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On August 13 2021 08:12 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2021 07:31 farvacola wrote:On August 13 2021 07:27 brian wrote:
so if we pretend everyone’s as dumb as I am, that reads that the mandate to be vaccinated to attend Indiana U is ruled as legal? And the most recent appointee played some important role in making that happen?
we take those Pretty much. As a matter of binding legal authority, the Seventh Circuit’s decision that the uni’s mandate is legal is only controlling in that circuit, but what happened here will be referred to by those defending similar policies in other parts of the country, almost certainly to great effect. Definitely worth celebrating. The whole republican voters being against vaccine passports, but also against government interference into private business is going to be confusing and difficult for them. Which is why a lot of these people use the term "they" because they don't seem to have a great grasp on what is publlic and what is private. It seems like right now they want the government to regulate businesses into not having vaccine passports, well also being against government regulation when it comes to masks or well most things. I was just reading about AEG announcing their proof of vaccination requirements and a bunch of the comments was about how the government was taking away freedom, without any realization that the government is not involved and what they are asking for is the the government to take away AEG's freedom to conduct their business. Strange times. https://www.aegpresents.com/health-policy/
They are no strangers to hypocrisy. That's a feature, not a bug. It isn't about facts, it's about feelings.
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Internal logic is never present for Republicans, and it doesn't matter. The only principal that consistently guides their actions is sowing fear, hatred, discord, prejudice, and ignorance wherever possible, so that they can accept nice, cushy corporate kickbacks and campaign donations while nobody's looking. In the case of Faux News, it's making sure their viewer base doesn't all die off from the disease they constantly told their viewers not to get vaccinated against, implying it was an evil government/democrat/whatever conspiracy that's trying to give them 5G microchips.
Honestly, that sounds cool to me, and would be even more reason to get the vaccine. I wish. The notion of getting to become 5G Microchip Man sounds fun. But I guess it's not as convincing when you're watching Tucker Carlson make that stupid incredulous face at the completely innocuous statement he just made about something that doesn't matter that he always makes while he's telling you to not get vaccinated, while he's secretly vaccinated. This might all sound confusing, but it's honestly just the money and power bit. That's their anchor.
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Sorry for resurrecting the topic of the effectiveness of mask-wearing. A couple of posters, clutz in particular, pointed out a couple of pages back that mask-wearing was not an effective covid mitigation strategy and that the CDC guidelines were based on outdated research and therefore not valid.
There's a study from June 2021 looking at the effectiveness of mask-wearing specifically during the covid pandemic. The study is publicly available from here. The study is a massive collaborative project between University of Oxford, Harvard Medical School, and the University of Bristol, so definitely a reliable source.
They looked at several datasets covering 92 regions on 6 continents, including the largest survey of individual-level wearing behaviour (n=20 million) and found that an entire population wearing masks in public leads to a median reduction in the reproduction number R of 25.8%, with 95% of the medians between 22.2% and 30.9%.
Full abstract in the spoiler:
Mask-wearing has been a controversial measure to control the COVID-19 pandemic. While masks are known to substantially reduce disease transmission in healthcare settings [1–3], studies in community settings report inconsistent results [4–6].
Investigating the inconsistency within epidemiological studies, we find that a commonly used proxy, government mask mandates, does not correlate with large increases in mask-wearing in our window of analysis. We thus analyse the effect of mask-wearing on transmission instead, drawing on several datasets covering 92 regions on 6 continents, including the largest survey of individual-level wearing behaviour (n=20 million) [7]. Using a hierarchical Bayesian model, we estimate the effect of both mask-wearing and mask-mandates on transmission by linking wearing levels (or mandates) to reported cases in each region, adjusting for mobility and non-pharmaceutical interventions.
We assess the robustness of our results in 123 experiments spanning 22 sensitivity analyses. Across these analyses, we find that an entire population wearing masks in public leads to a median reduction in the reproduction number R of 25.8%, with 95% of the medians between 22.2% and 30.9%. In our window of analysis, the median reduction in R associated with the wearing level observed in each region was 20.4% [2.0%, 23.3%]1. We do not find evidence that mandating mask-wearing reduces transmission. Our results suggest that mask-wearing is strongly affected by factors other than mandates.
We establish the effectiveness of mass mask-wearing, and highlight that wearing data, not mandate data, are necessary to infer this effect.
