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If ever you find yourself short of these, we have more than a few here we can send you.

Or closer to indoor plumbing and people who are aware of dental hygiene.

Last Friday the Freep published and article about a study comparing vaxers and antivaxxers. The interesting part related to a developmental psychology test for 3 year old kids to determine their likelihood of success in adult life. It consists of offering the child either one piece pf candy now or three pieces later. There emerged a direct correlation between those who waited for the candy and their doing well (in relationships and careers) in adult life. By comparison, the children unwilling to delay gratification did much worse in these areas. The test was repeated using money for both vaxers and antivaxxers and guess what? The antivaxxers were markedly more likely to choose the "money now" option. Arrested development or what?

And that's the way they like it, uhuh, uhuh.

‘Quick Reaction Forces’ And The Lingering Mysteries Of The Plot Against The Capitol. The Oath Keeper “QRFs” show how things could have been a lot worse, and how much more there is to learn. The Comfort Inn location just off the interstate has three stars on Yelp, where reviewers noted it had free parking and free breakfast, but poor WiFi. It did well on TripAdvisor too, although one person reported they found a dead roach in the shower. As a staging ground for an alleged seditious conspiracy, however, it was a pretty solid choice. The Comfort Inn Ballston had rooms available for members of the right-wing Oath Keepers organization at a reasonable rate. The hotel’s luggage carts were strong enough to lug the bins of weapons, ammunition and supplies that they wheeled in to prepare for Jan. 6, 2021. Its location right off the ramp to Route 66 eastbound, outside of rush hour, can get you to the U.S. Capitol in a hurry. Critically, it was located in the state of Virginia, where the alleged co-conspirators wouldn’t have to worry about those pesky D.C. gun laws until it was time to take over the federal government. Then the laws wouldn’t matter. The indictment of Oath Keepers founder Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, who was integral to the plot that unfolded in Ballston, on seditious conspiracy charges this month has once again drawn national attention to how supporters of President Donald Trump plotted to help stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory on Jan. 6. Even after more than 700 arrests, and the hundreds of potential cases that remain, the latest indictment indicates there is much more we still don’t know about the most high-profile conspiracy case to emerge from the Jan. 6 investigation — and how much worse things could have been. Part of the Oath Keepers’ conspiracy was standing up “Quick Reaction Forces” (QRFs) just outside of D.C. that were on standby to deliver guns into the capital on Jan. 6. The “base of operations,” according to the indictment, was the Comfort Inn Ballston, where the North Carolina QRF team leader reserved three rooms: one for their North Carolina team, another for the Arizona QRF team, and the third for the Florida QRF team. The indictment alleges they used those rooms to store and guard the firearms, although the four men on the North Carolina QRF team “kept their rifles ready to go in a vehicle parked in the hotel lot” according to a court filing. “While certain Oath Keepers members and affiliates inside of Washington, D.C., breached the Capitol grounds and building, others remained stationed just outside of the city in QRF teams,” the indictment states. “The QRF teams were prepared to rapidly transfer firearms and other weapons into Washington, D.C., in support of operations aimed at using force to stop the lawful transfer of presidential power.” ‘Quick Reaction Forces’ And The Lingering Mysteries Of The Plot Against The Capitol | HuffPost Latest News

And therein lies the problem- it is much easier to pull someone down to your level than keep up to them,

This completely baffles me and my major was sociology. The impoverished rural areas in the US are completely devoted to supporting the worst slates of GOP candidates who openly display racism, misogyny, pedophilia, and corruption who do little or nothing to help the people in their ridings, The purest form of sanity we were taught is the will and ability to act in one's best interests, and, by that definition, insanity has seized much of America and they are proud of it. In one area of West Virginia, the average male life expectancy was 59 and the healthcare was so poor and the need was so great that Doctors Without Borders actually went in and established medical services. And they were verbally attacked by locals and local politicians. That is America today in a nutshell.

Three days ago, O'Toole was urging moderation. and yesterday he was championing the cause as a outrageous over-reach by the Trudeau government. There are those who believe that leadership consists of finding a parade and getting in front of it. American GOP politicians have successfully instilled in their followers that winning is everything and sacrificing everything to gain that is okay. Some of that **** seems to have leaked across the border.

Civil war expert recoils in horror at interviews with Trump fans: 'They don’t want democracy anymore' The U.S. recently fell out of the rankings of democratic nations, and one expert worries that it will happen again -- and tip the country into civil war. Barbara Walter, a University of California professor and an expert on civil conflicts, recently wrote about the political volatility in the U.S. since the Jan. 6 insurrection, which dropped the country into the anocracy zone, and she told CNN the riot had made the deadly risks from Donald Trump's lies "impossible to deny and ignore." "Anocracies are neither fully democratic nor fully autocratic; their citizens enjoy some elements of democratic rule (e.g., elections), while other rights (e.g., due process or freedom of the press) suffer," Walter wrote for the Washington Post. "In the last weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, the respected Center for Systemic Peace (CSP) calculated that, for the first time in more than two centuries, the United States no longer qualified as a democracy. It had, over the preceding five years, become an anocracy." President Joe Biden's peaceful inauguration moved the polity ranking back into the democratic zone, but Walter warned the threat remained, putting the U.S. at real risk of additional violence and instability, and Walter reacted with alarm when a CNN host showed her interviews with Trump supporters who refused to accept the former president had lost the election. "Well, 10 years ago, [my reaction] would have been shock and disbelief," Walter said. “I would have thought, ‘Well she’s an outlier and she’s not representative of anything larger than a fringe movement, maybe.' But of course, that’s not the case anymore.” Walter and others who study civil conflict have been sounding the alarm for years, but she said no wanted to believe the risks, but she said Trump and his right-wing media allies have corroded trust in democracy itself -- with already fatal results. “Citizens do believe what they are hearing and if they hear it long enough and consistently enough and if that’s all they hear, they absolutely don’t think it’s a lie, they think it’s the truth,” Walter said. "You know, they're good people," she added. "They are trying to do what they think is right. It's the leadership that's cynical. It's the leadership that knows better who is feeding them lies consistently. They’re priming their supporters to believe that democracy isn’t worth defending because they don’t want democracy anymore." Civil war expert recoils in horror at interviews with Trump fans: 'They don’t want democracy anymore' - Alternet.org

