NeuroTypical

And of course the most recent pop-culture examination of the issue came in the season finale of WandaVision, where the version of Vision created by Wanda's mindstone-granted powers, fought the version of Vision created by SHIELD from his actual physical body:

We're just one global or even national disaster away from some pretty interesting possibilities. I think about the dark ages, and Catholics cloistered in monasteries, preserving knowledge and culture. Fascinating AI summary: Monasteries during the Middle Ages were often designed with some level of defensibility in mind, especially in regions where they were vulnerable to attacks from raiders or during times of conflict. Here are some key features and considerations regarding the defensibility of monasteries: Defensive Features Location: Many monasteries were strategically located on elevated ground, near rivers, or in remote areas to provide natural defenses against potential attackers. Architecture: Some monasteries were built with fortified walls, towers, and gates. These structures could help protect the inhabitants from invasions and provide a place of refuge during attacks. Self-Sufficiency: Monasteries often had their own agricultural lands, which allowed them to be self-sufficient. This meant they could sustain themselves during sieges or prolonged conflicts without relying on outside resources. Community Defense: Monks and nuns were sometimes trained in basic self-defense and could organize to protect their community. In some cases, local laypeople would also come to their aid in times of danger. Isolation: The secluded nature of many monasteries made them less visible and less likely to be targeted compared to urban centers, which were more prominent and accessible. Then I think about how the church has just been quietly investing surplus tithing funds for decades in real estate and productive farmland. Then I think about the continual cultural decline of the United States, the ascendancy of China, and how every empire comes with an expiration date built in.

A fair question would be "did the enemies of the saints care about polygamy, or did they just use polygamy laws as a weapon to specifically target the saints?"

Here's how it's reconciled: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/the-manifesto-and-the-end-of-plural-marriage?lang=eng It seems like the saints mounted a vigorous legal defense on the territory, state, and federal level trying to preserve their rights. By 1890 we had lost all our legal battles so soundly, that President Woodruff issued the manifesto, and we ended the practice, and we excommunicated anyone who entered into a polygamous union or performed a polygamous wedding. That left us with trying to do the best we could to deal with people in existing marriages that were enacted before we gave up the fight. Eventually (and I'm not sure about the timeline), we started just plain old excommunicating anyone in a polygamous marriage. Hopefully that came after the folks who were sealed when the legal challenges were ongoing, got to live out their natural lives. But I think there's some feisty stories there. As far as 2025 goes, with all the cultural "love is love", decreasing marriage rates, and legalizing all the things that used to be illegal, the overall culture doesn't really care any more. As long as all parties involved consent to it, go for it, says the majority culture these days. That leaves a lot of old antipolygamy laws on the books, and they're really only used against the odd groups that hit the news as abusing children and whatnot. But as far as I've heard, the church isn't pushing for any end to antipolygamy laws, or changing it's practices. Legally, we could probably get away with it if we tried.

Well, yes, but you weren't up for binge-watching it again, at the spur of a moment, for the mere reason that it might strengthen your case as you argued online about Star Trek, right? I mean, where are your priorities?

I have a box of simpsons crap from the '90's, we bought at 90% off from a Toys R Us that was going out of business, in the hopes that some of it would be worth more later. It's later, and I really doubt any of it is worth more. At the other extreme, when my wife and I were dating, we collected a full set of gold-plated pokemon trading cards (more like medallions) that you could buy with a Burger King kids meal, and hearing about it almost provoked random acquaintances to violence as they vied over who should be allowed to try to buy them from us. We didn't sell. Finally, I inherited my father's mementos from the days people were mad about the 19th Amendment and trying to get it repealed. Now that's some fun stuff.

This is the first time I've ever been disappointed in Zil. And here I thought you had true trekkie cred.

By the way, on the X platform you can now talk and argue, in a thread, with it's Grok AI. It's pretty dang amazing, revolutionary even. And yes, you can get Grok to "change his mind" at the drop of a hat, just by adding to the information available. Consider a post about how the Boulder terrorist's family is being deported. Here's a paraphrase of how arguing with Grok goes: Pro-illegal guy: @Grok Would you consider punishing family members of a lawbreaker to be a fascist action for a government to take? One word answer please. Grok: Yes. Pro-trump guy: @Grok if the family of the boulder bombing suspect is in the country illegally and they get deported, would you consider that a punishment for being related to the suspect? Why or why not? Grok: No. [Grok gives a well-reasoned answer] It's amazing to watch. Just went live in the last month or five. Musk's stated objective is to have Grok "push towards the truth". We'll see.

