thaicurious

7 hours ago, Mutt Daeng said:

 

The title should be changed to include the word "Fees". It's the tuition fees that are being eliminated, not the tuition.

Eliminated for the students. It's billionaire socialism. Random maga brains must be exploding everywhere. 

I'll be researching this before deciding. My concern arises not from a simplistic anti-vax stance but one similar to criteria I used to decide against a second bivalent boost which was my concern for imprinting upon immunity with an older version when I was aware a newer version soon on the way. So I haven't yet read but I'd imagine there's a new formulation in the works but also towards the end of the year we could have a next gen mucosal vax.

I don't want to add risk at 67, but I still maintain good health, swim daily laps, etc., have the arteries of a 39 year old and I social distance outside & mask with an N-95 indoors in public always and I had the first new shot a few months back so I should be reasonably safe. I'm also researching to where the last shot might have waned in efficacy (do I still have 30 or 40% protection?)

Because then I have to weigh an extra 10% or 20% protection of a boost that might only last a extra few weeks or months before that also wanes against the possibility of immunity imprinting which can interfere with future "now current" vaccine protection, all while not knowing when will be distributed a new formula for 2024 or when will come the next gen vax.

So I emphatically disagree with anti-vaxxers putting themselves and others at risk for no good reason including their manufactured BS ones but I do understand seeking easier answers. If life was easy, anyone could do it.

1 hour ago, BobBKK said:

 

Blame him for HIV, too, while you are at it LOL

I don't know if he's responsible for spreading HIV or herpes or syphilis for that matter if that is what you seem to be suggesting. As far as I recall, all we've heard about his sexual issues is something about a hooker or porn person complaining of his freakish mario kart toadstool. But I don't imagine any of that part of the scholarly methodology for determining him as worst president in all of USA history. Perhaps you can email the committee with your inquiry for further clarification.

4 hours ago, Roo Island said:

Wife's mother just got covid here. Our neighbor is terribly sick, 3 jabs, got it at a party. Another friend in Bangkok has it. Really going around right now

Brutal. Hopefully the vax will keep them from hospital and morgue. But everyone needs to understand that though the current vax is way better than the nightmare of when there was no vaccination, they don't stop transmission. All they do is make it manageable. So people need to continue masking until a next generation vax that better prevents transmission. That might be by end of 2024 or possibly into 2025. But they are on the way.

I think the first mucosal aka intranasal vax that FDA could approve for use in the USA will be Codagenix's Coviliv I think it is called which I believe is in phase three trials now. Lemme google... https://codagenix.com/codagenix-announces-late-breaking-presentation-of-positive-clinical-immunogenicity-data-for-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-coviliv-at-idweek-2023/ and this link shows it in phase 3 https://codagenix.com/pipeline/ 

I haven't seen phase 3 data on any of the mucosals yet so I don't know the efficacy but some of the early animal studies look very promising. I'll believe it if I see it but supposedly possibly stops this in its tracks promising. 

Until then people have to learn to give up a little bit of fun now to better assure a lifetime going forward without the complications of long covid. I get that masking can be tough if still in the work world. But for retired people, I don't relate to not masking one bit. It is so easy to do yet hardly any do it.

I might understand risking life to go, say, sky diving. But I'll never understanding risking life to go unmasked into a supermarket just to purchase some veggies or to a party to socialize. Because in all my decades I didn't already go to enough parties that I must risk life for one more party that can't wait until a next gen vax.

Yeah, no, I'm gonna sit this one out.

13 hours ago, Roo Island said:

Progress! Takes time for science to fully figure things out.

 

I know several who've had this brain fog.

Same. And this is prob why I get so upset. One has genetics for Parkinson's. One for Alzheimer's and the third i remember his mom had some sort of dementia but I don't recall the specifics, might have been Lewy but I'm not certain now as two decades back quite a few of my group was dealing at the same time with parents with similar issues. I remember how unfun that was.

