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My profession is on the machine side of things, and I appreciate your acknowledgement of the technology that got us to the moon, but wow you're oversimplifying the job of the medical profession. I think I'm pretty good at my job but I would never belittle the work of so many of my friends and some of my family in the medical field like you just did. HIV viruses kept mutating even within the same person, how do you target that with a vaccine? That's like trying to nail down water. In contrast SARS-Cov-2 is relatively slow mutating. If you work in a lab I'm sure you already know the differences between different DNA and RNA polymerases and their error rates right? I'm not a doctor and even I could see, even last year, that covid-19 was much easier to make a vaccine for than HIV, because of the technical qualities of the problem rather than the amount of political will or funding. It doesn't excuse or change the injustice that it was stigmatized because of prejudice against the LGBT community, but to real scientists or engineers, political will or funding is only secondary importance to the fundamental technical issues. No amount of funding to my field will enable us to break fundamental laws of physics, for example. The only people who think it will are the ones who have no idea what they're talking about. PS. I do acknowledge you're talking about wider access to the latest breaking edge cures, and yes that is a political/funding problem. But things like an HIV vaccine or a cure for cancer are NOT just political/funding problems, they're really hard technical problems too.

Surely you recognize the Chewbacca defense by now.

{In fond, loving memory of a jumper & friend who added a lot of “spice” to our skydiving lore} Blue Skies Carbone! always in “The Zone” ............ It’s never too late for a Scotty Carbone story; I met Scotty in 72, we were both novice jumpers rising through the ranks at the Stormville Parachute center in NY. We were both “City boys” and I knew in an instant that Carbone was a clever, street smart hustler. I also learned he was a very skilled & talented individual and had that certain charm about him,(you loved him or not-so-much at all). We became jump buddies and friends. Scotty never seemed to have a “real” job, a car or any money but he always managed to get by. Since I lived in Brooklyn and he was on my way to the DZ, I would often give him a ride and believe me, surviving the 90 minute drive was an act of significant personal discipline. But as you may guess, there was always a surprise or two w/ him, some nights the, (OLD DIAL), phone would ring, like 2-3 in the morning, I would answer; “you BleepN recti, you woke my parents up, F—Off, I’ll pick you up at 8...” and too many times he wasn’t even home but somehow made it to the DZ anyway. During the next decade we jumped, competed, partied and we’re on a 10-man, speed star team together;(The Spaced Rangers). One of our guys,(Wayne S)got us a DZ sponsor for our jumps; Lakewood Parachute Center,NJ. They had a DC-3 and needed/wanted us to fill every load to help lower their cost of putting out static line students, so for $3 a jump we’d take our 12-13 slots and practice from about 7-7500’. Lakewood was a VERY conservative DZ and The Rangers w/ Carbone, (not-so-much). Their DZ manager always kept a watchful eye on us and our coolers, one day during a hold for low clouds, our cooler lids were active and later when the skies cleared, we hustled our gear on then headed to the 3, but In our way, is the manager, he’d seen enough and points to,(you know who), and says, “I want to smell your breath!”... well of course Scotty obliges in spontaneous Carbone fashion; he runs up to him, puts him in a bear hug, and smoothers this guys face with his wide open mouth. Scotty breathes hard into his face for about 10-15 seconds, (while we are pissing our pants laughing), then says “was that enough?” and lets him go, the poor guy did not know what happened. We boarded, jumped, broke off above 25, landed and packed... We never got checked again!! I can tell you dozens of Carbone Capers but if you’ve spent any amount of time w/ Scotty, you probably can too, that one was special...

Canadian Skydivers Lose COVID Restrictions April 1, 2021 Canadian skydivers no longer have to restrict themselves to small groups, or bubbles or social distancing or wear masks announced Omar Alghabar, Minister of Transport. "Since skydivers voluntarily take far greater risks than the general population, COVID 19 is only a minor additional risk for them. Besides, most skydivers are in the 2o to 40 age bracket, which is at low risk of dying from COVID. They may suffer chills, headaches and difficulty breathing during skydives, so COVID adds no additional risk. However, commercial pilots flying skydiving airplanes are still required to wear surgical masks and get regularly checked for COVID. We do ask that skydiving pilots please put their microphones INSIDE their mask, so that air traffic controllers can understand what they are saying. Too avoid contaminating the travelling public, Transport Canada also asks that skydivers avoid cluttering up the controlled air space frequented by commercial airliners." From a prepared statement. Transport Canada promised to update COVID restrictions as the vaccination campaign continues to roll forward.

