Sunday Morning Return of The Old Man Links

by | Mar 27, 2022 | Daily Links | 192 comments

Well, for the moment, SP is home and keeping us busy. Nonetheless, I still wanted to dip my toe back in just so y’all would have at least an occasional dose of Jew. I was amused that, here in this very rural redneck part of New York, Red as can be (other than our little college town), Trump signs everywhere, the four physicians she had at the regional hospital were two Indians (call center, not casino), a Pakistani, and a black guy from Alabama. They all said that they loved living here and felt nothing but welcomed. I hope some Progressives come here from NYC to explain to them that they are hated and in constant danger of being lynched. Oh, and one of the India docs got me his mother’s recipe for dosa, which in a just world, would be our national food.

Yes, I’m celebrating SP’s presence here, but also celebrating today’s birthdays, which include a guy who wrote one of the best and most important books of the last 200 years; a guy who inspired a Beatles song; a man who managed true evil; a guy who designed the boxes that buildings came in; a guy who didn’t give a fock (but should have won a Nobel); a piece of shit who capped a career of failure by leaving us his idiot son; a brilliant singer of the most American of genres; a guy whose opponent was disarmed; my favorite football player to watch- and here’s why; a guy whose films leave me in a state of wonder- at why people think they’re any good; and a delightfully named baseball player who was damn fun to watch.

So here’s some Links, and if I have drugs fall out of my ass, my excuse is that I have been away on serious business.

 

Here’s the dumbest fucking idea yet from Team Blue to try to drum up enough extra dough to keep the government running for perhaps 10 or 11 minutes. “Unrealized.” Jesus H titty fucking christ.

 

Every time this asshole open his mouth, I get more sympathetic to the Russians. Say the, Vold, how about if you BUY shit you want instead of whining?

 

RACISM RACISM RACISM! Remember when he voted to lynch Clarence Thomas?

 

This would be delightful.

 

“This time, we’ve got him for sure!!!!”

 

Not news, but a link to some of the geekiest fun I’ve had in a long, long time.

 

If you can’t spell fluorine, don’t write about it. I will resist saying that this story is a nothingburger. Oh wait, I just did.

 

Old Guy Music is inspired by the impressive array of pill bottles in front of me.

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me. Wait, wrong book, I'll find something else.

192 Comments

  1. Count Potato

    “a brilliant singer of the most American of genres”

    I like Sarah Vaughn, but there are plenty of genres just as American as jazz.

    Anyway, glad to hear SP is well enough to be home.

  2. Sean

    Good news from OMWC. Good way to start the day.

  3. The Late P Brooks

    welcome back.

    • hayeksplosives

      Yup!

      • SDF-7

        Morning, HS. Being an early riser and therefore sleeping at night, didn’t comment on the evening thread — but like the Proto-splosives avatar. You could fill in for Shirley Manson, it seems to me — if you get tired of blowing stuff up for fun and profit, I suppose.

      • hayeksplosives

        Thank you, kind sir.

        Unfortunately I am afflicted with the ability to detect even the slightest off-tune instrument or voice, but the worst voice ever myself.

        So you won’t be seeing or hearing me onstage anytime soon. I am a hell of an A/V board operator tho.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        I am a hell of an A/V board operator tho.

        Could’ve used you last night. The sound board guy at the venue clearly had no clue what compression is or why anybody would need it. My ears are ringing this morning because of it…

      • The Last American Hero

        Yeah, who needs low and high end? Just give me more mid-range!!! And fuck dynamics!

      • Chafed

        But this one goes to 11.

  4. Shpip

    Oh, and one of the India docs got me his mother’s recipe for dosa, which in a just world, would be our national food.

    The mom of an Indian friend finally, after much pestering, gave me her bread recipe. But she held me to a naan-disclosure agreement.

    • Old Man With Candy

      That was a puri pun.

      • SDF-7

        He’s just trying to curry favor with you, obviously.

      • Old Man With Candy

        Really, it doesn’t matar.

      • SDF-7

        Sure — but eventually these threads fennel down to Swiss and he brings out the mace.

      • Old Man With Candy

        Ghee whiz, I shoulda seen that cumin.

      • Shpip

        I’m sure Swiss will give me the what for when he awakens.

        It’ll be instant korma.

    • Tres Cool

      Reminds me of the indian chef that refused to make traditional dishes. He was a naan-conformist.

    • Tonio

      These puns really chap my pati.

