NeuroTypical

In other news, here's how things are going for yours truly as a participant in the phase III Moderna trial: 1. Phone call: "Hi, this is the [COVID vaccine phase III trial people], calling for your routine health check. Any changes in your medical history?" "Nope" "Any changes to your medications?" "Nope" "Are you showing any COVID symptoms?" "Nope" "Thanks for your time, have a nice day!" 2. Text a few hours later: "Your Vaccine study debit card ending in XXXX has received funds in the amount of $27." I'm a year in next month. Probably have been paid a grand or so for my part in the study. Probably will get paid another couple hundred bucks over the next 2-3 years for the rest of the study. If I grow a toe out of my forehead or something, and can link it to the trial vaccine, all my medical bills will be covered. This is my first time through an experimental medical treatment program. They tell me this is on par with how they tend to work. Hence that classic Simpsons clip of Barney paying his bar tab with his medical experimentation winnings, and we see the back of his head shaved with wires hanging out. Other interesting things: - Whenever I have a change in my medical history (like having elective plastic surgery, or experiencing COVID-like symptoms after getting a shingles shot, or something), and I report it, after completing the medical interview about things, they pay me $90. Should I get sick and die of some random illness, that data would get entered into various databases like VAERS, and then ignorant folks who don't understand would claim "The vaccine kills some people up to a year after they get the shot!". - Every 3 or 4 months, I go in and give up to 8 vials of blood. One obvious test is the antibody test to see how long the vaccine remains effective. Some of the blood is frozen indefinitely for future tests they haven't thought to run yet.

Well, DC went woke with Superman turning against truth, justice, and the American way, over a decade ago. Who knows Marvel enough to tell us when Captain America put down his mighty shield out of disgust for what America was becoming?

I stopped reading after that. Is any media/news outlet unbiased any longer? I think journalism has gone the way of the dinosaur at this point, extinct. All we are left with now is opinion pieces disguised as news. Oh, you are not wrong to have a bad reaction at the transparently blinder-wearingly-one-sided bias here. But something to consider: When you play golf, you think about the wind direction, and you swing to the left or right because you expect the wind will blow the ball towards the hole. It's the same deal reading news - any news - from any source. There is always a wind direction, the secret is to be able to tell which way the wind is blowing and adjust your information gathering appropriately. The buzzfeed article, for example - presents many useful facts (the hole). The biased commentary is just the wind. IMO, you do yourself a disservice when you refuse to expose yourself to known bias, just because it ain't your bias. Because: - Sun Tzu's "know thy enemy" is good advice. - The (probably fake) Ancient Native American wisdom to "walk a mile in a foe's moccasins" is good advice. - The Lord's commandment to "love thy neighbor" and "forgive thy enemy" are both much easier if you understand them. And they're also good bits of advice.

Sorry to hear about the 'fun' day you're having. The stress headache probably doesn't have anything to do with the shot. If you have symptoms, they'll likely show up tomorrow. Common ones include fever, or sore arm, or general fatigue/feeling lousy. The symptoms tend to disappear totally within a day, so if anything shows up tomorrow, it should be gone by the day after. I remember when I got my 2nd shot I had that general achey/feeling lousy feeling the next day. Of course it was my day to clean the church, so I had to groan my way through it.

A little more info: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/sarahmimms/twitter-suspends-audit-accounts-trump I'm guessing Twitter's excuse may have been that these accounts tweeted photos of posts instead of actual posts, as a way to get around Twitter's AI. When did life become a chapter out of the book Neuromancer?

We had a flash flood on our property one year, and it surprised us. A week of light rain, and then 30 minutes of very heavy rain did it. There's a 3-4' high drainage pipe under the road between me and the neighbor across the street. I always thought it was stupid and overkill, until this flash flood. We watched the neighbor's property fill up with water, and that drainage pipe was blasting water so fast there was a decent sized stream across my property and the next two downstream. The neighbor's property was almost full, and the water was about to spill over the road, when the pipe started draining it faster than it was coming. Neighbor and kids went running out to see the once-in-a-lifetime river running through our properties. It was slow and calm enough that the neighbor picked up his boy and threw him into the stream. Oh, so THAT's why we have no-build areas on our neighborhood plat! THAT's why the drainage pipe is so large! THAT's why 3 houses down there's a berm across that guy's property, which turned into a lake that stayed for 2 weeks! It was all good erosion control and flood management practices! I have to admit that I gained just a touch of respect for all the stupid hoops developers and builders have to jump through to build stuff.