That ought to be enough motivation to get the vaccines right there.

I've spoken out against these types of organizations more than once. Technically, profit centers under the guise of religion. Disgusts me. And, Kenneth Copeland is at the top of my list of "religious" jack-offs. I care and speak more of the small church in Central America that helps its congregation with clean water and housing than the Copelands of the world.

The first sentence is certainly true. The second part is misleading. Colere as a verb was much more used in Latin to indicated agricultural uses. But belief systems are certainly part of culture.

Hi Keith, Re: At some point, Jerry had an "awakening" and went from rep to dem Just for the record, I want from Rep to independent. Jerry Baumchen

The social experiment started on July 1, 1973 when the draft ended and we turned soldiering into a federal jobs program. Yes, 10% do go into combat but for the majority they have guaranteed jobs with education benefits. My nephew served in the US Navy as an avionics technician in Fresno. Yep, we have a Navy base in the California desert. He, like most who join, was just in for the job and the benefits. I don't doubt the integrity of your friends in any way and everyone has the right to change. But we do not bring a representative cross section of the country into our military.

Hi Keith, This is what gets me. 'Some' people complain that a vax record/document is just another way to watch us.* Like you, I carried all of those documents while in the military; and never thought anything of it. Today, I have my Driver's License with me all of the time; and some other documents, as well. And, when I travel, my passport goes with me. Too much paranoia me thinks. Jerry Baumchen * if anyone does not want to be 'watched,' they should simply discard their cell phone. Oops, that's blasphemy is it not? ETA: I voted Good Idea.

another one stolen by catholicism and bastardized so as to bring converts over. ever heard of samhain? that's where it began.

Well how long do you have? I could write a book. For one, I work in a hospital so I see what these 'treatments' look like on a daily basis. Actually, I work in the cardiopulmonary lab and so I especially get a first hand look. In short, the medical industry is a money making industry like any others and they dont make money on cures, they make it on treatments. They are incentivized to keep people sick to keep things expensive. Anyone who thinks that medicine is all unicorns and pixie dust and every doctor does it to help the betterment of his fellow neighbor is naive beyond definition. There are a lot of really shitty doctors, a lot of shitty nurses, a lot of shitty hospitals and an otherwise shitty industry. Many of the treatments that do exist are largely bullshit. They are not real treatments. They are are more like a slight prolonging of your life and maybe slight reduction in symptoms, but many treatments do little or absolutely nothing to actually address the disease. COVID-19 vaccinations occurred in record speed becasue there was record world-wide pressure and competition for them. Everyone on the planet was in a race for what they knew would be a world-wide market with unlimited purchasing power and an unlimited supply of demand. So companies fronted endless amounts of cash to develop a vaccine and develop it RIGHT NOW. Look at HIV by contrast. It took over 30 years to develop a treatment that is effective against HIV. Yet we developed a vaccine that has a near perfect efficacy rate to a virus we have never seen before in only 100 days. Mankind has the ability to solve the other problems at stake if we were motivated enough. There are cures to forms of cancer that exist in other countries that dont exist in the USA. I personally saw a patient who had a rare form of bone cancer and all the doctors told him he was going to die and nothing could be done. He found about a treatment option in Australia that completely cured him. But in America, no one even wanted to tell him about it....

Your own mental fiction ensures you’re not going to be happy about the outcome of this trial, and that’s because the trial is based on a different set of facts, not your personal belief. And the FACTS are the official report of the medical examiner. Personally I think he’ll get done for manslaughter, unless something comes up showing a prior relationship and hostility. And I also think that if that’s the charge he’s gotten off light. I don’t think he MEANT to kill Floyd, I just don’t think he gave a shit if he did. And that’s an issue.

Naw, he did try to do an impossible job, but diddling the numbers is completely uncool. Data honesty and transparency are how others learn from impossible situations. I’ll wait to hear more about harassment; that’s also uncool, but there are two sides. Wendy P.

Hi John, Re: that doesn’t give anyone - friend or foe - permission to use his likeness without explicit approval He wants the money for himself; the hell with anyone else. Jerry Baumchen

The teams i know of that are impacted require the women to have had testosterone suppression for at least a year. That doesn’t undo the precious muscle bulk, but as a rule, that muscle bulk has been depleted by the recovery from surgery. Not a perfectly level playing field, and some objections are understandable from an athletic point of view. However, I don’t see that this undoes title 9. Wendy P.