All things political. Coronavirus Edition. (1 Viewer)

[Maxp]

I fear we are really going to be in a bad place due to the obvious cuts to the federal agencies that deal with infectious disease, but also the negative effect the Affordable Care act has had on non urban hospitals. Our front line defenses are ineffectual and our ability to treat the populous is probably at an all time low. Factor in the cost of healthcare and I can see our system crashing. What do you think about the politics of this virus?

 

[Taurus]

Except those living in Iran, Egypt as Coptic Christians, or other overwhelmingly Muslims majority countries which have or (used to have) significant Jewish or Christian minorities whose communities lived and co-existed peacefully for centuries before radical Islamic fundamentalism, along with post-WWII pan-Arab nationalist movements, made them subject to discrimination, physical attacks or mob-organized attacks or they fled the country. Jewish communities in Iraq and Baghdad pre-60's, Lebanon's Catholic/Shiite Muslim sectarian religious political divide that exploded into civil war in 1975.

"...FALSE, REPEAT, FALSE DAMMIT...victimhood."

 

[MT15]

Back to Covid, at least peripherally anyway. I was very skeptical at the time that the increased unemployment benefits had much to do with people not returning to crappy jobs that pay poorly.

So here’s the first analysis I’ve seen. It didn’t make all that much difference between the states that suspended the extra payments and those who didn’t. 7 out of 8 people who lost their extra unemployment still didn’t find a job.

Ending unemployment benefits had little impact on jobs and fueled $2 billion spending cut, study finds

States that withdrew early from federal unemployment programs saw households cut spending by nearly $2 billion through early August, according to a new study.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Saintman2884]

Cool. I didn't know Jews were evangelical Christians..

Would you like me to list all of the attacks Christians have perpetrated on others
since the Catholic church was founded?

Also, why do you think there was a pan-Arab nationalist movement post WWII ? Could it be because Christians and Zionists wanted to impose the foundation of Israel in Palestine? ... nah...

Now excuse me, I am running late to my "war against xmas" rally.

Let me ask you first: why did Zionism form in the first place and why did many of its early-mid 20th century most foremost intellectuals, activists and first generation of Isreali leaders point to the Western world after WWII and say, "We need a state of our own, because European history is chock full of racists, Social Darwinists, racial nationalists, eugenicists, reactionary scapegoat-looking Catholic clergy, Popes, Lutherans, Spanish Inquisitionors have used as convenient safety valve for discontent, redirect resentment, mistrust of centuries of papal domination of secular political issues in European and even in the relatively more tolerant Ottoman-dominated ME and southeastern Europe, particularly in the still-smoldering tenderbox region we call the Balkans.

Blood libels, second or third-class citizenship, unquestioned dogma that began with arguably with either Sts. Jerome or Augustine, using vague, contradictory Scriptural interpretation from early Pauline gospels, began claiming in the 6th century C.E. that the Jews were eternally cursed for convicting and murdering Christ, being forced to live in ghettos, wear certain hats or clothes, in some regions, were forbidden to read or teach Torah or other sacred Jewish religious texts. Yeah, why should most post-WWII European Jews believe that Europe or even the Soviet Union claims that be treated fairly or differently? Thats the same nice, well-meaning rhetoric they'd heard and been forced to swallow for centuries but whenever some unprincipled, right-wing nationalist looking to make a name for himself and try to manipulate some countries set of misfortunes(be it losing a costly, bloody war, having to accept sole responsibility for starting it(War Guilt clause), a serious worldwide recession or depression happens and some simplistic, unintelligent, angry, disaffected and ignorant groups in society look for scapegoats, the Jews will always be one of those minorities at the top of the pecking order to blame things on.

Zionism is a political ideology built around a need or a desire for European (and American) Jews to prevent themselves from always being the eternal scapegoats or eternal, festering boogeyman every time some major political, socio-economic crisis hits the continent and some unprincipled, reactionary group of European nationalists are looking for some "shadowy" ethno-religious groups to blame it on. See the famous, historical forgery called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, written in the 1890's by a former Russian Orthodox priest turned Ahnranka Czarist police agent in Paris to defend Czarist Russia's inhumane, horrific human rights atrocities of organizing pogroms against Jews living all throughout Russia for centuries, if you want some forking proof.

