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Comment Re: Predicrtable. (Score 1) 124

Yes, if you'd been following along I was identifying a SPECIFIC PERSON'S hypocrisy.
If I'm calling out one person as a tendentious hypocrite, what relevance would be articles by some Washington weekly, Vox*, or the "Bipartisan policy center"**?

*oops:
"Initially effective at increasing deportations, the Secure Communities program was short-lived. It faced blowback from primarily liberal jurisdictions, driving a revival of the movement to offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants in the 2010s.
The concern among progressives was that it would reduce trust in law enforcement among immigrant communities and make everyone less safe because fewer people would report crimes. It also led to the deportation of people who had only committed minor offenses or had no criminal convictions.
In 2014, Obama rescinded the program in response."

** to their main question: why isn't Trump prioritizing the worst criminals? Well....they don't appear to really know, "it appears" "it seems" - when a quick perusal of the WH's own official statement repeatedly mentions prioritizing public safety. https://www.whitehouse.gov/pre...
FWIW, honestly, I don't care how they prioritize them. If they're caught, send them home, full stop. Bird in the hand is one that doesn't get to fly to some shitty "sanctuary city" and rob/rape/kill some innocent person there.

Comment Re:Not if but when (Score 1) 134

Yes, because certainly nobody did science (tm) before governments drove it?

Maybe we could check in with Mr Eisenhower, from his famous "beware the military-industrial complex" speech:
https://www.archives.gov/miles...

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

...it's funny nobody remembers this bit, ain't it?

Comment I'm impressed with their tenacity (Score -1, Flamebait) 228

That's bold, considering the last flu vaccine round had a NEGATIVE 26.9% efficacy.
#followthescience

Yes, you read it right, if you were vaccinated you had a 27% HIGHER chance of getting the flu.
https://www.medrxiv.org/conten...

Now, a host of slashdot leftists are ALREADY TYPING THEIR RAGE_REPLY because I must be an antivaxxer.

Actually, I'm not. I just don't participate in the "with us or against us" bullshit binary that's accreted around the COVID vaccines. (So that probably does make me an "enemy" in their book.)

I consider vaccines to be one of the greatest achievements of modern technology. I'm vaccinated. All our kids are vaccinated, and I haven't a single qualm about recommending MMR and the slate of childhood vaccines for every little kid.

THAT SAID, I also think that
- COVID panic was largely bullshit. It was a highly communicable but otherwise not-very-virulent corona virus strain that mainly affected older and vulnerable people. Thus the term..."vulnerable". At the end, the IFR for COVID19 was basically a bad flu*. Cry all you want, argue the actual data.
- the COVID vaccines were rushed, not nearly tested enough, and have resulted in some very questionable ongoing heart and other issues in younger people that had NOTHING to fear from COVID. Given the high effort in deliberately confounding the outcomes during the Biden administration, it's unlikely we'll ever know the truth.
- I'd have had much more confidence in the entire COVID event had one side not made all the decisions for everyone and insisted no debate was allowed. OPENLY discussing the causes, the treatments, and what we did/didn't know would have been preferable to the "STFU we know what's good for you" nearly-totalitarian approach. Hell, here in MN there was an almost-palpable disappointment we didn't get to use the corpse-storage-buildings the state rushed to rent.

Do you take issue with my tone? Tough shit. Anyone daring to question the Holy COVID doctrine was aggressively silenced for YEARS while the mandarins in charge RUINED lives flexing their emergency doctrines and now will evade any consequence for their awful decision making. Yeah, that bothers me.

* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/a...
The median IFR (COVID19)was
0.0003% at 0-19 years
0.002% at 20-29 years
0.011% at 30-39 years
0.035% at 40-49 years
0.123% at 50-59 years
0.506% at 60-69 years
https://www.medrxiv.org/conten... median IFR for flu you'll have to look as the graph isn't postable in (the ancient shit-code of) /. comments but sits at about 125/100k or 0.125%
Yes, lots more people got COVID. It was highly communicable. But nobody under 30 should have been even faintly discomfited, even people under 50 really shouldn't have given much of a shit.
Quarantining sick people in elderly homes was a catastrophically stupid idea and we knew it by March/April 2020.

Comment Except... (Score 1) 136

...basically, the earth should be warmer.

The bulk of its history it's been a great deal warmer, with higher levels of CO2.
https://earthscience.stackexch...

The fact is that that the deep carbon cycle is not at equilibrium, with more carbon coming out of the mantle (through volcanic activity) than carbon going back to the mantle (through subduction).
This is good, because at 150ppm CO2, vegetation fails and everything dies.
https://www.frontiersin.org/jo...

Comment let's see if I understand (Score 1, Troll) 143

US raises tariffs on things: "Trump shouldn't put a tariff on incoming goods because it's all going to go to the price the US consumer will ultimately pay; a tariff on foreign goods is going to be paid by US consumers!"

Canada raises tariffs on things: "You go girl! Show your national strength resisting foreign economic hegemony ! "

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