Another f'ing rocket scientist bites the dust ...

[Thumper]

Caleb Wallace had helped organize a rally against the "government being in control of our lives," branded "The Freedom Rally".

The dad-of-three demanded an "open Texas" and publicly opposed masks and vaccines.

In an open letter to the San Angelo Independent School District in April, Wallace wrongly claimed there was "so little evidence that masks worked for anyone" as he called for "all Covid-related policies" to be "rescinded immediately".

"What have been the benefits of lockdowns and masking?" he wrote.

"I say to you that there is ZERO benefit to this continued practice."

Brilliant! Caleb died today after more than a month of suffering with Covid. The sad part is, he leaves behind his wife and three young daughters. Now his wife has a Go-Fund Me page to help cover his expenses. I'm sorry for being a cold sumbitch, but ... never mind, I'll bite my tongue.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Reality is a bitch.

[Thumper]

To make matters worse, his wife is preggo with number four. I hope his genius isn't hereditary.

Anti-mask rally organizer Caleb Wallace dies of COVID in Texas, his pregnant wife says

WallaceCovid.jpg

[Penguin]

Life has changed.

I really don't hold anyone's decision against them. No ill will of even the passive aggressive type. Lots of people have died without the serum and lots have died with it.... More than we'd like to admit died from it.

There are good reasons to take it and good reasons to avoid it. Either way you're just a human trying to feel your way thru a bad situation.

Will

[BarryBobPosthole]

Sorry Willy but can you post any citation at all regarding ‘many have died with it’, because they haven’t.

As for personal decisions and ill will, I am in a vulnerable age geoup and my daughter was in a immuno-supressed situation the whole year and a half. Thesesame people I’m not supposed to be upset with told me it was just the flu,and if I was scared to go hide at home. Now, reality is becoming the rule. We’ve lost two policement to covid in my littletown in the pastweek. Our ICUs are full of unvaccinated people. The same people claimed the advice on masks was confusing andcontradictory as if they are retarded and have spentthe last year and a half confused bysocial distancing and mask guidance. They openly confront people in public spaces and openly tell medical people that work their asses of with ccovid victims that they are liars. Then those same nurse have to let them have their finals words with family via and ipad. This is what happens to every single covid ICU nurse every goddamned day. If you have a badwreck, good luck finding a ICU bed in Oklahoma. We had 4500 new cases in Oklahoma last week, 95% of which are unvaccinated.

No, I don’t feel any ill will towards them at all, but I can tell you I don’t give two shits about whether any of them catch covid or die from it. This current pandemic wave is their fault and its made up of likeminded people who have made a decision based on their selfish wishes even though it affects others. More power to them. If they’re scared, maybe they should stay home.I’m not masking up toprotect them any. more.
Darwin is hard at it.

Rant over! Have a nice day!

BKB

[BarryBobPosthole]

And just as a follow up, the largest hospitals in New Orleans were unable to evacuate patients from the path of Ida. Why? Because all iof the hospital beds in La are full of covid patients. same goes for large nursing homes there. Hope they have good generators and lots of fuel. NO is reporting 100% without power.
Again, the fault of the unvaccinated.
BKB

[Thumper]

Our neighbor, who lives across the street from us and works at the local hospital (male nurse) has been pretty much MIA. I haven't seen him in ages. I finally caught up to him at the mailbox a few days ago and I asked where he'd been lately. He said they're so busy with Covid patients that the complete staff is working tons of overtime and double shifts. I asked what he thought the ratio was (vax vs. non-vax.) and he said he PERSONALLY hasn't seen ANY vaccinated people in his dept. but has heard of a few in other departments being treated for minor symptoms and released. He said, unfortunately, most from his wing only get released to the morgue. He also said they're short-handed because other hospitals around the country have been stealing employees with higher pay offers and additional incentives to help with their own shortages. He said he's been so swamped with work he's fighting the urge to retire earlier than he'd planned (he's my age). His adult son just went through a nasty divorce and wanted to move back home to get his feet back on the ground, but he's an anti-vaxxer. My neighbor gave him a choice, get vaccinated and be welcomed back into the household, or remain hard-headed and live in his car. The kid got the Johnson jab.

