A few random thoughts from the churn:
Vaccines. For me, the risk/benefit is upside down on getting a booster. If I had known then what I know now, I would have realized it was upside down for me on getting the initial shots. The Omicron variant has reduced the benefit side greatly, I believe, as Omicron appears to be a lot less virulent. And evidence is accumulating, in various ways, that the vaccines cause damage, likely cumulative damage.
So, my line in the sand is boosters. Not gonna do it. If they are mandated in order to be fully vaccinated, I’ll be out a job. And my job is pure “laptop”/managerial class, so I suspect job opportunities for an Unclean will be thin on the ground if fully vaccinated requires boosters. The feds are laying the groundwork for requiring boosters at hospitals, at a minimum. I think it’s a race between the rising resistance and the entrenched demand for ever-escalating panic and controls. So it goes.
Masks. The move from “wear a mask” to “but not a cloth mask, it has to be a surgical mask or an N95” has been floated but doesn’t seem to be getting all that much traction. Surgical masks are no better than cloth masks (which is to say, there is no evidence that either reduces actual transmission in any meaningful way), so I wouldn’t be that surprised to see more of a push for “N95s only”. Properly fitted and worn N95s do reduce transmission, based on what I have seen in the hospital setting. We have staff who wear them in environments that are packed with COVID, and their infection rate has been on par with, or maybe slightly higher, than the general public. Of course, the general public will not, under any circumstances, wear properly fitted and worn N95s, so you can’t extrapolate from what I have seen to a society-wide mandate to wear them.
You know our broken, authoritarian Public Health Masters want an “N95s only” mask mandate. There are two barriers to this, though – (1) there aren’t enough N95s, and (2) saying, in effect, that surgical masks are useless will go against the Narrative, but our Public Health Masters are sublimely unconcerned with consistency, let alone validity. The original purpose of surgical masks – to protect people undergoing surgery from droplets (or worse) in their open incisions, and to protect the clinical staff from the patient’s bodily fluids, has been completely lost. Naturally, the hatred of normal people for N95s is a complete non-factor to our Public Health Masters.
This could also be a line in the sand. I can see hospitals mandating N95s for their employees. The line could be “I’m not wearing an N95, but I can work from home and not come into the building.” Don’t know if that would fly, though. Would I be willing to work mostly from home, and don the mask on the hopefully rare occasions I have to come in? Maybe? Probably?
The Data. The COVID data is steaming pile of flaming dumpsters that jumped the tracks and plowed through a day care center. I’m to the point where I trust very little of it, indeed. Confirmation bias is nobody’s friend. So, anecdata it is!
I haven’t talked to anyone who has gotten sick in the recent Omicron wave that wasn’t vaxxed and boosted. Not one. My conclusion: the vax and boosters don’t protect people from getting infected (and thus being carriers), and so there is zero basis for any vax/booster mandate.
1/3 of our patients hospitalized “with [positive] COVID [tests]” are vaxxed, in a county with about a 60% vax rate. The vax rate has been pretty stable, rising slightly, but the percentage of hospitalized patients who were vaxxed has been rising more than slightly. My conclusion: the vax helps prevent hospitalization to some degree (and thus likely reduces death to some degree). I also think that protection declines over time, and as new variants emerge.
What is unknown is whether there is a net benefit to the vax, when you net out the serious adverse side effects. Did I mention the data is garbage?
The Narrative. It is extremely difficult for me to say how effective the relentless propaganda narratives have actually been. They so completely dominate the public sphere that it is easy to say that the Narrative is winning. And there will always be a sizable percentage who buy in, out of laziness, desire for social acceptance, or whatever. I believe (hope?) this percentage is mostly concentrated in urban areas and in the laptop/managerial class.
The Narrative is so grotesquely and obviously false and self-contradictory that its hard to see how anyone can accept it. But its been apparent since the Before Times that we as a society are dividing into two very different worldviews, and, worse, these worldviews are irreconcilable. Well, there’s more than two, but there are two main ones.
There is the “new” Narrative that we are all familiar with – that COVID is an unprecedented extinction-level event only survivable by slavishly following the diktats of our Public Health Masters and overturning normal human interactions and society, that white people and America are deplorably and irredeemably racist, so America must be “fundamentally transformed”, that opposition to this is sedition and treason to be rooted out By Any Means Necessary, etc.
And there is the old worldview, which rejects all of this and bitterly clings, if you will, to notions of personal responsibility, family, getting ahead/getting by/getting along as best you can, the kinds of things that a normal person finds it hard to articulate for the same reason fish don’t really give a lot of thought to water.
These are irreconcilable because the new Narrative is totalitarian – it demands that everyone bend the knee and publicly bow to its demands. There is no point in engaging with an adherent of the Narrative – you will not change their minds. Well, maybe not no point; openly opposing the Narrative also lets others know that they aren’t alone, that there are good reasons why they aren’t crazy for thinking “all this I hear seems pretty nuts”.
Which brings me back to – how effective is the relentless propaganda? Is it creating a critical mass, or will it blow over like previous millenarian and intellectual fads? If there is a critical mass (which can be confined to the managerial class and urban areas), what then? Do normal people buckle under, resist Irish-Democracy style, or rise up?