So people saying that mask-wearing is ineffective are just plain wrong. Mask-wearing reduces the transmission rate by about a quarter, which is a very significant fraction for what is a very low impact, low-cost intervention.
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Talibans are sweeping through Afghanistan. That was forseeable; if they could put the American army in difficulty it’s no wonder they absolutely destroy the afghan forces.
I realize that there was no happy ending to the american presence in Afghanistan, but I don’t understand Biden devision to just abandon the country to the talibans. We will have a new terrorism haven. What’s the point of fighting Isis so hard to just handle a whole country to the craziest of muslim fundanentalists?
If there is a strategy, I’d love to know.
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On August 13 2021 21:56 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Talibans are sweeping through Afghanistan. That was forseeable; if they could put the American army in difficulty it’s no wonder they absolutely destroy the afghan forces.
I realize that there was no happy ending to the american presence in Afghanistan, but I don’t understand Biden devision to just abandon the country to the talibans. We will have a new terrorism haven. What’s the point of fighting Isis so hard to just handle a whole country to the craziest of muslim fundanentalists?
If there is a strategy, I’d love to know. I feel like the strategy is 'oh god oh god we don't want to be stuck in that sand pit for a 100 years'.
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If involving ourselves there was always going to be an exercise in futility (which seems clear at this point), the pullout was always going to be bad. As for whether there is/was a better way for troops to leave, I'm not sure.
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What was the initial strategy anyway? To end terrorism?
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On August 13 2021 22:20 Jockmcplop wrote:
What was the initial strategy anyway? To end terrorism?
End terrorism, preserve freedom, revenge for 9/11, something short-sighted and jingoistic like that. Similar to "Stop the Soviets" as the US strategy behind funding Pakistan's training of the Taliban in the first place.
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20 years is long enough. The Taliban's survival and triumph is regrettable, but there's no more desire on the part of the larger population to keep that fight going, so maybe it's time to cut losses. I'm just glad that they didn't try to push some trumped-up excuse for permanent warmongering akin to "we can't abandon our allies" like they did when Trump made the sensible decision to withdraw in Syria.
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On August 13 2021 23:02 LegalLord wrote:
20 years is long enough. The Taliban's survival and triumph is regrettable, but there's no more desire on the part of the larger population to keep that fight going, so maybe it's time to cut losses. I'm just glad that they didn't try to push some trumped-up excuse for permanent warmongering akin to "we can't abandon our allies" like they did when Trump made the sensible decision to withdraw in Syria. Previously 'lets cut our losses and abandon our allies' directly caused 9/11.
that wasn't an excuse for permanent warmongering under Trump and its not now. Abandoning people because its no longer convenient is how you guarantee another generation of future terrorists dedicated to killing Americans.
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"Allies of american" mean biggest traitors to their own people anyway. These people are litteraly collaborators with the occupying forces of their land.
How many lives did cost the war ? 250k right ? And that's according to western accounts which most likely lower the count. I didn't think Biden would have foresight to leave the country but that's very good and it is one minus reason for the fundamentalists to be in power.
Now, let's cut the ties with the saudi and israel who are the biggest fuel to extremism and peace might become a possibility one day.
But I rather wait the rise of power of China who contrary to murica doesn't have deep ties with radical islam. It would be good to remember this forum that bin laden was an ally of the usa, just like the muslim brotherwood because they were murdering commies and were ennemies of arab nationalism in Syria, Lybia, Iraq and Egypt, among these for 4 countries, 3 countries of them ended up being destroyed by the usa in the name of "democracy". All in all, radical islam and the west shared and still shares the same ennemies, it is like this since the beginning of the cold war and the fights for independance.
In the end, if americans truly want to fight terrorism (which I don't think the upper echelon of your society have the will to do, religious zelots are always better than a personnality like Gamel Abdel Nasser who tends to give people weird ideas like sovereignity), then, stopping doing military occupation/operation is their best option, same goes for France obviously, our operations in Mali are both futile and disastrous.
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On August 13 2021 21:56 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Talibans are sweeping through Afghanistan. That was forseeable; if they could put the American army in difficulty it’s no wonder they absolutely destroy the afghan forces.
I realize that there was no happy ending to the american presence in Afghanistan, but I don’t understand Biden devision to just abandon the country to the talibans. We will have a new terrorism haven. What’s the point of fighting Isis so hard to just handle a whole country to the craziest of muslim fundanentalists?
If there is a strategy, I’d love to know.
