Posts made by bi4smooth

@flozen said in Goodbye, SlamRush:

Earlier this month, the porn review website str8upgayporn reported that MasterCard stopped processing charges for the SlamRush site.

https://str8upgayporn.com/slamrush-changes-its-name-to-facedownassup-in-wake-of-mastercard-drama/

Faced with this economic pressure, SlamRush morphed into a newly named site -- facedownassup. Here, the text for clips is now scrubbed of direct drug references, such as "getting cloudy."

They also pulled several clips that included needles and pipes and are reworking them, cutting out background visuals on tables, etc.

With these changes, the revised videos and new content won't present -- and normalize -- sex in scenes that infer intravenous slamming and smoking of meth.

As well, goodbye to the language promoting cloudiness (drugs) as a way to lure younger gays into a state where they are no longer capable of proper judgment and consent.

Goodbye to all of that going forward.

While it is clear that there was a market for that content, I have to say I'm not sorry to see it go. I found it ... distasteful, if sadly realistic...

That said, I am sure that others will lament its loss, and decry the actions of the Credit Card companies... These companies do need to thread the needle:

• they have to assuage the concerns of many of their customers (on the banking side of their equation) that they're not supporting illegal activity
• they also have to beware of the slow creep of consumers switching to blockchain (eg: BitCoin) types of currency exchange, which allow direct transfers of money - without the need for these "clearinghouse" companies

If the Credit Card companies misstep here, they can push themselves out of business!

@geobear40 said in Trump goes to the Dark Side...:

I didn't post this trying to convince you of anything! (nor for @raphjd)

For you this belief that "Big Pharma is responsible for the disease, not the cure" may as well be a religion - there is absolutely no authority - even Donald Trump, nay even GOD himself - that could dissuade you from such strongly held beliefs! I don't count myself as nearly that persuasive - I don't share your hubris!

But there are others who read these forums - others for whom FACTS (and the opinions of Mr. Trump) are not so easily dismissed...

Should any of THEM question my facts, I'll be happy to respond... but I have no desire to argue "religion" with a "zealot"...

'Tis Christmas Eve...

Merry Christmas to ALL!

@geobear40 said in Are the appoved Covid Kits made in USA or China?:

Show me the lie and I will correct it if necessary.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine

The Pfizer vaccine, now called Comirnaty, is fully approved by the US FDA, and has been since August 23, 2021 - hardly "breaking news"... and 2-days prior to the press-release you quoted.

I'm not sure how more definitive I can be - that's the FDAs actual press release, on their own website...

But look - we can stop arguing this point... this is, for all intents and purposes, a religion for you... Truth be told, there is no authority on Earth that could convince you that the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective... and that's OK - I don't think every single human needs to take the vaccine! But a large majority DO need to take the vaccine - and for 2 reasons:

• First and foremost, for their own protection. Vaccinated people still get COVID-19, but they have much "easier" cases, seldom requiring hospitalization - much less dying of the disease. (This is similar to EVERY vaccine: the MMR vaccine, by example, can't stop the measles virus from getting into your body, but it CAN make the infection minor and almost never life-threatening!)
• Secondly, by vaccinating LARGE proportions of the population, we can potentially END the threat of this virus once and for all. But, so long as large segments of the population continue to provide "ample opportunities for incubation and proliferation" of the virus, it will continue to thrive - and mutate - endangering all of us.

EDIT: Let me DIRECTLY refute the primary argument your ridiculous link makes (it claims the FDA approval is for a different vaccine).

In the FDA's own words: "Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine has been known as the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine, and will now be marketed as Comirnaty (koe-mir’-na-tee), for the prevention of COVID-19 disease in individuals 16 years of age and older. The vaccine also continues to be available under emergency use authorization (EUA), including for individuals 12 through 15 years of age and for the administration of a third dose in certain immunocompromised individuals."

So, the vaccine was approved (fully approved) for use in people 16 and older, but the EUA is still the authorization for using the same vaccine for children ages 12-15.

I'm sorry if that is confusing to you, but it makes perfectly clear sense to me... Prior to full approval, Pfizer could not market the vaccine, and so there was no approved marketing name... now, it has been approved, so the marketing name can be used... I'm not confused by that...

