wolfriverjoe

This got a bit of discussion on the Reddit page I've linked. #1 - Ivermectin is FDA approved for people, for certain things. Covid isn't one of them. #2 - In reasonable doses, it's safe with minimal side effects. So it really can't hurt. It just won't help. #3 - The judge basically said that since it won't hurt, go ahead and make the family happy. It's a stupid decision. The precedent it sets is really troubling. The truly funny part about Ivermectin is that there are situations and circumstances where it helps. It does a nice job on parasites. In places where parasites are a real issue, giving people a drug that will address them will improve their overall health. That gives them a better chance to beat Covid. So if this guy has a bad case of intestinal worms, the Ivermectin will improve his overall health and give him a better shot at recovery. Shame that parasites aren't a real issue here in the US. Some people claim it has anti-viral properties and has been successful against Zika and a couple others. But there's no real evidence to support that.

Well, as understanding of the situation changes, or the situation itself changes, then the response and necessary actions change. That's how science works. The sheer number of people that cannot grasp that concept stuns me. Edit to add: WI State Senator Andre Jacque has been in the ICU on a ventilator for a week or so. His wife released a statement urging people to get vaccinated. So only three of the 8 were vaccinated. Awesome. Full story:https://www.wbay.com/2021/08/30/wife-sen-jacque-consider-placing-trust-medical-professionals-who-recommend-covid-19-vaccine/

Wait a minute... You mean they told everyone that they aren't going to conduct those sorts of missions, and then go do them anyway!?!?!? Almost as if they didn't want to tip off the Taliban that it was going to happen??? My God!!!! Who would have thought that possible?!?!? Note: We really need a 'sarcasm font'.

You have to remember some of the history of Afghanistan. One of the most important points is that the reason they have been so successful in fighting off invaders is because when they don't have an invader to resist, they spend a lot of their time fighting each other (that's also true when there is an invader to fight off). Once the Soviets left, the various factions that beat them off started turning on each other. They tried to form a central government, with some power sharing agreements among the different groups. Often, the disputes would boil over into actual fighting inside of Kabul. Imagine Mitch McConnell using the Kentucky National Guard to attack Chuck Schumer in New York. The fighting became so bad that a LOT of people decided to leave, rather than get killed (a reasonable choice). The 'least bad' option was Pakistan. Iran, China & what used to be the Soviet Union were worse, but each got some refugees. Pakistan had the most, many of whom were leftovers from the Soviet occupation era (there were a lot of those). There's some pretty convincing evidence that the Pakistanis more or less created the modern Taliban, primarily to stabilize the border region, slowing or stopping the flow or refugees. The Taliban, with support, did a good job of destroying the opposition. By 2001, the last of the holdouts were on their last legs. Don't forget that Al Queda assassins murdered Ahmed Shah Massoud (the new guy's dad) on Sept 9th, 2001. If Al Queda hadn't attacked the US, prompting the invasion, the Taliban would have had a solid hold on Afghanistan by the end of 01. And now they're back. There are reports that they've learned their lesson. That they aren't going to allow terrorists to hide out there. That they might actually try to be 'global citizens'. They've done a pretty good job forming a 'shadow government' the last few years. Taxation, infrastructure, the whole thing. They're finding out now that the Afghan economy was largely based on humanitarian aid from the West. If they want to keep the country viable, they'll have to find replacement funding for that. Or behave well enough that the aid isn't totally stopped. We shall see what happens. I don't think they will make the same mistakes. But there's lots and lots of different ones available for them to make.

