Shermann
Shermann's JournalVote on the pandemic article
I'm referring to English grammar articles. They are a type of determiner and go before a noun (a/an/the). Words matter!
The MSM seems to be clustering around poll option 1. Is that really the best characterization of our shared reality?
Not only might there be another corner, there's no guarantee that this corner loops back 180 degrees towards a better place. The UK turned a/the corner three months ago. That seems to have been a 90 degree corner.
The vaccine mandate religious exemptions are a Proof of Work system
Proof of Work (PoW) describes a system that requires a not-insignificant but feasible amount of effort in order to block frivolous attempts to access something. In this case, that something is an exemption from a vaccine mandate.
Few in America have genuine religious objections. Most objections seem to be partisan in nature, as misguided as that may be. There is also some good old-fashioned apathy at play here. If a PoW system was not in place, a much larger percentage of the population would take the exemption route. This is similar to how coupons at the supermarket work. If you want to shave 5 cents off a loaf of bread, you have to go get a newspaper, find the coupon, cut it out, bring it to the store, and annoy the people in line behind you. You can't just swipe your loyalty card. There's no work involved in that.
So there need to be some roadblocks in place for those who choose this road. Make them work for it. If the roadblocks are high and numerous enough, then we simply won't need the stubborn few who make it over all of them.
Creepshow blows! (SPOILERS)
OK I'm a big fan of the genre and the original movies were great. However this reboot seems to be little more than Steven King-sploitation. I missed Season 1 and have only seen Season 2. The series employs a lot of cameos and nods to other classic horror themes. This is a balancing act between being retro-cool or just derivative. It's more the latter. Here are some highlights:
Model Kid - The kid gets assistance from his deceased mother to get vengeance, except he doesn't really need it. The plot is mostly a mess.
Public Television of the Dead - The Bob Ross satire is vaguely amusing.
Pesticide - I liked Josh McDermitt in this.
The Right Snuff - The setup on this is great, and reminiscent of a Twilight Zone episode with astronauts. There are scenes which are reminiscent of The Shining. Things are kind of rushed and implausible however, and it ends up being more like "Nightflyers". The are serious issues with the physics in this episode.
Sibling Rivalry - Well you get to see Molly Ringwald.
Pipe Screams - This is a nod to The Raft and also The Blob. It's OK, nowhere near as terrifying. Creepshow the movie was mostly terrifying with some gallows humor thrown in. These jokes fall flat and just make you groan.
Within the Walls of Madness - This is a mashup of Nightflyers (again?) and Event Horizon. It's as bad as you'd expect that would be.
Night of the Living Late Show - This takes up the whole episode. It combines old footage from Horror Express with CGI. It's interesting for a bit but it ends up being mostly filler for the whole hour. It recycles "Fluffy the Crate Beast" from the original. The episode ends basically how you predict it will.
I kept hoping it would get better, but it really didn't.
Leon Panetta is an ass
He was on CNN last week basically saying that the US friendly fire drone attack in Afghanistan was avoidable. His argument was that the US should have had boots on the ground in Kabul verifying the target.
OK, except we were in the midst of a withdrawal. How can we leverage boots on the ground when we are withdrawing?
Also there is the issue of uncertainty that you get during the fog of war. Let's say we were withdrawing from Afghanistan, and our intelligence tells us that there is a 90% chance that a Toyota contains a bomb which will create carnage at the airport. Do you take it out? What about 80%? 70% 50%?
1 confirmed positive case per 5,000 fully vaccinated Americans per week
Biden quoted this stat today, and it appears on the White House website as well.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/covidplan/
The overall infection rate for the country is around 14 per 5,000 per week right now according to JHU. So that's a pretty good reduction. If you extrapolate per year, that works out to be around a 1% chance of a breakthrough infection.
We can live with that. Literally. Continue to socially distance and you can drive that 1% number even lower. Boosters will drive it even lower still.
I am now anti-deodorant!
I am also anti-toothpaste, anti-soap, and anti-shampoo. I am ideologically opposed to the changing or washing of clothes. I've been freed from the tyranny of it all.
My anti-vax family, neighbors, and coworkers can suck it up and mind their own business. Personal hygiene is a personal decision. I shall remain of this mindset until herd immunity is achieved.
Who's with me?
Any Camp Pfizer people pulling up stakes and hiking over to Camp Moderna?
The Moderna shot has proven to have slightly better durability than Pfizer. Both boosters are going to be the same dosages of the same formulations as I understand it. This leads to the natural question: would the Moderna booster be a universally better option at this point? Only Pfizer is FDA approved at this time, but that reality will be short-lived.
The official answer appears to be to stick with your one type. However, there is reason to be skeptical of that. Vaccines don't linger in your system for long, after six months the only lasting effect is the imprint on your immune system. That is very different from how a drug regimen works.
Consider the question of whether drugs can be combined with alcohol use or not. The official answer for the 10s of thousands of prescription drugs is NO. Do all these thousands of drugs really have harmful interactions with alcohol? Probably not, but the issue is that pharmaceutical companies aren't going to spend all that money on research and expanded clinical trials to make sure. It just isn't cost effective. So putting that verbiage in there is an easy way to reduce those costs as well as limit any resulting liability.
Is the same thing going on here?
Joe Rogan's fate represents a critical juncture for the pandemic
Joe Rogan's CV-19 positive status is a unique moment. He seems to be the incarnation of every Republican false hope, exaggerated claim, misguided effort, and downplayed risk in one tattooed package.
Relatively young...check
No risk factors that I am aware of...check
Taking Z-Pak...check
Taking Ivermectin...check
Taking vitamins...check
Promoted these alternatives on his show while brushing aside the merits of vaccines...check
If Rogan succumbs to CV-19, it could be the final wake-up call to those with aligned beliefs.
If Rogan pulls through, he will instead be just another example alternative "thinkers" can point to. As we know, random anecdotal information that comes from within the trusted conservative network can hold more weight to insiders than rigorous studies from "outsider" scientists.
While I have no reason to wish the man harm, could his untimely demise actually steer the course of the pandemic and ultimately save lives?
Any "Stashers" here?
Stashers are the "endlessly reusable, resealable silicone storage bags that replace single-use plastics".
I pack a lunch every day and have been using them for about a week. So they've been through one cycle of pack, carry, use, clean. They seem to be a good solution. They are a bit spendy, but I calculate the payback at 18 months.
I like the convenience of not having to stock the single-use bags. There is cleanup involved, so you'll need a bottle brush. They have to be dried out as well.
Maybe there are gotchas as far as the environment is concerned, but it seems legit.
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