 

[Paul]

Let me ask you first: why did Zionism form in the first place and why did many of its early-mid 20th century most foremost intellectuals, activists and first generation of Isreali leaders point to the Western world after WWII and say, "We need a state of our own, because European history is chock full of racists, Social Darwinists, racial nationalists, eugenicists, reactionary scapegoat-looking Catholic clergy, Popes, Lutherans, Spanish Inquisitionors have used as convenient safety valve for discontent, redirect resentment, mistrust of centuries of papal domination of secular political issues in European and even in the relatively more tolerant Ottoman-dominated ME and southeastern Europe, particularly in the still-smoldering tenderbox region we call the Balkans.

Blood libels, second or third-class citizenship, unquestioned dogma that began with arguably with either Sts. Jerome or Augustine, using vague, contradictory Scriptural interpretation from early Pauline gospels, began claiming in the 6th century C.E. that the Jews were eternally cursed for convicting and murdering Christ, being forced to live in ghettos, wear certain hats or clothes, in some regions, were forbidden to read or teach Torah or other sacred Jewish religious texts. Yeah, why should most post-WWII European Jews believe that Europe or even the Soviet Union claims that be treated fairly or differently? Thats the same nice, well-meaning rhetoric they'd heard and been forced to swallow for centuries but whenever some unprincipled, right-wing nationalist looking to make a name for himself and try to manipulate some countries set of misfortunes(be it losing a costly, bloody war, having to accept sole responsibility for starting it(War Guilt clause), a serious worldwide recession or depression happens and some simplistic, unintelligent, angry, disaffected and ignorant groups in society look for scapegoats, the Jews will always be one of those minorities at the top of the pecking order to blame things on.

Zionism is a political ideology built around a need or a desire for European (and American) Jews to prevent themselves from always being the eternal scapegoats or eternal, festering boogeyman every time some major political, socio-economic crisis hits the continent and some unprincipled, reactionary group of European nationalists are looking for some "shadowy" ethno-religious groups to blame it on. See the famous, historical forgery called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, written in the 1890's by a former Russian Orthodox priest turned Ahnranka Czarist police agent in Paris to defend Czarist Russia's inhumane, horrific human rights atrocities of organizing pogroms against Jews living all throughout Russia for centuries, if you want some forking proof.

Love your post.!
Tribalism sucks!

 

[Saintman2884]

Cool. I didn't know Jews were evangelical Christians..

Would you like me to list all of the attacks Christians have perpetrated on others
since the Catholic church was founded?

Also, why do you think there was a pan-Arab nationalist movement post WWII ? Could it be because Christians and Zionists wanted to impose the foundation of Israel in Palestine? ... nah...

Now excuse me, I am running late to my "war against xmas" rally.

You didnt even bother to answer or refute my assertions or claims about Coptic Christians in Egypt or minority Jewish or Christian communities in Iran and other predominantly Muslim ME countries are attacked, sexually or physically assaulted, discriminated against or told or made to feel like forking third-class citizens.


Then there's the long-stemming, festering, boiling pot of sectarian religious warfare and arguably failed state we call Lebanon. A once-tolerant, prosperous rich, culturally diverse multi-ethnic nation whose capital, Beirut, was called the "Paris of the Middle East" became a violent, ungovernable, vicious battle ground for nearly two decades beginning in 1975.

 

[SystemShock]

Let me ask you first: why did Zionism form in the first place and why did many of its early-mid 20th century most foremost intellectuals, activists and first generation of Isreali leaders point to the Western world after WWII and say, "We need a state of our own, because...

... without an established Israel, there is no coming of the the Messiah.

 

[SystemShock]

You didnt even bother to answer or refute my assertions or claims

Why would I bother to do that? Even taking those instances into consideration, still, no one does fake victim like evangelical Christians do fake victim.

It's a tiresome apologetic trope, the Coptic Christians, to try to deny the persecution complex evangelical Christians claim everywhere else in the world.

 

[SystemShock]

Sorry, I was trying to do what you do so well. No worries. This is what you wanted. A low level exchange of mindless expressions.
Carry on!

 

[Paul]

I believe that one day you will come out and post more than just a one liner or caricatures.