Jobs. The evil fucks in our ruling class have cracked the code for totalitarian rule of America.
First, “safety” as the be-all and end-all of life, and “public health” as royal road to “safety”. That puts the state in charge of pretty much Every. Single. Thing. But the state still has limited reach, really.
So, second, make having a job contingent on complying with public health diktats. Bingo bango, the ideology and the mechanism of totalitarian rule fall into place like the pins on a deadbolt when the key is inserted.
Which poses a dilemma for doctrinaire libertarians, since it is now “private entities” extending and amplifying the reach of the state and advancing the agenda. Screw “nudging” individuals; “nudge” the companies are much more vulnerable to state action, instead. We’ve seen this movie before – the collusion of big business, the state, and organized labor. In Italy, it was fascism. In Germany, it was national socialism. And in the US, version 1.0 was the New Deal.
I don’t know what this latest mutation will be called. And I don’t know if it will succeed. It does have the tremendous propaganda machine of the Narrative behind it.
Politics. Who gives a shit, really, about the horrible people in DC being horrible to each other? And that’s basically what the political “news” covers. I’ve mostly stopped caring; they are little more than the penguin shit on the tip of the iceberg of our Ruling Borg, which includes the administrative state, the major media and entertainment, academia, Big Tech, and their fellow travelers in the managerial class.
Cocktails. C’mon, what’s an R C Dean post without a cocktail?
The Triple-Bitter Old-Fashioned:
3 oz. rye (I use our home barrel-aged stuff, you can use any liquor you like. I’m not your Karen.)
3 dashes chocolate bitters
3 dashes Peychauds bitters
6 dashes Angostura bitters
1 – 1 ½ oz. simple syrup (I actually use 1/2 oz of Dolcedi, which is a low-glycemic sweetener, and add a splash of water)
Shake, serve over rocks. As always, adjust to your taste. I’m not a garnish guy, but I could see a good maraschino cherry or two on this, if I had any in the fridge.
Bonus cocktail tip: I’ve take to adding 2 dashes of orange bitters per oz of Tequila to my margaritas. Adds a little dimension.
Nice summary. I never did get the shot. It looks like I’ll be keeping my job for now, much to my surprise. Probably doomed my chances for any future promotions.
I used to call myself a libertarian. After watching them self-righteously stand back and watch this shitshow, I don’t any longer.
I know how you feel about libertarians because that’s how I’m feeling about Glibertarians of late. Like, if this is what you people are offering in the way of Firsts, then I don’t know what to say. I can’t teach these things to you. Firsting is innate. You either are or aren’t. But you are supposed to be the chosen people.
Have you considered professional help?
I don’t call myself libertarian anymore either. On the rare occasion it comes up in conversation, I say that I am “live and let live.”
I do.
A) They may not know what that actually is.*
2. If they do, it lets them know I’m not going to be a fun conversant.
iii: And that I might be nuts.
*”I don’t know what that is.”
“Pot and prostitutes.”
Same.
It gets me out of a lot of uncomfortable conversations.
Little l; but if the Mises caucus can make real traction in changing the ass-hattery that the NLP is… who knows?
I always point out that I’m not a Repub-Demo. Most people think only in those definitions, if you re not one you must be the other. I say I am more liberal than a demo, more conservative than a repub..
Tough for people to grasp personal responsibility.
I have basically been nudged to the Anarchist Capitalist realm.
Hello, Tulpa. Thanks for stopping by.
See? You can trust me. Not like The Others. . .
I call myself a libertarian and have gotten a few “conservative-leaning” friends to think about libertarianism. I always stress small “l” and urge them to avoid the big “L”.
I added Luxardos to my Amazon wish list the other night. Maybe for if I get a bonus this year.
After having one Luxardo, I decided I am full on authoritarian when it comes to the types of cherries bars should be allowed to put in drinks.
I am partial to “Filthy” Italian amarena black cherries..
OK, I’ll withhold my final opinion until I can try those. They look good.
I guess the main thing is; use quality cherries. This stuff should be outlawed.
Bottom shelf? My mom always had some maraschinos around and we were definitely bottom shelf growing up so I think I know what you’re talking about.
I guess they work in fruit salad (they worked in my moms), but if you’re going to put the effort into making a cocktail it should have a cherry that doesn’t look like it’ll glow in the dark.
What, no glowies in cocktails?
Call me old fashioned.
?
I enjoyed the Filthy brand cherries so much that I remarked on it and the bartender showed me the jar so I could take a picture and track them down for purchase.
It was in a Manhattan. Soooo good.
I will definitely give them a try. I prefer my whiskey neat, but when I do feel like a cocktail a traditional Manhattan is my go-to.
Ordered.
The Triple-Bitter Old-Fashioned:
This looks tasty.
I won’t wear a mask anymore. During the previous round of insanity, I caved for select things and nothing else. Last October I caved so that I could see my mom. No more.
I won’t get vaccinated.
An interesting write-up RC.
In sort-of related news: Livestream of the Canadian Parliament having an emergency meeting about the truckers in Ottawa. At roughly the 52 minute mark, Trudeau makes a public appearance.
