Only one of these is actually dangerous, the latter is a measure of myocardial damage but obviously if it's transient, there's no actual damage. — Benkei

Whether something is dangerous or damaging has never been the sole criterium for why things ought to be listed on the label as potential adverse effects.

Your suggestion seems to be that myocardial injury is nothing to be worried about. It's so insignificant in fact that even running a great risk of it is not something that people ought to be informed of.

I don't find that very compelling. Furthermore, I suspect this was intentionally kept from the public, because 'bad for business'.

The people who carried out the research apparently thought it was worth specifically investigating.

I think this bit, coming from the site you probably plucked that link from, is a fair representation of what people thought of the risks of myocarditis and pericarditis:

Een zeer zeldzame bijwerking op het vaccin is een ontsteking van de hartspier (myocarditis) of ontsteking van het hartzakje (pericarditis). Deze bijwerking komt bij minder dan 1 op de 10.000 mensen voor en is daarom zeer zeldzaam. Klachten zijn kortademigheid, pijn op de borst en hartkloppingen die soms onregelmatig zijn. De klachten gaan meestal vanzelf over of zijn met medicijnen goed te behandelen. Ervaar je deze klachten? Neem dan contact op met jouw (behandelend) arts of zorgverlener. — CBG

Does the discrepancy between 1:10,000 and 1:35 not seem alarming to you?

I think it's downright disingenuous to suggest that this risk was always known (or publicly known), and freely spread in the public. Politicians and medical professionals that asked questions about the risks were met with oneliners along the lines of 'safe and effective'.

The fact that these risks weren't fully acknowledged is reinforced by the fact that reports of myocarditis caused medical research centers to initiate research into this phenomenon - so clearly this wasn't common knowledge in the way you're suggesting it was.

You seem to be extremely agitated at the idea that a medical professoinal asks critical questions when such a discrepancy is brought to light. Why is that?

Why report on something that wasn't a risk? — Benkei

You really need me to answer that?

When you read a medical label and it says "may cause headaches", did the company put that there because they thought headaches were a major health risk, or because people ought to be informed of all the adverse effects they may suffer as a result of the medication.

Oh, that must be why the clinical trials of Novavax already showed "an increased risk of myocarditis". — Benkei

I'm not sure who you think you're fooling if you are seriously arguing this was all common knowledge when people were being vaccinated en masse. Yourself, perhaps?

I hope he dies sooner rather than later. — Benkei

I think you got out of bed without taking your medication.

I get that this makes you angry, because you seem to have bought into it yourself.

You're looking at it the wrong way.

The study concludes a significant amount of people are developing adverse effects within 30 days of their injection and somehow these effects weren't known beforehand?

The implication is you've either been lied to, or they've basically done no testing at all.

Campbell is an idiot. — Benkei

Classy opening, by the way. Yea, I'm sure Campbell is the idiot here. :roll:

Let climate deniers be climate deniers. — Mikie

Who exactly is 'denying climate'?

Let's just assume there's competing narratives. How do you tell which one to subscribe to? — Benkei

You figure out which interest groups are pushing which narratives, and decide which one you trust more mistrust the least.

I'd much rather a government, which I help elect, take 20% of my paycheck than have rampant monopolies price-gouge the consumer with poverty wages, or literally sell my life to make ends meet. And at least that 20% funds the livelihoods of millions of government employees and the unemployed, and provides me with essential services that would otherwise be monopolized, rather than feeding the incessant greed of a few thousand robber barons. — finarfin

This juxtaposition makes little sense to me, because I don't think governments prevent monopolies from forming, rather monopolies seem to form way more easily as a result of government regulations.

Somalia isn't merely "worse than us", it's total chaos. Why? Specifically because of a lack of government. — LuckyR

It's total chaos because after the first set of 'great' powers finally left it alone, the next set of 'great' powers got involved and tore the country apart again.

So comments like this...

Hey if you don't like government, check out Somalia. — LuckyR

... make you seem rather ignorant.

Hey if you don't like government, check out Somalia. Let us know what you think about it. — LuckyR

You know who made it that way, bubba?

Yet perhaps for an individualist liberal, it's hard to fathom people functioning as a community, but it does happen. — ssu

You've got this backwards.

The reason classic liberals argue for a smaller state is because they assume people can take care of themselves, without the need for state coercion. It's the statist who believes people must be coerced into 'functioning properly'.

