Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Discussion in 'SBAF Blogs' started by purr1n, Dec 26, 2018.

  1. Beefy

    Beefy Friend

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    (I think I can safely reply to this one without going nuts)

    That's the only one I had heard. According to Wikipedia, their numbers currently stand at about 50,000 people in the US, less than 400,000 globally.

    I honestly thought Jehovah's Witnesses and Latter Day Saints were anti-vaxx which would have been the 'big ones' accounting for millions. But nope, they all seem AOK with it. Christianity in general is entirely on board provided the vaccines aren't derived from fetal tissue. That really is a huge benefit of the mRNA vaccines, no 'grown' component at all, essentially fully synthetic.
     
  2. crenca

    crenca Friend

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    All too true. Yet as you are seeing man (i.e all that he is, all that he does, and all that he believes) is not a scientific phenomena. Our culture is a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Inc., and if/until the high priests and managers of sacred Freedom convince their followers that vaccination is not heresy, the science (and reality itself) is quite besides the point...
     
  3. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    I find it interesting that everyone in this thread is pro vaccine despite the very different political opinions here. Someone I met recently and have wound up loving very much is against vaccines and is infuriated by the vaccine passports. She has all kinds of "data" she has found all over the internet to support her idea that vaccines are dangerous. You know the dangers she's talking about - all the rumors.

    I find it difficult to relate and difficult to talk to her about. I try to by sympathetic because I love who she is at a fundamental level, as a person, but it's really off-putting reading her rants about vaccines.

    The internet has created a world where any opinion can be backed up with facts. You can find facts to support anything. There's absolutely no way to have a conversation or discussion with her about vaccines because she has her own set of facts.

    This is true with politics in general these days. It did not used to be this way though, discussion used to be much easier between people with opposing views. But when people both have their own facts, there is nothing you can say to each other.

    I'd love to hear some arguments or articles to share with her that might be enlightening. What would you say or what do you say to a friend who is against vaccines?
     
  4. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Not a popular stance, but I'm with you. Truth be told, I would not have bothered with the vaccine had I not lost lung function from Valley Fever. Remember that when I almost died because the doctors had a hard time diagnosing and by the time they figured it out, I had either secondary bacterial or disseminated fungal spores that put holes in my lungs. Took me a year and a half to be decently functioning, and a full three years to finally feel good, that is 90%-95%.

    I never used to get stuff like flu vaccines so it wasn't likely I would have gotten a Xi-virus vaccine either. Call it laziness or what you will. That is until I got sick and didn't have any more lung to lose just in case. I did a personal risk assessment and decided to get one ASAP. My daughter didn't want to get the vaccine and chose to wait until full FDA approval instead of emergency use approval. She masks up at school instead. She did her own assessment of the risks.

    I'm sorry, but I think people have the right to have a healthy level of skepticism and do more research. It bugs the f**k outta me that side effects seem to be minimized so much by the "authorities". Not just for the Xi-virus vaccines, but for all medications in general (antifungal medications, antibiotics - the whole gamut where I'd experienced nasty side-effects and docs were like either "wut" or "oh, I forgot to mention that"). Drug companies love suppressing information on side-effects. If they didn't, fewer people would be taking unnecessary medications and my investment in Pfizer wouldn't have returned so much. Our over-medicated culture and prescription drug industrial complex shoulders some of the blame for vaccine hesitancy.

    Moderna knocked me out one day for the first shot and two days for the second. Pfizer knocked my son out for a day and a half after this second shot. Ummm, maybe a little bit better disclosure next time so we get my shots on Friday pm instead of Sunday am. I won't even talk about what one of the antifungals did to me, which required me to discontinue a popular medicine for a new high-tech one that cost $4k for a bottle.

    I'm not antivaxx nor do I believe in vaccine conspiracies. I immensely dislike those fat obese pieces of shit (obvious high risk group) who say the xi-virus is a scam, that they want Drano for meds, and then die, leaving wife and kids begging on GoFundMe. There's a middle ground and there's always some place in the country for people with different levels of risk tolerance. People outside the state of Texas mock Abbott on his no forced mask mandate, but all Abbott is doing is reaffirming what people want here. Texans want to live (freely) and by large are willing to accept the consequences of their actions.

    My entire family took a vacation via plane to Texas to check out Austin, San Antonio and Corpus last Thanksgiving. This was when authorities advised all Americans not to travel. Ironically, I felt the airplane was one the safer places with mandatory masking and a good air filtering system. One lady who was trying to emulate Cardi B having a bitch fight was escorted out of the plane. Can't feel any safer than that.

