Running Bear's November 2024 Coffee Shop

[Bruette]

Do professional athletes pay into social security and are they eligible for it?

They can pay into it like any other independent businessperson or contractor, but it's not mandatory.

 

[troyphoto]

Willie: It was my friend complaining about the lack of restaurants. As you said, they're clustered in the bigger terminals. In my B terminal, I saw two, and one was more convenience store. I suspect this was because the end of B I was in, was for the smaller, regional jets. Had I been destined for the other end of B, there might have been more than a Dunkin and cold Sammie and Coffee place.

This pic is what greeted me when I left the secure zone at Fort Wayne (technically, an international, since we have runways long enough for military aircraft, and an Air Reserve wing that use our airport):

We used to have a baking center for Archway cookies in The Fort. So the cookie theme is historical for us. Perhaps there was brisket, but it was down in the baggage claim area. You only get it if you're staying around???

Here's another view of Vegas from the hotel. I was on the other side, facing toward the big flashing billboard in front of Horseshoe hotel (formerly: Bally's) I saw more of Mike Tyson on that annoying video display than a thousand people combined wanted to see.

I'd much rather have had this view:

 

[KriegslokBR52]

Exactly! There are numerous other ailments, viruses, and infections to ruin our day, but this "Celebrity" Virus has become an obsession among numerous Americans, especially those with impaired immunity.

And those with impaired logical thinking

 

[KriegslokBR52]

You guys and your Covid disinformation are something else. People died from the f…ing thing. I lost 2 great employees way too soon because of it

Yes it’s similar to the flu but it’s a different variant and more deadly or are you are deniers of that. The only thing right about Covid the President who said it would go away and than recommended bleach got right was he called it a Chinese flu. Yep manufactured in China. At this time if we get another Chinese flu over the next 4 years he’ll slap a tariff on it

Thanks by the way I am feeling better, back another time maybe

People died from complications of that flu because their immune systems were weak. Same numbers die like that every year...except that this was highly advertised, and that's the only difference. My uncle died "supposedly" from it also, he went to the hospital for something totally different, but got treated for covid. He was getting better and worse, better and worse. This was and is a big scam. The flue is real, but just like every other flu, the results are no different.

 

[KriegslokBR52]

Good evening all. Had to pick up some guests at a hotel today, we hung out and then i took them to the Airport. While already in Baltimore area, i decided to stop by at the Pennsylvania Station to see if any "Armadillo" was in close enough vicinity to photograph, yepper:

Looking down from the street level and in my opinion one of the most exotic looking electric locomotives ever conceived. Getting down to the platform provided more action, a northbound Northeast Direct to Boston arriving:

Southbound MARC to Washington DC leaving the station:

And the star of the show tonight: HHP8

Presently hanging out in Perryville, MD:

 

[chadbag]

I mean it's common to have a cookie-ambassador at the tiny Fort Wayne airport, passing out a small bag of cookies.

I can attest to this. It is true and very nice (unless your plane lands at midnight -- cookie ambassadors have gone to bed).

 

[chadbag]

I'm not defending the DFW airport, but there are 215 restaurants in there. But they are scattered through five separate terminals. Mostly they don't open until between 7 and 9 am. I don't know how this compares to other airports. Go to NerdWallet for an interactive guide.

There was a Chick-Fil-A and a Whataburger right next to our gate when we last went through DFW on our way to Japan (yes we flew backwards from SLC to DFW to HND (Haneda airport in Tokyo -- the older one closer to the city)

 

[chadbag]

You guys and your Covid disinformation are something else. People died from the f…ing thing. I lost 2 great employees way too soon because of it

Yes it’s similar to the flu but it’s a different variant and more deadly or are you are deniers of that. The only thing right about Covid the President who said it would go away and than recommended bleach got right was he called it a Chinese flu. Yep manufactured in China. At this time if we get another Chinese flu over the next 4 years he’ll slap a tariff on it

Thanks by the way I am feeling better, back another time maybe

No one here is a covid denier. What we aren't are covid alarmists.

Initially, the death rate for Covid was a higher because it was a variant of a corona virus that was different enough that there was not a lot of latent immunity in the community. That latent community immunity has since built up and Covid is now no more deadly than "flu". For 2023 and 2024 the "flu" and "covid" deaths in the USA are roughly on par.

