Fauci Should Be In Prison - Senator Rand Paul

[bilby]

Orbital mechanics? You studied how to fix broken orbits?

Don't be daft. An orbital mechanic is just a regular mechanic working on the ISS.

The commute's a bitch.

isn't there a tesla floating around up there that needs to be maintained?

It's in solar orbit, not Earth orbit.

It's in an orbit, then. Hence the need for an orbital mechanic.

 

[bilby]

A good warhead design does not go critical from a single point initiation of the explosives.

NO warhead design does.

If it was so easy to make plutonium go critical, that you could do so by mistake, the Manhattan Project would have lasted a couple of months and cost a few thousand dollars.

The ONLY way to set of a nuke by mistake would be somehow to actuate the triggering mechanism by mistake, on an intact, undamaged, and fully armed warhead.

Preventing this from happening accidentally is trivially easy. The hard part is getting the damn thing to go critical when you actually want it to, which is why the Manhattan Project took so long that the war in Europe was over before they had a bomb; Cost more than any prior weapons reseach program (buy FAR); And still had to waste a large fraction of the world's entire supply of hugely expensive Pu on a test firing, because the smartest men on Earth weren't sure that it could be done - the timings on the conventional explosives had to be accurate to the nanosecond, which at the time was a higher precision than had ever been attempted.

If you could design a nuke that could be accidentally triggered, without using it's own intact and fully functional triggering mechanism, the world would be a very different place (and Berlin would have been a radioactive crater in 1944).

Getting plutonium to go critical is easy. Just pour enough in a container, it will go off. Big pop, bright blue flash, deadly flash of neutrons. A nearby witness was knocked down, but able to get back up and run out of the building, he died of the radiation, not from physical injuries.

What is intricate is getting it way, way past the critical point fast enough that it doesn't destroy itself before full assembly is reached. A warhead that is close to a critical mass when sitting there certainly can go critical from a single point initiation of the detonator.

Sure, but nobody needs to care - the consequences aren't notably more severe than those of the explosion without the Pu being present.

If the criticality from the demon core had been accompanied by a conventional explosion, the casualties would have been equal or greater.

Accidental nuclear bombs aren't a thing.

 

[Alcoholic Actuary]

If anyone needs to imprisoned it's these people who cannot fail to open their mouths without subtracting from the total sum of human intelligence, for the crime of converting everyone else's oxygen into carbon dioxide.

I have a list.

aa

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

One thing they didn't foresee early on was the anti-vax insanity and the avalanche of dissinfo. Also the political posturing by those like R Paul, completely disregarding people's safety in order to score some points.

Totally this.
It's why I made my comment about the lying politicians like Rand Paul.
The cause of the disaster was Trump's attempts to mitigate the political problems he caused instead of mitigate the health and economic problems. People like Paul are blaming the messenger, even years later when the information is available.

It was a bit surreal how he tried to play down the pandemic for... personal image issues. It was something he didn't have to do. The really odd thing was on one hand he did put the vaccine effort into effect and would act like the virus was a problem, but then he'd talk out of the other side of his mouth on the issue too. And then the wackos on the right had an orgy with the wackos on the left... and before we knew it, a Volunteer Firefighter was asking people their weight so he could give them the proper dosage of horse dewormer to protect themselves from the virus.

It really was a lesson in, "We haven't come that far at all, have we. "

Surreal is the right word. It's gotten worse since then too. Imagine if the mortality rate was a bit higher? It easily could have been.

In my extended family there were two people who refused the vaccine for political reasons, aka stupidity, and they both got serious covid and had to be hospitalized. They got the monoclonal antibody treatment which I'm guessing is a lot more costly.

What exactly is going wrong in someone's brain when they refuse a medically approved vaccine but still take themselves to the hospital for medical intervention when they get the virus? It makes you wonder. Their brains are obviously somehow broken with regards to making rational decisions.