I haven’t been to a supermarket in over a month – only minimarts, which don’t give a shit about Queen Kathy’s edict. I may test the waters this weekend. The cupboard is pretty fucking bare lately.
But either way I am not complying. The only setting where I will comply is a medical setting because there is no alternative.
I just stopped at the market tonight and picked up some Black Velvet. Supporting the Canadians eh. I’ve only worn a mask once in the past 6 months or so and that was at Christmas time when we were invited over to someone’s house and the wife requested that we wear masks. I would have just stayed home, but there was someone there I wanted to see so I sucked it up for a few hours.
It is a lone datum but I had to stop in a Safeway for an item on my way to the race. I went in maskless, along with about 25% of the other patrons. No customers or employees said a word to me for exposing my “damn dirty naked” face. If sanity appears to approaching lock down Hawaii then there might be hope.
Nice.
Hawaii was one place that maybe had a shot at using quarantine to keep Covid away. But once the Vid had clearly arrived in Hawaii, the restrictions just hurt the local economy.
Good to “see” you around, sir!
Not “hurt” past tense, but continue to hurt the economy because of the politicians asshattery. Even the wily omicron variant is dropping the number of positives and the hospitals are in grave financial shape because they turned away their bread and butter for an explosion of da Vid that never happened, or delta never happened, or omicron never happened.
I’ve been promised hospitals are so overrun there are entire floors stacked floor to ceiling with unvaccinated patients on respirators.
Meaty stuff to ponder, thanks R.
This has been in my thoughts a lot lately. At first blush it seems like the same old left/right herpity derp but… upon closer reflection it feels much more pernicious than that ever was. As in, possibility to tear the country apart stuff. And there are a shocking number of people cheering it on.
The divide isn’t urban vs. rural anymore. It’s ‘people who want to be taken care of’ vs. ‘people who want to take care of themselves.’
Even what you describe would be acceptable to me, but it’s not the case with these folks.
If they were free to join the cult and I were free to opt out, that would be fine. But they can’t have anyone opting out. You Must Comply.
And you must pay their way too.
Urban vs. rural is a convenient shorthand because that is how it currently sorts out. I’m an outlier, an urban rat who doesn’t fit in. Not sure how that is going to work out in the long run. And there are a lot of like-minded folks here even if they don’t make the news.
It’s the basis of every William Gibson novel.
I’ve mentioned before that I worked for a while at Rocky Flats in the real-life no-shit contaminated areas where you either wear a mask or you die. At the first mask fitting the tech looked at me and said, “The beard has to go.” For me today (bearded again) wearing any mask is ludicrous. I know that they are useless (except as RC describes) so the mask mandates are rubbing my nose in bullshit. To me it’s like watching the teevee news guy talk about something that I actually know about and his report is utter gibberish.
Margarita tip: Use tequila, lime juice, and Midori.
I’ve lost long-term friends over this. TDS broke them and the vid buried them.
Hah!
Yeah, when I was in college I worked maintenance at a manufacturing plant. There were tanks that held nasty chemicals that we had to clean. The boss always told us to shave and taped the gap in our respirators himself.
If you have a beard, this shit is hilarious.
Did you know there are housing developments in Rocky Flats?
I thought that the whole area was now an “Environmental Park” or somesuch. Figures; see “Love Canal”.
Lol.
No, not even close.
Much like the food service people with a mask, I have seen FS guys wear a hairnet over their beard . Makes sense.
Back in the’80s, we’d do Army PT in our full NBC (Nuclear Biologic &Chemical) Gear.
It would be an extreme ass kicking, because the gas masks would cut down on the oxygen intake. An easy cheat was to pull out the rubber exhale valve, making it easy to breath, but meant it wasn’t filtering anything. The easy fix to that was to randomly hit the formation with CS.
It was immediately evident who was cheating (my squad leader, for instance). A guy in the other platoon threw up in his mask. Cheaters scrambled.
A good seal on your mask was key, although any CS that touched sweaty skin was no beau coup.
We did that in Korea in 08. We’d wait till winter to do our mandatory gear training – and then play softball or something for a few hours. Man…if you can’t get the mask fit test right, its brutal. I would always get a migraine after a couple hours…
At my employer they are apparently required by MIOSHA? to keep an updated posting showing total number of COVID-19 cases and number of “recovered” COVID-19 cases. We are nearing 100 now on both tallies in a business with a few hundred employees. How posting those numbers is supposed to help in the fight against COVID-19 I haven’t a clue. I have a sneaking suspicion that more than a handful of those approximately 100 positive cases are from people that have figured out how to get a positive test result and get 10 days away from work. How widespread that phenomenon is I don’t know, but I also don’t believe it is zero.
Watching a live tennis tournament in Dallas. The only people in sight wearing the mask are the help, as usual – ball boys and line judges – and only some of them at that.
Only peasants wear masks
https://www.theblaze.com/news/elementary-school-principal-silent-when-asked-to-explain-why-kids-were-forced-to-mask-up-but-stacey-abrams-wasnt
I don’t see how this is supposed to be a justification.
