Westerly

Incarcerated felons should receive priority over say... combat veterans... or police officers.... or pretty much anyone not in jail? They should get the shot for sure, but the priority should probably go to those who have existing medical conditions and are not doing time for a felony.

Over a year of covid so far... At this point $1000 is jack shit for a year of hell. In the end, that money is not going to do any value to anyone. What exactly is a grand going to do? help pay a few weeks of rent on a contract that is already 6+ months behind on rent? the time for congress to act is LOOOOOONG gone. Like 10 months long gone. The effort would be better put into extending unemployment benefits. That way at least you know it's going to people who dont have jobs and need it.

Yes, but how is that any different from any point in the last 50,000 years? There are always underpaid people. That is a larger societal issue, and a single payment of $1000 will do absolutely nothing to solve that problem. You realize those payments are not free? Part of that money is being offset by a budget reduction for Medicare. At the minimum, those payments should be limited to the type of people you are talking about. They are in negotiations about offering some of that money to people making over $150k. That is an utter waste.

There are only two vaccines approved under an EUA in the USA, and both require two.

Sure, it's called basic arithmetic. 'Most' means more than 50%. I claimed most people dont need it, or more than 50%. The unemployment rate in the USA is about 8%. That means 92% of people, which is a lot higher than 50, have a job. Yes, some people are unemployed and underpaid, but those issues existed long before Covid. Also, even with them included, still more than 50% of Americans are doing perfectly fine right now.

Yea, except there is no free lunch. This money that is being used for the $1000 payments is, among other things, being subtracted from Medicaid funding. I'd argue Medicaid funding is a lot more important than giving out a bit of money who 1. In most cases is not enough to actually help anyone and 2. mostly goes to people who dont need it.

As in one shot by itself is not good enough. Both must be taken. If no one takes the second shot, the virus will very much still be around doing its thing. So in reality, you're not protected until you get the second shot. The first improves your chances a bit, the second improves your chances a lot.

Yea, and most med schools require a GPA of 3.2 to graduate at all, so even those who are last in their class are still better than most students studying other fields.

They are not 'effective' after one shot, they provide some protection after some shot. If the original clinical efforts demonstrated an efficiency based on a single shot, the FDA would likely have not approved it due insufficient evidence of effectiveness.

Well yea, the numbers can only go up so far before they naturally have to go down. They also started going down twice in the past, but resurged to much higher levels later thereafter. But you are right, we are on the tail end of this wave. Until the next wave comes anyway.... The interesting thing about 'natural herd immunity'.. Funny term there. It must have came from the marketing department. Look at it from the virus's perspective. Infecting everyone on the planet is literally the best possible outcome for the virus. That is a complete, unparalleled win for the virus. It also represents the worst possible outcome for humans.

Have you ever tried to drive across the country in your EV? You dont need to answer that, I already know the answer.

Let's consider a few facts. - Covid has existed for a year now. Those who are hard-up due to the pandemic has been struggling for months now. - Chances are that if they havent found a way to survive by now, the damage is long done for them at this point. - $1000 is not going to do jack for a family who hasent been able to pay rent in 10 months... - At this point, the vast majority of those who get the money dont really need it. - Is it really worth it to give $1000 to everyone, mostly people who dont need it, in exchange for critical cuts to Medicare and other important services? probably not.

The long-term future, probably. In the short term, no chance. Gasoline is still the most energy-dense fuel in common use. Electric engines just use too much electricity to be useful in many applications such as driving long distance or powering very energy-hungry devices. For example, there are a few electric boats on the market now. Their range is absolute crap compared to gas powered boats because they need so many batteries that they run out of space in the hull to store them. They are also 4x as expensive. The main issue is we need more dense energy storage. When we have a battery that is the size of a gallon of gas that can store as much energy as an actual gallon of gas, that is when we will see electric motors start to take off. Right now, gas is the lightest, most energy dense, and cheapest fuel we have that is readily available. Solar is great for power plants. Not so great for portable devices.

Except none of that actually happened. What actually did happen is shit just got more expensive as they just passed the prices off to the consumer. What are you going to, just not use shipping services anymore? Just not buy food anymore? Yea, some companies did optimize to more fuel efficient methods during the age of the $5 gallon of gas and some people sold their SUVs for smaller cars, but in the end what really happened is everyone just paid more money for shit and that was the end of the story. Also, last I checked hybrid planes arnt a thing, so guess what $35 jump tickets is still a reality. Also, electric cars are not an end all be all and they are not the future. Electric has substantial limitations. Good luck driving cross country in an electric car. It's risky at best and flat out impossible in some areas. Electric can easily cost more than gas in some areas as well. There used to be free charging stations everywhere. That is long gone. Now you're paying quite a bit for electric charging making the value much less attractive. I find it funny that the tree huggers are like 'I got my electric car so I am saving CO2 emissions' but fail to realize the power plant that provides electricity to their 'green' car is powered by fossil fuels....

