Lurker > Humble_Novice

Let the far right leave Twitter for good.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/crypto-meme-twin-brothers-72-040920147.html

With cheekbones so high and bulbous as to appear to threaten their owners vision, as an Australian newspaper described them a decade ago, the Bogdanoff twins drew attention wherever they went.

The controversial celebrity scientists, who both obtained doctorates after penning a series of impenetrable and allegedly meaningless physics papers, were descendants of nobility and, later, a meme beloved on social media platforms like Reddit and 4chan.

But their voyage through the stars ended recently in a Parisian hospital, where both Grichka and Igor Bogdanoff had been admitted on the same day last month after contracting COVID-19. Grichka, the younger twin, died in the intensive care unit on Dec. 28. Igor followed him on Monday. Both were 72.

A source close to the brothers told French outlet Le Monde that neither had been vaccinated against the virus.

The socialite scientists made headlines almost exactly a year ago for allegedly swindling a millionaire, a 53-year-old man identified only as Cyrille P. in the subsequent lawsuit, convincing him to invest hundreds of thousands of euros in various projects, including an attempt to revive Temps X, the pop science show that first skyrocketed the brothers to fame in 1979.

Decades before they beamed themselves, decked out in futuristic spacesuits, into the homes of families all over France, the twins were born in a castle in Gascogne in 1949. Descended from German and Austrian nobility, Igor and Grichka were raised by their grandmother, Countess Bertha Kolowrat-Krakowsk, whose scandalous affair with Roland Hayes, the first Black American to attain international fame as a classical musician, produced the twins mother.

The brothers went on to study applied mathematics at the Institute of Political Science and the cole Pratique des Hautes tudes in Paris. They then found a niche for themselves as writers, producers, and presenters of Temps X, which ran from 1979 into the mid-eighties.

Igor and Grichka first invited controversy with the 1991 publication of a book, Dieu et la Science (God and Science), which went on to become a French bestseller. Its debut, however, roiled academics after a University of Virginia astronomy professor filed a plagiarism lawsuit over the manuscript.

Settling out of court, the Bogdanoffs began work towards their doctorates in 1993. After defending their theses and publishing five articles in several peer-reviewed physics journals, both brothers passed with the lowest possible grade.

Tracing their story in 2002, a New York Times reporter wrote that one of their advisers described the twins as wunderkids who had difficulty understanding they were not the Einstein brothers. The adviser, Dr. Daniel Sternheimer, told the Times that teaching the brother was like teaching My Fair Lady to speak with an Oxford accent.

Their papers, published in journals like Annals of Physics, claimed, among other concepts, to identify what happened both before and during the Big Bang. The Bogdanoffs work was first disputed in 2002, after a University of Tours physicist raised concerns in an email to another academic. The scientist, Max Niedermaier, called the twins writing delightfully meaningless combinations of buzzwords, fretting that their evidence had nonetheless been taken seriously.

Asked why the brothers had been conferred their degrees, Dr. Sternheimer said, These guys worked for 10 years without pay. They have the right to have their work recognized with a diploma, which is nothing much these days.

He called the subsequent scandal, nicknamed the Bogdanoff affair, a storm in a teacup. The dispute ended in a report that found the twins theses held no scientific value, but Classical and Quantum Gravity, another peer-reviewed journal that published a Bogdanoff paper, ultimately declined to print a retraction.

Social media users would eventually stumble upon the brothers, who by the turn of the century had apparently discovered plastic surgery. (Both would repeatedly deny that they had ever had extensive cosmetic surgical procedures performed.)

Beginning on Reddit in 2015, users ran wild with conspiracy theories about the brothers, claiming, among other things, that the Bogdanoffs had psychic powers and could control the cryptocurrency markets.

This last claim stemmed from a television appearance in June last year, when Grichka remarked on French show Non-Stop People that he and his brother helped develop the source code for Bitcoin. Both also claimed that Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous name for the figure purported to have invented Bitcoin, had given them two ancient Bitcoin in physical form.

In terms of credibility, a French editor told news site Decrypt at the time, Igor and Grichka are equivalent to a scientific version of the Kardashian family.

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This is why anti-vaxxers are a menace to society.

fsurb28 posted...

Clutch will be along to condemn this herp a derp soon!

That troll got suspended.