Former President Donald Trump did an interview with Candace Owens of The Daily Wire in Mara Lago that "dropped" Dec 21 (2 days ago from now). I can't link you to the pay-walled content, but here is a link where you can find the Interview - if you pay to join The Daily Wire.

In the Interview, former President Trump says many things - but none quite so provocative as these excerpts:

• "The vaccine works" (referring to COVID-19 vaccines developed under his Operation Warp Speed initiative in 2020)
• "Look... the results of the vaccine are very good, very good... and if you do get it" (referencing COVID-19), it's a very minor thing. People aren't dying when they take the vaccine!" (again, referring to the COVID-19 vaccine)
• When pressed by Ms. Owens, Mr. Trump doubled-down: "Well no! The vaccine works!" The ones that get very sick and go to the hospital are the ones that don't take their vaccine! But, it's still their choice... and if you TAKE the vaccine, you are protected.
• Trump also touted his role in developing the vaccines - perhaps taking a little too much credit, but certainly SOME credit is due! He said, **"I came up with the vaccine... with all 3 vaccines! All are very VERY good. I came up with 3 of them in less than 9-months!"

For the record, Mr. Trump has the best of all worlds with regards to immunity to COVID-19:

• He contracted, and later recovered from, a severe COVID-19 infection - requiring hospitalization and receiving advanced treatment from the White House & Navy physicians in charge of Presidential well-being.
• He later received the Pfizer 2-dose mRNA vaccine.
• He even later (recently) received a 3rd, booster, shot of the same Pfizer vaccine.

Clearly, Mr. Trump has not been recently briefed by the same Russian Trolls who feed information to the likes of @raphjd and @lololulu19 and others...

Or, perhaps he has the best possible doctors in the country, and he has received sound medical advise from them, which he has followed - resulting in his taking a total of 3 doses now of the Pfizer vaccine.... because it works!

Or, maybe he has gone to the dark side, and sided with Big Pharma in the great hoax!

I'll let you - the reader - decide!

@loststoner said in Do I have to....:

In order for my upload to start counting do I have to download the entire torrent file before it will start counting any of my upload?

No, uploaded data always counts - regardless of how much you have downloaded (now or in the future) - if you share, you get credit.

To my limited knowledge, the only "free" (un-charged download or un-credited upload) is the freeleech program, which allows you to download for free, although the people you download FROM still get credits for their sharing.

Because of this, one of the FASTEST ways to get "ration" help is do download a FREELEECH torrent when it has been freshly "free'd" - because there won't be many seeders yet, but there will be significant demand (there always is for freeleech content!) -- but if you download a freeleech after it has been free a while, there will be a LOT of seeders, and fewer downloaders - so of much less help.

Or will it still count my upload if I only download the parts I want and not the rest?

Yes, all uploaded bytes count - thought they don't show up instantly -- there is a scheduled "job" on the website that collects the data from the tracker (no, they are not the same systems - at least not as far as I can tell)

Also what is the quickest and easiest way to get my upload ratio increased?

See Freeleech description above, then keep an eye out for "fresh" freeleech torrents! (EVEN IF you don't want to KEEP the content itself!)

The Biden administration announced today that 500,000 Covid 19 test kits have been ordered and will be available starting in January.

OK, so you're off by an order of magnitude there, and you appear to have misread quite a bit:

• The Biden Administration ordered 500-million (not 500-thousand) additional home test kits for COVID-19 (different from existing, LAB test kits).
• These are, apparently, not NEW TECH, just the Federal Gov't stepping in to cover the purchase costs. (As-if the Gov't had the money to spend - but that's a Democrat for you! Spend SPEND SPEND!)
  Other sites report that ~191-million of these same home-test-kits were sold in the last week of November (2021) already...

They are not talking about treatment drugs. I think they over purchased vaccines and will wait until there supply runs out before they move on to other things.

Sigh - you don't just see the glass half-empty... you consider the hole at the top of the glass to be a serious design flaw prone to spillage!

The FDA has approved many hospital-based treatments for COVID-19, and permitted a WIDE ARRAY of experimental options.

The FDA also recently approved (via EUA) Pfizer’s Paxlovid - an oral (vs IV) treatment for early COVID-19. Merck's Molnupiravir is expected to receive the same EUA soon, which is a similar ORAL treatment. These drugs are still only by prescription, and are both for use in early COVID-19 disease - within 5 days of the onset of symptoms.