      • Shpip

        They have the opposite effect on me. I don’t know vada do without them.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Hmmm, I’m not familiar with that Indian dish. Is it very pungent?

    • Tonio

      The White House has already started to spin, and walk back everything he said on his european visit. Poor Strawberry must be having a rough week.

      • Ted S.

        Maybe she faked her covid test to avoid this shitshow.

      • R C Dean

        I strongly suspect she did, myself.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Biden’s become a security liability now. I have to imagine there’s talk of invoking the 25th. He’s a loose cannon in a way that Trump never even got close to.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Trump is an asshole with a big mouth, Biden’s a senile person with a big mouth (he’s also an asshole but that’s neither here or there). He isn’t even a rational actor.

      • Lackadaisical

        Is Strawberry getting bruised?

    • Hyperion

      His masters Xi and Klaus want a war, for different reasons, but they’re united in being for the destruction of the West.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I certainly do.

        The media was in a total uproar even though it was an obvious joke and we weren’t on the precipice of a hot war like now.

  5. Fourscore

    Good to see you back, OM, been a while, hoping SP is up and about and giving you what you deserve.

    Raising taxes on unreported accumulated capitol gains (or whatever it’s called) will really help and we’ll stop those rich people from passing along their wealth. Amazing that von Mises and Hayek didn’t understand that.

    “We’ll use the money to pay don’t the debt”

    • Fourscore

      or down the debt but one works better in reality

    • Old Man With Candy

      She’s not exactly up (we have a hospital bed set up on the second floor where the bathroom is), but at least I’m able to care for her here. We’re in a holding pattern until we get up to the cancer center, theoretically next week.

      Don’t know if she was able to get a message out to you, but your kind and wonderful note was greatly appreciated.

      • Fourscore

        Magic pills for the win!

      • hayeksplosives

        Thank you for that update.

        I’m continuing to pray for you heathens, whether you like it or not.

    • SDF-7

      Opening that door would really be hell on earth for the middle class — because like all taxes that start with “just the elite!”, it gets shifted down.

      And performance bonus stock grants are already enough of a pain to deal with at tax time (mainly because the “management” companies can’t be bothered to generate clear tax reports for folks to use.. looking at you, Fidelity — you lazy bastards…). And then consider things like property — house appreciation would technically be unrealized income as well.

      Sounds almost like moving towards “you’ll own nothing and be happy!” again…. gee, I wonder why……

      • Hyperion

        If I wanted to destroy the USA in the fastest way possible, I’d make Joe Biden president.

  6. The Late P Brooks

    Dubbed the “Billionaire Minimum Income Tax,” the Biden administration proposal, as highlighted in the document, aims to “ensure that the very wealthiest Americans pay a tax rate of at least 20 percent on their full income, including unrealized appreciation.”

    Now we’re getting somewhere.

    • Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

      “Unrealized appreciation” is my greatest problem, and I’m pretty salty about the fact that people aren’t constantly appreciating me. Whoops, ‘scuse me, I’ve just been handed a note…

      Oh, that kind of “unrealized appreciation.”

  7. Hyperion

    “Well, for the moment, SP is home and keeping us busy. Nonetheless, I still wanted to dip my toe back in just so y’all would have at least an occasional dose of Jew.”

    Happy to hear that she is doing well and best wishes to y’all.

    Daily dose of Jew? I just want (((them))) to stop walking in the middle of the fucking road when I have to drive somewhere on Saturday. I didn’t see any (((them))) crossing signs. Worst part is when you are driving right towards them and they just refuse to move even a little. They really do believe in that sky god don’t they?

    • Old Man With Candy

      They are related to geese, apparently.

      Given (((our))) experiences of the past couple millennia, (((we))) have no illusion that sky god is going to protect (((us))).

      • Hyperion

        My own sky god clan (Baptists) I was unwillingly indocrinated into at birth, called it ‘Faith’.

      • Don escaped Texas

        my own

        “They burnt crosses every night all around us, and a man who’ll burn what he prays to, he’ll burn anything.” ― Shelby Foote, Jordan County

  8. The Late P Brooks

    Now if we can just start expropriating the business assets of the wrongthinkers. We’re at war. It’s a matter of national security.

  9. rhywun

    Jesus H titty fucking christ.

    Hey, it destroys the economy and punishes the right people. What’s not to like?!

    • Fourscore

      Remember that retirement fund you used to have? We’re all in this together.

      • Hyperion

        You just have to learn how to do math, billionaires == the middle class.