 

[Dragon]

Let me ask you first: why did Zionism form in the first place and why did many of its early-mid 20th century most foremost intellectuals, activists and first generation of Isreali leaders point to the Western world after WWII and say, "We need a state of our own, because European history is chock full of racists, Social Darwinists, racial nationalists, eugenicists, reactionary scapegoat-looking Catholic clergy, Popes, Lutherans, Spanish Inquisitionors have used as convenient safety valve for discontent, redirect resentment, mistrust of centuries of papal domination of secular political issues in European and even in the relatively more tolerant Ottoman-dominated ME and southeastern Europe, particularly in the still-smoldering tenderbox region we call the Balkans.

Blood libels, second or third-class citizenship, unquestioned dogma that began with arguably with either Sts. Jerome or Augustine, using vague, contradictory Scriptural interpretation from early Pauline gospels, began claiming in the 6th century C.E. that the Jews were eternally cursed for convicting and murdering Christ, being forced to live in ghettos, wear certain hats or clothes, in some regions, were forbidden to read or teach Torah or other sacred Jewish religious texts. Yeah, why should most post-WWII European Jews believe that Europe or even the Soviet Union claims that be treated fairly or differently? Thats the same nice, well-meaning rhetoric they'd heard and been forced to swallow for centuries but whenever some unprincipled, right-wing nationalist looking to make a name for himself and try to manipulate some countries set of misfortunes(be it losing a costly, bloody war, having to accept sole responsibility for starting it(War Guilt clause), a serious worldwide recession or depression happens and some simplistic, unintelligent, angry, disaffected and ignorant groups in society look for scapegoats, the Jews will always be one of those minorities at the top of the pecking order to blame things on.

Zionism is a political ideology built around a need or a desire for European (and American) Jews to prevent themselves from always being the eternal scapegoats or eternal, festering boogeyman every time some major political, socio-economic crisis hits the continent and some unprincipled, reactionary group of European nationalists are looking for some "shadowy" ethno-religious groups to blame it on. See the famous, historical forgery called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, written in the 1890's by a former Russian Orthodox priest turned Ahnranka Czarist police agent in Paris to defend Czarist Russia's inhumane, horrific human rights atrocities of organizing pogroms against Jews living all throughout Russia for centuries, if you want some forking proof.

And yet Israel imposes much of the same treatment described when it comes to their non-jewish citizents. People whose families have lived there for centuries. And they have occupied their neighbors for more than 50 years. And Israel have plenty of those ultra-rigth wing nationalist too

 

[samiam5211]

And yet Israel imposes much of the same treatment described when it comes to their non-jewish citizents. People whose families have lived there for centuries. And they have occupied their neighbors for more than 50 years. And Israel have plenty of those ultra-rigth wing nationalist too

Yea, it isn't like Jews are ever going to be safe in Israel.

or that anything justifies moving a large number of people on to land where other people already lived. Then providing those refuges with massive military equipment that allows them to bully their new neighbors.

The existence of the state of Israel only served to shift the base of anti-Semitism from the West to the Middle East.

 

[J-DONK]

I wondered when the capitalism side of not getting a vaccine was going to catch up. You can take a free vaccine, or a potentially very expensive hospital stay.

Delta Air Lines is raising health insurance premiums for unvaccinated employees by $200 a month to cover higher Covid costs

Delta is the latest company to issue new rules for employee vaccinations, but stopped short of an outright mandate.

www.cnbc.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

stuck between a rock and a hard place

anti vax mandates but pro business
============================

President Biden this week responded to the Food and Drug Administration’s full authorization of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine by calling on employers around the country to mandate it for their employees — which it seems many will.


And Republicans as a party don’t seem to know what to do with that.


In the days since the FDA’s authorization and Biden’s call, Republicans who have otherwise fought tooth and nail against vaccine mandates have been surprisingly quiet about the prospect of employer mandates.

And the few who have spoken out have generally said employers should be allowed to implement them.
The issue has played out in recent weeks and months in a number of states, with some lawmakers pushing for bans on mandates.

But unlike the party’s posture toward school mask mandates, government vaccine mandates and vaccine passports, there is little cohesion on this subject. So far, only one state bans employer vaccine mandates: Montana……

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/25/gop-struggles-with-what-do-employer-vaccine-mandates/

 

[RebSaint]

I wondered when the capitalism side of not getting a vaccine was going to catch up. You can take a free vaccine, or a potentially very expensive hospital stay.