Let's be clear here though: the Federal Gov't in the US is STILL PAYING for all COVID-19 hospitalizations! Insured and uninsured are getting the same level of care for COVID-19 here!

I have heard that there are better vaccines in the pipeline but they are not using WARP SPEED to get those done. Keep producing a vaccine that still has not been approved by the FDA that require boosters every six month.

"Project Warp Speed" was a Federal Gov't spending initiative, started in the Trump Administration, where the US Gov't paid - up-front - for massive amounts of research into COVID-19 vaccines, in exchange for pre-arranged purchasing agreements. They spent about $12-billion under the name Warp Speed, and while the program still exists, it's not under the name anymore. (Politics!)

Research continues for better vaccines, and if/when they become available, the FDA will look into their approvals... but remember: the "goalpost" for a "solid vaccine" was, in mid-2020, to be 50% effctive at preventing death.

18 months later, that seems like a rather low bar - hindsight being 20/20! The truth is, we've never HAD a vaccine that was 95%+ effective at preventing serious illness, much less death, before! The current vaccines are an order of magnitude better than we expected to get out of Warp Speed!

True, their effectiveness against Delta dropped to about 80-85%, and against Omicron it's down to a 70-75% effectiveness - but when measured against the original 50% "goal," they're still doing QUITE WELL!

That said, the research didn't just uncover a single "magic pill" - it created a new kind of vaccine: created using mRNA techniques, originally pioneered for use in a potential HIV vaccine, that is easily (and quickly) "re-tooled" to focus on other viruses with other markers.

Pfizer & BioNTech both say they can create new vaccines for other COVID-19 strains when it becomes necessary... not in years or months, but in weeks!

Oh, and by the way: the Pfizer vaccine is fully approved by the FDA - with the Moderna & J&J vaccines both still authorized, and with full approval in the works (the only difference is a paperwork one - you can get any of them still, and if there were any DANGERS at this point, they would pull the EUA and just lean on the others.

YES - the pharma companies are out to make a buck, but they're in the business of healing people, not killing them! Just how much did you pay (in the US) for your last COVID-19 vaccine? (Answer: nothing - your insurance is required to cover it 100%, regardless of coverages or co-pays, and if you're uninsured, the Federal Gov't is footing the bill.

To be clear: if you want to say that Big Pharma is money hungry, and over-charging for many life-saving drugs? (ESP Insulin for diabetics!) I'm with you! ALL-IN!

But when you want to make up lies & mislead people to support your argument, that's just not helpful...

@lololulu19 said in Biden now OWNS the Covid Virus!:

@geobear40 The main issues now are... the 2020 vaccines are useless against the new strains of Covid.. so all the vaccinations given so far.. are meaningless.

False - to the point of absurdity!

The vaccines are providing about 70% protection against hospitalization (severe illness) from Omicron, with "natural immunity" (from prior COVID-19 infection) providing about 50% protection....

It is insane to give people the false idea that masks protect them, when it has been established that masks do more harm than good.

False - beyond absurdity!

In a separate thread I posted a list of more than a dozen links - not to news outlets, or political sites - but medical journals from multiple countries showing quite the opposite: masks of all kinds offer substantial (but far from total) protection from aerated COVID-19 infection.

One thing that should be done is to take the temperatures of everybody crossing a border or going on a trip that will take several hours for several reasons:
If cooped up next to someone for several hours who is sick - no matter what the disease - there is a high risk of getting that disease.
The people who are sick with a high temperature are not only at high risk for giving their disease to others, but also at high risk of being infected by others. For instance.. an unspoken reason why cruise ships are not more popular than they are is because they are incubators for disease. You are cramped in with thousands of other people for several days or even weeks, and you are inundated with their germs in the shared pools, dining rooms, restrooms, etc. The sick people don't have the luxury of staying away from other people when they are on a cruise ship.

That's a lot to unpack, but I must agree with final conclusion: now is NOT a good time to go on a cruise!

I haven't been sick from a disease in over 20 years. I have not been vaccinated, and I've never had Covid. My immune system is strong because I'm not a smoker nor drug abuser nor prescription drug user either. All these people popping pills for their anxiety, depression and mental problems are compromising their immune systems.

Statistical samples of 1 are always definitive! I'm glad you've been healthy, but your good fortunes (on many levels) hardly apply to large populations...

@raphjd has a new "hammer"...