[BarryBobPosthole]

There have been nursing shortages here for years. They filled the gaps with travel nurses, which make much higher pay than local staff but the hospital doesn’t have to pay the full benefits load a full time employee gets. Now, we’reseeing (at least in Oklahoma) that the PTSD from the covidexperience is driving many of hem out of medical fields. A really good friendof ours recently quit his job at the hospital andis npwselling Directv from a call center. Because of ptsd from handlng covid patients.
I have a feeling another unpleasantside effect of covid isthatall of our medical expenses will go up because pay in that field is going up,up,up.

BKB

[Penguin]

Barry, I really didn't want to start a fight. Sorry if it came off that way.

To answer your question: In the US? Not with the sorry way we run things no. What I can say is that the odds are that at the very least 1 out of the thousands of reported deaths in VAERS (another sorry assed voluntary US based system) was as a direct result of the vaccine. We just don't know. And won't.

But I don't hold anyone's decision against them.... and I hope they return the favor.

You see this thing is much more complicated and controversial than many believe. Until covid hit us most of what we have done would have been considered anti-science and very risky. Don't try to vaccinate your way out of a pandemic, don't try to gain herd immunity with a non-sterilizing vaccine, etc. It's very obviously not my field so I cannot say whether any of what we are doing is wrong. I simply don't know. But neither does anyone else.

But if what these experts said way before covid hit is correct there is a chance that WE, the vaccinated, could become the incubators that generate a deadly variant of this disease that kills the unvaccinated. It has happened in animals:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/s...hicken-viruses

There is also the risk that those of us who are vaccinated could develop ADE and the death rate would soar for us while the unvaccinated were unaffected. This is a risk with most vaccines and is why we usually wait a decade or so to approve a new one. We just don't know whether this is going to happen. It did happen with dengue fever and its vaccine. I have heard it said by scientists WAY more qualified than I that the risk is less with the kind of vaccine that we used as opposed to the old style. I have also heard the exact opposite from equally qualified scientists. I don't think anyone can know without long term testing. Which we skipped.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00789-5

This is just a couple of the dozens of things that could give pause to getting vaccinated. Another big one? If you take this thing and get injured or whatever, then you and you alone are financially responsible. Not the manufacturers and not the government. Even if you can show that they knew of problems ahead of time they skate. We are seriously discussing vaccine passports and mandates for a drug that puts us and us alone on the hook for any problems.

And the people in charge of this thing have shown themselves not to be trusted. The CDC and the WHO have played fast and lose with the numbers. Every single time they have come out with some earth shattering number that makes a serious case that I have looked at it is inaccurate or misleading. Example: They are running this commercial to encourage everyone to get vaccinated around here. It makes the claim that 97% (or something like that) of people who are hospitalized and 98% (or something like that) of those who are dying of covid are unvaccinated.

Is it true? Well it depends. The way it is presented makes it seem like if you go to the hospital and check vaccinated rates among covid hospitalizations that you would see this distribution. You wouldn't. You see these numbers only check out if you count all of the people who were hospitalized and died prior to the introduction of the vaccine. This is inexcusable. No scientist in my field would publicize such misleading data without spelling it out.

I expect this from those adamantly opposed to vaccines. You want to post counter-examples of how they are twisting data? Don't bother, I know all about it. But those guys are political hacks. I expect it out of them. The CDC and the WHO are supposed to be up front and above reproach.

A guy I respect a lot has tracked and documented the changes is their narrative since this thing started. It would be funny if it were not so sad. Here's his list of DOCUMENTED stories and public statements the CDC and WHO have made since this thing started:

It's just the flu.

Okay it's more than that but it's not a pandemic.

Yes it's a pandemic but it's not worth shutting down flights from Wuhan over.

No masks aren't necessary and they really don't work.

We need to flatten the curve.

Vaccines will help us achieve herd immunity.

Vaccines are the only way to achieve herd immunity. (after a change in the definition of "herd immunity")

... and it goes on and on.

