No, people are making a big deal out of this because Russia marched troops and mobile armor into Ukraine, allowed (some would say encouraged) armed mobs of fanatical ethnic Russians to run amok, surrounded Ukrainian bases in Crimea, and then decided there should be a hastily organized vote on whether Crimea should join Russia immediately or become independent and let its leadership vote on whether to join Russia (no options to remain part of Ukraine). Ethnic Russians make up about 51% of Crimea. Since Crimea was handed to Ukraine some 60 years ago, younger generations of ethnic Russians have grown up as Ukrainians and largely self-identify as Ukrainian. About 15% of the population there are ethnic Tatars, who were brutalized and murdered by Russia until Crimea came under control of Ukraine. The rest is mostly ethnic Ukrainian.

So with Russian tanks and armed troops parked outside peoples' homes and armed mobs of fanatical pro-Russia groups roaming the streets uninhibited, a vote took place in which 97% of votes cast were to join Russia. 97%, despite the fact that at least 15% of the population would essentially be like Jews voting to have their homes fall under the control of the Nazis. The Russians claim this is somehow a legitimate vote and that the people of Crimea have the right to simply vote themselves part of any country they choose (so long as that country is Russia).

There's very little fighting going on. Much of the violence you're seeing in Crimea is from pro-Russian fanatics who've formed armed mobs supported by the Russian military. They've killed or wounded a small number of Ukrainian soldiers stationed at Ukrainian bases in Crimea and they're generally running amok because nobody's stopping them. The Ukrainian troops in Crimea aren't shooting because if they did, the Russians would just murder them (bombing from the air, rockets from helicopters, shelling from artillery; the Russians have a lot of options against small numbers in tight quarters armed only with small arms). As it turns out, about half the Ukrainian military on the ground in Crimea are joining Russian forces, likely because they don't want to be on the losing end of a potential slaughter and/or due to personal or familial Russian self-identification issues.

Amazing how the percentage keeps going up. Every decent source I've seen says 51% ethnic Russians. A poster here named etash claims it's 60%. You're claiming 65%.

Well I'm now claiming it's 104%! 104% of Crimea is ethnic Russians! 110% of them voted to join Russia! Vote is complete! It is fair and reasonable!

You'd need to adjust your analogy to assume the Nazis stayed in power (being that Putin is "ex" KGB and is running the place like the Soviet Union of old). So it would be like saying that if the Nazis who exterminated Jews still controlled the German government, all Jews who ran from Hitler would still hate/distrust Germans.

And yes, I think that's fair to say.

Even Russia doesn't claim that. I don't know if you're drinking Putin's Kool-Aid or if he's drinking your's.

There is no dispute that Crimea was part of Ukraine a month ago. Seriously, not even Putin has ever claimed any differently. The area belonged to Ukraine. The argument Putin has made is that the people there didn't want to be part of Ukraine anymore; they wanted to have Crimea be part of Russia again, and that the right of self-determination makes it all legal. But that's a far cry from claiming it was always Russian land.

Also, it isn't 60% Russian. It's about 51% ethnic Russian. Of those, the younger generations grew up only ever knowing it as part of Ukraine. Therefore, even among ethnic Russians, some percentage would self-identify as Ukrainian. Then you have the roughly 15% Tatars who've had nothing but persecution under Russian rule (the reason so many of them are there is that Russia got tired of beating the Hell out of them and expelled them from Russia ... to Ukraine). Between the ethnic Ukrainians, Tatars, and the younger generation of ethnic Russians who self-identify as Ukrainian, a fair vote would likely be something like 45% join Russia 55% not (some mix between becoming independent and staying with Ukraine).

The fact that it was 97% shows just what a Saddam Hussein style "vote" it really was.

As someone who manages a decent sized VMware vSphere environment, I can tell you that core counts are not so important as you may think. My AMD-based ESXi servers have triple and quadruple the cores of my Intel-based ESXi servers, yet they experience chronic problems with CPU Ready Time at far lower over-subscription rates and even sometimes while under-subscribed if some oversized VMs are present. It's one of the reasons I'm pushing through a complete shift away from high-core count Opterons (24 and 32 core hosts) and moving toward lower core count (mostly 8 core) Xeon hosts.

And that deeply pains me as someone who's used AMD CPUs since the K6-2 days. Once Intel fell into the P4 clock speed trap, I thought AMD would finally be able to beat them into submission. Sadly, AMD has sat idly by and allowed Intel to dominate nearly every metric of raw performance. As much as I grew up loving AMD as the plucky underdog, I can't ignore reality and I have to make the smartest decisions from a professional standpoint. When licensing costs get added to the mix, Intel absolutely obliterates AMD from a TCO perspective in the server space. I hate it, but it's true, and I'm left with little choice if I want to be honest.

I think it's just as (un)fair to say that anyone deemed particularly susceptible to a particular disease (inability to get vaccinated, immunocompromised individuals, etc) have to be quarantined. No, the answer is to say that it's a wise idea to get vaccinated, just as it's a wise idea to wear your seat belt and a wise idea to eat lots of fruits and veggies every day and to get plenty of exercise. Those choosing to do otherwise? They're fine; leave them alone.