So be prepared, folks.... for the next few weeks, EVERYTHING is going to look like a nail!

My FIRST crush was on Tommy Wilde - that was in... 1981?

From there, I fell for Johan Paulik

Who, IMHO, is still HOT AS FUCK!

But my CURRENT porn-crush is Aiden Garcia - who has a BF/BFF (Seth Peterson) I'd equally love to play with! (HELLO, 3-WAY!!)

@hubrys said in NYC Dem councilwoman is racist against latinos:

I think you meant res ipsa loquitur, i.e., "the thing speaks for itself."

ROFL - reminds me of:

Rather than quote individuals, let me generalize some corrections here:

• Natural immunity is NOT superior to immunity from the vaccinations.
  BOTH the mRNA (Moderna & Pfizer) and traditional (J&J & AZ) variations of the common vaccines in the West produce BETTER immune response results than "natural" immunity coming from recovery from COVID-19 infection.
  But that's not the point! The statistics that matter are not infections, so much as hospitalizations and deaths!
  If both natural immunity AND vaccine-derived immunity BOTH prevent hospitalization and death upon (re-)infection, then both are reasonable protections, and the LEVEL of protection is moot!
• Omicron is spreading rapidly, already supplanting Delta as the primary cause of infection and hospitalization in many areas of the world. Neither natural immunity (from prior COVID-19 infection), nor the vaccines, are offering the same level of protection against Omicron as the original, or even Delta... this is to be expected! The DNA sequence your immune system is "looking for" is a little different!
• Omicron is NOT infecting more immunized people than un-immunized - that is just plain false! Indeed, the statistics show that the natural and vaccine-based immunity is equally "good" at preventing hospitalizations from Omicron. It's not as good as the "incredible success" the mRNA vaccines had against the original strains (over 95% effective is/was miraculous! The 50-70% effectiveness we're seeing against Omicron is what was expected originally!)
• We don't know yet whether Omicron is more deadly than the original strains, but it appears to be less deadly than Delta (which is primarily what it is replacing in most areas of the world). However, less deadly is misleading: it's still a killer, and the un-immunized (whether naturally or by vaccine) are highly likely to need hospitalization (often leading to death).
  Look at what the local hospitals (around the world, not just in Western countries) are saying: their ICUs are filling up again, and it's nearly ALL from un-vaccinated COVID-19 patients!

Take Aways:

• If you haven't been immunized, you should get the shot. Donald Trump did! (2-shots of Pfizer and recently, the booster!)
• Even if you have natural immunity, you are BETTER protected (against what matters: hospitalization and death!) by the vaccines - even on top of any natural immunity!
  After almost 9-billion doses have been administered, the fear-mongers as-to the potential catastrophic effects have been proven wrong. We're not magnetized, there are no embedded chips, we're not growing extra-limbs, pregnancies are not being affected... 9-billion doses means it's not really all-that "new and untested" anymore...
• Don't believe ANY predictions about this virus - they've ALL been wrong!
  Trump was wrong predicting it would be over by the election.
  Biden was wrong predicting it would be over in his first year (even admitting that all of the technology being used to FIGHT this virus came from initiatives STARTED (if not completed) by Trump!
  So far, politicians have been far worse at predicting COVID-19 than they have been at predicting World Series outcomes! (Which has been 50/50 at-best!)
  Even Scientists have been stymied - repeatedly - by this virus!
  It'll be over when it's over (maybe never!) - and not before then!
• Be careful when using "political" news sources for virus (or any other medical / science) information. They have an agenda - and it's not your good health!
  I don't care if it's FOX or MSNBC - their "health news" is skewed to "protect" their political narrative!
  So, what CAN you trust? Use sources from multiple countries - preferably NOT only those allied with each other: if the Israelis and the Iranians are reporting the same thing, it's probably "solid science". If the US and China and Russia all are saying the same things, it's probably "solid science"... but when I mention these sources, I don't mean the "news media" from those countries - I mean their official Gov't health agencies!
  If we learned one thing from the Trump response to COVID-19, its that politics CAN influence the Gov't health narrative (no, I don't think he was the FIRST - only, perhaps, the sloppiest!)

@geobear40 said in UK liberal media reporting on health issues:

@bi4smooth said

The point here isn't that freedom is bad - only that it can be overwhelming... and stressful!