 

[southernhybrid]

One thing they didn't foresee early on was the anti-vax insanity and the avalanche of dissinfo. Also the political posturing by those like R Paul, completely disregarding people's safety in order to score some points.

Totally this.
It's why I made my comment about the lying politicians like Rand Paul.
The cause of the disaster was Trump's attempts to mitigate the political problems he caused instead of mitigate the health and economic problems. People like Paul are blaming the messenger, even years later when the information is available.

It was a bit surreal how he tried to play down the pandemic for... personal image issues. It was something he didn't have to do. The really odd thing was on one hand he did put the vaccine effort into effect and would act like the virus was a problem, but then he'd talk out of the other side of his mouth on the issue too. And then the wackos on the right had an orgy with the wackos on the left... and before we knew it, a Volunteer Firefighter was asking people their weight so he could give them the proper dosage of horse dewormer to protect themselves from the virus.

It really was a lesson in, "We haven't come that far at all, have we. "

Surreal is the right word. It's gotten worse since then too. Imagine if the mortality rate was a bit higher? It easily could have been.

In my extended family there were two people who refused the vaccine for political reasons, aka stupidity, and they both got serious covid and had to be hospitalized. They got the monoclonal antibody treatment which I'm guessing is a lot more costly.

What exactly is going wrong in someone's brain when they refuse a medically approved vaccine but still take themselves to the hospital for medical intervention when they get the virus? It makes you wonder. Their brains are obviously somehow broken with regards to making rational decisions.

I know a nurse who refused the vaccine along with her fiancé. They were planing on getting married that fall. They of course were Trump supporters who never wore masks after the first month or two. Long story short. The fiancé died of COVID that summer and the nurse was hospitalized for weeks due to COVID. They were both in their 70s, with many preexisting conditions that were risk factors. I still keep in touch with her every now and then. She says she has long haul COVID and is not able to do all of her IADLs, but she does have some friends to help her out.

I've had 7 COVID vaccines and have only had the virus once. It was so mild that I wasn't even sick, other than a headache for one day and some sniffles.

 

[TSwizzle]

I don't know anyone who is still getting a Covid "vaccine" shot. I have had two Covid "booster" shots way back in 2021, I think. In fact, nobody ever talks about Covid.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

We don't talk about a lot of things in the medical world, that actually still exist. Covid is endemic now, most people got vaccinated, got vaccinated and got the disease, got the disease and were vaccinated, and those that didn't get vaccinated and got sick. So Covid isn't particularly newsworthy these days because:

1) The virus continues to trade off virulence for transmissivity
2) Most Americans have some level of immunity or protection from more serious infection

So with ERs not stuffed with Covid-19 patients, and the deaths dropping substantially a while ago, it is just an endemic bug that impacts some like a super flu, and other not much at all. So, it isn't that big of a deal anymore.

 

[TomC]

1) The virus continues to trade off virulence for transmissivity
2) Most Americans have some level of immunity or protection from more serious infection

While both matter, I can't help but believe that 2) is the more critical thing.
As the proportion of the population who are either vaccinated or dead rises the proportion of plague rats drops. The resulting increases in herd immunity protects all of us. Vaccinated or not. At risk or not. Everyone.
Tom

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think both are very important. Omicron definitely worked well at inoculating most of the country.

Had the virus mutated in such a way where it was both more dangerous and more transmissive, things would be different now. Statistically, it should trend to being more transmissive and less dangerous because viruses spread by being transmissive. They'd need to have a dual or more mutation to make it more transmissive and more dangerous at the same time, which isn't as likely as something being just more transmissive. But this is nature and there is no warranty in nature.

Thankfully it trended the way it did.

 

[bilby]

In fact, nobody ever talks about Covid.

This thread, and your participation in it, demonstrates that not only is your claim wildly wrong, but also displays a monumental lack of self awareness.

 

[southernhybrid]

I don't know anyone who is still getting a Covid "vaccine" shot. I have had two Covid "booster" shots way back in 2021, I think. In fact, nobody ever talks about Covid.

