#a lot of it is artificially inflated just to scare you. and if it goes to collections they should not weigh it as hard against your credit

[myrfing]

american coming of age is wanting to kill yourself over medical debt

[spartanxhunterx]

ML Story idea. So I had this idea and had to share it.

So it starts with Volpina: Lila goes to her first day of school, lies it up like normal and the students buy it.

While Lila, Marinette and Adrien are gone (at the park/ fighting volpina) the rest of the students get together to discuss a proper welcome party for Lila and all list her accomplishments.

Chloe is only there to be sure to outdo the party at a later date.

Quickly they figure out that Lila is probably lying, it's not really possible for one person to do all these things and know all these people. But why is she lying to them?

Rose, probably : "Maybe she's scared of being alone and wants friends?" 

So they quickly decide that calling Lila out is a bad idea, they don't want to push her away because the real Lila must be a nice person right?

Alya runs out of the meeting halfway through because of the Akuma battle, she gets a good few shots of the fight and quickly notices that it's Lila. She guesses that Lila had one of her lies exposed and (probably) felt scared that she would be alone.

Hawkmoth had akumatised people for less after all.

So the class decides to just humor her lies, letting her grow comfortable around everyone until she decides to tell the truth herself. Alya was lucky that she set her blog to have a 24 hour period where only her classmates can see the videos before they go fully public, if she so choses.

She gets Max to artificially inflate the view counter and comments to make it seem like it's public, Alya was NOT going to ruin her own blog for anything, not even someone who wanted friends.

They decided to not get Adrien involved since he would probably tell her everything and ruin it all. Chloe choses to not get involved because "it's so beneath her" it's not even funny .

They leave it up in the air that SOMEONE needs to tell Marinette, especially since she could tell Lila was lying the moment she heard her tales.

No-one does, under the assumption that someone else has done it.

The next day they're ready to play along and... Lila is nowhere to be found. Lila doesn't turn up for a long time, Alya just casually notes all the days she's gone, the class has a shared online file of notes for all the lessons she's missed. It's the least they can do for her.

Then Lila comes back and the events of Chameleon happen BUT everyone else thinks that Marinette is in on the whole 'act'. They're not against her, it's just an act till Lila confesses, although it is a little annoying that Mari is going about it the wrong way but hey, if everyone believed her on day one then it would be pretty suspicious.

All they think Marinette is playing her own part to sell the rest of them off and none of them bring it up with her, can't really, not with Lila right there. None of them notice that she's not in the group chat either.

between the events of Chameleon and Ladybug Adrien notices how Marinette is being treated, believing it to be real, and does his best to support her. Keeping Lila away and distracted, taking her with him on his dates with Kagami, texting her late at night apologising that he can't do anything publicly or anything too out of place.

He doesn't want to be Home schooled again.

He visits more as Chat to give her a second form of outlet, even going so far as to try to convince Ladybug herself to lend Marinette a miraculous so she can blow off some steam running around in the rooftops of Paris. (He doesn't question why ladybug herself is doing this.) It's doesn't happen.

Marinette crush on him slowly does down as she learns how big a dork he is and tries to get out of the way so he and Kagami can date properly.

Then Ladybug Happens, Marinette gets expelled and suddenly the class is like 'WHAT THE FUCK?', 'Why is this happening?' 'Marinette's not a thief!'

Damocles is not hearing it and she's expelled and suddenly it's like a slap in the face to everyone.

Adrien goes through the whole spiel with Lila about lying, again, to get Marinette back in school. And she does. But Marinette suddenly doesn't want to return to the school.

Why would she? She's been being bullied for ages.

 So the two of them talk over the phone (she's got very comfortable in doing so lately.) About it and Adrien gives in and let's her transfer knowing it isn't his place to decide for her.

but now he's made a deal with the devil and been robbed of his part of the bargain. So while Marinette is getting settled on her first Adrien is off rebelling against Lila being in the photo shoots by not turning up or purposely ruining the whole appointment.

meanwhile the whole class is freaking out as they had JUST discovered that Marinette was NOT aware of the plan and wasn't acting along and that Lila is a cruel bitch and they are not happy.

They want to apologize the next day but, lo-and-behold, she doesn't turn up. She's transferred out of school. Adrien isn't talking with them and Lila is acting like it's the best thing ever 'for her bully to be gone.'

They try to contact her but of they are blocked from every social media platform they are connected on. Minus Adrien. They can't go to the bakery as her parents have forbidden them to enter and anytime they see Marinette outside of school she turns tail and walks the other way and they lose her.

They try to get Adrien to help but he both doesn't listen and is very tight lipped when it comes to anything about Marinette. (The boy grew a spine.) It takes two weeks till he transfers out of the school and into Marinette's new school and he promptly blocks everyone else + lawsuit against Lila by one Gabriel Agreste.

The rest of the story is the class trying, and failing to explain the situation to Marinette and Adrien but they are being avoided and ignored. It can either finish with a with the acceptance that they fucked up and there's nothing that can be done but move on or have it end in a big reveal dump where someone manages to talk to Marinette or get the information to her about what was really going on and it ends on:

 "I can understand what you where doing now but I still feel betrayed and hurt, I can't trust you right now. But I can try to start over again, we won't be the same for a long time or ever but we can try. "

Tell things to note: during all of this Adrien/ Chat becomes a better hero and pulls back on the flirting and becomes more serious cause this whole situation with Mari has taught him that he needs to take his roles seriously. Thus removing a lot of the Adrien/ Chat salt and negative factors.

Lila gets utterly decimated during the week of Marinette's cause the class had been keeping a track of her lies so they couldn't bring up a contradiction or out themselves.

[dat-town]

CODE Z3RO | EPILOGUE

characters: BTS & Red Velvet genre: thriller, futuristic au warning: a lot of depressive thoughts once again, as in the survivor’s guilt summary: The twelve most ambitious and promising university students are welcomed in Choego, the world’s first entirely artificial intelligence-driven city, to compete for five job contracts that could change their life. But what if something goes wrong? What if they get trapped? What if the city suddenly turns against them? Can they find a way out before the countdown reaches zero? words: 1.2k tagged: @philosopher-of-fandoms​

➼ Chapter Index

Fear is scary.

Fear can spread like an epidemic and can kill just the same.

Choego was a brilliant and terrifying example of how fear could transform the world. What had started as one’s ambition, other’s fear turned into the nightmare of millions.

After Yerim's article finished by Jungkook had gone viral thanks to some hacking on Yoongi's part, it had been all what the world had been talking about. Even the normally technology-obsessed South-Korea had gotten scared of what artificial intelligence was capable of if not handled well. Since this project had been supposed to make the world a better and safer place, its downhill had been a real slap to its supporters. Due to the heavy protests and petitions, Cheongsan Group hadn't been able to continue the project, at least not out in plain sight. Millions of won had gone wasted to build a city that was nothing but a skeleton with its bones made of metal and glass by now. Radical protestors had burned and destroyed everything beyond Choego bridge, so it was only a pale shell of its shiny self from years back.

Steps echoed on the metal as a young boy more worn from years than he should have been crossed the bridge full of litter, posters and already burnt candles among withered flowers. He stared into the distance with a dark, remorseful look on his face and his steps became heavier and slower the closer he got to the city that had been once his dream. With each meter memories that had never left him came back to haunt him more vividly, painful memories making him grimace and grip on the bocquet of white lilies he was carrying tighter. He found the flowers quite fitting as it symbolized youth and innocence just what they had all lost on the island. So he didn't only have nine flowers but twelve and he laid it over the asphalt in front of the police cordone and stop signs.

Both the Cheongsan Group and the Korean government had compensated the families of each participant and the researchers who had lost their lives in that deadly cage. The survivors had been given generous amount of money to ensure a life without financial troubles just to keep their mouths shut about the details. There had been trials they had to go through reliving the horrific events again and again but it hadn’t been enough for the gossip-hungry reporters and film producers wanting to make a blockbuster out of their trauma. Nobody had really cared about them, just their story.

“Jungkook...”

The boy snapped his head, turning at the call of his name even though for a moment he thought he was just hallucinating. But coming face-to-face with the new arrivals, it felt like the band kind of déjavu. He hadn’t seen them since the trials had ended, the last time they had talked had been in the hospital when the stitching had been removed from Yoongi’s arm. Jungkook hadn’t stayed. He couldn’t have.