 

[chadbag]

The only thing right about Covid the President who said it would go away and than recommended bleach got right was he called it a Chinese flu. Yep manufactured in China. At this time if we get another Chinese flu over the next 4 years he’ll slap a tariff on it

he never said to use bleach. He was asking if it were possible to create a something that could be injected to kill it off, the same way we use bleach to kill bad stuff when cleaning equipment and machines and you "inject" a cleach substance to run through the piping to sterilize it or whatever. It was clearly a comparison.

 

[chadbag]

Do professional athletes pay into social security and are they eligible for it?

I would assume they do have to pay into it. There are only a few classes of folks who don't. Of course, for 2023 they would only pay to cover the first $168,800 worth of income (and their employer would cover their share on the same part of salary). That number goes up every year (some 176,xxx for 2024). It's teh same for everyone. You pay until you earn that much and anything over that much you earn you don't pay the soc sec tax. because your social security "credits" are based on how much you earn (pay in), they don't want highy paid executives and athletes earning huge credits and then collecting huge amounts when they retire. These athletes will collect the same 4k or 5k or whatever the "max" is per month when they start collecting, just like the middle manager middle class guy down the street.

 

[chadbag]

They can pay into it like any other independent businessperson or contractor, but it's not mandatory.

yes it is mandatory. Independent business people and contractors HAVE to pay into it. But is not called social security tax of FICA -- it's called self employment tax. It is credited towards that persons social security "credits" for that year. But the independent businessman or contractor has to pay both side -- the individuals and the businesses side of the tax so it's double per dollar to what an employee sees on their pay stub because the employer is paying a share that is not counted in the paystub.

I guess railroad employees and certain politicians and maybe a couple other groups are the only ones not paying in? (because they have alternative systems as I understand it)

 

[troyphoto]

he nebver said to use bleach. He was asking if it were possible to create a something that could be injected to kill it off, the same way we use bleach to kill bad stuff when cleaning equipment and machines and you "inject" a cleach substance to run through the piping to sterilize it or whatever. It was clearly a comparison.

It's complicated... No he didn't say "drink bleach..." but he displayed a total non-understanding... (Emphasis mine). Remember the presser was about if playgrounds were "unsafe" for children. (Sunlight as a disinfectant, as well as chemical one were logical discussions). His exposition of applying it internally:

Video here:

Note, in part of this he's talking to the scientist who did the study on what kills the virus on hard surfaces, and part he is talking to Dr. Birx, an infectious disease specialist, and retired US Army Col (Legion of Merit).

"So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous - whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light," the president said, turning to Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response co-ordinator, "and I think you said that hasn't been checked but you're going to test it.
"And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside of the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you're going to test that too. Sounds interesting," the president continued.

"And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?

"So it'd be interesting to check that."
Pointing to his head, Mr Trump went on: "I'm not a doctor. But I'm, like, a person that has a good you-know-what."

I remember the look on Dr. Deborah Birx's face when he said the above. She looked like she was debating whether to jump on a live grenade.

Coronavirus: Outcry after Trump suggests injecting disinfectant as treatment

Doctors call the president's latest remarks about coronavirus treatment "dangerous" and "ridiculous".

www.bbc.com

 

[chadbag]

People died from complications of that flu because their immune systems were weak. Same numbers die like that every year...except that this was highly advertised, and that's the only difference. My uncle died "supposedly" from it also, he went to the hospital for something totally different, but got treated for covid. He was getting better and worse, better and worse. This was and is a big scam. The flue is real, but just like every other flu, the results are no different.

Yes, but the initial mortality to covid was higher even if there was a high rate of calling any death "covid related" (which also happened). The virus was different enough that initially the community at large did not have a large latent immunity like it does for more common flu variants. But that's changed and now that everyone (or almost everyone) has had it one more multiple times, often without realizing it, that latent immunity in the community has built up so that the covid related deaths and deaths related to other similar viruses /aka "flu" are in the same order of magnitude.

