Leaderboard

I don't have the patience to go through every problem with the point you think you're making with this, but just one thing... When you're trying to leverage something to make yourself sound official on this topic, probably don't make it the abstract from a 2006 study that itself used data from studies conducted in the 1990s. You know, because that was a time when if you got the sniffles a couple days after your diphtheria vaccination, you first had to be enough of a pussy to book an appointment with your medical provider over it, and then they had to give enough fucks to fill out the reporting documentation and submit it on your behalf after you left the office. Whereas today anybody can submit a report in two minutes while they're on the shitter.

I wouldn’t recommend following your feelings and emotions when instrument flying.

It was a statement; it’s up to you if it’s a suggestion. Honestly, I wasn’t trying to start a conversation with you. I’m sure all of your senses are spot on all the time…so no worries. ~Bendy Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

I had always wanted to try my hand in something where I was organizing/running a group or organization. After a lot of networking, I accepted an offer to run an aviation non-profit (basically, a club of jet owners) as their Executive Director. I could write a small book on the experience, but I resigned after 18 months and went back to the airlines... from which I had been absent for 15 years. Glad I worked in the ED job, otherwise I'd have always wondered if I should have done it. With the experience behind me, I know now that I have a much better quality of life where I am.

https://www.muhealth.org/our-stories/scary-reports-deaths-following-covid-19-vaccination-arent-what-they-seem All that says is that many people died after receiving the vaccine, not necessarily because of the vaccine… need a lot more information to learn something from those numbers. It would be nice if we had the no kidding number of deaths from the vaccine, but it’s probably hard to directly link deaths.

On global warming you are simply incorrect. The models from the late 90s and early 2000s all had to be massively revised to fit the data, and the data itself had to be revised to fit the temperature record. Far too much to go into here, but suffice it to say that a model is not measured by how well it matches the past, but by how well it predicts the future. The ipcc has only recently gotten to some predictions that are remotely feasible, and those predictions have been revised downward so much that the once catastrophic threat of global warming is now largely going to be a matter of human migration. So in other words, no change from the last 300,000 years. But that's not really the point anyways, the point is that if you are going to portray CO2 based climate change is the greatest threat facing humanity, then being against nuclear power is an impossible to reconcile position. And as you said, the Democrats have been 100% against nuclear. It took a while for me to realize why, but it's the anti-human strain of environmentalism that has taken over the cause. That's also another conversation, right now we're just going to stick with the gas-lighting inconsistencies. As I said, this problem is not limited to liberals. I have been rather vocal about criticizing Trump's many character flaws. And it drives me nuts when conservatives defend him as a family man, or somehow a good person. He's not. But in the same breath, anybody arguing that his administration's policies were somehow equal to his character is simply being disingenuous. And even today I have yet to find a liberal who decries Trump as the most dangerous president in US history who can list off any meaningful policy positions that were outside of the standard conservative worldview. On inflation, I never made an argument that the liberals caused it. These are usual political discussions. The point is the outright denial that it exists. Or that, now that we admit it exists, that it's somehow a good thing. Your last paragraph is spot on. The average voter simply doesn't have the bandwidth to give a shit about issues that aren't affecting their daily life. Somehow the political class figured out a way to turn politics into team sports, so instead of voting for the two or three issues that affect you and your family directly during that specific election, now the voters will actively vote against their interests in order to support the team. This is why we see the same states vote the same way every election now, when 40 years ago presidents would routinely win the vast majority of the electoral college. It's troubling, and I don't have a great answer. But people like you need to spend more time talking to liberals just like people like me need to spend more time talking to conservatives. And convincing them to talk to each other more. There was a great balance with all of this in the past, because politicians have always tried to divide us, but social media changed everything, making it possible to isolate yourself from opposing views and thus caricature the opposition in ways that were never feasible.

Maybe Trump was on to something with the sanctions? It wasn't exactly an even playing field with China. I'm all for free trade but more-so if all players play ball. The more industry and manufacturing that moves back to America the better.