How dare you use
Black HistoryNational Children’s Dental Health Month as an excuse to attack a gap-tooth person. Bigot!That’s because you can think. For the MSNBC crowd it makes perfect sense.
That’s… Even worse.
Let’s go Brandon – Nakashima! San Diego’s own.
From the beginning (pre vaccine) I looked at the data, seeing few people catching the covid. Then I looked at the recovery rate, high, high 90s. Then evaluated the health and age of those dying. Most of the deaths were old people (like me) and had comorbities which I did not. Mrs F and I were comfortable in not worrying about the dreaded flu. Every old friend that I know got the vaccines, as best I know none got the virus. The missus and I only wore masks when it was forced, as in medical facilities.
Several of my classmates and friends have died over the past two years, none to my knowledge from the virus(es). Several skipped the Honey Harvests, can’t take a chance, since there would unmasked people there (any and all Glibs that attended). At least 1/2 of my high school class are gone with several dying in 2021. It’s what happens to old people.
I spent a number of days in the hospital last year but not caused by the virus. I had to wear a mask when I left my room, everyone that came in had to be masked but most visitors took their masks off inside the room, the hospital staff was always masked and I never saw a smile, couldn’t tell if they were old or young , cute or otherwise. There was no pressure from the staff about me getting vaccinated, I wouldn’t have anyway.
My husband was hospitalized in winter/spring 2021 and he never got the vid. He was not required to wear a mask but I was. One doctor didn’t bother, and most of the nurses cheated by pulling the mask beneath their noses so that they could breathe.
Even though husband was vulnerable, he has never tested positive for Covid, and boy did they test him for it.
He has always refused to get the vax. I got the vax and the booster (both J&J) and I have never had so many flus/colds in my life since then. I might be paranoid but I really think the vaccine harmed my immune system. I hope it’s reversible in time.
I hope it’s reversible in time.
The benefits certainly seem to be.
Yeah, hope all those flus and colds make you more immune.
I had a bad cold last summer and then a lesser one a couple months later. I haven’t taken a test since I have never had the symptoms.
Once the body recovers from a disease or a vaccine the level of antibodies declines over time. One reason is that there isn’t enough space in the body to keep high levels of antibodies if all kinds. But I also have to assume there are other biological costs of maintaining high antibody levels. Perhaps having high levels of one kind of antibody makes it difficult to produce other kinds leaving you vulnerable to things like flu and cold. Just a guess.
I haven’t talked to anyone who has gotten sick in the recent Omicron wave that wasn’t vaxxed and boosted.
*raises hand*.
Vaxxed but not boosted. Incidentally, my vaxxed and boosted wife did not get sick. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Unvaxxed, unboosted – I think I had it over Xmas but I didn’t want to put myself on a list in order to find out.
And the only reason I think I had it is because I am, despite living in NYC, something of a hermit and I haven’t been sick in years. This thing was touted as so highly transmissible that I can only assume I caught it.
My whole family is unvaxxed, unboosted, and had omicron a few weeks back.
Same. And I also did not get MS’s wife sick.
I did a mask study for the fire department 20 years ago. I was looking at particulate matter, but masks come with both ratings. Cloth masks don’t even have an “N” rating. If I remember correctly, it was 16 for surgical masks. And so on and so forth.
This whole masking thing, once they realized the virus was aerosolized, was nothing but Kabuki theater.
Glibs After Dark™.
https://archive.md/rcBsf
NSFW.
Redheads please!
https://archive.md/vHe7w
oooh, boy. Glad I stopped by tonight.
8th from the end, fake red-head, nose ring: Wow, those eyes. Also, most likely to boil a bunny, in a group full of likely candidates.
Hired a guy who knows steel and fab today. The price was right, it’s good for us both. He wanted to come over but called with a couple of questions.
You gonna make me take the shot? Nah, we don’t tell you how to live your life.
What’s a typical week look like? Shop opens 6:30 to 3:30, but do what you gotta do, come and go; just get it done. Sometimes it takes 50 hours. We try to leave Fridays a bit after lunch.
He starts in two weeks.
The world needs more bosses like you.
arm’s length transaction: we’ll be good for each other
what else is there?
“Surgical masks are no better than cloth masks (which is to say, there is no evidence that either reduces actual transmission in any meaningful way)”
I think surgical masks are at least somewhat better than most cloth masks, in that they at least reduce gross droplets. I’ve looked at cloth masks that are so bad you can dots of light through them. They wouldn’t even stop small insects.
“Of course, the general public will not, under any circumstances, wear properly fitted and worn N95s”
True. I’ve had to wear them on the truck on occasion. No one is going put up with wearing one all day, or know how to fit it. Much less school children.
Slightly. See above. And that means properly fitted and changed every hour.
“They wouldn’t even stop small insects.”
My bee veil will stop most insects, except when it pulls up and the mean guys can find live Fourscore but that’s not the fault of the veil.
“I’m not a garnish guy, but I could see a good maraschino cherry or two on this, if I had any in the fridge.”
You don’t need to keep them in the fridge. Maraschino cherries are so well preserved they can survive in a garbage dumpster.
*sigh*
Turns out the last couple of hard crashes my desktop suffered was Avast being a little shit.