Woman With MS Dies of COVID After Doctors Told Her She Couldn’t Get Vaxxed, Family Says The family of a California woman who died from COVID-19 announced that they’re suing health-care provider Kaiser Permanente, alleging she was denied a vaccine and refused monoclonal antibody treatment after she was infected. Nerissa Regnier, a 45-year-old realtor with three children, had multiple sclerosis but was “managing” the disease, said Annee Della Donna, an attorney for the family. When she approached Kaiser about getting vaccinated, Regnier was told more than half a dozen times in six months that she could not receive the vaccine because it contained a “live virus,” the lawyer alleged. (Not one of the available COVID-19 vaccines contains live viruses.) Regnier later tested positive for the coronavirus. Hospitalized at a medical center within Kaiser’s network, she was denied monoclonal antibody treatment, Della Donna alleged. Regnier died Dec. 16. Kaiser officials have declined to comment on Regnier’s case, instead insisting that the company is committed to providing the “highest quality health care appropriate” for each patient. Woman With MS Dies of COVID After Doctors Told Her She Couldn’t Get Vaxxed, Family Says (thedailybeast.com)

There are those who confuse freedom with licence. "Useful idiots"

that, or Jones is showing signs of Old-Timers disease.

They are trying to ensure that these children grow up so ignorant that they will be lifetime GOPers.

Its more a condemnation of their political system.

"Son of omicron" variant worries public health officials amid new wave of COVID-19 infections. The variant, known as BA.2, has been identified in over 40 countries and seems to spread very quickly As the omicron variant became the dominant strain in the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists began to nervously observe that we knew very little about its origin. If this unusually vaccine-evasive and infectious mutant can arise seemingly out of nowhere, they warned, it is entirely possible that another related virus might pop up and surprise everyone. Some even speculated that omicron itself could mutate into a new virus that would present a different range of problems for scientists trying to study them. New reports from California reveal that this last warning may have been prophetic. The California Department of Health confirmed on Tuesday that it had identified 11 cases throughout the state of BA.2, a sub-variant of omicron. At the time of this writing, 96 people around the country in total have been diagnosed with the BA.2 sub-variant in the United States. The World Health Organization (WHO) has dubbed the strain a "variant of concern," or a virus that will spread more rapidly, hinder public health precautions more effectively or in some way prove to be more dangerous than other forms of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (which causes COVID-19). Unfortunately, there are early signs it may be more transmissible than the earlier strain of omicron (now known as BA.1), as Imperial College London virologist Tom Peacock opined on Twitter. "Any variant that proves to be able to transmit more efficiently will cause more cases, and therefore likely more hospitalisations," Pam Vallely, a professor of medical virology at the University of Manchester, told Newsweek. "But we cannot infer anything meaningful from the limited data available for this variant so far." "Son of omicron" variant worries public health officials amid new wave of COVID-19 infections | Salon.com

The Wexit people are in on the protests and Trump banners have been reported. I support the testing. If you come back infected, you can spread it quickly to many people, some of whom who are vulnerable. We have enough Covidiots locally that we do not need to add to that number, and for truckers, its part of the cost of doing business. My son and daughter in law recently returned from Hawaii and were tested going and returning, and considered it as necessary- no big deal.

Sometimes good athletes want something specific or maybe don't like the physical stuff. A guy named "Tiger" Wiseman broke at lot Gretzky's records in the OHL, but had no interest in pro hockey. Last I heard he was a fireman in North Bay. My son was a good, big hockey player, but when he reached the age where bodychecking started, he opted out- didn't like hurting people.

The prosecution needs for one or two conspirators to save themselves by striking deals and turning on others. There is evidence this is already happening.

You are correct- I got the two movies confusicated, but Beyond was not good. (IMO)

To repeat myself, it will take a couple of prosecutions and conviction for criminal negligence causing harm/death for the cretins to wake up. To repeat myself, it will take a couple of prosecutions and conviction for criminal negligence causing harm/death for the cretins to wake up.

Beyond. Ugh.

There is incontrovertible evidence that he, in fact, is an eejit.

The most recent Star Trek movie is a close second, but that first one nearly sank the franchise for good. Roddenberry had to make all kinds of promises in order to get a second one made.

Bolsonaro’s Far-Right Guru Who Dismissed ‘Moronavirus’ Pandemic Dies of COVID -Reuters Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has declared a national day of mourning after his COVID-denying mentor died of the virus. Olavo de Carvalho, 74, was a longtime right-wing crusader in Brazil who was crucial in Bolsonaro’s shock rise to power in the 2018 presidential election. Carvalho’s relatives announced his death Monday, but didn’t say how he died. However, his estranged daughter, Heloísa de Carvalho, revealed Tuesday that her dad died from COVID-19. He had spent the pandemic playing down the severity of the virus, dismissing it as the “moronavirus” and writing in a tweet in May 2020: “The fear of a supposedly deadly virus is nothing more than a little horror story designed to scare the population and make them accept slavery as they would a present from Father Christmas.” In a mournful statement, Bolsonaro described his mentor as “one of the greatest thinkers in our country’s history.”