NeuroTypical

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.

Congratulations @JohnsonJones! I've paid a lot of attention to folks who retire, and folks who are retired, so I can have a glimpse into what the future might hold for me. Here's what people are saying: - "I absolutely don't have to use my brain as much. It now takes effort to find challenging things to think about." - "Figuring out how to keep busy takes more work than actually doing the things that keep me busy." I commonly hear that retiring is a massive adjustment in a marriage, throwing things up into the air and forcing lots of change. People report varying degrees of things getting easier or harder, better or worse, nicer or not so nice. The folks who seem to have the best grasp on things talk of approaching the change in a planned way that has involved a lot of communication. I can see this requiring my wife and I to approach my retirement carefully. So, I've also gathered input from spouses given to new retired breadwinners, where both parties report satisfaction and love as a result: - "You know, I promised to spend my life with you, but not all at once." - "You will find ways to be out of this house and out of my hair on a regular basis." - "We schedule everything, from trips to fights." As you gain retired miles, please add to my growing database of things to think about.

That's brilliant @zil2. I'd only make one change to that thing: Replace "dejected" with "ejected". I've been in many meetings where I wished for either an ejection seat with a rocket strapped to it, or a trap door of some kind.

I am utterly sympathetic to every word being uttered here. That said, apparently God likes meetings for some things, so I guess I have to as well. If the D&C wasn't bad enough: Moroni had to deal with meetings too: I might be wrong, but this is the only scripture that says we've got to go to church every Sunday:

I just came from 30 minutes of arguing with people about whether Trump was really shot in the ear or not. There's endless millions upon millions of people, just in the US, who'll fall for quick fake vids. Again, the main point isn't "nobody will believe someone licked uranium". My main point is now it takes minutes for the layuser to come up with a strikingly convincing fake.

Google Veo3 is currently in some sort of early release mode, with folks getting their copy by documenting what they'll do with it - and "content creator" is one of the professions. So, guessing at motivations, I'd guess that whoever made these videos is a fan of the tech and wanted to generate lots of likes and subscribes to their channel by making click-and-share-worthy videos. A good way to do that is with a bit of shock value. Yeah? I mean, it also might have been a random marketing effort from the Veo3 people, trying to go viral and generate interest, or it might have just been a random user. Either way, it's now insanely easy to make such things. Not sure if this is behind a paywall or not, but here you go: https://www.wsj.com/video/series/joanna-stern-personal-technology/we-made-this-film-with-ai-its-wild-and-slightly-terrifying/D17B233B-1E06-400D-9095-B5247306DD38?mod=article_inline

I show them examples of how good the lies are becoming, so they understand how important it is to vet things before you accept them. Behold - any 12 year old can now create videos like this by just entering a prompt into Veo3:

Well, if we're tellin' Churchey themed jokes... An armless man rings a church bell by hitting it with his face, but tragically falls to his death. When asked who he was, the bishop replies, "I don't know his name, but his face rings a bell." The next day, his brother, also armless, tries to ring the bell and meets the same fate, leading the bishop to say, "He's a dead ringer for his brother."

I'm a big fan of taking critics and saying "oh, you seem to have it all figured out - let's put you in charge of doing it right." I still remain a fan of being a critic of stake people with an overinflated notion of their stewardships and importance in the lives of people living at the ward level. At this point I'm sort of hoping someone approaches me with a Stake calling - I'll speak energetically and passionately about my thoughts that the stake needs to stay in it's own lane and stop trying to do bishop things. We'll see if they still want me. My heart goes out to all of us random saints just trying to be good disciples and have enough energy for our callings. I am challenged to love the stake representative that just comes up with some activity he wants everyone in all the wards to do and begins pushing it out expecting everyone to jump, without so much as checking with bishops or aux presidents in any wards.

I'm glad to see the basic human right of free speech is getting a lot of notice in the UK. How many people are arrested every week in the UK for stuff they post online? The solution to bad speech is more speech. It's not trying to force people not to say things disagreeable.

You take the phrase "historical ignorance" as a nasty insult? I meant no offense. You come here saying openly that are hearing things for the first time after 60 years in the church. If you don't like the phrase I chose, what would you call it? I mean, all of us are ignorant of things until we learn them, right? Would it help if I gave a partial list of things of which I'm mostly ignorant? - Most languages on earth except English. - Math starting with algebra and anything more advanced. - How to not insult a struggling Canadian while trying to help him, apparently.

