This is all about forcing their religious views on others, despite the medical evidence they are wrong. People are born gay, conversion therapy won’t work. But more important, being gay is not a sickness needing a cure. These people do such harm in their attempt to push their hate and the hate of their god on to everyone else. These are the Christian Taliban and the Christian ISIS missionaries. They demand the right to oppress others, and since they lost that right in most developed countries they are trying to prevent acceptance in the undeveloped countries from ever taking hold. They came their god is all powerful and that their god creates every person individually, so why does their god keep making gay and trans people? Hugs
I am sorry but I can not deal with this. For the last few days I have read of how bad gays and trans people are and I have even posted religious leaders screaming about this. I am really not able to process that the very religion’s that scream about how bad people like me are but they don’t seem to care about the members of their faith that rape or even kill the followers of their faith. Before anyone tries to tell me about the very few gay / trans killers please remember that our community did not gather around to protect those horrible people. Churches / religious organizations do! Hugs
Dozens of Kenyans came to identify the remains of their relatives, thought to have starved themselves to death in hope of going to heaven after joining the self-proclaimed Good News International Church, led by Patrick Mackenzie https://t.co/aGSE8LULYzpic.twitter.com/AZmKhlTMHK
This is so sickening. Decades after Jim Jones poisoned his congregants with Kool-Aid, here we go again with another Messianic mass murderer cloaked in religious garb.
“Suffer the little children?” Seriously, if adults want to do this to themselves, that’s one thing. But children do not have any choice. This is sickening and learning that most of the dead are children is even worse.
This is such a play for the Christian Nationalist, it is scary how blatant it is. I wish DeathSantis had prayed to his god when Hurricane Ian ripped a third of my home away and caused so much damage to our neighbors homes they moved away. That hurricane we took 8 hours of storm wall hurricane force, the worst part of the hurricane. We have lost not only a third of our home for nearly a year, but we took damage to the underneath along with all our floors needing to be replaced along with appliances. Of course our first priority is the roof which we have a contract for over $15,000 and the under the home repairs are estimated to be over 8 grand. Yet this super Christian right wing governor who seems to have the power of the Christian god decided to use it on a hurricane that moved off the coast as was predicted by the European models of storm tracking. Of course, he only uses that power for his big money donors and on hurricanes that already were projected to turn. Long after it did turn and not hit the state hard. Hindsight is a great help to the religious. Hugs
DeSantis: My Prayers Turned Away A Major Hurricane
“We brought the delegation for prayer at the Western Wall. The only thing I can tell you is my prayer in 2019 is that we would be spared the upcoming hurricane season in the state of Florida. And we were in a situation as we got in the height of hurricane season, you had a monstrous hurricane barreling east – or barreling west towards the Florida peninsula, Hurricane Dorian.
“It was a category 5, a very strong category 5, and it was headed – basically gonna ram right into our state. And at that time, when it was on that track, people were saying, ‘Well, God must not be listening to the governor because we may be getting rammed here’
“Well, the storm was heading our way, it slowed down, it turned all the way, 90 degrees, it went north and never impacted our coast. And so, I’m chalking it up to the prayer I put in the Western Wall.” – Ron DeSantis
Speaking in Jerusalem, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) claims Hurricane Dorian did not hit Florida harder in 2019 because of “the prayer I put in the Western Wall.” pic.twitter.com/awHSgVlYjB
While Hurricane Dorian did veer away from Florida in 2019, it still produced enough of an impact that six deaths in the state were linked to the storm. https://t.co/fcWEBKCpEW
Yes, and pretty arrogant to think that is was -his- prayer that changed the course of the hurricane. What about the thousands of others that were praying, and have prayed each time a hurricane comes to the area?
So the next time there’s a hurricane, we all know it’s DeSantis’s fault. Oh, but let me guess, he’ll tell us God is displeased with people opposing him and sent the hurricane to show his displeasure. ———————— A man who thinks his special connection to God controls the weather should not have access to any levers of power.
While this here is just the usual GOPer false-piety pandering, his gleeful legal advice as a Navy junior JAG at Gitmo resulted in torture and war crimes.
During an event at Israel’s Museum of Tolerance, DeSantis was asked about allegations that he was present on at least one occasion when a former Guantánamo detainee was force-fed by guards to quash a hunger strike. The United Nations has deemed force-feeding a form of torture.