What Afghans? The Taliban you mean? Check this Aug 27, 2023 comment. (Hmm Might be better to move any further comments on this to the/some other thread.) — jorndoe

You know who put the Taliban in charge? I'm sure you do.

Afghanistan wasn't such a terrible place before that. Reminds me a bit of Iran, actually. Iran too used to be a relatively modern nation. Didn't the US get involved there as well? And look at it now.

In all honesty, I tend to be more concerned about an "authoritarian empire" than a "democratic empire"... — jorndoe

Of the two, the US is certainly the more worrying one to me. I think the Russians can't hold a candle to the amount of misery and destruction the US has wreaked upon the world - all of which it neatly tucked away in the creases of history, of course.

Ironically enough, some air has been breathed into NATO with the moves against Ukraine. — jorndoe

Whether that's a good thing remains to be seen. Any long-term solutions between Europe and Russia will have to involve some modus vivendi with regards to Ukraine and elsewhere. If military deterrence becomes the only tool for peace it's not a matter of 'if' but a matter of 'when' a new war will break out. And I'm somewhat confident neither the Europeans (of which I am one) nor the Russians want that.

It's Macron's rubbery spine that opened the door to this disaster in the first place. Merkel dared to push back against the Americans, knowing what would happen if they allowed the US to play Risk in the European backyard.

Ironically, the post-Cold War plans for NATO and Ukraine were made not long after Vidal made that statement.

Well, it's been a while since the US grabbed land. — jorndoe

The US is essentially an island nation. Grabbing land is not the way it expands its empire. If you want a better understanding of what US imperialism looks like and the deep impact it has on nations, take a look at the example of Japan.

(I'm wondering if they should have stayed in Afghanistan, what do you think?) — jorndoe

Obviously not, both for the Afgani's sake and the Americans themselves. Though if one wished to expediate the US empire's collapse, one should certainly have advocated for the Americans staying there.

The mess that's unfolding there right now is a direct result of the US having destabilized the country, and more western destabilizing won't fix it, it'll just make it worse.

Oddly enough, the Ukrainians have strongly gone with the US "empire" and the EU, rejecting the Kremlinian "non-empire". — jorndoe

Even if Russia can't be considered an empire in the same way the US is, obviously there's plenty wrong with Russian rule for people wanting to resist it.

It's a bit odd though, how Ukraine was wooed with promises of security. Now that same NATO is refusing to get its hands dirty as Ukraine is being wrecked as a direct result of NATO's advances. What sort of diplomacy is that? "We'll guarantee your security if there's anything left of you after you get done fighting that bear over there."

But whatever empire Ukraine wishes to join is up to them.

We've heard it all before, Russia is going to collapse any day now.

Meanwhile, the 21st century's real and only empire, the American empire, is showing actual signs of falling apart.

Doubtful.

How many Russian and Ukrainian troops do you think there are in Ukraine at the moment? — jorndoe

I have no idea, truth be told. If any trustworthy sources exist for these numbers I have yet to see them.

However, Russia's GDP and population size imply it has the capability to field a vastly bigger army, and I find information on those figures trustworthy enough to produce a rough estimate of the balance of power. Even the most charitable interpretation paints a bleak picture for Ukraine.

The fact that Russia outnumbers the Ukrainians by a comfortable margin is a matter of common sense to me.

There's that vastly again, though about firepower this time: — jorndoe

That the Russians enjoy a large artillery advantage is accepted fact at this point, and a matter of common sense as well based on the indicators I named earlier. Mearsheimer often cites the 5-10:1 artillery advantage.


The Ukrainian media themselves talks about these matters here:

The Russian military indeed enjoys very strong numerical superiority.

Russia's numerical superiority, and its endless munitions stock, the result of decades of Soviet production, have had a devastating effect on the course of the war.

The disproportion between the number of Russian and Ukrainian pieces deployed to a particular front line area can go as far as 10 to 1.

I don't take sources very seriously in this war - the amount of information warfare going on makes it all untrustworthy, but again, these are just matters of common sense. It should be obvious to anyone with a functioning brain.

Anyway, I haven't seen indications that there are significantly more Russian than Ukrainian fighters in Ukraine at the moment. — jorndoe

Then again my point:

If the Russians managed to capture 20% of Ukraine while outnumbered, how could the Ukrainians ever hope to go on the offensive successfully?

