Have you noticed that we usually debate only the bad things in life.

In this thread anyone can put down current news that they think is good (can be on any subject but not nasty, please, or so controversial that it provokes arguments). We can debate it and then move on when someone else posts some more happiness!

So I'll start with this gem, which will brings tears of joy to many, I am sure.

Chocolate is Good for you

Yes - it's official
Dark chocolate may be healthier

It's good for a cough and it's good for your heart.

That depends on what you mean by ads. I like contextually relevant ads perfectly fine, as is typical in magazines. Those are what I'd like to call actually targeted ads. They don't seem to invade; they almost fit in with the content. Good ads are informative in a slightly biased manner. "Look, there's a new variety of peanut butter!" (What about the already existing variety that's similar and cheaper? Well, it is an ad...) Would any of this cause me to say I like ads when only given a black or white choice, whether now or 20 years ago? Hard to say. It's not like radio and TV ads weren't mostly shouty and obnoxious already.

Newspaper ads are a lot more random but you know, whatever. By contrast, "targeted" ads are nearly random nonsense that pretty much persecutes you for once having clicked on something, possibly even worse if you were actually thinking about buying it. And they pop in after the page already loaded. And sometimes they move. And they're never clever or relevant to anything. YouTube makes sure to play you an extra ad if you paused the video for ten minutes.

Whether good or bad, it is that day of divergence again. (Public service for those of you not on the Lounge). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOzb4NdObKM

Received my 2nd dose of the Moderna Covid vaccine today.

Congrats, Col.! (Think there's any chance the current admin. will -if the facts do- admit that Fla. and Tx.got "it" right; while Ca. and NY/etc. got "it" wrong? :)

eceived my 2nd dose of the Moderna Covid vaccine today. 

Poor Colonel, what have you done? now you'll start to be controlled like a Zombie (with the help of 5G network)....
 

Congrats, Col.! (Think there's any chance the current admin. will -if the facts do- admit that Fla. and Tx.got "it" right; while Ca. and NY/etc. got "it" wrong?

Highly unlikely.

Congrats, Col.! (Think there's any chance the current admin. will -if the facts do- admit that Fla. and Tx.got "it" right; while Ca. and NY/etc. got "it" wrong?

? These four states are all middling, Texas lowest among them with 13.2%, California highest with 16.9%, but no massive difference. 

Ah! You want rates of vaccinations... (Like they wanted rates of infection, earlier...; whichever number is scarier, it seems.) Not concerned for economic and social repercussions from over-reactions by political hacks, and their hangers-on... Which is to say, you didn't understand the question!
The Col. did.

Are you the sort of Dr. who considers death a "cure" of disease, jax?  It's a Rational Argument; it just happens to miss the the main connotation of the word.The lockdowns were and are good for political shenanigans; not much else. You've heard the expression "throwing out the baby with the bathwater"? How about "cutting off one's nose, to spite his face"?
Let's try just one more: "You reap what you sow..."

Fauchi is a dawdling doddering old fool who aught to have been put out to pasture a decade and a half ago; his minions can easily come up with bad and contradictory advice without him. But I'm sure he and Biden get along famously: Neither should be allowed out off his leash.

Cheers! (You don't live here.)

The virus kills people, not the vaccine. The virus kills the economy, not the lockdowns.

There are plenty of givens, citizens' health, age, and resources; level of overcrowdedness, quality of and access to the health system, and so on. Based on your givens, and available information, you try to shape the best policy.

You don't want to cede control to the virus, because when you do, health system is overrun, carnage follows and death and disability spikes. When that happens lockdown is the only option. Even when this hasn't happened, lockdown may be the best or necessary way to prevent this from happen (where "lockdown" these days seems to be anything from an actual Wuhan-style lockdown to modest constraints on business or personal activities).

The cure is not worse than the disease, except in a handful cases, but there have been plenty cases where the cure has been wrong, badly timed, or ineffectual. The opportunity cost, the pandemic not handled, has generally been higher than the cost of this cure.

The virus kills the economy, not the lockdowns.

Yes, if.
If transmission is the way it is said to be, yes. But I doubt very much that transmission occurs that way.

New "waves" of disease appears, with numbers rising geometrically, without people changing nothing in their behavior.
"Waves" also displace geographically, appearing and disappearing, regardless local government's impositions.

Therefore, I doubt very much that transmission occurs the way it is said and the lack of freedom imposed it's a farce and very probably a social engineering experiment.

New "waves" of disease appears, with numbers rising geometrically, without people changing nothing in their behavior.

Just because the rules haven't changed doesn't mean people haven't changed anything in their behavior.

The Spanish flu, also known as the 1918 influenza pandemic, was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. Lasting from February 1918 to April 1920, it infected 500 million people - about a third of the world's population at the time - in four successive waves. The death toll is typically estimated to have been somewhere between 20 million and 50 million, although estimates range from a conservative 17 million to a possible high of 100 million, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.

The Spanish flu was devastating because there were no countermeasures taken. The Spanish flu was named the Spanish flu because Spain was the first and almost only country where the press freely reported on the pandemic and where the authorities attempted countermeasures.

The current pandemic with countermeasures attempted by most countries seems to end up about as devastating in terms of absolute numbers as the Spanish flu was, but quite different against the proportion of population of the globe. Around 1918-1920 the estimated world population was much below 2 billion.

Personally, I am not sure that it is quite the same disease. Amazingly, in my extended family (which happens to be quite numerous), not a single person has caught covid even while Estonia is spearheading the contagion in relative terms. However, there are a few cases among colleagues.

Amazingly, in my extended family (which happens to be quite numerous), not a single person has caught covid even while Estonia is spearheading the contagion in relative terms. However, there are a few cases among colleagues.

I'm not aware of any cases either. My colleague's sister apparently caught it though.

My sister caught it and was in hospital for two weeks. Then my Brother-in-law caught it and he has been seriously ill in hospital for over a 100 days now. Three times my sister has had a call to go into the hospital to say her final goodbyes, but he's still fighting.

Ah, the dreaded after effects. :/

Ah, the dreaded after effects. :/

Seizures, Kidney failure, Immune system non-existent, to name a few, Think it's fortunate that he was in an induced coma for most of it.