Are you going to invade Pakistan next to completely destroy the Taliban? American foreign intervention has no win condition is the issue. The Taliban is speed running because there is no resistance and even if there was resistance it didn't stand a chance without all the minorities in Afghanistan unifying.
There was a time when the Taliban was willing to be a losing party in the government with a peace treaty, but it was rejected. Whether that was hubris from political leaders, the military industrial complex sharking for profit, or some combination will never be clear most likely. At some point you have to decide to call the loss a loss.
On August 13 2021 23:25 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2021 23:02 LegalLord wrote:
20 years is long enough. The Taliban's survival and triumph is regrettable, but there's no more desire on the part of the larger population to keep that fight going, so maybe it's time to cut losses. I'm just glad that they didn't try to push some trumped-up excuse for permanent warmongering akin to "we can't abandon our allies" like they did when Trump made the sensible decision to withdraw in Syria. Previously 'lets cut our losses and abandon our allies' directly caused 9/11. that wasn't an excuse for permanent warmongering under Trump and its not now. Abandoning people because its no longer convenient is how you guarantee another generation of future terrorists dedicated to killing Americans.
The risk assessment shouldn't be will bad things happen. It is will these be worse than sticking around fighting a futile war. Considering the ANA laid down their arms and joined the Taliban the second they showed up, why even bother? There is no happy ending for American interests in Afghanistan and it started with excluding the Taliban and installing a puppet government that no one respects fifteen years ago. The US puppet government hasn't made the country a better place and now ANA is laying down arms and letting the Taliban take over the country.
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Perhaps the move to speed up the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan will be Biden's largest foreign policy blot, but when you've went through two decades and four administrations and an American public exhausted with the "forever war" as one of the few bipartisan areas of concurrence, I think it was an inevitability that some president would be saddled with the burden of what is happening now.
My country also committed blood and treasure to Afghanistan and seeing it all erased this quickly is heart-wrenching, least of all for the Afghans. I feel terrible for the Afghans trapped with the prospect of a repressive religious regime bearing down on them, and all the progress made on women's rights and education soon to be reversed, or all the collaborators of the coalition who need to get pulled out now. A power vacuum for terrorists to quickly occupy is not good, and another playground for various local powers and great powers isn't great either.
Would keeping a token force of 3,000 U.S. troops have maintained the peace? Apparently so according to some, but nation-building a country as fragmented like Afghanistan is a task I don't see the U.S. or its coalition friends accomplishing, and seeing how quickly the ANA crumpled doesn't inspire confidence. The endemic issues of corruption and graft in the government and military were just too prevalent and unsolved to succeed long-term I fear. You can compare Afghanistan to post-war Germany, Japan and South Korea, but Afghanistan just feels like a totally different beast from those in geography, demographics and governance that makes it nigh-impossible to unite, at least with the U.S. mentality of nation-building.
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Northern Ireland26280 Posts
On August 13 2021 23:02 LegalLord wrote:
20 years is long enough. The Taliban's survival and triumph is regrettable, but there's no more desire on the part of the larger population to keep that fight going, so maybe it's time to cut losses. I'm just glad that they didn't try to push some trumped-up excuse for permanent warmongering akin to "we can't abandon our allies" like they did when Trump made the sensible decision to withdraw in Syria.
There seems to be some differences, at least looking at how quickly the Taliban are sweeping through Afghanistan.
As unpalatable as it is, it seems both given their general resilience over two decades, the speed of their advance now etc that the Taliban are pretty much destined for power in the absence of some foreign body holding power propping up the current government.
Syria you have a fair few, rather different factions of differing ideologies and ethnicities. Some more pragmatic rational actors, although mixed with religious zealotry to boot.
I don’t think it’s beyond the realms of possibility that a mixture of some presence and posturing and diplomacy and you have a gradually stabilising Syria, with some kind of Kurdish enclave whose autonomy being respected was fitted with a rather large ‘or the US military will’ caveat.
Or whatever. In no shape or form am I intimating that it would be any simple solution to come to. There seems to be considerably more to work with in Syria than in Afghanistan anyway. Be it sucking up Assad as preferable to another ISIS campaign.
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On August 13 2021 10:33 NewSunshine wrote:
Internal logic is never present for Republicans, and it doesn't matter. The only principal that consistently guides their actions is sowing fear, hatred, discord, prejudice, and ignorance wherever possible, so that they can accept nice, cushy corporate kickbacks and campaign donations while nobody's looking. In the case of Faux News, it's making sure their viewer base doesn't all die off from the disease they constantly told their viewers not to get vaccinated against, implying it was an evil government/democrat/whatever conspiracy that's trying to give them 5G microchips.
