swordfish

Heck, I don't have the $179,000 today......Guess I better learn some Chinese language......

I was told back in the mid-80's this was going to happen. In the early 90's I began taking it seriously that I wouldn't be able to rely on Social Security like my parents did once I retire. Now in my mid 50's I feel fortunate that I trusted that advice as retirement becomes a closer reality for me. Privatization is the best option. (IMHO)

Yeah - Don't worry, the biggest lobby group in the US is the AMA (Pharma & Health) by a long shot......

https://nypost.com/2021/08/31/liberals-take-on-larry-elder-for-california-comments/ The possibility that Larry Elder may win California’s recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom is generating acute anxiety in the mainstream media and among the activist left. Elder’s foes are responding with their favored means of destruction: by playing the race card. Never mind that the nationally syndicated talk show host is black. A series of opinion columns and editorials have accused him of being a white supremacist, or at the very least a shill for other white supremacists. Elect Elder and California will reinstate Jim Crow, state Sen. Sydney Kamlager, a Democrat from Los Angeles, has warned. The media have focused particularly on Elder’s views about crime and policing. The self-described “Sage from South-Central” maintains that criminals, not the police, are the biggest threat in the black community. According to Elder, the false narrative about lethal police racism has only led to more black homicide deaths. “When you reduce the possibility of a bad guy getting caught, getting convicted and getting incarcerated, guess what? Crime goes up,” he said recently at a campaign event in Orange County. Elder also rejects the charge that white civilians are gunning down blacks, as LeBron James maintained in a tweet during the George Floyd riots: “We are literally hunted everyday, every time we step outside the comfort of our homes.” Elder has a different take. If a “young black man is eight times more likely to be killed by another young black man than [by] a young white man,” Elder told the Orange County Republicans, then “systemic racism is not the problem.” Such statements are anathema to the establishment left, deeply invested as it is in the idea that blacks have little agency in the face of ubiquitous white racism. Few subjects are more taboo in elite discourse than the elevated rate of crime among blacks, as it suggests cultural pathologies that — at the very least — complicate the victim narrative. To the left, black crime is little more than a racist fiction. Los Angeles Times columnist Jean Guerrero claims that the crime statistics Elder has cited “over the decades to support his views and policy proposals are misleading, if not outright false, casting Black people as unusually crime-prone.” Black people are not “more inclined toward violent crimes,” nor do blacks “disproportionately victimize whites,” Guerrero wrote, citing Columbia law professor Jeffrey Fagan and other criminal experts. (Fagan was the plaintiff’s expert in a trilogy of lawsuits against the New York Police Department in the 2010s.) Fellow Times columnist Erika Smith sneered that Elder “keeps trotting out statistics that purport to show that Black people are particularly prone to murdering one another.” Unfortunately for Elder’s critics, the statistics showing vastly disproportionate rates of black crime and victimization come from some of the left’s favorite sources. CDC data show that in 2015, for example, the homicide victimization rate for blacks age 10 to 34 (37.5 per 100,000) was 13 times the rate for whites (2.9 per 100,000). That disparity is undoubtedly much greater now, given the record-breaking increase in homicides since the George Floyd riots — an increase disproportionately affecting blacks. Those black victims of homicide are not being killed by cops or whites. They are being killed by other blacks. In Los Angeles, blacks this year have committed 46 percent of homicides whose offender is known, even though they are just 9 percent of the Los Angeles population. Whites make up 28 percent of the Los Angeles population but have committed 4 percent of homicides, mostly involving domestic violence. These data, reported by the Los Angeles Times, mean that a black Angeleno is 35 times more likely to commit a homicide than a white Angeleno. Homicide data are the gold standard for crime statistics. Alas for Jeffrey Fagan and the Los Angeles Times’ other experts, the statistical conclusion that blacks are “more inclined toward violent crimes” is indisputable. What about the claim that blacks don’t “disproportionately victimize whites”? In 2019, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics survey of criminal victimization, blacks committed 127,350 non-lethal violent crimes against whites, while whites committed 17,690 non-lethal violent crimes against blacks. In other words, blacks commit 88 percent of all interracial violence between blacks and whites. Crime apologists argue that such disproportions are inevitable because there are so many whites in the US. But in cities where racial ratios are more commensurate, the amount of white-on-black violence remains negligible. Occasionally videos and reports of interracial violence — flash mobs, knockout games, and brutal beatings and robberies — become public. If the races were reversed, there would be a national uproar lasting months; but such incidents get scant, if any, mainstream media coverage. They are the reason why the press has all but eliminated reporting on the race of crime suspects. Such voluntary action is not enough to ensure public cluelessness about the reality of crime, however. Gov. Newsom recently signed a law prohibiting California’s police departments from posting mugshots of arrested criminals if their latest crime was “non-violent.” The San Francisco Police Department has stopped posting mugshots of all criminals. Police Chief Bill Scott explained that doing so “creates an illusory correlation for viewers that vastly overstates the propensity of Black and brown men to engage in criminal behavior.” Actually, mugshots document a real correlation. If