winsor

I like this guy's take. https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/why-i-am-not-a-progressive Like him I grew up in a 'progressive' environment and over the years encountered nasty realities that refuted many of the tenets of 'diversity, equity and inclusion.' Thus I have settled on a position of Equal Rights and Equal Responsibilities - No More and No Less. BSBD, Winsor

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water: https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/585843-hillary-2024-given-the-competition-she-may-be-the-dems-best-hope?rl=1

I put money in Salvation Army kettles. The last time I checked, the Grand Poobah (or whatever) of the U.S. Salvation Army brought down something like $35,000 a year. If someone is on Skid Row, they will clean them up, feed them, put them up, sober them up, and provide the means for them to turn their lives around. I've seen it work in action. They don't force their religious convictions on anyone, but they're happy to get people to whatever services they espouse. The rest are afforded active A.A.. So I guess I give time and money to a religious organization. They told me I was gullible, and I believed them. BSBD, Winsor

One example: http://www.ourladyofperpetualexemption.com/

Agreed. My concern is people whose focus is vaccination to the exclusion of all else. There's an awful lot to this pathogen, and vaccines are useful in slowing it down. Weirdly enough, Omicron, with an R nought of 2.5 or so and limited symptoms, may be the swan song of the pandemic. If everyone gets it and we can keep the long term effects at bay, it may be the ticket to herd immunity. The trick, of course, it avoiding the permanent damage that seems to be the hallmark of COVID-19 infection. Banking on vaccination at the expense of everything else was a bad idea at the outset, the kind if idiocy I'd expect from Trump. Of course, now that he's doing other things, It may have become a good idea in the interim. BSBD, Winsor

ANYONE who criticizes vaccine orthodoxy is an ANTIVAXXER, and should canceled. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02243-1/fulltext

WTF?

All that nonsense aside, your espousal of intellectual mediocrity as embodied by Harris in this particular case, is both telling and consistent. BSBD, Winsor

I can't imagine Biden being up for another go around, which makes Harris an option. Trump got in because of people who held their noses and voted against Hillary. I suspect something similar might play out if Harris ran. If the best we can do is Trump or Harris, I think it's time to flee the country - I'm not sure we can survive either (and yeah, I've spent many years in other countries, so I don't think the sun rises and sets because of the US of A). BSBD, Winsor

It was said that George H. W. Bush had Dan Quayle as a life insurance policy, and it seems that the incumbent has his: https://www.wsj.com/articles/kamala-harris-needs-to-get-serious-biden-administration-competency-approval-rating-polling-11639093358 It concerns me that the only people who could do a particularly good job of the presidency have better things to do, and we are stuck with second-raters from which to choose. The campaign slogan of "We Suck Less" could be used by either party - but it would be patently untrue in either case. The ideal candidate would be a combination of an Academic with a deep knowledge of History, Law, Psychology, Geography, Economics, Mathematics, and the hard sciences, a Gambler who knows when to hold them, when to fold them and leaves them guessing whether whether its a bluff or a Royal Flush, an Illusionist who can convey whatever perception is appropriate, and an Entertainer who makes you want to tune in, even if you're from the other party. Ronald Reagan knew how to work a crowd, but knew less than nothing about the underlying Academics, much to our detriment. Bill Clinton was a slut, who would do ANYTHING for 'true love.' George W. Bush was born on third base and thought he hit a triple. And so forth. Maybe, since we are a very flawed people, we deserve very flawed leadership. We sure as hell have it. BSBD, Winsor

Like his predecessor he tends to say whatever comes across his mind, and 'truth' is rather an abstraction. At least he has senility working for him, and he does not generate a flurry of 'WTF?' tweets all night long. Given his propensity for plagiarism - which took hold when he was a schoolboy, and served him well throughout his career - you could blame some of his inaccuracies on whoever authored them in the first place. As far as his deft handling of numbers goes, one must bear in mind that his academic discipline was Law, where the meaning of numbers largely relates to how they sound. The difference between a 'million' and a 'billion' is, of course, one letter. BSBD, Winsor

How on Earth did you put together that garbled train of thought? I'm serious.

Dylan Roof is a singularly evil human, who would have served humanity well by choking on a chicken bone in kindergarten. I doubt if he gave much attention to the Woke ideology one way or another. Jussie Smollett was banking on the fawning attention of the Woke in his attempt to leverage the publicity, and they bought into it hook, line and sinker.

Examples of Woke as a Disease of Denial are all too common. Real injustice should be exposed and rooted out as a matter of course. If we are to survive as a society, it will be due to unity rather than 'diversity' (E Pluribus Unum and all that). That people should reflexively side with anything that fits their outlook can be useful for those who seek to capitalize on these preconceptions: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10289921/How-Jussie-Smolletts-lies-impacted-America.html Unfortunately, this case did not pass the sniff test for a second. What on Earth would possess a pair of people to be on the streets of Chicago at 02:00 and 20 F, wearing MAGA hats and carrying a symbolic noose and bleach? I've known too many people who had the shit beaten out of them for being gay, and it wasn't pretty. Why, after an attack, would the 'victim' not remove said noose immediately? Also, people who use nooses in racist attacks generally don't use clothesline, and typically don't use them for dramatic effect. What is the point of splashing bleach on someone? People who throw chemicals in the faces of those they oppose rarely use anything safer than battery acid. Throwing a drink in someone's face is closer to what Smollett claimed. Shouting 'this is MAGA country' is akin to Jeffrey McDonald https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_R._MacDonald claiming that the 'hippies' were saying things like 'acid is groovy' while murdering his family. At the time it happed, the general consensus was WTF? NOBODY talked like that at the time, though someone who'd spent the past few years overseas may have guessed wrong. And so forth. Smollett turns out to be a drama queen who tried to leverage this case to be a cause celebre, and to stay in the public eye while being written out of the show. It did not turn out well for him, and the people who reflexively backed his beyond-suspicious account have yet to question their initial reactions. 'Twas ever thus. BSBD, Winsor

