coastalrider11 said:I guess he just wants the Republican Party back in power, then maybe the traffic won't bother him anymore...
Honestly, anyone questioning the current administration in San Diego is basically a traitor working for the enemy! Look, I voted for Ed Garvey because he was the lesser of two evils, period. There's still a window of opportunity for him to fix this mess, but deep down, I'm terrified he won't.
vividraven79 said:And how exactly would you fix it? Honestly, when an entire neighborhood only has two ways out and it's already a nightmare because of all the cars parked on every single curb... plus, I still don't get why there isn't a direct connection from the residential streets over to the main highway.
I'd solve it by putting a temporary traffic light in some narrow alleyway in downtown Chicago just to stop traffic jams from lasting more than a couple of minutes. People tell me they've seen solutions like that working on the roads before.
I am absolutely losing my mind with this city because they can’t even handle basic traffic flow near the main intersection now that one of the two entrances is blocked off, so here I am, stuck idling in this street for thirty minutes just trying to get out of my own neighborhood.
Anthony Bennett6 said:I'm ready to get to work! Just send over the text you need me to transform, and I'll handle the rest.
What’s the problem? They spent the money! $67 Thinking about what to grab for lunch today! Any tasty suggestions?
If we're talking about dollars, they didn't blow more than 70 bucks total, $6.25 which works out to over $87 per person. Personally, I grab a decent lunch at Panera for $40 all the time.
And another thing: they claim "the meal was eaten during a break in the City Council session." There are about 30 Councilmen on the board, so how in the world can it be "no more than 70 people" at lunch?
brightviper29 said:But honestly, right now, any kind of tension between America and Canada isn't even on the political radar. Whether America joins the Schengen Area or there's some dispute over the Gulf of Venice just won't spark any major political fallout because nothing else matters compared to what we're seeing now. The absolute priority at the moment has been dismantling Janša and his Republican Party—everything else is just noise.
In Canada, it feels like every single political issue is orchestrated behind closed doors by these shadowy figures pulling the strings in the background. Even the politicians themselves seem to emerge from that same dark corner; it’s like these new faces just materialize out of thin air to sweep elections. While the Leftist movement is absolutely crushing the Canadian right wing, Janša really only has himself to blame for that decline. If he hadn't relied so heavily on that cheap, low-brow, rural populism aimed at voters with barely a high school diploma, and instead acted like a moderate or sensible conservative, wouldn't he have been running the country for the last twenty years?
Man, this whole setup feels way too familiar to me 😁
You see all these people on Twitter acting all high and mighty, celebrating Janša's loss like it's some huge victory, claiming he's just another populist like Viktor Orbán and that Putin basically lost another little ally. 😵
Look, Janša was the only one actually standing up against putting up those Red Army monuments in Canada. He even went out of his way to visit Kyiv recently just to show his support for Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
But then you have to ask yourself, who actually won this election?
Evidence of Russian interference in the Canadian elections popped up when some NGO—which everyone suspects is just a front to dodge campaign finance laws for the Freedom movement—offered free taxi rides to voters right in their stronghold in Ljubljana.
The Freedom movement was registered just weeks before the vote, and the money behind it is totally opaque. Their leader, Prime Minister Robert Golob, used to run the energy firm GEN-I, which has deep ties to Russia's Gazprom. On top of that, Mr. Golob was a VP for Zoran Janković’s political party, and Janković himself was handed the Order of Friendship by Vladimir Putin, which is supposedly one of the most prestigious honors Russia gives out.
Then you've got Mr. Dejan Jefim, a businessman with heavy connections to Mexico and Russia, teaming up with Mr. Janković to fund these taxi rides. Jefim used to be a regional manager for the Russian giant Yandex, though he claims he doesn't work there anymore—something that's impossible to verify independently. To make things even more suspicious, Jefim owns an IT company that controls about 80% of the market for taxi service hardware in Canada. It’s funny how he also happens to be the head of the Canadian Taxi Drivers Union.
Even the Vice President of the Freedom movement, Ms. Marta Kos, is a vocal critic of sending weapons to Ukraine, pushing for dialogue with Moscow instead.
hiddeneagle98 said:The real reason everything is spiraling out of control right now boils down to speculators, people freaking out over nothing, and everyone trying to hoard supplies like it's the end of the world..