The first two vaxxed but only boosted intermittently and didn't mask "among friends". Also never stopped going to restaurants, outside at first but then inside which I still won't do. The third guy refused to mask at all and of vaxing would say "I'm not putting THAT in my body," while regularly snorting COVID, a line I will remember and mock forever. With the first two conversation has become so nuts as to be impossible. When I tried to get them to go to a doc for their brains they became paranoid of me. I've no legal recourse, hopefully their idiot kids will kick in. A friend in crisis intervention says all I can do is help pick up the pieces later. Oh joy! The third guy, an anti-vaxxing denier who calls SARS "that flu", admits without prompting that his thinking has become difficult, acknowledges having had "that flu" a number of times, but then Que Sera Sera's his condition, so I haven't cut off contact but I do limit it because I can't sit back and watch others I've known my whole life purposely destroy their lives. This is ongoing and this sucks.

So possibly somewhat hopeful news for all the idiots who've refused to mask and vax as well as for those who did their best to protect themselves against COVID but sadly got infected anyway. Science has identified a "breakdown to the integrity of the blood–brain barrier."

Now all they have to do is figure out how to repair the damage done by inflammation and figure out how to repair the blood-brain barrier so that the brain is not attacked further both by this again nor by any number of offending elements that the blood-brain barrier would have normally protected against.

Then they need to figure out how to rid the skull-meninges-brain axis of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein accumulations so it doesn't continue to disrupt the blood-brain barrier--and we already know how easy its been to rid the body of HIV, of herpes, of varicella zoster, of name a virus that so far stays for life and that decades of research hasn't fixed--as well as how to stop further transmission (hopefully the mucosal vaccines later this year, but, wait, the idiots won't take that either because "I'm not putting THAT into my body!").

I want to be more impressed by the accomplishment of new findings, but even in the face of such small hope, what a disaster this has been.

It's probably easier to be cynical, to belittle or merely make jest about a study that found what you might have suspected, but what if it hadn't? Thus the study to understand as well as possible. This reminds me of unforeseen consequences, the dangers of not knowing all we can, not often by skeptical me, but apparently by plenty of others, of, say, taking an arthritis med which can harm the immune system that, being sexually active, I decided to not take. Then very early in the pandemic, listening to NPR, sure enough there was discussion by elders fearful that they'd been taking these meds to protect them from some ravages of arthritis but now might put them at risk for COVID's ravages. And even that complicated because to remove yourself from the meds could screw with your immune system even more and who wants that mid-pandemic? So, yeah, we need the studies to know what can be known, even if just to rule out issues so as to concentrate on more pressing aspects.

Also what the study speaks to is resilience & reserve capacity* which is so very important to aging well. Even though I was naturally pretty active as a kid, a daily lap swimmer for most of life, etc., I think what reinforced my convictions to health--besides that I enjoyed it--was not just lucking into the repetition of being raised by health conscious parents (mom was doing daily protein shakes when I was in high school, so very early in that) but even watching my grandparents age. I could often see my athletic grandpa alongside his couch potato friends and I could tell myself I want to be that, not that, such that into my 60s I've still the arteries of a 39 year old while so many of my cohorts are with stents and TAVRs and heart attacks and strokes and yikes. So I appreciate the studies even when they don't surprise me.

*https://medicine.jrank.org/pages/997/Life-Span-Development-Plasticity-reserve-capacity-resiliency.html#ixzz8SjGPDDmG

Individuals also exhibit varying capacities to protect themselves from impairment and insult associated with aging and disease, and to adapt effectively to the demands of stressful situations. The term reserve capacity refers to the individual's resources for responding effectively to challenging conditions. The term resiliency is similar in its meaning, and refers to a capacity for successful adaptation and recovery in response to stressful life events. (bolding mine)

As if these so-called Christians complicit in COVID deaths weren't galling enough, also they get to keep their nonprofit tax advantage while doing harm to the population of the country giving them those tax breaks--in a swirl of insanity--to help facilitate the harm they do to that very population while being paid profit, um, I mean exorbitant salaries.

