NeuroTypical

Thanks Traveler, fairly answered. Sure. 1. Gene Therapy: The FDA's definition of Gene Therapy is "Human gene therapy seeks to modify or manipulate the expression of a gene or to alter the biological properties of living cells for therapeutic use". Source: https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/cellular-gene-therapy-products/what-gene-therapy The Mayo Clinic's definition is "Gene therapy involves altering the genes inside your body's cells in an effort to treat or stop disease." Source: https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/gene-therapy/about/pac-20384619 A 2001 article published in JAMA, "Gene and Stem Cell Therapies", says "Gene therapy can be most simply defined as the genetic modification of cells to produce a therapeutic effect." Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/193525 It quotes a 1993 article published in Science. 2. Vaccines: The FDA says "Vaccination stimulates the body’s immune system to build up defenses against the infectious bacteria or virus (organism) without causing the disease." Source: https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/development-approval-process-cber/vaccine-development-101 (note - no mention of modifying or manipulating genes or DNA). The CDC defines a vaccine as "A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease." Source: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm (also note the lack of mention of changing the target's genes or DNA). 3. Moderna and Pfizer COVID vaccines: These are indeed new technology, that uses an mRNA string instead of weakened/dead COVID virus. But there is zero modification/alteration of human DNA/genes happening. @LDSGator already cited some articles, here they are again. They quote the CDC: So it would seem that the new mRNA vaccines absolutely fail to meet the definition of "gene therapy", in that it doesn't modify/alter human DNA. And it would seem they absolutely meet the FDA and CDC definitions of a vaccine, in that it stimulates the body's immune system to produce immunity. Would you concur? Also, when the CDC, FDA, Mayo Clinic, and scientific journals across decades, all seem to be in agreement, and "Some guy on the internet says his doctor said something else", can you understand why people might be willing to discard the random internet guy and his random doctor's opinion, instead going with what appears to be broad international multidecade consensus?

Dang folks, Friday afternoons are supposed to be happy times. Principle: Responding to speech with violence is illegal and immoral. Principle: If you go looking for trouble, you'll find it. From where I'm standing, both of those principles get to be true at the same time.

Dang. We need to re-leaven the notion of "your right to swing your arms ends just where my nose begins", as a way to tell whether it's ok to beat on someone or not. It's not ok to respond to speech with violence. Dude needs to be tried, convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned. Yeah, the doctrine of "fighting words" deals with limitations on free speech, not a defense against assault or manslaughter. Calling someone names doesn't count as inciting violence.

Traveler, please don't take this personally, but you have a history of trying to claim things are true, but being unable or unwilling to cite your source, or provide any evidence. I mean, don't get me wrong, you get to believe whatever you wish. But your ability to have an unsourced claim taken seriously by others on this topic, is limited. I don't suppose you'd be willing to cite your source, so we can evaluate it? Please remember, some vague statement like "It was reported by the CDC" is not citing a source.

I was down with "2 weeks to flatten the curve". I went along with several months of quarantine, because this thing had lots of risky unknowns and we don't know how bad. I was ok with most of the "change everyone's behavior to protect our at-risk people, especially those who can't really do anything to protect themselves". With the vaccine rollout, that last thing doesn't exist any more. I'm absolutely comfortable with "time to go back to normal, if you're worried about COVID, get a vaccine or isolate yourself". I think that's a good public expression of the righteous principle of agency. There's a choice now. There are now zero people left in my county, my state, my country that I should protect. (Well, kid #2 has another week before her 2nd shot is "fully effective".) I'm happy with the govt keeping it available, and using every outlet at it's disposal to push good information about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. I'm ok with them reaching out to the low-information demographics, the superstitious, the anti-science, the conspiracy theorists, the plain old dumb-as-doornails folks who are just too dumb for their own good. Heck, I'm even ok with whatever decisions individuals, families, and private businesses want to make. If Walmart wants to demand proof of vaccination to enter their stores, I'd think it was a dumb choice, but I wouldn't call foul. (I don't think they'll do anything even close to that, just using an extreme to illustrate a principle.) I ain't for forcing a baker to serve who he doesn't want to, I ain't for forcing a business to make decisions that I want them to make. I suppose I'm ok with good old fashion, healthy, constitutional, states fighting with each other about who they let into their states. I think it's dumb, but it's constitutional, for the federal government to step in and use it's power to regulate interstate commerce along these lines. Do I believe God inspired the founders, and the constitution is an inspired document, or don't I? Anyone wants to change my mind about any of this, show me the data of who is being hospitalized and dying, broken down by who is vaccinated, and who is unvaccinated.

I'm still a fan of the principle. It's why I'm voting for letting the employer know - pretty sure that Costco doesn't support this sort of crap, and they'll take steps to deal with the employee.

Heh. I hang out with a guy who has gone through the ending of his marriage over the last 3 years. Watching him go through that, and following the impact on him, his ex, and their kids, has been interesting and heart-wrenching at the same time. He did go through a phase where he had a lot of hard feelings and hurt towards her - especially when she started to date a year after the divorce was final. I watched his emotions, his interest in life, his spirituality, even his weight and hours of sleep he got each night, fluctuate all over the place. There are absolutely similarities between divorce and PTSD, as well as the grieving process after death of a loved one. The answers are the primary answers though. The things that brought him peace and healing, were repentance, forgiveness, keeping the commandments, and deepening his relationship with his God. So yeah, folks with hard feelings towards the BSA - those are the things that'll help you find peace too.

Many divorced people go through a period of being hyperaware and opinionated about everything their ex does. I figure it's the same phenomenon.

Glad you and your family are mostly ok, @Carborendum.

Might be bringing Israel closer to war. Probably won't involve the entire world. If it does, I expect to see a few posts on the end times.

Well, I'm all for gathering good data. So ok.

Not sure what you mean by "encouraged" or "fosters". Here's a map of the various phases of legal mj. If you want to tie this to some sort of "more problems than most other places" map, go nuts. I'm not saying you're wrong, but just pointing at CO and saying "yep, weed" is not really giving me a reason to believe you're right. Last time I checked, South Dakota and Montana are hardly problem centers of the nation...

Oh, not sure mj had anything to do with any of these. The latest one is someone's boyfriend shot and killed all the adults having a mother's day celebration, and killed himself. More family squabble than "mass shooting", in that everyone knew each other. The King Sooper's one was a radicalized Syrian immigrant blowing away the white man in retribution for anti-muslim bullying (or something like that). Showed the failures of our red-flag laws, because his family flagged him, and nothing was done. The Planned Parenthood one was a mentally ill guy who 3-5 years later is still declared unfit to stand trial. Aurora theater was another mentally ill guy. He was still bright enough to drive past half a dozen theaters that allowed concealed carry, to one that didn't. Columbine, of course, was bullied high schoolers and innatentive parents. But yeah, it started to get old here in Colorado, decades ago.

I was fairly young when the Rodney King riots broke out in 1992. But I remember watching the news and thinking "why are the Koreans having to take their rifles up to the roofs of their restaurants, to fight off mobs that are angry because four cops were not prosecuted for beating a black guy?"

Anyone who follows Andy Ngo's twitter feed sees daily accounts of Asians being harmed by African Americans.