    What solidified my decision to move here was when El Lay mayor Garcetti decided to shut down all of El Lay County for outdoor dining while I was here last year. That was the last straw. Dining out (with precautions) was one of the few luxuries that we had. Evidently Garcetti didn't understand that Calabasas, Agoura, Westlake were not the same the as coronavirus party zones of El Lay. A friend texted me when the announcement was made: don't bother coming back - California is closed. That's when we called a real estate agent and lined up our next two days in Texas looking at houses.

    And BTW, mask compliance was a lot better in Corpus than in Ventura and especially El Lay county. Mask compliance went almost to zero during the lull, but has gone up significnatly since delta hit. I'd say it's a good 50% at H.E.B. I don't bother with a mask. The fatality rate for someone my age who gets the Xi-virus is 1/200. For someone in great shape my age, probably 1/1000. For someone fully immunized and in great shape my age, my guess is 1/100000. I'm much more likely to die from getting shot by gun or in car accident than walking around without a mask.

    Also, it's about being pragmatic. Vaccine hesitancy isn't going away. No one is going to change anyone else's mind. May as well get it over with and get everyone not vaccinated infected ASAP.
     
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    Last edited: Sep 6, 2021
  5. Phantaminum

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    I think the issue that bothers me the most is how demonized mask wearing has become. I can understand not wanting to take the shot, maybe you're against it for very logical reasons. Or, you're against it because you read in your FB essentials oil group that Gwyneth Paltrow's vagina scented candle can cure you. If you don't want to take the shot that's fine but don't complain when businesses, hospitals, airlines, and family members exclude you because at the basic level of human decency you can't be bothered to put one on. If you can't for real medical reasons, I got you, that's why I'm wearing my mask but if you have real medical reasons don't go out.

    My high school principal who I love to death is now spouting that wearing masks steals O2 and causes a build up of CO2. Also, that it can cause a build up of germs inside. Which, sure, if you keep wearing the same mask day in and day out is unsanitary. But the worse is when they say that the next step is to take the shot is to lead into the mark of the beast. Mind you, when we were all growing up we had to take vaccines to even get into school. He's one of the people in my life that thought me to critically think.

    People started to take the virus seriously at our job when we lost around 20 employees from last year to now. That's more employees that have passed away from non job related deaths counting back years. The impact doesn't include people who were deathly ill but made it. So now they are requiring masks for everything and are putting in policies that if you're working on site and the contractor requires the Covid shot from you, you can take the shot or be moved to another project...if there are any projects that don't require the shot.

    Alright, let me get off my soapbox.
     
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  6. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Mask wearing is about civility. I don't wear a mask generally. However if I were to visit an old-folks home, for sure I will. It's about not being a dick and being sensitive to others' concerns. I still have a mask in my pocket and will ask folks if they feel more comfortable if I mask up (at the haircutters, etc.)

    People who demonize masking wearing or recommend injecting Lysol or Drano: the former are uncivil insensitive dickheads, the latter are stubborn dumbshits.

    The problem is that it's become political. People harden their stance one way or the other. There's no middle ground anymore.
     
  7. bilboda

    bilboda Florida boomer

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  8. HHS

    HHS Almost "Made"

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  9. Beefy

    Beefy Friend

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    Quite. Christina Parks is a quack and a crackpot.
     
  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I would take what Abbott and Trump took: corticosteroids and monoclonals. Stuff that's proven to work. I'll take de-wormers when I start to hear that folks like Abbott took them when they got the virus.
     
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2021
  11. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Is there an end in sight? Here's the deal, vaccine "compliance" has been utter shit in Nueces County: 58% with at least one dose and 49% fully vaccinated. I'm two degrees of separation from people who have died: one a school administrator back in June of 2020 and more recently a pregnant lady (along with her unborn child).

    Nueces County (including Corpus Christi, TX)
    New SARS-CoV2 Cases
    upload_2021-9-26_19-38-44.png

    Unlike places like Silly Con Valley in California, Nueces County is poorer, with many of its people working hourly in heavy industry and the services sector, often with second or third jobs to make ends meet. This makes it harder for people to take time off and schedule a vaccination. Hence the explosion in SAR-CoV2 cases when the delta variant arrived. For comparison, here is the same chart, but for Santa Clara County, the heart of Silly Con:

    Santa Clara County (the heart of Silly Con Valley)
    New SARS-CoV2 Cases
    upload_2021-9-26_19-51-27.png

    We can see that the mind-lords and Gary Mitchell types in the Silly Con Valley did not experience the explosion in SARS-CoV2 cases that the folks of Nueces County experienced because of the much higher vaccination rate of 79% with at least one vaccination and 75% fully vaccinated.

    I'm also pretty sure that Santa Clara County may have imposed much stricter lockdowns. Nueces County has been open for business during this entire time, albeit with mitigating controls (namely shields and masks at times). Currently, mask compliance in Nueces County is definitely higher than in Los Angeles County. I'd say that over two-thirds of the people at the local H.E.B. supermarket are wearing masks. As for El Lay, folks there have always been mindless. I was actually surprised that folks here in Nueces took to wearing masks seriously when we arrived in January of this year.