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/300209280#:~:text=Designated as a 501(c)3

National Christian Foundation Inc

Alpharetta, GA

Tax-exempt since Dec. 2003

EIN: 30-0209280

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/How to Lose Your Tax Exempt Status.pdf

1. Private Benefit/Inurement Private benefit: A 501(c)(3) organization’s activities should be directed toward some exempt purpose. Its activities should not serve the private interests, or private benefit, of any individual or organization

2. Lobbying Lobbying is when an organization contacts, or urges the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body (or any executive branch official who may participate in the formulation of legislation) for the purpose of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation, or when the organization advocates the adoption or rejection of legislation.

How about the IRS adds another 3. Using supposed nonprofit funds to disseminate propaganda that causes COVID deaths

20 hours ago, G_Money said:

The same founding father that stated “All men are created equal “ while owning slaves.

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15 hours ago, placeholder said:

If you're going to make slave-owning a decisive criterion as far as authors go, then that pretty much invalidates the entire Constitution including the Bill of Rights. Woke much?

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And while we're at it. let's cancel the Ride of the Valkyries, as composer Richard Wagner is known for his association with the Nazi Hitler.

Then there are the various misogynists, alleged cannibals, racists, (google artists & their dark sides) or name your ists of any number of brilliant art pieces that now must be burned because some simple minded alt-right-winger can't understand the complexities of humanity and thinks if only he can find one bad thing to say about someone, that destroys all the works arising there, which is either quite powerful or quite lame.

Never mind the musical genius of Keith Moon who ran over his bodyguard or the brilliance of Jim Gordon who stabbed to death his own mother. No more Layla for you. And since when was stabbing your mother ever even a practice du jour? Oh, but slavery, sadly, was. And so even at Monticello, those sins of the founding father are freely noted:

https://www.monticello.org/slavery/slavery-faqs/property/#:~:text=How%20many%20people%20did%20Thomas,bondage%20on%20Jefferson's%20other%20properties.

"How could Jefferson write “all men are created equal” and still own human beings?

Thomas Jefferson wrote that slavery was evil, yet never freed the vast majority of people he held in bondage. Jefferson wrote about the differences between groups of people based on emerging ideas about race in his Notes of the State of Virginia and in many personal letters. The racist ideas promoted by European Enlightenment philosophers strongly influenced Jefferson’s worldview, and his writings confirm he harbored the same racist beliefs as many of his peers. He knew slavery was wrong, yet rationalized his ownership of others through a sense of paternalistic racism, writing that freeing them was like “abandoning children.” It is impossible to understand the Trans-Atlantic slave trade or American chattel slavery without understanding the context of Enlightenment racism. Whereas slavery has been officially illegal in the United States for over 150 years, the racist ideas that undergirded the system remain."

And so besides the magnificent American Constitution from the brilliant minds of our founding fathers that created a wall of separation between State (capitalized) and religion (lower cased), denying today's Christian Nationalism its own seat at the political table, relegating it to within its own walls of its own demon churches and within the evil hearts of evil men feigning righteousness, this is part of our history too. One thing does not deny the other's existence.

9 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

LOL. Do you think the egg and the sperm were created by a machine? Of course they were created in an actual human body, of two different genders, and the resulting embryo is an unborn human child.

 

There is more to marriage than just producing a rugrat child, but perhaps you are a one issue type of person.

Personally, I despise the institution of marriage and up to me it'd be sent the way of jousting. People want to live together just do it. The idea of spending thousands of $ just so people we don't even know can get drunk on our booze is ludicrous to me, and that so many non religious people get married in church is just hypocrisy.

Makes zero difference to getting divorced and all those promises they made were just lies.

You appear to be confusing the reproduction (of sexes) with the sexuality (of attraction).

Also you appear to be confusing the components with the process.

The embryos in question are not* as you said or seem to imply "created in an actual human body".

*https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/freezing-embryos#:~:text=To create an embryo (a,for five to seven days.

"To create an embryo (a fertilized egg), an embryologist fertilizes one or more of the harvested eggs with the sperm of a partner or donor. The embryo is observed as it grows in a petri dish for five to seven days." (bolding mine)

3 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Rubbish. A living egg is fertilised with a living sperm in a petri dish or whatever they use. They are not created in the dish.