the San Francisco Police Department could undercut that correlation by posting mugshots of white muggers, does anyone doubt that it would rush to do so? Elder’s dismissal of Black Lives Matter claims about systemic police violence is also grounded in fact. Police officers are at greater risk of civilian violence than blacks are at risk of police violence. And a disproportionate source of that danger to cops comes from black criminals. Fifty police officers have been murdered this year as of Aug. 25. In 2019, there were 697,195 sworn officers in the US. That employment count would be lower now, in light of the rush of officer retirements over the last year and a half and the inability of police departments to recruit replacements. Conservatively, using the 2019 number, however, those 50 officers represent a rate of approximately seven officers killed per 100,000 on the job. Four unarmed blacks have been fatally shot by police officers so far in 2021, according to the Washington Post. (“Unarmed” does not mean compliant; the Post’s category includes crime suspects who violently resist arrest, pummel officers after knocking them to the ground, and continue fighting after being tased.) Those four black victims represent .0000085 percent of the nearly 47 million self-identified blacks, or less than one one-hundredth of one person killed by the police per 100,000. A police officer is 875 times as likely to be killed on the job as an unarmed black is to be killed by a police officer. Historically, blacks have made up over 40 percent of cop-killers nationwide — 43 percent between 2005 and 2013 — though they are, at most, 13 percent of the nation’s population. In New York City, blacks were responsible for 74 percent of the murders of on-duty New York Police Department officers between 1986 and 2020. In 2019, blacks nationally were over 37 percent of all cop-killers whose race was known. Conservatively estimating that 40 percent of the cop-killers this year have been black, 20 officers would have been killed by a black suspect in 2021, for a rate of nearly three cops per 100,000 officers killed by a black. A police officer is 375 times as likely to be killed by a black suspect as an unarmed black is to be killed by a police officer. Elder is breaking the taboos about black crime in an effort to save black lives. Police activity must be understood in the context of crime, not simple population ratios, since policing today is data-driven. Cops go where people are most being victimized, and that is in black neighborhoods. The police cannot protect black victims without having a disparate impact on black criminals. But the lies directed against cops from the highest reaches of government have led the police to back off. The Los Angeles Police Department experienced a 43 percent reduction in arrests in 2020 and a 27 percent reduction in street stops. This year, through Aug. 21, arrests are down another 28 percent, compared with the same period in 2019. Crime responded predictably. Homicides in Los Angeles through Aug. 21 are up 44 percent compared with the pre-George Floyd year of 2019; shots fired are up over 48 percent, and shootings up 44 percent. In Los Angeles County, homicides were up 111 percent this year through late May. As the Los Angeles Times reported, Latino and black victims account for nearly all the recent surge in homicides in Los Angeles. Assaults on officers also rose in 2020. Since the George Floyd riots, officers in California have been shot at, assaulted with lethal projectiles, firebombed, and run over. In September 2020, longtime felon Deonte Murray walked up to the parked squad car of two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and shot them both in the head as they sat inside. Bystanders cheered; anti-cop protesters continued the celebration later at the hospital, as the deputies struggled on life support. Yet despite this open season on cops, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón declared in December 2020 that officers’ authority may be resisted with impunity and will not be prosecuted — a declaration that strikes at the heart of civilization itself, as Elder understands. Trying to ensure that blacks get the policing they need in order to stay alive would not seem to be the gesture of a white supremacist, black or white. If Elder were running as a Democrat, the press would be celebrating the possibility of California’s first black governor. Instead, we hear nothing about “shattering glass ceilings” or “diversifying” the ruling elite. The New York Times ran an entire front-page article on Elder’s candidacy without once mentioning that he was black. (The article did claim in passing that Elder was an affirmative-action admit to Brown University, an unthinkable charge regarding a black liberal.) A column by Paul Krugman two days later was equally colorblind regarding the Elder candidacy. Has the Times renounced identity politics? Only selectively. Adjacent to the Aug. 25 front-page article was a story on New York’s new governor, headlined “Hochul Breaks a Barrier and Pledges a New Era.” The story opened with the observation that “Kathleen C. Hochul became the first woman to ascend to New York’s highest office on Tuesday.” Yet Hochul’s entry into the governor’s mansion in Albany does not even signify anything about gubernatorial voting patterns; she was not elected but slotted in after Andrew Cuomo’s resignation. Black governors have been much rarer than female ones. Elder would lead the nation’s largest state and be just the third black governor ever elected in the United States, following Douglas Wilder in Virginia and Deval Patrick in Massachusetts. Elder is indifferent to the silence regarding the “historic” nature of his candidacy. But the media’s effort to portray his run merely as a resurgence of alleged Trumpian racism depends on a shameful duplicity regarding crime and policing. As long as that duplicity remains in force, in the California governor’s office and elsewhere, the country will continue sliding toward anarchy. Always humorous to see the left trying to play the race card against a black man. He is just speaking the TRUTH. Black on black homicides are way worse than white on black.