Any recommendations on antivirus software that isn’t going to wreck shit when I play a resource intensive game?
Get rid of it all. The antivirus software is the virus.
Yeah, I don’t bother even on Windows.
^ this ^
I stopped playing that game quite a while ago. As long as you aren’t playing Russian Roulette with your clicks, the built in Windows stuff* is plenty good.
*not an expert
I donno, I follow some links on Glibs.
Seems pretty reckless.
touche
This. The built-in Windows anti-malware stuff is as good as anything out there.
Keep your System Restore points up to date.
Luxardo cherry wrapped in a slice of orange peel.
I haven’t traveled much since this nonsense started, certainly not by air, and anywhere that requires proof of vaccination is off my list for life. That said, I haven’t heard of any such place, and I’m not sure what qualifies as proof of vaccination, but I bet it’s easily spoofed.
My bosses concluded last year that they’re uninterested in knowing our vax status, let alone requiring we get the jab. I had one instance of pushback from a senior engineer who upbraided me for not getting it. The next day he took me aside and apologized for bringing it up. I think I will get through this unjabbed.
Aside from the statewide mask mandate our shitforbrains governor continues to prolong, very little of the covid theater seems meaningful or has the pull it used to. The office is almost fully staffed again, I see fewer numbskulls wearing masks in their cars or walking around the park alone, and even indoors people are clearly just going through the motions. It’s almost funny watching people walk into a restaurant, sit down, pocket the face diaper, and forget about it till they’re back out the door. Thankfully covid can only see you coming.
My employer – a mid-sized, on-and-off Fortune 500, financial concern – has been very silent about all of this. Apart from one half-hearted attempt to collect our “status” last summer. Not one word since then. Other than “follow state laws”.
I’m supposed to be in the office three days a week. I haven’t been in seven months.
Next week I’m going (along with 7 others) to a national lab in California.
They sent us their policies: safety shoes and glasses for the tour of a certain area, etc. Makes sense.
But they also sent their Covid instructions. We have to bring proof of our vaccination status or a recent negative test. It’s not enough for them to have our company medical clinic tell them we are vaxxed; we have to bring the CDC cards or a medical record stating we are compliant.
We have to wear N95 masks, and we have to stay 6 feet apart, even masked. We aren’t allowed to eat or drink in a group setting. We are required to use their hand sanitizer. (One of my coworkers has painful eczema and is dreading this.)
It’s fucking psychotic and they only get to be this ridiculous because they are federally funded.
I might have to “come down with a cold” before the trip.
If you end up going, you can always “come down with covid” after the trip and make the assholes panic.
“I was fine until I visited your facility.”
I hope the pay is worth it 🙂
You have my condolences.
I traveled to LLNL several times in the late 90’s to work with their hyrdodynamics program and enjoyed my visits. That was in the “before time” when you could just walk across the street to enter the facility.
I turned down a job there in the early 90’s because I concluded that the cost of living was too high. Worked out for me in the long run.
If it’s BNL then you *really* have my condolences.
It’s LLNL. They courted me when I floated my resume out last summer. But a big part of my desire for a new job was to leave California so it was no dice.
I’m looking forward to touring the NIF though but how that many “brilliant” scientists can swallow the COVID BS hook, line, and sinker is beyond my understanding.
I feel like it’s a lot of “Havel’s Green Grocer.”
My first job at LANL was a laser fusion project, precursor to NIF. I didn’t realize that the program was still funded.
Laser fusion is an example of a sound physics principle that is a true bitch to implement in the Real World(tm).
Have you ever heard of Dr. Marvin Weber?
Brilliant =/= immune to credulity
Even smart people are susceptible to sloganeering and the cognitive biases that impact worldview. In fact, probably more so because they’re less likely to have the humility to admit that they might not have all the info to make an informed decision.
I got a free N95 mask from a ship inspection in dec. Figure i’ll hold onto it in case its needed elsewhere.
Aren’t they meant to be disposable? Single use only?
it’s in good shape. You should see how long I use my other masks….
I had a cold in December. I don’t know if it was omicron. I wasn’t going to test for it because … why?
There’s no good reason.
Daughter came down with omicron over the weekend. One of the symptoms of omicron is “headache”. Apparently, people with a history of migraine need to worry, because omicron triggers severe migraines. Daughter was vomiting and couldn’t even sip water. She had to go the hospital and get two bags of saline and intravenous narcotics to kick the migraine before they let her go home. I is recovering slowly.
She is taking quinine, zinc, vita-C, and vita-D. But you can take anything when you vomit from plain water. Quite the complication.
Oh, dear. All good wishes to her.
Thanks. Grandson had covid the week prior to daughter catching it. He recovered very quickly using quinine, zinc, vita-C, and vita-D.
Daughter was testing every other day. The migraines set in the day she tested positive.
That poor gal. My thoughts are with her. There are CBD powders that some people claim help dull migraines. Not sure if she’s tried them or if they would even help, but hey…
She and the wife have long histories of migraines. Both have them pretty well under control.
The ER doctor was saying that omicron hits migraine sufferers really hard. Not clear why, but he’s seen a pattern.
Interesting. I’ve had a lingering headache for a couple of days.
