This claim was recently made by one of the Chinese Olympians, but it is not true. VPNs were made illegal in 2017, and since 2021 China has been clamping down hard on their own citizens using VPNs to bypass the great firewall, while looking the other way for foreign nationals. The CCP does not send everyone to jail who uses a VPN, but they have the authority to do so if they see fit.
I had a friend in high school whose romantic feelings were just absurdly powerful. Romeo never pined for Juliet the way my buddy Michael felt for his girlfriend. But at the risk of sounding trite, hormones =/= sacrifice, which is the real, meaningful expression of love. I don't want to lessen the importance of your earlier relationship, but puppy dog love is the easiest and most short-lived of affections.
A general rule of thumb is a movie needs to make back double its budget to recoup after-filming costs, like advertising, ect to start turning a profit. A $363 million return on a $200 million flick is not a good return.
The woman was re-selling a bootleg copy from the 80s, and that German court came down on her like a bag of hammers. So glad we have these kinds of idiotic copyright laws that let huge artists and corporate goons step on the throats of small individuals, seemingly at random.
Also I enjoy how the article brought up Clapton's COVID stance twice, even though that has fuck all to do with the actual matter at hand.
>Probably naive to think we could totally eradicate it within a couple of years, particularly as far as vaccine fearmongering is concerned. Would be nice to see it join Smallpox and Polio though.
We would have to completely redesign our current method of vaccination, then. We do not have a sterilizing vaccine for COVID (like we did for smallpox and polio). The current vaccines all use spike proteins to prepare a body's antibodies against the main infection tool of the COVID virus. This method indirectly prevents the virus from efficiently infecting cells in vaccinated hosts, but it does not and cannot eradicate the virus.
That article strikes me as largely playing a semantic game. From the article:
>The classic tale of sterilizing immunity unfolds something like this: A pathogen attempts to infiltrate a body; antibodies, lurking in the vicinity thanks to vaccination or a previous infection, instantly zap it out of existence, so speedily that the microbe can’t even reproduce. No symptoms manifest, and most of the body’s immune cells never get involved, a bit like an intruder smacking up against an electric fence around a building, leaving the security guards inside none the wiser.
and
>This is a very neat story. And it is “almost impossible to prove,” Mark Slifka, an immunologist and vaccine expert at Oregon Health & Science University, told me. To show sterilizing immunity, researchers have to demonstrate that an infection never occurred—a big ask, considering that microbiologists can’t even agree on what an infection actually is.
If that is the definition used, yes, you are right. It is also basically useless as a term, as it is 'almost impossible to prove.' If you wish to use another term, we can do that. Instead of sterilizing, I could simply say 'highly effective.' Suffice to say, the mechanisms used by the COVID vaccine and the polio vaccine are very different. At most, the polio vaccine only included 3 strains (or variants)- the Salk vaccine, the first, only targeted type 1, but two more were added later over the course of years.
All of this is to say- the highly effective polio vaccine works because there are very few polio variants and people are immunized against them directly.
The COVID vaccine does not make one immune to the virus, or immune to the spike protein. The presence of the spike protein in the vaccine provokes an autoimmune response in the form of antibodies that will target that spike protein. This is somewhat effective, and a clever 'hack' that allows us a measure of protection. However, different spike proteins can be used by different variant viruses.
I am not antivaccine, and while autoimmune systems can be fairly complex, it is certainly worth discussing. Frankly I find the obfuscation and sloppy, ideological reporting to be frustrating. On all sides I see a lack of rigor and emotional attempts at control.
The argument that this is a semantic game is not a very good one. The whole point of the article is to demonstrate that there really is no such thing as a sterilizing vaccine; As our scientific knowledge and technology has improved over the years we see that.
If you are worried about microagressions and subconscious biases then you are already hand-wringing about the wrong things. Being truthful, polite and hardworking are what matter, not specifically how you situate your legs on the bus or what pronouns you use in your shitty bio.
>As David Chappelle noted recently, "twitter is not a real place" - and doesn't need to be elevated to the position of society's gatekeeper, but rather demoted to society's cesspool. They proved themselves not up to the task to maintain robust free discourse platform - let them rot in their own bubble.
Agreed. Part of that is the 'hot take' represented by the limited characters of a tweet are inimical to nuance. So much of it is just people taking turns 'dunking' on each other, and it gets increasingly heated and rage inducing. Add to that an inflammatory algorithm, where outrage drives interaction, and of course you have a cesspit.
Part of the good thing about the old internet is when you have to construct a blog to share your thoughts, you have to be driven to actually, y'know, build something. It also has the added benefit of being relatively closed off. Now everyone has easy access to an empty field with which to yell into the void... and it turns out with that low bar and high inter-connectedness comes a lot of yelling.
That is the narrative the CCP pushes. 'It is just like a government run checking score.' But it isn't. Crimes, including political ones, will penalize your social credit score. If your score falls too low, you and your children will become ineligible for government programs and assistance.
What you describe is something that is often said, but I'm yet to see any reliable sources; everything turns out to be editorials based on some plans that never got implemented.
>Capitalism has been making the earth sick for years. Its quest for profits and growth ultimately leads to an imbalance and sickness. The public purse has, and always will, fund the winners, whipe there debts and bail them out.
There is a kernel of truth to the fact that if an industry ignores everything except for short terms gains made every quarter, yes, you will end up with overtaxed oceans, polluted rivers, and smoggy skies. In that you are right, that unscrupulous mega corporations can exploit critical natural resources to the point of destruction. But considering the only meaningful rival to the capitalist system created the absurd ecological disaster that is the Aral Sea, I think there is more to the nature of the problem than 'capitalism bad.'