https://nypost.com/2021/09/01/biden-pressured-ghani-to-create-perception-taliban-wasnt-winning/ President Biden pressured Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani to create the “perception” that the Taliban weren’t winning, “whether it’s true or not,” in a phone call just three weeks before the insurgents seized control of the country, a bombshell leaked transcript shows. Biden and Ghani spoke for roughly 14 minutes on July 23 in what would be their final call before the Taliban overran the government and Afghanistan descended into bloody chaos amid the botched US withdrawal, according to a transcript and audio obtained by Reuters. Much of the call was focused on what Biden referred to as the Afghan government’s “perception” issue. “I need not tell you the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things are not going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban,” Biden said. “And there is a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.” At the time, the Taliban had already seized about half of the country’s district centers and was only weeks away from taking Kabul on Aug. 15. Biden told Ghani that Afghanistan’s prominent political figures — including former Afghan President Hamid Karzai — should give a joint press conference that backed a new military strategy on how to defeat the Taliban, saying: “That will change perception, and that will change an awful lot, I think.” “I’m not a military guy, so I’m not telling you what that plan should precisely look like, you’re going to get not only more help, but you’re going to get a perception that is going to change in terms of how , um … our allies and folks here in the States and other places think you’re doing,” Biden said. Biden also heaped praise on Afghan security forces — which were trained and funded by the US before dissolving in a matter of weeks amid the US withdrawal — and offered aid if Ghani could publicly put out a plan that showed he could control the spiraling situation. Our President (and his advisors) saw the real problems in Afghanistan, but asked Ghani to "change the perception" to "make it look better". A call to a leader of another country asking him to investigate someone doesn't seem so bad now, huh?

How sad is this?

