Elerond
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Posts posted by Elerond
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3 hours ago, Gfted1 said:
Dunno. I guess not?
Just give them time
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10 hours ago, Gfted1 said:
Wait, isnt Plan B available over the counter? If youre worried about becoming pregnant, go pop a couple pills?
According to people behind new Texas law plan b is abortifacient and should be illegal
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proven fact would actually need proof to exist and thing to be a fact in order it to be proven fact
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38 minutes ago, Skarpen said:
Yeah, I get the notion, but what would be the substance of the lawsuit though? If I understand correctly it would be a civil suit and civil suit needs to have something that the suing side wants from the side they are suing. Mostly it's a monetary compensation for something (like damages), but those need to be accounted in real stuff. For example if a neighbour throws a bottle in my backyard and hits my car and the repair will cost 10k$ I can sue for those 10k$ because that's the cost I would have to pay for repairs. But for me to sue my neighbour if he damages the other neighbour car then this is illogical because he didn't made any damages to me. So this law is a little baffling in that regard.
The idea is to give people bounty to expose abortion that have happened after six weeks, and people get that bounty by suing suspected law breakers in civil court and I they can show that they were breaking Texas' ban for abortions after six week then they are rewarded with 10k dollars bounty/compensation.
As most abortion seekers are poor and there are lots of rich people on anti-abortion side, you will see lots of court case against even people who followed Texas law just to cause them financial burden in order to scare people seeking or providing abortions.
Law gives purposely unspecified right to sue those who are suspected to help in seeking or providing illegal abortion, so that people would be hesitant to offer any assistance to people seeking legal abortions. As purpose is to effectively create total ban of abortions in Texas.
EDIT: This article gives good explanation of the what is the idea behind the law
https://qz.com/2054552/a-new-abortion-law-in-texas-turns-citizens-into-bounty-hunters/
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5 hours ago, Skarpen said:
This sounds kinda dumb. What would the lawsuit be about if the person suing have no damages to be covered?
Ask Texas state legislature
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3 minutes ago, BruceVC said:
Elerond the truth is you cannot implement gun control in the US in the way you can in other countries, I know your post is raising another issue but I just saying that the reality and solution to mass shootings is not ever going to be about " banning guns " as this legislation will never pass Congress
You can invest more in the US in mental healthcare but that is all that you can do that will be realistically implemented in the majority of states
Question is state legislative (like New York) to allow to people to sue anyone linked to sale of gun used in crime for damages even if person suing didn't suffer from the crime same way as Texas now allows people to sue abortion providers and people who helped person to abortion provider.
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Texas is now shown how states can ban guns they will just allow anyone to sue person buying gun or anyone that helped person to buy gun for damages. Like for example gun is used in robbery then everyone in that state can sue shop that sold gun, manufacture that build the gun, truck company that shipped gun to store from which it was bought, and anyone that can be linked to help person to buy the gun in fist place.
So technically guns are legal but anybody selling / manufacturing / transporting them can face billions of dollars damages if gun is ever used in crime.
With same logic you probably will able to ban anything that is protected in constitution without actually banning them.
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13 minutes ago, ComradeYellow said:
It all boils down to money. If they can't find other ways to reinvigorate the Afghan economy like China's BRI for instance (Remember, China is much more powerful economically and politically than it was 20 years ago) then yes probably.
I'll go out on a limb and say that the Taliban is probably more interested in foreign partnerships now and opium trade will remain curbed significantly. The world has changed quite a bit in 20 years and a new generation is up and coming.
The thing is that Talibans can be against opium production all they want but they don't have resource to prevent afghan clans from producing it and after UN cut economic compensation to afghan farmers not to grow opium and as Afghanistan's economy is crashing it is inevitable that farmers will start again grow opium in order to survive. Also there are lots of smugglers who are seeking new business now as Taliban don't need weapons and other goods to smuggled to them.
It is difficult to control 38 million people who are facing starvation.
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I would predict that their ban is similar as one they had when they were in power last time and Afghanistan will become again world largest opium producer
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Moscow and Tehran aren't examples of successful handling of the pandemic.
In Russia people mostly don't use face masks and those who do usually don't cover their face with it, but keep it around in case official comes to inspect place.
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8 minutes ago, ComradeYellow said:
False. Terrorist groups are funded by all extremist Sunni followers with any amount of wealth, all across the ME. Some have high influence in various governments such as Saudi Arabi, some are just lay-lows with money to spare. Nationality is not really a factor.
*Ahem*
The Taliban now control one of the largest lithium deposits on the planet (tekdeeps.com)
Actually correct: ISIS-K gets almost all its funding from Pakistan. Majority of Taliban's fund also come from Pakistan and Iran is second and after that comes Saudi sources (Qatar as largest source). Iranian sources also fund lots of other terrorist organisations (as Taliban is till classed as terrorist organization) in Afghanistan. Funds don't come at least directly from governments but wealthy patrons in those countries.
Article should say one of the largest suspected lithium deposits. Some one would actually need to do geological survey first to make sure that there are actually lithium there.