Before the reporter could finish his question, DeSantis, who is believed to be preparing a bid for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, snapped, “No, no… all that’s BS, totally BS.”
After the journalist completed his question, DeSantis angrily responded: “Who said that? How would they know me? Okay, think about that. Do you honestly believe that’s credible?… This is 2006, I’m a junior officer, do you honestly think that they would have remembered me from Adam? Of course not!”
In response, Mansoor Adayfi, a Yemeni citizen who was incarcerated without charges at Guantánamo for 14 years, tweeted, “I will never forget his face, he was laughing and smiling watching me being tortured on the force-feeding chair.”
Jeezuz, then why the hell didn’t his prayers work last September when hurricane 🌀 Ian slammed ashore near Ft.Myers. Why didn’t they work when a storm dropped 2 1/2 feet of rain on Ft. Lauderdale in 24 hours. Do Ronda’s prayers not work unless he sticks them in The Western Wall? I’m gonna email him and tell him where he can STICK his prayers. What a sorry, pathetic phony
I hate that claim of theirs. The Bible, as a whole, never makes that claim for itself. The doctrine of Biblical inerrancy, even Biblical inspiration, is not Biblical.
But the Bible isn’t actually a whole anything. It’s 60-odd manuscripts chosen by the Council of Nicaea (I think), although some religious groups have added/subtracted from that group, covering a wide range of subjects, with various purposes, in different literary styles.
Only the Revelation to John makes a claim of inerrancy, but it almost didn’t make the final cut. Just because that claim (and magical threat) is the last thing in the last book, some have (tried) to apply it to the entire collection.
As Texas Gov Abbot prepares to pardon a white man & convicted murderer for killing a peaceful BLM protestor—Texas sentences a Black man to 70 years in prison for “spitting at police” to “make an example out of him.”😳
This gutted me. What if they are in the hallway, or bathroom and all the doors are locked? This shouldn’t be a reality for these kids. Or anyone. pic.twitter.com/0IVCVslkc2
Are schools to now be prisons instead of learning facilities? Is that what we want as a country for our children while other advanced countries give advanced education, healthcare, and decent living for their children / public. Hugs
As I look into the mirror, shaving a greyed beard from a face lined by time and trouble, I remember a younger face once looking at me from this very glass with similarly sad eyes. A boy of dirty elbows and skinned knees, and behind that perpetually down-cast sight beat a heart filled with impotent rage. I knew my life was wrong, it was unfair, and it was a hot mess of a kid staring back from the mirror that reported horrible things filled with quiet unshed rage and denial of every truth that came anywhere near. At that younger time, I was pure lethality with a gun. I made a game of being able to spin the cap off a bottle without breaking the bottle by just nicking the side with the bullet, but I enjoyed the explosions of the shattering glass when I missed. Like many kids, I relished the wanton destruction, the control of continued existence or the end of that bottle. I felt powerful, skilled, and capable in a world where otherwise I foundered at the whim of forces I felt incapable of withstanding, weak, ineffectual.
If you have never held a gun, you know not the thrill of life, nor of death. For many a gun is the mark of independence, the goal of maturity, the status symbol of greatness. Instead, a momentary pull of a finger decides an accident of foolishness or the demands of a spurned heart and the most intimate of actions lets one be alive still and another not so very much. It is horror and excitement and at no point does the heartbeat slowly for any involved. It is but for targets, some may say, but what is target practice but the refinement of the skills necessary to kill that which you intend great harm? Some say it is an act of freedom to hold the means to life and death in your hands, but whose life, whose death? And why is the ability to take a life a definition for freedom?
From the tenor of this post, many would think I am against gun ownership. To be fair, I couldn’t care less if someone owns a gun. I similarly don’t care if someone owns a pit bull, a monster truck, or wants to live life as a raging karen. It is the unmitigated gall, the pretentious and pompous attitude that one’s ownership of a gun shall not be infringed, even in the misuse and mishandling. Bill upon bill has come before congress, requesting the mere modicum of relief to those of us unwilling to be set upon by others unfettered 2nd amendment rights, only to wither in committee, shot down by the special interests lobby. How sad a people who have decided money is far more important than the life of a school child.
