IFLA: The “Back with a Vengeance” Edition of the Horoscope for the week of January 10

by | Jan 10, 2021 | IFLA | 147 comments

The stars have finally sprung the trap that they’ve been setting up.  The week starts off where it ended last week with Saturn – Jupiter – Mars (endings, government, war) and then adds to it.  On the 12th, Venus sits opposite from Mars.  This can at times be a sign of perfecton or balance, but it can also mean estrangement or the separation from loved ones. This state will persist until even more signs appear next week.  On the 14th, there will be a short term diminishment of joy, growth and activity but that will only last a day.  You might even sleep through the worst of it depending on your time zone.

Mars in Taurus keeps the whole “grinding hatred/anger” thing going on until March.  The moon in Sagittarius bodes ill for my Steel match on Sunday.  Venus and the Sun in Capricorn means this is an auspicious time to seduce someone — new or current partner it doesn’t matter.  However, there is a major caveat about trying anything on the 12th.  If you’re going to, creativity is encouraged, and zaniness will be especially rewarded in this regard on the 13th.  So break out the clown nose and soda syphon.

Holy shit, the cards are fucking terrible this week.

Capricorn: 2 of Swords reversed – misguided vengeance, irrational hostilities, “blinded by hate”

Aquarius:  4 of Coins reversed – Suspense, delay, opposition.  Your money being held by someone else.

Pisces:  Ace of Swords reversed – Excess in everything with disastrous results. There’s a note in the reference materials that the crown pictured being skewered by the sword is important.

Aries:  The Hierophant – Marriage, alliance, captivity, servitude, mercy, goodness, inspiration

Taurus:  The Moon – Hidden enemies, danger, calumny, darkness, terror, deception, occult forces, error

Gemini:  Strength reversed – Despotism, abuse of power, weakness, discord, disgrace

Cancer:  The Hermit reversed – Concealment, disguise, policy, fear, unreasoned caution.

Leo:  The Star reversed –  Arrogance, haughtiness, impotence.

Virgo:  2 of Wands –  Riches, fortune, magnificence, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification.

Libra:  9 of Coins – Prudence, safety, success, accomplishment, certitude, discernment.  As least someone’s week isn’t going to be quite so bad.

Scorpio:  Justice – Equity, rightness, probity, executive, triumph of the deserving side in law.  In other words… Justice.

Sagittarius:  5 of Wands reversed – Litigation, disputes, trickery, contradiction, loss in a competition

 

About The Author

Not Adahn

Not Adahn

Despite all my rage, I am still just an impeccably dressed rat.

147 Comments

  1. KOVIDKristen

    Aries: The Hierophant – Marriage, alliance, captivity, servitude, mercy, goodness, inspiration

    I can’t help but think this is “be careful what you wish for” blaring in my face

    • Nephilium

      I figured those two would just follow after the first. 🙂

    • CPRM

      Are you the one I have locked in my basement? How’d you get the wi-fi password!?

      • dbleagle

        To be fair “cprm” is not that tough of a password to hack.

      • KOVIDKristen

        I mean, “hatandhair1234” is not hard to guess

      • Tres Cool

        “thats the combination some idiot would have on his luggage!”

    • rhywun

      I’ll take this as “pick up a couple more orphans this week and be nice to them”.

  2. Viking1865

    Pisces: Ace of Swords reversed – Excess in everything with disastrous results

    *thinking about how much I have eaten and drank over the past 3 weeks.*

    Yup.

  3. Don escaped Two Corinthians

    Gemini: Strength reversed – Despotism, abuse of power, weakness, discord, disgrace

    this is just too easy; I hereby forego shooting fish in barrels and will still to quiet smirks

  4. LJW

    Hmmmmm

    Gemini: Strength reversed – Despotism, abuse of power, weakness, discord, disgrace

    Donald Trump’s Birthday: June 14, 1946

  5. Rebel Scum

    Suspense, delay, opposition. Your money being held by someone else.

    Well don’t pussy-foot around. Tell me who has my money!