Honestly, that sounds cool to me, and would be even more reason to get the vaccine. I wish. The notion of getting to become 5G Microchip Man sounds fun. But I guess it's not as convincing when you're watching Tucker Carlson make that stupid incredulous face at the completely innocuous statement he just made about something that doesn't matter that he always makes while he's telling you to not get vaccinated, while he's secretly vaccinated. This might all sound confusing, but it's honestly just the money and power bit. That's their anchor.
Acting as if there's even one political side not guilty of hypocrisy and being illogical at times is actually funny to read, thanks for the laugh.
on a different note, Afghanistan.. this was easy to predict, you could see it coming from the moment they even thought about pulling out it's not even funny how some people thought it would stay quiet. Pull out now, only to "re-invade" by the end of this year, rest assured, most countries which were present in the past will be present there again and they'll need to either maintain presence or take the gloves off which won't happen because of politics. So many vets right now are like yeah.. bright idea to pull out like that only to get our new generation of soldiers to experience what we/they had to go through.
Anyone willing to argue about the purpose of war being anything else but to kill the bad guys doesn't really understand, maintaining presence just to keep things quiet, sure, but you'll never get rid of them, it's just that simple.
The amount of soldiers we lost because of policies, the amount of targets being able to escape because of policies.. politics and war always leaves a foul taste when they get intertwined, politics has no place on the battlefield, we've seen the results and it's a nightmare.
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Northern Ireland26280 Posts
On August 14 2021 00:48 Purressure wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2021 10:33 NewSunshine wrote:
Internal logic is never present for Republicans, and it doesn't matter. The only principal that consistently guides their actions is sowing fear, hatred, discord, prejudice, and ignorance wherever possible, so that they can accept nice, cushy corporate kickbacks and campaign donations while nobody's looking. In the case of Faux News, it's making sure their viewer base doesn't all die off from the disease they constantly told their viewers not to get vaccinated against, implying it was an evil government/democrat/whatever conspiracy that's trying to give them 5G microchips.
Honestly, that sounds cool to me, and would be even more reason to get the vaccine. I wish. The notion of getting to become 5G Microchip Man sounds fun. But I guess it's not as convincing when you're watching Tucker Carlson make that stupid incredulous face at the completely innocuous statement he just made about something that doesn't matter that he always makes while he's telling you to not get vaccinated, while he's secretly vaccinated. This might all sound confusing, but it's honestly just the money and power bit. That's their anchor. Acting as if there's even one political side not guilty of hypocrisy and being illogical at times is actually funny to read, thanks for the laugh. on a different note, Afghanistan.. this was easy to predict, you could see it coming from the moment they even thought about pulling out it's not even funny how some people thought it would stay quiet. Pull out now, only to "re-invade" by the end of this year, rest assured, most countries which were present in the past will be present there again and they'll need to either maintain presence or take the gloves off which won't happen because of politics. So many vets right now are like yeah.. bright idea to pull out like that only to get our new generation of soldiers to experience what we/they had to go through. Anyone willing to argue about the purpose of war being anything else but to kill the bad guys doesn't really understand, maintaining presence just to keep things quiet, sure, but you'll never get rid of them, it's just that simple. The amount of soldiers we lost because of policies, the amount of targets being able to escape because of policies.. politics and war always leaves a foul taste when they get intertwined, politics has no place on the battlefield, we've seen the results and it's a nightmare.
There’s considerable difference between ‘both sides’ not ever achieving incidences of hypocrisy or illogical thinking, and one doing it way, way more often.
I believe you’re correct on Afghanistan, although not because we weren’t aggressive enough in killing the ‘bad guys’, more the lack of ‘good guys’ made it a fruitless endeavour.
It’s one thing to transition a nation and stay there as a peacekeeping deterrent. It’s quite another to sit around as no generally welcomed transitional state emerges.
If we were talking of a nation that was rather enjoying its US enforced post-Taliban state, majority wanted to avoid a return to that etc then there’s potentially a case for sticking around to let that build to be robust for the future and float around as a deterrent force, well that’s peacekeeping 101.
As it crudely appears, the second that force is departing then the Taliban marches immediately, I’m not sure we can argue that folks don’t want them back, and if so what’s the point?