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/562037-china-will-be-the-next-empire-to-enter-the-afghan-graveyard As Afghanistan descends into tribal warfare following America’s hasty departure, China plans to “swoop in” and “fill the vacuum.” “Beijing just can’t wait for the U.S. to get out of the way,” Syed Fazl-e-Haider of the Daily Beast reports. Beijing, which runs a multiracial empire, does not appear especially concerned that land-locked, mountainous Afghanistan is often called the “graveyard of empires.” “Compared with other powers, China has the ability to get involved in Afghan affairs without becoming entangled in it,” writes Zhang Jiadong of Fudan University in the Communist Party’s Global Times. The title of Zhang’s July 6 piece says it all: “China will not fall into ‘Afghan trap’ as other powers have bitterly learned.” Yes, China has some advantages in Afghanistan that other “empires” did not possess, but the Chinese appear overconfident, nonetheless. China has long sought control of Afghanistan. For one thing, Beijing has coveted natural resources, especially copper — China has a 30-year lease on the deposits at Mes Aynak. Beijing also eyes the country’s gold, uranium and lithium. The Chinese still want the minerals, but now their ambitions include tying that country firmly into the Belt and Road Initiative, their global transportation-infrastructure program. Beijing planners, for instance, hope to complete a Kabul-Peshawar highway, linking the Afghan capital to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a $62 billion series of projects that is part of the Belt and Road network. More importantly, Beijing wants to deny oppressed Turkic minorities a sanctuary. Chinese officials have been surreptitiously working with the terrorist Haqqani network, inside Afghanistan, to go after activists and militants working to free Uyghurs brutally treated in what Beijing calls its Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The region shares a 47-mile border with Afghanistan. Perhaps China’s main advantages in Afghanistan are its firm lock on neighboring Pakistan and Beijing’s long-standing ties to the Taliban, which go as far back to the time the group was in power, from 1996 to 2001. China has supplied the Taliban with weapons and even helped it after the Sept. 11 attacks, according to news reports. The group now controls vast swaths of the Afghan countryside and appears set to eventually take control of Kabul. The Taliban, unfortunately for Beijing, has opponents operating in the country, and the Chinese could find themselves under attack from Taliban enemies. “The Taliban isn’t the only challenge to overcome,” Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center told the Daily Beast. “There are many sources of violence, both anti- and pro-state, in Afghanistan.” Those sources can be manipulated by India, which is in a position to bedevil Beijing. It was Indian intelligence operatives, after all, who exposed China’s ties to the Haqqani network recently. India, should it so choose, could cause trouble for China in Afghanistan, and New Delhi has every reason to do so. Chinese troops intruded into Indian-controlled territory in Ladakh in May of last year, and China’s military is now engaged in a massive troop buildup in the Himalayas. Moreover, there is a Chinese encroachment in India’s Sikkim, also in that mountainous range. As important, Beijing has fully backed Islamabad’s troublemaking in Indian-controlled Kashmir and reportedly has provided support for Pakistani terrorism in India itself. Indian policymakers blame China for the cyberattack crippling the Mumbai electric system in October, as well as 20 recent deaths at the hands of Maoist insurgents. Moreover, siding with the Taliban could cause trouble for China with the United States, which already sees the People’s Republic as a dangerous actor. Beijing, with venomous propaganda, is going out of its way to aggravate tensions. Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, just blamed Washington “as the origin of problems in Afghanistan.” The blame game is not wise. Washington is in a position to reduce or even cut off international funding to Kabul. Such aid, the World Bank estimated in 2018, accounted for 40 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product. Beijing’s assistance to terrorist-supporting organizations like the Taliban will only erode its already low standing in countries important for China. Up to now, the international community has, by and large, not imposed costs on China for its destructive activities, but Beijing would be handing others leverage if it found itself mired in Afghanistan. Chinese leaders are perhaps the most ambitious group anywhere, so it will be difficult for them to leave Afghanistan alone, especially as that country is one of China’s 14 land neighbors. China is an empire, and its imperial conquests are in its western areas, the ones bordering Afghanistan. The temptation for Chinese imperialists looks irresistible. So despite what Fudan’s Zhang writes, arrogant Chinese leaders are bound to make mistakes and seek deep involvement in Afghanistan. So far, no “empire” has been able to tame that “country” — if it can be called that — or bring it into the international community. China will almost certainly fail in the Afghan graveyard.