You're a good arguing buddy. I not only got the vaccine without consulting a competent medical professional, I signed up for the Moderna phase III trial without even asking anyone. I suppose competent medical professionals were involved, as my age and medical history would have prevented me from being in Phase I or II.

Out of all the reasons to not get vaccinated, this is one of the harder to understand. Since 'downtime' and 'issues' with catching COVID are orders of magnitude higher than vaccine side effects, it sort of begs the question. If downtime is something you don't want, why not decrease your odds of having it by like 288X?

I don't care what politicians say, but I do care about studies and data. And both of the things Paul cites are worthy additions to our understanding of Mommy Rona. Washington U study: https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/good-news-mild-covid-19-induces-lasting-antibody-protection/ Cleveland Clinic study: https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210608/No-point-vaccinating-those-whoe28099ve-had-COVID-19-Findings-of-Cleveland-Clinic-study.aspx Both of these are common sense and hardly surprising, but it's still nice to see scientific confirmation. That said, I can totally understand why public policy makers and health organizations are pushing the vaccination to everyone, whether they've been infected or not. It's the large number of liar-liars-pants-on-fires out there. Just like with mask wearing, suddenly there were millions of people who "can't wear a mask because I've got asthma" or some such lying bull crap. Now with this news, suddenly there are millions of unvaccinated folks who "already had covid", who are lying to get past whatever questionnaire or checkpoint or conversation. That said, I can totally understand why so many people easily lie in such situations. Folks who love freedom tend to despise questionnaires or checkpoints or conversations delving into their personal medical decisions, for many good reasons. At the end of the day, for me, the vaccine means now people have a choice. That choice means the govt control and mandates and health orders and stuff all need to go away. And honestly, they have, more than anyone wants to admit. Now the politicians on the federal level are happily keeping the issue alive and on the front page, because it's a way to get votes. I note that Colorado's solid blue governor dumped all the statewide mandates, stopped throwing news conferences, and is more than happy to get back to business as usual. Your state may differ.

I'll get tons of blueberries and freeze them, and eat them frozen. But never grapes. That's just wrong.

Vaccinations do not fall under HIPAA laws. Employers requiring employees disclose their personal medical information may not run afoul of HIPAA laws either.

Very powerful book. Very important things in that book.

Well again, and in Mirk's favor, and dprh's point, one hundred fifty one thousand people die, every day on earth. That's normal, I guess you'd have to call it "Godly tragic"? Context is important, context is hard. This guy gets it:

lol what do you mean, watching a YouTube video doesn't qualify as counsel with competent medical professionals? Ya crackpot.

Exactly! Or, in other words: 4.1 million global deaths related to coronoavirus. We all guess at how many in that number were actually caused by 'rona, but it's impossible to claim that 'rona isn't killing a crapton of people who would otherwise be alive. Someone looks at that and says "4.1 million? Holy crap, gimme the vaccine." Someone else says "99.5% survival? Not convincing enough for me to get jabbed." Here's a good question: How many millions dead would it take, before you figure it's serious enough to get the vaccine? And here's the same question put differently: How low does the % survivability need to drop, before it's low enough to change your mind? Other new news: Our global life expectancy has gone down a little because of 'rona and it's imact: They're guessing maybe 3/4ths of that drop is due to 'rona deaths, and the rest is impacts of quarantines/shutdowns/disruption in people's lives. A 1 year drop or so, isn't the end of the world. We're still living longer than we did in the '90's. But we also haven't felt the full long-term effects of shutdown in terms of skipped cancer screenings, increased diabetes, and whatnot. But still, it's hard to just explain away the results as "aw, that's nothing"