Only to people who have never had Freedom before. Not to the 99.99% of the population of the UK who were born in a free-ish country.

Your percentage is a bit hyperbolic - but it is TRUE that people born with choices are more comfortable with them, just as people born without them are more comfortable without them. (I know many people who prefer "smaller stores" because they get overwhelmed by the larger ones - but, mind you, I know some of these people because of the volunteer work I do - so I am aware that my "experience" out-sizes the typical population sample).

I have seen this in some of my own children when they first move away from home. They thought they were prepared, but then they have to remember to pay the rent, the power, the water, the insurance, the garbage, the cable, the Internet, the credit cards... ALL THOSE BILLS! Then you also have to make your own Dr & dentist appointments, AND schedule the time off from work, AND convince your boss you're not "playing hookie" AND deal with / plan for the reduction of income because you're not working all of your regular shifts... and and and!
It's overwhelming at first... but you adjust (I refer to it as "Adulting 101")

That could be alleviated in Childern who are taught life lesson by their parents (I refer to it as "Parenting 101")

Your implication that my example of my own children shows poor parenting is pedantic and offensive. I have raised 9 children to adult-hood, and helped raise over 100 more. I actually have a certificate from NACAC (North American Council on Adoptable Children) for being a "Professional Parent." My 20 y/o daughter just bought a new car - her 815 credit score got her the loan at 2.5% APR... I think my kids are (have been) prepared for adulthood just fine - but the shock of doing it ALL on your OWN is still one they all experience!

But adding stress DOES often result in cardiac issues... but that doesn't mean all stress is bad!

True but it doesn't cause it in young people nor does climate changes cause heart attacks.

Wow, you sure like to generalize - 4 of my kids have cardiac issues where high levels of stress DO INDEED cause their hearts to react abnormally. The same 20 y/o with the 815 credit score above wears a heart monitor due to a type of A-Fib - a condition more COMMON to older people, but she has it - go figure! (The damage some of these bio-parents did to their children either prenatally, or in infancy, is enough to tear your heartstrings clean out!)

Suicide rates SKYROCKET around the holidays... but that doesn't mean we cancel Christmas!

True but it has nothing to do with the post.

Sigh - a simple allegory... what's more, it supports (kind of) your position! My point is that, while it may be true that some people are having cardiac issues as a result of worrying about, or even as a more direct result of, climate change, that is not sufficient - in and of itself - to warrant $billions of spending to ameliorate their issues.

The articles our examples of the controlling nanny state using FEAR to keep their subjects in line and scared so they don't stand up for their Freedom and no longer need the parental government.

I disagree - this isn't a "nanny state" attempting to control us, but rather, to me, this is a "climate change" interest group attempting (with a bit of a reach, IMHO) to tie their cause to additional "catastrophic" results. It's exaggerated at best, if not hyperbolic.

My point HERE is: we seem to agree that the reporting is bunk. We appear to disagree on WHY!

Happy Holidays!

@raphjd said in Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules Mask Mandate For School Children Is Illegal:

@bi4smooth

Hey dumbass, you can watch the news on YouTube.

You can also watch videos of people discussing news articles/videos.

You can also watch Congress on YouTube.

You can watch police press conferences on YouTube.

But, be a cuntish Ms Feng Feng, as always.

yes, but you can also find videos of dogs and cats sleeping together (sleeping - get your mind out of the gutter) and how-to videos on how to masturbate a horse (for breeding, you filthy-minded whore!)

The point isn't that you can't find videos on YouTube, but that YouTube isn't -by itself- a source for verified news... um, in other words, it's not a news source (just a video source).

@salbakutamas said in Can I download simultaneously torrents on my phone and pc?:

It gets extremely irritating to only download on my pc. I always miss out on freeleech torrents whenever I'm away from home. ( Yes , I browse torrents even if I'm outside lmao ).

So the question is .... Am I allowed to download torrents on my phone and pc using the same account with different downloader ( Qbit is not available on Android ) without getting banned or anything?

You can download (login and register) from multiple locations - however, the issue becomes whether others are downloading on that same IP (which is what can trigger multiple-account warnings)

Personally, I use a set of VMs in the cloud ($5/mo!) as well as a VPN connection from there to do my downloading!

@boltvolts said in Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules Mask Mandate For School Children Is Illegal:

@raphjd Beautiful. Masks diminish oxygen intake by 20%. This is significant.