I'm not here to antagonize anyone. AND I am vaccinated. I'm just saying that we are all trying to do what is right and it is almost impossible for us to do that. Most all of us just don't have the expertise. We have to trust those who should know. And it is very difficult to do that when they keep fucking things up.

There is chance that those refusing vaccines are totally in the wrong. If they are listening to some of the conspiracy theorists out there those odds increase dramatically. But there is also a chance that WE are the ones who made the wrong choice. And that WE end up being the ones who pose a danger to others. If so I know how I would feel about them talking about passports for the unvaccinated and/or making unvaccinated mandates a condition of employment. If it turns out that way I hope they keep in mind that we are all just trying to do what is right. And right now none of us can know what that it for certain.

As Red Green would say, keep your stick on the ice, we're all in this together.

Best to all,
Will

[Thumper]

During my extended hospitalization years back, I noticed probably 90% of my nurses were Filipino. I hated every minute of it (ha!) ... well, except for the sponge baths.

I remember while I was growing up, if you asked a group of kids what they wanted to be when they grow up, most of the girls said they wanted to be a nurse and most of the boys wanted to be a policeman. Times sure have changed.

Sorry Willie, this looks weird now as it was being typed before your response.

[Thumper]

Willie, there may be some truth in what you say, but for right now, I don't see a viable alternative other than to err on the side of caution. Using the knowledge available so far, that, to me, means getting vaccinated. In fact, as of right now, it's pretty much of a no brainer to lean toward vaccinations. We don't have the luxury of waiting for 10-years of testing for validation. I wish we did, because I was hesitant at first.

I remember all the screaming and hollering when seatbelts became mandatory. I hated the dang things myself and it took having a friend die in (what appeared to be) a relatively minor traffic accident to push me over the edge. I have fastened my seatbelt EVERY TIME I've gotten in a car ever since. Yes, that was MANY years ago, but I remember hearing all the excuses for not wearing them ... from they're uncomfortable to people thinking they'd get trapped in a burning car because their seatbelt jammed. I actually witnessed the latter about 25-30 years ago. A neighbor rolled his Mustang just 2 blocks from here in a freak accident. He was taking his teenaged son to a wedding and the kid did not fasten his seatbelt because he was wearing a tux with a corsage and didn't want to mess anything up. His dad looked over and started brushing some lint or something off the kid's shoulder and the kid noticed the car was drifting into the on-coming lane. The kid grabbed the steering wheel and jerked it to the right. That startled the dad and he jerked it back the other way. Long story short, he lost control and rolled the car. The kid was miraculously thrown from the car and completely uninjured. Dad was knocked unconscious and was hanging upside down by his seatbelt. The kid couldn't release the buckle due to his dad's weight. The kid panicked and ran all the way home to get ME (I was working from home in those days). By time I'd gotten there, some neighbors had released the dad's seatbelt and the ambulance was in route. I guess, IF the car had caught fire, the seatbelt protesters could have put a feather in their cap to support their cause, but personally, I know I'd have continued wearing a seatbelt anyway. Nothing is 100%, but what choice do we have right now? From what I can see, the odds are AGAINST the non-vaccinated. So far ...

[quercus alba]

I don't believe any of the garbage put out by the media based on merit alone so I don't know what the actual death rate for Vax vs unvax is. However there are people I know in the medical profession that I trust very much (including but not limited to my son) that assure me those who are being hospitalized and or dying are the unvaccinated by a very large margin.

Secondly, the concept of freedom and rights is misunderstood by the vast majority of people in my opinion. Our rights and freedoms are confined to working within the boundaries of the law of the land. You rights or freedoms stop when they come into conflict with the law, not just the laws you want to follow. It's always been and will continue to be that way, so if our government mandates you get a shot then you'll get a shot or face legal consequences just like stealing or assault. It doesn't matter if it's a good law or a bad law, it doesn't matter if the data behind it is good data or bad data, if it becomes law all that is moot point.