It's more important that god help schools that produce graduates so devoid of critical thinking skills that they report and/or consume raw VAERS data (or any summary conclusions based on the same) as indicative of anything. Not to mention the summary conclusions drawn by the linked website, even if you incorrectly assume VAERS data to reflect cause-effect conditions, are an affront to the entire discipline that is mathematics. You don't see this being reported by actual news agencies because, despite the abysmally low bar in the industry right now, it would still be journalistic suicide to report such face value nonsense. Now lets all go to VAERS and self report that we died from the COVID-19 vaccine as a goof so that next week you show up in the esteemed vaersanalysis.info summary...because, yeah, you can submit a report to VAERS no questions asked.

Make an appointment with a VA disability retirement rep. There is a lot to go over. To start getting your disability asap you need to have your claim filed at the 6 month prior point. There’s a calculation and a bunch of forms to fill out. Do yourself a favor and request your full medical record on disc tomorrow. Takes like a month to come back and then either fill out the paperwork yourself or hire a company to do it. Don’t wait till it’s time. You won’t see any disability money till significantly later after your service ends.

This is literally why some people think the earth is flat. The only good part is our period of history isn’t the only one with stupid people. Turns out they’re everywhere, all the time. ~Bendy Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

Thanks for the analysis. Interesting to get another take. I think what you're missing-- no, missing isn't fair because you got a taste of it from your nurse friend-- what you underestimate is the scale. This wasn't just people having an opinion and disagreeing with you. Or calling you an idiot. This was a coordinated campaign to suppress "wrongthink" by the media-political class. - the efficacy of masks - COVID not being high-risk for healthy adults under 50 - the Wuhan lab-leak theory - the (potential) efficacy of ivermectin and remdesivir - the president of the United States - the (now inescapably true) Hunter Biden story The social media platforms literally declared certain speech verboten. Yeah, they are private companies, but they did it to the cheering of elected Democrats. Now there are hearings where elected Democrats are *outraged* that they aren't blocking more. Democrats, the once-champions of free speech, are now openly (and sometimes violently) against free speech, unless of course you agree with them. And guys like you, without intending to, have fallen right into the trap of well-it-must-be-true-if-the-trumpeters-hate-it. And yes, conservatives have fallen into this trap many times as well. But the pandemic has been overwhelmingly slanted in one direction, with only one side arguing for the *clear* violation of personal liberties while actively misrepresenting the evidence and proudly suppressing opposing (and scientifically supported) views. What's the quote? First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. Everyone seems to have forgotten the ideals behind the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, because they live fat, dumb, and happy little lives free from the horrors of the previous 300,000 years of human existence. Turns out The Matrix was right, and humans can't handle a system where they are (overwhelmingly) free from struggle and misery, so they must create it from nothing. And in our profound lack of persecution we have forgotten what persecution feels like, making us much too comfortable with persecuting those who don't please our delicate sentiments. Of course, the celebrities who have found themselves "cancelled" have become remarkably supportive of free-speech and civil discourse after a career of tarring and feathering conservatives as backwoods, inbred, hateful, racists/sexists/homophobes. Now we have graduated to compelled action *of your children.* The vaccine technology that didn't exist until last year for a disease that primarily kills people hanging on to life by a thread is going to be mandatory for 5 year olds? And you're a domestic terror threat if you go yell at your local school board. You know, like the Boston marathon bombers or Timothy McVeigh. And all this is after being told that the concepts of male and female are actually super complicated and how dare you say otherwise. And actually if you're white you are *necessarily* racist. Under 20 unarmed black men killed by the police represents the greatest threat in America (to say nothing of the 6000/year young black men killed in gang violence). Protests where businesses and literal government buildings are burned to the ground *aren't* riots. The completely wrong predictions of 30 years of global warming models should be ignored because global warming is the single greatest threat to humanity (behind the 20 unarmed black men killed by the police), but don't you dare support nuclear power, which would eliminate carbon emissions entirely from power-generation. And Joe Biden definitely isn't going senile, even though you can look up any video of him from 10 or 20 years ago. And yeah, he definitely got hurt falling in the shower (which is the most old-man shit in the world to do) because he was... wrestling his dog. In the shower. And Hunter Biden, not an artist, but selling paintings for $500k, not a Ukrainian energy executive, but on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, not a Chinese lawyer or lobbyist, but representing a Chinese company, yeah that's all totally kosher but OMG did you see how corrupt the Trump family was? I mean Jared Kushner only negotiated the most meaningful peace agreements in the middle east in decades, and none of the Trump kids were caught doing drugs with (underage?) prostitutes or illegally possessing firearms and throwing them in dumpsters... Oh yeah and that totally fabricated golden showers blackmail tape (literally paid for by the Clinton campaign), and the FBI agents who knowingly lied to the FISA courts, and the House Intelligence Committee representatives and ex-Obama administration pundits who *swore* on TV that there was evidence proving Trump was a Russian catspaw? Oops. Don't forget the border. No crisis there at all. No way the incredible, record-setting surge in illegal crossings had anything to do with the Biden Administration immediately undoing the Trump-era policies and openly advocating for a path to citizenship for any and all illegals. Don't worry about that because there's no inflation! In fact, government deficit spending will actually help *reduce* inflation. What's another 5 trillion? You want to know why your seemingly intelligent conservative friends are losing their minds? Look around.