I had and still have a Prius which at the time was the most fuel efficient car in existence. Also not everyone can afford a $70,000 Tesla so that doesent exactly solve problems. Also, even if I had free gas, that doesent change the fact that oil is tied to the price of everything. All shipping costs go up, airline costs go up, transportation costs go up, manufacturing costs go up. Guess what, that means rent goes up, food goes up, your crap on Amazon goes up. Oil affects the price of everything. There is no product or service sold in the United States that is not affected by the cost of oil. Want proof? Just ask California who has the highest gas prices and highest cost of living prices (3rd in the nation) of any state. Part of that is because the cost of oil there is high due to strict emissions (CARB) requirements and taxing. In CA, making $20 an hour gets you the back seat of your station wagon to live in. In other states, you can live on 20 an hour.

Our oil is not cheap as dirt. Gas is like $2.50 a gallon. In some middle eastern countries it is less than $0.50 a gallon. That is cheap. People seem to have a short memory. Were you alive a few years ago when gas was $4-5 a gallon? That sucked and it made everything, everywhere worse. People were spending more on gas just to drive to work than they were spending on food every month. UPS, FedEx, USPS and everyone else jacked their shipping prices way up. That in turn lead to higher prices everywhere. Everything was more expensive, everywhere, under all conditions because gas was overpriced. I remember that very well. I was working harder for what was essentially less money because the cost of living was higher. Oh and guess what, gas goes back up to $5 a gallon and here comes $35 jump tickets easy.

eh trump is so 2020. like everything from 2020, it's a topic best forgotten. live in the present, not the past. he is old news that no one cares about.

the XL pipeline is the easiest and cheapest way to transport oil. You want cheap gas and cheap shipping? Then you need to keep the overhead down. You cant have it both ways. You cant have no environmental impact and cheap prices. The cost of oil affects everything from the rent you pay to the cost of crap on Amazon--nothing is untouched by oil. Oil costs go up, all costs everywhere go up. I do find it paradoxical that the administration is concerned with splitting hairs over a $1000 check vs a $1400 one for relief, yet fail to see that executing an action that will increase the cost of fuel will cost tens of thousands of dollars per person over many years in the form of increased inflation due to higher overhead costs.

covid cases are going down! except at the DZ. one DZ had some 45 cases in two weeks. another have had a few. the DZs are getting hot with covid. but overall things are starting to look good.

Except vaccines is not the sole solution. What has the CDC been saying for the last entire year? The same damn thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over... 1. Stay away from other people. 2. Wear a mask 3. Dont go to large events / travel unnecessarily / ect. 4. Wash your hands and dont touch your face. 5. Say home if symptomatic. 6. Use your brain and have some respect for other people's health. Maybe I added in that last one, but how many people are doing all six of those things? Nearly no one... How many covid cases do you think we would have if 100% of people were doing all of those? I bet a small fraction of what we have now.... We dont need a vaccine to see improvements, we just need people to follow the direction given to them by people who actually know what they are talking about. Cases would go down literately overnight if people did those things.

Not in the USA, it's not. Pilots have lost their license from letting people jump BASE rigs out of aircraft. I know of a specific example of a jumper who died making a balloon jump while jumping a BASE rig. The FAA investigated the matter and it ended with the FAA revoking the license of the balloon pilot. That incident has been discussed in detail on this very forum.

No it's not. Not technically or in any other manner. You are required to have a dual parachute system when jumping from an aircraft. The more formal wording is you must have 1 more parachute than you intend to use. So if you plan to do an intentional cutaway, you're legally required to have 3 parachutes. Pilots are allowed a single parachute system becasue they are not intending on making a jump. The airplane is their ride down.

Well it doesent sound like that is the exact plan when he says nothing can be done to change anything for several months. We could change the trajectory of the pandemic starting today with the correct actions. For example, with universal masking, proper social distancing and closure of businesses that very clearly cause the virus to spread on a rampage (e.g. clubs, bars, large events ect), we could start seeing measurable impact in under two weeks. We dont have to wait several months for that...