All those eyes and knowing glances at him, the pitiful looks on anyone who knew what he had been through, or at least they acted as if they understood. They could have never fully understand. The guilt, the panic rising in his blood whenever he became painfully aware of being watched. Technology had its eyes everywhere and he was still scared of it backfiring. The psychologist assigned to them had called it post-traumatic stress syndrome and prescribed some pills but those couldn’t suppress the voices in his head. Just as he would never forget the faces of Yerim’s and Seokjin’s parents when he had visited them and had gotten to his knees to ask for their forgiveness.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Yoongi whispered and patted him on the shoulder with an understanding twitch in the corner of his mouth. They all knew that they would never be able to be entirely okay. Nobody could have been after the things they had seen. But being okay was a subjective thing.

Jungkook might have left the country to live in hiding after providing enough money to his family to get by easily, but Seulgi had barely left her room anymore. In the very beginning she had lived in that eight square feet as if that had been her world. Since her mother couldn’t deal with her daughter’s depression and anxiety well, it was Yoongi who had visited them from time to time, talking to Seulgi in a gentle voice, telling her it was going to be alright and persuaded her to take a shower or to take a walk outside. She had her ups and downs, sometimes almost believing that she could be normal again after a small victory of grocery shopping and getting her favourite sweet as a treat but then she woke up screaming from a nightmare again.

Her eyes were hollow now as well as she was staring at the ashes of the city that had destroyed them. Her and Yoongi had come here every year on the anniversary of the tragedy. In the first few years, there had been others as well, some reporters lurking around and Park Jimin’s father had even sent flowers but five years had gone by and everybody seemed to forget all about it. Everybody but them.

“You came back for good?” the hacker asked the younger boy, almost man now, but Jungkook just shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he murmured, voice hoarse and deep from the misuse. He didn’t have to say it out loud that he hadn’t found his place in the world anymore, no matter where he had gone.

Yoongi acknowledged his answer with a nod, fingers twitching. From outside, he looked the most composed, the only one who could really move on but he had his own troubles. He worked from home, keeping an eye on the cyber world and getting paid by governments for security fixes but sometimes when memories clashed he had those episodes with the urge to yell and break everything in the room. Sometimes he still heard the voice of Choego’s artificial intelligence as it haunted his dreams.

They had been called the survivors of a murderer city and yet, all three of them were stuck in limbo, being half-dead inside, while the world around them argued about the newest trends, the cause behind the current inflation rate and global warming.

So the world was the same and at the same time it was different, because technology advance was not idolized anymore, some even claimed it the doing of evil. Yoongi knew well it wasn’t, no mean in itself was just as it wasn’t the Dark Middle Ages anymore. Technology and artificial intelligence could save lives, could indeed change life for the better, could help the economy, the nature, the humans, but only if it was in the right hands. Technology was power and it was always the matter of who held it and what it was used for.

In the very end, it was always the human factor that was faulty.

After all, we are the variable that can change the world forever.

THE END.

[loqis]

kunselxsoldier​:

Loqi’s words sounded so naive that Kunsel slowed his steps for a second to muster the kid. He took a breath to remark how skewered his view of the world was, but let it out again. “The people down here make do with what they can find … no one plans to live in the Slums, but the people topside make it hard for anyone to ever escape here. Rent, inflation, poor wages, lack of education, lack of basic necessities. I it any wonder most kids wanna join Shinra?”

Because there was nothing else for them down here.

He could remember landing on the Plate as a thirteen or fourteen-year-old security recruit and marveling at the real sky so far above. He had been just as naive as Loqi then, just seeing things from the opposite end of the spectrum. “There’s a part near sector 6 where you can see the sky up above, but it’s full of monster nests, so not a lot of people go there … some folks can live their entire lives without seeing the sky and stars. The real ones; not those things.”

The SOLDIER jutted a finger up at the massive artificial suns. “I was born in Kalm and lived there until I was a kid; things are different there. There’s no Plate, just the sky above us, and no junk either.” Kunsel kicked a piece of scrap along the path. It was a double-edged sword really; the people of the Slums hated the Plate, but they relied on the trash from the upper city to survive. “People down here don’t have a choice. Look around; there’s poverty everywhere and no chance to escape it. Do the people on the Plate even know what goes on down here? What are you guys told?”

No choice for the people here.

That sounded utterly... infuriating. Sad, too. But Loqi wasn't one who let that emotion win over. No. Imagining being born down here or having happened to just end up here... now that this was a real possibility... it just made him angry that the people here were supposed to just eat that shit up.

Kunsel had been one of them. Just gotten unlucky... then raised to fame due to chasing an opportunity... and now?

Loqi grimaced at Kunsel's question. He sensed that the answer was an ignorant and arrogant one. And Kunsel and he were on different sides of this. He did not want that, though.

“Not.... not really. And if they know... well, I guess they are just happy it isn't happening to them.”, Loqi answered, shrugging vaguely, before sighing as if he was suffering under the interrogation of an impatient mentor.

“As kids the slums are a warning. And little scary story to scare you into behaving, you know? Do that or the bogey man will get you... do that or you will have to sleep in the slums. Then you kinda forget a little... or it becomes just some strange stories. Test of courage to go down here. There is the Wallmarket of course. And the people who work up at Shinra.... but not much more. Up there... you kinda forget about down here.”

“And then there are some who say that the people down here are to blame for their own situation...”

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: 2018-2019 Season Retrospective

We have a lot to talk about, don’t we? Everything and nothing I guess. For some reason the word “Sparks” is sticking with me. No, not the crap backup goaltender for Toronto. Jason Botterill used that word to describe what he saw out of the Buffalo Sabres in the first half of this season. The word will/is/was probably used several times at Locker Room Cleanout. If you’ve read this blog over the second 41 games of the season you probably read along as I struggled with how to say this the right way. On one hand, the second half of the season was so bad it pretty much erases all the good of the first half. On the other hand, every member of the quote unquote core of this team had a career season on their respective lines of the stat sheet. That’s not worth nothing. Of course, the big news we’ve yet to discuss here on the blog is the firing of Phil Housley. It happened. Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Point One: That felt inevitable and anyone who thinks that was the wrong move is quite simply not tuned into the Buffalo Sabres. Point Two: His firing should not be something we mourn because of the number of coaches that have gone through since Lindy Ruff’s firing. That’s a loser’s attitude in the NHL. Point Three: There is no clear timetable on a replacement, but I like Chris Taylor and its an open question what Botterill is thinking. No one is inside his head. Those are the easy points to make and I streamline them there not just for the sake of discussion in the comments but because this is going to be the longest post in New Look Sabres history, and this matter has too many question marks to make a definitive statement. I think the only bottom line we’re going to put in the Housley Era for now is that he didn’t do the right things to get the sparks of this team to catch fire; at least not consistently. We can talk development, deployment and defense all day; but those three D’s and all the other complaints about this team right now are tiny against the big question mark of who will be the next Head Coach of the Buffalo Sabres. The bottom six and defense needs a fair bit of work by Botts in the offseason but the most important job for the next bench boss in Buffalo will be how can you turn the sparks of greatness on this team into a fire? We saw those sparks in dangerously flammable quantities in the first half of the season and sparingly in the back 41 games. This blog’s question to the coaching candidates are simple: Can you start the fire in Buffalo?