FTA: Elden has long stated that he had a complicated relationship with the album cover. However, as noted by Variety, he’s recreated it several times, posing in the water for 10th, 17th, 20th, and 25th anniversaries. He's 30 now, probably tired of living in his parent's basement and must not want to have to get a REAL JOB.......

https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/20/uks-parliament-holds-joe-biden-in-contempt-as-france-and-britain-forced-to-rescue-citizens-trapped-in-kabul/ UK’s Parliament Holds Joe Biden in Contempt as France and Britain Forced to Rescue Citizens Trapped in Kabul By Debra Heine August 20, 2021 The Biden administration’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and the desperate situation in Kabul has angered U.S. allies, leaving them scrambling to evacuate their citizens and the Afghans who supported them during the 20 year war. The United Kingdom’s Parliament on Wednesday held Joe Biden in contempt for Afghan debacle, with one veteran MP saying the U.S. abandoned its Afghan allies and disregarded their sacrifices. Tom Tugendhat, a British Army veteran of the Afghanistan war and the Conservative chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, blasted Biden for his criticism of the Afghan National Army and said it was “shameful” to blame Afghanistan’s fighting force for the Taliban’s takeover. After Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, Biden said, “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war, and dying in a war, that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.” “To see their commander in chief call into question the courage of men I fought with—to claim that they ran—is shameful,” he said. “Those who have never fought for the colors they fly should be careful about criticizing those who have,” Tugendhat added. While American troops remain at the Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKAIA ), Great Britain and France, are conducting military operations to evacuate their citizens trapped in Kabul behind the web of Taliban checkpoints lining the route to the airport. Great Britain earlier this week deployed an additional 300 troops to Kabul specifically to extract trapped British nationals. “France and the U.K. are having their troops leave the lines of the Kabul airport to help evacuate their citizens,” tweeted House Minority Kevin McCarthy. “Why has President Biden not directed the same to save stranded Americans?” One British soldier broke down in tears during an interview with CNN reporter Clarissa Ward, telling her that he will suffer from PTSD from the horrific events of the past week. The Taliban have been beating people in the streets and blocking access to the Kabul airport, contrary to their promises to the U.S. government. During remarks from the White House on Friday, Biden boasted that there are now over 6,000 American troops on the ground providing “runway security” at the airport. “This is one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history, and the only country in the world capable of projecting this much power on the far side of the world with this degree of precision is the United States of America,” he said proudly. Update: According to foreign policy/national security reporter Tom Rogan, a U.S. general has tried to pressure a British counterpart to stop conducting rescue operations outside of the airport perimeter because it’s making the Biden Regime look bad. Can you imagine the explosion of press if President Trump were to be "In Contempt" from the UK? BTW - Read the last paragraph - The British military is embarrassing our troops?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/18/business/afghanistan-lithium-rare-earths-mining/index.html The swift fall of Afghanistan to Taliban fighters has triggered a humanitarian crisis, with thousands trying to flee the country. It's also brought renewed focus on Afghanistan's vast untapped mineral wealth, resources that could transform its economic prospects if ever developed. Afghanistan is one of the poorest nations in the world. But in 2010, US military officials and geologists revealed that the country, which lies at the crossroads of Central and South Asia, was sitting on mineral deposits worth nearly $1 trillion. Supplies of minerals such as iron, copper and gold are scattered across provinces. There are also rare earth minerals and, perhaps most importantly, what could be one of the world's biggest deposits of lithium — an essential but scarce component in rechargeable batteries and other technologies vital to tackling the climate crisis. "Afghanistan is certainly one of the regions richest in traditional precious metals, but also the metals [needed] for the emerging economy of the 21st century," said Rod Schoonover, a scientist and security expert who founded the Ecological Futures Group. Security challenges, a lack of infrastructure and severe droughts have prevented the extraction of most valuable minerals in the past. That's unlikely to change soon under Taliban control. Still, there's interest from countries including China, Pakistan and India, which may try to engage despite the chaos. "It's a big question mark," Schoonover said. Huge potential Even before President Joe Biden announced that he would withdraw US troops from Afghanistan earlier this year, setting the stage for the return of Taliban control, the country's economic prospects were dim. As of 2020, an estimated 90% of Afghans were living below the government-determined poverty level of $2 per day, according to a report from the US Congressional Research Service published in June. In its latest country profile, the World Bank said that the economy remains "shaped by fragility and aid dependence." "Private sector