No Excuses

I mean reveal trailers are always hype and don't tell you anything, but a good Battlefield game is sorely needed after years of wasting time in the World War era.

1 hour ago, Sticksboi05 said:

The Delta variant looks to be about as immune evasive as South African variant (B.1.351) but still cannot escape the protection of full mRNA vaccination. However once it arrives in the U.S., folks who aren't vaccinated are going to be at much higher risk than with current variants. Tell folks to get vaccinated ASAP.

Telling folks isn't enough. The federal government should do a daily lottery. $365M is a tiny amount of money to spend over a year to get our vaccination rate into the 75-85% range.

10/10 meme

Coinbase is down presumably from people nervous checking charts. Can’t buy ETH as a result

The whole “decentralized” narrative really goes out the window when a single billionaire can ****post his way into crashing the entire asset class. 
 

I’m going to keep buying ETH since there are enough interesting use cases for it already and an actively engaged developer community , and continue to ignore Buttcoin and the rest.

13 minutes ago, Destino said:

Regardless of their footing today, what they’re doing creates political opposition.  That opposition may not be winning, urgently, but political winds are subject to change and so this constant heavy handed oppression comes with risk.  However small it may seem, it’s can grow at any moment, and I’m sure they’re aware of that.  It’s why they work so hard at lobbying governments that matter.  

For what it’s worth, political winds have changed. The Bush administration used to condemn Israel’s bombing of Palestinian houses and openly rejected the “Hamas human shield” argument for it. Compare that to what Biden et al are doing right now. 
 

I think the Israeli government has made a pretty solid calculation that they have nothing to worry about when it comes to losing support, and that full annexation of Palestinian territory is a policy goal that they are well on their way to achieving with little resistance. 

3 hours ago, Destino said:

I can’t figure out just what the hell it is that Israel wants.  They can’t really want to continue with this apartheid state forever right?  Their leaders can play stupid all they want, but they know the current state of things invites violence.  A people oppressed this badly will only ever lash out.  Plus, the state of things costs them much and constantly risks their alliances in the west.  They claim to support a two state solution but their settlements suggest that they’re more interested in expanding territory.  
 

What does winning look like realistically for Israel in this madness?  Is the plan just to lie about wanting peace while they slowly expand their borders until Gaza and Palestine are no more? 

The Israeli right wing's current stance of expanding settlements and using Gaza as an open air prison has been rewarded with complete bipartisan backing in the US, and increasing support from the oligarchs of the Arab oil states + Egypt. What is their incentive for a two-state solution? Really nothing. They can expand territory, annex land Palestinian land and where the Palestinian's end up eventually (if at all) is apparently not their problem.  They aren't getting sanctioned, they aren't losing defense aid, they have normalized relationships with surrounding Arab states, and Egypt fully backs the blockade of Gaza.

In a different world with competent management, the Wizards would be a prime destination for a big 3 and another star player wanting to team with Brad/Russ.

56 minutes ago, Larry said:

Let's not rush to make Israel the only villain, here,  though.  

 

For example, I've read (and believe) that Hamas knows that they are a frequent Israeli target.  And so they have a deliberate policy of placing all of their ioffices on the ground floor of multi-story apartment buildings.  So that any Israeli attack against Hamas will cause the collapse of a building full of civilians.  

 

Yes, Israel has been systematically committing war crimes, pretty much since the day they were founded.  They're just not the only villain in the fight.  

 

It’s a war between a nuclear power backed by the US military and a defenseless population with barely an army, no navy and no Air Force. 
 

Drawing any kind of equivalencies here is pretty ridiculous. Hamas gains legitimacy in Gaza because its people are pretty much living in an open air prison.
 

People who are afforded zero dignity and barely any international support turning to an extremist group offering protection is sadly not surprising. 

New Gojira album is a 10/10. 
 

A single album with this many bangers should not be allowed. 
 

Amazonia -> The Sphinx -> Hold On 

The opening riff for the Sphinx is just *chefs kiss* amazing.

55 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

Attacking the person is ALWAYS a weak argument.  Attack the argument, and if you can't, then you probably shouldn't really say anything

You can look at data from Israel which pretty clearly shows that even the mutant strains are not spreading in a population with ~55% vaccination rate. Even the UK data shows this, and they have lower rate of fully vaccinated people.
 

Spare me the “don’t say anything”. Around this time last year, you were arguing with me that masks don’t work (and in fact may actually cause disease LOL) and data isn’t there to support masking (both points were wrong, but that didn’t stop you). 

10 minutes ago, Ball Security said:

I’m learning something here.  He is an epidemiologist, but not an expert in the field of infectious disease.  I did not know that distinction honestly.

Understandable, and that’s his MO. He fudges his credentials and over-exaggerates his expertise. 
 

Ultimately, the problem with him is that he’s mostly interested in making things go viral, with little regard for the accuracy or truthfulness of what he’s saying. His ongoing social media efforts are basically a sad attempt at keeping vaccinated people scared of COVID. My cynical take is that he knows that the end of the pandemic through mass vaccinations is also the end for what brought him social media clout.   