More CDC VAERS data. Kind of shocking comparing data totals through last December with all data from 1990. https://vaersanalysis.info/2021/10/15/vaers-summary-for-covid-19-vaccines-through-10-8-2021/

I have officially come full circle based on data. I not sure if I still support current vaccination efforts. All of this data I found - wasn’t given to me by a biased news source. 1) COVID spread is unimpeded by vaccination within months. Numerous studies show that: You’ll see that for those age 40-80+, vaccinated folks actually were MORE likely to have the virus. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1022238/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_39.pdf Source: UK health surveillance. You can look at last week or the next week as well. This is not cherry picked - the data shows the same numbers multiple weeks in a row. Check out the other weeks, you’ll see similar data. 2nd Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y 2) The rate of hospitalization and death is similar to that of the flu. No shit. And I used to make fun of everyone who said that. COVID hospitalizations: COVID Deaths Source: same as above CDC data on flu hospitalizations/mortality per 100k (couldn’t crop it well on mobile): Source: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm So for an average person age 18-49, your risk of hospitalization for COVID is somewhere in the realm of 15-20 per 100000. For 2017-18 flu, the hospitalization rate for that age group was nearly twice as high at 36 per 100000. For death of those 18-49, its maybe twice as bad for Covid, around 2 per 100k, whereas flu was only 0.8. I am starting to lose any motivation to continue vaccination efforts whatsoever for those that are not at risk. It doesn’t and won’t provide herd immunity. And people without risk factors that are normal ages don’t need it. The counterpoint will be that it’s for the old. Well, first of all, that counterpoint is already invalid because getting the COVID vaccine as a 40 year old male does literally nothing to protect the old as it has been demonstrated to have virtually no effect on transmission after a few months. So a mandate for those under 50 I think still makes 0 sense. But let’s look at it for those 50+. Hospitalization rate for COVID for those 50+ is on the order of 80-100 per 100000. For 17-18 flu for those over 50 it was on the order of 500+ per 100000. Wtf. For deaths, COVID is on the order of 80 per 100000. Flu was slightly lower, maybe 50 per 100000. But they are way closer than initially thought. BL: COVID actually has turned into nothing more than a bad flu. And a bad flu that is actually easier on children than the actual bad flu. It’s not even a hyperbole. And we’re discussing additional mandatory boosters for healthy folks age 0-30. Just wanted to say that the data has changed my mind, significantly. It’s actually almost maddening.

I'm baffled. How, after 20 years of doing the training, organizing, and equipping for them, did we not know their capabilities? The cynic in me believes we knew their capabilities, and each level of leadership painted an unrealistic picture to show "progress" while they were in charge.

If COVID19 were a grave threat to all and the vaccine worked well, you wouldn’t have to mandate it…

Never hurts to have a fixed-wing background. This coming from a regional airline pilot that never thought he'd want to fly anything except Black Hawks. Soak up all the hours you can get on Uncle Sam's dime.