LTS

Jenny McCarthy is an idiot. So I can answer that question for you with regards to me. The flu "vaccine" is not really like other vaccines. It's seasonal and it's a "best guess". Refusing to get the flu shot should not be compared with refusing to get a polio or mumps vaccine. The real question, with regards to a COVID vaccine, should one be formulated, is whether or not it will be mandated. The virus poses a serious threat to society. Anything regarding a decision would be purely speculative. That said, thinking through it logically, if it is determined that those who have had COVID-19 are no longer able to be reinfected then I would imagine it would make sense to only require vaccination in those who have never had it. Assuming it's possible to test for that situation.

I'm not sure what your first point is... As to your second statement. No, the common every day worker is the one who is electing the politician who passes those laws and regulations. Imagine if the common every day worker actually demanded honesty and good representation. Imagine if the common every day worker actually got into politics. Imagine if the common every day worker actually got involved in making change instead of just complaining about what others do.

After what I had last night I believe NY would look like Texas if the updated that map today. Hoooooo boy

Hmmm.. I've been there before. Is this something that would be normally available or a special event?

Because people love you.. very much. ? I have not.. I am also intrigued.. this is a thing?

So your illusion of choice example is not relevant. Your employer mandated you have one. Your employer creates the situation for you. You can choose to change jobs if you feel that strongly about it. I moved out of healthcare when they finally forced me to have a flu shot. Not ideal, but I absolutely refused to have the shot. Yes, earned the right. What people CHOOSE to do with that is on them. They still have to earn it. You act as though the common every day worker has never backstabbed another worker to try to get ahead.

I too am intrigued by birch syrup

Fair point... no guns. But yeah.. the insults are cool. I have not played Odyssey. Are you looking for single player experience in an FPS? I have played WarZone.. I liked it, but its all multi-player, battle royale. I played on PC but its cross-platform, etc.

I'll go as far as their sports franchises as well. I don't share the same opinion on the GM, but its' really not relevant to me. The Amerks, Sabres, etc. are all dead to me with regards to support. It's easy for me to avoid going back to a game and I'm already canceling cable (only had it for MSG) and now I won't have a reason to get it again.

Yeah. They should take a beating for this. I'm no longer interested in supporting them or their businesses.

So I should continue with my Gin & Tonic regiment?

1st bolded - this is why I don't think it will happen. China, as it currently stands, would not let it happen. 2nd bolded - people do buy Nike products.. all the time. They will continue. 3rd bolded - I agree, the problem is that there are never enough consumers demanding change. The other problem is that if China improved conditions the next country over might want all that investment from the businesses. The government leaders happy to look the other way as corporations line their pockets and trample their people. 4th bolded - despite popular opinion, CEO performance is a factor. The performance of the stock is critical to their livelihood. People get bent over a CEO having a golden parachuts and all that.. it's like getting a no trade clause in hockey. Someone wants your skills bad enough, they'll give you what you want. Your initial story is an excellent example of how things can and do work in the US. My problem is that these days, it's very different because of globalization.

No, they would pay the doctor to be a doctor who also had to clean the room. Most likely however, they would have folded by then. In addition, a doctor would likely find some other job before agreeing to clean a room at a janitors rate, but they are certainly capable of doing the janitors job.

Heh. There's a point where it can be ridiculous, but you can generally get along if you run, roll, and block a lot to get through. If you get too many people with guns then it begins to be difficult. Most of the time I find you can lure them away and just kill them. The AI isn't always the best. You'll get there.

For the most part absolutely nothing has changed for me. I work from home and continue to do so. The kids are home but it's like vacation when they are home. I have my space and they know not to intrude. The biggest change is what to do with not having to play taxi driver for the kids, but even that had already slowed down. The weather was crap so I didn't feel like going outside anyway. Right now, every day is the same for me. I spend most of my "free" time talking to friends of mine who are not getting through it as easy.