Hi Jerry, They come from everywhere. I posted this link a week or so ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/ It's absolutely exploded since then. Warning: Very large amounts of schadenfreude in here. It's stunning how many strident 'anti-mask' or 'anti-vax' fools are dying off. Or maybe it's not. There's some decent info (sourced and such) in some of the comments. And there's a sub where a poster claiming to be an ICU doc* is answering questions about the whole situation. Some of the interesting items: People who go on a ventilator have about a 20% chance of making it out alive. They have about a zero percent chance of resuming a normal life anytime soon. The number of people asking for 'woo' treatments is staggering. Yet people who take the vaccine are 'sheep'. The number of people who are sorry they didn't get the vaccine is high, but so is the number of people who are defiant to the end. The number of 'supporters' and family of those who are sick or dead that are still adamant about being anti-vax is stupidly staggering. This isn't going to get better anytime soon. * - The OP in that sub (currently near the top, with a lot of posts) says he's an ICU doc. He doesn't identify himself any further (understandable). So there's no proof he really is what he says. But his language, terminology, overall attitude & tone are convincing. The stuff he's posting that's checkable checks out. There are a lot of other health care types also posting, and they're saying essentially the same stuff. So, with a bit of skepticism, I tend to believe he's who and what he says he is.

Thank you. I appreciate your answer. However, 'not carrying out operations' is not the same as 'ordered not to leave the perimeter'. And stating a policy isn't the same as issuing orders. Biden seems to 'know his limitations'. He's flat out said that he's following the advice and recommendations of the military leadership. The idea that Biden is issuing basic operational 'housekeeping' admin orders is kind of silly. Part of a 'peace agreement' is respecting the opponent. You know, 'preventing tensions'. So far, as far as I can tell, the Taliban is holding up their end of the agreement. No Taliban attacks on US forces, allowing US citizens to pass through checkpoints to access the airport for evac, that sort of thing. On a slightly different note, the US has conducted 2 drone strikes since the suicide bombings at the airport. The first is claimed to have killed the ISIS-K leader who was behind the bombings. The second was right near the airport. Close enough that it was first thought to be another suicide bombing. However it was a drone strike on what is claimed to be another bombing attempt. Sympathetic detonations following the missile suggest that's a correct assumption. I'm not linking anything, it's enough of a headline that a quick search will find multiple stories.

It also doesn't give any details about the order. When was it applied? It sounds like these guys did this at night. I can see an entirely reasonable order to not leave the perimeter at night.

The State Dept started telling Americans to leave (or make plans to leave) Afghanistan back in MARCH. Obviously, they can't force them to go, but they encouraged people both to leave and to 'enroll' with the Embassy. They've put a lot of effort into messaging those citizens still in country and enrolled with the Embassy. To pretend that "Biden abandoned US citizens!!!!" is both ignorant and stupid (note: Not saying that Zombie implied that). State Dept statement on this: https://www.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-on-afghanistan/

Well, the CCP is saying that Covid came out of the US. Ft Detrick to be precise. Really. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58273322

When and where did he say that? Got a story or a quote? Seriously, I did a quick search and came up empty.

Story in OP is dated Aug 16th. Not exactly 'news'.

You mean the military commanders that said to close down Bagram? https://www.newsweek.com/after-kabul-airport-carnage-trump-republicans-hammer-bidens-decision-abandon-bagram-1623536

Better how? Please be specific. When Biden took office, there were 2500 troops left in country. What, exactly, should Biden have done? Send a few tens of thousands of troops BACK?? Restart the whole thing all over again? Then all of the critics would hammer him for that (and IMO, they would have been correct). Biden said something to the effect of: It's not the agreement I would have made. But it was made by the US Government and I'm going to honor that. I'll give him at least some credit for attempting to show the world that the US will have a bit of consistency. That he's not going to just toss out everything the previous administration did for the hell of it. That he's not going to try to destroy the previous President's legacy out of spite. You know, like Trump did.

I think the primary target of the mob was Trump's own Vice President. You know, the one who refused to aid & abet the coup attempt.

It's also been in development (in general) for quite a while. It's not 'new' technology.

Bingo. I somewhat doubt that there were over 600k people killed from skydiving in the last year and a half or so. FWIW, my disability insurance denies coverage for a lot of stuff. Any general aviation accident is excluded (my understanding is that this isn't terribly unusual).

A similar question can be asked of those claiming that 'Biden screwed it up' How could it have been done better? Not just "he should have done it better". Exactly what should have been done differently? Heather Cox Richardson sums it up rather nicely (she does that a lot). https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson Post from Aug 24th for those clicking on it in the future.

