.

Which ones?

Time to switch up your thread topics cmdr

You don’t seem to understand how much smaller 60 years is than 15 Billion years. This thread is unimportant

It'd probably be better if we acted more like children. As a general rule, they're much less disingenuous.

He misses sending love letters with Trump. Meanwhile, I really hope Putin is just using these actions leverage in his negotiations. Troop buildups continue and cover multiple sides of the border with Ukraine (all but West). Military helicopters are being positioned now. Sure, US will hit 'em in the pocketbook, but I suspect they have enough crytocurrency holdings and related lands that it won't be much noticed by the powers that be.

Symphonically synchronistic ✌️

It’s an anatomy thread, not economics or psychology. The question is whether it’s possible and you’re both hijacking the thread