Without going into too much I can say that I agree with you. The problem is that a Union is often looked at as the appropriate response to corrupt business but much like in politics, Unions also become corrupt and amoral. It's the greed of the company versus the greed of the Union. Who gets to be greedy? You'd love for corporations to have some level of compassion for those they employ. Unfortunately the leadership of a corporation is responsible to the board. The board is responsible to the shareholders and the shareholders want their damn money. They are so far removed from any of the impacts that it doesn't matter to them if someone is getting killed every other day. Pair that with people in the US looking at the cheap goods and thinking, who cares if someone is getting killed every other day. It's not someone I know. We know all about animal abuse on farms, people abuse in other countries, and yet the vast majority of people keep on buying the products because if they don't have to see it, it's not their problem. You can put your garbage anywhere you'd like, except my backyard. Globalizaton of unions would be an interesting concept. Do you foresee that working in China? It worked in the US because of our culture and courts. I think it might be a harder achievement in China. I'm not saying it shouldn't happen. As for the phrase "the money is there to share a lot more equitably with enough potential for individual wealth to inspire innovation just fine"... I cringe when I read it. Someone/ some group has to draw that line of what is "too much". The entire process to define that point is a great target for corruption. It also would need some rules, what do you consider in accounting for the individual wealth? Is it property? What if the company owns the property and the CEO just gets to live on it? The loopholes.. they could make our heads spin.

The bottom line... who votes for these candidates? People. What word do you use if you were to take something away from someone who has earned the right to have it? I call that punishment. I don't follow your differentiation of wealth and money. But it's clear you have a disdain for those who create large, powerful, companies. Who is the victim? The person who chooses to buy from Amazon? You are correct, people only have power if they are mostly unified in a goal. This is how business works. Create a product, sell it to enough people who want to buy it, profit. What other model were you looking for? As for your illusion of choice... why do you need a smartphone? There are plenty of people who live their lives each day without them. You are blaming the people who make the product you choose to buy for making the product. Did you also yell at your mother when she made you dinner?

No one needs to be as rich as Jeff Bezos, but should Jeff Bezos be punished for having built what so many have flocked to? Just as it is your choice to build or not build an empire. Just as it is your choice what to do with your money. Should it also not be his choice? The only people responsible for Jeff Bezos wealth are the billions who have bought into his product and thus allowed it to rise. Along the way I am sure he used influence and possibly even illegal dealings to make that happen, but the bottom line is that people love Amazon and so Jeff Bezos gets rich. The people are the problem, but its easier to point the finger at one person. The people are the voters. They outnumber the executives. The truth that people don't want to believe is that they are, by and large, sheep. They don't want to be bothered to make change because that is hard work. It requires them to stop watching The Bachelor and start paying attention. It requires them to get involved. We are a society of people who don't want to actually be involved. Sure they'll complain, but as long as things are good enough then so be it. Whether they are burned out from trying, convinced it won't make a difference, or any other reason the end result is the same. The Republicans, in their masses, have put forth Donald Trump. The Democrats, in their masses, will put forth Biden or Sanders. The United States, in its mass, will vote for one of those. They've already voted in the Senators and Representatives who are part of the system. The people don't really want change, they just talk about it and complain about it. It's like posting on Facebook. The people are the problem, the politicians are the result.

So much to respond to and no time to do so. My father was in a labor union. It's because of his experiences with that union and how it impacted our family that I despise them today. They HAD a purpose when we did not have a global economy. In today's world, someone with far less in another part of the world will do the same work, for less. The reality is that the work will move. During the 80's and 90's when I really came into an understanding of how his union operated, I saw this trend hit hard. The newer workers loved the concept of making excellent wages and also some generous work rules. As such, they were implicitly lazy. Sure the job was hard work, when they worked, but they had a lot of time off as well. It should have been a red flag to anyone in the business that the need to shut down lines because global sales were down that hard times were coming. The economics demanded of the union did not support the competition from global competitors. Adapt or die. The union fought incessantly against it and we ended up on strike often. Times were tough then.. go picket but don't get paid. Ultimately the union had to concede because they had no power. The company meanwhile was planning to move overseas anyway. So they would give just enough to keep the lights on until such day that boom. Thankfully my father was able to retire during one of those negotiations. But the refusal of the Union to recognize a global economy and its impact led us to hard times. These days China, and other countries, are seeing their workers impacted much like the US worker was in the pictures/video you've posted above. Some day, perhaps, the overall working conditions will improve, but they are not operating under the same government structures or social ideals. It's hard to say. All I can post at this point in time.