I often wonder if Dylan Thomas knew about the lure of guns when he wrote “Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at the close of the day.” When imagined and closeted monsters come and seek to take all that we hold precious, when fear and anger burn so bright as to risk all that is dear, do hold tight to that instrument of power, that wand of courage that burns away the dark and sends the monster back into the closet? But power is fickle, isn’t it? It isn’t only our own fear, our own rage that dispels in the smoke of a smokeless powder concussion. Quiet little sparks in Uvalde, in Sandy Hook, splashed out little stars in last moments of terror. And as those little lives fade, do you wonder if their last thoughts are to be thankful that old men may rage, that young men may rage? Hold on to your fear, gentlemen, do hold on to your fear if that is all you have left.
Don’t be sad, little ones. It’s just the cost of doing business. You understand, don’t you?
Remember this is the same person Tildeb uses as an authority against trans people. Ragnarsbhut just recently used the arguments pushed by this guy and his cohorts to attack vaccines, especially covid vaccines specifically. Hugs
The surgeon general’s guidance against the vaccine for young men ignored results showing infection was a greater risk for cardiac-related deaths.
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, left, speaks at a news conference with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022. State officials removed data from a state analysis of cardiac-related deaths that Ladapo used in October to justify his recommendation that young men should not get the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. The missing data showed that catching the virus created a far higher risk of a heart-related death. [ WILFREDO LEE | AP ]
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced in October that young men should not get the COVID-19 vaccine, guidance that runs counter to medical advice issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
His recommendation wasbased on a state analysisthat showed the risk of cardiac-related deaths increased significantly for some age groups after receiving a vaccine. It has been criticized by experts, including professors and epidemiologistsat the University of Florida, where Ladapo is employed as a professor.
Now, draft versions of the analysis obtained by the Tampa Bay Times show that this recommendation was made despite the state having contradictory data. It showed that catching COVID-19 could increase the chances of a cardiac-related death much more than getting the vaccine.
That data was included in an earlier version of the state’s analysis but was missing from the final version compiled and posted online by the Florida Department of Health. Ladapo did not reference the contradictory data in a release posted by the state.
The Times’ records request asked for all previous versions of the state analysis made public on Oct. 7. The documents show that, before the final version was released, at least five drafts had been produced. One version included a data table showing the number of cardiac-related deaths from infection. The conclusion in four of the drafts provided a counterpoint to Ladapo’s assertion about the vaccine.
Four epidemiologists who reviewed the drafts said the omission is inexplicable and flawed from a scientific standpoint. They said that, based on the missing data, Ladapo’s recommendation should be rescinded.
Matt Hitchings, an infectious disease epidemiologist and professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida, said it seems that sections of the analysis were omitted because they did not fit the narrative the surgeon general wanted to push.
“This is a grave violation of research integrity,” Hitchings said. “(The vaccine) has done a lot to advance the health of people of Florida and he’s encouraging people to mistrust it.”
The surgeon general and the state’s health department have frequently questioned the safety of messenger ribonucleic acid or mRNA vaccines developed to counter COVID-19. Last year, Florida became the first state to recommend against vaccines for healthy children and it was the only state to not preorder coronavirus vaccines for children under 5.
Ladapo declined to answer specific questions about why the data showing the higher risk to Floridians from infection was removed. In an emailed statement, he said that he stands by his guidance and that this is not the first time he has faced criticism for his approach to COVID-19.
“As surgeon general, my decisions continue to be led by the raw science — not fear,” he said. “Far less attention has been paid to safety of the COVID-19 vaccines and many concerns have been dismissed — these are important findings that should be communicated to Floridians.”
“It is irresponsible to roll over and allow the pharmaceutical companies to dictate health guidance that allows them to line their pockets when public health officials experience the severity of the impacts firsthand in their communities,” Ladapo said in his statement. The court has yet to take any action.
The published eight-page state analysis linked data from Florida’s reportable disease repository known as Merlin, the Florida State Health Online Tracking System, and death records from the state’s vital statistics bureau.
It examined cases of adult Floridians who died within a 25-week period from the start of the vaccination roll-out in December 2020 and detailed deaths occurring within 28 days of receiving a vaccination.
It reported that there was only a “modest” increased risk from the vaccine except for males ages 18 to 39, where it found an 84% higher incidence of cardiac-related deaths.