Maybe I'm oversimplifying things or maybe things really are that simple. Personally, I feel the shots are beneficial but there are a lot of things that tie into all this that I'm not aware but until then (boy this sounds strange coming from me) I'll have to have some faith in the powers that be

[HideHunter]

If I haven't mentioned it lately... *I love this place*.!. EXCELLENT discussion.. and the good thing is (in most cases) finally someone will say, "Drag out a stool" - and we'll all part friends.. Carry on...

[BarryBobPosthole]

QA, the last bastion of the science deniers is just to claimthe facts aren’t correct. Okay. If you don’t think over 600,000Americans have diedfrom covidorthat masksor social distancing or vaccinations don’t work and the whole thingis a biglie,then by all means, carry on.
But I don’t buy any of it. If you’re confused about the fat s at this late date, I’m certainly not wasting any more time with it.
Carry on!

And grabthe tallest stoolyou can find!

BkB

[Thumper]

P-hole, have you been hitting the bong or brown liquor the past few days? Or has your space bar quit working?

[BarryBobPosthole]

Its this damn ipad keyboard.

Am I falling beneath the GH quality standards or something?
BKB

[Thumper]

Ummm ... as a matter of fact .... yes!

At least you FINALLY ended the double-posting ... but replacing one f'up with another just ain't right.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Here, try this. Maybe it’ll ease your pain over my typing ability.

BKB

B07B49DB-482E-4BCB-B9AF-67D6F42B7321.jpg

[quercus alba]

I'm not denying evidence I can see Posty, I'm a huge advocate of the shot, it's just that I have ZERO faith in anything the media says, actually less than zero. I have almost no trust in any politician, (see Cuomo hiding 12,000 deaths). Politicians are liars by nature will lie about anything and everything for no apparent reason even if it serves no purpose. My dad used to say that "he'd rather climb up a tree and tell you a lie than to stand on the ground and tell you the truth." That's my jaded view of politics and the media.

I'm actually on the same side as you, I think the science is there, I just put far more trust in what the people out there in the field say. Read the history of how Woodrow Wilson dealt with the Spanish flu, lies, denials and silencing the media. It was far worse than Civid in death count and coverups. America lost 116K soldiers in battle during WW1 but 675K Americans died of the Spanish flu (292,000 soldiers) but Wilson censored the media and told everyone it was just the regular old flu nothing to worry about. Our government doesn't have a good track record of transparency during time of crisis, too busy being in cya and deflection mode.

So yes, I think the results speak for themselves in that the vaccine is very beneficial however I prefer to get my information from a more reliable source, must be the Irish in me, this natural distrust of government

[Thumper]

Here, try this. Maybe it’ll ease your pain over my typing ability. BKB

B07B49DB-482E-4BCB-B9AF-67D6F42B7321.jpg

Ummmm, is that a MIDDLE finger by chance?

[BarryBobPosthole]

QA we’re on the same page. I thought you were talking about stuff like the CDC, Johns Hopkins and the like. And the crazy part of this whole thing is that the agencies responsible for the data are often their own worst enemy. Sifting the pepper from the fly shit is Job#1 for Americans these days. Its really not as hard as foks make it out to be.
Antivaxxers though are on my last nerve. Its as if smallpox, polio, diptheria, rubella, mumps, and annual flu vaccines was just a mirage and really never worked. Or better yet, that they also caused many of the medical ills we don’t have answers for today, like autism and Guillan barre and immune diseases that are cropping up. Its an easy pat answer and a deadly one. With absolutely nothing but junk science behind it. And yet, we blame the media for it. Is it the media’s fault that Jim Carrey the comic actor has become an outspoken expert on vaccinations? Is it the media’s fault that many millions of people believe his horse shit?
I agree with you that the media is pretty crappy, but they’re only as big a boogey man as we let them be.