A reverse-image search reveals it's a stock photo that seems to be widely used. A lot of carbon-removal/desalinization/eco-friendly energy use sites. Entirely possible it's just for show, or it might be an actual carbon renewal or desalinization project. Both of those, along with AI, are all power-hungry grid-capacity-exceeding things that have the nuclear industry waving a big sign that says "the solution is right here baby". The general notion is that with a few thousand smaller modular reactors sprinkled around the planet, everyone could have clean water and atmospheric carbon extraction and all the AI the planet could use, and the enormous power needed could be generated with nearly zero emissions by zappy the friendly green reactor. I mean, if that's every gonna happen, people are gonna have to stop reacting to the prospect like a vampire to a crucifix, but the pro-nuclear folks seem to be eternally hopeful that humanity will pull itself out of its anti-nuclear superstitious dark ages.

It's me. I'm "those". https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/ai-power-expanding-data-center-capacity-to-meet-growing-demand From my perspective, AI is growing so quickly and driving so much growth and energy demand, it's breathing new life into the nuclear industry. 'Bout dang time something did. https://www.ibm.com/think/news/ai-nuclear-power

About 30 arrests a day for offensive online messages, which totals approximately 210 arrests each week? Yeesh. https://www.thetimes.com/article/e4fce705-2a56-4e4a-aa04-0b55effb5bc0?shareToken=e8ccfb91a43625e44a12b7f106042012 It's been getting worse every year apparently.

Or draw a cartoon of Mohammad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Hebdo_shooting

June is here, and there are changes from last June. The festiveness from the acronym-friendly folks is still festive, my various feeds are full of rainbowey well wishes, and a fresh round of exhortations on what to do with "homophobes and bigots". I've only seen one person urging me to unalive myself if I have a problem with trans women in women's sports, so that's nice. A difference - corporate America is not going hog-wild on pushing the messaging so much. I haven't looked, but I doubt I'll find a single company that does business with the US who is changing their logo to a pride-ified logo for pride month. Here was 2022, I need to update this thing for 2025: Anyway, if any rainbow folks look to me for a sign of celebrating pride month, I'm sure they'll be happy to discover this: Happy pride to Scott Bessent. Secretary of Treasury, French Hugenot ancestry, fundraised for Al Gore, donated to Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton. The first openly homosexual treasury secretary, and currently the highest ranking LGBTQ political official in America to date. He and his husband once owned the historic John Ravanel House, aka "Charleston's Pink Palace". He's also a main mastermind behind all the tariffs and the Trump admin's dismantling of the globalist world order, issuing in a return to the good old days of national trade protectionism and opening new fronts in the war to contain China economically. Dude puts the M in MAGA, cuz he's all man. And stuff. (Sorry, I don't really know how to do a good pride virtue signal. Am I doing it right?) Feel free to share with all yer alphabet buddies out there.

We've never debated the existence of God. He's content that I'm one of the decent folks who use religious belief to produce good for humans. I understand that debate and reason will only very rarely lead someone to a belief in God, and I'm content to just let my light so shine as best I can around him.

I have an atheist 'drinking buddy'. Periodically we get out of work a bit early and head to the open air food court thing across the street, where he has his beer and I have my soda, and we talk. We both share a passion for vigorous debate and reason and truth, so it's a fun constant stream of ideas and counterideas and arguments and counter arguments. The main intent is to understand one another and challenge one another in the realm of reason, identifying where we align, where one of us might budge, and where there's a permanent difference in opinion. Dude is full of humanism, happy with religion when it produces measurable net goods to humans, critical when it doesn't. He's a living, breathing dictionary definition of verse 14, and he's a pretty good human. I often tell him I'll put a good word in for him on the other side of the veil. We're not out to change the other, except where a convincing enough case can be made that a person claiming to value objective truth will be forced to abandon a belief in favor of a greater one. From that standpoint, I doubt he'll ever budge in belief of a God, and after a year, I've been given no reason to budge in mine either. Both of us understand beliefs - that while they are things that can grow and evolve over time, they are not something we can intentionally change. He understands that I can't chose to not-believe in God, any more than he can chose to believe. We have much fun.

