You can thank me later.

Covid cost our economy 16-20 trillion dollars, and we just opened the economy wide open presumably because we know we will be paying the cost of that for a long time and we couldn’t survive another shutdown. So to me if you don’t get vaccinated and you die or kill someone that’s on you. The breakthrough stuff simply highlights future risks of spread and need for new vaccines or booster shots. We will be living with risk for years and I suspect many companies and businesses will restrict your behavior if you don’t get vaccinated.

I used to like Blind Melon. Too bad about Shannon Hoon.

This societal scourge of men approaching women needs to end.

@jolly said in Would somebody shut this idiot up?: Bullshit.. Get your head out of your ass. Well, I was just joking but sure, okay! I think you could make a case that there should be no career politicians, and qualifications should be sought elsewhere if one wants to run for an elected office. I believe that. So I don't care that Trump had no political experience prior to his being president. Here's the problem, though: you can't tell me that Trump was honestly interested in uniting liberals and conservatives. Quite obviously his thing was and always has been to play to his base. By doing that, he created a communication vacuum during the early months of the pandemic because about half the country—many of which aren't rabid liberals and simply didn't vote for him—didn't feel confident in his messaging. That's why we had a Fauci. The whole, "this is how you get more Trump" thing? Look in the damn mirror. That's exactly why Fauci was on the front page of every news site every day for the better part of the year.

Alcohol is the mother? So many progeny, it must be true.

@mik said in Anybody been to Asheville?: We rented a house up on top of Town Mountain. Should be nice. Of course we will go to Biltmore, but other than that not sure. Maybe a drive on the parkway and some small side hikes. Did you know Asheville has 40 craft breweries? Then on to Winston Salem to see The Princess. We have tix for the Winston Salem Dash (WhiteSox farm team). First row behind home plate - $11. I love minor league ball, and the ballparks are all new. It's been nearly 20 years since we were there, long before the craft brewery trend. Hubby would love it.

Snort

@jon-nyc said in Puzzle time - biased to fair coin: I'm sure that method has a much lower number of expected flips than the H-T/T-H method. At least for coins with a decent bias. It’s fairly straightforward to show that the expected number of flips to get a non-biased result using the official answer is 1/(p*(1-p)). And the expected number of flips using the binary representation method is half of that, or 1/(2p*(1-p))

@rainman said in Teach My Child: That is a great article Jolly posted, albeit too long. What is interesting is how the future of civics education will be determined by the political party in power. That, as intensely intellectual as the debate is, will end up with teaching nothing at all, which has become the status quo. The Left will win the football game, unless something huge and unexpected happens causing people to pull together for the future. And it really doesn't have to be that way. Much of Civics can be taught without politics, if people will simply teach Civics in a factual historical context...A happened because of B, which caused C. Even idiots on both sides of the political spectrum out to be able to agree on 90% of the facts.

Wonder what Priscilla thought about Ann? Ann-Margaret made Elvis shout "Viva, Las Vegas!" more than once...

Shoddy journalism! The article failed to mention that this “Jenny” is a cisgender female, else it’s quite possible for this “Jenny” to have a prostate.

@axtremus said in The escalator: Now I am curious to see how they will get the old escalator recertified and how that will impact their insurance policy and premiums. Not sure who among our regulars can comment on certification and insurance for really old escalators, but maybe there is parallel somewhere with classic cars? Who can comment on how insurance companies underwrote policies for classic cars, especially in cases where you really want to put the classic cars into service on public roads? https://youtalk-insurance.com/news/allianz-insurance-plc/how-to-manage-the-risks-of-vertical-transportation Knock yourself out....

Yeah, yeah...Blame it on the cracker...

Rombauer was magnificent. But then each Triple Crown race gets longer than the previous one.