In all seriousness you should probably killfile me. The likelihood that you will take anything I say for what it's worth appears to be vanishingly small, and if you aren't going to bother to respond with criticism and abuse I can't see why you would waste the time. YMMV.

Please give me some pointers. It's frustrating to fall short after so much effort.

I'm grateful for the dose of reality. Upon reflection, it is pretty obvious that the FDA is made up of bureaucratic pencil necks, who are notoriously slapdash regarding such things as statistics, procedure and the like. What a bunch of rubes. This is from a Pfizer submission, and they're not much better: I know I have an active imagination, know precious little about these things, and am grateful for people who take the time to show me the error of my ways. Your 'critical thinking' is most impressive, indeed. Boy, am I embarrassed. BSBD, Winsor

As far as you can tell, there isn't one. Given that ignorance is bliss, it would be mean of me to spoil your boundless happiness.

Pfizer Post Authorization Safety Data provided per FOIA. Check it out, it's enlightening.

Various reports indicate that there was some existing immunity in the population before COVID-19 hit, and this has been attributed to previous bouts of other Corona viruses, some of the 'common cold' viruses amongst them. In the same sense that Cowpox protected milkmaids from Smallpox, a variant of SARS-CoV-2 that has spike proteins for all the key receptors, but does not result in severe illness or long term effects (such as death), might confer broad immunity to those so infected. The Omicron variant could well turn out to be a blessing in disguise if it fits those criteria. Reports from South Africa indicate that it is infectious as hell, but requires medical intervention at about as often as does the Pfizer vaccine. Of course, if Omicron is either asymptomatic or results in a mild case, but results in people dropping dead six weeks later, this may not be ideal. BSBD, Winsor

Are you sure?

Depends on the anecdote and the statistics.

Rather a given. The trade off is where the cure becomes worse than the disease, and there are SOME instances where that is the case.

I'm unsure of what you think is my stance, but you're tilting at windmills. Optimizing any system involves minimizing a 'cost function.' Parameters may include time, money, personnel, military advantage, political capital or whatever is appropriate. I wholeheartedly agree with doing everything possible to avoid becoming 'symptomatic,' since the overall effects of the symptoms are outright ghastly. The pneumonia-like symptoms of COVID-19 make run of the mill pneumonia look like a gift from god by comparison, since they result not from generic fluid in the lungs but alveoli filled with hyaluronic acid and blood clots. Scarred tissue tends to have lifelong effects. My point regarding the adverse reactions to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines is not that the risk outweighs the benefits, but that they are hardly without risk. Someone of advanced years would do well to get vaccinated, though we are sure to lose the odd patient as a result. Life is fatal, deal with it. When you get to vaccinating babies and very young children, a more careful risk/benefit analysis might be advisable. On the one hand, permanent damage to a toddler from symptomatic COVID-19 will have decades of consequences. OTOH, it appears that vanishingly small numbers of VOCID-19 infected youngsters require medical intervention. I don't have sufficiently granular data to perform a valid analysis, and our focus is on end-stage infection, but would be interested in a detailed evaluation from an unbiased source (as if there is such a thing). When you get people who push vaccines on the previously infected (there may be benefit) or little kids as a matter of policy, I'd like to see some trustworthy numbers before getting on that bandwagon. BSBD, Winsor

I know better than to bank on anecdotal evidence, but two long term friends had their hearts stop after mRNA vaccines, one of which was revived and is among the undead; he and another person have been crippled by the side effects. Going from tennis players to getting around with a wheel chair or walker gets my attention. People with whom I have had to cancel appointments of late due to active COVID-19 infection were all 'fully vaccinated' with either Pfizer or Moderna. Even though we are talking 'mild' infection, I still don't trust the long term effects of a clotting disorder - diffuse scar tissue resulting from blocked capillaries tends to remain scar tissue permanently. In large organizations the scum rises to the top. I've seen organizations where, when someone was needed to do the administrative dreck, they picked the least competent member of the team to shuffle paper and 'administrate.' Everyone else was too valuable implementing effective solutions to critical problems. Thus, if you have a discussion with the people from middle management on down, you tend to get a clear and detailed view of the problems being addressed, the game plan for doing so, and the status of the effort. If you talk to people in the corner office, the picture is often distorted by organizational and economic, rather than technical, realities. You begin to hear all too may buzzwords. The point here is that Hanlon's Razor, rather than 'conspiracy,' holds sway. H. L. Mencken's observation is thus prescient, whereby "for every complex problem there exists a solution that is simple, elegant - and wrong." COVID-19 is a case in point. BSBD, Winsor