BarretWallace

I've been on the forum for years, and just now found this intro thread.  Eh...might as well answer it.
 
Handle/forum name:  I am a huge fan of Final Fantasy 7, and Barret is my favorite character.  "Barretwallace" is also cooler than "ercarlson1974," my original handle. First tabletop RPG as a player:  Basic D&D, late 1980s First tabletop RPG as a GM:  West End Star wars, early-mid 1990s Current games:  No RPGs, sadly, but am doing a play-by-email game of 18OE.  I'm also playing a few computer games including Civilization IV.

Somehow issues always mean more to me when they affect someone I know.  Admittedly, I have never met any of you in person and likely never will, but despite a rough edge here and there, the denizens of this board are a crew I'd want to hang out with.  Duke, I am sorry to hear the news, and I pray/hope/best-wish that your family makes it through this with minimal issues.

Ten minutes ago, my wife tested positive.  She has a patient who has been off of isolation precautions for a week and a half who apparently was positive when he transferred in.  There is no chance that we haven't all been exposed.  Wife got tested because she developed symptoms yesterday.   I called work: I'm in quarantine, too, apparently.  Waiting till morning to contact the school to find out about the kids.
 
 

Meanwhile over Mar-a Lago:
 

A teacher died of covid-19. Asked to wear masks in his honor, school board members silently refused.

That's how the headline should've read.

Also, one can drink tea at work, and Jack Daniel's looks just like tea....

Had to take the fast antigen test today to be able to remain in the building. It came back negative.

Perhaps this would not be a problem if you did not have a weird ass?

If I had the same luck with the lottery as getting weird ass medical conditions, I'd already be a millionaire.

Given German history within living memory, that had to be a very difficult decision to make, politically and ethically. I hope it doesn't come back to bite them in one way or another.

I understand the moral hazards involved but there's very real balancing act to be done here. And I really can't think of any nice or delicate things to say at the moment.
 
My great-niece is a nurse in an ICU covid ward, primarily taking care of people as they're gasping out their last breaths of life.
 
She finally got the first dose of her two-dose vaccination three days ago.
 
The US hasn't yet taken care of its doctors, nurses, other healthcare workers, teachers, nursing home workers, and people in nursing homes.
 
And that's before the US is taking care of people in meat-packing plants, prisons, the elderly, first responders, frontline workers, and all the other people who are vulnerable due to health reasons according to CDC guidelines.
 
The US is getting hit harder by covid than most countries. I'd argue that's due to mismanagement of the crisis but the reason why is irrelevant at this point. From a medical standpoint, it's difficult to argue for taking vaccines from a country which is being hit hard and using them instead in a country which isn't being hit as hard. The UK strain is in the US and spreading which is making the problem worse at a very fast clip. The current rate of vaccination, even if it is stepped up, isn't likely to keep pace and get ahead anytime soon.
 
The UK is in worse shape than the US.
 
The EU is needing to use the vaccines it's producing to try to get ahead before the UK strain overwhelms them.
 
Canada will do what it can to be charitable.
 
So India and China are the two other big producers of drugs in the world that I'm aware of. They both have their own very large populations to vaccinate.
 
Who the hell knows what China's policies might be? I'd expect them to try to buy favors with doling out their vaccine supplies, maybe even ahead of vaccinating their own people. That's pretty much what they've been doing with the money from their trade surpluses so it's probably not a terrible guess that they'd do the same with their vaccines. But they might surprise us.
 
I'd expect India to have to use the vast majority of the vaccines they make internally. They have racial and ethnic strife at the best of times. If they add "who gets the vaccine and who doesn't" on top of that, they'll have India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka all trying to burn themselves down to the ground due to all the anger and grudges. 
 
And honestly IMO, every country that can produce the vaccine has an obligation to keep itself intact first. If the country falls apart, vaccine production and distribution will fall apart there as well.
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_pharmaceutical_exports
 
That's a link to give you an idea of which country both makes and exports drugs regularly. Doesn't give a full picture, obviously, since places like China makes a lot of drugs but uses them internally and additionally makes a lot of precursors for drugs and exports those.

Imagine if they used all that "righteous indignation" for good...

I cannot help but wonder if some of that movement's energy stems - paradoxically - from laziness; chasing after labyrinthine conspiracy theories is much easier than confronting a mundane overt evil that has permeated every level of society.

everyone associated with 45 ends up under the bus sooner or later.

It was antifa.  The left organized a false flag assault on the Capitol to disrupt the election that they already won.  This is some real sixth dimensional chess, let me tell you.
 
/s

"The Two Towers" audio book, narrated by Robert Inglis

How about the Washington National Cathedral? Let's see if the avowed Religious Right is willing to be seen damaging the most symbolic church in America.

What's the difference between the US Capitol and Mordor?
 
One does not simply walk into Mordor.

j/k
 
Why are liberal politics so confusing?
 
In liberal politics, left is right and right is wrong. But since the left is right and what is right is wrong then the left would seem to be as wrong as it is right.

can I have Australia?

Well, I think Death Tribble would be an OK president, though I would hesitate to give him the launch codes . . .