nudge

@Tommy

In all seriousness, your mileage may vary - not sure if you've read the books? If not, then it probably won't bother you that much, as my main qualms were massive changes to the original AND overly emotional character (I won't do any spoilers now, but feel free to join my in the Foundation thread afterwards ... )

It's destined to be

There will be some quite annoying moments in the few next episodes, but soldier on through it... It got much, much better after episode 5, and I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of Season 1. The Empire storyline is particularly good.

Yeah, I can't say I'm shedding any tears about him leaving, either But as always, I'm shit scared of the new replacement.

Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehen, daß er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.

Yep, confirmed by the club now, too. His assistant manager as well

Apparently, he stepped down. I really have no words.

The lockdown, at least in Austria, is because they are running out of ICU beds. I'm wondering what's the long-term strategy, in general, too. The virus isn't likely to go away. There are no sterilising vaccines and efficacy of the current ones wanes sharply in months, requiring boosters and then likely boosters of boosters for a foreseeable future. The virus will also keep on mutating, and since it can still infect vaccinated people, there's the danger of vaccine-resisting and immune system evading strain emerging due to selective pressure. So what's the plan here? Vaccine mandates, "green passes" allowing only fully vaccinated individuals to take part in society, and winter lockdowns forever? How is it all going to be implemented? QR codes and ID checks for entering any public space and transportation? How many shots will a person need to be considered fully vaccinated, and when will that status expire, requiring another booster? Will it even be possible to maintain vaccination levels of 90%+ of the population constantly for years?

Citrus-garlic-turmeric shrimp.

Austria going into full lockdown for all on Monday, vaccine mandate from February 2022.

From Deichstube: "Sollten sich die Vorwürfe gegen ihn bewahrheiten, wäre er als Trainer des SV Werder Bremen wohl nicht mehr vermittelbar." What an absolute shit show.

what an idiot

Regarding Ivermectin: repurposed drugs are nothing new, and there were quite a few studies that suggested Ivermectin can be beneficial in both treatment and prophylaxis. Oxford University is currently running a huge trial called PRINCIPLE that includes ivermectin as one of the repurposed drugs for Covid treatment. Another big one called ACTIV-6 is being carried out in the US currently. So it's not just a baseless claim; it could be potentially useful, but it's definitely unwise to self-medicate with it at home and it's completely insane to use the animal version of it

Yeah, ruined her career and probably her life with a single social media post. I am by no means trying to justify Chinese officials doing shit like that, because it shouldn't be happening anywehere in civilised world, but why oh why did she think it was a good idea to post any of it, knowing the people she's accusing and the political system of the country she's living in The whole situation kinda reminds me of Jack Ma disappearing a while ago after publicly criticising China's financial sector and policies; he resurfaced some three months later (and his businesses were hit with a lot of fines and license removals), but then he has a lot of money and also powerful friends, most likely, which probably made it easier for him.

Bayern using delay tactics to avoid canceling Qatar sponsoring.

I fully expect her to resurface in weeks or months, and read a "personal statement" publicly, citing her poor mental health and apologising to the former vice PM and the whole community for her "false accusations".

They are descendants of a nomadic Sarmatian tribe, hence the "Iranian ethnicity", I believe. And yes, I definitely agree with you re: ethno-nationalism and the potential issues associated with it, but on the other hand, it often is the only option of survival in terms of resisting assimilation and keeping the national/ethnic identity alive. Haha, I'm actually half Samogitian, but it's not what I meant. There are no ethnic tensions between Samogitians and Lithuanians. I was talking about the nation barely surviving over 100 years of attempted assimilation by the Russian Empire, where Lithuanian schools and universities were closed, while the language, press, traditions, religious practices and culture were forcefully banned (google "book smugglers Lithuania" for more info about resisting it), then getting occupied by the Nazis and then being given to Soviets after just 20 years of regained independence, with the Soviets then implementing brutal "sovietization" policies, including mass deportations and whatnot. Together with other two Baltic nations, Lithuania continued the non-violent resistance throughout the whole 50 years of occupation. When we became the first nation to break away and announce independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, which included unarmed civilians standing up (and dying) against Soviet military force, most of European countries as well as the US were reluctant to recognise our sovereignty for fear of reaction from Moscow, as we were too small and too irrelevant for the big powers to care about. So what I'm saying is that I can relate to and sympathise with every peoples' struggle for self-determination, as I and at least three generations of my ancestors experienced the same plight while the rest of the world watched and didn't give a fuck.

I guess so, although Ossetians are a distinct ethnic group with their own language, culture and traditions, so while they are not internationally recognised by many countries, I do think they have a legitimate claim to their own land and country. But I'm probably biased; I always sympathise with ethnic groups and their plight for self determination due to my own origin and experiences.