Oh my, lol, easily distracted much? Petri dish wasn't the point. The point is that if an embryo created outside the body is considered by the conservative Republican AL supreme court to be a child, then heterosexuality, the attraction of a opposite sexes, is not required to produce a child, which is entirely what the argument of procreation was based upon in its attack of recognizing non-strictly str8 relationships. Your maga has pulled the rug out from under its own argument.

13 hours ago, JonnyF said:

America is a predominantly Christian country 

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13 hours ago, Walker88 said:

"The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.".

 

---John Adams

 

It seems the Founding Fathers disagree with you.

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Just to clarify. That's from Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, not just signed by then President, founding father John Adams in 1796 but importantly also ratified without debate unanimously by the Senate. So that wasn't even just one founding father; rather, that was the entire United States government in the times of the founding of this great nation declaring that the USA is NOT a Christian country.*

This is also highlighted in President founding father Thomas Jefferson's letter** to the Baptists explaining that establishment of religion means separation of church and state: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties." (bolding mine)

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli

**https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_to_the_Danbury_Baptists_-_January_1,_1802

6 hours ago, Social Media said:

A recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court, deeming frozen embryos as "children" ... The implications of this decision extend beyond legal ramifications...

 

Political Implications:

The ruling has the potential to shape political discourse ... Republican politicians ... may view the decision as a victory for the sanctity of life.

Oh what a tangled web maga weaves

Because if, as its Republican, conservative, Alabama Supreme Court has ruled, In Vitro embryos have, as their Chief Justice Tom Parker put it, "the image of God", assuming he was not referring to a Jesus Popsicle, then heterosexuality is no more special to life than is a petri dish.

But but but since the 1970s the GOP and its fundamentalist minions have argued against recognizing LGBT relationships based on procreation. Heterosexuals are so special, they said, that they're the only beings deserving of state recognized relationships because they are required by evolution to produce children.

But now their own Supremes tell them that was all a lie. Because frozen embryos, now they say, are children, embryos created without heterosexuality, without any sexuality, in a petri dish. A holy sanctified petri dish brings forth the image of God.

Do you petri dish, take these sterilized tweezers to be your lawfully wedded...

5 hours ago, scorecard said:

And I repeat, how can a con-man who has deliberately failed to pay hundreds of contractors and their workers, the trump uni staff and more be seen as having any right to make comments about Nato countries etc.

I don't know if it is a right, outside of free speech and the freedom to be a hypocrite--anyone's entitled to go through life as an idiot and I'm entitled to walk away from them--but what gives him the podium to threaten NATO and world stability is the Republican Party as it has evolved from a valid American political party to a Russian Big Lie political machine no longer rewarding even in money or jobs for the masses but assuring fealty among the ranks by threat and support of its electorate by all the trickeries of the con.

6 hours ago, johng said:

He is correct they should pay their share.

why is the USA the policeman of the world with close to 800 military basses around the globe,interfering all over the place  bring those troops home and protect your own borders not someone else's.

I'd have to study the issue to venture anything more than a wild guess and I'm pretty sure I'd not be privy to the most pertinent intel to debate strategies, # of bases, etc., but I'd imagine a lot of that is because America is intricately linked into world capitalism which could be disrupted by, say, Yemen Houthis or and Somalian pirates, etc. So it is less a projection of power for the sake of power and more a system of protecting the arteries of the flow of goods and services that make this world go 'round. And for that, America benefits by trade agreements etc. or don't you think American companies, workers, tax base will profit in later rebuilding Ukraine to bring those farmlands back online post Putin's illegal destructions upon them and those good people.

As to bring them home to protect our borders? Wow. Besides how bizarre that sounds to me, I would just point out that if you think todays migrations are overwhelming, you might consider that we've not seen nothin' yet. Because once oceans rise more as science shows they will within just a few decades (if we have that much time) and given the 8,000,000,000 people on the planet, many living in lower lying areas, there won't just be mass migrations of millions upon millions internationally, but even domestically. I suppose you'll then be screaming for America to bring back their troops to protect Colorado from the all the invading Floridians.

2 hours ago, candide said:

Two news which are not unrelated.

Funny, in a worrisome sort of way.