At least as any kind of nation-building exercise. Doesn’t mean there aren’t good humanitarian reasons, but as per the whole 20 year project it’s rather demonstrably failed to meet its objectives.
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On August 14 2021 01:13 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 14 2021 00:48 Purressure wrote:On August 13 2021 10:33 NewSunshine wrote:
Internal logic is never present for Republicans, and it doesn't matter. The only principal that consistently guides their actions is sowing fear, hatred, discord, prejudice, and ignorance wherever possible, so that they can accept nice, cushy corporate kickbacks and campaign donations while nobody's looking. In the case of Faux News, it's making sure their viewer base doesn't all die off from the disease they constantly told their viewers not to get vaccinated against, implying it was an evil government/democrat/whatever conspiracy that's trying to give them 5G microchips.
Honestly, that sounds cool to me, and would be even more reason to get the vaccine. I wish. The notion of getting to become 5G Microchip Man sounds fun. But I guess it's not as convincing when you're watching Tucker Carlson make that stupid incredulous face at the completely innocuous statement he just made about something that doesn't matter that he always makes while he's telling you to not get vaccinated, while he's secretly vaccinated. This might all sound confusing, but it's honestly just the money and power bit. That's their anchor. Acting as if there's even one political side not guilty of hypocrisy and being illogical at times is actually funny to read, thanks for the laugh. on a different note, Afghanistan.. this was easy to predict, you could see it coming from the moment they even thought about pulling out it's not even funny how some people thought it would stay quiet. Pull out now, only to "re-invade" by the end of this year, rest assured, most countries which were present in the past will be present there again and they'll need to either maintain presence or take the gloves off which won't happen because of politics. So many vets right now are like yeah.. bright idea to pull out like that only to get our new generation of soldiers to experience what we/they had to go through. Anyone willing to argue about the purpose of war being anything else but to kill the bad guys doesn't really understand, maintaining presence just to keep things quiet, sure, but you'll never get rid of them, it's just that simple. The amount of soldiers we lost because of policies, the amount of targets being able to escape because of policies.. politics and war always leaves a foul taste when they get intertwined, politics has no place on the battlefield, we've seen the results and it's a nightmare. There’s considerable difference between ‘both sides’ not ever achieving incidences of hypocrisy or illogical thinking, and one doing it way, way more often. I believe you’re correct on Afghanistan, although not because we weren’t aggressive enough in killing the ‘bad guys’, more the lack of ‘good guys’ made it a fruitless endeavour. It’s one thing to transition a nation and stay there as a peacekeeping deterrent. It’s quite another to sit around as no generally welcomed transitional state emerges. If we were talking of a nation that was rather enjoying its US enforced post-Taliban state, majority wanted to avoid a return to that etc then there’s potentially a case for sticking around to let that build to be robust for the future and float around as a deterrent force, well that’s peacekeeping 101. As it crudely appears, the second that force is departing then the Taliban marches immediately, I’m not sure we can argue that folks don’t want them back, and if so what’s the point? At least as any kind of nation-building exercise. Doesn’t mean there aren’t good humanitarian reasons, but as per the whole 20 year project it’s rather demonstrably failed to meet its objectives.
In 07-08 we started having to deal with shooter statements, where after a while everyone avoided mentioning actually killing a bad guy because it went to trial with witness statements etc.. sometimes you'd hop off the heli and you'd be informed you're cleared to go on to the next op without you even knowing you were being investigated in the first place. Stuff like that messes with the mind more than they can afford. Not being allowed to do x y or z because of politics even though you know it'd be the right move in the war was just gut wrenching.
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On August 13 2021 23:25 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2021 23:02 LegalLord wrote:
20 years is long enough. The Taliban's survival and triumph is regrettable, but there's no more desire on the part of the larger population to keep that fight going, so maybe it's time to cut losses. I'm just glad that they didn't try to push some trumped-up excuse for permanent warmongering akin to "we can't abandon our allies" like they did when Trump made the sensible decision to withdraw in Syria. Previously 'lets cut our losses and abandon our allies' directly caused 9/11. that wasn't an excuse for permanent warmongering under Trump and its not now. Abandoning people because its no longer convenient is how you guarantee another generation of future terrorists dedicated to killing Americans.
Can you explain about 9/11? I'm embarrassed to realize that I don't know what led up to it besides Osama Bin Laden ordered an attack.
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