Going on the offensive is extremely difficult and costly, and if anything the troop counts have shifted into Russia's favor.

But the Kremlin has spent a significant amount of shells and rockets (and troops) in 17 or 18 months of warring. Reports suggest much more unity among Ukrainians (and hate towards the invaders). — jorndoe

Russia is reportedly enjoying a between 5 and 10 to 1 artillery advantage. That's massive, especially considering artillery is perhaps the single most important factor in a war of attrition.

I understand the desire to turn this into something positive, but the bottomline is the Russians have vastly more firepower than the Ukrainians, and that's a terrible situation to be in as first-hand accounts of the Ukrainian frontlines attest to. Constant artillery shelling takes a real toll on people.

FMI, do you mean GlobalFirepower? ISW? FOCUS online? Another one? — jorndoe

ISW has been the prime peddler of nonsense and some of the other articles refer to their claims. At this point the ISW is little more than a mouthpiece of the US DoD / MIC (which they're funded by, by the way).


But to pick some slogans that I saw passing by:

1. "The next defensive line will be weaker than the last"

2. "The offensive is picking up steam"

3. "The offensive was targeted at the strongest part in the Russian lines"


These are all claims that don't pass the basic military common sense test:

1. Defense in depth gets stronger with depth.

2. Offensives produce quick results or they fail.

3. Offensives are targeted at weak points in the enemy line.

Some rough estimates of troop sizes ... — jorndoe

Russia has almost ten times the GDP of Ukraine and a vastly larger manpower pool to draw from.

Do these numbers pass the common sense test in your mind?

EDIT: I was actually thinking about CSIS and not ISW, so some of my criticism was wrongly addressed. My gripe with their claims still stands though, and I am similarly suspicious of ISW's affiliation.

The Russians haven't been sitting still. They've recruited literally hundreds of thousands of troops. If we go back to the start of the war, they managed to occupy 20% of Ukraine while being significantly outnumbered. The Russian forces now outnumber the Ukrainians significantly. That should tell you enough about the current balance of power.

Second, this Ukrainian offensive has been an unmitigated disaster and going way too slow. If the Russians feared any kind of breakthrough to begin with they've had ample time to react.

The media you keep linking deal in the deadly drug called hopium, not reality.

Governments can barely organise the quotidian things they’re supposed to organise, let alone conspiracies to deceive. — Wayfarer

The CIA's track record is out there for all to see, and most of it isn't even being disputed - it's accepted history.

As is the United States' self-evident history of lying and deceiving its population.

If you're willing to entertain the thought that aliens exist and have visited Earth, you should be willing to entertain the thought that your government is trying to deceive you - something which it has the power to do, the institutions to do, a vested interest in, and has been caught red-handed doing several times in the past.

I know which one I find more far-fetched. :smile:

Fantastical news stories are usually pushed to disguise failing US policy.

So really it's an exercise in finding the fuck-up they're trying to cover up.

My guess would be the fact that US foreign policy is failing across the board has something to do with it.

Climate change is already killing people faster than covid ever did. We should be in carbon lockdown. — unenlightened

Oh, the irony.

To be fair, while the US obviously isn't fascist, it shares an uncomfortable number of features commonly attributed to fascism.

Nationalism, militarism, belief in American supremacy, interwovenness of state and economy, growing authoritarian tendencies, etc.

I see where people get the idea from.

US politicians are starting to speak sense on the matter of Ukraine:

Your behavior suggests otherwise, which is why you're participating in the smear.

RFK Jr. is a clown. — T Clark

Oh, perhaps. I don't really care.

Smearing people with lies is degenerate. Believing such practices are acceptable just because one dislikes the target of the smears is likewise degenerate.

Thanks for making my point for me. :up:

So clearly you have no idea what he said, because here's what he actually said:




Degenerate journalism from the New York Post to smear a political opponent, and you're enabling it because you view RFK as a political opponent too.

So it appears I was right - you are showcasing the exact degeneracy I was talking about. It's disgusting.

RFK was "smeared" for saying that covid had been engineered so that Jewish people would not get sick. — T Clark

That's not what he said, though. But if you're a political opponent of RFK that's how you might like to frame it.

I appears that you might be showcasing the degeneracy I mentioned - using racism as a stick to beat political opposition with.

