You might call him a hero, but he failed to honor the oath he swore.

You can try to justify it any way you want, but that person is without honor.

No. As a contractor, not a federal employee, Snowden did not take the Oath of Office and swear to uphold and defend the Constitution. All he did was sign a secrecy agreement, promising not to disclose classified information. That’s not the same thing. He did break that promise but in his mind, in doing so he was defending the Constitution, even though he hadn’t sworn to defend it.

There is debate about whether contractors to Federal agencies should swear the oath, as more and more work is being farmed out, but to my knowledge this hasn’t happened yet and in any case wasn’t in place in 2013 to apply to Snowden.

Are you saying Zuckerberg has made illegal campaign contributions?

More likely that Dinesh D'Souza made legal campaign contributions, like Zuckerberg, but was charged because he is an outspoken conservative.  Thus, Zuckerberg's lawyer must have been better than D'Souza's or D'souza would not have been convicted.

I like Andrew Wilcow, he's got the same fire in his belly.

Funny how freedom tends to work out best for everybody.

Actually, people have been working on gene therapy vectors and mRNA therapeutics for a long time.  They've been used in animals for ages.  The actually vaccines were quickly developed, but that's only because you need nothing more than the sequence of the virus in order to develop them.  Like I said, whatever side effects you get from the vaccine (most vaccines have side effects, just like most medicines) is chicken feed compared to what COVID does to you, and we really haven't finished the book on that one.

I truly believe I've had it already and it was a day or two of a low grade fever and mild cold symptoms.  I've been around thousands of people since to no ill effect.  I feel great and I am not going to put that at jeopardy at this point.

The show's theme song is my ring tone.

I am old enough to have seen the show when it debuted.  Has to be one of the greatest TV theme songs of all time. 

The list of people I don’t trust:

Bureaucrats
Politicians
Journalists

I haven’t seen anybody not on that list talk about it, but I understand how to assess risk so I’ll do it myself.

Add scientists to the list, ever since a significant number of them have climbed into bed with bureaucrats, politicians and journalists to advance their agenda.

The first time I heard “The science is settled” I knew we were doomed.

Whatever the risks of the vaccine, I'll be cash money they're orders of magnitude lower than the risks of the virus itself, which include death and lingering disease.

I wish we could get a true handle on what the risks actually are. For example, we keep hearing about the case fatality rate. That’s not actually the relevant number. The relevant number is the crude mortality rate, the actual risk of you dying from covid, not the risk of you dying if you get it.

This varies of course with age, socioeconomic status and health.

On the other side is the risk of the vaccine which is hard to sort out. Going through the raw data it’s easy to see some cases where deaths were purely coincidental. Others where it’s pretty certain the vaccine was the direct cause of death (anaphylaxis). But many in between where it is unclear, and reported deaths do not include autopsy results, it’s actually going to be a long time before we know the true vaccine associated event rate, if ever. And then there are long term complications of the vaccine we have no idea about right now. Same is true of the virus.

It’s an individual choice based on all kinds of factors.  If you are very young, the true risk of death or long term consequences from covid is virtually zero. Maybe you should forgo the vaccine. If you are older, or have health conditions, it’s pretty clear the risk from the disease is much greater than the risk from the vaccine, based on available information at present. It might be prudent to get the vaccine.

I take it to mean you are to be pitied because you got yourself into a bad situation through your own stupidity.