development and diversification is constrained by insecurity, political instability, weak institutions, inadequate infrastructure, widespread corruption, and a difficult business environment," it said in March. Many countries with weak governments suffer from what's known as the "resource curse," in which efforts to exploit natural resources fail to provide benefits to local people and the domestic economy. Even so, revelations about Afghanistan's mineral wealth, which built on earlier surveys conducted by the Soviet Union, have offered huge promise. Demand for metals like lithium and cobalt, as well as rare earth elements such as neodymium, is soaring as countries try to switch to electric cars and other clean technologies to slash carbon emissions. The International Energy Agency said in May that global supplies of lithium, copper, nickel, cobalt and rare earth elements needed to increase sharply or the world would fail in its attempt to tackle the climate crisis. Three countries — China, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Australia — currently account for 75% of the global output of lithium, cobalt and rare earths. The average electric car requires six times more minerals than a conventional car, according to the IEA. Lithium, nickel and cobalt are crucial to batteries. Electricity networks also require huge amounts of copper and aluminum, while rare earth elements are used in the magnets needed to make wind turbines work. The US government has reportedly estimated that lithium deposits in Afghanistan could rival those in Bolivia, home to the world's largest known reserves. "If Afghanistan has a few years of calm, allowing the development of its mineral resources, it could become one of the richest countries in the area within a decade," Said Mirzad of the US Geological Survey told Science magazine in 2010. He led the Afghanistan Geological Survey until 1979. Even more obstacles That calm never arrived, and most of Afghanistan's mineral wealth has remained in the ground, said Mosin Khan, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former Middle East and central Asia director at the International Monetary Fund. While there has been some extraction of gold, copper and iron, exploiting lithium and rare earth minerals requires much greater investment and technical know-how, as well as time. The IEA estimates that it takes 16 years on average from the discovery of a deposit for a mine to start production. Right now, minerals generate just $1 billion in Afghanistan per year, according to Khan. He estimates that 30% to 40% has been siphoned off by corruption, as well as by warlords and the Taliban, which has presided over small mining projects. Still, there's a chance the Taliban uses its new power to develop the mining sector, Schoonover said. "You can imagine one trajectory is maybe there's some consolidation, and some of this mining will no longer need to be unregulated," he said. But, Schoonover continued, the "odds are against it," given that the Taliban will need to devote its immediate attention to a wide range of security and humanitarian issues. "The Taliban has taken power but the transition from insurgent group to national government will be far from straightforward," said Joseph Parkes, Asia security analyst at risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft. "Functional governance of the nascent mineral sector is likely many years away." Khan notes that foreign investment was hard to come by before the Taliban ousted Afghanistan's civilian Western-backed government. Attracting private capital will be even more difficult now, particularly as many global businesses and investors are being held to ever higher environmental, social and governance standards. "Who's going to invest in Afghanistan when they weren't willing to invest before?" Khan said. "Private investors are not going to take the risk." US restrictions could also present a challenge. The Taliban has not been officially designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States. However, the group was placed on a US Treasury Department list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists and a Specially Designated Nationals list. An opportunity for China? State-backed projects motivated in part by geopolitics could be a different story. China, the world leader in mining rare earths, said Monday that it has "maintained contact and communication with the Afghan Taliban." Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, left, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in China on July 28, 2021. "China, the next-door neighbor, is embarking on a very significant green energy development program," Schoonover said. "Lithium and the rare earths are so far irreplaceable because of their density and physical properties. Those minerals factor into their long-term plans." Should China step in, Schoonover said there would be concerns about the sustainability of mining projects given China's track record. "When mining isn't done carefully it can be ecologically devastating, which harms certain segments of the population without a lot of voice," he said. Beijing could be skeptical of partnering on ventures with the Taliban given ongoing instability, however, and may focus on other regions. Khan pointed out that China has been burned before, having previously tried to invest in a copper project that later stalled. "I believe they will prioritize other emerging/frontier geographies well before Taliban-led Afghanistan," said RK Equity partner Howard Klein, who advises investors on lithium. Is the Afghanistan debacle starting to make sense yet? The Chinese needed the US out of there post haste.......before Uncle Joe can't control things anymore......