Caucasus is a huge mess, in general. Georgia and Abhkazia, Georgia and Ossetia, Ossetia and Ingushetia, Russia and Chechnya, Russia and Dagestan; those are from the top of the head I'm sure there are more. And yes, Soviet occupation definitely had a lot to do with fueling those tensions, which then turned into territorial disputes and fully blown ethnic conflicts after Soviet Union collapsed.

Novavax finally submitted for approval in the EU, could be a very good option for those who are hesitant about the new technologies of mRNA and viral vector vaccines. A lot less side effects reported in clinical trials, too.

That is exactly the case. A scientific theory that is currently best at explaining a specific aspect of the natural world is rightfully accepted as true until there's an even better one that explains it even better, and the old one then gets replaced, corrected or expanded by a new one. Like heliocentric model of the universe replaced the geocentric model, and then hundred of years later became obsolete itself when new discoveries were made. Or like classic mechanics has been extended by relativistic and quantum mechanics.

Yes, the stuff that makes it into textbooks is usually something that has been tested and retested with the same results and conclusions for countless times by countless researchers, meaning that the evidence is clear and convincing - it usually takes at least a decade or two, often even longer; although it obviously varies depending on the field and the type of findings. You don't often get completely new, breakthrough stuff though, it's usually just small revisions or new additions expanding the existing body of knowledge. Pharmaceutical research is highly regulated and has strict safety protocols, understandably. The process might vary from country to country, but in general, it starts when pharma researchers in lab settings discover that a certain compound has specific properties that could be promising in treating some disease. They then do a lot of testing in the lab, both in vitro (test tubes, petri dishes) and in vivo (testing on various animals). This stage of testing is called pre-clinical trials and mostly preocupies with toxicity and basic safety profile. Once they have enough data, they submit their application to the national regulatory authority, asking for permission to do clinical trials. If the permission is granted, the next step is clinical trials, where the new drug gets tested on humans. Clinical trials have three phases - in Phase One they use a small amount of volunteers to assess safety - basically, how the drug affects the body, how is it metabolised, what are the side effects. If Phase 1 provides acceptable safety data, the trial moves to Phase 2 - here, the main goal is to test efficacy, so it's usually a controlled study on a larger sample split into two groups, where one is given the drug while the other one is given the placebo, in order to assess how effective the drug is. At the same time, safety and side effects are being monitored and added to the data from Phase 1. If this phase provides acceptable results, then the trial moves into Phase 3 - here, you want to have as many volunteers as possible, preferably of different ages, races, gender, etc. to get even more information on safety and effectiveness for different population, and also discover potential long-term or less common but serious side effects that might have not been noticed in previous stages due to time constraints and small samples of participants. If Phase 3 is successful, the pharma company can apply for the approval and provide the regulatory authority all the data they collected during both pre-clinical and clinical trials. If the drug gets approved after this review, the company can start manufacturing and then selling the new drug. After that, they are still required to monitor safety and effectiveness of the drug and report regularly to the regulatory authorities. As for your last question, well, you can't know for sure if the pharmaceutical company is completely honest; in fact most of them have history of various shady practices including manipulating and straightout falsifying data in the past. The strict approval procedures and multiple reviews by independent groups are there in place to ensure that there's as little room for that as possible, but it still can and does happen from time to time. Once the drug/vaccine is approved and widely used, you get a lot of real-world data and don't have to be reliant solely on the information provided by the pharmaceutical company. Also, it's obviously a huge business with a lot of money involved, and widespread deaths due to an unsafe drug or vaccine is surely bad for business, so if anything, that should be an impetus for the company not to release an unsafe drug/vaccine into circulation

I think you misunderstand what peer review is - it's just a process used to decide if a specific study paper is suitable for publishing; it doesn't have anything to do with consensus, it doesn't check if the results are correct, it simply filters out complete nonsense and ensures that minimum requirements were followed. It's only there to provide minimum standards, not to guarantee that the studies are trustworthy. To describe the actual process to you, this is how it happens in general: a researcher writes a paper and submits it for publishing. The editor in chief of the journal gives the manuscript to 2-3 reviewers who are qualified in a relevant field. The reviewers read the manuscript and give their recommendation - either for rejection, revision, or publishing. The author of the research paper then does any corrections if needed for revision, and the paper is published. That's it. The reviewers don't even have to agree with the conclusions of the paper, they simply conduct a very basic quality check. Anyway, you're right that if there's a huge body of research supporting a specific theory, then it's most likely to be right. As for climate change, it's important to understand that it is first and foremost a political issue rather than a scientific one. There's a strong scientific consensus that the climate is warming, that human activities have contributed a lot to it, and that continuing emissions will likely have a huge global impact in the future. Everything else is literally politics.