BKB

PS please advise if I missed any spaces. Mr OCD has me on double secret probation

[quercus alba]

PS please advise if I missed any spaces. Mr OCD has me on double secret probation

Looks like that mind control drug in your vaccine is starting to kick in

[BarryBobPosthole]

[Thumper]

Well, I'm beginning to think, at this point, there is a ton of dumbassery still going around. I'm with Postie, I'm starting to lose patience with the people running around with their heads buried in the sand, then being totally surprised when tragedy strikes. I really don't know where the line should be drawn regarding mandatory vaccinations. I understand the "freedom" thing, but heck, we've had mandatory vaccinations for YEARS. I couldn't start school without various vaccinations. I've traveled to countries I was not allowed to visit without various vaccinations. I was given various vaccinations when I entered the military and TBH, I don't ever remember being told I had a choice. What does it take to open people's eyes?

I can't believe law enforcement agencies don't require vaccinations. They come in contact with people from all walks of life. We just had a funeral yesterday for a Deputy with our local Sheriff's Dep't. and they set up a vaccination booth at his funeral. There was a line of his fellow LEO's getting vaccinated! WTF??? Do you have to wait for a close friend or family member to die from this bullshit before you open your eyes? Here's a partial quote from one of the Deputies who got the jab (along with his family) at the funeral.

“We have been on the fence regarding it. With Chris’ death it was definitely an eye opener for us,”

Well duh Sherlock! The real shocker? Here's another quote from the article regarding the funeral.

The sheriff last week said 50 of his 2,000 employees were infected with COVID-19, with as many as five in the hospital and one civilian employee on a ventilator.

What do you want to bet, those mentioned had NOT been inoculated? In the past week, we've lost THREE local LEO's to Covid. This is bullshit! Or, more like stupidity IMHO.

https://www.wfla.com/news/polk-count...ed-from-virus/

https://www.wfla.com/news/local-news...s-of-covid-19/

https://www.wfla.com/news/pinellas-c...with-covid-19/

[LJ3]

I'm tired of debating or arguing about it all. I've always said we should protect the vulnerable among us. Fuck everyone else. Get the vaccine or don't. Cut the stupid government mandated 'safety' precautions, masks, social distancing and everything else. They're meaningless band-aids with no adhesive in a waterfall.

Look at the survivability rate, people. Why is it the smallest font in an article, mentioned least, swept aside, not discussed metric of all? Isn't it one of the most important metrics? Isn't that really the number we should be watching? Do you know what it is? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT THE FUCK IT IS?

I get and understand people like Barry, I love the asshole. He and other close friends of mine love people that are vulnerable, I get it. Protect them! Always!

[Penguin]

I can't believe law enforcement agencies don't require vaccinations....

It is illegal to require a vaccine that is approved under Emergency Use Authorization. And if you wish to make a bet I'll lay $10 bucks toward the Goodhunting slush fund that the now FDA approved vaccine from Pfizer never sees a bare US citizen's arm until they are granted legal immunity from the government. And if you try to tell me that the approved Pfizer vaccine is being given now I will tell you that you never read their "approval".

Want to take that bet?

You are comparing the acceptance and mandates of vaccines approved under the normal testing protocols that included long term effects to a novel serum with new mechanisms and no long term history at all. AND no one other than the one who gets vaccinated has any responsibility if things go pear shaped.

Are we, as a nation, forgetting all of these new wonder drugs, that big pharma has gotten approval for, that have then later been pulled because they killed and/or maimed those who took their drugs? I mean if this turns out to be the case now would you actually be surprised at all? Really? Given their track record? And that was with ONE SHOT ONLY, what happens with a 50 shot regimen that seems to be the end game here?

Be kind. Be human. My boss's boss made a public statement video asking for all of us to do this as we returned to work and I think she is completely right. We can lose our humanity over this thing if we aren't careful.

I cannot imagine how I would feel if (god forbid) a few variants down the line ADE rears its head and we start seeing 5 or 10 or 50 percent of those of us who got vaccine succumb to it. And then to hear some ghoul getting on Twitter and telling the world how vindicated he feels to have refused it. How those of us who got the vaccine were morons for trusting the pharmaceutical industry with our lives. Or even just telling those of us who chose the vaccine, who are waiting to see if we are lucky or not, that we should have known better.

It's ghastly, shameful, and inhumane.