Another scenario to illustrate the level of lunacy over this virus...... Copied and pasted… and SO freaking good! ABBOTT AND COSTELLO’S ‘WHO’S BEEN VACCED?’ Bud: ‘You can’t come in here!’ Lou: ‘Why not?’ Bud: ‘Well because you’re unvaccinated.’ Lou: ‘But I’m not sick.’ Bud: ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Lou: ‘Well, why does that guy get to go in?’ Bud: ‘Because he’s vaccinated.’ Lou: ‘But he’s sick!’ Bud: ‘It’s alright. Everyone in here is vaccinated.’ Lou: ‘Wait a minute. Are you saying everyone in there is vaccinated?’ Bud: ‘Yes.’ Lou: ‘So then why can’t I go in there if everyone is vaccinated?’ Bud: ‘Because you’ll make them sick.’ Lou: ‘How will I make them sick if I’m NOT sick and they’re vaccinated.’ Bud: ‘Because you’re unvaccinated.’ Lou: ‘But they’re vaccinated.’ Bud: ‘But they can still get sick.’ Lou: ‘So what the heck does the vaccine do?’ Bud: ‘It vaccinates.’ Lou: ‘So vaccinated people can’t spread covid?’ Bud: ‘Oh no. They can spread covid just as easily as an unvaccinated person.’ Lou: ‘I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. Look. I’m not sick. Bud: ‘Ok.’ Lou: ‘And the guy you let in IS sick.’ Bud: ‘That’s right.’ Lou: ‘And everybody in there can still get sick even though they’re vaccinated.’ Bud: ‘Certainly.’ Lou: ‘So why can’t I go in again?’ Bud: ‘Because you’re unvaccinated.’ Lou: ‘I’m not asking who’s vaccinated or not!’ Bud: ‘I’m just telling you how it is.’ Lou: ‘Nevermind. I’ll just put on my mask.’ Bud: ‘That’s fine.’ Lou: ‘Now I can go in?’ Bud: ‘Absolutely not?’ Lou: ‘But I have a mask!’ Bud: ‘Doesn’t matter.’ Lou: ‘I was able to come in here yesterday with a mask.’ Bud: ‘I know.’ Lou: So why can’t I come in here today with a mask? ….If you say ‘because I’m unvaccinated’ again, I’ll break your arm.’ Bud: ‘Take it easy buddy.’ Lou: ‘So the mask is no good anymore.’ Bud: ‘No, it’s still good.’ Lou: ‘But I can’t come in?’ Bud: ‘Correct.’ Lou: ‘Why not?’ Bud: ‘Because you’re unvaccinated.’ Lou: ‘But the mask prevents the germs from getting out.’ Bud: ‘Yes, but people can still catch your germs.’ Lou: ‘But they’re all vaccinated.’ Bud: ‘Yes, but they can still get sick.’ Lou: ‘But I’m not sick!!’ Bud: ‘You can still get them sick.’ Lou: ‘So then masks don’t work!’ Bud: ‘Masks work quite well.’ Lou: ‘So how in the heck can I get vaccinated people sick if I’m not sick and masks work?’

Bet everyone misses those mean tweets now? BTW - The Taliban is still allowed on Twitter, but the former President is still banned.....