This would be significant, if it were true - but it is not.

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/COVID-19/Pages/Mask-Mythbusters.aspx

https://www.firstcoastnews.com/article/news/verify/verify-masks-do-not-reduce-oxygen-intake-for-kids-local/77-edfed0c7-7514-4890-910a-ea148b23e6b4

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201103/dont-believe-the-myth-face-masks-dont-lower-oxygen-levels#1

https://www.uhhospitals.org/Healthy-at-UH/articles/2021/03/does-wearing-a-face-mask-limit-your-oxygen-intake

(for @raphjd, who thinks that YouTube is a news source)
Youtube Video

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2021/another-air-quality-monitor-demonstration-fails-to-show-masks-reduce-oxygen-to-children/

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2776928

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8014099/

https://abc7news.com/jama-masks-children-and-co2-pediatrics-face-mask-study/10866564/

I'm going to stop there... after all, I am quite certain that I WILL NOT CONVINCE YOU (@raphjd or @boltvolts), as this anti-mask thing has become a religion for you - and no amount of facts will convince you that you (or your cherry-picked) sources are wrong...

But for any reader who IS NOT a "true believer" in the anti-mask camp, or who may be interested in facts - there ya go!

Oxygen is critical not only for brain activity, but furnishes the fuel for the lymphatic system to produce leucocytes (white blood cells) that fight all infection, including virus, retrovirus, and yes, Covid.

This statement is true (well, I can't attest to the validity of the claim that reduced oxygen levels reduces leurocytres, or the effects on the immune system in general...), but its importance tracks back to the false assumption at the beginning, so its validity is actually immaterial.

It is criminal to require masks that according to the vast majority of medical professionals serve nothing to limit, prevent or curtail acquisition of a retrovirus or other virus.

This is laughable - I could list another 40 links to medical journals, medical societies, and medical school who all identify exactly HOW the masks stop the spread of COVID-19.

And where did the idea of a "retrovirus" come from? Are you conflating HIV (a retrovirus) and COVID-19 (a non-retrovirus)?

For the reader (since I'm certain @Boltvolts will assert my information is wrong on some level): a retrovirus is one that spreads within the body by inserting a DNA copy of itself into other cells (host cells) in order to replicate. While not unique to HIV, that is the most common retrovirus we've found (so far), and it is a rare form of viral replication.

Science Magazine has published studies where scientists have traced how and where COVID-19 spreads in the body and found traces of RNA and DNA in human chromosomes, BUT found that they were insufficient to cause illness - in their own words: "a biological dead-end."

Surgical masks are worn by surgeons to prevent not viral but bacterial infection in patients with opened tissues which are highly susceptible to bacterial sepsis.

ROFL - nothing like MIXING fact and fiction to make your fiction sound better. Surgical masks are worn by surgeons - along with other forms of PPE (like gloves and gowns) to protect both themselves AND their patients from any number of "elements" - the most common of which is blood splatter.

In the early days of HIV discovery, doctors "gowned up" (which included masks and face shields) because they believed those things would protect them from the HIV virus (yes, Virginia, they knew it was a virus by that time).

Doctors routinely wear (and wore) surgical masks when seeing patients during cold and flu season... not because those are bacterial infections!

Doctors and nurses routinely wear face masks today - look in the hospitals, and you'll find cloth ones, surgical ones, N95 ones, KN95 ones... these are medical professionals! You think they're wearing them because "they're in on the joke?"

Alcohol-based hand sanitizers add insult to injury, as they absorb directly into the bloodstream, and this is not your grandfather's moonshine stash alcohol, but a form toxic to the human organism.

Sigh - alcohol-based hand sanitizers (which is most of them) use the disinfectant nature of alcohol to kill virus and bacteria on the skin (and on surfaces)... BUT, because the alcohol content is well known, they generally use either denatured ethyl alcohol (which is the same kind of alcohol you find in drinks, but in a much higher concentration - BUT it also means there are additives that make it unpleasant to drink, sometimes lethally so) or isopropyl alcohol - which is also (purposefully) poisonous to drink.

https://sciencenotes.org/can-you-drink-hand-sanitizer/

WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS? The answers are 2-fold:

• Some additives assist in the effectiveness of the antiseptic action
• Some additives assist in offsetting the strong smell of the antiseptic chemicals
• Some additives assist in offsetting the drying effects of the alcohol (the alcohol binds with the water and other oils on the skin of your hands, and then quickly evaporates - so it's NOT your imagination - your hands ARE "dryer" after using hand sanitizer)
• Some additives are designed to make you very sick very quickly if digested - this is to prevent alcoholics from ingesting it for a "fix" (with the quick-action additives there to make them sick before they ingest ENOUGH to make the other additives LETHAL).