  6. CPRM

    Hidden enemies, danger, calumny, darkness, terror, deception, occult forces, error

    Sounds like a cool movie. Any writers in the house? No? Ok then.

    • creech

      Sounds about right as Nancy and Chucky are rampaging this week.

  7. KSuellington

    Sagittarius: 5 of Wands reversed – Litigation, disputes, trickery, contradiction, loss in a competition

    So I got that going for me, which is nice.

    Just got a new (used) Hoyt compound bow a few days back. Took it to the archery field yesterday for a bit and got the left/right dialed in on the scope pretty well. Gonna try and get back today and dial in the up/down. It came with a yardage dial scope so may have to purchase a new tape sticker for it. I’ve been shooting a relatively cheap compound for four years now and took the step up. Glad I waited until I could shoot beyond the bow I had before doing so. The Hoyt is so damn smooth I love it.

    • CPRM

      So now you’re gonna go robbin in the hood, eh?

      • KSuellington

        If I can avoid the camps I can survive in the hinterlands hopefully.

      • one true athena

        If the new Congress required each flyover state to send two kids to battle to the death, would anyone in the press object?

      • Viking1865

        “Well David French, what say you?”

        “I just don’t understand these thuggish, brutish, so called conservatives. I was a rear echelon JAG officer in the Iraq War, so I can’t see why these deplorable rednecks object to these reasonable, rational, common sense plan to provide some minor entertainment as our nation continues to recover from the devastating economic effects of the Trump regime. We have already executed every member of the Trump family, and have castrated every American male named Donald, this is just one more minor common sense policy from a very smart group of policy makers at the Harris White House. The riotous mob on the Mall last week is another chilling example. Picking through the ashes after our noble CIA Peace Drones did their very fine work, we have found hundreds of charred husks of 9mm assault handguns spread across the roughly 120 acres that the so called March For Our Childrens Lives covered.”

      • kbolino

        I’m surprised he can speak so well through the gimp mask.

      • Don escaped Two Corinthians

        I can’t follow this. Which 120 acres with the hundreds of husks?

      • Viking1865

        one true athena was referencing the popular dystopian sci fi series The Hunger Games. I was riffing in tongue in cheek fashion on how a Regime Apologist like David French would act as controlled opposition.

      • Don escaped Two Corinthians

        that’s cool

        I’m not: I tend to get lost on anything that has happened since Watergate

      • Viking1865

        I worked with kids for a long time. I was telling the story of the Minotaur to them once, and one girl pipes up very indignantly and said

        “You ripped this off from the Hunger Games.”

  8. Cy

    Prudence, safety, success, accomplishment, certitude, discernment. As least someone’s week isn’t going to be quite so bad.

    WOOO HOO!

    Buying some lottery tickets!

  9. mikey

    Virgo: 2 of Wands – Riches, fortune, magnificence, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification.

    Dibs on the first three!

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      Win the lottery then get sick and die. Sounds about right for me.

  10. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Capricorn: 2 of Swords reversed – misguided vengeance, irrational hostilities, “blinded by hate”

    Yep, I can see it.

    • Viking1865

      misguided vengeance, irrational hostilities, “blinded by hate”

      • Cy

        Just because you’re blind, doesn’t mean you’re not strangling the right person.

      • blackjack

        Maybe, I’d rather be blind!

      • blackjack

        As long as I don’t get arrested for it.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    Sagittarius: 5 of Wands reversed – Litigation, disputes, trickery, contradiction, loss in a competition

    Great. How am I s’posed to have any fun this week?

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      It could be fun if you were the one visiting these things upon others

    • Cy

      Get into an argument with a hot lawyer, trick her into thinking you’ve got loads of money, contradict the stereo types in bed and be grateful you don’t have much competition in the morning for a good quickie.

  12. Lord Humungus

    Woah – I had my first home weed delivery; ordered last night via the web and then a delivery driver showed up today.

