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The Rules of Pacers Digest
Hello everyone,
Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.
A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.
Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.
Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.
Rule #1
Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:
"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"
"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"
"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"
"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"
"He/she is just delusional"
"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"
"I'm going to take a moment to point and
/ laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"
"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good?"
In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.
We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.
Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.
That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.
A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.
There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.
Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.
In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.
Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.
If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!
All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.
Rule #2
If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.
The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.
The right places to do so are:
A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.
B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.
If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.
Rule #3
If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.
When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:
A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.
B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.
To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!
Rule #4
Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.
Rule #5
When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.
An example:
If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:
http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star
Rule #6
We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.
The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.
Rule #7
Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.
It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).
We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).
However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.
Rule #8
We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.
Rule #9
Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.
Rule #10
We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.
Rule #11
Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.
A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.
Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.
Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.
Rule #1
Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:
"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"
"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"
"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"
"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"
"He/she is just delusional"
"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"
"I'm going to take a moment to point and
/ laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*""Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good?
"In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.
We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.
Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.
That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.
A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.
There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.
Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.
In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.
Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.
If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!
All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.
Rule #2
If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.
The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.
The right places to do so are:
A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.
B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.
If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.
Rule #3
If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.
When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:
A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.
B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.
To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!
Rule #4
Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.
Rule #5
When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.
An example:
If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:
http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star
Rule #6
We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.
The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.
Rule #7
Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.
It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).
We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).
However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.
Rule #8
We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.
Rule #9
Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.
Rule #10
We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.
Rule #11
Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
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Over the next 6 months, If I don't hear about a prevalent secondary illness or condition like MS or some sort of heart issue popping up from the vaccine. Then I'm going to get it.You can't get champagne from a garden hose. -
The adverse reaction will most likely happen in the first 6 weeks if they happen at all and to date they haven't. This makes sense as far as the biology goes. If it triggers an autoimmune response it will happen fast and this data will be really clear to all the doctors. The fact that you haven't seen that in the clinical trials means the likelihood of it happening is slim to none for the average person.
The only larger unknown here is when a vaccinated person gets exposed to the virus does that trigger some adverse reaction. The clinical trials can not say definitively that this won't happen but again you probably have a greater chance of winning the lottery than getting some debilitating condition from a vaccine.Comment
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I should also point out that the data wasn't clear that the EU and Sweden flu vaccine in 2009 caused the epilepsy. There was also a high ranking publication that suggested that upper respiratory infections can trigger an autoimmune reaction. So essentially they saw an increase in epilepsy where that vaccine wasn't used.
It really could boil down to that infections can trigger autoimmune diseases and some of these conditions for some people are already going to happen but the infection is basically making it happen faster. That is one of the theories for infections and type 1diabetes in kids.Comment
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I wonder where you come down on Vaccines and a link to autism. So many people are quick to dismiss this link, but as far as i am aware, there has never been properly funded study into the cases. So its easy for a doctor or vaccine maker to say there has never been any proven link between vaccines and sudden onset autism. Any group that actually wants to study it gets black balled by the Vaccine makers and their influence. Which means they lose access to future grants from all over the industry. Dangerous and insidious to deny parents claims that their kid experienced a rapid behavioral and personality change weeks after receiving certain vaccines. Or even claim that their kids must have already been autistic before hand. I think a real study into this issue might reveal something that would completely destroy the vaccine industry.Originally posted by Gamble1 View Post
I've read so many theories ranging from mercury levels (but few vaccines actually use mercury anymore), preservatives used in the vaccine, amount of vaccines received at one time (ie Cocktails), amount of dosage per age and weight of the child. It might even be an environmental factor like having too much lead or other heavy metals in your tap water, that would then interact with the vaccine.
I am always very nervous for the following several weeks after I get my kids vaccines updated.
You can't get champagne from a garden hose.Comment
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36 Indiana counties now in the red via the 2 metric Covid-19 map. All others in orange.
ALL 92 counties are in red via the single metric of cases per capita.
The state blew by 6000 deaths due to Covid-19 yesterday. 6207 as of today. This doesn't include 299 probable Covid-19 deaths where there was a clinical diagnosis but no test for confirmation.