In the short run, alcohol based sanitizers dehydrate the blood, increasing blood pressure to force blood and circulate the already diminished white blood cells.

Again, a nice mix of truth and utter hogwash! Yes, as discussed above, hand sanitizers dehydrate your hands - and not just of water, but also other natural oils necessary to keep your skin healthy. (For the record: so does regular hand soap!)

The Internet is RIFE with new products designed to help offset this dryness... but dermatologists say that, in general, using a good moisturizer helps, and specialized formulations are not necessary. Further, most are "snake oil" - they don't do anything special, except drain your bank balance. However, moisturizer lotions do not "bring along" sufficient water to truly help re-moisturize your hands alone - so you should wet your hands (dampen them, anyway) for the moisturizer to have its best effect.

BUT - why are we talking about hand sanitizers in an article about masks?

• While we thought - in early 2020 - that COVID-19 was spread largely (even effectively) by surface contact, we now know that is untrue - it is a largely-respiratory, and mostly transmitted by aspiration, not shared contacts.
• There hasn't been a lot of "walk back" of "use hand sanitizer often" because .... why? Have Doctors recommend you keep your hands dirty? Improving the general hygiene of the general populace reduced the severity of cold & flu season last year, and if we keep it up, maybe this year too! (Dentists only DREAM of a similar motivation to "brushing and flossing regularly!" LOL)

Our immune systems are stimulated by physical proximity to other human beings, and diminish in isolation, making us more susceptible to disease and Covid also.

I'm skeptical of this statement. I searched Google for anything substantiating that claim, and found nothing - but in fairness, the results were overwhelmed by Google interpreting my query as "how does the immune system work"... I'd love to see some corroborating (scientific) article supporting this statement....

Don't believe the propaganda in circulation. There is an enormous economic motive in closure of small businesses, and that is massive giant finanacial interest control with the goal of a global economic system. Forget currency, it's over with. A system of work-based credits measured by body movements is patented by Bill Gates and signed off by 96 major economic force countries. We are on the brink of a global technocracy with utter control of every move we make. Don't believe it? Fine... put your head back in the sand and go to sleep again. You'll soon awaken to a nightmare you were not prepared for. Do what you want in life today. Tomorrow is already too late.

Conspiracy theory to me, religious-like belief to you...
"End of the world" and "Jesus and the Anti-Christ have already arrived" believers will also tell you the same: you'll be surprised when it turns out to be true!

So far, I'm batting a 1.000 for believing the apocalypse is not upon us... but you only have to miss ONE!

One final comment: What's with the long-single-line posting style? Did the Enter key on your keyboard fail?

@geobear40 said in Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules Mask Mandate For School Children Is Illegal:

Parler was taken down by AWS a subsiduary of Amazon because they didn't like what Parler contributors where allowed to say.

You're a moron. Parler.com is alive and well. Click the link and see for yourself. They were kicked off AWS (who was their hosting company) for being in violation of the Terms of Agreement - contracts they signed with Amazon.

Once they stopped whining about it, they were back up (even restored from backups) less than 6 hours after choosing a new hosting company! (AWS isn't magic - it's one of DOZENS of cloud hosting companies... the biggest, true, but just one)

They are editing content. That makes them publishers and should be able to be sued for the content they allow. You can censor speech and then claim to be not liable for what you allow.

Again, you're showing your complete lack of understanding of the legal concepts.

A "publisher" edits content PRIOR to making it available to others. (I invite YOU to consider the manpower necessary for ANY social media company to do that, much less the largest - Meta/Facebook!)

Removing content AFTER it has been published - without "prior restraint" allows them to be immune from prosecution for the posts' contents. THAT is the "Section 230" you Trumpites love to complain about - but it has nothing to do with what the DO NOT allow on their site! It has everything to do with not holding them liable for WHAT IS on their website.

Talk radio is governed but the FCC and have rules of conduct that the government imposes on them to protect speech. The reason it is dominated by conservatives is that is what people want to hear. Liberal talk news has failed to have and audience.