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13 minutes ago, ComradeYellow said:
Not sure if sarcasm, but Afghanistan is certainly of geopolitical significance, it's not only sandwiched between China and its allies but it also contains trillions of dollars of natural resources such as copper, petroleum, and lithium, the latter which is used to power car batteries and cell phones aka a crucial resource for the 21st century.
Why else would the U.S. spend 2 decades in there? Not just for ideological reasons, but economic ones as well. Same as Iraq. If China's approach to foreign policy is successful where the U.S. has failed, it would be both a financial and moral catastrophe for the West.
Probably not natural resources as they have allowed China to buy and control Afghanistan's oil, gas and copper reserves for 10 years (Afghanistan's oil reserves were founded in 2010 and in 2011 Afghanistan signed an oil exploration contract with China National Petroleum Corporation three and currently only oil fields there).
Currently it is only suspected that there are rich lithium resources in Afghanistan because of its geologic setting, currently there are little lithium production in Afghanistan.
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Terrorist groups in Afghanistan are mainly funded by people in Pakistan and Iran
Talibans are extremists Sunnis where Iran is controlled by nationalist Shias. Talibans have long history of oppressing people in Hazara minority which Afghanistan's largest Shia population (4 million), and there are Hazara population also in Iran (500k) and Pakistan (1 million).
China will not stop oppressing Uyghurs which will feed extremist Sunnis in neighboring countries.
Russia has it own Lithium sources and mines in Afghanistan are against its economic interests
Anti-sentiment is not long living when those who are against aren't around (as democrats infighting in US show us).
Stabilization of Afghanistan requires major effort and is expensive and excepted returns aren't at least yet big
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China's silk road project (their project to acquire natural resources from middle east) forces them to try to stabilize Afghanistan, but there is quite little will in China's leadership to undertake any military operation, so they main strategy will most likely to just throw money to it (meaning that they will give funds Taliban so that they would handle it) and hope that everything works out. But there is high risk that it just causes more problems for them thanks to high levels of corruption that Afghanistan is plagued of and lack of any forces that actually could try to control population of 31 million which is facing starvation and economical collapse.
Russia will put their spoon in the mix as it is in their interest to prevent extremist to get foot hold in Uzbekistan and Tadžikistan
Also Iran and Pakistan have their own interest in the area and they aren't necessary stability of governance in Afghanistan
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I find it bit funny, how spokesmen for Nato, USA, UK, etc. constantly repeat in media that Taliban needs to follow human rights or ..., like are they planning to go back if they don't? I don't think such empty talk helps anyone.
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1 minute ago, BruceVC said:
But I thought you studied computer science\programing? Or is this dissertation part of that ?
You think that coding AI to automatically analyse user interfaces isn't programming?
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59 minutes ago, BruceVC said:
Elerond what dissertation did you do?
Possibility to automate usability testing using neural networks
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48 minutes ago, Gorth said:
The link only works once and there was no feedback form. Believe me, I would have loved to give some feedback to that
That already would cause rejection of study here (at least it was rejection cause when I was still doing my dissertation), because it massively increase risk that study have unseen flaws and results can't be trusted
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SARS-CoV-2 = Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
Full name of SARS was SARS-CoV = Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus
Which just tell how medical circles name viruses by telling what they do and which virus type they belong
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13 minutes ago, BruceVC said:
True but if you read Hurlshots post the kids in his school are wearing the masks correctly so it can be done
But I am not sure I understand your point considering the debate we having? Do you personally think kids must wear masks at schools in most of our countries where the virus level is high and spreading like SA, USA, Mexico,Russia, some EU countries, the whole of South America and most of Africa?
If wearing them can be organized such manner that they are helpful then yes, especially if no other safety measures can't be used, like keeping distance and smaller group sizes, good ventilation, washing hands and more time in outdoors
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3 hours ago, BruceVC said:
Do you think kids should wear mask in schools in countries that dont have high level of vaccination and have a high virus load like SA and the USA. In the UK for example masks are optional but they seem to have achieved high levels of vaccination and hospitalizations are down so you can understand their ostensibly controversial health decision
This debate for me is not about who is right or wrong because of hubris or from a personal perspective, its about the most effective way to end this terrible, insidious global disease
So the question of kids wearing masks should be about the science and the direct impact to the virus spread in all our countries ?
Kids and people in general should wear mask when it is sensible to do so, like then need to be close to multiple people for long period of time in confided space which doesn't have good ventilation. And they are able to wear mask so that it doesn't case them breathing problems and they are able to switch to new mask periodically (once per hour for good measure but at least twice per 8 hours.)
Mask don't do any good if they aren't wore properly and if they get wet from your breathing.