The governor has announced new restrictions. Gathering limits to be imposed with numbers varying by a county's place on the Covid-19 map. Local health depts cannot waive these limits.
Sporting events get their own unique set of rules.
https://fox59.com/news/coronavirus/g...irus-response/
I think it's safe to assume the Thanksgiving surge concern was real. Also, that slight plateau just prior to Thanksgiving that some theorized might be a mirage, might've been onto something.Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.
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"A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork."
-John WoodenComment
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Originally posted by Bball View Post
Yeah I got a notification this morning that Indiana leads the nation in Post thanksgiving infection rate. I have an extended family member who is in her 80's that got it from one of her grands kids at thanksgiving.
Personal responsibility is in short supply around the Hoosier state. I seriously wonder whats wrong with all these rural communities?You can't get champagne from a garden hose.Comment
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Thimerosal, which was a preservative used in vaccines distributed in the US prior to 2002, contains ethylmercury. It is considered to be less toxic by some "experts" as compared to methylmercury.Originally posted by graphic-er View Post
It was banned in the United States, Europe and elsewhere but is still used on people in the 3rd world...places with people that wouldn't have the money to sue.
Some claim that ethylmercury isn't toxic. That is false. Some claim it doesn't cross the blood brain barrier. That is also false:
Examining the evidence that ethylmercury crosses the blood-brain barrier
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31841767/
Sidney Taurel, former CEO and member of the Homeland Defense board placed a rider in the Homeland Defense Bill about 2 decades ago to protect Eli Lilly and other vaccine manufacturers from lawsuits over thimerasol. This rider was justified by the fact that vaccines might be needed to protect the Homeland...smdh.
I actually worked for that company and I worked with scientists, actually biologists. One told me ethylmercury is safe. Frankly, I don't know but from I've read it's toxic and does cause brain damage.
I'm not going to say it caused autism. I will say that the number of vaccines administered increased in the early 90's prior to the explosion of autism cases.
But just the fact Taurel put that in the bill indicates guilt. If there was nothing to hide or it could be defended with little risk, he wouldn't have taken that step given the optics.
So, again, whether it caused an explosion of autism doesn't matter. I think it likely caused brain damage in infants. In fact, it might be the problem with millennials but that's also hard to say...
Last edited by BlueNGold; 12-09-2020, 05:14 PM.Comment
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I'm kind of dumbfounded that people are not taking it seriously. I see business owners blowing it off everywhere. I see people blowing it off. What I mean is that they are not wearing masks. I'm not saying I truly believe it can protect you. I'm saying I'm wearing the mask because it might possibly protect me. I am also game with locking myself in my house and not coming out until May. I am patient. I don't understand why people are having a hard time. Just run out to the liquor store and it's fine. That's the only place you need to go.Originally posted by graphic-er View PostComment
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Full discloser it has been awhile since I looked at the data for this and even then this isn't my field but I will list off observations then list why I lean towards a certain direction.Originally posted by graphic-er View Post
Observation 1: If direct link exist it should be relatively easy to find since the prevalence of childhood vaccinations is really high in rich countries and has been for a really long time. So this gives any researcher an ample sample size to show a cause and effect relationship. So autism is a spectrum and in my opinion is one of those diagnoses that is a phenotypic presentation of disease which is a fancy way of saying that there is probably are many causes of it and that one direct link is probably a foolish way to look at it. So for instance if you look at mental retardation there are many causes of it and some of them are genetic, some of them are chemical, some of them are nutritional. So in other words diagnosis of a disease can be a catch all when in reality the biology going on is much more complex than just saying autism or MR.
Observation 2: So it just so happens that my wife early on treated autistic kids in southern California. IT was a family of 5 with all three kids have varying degrees of autism. To me as a researcher the obvious connection is a genetic one. The likelihood of this occurring by coincidence is really really low and that family years later found out they had a genetic problem that caused it. So this to me at least linked the diagnosis and the cause to be a large genetic component.
Observation 3: How much of the increase in diagnosis of autism is do to improved diagnostics, reporting, health coverage, education? These questions do not explain all of the increase in numbers but the question does explain some of the increase in autism rates. In cardiology we know that these impact the increase in heart disease diagnosis and it sort of makes sense if you think about it. If I give the means, the knowledge and the technology to diagnosis then you will see an increase in the disease prevalence among a population.