    Not quite up to the “order weed like pizza” but still better than the days of driving to a skeevy house, sit around and listen to hippie music before the deal can be made.

    • Cy

      Ross Ulbricht has a sad.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      it took about an hour back in Cali,

    • blackjack

      Sedan delivery is a job
      I know I’ll keep
      It sure was hard to find
      so hard to find…

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        Another Delivery, of chemicals and Sacred roots?

  13. The Late P Brooks

    How long ’til the rug is pulled out from under them?

    Tech mogul Elon Musk — known as widely for slinging cars into the sun’s orbit as he is for advocating against COVID-19 safety measures — took to Twitter Thursday to slam Facebook over its latest privacy policy updates for its supposedly secure encrypted messaging app WhatsApp. Musk instead recommended users choose encrypted messaging app Signal.

    ——-

    This isn’t the first time Musk has publicly sparred with Facebook over privacy concerns. In 2018, he not only had his own personal Facebook page removed, but those of his companies Tesla and SpaceX. His take on the long-fought battle between Signal and WhatsApp isn’t off-base, though.

    Both of the encrypted messaging apps have been found to have security bugs over the years that have been resolved. For years, WhatsApp has openly collected certain user data to share with parent company Facebook. Its latest policy change just expands that. Signal, on the other hand, has a history of fighting any entity that asks for your data, and adds features to further anonymize you where possible.

    I trust Musk more than most of the other yahoos in silicon valley.

    • rhywun

      I thought “WhatsApp” was owned by the CCP. Or is that another one?

      • Gustave Lytton

        WhatsApp is Facebook. WeiChat and TikTok are Chicom.

      • rhywun

        Ah, TikTok. It’s hard to keep track of all that crap I don’t use.

    • hayeksplosives

      I’m afraid Musk has a target in his back because he moved to Texas (a day after Newsom arrogantly proclaimed “Elon Mesk isn’t leaving anytime soon”, and he says lockdowns are hurting, and he doesn’t take a stance on any Cause-of-the-Day issue that lefties want him to.

      Right now, TSLA stock is at $880 (that is After the five way stock split). They are either going to write a bill so tailored to punish Musk that it’s practically a bill of attainder.

      The chicken shit part of me wants to sell before the government “nationalizes” Tesla, Chavez style. But then again, if I sold, it’s still all in my 401k which will be meaningless by the time I retire.

      Guess I’ll let it ride.

      • Viking1865

        They’ll decide SpaceX is too much of a national security risk, because anyone could buy space on a rocket and loft a nuke or something.

  14. grrizzly

    $175 for three years of digital subscription to the WSJ is a good deal. But it’s probably not good enough to think that they would be “losing money” on me. My current subscription expires in a month.

  15. Cy

    Ross Ulbricht has a sad.

  16. Nephilium

    Just so more people can suffer… I’ve seen the worst fucking billboard ever on the freeway near me:

    BE THANKFUL!
    Healthcare workers are sacrificing for you!

    • Gustave Lytton

      At least Soviet propaganda had pictures.

      • Viking1865

        Football had a ALL TEACHERS WERE HEROES THIS YEAR commercial from Microsoft.

        They have hammered small businesses into the dirt and enriched megacorporations and government employees, and they seriously think they are the good guys.

      • Nephilium

        Yeah. I saw that one… as if I needed any more reasons to hate MS Teams.

        The three largest employers in the Cleveland area (that aren’t government jobs) are the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, and Metro Health. Then there’s the large number of support systems for those hospitals.

      • Viking1865

        I would argue since over half the healthcare spending in this country comes from the government, that those jobs are just laundered government jobs. The Brits call them QUANGOs.

      • Nephilium

        Fair enough. These would be the largest employers that aren’t direct government employers.

      • rhywun

        It’s pretty much the same story in every mid-sized city.

    • Tres Cool

      I just plopped Jugsy’s giant ass @ the airport, and leaving on the access road I saw 2 CoVID-19 related billboards. I didnt pay attention to the specific content, but it just made me think we’re living a scene from “They Live”.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      For me? But I’m not ill…

    • DEG

      NH has billboards paid for by Dartmouth-Hitchcock admonishing people to wear masks.

