Read an interesting article that looked at the rates of increase and duration of the various waves so far. It predicted the current decline and if I remember it correctly even predicted the time frame. If they are right we won't see another rise in caseloads until the next wave begins.

It did not make any suggestions as to when that might be.

I guess we will see if that article is correct or this one predicting an increase.

#11

Of course microchips aren't as unstable as mRNA.

#8

Most of the people I know who are anti-vaccine are meat and potatoes people anyway so the only way they would eat a vaccine salad is after it was eaten by a cow then the cow killed and chopped up into steaks.

"I think it's great because many doctors are refusing to sign it, and this is one doctor that is actually volunteering his time with no pay to sign all of these forms,"

You mean a medical doctor who you have trusted with your kids health their entire life won't sign it? Shocking

Rather than listen to the doctor who you have trusted with your kids health about everything else, now you think it's smart to get a chiropractor involved in a respiratory decision.

8 billion chickens consumed by Americans a year. About 2lbs of meat per chicken so over a decade 160 billion pounds of chicken gives us about .11 cent per pound of chicken.

BTW Dan with the number of Americans that puts the average at 50lbs a year over 10 years nails right at 55 cents per American so not sure where you got your 55 cents number but almost dead on the average. Of course that's not counting the lawyers fees.

#43

Almost 50% of breakthrough cases are in the immunocompromised despite them only being 3% of the population. So yes an unvaccinated person is still a risk to me. When I'm in the grocery store and Cletus is right in front of me unvaccinated and not wearing a mask that's a risk for me, one that is totally unnecessary given the ease and cost of getting a vaccine.

Why is this concept so freaking hard for you to understand?

#8

I'm down for gills.

I've wanted to sail your waters since I was three feet tall.

Why would you care?

If you're vaccinated, you have a greater chance of dying of the seasonal flu.

Unless you are immunocompromised. So yeah as someone who is immunocompromised I don't really appreciate the know-nothing attitude of my fellow Americans who say "you've been vaccinated what do you care?" I'm not going to hide in a panic room, I haven't this whole time, but you know it would be freaking awesome if the tools who are avoiding the vaccine would consider both the groups who can't get the vaccine and those who can but don't enjoy the full benefits. God forbid that a so called conservative consider anyone other than themselves.

#1

I really want normal back and I'm beginning to resent the many unvaccinated people exercising their own freedom in public while stealing or compromising my own by their selfishness.

I'm starting to see this in a lot of my customers very much a just get vaccinated so we can get over this ---- attitude. Of course I probably encourage that when I show up at the door wearing a mask and they usually say something like thank you for wearing a mask to which I reply no problem, I thought we were done with this mess back in the spring but I guess some people never want it to end.

My first reaction was wait there are still 6% of Americans who have an issue with interracial marriage?

I thought the whole hate gay marriage thing was cause we gave up on hatting interracial marriage, did 6 percent of people not get the memo?

#3

It's actually not a function of capitalism that we only have 2 viable parties. The parties in power get to make the election rules they get to determine ballot access they determine the rules for public campaign funds as well as private donations.

#145

He paid 23% on income. His wealth increased by 99 billion so his earnings were 4.22 and his stock went up 94.78 billion. Now for you and me that 94.78 billion would be unrealized gains which we couldn't access so it's understandable that you wouldn't pay taxes on it. However when you get up to that stratosphere of earnings you can access them through loans and other ways that maybe danforth understands but I don't. The bottom line is if he can access that money it shouldn't be treated as unrealized gains.

As to your point that the poor can use the transportation infrastructure, well which puts more wear and tear on a road a semi or my compact car? So why should I pay for the damage a fleet of semis causes? What about shipyards, rail stations, freight air terminals, runway usage? A navy to protect shipping lanes an air force to protect flight paths etc.

My impact is way smaller so even taking the 23% in taxes Bezos paid on realized gains why am I paying the same rate as he is?

If I remember correctly Boaz once mentioned that he makes 6 figures. Knowing the market and his job I can guess about where that puts him. He is in the income bracket that pays the highest percent of taxes when FICA is taken into account. So yeah you aren't going to get him to budge on a flat tax cause he is paying a metric crap ton of taxes right now.

That income bracket gets reamed in taxes and it's probably the 1%'s best allies in the battle to lower taxes, they look at their tax bill and about have a coronary every year. Then they see people getting section 8, food stamps, expanded unemployment etc. Yeah they are pissed and guess what they have every right to be they are the ones funding the government not the rich, not the poor that ugly spot just shy of upper-middle class.