So for me if vaccinations are a risk for increasing autism it should be easier to show a cause and effect relationship than it actually is. In addition one should explain if there is direct link what biology is at play here that increases the risk. The chemical agents are given in so little quantity and for such a short period of time that they would have to be so harmful that it should be easy to study on nerve cells in a dish. In other words it should be easy to show a direct link. That to me just doesn't add up and is sort of like me saying that a women drinking one beer causes fetal alcohol syndrome which it doesn't.
If vaccines trigger an autoimmune response that is high enough to see phenotypically then we should be able to see it in diagnostic panels for inflammatory markers, antibodies that bind to nerve cells, etc etc. This is why I do not believe vaccines trigger it because we should be able to pick this up with the the technology now.
Lastly I wonder how much of the genetic component and the age play a factor in the increase in autism. That is to say that the age of the mom and the pregnancy's is known risk factor for genetic disorders. We all inherit our mother mitochondrial DNA which are the organelles that generate the energy for all of our cells. Nerve cells are chalked full of them and highly dependent on them in addition to this moms are having kids later in life than ever before. So the eggs themselves are older and hence the DNA is less stable overtime. This is why age is known risk factor for congenital disease. To me this is way more likely of an explanation to the increase rates of autism than say a vaccine which merely triggers an immune response that basically already gets triggered multiple times a year with live viruses and bacterium and fungi from nature.
As for big pharma screwing over researchers well that is just not how it works in a basic laboratory. The NIH is federally funded and is independent of private industry. The whole reason is so basic research can be untainted by big pharma and so innovation happens without outside influence. IF I write a grant and suspect a conflict of interest on the panel of colleagues reviewing that grant I can suggest that my grant be reconsidered by another panel. IF the critics I receive on that grant are without merit I can appeal the score. The people ultimately scoring that grant have to disclose conflicts of interest or they will be barred from reviewing grants.
Last edited by Gamble1; 12-09-2020, 10:32 PM.Comment
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There is a pretty simple answer to that.Originally posted by BlueNGold View Post
Lock downs, closures or whatever else is imposed is basically useless to a great many people due to "essential worker" status. Obviously my job is unique so I get that, however think about how many other people we (emergency workers) require for us to be able to continue to do our jobs. At a bare min. we need gas, power, water on a daily basis to even pretend to function. So that means we need all utility workers to be there. We also require food and fuel. That means we need a bare minimum for there to be gas station attendants and well grocery store workers and if we are being honest fast food workers.
Now you get to medical supplies so therefor we need all of our manufacturers to still be at their jobs filling orders to restock us. The world runs on the internet now so we also need all of our technical support staff to work. I haven't even gotten to billing staff, dispatch staff and maintenance staff and all of their requirements.
That is just a small list for a small service model. Think about how much larger the Hospitals needs are.
That has been one of the very horrible things about this pandemic and that it is that "essential workers" have actually had to go to work and in most cases not make 1/3 of what a lot of the non essential workers make while being exposed on the daily to a deadly disease without the government helping with hazard pay.
Basketball isn't played with computers, spreadsheets, and simulations. ChicagoJ 4/21/13Comment
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This speaks to a hole in our pandemic response, of many. How much of it is direct or indirect result of the current administration is also in question. It's not just a massive miss in concern to proper messaging, and education, of which we were awful and that started at the top... but it's also a factor of how we structured our relief packages. Would different leadership, and an ability to understand or work with and listen to people who do understand have helped?Originally posted by Peck View Post
It was "one size fits all" when one size didn't fit all.
UBI, that got laughed at prior to the pandemic, doesn't seem quite so funny any longer.
Not all business were/are impacted the same. But all of the packages mostly treated them the same.
We're going to have a huge lesson and data base of facts to review in the coming months and years. Hopefully we have a playbook with some of these topics better addressed. Of course, many of them might've been addressed. The current administration wasn't interested in the pandemic playbook.
At the least, you'd think there should've been relief packages available for businesses and employees that were forced to shutdown. And these should've been extendable, or varying, depending on the business impacts.