      “Easier than shoveling six feet of snow. Stay Strong, Masks On”
      “Easier than stacking three cords of wood. Stay Strong, Masks On”

      Dartmouth-Hitchcock can go fuck themselves.

    • westernsloper

      Needs moar dancing nurses.

    • kbolino

      I don’t think the Aztec gods are that hungry this time of year.

  17. The Late P Brooks

    Did somebody say Voodoo Economics?

    Biden on Friday made his position clear.

    “We should be investing in deficit spending in order to generate economic growth,” he said.

    The more you spend, the more it costs.

    • kbolino

      SFed the link

    • rhywun

      investing in deficit spending

      Sounds great!

      /entire MSM

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I can’t believe it has never been tried before.

    • Rebel Scum

      Have we not been deficit spending for, idk, the better part of my life?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It’s just standard Keynesian economics, I’d be extremely surprised if he didn’t believe and espouse exactly that.

      • hayeksplosives

        In the long run, we’re all dead.

    • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

      That’s like saying you should invest in hookers and blow.

      • blackjack

        When everyone knows you really should invest in blackjack!

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Any investment not involving at least one of those things is a bad investment.

      • Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

        I guess if you’re dealing or pimping they could be seen as investments. Otherwise those are the fruits of your investments.

  18. Gustave Lytton

    Hah. The AP is now whipping up another line: Congress parasites may have been exposed to coronavirus. Which would have happened anyways if the infected person was inside.

    https://time.com/5928399/covid-exposure-capitol-attack/

    Also, those evil Republicans weren’t wearing masks during some or all of the event. Well was the incursion a life or death emergency or not? If it was, masks are hardly something to worry about at a time like that.

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      They should have been wearing masks as they were entering the Capital Building. Worst insurrection evar.

    • Ted S.

      Of course, some of them have already had it.

  19. The Late P Brooks

    Forgot to highlight this bit about Elon:

    known as widely for slinging cars into the sun’s orbit as he is for advocating against COVID-19 safety measures

    Get that social semaphore in there. You wouldn’t want anybody to get the idea you’re not of the body.

  20. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Add one more to the Unfriend list. The smugness surrounding the deplatforming of Parler is ticking me off.

    • Gustave Lytton

      The Nanog mailing list is a shit show. I’m bulk deleting emails.

  21. Tres Cool

    “Riches, fortune, magnificence, physical suffering, disease, chagrin, sadness, mortification.”

    So you’re saying money cant buy happiness ?

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      But it lets it pick your own kind of misery.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    Don’t know what I did wrong, but Voodoo Economics link- take 2

    Biden criticized the size of the direct payments from the $900 billion relief bill passed last month, saying $600 “is simply not enough when you have to choose between paying rent or putting food on the table and keeping the lights on.”

    Biden said his relief package would also focus on investments regarding infrastructure and health care.

    “The price tag will be high,” Biden said, but argued that investing in the economy now would pay off, and even help keep the debt under control.

    Sure, Joe. Whatever Jared Bernstein tells you to say.

    • Viking1865

      By far the worst thing about Donny that was completely unremarked upon by all the Serious Political Types was his fiscal insanity, and Biden is gonna triple down on it.

      Printing press go BRRRRRRRR.

      • Don escaped Two Corinthians

        He got away with it because everyone has always gotten away with it: no one has done anything to reduce the size of government in centuries.

        This is the principle reason I’m utterly disinterested in the duopoly arguments: the team that says they know better doesn’t do any better, so I continue to assert it’s just different flavors of of the same garbage. Postures, promises, and platforms signifying nothing.

    • LJW

      Incoming recession, maybe depression?

    • Tres Cool

      “is simply not enough when you have to choose between paying rent or putting food on the table and keeping the lights on.”