Yup.
Omicron presents as garden variety “cold” with headache. If you don’t test, you don’t know you have covid. {true for many people, but not all.}
I had a night of weird fever chills but no fever. That was the tipoff to me. Then I lost my taste, which confirmed it. The rest was a garden variety cold that got into my chest a little bit.
Hoping for the best for your daughter.
thanks
Yikes. I’m glad I’ve avoided it so far *knock wood* because while I don’t have them much anymore, I have a history of migraines and that’s a giant Do Not Want.
Hope it clears out soon for her.
Prayers.
How’s her GI? A lot of the people I know are a hell of a time with the gut.
Not sure. I believe she is keeping food down, and slowly getting better.
Both her sons got covid and recovered quickly. We know the right stuff to take.
Her complication was the severe migraines that left her weak and dehydrated.
I expect she will recover quickly from the vid, and then recover from the consequences of the migraines more slowly.
Make sure she’s pounding the electrolytes.
Yeah, what I had tore my gut up which is another clue I didn’t have a garden-variety cold or flu because those don’t do that to me.
Haven’t seen Winston lately so I’ll fill in.
And libertarians said the next mayor of NY can’t be worse than DeBlasio.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/02/got-get-new-yorkers-eat-plant-based-centered-life-nyc-mayor-adams-serving-inedible-vegan-slop-school-kids-video/
And believe it or not, the next prez will be worse than the present one. He/she will built on the tatters from this fiasco. No sunset laws ever.
That bar is so low you need dynamite and mining equipment to get under it.
Funny how none of this came out during the election season.
I’m beginning to think he might be terminally stupid.
There’s no might about it.
The Party of SCIENCE!™
Could be worse… they could be competing in China.
linked the wrong tweet… scroll up for the nightmare fuel.
Competing in China is illegal. You must work for the communal good of the CCP.
I just got back from a ski trip with a group of people–12 in all, only three of whom I see more than once a month. They are a pretty diverse group–IT people, social workers, engineers, construction workers, and one physician. Most of them that I got to talk to in depth are pretty much done with COVID insanity, including the physician. She was fairly quiet about it, but quite clearly in the camp of “masks aren’t going to work, ‘Omicron’ is really mild, and vaccines don’t seem to be doing much for the strains that are out there now.”
Pretty much all of them other than myself and the GF have had COVID already. Two are relatively heavy people, and one of them is still on the “get the vax” side, but didn’t bother to ask anyone if they had it. The other heavy person was basically “fuck it” and he’s *really* big, and probably ought to have been more concerned, but he already had it a year ago, and got through with little problem.
I think the more people who have it, the better, because they seem to be finally realizing that the worst outcomes seem to be with people with serious other conditions, or just randomly react badly to it.
BTW, we all stayed in a house together, no masks, no distancing, all eating in close proximity, sitting together, playing cards, watching TV, skiing, hot tubbing–just like normal, none of us with any real concerns about getting sick, even though most of us don’t hang out more than a few times a year and don’t know where the others have been from month to month.
This is what makes me think that it’s (COVID insanity) not going to last forever. People are done with it, and will accept the risk for a normal life. Maybe the circles I travel in are abnormal, but I haven’t seen too many people that are a really still stuck in that rut. I really feel for those who are. I had to go into downtown Pittsburgh today, and I saw people wearing masks outdoors for the first time in many months. But the majority I saw were unmasked.
Party at DB’s house.
It’s so weirdly specific here. The middle-easterners who run all the minimarts are completely over it.
The Koreans who run all the liquor stores and laundromats are in peak fear mode, K95 or whatever those things are called.
Teenagers are completely mask city. Mid-lifers are over it.
I go to a military-themed Korean barber shop locally. Nearly everyone who comes in is unmasked, other than a couple oldsters. The Korean mama-sans wear masks but I’ve never once heard them say anything about masks to a customer.
Yeah, I’d be in a pickle if the Korean liquor store owners made a stink about it. They don’t.
The middle easterners run all the barber shops here, and also not a mask in sight.
That’s how most of my coworkers are. Apart from one or two assholes, everyone else is done. Even the ones who buy into the MSM covid narrative are in the “it’s up to you, get a shot, wear mask, wash your hands, or not, your choice” camp.
In the earlier thread, Scruffy said:
EvilSheldon said, in part:
I agree wholeheartedly with both statements. People need to get better adjusted. Growing up, I don’t remember *anyone* getting so panicky and neurotic as people seem to be these days.
When I’m unfortunate enough to come into contact with mainstream media, or overhear the conversations of people who marinate in it all the time, I’m pretty disgusted to hear how *helpless* everyone seems to be in the face of their emotional storms, and how they actually seem to take pride in airing their dirty laundry / “posting their ‘Ls’ “
Good points db. In the archive is an article I did back in 2020(?) on mountaineering. If you literally have the responsibility of saving somebody else’s life if they screw up (and they yours) you generally start looking past the panicdemic freak show.
I’ve noticed that mask usage around here has really increased in the last couple of weeks. I’d estimate that grocery store customers are about 80% masked these days. I’m not sure why, it seems unrelated any mandates (the last mandate back in December-January, I’d guess there was <50% compliance), and none of the stores are actually forcing customers to mask up.