[Penguin ascends the soap box]

We need to get this through our heads: There is no risk free option here. And there was not one from the time this thing first appeared. And there won't be one until the vaccines (and their follow ups every 6 months) has a good long term under its belt... WITHOUT widespread problems. For maybe 5 or 10 years.

All we have are a lot of scared and confused people trying to figure out who to trust and who to listen to.

[Penguin descends from his soap box]

And another thing. God damn the internet for getting my blood pressure up on my day off.

Will

[Chicken Dinner]

I'm tired of debating or arguing about it all. I've always said we should protect the vulnerable among us. Fuck everyone else. Get the vaccine or don't. Cut the stupid government mandated 'safety' precautions, masks, social distancing and everything else. They're meaningless band-aids with no adhesive in a waterfall.

Look at the survivability rate, people. Why is it the smallest font in an article, mentioned least, swept aside, not discussed metric of all? Isn't it one of the most important metrics? Isn't that really the number we should be watching? Do you know what it is? DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT THE FUCK IT IS?

I get and understand people like Barry, I love the asshole. He and other close friends of mine love people that are vulnerable, I get it. Protect them! Always!

Len, it may surprise you that I generally agree with your sentiment in most cases. My challenge is that the way we protect the most vulnerable among us is to get the damn vaccine. The vaccine deniers are going to potentially allow this thing to mutate until we’re all vulnerable again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Penguin]

The vaccine deniers are going to potentially allow this thing to mutate until we’re all vulnerable again....

Hank, you were always going to be vulnerable again. We aren't an island sealed off from the world and the world is not now, and will not ever be, vaccinated en masse and in synch. And that is discluding compelling evidence that the vaccine loses its potency quickly. Six months from vaccination and we are seeing vaccinated individuals getting infected. WORSE many of them are not symptomatic and provide the perfect environment for the virus to mutate into vaccine immunity.

This is no longer a pandemic it is endemic and our mindset must change. Japan and Norway are two countries showing the way.

We took a shot with our magic bullet and it looks to have failed. We now are proposing that we continue to ingest additional magic bullets in perpetuity. And what are the long term consequences to our immune system being juiced and jolted like this every 6 months? No one knows.

Look, there are many countries perusing a protocol to deal with this disease instead of continuing down the road we are debating here. They are having great results. Doctors in South Africa treating the 2nd stage of Covid as a severe allergic reaction. Doctors at Houston Methodist who've treated hundreds of patients with what looks like a pretty effective protocol. The list is large and growing. They are taking the first steps to defang this monster and make peace with it. I think we should consider following their example.

And while we are at it we might as well state out loud that anyone who has had covid and survived has far better immunity than those of us who are vaccinated but never infected. Do you think they ought to be arguing that we should all be intentionally infected to protect them? So we can exclude them from this conversation out of the box.

Will

[Chicken Dinner]

Will - I get what you’re saying and do agree that advances will continue to be made in the treatment protocols for CV. At a certain level I even respect someone whose been an anti-vaxxer for the last 20 years. Even someone like you who is raising reasonable questions based on science is fine. But, I have no use for the willfully ignorant who have turned this into a political issue. It’s unarguable that our ICU’s are filled with the unvaccinated to the point that people are dying from unrelated illnesses due to lack of space. And, there’s a special place in hell for supposedly “conservative” governors overruling local governments and school boards from imposing mask mandates if that’s what’s best in their judgement.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Penguin]

No worries Hank.

I'm not trying to convince anyone what the correct choice for them is. I truly don't know. And I don't hold anyone at fault for choosing differently than I did.

I will say this: I have made a big effort to enhance my natural immune system and get in better shape since this thing hit. We all know about the comorbidities for Covid. We all know, or should, how these affect your chances of a bad outcome if you catch the disease. These things are under my control and I am making a real effort to help my odds. My runs are getting longer with a higher intensity. I am lifting again regularly and really enjoying these sessions. I am taking a multi-vitamin and D supplement to ensure I'm not deficient in any vital immune element.

And I wish there was as much emphasis on doing these things (which may prove futile in individual cases but are proven on a large scale) as there has been on demonizing those who did or did not choose to take the vaccine.

Will