      • SDF-7

        Well, if inflation keeps at this rate… soon enough, soon enough. Pretty sure most of the mid to upper middle class are millionaires by net worth these days (heck, by unrealized gains of property in a lot of places if nothing else…). Could you have imagined that back in the ’70s?

      • Lackadaisical

        If you’re middle class and not planning to have ~1 million in just retirement savings you’re probably not going to do too well in the near future.

  10. Ted S.

    just so y’all would have at least an occasional dose of Jew

    You’d give us just the tip, but you don’t have that any more.

    • SDF-7

      Opera clap.

    • Tres Cool

      I thought (((they))) were like a catamaran and hardly every tip.

  11. The Late P Brooks

    As part of the plan, a 20% minimum tax rate would be placed on U.S. households worth more than $100 million, with more than half the revenue coming from households worth more than $1 billion.

    “This minimum tax would make sure that the wealthiest Americans no longer pay a tax rate lower than teachers and firefighters,” the document stated.

    We wouldn’t want the tax attorneys and accountants to starve, would we?

    • R C Dean

      I swear I thought we already had an alternative minimum tax.

      • Chafed

        Sure but we don’t have an alternative, alternative minimum tax.

  12. Sensei

    Not news, but a link to some of the geekiest fun I’ve had in a long, long time.

    Autodesk the 800 pound gorilla that drives me nuts.

    Glad you to see you around here and my best to SP.

  13. Gender Traitor

    Welcome home, SP, and welcome back to the weekend links, OM! ?

  14. The Late P Brooks

    Additionally, the document claimed the minimum income tax will “make America’s tax code fairer and reduce the deficit by about $360 billion in just the next decade.”

    “In effect, the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax payments are a prepayment of tax obligations these households will owe when they later realize their gains,” the document said. “This approach means that the very wealthiest Americans pay taxes as they go, just like everyone else, and eliminates the inefficient sheltering of income for decades or generations.”

    How did the tax code become riddled with loopholes and inefficiencies?

    Nobody knows. These things just happen.

  15. SDF-7

    Not link related — but it has been 30 minutes.

    I’d just like to know when the Internet of Things got snuck into my life and my major items (cars, appliances) became self aware.
    The gorram *day* my bonus dropped into hands… the fridge ice maker line sprung a leak and BOTH car batteries suddenly decided to die. “He has money! Time for us to be try to be replaced!” I figure they’ll just try to kill me in my sleep soon….

  16. Hyperion

    “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy”

    Stop picking on Hunter’s crack dealer, corruptocrats needz love too.

    • Don escaped Texas

      yup

  17. The Gunslinger

    How’s about a list of delightfully named baseball players?

    Rusty Kuntz
    Coco Crisp
    Milton Bradley
    Jim Walewander
    Johnny Wockenfuss

    Anyone else have some favorite baseball names?

    • Tres Cool

      Not baseball, but once after doing employee training I was going over the attendee list to make certificates.
      I noticed one guy’s name was Richard Rash.

      Also, my former cardiology practice had a Dr. Bruce Hymon. He named his daughter…..Tara.

    • Trigger Hippie

      Johnny Dickshot

    • Shpip

      Without getting into nicknames (including Mudcat, Possum, and Oil Can), my favorites of recent note are Braves farmhand Wonderful Monds and the kid from Brett L’s neck of the woods, Twins pitcher Boof Bonser.

      Then there’s Joe Biden’s favorite ballplayer.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Catfish Hunter in that category.

        Johnny Bench always struck me as a perfect name for a baseball player.

    • Don escaped Texas

      Shoeless Joe won this one a century ago

      but the best racing name is easy to guess

      worth mentioning: Fireball Roberts was prophetic

    • Aloysious

      Randy Johnson – the Big Unit

  18. Draw Me Like One of Your Tulpae, Jack

    In Fort Lauderdale…thanks for the drunk birthday Zoom last night!

    • Tres Cool

      Damn work. I miss all the fun.

  19. Draw Me Like One of Your Tulpae, Jack

    I’m so happy SP is home. Now go destroy some cancer!

  20. Sean

    5 6
    7 2

    Pretty sure that’s my first 2.

    • The Hyperbole

      6 7
      5 4

      Pretty sure that’s my first 2. blind luck or did you suss it out from your first guess?

      • Sean

        First guess gave me 4/5 with 3 in the right spot. Suss’d.

      • Ted S.