That's fair. Have an AI generated comic about a guy who is offended by someone named TFP. I did not ask it to include a protest, it did that on its own.

I started paying attention to politics around 1994, with Newt Gingritch's Contract With America. The Rs got elected as anticipated, and immediately got to work (like, within 48 hours) passing all the stuff the contract specified would be immediately passed. One of them was laying the groundwork which would allow the new republican majority to end federal welfare as the nation had known it. I have a very clear memory of watching the live coverage on tv, where Maxine Waters was in the aisle shrieking, literally shrieking, I am not using overly-sensational language the chick was SHRIEKING, about how the republicans were trying to kill all the poor people. The catch phrase used by democrats during the campaigns and first year was "bodies stacked like cordwood in the streets". Fast forward 15-20 years, I'm still paying attention to politics, and I notice that the Democrats had started taking credit for the "wildly successful welfare reform enacted during President Clinton's first administration". lol. lawl.

Yep, fun stuff. Digging deeper, Dude lived with his wife and kid(s) here in my town of Colorado Springs. Local reporting interviewed a neighbor who was just utterly shocked, as their kids have played with each other, and the family was friendly and kind. Neighbor even reports having food brought over from these folks. Apparently, dad (the guy who used a homemade flamethrower and molotovs to burn a bunch of old people, including a holocaust survivor) was often not home, apparently driving up to Denver to work for Uber a lot. Oh yeah - and he is an Egyptian national who entered the US in Aug 2022 on a non-immigrant tourist visa which had expired in 2023. He had work authorization which expired March 2025, and had a pending asylum claim. In the various videos, he's seen shouting "Free Palestine" and "End Zionists" and "They are killers" and "How many children have you killed" and "You're killing my people so I kill you". In other words, the popular slogan globalize the intifada, yelled at college campuses and at pro-palestine protests and riots, is seeing some successes. As someone's random dad got mad enough to set a bunch of old people on fire about it. Well, Imma have to disagree on that one. The right to "peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances" is kind of one of the reasons America is great. In this case, the march was a peaceful weekly demonstration that had been happening in Boulder since 2023 right after O7, and was all about raising awareness for Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. The event has been described as non-political, inclusive, and focused on a humanitarian cause.

Fair enough. Looking through this new link, an awful lot of my overall points remain valid. This report is also not the "largest autopsy study published". It's a study of "all published autopsy and organ-restricted autopsy reports relating to COVID-19 vaccination" through May '23. How many autopsies? It's right there: 325. Only a few hundred bodies in this study. And 76% of those is ~250 people. Out of well over 800 million covid shots administered in the US, studies find maybe 250 who maybe ended up maybe dying from the vaccine. It's the tiniest of fractions of overall deaths in that time period. There's a way to categorize those numbers: They are statistically insignificant. That's like one in 3 million odds. You are endlessly more likely to die of a dog attack, or a bee sting, or a hot surface, or a pointy thing, than you are of a covid shot. Again, driving a car is far, far, far more likely to kill you than taking 3 covid boosters a year, every year, until the day you die. Context. Perspective. There's nothing to see here. There's zero cause for melodrama or headlines about people dying of the covid shot. If, perhaps, there's still a third lurking study out there with some sort of smoking gun, please show it to me. Because so far, it's two studies up, two studies down. I don't trust people, I evaluate claims and data. I'm not a professional or an expert, but I do have a modicum of common sense and my favorite college class was statistics, because it taught me how to spot stupid when I see it. Claims that we should be worried about the covid shot killing people, pointing to either of these studies as evidence, are not worthy. They're obviously false on their face. Again, I'm with ya on covering up and suppressing data that went against the chosen narrative. I'm with ya on endless bad policies and panic that got caused by the government spreading lies. I have a list of people and organizations who should be held accountable, maybe even criminally accountable, for things like wrecking an entire generation of kids' emotional health and education levels. Companies fired employees who refused to get the shot, based on lies and falsehoods and suppressed data. Suicides and alcoholism and domestic violence increased because of policies enacted based on lies and falsehoods and data. But covid shots killing people in sufficient numbers to warrant caution from the average person? None of the testimony, none of the videos, none of the links to studies warrant such a notion. The deeper people ask me to look, the less basis for such a notion shows up. At this point, I challenge you to demonstrate that you have a working knowledge of what "proper vetting" looks like, or what "verifying safety" of a new vaccine looks like, or even if you know what someone "doing their job" looks like when evaluating a new vaccine. Or perhaps at the very least, maybe you could interact with what I've said in this thread about my participation in the Moderna phase III trial? My interest is fading here, but if you'd like to take a shot at how my experience and the info I've conveyed somehow is evidence of a lack of "proper vetting" or "verifying safety" or "doing their job" improperly, I'll read it.

