TriGirl

What's the deal with him now not happy with $1.5 trillion, down from $3.5 trillion? (over 10 years, to be clear). I only saw the headline, but yeah, that's some BS right there. EDIT: Okay, it's $1.75 trillion. Still, that's still some BS. He's making it sound like no one knows where the funding will come from, when that has been an important talking/negotiating point these past couple of weeks. Not sure what he thinks is "dangerous" to the economy, or on which parts are unclear to him. Seems like just attention-getting talking points at this stage. :S

That's only single-layer. He's just trying to hide his identity because he knows he's doing something illegal, not trying to stop the spread of a deadly virus.

What Bill also forgot to address was your choice of terms. The vaccine does reduce infection, but mostly it significantly reduces the ability to transmit once infected, reduces hospitalizations and greatly reduces the chance of death if infected. Add in that only in the very beginning of the vaccination effort did we think the chances of a vaccinated person transmitting the virus to be close to nil (recall the guidance was you could remove your mask only if you were vaccinated, whereas unvaccinated people were still asked to keep their germs to themselves). Besides that point, we were still encouraged to continue the other preventive measures in addition to getting vaccinated. All these methods together could have stopped this virus by now. Eradicated? Probably not, but the variants (Delta specifically) wouldn't have wreaked such havoc on our population had people implemented all options at their disposal to protect each other. The vaccine does help the person who gets it. But more importantly, it helps society as a whole by making it harder for the virus to flourish. It also helps those who can't be protected by the vaccine, such as those with compromised immune systems and young children.

That's exactly what I was thinking when I read the post before yours. Not only did you beat me to it, you had the images to back it up. :)

A few corrections here. She is not military. We have eight uniformed services, but only six branches of military (five of which are defense department). DoD -- Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force Other uniformed services -- Coast Guard (military, in my book), NOAA and Public Health Service. The last one is the only one where you don't have to promote through the ranks to reach the top.

Terrible news! I never met him (that I know of), but appreciated all his contributions to the sport. Very sad loss.

December.

My Operations Coordinator is an Air Force MSgt. My Operations Assistant is a DoD civilian (as is the A/DATT, though that is currently vacant). My new Security Cooperation Officer is an Army major, who will eventually get a Navy E6 or E7 as his own OpsCo. We are fully purple here. The Marine security guard program falls under the authority of the regional security officer (RSO), not the defense attaché. Officers associated with the MCESG are regional commanders. Just wanted to clear that up. :)

She said she's in a diplomatic post, not that she's a diplomat. I am a diplomat. I'm the defense attaché. (Now I have to stop posting my political opinions here, since now you all know).

To be fair, I'm in a diplomatic post, where we have issues every single day. Plus, I'm the only Marine.

Even I let my subordinates (now that I have some here) choose which days they want to telework or take a day off.

But why is someone else deciding which day I must take my rest?

I'll say it again: we need to add some kind of qualification in order even to be eligible to run for president. I would say at least a familiarity with the rights, responsibilities and limits of the job to which you are applying would be a good place to start.

Similarly, many people with concealed firearms have secured concealed carry permits and respect the dangers of mishandling a firearm. But for the purposes of your comparison, risk exists in some public spaces regarding those who do not.

It's understandable to get them confused with Church of Satan, which has been around much longer.

The Satanic Temple is a religious organization formed specifically to advocate on political issues for atheists/humanists. We have the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) and others willing to file legal challenges based on Constitutional and case law, but ST is able to apply a religious justification -- fighting fire with fire, so to speak. On the issue of reproductive autonomy, the ST claims the Texas law violates the tenants of their religion, which includes reproductive autonomy, including all medical procedures, as a foundation. They also describe a ceremony to help prepare for terminating a pregnancy. The religious ceremony serves to support and counsel through the decision process, and if necessary, through the medical procedure spiritually and emotionally strong. Yeah, the name (Satanic Temple) is usually met with mockery, but their tenants by which they argue these cases on religious grounds sounds quite reasonable.

TBF, that is sort of the case with this treatment already, since it is only intended for use by patients exhibiting only mild to moderate symptoms. Does that automatically rule out unvaccinated? No, but the unvax'd are more likely to get the severe cases and die. Plus, as long as it is approved for this age group, you can't withhold from those who are ineligible. Let's also be clear it is a treatment, not a cure. I always recommend important distinctions should be part of the conversation from the outset (not criticizing you, Westerly -- general statement). If we don't, we continue in these situations to end up where we are now, for example: very sick people admitted to the hospital, asking if they can get the vaccine now. Those without medical backgrounds don't know how vaccines work. They don't know that a treatment is not a cure. It has to be said early, often, and habitually.

And they certainly didn't "spend four years" talking about it!

Proof that my medical training was three decades ago. When assisting our health unit with administering any injections, I still always aspirate. If you do it right, there is no moving of the needle. Besides, I'd rather have an unsteady hand possibly cause me a little discomfort with a moving needle, than possibly get injected into a vein! (YYMV)

Trying to predict an outcome that is dependent on a large number of factors that we don't fully understand, by looking at only a single factor, is kinda silly. Agreed, NWT, especially not taking into account that the delta variant is affecting different people. Bill, you may recall that during most of 2020 the conventional wisdom (supported by the studies) indicated that young people were much less likely to suffer effects of COVID. Now we have kids in ICUs and dying just about as readily as adults. Also with the OG version, the vaccine indicated a near perfect rate of virus resistance, with no observed ability to transmit if exposed. Now what was termed a "breakthrough" infection is becoming more commonplace (though death rates are still but a tiny fraction of the non-vaccinated deaths), and we're back to masking because even vaccinated individuals can transmit this variant. Bottom line is that there are way more factors that go into determining the risk to the population as a whole. And I still fail to understand the resistance to doing our part to help our neighbors and our community. I'm constantly amazed at the people who feel my mother's life is expendable just so they don't have to feel "uncomfortable" wearing a simple device that helps them keep their germs to themselves.

With the vote tally so far, the margin is even better than when Newsom was elected in 2018. This was probably better election research than what the R party could possibly get through polling. How will they vote vs. how might they vote. This theory is starting to make this recall seem a bit more logical since the gubernatorial race is coming up next year.

I used to have a lot of respect for George Will, even if I didn't agree with his point of view. But then I heard him say that it was such an overreaction for the fences to go back up around the Capitol bldg ahead of this rally. Wonder what he would have been saying had a similarly violent event happened and CP had done no structural preparation.

My people (military intel types) made a mistake. Then this military leadership owned it when it was discovered and this administration is trying to make amends. When US forces were targeted in this and other countries over the previous four years, what was the plan? Oh yeah: "bomb the shit out of them." There was a lot of criticism for the administration "allowing" the attack on the airport checkpoint, and quite a lot of insistence that it not happen again during the evacuation. Information was gathered, and we made a bad call over the interpretation of it. How much criticism would be flowing had no action been taken and another attack had happened? Hindsight is 20/20. We recognize it was a bad interpretation of the available information. But we admit it and try to recover.

And yet CO2 emissions from the US are projected to INCREASE!! during the first half of his administration. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46537 Kind of hard not to increase from 2020 levels, when no one was driving to/from work most of the year. I guess indirectly, Trump's mishandling of COVID did contribute to a reduction in CO2 emissions.

Do you have a citation for that ? It was a generalization, since I included all the increased risks. Non-vaxx'd are more easily infected. If you carry it, you can transmit it. And as long as the virus is given the freedom to replicate and spread, it will continue to mutate. Kallend gave much more specific (and higher estimates) of some of these risks, with a citation due to the specific nature of his statement.