I scared my wife. We were still sitting in a Tim Hortons in Detroit when I broke out with a ghoulish cackle at seeing the news Housley was fired. It may be the most welcome news in Sabres Hockey fandom since the win streak, but we shouldn’t celebrate anyone losing their job. Right…. I’m gentleman, I’ll stop with it now. It’s also bittersweet because the season is over. Here we are, it’s over, all 82 games. After having one of the wilder off seasons in recent memory, the Buffalo Sabres entered with minimum expectations of better hockey than the prior season, one of the worst in the history of the organization. The new season got off to an encouraging start getting to above .500 for the first time in a long time before going on a record-tying run of ten straight wins! After that we pretended things were okay in December, or at least I did, and it wasn’t too long into the New Year it became clear things were not exactly going the way that first half had made us hope. After artificially inflating playoff expectations, Buffalo went on an America’s Funniest Home Videos tumble montage that had only been achieved one time before in NHL history. The team that won ten straight missed the playoffs by a sizable margin and was, after all, out of it by the end of February. Eight Straight seasons without a post-season berth and this one stings a bit worse than we’ve seen in recent years. That’s the story of this season. Here we are today to close the chapter on our Buffalo Sabres’ 49th season and we might wonder how to sum it up. In midseason thoughts I summed it up as the Reclamation Season. At that point I was in denial of the historic collapse that was taking place, but I have since woken up. And I’m still calling this season the Reclamation Season. Perhaps the new runner-up title is the Season of Missed Opportunities, but the header remains the same for me: Reclamation. The collapse was embarrassing, particularly for those of us who have non-hockey-watching friends and family who got turned onto the Sabres in the win streak and now ask us what happened. That collapse however doesn’t take away what the win streak meant outside the standings. I don’t say this to be a sappy cop-out: this season has meant more than a collapse and another missed postseason. This season was a reclamation. It was a reclamation of the Buffalo Sabres name. After a half a decade lingering in the basement to the point of perpetuity the proud name of an organization was brought to the top again, for however brief a time, and excited a new generation that scarcely understands the history. We’ve all gotten a taste of grandeur now, some of us for the first time, and there is no going back. Stop rattling off stats about losses in March and shit Rob Ray said before Hurricane Katrina: TAKE PRIDE IN THE GOOD STUFF FOR ONE DAMN MINUTE!

The immediate road ahead is riddled with question marks: the biggest has the first name Jeff. But the future is now. Easter Sunday 2011 was the last time Buffalo saw playoffs at the building now known as Key Bank Center, but November 2018 was the last time Buffalo wore the Sabres close to their hearts. When we say “remember when” with these guys now, there’s a decent chance we’re talking about last year not last decade. It’s progress, even if it was followed by historic failure. Don’t be sad it’s over, be happy it happened. The name of the Sabres has been reclaimed and I think we’re only going up from here and if we aren’t than that is too great a problem to make myself miserable over. Let’s have some joy for a brief, fleeting moment in our harrowing Sabres lives! It’s time for the First Annual New Look Sabres Awards! We saw the team itself give some of these awards away and we’ll see the league pass some of these out in June. Here I am going to attempt to pass out some fan-first awards if you will. What are some awards that Sabres Fans yearn to give to their team? Category One: The Crow-Server. The Crow-Server goes to the player who made certain fans eat crow. They made some of our takes colder than Hamburg on the water. This player was maligned by fans and proved them all wrong. The 2018-2019 New Look Sabres Crow-Server Award goes to… Tage Thompson! You may have thought Alex Nylander’s late season arrival was the biggest bust-turned-darling story of the season but think back to October where we were bemoaning Thompson’s presence on the NHL roster. Shocker, he was pretty decent actually. He’s not all there yet but he is a find that will probably play out this same story again next season! Category Two: The Robin Lehner. The Robin Lehner Award goes to the player who was scape-goated for all the team’s problems fairly or not. This player was in a tight race with another player for this award. The 2018-2019 New Look Sabres Robin Lehner Award goes to… Marco Scandella! Vladimir Sobotka almost took this one and indeed voting was really close but Scandezzy came out on top! Finally, Category Three: The Fan MVP. The Fan MVP Award goes to the player who was not only most valuable to the team but made fans pompous online. This player was a big get and won over the hearts of Sabres fans with his skating style and goal scoring. The 2018-2019 New Look Sabres Fan MVP is… Jeff Skinner! No surprise there, he was a fantastic pick up in every way… PLEASE resign him… like yesterday. OH, PLEASE JEFF, DEAR GOD WHAT DO I NEED TO DO! I CAN’T HANDLE THIS TEAM WITHOUT YOU, DON’T GO! IT’S JUST SNOW! YOU’RE FROM FICKING MARKHAM, ONTARIO YOU BEAUTIFUL ICE MAN!

Let’s talk offseason. To have this talk we have to spend a little more time on the season we just endured. The second half collapse, specifically the way it progressed from February 15th onward is straight up unacceptable. It was that game followed by a four-game losing streak that saw the Sabres crash out of playoff contention. The team, as in the players on the ice, gave up at that point and the last six to seven weeks that followed were the most unwatchable games of the season. It was painfully obvious. It’s kind of a chicken-before-the-egg kind of thing: did the players give up on the coach or did they realize their playoff hopes had died? This connects to the offseason because the collapse can really be split into two parts that each have something to say about how we should approach the summer. Collapse Part One was more on GM Jason Botterill for not tweeking the roster through trades or waiver claims much at all in the months between the end of the win streak and the trade deadline. The Montour trade is the only thin layer of protection from criticism he gets with Skinner still unsigned. There is a solid argument to be made he let the ship sink and did nothing. Collapse Part Two was entirely on Coach Phil Housley and assistant Davis Payne’s non-existent powerplay. While they couldn’t get the team to play .500 after the win streak, they allowed a total unmitigated tank following February 15th. Housley is gone now, like ASAP the day immediately after Game 82. Kudos to Botterill for getting that done quick. We already went over Housley’s exit so let’s talk that Collapse Part One and Jason Botterill’s future, the offseason is all in hands and now he’s got a mandate to give the next guy some better supporting pieces past that top line. This next coaching hire needs to start fires and blast the doors off of Botterill’s office because the clock is ticking, Jason. This season was a failure and the offseason needs to see some stuff fixed. This season was a failure that tasted good at first bite and was nearly poisonous by the end. That will not fly next season. When I said next season needs to see a Playoff berth I’m not saying that as an aspirational statement: if they miss the playoffs next season then clear house. If the Botterill Presser announcing Housley’s firing taught us anything it’s that Botterill isn’t stupid and he’s done feeling anything but winning. That’s technically two things but what I’m saying is he knows what the problems are: they’re the same ones we’ve been complaining about. The defense is an incomplete whole and there is maybe one and a half lines of NHL players in the forward group. Forward depth and defense are the problems. Also goals: less against and more for, please. This club wasn’t as good as ten straight wins, but they aren’t bad enough to not consistently be in the mix by now. Don’t lower the expectations because of the impending coaching change: This team should be in the 90-point range at the end of the season from now on until Jack Eichel and Rasmus Dahlin retires. There are enough good pieces for that and the supporting cast is coming; and we really ought not to settle for less.

That was a long meandering road to talk offseason. Let’s talk offseason. For one, signing Skinner is the number one priority. It looks likely he’ll test free agency now even though Botterill insists they’ve never stopped hammering out a deal. If Skinner walks then Jason Botterill has just about nothing going for him. Whether or not Skinner signs, Botts needs to get busier than a Mighty Taco on 4/20. Trading away Rasmus Ristolainen is probably a 50/50 chance at this point, and we can talk about how the defense needs more help not less right now but Risto isn’t getting any better. I tend to agree you have to sell an asset high while you can still sell high. Trade out our tough boy for a second line center and hopefully some other pieces that help now. And if you get spare parts you better be certain they aren’t Patrik Berglund reruns (God speed to Berglund for a healthy future). Second line center is a smart move not just to give Casey Mittelstadt some more time to grow but also to solidify center depth given a couple decent fourth line options coming down the pipeline. If you can ship out any three of Johan Larsson, Zemgus Girgensons, Vladimir Sabotka, and Marco Scandella it would be a massive victory. There is enough talent to fill those roles, especially if you get a second line center via trade or free agency. Assuming Skinner signs and Alex Nylander has actually finally arrived I think you need to have a rock-solid top six by the start of Training Camp. Defenseman, oh yeah and some down-pairing defenseman would be great. Next season simply cannot be another development year if that’s even what you want to call this year given Phil Housley’s awful deployment choices and a simply atrocious goal differential. Did I mention the Fail Army style second half tumble down the standings? Oh yeah, I got that.