Chronic health struggles with no clear answer as to why or what's in store, are never fun. Sorry to hear that @Ironhold.

Oh yes - absolutely agreed! They're called "cotton candy grapes" here. Cotton candy is a popular treat sold at fairs and baseball games and movies and whatnot. I had to look it up. Bakersfield California, not China. But yes, they were created by a "fruit geneticist" over 12 years and involved a hundred thousand plants created and grown in test tubes.

8 billion people on planet earth. Good chance of hitting 9 billion in my lifetime. Half of them live in cities. Without modern agriculture, including GMOs and pesticides and monsanto and things created in labs, the humans are not currently able to feed themselves, and the population of humans at risk to this sort From my perspective, a huge chunk of the anti-GMO and organic movements are little more than marketing campaigns meant to make rich white women think they're saving the planet by buying more expensive food. I don't have any issues with folks trying to eat less processed food, shorten the distance from farm to table, sustainable farming practices, or most of the rest of it. But when I run 90% of the stuff I hear from proponents of these movements across my "what's the impact on 8-9 billion humans", much of it ends up sounding sort of genocidal. Because if many, even most of the practices were put into global play, the earth's poorest populations would die of starvation by the tens of millions. Perspective is as important on this topic, as it is with any other topic. It's interesting to see the size of various industries. If there's a healthy distrust for profit-driven peddlers of health info, and you don't have a healthy distrust of "big organic", then there's some reflecting you might want to do.

I'll reword to the best of my ability (and I admit, I'minterpreting here, but it is a sincere effort): By going through the careful review process of all the autopsies that they could get their hands on (the largest autopsy study to date)... These autopsy patients were people who were vaccinated, but died anyway. They determined that of those autopsied patients, 74% of them (those who were vaccinated but died anyway and were marked as COVID deaths) died of vaccine complications 26% of all vaccinated patient deaths were from either the disease itself or from a third cause -- mistakenly attributed to COVID (like my mom). Decent attempt at interpreting what dr. McCullough is saying, but that's not what he means. When he says "the largest autopsy studies published to date", he's talking about this: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38221509/ There he is, listed as co-author just like he claimed. This thing is not the "largest autopsy study published". They're talking about a tiny fraction of deaths. This study is titled Autopsy findings in cases of fatal COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis. It says "We performed a systematic review of all published autopsy reports involving COVID-19 vaccination-induced myocarditis through 3 July 2023." No, it's not a study of, as you claimed, "all the autopsies that they could get their hands on" It's a study of all the autopsies for people who died of a certain type of heart issue, when people were wondering if that heart issue had been caused by the covid vaccine. How many autopsies? It's right there in the abstract: 26. Only twenty six bodies in this study. And 76% of those is ~20 people. Out of 984 million covid shots administered in the US, maybe 20 ended up dying of myocarditis. It's the tiniest of fractions of overall deaths in that time period. There's a way to categorize those numbers: They are statistically insignificant. I got in trouble recently for saying a Canadian was ignorant. Let me try to avoid causing trouble here: I'm not saying people dying of a heart inflammation brought on by the covid shot are insignificant. I'm saying ~20 people in the US die every year of lightning strikes, and maybe around that same amount died of heart inflammation, and maybe it was brought on by the covid shot, and maybe it wasn't. Twenty-ish, Carb. In total. Across 2020, 2021, 2022, and through July 2023. That's like 8 or 9 a year. Lightning kills twice as many people a year. Driving a car is far, far, far more likely to kill you than taking 3 covid boosters a year, every year, until the day you die. Context. Perspective. There's nothing to see here. There's zero cause for melodrama or headlines about people dying of the covid shot. The jury is back on the first statement, their verdict is guilty. Everyone hoped for an effective vaccine that prevented. Faucci and biden and the CDC and the WHO and everyone else who pushed the notion that it was, should all be tried for treason and murder and body odor. For the 2nd statement, I call foul in two ways: - 83% of Americans have been vaccinated. If you have 100 long covid patients, and notice that 83 of them have been vaccinated, you know what that's called? That's called "the vaccination had zero impact on people catching long covid." If 75% of them were vaccinated, you know what that's called? That's called "the vaccination is effective in reducing people's risk of contracting long covid". - I know someone with long covid. They participate in various support groups for folks with the condition. Some of these groups have tens of thousands of members. In all of the groups, you can find plenty of unvaccinated folks who have it. This is hard stuff. But it's also easy to sensationalize and start drawing conclusions that simply aren't warranted. Am I smarter than a doctor who publishes studies in journals? Probably not, but I think we can all be smarter than people who fall for selective editing of congressional hearing testimony run by agenda driven people with axes to grind.