Are you sure? I mean, I gave some, but I don't see any indication that you noticed. Much better - thanks. I'm glad to see that the pros also found it impossible to give a good rendering of the text. So, it appears to be a war council trying to figure out how to keep the Saints from going extinct at the hands of their enemies. "J. Higbee the Indians r continually unfriendly killing our cattle & stealing horses we have lost between 50, 60 head. they cannot sustain themselves there. we drive our cattle down in the morning & bring them up at night. The Indians fired their guns at our boys & they found one [illeg] with 4 arrows another with a tomahawk in it they say the Mormons are no [illeg] they want to fight & will live on our cattle they say they mean to keep our cattle & got & get the other Indians to kill us." Do you know what it means when Higbee says "they cannot sustain themselves there"? That means unless something changes, those saints will all die. Why do you find this disturbing? Do you not see an endless tsunami of similar examples pouring forth from the old and new testaments? Not to mention any semi-serious reading of human history convinces us all that most human history is an endless cycle of conflict and war and bloodshed. Please - put your assumptions into words - why do you find it disturbing that BY talked about, even ordered, killing threats to the saints' existence? It's understandable that someone who is moving from a life spent in historical ignorance and assumption making, gets disturbed when confronted with uncomfortable truths and realities. It's quite common. It happens to everyone, actually. The lucky ones have it happen in early adulthood when they venture out into the world and begin interacting with different ideas and perspectives, and read more books. It's happening to you in the 3rd quarter century of your life, so it's easy to understand why you're disturbed. For contrast: I began learning all of this stuff 30 years ago in my mid-20's, as I ventured online to the early discussion forums and newsgroups. I sought out places where critic met apologist, and that's how I learned the seedier parts of our history, along with the apologetic defenses. If you'd like a similar experience, you can still go through the old FARMS Review of Books: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr/ It's been many years since I read all these, and I don't remember exactly if those books address what looks to be your main troubling topic, but these essays do address (in varying degrees of completeness, accuracy, and persuasiveness), all of the criticisms leveled against our church and it's members that were being made from the '80s through the 2010's. It's got a very handy search function. I see another unquestioned baseless assumption that you've probably made across your whole life. It looks something like this: "Everything there is to know about the church and it's history, I will learn from the church." Look deeply into yourself my friend. Have you been believing this lie? For, like, your whole life? You want apologetics? I prescribe introspection. You've been ignorant your whole life, and now you're being blindsided by harsh realities you've never encountered before. Troubles and doubts are normal and healthy. They won't go away with a quoted paragraph here or a friendly post on an anonymous message board there. I just gave you a great source to have your troubles and doubts resolved. Will you spend a decade at it like I did?

And just to keep harping on the left for the horrible moral cancer thriving in their midst, have twenty-two thousand likes for the notion that the random target of a random shooting was a terrorist because he lived in Israel: Oh wait - it's up to twenty-five thousand likes now. Careful reading the comments in that link though. It's an interesting mix of reasonable takes, hateful takes, and some of the worst antisemitic horribleness you can find on planet earth. Like, stuff you saw in 1930's nazi propaganda sort of horribleness.

Oof - and more news from the victims: As it happens, Lischinsky was an Israeli Christian who called Israel “the only place in the [Middle East] where Christians can thrive.” Milgrim, an American Jew, worked to build friendships between Israelis and Palestinians as a path to peace. The event they attended was a panel on multifaith humanitarian efforts to aid Gaza and other Arab war zones. Dude sure wrote a nice little manifesto though. Once you start dehumanizing who you think is your enemy, you can justify killing basically anyone.

Psychoanalyzing historical figures through historical records gets tricky fast. It's easy to be an armchair shrink, but it's even easier to judge unrighteously by filling in any missing context with our modern cultural contexts and understandings. Brigham and all historical figures faced many influences from their culture and society, and looking only at their diaries usually ignores the bigger picture of their experiences and decisions. Another way to put it: To us fat lazy 21st century 1st world elites, 1800's frontier Americans all look like crazy savages. We have lost all clues of how much effort those people had to put into just surviving the winter, much less the threats of extinction from other human sources. Here's a fun little slice of how things were back then: My wife is a descendant of the Native American slave trade. When the Mormons hit the valley, the various Ute tribes saw increased opportunities for trade. And raiding other villages for captive women and children became a new booming industry, because the good hearted LDS folks would buy slaves from them, especially if the slave traders mistreated their captives in front of the Mormons or threatened to kill them if they weren't sold. I wonder how accurate we can be with our attempts to psychoanalyze the chiefs of the various Sanpete and Timpanogos and other Ute tribes for thinking such things were a perfectly normal way to conduct a trading relationship with the newcomers. Yep. Even when I download the large filesize copy and drill down to max magnification, it's still nigh impossible to read. @jdf135, unless I miss my guess, you're going off of someone's text here. Care to post it? If it's an anti source, don't post the link to the source, but we can't really respond to your claims until we see upon what they are based.

I'm glad to hear it. When this news is covered on tiktok and x, the anonymous comments from folks identifying as the progressive left are about 90/10 in support of dude and his action. It's a universal phenomenon that people talk crap anonymously, and half of the responses are probably bots, but it's still rather chilling to see firsthand. That 10% is nice to see though. Lots of "I'm all in on Gaza and f*** israel but what dude did was wrong".

For the record, I once had an English teacher who would routinely yell at us any time he saw a paper that contained too many instances of the words "this" or "it". Both were anathema in his book. Although I guess I can see his point. Who wants to spend an hour reading 20 versions of this: The War of 1812 is still talked about today. This is for obvious reasons. It's because it had such a big impact on the world, and this cannot be forgotten. Back in the day, I could take that line of text and turn it into a 3 page essay. My grades usually reflected it.