        It was like that for me, but after two guesses. And that made the top right word easy to guess too. I was one letter off on the top-left on my fifth guess, but the wrong guess gave me the bottom-left word.

      • Ted S.

        74
        63

      • Grumbletarian

        6 5
        4 7

    • Ghostpatzer

      7 4
      8 5

    • rhywun

      4 3
      7 6

      • TARDis

        That’s a good score.

        7 5
        8 9

        Not good, but done in less than 3 minutes.

    • Raven Nation

      5 6
      4 7

    • blackjack

      5 6
      7 3

      • Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

        So, the Spousal Unit and I were trying out Wordle for the first time the other day (TL;DR: it’s okay, but not exactly something I’d feel like doing all the time), but we found the “codes” you folks have posted above much more confusing — when we tried to look up “Wordle scores,” everything we found didn’t look anything like the 2×2 matrices youse are posting.

        Anyone wanna briefly explain them to me?

      • Raven Nation

        Quordle.com

  21. Sean

    https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2022/03/26/lloyd-amarsingh-jim-hunt-upper-darby-drexel-hill-havertown-shooting-murder/

    “In his arraignment documents, Amarsingh said he was unloading his firearm while listening to loud music at a stop light. He was celebrating a recent unemployment payment when the gun went off during the shooting.

    Amarsingh said he had his seat reclined, firearm in his right hand, and while using his left hand to remove the magazine, the gun discharged.

    Amarsingh then pulled the firearm’s slide back to eject the live round and said the firearm released a second time. ”

    Uh huh. Sounds legit. 🙄

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Whoopsie!

    • juris imprudent

      Now THAT is a magic bullet!

    • Tonio

      “Misfiring twice,” “released a second time.”

      • Fourscore

        Things happen when you’re celebrating your unemployment check. Surely you’ve seen those Middle Easterners celebrating with their AK. You et a nice surprise, you celebrate

        Apparently Amersingh had had a job, unless it was his baby’s mama’s check.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I’m still getting used to the decocking lever on my Beretta. I keep it chambered with the hammer down, but it’s always a little unnerving to drop the hammer on a live round even if it’s designed to do it safely.

  22. The Late P Brooks

    News you can use

    The chaos of war is now behind them, but the truth is, they’re not entirely safe outside Ukraine either.

    “For predators and human traffickers, the war in Ukraine is not a tragedy,” UN Secretary General António Guterres warned on Twitter. “It’s an opportunity – and women and children are the targets.”

    Trafficking rings are notoriously active in Ukraine and neighbouring countries in peace time. The fog of war is perfect cover to increase business.

    Karolina Wierzbińska, a coordinator at Homo Faber, a human rights organisation based in Lublin, told me children were a huge concern.

    Many youngsters were travelling out of Ukraine unaccompanied, she said. Patchy registration processes in Poland and other border regions – especially at the start of the war – meant children disappeared, their current whereabouts unknown.

    Always on message.

    • Sean

      Homo Faber.

      *snickers*

  23. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “asks if they’re afraid of Moscow”
    Moscow has command of 6,000 nuclear weapons. Sometimes reasoned fear is the prudent choice: just because your pulse rate goes up when a guy sticks a .38 in your ribs at the ATM doesn’t mean you’re a pussy.

  24. Ghostpatzer

    Good to see you back, Old Man. Better days ahead, I hope.

    • Old Man With Candy

      Miss seeing the Zoom crew, but soon, soon…

  25. Hyperion

    This hydroponics stuff grows amazingly fast, I mean like nothing I have ever seen. I’m going to expand my little operation quicky now, buying more units now and learning how to make my own. No, not weed, get your minds out of the gutter you dopers and dope fiends. I’m talking about something even more valuable than TP, food, the kind you can eat and maybe even be able to afford for another year, just gotta keep the power on…

    • slumbrew

      And yet people will continue to justify their unhealthy choices. Which would be fine with me if they didn’t insist we celebrate those choices.

    • RBS

      Dr. Pausé, 42, described herself and her mission in her Twitter bio: “Fatlicious. Feminist. Glorifying obesity since ’09. Tearing down white supremacy w/my fat fingers. Friend of Marilyn pod. Sociology, Public Health, Fat Studies

      • RBS

        Truly heartbreaking to hear the news of the passing of the amazing Dr Cat Pausé. She really was an incredible human. A pioneer for Fat liberation and a great accomplice to BBIPOC people.

        Interesting choice of words…

      • rhywun

        BBIPOC? Do I want to know?