16 minutes ago, Ball Security said:

https://scholar.harvard.edu/ericfeiglding/bio
 

This bio on Harvard’s site says he has a doctorate in epidemiology from Harvard after graduating from JHU.    Is this a lie? 
 

How would a layman like me know?  I don’t want to post things from non experts.  It’s not like I’m quoting Dr. Oz here.  
 

https://undark.org/2020/11/25/complicated-rise-of-eric-feigl-ding

1 hour ago, Ball Security said:

Other epidemiologists question whether the vaccines alone are preventing infections or if it’s a combination of the vaccines with others wearing masks.  They are hesitant about the CDC’s guidance.

Eric Feigl-Ding is not an epidemiologist. He’s a clout chaser, who has a background in nutrition and somehow spun a loose connection with Harvard into convincing people he’s an expert in virology. 
 

He’s pretty much the Alex Berenson of left wing COVID fear porn.

It’s time

Bitcoin tanking on a day when there’s data released on greater-than-expected inflation is pretty funny. 

7 minutes ago, CousinsCowgirl84 said:

You wouldn’t expect high consumer demand during high unemployment.  It’s the combination that is weird.

Why? Considering two things:  

1. We are coming out of a pandemic, during which consumption went down, leading to pent up demand upon reopening.

2. Quite a generous expansion of UI benefits, that kept most people without jobs afloat (poverty actually going down following UI benefit expansions). 

There’s a supply crunch in many commodity areas and a demand boom with reopenings. Why are people surprised that consumer prices are going up? 

54 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

I think it depends on how crowded your outdoor area is.  

Yup, generally was a good idea to mask outdoors if someone was talking, singing, shouting etc in close proximity for a prolonged time. But going for a walk in the park, etc, we knew by Fall was safe. 
 

Even less need to worry now outdoors if you’re vaccinated. Talk, sing, dance do whatever. The unvaccinated want to roll the dice for death or Long COVID, more power to them. But I’ve resumed life back to normal, indoors and outdoors. 

2 hours ago, LadySkinsFan said:

This is my issue with declaring that fully vaccinated people can go maskless in public: the anti-vaxxers don't wear masks now unless forced to so they can shop. So how are us fully vaccinated people able to rely on every maskless person they encounter is also fully vaccinated?

Outdoor mask wearing was unnecessary even when people weren’t vaccinated. You won’t be catching COVID from people in ventilated, open outdoor spaces. 

17 hours ago, China said:

U.S. backs waiving patent protections for Covid vaccines, citing global health crisis

 

Click on the link for the full article

File this under policy actions that accomplish nothing. This is virtue signaling by the administration with negligible impact on global vaccine distribution. The choke point to vaccine production is supply chains and manufacturing capacity.

27 minutes ago, DCSaints_fan said:

I signed up for MLB.TV last year as I was out of market for the Orioles,  little did I know there's apparently some automatically renewal and they dropped a nice fat $100 charge just before the season begin, which I got zero notification for and only noticed on my statment. 

 

I did just recently get it reverted, however its a pain to think I have to constantly check my statements and remember everything I every signed up for. 

 

Then there's this $20 renters insurance payment I paid like a few extra months for because it was difficult to cancel. 

 

I would sooner just be able to verify every payment through my cell phone and be done with it.   I would setup a small crypto account and pay out of that, and occassionally transfer money into it from my bank.  

 

 

Forgetting to cancel your subscriptions on time is not an indictment of the existing financial system. Plus, this is super easy to reverse. I’ve done it like four times already this year and spent no more than 5 minutes total. Lol

1 hour ago, DCSaints_fan said:

And then another advantage is control.  With an ordinary bank account, you don't really control it.  Give out your CC # and someone can charge whatever they want on your account, sometimes months later and without your consent.  But with blockchain, unless you give up your private keys, you have full control over what happens, so this is impossible

The downside is that if you lose your keys, or god forbid, fall for a scam, you’re straight out of luck with cryptocurrencies.
 

Banks in the US offer a layer of protection through reversibility of transactions.
 

The security side of cryptocurrencies isn’t really solving a pressing issue in US finance. I can see the upside for people in developing and authoritarian nations, where confiscation of financial assets by corrupt leaders/institutions is an issue, but it’s not a relevant issue in developed nations.

Doge outperforming Bitcoin over its existence is pretty great. An inflationary coin, that everyone knows has no use case, has been a much better store of value than BTC.

1 hour ago, Hersh said:

what I don’t really understand is, is there nothing that did that already? I really gotta spend some time looking up examples cause I don’t understand enough 

At its core, decentralized blockchains real value is basically a secure database that can’t be altered by one entity. 
 

It’s a pretty boring technology but people are trying to will it into existence as something really cool. Legitimately it’s most practical use case is non-fungible and transparent public records to prevent government and institutional corruption. 

2 hours ago, Dan T. said:

So the Wall-Westbrook trade isn't quite the disaster it appeared to be earlier in the season.

Westbrook was always better than Wall, always will be. I feel like the negativity had more to do with fan attachment.

Westbrook is insane. All time great.