About as well as usual.

Update to the Andre Jaque situation. In ICU, on a ventilator. https://www.wbay.com/2021/08/25/report-sen-jacque-breathing-with-ventilator-while-hospitalized-covid-19/ Of course, there's 'no comment' from his office. Nor is there any word on his vaccination status. And, in a rather amusing development, the "Cyber Ninja" 'audit' of the Arizona election results from last November was supposed to be concluded and have results released on Monday. It's been delayed. The CEO and two others (of five, so 60% of the team) are sick. With Covid. Go figure. https://www.thedailybeast.com/arizona-election-audit-delayed-because-cyber-ninjas-caught-covid-19

CalvinBall!!!

That's kind of funny. Gas prices in the northern/eastern quarter of the country (east of the Mississippi, north of I-80) have been stable since the beginning of the year. Creeping up slowly, but in the $3/gal range. Not much above where they were at the beginning of the pandemic. Nowhere near where they bottomed out during all of the shut downs, but that was standard "supply & demand". Traffic congestion is almost back to normal. The deal that got us out of Afghanistan was all on Trump. He left office having agreed to let the Taliban take over the country, forced the Afghans to release thousands of Taliban prisoners,US troops reduced to only a couple thousand. He also refused to allow a transition team to get the Biden administration 'up to speed' on the situation (or any other situation), so Biden walked into a shit show. His choices were to go through with the deal or send tens of thousands of troops back in. Not sure what part of the border is a 'mess'. It's still closed to non-commercial traffic (tourists & immigrants). The only people allowed to stay are unaccompanied minors. And the numbers of those are down quite a bit since spring. Stop listening to InfoWars, Blaze & Fox.

Well, the 'gay community' went through the AIDS crisis. It's been a while, but they went through much of the same crap that's going on now. Science denial, various proposed restrictions (some helped, some didn't), lot of dead friends, the 'evolution' of scientific understanding of the disease and it's transmission, various treatments (of varying effectiveness), lots of 'quackery', all of that stuff. I'm guessing that, in general, the gay community is a bit more receptive to the science, treatments that work vs 'magical cures', behavior modification (distancing, masks, ect), and overall understanding the reality of the pandemic than those that haven't been through what they've been through.

I don't know. If I'm reading the thread correctly, it's only awarded to dead people. Nominations can be made for those who would earn it if they died, but are still alive. I'm guessing it's somewhat like the Darwin awards, where survivors get an 'Honorable Mention.'

Oh my. Pierre Jacque is Andre's brother (post above). "Shae" in the linked pic of a FB post is the colleage who was asking for prayers. https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10159831831094283&set=a.10150108685934283

In a 'not terribly surprising' development, WI state Sen Andre Jacque has tested postive and is in the hospital with Covid related pneumonia. He's the state Senator representing the Green Bay area, so he's fairly local to me (20 miles or so). He's been a staunch opponent of mask mandates and vaccine mandates, joining in the successful lawsuits to end the shutdown & mask mandates. He also is sponsoring a bill to outlaw the teaching of Critical Race Theory. That's where the story gets 'fun'. There was a committee hearing on the stupid bill on Wednesday, Aug 11. Jacque was at that hearing and spoke. Unmasked. The other Rs and the bigots and idiots supporting the bill were also unmasked. Jacque tested positive for Covid on Friday. The math would indicate that he was presymptomatically contagious for a few days before that. Nobody notified ANYONE who had attended the hearing that Jacque had Covid. They found out when he was admitted to the hospital and it made the news. Really. They kept it a secret. https://madison.com/ct/opinion/column/john_nichols/john-nichols-sen-jacque-and-the-danger-of-rejecting-science/article_80fa09e5-097e-55c7-988b-d55de3e9e4a8.html Apparently there are FB posts from others saying that "Prayers are desperately needed". I don't think the prayers that I would offer, were I a praying sort of person, are what they have in mind.