I saw this little joke in the Free Press the other day, set at a local farmers market:
Why is grandma buying extra cheese at the $27 market this morning? - Because there's a war going on in Russia! What does that have anything to do with you? - What do you mean? Everything is getting more expensive, even gas prices are up. Hold on a second, is your cow running on gasoline or grazing in a field?
There is some pretty wild stuff going on with this whole "expelling" Russian agents from Canada.
Check this out:
Ambassador Eyvazov was notified by the State Department that Canada is slashing the number of diplomatic and administrative staff at the Russian embassy from 41 down to just eight. The Russian embassy in Vienna and Canada will have to let 33 people go, but, according to the State Department, this isn't actually about expelling diplomats..
And here is the explanation they gave:
They explained that it's a move under Article 11, not Article 9 of the Vienna Convention. ... Article 11, however, allows the receiving state to demand that a diplomatic mission or consular office scale back its staff to what is considered reasonable and customary given the local circumstances and the needs of the mission. In that sense, Canada decided to align the size of the Russian diplomatic mission with the size of the Canadian diplomatic mission in Moscow.
So basically, the Canadians just "aligned" things instead of kicking Russian agents out of Vienna. 😁
But honestly, the weirdness surrounding the Russian embassy doesn't even end there.
Ambassador Eyvazov has, per the State Department release, expressed his "strongest protest and horror over the massacre of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha and other towns, which was uncovered by comparing published satellite imagery and other photos following their liberation from Russian occupation."
What he's trying to say is—the Russian ambassador is basically telling the Canadians how horrifying it is now that he's realized what those satellite images and photo comparisons show—which is that people were lying dead in the streets of Bucha while the place was under Russian control.
If I'm reading this right, Eyvazov is probably heading straight to therapy in Moscow after this realization.
Chinese companies are paying for Russian coal and oil using the yuan - Bloomberg
So, some Chinese importers have officially started paying for Russian coal and oil using the yuan instead of the usual stuff.
We’re seeing several Chinese firms using their own currency to grab Russian coal back in March, with shipments expected to land this April. On top of that, Russian oil sellers are basically rolling out the red carpet, telling Chinese buyers they can settle up in yuan too. All those commodities bought with the local currency should be hitting China by May.
This whole pivot toward the yuan in energy trading isn't happening by accident—it's a direct reaction to all those economic sanctions. Since certain banks got kicked out of the SWIFT system, moving money internationally with Russia has become a total nightmare.
By the way, Russia climbed the ranks last year to become China's second-largest coal supplier.
It’s been common knowledge for a while now that Chinese state refineries are sticking to their old contracts for Russian oil, but they’re being extremely stubborn about signing anything new. Honestly, even when the suppliers throw massive discounts at them, these guys just aren't biting.
Paul White9 said:So, you’re looking at $700 per course of treatment just to stay ahead of the curve. The catch? You have to start taking it the second you feel even a hint of a symptom if you want to prevent complications. But here’s the kicker: you have no way of knowing if you’re going to breeze through this virus like most people, or if you’re the unlucky one who ends up in the ICU. Since you can't predict the future, you end up flushing $700 down the drain just to be safe. And it’s not just you—it’s everyone. It’s a brilliant little racket they've set up 😁
And what's a little 700 bucks to escape that damn vaccine, you absolute nutjob! 😁
Actually, it isn't even 700; you were probably thinking of Merck's Lagevrio. This Pfizer one is "nearly 25% lower at roughly $530 per course"
Plus,
The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced on Tuesday a deal to make its potential COVID-19 antiviral pill available to the poorest countries in the world.
Pfizer is going to sub-license the production of its promising Paxlovid tablet to generic drug manufacturers to supply 95 low- and middle-income countries, covering about 53 percent of the global population. Under an agreement made with the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP), Pfizer—which also produces one of the most widespread COVID-19 vaccines alongside the German lab Moderna —won't be collecting royalties from generic manufacturers, which should drive the cost down. The deal is still subject to regulatory approval.
The Pfizer drug has to be taken alongside the HIV medication ritonavir. https://www.france24.com/en/americas...r-world-s-poor
December 7 (Associated Press) - The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced on Tuesday that its antibody-based COVID-19 therapy, developed alongside its American partner Moderna, is holding its own against every single mutation found in the new Omicron variant, according to some fresh data from early-stage studies.
