Lee

NONE of the year's MCU movies have been abject failures critically or at the box office, no matter how much certain people would like to impose that narrative. The previous three did quite well given that they were released during a global pandemic. But it's no surprise that they're being outdone by a movie featuring Marvel's most popular and well-known character, which is also the third in a series of well-received films about that character. I think the last two Avengers movies were the only safer bets in the entire franchise.

Excuse me, I think you'll find it was the Finns that thought it up -- at least the name. In the Winter War, the Soviets were bombing Finland. Molotov denied it, claiming it was actually food drops to alleviate the suffering of the poor, oppressed Finnish masses. So the bombs were dubbed "Molotov's breadbaskets", and the improvised fire bombs that were used to take out Soviet tanks got the name "Molotov's cocktails" as the perfect companion.
 
The Finns are noted for their dark humour. 

First day out of self-isolation.  Never got much worse than a middling head cold...and I apparently isolated well enough that my wife never caught it (she's been testing throughout -- all negative).
 
Thank you vaccines and booster for what seems to have been a very mild case.  Apart from 10 days of enforced boredom (where I never left the bedroom), not too bad....and the enforced boredom was likely something that I kind of needed...

Have you seen humanity lately? Is it worth keeping?

Greywind will no longer be joining us on this site.
 
*somethingsomethingpunchingnazissomethingsomething*

It would be funny if that was said as a joke, since all the evidence to date says the opposite, and the article you linked to doesn't cite evidence for that either. What it does do is treat the situation with flippancy and mockery, a common rhetorical tactic intended to denigrate an opposing viewpoint when it can't be countered with evidence or logic. COVID won't pass over people because they score rhetorical brownie points.
 
I would urge you to consider what that implies about the foundation of your position, and the motivations of the people who tell you to believe it.

The vaccines were never intended to stop transmission. They were intended to reduce the severity of illness from infection and the likelihood of dying from it, which scientific evidence says they've been very effective at. Reducing severe illness reduces the number of infected people occupying hospitals, which logically leaves more spaces in them for people suffering from other illnesses and injuries, and reduces the stress and exhaustion of health care professionals. Vaccinated people are also less hospitable hosts for the virus, reducing the opportunities for it to mutate into more dangerous strains, as has already happened, which would threaten everyone. Which sounds like an ethical position to take.
 
I also find it deeply ironic that opponents of vaccines frequently recommend treatment of infection with monoclonal antibodies, or drugs like hydroxychloroquine. Quite apart from the fact that the latter isn't FDA certified to treat COVID and there's no evidence that it helps; and that monoclonal antibodies aren't a preventative treatment, and are only authorized for emergency use in the United States; both are products from the same "habitually criminal" pharmaceutical companies. Monoclonal antibodies are also a more expensive treatment than vaccines. So if the drug companies were only interested in profit, it would be logical for them to push that rather than vaccines.

This is a black day in NFL history.
 
The Cowboys clinched a playoff berth with the Niners' loss.
 
<sigh>

I find all these "how come other supers aren't painted with the same brush" questions interesting.
 
Let me pose a point about racism/hate that may help here:
 
So, because Marvel / Stan brought in the concept of mutants in 1963 and mutant hate sometime later (becoming a main focus of the titles in the '80s), and used Prof. X and Magneto as allegory for MLK and Malcom X; everyone has said "this doesn't make sense as an allegory for racism, because people can't tell the difference between Cyclops and Spiderman, just by looking at them."
 
So, the problem with this viewpoint, is that most people posting are from the era of the mutants as presented in the comics, and thus are thinking about racism in the context of modern times, where it is primarily ethnicity based, and thus is as simple for idiot racist as looking at the target of their hate; because it's as obvious as the target's skin color, hair, etc.  (Which is why they often can make mistakes, calling a Native American a slur for a Mexican, for instance.)
 
However, think about it in the context of the Civil War in the USA.  A political belief motivated war, having nothing to do with race, religion, or any outside, easily identifiable aspect.  It sometimes led to families hating and killing each other.
 
Between WWI and WWII period of Europe, and the Nazi hate for the Jewish.  It is often impossible to discern the difference between a Jewish person and non-Jew Caucasian of the same nation; especially when you start talking about Russian Jews (among others).  A point Magneto himself has made in both the comics and movies; yet ignored by this whole line of thought.
 
How about Northern Ireland?  Same people in every way, hating and killing each other simple because one was a Catholic and one was Protestant (among other reasons)?  
 
Want a more modern example?  How about the Genocide in Bosnia during the Bosnian War (92-95) - three different sub-cultures from the same area, same ethnicity, in some cases same families.
 
My point here is simple; just because it is not "obvious" that Spiderman is NOT a Mutant, and it is NOT obvious that Wolverine is NOT an altered human, but an altered Mutant, simply by looking at them, doesn't mean people still can't hate one, and not the other.
 
