Listen, guys, you haven't had enough on your mind lately, so here's a completely new bundle of demented bullshit:

This recent plan proposes that the U.S. & Mexico jointly build a 1,954-mile energy park along the border instead of a wall. The proposal by 28 prominent U.S. scientists and engineers, says that the effort would bring abundant energy and water to the region

Italians are such calm and composed people:

https://twitter.com/ivadixit/status/1391102424241352704

So the fences to protect the 'energy corridor' would be completely different than a fence to protect the border, just in the same place.

Got it.

Another weird weekend, again I affirm:

There's no glorious love of liberty to excuse those who aren't vaccinated.

They're just afraid of needles.

Ooooo! Needles are sharp and bleedy! I'm a coward, but I probably won't die anyway, so Covid's not my problem...!

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/05/angry-residents-say-venice-beach-crippled-by-rampant-homelessness-and-crime/

Crid: It's not being afraid of needles, it's being wary of unknown side effects. The MRNA vaccines are a totally new technology, released with less than a year of testing. Everyone getting the shots are guinea pigs for long-term effects.

The FDA normally requires at least 5 years to approve a new drug - that's 5 years of testing if _nothing_ goes wrong, which is pretty rare. Most new drugs are finally dropped because testing reveals too little benefit for the risks. Most that were finally accepted had to revise the dosage or the conditions for use, then re-start the testing. It's not unusual for approval to go past 10 years.

Now, there is a lot of bureaucratic delay and over-cautiousness in the FDA's regular approval process. They hold up approval for years because they aren't satisfied about some tiny risk, while people are actually dying for lack of the drug. And all this still doesn't entirely show the drug is safe enough. Many have been tested for 5 to 10 years and finally approved, only to be pulled from the market later because of problems that weren't detected in all that testing. (Or perhaps were covered up?) It would be a lot better if the FDA would routinely do what they did with the COVID vaccines: weigh the likely risks of a slightly-tested drug/vaccine/device/procedure against the known effects of not having it available, and give preliminary approval when it's probably going to be beneficial overall. Yes, this policy would have resulted in thousands more Thalidomide babies, but it would have saved millions of lives in the 60 years since then. (But here we're asking bureaucrats to make a judgment and stick their necks out...)

If I _needed_ a brand-new drug to save my life or enable living normally, I'd take it. Otherwise I'd wait a few years and let others be the "beta testers".

So for the COVID vaccine, if you're 80 years old, fat and diabetic, with impaired lung function, check with your doctor that your health problems don't rule out vaccinations, then get it. The risks of the vaccines are clearly less than your risk of dying of COVID, and anyway you're probably not going to live long enough to experience any unexpected long-term ill effects. If you live with someone that is too sick to be vaccinated and wouldn't survive COVID, get the vaccine to help protect them. (This is assuming that Fauci was mostly lying again when he said that the vaccine doesn't prevent you catching a mild case and spreading it. I'm sure the vaccine is a better preventative than wearing two masks, considering that Fauci was talking about masks that are leaky around the edges and have pores much, much bigger than a virus.)

But if you're under 65 and in good health, you have at least a 99.9% chance of surviving COVID, and one year of testing _cannot_ show that the vaccine risks are less than this - even if you could be sure that Fauci and officials like him wouldn't cover up problems with the vaccines. Vaccination should reduce the chances of you spreading COVID to others, but staying home anytime you feel even a little off should reduce that chance to zero.