People have a choice: they can put up with being vaccinated and masking up, or risk being put in a ventilator due to a dangerous virus. And no, gaining natural immunity from actual infection is not worth any long-term damage done to your organs.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/comments/rurcys/buck_scoffed_at_masks_and_vaccines_got_covid_had/

Buck from Missouri was a hunter. Half his Facebook photos are him posing with a deer or some other animal he killed. He posted an unmemorable selection of anti-mask and anti-vax memes.

The real story begins when he got COVID in November. He was put on a ventilator and suffered two major strokes. He's alive and conscious, but paralyzed from the neck down, fed by a tube, and unable to talk due to the tracheotomy. His doctors say that this is how he can expect to spend the rest of his life. When a right-winger says that COVID has a 99% survival rate, mention that stories like this are counted as survivors.

You or I might find this a fate worse than death, spending the rest of your life in a flesh prison straight out of Johnny Got His Gun. But to Buck's extremely Christian family, it's a blessing.

While he was in the hospital, they prayed for miraculous healing, and they've decided that this is an answer to their prayers. His wife and daughter both profess their belief that God is good, even while reporting that Buck is moving his lips to say things like "Help me, I can't move."

They're making plans to have him moved to a long-term care facility where he'll be tended like a houseplant. If this were me, I'd want someone to give me a nice dose of morphine so I could slip away in peace. But of course, I'm fully vaccinated, so I don't have to worry about COVID leaving me mute and quadriplegic.

Don't share Buck's fate. Get vaccinated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZWKis8_EcI

It sounds like Florida COVID.

Judging from your user name, you must not have many dates.

Rest in peace. She and the other Golden Girls were the joys of America.

Do any of you shop at this establishment? Because there's been a lot of harrowing tales about Family Dollar being involved in a lot of discriminatory incidents.

https://www.bbb.org/us/fl/miami/profile/discount-stores/family-dollar-store-0633-90026723/complaints
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article256939147.html
https://taphaps.com/family-dollar-sign-racist-request-6/
https://www.wishtv.com/news/woman-goes-off-on-family-dollar-cashier-after-alleged-racist-remark/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/black-employee-fired-family-dollar-192833156.html
https://www.yelp.com/biz/family-dollar-houston-69
https://www.yelp.com/biz/family-dollar-huntington-station-huntington-station

My parents watch more anime than I currently do and that's an undeniable fact.

For those who are into crypto, is the crash that bad or is it just mild?

Ted Cruz is following in her footsteps as well.

https://southfloridagaynews.com/National/trans-woman-becomes-highest-earning-woman-in-jeopardy-history.html

Amy Schneider, a transgender woman, has won Jeopardy! 20 times in a row, making her the highest-earning woman in the shows history.

On Dec. 28, Schneiders winnings reached $768,600, according to Local 10.

Ive been watching the show since I was a kid, Schneider said, LGBTQ Nation reported. Ive watched all the people on this list [of top winners], and to see my name up with them is a very good feeling.

Larissa Kelly, the previous record holder, praised Schneiders victory.

"Well, it was fun to hold a Jeopardy record for a few years ... but it's been even more fun to watch @Jeopardamy set new standards for excellence, on the show and off," Kelly tweeted. "Congratulations to Amy on becoming the woman with the highest overall earnings in the show's history!"

Nick Adams, the director of Transgender Representation for GLAAD, said in a statement that Schneiders success is also a victory for the trans community.

Amy Schneiders incredible run on Jeopardy! allows families all over the country to get to know her as someone who is great at word puzzles, has in-depth knowledge on a range of topics, and who also happens to be a transgender woman, Adams said, according to LGBTQ Nation. Amy is using her history-making appearances and a new platform to raise awareness of transgender issues and share a bit of her personal story too. We cant wait to see how long her run lasts.

Schneider started receiving recognition when she became the new champion during Trans Awareness Week in November.

Its a strange thing to think that I have made history as the first trans person to qualify for the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions, she wrote in an editorial in Newsweek. It was inspirational for me to see transgender contestants on the show before I became a contestant and I hope that I am now doing that same thing for all the other trans Jeopardy! fans out there.

Schneider has worn a pin of the transgender flag for a number of episodes. However, for potential copyright reasons, she had to cover up a tattoo that honors her trans identity, Newsweek reported.

"My tattoo is indeed of Ozma of Oz. For those who don't know, L. Frank Baum wrote many sequels to The Wizard of Oz, and in all of them the ruler of Oz was Princess Ozma. She had been the rightful heir, but was kidnapped as a baby by a sorceress, who enchanted her to become a boy," Schneider wrote in a tweet.

"Eventually, the enchantment is lifted, and she is revealed to be the beautiful princess she always was. So it seemed like the perfect image to commemorate my transition!"