      This is what genuinely pisses me off about 99% of those elected cocksuckers- not a single one of them has ever been in that position for real-real. I have, and its not fun.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I am close, and it’s not fun at all,
        Sup Tres!

      • Tres Cool

        HEY YUFUS!

      • Nephilium

        Well we can’t let businesses just open back up… people may get sick and die! Starvation is a much cleaner death…

      • Dr. Fronkensteen

        Well the good news is we learned that governments don’t need tax dollars to operate.

      • Viking1865

        They break your legs and then expect you to be thankful for giving you crutches, and the sad thing is it works.

    • Ted S.

      Then the $900B should have gone directly to the people, $2600 (roughly) for every man, woman and child in the US.

      Instead the Democrats spent about 75% of it on graft.

      • Viking1865

        I did some back of the envelope calculation last year. A flat tax of 20% on all income would bring in 3.7 trillion, which is more than last years revenue.

        You could take that 3.7 trillion, earmark 2.5 trillion of it to a negative income tax, put 500 billion into defense, and have 700 billion for general government functions like MUH ROADS and MUH NATIONAL PARKS and MUH NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS.

        Its absolutely enraging how much money is looted for the already rich using the poor as a rationale.

    • Rebel Scum

      “Keep” it under control?

      • Viking1865

        Might be the biggest lie in the statement.

  23. The Late P Brooks

    The smugness surrounding the deplatforming of Parler is ticking me off.

    Hate speech is not free speech.

  24. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Appears Parler is back up and will be switching to a private server. I’m waiting for the Tier 1 networks to start getting in on the action soon.

    • R C Dean

      There’s a lot of people who don’t have desktops, just mobile devices.

      No app for most of them means it doesn’t exist.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        You can sideload the parler app on Android. Granted, I dunno if it has been updated to point to the new servers.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        The service can be run just fine from a browser on mobile too but you’re right. It might have reached a critical mass for success despite that now that there are enough people that have been turned off from Twitter to bother with those two extra required clicks.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Bookmark and use the DuckDuckGo app on iphone

      • R C Dean

        No app, not used by tens of millions. This isn’t complicated.

        Jail breaking to load an app? Nope.

        Using the craptacular phone browser? Nope.

        Buy a desktop to use the website? Nope.

      • Viking1865

        Its in a similar vein as “full auto weapons aren’t illegal”

        Yeah, you just have to pay a 200 dollar tax stamp and sign away all your rights, plus the supply is fixed by government order so every legal machine gun trades for five figures. But machine guns are still legal.

        “Once you establish your own mobile OS company and your own dedicated ISPs, then you can share your opinions” is not exactly a rousing cry for freedom of expression.

        Personally, I am especially enjoying people who cheered the suppression of The Hate Bakery turning into Rothbardian capitalists.

  25. The Late P Brooks

    Also, those evil Republicans weren’t wearing masks during some or all of the event. Well was the incursion a life or death emergency or not? If it was, masks are hardly something to worry about at a time like that.

    All public employees should be required to wear gas masks, 24/7. You can’t be too safe.

    • hayeksplosives

      Congresscritters should work from home in perpetuity.

      • Not Adahn

        ^ this but unironically.

      • rhywun

        And be closer to the people they are representing? LOL pull the other one.

  26. The Late P Brooks

    Speaking of masks-

    We are inundated with tales of terror and woe about the massive wave of deaths and hospitalizations in California, and how that just underlines the need for masks and the rest of the prevention placebo dance. Are we supposed to assume nobody in California is wearing masks, and that’s why things are so bad there?

    • blackjack

      We’ve been under the mask mandate and mostly on lockdown the whole time. We’re a case study in why these things don’t work. Facts and truth are unfortunately obsolete now, however.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Bullshit, you’re just not complying hard enough.

        /actual public health idiot I know

      • kbolino

        As far as I can piece together by anecdotal study, I am significantly more serious about compliance with their stupid rules than the people who make the rules or those who cheerlead for them.