They're terms that in the modern day are primarily used to whip people up into a self-righteous frenzy; a mechanic through which people are easily controlled.

It sets up (ironically) a heirarchy of moral superiority. The racist, morally inferior - the anti-racist, morally superior. The opinions and well-being of people deemed morally inferior may be disregarded at will - very useful to silence people or get rid of people espousing unwelcome opinions. Note how RFK was recently smeared as being anti-semitic in a not-so-subtle attempt at silencing political opposition. This is degeneracy parading as moral virtue.

While racism and sexism undoubtedly exist, the use of these terms I regard with the utmost suspicion, because people who genuinely care are rare, and it's almost always about power, manipulation, or plain old social masturbation.

A recent Swiss study done on the risk of side-effects of mRNa vaccines, this time producing a 1 in 35 risk of developing myocardial injury.

Quite stunning numbers, considering the vaccines were marketed as being completely safe.

As this and other recent studies are pointing out, the risks may have been considerable.

Countries may say one thing, and do another.

That should be obvious by now. If it isn't obvious to you yet, ask yourself why the international sanctions against Russia failed.

It's also worth noting the countries who abstained from voting: China and India for example - the countries with the largest populations on the planet, each one seperately being larger than all NATO countries combined.

Yes, but there are other costs to giving Putin what he wants, e.g. an increased risk of Russian aggression in the future. Forcing Russia to burn through its entire Cold War stock of hardware and ammunition greatly reduces their ability to wage future wars. Even at current wartime production levels it will take Russia well over a decade to put together anything like the force they initially invaded with, likely far longer. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As you probably know, my view is that the Russians were provoked into invading Ukraine.

If they are provoked similarly in the future, and conventional means are no longer available, they will likely react more extremely; possibly with nuclear weapons. Remember the Cuba Crisis.

Further, if the purpose of western intervention was to send a message, who is listening? Independently-minded countries like the BRICS don't buy the narrative of an unprovoked invasion, and they have all refused to side with the US over this issue.

Meanwhile, the US has its hands tied in Ukraine trying to protect a two-decade investment which it will probably end up losing in the end. The US is losing influence all over the world, the Persian Gulf being a prime example. China is the laughing third.

This strategy has been a disaster.

The issue with "not giving Putin what he wants" is that the cost of that strategy is the destruction of Ukraine, and with a risk of Putin getting what he wants regardless.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. :pray:

I'm going to give what you wrote a think, and come back to it later.

I have a slightly different view about this, and I'm curious what you think about it.

If these people were indeed coming from a place of superiority and a belief in 'the Truth', perhaps we wouldn't expect to see this type of anger, nor would we expect such folks to be reluctant to engage in real discussion. Both neither suggest confidence nor a well-rooted belief of 'the Truth'.

To me it suggests the opposite, though in some ways it is related.

The anger stems not from a sense of superiority, but from taught ideology. Through what is basically indoctrination the ego is bound to the ideology, and the individual develops a sense of self-esteem that is directly connected to this ideology.

The result is a lack of confidence, because the ideology is what has value, and not they the individual. Only through the ideology does the individual gain value, or so they are implicitly taught.

When the ideology starts showing cracks (as any ideology is bound to do at some point), it is their fragile sense of self that starts cracking along with it, hence the aggression - they perceive debate as a direct attack on themselves.

Rather than going through the painful process of decoupling one's sense of self from the ideology, they develop coping mechanisms to deal with a stubborn reality that doesn't conform to the ideology, by shunning honest debate and instead relying on every dirty trick in the book to protect their sacred egg.

Oh, I'm sure the US was mighty interested to hear what Johnson had to say about peace in Ukraine. :lol:

Chirst, these people.

No, I am claiming that if people are biased (and Sachs clearly is), then we should not treat their reports as 'independent', as Tzeentch claimed. — Jabberwock

What an ignorant thing to say.

He said that Bennet said that the US stopped it, which is not what Bennett said. — Jabberwock

It's exactly what he said:

Naftali Bennett: Everything I did was coordinated down to the last detail, with the US, Germany and France.

Interviewer: So they blocked it?

Naftali Bennett: Basically, yes. They blocked it, and I thought they were wrong.

The level of intellectual dishonesty here is truly astonishing.

Or perhaps you're all experiencing the first stage of grief?

Common sense, being one.