      • Tres Cool

        Just stick with QUILTBAG

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Looks like white supremacy won this round.

    • Tres Cool

      WE OUT HERE!
      Thats a big larger than my comfort zone, but I like a challenge. Wood.
      However, since she’s passed my pronouns for this: would/have.

      I bet she’s never seen a caucasian dick in her life.

      /too much?

      • Sean

        Nope. Just right.

      • Mustang

        “Larger than my comfort zone…”

        Now that’s a first.

        *clicks link*

        Woah.

    • Grumbletarian

      I’m guessing her doctorate was in something other than medicine.

    • creech

      Whatever happened to “Light the John signal?”

  26. Shpip

    When he was a kid, my uncle used to go see The Three Stooges whenever they were in town. They would appear on stage, in character, and do a few skits, followed by a Q&A session. Then, they would make themselves available for autographs. The line to get Larry’s autograph was long, and the line to get Moe’s was longer. But longest of all was the Curly queue….

    • Ghostpatzer

      I love a good pun. But that crossed the line.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    When will we take education seriously in this country?

    After weeks-long walkout, a major teachers’ strike in Minneapolis has ended — at least for now — with a deal between the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) and the Minneapolis school district.

    As the Minneapolis strike ends, however, another is starting: Public school teachers and support staff in Sacramento began their own walk-out on Wednesday, which has shuttered schools for 40,000 students across the K-12 district. Other teacher strikes in Sonoma County, California, and Illinois also took place earlier this year as part of a wave of protest against underfunded classrooms, low wages, and Covid-19 protocols.

    Much of the fighting between educators and district officials have been squarely rooted in the issue of funding. Teachers and school support staff, like those who’ve been striking in Minneapolis, are demanding better salaries, mental health support, and safer in-school pandemic protocols. In response, district officials tend to argue they don’t have enough money to make those kinds of investments.

    Some educators and advocates say those statements are just an excuse.

    “We’ve been talking about this for years. This is not new,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the country’s largest teacher’s union. “And here’s the reality. When you consistently underfund our public schools, it compounds.”

    According to Pringle, the underfunding of the country’s schools became even more profound in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. As with other school districts across the country, Minneapolis has struggled with school reopenings during the pandemic, with educators bearing the brunt in class as they encounter a lack of support from school administrators with implementing Covid-19 health protocols and providing mental health support for both staff and students.

    I can see why they are stuck on masks. I’d be ashamed to show my face in public if I were a teacher.

    • Fourscore

      I saw that earlier, didn’t see the part where and how much the tax payer pays. Only has 29-30K kids, big tax base.

  28. The Late P Brooks

    New Zealand – Dr. Cat Pausé, a Massey University ‘fat studies’ lecturer died suddenly in her sleep this weekend.

    Will they bury her in a 5.000 gallon fuel storage tank?

    • Fourscore

      After the rendering…

  29. The Late P Brooks

    Stupid tablet

    A lot of people seem to be addicted to ’em these days. Gobble ’em down by the handful, as far as I can tell.

  30. The Late P Brooks

    But an increasingly disenchanted workforce, particularly among educators, could spell disaster for the country’s public education system in the long run. A February survey by the NEA found 55 percent of responding members are considering leaving the teaching profession earlier than they had planned, representing an increase from 37 percent of educators saying the same thing in August.

    Good. Burn it right to the ground.

  31. The Late P Brooks

    “Schools are starved for funding,” they claimed without evidence.

    • rhywun

      Meanwhile, headquarters has been expanded three times in the last decade to fit all the new administrators.

  32. The Late P Brooks

    Serious

    Washington state plans to ban most non-electric vehicles by 2030, according to a newly signed bill by Gov. Jay Inslee.

    The bill says that all vehicles of the model year 2030 or later that are sold, purchased, or registered in the state must be electric.

    Wheeeeeeee!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Good luck with that

      I’m interested in how they plan on forcing everyone to buy a new vehicle

      • Gustave Lytton

        He doesn’t care. This is the same asshole, from a rural district, votes for the 1994 gun control bill and got tossed for it. Rather than slinking away, he moved to a more liberal district and ran again (one more data point that carpet baggers should be permanently disqualified from office).

  33. TARDis

    Welcome back, OM. Hope you all are doing better.

  34. The Late P Brooks

    “Transportation is our state’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. There is no way to talk about climate change without talking about transportation,” Inslee said. “This package will move us away from the transportation system our grandparents imagined and towards the transportation system our grandchildren dream of.”