Draft strategy this year is interesting: two first round picks this year and one is likely to be top five or damn close. We learned in the 2016 Draft that you always have to take the best available unless you are really dying for something. It’s funny that I just praised Alex Nylander only to say that but look at those other picks. HOT DAMN. Anyway, there maybe only three or four players this Draft who jump right into the NHL. If you get into the top five, assuming Jack Hughes and Kaapo Kakko are off the board, you can’t go wrong with one of the centers (Dylan Cozens and Trevor Zegras) or right wing Vasily Podkolzin. Immediate help isn’t coming from any of those guys, but beggars can’t be choosers. The highest projected defenseman, Bowen Byram of WHL Vancouver, may end up being the highest ranked guy available if the Sabres pick fifth like they’re set up to right now. Byram would be a fantastic pickup (assuming Botterill can get over his distrust of WHL prospects) but he’s not the partner for Rasmus Dahlin we’re looking for. Sidebar: let’s not depend on a lottery ball bouncing the right way for any hope going into next season. This is a sports team not a casino. The other Sabres first round pick is truly a wildcard as there is a weird drop off in this Draft. However, if Cam York or Cole Caufield drop to that pick you better take one of them. Those guys are my 2019 Draft crushes. Free Agency on the other hand is a dangerous game the Sabres have been burned on a couple times in recent memory. Kevin Hayes in Winnipeg jumps out as that second line center we need; while I dream of Mats Zuccarello and Ryan Dzingel for other roles, but those options seem far-fetched. There are more than a couple guys worth pursuing who currently wear Lightning jerseys but barring sending Ristolainen to Tampa I don’t see those moves happening without an offer sheet and that’s a discussion I don’t want to have until the cat is out of the bag. You may have heard there is a scenario where Jonathan Huberdeau comes to Buffalo, maybe in a Ristolainen trade. That goes a long way in solidifying the top six like I mentioned earlier. While we’re talking kind of distant possibilities, if Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is a piece coming to Buffalo that also solidifies a top six that makes the playoffs in 2020. It feels weird expecting a crazy trade out of Edmonton now that Peter Chiarelli isn’t there anymore, but I don’t know if much in that Front Office is very different in my most honest opinion. It’s hard to imagine a big offseason compared to 2018 but we may need one to finally go to the postseason in 2020.

I said this would be the end-of-season bonanza and with the way this season ended it feels difficult to wrap up. For one last time this season I will say like, comment and share this with your friends. You guys are what makes this blog feel worth it. If you were with me from the start you’ve watched this thing change and grow since June of last year when I started a blog with a funny name and a faint hope the Sabres wouldn’t be total trash. My hope was satisfied for a little while. Unless some real profound garbage unfolds in the offseason or God forbid my life circumstances change unexpectedly I will be back at it again next season, starting later this week with 2019 Playoffs according to the Sabres. Yeah, it sounds weird to have Sabres and playoffs in the same sentence but bear with me and it will be fun. That’s probably up Wednesday, we’ll see. That post will officially kick off the 2019-2020 New Look Sabres season and feature a slightly new look. That is what I want to show you next. Below this paragraph, assuming this post went up properly, you will see the New Look Sabres 2019-2020 thumbnail image. It’s a little sleeker and more fun because when you get right down to it this past season’s logo was really just a color swapped normal logo. This one obviously takes the name of the blog a little more literally. I hope you enjoy it. I always end these posts with thanks for reading. I will do that again but let me just add some more thanks: thank you for reading. Thank you for reading along on this journey through better or worst with the Buffalo Sabres and Rochester Americans. Thank you for reading through all the typos and weird metaphors. Thank you for bearing with me on the most intensive blog I’ve ever written. 82 games are a lot but when you think about back-to-back nights and road trips you can imagine how chaotic writing these could get. I’ve written up some of these games at my in-laws, while in hotels, in the wee hours of the morning and so on. It’s been fun. I don’t regret a minute of it and in spite of how tough the team has been to us; I still can’t wait for a New Look Squad next season. In case you missed it, I am a relentless optimist. No matter what happens if you got anything that made your Sabres fandom more enjoyable in this blog than it’s all the victory I need as a blogger. I hope we can keep sharing this crazy life of being Sabres fans for seasons to come. In the meantime, Let’s Go Buffalo! Let’s Go Rochester! Especially Rochester, they got a Cup to win!

Thanks for reading.

P.S. I know it’s weird that I’m ending the season only to put up another post in a few days and then take a couple months off. Blame the Sabres: if they make the playoffs I don’t write “Playoffs according to the Sabres”. But here we are again; hopefully that helps a little bit… well that and the Rochester Americans hopping on the postseason warpath!  

[transformationstuck]

Vriska wants Kanaya to make her a one-piece swimsuit. Kanaya misinterperets her request as "make me into a one-piece swimsuit". Vriska is, obviously, displeased about this, but on the other hand, Kanaya looks really sexy in her... Will she keep her?

“Kanaya, I need you to make me a swimsuit.”

She looks up from her sewing project, tilting her head andlooking at you quizzically. “Why?” she asks simply.

“Because Terezi findsthem incredibly sexy and you want into those pants,” you think to yourself.But of course, you don’t tell Kanaya that. Instead you say, “Does it matter? Iknow you like making clothes, but if you’d prefer I got the first one I saw atthe store…”

Kanaya sighs, and you smirk internally. You can see she’staken the bait – she knows how bland average Alternian clothing is. “Don’tthink I can’t see what you’re doing there, Vriska,” she says. “But, as much asI hate to admit it, you have a point.”

“Great!” you say, clapping your hands together. ”I knew Icould count on you, Maryam. How soon can you make me one?”

She sets aside her current project and stands up from herdesk, walking towards you. “We can start right now if you want.”

“You need any measurements?” you ask; you have the wholenight free, so even if she takes four hours you won’t be missing anythingcritical.

“No need, I have them already,” she says as she walks slowlytowards you.

… Okay, you don’t remember ever giving her your measurements, but who knows; maybe she’s a fashionninja who takes people’s measurements in her sleep. You wouldn’t put it pasther. You start to turn around and walk out, maybe making a snarky statement onthe way, but before you can turn more than a few degrees Kanaya grips yourshoulders and kisses you full on the lips.

Your eyes widen and you immediately move to push her away,but before your hands can reach her both of your arms freeze in mid-air,suddenly out of your control. You start panicking, first trying to kick her,then trying to headbutt her, but none of your muscles are responding.

Kanaya breaks the kiss and pulls back from you, now lookingsomewhat excited. “Let’s get those clothes off you,” she says. You try and run,you try to punch her. You try to reach out and touch her mind, to force her torelease you from whatever bondage she’s imposed upon you. But, no matter whatyou try, you fail.

Kanaya starts with your shirt, lifting your arms over yourhead and pulling it up and over. She quickly moves on to your bra, unclaspingit and letting it unceremoniously drop to the floor, leaving you half-naked.You’d blush if you could – your rumblespheres are by no means inadequate, farfrom it, but having Kanaya see you like this is making you flustered, as wellas outraged that she’d be taking advantage of you like this. She wastes no timefinishing the job, quickly pulling down your pants and panties, leaving yourcerulean nook exposed to the open air. Her eyes linger on it for a few seconds,and your subconscious really wants to shiver at her glare, but not eveninvoluntary muscle movements are occurring – not even breathing, you’re justnow noticing. You’re completely frozen in place.

Kanaya takes out her phone and snaps a picture of you. Insideof your mind you’re steaming with rage – “Howdare she! Does she know who she’s fucking with here?” – but you’repowerless to do anything to stop her.

Then Kanaya does something completely unprecedented,something that should be physically impossible. She takes hold of your rightarm, aligns it straight-on with your shoulder, and pushes. It slides into yourbody and completely disappears.

That profound rage and uncomfortable nervousness suddenlymorphs into shock within your mind. How… what…

While you’re still mentally paralyzed, Kanaya quickly doesthe same to your other arm, and then to your legs, leaving you completelylimbless. Amidst your confusion, you notice that despite no longer having anylegs, you’re still at the same height as before, hovering above the floor. Youdecide to give up trying to understand anything that’s going on.

Once again, Kanaya takes a picture of you, snapping you outof your mind and back into reality. She puts her hand on your cheek and strokesit slowly, as if she’s trying to delay something.

Finally, she speaks to you, and the words out of her mouthare absolutely not what you’re expecting.