And it's true that most of the deaths related to covid were people with impaired immune systems, people already sick with other illnesses or diseases, and older people who were weaker constitutionally. I remember reading a statement from a health ministry official from Germany early in Covid that said that initial research showed that normal, healthy children were almost an anti-covid wall. (Which is why closing schools, in hindsight, was dumb -- more psychological trauma and depression happened to kids from it than any potential covid damage to school kids)

It was definitely not a hoax though there was all sorts of bad data and bad information (mostly from governments who didn't want to be blamed so over reacted) initially since we didn't know a lot about it. All the initial ventilator hysteria and forms of similar treatment turned out to not work so well and those who were treated without ventilators but with high doses of certain vitamins and other mostly off label drugs fared much better.

A Nobel winning scientist who had a ton of published papers on how to treat breathing trauma and stuff (not a quack) came up with protocols for doctors as well as preventative protocols for people who were not sick didn't lose a patient of the tousands he treated. He shared his protocols with other hospitals and doctors. Unfortunately most didn't follow him. There was a lot of misinformation flowing amongst doctors on how to treat etc.

A co-worker of my wife (who's a nurse and this lady was a nurse) had her husband get sick and die from covid. He was being treated by some doctors using off label medicines and "non-standard" protocols but these doctors did not have hospital privileges where he was at and the hospital and the doctors at the hospital refused to use these drugs and protocols that were successful and would not listen to his doctors who had been treating him but forced the use of their "accepted and standard protocols" and the guy got worse and died. My understanding is there are some lawsuits related to this but I have not heard of it recently. The worst thing is the hubris of the doctors who would not listen to anyone but themselves and a lot of people died because hospitals and doctors would refuse treatments that were working but were "non standard".

I won't mention the thing that comes closest to being a hoax concerning covid that probably killed more healthy, younger people than covid ever did.

 

[chadbag]

It's complicated... No he didn't say "drink bleach..." but he displayed a total non-understanding... (Emphasis mine). Remember the presser was about if playgrounds were "unsafe" for children. (Sunlight as a disinfectant, as well as chemical one were logical discussions). His exposition of applying it internally:

Video here:

Note, in part of this he's talking to the scientist who did the study on what kills the virus on hard surfaces, and part he is talking to Dr. Birx, an infectious disease specialist, and retired US Army Col (Legion of Merit).

"So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous - whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light," the president said, turning to Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response co-ordinator, "and I think you said that hasn't been checked but you're going to test it.
"And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside of the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you're going to test that too. Sounds interesting," the president continued.

"And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?

"So it'd be interesting to check that."
Pointing to his head, Mr Trump went on: "I'm not a doctor. But I'm, like, a person that has a good you-know-what."

I remember the look on Dr. Deborah Birx's face when he said the above. She looked like she was debating whether to jump on a live grenade.

Coronavirus: Outcry after Trump suggests injecting disinfectant as treatment

Doctors call the president's latest remarks about coronavirus treatment "dangerous" and "ridiculous".

www.bbc.com

No where in that did he say to inject bleach. He clearly was referring to creating an injection -- researching and creating something that worked the same way by analogy.

 

[troyphoto]

Yes, but the initial mortality to covid was higher even if there was a high rate of calling any death "covid related" (which also happened). The virus was different enough that initially the community at large did not have a large latent immunity like it does for more common flu variants. But that's changed and now that everyone (or almost everyone) has had it one more multiple times, often without realizing it, that latent immunity in the community has built up so that the covid related deaths and deaths related to other similar viruses /aka "flu" are in the same order of magnitude.

And it's true that most of the deaths related to covid were people with impaired immune systems, people already sick with other illnesses or diseases, and older people who were weaker constitutionally. I remember reading a statement from a health ministry official from Germany early in Covid that said that initial research showed that normal, healthy children were almost an anti-covid wall. (Which is why closing schools, in hindsight, was dumb -- more psychological trauma and depression happened to kids from it than any potential covid damage to school kids)

It was definitely not a hoax though there was all sorts of bad data and bad information (mostly from governments who didn't want to be blamed so over reacted) initially since we didn't know a lot about it. All the initial ventilator hysteria and forms of similar treatment turned out to not work so well and those who were treated without ventilators but with high doses of certain vitamins and other mostly off label drugs fared much better.