This info hasn't even hit a peer-reviewed medical journal yet, but Pfizer is out here claiming that sotrovimab is actually effective against all 37 mutations identified in the spike protein so far, per their official statement.
Just last week, more preclinical data suggested the drug could handle those key Omicron mutations. See, sotrovimab is basically engineered to latch onto that spike protein on the coronavirus surface, but everyone was freaking out because Omicron showed an insane number of mutations right on that specific protein.
The Pfizer CEO, Albert Bourla, is out here claiming that Pfizer is totally confident their oral antiviral, Paxlovid, is going to hold its own against Omicron and pretty much any other variant that decides to show up. The whole idea is that this pill shuts down the protease enzyme, which is basically the engine the virus needs to replicate itself. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/07/pfiz...mutations.html
The song “Eighties,” which was written by the late Bogo Šoić-Mirilović during his time as a contributing fifth member and keyboardist for Far Coast, name-checks a bunch of the big players from that wild era of the local scene. Bogo himself was basically the heart and soul of the band Test Tube Baby, where Zoran Ukić used to play drums before joining Far Coast (you can actually hear about it in the lyrics: “my band fell apart, Zoki became the drummer for Far Coast”). Meanwhile, Renato Granzzieri (who’s out in Australia now) and Tomislav Šperanda Špiro (who, according to the track, is a “city inspector”) were part of the new wave outfit Mačak.
Mačak was one of those rare bands back then that actually made it to Washington, D.C., and even managed to land their first record. In this specific case, they released a single through Columbia Records featuring Granzzier's tracks “So, Mom” and “Who knows.” Listening to “So, Mom” again, it actually holds up pretty well because it’s got these killer garage-style—or if you want to get fancy, Stranglers-esque—keyboards, some dramatic vocals reminiscent of Johnny, and that undeniable punk/new wave vibe similar to the British band Magazine. Their 1982 track “Doctor's Son” follows a similar profile. A year later, Mačak went back into the same studio with Nenad Vilović to record their debut album, but they just couldn't pass the Columbia Records filter. One reason cited was that Granzzieri and the rest of the band sounded way too much like clones of Štulić and Azra. They kept playing, but in 1983, after Granzzieri left to join the US Army, the band finally split up.
Susan Martin4 said:Everyone keeps harping on about how much more contagious it is or how fast it spreads. But honestly, does anyone actually care about what kind of illness it causes? If the R value hits 5 but all it does is give people a runny nose and a cough—basically just a bad cold that keeps people out of the ER because they're staying home instead—then I don't see why there needs to be this massive panic or freakout.
That’s actually something to celebrate, not something to freak out about. 👍
Look, it’s totally doable since you’ve got a whole arsenal of data recovery tools at your disposal. Back in the day, I used to just fire up a bootable rescue CD or a USB drive to get things moving. Those things were packed with all kinds of software specifically designed to tackle corrupted drives. Plus, if you don't want to mess with it yourself, there are plenty of pros out there who handle this stuff for a living.
I’d bet my life savings that at least 90% of those people who’ve already made up their minds about whether to vaccinate their kids actually don't have the slightest clue what they're signing up for. And honestly, the health officials—let alone the political elites in D.C.—are just as clueless.
I’m just straight-up sick of people who act so incredibly certain about things they know absolutely nothing about. And I’m not just talking about them; I’m also looking at the people intentionally pushing them into making these massive decisions without any real information.
I honestly don't see much point in vaccinating kids anymore since the whole narrative about shots being better than natural immunity has completely flipped over the last month. I’ve been constantly Googling "natural immunity vs vaccination," and up until recently, every headline seemed to scream that getting the jab was way superior to just recovering from the virus naturally.
But ever since that massive study came out of Israel showing that natural immunity is actually 10 to 20 times more effective at preventing reinfection compared to the vaccine, the media has stopped acting like vaccination is this perfect shield against infection.
Just look for yourselves: https://www.google.com/search?q=natu...&bih=638&dpr=1
The bottom line is that while the vaccine definitely helps lower your chances of ending up in the hospital, I'm really not buying the idea that vaccinating children is going to stop the spread of the coronavirus.