Same for me. The semi rural grocery I go to that was easily 1/3 unmasked (with state mandate reimposed since August, with no end in sight) has dropped and there’s far fewer massless in the last few weeks. Even the Wally’s world is mostly masked since Christmas.
People cannot let go to something they have heavily invested in. Imagine the screams if TSA were to disappear tomorrow? If the USDA went away?
People have been conditioned to need that control over them.
And that’s the bottom line…BECAUSE STONE COLD BRO SAID SO!!!!!
?
So, pretty fair coverage of the honklitude on Fox today – great coverage by Tucker including the fuel confiscation- although would have been better with Gord to provide context/details/background.
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6296203763001#sp=show-clips
It’s not unusual to have fun with anyone.
https://mobile.twitter.com/noeloward/status/1489243429192314885
That is oddly disturbing.
I’m sure I’m breaking some stupid federal law, but since I am a manager, I get all of the western states emails of covid positives at our facilities. Vast majority are fully vaccinated, some boosted, and a spinkle of unvaccinated.
I am saving every one of those for when they finally find a way to try and oust us unclean.
And do what with that list?
For me really when they claim I am unsafe to work cause I’m not vaccinated. Part of my EEO complaint when they make me jab my nose every week. It isn’t some ground breaking information.
This fucking can’t.
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/dr-leana-wen-does-180/
They completely backtracked on masks with no consequences. the shit she’s selling isn’t going to red pill anyone.
Starts the video justifying her position by saying case counts are down.
When asked about case counts half way through video, says that we shouldn’t be looking at case counts at all at this point.
Some fine sciencing.
It will be a glorious pivot that I am not sure that can control. The true believers are deeply entrenched.
They have successfully ended critical thinking in most people. They don’t report facts and let you figure out what you think and how you feel about them; they tell you how to feel and not to think.
I recall various science experiments in which they raised some rats in an individual boring white enclosure with no stimulus (other than food and water), and then raised other rats from the same gene pool in interesting mazes with puzzles and colors etc.
When they dissected the rats’ brains, they found that the bored rats had far fewer “wrinkles” and folds on their cerebrums than the stimulated rats had. Being “stupid” physically determined how their brains grew.
I have to wonder whether the physical brain structures in Americans now is less complex than it was 50 years ago.
Proactive defense against the zombie apocalypse? Dumb brains may not have enough nourishment to keep the zombies mobile.
They never had a case for lock downs. Those POS have no moral justification to strap cloth on people’s faces and never did. It turned in the shit show it has because they claimed a right they never actually had.
The face mask idiocy was/is so ludicrous that it really does seem like a bunch of bored billionaires got together at a retreat and placed bets on whether they could get the masses to wear masks for two years.
Some sort of sick game.
Did they each bet one dollar?
Yeah, there was never any evidence that masks had anything more than a possibly tiny effect on slowing the spread. That they’d force people to wear these things in that situation shows that no human behavior is so small they won’t try to control it with force. Age old battle of tyrants vs the people.
I don’t even think it was about control for guys like Fauci as much as the need to seem as if they were in control of the situation. Telling people there aint much we can do doesn’t cut it in his eyes. He needed, and many politicians needed, to be seen doing something to retain the illusion of control over the situation.
There’s a shit ton of Karen’s out there who get off on forcing everyone else to go along with their delusions. There’s some really dumb bureaucrats and politicians who probably genuinely believe the shit their peddling and who have an authority boner. But I think the core problem was the above.
My boss’s boss asked me to go show up my former boss at his job. While claiming it was a completely separate from the issue of me getting promoted.
I’ll take some joy in making my old boss look stupid, but I’m tired of fuck fuck games. Do they not know who I am?
You had me until the final sentence.
“Don’t you know who I think I am?” might be more appropriate.
Years ago, I was on the cusp of being late for a meeting with a new client. I was on the interstate, behind someone in the left lane toddling along way too slow and unable to get around. I was yelling “JESUS CHRIST LADY- CANT YOU SEE HOW IMPORTANT I AM? I PROTECT PUBLIC HEALTH!”
Deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that smokestack- you NEED me on that smokestack.
[Points at Brochettaward]
Does anybody k ow this man? He doesn’t seem to know who he is.
i have been reading the antiwork Reddit for shits and giggles. The talking point on the left today seems to have been that this was the deadliest day of the pandemic and no one cared.
So, yea, the Mandarin class may have some trouble walking back their propaganda. Their base is fully immersed in the panic porn.
I call that the pro-starvation crowd.
If those twats want to self-isolate in their apartments and on Reddit while avoiding work that’s fine by me. They’re absolutely toxic people, who’d want them around the workplace anyway?
https://www.nj.com/essex/2022/02/police-say-fomer-newark-mayor-struck-other-vehicle-pedestian-in-crash.html
“Unaware”. Uh huh.
https://nationaltoday.com/extraterrestrial-culture-day/
Happy national extraterrestrial culture day! ?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/township-workers-at-center-of-thorny-dispute-over-how-federal-covid-19-funds-allocated-in-upper-darby/ar-AATzIc1
I wonder if they checked their couch cushions.