Some industries were shutdown entirely, but reopened in stages fairly quickly. Others were shutdown and remain shutdown even now. Meanwhile, some of the ones that reopened in stages, are now going the other way.
OTOH, you had other entities making huge profits.
And you had and have minimum wage employees working 'essential' jobs expected to show up each day and no sign of hazard pay.
Meanwhile, we're a selfish culture. We scream about what is 'fair' based solely on how it might impact us individually in the short term, without thinking what would be best for more of us, maybe even all of us, in the long term. We get so wrapped up in that, that we forget to see a bigger picture, or longer term.Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.
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"A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork."
-John WoodenComment
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I agree with all of that.Originally posted by Peck View Post
Part of my shock is that people, lots and lots of people, do not take this virus seriously. I know business owners that see the public every day and they are not wearing masks. I see people all the time, specifically at gas stations, not wearing masks. I know people who gather in groups frequently. I admit I have done that maybe 5 times since the beginning of November. I wasn't comfortable with it but most everyone else really seemed fine with it. I personally know people who think the virus is a hoax.
I guess I'm surprised how many people around central Indiana blow this off. I'm not living in fear of it. But I don't understand why most eveyone doesn't just mask up. It's not that big of a deal and frankly it blocks the cold wind so there's that benefit.
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Again if you want to see a direct relationship you basically look at the larger sources of mercury exposer among children and pregnant moms. That source is not vaccines but coal fire plants. In the 90s the plants were producing 50 tons of elemental mercury a year. One would expect higher rates of mercury in those kids around those plants and higher rates of autism.Originally posted by BlueNGold View Post
Thimerosal, which was a preservative used in vaccines distributed in the US prior to 2002, contains ethylmercury. It is considered to be less toxic by some "experts" as compared to methylmercury.
It was banned in the United States, Europe and elsewhere but is still used on people in the 3rd world...places with people that wouldn't have the money to sue.
Some claim that ethylmercury isn't toxic. That is false. Some claim it doesn't cross the blood brain barrier. That is also false:
Examining the evidence that ethylmercury crosses the blood-brain barrier
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31841767/
Sidney Taurel, former CEO and member of the Homeland Defense board placed a rider in the Homeland Defense Bill about 2 decades ago to protect Eli Lilly and other vaccine manufacturers from lawsuits over thimerasol. This rider was justified by the fact that vaccines might be needed to protect the Homeland...smdh.
I actually worked for that company and I worked with scientists, actually biologists. One told me ethylmercury is safe. Frankly, I don't know but from I've read it's toxic and does cause brain damage.
I'm not going to say it caused autism. I will say that the number of vaccines administered increased in the early 90's prior to the explosion of autism cases.
But just the fact Taurel put that in the bill indicates guilt. If there was nothing to hide or it could be defended with little risk, he wouldn't have taken that step given the optics.
So, again, whether it caused an explosion of autism doesn't matter. I think it likely caused brain damage in infants. In fact, it might be the problem with millennials but that's also hard to say...Last edited by Gamble1; 12-09-2020, 10:34 PM.Comment
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And do you have a link proving that is true? Sure, they produce mercury in the environment. But is it proven to be a greater source of harm than injecting tiny infants with mercury? You can't make that claim unless you have proof that it's more harmful.Originally posted by Gamble1 View PostComment
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Originally posted by BlueNGold View Posthttps://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-b...%20tuna%20fishA vaccine containing 0.01% thimerosal as a preservative contains 50 micrograms of thimerosal per 0.5 mL dose or approximately 25 micrograms of mercury per 0.5 mL dose. For comparison, this is roughly the same amount of elemental mercury contained in a 3 ounce can of tuna fish.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...cury-get-into/The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports that human fetuses exposed to mercury before birth “may be at an increased risk of poor performance on neurobehavioral tasks, such as those measuring attention, fine motor function, language skills, visual-spatial abilities and verbal memory.” Up to 10 percent of American women of childbearing age carry enough mercury in their bloodstreams to put their developing children at increased risk for developmental problems.
So again this can be measured and we don't need some conspiracy riddled argument to just ask the question What is the main source of Mercury in the environment that is making its way into our bodies? The answer isn't vaccines.Comment
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