I'd probably be as amused as the next person. If you want to post some of those, start a new thread though. If it gets out of hand we'll shut it down. I could be asking for trouble here.

The rinks in Rochester are shutting down. Lakeshore and Bill Gray's have. Interestingly Francois Methot was out advertising hockey clinics in the middle of the day "now that school is closed". Not sure if that has changed and Rochester Ice Center has closed. Paul Louis announced it was staying open. Those two rinks I believe are owned by the same group so it would make sense. I'll be curious if that sticks. My kid is supposed to start a Spring League at Paul Louis in April.. expect that to not happen. My kids are still on school time. They are getting work from their teachers and even if they weren't they would be on school time. This isn't a vacation. If our school wasn't providing materials we'd have inserted them into a home schooling curriculum.

You've jumped into this conversation at the wrong point. I never said I was not grateful for the cleaning staff. I am stating reality. Your rebuttal proves the point. Few CAN be surgeons, few WANT to clean. However, the natural conclusion from that statement is that "Most surgeons could clean hospitals if they wanted to whereas most cleaning staff could not be surgeons." Why do people clean the hospitals? Because they are able to and it pays. The same reason people clean bathrooms in the airport. The same reason people do any of the jobs featured on Dirty Jobs. There are no shortage of jobs that most people would find far worse than cleaning hospital rooms. People will still do it because it's needed and it pays.

Probably a good thing that you've been doing all that exercise lately to get in shape. I would think that will serve to your benefit. Good luck buddy. I am curious what kind of financial measures are put in place to protect small businesses. At the same time, I do think, what would your aerial studio (in this example) do if the place burned to the ground? Naturally (hopefully) they would have insurance, but would the money be provided back quick enough to save the business? It happens in a lot of cases of fire, that the small business doesn't recover. Same for floods and other disasters. Without some level of relief I would imagine there will be a lot of bankruptcies and those will hurt the economy even more. At some point I think there will be a plan floated to help resolve these issues because the impact of not doing so will be far greater. Don't live without the hope.

You know what's funny? I worked in healthcare for 11 years. At one point the cleaning staff had enough of something and put up a stink about something. I wasn't involved. The end result? I had to clean my own desk and take my own trash down the hall to a central collection point. The janitor wasn't that important to me. It was annoying, but obviously I can clean my house and take out my own garbage so I could handle the office. It wasn't that much overhead. Rooms can be disinfected by people other than janitors. It's more efficient to have people dedicated to doing so in order to allow the specially trained more time to do their work. Janitors are important in that it allows doctors to save more lives. But, without the doctors, the janitors won't be there because there are no patients. This is the reality. I worked in IT for a long time. I was a cost center and it was drilled into our heads that we were nothing more than an overhead. We all knew that things would not work without us, but that didn't mean there wasn't some other guy waiting to take my spot or another company they could outsource to if we weren't good enough. We're all replaceable at some point.

Social distancing will slow the speed at which this occurs but that's the point. Inundating the health care system would most likely lead to much bigger issues. Unfortunately we just need to ride it out. Scary right there. Co-worker just texted me tonight that her 4 year old is going into the doctor tomorrow morning with flu-like symptoms. She's highly asthmatic to boot. She managed a weak joke "Didn't ever think I'd be pulling for my kid to have the flu." I hope your family gets through it and the kids aren't impacted.