Again, I was in the phase III Moderna trial. I wouldn't call it a "little test", it was the third phase of a standard 3 phase trial. Phase 1 of testing was on animals and lasted several months. Phase 2 was on tens of thousands of healthy adults in their prime, and also a year. They started phase 3 during that year. Phase 3 was for the random population including schlubs like me with various health issues. Phase 3 also included tens of thousands of humans, and also lasted about a year. Weekly reporting into an app hungry to hear every symptom, every hiccup, regardless of if it could be traced to the shot or not. Monthly blood work. It was a standard double-blind study with a control group, and nobody knew if they were getting the placebo or the real shot. At the end I was "unblinded" and informed that I got the actual sauce and not the placebo. Can you tell me how you consider all that "little testing", and by what measure you call it that? I believe you. You didn't describe your symptoms or duration, so I don't know if it just made you sick and sore for a few days, or if you have like heart problems to this day or something. A "lifetime of wondering" if you "essentially poisoned" yourself begs the question - are you qualified to know what you're worried about? The Lord's prophet, also an accomplished and wise heart surgeon, painted a broad picture to our church and the world: They urged us to trust the medical establishment: As appropriate opportunities become available, the Church urges its members, employees and missionaries to be good global citizens and help quell the pandemic by safeguarding themselves and others through immunization. Individuals are responsible to make their own decisions about vaccination. In making that determination, we recommend that, where possible, they counsel with a competent medical professional about their personal circumstances and needs. You and I have some disagreements here, but I'm also quite ticked off about Biden's pre-emptive pardoning of Faucci and others.

I can't see how that could possibly be true. At the height of things, my county and state dashboards both painted a picture. They both broke out hospitalizations and deaths by vaccination status, meaning there was a graph with one bar for "hospitalized for covid and vaxxed" and one for "hospitalized for covid and nonvaxxed". Same for deaths: "died of covid and vaxxed" and "died of covid and nonvaxxed". This was starting in 2021, after we had finally learned to tell the difference between "died of covid" and "died with covid". Both of those charts showed, consistently across like 2 years, greater numbers of people in our hospitals who hadn't been vaxxed, and greater number of people dying who hadn't been vaxxed. As the vaccine rollout continued and the majority of Coloradans became vaxxed, and then the supermajority, the hospitals and morgues still stayed fuller with nonvaxxed folks than vaxxed. All that aside, I'm happy that congressional hearings are taking place. Let everyone have their say, and pay attention, and alter opinions based on the picture painted by the facts. You'd think if the vax was killing people, it would have shown up during the human trials. I was part of the nationwide phase III Moderna vaccine trial, and as far as I can tell our death rate wasn't any higher than the normal death rate of ghe population in general.