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MYTH: The COVID vaccines were not rigorously tested, which is why they have only emergency authorization approval and not full Food and Drug Administration approval. (Update: Pfizer’s vaccine received full FDA approval on August 19)

FACT: “Vaccine developers didn’t skip any testing steps, but conducted some of the steps on an overlapping schedule to gather data faster.”—Johns Hopkins Medicine
Assoumou: This is the most common question I get asked. I think there is a perception that things moved very fast, but we want to underscore that the technology being used now was being studied for a decade. The main difference between emergency use versus full FDA approval is that you need two months of monitoring rather than six months. When you look at the history of vaccines, if patients were to develop side effects, these occurred within two months. We are now over six months into our experience with these vaccines. We have not seen anything that would make us believe that the risks outweigh the benefits. And vaccines have saved so many lives.

Hamer: The development was more rapid than many other vaccines. But it used the same process of phase one and phase two trials following appropriate safety measures. Stage three trials were large-scale trials done rigorously with very clear outcome definitions. The safety measures and approaches taken are standard for clinical trials. They just did it more rapidly than usual. The full process review is ongoing and we are already hearing that Pfizer will have full FDA authorization by September and Moderna soon after.

MYTH: The technology used to create the COVID vaccines is too new to be safe.

FACT: The technology used, called messenger RNA, or mRNA, is not new. Research on it actually began in the early 1990s, and two diseases that are very close to COVID—SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003, and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome)—helped bring the mRNA vaccine development to present day use.—Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Understanding mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines
Assoumou: The reason this is called SARS-COV-2 is that there was a SARS-1, the original one, and scientists were working on this vaccine. So when this pandemic arrived they had already developed a lot of the science. A decade of work was actually going on. That’s one issue I like to emphasize when people think it was rushed.

The other point I like to remind people is that these vaccines went through all the regulatory steps like any other vaccines. None of this was rushed. The FDA reviewed all the data. When you say “Emergency use,” people think it was rushed, but the way to think about it is that the benefits outweigh the risks.

MYTH: Breakthrough cases prove that even if I get the vaccine, I might still get COVID. So why bother?

FACT: As of August 9, the CDC said there had been 8,054 vaccinated people who were hospitalized or died who had also tested positive for coronavirus—out of more than 166 million fully vaccinated Americans. That’s roughly .005 percent. Additionally, CDC director Rochelle Walensky has said that 99.5 percent of all deaths from COVID-19 are in the unvaccinated.—Politifact, Fact Checking Joe Biden’s Figure on Unvaccinated COVID-19 Deaths
Hamer: COVID vaccines have been shown to be very powerful in preventing more severe disease and the need for hospitalization. Breakthroughs occur at a much, much lower rate than in people who are unvaccinated. The breakthroughs have been occurring more frequently with the Delta variant because of the high level of infectiousness (or transmissibility) of the Delta variant and lower protection of current vaccines against this variant. But people having breakthroughs have much more mild infection, more like an upper respiratory infection. The vaccines prevent severe disease and complications and allow people to return to a more normal state.

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN YOU FIND THE RIGHT MAN BUT IN THE WRONG COUNTRY DOSE THIS HAPPEN A LOT OR AM I THE ONLY ONE??

Some say its hard to make good money. That is not true at all, its incredibly easy to make lots of money and fast. All you got to do is sell your soul. No soul, easy money.

Selling crack.
Human trafficking.
Pimp or a hooker.
Robberies.
Scamming.
Making meth.

As you can see, there are many ways to make big easy money, if you got no soul. Money is what everyone lives and dies for so everything got a price including your soul (and your organs on the black market).

So this one cretin of a user highcrest 777 decides to abuse me calling me an imbecile and unmannerly because I politely told him to seek someone closer to his age. The guy says he is 49 but looks 99.
Men need to respect women even when she declines his unwanted advances.
PS. Highcrest777 go sit by the window and wait for your retirement cheque instead of harassing women online.

For several days I really wanted to have mangosteens. So on the weekend I went to a store and bought about 3.5 kilos. Why so many, you might ask. Well, I simply wanted to have bigger chances to get the best. However, most of the time I couldn't be sure I would get good ones, let alone the best, as I could only see them from the outside. I spent some time to select ones which looked good with hope that I would get the good ones.

Guess what?

I chose a pretty one

But that one was rotten.

I chose another pretty one from the outside
It turned out to be good.