Delta Air Lines is raising health insurance premiums for unvaccinated employees by $200 a month to cover higher Covid costs

Delta is the latest company to issue new rules for employee vaccinations, but stopped short of an outright mandate.

www.cnbc.com

Or the big insurance companies which are underwriting public and private employers who may all of sudden have millions of workers unable to get medical treatment because hospitals are full up and they can't work because they're too sick or quarantined.

Even crony capitalism depends on human interaction on just about every level, unless of course we all want to go back to live with zoom in our individual pods.

It's one thing to care for the indigent, poor and "lazy" but when people working, being productive and paying the freight one way or the other can't show up in person....we have to get back to normal but fight any and every mitigation effort to control or mitigate the pandemic.

It's just exhausting stupidity.

The idiots fought the shutdowns, fought masks, and now fighting vaccines. Hoisted by their petardation.

What a shirt show.

 

[Saintman2884]

Or the big insurance companies which are underwriting public and private employers who may all of sudden have millions of workers unable to get medical treatment because hospitals are full up and they can't work because they're too sick or quarantined.

Even crony capitalism depends on human interaction on just about every level, unless of course we all want to go back to live with zoom in our individual pods.

It's one thing to care for the indigent, poor and "lazy" but when people working, being productive and paying the freight one way or the other can't show up in person....we have to get back to normal but fight any and every mitigation effort to control or mitigate the pandemic.

It's just exhausting stupidity.

The idiots fought the shutdowns, fought masks, and now fighting vaccines. Hoisted by their petardation.

What a shirt show.

A lot of the impetus comes from social-media fueled misinformation, deliberate or intentional ambivalent, less-than-strident calls from former Pres. Trump to his followers or MAGA cult or just fellow Americans in general to get vaccinated or wear mistakes and other high-ranking Republicans. Its calculated misinformation that their fueling off even though, they, of all people, know just how dangerous and deadly Covid or the Delta variant, and most of them were some of the first to be fully vaccinated.

Many media commentators have openly said, "Why would Trump want to politicize anti-vaxxers, or have his minions fight mask mandates so openly if its not in the American public best interest?"

The answer is, of course, very simple: Trump, intrinsically doesn't care because like most malignant narcissists/sociopaths, what matters ultimately is what will work for him, in the long-or-short term, in terms of political or personal gain. And politicizing the vaccine rollout or fighting mask mandates in public places, he sees as something that might benefit him someway, politically. Doesn't matter or really take into consideration the massive death toll, endless scores of many others who survive but are permenantly scarred, psychologically/physically, as long as he deludes himself into thinking it'll hurt Biden's presidency somehow in someway, even if it really doesn't.

Another factor considering, Reb, why some Americans still refuse to wear masks or at least get partially vaccinated is pride but also kind of a phenomenon I term, "delayed by-stander effect"---that they can live their lives however they want or did pre-pandemic, and they won't have to be fully vaccinated, because 75-80% of rest of Americans will do it for them, herd immunity will catch on and life will slowly but surely go back to normal.

Everyone else will get their Covid-19 boosters and the small minority they assume is them won't have to and herd immunity will be their saving, lasting grace. Except more then a tiny miniscule minority of Americans fall into this category and for this country to reach some sort of herd immunity protection collectively, it requires some of these diehard, foolish resolute, " never-vaxxers" to get their shots and wear masks.

Ive also heard a few suggest that like the H1N1 virus Spanish Flu pandemic immediately following WWI from 1918-21, perhaps Covid-19 will eventually lose its virulent potency similar supposedly to how "Spanish Flu" essentially lost its stringent, virulent potency by 1921. Reb, if you're unfamiliar, the last major part of the globe the H1N1 virus effected a century ago was Australia/New Zealand and compared to other major regions affected by the pandemic, the death toll wasnt as severe, and medical researchers, historians have found the virus potency had decreased significantly by 1921. It's also well-known that 100 years ago, the world wasnt nearly as interconnected via trade or business as it is now and Australia/New Zealand were some of the most remote, isolated regions back then and werent inundated with foreigners or had become well-established tourist destinations by that point.

 

[insidejob]

Hey, I stole this article from the feed over there on the right side of the screen. Good read: https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...icans-are-so-opposed-to-the-covid-19-vaccine/

In the race to get Americans vaccinated, two groups are commanding a lot of attention: Republicans and white evangelicals. Both are less likely to have been vaccinated already and more likely to refuse vaccination altogether.