“Goodbye Vriska. I’m certain you’ll make me a lovelyswimsuit.”

Suddenly you realize what’s going on here.

“Kanaya, I need you tomake me a swimsuit.”“How soon can you make me one?”“I have measurements already.”

You try and scream and shout at her. “This is all a big miscommunication! I wanted you to create a swimsuit for me! I don’t want to be a swimsuit!” But, to your undyingdespair, you remain as immobile as you have been since Kanaya kissed you.

With a final kiss to your forehead, Kanaya puts her hand atopyour head and pushes it into your torso, just as she did for your limbs. Firstyour neck melts in, then your mouth, nose, eyes, and finally the very tips ofyour horns sink below the surface.

You’re blind now, bereft of vision, your most vital sense.You can still feel the air against your naked skin and hear Kanaya’s footstepsreverberate through your form as she walks around, but you can’t see.

And for the first time in this whole ordeal, you’re scared.

You hear an artificial shutter click – a sure sign Kanaya’staken another picture of you. It occurs to you that she’s documenting what youlooked like before you become a swimsuit, and that thought jolts you to yourvery core. “So, she’s not planning onturning me back, then?” you think to yourself. You feel very, very smallright now.

Kanaya’s hands once again grasp you, this time on your tightrear-end, squeezing and stroking… admiringly?

“A shame to lose such a perfect behind,” she says, somewhatmournfully, “but alas.”

Her hands leave you, only to reappear atop yourrumble-spheres, groping them and rubbing your nipples, giving you little sparksof pleasure. “And these spheres…” she says, wistfully.

You’re beginning to suspect Kanaya has a red crush on you.

“But… this is what you wanted.”

“No!!!!!!!! No it is not! Kanaya, please!” you try toscream.

“Heh”, she chuckles. “I’ve never been able to say no to you,have I?” She sighs. “I guess that won’t be a problem from now on, though.”

“Please…” yousilently beg her, wanting nothing more than to cry into your hands like a weak,pathetic wriggler; but you’re just a torso now, and soon you won’t even bethat.

With one last squeeze to your spheres, Kanaya’s handsretreat, and you’re once again left alone with your thoughts.

But not for long – something new starts happening to yourbody, something you knew would come eventually, but you’re not nearly preparedenough for.

Around the smooth skin where your arms, legs, and head usedto be, tiny depressions start to form. They start small, only noticeable by theway they disrupt the airflow around you, but as time goes on they steadily growand grow, expanding outwards and beginning to dig into your body. The threeupper holes make contact with each other first, forming an uninterruptedpassageway through your upper body, and the feeling of the wind flowing throughthat opening is the strangest thing you’ve ever felt. Next comes the two legholes, meeting up at your crotch and bisecting your nook and gene bladder.

Acting as one, the two meta-holes start working their waytowards each other, tunneling through your core. At the same time the skin onyour upper body starts to split in three places. The first is directly downyour front, dividing and cutting away portions of your spheres. The second andthird are around where your arms and neck used to be, widening the initialholes, but not quite enough that they meet. Your skin starts getting thinner,too. The caverns inside of you bulge outwards, leaving just a thin layer offlesh outlining the shape of your body.

Finally, the two holes meet up, and air is free to flow upand down your body from within. You’re hollow now, you realize. Of course youare. “A solid swimsuit wouldn’t be goodfor anything,” you think to yourself, your thoughts melancholy.

As the holes begin the final stages of excavating you, yourskin starts to change. It begins at the top, around what you now realize willbe your straps. Your skin starts separating into tiny little strands,interlacing with itself, with each strand rapidly becoming more cylindrical,and turning into a textile. This wave of fabric weaving slowly works its waydown your body, and as much as you are loathe to admit it to yourself, theprocess feels kind of nice. Your skin changes from being thin and fragile, tosplitting and weaving and knotting with itself, to widening, becoming aflexible fabric, and locking those weaves and knots into place; making youtough but also stretchy. It’s relaxing in a weird sort of way, and the feelingdoes a lot to calm you down.

As the wave passes over your nipples, smoothing them over,you start to notice a grey glow. You can’t make anything out at first, but theimage rapidly sharpens, with shapes and colors resolving themselves.

You can see again.

Once more, you want to cry – but this time in jubilation.

You still can’t move your “eyes”, for lack of a better term.You can’t look at yourself, but you can see what’s directly in front of you;and that’s Kanaya, groping one of her spheres through her shirt, and with ahand underneath her skirt.

Okay, that’s a thing that’s happening, you guess. That redcrush is suddenly looking a lot more serious. You don’t yet know how you feelabout this development.

Your overall shape is changing, too. Your breasts aretucking in slightly, your waist is shrinking and your butt is inflating and shrinkinginto a small strip of skin. You’re being fitted for a different body, yourealize. Why would anyone want a Vriska-shaped swimsuit?

The hollowing process finishes at the same time as theweaving wave passes over your midriff, working its way down towards the finalstill-troll part of you. It passes over your nook, giving you a flash ofpleasure before it goes silent forever. The wave meets up with its counterpartthat’s been cascading down your back, and the last few strands are tied off andlinked together.

And with that, the changes stop. You are now a one-pieceswimsuit.

Abruptly, gravity reasserts itself, and you find yourselfcrumpling and falling towards the ground; but, with reflexes so fast that theyseem physically impossible, Kanaya darts forwards, extending her arms andcatching you.

It’s a bizarre feeling. Up until now, despite all thechanges you’ve gone through, you’ve retained the same overall shape – that of atroll – even if the specifics became less and less like your own body as thechange progressed. But now, the fabric of your front and back is pressed rightup against each other in ways that make your head spin.

“Mmm, Vriska, you feel so soft,” Kanaya says lovingly. “Isimply must try you on.”

…

Right. That is a thing you probably should have assumedwould happen. So… you’re gonna see Kanaya naked?

You try and shut your eyes, but immediately discover thatyou can’t. Whatever whimsical force has granted you vision in this formapparently decreed that you can’t shut it off – or if you can, you don’t knowhow to. You guess you’ll be getting a good look at what Kanaya looks like underthose clothes.

Something you can do, however, is look around. You can’tmake out much – your eyes are pointed in completely different directions, givingyour mind two unrelated images to work with, and what those eyes are looking atis either the floor or Kanaya’s breasts and head.

When Kanaya reaches the hygieneblock, she gently puts youdown on the countertop and starts to strip. First her shirt comes off over herhead, then her skirt is unbuckled and falls to the floor.

God damn, does she have some lovely legs. The rest of theworld doesn’t know what they’re missing out on; they’re eternally obscured byher skirts.

Her bra and panties soon follow, giving you an unobscuredview of her most intimate of parts. Her breasts, while not as big as yours,come pretty close, and look quite nice on her frame. Her ass, meanwhile,balloons outwards to a degree you feel envious of.

Okay, you’re not afraid to admit it; Kanaya is pretty hot.

Kanaya breaks your trance when she once again picks you up,flattens you out, and dangles you just in front of her legs. You mentally braceyourself, not knowing what this will feel like, as Kanaya slips her left leg betweenyour upper straps, through your core and out the left leg-hole. You feel your fabricstretch around the limb, encapsulating her. Her other leg soon follows,repeating the same process. You’re pulled tight against her crotch and heldsnug against her warm lower cheeks, and you can feel the wetness surroundingher nook soaking into you.

You really, really want to blush right now.

You also notice a round bead right where Kanaya’s anusshould be. Does she… does she go around wearing a buttplug?

You’re distracted from that line of thought by Kanayapulling you tight against her breasts and rock-hard nipples, then slipping herarms beneath your straps. She lets go of you, letting you cling to her of yourfabric’s own tensile strength. You can see much more clearly now that you actuallyhave proper depth perception. You can look up at Kanaya’s face, where her eyesare also fixated on you, and you can look down an her feet, which are moving backand forth as Kanaya walks across the tiled floor; but you still can’t see whatyou look like.

As Kanaya reaches over to start filling her ablution trapwith water, you come to the conclusion that being snugly wrapped around Kanayalike this is not nearly as bad as you feared. You can’t move or speak, butoddly enough, you can’t help but feeling somewhat secure. Your form tightlybounds Kanaya’s, her slight warmth radiating into your fabric. She’s like asoft blanket, except in reverse, and your mind is very much latching onto thatsimilarity.