Good for you. I'm planning on getting another booster soon, as they are recommended for people over 65 and it's been almost 3 months since my very mild case. I still have friends who wear masks. If that makes them feel comfortable, why should I care? I try not to judge what other people do, as long as it's harmless. Wearing a mask may be unnecessary, but it's harmless to others.

Most COVID cases are very mild these days for those who have been vaccinated, but for those of us who are over 65, especially those who haven't been fully vaccinated, there are still people who are hospitalized and a small percentage are dying from COVID.

As others have said, just because it's not being discussed very much, doesn't mean that it's not still dangerous for certain parts of the population, primarily. those of us who are over 65, especially if we have other risk factors. The cases always go down this time of year, when people are spending a lot more time outdoors. I'm glad that medical people aren't currently overwhelmed by COVID cases.

Now, let's see if we do the right thing if bird flu or some other virus that is common among other animals, becomes easily transmitted to humans.

 

[Jarhyn]

Accidental nuclear bombs aren't a thing.

Not on earth, anyway. I have it on good authority (looks up) that nuclear events do just kind of happen naturally sometimes.

But your point is correct that nukes just don't accidentally go off. Sometimes I WISH they could. If they could, then people would be much more hesitant to be sitting on a pile of nukes.

 

[Patooka]

I don't know anyone who is still getting a Covid "vaccine" shot. I have had two Covid "booster" shots way back in 2021, I think. In fact, nobody ever talks about Covid.

I used to be so confused as to why the US (a nation that put a man on the fucking moon and achieved other scientific marvels) had the highest per capita deaths to Covid in the developed world, had nurses wearing garbage bags and needed to attach refrigeration trucks to hospitals to act as impromptu morgues.

Thank you TSwizzle. I am no longer confused as to why that was the case.

 

[TSwizzle]

I don't know anyone who is still getting a Covid "vaccine" shot. I have had two Covid "booster" shots way back in 2021, I think. In fact, nobody ever talks about Covid.

Good for you.

True that.

I'm planning on getting another booster soon, as they are recommended for people over 65 and it's been almost 3 months since my very mild case.

Well if it's recommended you should definitely do that. Maybe get a booster once a month?

I still have friends who wear masks. If that makes them feel comfortable, why should I care? I try not to judge what other people do, as long as it's harmless. Wearing a mask may be unnecessary, but it's harmless to others.

Oh I am pretty sure you were very, very judgemental of those who didn't conform.

Now, let's see if we do the right thing if bird flu or some other virus that is common among other animals, becomes easily transmitted to humans.

What would "the right thing" look like? More authoritarianism I expect.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A good warhead design does not go critical from a single point initiation of the explosives.

NO warhead design does.

If it was so easy to make plutonium go critical, that you could do so by mistake, the Manhattan Project would have lasted a couple of months and cost a few thousand dollars.

The ONLY way to set of a nuke by mistake would be somehow to actuate the triggering mechanism by mistake, on an intact, undamaged, and fully armed warhead.

Preventing this from happening accidentally is trivially easy. The hard part is getting the damn thing to go critical when you actually want it to, which is why the Manhattan Project took so long that the war in Europe was over before they had a bomb; Cost more than any prior weapons reseach program (buy FAR); And still had to waste a large fraction of the world's entire supply of hugely expensive Pu on a test firing, because the smartest men on Earth weren't sure that it could be done - the timings on the conventional explosives had to be accurate to the nanosecond, which at the time was a higher precision than had ever been attempted.

If you could design a nuke that could be accidentally triggered, without using it's own intact and fully functional triggering mechanism, the world would be a very different place (and Berlin would have been a radioactive crater in 1944).

Getting plutonium to go critical is easy. Just pour enough in a container, it will go off. Big pop, bright blue flash, deadly flash of neutrons. A nearby witness was knocked down, but able to get back up and run out of the building, he died of the radiation, not from physical injuries.

