Tyler Jones6 said:The invasion of Ukraine is definitive proof that membership in the NATO alliance is the only way to guarantee long-term peace for Europe!
Whether you call it the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation, or the Union State of Russia and Belarus—it’s really just a case of old wine in new bottles; the names change, but the behavior stays exactly the same.
Or maybe it’s enough to just stay out of their way, especially if you’re sitting right on the border, and just declare military neutrality.
Keith Williams3 said:If you and I were neighbors and I bought three lions and brought them into my apartment, you’d call the cops on me for being a threat, right? Even though it's my own place.
On a global scale, there isn't a police force or a court system to step in; it's basically anarchy where might makes right. In that scenario, it's just us. We either reach an agreement, or we fight until someone wins.
I get your point, but I'm having a hard time swallowing this whole Russian obsession with needing a "buffer zone" to feel secure. With the tech we have today, it doesn't matter to Russia if their missiles are sitting right on 62 miles the border or tucked away in Poland—they can hit the target just as easily from either spot.
Look at North and South Korea. It doesn't matter to South Korea that their neighbor is an enemy, because they've got enough firepower that distance isn't even a factor anymore.
Looks like old man Bill Gates is bracing for omicron even harder than he did for Katrina, and he’s still staying put after canceling his vacation. Kind of a bummer, especially since he went all out on precautions—who knows how many doses 😢 he actually took
hiddentinker11 said:The only honest answer right now is "I don't know."
But...
If you say "I don't know" too many times, the news outlets stop calling you. If you say "Everything is fine" and then things go south, you lose all credibility and they won't pick up the phone again. If you scream "We're all going to die" and we don't, nobody asks for your opinion ever again. If you scream "We're all going to die" and we actually do, then you were right.
So, it pays to just yell "We're all going to die" and hope for the best. Sure, you'll fuel the anti-vax movement in the long run, but they don't care about that.
So it’s good to know they care way more about hitting the headlines than actually listening to the experts they're constantly undermining.
So, according to Worldometer, South Africa—the place everyone’s pointing at as the source for this new variant—has been seeing a pretty massive surge in positive cases over the last week. We're looking at 135,803 total cases compared to just 171 deaths, which is wild considering they've got a population north of 60 million people.
Honestly, I think the European Commission and all those other power players in DC find it a total nightmare that the pandemics they obsess over aren't even happening in places like Africa or India. You’ve got over two billion people out there who aren't feeling the same weight or dealing with the same crazy restrictions that the wealthiest nations are sweating over. That’s probably why the media barely touches it, even though, strictly speaking, the unknown variant popped up in an African nation.
silverpuma47 said:It’s way too early to jump to any conclusions—the sample size is just too small. We need several more weeks to pass before we get any real data on how severe these symptoms actually are, whether people are avoiding vaccines, or how virulent this thing really is.
Well, clearly it isn't too early to start cooking up a new vaccine specifically for this strain they're promising in like two or three months.
Thomas Cook said:Doctors over in those parts say they've been dealing with Omicron for about six months now.
Between the doctors and the scientists, everyone's acting like the symptoms are super mild right now, yet they’re already rushing to roll out a new vaccine tailored for this strain in just a couple of months. It makes you wonder—if the symptoms aren't even a big deal, why the sudden rush? Are we really expected to chase down a new shot for every single mutation that pops up, regardless of how much it actually affects us?
Gerald Chavez7 said:I mean, South Africa probably sees something like 50 flights a day heading out toward the USA, Europe, the Middle East, or Asia... that’s easily 15,000 people traveling daily.
And you're telling me there isn't a single flight heading toward those major African cities?
So, when this whole Omicron thing supposedly crawled out of South Africa, wouldn't it make more sense if it absolutely wrecked the African continent first before ever touching Europe? Instead, these viruses seem to just skip over tens of thousands of miles to pop up right here, which usually means European countries—plus Israel, and probably the US, Australia, and New Zealand pretty soon—are all going to start making a mess of things with lockdowns and those heavy-handed surveillance tactics you see in Israel.
Kevin Hughes2 said:The most prolific anti-vaxxers out there—those who have built an entire movement centered on undermining scientific consensus and successfully fueling it every single day through mainstream media, certain segments of the scientific community, and various government task forces globally—are busy recruiting more skeptics and sowing seeds of doubt regarding professional expertise and science itself.
Consider this snapshot of how the media operates in the States; two headlines from the exact same day, published at the exact same time:
A prominent scientist issues a dire warning: ‘Omicron is an eight times more lethal strain. Here is why.'
Omicron is highly contagious, but not deadly: ‘Don't panic, symptoms are very mild.'
So, you decide. You can pick from window number one or window number two; choose whichever one resonates more with your current state of mind.
If you consider yourself a rational person who isn't one of those so-called anti-vaxxers, you'd naturally go for window number one. Though, of course, he only said that because "a leading scientist" wrote it. Unless the guy was being played... but that's a whole other mess entirely.
Gerald Chavez7 said:Can you actually read an article and process it without spiraling straight into some conspiracy theory? It must be absolutely exhausting just trying to follow the news these days...
Nah, I can't, because honestly, there’s already more than enough dirt out there about how crooked the WHO is and all those scandals they keep getting dragged into.
It’s kind of like asking if I can read a press release without bias when the Republican Party is busy bragging about how they single-handedly saved the American economy. I just can't, man, since there's plenty of evidence showing they're basically a dangerous group acting like a criminal enterprise.
They might have gone a little overboard with this one, honestly. It feels like the whole world just went down the drain under the guise of looking out for our health.
Carol Kelly3 said:Nobody is being forced to get vaccinated, and nobody wants to be, so there isn't much point in arguing about that part. The whole question is just about voluntary vaccination for kids—whether parents decide to go through with it or not.
It won't happen, but honestly, just requiring some kind of proof that a kid was vaccinated or tested before they can step foot in a daycare, school, or a pediatric ward at a place like Mayo Clinic is plenty. It’s all just a fancy euphemism for mandatory shots anyway, because let’s be real—most families in this country aren't exactly swimming in cash to blow on endless testing fees, not to mention how much it totally messes with a kid's head to deal with all that constant medical scrutiny.