Hate and racism have never been isolated to "white vs. black (or brown)", until recent times.  Many times in history there has been hate against a sub-group with no possible way to simply "seeing" the difference; yet the human capacity to hate, and be aggressive toward any sub-group they wanted, has never been hampered by such simple things as having to be able to tell the difference in an obvious way.
 
So, I would challenge that looking at the "Mutant Problem" through glasses colored by today's ethnicity (color) based hate and not understanding the capacity of human nature to hate and somehow figure out who to hate, without it being obvious, is the true "cop-out".
 

My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in April from a mammogram that was (scarily) pushed back a year due to Covid.  She has been undergoing chemo since then up until last month.  It decreased the tumor about 33%.  She decided to go with a lumpectomy.  They managed to remove the tumor and the really good news is that they biopsied her lymph node and the cancer did not spread.  She will still have to undergo targeted radiation for another month and obviously have regular monitoring for the next several years, but long story short she is now cancer-free. 

Except of course if they're female and want to have an abortion.
Or if they're terminally ill and wish to end their pain.
 
 

OK, then see Old Man's argument.  
 
And the mandates came after full approval, so it was out of trial status.  While the EUA was in place, my argument holds.  With full approval, Old Man's holds.    Either way, trying to conflate this with Nazi medical experiments is obscene.

Realistically speaking, there isn’t much “trial” about a vaccine that has been given to hundreds of millions of people with virtually no side effects. 
 
 

In vivo rate-determining steps of tau seed accumulation in Alzheimer’s disease

Ewoks are only cannibals if they eat other ewoks. Ewoks are man-eaters,

Change "at work" to "doing home maintenance" and I'm right there.  Well, not quite.  The sand I'd be sitting in would be a litterbox in need of changing.

Good.
 
I _hate_ that they can infect sensible people, but the fact that stupid lunatic whackos are opting to put themselves in mortal peril sits well with me.
 
There.  I said it.
 
I hate the resources they consume, but look forward to it being temporary.
 

Shatner Returns From Space
 
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
 
John Magee, High Flight
 
I like to think that's engraved on a marble tablet at Starfleet Academy.

Mike Pence and Dan Quayle. Now there's a meeting of minds for the ages.
 
 
He and DeSantis appear to be vying for the status of, "out-Trump's Trump."
 
They seem to consider this a winning re-election strategy. The way their approval ratings are dropping, they might want to rethink that.

If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the precipitate.

Speaking of Mexico, you suppose there's any chance we could get them to take Texas back?

So, if we reveal that Ben Grimm is Jewish, it';s just hack writing.   Never mind that he grew up in an area with a high Jewish population, his name ("Benjamin Jacob Grimm") is quite consistent with being Jewish and his religion (Jewish or otherwise) has never cropped up, it's "hack writing"?  Ditto Colossal Boy, a character in an ensemble cast where we have never seen any indication of religion (especially being a thousand years in the future), turning out to be Jewish is "hack writing".
 
Would it have been better writing for everyone to be Anglican, or Roman Catholic, or agnostic, or atheist, because that is what you, one reader, imputed from the fact their religion had never been mentioned?  Maybe LSH should have assumed that religions which have already survived 2+ millennia would not make it another thousand years?  Black Manta should have been white because we'd never seen under  the helmet, and lots of people are white, so he must be white?
 
If a character is solidly straight (or Catholic) one issue, then securely bisexual (or Jewish) in the next, followed by being confidently homosexual (or an uncertain agnostic), and has been all his life, six months later, I'd call that hack writing.  Diving into character attributes that have never been solidly defined in past appearances?  Not so much.  Especially when a lot of that character's appearances have either been as a secondary character (Robin to Bruce's Batman) or part of an ensemble cast (the many Teen Titans books), not a solo star whose psyche and relationships have typically been front & center.
 
But we are back to the constant criticism of comics.  "Nothing ever changes - how boring!"  "You changed that?  YOU CAN'T CHANGE THAT!!!"

With respect, those are false equivalencies. The middle two of those are already flat-out illegal, which not getting vaccinated is not (yet). None of them are currently filling ICUs past capacity. In this instance not taking advantage of a simple, readily-available preventive health measure is taking potentially life-saving resources away from people who did.
 
During the London blitz of WW II, the government ordered lights be turned off at night so they couldn't be used to guide German bombers. Someone choosing to turn theirs on would have not only put their own lives directly at risk, but the lives of everyone near them. But that measure was lifted after peace was declared.
 
This is a public emergency, and like every public emergency in history some liberties need to be temporarily curtailed for the greater good of the populace. If this is a slippery slope, every one of those was a slippery slope.

It saddens me profoundly to say it, but more deaths of prominent anti-vaxxers may be the only thing that can start to change their fellows' minds.