    Hey, at least there is an end in sight. Natural immunity from actually spreading and getting the virus works too. (Although I'm sure Pfizer and Moderna would love to see you get one of their shots, just in case). The downside of naturally acquired immunity is that more people need to get sick, and a few must die.
     
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2021
  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    This one is troubling. All the more troubling that major news networks are not reporting this.

    As part of the $1T federal infrastructure bill, there is a proposal to help find money to pay for it by requiring financial institutions (banks, credit unions, Paypal, etc.) to report information to the IRS on accounts with excess of $600 in transactions a year. I shit you not.

    Here is a letter drafted by the ABA (American Bankers Association, a trade group for small and regional banks) to the House Ways and Means Committee and Senate Finance Committee urging them to reconsider.
    https://www.aba.com/-/media/documen...2021.pdf?rev=7132bcdb45584243af8f585e99c7582d

    I don't think this will fly for obvious reasons. $600 in transactions is nothing. It basically means that the banks will have to report information for almost every account. There's been talk of raising it to $10,000. However, even I find this amount rather low.

    I don't know how you guys feel about this. Personally, I'm kind of like WTF Communist shit is this? The fact that something like this even gets proposed in the United States of America I find disturbing. What business is it of the government with what I do with money? How will I know that my banking and personal information will be safe considering the recent IRS leak and another one from six years ago? Also troubling because the major new networks didn't really report these leaks.

    I know most of you guys aren't in banking so you will never hear of this. I figured you guys should know and maybe write a letter to the US Representative in your District. I hope we're not on the road to totalitarianism. This is how it happens. One step at a time.
     
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    Last edited: Sep 27, 2021
  13. rhythmdevils

    rhythmdevils MOT: rhythmdevils audio

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    I posted some tme ago to stop using the shitpost button in this thread. I have deleted those posts. This is Marv's thread. You all can carry on as you have been as long as Marv is ok with it. Disgregard what I wrote. @Senorx12562 this should make you very happy :)

    I don't post here anymore because it's not really an open political discussion. The views expressed here are almost entirely right wing, some extremely right wing and you all seem to like it like that. When I did post here it realy upset people to just hear liberal views, one person had a compete breakdown just reading liberal views here. Which I find ridiculous in a thread like this - this is not a conservative country and you enter this thread if you are open to reading other's political views- but I decided to just leave you all to have whatever this is as that seems better for the forum.

    Cheers,
    Whitney
     
  14. zerodeefex

    zerodeefex SBAF's Imelda Marcos

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    Just a heads up, we don't delete posts, especially dumbass posts. It's shame for the world to see
     
  15. HHS

    HHS Almost "Made"

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    What does this have to do with communism or totalitarianism? Banks already have IRS reporting requirements, they're only proposing tightening them, and so far it's only a proposal. They're not proposing capturing information on everything you do with your money, it's not per transaction reporting its gross inflow and outflow for the year.
     
  16. dasman66

    dasman66 Self proclaimed lazy ass - friend

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    I don't know... I guess I have a problem with big brother wanting to know inflow/outflow of every citizen in the US. I don't like the direction it could lead...
     
  17. Koth Ganesh

    Koth Ganesh Friend

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    This is very troubling. I have been in banking/finance all my life. First, $600 is such a small sum that the banks will probably end up reporting the transactions of the entire US population ( I know I exaggerate a bit). Imagine the logistics of this! And the banks will raise our servicing/processing fees. Second and on a more personal note, I am a U.S. citizen living abroad for a long time now. I use my savings stateside for living expenses. If I need to fund capital expenses, heck even 10 grand is small. Last but not the least, this does smack of totalitarianism. I really am troubled that the US is even considering this.
     
  18. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I'm not exempt from this either. All my posts good and bad and ones where I acted like a complete jackass or drunken fool are still out there. This unwritten rule was purposely put into place and agrees to by the members as a check and balance. I'm human, I make mistakes, and I become better if my past f**k ups are there for everyone to see. I'll let Amir and Jude be the infallible ones through their use of post deletion techniques.

    P.S. Inappropriate posts with personal information, those of a highly personal nature, unfounded accusations of criminal behavior, those get archived for obvious reasons. Spam gets deleted.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2021
  19. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

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    I wanna do a long banking post, since I'm the SBAF banker...but I'll do it tomorrow.

    I'll say this: For a bank to even be a bank, they must be allowed by the FDIC (the federal government). For a credit union to even be a credit union, they must be allowed by the NCUA (the federal government).
     
  20. HHS

    HHS Almost "Made"

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    Yes, yes, I'm sure many vague and terrible things are gonna happen because the IRS has more accurate reporting and less potential tax revenue slips away
     

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