And surprisingly enough, this one looked not so pretty but was actually very good.

Once I peeled off their skin, I couldn't return them to the store. Whether I like it or not, I gotta accept what I got. I could only blame myself for not being a good "judge".

Hmm...
To me choosing a partner is somehow similar to that. The big difference is that you have to be a good person to get a good partner. If you think your partner/wife/husband was a bad person, don't you dare claiming you're good!.

And to me my Giant is good man so I guess I am not that bad, eh?


PS
I was lucky to have many more good mangosteens than the bad ones. Although I still couldn't judge them from their looks, it's worth spending time selecting..

I propose to remove the metaphysical doom and vulgar taste of Nazism from the concept of “national mentality” - and decipher it precisely as a norm: a norm that is constantly reproduced. For most of its political history, Russia was either a Horde vassal, or, in fact, a Horde (which successfully adopted management experience from its Tatar-Mongol comrades). Peter the Great brought from Europe many valuable ideas on fortification and ballistics, but he was not interested in parliament.
State pressure on a person and dominance over his rights, a kind of mystical “great” Russia that exists separately from a person and his dignity - all this, alas, is a norm that has been constantly reproduced over the centuries. That is why Putin succeeded so easily in his dirty deeds after several years of Gorbachev’s freedom and the transition to dictatorship of the “Yeltsin period” (and the transition began at least with the first Chechen war).
“Dominant”, but by no means the only gene of Russian history, in which there were the Decembrists, and the Zemstvo reform, and the Thaw of Khrushchev, and Academician Sakharov. A story that today includes Vladimir Kara-Murza.
The European path for Russian civilization certainly exists as a possibility: Children born in Russia today are not imperialists or liberals, they are just children. They are an equal opportunity for any path for the country. If they little by little begin to set Academician Sakharov as the desired political norm, they will turn out to be one Russia; if they start laying them out from the maternity hospital with the letter Z, they will turn out to be another.
Yes, after Putin’s military adventure, which triggered the bloody pre-collapse of the empire, Russian civilization most likely has very little chance of surviving within its current borders. Now I am talking about the preservation of this civilization. About whether it will survive its imperial period, as dozens of other civilizations survived it - or whether the cadaveric poison of the two-headed bird will bring it to its final grave.
Tens of millions of Russians, in Russia and abroad, are certainly ready for the country to return to the European path of development and perceive this as a desirable development of events.
And there is still be a chance. I hope so....

Since covid and the re opening of our borders it seems to me that 1 in 3 tourists/ backpackers are French

In many ways they are the most arrogant and self centered race i have ever met

They snort
Insist on speaking French and smoke non stop

After a few drinks I asked a group of them why they had even bothered to visit NZ

If they did not even bother to try to converse in the English language why not just stay home , save money and watch documentaries on you tube.

My comments went down as well as the "rainbow warrior"

I think there is a connection between more brain dead people being born and poor quality Chinese made rubbers

What do I do when I have writer's block?
I stare at the screen and it stares back.
What shall I write? About my job? Nah...what a boring job. Nothing interesting. Go to work at 6.40am and come back at 3pm but at times 5pm.

About my life? Nothing interesting too. My life is not full of drama nor calm and smooth sailing.

Oooops!! now I have started writing.



Maybe I should write a diary.

Friend A – conversational bridge – always a competition. Worse, better, always the need to take the trick. Example – idle comment – “I’ve just done (insert neutral topic here) it was okay. Response - I did that once, it was rubbish / fantastic. Long involved details follow. You win.

Friend B - attention span issues. Example – Yesterday I tried adding lime pepper to my pasta and – ooh I saw something on cooking the other day, let me show you, and out comes the phone tap tap tap here see that. Well okay but what I meant was – did I tell you about the shoes I just bought? I took a photo, tap tap tap, look. So I give up but friend is waiting expectantly for the next topic to interrupt . . .

Friend C – the persistent grouch. I walked the dog for over an hour, I’m absolutely knackered. That must be nice. It’s hard for me to walk since the pain started in my foot. Have you seen a doctor about that yet? What’s the point there’s nothing they can do just a waste of time and money doctors are so expensive and all they do is give you the pills the pharma companies want them to promote

Friend D – the partner fixation – what did you think of the (insert situation here) I’ll have to come back to you on that, partner has not yet told me how we feel about that.

I think I need a few new friends, I've used these ones up. But if it's me ...