You notice that she’s stepped off to one side; you lookstraight ahead of you and find she’s stood in front of a mirror.

Throughout this ordeal, your emotions have fluctuated to somany extremes. You’ve experienced shock, anger, deep sadness, desperation andelation at various points. The anger from how Kanaya took away your trollhood. Theelation at not being permanently blinded. The quiet relief that you’re not deaddespite everything you know about biology telling you that you should be. You’restill trying to figure out what they all mean, and how you feel about what’shappened to you. But when you look up, your mind is filled with one feeling,completely distinct from all the others, one you never thought you’d feel aboutyour predicament.

And that feeling is awe.

Holy fuck, you’re beautiful.

A thick stripe of maroon red adorns your center, going upfrom your crotch all the way past your breasts and up your straps. Your breastcups are your signature cerulean blue (fittingly, right atop where yourinvisible “eyes” are), and just below them, separated by a small maroon line,your sides transition into a jade very similar in color to Kanaya’s blood. Youperfectly frame her grey form, exposing quite a lot of cleavage while keepingher spheres firmly bounded. Your contours follow the curve of Kanaya’s waist asit arcs inwards before once again flaring outwards to meet her hips and butt.Your crotch and leg holes visually separate her thick thighs from her torso,exaggerating them every-so-slightly. And above it all you can see Kanaya’sface, filled with the same gobsmacked awe you feel right now.

“Vriska…” she says, her eyes wide. “You’re the mostbeautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Her voice moves through her flesh into yourfabric, reverberating through your entire form and letting you hear her voicein a way you never have before.

And no matter how much you once protested against this, nomatter how much you tried to plead with her to stop this and change you back,and no matter how betrayed you once felt, you can’t help but wholeheartedlyagree with her assessment.

You are beautiful.Not just you, as the swimsuit, but you and Kanaya as a unified whole; both ofyou work together, her curves with your colors, to create somethingexponentially more stunning than the sum of its parts.

It’s almost as if you were made to be her swimsuit; as if itwas always your purpose in life to make Kanaya look like the prettiest troll inthe universe.

Kanaya, much to your chagrin, steps away from the mirror and begins tostep into her ablution trap, now filled with warm water. You notice that thetrap has jets built into its sides, and you wonder for a moment where Kanayagot the ceagers to afford something like this.

But then you’re partially submerged in the water, and those thoughtsgo out the window.

Holy fuck, this feels nice.The pleasantly warm water flowing over you, around you, into every crevice. Thesubtle softness of Kanaya within you, your form wrapping around her andproviding a barrier between her and the water. Some of the water flows betweenyour fibers, briefly touching Kanaya’s body before flowing out again andrepeating the cycle. You can feel yourself stretch and compress in sync withKanaya’s breathing, her chest moving in and out, in and out, and you along withit, pushing more water into you, letting you feel more of that deliciouscurrent.

And then Kanaya turns on the jets, and suddenly everything feelsrapturous.

Coherent thought is a thing of the past. Your mind is overwhelmed withhow nice it feels to be like this,how relaxing, how liberating, how… right. You’re no longer a troll, but youfeel more alive then you ever havebefore.

Kanaya’s fingers start to dance around her nook, rubbing herselfthrough your fabric. You don’t have it in you to be mad at Kanaya anymore. Tothink that you thought Kanaya was taking away your life; how naïve you were.No; she gave a life to you, one more brilliant than your old one ever was.

“We are so wonderful together, Vriska,” Kanaya says, your nameinterlaced with a moan. “I’m so glad you offered to be my swimsuit.”

“NoKanaya,” you think, “I’m thankful thatyou changed me. You gave me what I wanted more than anything, even when Imyself didn’t know what that was.”

“You gaveme a purpose.”

And with that, something shifts within you. A switch is thrown withinyour mind, and suddenly you’re not alone. There’s another consciousness here,and you can hear what they’re thinking.

“Vriska…I love you, Vriska…”

“Kanaya!” you yellout inside your mind.

Kanaya startles, splashing water all over her walls and floor.“Vriska?” she says, trepidatiously. “Is that you?”

“Yes! Yesit’s me!” you say, your mental voice filled with pure, childish glee.

“Vriska, I-”

Kanaya abruptly halts mid-sentence and looks down at you, shock in hereyes

“You… didn’t want me to change you?”

What?

“You wanted me to create a swimsuit for you? Oh my god, Vriska, I am so sorry, I’ll just…”

“NO!” you screamat her, as loud as you can force your internal voice to go. Her hand freezes onthe way to the side of the trap.

“Vriska?” she asks, nervously.

“Pleaseplease please please please please please please don’t change me back.”

“But… you didn’t want this. I can’t-“

“I changedmy mind. After you put me on, and we looked into that mirror, and we dipped inthe trap, and you turned on those jets… Kanaya, I want to be like thisforever.”

“This…” she stutters, unsure of herself. “You don’t sound likeyourself.”

“That’sbecause I’m elated!” you say happily. “This has been the most wonderful experience I’ve ever had, and I don’twant it to end.”

“But…” Kanaya pauses, sensing the determination within your mind. ”…Are you sure?”

“I havenever been more sure of anything in my life,” you thinkwith such resolve, such deep conviction, that it surprises even you. “Kanaya, there’s nothing I want more than tobe your swimsuit.”

She pauses, and takes a few deep breaths. You press on.

“Kanaya, Isaw what you did when you were changing me.” Her thoughts freeze, and she blushes. “I saw that look in your eyes. You’re redfor me. I know you are. And…” you pause briefly to steel your nerves, “I think I’m red for you, too.”

She remains perfectly still, only moving to breathe in and out. Yourevaporated heart catches in your vanished throat.

“I know it’dbe fucking weird to be in a matespritship with a swimsuit, but please, at leastgive this a chance. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll be fine, as long as I can keepbeing your swimsuit.”

You can feel that she’s mulling it over, seriously consideringchanging you back to how you were before. You internally shudder at thethought.

“Kanaya,” you say, pleadingly,as fear begins to creep into your mind. ”Pleasedon’t take this away from me.”

And with that, Kanaya makes her decision.

“I’ve never been able to say no to you, have I?” She laughs. “That’swhat got us here in the first place.” She pauses to take a deep breath.

“Vriska,” she says, touching your breast cup with one of her hands. “Iwould be honored to have such a wonderful matesprit, and wear such a beautifulswimsuit.”

As Kanaya relaxes back into the ablution trap, you sing her praises. “Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you thankyou thank you thank you thank you!” You’re overjoyed, elated, so happy tobe here, so happy to be with her.

You don’t know how this relationship is going to go, but you’ll makeit work. You have to. And as you feel the jets of water once again cascade overyour form, sending that delicious wave of pure elation through you, Kanaya’smind picks up on that feeling, and she understands. You are what you werealways meant to be, even if you didn’t know it: a swimsuit, wrapped snuglyaround her form.

Your name is Vriska Serket. You are Kanaya Maryam’s favorite swimsuit,as well as her matesprit. And you could not be happier.