DontHaveACowMan posted...

I hope his loved ones are hurting like hell for enabling him.

They're probably doubling down on their anti-vaxxer beliefs.

LeoRavus posted...

This is nothing new. Antivaxxer activists been dying for a while now. It doesn't change people's minds

Anti-vaxxers are continuing to double down, not realizing that their ignorance is costing them dearly.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/front-line-physicians-describe-vaccination-105910656.html

Physicians around the country facing the latest surge of Covid-19 cases, driven by the highly contagious omicron variant, have a straightforward message based on what they're seeing in their emergency rooms: Vaccinations and boosters are having a positive effect.

The general trend that Im seeing is, if youre boosted and you get Covid, you really just at worst end up with bad cold symptoms. Its not like before where you were coughing, couldnt say sentences and were short of breath, said Dr. Matthew Bai, an emergency medicine physician at Mount Sinai Queens in New York City.

There are obviously exceptions like if you start out with a very weakened immune system, your immune response wont be as strong with a booster. But in your average person, a boosters definitely going to make a difference is what Im seeing, he said.

Dr. Joseph Varon, chief of critical care services and the Covid-19 unit at Houstons United Memorial Medical Center, said of the roughly 50 patients admitted to the hospitals Covid unit in the last four weeks, 100 percent of them were unvaccinated.

He said patients who needed to be admitted typically have shortness of breath, high fevers, being dehydrated like crazy. He said those who are unvaccinated also have more illness. What I mean by more illness is more pneumonia, not just a little bit of pneumonia, you have a lot of pneumonia.

The people that are coming in unvaccinated have a much larger burden of illness in the lungs than those who are vaccinated, he said.

Meanwhile, those who had received the booster shot were almost back to normal within several days, he said. Those who had not received the booster have tended to still feel sick after a week, a week and a half or so, he added.

Patients who have received the booster shot may still have symptoms such as a sore throat, a lot of fatigue and muscle pain, said Dr. Craig Spencer, director of global health in emergency medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. Those who are vaccinated but have not got the booster looked worse, they looked like they felt pretty darn bad. But, again, they didnt need to be hospitalized, he said.

"Im not seeing people who have got two doses and a booster and are coming in profoundly short of breath," he said. "Its just not happening."

Those who are vaccinated but have not got a booster have shown symptoms such as more coughing, more fever and more fatigue than those who had received a booster, he said.

Meanwhile, Spencer said almost every single patient he has seen who needed to be admitted was unvaccinated.

Weve known that there are multiple presentations of this disease, that hasnt changed. What has changed is that we know that those who are vaccinated are significantly less likely to end up seeing me in the hospital and needing to be admitted. Thats for certain, he said.

The new omicron variant continues to spread rapidly in the United States, making up about 58 percent of all new Covid cases for the week ending Dec. 25, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Early evidence suggests that for most people, at least for those who are up to date on their Covid vaccines, omicron appears less likely to cause severe illness.

A small study from the CDC published Tuesday suggested people who had Covid and are later reinfected with omicron may experience fewer symptoms than they did during their initial bout with the virus.

And last week, reports out of the United Kingdom found that people who were infected with omicron in November and December were about two-thirds less likely to be hospitalized, compared with the delta variant.

Physicians still stressed the importance of getting the vaccine and getting a booster, even if omicron appears less likely to lead to severe illness than delta.

Especially for those that are above 50-55, anyone with underlying medical conditions, we know that it can decrease the likelihood of you needing to be hospitalized with severe Covid, Spencer said.

For those who are younger or without underlying medical conditions, he said, if you can prevent infections in younger folks, you can hopefully prevent infections in older folks, their grandparents, their parents or people that they see and mingle with, especially around the holidays.

So, I think from an infection prevention and control standpoint, getting a booster dose in younger folks, in addition to the benefit in terms of severe disease, is quite important, he said.

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Did you read the article?

Punish him HARD.

It's going to get worse after New Year's Eve.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/self-proclaimed-plague-spreader-dies-114105097.html

An Italian anti-vaxxer and COVID-denier who sparked outrage after declaring himself a plague spreader and boasting about how he walked around sick and maskless in a supermarket is now dead of COVID-19, according to local media reports.

Maurizio Buratti, also known as Mauro from Mantua, died in a Verona hospital Monday, just a few weeks after he was hospitalized. He was 61.

