gowlerk
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Everything posted by gowlerk
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Just for fun I Googled "lithium mining". Much of it comes from Western Australia, There are large deposits in Nevada, Mexico, and Quebec. Bolivia has a world leading mine. Africa is another source. Chinese ownership dominates the lithium battery supply chain. I'm sure you are correct about them making a mess of it.
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That is because the OP was not commenting on rail safety. He was commenting on a political level. This was not thread drift at all. It was the intention of the post.
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Only about half of the states still have the death penalty on the books. And CA is likely to have a governor level moratorium on it for the foreseeable future. In general the US has far more people per capita in jails and prisons than anywhere else. Is this because there are more people doing crimes or is it because the system is overly aggressive? This is a real question I am asking your opinion on airdvr. Seriously, what is the cause of the huge prison population and the incarceration industry? Something is wrong somewhere.
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I'm not sure why you think a vaccine can be approved before the manufacturer even submits it for approval. Which government agency do you consider responsible for Pfizer and Moderna insisting on doing their work properly? In any case, both have been ramping up for production long before approval. And Pfizer right now can't even get enough of the raw materials needed to keep on its hoped for production schedule. It would be good if you could just keep your complaining about this to one of the other threads. This one is supposed to be about how people feel about taking the vaccine and you have hijacked it and dragged down a rabbit hole.
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Many of us have been infected or have people close to us who have been. I'm starting this thread because some will be willing and wanting to share and write about what they have gone through. I'm hoping that this will be the correct forum to use for this and that it will not need to be moved to SC. For me so far, my 86 year old mother who lives in a nursing home has now been infected. She is already in bad shape due to fairly advanced dementia. The home seems to be adequately staffed and it is allowing my sister in to see her. They are keeping her comfortable, but it is unlikely she will survive. I have not been able to go there for months. They only allow one person. Other than that I have a son and a daughter in law who are both currently recovering at home. Up until the last two weeks covid has been real, but far more abstract for me as I had not yet been personally touched. I'm sure it is the same for many others.
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It is truly a sad thing to think about your loss. 60 is far to young these days for a woman and mother to leave us. I have no words to make up for the feelings you must be having about how unnecessary this thing is.
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At our age, as I recall you are a little older than me, we have at least a 2% chance of dying from the virus if we become infected. I don't know about you, but I would not make another jump if it had a 1 in 50 chance of killing me. I'm with you. Vaccine? Hell yes! Where do I line up? Bring it on ASAP. And even if you are younger and less likely to perish, there is far more chance of you being damaged by SARS-CoV-2 than by any of the vaccines based on the trials. It's a no brainer. The one and only reason not to get it ASAP is the limited supply at the moment. You should wait your turn..
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Zoomer Urges POS Biden to Forgive Student Debt via Exec Order...
gowlerk replied to a topic in Speakers Corner
Is there a right end? -
Zoomer Urges POS Biden to Forgive Student Debt via Exec Order...
gowlerk replied to a topic in Speakers Corner
There needs to be a reasonable way for the middle class, especially the lower middle class, to afford to become educated. It used to be far easier than it is now due to schools catering to mostly moneyed people. The debt load that too many people leave school with is excessive to the point where this conversation is happening. The answer is lowering tuitions. But guess what? That would be just as much a transfer of wealth as debt forgiveness. Just at a different point. Building up the publicly funded schools to the point where they could lower fees is the answer. That would require tax payers to invest in the system, and therefore in the public. An idea that goes completely against the current dominate party's ideology. -
And....SCOTUS has spoken in a loud and clear voice. Are you done now watchman? https://us.cnn.com/2020/12/08/politics/supreme-court-pennsylvania-trump-biden/index.html
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Performance Designs Skill and Operating Limits
gowlerk replied to Matija's topic in Safety and Training
Most likely they changed their recommendations over the years because of competitors with similar products of the same sizes having higher weight limits. It's all about marketing. -
This is what complacency has brought to Canada. We have not caught up to the US yet, and we still may not. But after we did so well in the first wave we totally dropped our guards and more or less blew it. The premier featured in the story is from my province, which is doing particularly poorly. https://us.cnn.com/2020/12/08/world/canada-covid-second-wave/index.html Edit to add.... we have been under some pretty heavy restrictions for the past three weeks and it is just beginning to pay off with a substantial cut in new daily cases. But of course hospitalizations are still going strong as they lag by about 10 days and deaths by about 15 days.