[sherristockman]

How CDC Uses False Fears to Promote Vaccine Uptake Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola Five years ago, political lobbyist Jack Abramoff shocked the nation when, in a 60-Minute Report, he revealed just how corrupt the U.S. political system really is. As it turns out, it's actually worse than most critical outsiders could have imagined. Now, the downfall of yet another high-powered corporate lobbyist is shedding light on tactics used to promote drug industry interests. Other recent news reveals how the CDC uses scare tactics to incentivize people into getting an annual flu shot — despite studies repeatedly showing that flu shots have been from zero to less than 50 percent effective in preventing type A or B influenza over the past decade.1 For this flu season, the CDC estimates the vaccine has failed about 60 percent of the time to prevent infection with the most prevalent A strain circulating this year.2 The Rise and Fall of a Roche VP In "The Rise and Fall of a K Street Renegade," published in The Wall Street Journal,3 Brody Mullins details the suspected wrongdoings of Evan Morris, who at age 27 became a top Washington lobbyist for Roche Holdings AG, one of the largest drug companies in the world. In July, 2015, he came under federal investigation, suspected of embezzling millions of company dollars through various schemes. Part of Morris' genius was his ability to capitalize on and shape public sentiment through the use of media, advertising, opinion polls, focus groups and the creation of front groups. According to Mullins, "He sponsored nonprofits that engaged in letter-writing campaigns and organized patient groups that demanded Medicare reimbursement for his firm's drugs." When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considered banning the cancer drug Avastin, Morris created the non-profit group, Patient Care Action Network. Morris recruited doctors and patients who then did Morris' work for him, urging their congressional representatives to oppose the FDA. How Morris Turned Tamiflu Into a Blockbuster Drug In the article, Mullins also reveals how Morris made Roche's influenza drug Tamiflu into a massive blockbuster by seeding and feeding public fear during the 2005 avian flu outbreak: "Roche produced the leading treatment, a pill called Tamiflu. Sensing opportunity, Mr. Morris adopted an emerging lobbying tactic: build support among a lawmaker's constituents to supplement the traditional glad-handing of elected officials with dinners and campaign donations. Mr. Morris contracted consultants who promoted news stories that stoked fears about an avian-flu outbreak. The goal was to sell more Tamiflu. In October 2005, 32 Democratic senators wrote a letter to President George W. Bush expressing their 'grave concern that the nation is dangerously unprepared for the serious threat of avian influenza.' Within weeks, Mr. Bush created an emergency stockpile of avian flu treatments that eventually included more than $1 billion worth of Tamiflu pills. His administration offered subsidies that led to millions of dollars of additional Tamiflu sales to state governments." Reported Flu Deaths — Another Giant PR Sham While we're on the topic of fearmongering to boost corporate profits, a paper4 published in the BMJ in 2005 by Peter Doshi deserves a second look. In it, Doshi argues U.S. flu death figures are based more on PR mandates than actual science. "U.S. data on influenza deaths are a mess," he writes. "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledges a difference between flu death and flu associated death yet uses the terms interchangeably. Additionally, there are significant statistical incompatibilities between official estimates and national vital statistics data. Compounding these problems is a marketing of fear…" According to the CDC, about 36,000 Americans die from influenza each year. This statistic is reiterated by most mainstream media sources and government health officials, thereby impressing you with the suggestion that if you or someone you care about gets influenza, you are likely to die from it. The answer, they say, is to make sure you get vaccinated at the onset of flu season each and every year. Rarely does anyone question this 36,000-annual flu death number. But everyone really should. As noted by Doshi, the "CDC states that the historic 1968-9 "Hong Kong flu" pandemic killed 34,000 Americans. At the same time, CDC claims 36,000 Americans annually die from flu. What is going on?" Indeed, is the annual death toll from influenza really GREATER than the well documented 1968-69 influenza pandemic? The answer is no, and Doshi goes on to reveal a number of statistical tricks used to artificially inflate influenza death numbers. How Influenza Death Numbers Are Inflated For starters, the CDC bundles influenza and pneumonia deaths together, even though influenza is by far not the sole cause of pneumonia. To quote Doshi: "David Rosenthal, director of Harvard University Health Services, said, 'People don't necessarily die, per se, of the [flu] virus … What they die of is a secondary pneumonia. So many of these pneumonias are not viral pneumonias but secondary [pneumonias].' But … Rosenthal agreed that the flu/pneumonia relationship was not unique. For instance, a recent study5… found that stomach acid suppressing drugs are associated with a higher risk of community acquired pneumonia, but such drugs and pneumonia are not compiled as a single statistic." In other words, anyone dying from pneumonia — whether contracted as a result of influenza infection, post-surgical complication, the side effect of acid blocker use or any other reason — end up being reported as a "flu death." When you separate out pneumonia deaths, you end up with a very different picture of influenza mortality: "[A]ccording to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), 'influenza and pneumonia' took 62,034 lives in 2001 — 61,777 of which were attributed to pneumonia and 257 to flu, and in only 18 cases was flu virus positively identified. Between 1979 and 2002, NCHS data show an average 1,348 flu deaths per year (range 257 to 3006)," Doshi writes, adding: "The NCHS data would be compatible with CDC mortality estimates if about half of the deaths classed by the NCHS as pneumonia were actually flu initiated secondary pneumonias. But the NCHS criteria indicate otherwise: 'Cause-of-death statistics are based solely on the underlying cause of death... defined by WHO as `the disease or injury which initiated the train of events leading directly to death.'" This Year Only 10 Percent of Flu-Like Illnesses Caused by Influenza A or B It's also worth noting that only 10 to 30 percent of flu-like respiratory illnesses at any point in a given flu season are actually caused by influenza type A or B,6 which is what the flu shot is supposed to prevent. As Barbara Loe Fisher at the National Vaccine Information Center points out, "According to a recently released CDC report, in this 2016-2017 flu season the odds are only about one in 10 that flu like illness symptoms are, in fact, caused by type A or B influenza. Between October and February 2017, out of nearly 393,000 respiratory illness lab specimens tested in the U.S., only about 38,000 cases – or 10 percent - were positive for type A or B influenza."7 High Vaccine Failure Rate Plus Low Influenza Incidence Does Not Support Annual Flu Shot Policy There are more than 200 types of viruses that cause respiratory flu like symptoms,8 in addition to illness caused by bacteria,9 but they are not included in the influenza vaccine. If the flu shot only works from zero to less than 50 percent of the time and most of the flu like illness in any given flu season is not caused by type A or B influenza, the scientific evidence is simply not there for the government to order every child and adult in America to get the flu shot. It is hardly a public health calamity warranting the vaccination of hundreds of millions of people on an annual basis. Which is precisely the point. As noted by Doshi, the CDC is "working in manufacturers' interest by conducting campaigns to increase flu vaccination." CDC's 'Recipe' for Generating Vaccine Demand Doshi's 2005 paper further reveals some of the content of a slide presentation given by Glen Nowak, then-acting director of media relations at the CDC. Nowak gave the presentation at the National Influenza Vaccine Summit in 2004, co-sponsored by the CDC and the American Medical Association (AMA). In a nutshell, Nowak's presentation focused on how to use the media to create fear and anxiety to promote vaccination and increase vaccine uptake in the U.S. A section of his presentation titled "Getting Ready for 2004-2005: Lessons (Re-) Learned [Including the Seven-Step Recipe for Generating Interest in, and Demand for, Flu (or any other) Vaccination]" — which has since been removed from the AMAs website, where it was originally posted, but parts of which can be viewed in a recent article by J.B. Handley, co-founder of Generation Rescue,10 — included the following ingredients:11,12,13 Getting medical experts and public health authorities to "publicly … state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes) — and urge influenza vaccination" Publishing media articles and reports saying "that influenza is causing severe illness and/or affecting lots of people, helping foster the perception that many people are susceptible to a bad case of influenza" and "framing of the flu season in terms that motivate behavior (e.g., as 'very severe,' 'more severe than last or past years,' 'deadly')" Overall, Nowak's point was that "heightened concern, anxiety and worry" drives demand for the influenza vaccine and other vaccines. The CDC sure does seem to be doing its part in promulgating this fearmongering. Some doctors are also playing their part and appear to follow Nowak's "recipe" to the T.14 Hyperbole Over 'Dangerous Anti-Vaxxers' Grows An offshoot of this fearmongering aimed at generating vaccine demand is the public shaming and demonization of so-called "anti-vaxxers" — most of whom are parents who have actually vaccinated their children and are simply trying to get to the bottom of why their child's health or behavior suddenly changed following one or more of those vaccinations. Doshi was a graduate student when he wrote the 2005 BMJ paper questioning U.S. annual influenza mortality figures. He's now an associate editor of The British Medical Journal (BMJ). In an article published in the BMJ on February 7, 2017, Doshi addresses medical journalists who write about vaccines. Well worth reading in its entirety, it reads, in part:15 "Good journalism on this topic will require abandoning current practices of avoiding interviewing, understanding, and presenting critical voices out of fear that expressing any criticism amounts to presenting a "false balance" that will result in health scares. It does matter if the vast majority of doctors or scientists agree on something. But medical