I lose $6m all the time.
I wonder who they lay off first in order to gin up maximum outrage.
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/motorcyclist-dies-after-falling-from-santa-clarita-mall-parking-structure-while-performing-tricks-lasd/
Hey buddy, stop doing that! Err…nevermind…
suh’ fam
whats goody
Honk!
Good morning, homey & Sean!
Don’t have the blood test results from yesterday’s check-up yesterday, but my doc is still threatening cholesterol meds if my numbers aren’t down from past years. For controlling cholesterol with diet, his big thing is giving up “processed meats,” including turkey sausage, and (of course) red meat. For some reason, though, he suggested that ham and even bacon were OK. Maybe he just allows for bacon because he’s not a monster.
If it’s not super high I wouldn’t worry about it, if it’s kind of high give fish oil a shot first. Also, make sure they calculate your risks based on your good to bad ratios along with your triglycerides, not total cholesterol. Avoid the statins at (almost) all costs.
I’ve been taking a fish oil softgel daily – I forget for how long, so I don’t know whether I’d started before last year’s test. I’m hoping it’s doing some good. My triglycerides are in the OK range, as is my HDL, so it’s just the LDL and the total that are above the recommended level.
You’re likely aware but here’s a link to a risk calculator:
https://www.mdapp.co/cholesterol-ratio-calculator-447/
It’s not just the raw numbers that are important but the ratios as well.
Thanks! I hadn’t been aware, but I’ve bookmarked that now.
Good Morning GT. Glad to know it wasn’t worse.
You’re welcome. I had a work physical a few years ago and had moderately high total cholesterol and the work doc advised me to see my personal doc and said he’d probably put me on a statin. My own doc did the calculations on a piece of scrap paper for the ratios and said it wasn’t necessary at all. Even some physicians aren’t aware of this it seems.
https://mobile.twitter.com/GhostOfGord/status/1490866199013761024?cxt=HHwWgIDR_Za6z7ApAAAA
??
Pepe?
Nazis confirmed!
Morning, Glibs.
Normally, I wouldn’t bother to mention a dream as uninteresting as this morning’s, but it did confirm that not only do I appear to have no trouble reading in dreams, but I can still do math in them. Admittedly, all I was doing in the dream was comparing information on the waistband size of two pairs of pants that had been printed in an obfuscatory format. I’m still not certain whether the old or the new pair was smaller, but I think it was the new.
I rarely remember my dreams any more. I wish I could – I’d really like to know what’s going on in my head when I’m asleep.
I remember them more when I have to force myself to get up rather than waiting for the sleep cycle to finish normally.
Can pretty much confirm that the numbers on the waist band of new pants are always bigger. Seems to correspond with the numbers on the calendar, both get bigger in unison.
You’re applying real world logic to a dream, man.
When I dreaming, I think I can read in dreams. I’m not sure that’s actually the case. Dream epistemology is difficult. Of course, I also have impossible camera angles in dreams and dreams in which I’m not even present.
“Philadelphia Has Had At Least 140 Carjackings This Year So Far, Double The Year-To-Date Total From 2021”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/philadelphia-has-had-least-140-carjackings-year-so-far-double-year-date-total-2021
Come to rolling stops when visiting Philly it is, better still steer clear completely. The liberty bell’s not that impressive anyway.
Took my kids to the museums there when they were tykes. Very nice, but that was about 20 years ago. No desire to return.
“The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information (MDM) introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors.”
https://www.dhs.gov/ntas/advisory/national-terrorism-advisory-system-bulletin-february-07-2022
Accept the government narrative or you’re probably a terrorist or at least a potential terrorist. The DHS needs to be thrown on the trash heap.
OMG NOT ONLINE CONSPIRACY THEORIES!!1! ?
It’s like their warnings are being driven by the state of the Joe Rogan news cycle. In fact they probably are. It’s pathetic.
They must be worried that the new Canadian variant could be highly contagious. If that strain gains traction all bets are off.
They were soooo close. They could have appended “activities” to the end of that and then used ATF resources to go after the threat of MDMA.
FedGov want me to come into work more regularly.
But i don’t have a negative covid test.
They are supposed to send me some
I haven’t gotten them.
Typical
Filling the background noise with a recorded livestream of a trial. I’m amazed at the patience of the jury. They should have murdered this grandstanding habitual liar of a defense attorney an hour ago in his closing arguments.
Thankfully that is over. Prosecutor didn’t need a lot of time to crush the blather. Judge is reading secondary jury instructions regarding the verdict form. It’s taking longer than the prosecutor’s statement.
Yes by the facts, I think the guy is guilty, and his lawyer’s grandstanding didn’t help.
Mornin’ all.
Happy Tuesday.
Properly fitted and worn N95s do reduce transmission
Will they mandate men are clean shaven in order to get a proper fit?
Of course they will. Investment recommendation: Long Gillette.
The best a mandate can get.
?
LOL
Naw, it won’t be a mandate, it’ll be a beard tax.
Middle easterners hardest hit, especially the men
lol
All of a sudden, religious exemptions will be acceptable again.