Recent Comments

1. 2 days ago on Clay Bennett

   — with all due respect, if a person just says he read something, even if he lists the alleged sources (Cincinnati Enquirer; USA Today), but does not provide a link (or even a date and page number of the publication), I don’t find that credible. He could have misunderstood what he read (they were debunking an urban rumor) or misremembered, or misattributed something he read from a less credible source. Or just outright FIBricating (I am not accusing of that; but it does happen).

   I do understand that not all content in the print editions of publications also go online, but if the event had more credibility, there should be more widespread coverage.

2. 2 days ago on Clay Bennett

   — It looks like that reply from @Sojourner to which I was replying has been removed. Don’t know if the person who posted it decided to delete it when unable to respond to the lengthy litany of science-based sources or if moderators deleted it because it contained truly dangerous misinformation. (If it got flagged, it was not from me.) In any case, it is gone.

3. 3 days ago on Clay Jones

   Turns out that the Q-Anon obsession with trying to accuse PROgressives of FAKE allegations of child trafficking is to deflect attention from their own REAL child traffickers (and the traffickers’ friends and enablers) like Matt Gaetz, Roy Moore, Gym Jordan and, of course, Jeffrey Epstein’s best pal Donald “pu$$y-grabber” Trump.

   It was all the “BIG LIE” strategy straight outta the Joseph Goebbels / Roy Cohn / Roger Ailes / Karl Rove / Vladimir Putin / Steve Bannon / Stephen Miller playbook: Take your own weakest vulnerability and redirect it back at your opponent.

4. 3 days ago on Clay Bennett

   — You are correct. It is like the expiration dates on any other products you can buy. The expiration dates are the dates which have been verified by testing. When it comes to dry goods or hard capsules, likely they last much, much longer than the expiration dates shown. When it comes to fresh foods (produce, meats) or liquids, it is best not to exceed the shown expirations.

   As to the vaccines, they have only been out (including trials) for six months, so that is the maximum they can certify. As the times extend and the results continue to hold, the numbers will almost certainly be extended as to the original virus.

   The primary reasons for boosters or updates will not be the expiration of the product, but for adaptation to variants.

   So far, the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer [mine] and Moderna [my wife’s]) are showing continued very strong efficacy against the known variants from U.K., New York, California and Brazil. There is some loss of efficacy against the South African variant, but infections remain extremely rare with minimal severity — still more protective than the flu vaccines we have in most years.

   The new variants are more infectious (easily spread) and more virulent (causing more severe illness) when they strike, but they are striking those who have not been vaccinated, even those who are younger and think themselves invincible, not those who have gotten the shots.

5. 3 days ago on Clay Bennett

   — more excellent resources.

   There are so many available resources; there is no need for anyone not peddling an anti-science agenda to be citing junk sites.

   And still, combining both of our lists, which are all from highly credible actual science resources, we are only scratching the surface. I have seen quite a few really excellent videos that explain how these mRNA vaccines work in clear terms that are easy to understand for anyone who isn’t plugging their thumbs into their ears, closing their eyes, and ululating loudly.

6. 3 days ago on Steve Breen

   — the MAGA morons are nowhere near half. They are more rabid and more determined to turn out to vote, which amplifies their presence, but mostly it is through suppressing the votes of the “wrong people” (i.e., the sane people), as well as artificial structures like gerrymandering and the Electoral College, which is RACIST in origin (for the preservation of slavery) and how it operates today. It was designed to protect the institution of slavery, and even today it operates to give the smallest and least diverse states vastly overrepresented power, and weakens the largest, most diverse states. The five smallest states, and nine of the ten smallest states, which are over-represented, are among the whitest and least diverse (only Delaware in the bottom ten is diverse) while the largest and most diverse have their power significantly diluted.

   Republicans have lost the popular vote (or as they call it in the rest of the world, “the vote”) in seven out of the last eight presidential elections, and have supermajorities in the legislatures of several states where the opposing party, gerrymandered into the smallest possible number of districts, actually got more total votes in the state.

7. 3 days ago on Clay Bennett

   — Aside from the abysmally inaccurate litany of pseudoscientific conspiracy theory garbage you vomited out of your keyboard, you are literally advocating offering up MILLIONS of human sacrifices on your altar of ignorance.

   Based on the current population of the United States, that “tiny 1-4% fatality rate” represents three to 12 MILLION human beings. And yes, once everyone who wants a vaccine has been able to get one, those who have protected themselves and their communities absolutely should have access to events from which the science deniers voluntarily choose to exclude themselves.

   And your description of how mRNA vaccines — which are the safest and most effective vaccination technology with the fewest possible avenues of contamination in the manufacturing process — is abysmally ignorant and riddled with DANGEROUS misinformation. People like you are the reason we have more than 575,000 DEAD AMERICANS while other countries, who followed basic epidemiological protocols and showed some respect for science, escaped essentially unscathed.

   Here are some actual, credible scientific sites that offer more accurate information:

   https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html

   https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/hcp/mrna-vaccine-basics.html

   https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/video/video-covid-mrna-vaccine

   https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/why-are-mrna-vaccines-so-exciting-2020121021599

   And here is a short (less than two minutes) YouTube video from Johns Hopkins that explains it in simple terms:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4sUuFBEo2g

8. 3 days ago on Michael Ramirez

   They have video games in every country in the world

   They have mental illness in every country in the world.

   Took god out of school? England, Japan, New Zealand and many other nations are far less religious than the United States and they don’t have massive gun carnage, while in this country, even our places of worship (Christian churches in Sutherland Springs, Texas and Charleston, South Carolina; Jewish synagogues in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or Poway, California; a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin; numerous Muslim mosques around the country) get regularly shot up, so god somehow won’t protect you there, either.

   Other countries have all the things the same irrelevant deflections to which they want to divert your attention, but what they don’t have is gun deaths in epidemic numbers that we do.

   Stop the deflection and the lies and look at the one single variable that makes the United States unique in the industrial world in terms of an epidemic of gun carnage.

   Anyone who opposes even the most minimal safety standards that would still allow anyone who is not a TERRORIST, CONVICTED VIOLENT CRIMINAL, DOMESTIC ABUSER or so MENTALLY ILL that they receive Social Security Disability benefits paid through a conservator, is an accessory to the crimes they commit.

   Or maybe that’s it. Anyone so obsessed with gun, who cherishes guns more than children (so much for “pro-life”), who believes even TERRORISTS and CONVICTED VIOLENT CRIMINAL should be able to walk into a gun show or place an order on the Internet with no background check, must be afraid that if we stop the mentally ill from getting guns, they won’t be able to keep their objects of affection.

9. 3 days ago on Steve Breen

   Matt Gaetz misunderstood what it meant when he heard that Venmo was for MINOR purchases.

10. 3 days ago on Clay Bennett

    — if you note in my comment about laminating, I stated that I made a COPY, front and back, and that is what I laminated. The original, the one to which a third or more booster for the variants would be added, is with my medical records and not laminated.