Still makes me chuckle even though I've seen that sketch so many times I've lost count.
Not gonna lie - that was very entertaining reading.
Not a huge fan of Avi Yemini, but kudos to him for standing his ground.
Not only has Victoria Police's conduct throughout the pandemic has been very heavy handed, they don't even know thier own damn rules.
I don't play the game either, but from what they are saying it sounds like in-game mechanics to prevent you from being 1-shotted by NPC's - i.e. damage that would instantly kill you instead drops you to a very low health . But it's on a cooldown, so it's going to save you someimes, but not all the time. These type of mechanics may get suspended on boss fights as well, depending on the type on encounter it is.
I assume they want to keep the exact workings hidden from the player to prevent players from exploting it.
The Division had something similar in place - it was more like a 'you just fucked up, but we're giving you another chance' thing, but didn't work against certains NPC's like the hunters who would one-shot melee you if you got too close.
I think pre-Covid, people had a fairly high confidence in vaccines in general.
But then you had the Covid vaccines being rushed through trials that would typically number in years rather than months.
Add to this that mRNA vaccines (e.g.: Moderna) are relatively new and at the onset of Covid, no mRNA drug or vaccine had been licensed for use in humans. The had in fact, up to this point in time, very poor results testing mRNA drugs for cardiovascular, metabolic and renal diseases, selected targets for cancer; and rare diseases like Crigler–Najjar syndrome, with most tests finding that the side-effects of the mRNA delivery methods were too serious (link).
Also add to this traditional protein based vaccines (e.g. AstraZeneca) have been shown to have caused serious side effects (TTS - thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome), even death in some cases. Overall the rate of TTS is estimated to be about 6 cases per million people vaccinated. But the rate is estimated to be higher (20-40 cases per million) in those under 50 years of age. As a point of comparison, a severe allergic reaction to the Polio vaccine is around 1 case per million.
And finally you have big tech and the MSM (which people already have low confidence in their ability to report accurately or impartially) actively trying to censor, or shut down any discussion around why people might want to hold off getting the vaccine, making it look like they have something to hide. And yet organisations like the BBC get a surprised Pikachu face when they see the number of antivaxxers are jumping up substantially.
People (in general) aren't as stupid as the media would like them to be.
How about Covindaloo
Except in our timeline the 'G.I.' in G.I. Joe, stands for Geriatric Imbecile.
IndieWire has a more 'mask off' title: https://archive.is/Elm9V
The three biggest spending cetegories for the US govt so far in FY21 are Income security, social security & medicare. Combined, they account for nearly half the govt spending.
Want to reduce expenditure - start there.
You are correct - if you adjust by working age population, it drops down to approx 1 in 2 working age people paying tax (58%).
Still a very low % of the work age population paying tax though. To give you a comparison - Australia has about 87% of the working age population paying taxes.
That was the first thing I noticed as well. Approx 1 in 3 people paying taxes - that's fucking crazy.
Japan - continuing to produce 78% of the world's weird shit since 1952.
Seriously though - they are hoping it will prove an attraction and boost tourism $$ to help them in their Covid recovery. Given this news on this is now going viral, it looks like it will turn out to be a good investment.
Vote Don & Ron to get shit done!
Jack Dorsey tweeted out to download the app back in June.
Edward Snowden has also backed it.
Signal is developed by Signal Messenger LLC, whose parent organization is the Signal Technology Foundation. They've just recently tweeted:
We are a 501c3 nonprofit. We're not tied to any major tech companies, and we can never be acquired by one either. Development is supported by grants and donations from Signal users.
Currently, the Signal Foundation's board consists of only three people: Brian Acton (who left WhatsApp/Facebook in 2017), Moxie Marlinspike, and Meredith Whittaker.
As for the question of trust:
Signal conversations are always end-to-end encrypted, which means that they can only be read or heard by your intended recipients. Privacy isn’t an optional mode — it’s just the way that Signal works. Every message, every call, every time. You can confirm that the server is operating correctly and that you are communicating with the right person using safety numbers.
The complete source code for the Signal clients and the Signal server is available on GitHub. This enables interested parties to examine the code for security and correctness.
Make of that what you will.
It's the Berlin tower.
The Tarrant County Democratic Party briefly posted and then deleted an image on social media labeling all of the candidates who opposed the diversity plan as "racist."
Of course they did. They can't help themselves.
I think the problem is that they are contactors.
Not sure how things work in NZ, but here is Aus contractors have less rights than full time employees.
Notably, contractors do not have rights to apply to the Fair Work Commission for reinstatement or compensation using the unfair dismissal provisions.
They might be able to sue for breach of contract however.
Let's call them what they are - cultural terrorists.
You don't negotiate with terrorists.
3.13 trillion deficit last year.
2.3 trillion projected deficit this year.
Nearly 30 trillion in federal debt currently.
Austerity measures (financial not scholarly) are going to have to come in at some point.
I still remember sitting in the theater watching Reloaded on opening night. Like most people, I was psyched as hell. By the time the movie had gotten around to depicting Zion, the "last human city" in a technologically advanced future, as an African drum tribe of mostly brown people grinding on each other, I was done.
I remember watching this and being immediately taken out of the movie. Morpheus has literally just warned the crowd of that the machines are coming, but then it's like "nah, it'll be fine, let's have a rave." Imagine that towards the end of the original Star Wars movie when the death star was approaching the rebel base, that the rebels decided to have a dance party instead of preparing for the attack. Makes about as much sense.
That whole sequence was cringey AF.
There are white men in both the police and hostages but none of them are in focus. The focus instead is around the police chief (black) and the female diverse hostages. And the terrorists of course, who are all white.
The truly stupid thing was how Wonder Woman takes out the terrorist leader and the entire wall behind him, dumping a tonne of debris onto the cops below. In the time taken to charge up her wrist bands she could have easy disarmed him or killed him with her sword without risking the lives of the cops on the ground. It might have been interesting if they went down the whole 'snap decision leads to collateral damage' path, but nope, she just turns around and gives some insipid "you can be anything you want speech" to one of the nearby school girl hostages.
It's a perfect summary of the current state of the BBC.
It's a funny take, but he's being a little disingenuous here - the purchase of a plank of wood is arbitrary, it's his support of Home Depot that's the issue at hand. Then again the state of Twitter is a fucking joke, so it works I guess.
Good on Ben for supporting Home Depot though. More companies need to grow a spine and stand up to these bullies.
I've never read any of his books - which one is a good place to begin?