    Purple wanders endogenous glory abacus.

    • Gustave Lytton

      ‘By moving [back] to the transportation system our great great grandparents had (walking), our grandchildren will dream with envy the transportation system our grandparents had.’

    • rhywun

      the transportation system our grandchildren dream of

      Walking?

      • l0b0t

        Yeah, that line made me immediately think of Homer Simpson being tasked by his brother with designing a car – https://youtu.be/WPc-VEqBPHI

      • Count Potato

        rikshaws

    • rhywun

      Who’s going to tell them that Gaia will just laugh at little Oregon’s virtue signaling?

    • Fourscore

      Two hundred years earlier the west was settled by folks with transportation with serious emission problems. Had to be careful where you walked.
      Fossil fuel was great, until now.

  35. LCDR_Fish

    Missed the 2nd half of the license plate discussion last night. When I moved from VA to WA with the Navy and switched to WA registration/residency (no state income tax) I missed the part where I was supposed to mail my license plates back to the DMV. Fast forward….5 years later, I’m finally back in VA and (off active duty) trying to get a VA DL. There was a month plus delay because apparently there was some hold on my SSN because my plates had never been turned in and I had to get that PITA cleared from my “account”.

      • LCDR_Fish

        If you still have them (even if you’re not planning on moving back), may not hurt to call them and see if you can get a ticket # or something and then stick them all in one packet back to them to zero things out.

  36. Fourscore

    Today the Fourscores are celebrating 48 years of occasional bliss. Nothing is planned nor will there be anything spontaneous.
    In a few days we have a dinner at a sit down restaurant , while we’re out shopping.

    • Count Potato

      Happy Anniversary!

    • LCDR_Fish

      nice!

    • KSuellington

      Wow, congrats, that’s a fair share of years. Good job.

    • TARDis

      So happily married for 1xscore?

      Congrats!

      • Fourscore

        Thanks all. Mrs F deserves a lot of credit and I just pick up her tabs. Seems to work out

    • l0b0t

      Congratulations to the both of ya! That is so romantic.

    • Sean

      Congrats!

    • Mojeaux

      Congrats!!!!!

    • Tundra

      Amazing! Congrats to you and the most patient woman on the planet!

    • DEG

      Congratulations!

    • creech

      Some wine perhaps? A little candlelight. Maybe a roaring fire? And see what comes up.

  37. The Late P Brooks

    Listen to the experts

    After one of the most turbulent periods in air travel history — loaded with new rules and regulations and plenty of unruly and disruptive passengers — airlines want to jettison COVID-era safety precautions for flights.

    The CEOs of the nation’s leading airlines this week sent a letter to the White House urging the Biden administration to rescind pre-departure testing and vaccination requirements for international travelers and drop the federal mask mandate on flights, arguing that the measures are no longer necessary as coronavirus infections drop sharply across the U.S.

    The precautions “are no longer aligned with the realities of the current epidemiological environment,” they said in the letter.

    Epidemiologists aren’t so sure, saying it might be too soon to eliminate COVID-19 rules in the air. Allowing passengers to fly unmasked could also deter older and immunocompromised customers from traveling, while also hurting the airline business.

    “It is reasonable to be having the conversation of when we should be relaxing these restrictions,” David Dowdy, a professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told CBS MoneyWatch. “When the [Biden] administration should respond by lifting those restrictions is a different matter. It may be a month or so too early to be making those decisions.”

    Before COVID-19 protocols are lifted on planes, a threshold needs to be set for dropping precautions — and another for reinstituting mandates if virus cases start rising again.

    “We need to determine ‘when do we relax precautions’ and ‘when do we reinstate them’ if we see cases go up again. Otherwise you could argue we would keep these in place until there is no COVID left on earth,” Dowdy said.

    What if we just kill all the epidemiologists and bury them in an unmarked ditch?

    • Fourscore

      Bury them?

      Leave on the ice? In the desert? In the deep woods?

  38. kbolino

    I must say, while not the most surprising thing, this still took me somewhat by surprise.

    Most of us knew about Hunter Biden’s shady dealings in Ukraine, though the media still glosses over how tightly connected it is with Ukrainian politics and the exacerbation of tensions with Russia, but now it turns out H.B. was also heavily involved in, wait for it, virus research. I mean, what are the odds? The two most significant (manufactured) crises on everyone’s minds, and the sitting President just happens to be intimately connected with both (not that he remembers).

