Corona Virus Sensation?

I had to have COVID by now. My old roommate got it bad he looked absolutely horrible and lost his sense of smell for like a week. I haven't had any symptoms. I went with the Moderna mRNA Vax because the technology behind it seems cool.

One of my relatives tried to start some dumb argument with me about masks and the vaccine and I didn't even dignify her with a response. She works at Home Depot but has convinced herself she is an expert on vaccines and medicine. Not really interested in arguing with her.

Also as to immigrants I don't get how people proudly running around with no masks and no vaccines are blaming immigrants. If it is being spread by people why not wear a mask and get vaccinated, its bizarre double talk.

I have been laughing all morning.

So the Mormon church has a very right wing slant too it, I have read 70% are Republican but I believe that to be far too low of an estimation. Black people were not allowed to be full members till 1978, they strongly fought gay marriage and were one of the main funding sources for Prop 8 in California. Mormons believe the First Presidency/Prophet speak for God on earth. Some Mormons were literally taught that the President of the LDS church speaks directly to Jesus in the Salt Lake City temple.

Mormons famously do not drink coffee, and wear special Mormon underwear.

Mormons will say "Follow the Prophet" and if you point out the founder of the LDS church was fucking 14 year old girls when he was 38, and died in a gun fight after ordering a printing press destroyed they don't care. They will say things like "I realize it makes no sense to you but I follow the prophet and anything that makes no sense now will be explained in the afterlife".

They supported Trump more then any other religious group I believe, even higher then Evangelicals. Based off of that, I will give you One. Guess. what they think of COVID restrictions, masks, and the vaccine. Go ahead. Guess.

So yesterday the LDS church announced a plea to get vaccinated and wear masks:
www.sltrib.com/religion/2021/08/12/wear-masks-get-vaccine/

They posted this to their official instagram and Facebook:

http://instagram.com/p/CSe9wu0lo4p

You will notice the comments on the instagram post have been disabled. They are still up on Facebook:


Holy. Fucking. Shit.

The backlash was immediate. The same people who for decades said they will Follow the Prophet no matter what are now saying the LDS church is taking their freedom away and some even saying "I don't think the church is true now". They were ok with blatant racism, they were ok with the children of gay parents not being allowed to become members till they were 18. Any kind of crank belief they support 100% but a huge chunk of the LDS community is losing their fucking minds right now.

The current president of the church is actually a former heart surgeon. You would think since they "follow the prophet" and he is a doctor they would listen but naw.

Showing that yet again when people claim god is on their side its only as far as it reinforces their own pollical beliefs.

Exmormon reddit is having a field day with it:
www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/

Never understood why LGBT individuals would want to join churches with doctrines that opposes LGBT. If these churches are wrong about LGBT, what would make them so right about anything else? Which begs the question - why even bother joining a group that has a flawed belief system?

Oh yeah they used to call the founder Joseph Smith "The American Mohammed" back in the 1800s. Mormon history is fascinating too me. At one point back then the LDS Church started a bank that failed miserably and everyone lost their savings and up to a third of their members left. That was also back in the 1800s.

I have been reading exmormon websites since 2009 so I have read a bunch of stories, I have forgot most of them. Its not an issue of LGBT looking for a church to join. Mormons have the largest families in the US, larger then Catholics. So LGBT kids are born into the church then have to navigate it. A huge number of youth suicides in Utah and youth homeless. Something like 40% of all the homeless kids in Utah are LGBT kids who were thrown out of their Mormon parents house when they found out they were gay.

The one story that I can recall off the top of my head, a 14 y/o kid came out to his Bishop(in the LDS church your Bishop is your immediate church leader kinda like a Catholic Priest or a Protestant Pastor) and told him he was gay. It just happens that his Bishop had known him since he was a little boy and was understanding and not mean at all. He said it was something they could work on together. Bishops rotate out and they have a lay clergy that is untrained, no divinity school or anything. They basically follow a handbook of instructions and mostly "go from their gut".

His new Bishop he had never met before. His new Bishop pulled him into a meeting and wouldn't even look at him, his new Bishop demanded to know the names of any boyfriends he had had in their wider Mormon area. He told him the truth, that at his age he had never kissed anyone, male or female and didn't know any gay people at all. His new Bishop seemed totally unconvinced by this and continued to lean on him to get him to "confess his sins" basically. He then told him that he was no longer allowed to have an church job working with any children unsupervised or lead prayers of any kind. If someone comes out as gay in the LDS Church they get a little * on their record, the same kind of * they put next to criminals or child molesters. He had this Bishop up till he turned 18 and was basically treated like a leper for years despite having never done anything.

Its a very long bumpy road with the LDS church and LGBT rights as you can imagine, they change their official policy on the issue every few years.

This asshole recorded a parody song mocking the vaccine and was in the hospital over a month before he died.

Darwin doesn't discriminate.

www.rawstory.com/phil-valentine/

Sadly most people are like this. Plenty of people on the far left aren't interest in solutions unless they are Marxist and anti-capitalist. Plenty of people on the Right only care about the glorious Gilded Age/Ayn Rand free market as the solution to all problems, even when government intervention has saved the economy time and again. "Small government" is an article of faith no matter what the evidence says.

www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/new-cdc-studies-point-to-waning-immunity-from-vaccines/ar-AANGSj9?ocid=winp1taskbar



100% - 30% = 70%

According to the first bolded statement, the vaccines couldn't be more than 70% effective (presuming the starting effectiveness was 100%, the highest possible), yet the very next sentence claims 80% effectiveness.

That's incredible that the ppl behind the study (scientists) would get simple percentages wrong. Or maybe it's the MSN falsely reporting the study results and doctoring it up the way they like. hah.

I'm not saying ppl should avoid the vaccine.

It's just very surprising, because scientific & medical studies absolutely depend on getting the math right, to stand up to scrutiny of peers & community. Getting even a small part of it wrong can invalidate the study and rightfully embarrass the researchers involved. The guys who "invented" cold fusion fudged their numbers ever so slightly and came under heavy criticism as a result. Arguably, it's even more serious to get disease studies wrong because it could throw off projections, which might influence policy etc, and possibly lead to more deaths.

Also, it's the MSN reporting i.e. owned by Microsoft and founded by Gates I presume. Raises a brow that a smart company and man, both very much versed in researching/discussing Covid, would be off by >= 10% when reporting the % effectiveness.