        The number of “wear a mask, stay home and stay safe” people that have flown cross-country multiple times and visited a dozen entertainment venues since March is staggering.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Yes. You all need to do this. Not me. I’ve got a dinner party at Italian Toilet.

      • Akira

        Bullshit, you’re just not complying hard enough.
        /actual public health idiot I know

        My rebuttal to that is always:
        If your plan requires some unrealistic level of compliance, then it’s not a very good plan. This is why abstinence-only sex ed and “just say no to drugs” are failures.

    • Viking1865

      That’s what boggles my mind, how the media propaganda works so well. People go out to the grocery, see everyone wearing masks, pop in the post office, ditto, pop in the garden center, ditto, pop in Chick Fil A ditto.

      Then apparently turn on the nightly news and see the PEOPLE ARE NOT WEARING MASKS!!!! and take that as the truth.

      • rhywun

        All it takes is one Covid Mary to fail Governor Him and infect 40 million people.

      • Viking1865

        When I returned to work from having it, the Office Progs were desperate to discover when I had taken off the Magic Mask. I wear one every single time I am in a room with someone who is not my wife. Office Progs insisted I had somehwere, somehow fallen short of the Holy Orders.

        These people are deranged, these people are insane, and I am thinking about taking up religion just so I can pray for their souls.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    We’re a case study in why these things don’t work.

    Based on the observational data, I’m willing to believe masks CAUSE the plague.

    • Viking1865

      Well, honestly, the mask mandates were probably a mistake because masks are taken as a magic shield and people think they can break social distancing if they wear a dollar store piece of fabric.

      The only way to prevent it is avoiding close contact with an infected person. If you sit in an office with a Commie Cougher for 15 minutes, you will get the virus. Doesn’t matter if you’re wearing masks. Thats why the tracing asks about close contact, not about masks. When I had it and was talking to the Dept of Health masks were not mentioned even once. It was all “Who were you in a room with for longer than 15 minutes.”

      • Certified Public Asshat

        As Andrew Schulz said, it’s like using a tube sock instead of a condom.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I guess to elaborate, wearing a new n95 everytime you leave your house would probably be effective. But that’s not what we’re doing, and it would be expensive.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Bingo. Exposure (volume/duration) is the real story. It’s not binary either, though binary thresholds make decision making easier such as 15 minutes above.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        The way people handle their masks: handle stuff, adjust mask; drop in parking lot, put back on; take off and put on dirty table to eat, put back on, etc. Worn properly en masse they might help a bit but they’re being worn far from properly and are likely a wash at best and counterproductive at worse.

      • hayeksplosives

        The waitstaff at the one Irish pub that was serving dine-in here (before Newsom put my county on the Double Secret Probation “Purple Tier” constantly touched and adjusted their masks between carrying food and drinks around.

        Purely subconscious but very predictable.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I work in an industry where respirators are worn for contamination control and I’d have a fit if people at work were being a tenth as sloppy as what I see every day with the masks. People are so sloppy wearing and handling them they may as well be licking doorknobs.

      • Akira

        There are plenty of scientific studies from respected institutions saying that surgical masks DO NOT reduce infections in the operating room… And those were done with medical-quality masks, not the T-shirt material that many people are wearing. But I guess that doesn’t get to be considered as part of Science™.

        The one that kills me is the people wearing the kind with a one-way valve on it that lets your air out completely unfiltered. The mask is supposedly to stop you from spreading it if you are unknowingly carrying it, but that kind of mask does absolutely nothing.

      • Nephilium

        The other day I heard a girl complimenting another girl on her mask (“I really like your mask, where did you get it.”).

        It’s over. They’re the new fucking fashion accessory now.

      • mrfamous

        If it’s an N95 and is properly fitted, it actually has some chance of protecting that person if they aren’t exposed for too long. Without the valve, Well fitted N95s become very hard to wear for extended amounts of time.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        That’s worse than worthless, it even concentrates one’s exhalation right into other people’s faces.

      • mrfamous

        They don’t seem to work in medical settings with trained staff (nothing short of an N95 has been shown to do so, and even those the data is uneven at best).