A Nobel winning scientist who had a ton of published papers on how to treat breathing trauma and stuff (not a quack) came up with protocols for doctors as well as preventative protocols for people who were not sick didn't lose a patient of the tousands he treated. He shared his protocols with other hospitals and doctors. Unfortunately most didn't follow him. There was a lot of misinformation flowing amongst doctors on how to treat etc.

A co-worker of my wife (who's a nurse and this lady was a nurse) had her husband get sick and die from covid. He was being treated by some doctors using off label medicines and "non-standard" protocols but these doctors did not have hospital privileges where he was at and the hospital and the doctors at the hospital refused to use these drugs and protocols that were successful and would not listen to his doctors who had been treating him but forced the use of their "accepted and standard protocols" and the guy got worse and died. My understanding is there are some lawsuits related to this but I have not heard of it recently. The worst thing is the hubris of the doctors who would not listen to anyone but themselves and a lot of people died because hospitals and doctors would refuse treatments that were working but were "non standard".

I won't mention the thing that comes closest to being a hoax concerning covid that probably killed more healthy, younger people than covid ever did.

You left one thing out of your assessment.

Viruses "evolve" and this one kept spitting out variants as the human carriers started to build immunity. Covid followed the normal path:
Begins highly virulant and deadly. But evolves to get around our developing immune systems, and gradually weakens the how sick it makes us, becoming less deadly, but more invasive, and easier to catch.

Early variants were very deadly, not only because we had no immunity, but also because of how hard it slammed the body. Both exist at once. The DNA testing on the virus showed it weakening it's punch as it evolved to evade our immune system.

 

[troyphoto]

No where in that did he say to inject bleach. He clearly was referring to creating an injection -- researching and creating something that worked the same way by analogy.

That's not the question. Getting hung up on the semantics may be blinding you to how totally uninformed he was about science. Telling one of the top infectious docs to:

And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning?"

How exactly are we going to test "disinfectant injection" into people to kill the virus?

 

[chadbag]

That's not the question. Getting hung up on the semantics may be blinding you to how totally uninformed he was about science. Telling one of the top infectious docs to:



How exactly are we going to test "disinfectant injection" into people to kill the virus?

The same way we test any sort of new drug injection.

Making fun of a layman talking about a science just shows the hubris of the scientist.

And your claim of it being worse by telling "one of the top infectious docs" is just an appeal to authority, which is a false argument. She should have understood, if anyone did, what he was meaning and accepted it at that.

 

[bnsf971]

I seem to remember having to stop several covid discussions, as they were devolving into political debates.
And my daughter in law died with covid, though she died because while she was sick with it, her blood sugar levels exceeded 900, went into a diabetic coma she never recovered from. In a very morbid coincidence, she died in the bed I sleep in nightly--though I did change the mattress, for obvious reasons.

 

[NorthBrit]

Covid 19.

During the pandemic here in the North of England not one person died of influenza, one of the biggest killers.
I am not saying Covid did not exist, but it was the easiest excuse to put on a death certificate.

What we are now wary of is the injections doctors want us to have. Dawn and I do not know what is in those injections. We will give them a miss.

With that said, it is now Sunday morning I shall close down.

 

[chadbag]

During the pandemic here in the North of England not one person died of influenza, one of the biggest killers.
I am not saying Covid did not exist, but it was the easiest excuse to put on a death certificate.

yes, across the world, the average deaths from inluenza and related normal viruses went almost to zero, durimng the initial covid year. Not just a North England phenomenon.

As I said, when it first came out, it was worse than it is now because it was new and no one had any immunity as it was different enough. Now the latent immunity in the community basically keeps it at bay like the rest of the viruses. Every year a certain number of people die from influenza and related and approximately the same number die of covid now. Same order of magnitude.

Which is why no one should do or worry about a covid test any more than you would a flu test. If you're sick, stay home. Sleep. Stay hydrated. Take zinc and Vitamin C and stuff. Eat chicken soup. Stay warm. Bing on netflix or whatever.

Who cares if its covid or influenza, or whatever. Your response is not going to change (or shouldn't change) depending on the results of the test so don't do it. It doesn't matter. You'll just increase your own stress levels if it comes back positive.