Agreed... and Conservative Cable TV has ratings that are HUGELY higher than Liberal Cable TV! I have no qualms about that!

The issue is that a medium is used considerably more effectively by one viewpoint than another... Conservatives have RULED talk radio (and Cable TV) for decades.... we can't really complain THAT loudly when Liberals finally find a voice somewhere!

@raphjd said in Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules Mask Mandate For School Children Is Illegal:

@bi4smooth

Your beliefs are clear and your constantly spew them here.

People don't have rights, but businesses and governments do.

Your Russian propaganda news-feed must be offline... you're off topic...

@geobear40 said in UK Supreme Court rules on passport sex:

@bi4smooth
There are only two genders male or female. This covers transsexuals' because once they transition they legally change their gender.

All of these other terms that people refer themselves as are not to be confused with gender. These are how they see themselves and how they want the world to categorize them. It is more about who they want to have sex with and have nothing to do with their gender.

Follow the science

Actually, there is Male, and Female - true - and, as I said, for over 98% of us, that question - AT BIRTH - is an easy one!

BUT there are also biological "mistakes" - about 1.7% of live births - where the male/female issue isn't so easy to discern.

I'm NOT talking about trans adults (and I thought I had made that clear) - I AM talking about inter-sex babies and children.

Google it - it's real. SCIENCE!

@geobear40 said in Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules Mask Mandate For School Children Is Illegal:

@bi4smooth
I agree with your points but when the corporation is a way for the government to control your speech there is a problem.

Corporate MSM being the propaganda arm of the Democratic party
Social media who is the enforcement arm of said propaganda.

The political parties are not the Government. Fox News, as an admitted partner of the Republican Party, is well within its rights to broadcast stories - even false ones, like Tucker's latest rantings on the 2020 Election (well, latest may not be accurate - I don't watch Fox News on cable, as I don't have cable-tv! But, when it aired isn't the point!)

Parler is perfectly within its rights to take down posts about Trump's taxes (leaked information), just as Facebook is perfectly within its rights to take down posts about Covid-19! In another thread, we're discussing FB being on trial - not for taking down a post, but for supposedly libeling the author! (NOTE: If the plaintiff wins here, the only thing FB will do is stop explaining WHY they removed a post - they won't stop removing them!)

To be clear: they have no obligation to explain why they take down these posts: its their platform, they can "edit" it in any way they like! If YOU don't like it, use another platform!

This really isn't that much different (except that the shoe is on the other foot) than looking at talk-radio in the 80's and 90's - which was (and remains so) completely dominated by conservatives.

Look, if you want to compare "in league with" cable news, do you REALLY think MSNBC holds a candle to FOX? Ratings? Production quality? No way... but how about a different statistic: percent of the time MSM references a story LED by either cable network... you ALMOST NEVER hear CBS reference an MSNBC story, but they often reference a FOX one! (Not daily, mind you, but not that rare, either!)

This is "democracy in action" and this is also our society trying to figure out what's acceptable and what is not about a new communications technology (namely, the Internet).

It's messy... but we'll figure it out!

But the Government taking it over is NOT the best answer (it seldom, if EVER, is), and limiting people's freedoms isn't either!

Look: there has NEVER BEEN - in the history of human-kind - a lower "barrier to entry" in the ability to reach masses of people. Facebook - as a website - isn't even 20 years old yet! Same for Twitter (which turned 15 this year)! Do you not remember "GeoCities"? or "MySpace"? SnapChat just celebrated 10 years in business, and it looks as-if its "time in the Internet sunshine" has passed... who can predict the future?

I will reiterate here: I don't agree with how FB is handling itself - but that's a different thing from believing that they should be treated (limited) as-if they were a Governmental Body.

@raphjd said in Pennsylvania Supreme Court Rules Mask Mandate For School Children Is Illegal:

@bi4smooth

You believe that businesses have rights and people don't unless businesses (sometimes the government too) allow them to.

Thank you, once again @raphjd for that lucid and coherent explanation of what other people think... your clairvoyant abilities continue to astound us (or is that, confound us?)

What ever would I do in life, were it not for your clarifying my own thoughts for me!

Here's an idea: the next time you want to start a sentence with the words "you think" or "you believe" - think again! Erase that part and start over...