But it’s the overlap between white Republicans and white evangelicals that is especially telling, as white evangelical Republicans are among the most likely groups in the U.S. to refuse vaccination. According to a June survey by the Public Religion Research Institute, where I’m the research director, and the Interfaith Youth Core, white evangelical Republicans were considerably less likely to say they were vaccinated or planning to get vaccinated as soon as possible (53 percent) than Republicans who were not white evangelicals (62 percent). Moreover, white evangelical Republicans were the most likely of any large subgroup we surveyed to say they were refusing to get vaccinated (26 percent).


That the combination of being a Republican and a white evangelical would form a particularly toxic anti-vax stew, more significant than party or religion alone, seems obvious to me, but then again, I grew up in rural Texas — I see this combination of beliefs in motion every day on Facebook, where I’m connected to many high school and college classmates.

According to PRRI’s 2020 religion census, the county where I lived longest as a kid (Leon) is 72 percent white Christian, including 44 percent white evangelical, and election data shows 87 percent of the county voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020. Just over one-third of the county’s eligible population is fully vaccinated, even though COVID-19 case rates are higher than they have ever been. At least three people who went to high school with me have died, while tracking statistics say at least 1 in 9 Leon County residents have been ill — almost as many as in New York City (1 in 8), one of the hardest-hit areas in the country, and well over the rate in Washington, D.C. (1 in 13), where I live now.

This is significant because Leon County is extremely rural, with less than 20,000 total residents, including less than 2,000 in Buffalo, the town I lived near. For reference, my high school has only about 260 students at any given time. If you need ICU treatment, you have to travel — there are currently no hospitals with ICUs in the county.

But what is also significant about Leon County is the role religion has played in residents’ low vaccination rates even when faced with death from the coronavirus. When my classmates were hospitalized with COVID-19, there were repeated calls for prayers and proclamations that God would provide healing. When they died, those prayer requests became comments that “God called [them] home.”

Give the rest a read.

 

[insidejob]

This here isn't really political at all, unless you have a bias against llamas, of course.

I think it'd be pretty awesome if llamas turned out to save the world from COVID.

Team Llama!!!

Are Llama Cells Being Tested in Humans as Possible COVID Treatment?

Wait to alpaca your masks away.

www.snopes.com

In addition to pharmacies, hospitals, and vaccination centers, a Belgium farm could be ground zero in the global fight against the highly contagious COVID-19 delta variant, according to news reports that surfaced in late August 2021.

Why? The farmland in Ghent, which is about 37 miles (or 60 kilometers) from Brussels, was the home of Winter — a 5-year-old llama who spends her days grazing with about 130 of her alpaca and llama friends, according to a 2020 Golden Goose Award entry dedicated to her contributions to science.

But in addition to those traits, Winter’s immune system supposedly produced a special, very small antibody that, the August 2021 reports claimed, may lead to medical products that could stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease, in humans’ immune systems.



In short, the underlying assertion was this: Researchers had recently injected human test subjects with a formula that included remnants of cells from a llama’s blood to see if, or to what extent, those nonhuman antibodies helped combat SARS-CoV-2.



That claim was true, though we’ll provide some important context to make sense of the research.

Years before the pandemic, Jason McLellan, an associate professor of molecular biosciences at the University of Austin, teamed up with Ghent-based researchers at the VIB-UGent Center for Medical Biotechnology to study camelids’ antibodies and how they react to immunizations, according to the Golden Goose Award entry. (“Camelids” include camels, alpacas, and llamas.) Their goal: to determine whether, and how, llama’s immune systems could produce antibodies that could be used for medical therapies.

“While humans only make one kind of antibody, made up of heavy and light protein chains arranged in a Y-shape, camelids produce two,” the entry stated. “One of these is very similar to a human antibody. The other, called a single-domain antibody, VHH, or nanobody, does not have any light-chain proteins. This makes it much smaller, which is a boon to researchers.”

Pretty bad arse.

 

[MT15]

Here is an interesting article about a cheap, readily available drug that can help with early Covid, and possibly head off the severe disease.

How a cheap antidepressant emerged as a promising Covid-19 treatment — Vox

Most Covid-19 drug treatments that have been included in trials haven’t panned out. A large new study suggests fluvoxamine might be different.

apple.news