Burattis condition took a turn for the worse, perhaps unsurprisingly, after he called in to the Zanzara radio program on Radio 24, where he was a frequent and well-known commenter, and openly told listeners he was seriously ill, with a high fever, but had made a point to stroll through a crowded grocery store maskless.

He railed against pandemic-related restrictions and claimed he was defending the constitution, saying he would not get tested for the coronavirus because of a supposed conspiracy in which he said the test swabs themselves cause the virus.

According to Brescia Today, he went to the hospital only at the insistence of fans and Giuseppe Cruciani, the host of Zanzara, and he refused to seek treatment at a hospital in his native Mantua because the Communists are there.

Enrico Polati, director of the ICU at Hospital de Borgo Trento, where Buratti was treated, told ANSA he had arrived in desperate conditions.

We did everything and a little more, but the disease was inexorable, he said.

Buratti reportedly stuck to his anti-vaxxer views even as his health rapidly deteriorated and he was intubated, with one of his final comments to fans being that he planned to seek asylum abroad to avoid getting vaccinated.

He is in hospital in Verona, I got to hear him in recent days and you could tell from the voice that he was terribly ill, Cruciani was quoted as telling listeners recently.

Buratti also appeared to finally acknowledge the existence of COVID-19 in a recorded update aired on Zanzara for listeners, according to Brescia Today. In it, he said: I was diagnosed with bilateral pneumonia, it seems to be COVID.

In the wake of his death, Cruciani paid tribute to him on Instagram, writing: You were, you are, Mauro from Mantua. We made fun of you, you insulted us, we talked about it all the way to the threshold of a court, but we had fun like never in life. And today I got a blow to the heart.

Another one of Zanzaras hosts, Davide Parenzo, said Burattis fate should serve as a wake-up call.

Rest in peace wherever you are, old conspiracy theorist. I only hope your sad story serves as an example to all those who are still fueling doubts about the efficacy of vaccines, he said, according to ANSA.

Conservatives despise him with a passion because he's always speaking up for LGBTQ rights.

MutantJohn posted...

Tbh, she is completely correct here.

If history has proven anything, it's that any measure we try to set in place will be promptly ignored. You can't stop people from not wearing masks and not social distancing or gathering.

At this point in time, the people who are deadset on not masking, etc. have won. It's time to pack it in, really.

The only thing those people are winning are long-term suffering and death.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

What about men? Do you respect them too?

Vicious_Dios posted...

No. I can't stand him, actually.

Because you're a raging conservative.

People are also mad at Ellis for comparing herself to Isabel Fall, a transgender writer who got severely harassed by an online mob for her story "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter".

What do you make of the controversy involving Isabel Fall?

WorsCaseOntario posted...

there was article recently complaining about men not wanting to date "woke" women. Well most of them look like that

To be fair, some women (particularly lesbians) deliberately make themselves less feminine to repel men.

Why not? Women have to do it constantly, so it's only fair that men get to do the same.

https://twitter.com/Yamiche/status/1474103783416291335

https://twitter.com/i/events/1465710645693747219

LightHawKnight posted...

Why do murderers deserve empathy? How many innocent people have they killed by helping covid mutate, spread, getting sick and taking up hospital beds that could be used for other people who took the proper precautions?

This.

https://twitter.com/lindarchilders/status/1473830533125709825

CADE FOSTER posted...

Anthrax kills fast these people are dumb they would be dead already

This is why we need to ramp up education in America more and lessen conspiracy nonsense.

https://twitter.com/bonnie_mp/status/1473708327053967366

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Anti-vaxxers don't deserve a shred of empathy after pulling stunts like this: https://www.thedailybeast.com/scott-eli-harris-charged-with-threatening-to-shoot-doctor-who-urged-public-to-take-coronavirus-vaccine

Ving_Rhames posted...

This thread is disgusting, it reeks of gloating and victory. These people are victims and you're all celebrating what happened to them because you think they're idiots.

No intelligent being would willingly participate in a maskless event unvaccinated during a pandemic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ParlerWatch/comments/rm0n3z/people_got_sick_at_a_no_mask_farright_event_many/

There's just no reasoning with anti-vaxxers, is there?

Anti-vaxxers are a menace to society. They are the reason why COVID continue to plague the world.

Anti-vaxxers are far from meek or humble.

Biden's simply telling the honest truth. Either anti-vaxxers abandon their stupid beliefs or their chances of dying increase.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/88gxmk/a-covid-denying-kickboxing-world-champion-just-died-from-covid

It's dangerous to deny the existence of COVID at this point.