    Americans think “coup” is something that only happens in foreign countries.

    https://twitter.com/GraduatedBen/status/1507741253349355520

    • rhywun

      Geez, the web of horribles linked together there….

      • Count Potato

        Even Jeffery Epstein.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It gets even wilder. Metabiota, the company Hunter secured funding for (for what he called his “science project”), has been a longtime partner of Ecohealth Alliance and the USAID PREDICT project which sponsored bat coronavirus research at Wuhan Institute of Virology.

      JFC, what a tangled mess.

      I called COVID “the West’s Chernobyl” about a year and a half ago. Seems the incompetence and corruption on display at Chernobyl doesn’t even hold a candle to this.

    • creech

      Pure coincidences! Yet Ivanka walking past a Russian diplomat on a street in NYC is surely evidence that Trump is colluding with Putin to deny Hillary her throne.

  39. The Late P Brooks

    Air quality on airplanes is generally good because planes are equipped with hospital-grade HEPA filters that constantly recirculate fresh air into the cabin. But the risk of transmission would increase substantially if most passengers, particularly infectious individuals, were to stop wearing masks.

    Mercedes Carnethon, vice chair of the department of preventive medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said that for most healthy Americans who are vaccinated against COVID-19, eliminating masks on flights is unlikely to pose a serious risk. But the calculation changes if you’re seated near someone infected with disease.

    “Air quality is good on an airplane. However, when you’re sitting side by side with someone who has a COVID infection, perhaps someone 10 rows behind you won’t contract it, but it won’t protect the person sitting next to you,” Carnethon told CBS MoneyWatch.

    “If you roll back every mitigation strategy at one time, you have great potential to see an explosion of cases, and that’s risky,” she added.

    When it comes to restoring confidence in air travel, Carnethon also said that ending mask mandates could end up having the opposite effect that airlines intend.

    We’re looking at an explosion of cases. Obviously, because we have extensively documented the millions of deaths and hospitalizations which occurred as a direct result of air travel.

    As for the “economic effect” (as if any of these so called experts give a flying fuck about that): how many people are there currently refusing to set foot in an airport or on a plane because of the panicdemic idiocy, versus those whose government-issue hypochondria would suddenly prevent them from traveling if forced masking were ended? They would presumably not be prevented from boarding for wearing a mask on their own initiative.

    • Don escaped Texas

      But the calculation changes if you’re seated near someone infected with disease

      yup: true regardless; always was; always will be

    • rhywun

      currently refusing to set foot in an airport or on a plane because of the panicdemic idiocy

      *raises hand*

      But I think we’re vastly outnumbered by the hypochondriacs.

      • Shpip

        Us too. The Bosslady and I were going to hit San Antonio for a week this spring, then the mask mandate was extended. So instead we’re driving to Destin.

    • KSuellington

      After a day of wearing a mask I like to sit down and pick off the viruses with a tweezer. I take the ones from the inside that I have exhaled and then I take the ones from the outside that my anti viral cloth has stopped me from breathing. Then I sit down with the kids in the evening and we put them under our microscope to learn about all the viruses we have collected.

    • creech

      To be fair, do most people who got chicomvirus know where they caught it? So “scientists” can’t really say it came from riding in the plane, or going to your nephew’s birthday party, or participating in a BLM rally (oh, wait, I forgot that viruses boycotted BLM rallies). There’s just too many instances of people living together – spouses, children – where one person comes down with the vid and no one else in the family does.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    Carri Chan, a professor of decisions, risk and operations at Columbia Business School, agreed that the testing requirement has been a more significant barrier to travel than the mask mandate.

    “Certainly for international flights getting back to the U.S., there are people who are concerned about the financial ramifications of not being able to come back if they test positive,” she told CBS MoneyWatch. She also said that waiving the COVID-19 precautions could dampen travel demand from families with small children, who aren’t yet eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine.

    That’s some mighty fine risk analysis, Carri. How many box tops did you have to collect to get your degrees?

    • kbolino

      Step 1: Organize society around “experts”
      Step 2: Gut the institutions gatekeeping expertise
      Step 3: Wear their carcass as a skinsuit while demanding respect
      Step 4: Profit

      (there is no need for the “???” step, this plan actually worked)

      • Gustave Lytton

        On first glance, I thought that was gutting and skinsuiting the experts.

    • Gustave Lytton

      waiving the COVID-19 precautions could dampen travel demand from families with small children

      Has Ms Chan ever seen a small child get swabbed for covid? I suspect she doesn’t even have children.