No they don't. They aren't threatening you at all. Just stop that absurd notion.

Disease is part of nature. Choosing to allow nature to run its course is every single human being's right. You have no fundamental right to beat natural selection. You certainly have no right to violate the integrity of anyone else's body by forcing drugs into their bodies.

No, it isn't. There's a difference between someone who's potentially more vulnerable to a disease because their immune system hasn't been trained to recognize it and someone who's a known, active carrier of a specific disease who is knowingly infecting other people. So no, that isn't at all what I am advocating.

If you can't see the difference between "I refuse to utilize man-made means to boost my immune system" and "I'm going to purposely infect myself with this weaponized biological agent so I can infect others", then there just isn't any hope for you as you lack basic logic and critical thinking skills necessary for the comprehension of this discussion. If you actually believe what you're saying here - and you're not just doing it for effect because you want to make your case or make a point - then let's just stop right now because there's no rationalizing with an irrational person. If you're just trying to make your point, then you should do so in a way which makes sense as it'll carry more weight.

Reducing herd immunity? Not measurably. "Making people get sick and die"? That's patently absurd. No one is making anyone get sick and die. You wouldn't say that an AIDS patient who cannot tolerate vaccinations against diseases is "making people get sick and die", would you? They're compromising herd immunity exactly as much as someone who merely chooses not to get vaccinated. The effect is the same: one less person out of the whole of the "herd" has a potentially better prepared immune system. And in any event, unless the particular individual is actively infected, contagious, and is knowingly interacting with the public under those conditions, there's no case to be made that they're making anyone sick. A healthy person unvaccinated against Influenza who is not infected with Influenza or who is not interacting with other people while they have and are contagious with Influenza is not making ANYONE sick. Get real.

No, it really is. We're talking about a hypothetical person refusing a hypothetical vaccine which may or may not provide any immune system boost for said hypothetical person against said hypothetical disease. That's hypothetical. Even if you reference a specific, real person, a vaccine will only provide a chance of improved immune system response to specific strains of a specific type of pathogen. There's no magic shield that envelopes a vaccinated individual; they simply have a better chance of their immune system being able to quickly respond to and destroy that pathogen upon infection. If their immune system doesn't respond as expected, or if that response is later counteracted by some other factor, or even the slightest of genetic mutations takes place in the pathogen, there's little help from the vaccine. Doesn't mean vaccines are anything less than a godsend for humanity in the fight against pandemics, but there's no guarantee of any level of actual protection or contribution to herd immunity at an individual level. To claim there is is purely speculative and, as previously stated, entirely hypothetical.

I fixed your grossly inaccurate statement for you. An individual who refuses vaccination and subsequently becomes infected with a pathogen is not "allowing themselves to be infected". They didn't ask for the infection; that's just victim-blaming bullshit. "Did you see the way she was dressed refusing vaccinations? She was askin' for it!" Stop it. Just stop it.

And? People die every day. Life is a terminal condition. No one - so far as medical science is concerned - has ever escaped life without eventually dying. People are born, they live, and they die. That's the natural world. Some of them die by animal attacks, some by human attacks, some by accidents, some by gross negligence or stupidity, some because of genetic malfunction, and many because of disease. People die; get over it.

Oh just stop it. You aren't making any decisions about dozens of other people. Those people have to make their own medical decisions. If you don't want to risk being around anyone who hasn't been vaccinated (either by choice, medical necessity, or for any other reason), ask every single person you come into contact with whether they've had their shots and demand documentation. If anyone fails to provide that, leave. Or, if that seems absurd to you (and by God I hope it does), you could simply make smart choices for your own health, do the best you can, and roll the dice. Every time you get out of bed, you're rolling the dice. You don't get to dictate how everyone else lives their lives simply because you want to skew that dice roll in your favor in some futile attempt to postpone your inevitable death.

Deciding against getting vaccinated is not deciding that people will get sick and die. The process of not getting vaccinated does not involve deliberately infecting other people with pathogens. In fact, all it involves is not engaging in a man-made medical practice; allowing nature to take its course. There's nothing - NOTHING - about refusing vaccinations which causes another person to become sick. There isn't some vaccine fairy living in the clouds that shoots someone with the Measles arrow every time someone makes the decision not to get vaccinated. And even if this magic cloud Measles fairy did exist, it STILL isn't the fault of the person refusing the vaccination that the magic cloud fairy infected another person; it's the fairy's fault.

I'm not trying to argue that it's a good idea to avoid vaccinations; I think it's a bad idea. I think it's a fantastic example of how bad most people are at risk assessment in their daily lives and every reason I've heard for why people refuse vaccines has struck me as being based in ignorance and/or absurdities. What I am arguing is that they have every right to make poor decisions about what they do or don't put into their own bodies. By that token, I would argue that if someone wants to drink themselves into a stupor every night, or smoke a joint, or shoot Heroin five nights a week, they should have at it. Destroy your body and your brain if you choose. Two conditions: 1, you're still responsible for anything you do while under the influence of these things. And 2, no public monies supporting your terrible decisions.