        So the idea that the public being unable to use them properly isn’t really a discussion point. Ultimately in order to breathe, your breath must escape. If your breath escapes, so does the virus (minus some very expensive engineering techniques). If your breath doesn’t escape, you get very uncomfortable, very fast.

        What’s so frustrating is that this _is_ the science circa February 2020. This isn’t some brilliant but rogue group of out of the mainstream scientists. This was 100% the mainstream view until April of this year (just see what Fauci and the Surgeon General were saying at the time). When, apparently, the need to get a terrified public out of their houses necessitated the need for a protection device to allow them to do so.

        It’s infuriating.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        The bigger concern to me is people futzing with their face with dirty hands ten times more often than they do normally in order to adjust their mask. It’s likely to be contributing to the spread above and beyond what we’d see with no masks at all. At best they give the illusion of control and serve as a psychological crutch and little else.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Mandates are usually mistakes. “Hey, I’m using insulated tools and wear FR clothing, I can take chances inside this pane…” *BOOM*

      • Gustave Lytton

        Then there’s the resentment , complacency, and laziness factors.

      • hayeksplosives

        You can put my husband in the resentment column. He rarely wears a mask. He enjoys taunting Karens who want to “correct” him by feigning deafness.

        It’s kind of funny, I admit.

      • hayeksplosives

        …and Friday we had to go to the bank to get something notarized. He deliberately chose a classic dark blue bandanna as a face mask.

        His reasoning is that if he’s going to be required to wear a mask to s bank, he’s going to milk it for all that it’s worth.

    • one true athena

      I’ve said it on twitter a few times in the comments of the people who make the cool charts of where various mandates are implemented and the spike that happens anyway, that if you changed the labels on those charts to something non-covid there is no way people would accept that the mandates work in the slightest, and may in fact make it worse. Like, pretend it was car accidents and rules on airbags or something like that – it’s so obvious the “mitigation” is a failure.

      But what really irks me is the govt then spends approximately zero effort at any other mitigation effort. Do they mention Vit D? No. There are PSAs on hand-washing still, but beyond that I don’t think I’ve heard a single CA “covid” declaration that wasn’t “stay in lockdown, wear a mask, suck your thumb”

      • Don escaped Two Corinthians

        The data are consistent with “the virus doing what the virus wants to do”

        and long-term trends have converged precisely as I wrote here nine months ago

  28. DEG

    The stars have finally sprung the trap that they’ve been setting up.

    That’s more believable than Trump finally springing his trap.

  29. Master JaimeRoberto (royal we/us)

    My son just got tested for Covid again. Results in a few days. He buys in to the mask hysteria. It turns out that on New Year’s Eve he shared a bong with someone who subsequently tested positive. Hopefully he will lighten up on the mask shaming now given that he was doing stuff infinitely more risky than not wearing a mask, but I doubt it.

    • westernsloper

      That right these.there is why everyone should own one of

      • westernsloper

        oops. I readproof goodly.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Lol

    • hayeksplosives

      Kind of like Boris Johnson insisting on masks when bumping uglies with someone from another household.

      If you’re boffibg someone you don’t know well, COVID isn’t the risk you should be focusing on.

      • Tres Cool

        wannafud ?

      • kbolino

        There is an inverse correlation between how strenuously they talk about it and how strenuously they apply it to their own lives.

      • mrfamous

        You’re 100% at risk of having a very good day.

  30. limey

    As least someone’s week isn’t going to be quite so bad.

    Don’t you dare.

  31. Not Adahn

    One of the most beautiful phrases to hear at a steel match: “yeah, it picked up all the shots.”

    A new personal best of 2.76 seconds on “Smoke and Hope.”

    I have discovered a new problem with switching to rimfire — on the longer shots, I’m thinking I missed a plate because it’s taking so long for those pokey .22LRs to get the the plates and the sound to get back. And it’s costing me time.

    • UnCivilServant

      those hokey timers never ick up all the shots.