Now that I have defended you Boaz one question for you. Should Bezos pay the same rate as me given that his wealth was built almost entirely due to existing infrastructure? Or perhaps should he pay a bit extra due to the fact that his wealth is dependent on putting massive wear and tear on the transportation infrastructure? Not even counting the money the government has poured into the internet infrastructure that he is also dependent on where as my wealth is mostly built using local and toll roads and could be earned regardless of the existence of the internet.

I enjoyed the Matrix but had no use for the sequels with the exception of the Animatrix.

Dune would be crazy hard to fully translate to a movie as good as the book, it's way to much inner-monologue and the explanation of the world and government system would take a whole movie on it's own.

Interesting thread and highly educational. Thank you Et_al and Tony even Bruce and Snoof with the questions that brought the answers down to a level even I could understand.

Never been pro-abortion or anti-choice I decided long ago that my only contribution is that I swear I'll never personally have one. That said this law is BS and should a GoFundMe be necessary to fund a test case I'll be happy to donate. Not really over the abortion aspects, but more so over the slippery slope factors brought up earlier in the thread, about neighbor narcing on neighbor. Best to get this nonsense shut down quickly.

I click on ad's periodically just to make sure Rcade makes enough for hamster food. For a while there I was getting lots for Russian wives (still trying to figure out what in my search history generated that) I clicked those though figure make the Russians pay for all the disinfo they spread.

If you didn't already sell your house be ready to sit on it for a decade.

Mostly I don't think folks who are unemployed were buying houses. I am pretty certain that underwriters take a dim view of loaning money to people who's income source is UI benefits.

It will be interesting to see what this does for my work. Last year I had a 6 week backlog and at least a few of the customers told me that their fireplace hadn't been working for a couple years and they were using stimulus money to get it repaired finally. Mostly the demand was from WFH customers though. Since both WFH is down and stimulus is gone I have a double whammy going into the season.

#63

I will abstain from voting as I currently have 0 people plonked.

I looked at the list of current plonks and the one that blew me away is Lamplighter with 2. Who the heck would plonk him.

Killing babies is just not acceptable. When they are in the womb. Also brown babies in far away lands, we can bomb the heck out of them cause god said it was OK. Other than that killing babies is just wrong. Oh yeah and black ones playing with toy guns we can kill those too. Really though that's it, all other babies killing them is not acceptable.

#5

However what you fail to mention in your vaccine going to waste issue is a lot of it is how the vaccine is packaged. 6 Doses which have to be administered within 6 hours of opening a vial. Add on the rush to get vaccines in arms means if only 4 people make an appointment in a 6 hour window you will have 2 doses going to waste or are you suggesting that vaccination locations should only agree to appointments once they have 6 scheduled? Then what happens if a person makes an appointment for Monday but only 1 other does so they push it to Tuesday when they can do all 6 but that person can't get the time off work on Tuesday? Logistically with the way the vaccine was packaged waste was guaranteed.

Also 15 million of 372 million administered is only 4%. Honestly that isn't too bad especially given things like freezer failure power outages and the logistic nightmare of multi-dose packaging.

Now all that said I would also agree with sending more doses to countries in need before we start worrying about boosters in this country. If the largest share of unused ones are in red states, which seems logical, then those should be the first shipped. I say that as an immunocompromised person who qualifies for a booster and lives in a red state. If my 8 months hit and we don't have any left because they were sitting around expiring so we shipped them to Nambia oh well.

#2

I'm hoping for Arabic. Corona already pisses off right wingers that would just be icing.

#67

If granny is eating the food I feed my cats she's not doing that badly.

#55

A means test is a terrible idea for political reasons, even if it's a great idea for SS solvency reasons. People have been trying to kill SS for years, if you introduce a means test it suddenly becomes another welfare program instead of a retirement guarantee. Add on that rich old people are one of the most reliable voting blocks and if suddenly they aren't getting SS they will gladly vote for a politician who says they are getting rid of it. Now even if they don't "need" it they are getting it and don't want it to stop.

#21

Then the boomers should have had more kids. Gen X is the smallest generation, Boomers the largest how does that math work?

#3

Agree especially in the 60+ age group. With 25% of the population over 60 and 25% under 18 we only have 2-1 pay in.

A 4% death rate over 60 could improve those numbers quite a bit.

Aren't these kind of people the same ones cheering on the surveillance state and the patriot act with cries of if you have nothing to hide you don't have to worry.