      • rhywun

        Oh no, that would be awful to fly with no small children on board.

    • KSuellington

      Fuck that bitch. Thanks to SloJoe our last summer trip to Mexico included a required Vid test to return to the land of the free. My friend and his family who joined us were not required to take one as they live in San Diego and found a cheap flight from Tijuana and walked across the border. Apparently the Vid comes in on direct flights, but if you fly into TJ and then walk across it gets destroyed by the land border. I had to hold down our five year old who went apeshit when we took him to the clinic in the small town near where we stayed. That, combined with the fear that one of us would somehow pop positive and then we’d get stuck down there for another five days having to figure out somewhere to stay seriously dissuade us from any international travel till they get rid of the theatre.

  41. The Late P Brooks

    Random query:

    While we’re obsessing about evil rich people and their hoarded assets exempted from taxation by loopholes, what do we propose to do about their “charitable foundations” which are nothing more than thinly disguised political activism operations?

    • slumbrew

      Well that depends on the political alignment of the charity…

      It’s either a noble organization defending our democracy or it’s trying to destroy our democracy and taking advantage of loopholes.

  42. Count Potato

    “The words of a president matter. They can move markets. They can send our brave men and women to war. They can bring peace.

    And they can unleash the deepest, darkest forces in this nation — like Donald Trump has chosen to do.

    When he said after Charlottesville that there were “very fine people on both sides” he gave license and safe harbor for hate to white supremacists, Neo-Nazis, and the KKK.

    Those words stunned the nation and shocked the world….”

    Aug 7, 2019

    https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1159188880983240710

    • creech

      Wasn’t Trump talking about Confederate statue controversies and not neo-nazi rallies? But, in any case, inarticulate words from Trump that typically allowed TMITE to twist and misrepresent. Laughable how Biden does the same thing and we aren’t supposed to notice.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It wasn’t even inarticulate in this case. They purposely removed the surrounding language and willfully misrepresented it. The original statement was clear.

        Now compare that with Biden’s absolute dipshittery in Poland that is actually put us all at physical risk.

  43. The Late P Brooks

    But the risk of transmission would increase substantially if most passengers, particularly infectious individuals, were to stop wearing masks.

    What if we were to cease the fallacious acceptance of masks’ effectiveness. Immeasurably small risk multiplied by zero remains immeasurably small.

  44. Tundra

    Good morning, Old Man!

    Good to have you back.

    I’m not sure what Elon’s up to, but I’m not betting against him.

    a guy who inspired a Beatles song

    I laughed. Well done!

  45. l0b0t

    Oh… ok. ““With the US dollar’s dominance in question, here’s how China’s yuan could become a global reserve currency — and why it wouldn’t be all bad” by
    @MktsInsider. Thread by @philrosenn.”

    https://twitter.com/MktsInsider/status/1507740555329130500

  46. DEG

    Well, for the moment, SP is home and keeping us busy.

    Good.

    Dubbed the “Billionaire Minimum Income Tax,” the Biden administration proposal, as highlighted in the document, aims to “ensure that the very wealthiest Americans pay a tax rate of at least 20 percent on their full income, including unrealized appreciation.”

    Fuck off slavers.

    Ukraine needs just 1% of NATO’s aircraft and 1% of its tanks, he said, adding that it would be impossible to stop Russian attacks on the besieged southern port of Mariupol without enough tanks, armoured vehicles and aircraft.

    Just the tip. It won’t lead to more. No sirree.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    Ukraine needs just 1% of NATO’s aircraft and 1% of its tanks, he said, adding that it would be impossible to stop Russian attacks on the besieged southern port of Mariupol without enough tanks, armoured vehicles and aircraft.

    We should probably send some “military advisors” too.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      All that 1% would do is drag NATO into the conflict and then it would be 100% of its aircraft and tanks, and shortly thereafter 100% of its nuclear weaponry.

    • tripacer

      Say it in LBJ’s voice “Today I’ve ordered to Ukraine the Airmobile division…”

  48. Aloysious

    Hunter Bidens laptop and the corruption it exposes that out self styled elites encourage make me fiil like my giblets are being used like a speed bag.

    Thanks and welcome back, Old Man.

    SP coming home made me think of this song. Get better, ma’am.

  49. Name's BEAM. James BEAM.

    The Datasaurus page is awesome; I’ve had occasion to direct more than one person to it, just to show the dangers of reading nothing but a dataset’s summary stats and drawing conclusions therefrom.