From a friend - An exchange between me and a host..... Hello. Hi, table for two, please. Sure, and your name. Jessie. Great. And do you and your guest have your vaccination cards? We do. Can you tell us who our server will be? Um, looks like Brad will be your server tonight. Great. Can you show us Brad's vaccination card? Um... And also, can you provide me with proof that Brad is not a carrier of HIV, Hepatitis A or B, or any other communicable diseases? Um... Also, we would prefer not to be served by someone who is on or uses recreational drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, meth, fentanyl, etc, so if you could provide us with Brad's most recent tox screen, that would be great. Um... Let me get the manager for you. That would be great, thanks.

https://pagesix.com/2021/08/17/britney-spears-poses-topless-again-to-shoot-down-boob-job-rumors/?_ga=2.119144586.268711487.1629115712-551416291.1617136486 She did it again Britney Spears explains why she's posing topless on Instagram Does anyone really see a problem ? I mean - Free Speech, right? (Headline on the NYP caught my eye for some reason)

BREAKING NEWS this morning - The Biden Administration MAY be ready to recommend a booster shot after FDA final approval. (almost 5 minutes worth) Coronavirus Delta cases WAY up in the US as students head back to school and will probably be the most likely to spread the virus. (solid 10 minutes of commentary) 3rd story in - Afghanistan issue. (2 minutes - then on to Al Roker and weather)

The US war on Afghanistan was not lost yesterday in Kabul. It was lost the moment it shifted from a limited mission to apprehend those who planned the attack on 9/11 to an exercise in regime change and nation-building. Agreed. The generals and other high-ranking military officers lied to their commander-in-chief and to the American people for years about progress in Afghanistan. The same is true for the US intelligence agencies. Unless there is a major purge of those who lied and misled, we can count on these disasters to continue until the last US dollar goes up in smoke. Agree more..... Again - we all wanted this to end, but not like this.

Meanwhile - The Government......

https://nypost.com/2021/08/16/afghans-cling-to-us-air-force-plane-as-it-takes-off-in-kabul/ Sure Joe, we can trust the Taliban to let us get out, go ahead and surrender Bagrahm AB, we still have Kabul...... SURPRISE!! The child rapists lied....... I'm reminded of the 911 jumpers from the towers when I see the terrified Afghans clinging to the aircraft as long as they could hold on then dropping to a certain death. We all wanted this Afghan war to be over, but not like this.....Vietnam 2.0.

Especially considering the vaccines themselves have only been granted emergency use status from the FDA, not full approval. One of my friends is prescribed a medication that costs over $600 per month. There is a generic out there that is approved for use and used widely in every other country but the US. It is expected to be approved by the FDA at the earliest in 2025. He cannot get that drug yet as it is still pending FDA approval, yet we are to willingly believe and trust the US Government these vaccines are OK? With full approval expected in September? Forgive me, but all of this stems from what in 2019 we were considering a really bad strain of the flu.

AND - BTW...... https://unherd.com/thepost/the-most-vaccine-hesitant-education-group-of-all-phds/ There has been much debate over how to get the unvaccinated to get their jabs — shame them, bribe them persuade them, or treat them as victims of mis- and disinformation campaigns — but who, exactly, are these people? Most of the coverage would have you believe that the surge in cases is primarily down to less educated, ‘brainwashed’ Trump supporters who don’t want to take the vaccine. This may be partially true: the areas in which the delta variant is surging coincide with the sections of red America in which vaccination rates are lowest. But according to a new paper by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, this does not paint the full picture. The researchers analysed more than 5 million survey responses by a range of different demographic details, and classed those people who would “probably” or “definitely” not choose to get vaccinated as “vaccine hesitant.” In some respects the findings are as predicted — for example the paper finds that there is a strong correlation between counties with higher Trump support in the 2020 presidential election and higher hesitancy in the period January 2021 — May 2021. But more surprising is the breakdown in vaccine hesitancy by level of education. It finds that the association between hesitancy and education level follows a U-shaped curve with the highest hesitancy among those least and most educated. People with a master’s degree had the least hesitancy, and the highest hesitancy was among those holding a Ph.D. What’s more, the paper found that in the first five months of 2021, the largest decrease in hesitancy was among the least educated — those with a high school education or less. Meanwhile, hesitancy held constant in the most educated group; by May, those with Ph.Ds were the most hesitant group. So not only are the most educated people most skeptical of taking the Covid vaccine, they are also the least likely the change their minds about it… A survey of "Over 5 million" I would suggest paints a pretty accurate picture.......btw - SF may not be a very smart man, but doesn't a PHD indicate a pretty smart individual?