1/2 A man has taken four Jews hostage inside a synagogue in #Colleyville, Texas. The hostage-taker/terrorist demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist suspected of having ties to al-Qaida. theguardian.com/us-news/2022/j…
Reportedly, and only reportedly, all hostages freed, condition unknown, and the hostage-taker is dead. I do not know of any reliable reports as yet on all that; just unattributed claims,
1/ Idle late-night notes. A lot of people wiffle on about how the govt should advise on obesity in response to the pandemic. Never mind that many of those selfsame people would throw a tantrum if the govt started imposing health guidelines on fast-food; the main problems are...
2/n It's a bollocks claim, & often just used as evasion.
a/ Obesity isn't the main risk-factor for death from COVID_19; age is. Just age. And if you're one of the sociopathic nutjobs who wants all oldies to die for your convenience, I don't want to know you.
2b/ Even if obesity was the main risk factor (which it isn't), so? Correcting obesity is actually a big problem, and it takes many years, even if it's successful. So correcting it within months in response to a new pandemic is simply impossible.
From now on, people like @truthinitiative will demand movies w/ cute, good-looking girls being mentally ill, as long of course as the bitter, grim reality of mental illness & consequences isn't shown. Or tobacco, my god, can't show the tobacco. But romanticise the mental illness.
I'm sure we can all see what the consequences of romanticising mental-illness will be. That's done already a fair bit in Hollywood. But all y'all will be happy to know no ciggies will get shown, no tobacco, heaven forfend.
There's a theory that people with certain types of mental illness, & separately people with certain types of bad autoimmune conditions, smoke tobacco as an unconscious form of self-medication. It's definitely plausible as a theory (nicotine has odd, wide effects).
2/n For some reason, probably also owing to lack of talent, @TheBabylonBee made exactly the same crap line back in July, only changing "Delta" to "variant". I guess the Americans who died of Delta after July 04 might have cared, or their relatives.
3/ It's not as if the chief editor makes any attempt to keep his politics, and his lack of grasp on reality, hidden in any way. Plenty more bull like this.
It became very obvious a long way back that @TheBabylonBee and its chief editor hated quarantine restrictions so much they became in effect antivaxxers as well. Their crap "satire" just happens to be what a large number in the USA actually believe, because of people like them.
You've got Joe Rogan, Bret Weinsten, James Lindsay, whoever tf Amanda LeftCoast is, and every antivaxxer & his dog saying exactly the same as @TheBabylonBee on COVID19 & vaccines for it, don't try to pretend to me it's "satire" on those subjects. What utter bull.
No. This is my point. Satire needs a discernable difference to reality to be satire, but @TheBabylonBee just regurgitates looney antivax fav, *serious* slogans. There's no difference between it & James Lindsay, WI GOP Treig Pronschinske,or Bret Weinstein
How are you even a doctor, @BrentAWilliams2? If you want to deny an N95 face-mask is far more effective than a surgical mask, you're now moving in direct rejection of proven reality.
My main concern is the US poor, the ones who have to watch every penny. They would really benefit from the US govt sending everyone say 10 free N95 masks; the effects of some wearing them properly outweighs those who don't.
Here in Germany, where everything is über-official, the government still managed to provide residents with free FFP2's (equivalent to N95's), enough to last a long time with rotational re-use, & no-one worried about official training.