CuriousByNature

And how many others will you inadvertently infect and possibly kill when you get covid, versus taking the vaccine?

(I'm very exclusive and not for everyone) Perhaps he meant to write, 'I'm very exclusive and not for anyone'. ?‍♂️

I would be wary of advocating the Swedish approach. Even their lead epidemiologist has now admitted that trying for herd immunity by encouraging exposure has been a failure. A failure that cost thousands of lives, many of them elderly. Many, many more deaths than other Scandinavian countries. It was a big and very risky gamble that ultimately backfired, and now Sweden has been having to institute restrictions after all. Mask wearing and lockdowns do not eliminate the risk entirely, but they make the trajectory of infection and rate of hospitalization easier to manage if people comply, allowing those who need treatment to receive it effectively. And even more, it buys additional time for herd immunity to be achieved via vaccinations. No one wants to be limited in their life choices, but sometimes we need to consider the long game, and which actions we can support to bring the majority of people through this pandemic succesfully - with the least possible number of casualties. But that requires us to lay our personal selfishness aside for the benefit of the larger community - and there are those who refuse to do that.

I don't think this is a fair comparison. Driving a car has a much lower risk attached to it compared to disregarding health orders with respect to covid. And no amount of health orders can absolutely prevent covid transmission, but its about harm reduction and risk mitigation. Just like the laws against drunk driving and driving without a seatbelt.

Exactly. While the new variant may not be any more likely to cause death than the previous, the fact that it is 50-70% more transmissible means 50-70% more infections, 50-70% more hospitalizations, and 50-70% more deaths. Possibly even more than that if hospitals and ICUs hit their limit. In the summer some provinces in Canada were down to single digits for hospitalizations, while now the numbers are in the hundreds, if not thousands, depending on the province. Now is not the time for complacency. @big dale I appreciate your post and hope others heed your advice.

Happy New Year @big dale - all the best for 2021!

@MrMattBig - Happy New Year. I just saw that the negative review no longer appears on RM ?. All the best to you for 2021!

Wow... that's scary. Glad they were okay.

What was it that happened in 2018?

If you do hear back from him at some point, please update the post so we know he is okay. I think it's kind of you to be concerned about his wellbeing.

All the very best to you for 2021 - I hope things are not too hectic for you and that your Yorkie is well soon

Wow... just looked at the New Year's Eve menu. In Canadian dollars, $1,060 for 8 courses plus another $375 for 5 wine pairings.

Yes. Absolutely

One more... parmesan cheese. I grew up on the dry, crumbly, grated Kraft parmesan in the green cylindrical cardboard container, which not surpringly tasted like cardboard and also smelled like vomit. Now, for me it can only be wedges of Parmesano Reggiano. Call me a cheese snob if you must.

I have a number of pieces of tupperwear my mom got for her wedding shower circa 1965, and some old Pyrex mixing bowls from the 30s or 40s that belonged to a great-aunt.

I must be thinking of someone else then, or had converted it to Canadian dollars LOL

Bread, mattresses, footwear, olive oil

I don't recall exactly, but if it is the same person I think it was quite high.

Am I recalling correctly from a post a while ago that the donation for his time is quite a bit higher than average?

Do you mean that someone who has contracted herpes should never have encounters with anyone after that?

That's super sweet. She's lucky to have you, and I'm sure you must feel blessed as well.

Right. I didn't say that all cases of preferences are absent of learned biases. Just that preferences towards certain characteristics may be more hardwired than that. I think we can too often discount the complexity of attraction.

Just wondering, when you are hiking etc, is that off the clock, or is the provider still compensated for their time? Who initiates these get togethers, you or the provider?

I thought that.

I know what your saying, but I think there are preferences that are not learned. Following your line of reasoning, a person is attracted to a particular gender because that is what they learned? I think there may be some environmental factors to attraction but a lot may come from birth. My point is that being more attracted to a certain size, race, eye colour, etc., does not necessarily mean one is sizeist, racist, etc. There are those who definitely may be, but not everyone is. I think it may be more of an issue if someone is only attracted to their own race, age, size, etc., to the exclusion of anyone else. Or if they will only associate with a specific 'type'. Attraction is far more complex.