So wearing mask just to wear mask will not most likely help anyone
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12 hours ago, teknoman2 said:
I read an article today that Moderna is starting tests for an m-RNA vaccine for HIV. They have been working on it for years and testing it on animals and they start phase 1 of the tests on humans tomorrow. The first batch of volunteers are people who are completely healthy, they will have the vaccine and will be monitored for 10 months to measure the short term safety. If all goes well in phase 1, phase 2 of the testing will start after that with a broader range of test subjects to see the effects on people of various ages and health statuses. This test phase will last 12 months and then its phase 3 of testing that will involve people who already have HIV to see how well the vaccine works against the virus in a human body.
Years of R&D and animal testing followed by at least 3 years of human testing before the company takes it to the FDA for approval vs 10 months for the covid vaccine. Even if we assume that R&D took just a week and the rest was testing, at best we are now at phase 2 of the test period.
I got my jab fully aware that i'm a test subject for an experimental vaccine (i took part in phase 3 of the clinical trials for another study in 2011 because i had the illness the drug was meant to prevent... didn't help at all and i'm still sick hence the decision to vaccinate despite the risks) but what I can't stand is the fairy tale sold by the government and media that the vaccine is fully tested, safe, effective etc when we are barely halfway through the testing phase.
If you look their test reports you will see that they have done much less testing than they did with their corona virus vaccine, because they have couple billion dollar less funding (Moderna alone received over 2.5 billion dollars to test their vaccine which was already working in their initial test at that point). Question is not long you have tested something but how broadly and how much variety you have in your testing.
Also HIV is much more complex virus to fight against with vaccines, because it targets helper T cells, macrophages, and dendritic cells that are crucial to humans immune system. Which causes immune system to fight against itself, which leads to AIDS. So it has been difficult to find way to get human immune system attack only against the virus and not itself. It should tell how good messenger RNA method is to make vaccines if it is able to get immune system only/mostly attack HIV instead of going all crazy and kill itself.
I would point out that mRNA vaccines have been studied now for 30 years, so they aren't some new experimental thing, but thing that was just becoming in its maturity so that it could become more main stream medicine, which it has had hard time to do because it is so much more expensive than other methods that are used to make vaccines, but it is faster and more reliable method which is why it was able to pop-up to leading methods during current pandemic.
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2 hours ago, 213374U said:
WHO discourages use of masks by children, btw. But we only listen to WHO sometimes. Is ol' Tedros an irresponsible flat earther now? Who knows, who cares. More hysteria, please.
That depends on case and age of children
"Children aged 5 years and under should not be required to wear masks. This is based on the safety and overall interest of the child and the capacity to appropriately use a mask with minimal assistance.
WHO and UNICEF advise that the decision to use masks for children aged 6-11 should be based on the following factors:
- Whether there is widespread transmission in the area where the child resides
- The ability of the child to safely and appropriately use a mask
- Access to masks, as well as laundering and replacement of masks in certain settings (such as schools and childcare services)
- Adequate adult supervision and instructions to the child on how to put on, take off and safely wear masks
- Potential impact of wearing a mask on learning and psychosocial development, in consultation with teachers, parents/caregivers and/or medical providers
- Specific settings and interactions the child has with other people who are at high risk of developing serious illness, such as the elderly and those with other underlying health conditions
WHO and UNICEF advise that children aged 12 and over should wear a mask under the same conditions as adults, in particular when they cannot guarantee at least a 1-metre distance from others and there is widespread transmission in the area."
"Are there situations where children aged 5 years and under may wear or be required to wear a mask?
In general, children aged 5 years and under should not be required to wear masks. This advice is based on the safety and overall interest of the child and the capacity to appropriately use a mask with minimal assistance. There may be local requirements for children aged 5 years and under to wear masks, or specific needs in some settings, such as being physically close to someone who is ill. In these circumstances, if the child wears a mask, a parent or other guardian should be within direct line of sight to supervise the safe use of the mask."-
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14 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:
She's not wrong. Niqab/ burka is cultural, not religious, and you're only 'meant' to cover the hair (indeed the specific Koranic guidance is that you're not allowed to cover the face during the Hajj, so niqab/ burka are banned there).
Most of muslims follow ideology that person themself doesn't interpret what Koran say but that is left to religious scholars, bit similar to old school Catholicism, which though people themselves interpreting bible was heresy.
Mainly in my understanding Niqab/ burka use is based on texts of two muslim scholars Ahmad ibn an-Naqib al-Misrin (he says in his text that most muslim scholars, except some that belong in Hanafi school agree that women should hide their faces when in public) and Muhammad al-Ghazali said in his text that God/Allah set 18 punishments for all women because Eve ate forbidden apple, one of those punishments was that women need to use headscarf.
Coronavirus 666: The Number of the Delta Variant (but in an entirely scientific context)
in Way Off-Topic
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A medium is not media, to prove that media does something you need to prove that all the mediums do something.
Also you make false statements about those protest which CNN is reffing as there were no deaths in said protest.
Also even with questionable caption, CNN did show live footage from protest showing burning cars and they mentioned looting that occurred. So they actually reported everything that happened in protest. Meaning that it is questionable if there was actually any misinformation in that example you provided, it mostly show that person who made info graphic that day has questionable view what peaceful means