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Zoomer Urges POS Biden to Forgive Student Debt via Exec Order...
gowlerk replied to a topic in Speakers Corner
The Schumer proposal is basically to forgive 50K of a students debt. Somehow linked to a maximum of 125K annual income. I'm sure we can all see several problems with that. The first one would be the instant result of mostly STEM graduates subsidizing all the arts grads. Add in the fact that new grads may not reach the cutoff income level in their first years, but may far exceed it later, and on and on. There is no fair fix, may as well go sailing around the world anyway! -
USA banana production. None grown in DC as far as I know. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_production_in_the_United_States
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Yes, and if wishes were horses beggars would ride.
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Gearing up for the coming massive push to get the public to accept vaccinations and by far the largest public health initiative in our lifetimes. Look for an unprecedented rollout and campaign to begin in the next few weeks. It will be unlike anything any of us have seen before. The pressure that will be put on people will be immense. And the pushback to it from some will be just as fierce. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/12/04/943151549/and-now-for-an-important-message-convincing-you-to-get-the-coronavirus-vaccine https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/04/politics/hhs-ad-campaign/index.html https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/covid-collaborative-ad-council-launch-vaccine-education-campaign/
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There are not in this case. It was sheriff officers looking for a fugitive and a case of mistaken identity. It's hard to tell one black person from another sometimes. Do yourself a favour and read the story. I promise it is not too long. Here is the link again. https://www.npr.org/2020/12/07/943829901/police-in-ohio-say-slain-black-man-brandished-a-gun-family-says-he-held-a-sandwi And another news story about it https://us.cnn.com/2020/12/08/us/ohio-police-shooting-casey-goodson/index.html
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Its a funny thing. We get press stories here in Canada criticizing the government for not have more Pfizer vaccine access as well. Completely ignoring the fact that other vaccines including the even better in many ways Moderna one is just around the corner. These stories also give estimated dates for how long it will take to cover the nation. Even though these guesses are completely irrelevant.
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Zoomer Urges POS Biden to Forgive Student Debt via Exec Order...
gowlerk replied to a topic in Speakers Corner
I have not made any statement saying loans should be forgiven. Merely that the problem is not simple. The 50K handout to indebted students is also far too simple. And I am surprised to learn that Schumer is calling for it. I see that now he wants to limit it by income. But that would still let your sailing acquaintance off. (except for the 270K balance) https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2020/12/07/schumer-cancel-50000-of-student-loans-but-only-if-this-is-your-income/?sh=1ac107595b3d -
Illinois Demands Soviet-Style "Groupthink" in State Classrooms
gowlerk replied to a topic in Speakers Corner
That does it. I demand that the mods give you demerit points for the personal attack on yourself!!!!!! -
Zoomer Urges POS Biden to Forgive Student Debt via Exec Order...
gowlerk replied to a topic in Speakers Corner
That explains a lot. You are relying on a personally known anecdote to inform yourself about a very complex problem facing millions of people. You are not wrong, but it only goes so far. -
Zoomer Urges POS Biden to Forgive Student Debt via Exec Order...
gowlerk replied to a topic in Speakers Corner
These ideas are somewhat contradictory. It does nothing to remove moral hazard, it merely shifts the cost. And likely not by much as the taxpayer guarantees many of those loans. Education has been moving from something for a more elite layer of society to more of a requirement in life while at the same time the schools have moved from public institutions toward private corporations. There is a thorny problem here with the high levels of debt and I have seen no good ways of solving it in any way that would be fair. -
The real reason? I looked for another thread first. But the only one I could think of that discusses these things lately was about protests. So I decided to start one with this subject at its core. And....the arthritis in my subtalar joint makes long walks in the woods or anywhere no long an option for me. But thank you for the advice anyway.
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That would be having the Executive interfere with the justice department. A non starter.
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My thinking is quite different. Vaccines do often have side effects. But they are nearly always short term, or at least present themselves quickly. There is some concern that sometimes they may be implicated in diabetes, but no real strong proof. The new mRNA vaccines are an unknown, but the concept is looking unlikely to be causing harm. They do though have a fairly high rate of causing short term symptoms (12-18 hours) that are fairly unpleasant. I am assuming I will suffer those. The second shot is generally worse than the first I'm hearing. On the other hand there is a strong reason to believe that everyone, including you and I will eventually be exposed to the novel virus. Which is known to cause long term "side effects" (damage) in a far larger percentage of people than are going to have a problem with the vaccine. Therefore it is a hard to justify having more fear of the vaccine than concern about the consequences of getting the virus. Not a hard choice for me, not even a little.