journalists should be among the first to realize that while evidence matters, so too do the legitimate concerns of patients. And if patients have concerns, doubts, or suspicions — for example, about the safety of vaccines, this does not mean they are "anti-vaccine." … approaches that label anybody and everybody who raises questions about the right headedness of current vaccine policies … as "anti-vaccine" fail on several accounts … Contrary to the suggestion … that vaccines are risk free … the reality is that officially sanctioned written medical information on vaccines is … filled with information about common, uncommon, and unconfirmed but possible harms. Medical journalists have an obligation to the truth. But journalists must also ensure that patients come first, which means a fresh approach to covering vaccines. It's time to listen — seriously and respectfully — to patients' concerns, not demonize them." Conflicts of Interest at the CDC Threaten Your Health The fact that the CDC is in charge of not only recommending and promoting mandatory use of vaccines but also monitoring vaccine safety is a significant conflict of interest. In 2006, two members of Congress — Representatives Dave Weldon and Carolyn Maloney — tried to address the problem by introducing a bill that would give the responsibility of vaccine safety to an independent agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).16 "There's an enormous inherent conflict of interest within the CDC and if we fail to move vaccine safety to a separate independent office, safety issues will remain a low priority and public confidence in vaccines will continue to erode," Weldon said. The bill went nowhere, and public confidence in the CDC has indeed continued to erode with each passing year. In 2011, the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) issued a public comment to the National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO) recommending overhaul of the U.S. vaccine safety system, including the creation of an independent vaccine safety monitoring agency modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC). 17 In 2014, NVIC issued a press release renewing its two decade long call for removal of vaccine safety oversight from DHHS. NVIC co-founder and president Barbara Loe Fisher said: "It is a conflict of interest for DHHS to be in charge of vaccine safety and also license vaccines, and take money from drug companies to fast track vaccines, and partner with drug companies to develop and share profits from vaccine sales, and make national vaccine policies that get turned into state vaccine laws, while also deciding which children will and will not get a vaccine injury compensation award. That is too much power for one federal agency."18 The CDC has also racked up an embarrassing number of scandals in the last couple of years, with whistleblowers saying the agency is "shaped by outside parties and rogue interests" and that data destruction and fraudulent reporting has been used to hide autism links and rises in prevalence. One of the researchers whose work was used to exonerate thimerosal's role in autism also turned fugitive, accused of embezzling vaccine research funds. A January 19 article by JB Handley gives the details on these and several other CDC scandals.19 Recent Studies Link Vaccines to Mental/Emotional Disorders In related news, research published on January 19, 2017, found "a significant relationship" between mercury exposure from thimerosal-containing vaccines and the subsequent risk of emotional disturbance, based on data obtained from the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) database.20 Another study21,22 published that same day in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry found some vaccines increased the risk of certain psychiatric disorders. Using information from health insurance claims, the researchers found that patients diagnosed with anorexia nervosa were more likely than controls to have received a vaccination in the previous three months. Anorexia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety disorder were also associated with influenza vaccination in the past 3, 6 and 12 months. According to the authors: "This pilot epidemiologic analysis implies that the onset of some neuropsychiatric disorders may be temporally related to prior vaccinations in a subset of individuals. These findings warrant further investigation, but do not prove a causal role of antecedent infections or vaccinations in the pathoetiology of these conditions." This doesn't entirely surprise me. A long list of studies looking at aluminum adjuvants in vaccines suggest it can induce neurodegenerative changes and is associated with an array of neurotoxic and neurological adverse effects.23,24,25,26,27,28 Here, the naysayers don't have a leg to stand on, as the FDA actually set the limit on the amount of aluminum allowed in vaccines based on the amount required to boost vaccine effectiveness. No safety studies were performed at all. The FDA simply assumed it was safe. Today, ample evidence suggests otherwise. Vaccine Contaminants — Another Safety Hazard Other recent research points out another potential vaccine hazard — metal debris and biological contaminants. Remarkably, the study conducted by researchers in Italy found these kinds of contaminants in every single human vaccine tested.29 According to environmental protection activist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,30 these findings "should have profound and immediate impact on public health policies and vaccine industry procedures around the globe." In all, 43 samples of 30 different vaccines were tested using an environmental scanning electron microscope, and were found to contain contaminants such as: Aluminum salts Red blood cells of unknown origin Inorganic foreign particle debris consistent with "burnt waste." Additional analysis revealed the presence of lead, stainless steel, chromium, tungsten, nickel, iron, zirconium, hafnium, strontium, antimony and various other metals Endotoxins Bacterial residues According to the study authors: "The particles, be they isolated, aggregated or clustered, are not supposed to be there. … Our tissues perceive these foreign bodies as potential enemies. The biological reactions are expected to be fairly complicated, with macrophages that try to engulf them the way they do normally with bacteria and parasites to form a protein corona. Unfortunately, though, the particles we found in vaccines, are not biodegradable. So, all the macrophages' efforts will be useless, and depending on the exact chemicals involved, the particles may be especially toxic. Cytokines and pro-inflammatory substances in general are released and granulated tissue forms, enveloping the particles. This provokes inflammation which, in the long run, if locally persistent, is known to be a precursor to cancer." Infections During Pregnancy May Raise Autism Risk Another recent study31 highlights the danger of stimulating the immune system of a pregnant woman. Women with active genital herpes infections during the early stage of pregnancy were twice as likely to give birth to a child with autism, compared to those without infection. As noted by NBC News, "The findings … add to evidence that inflammation during pregnancy may affect the brain of a developing fetus." According to Dr. Ian Lipkin, an epidemiologist and infectious disease expert and lead author, the damage is likely caused by inflammatory chemicals crossing the placenta, thereby impacting the baby's brain development. Previous research has also shown that women who came down with the flu during pregnancy were twice as likely to have an autistic child. Those who had a fever lasting for one week or longer had three times the risk. What's not mentioned is the fact that vaccines do the very same thing — they stimulate the immune system and produce an inflammatory response, including in women who are given a flu shot and/or a Tdap shot while they are pregnant. A 2008 article by Dr. Russell Blaylock explains the danger of excessive vaccination during brain development. So why are pregnant women told to get vaccinated during pregnancy when there's no sound scientific evidence showing it's safe to do so?32 There's No Escaping the Vaccine Safety Discussion There are staunch mandatory vaccination proponents who would like you to believe that the vaccine safety science is in and the vaccine safety debate has long since been settled. They're wrong. Very wrong. In fact, the "debate" about vaccine safety science has not even strictly begun. There are huge gaps in the knowledge base in part due to the fact that well designed comparative studies of health outcomes in vaccinated and unvaccinated persons have not yet been conducted to draw credible scientific conclusions about long-term safety. However, there have been compelling indications of harm for a long time. For example, studies have shown the flu vaccine weakens the immune system, making children more susceptible to more severe illness by hampering the development of certain types of immunity.33 A recent article by journalist Jeremy Hammond does an excellent job of distilling the problem facing unquestioning vaccine proponents:34 "In a recent The Washington Post op-ed, pediatrician Daniel Summers argues that when it comes to the safety and efficacy of vaccines, there's nothing to debate … Yet his own arguments illustrate why he's wrong and why there is indeed a debate to be had. So why is he so afraid of having it? Dr. Summers actually answers this question for us with some comments that explain his own demonstrable confirmation bias (the tendency to accept facts that support his own position while ignoring facts that contradict it). He writes: 'If vaccines genuinely cause autism like their opponents claim, one of two things must be true of pediatricians like me who administer them. Either we are too incompetent to discern the relationship between the two, or we are too monstrous to care. One cannot believe that autism is related to vaccination without simultaneously indicting the overwhelming majority of physicians, nurses and other medical providers in this country.' So there you have it. If his view was shown to be wrong, it would demonstrate that either he's incompetent or he's evil. It's only natural that we can expect Summers, then, to be accepting of science that supports his view while dismissive of science that contradicts it." As a doctor, I can empathize with this psychological conundrum. It's a terrible feeling to realize that, at some point in your life, you didn't have the knowledge you should have had and you led your patients the wrong way. But I can also attest to the fact that, if you are a physician, you can admit your mistake and correct course and it will not destroy you or your medical practice. On the contrary, it inspires trust in your patients. And when it comes to vaccines, a course correction by adopting a new approach is not only necessary but inevitable.