Ladapo cited that number in the state’s nonbinding recommendation, saying the “abnormally high” risk of cardiac complications from a COVID-19 shot “likely” outweighs the benefits of vaccination.
That finding was based on 20 deaths, too small a sample size for such a far-reaching conclusion, according to a column by four University of Florida epidemiologists that highlighted concerns and flaws with the analysis. The scientists also noted that Ladapo’s finding was not backed up with clinical data proving that the cause of deaths fits the criteria.
Further, the data on the risk of infection omitted from the published report shows that catching COVID presents a far greater risk for that same age group.
For Floridians ages 18 to 24, the incidence of cardiac-related deaths from infection was more than 10 times higher than from the vaccine and more than five times higher for ages 25 to 39. That data was not broken down by sex.
The state epidemiologists who worked on the report also arrived at a different conclusion than Ladapo, the drafts suggest.
“The risk associated with COVID-19 infection clearly outweighs any potential risks associated with mRNA vaccination,” one version states.
“The small risk associated with mRNA vaccination should be balanced against the much larger risk associated with COVID-19 infection,” another version says. A similar sentence appeared in the published conclusion but the “much larger” modifier had been removed.
The state’s analysis was also criticized for not including a sensitivity analysis, a method of proving that the results remain consistent even when changing some of the assumptions used in the calculations.
A sensitivity analysis was present in three versions of the draft and suggests that the increased risk for young men from the vaccine is not significant, said Jonathan Laxton, a physician and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Manitoba.
“It’s a double check that didn’t confirm that finding,” Laxton said.
Faculty at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine, including Hitchings, circulated a report in January that was critical of the published analysis. It characterized the research and the subsequent recommendation as being of “highly questionable merit” but concluded it did not rise to research misconduct.
David Norton, UF vice president for research, said in a statement that because Ladapo oversaw this research in his role with the state and not in his role as a faculty member, UF’s Office of Research Integrity, Security and Compliance “has no standing to consider the allegations or concerns regarding research integrity” mentioned in the report.
After reviewing the draft reports, Hitchings said the final analysis is akin to academic dishonesty.
“You can call it a lie by omission,” he said.
The downplaying of the elevated risk of cardiac-related deaths from infection remains the biggest concern for Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist at the University of Illinois, Chicago. The state has denied Floridians the information they need to make an informed decision on the vaccine, she said.
“As a scientist, and as a parent, it would be important for me to know the cardiac risk from COVID versus that of the vaccine,” she said. “That context is huge — and it’s gone.”
At that younger time, I was pure lethality with a gun. I made a game of being able to spin the cap off a bottle without breaking the bottle by just nicking the side with the bullet, but I enjoyed the explosions of the shattering glass when I missed. Like many kids, I relished the wanton destruction, the control of continued existence or the end of that bottle. I felt powerful, skilled, and capable in a world where otherwise I foundered at the whim of forces I felt incapable of withstanding, weak, ineffectual. 
and the most intimate of actions lets one be alive still and another not so very much. It is horror and excitement and at no point does the heartbeat slowly for any involved. It is but for targets, some may say, but what is target practice but the refinement of the skills necessary to kill that which you intend great harm? Some say it is an act of freedom to hold the means to life and death in your hands, but whose life, whose death? And why is the ability to take a life a definition for freedom?
It is the unmitigated gall, the pretentious and pompous attitude that one’s ownership of a gun shall not be infringed, even in the misuse and mishandling. Bill upon bill has come before congress, requesting the mere modicum of relief to those of us unwilling to be set upon by others unfettered 2nd amendment rights, only to wither in committee, shot down by the special interests lobby. How sad a people who have decided money is far more important than the life of a school child.
do hold tight to that instrument of power, that wand of courage that burns away the dark and sends the monster back into the closet? But power is fickle, isn’t it? It isn’t only our own fear, our own rage that dispels in the smoke of a smokeless powder concussion. Quiet little sparks in Uvalde, in Sandy Hook, splashed out little stars in last moments of terror. And as those little lives fade, do you wonder if their last thoughts are to be thankful that old men may rage, that young men may rage? Hold on to your fear, gentlemen, do hold on to your fear if that is all you have left. 
Scottie's Playtime 