People have the right to make what you and I might judge to be poor decisions so long as those decisions do not directly impact the rights of other people. Now you might make a reasonable argument that there's an indirect rise in risk factors for other people because of the decision not to vaccinate, but that isn't violating anyone's rights.

You have no right to protection against the natural world and you certainly have no right to force others to assist you in trying to protect yourself against the natural world.

If you're right, then every court has not only the power and authority, but in fact a duty and an obligation to ensure no parent ever does or fails to do anything which might in any way result in a child's lack of safety. Put your kid in the wrong (unsafe) school? State takes them. Give your kid candy or soda - even once? State takes them. Yell at your kid for running out into the street? State takes them. Let them ride their bicycle without full body protective gear? State takes them. And you go to prison for child abuse.

I don't like that, and I'm not going to allow that. That's why I work on the local, state, and Federal level to keep stupid, idiotic shit like that from happening. I hope it does happen to you, because it's the only way you're going to understand what a dangerous and scary road you're trying to take us down. Parents do not own their children as property, but they do have a biological claim to them and to make decisions as to how best to raise, protect, and care for their own child without the interference of busy-bodies like you or heavily armed agents of the government.

Leave people the fuck alone. Mind your own goddamn business and just leave other people alone. Live your own goddamn life rather than engaging in self-righteous, pompous, arrogant crusades telling everyone else how to live their's. You keep sticking your nose in other peoples' business and eventually you're going to lose that nose. And I'll bet you won't like that very much either.

All based on the premise that disease is a man-made method of inflicting harm upon others.

Sorry friend, nature's been killing people with disease since the first species we'd recognize as "people" stood upright and breathed. Unless someone is deliberately using a disease as a weapon (e.g. self-infecting with Bubonic Plague then strolling through an airport coughing on people), the spread of disease is an act of nature. You don't have the right to force drugs into my bloodstream because you think it might help you survive slightly longer. That's the most offensively invasive trampling of the rights of a human being ever conceived. Any individual of sound mind who finds themselves being strapped to a gurney to have drugs forced into their system is under attack and has every natural born right to defend themselves by any means necessary.

If that's not clear enough, let me make it just a little bit clearer: anyone trying to do this to a sane individual deserves to have that individual end them right then and there. That solves your stupid disease problem, doesn't it.

Giving them anything other than organically grown fruits, veggies, legumes, and water is endangering your kids. You don't own them; the state does. And the state will repossess its kids from you the moment you offer them a soda.

On your knees, citizen scum.

They aren't; those courts are run by fascist pigs.

Doing harm to your child through harmful actions is abuse. Allowing life to happen to you and/or your kids is not. Life is a terminal condition. Covering the Earth in foam padding will not change that. Is it unfortunate that - through the inaction of their parents, who may be totally well intentioned - some unlucky kids will suffer? Yes, just as it's unfortunate whenever anyone suffers. Is that part of life? Yes. Life is too short and too precious to have busy-bodies dictating how everyone else must live their's.

Or we could take the money from those PSAs and use it to work on developing vaccines more people can tolerate. Then we can stand by and let people make their own decisions and live their own lives.

I get what you're saying, but I don't entirely agree with it. I think the ubiquitous presence of all things anti-bacterial is screwing us up pretty badly, but exposing someone to weakened or dead disease causing agents is doing no harm to their immune system; it's helping it build without damaging the rest of the body. That said, I 100% support your right to make those kinds of decisions for your own kids regardless of how I personally judge those decisions and I'll gladly stand against the crusading fascists who'd happily employ agents of the government to bust down your door, strap your kids to a gurney, and jam needles full of drugs into their arms.

That kind of thinking has killed tens of millions more than any lack of vaccination.

You actually believe it's right for government agents to bust down peoples' doors, strap their kids to a gurney, jam a needle in their arms, and pump them full of drugs to achieve a theoretical reduction of risk for some other kids who nature made differently? WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU?!

Life is a terminal condition. Quit trying to cover the Earth in foam padding and justifying your self-righteous jackboot promoting crusades into how other people live their lives by claiming it's for the benefit of others. Your ideas were bullshit in 1930s Germany and they're bullshit today.

What's the solution for those kids who nature doesn't allow to receive vaccines in their current form? Do what every other person who's ever lived on this planet has done and roll the fucking dice! Nobody's forcing them to "live in a bubble" as you put it, except maybe you so you can tell them it's for their own good. They can live perfectly normal lives and they're at no higher risk than anyone else who isn't vaccinated. If you really want to help them, invest your own goddamn time, energy, and money to make a better vaccine that they can tolerate. You aren't helping them by constructing a fascist regime of forced drug-taking.

Every time enough people who think like you get together in the same place, millions of people die violently and horribly. Are there any vaccines available against people who think like you? Because I'd love to take all I can get. Your self-righteous indignation leading to fascist crusading sickens me.