What is intricate is getting it way, way past the critical point fast enough that it doesn't destroy itself before full assembly is reached. A warhead that is close to a critical mass when sitting there certainly can go critical from a single point initiation of the detonator.

Sure, but nobody needs to care - the consequences aren't notably more severe than those of the explosion without the Pu being present.

If the criticality from the demon core had been accompanied by a conventional explosion, the casualties would have been equal or greater.

Accidental nuclear bombs aren't a thing.

The consequences could be considerably more severe. And I'm not talking about an accidental nuclear bomb, but improper detonation of an actual nuclear bomb. Google isn't being very cooperative and I suspect the details are classified anyway.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I don't know anyone who is still getting a Covid "vaccine" shot. I have had two Covid "booster" shots way back in 2021, I think. In fact, nobody ever talks about Covid.

This thread exists, therefore your last sentence is clearly false.

And note that boosters are vaccines. Sometimes they are a different dose, sometimes they're the same. The only one I'm aware of that was truly different was Sputnik, it used an adenovirus carrier which meant that the vaccine would also vaccinate you against the vaccine. Hence the booster was done with a different adenovirus. Swapping the two wouldn't have changed the result.

And note that most of the time Covid is running in 9th or 10th place for leading causes of death. That's not a nothing in my book, especially since most of the stuff above it is actually groups, not individual things.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

1) The virus continues to trade off virulence for transmissivity
2) Most Americans have some level of immunity or protection from more serious infection

While both matter, I can't help but believe that 2) is the more critical thing.
As the proportion of the population who are either vaccinated or dead rises the proportion of plague rats drops. The resulting increases in herd immunity protects all of us. Vaccinated or not. At risk or not. Everyone.
Tom

Except it keeps pumping out variants that are capable of infecting those who have already had the earlier versions. We have nothing like herd immunity.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think both are very important. Omicron definitely worked well at inoculating most of the country.

Had the virus mutated in such a way where it was both more dangerous and more transmissive, things would be different now. Statistically, it should trend to being more transmissive and less dangerous because viruses spread by being transmissive. They'd need to have a dual or more mutation to make it more transmissive and more dangerous at the same time, which isn't as likely as something being just more transmissive. But this is nature and there is no warranty in nature.

Thankfully it trended the way it did.

Actually, we got very lucky. The same mutation that made Omicron much more transmissible also made it less dangerous. It moved the infection higher in the airway--more potential to exhale it, but less damage to the lungs. Covid also has the extremely nasty characteristic that most spread is before symptoms--which makes it relatively insensitive to it's lethality. There's no evolutionary advantage to not killing your victims. (Contrast that with the really dangerous HPV strains--no symptoms whatsoever so it spreads freely without people even knowing of it's existence. That is, until it gives you cancer down the road.)

And note that it doesn't take a double mutation to make it both more transmissible and more dangerous. Consider the various diseases with a major diarrhea component--their transmission vector has a substantial component of causing victims to have an accident. Anything which increases this is a bonus to the disease--but it also makes it more dangerous for the victim. Likewise, hemorrhagic fevers--there's a large bleeding component to it's transmission, making the victim bleed more makes it both more transmissible and more dangerous.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Now, let's see if we do the right thing if bird flu or some other virus that is common among other animals, becomes easily transmitted to humans.

What would "the right thing" look like? More authoritarianism I expect.

In a serious pandemic? I'm not certain, all I know is that people like you would likely get a lot other people killed, including yourself.

 

[TSwizzle]

Now, let's see if we do the right thing if bird flu or some other virus that is common among other animals, becomes easily transmitted to humans.

What would "the right thing" look like? More authoritarianism I expect.

In a serious pandemic? I'm not certain, all I know is that people like you would likely get a lot other people killed, including yourself.

I didn't kill anyone during the last Covid hysteria but Newsom and Cuomo (and others) killed tens of thousands when they put Covid infected patients into the nursing homes. Shouldn't they be in jail?