SugarFree
I have been reading plague novels, old standards like Earth Abides and The Long, Loud Silence, the inescapable The Stand by Stephen King, Plague by the entertainingly batshit Graham Masterton* and The Eyes of Darkness by Dean R. Koontz (which isn’t much a plague book, but the bioweapon used as a plot device was developed in Wuhan, China and named Wuhan-400, which is just a wild coincidence unless COVID-19 also gives you telekinetic powers.)
*Graham Masterton is also the author of one of my all-time kooky books, The Manitou, where an Indian medicine man who died 300 years ago seeks to be reborn into the modern world by manifesting as a tumor on a young woman’s back. And the best idea anyone has to save her is to hire a modern medicine man and let them fight it out after the deformed ancient medicine man claws his way out of her back womb. If this sounds familiar you might have seen the film adaptation starring Tony Curtis, directed by William Gridler, one of my favorite schlock filmmakers. His credits include 1974’s Abby (a blaxploitation rip-off of The Exorcist,) 1976’s Grizzly (a 1976 shot-by-shot rip-off of Jaws but with a bear) and 1977’s superb Day of the Animals which features cougar wrestling, a wise Native American mentoring a young boy about woodland survival and a deranged Leslie Neilson trying to rape a teenager after numerous megalomaniacal rants. Sadly, whatever delights Girdler’s future career had in store for our sore brains was cut short when he died in a helicopter accident while scouting movie locations in the Philippines at the age of 30.
Sloopy
I’m back on my The Neverending Story kick
Jesse.in.mb
Octavia Butler – Kindred. So I really enjoy reading Octavia Butler. I always mean to read more Octavia Butler. And then I read Octavia Butler and I recognize a rarefied form of a brokenness in her characters and their relationships that I see in myself, my family and others. And then it’s a couple of years before I read more Octavia Butler. Recommend.
Regulatory documents related to the current emergency status for both work and fun.
STEVE SMITH
STEVE SMITH READ NOVEL THE SPIRIT BY HOOMAN WRITER THOMAS PAGE PUBLISHED IN HOOMAN YEAR 1977. BOOK FULL OF LIES AND SLANDER ABOUT STEVE SMITH AND STEVE SMITH PEOPLE. STEVE SMITH EAT MEAT NOT APPLES. STEVE SMITH NOT THROW ROCKS AT PEOPLE. STEVE SMITH NEVER BURN DOWN SKI LODGE. AND BOOK HAVE NO SEX. NO SEX AT ALL. GRR. STEVE SMITH DISAPPOINTED AND BY DISAPPOINTED STEVE SMITH MEAN ANGRY!
JW
After action reports from the Bilderberg and Bill Gates funded Event 201. QAnnon has all the details if you can find them on the darkweb. Epstein knew what they were planning and was silenced by the Clintons.
mexican sharpshooter
Lately I’ve been reading The Decadent Society by Ross Douhat. I know, I know, I am asking to get pelted by rotten lettuce. I picked it ip after reading this review written by Peter Thiel. Thus far it is interesting, but since nearly every column Douhat writes he researches and properly identifies the root cause but comes to a non-sensical conclusion, I assume the last chapter will be infuriating.
SP
I’m reading textbooks about healthcare reimbursement methodologies. I’ve learned some things.
1) Anyone who would willingly become an expert in this is insane.
2) Anyone who is an expert in this probably has job security FOREVER.
3) This is the perfect example of what happens when government gets involved in healthcare. Endlessly complex, difficult to understand or even wade through, fucks everyone on all sides (with the exception of the bureaucrats and legislators), and is often arbitrary despite having 900 million components, formulas, and regulations specifically touted as removing arbitrariness.
4) Not my jam.
OMWC
There are certain books that I read over and over. And for these times, that one is Mackay’s classic Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. We are living this. I hope Amazon is selling so many copies of this that their printers are wearing out, but I fear that this isn’t the case.
Riven
Reading… for pleasure? [laughs in continuing education] Who even has time for such a thing? All of my reading for the last year or so has been dedicated to adding professional letters after my name. First it was this. Now it’s this. But, hey, there’s good news! It should take me some three years or so to get the one I’m working on now, so you could say my five-year-reading-plan is nearly complete.
SEA SMITH
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters. STILL NEED MOAR RAPE!
Brett L
I’ve been working you way through the Golden Age of Science Fiction anthologies. Thirties and forties writing really bothers me. I think a lot of it comes out of the by-the-word tension between writer and editor. Adjectives, adverbs, expository sentences, and the extraneous dialogue that makes people sound like actual humans appear have been the first on the cutting block. The Sturgeon Rule definitely applies, even to stories “good” enough to be anthologized. I’d like to ask if anyone has a “teach your child how to work like a medieval peasant” book they’d like to recommend.
Most of my stuff is packed up, but I did pull out “The Black Stranger and other American Tales” to work through/reread as my schedule permits.
Once I start my epic commute next week I plan to relisten to my audiobooks of “Live Free or Die” (after that trilogy…not sure where to go. Some stuff I want to listen to apparently has very lackluster audio versions – ie. Neal Stephenson….)
Just worked through a stack of Iraq/Afghanistan war memoirs this past week for “work from home purposes”. Some decent ones in the mix. If anyone is interested in specific titles, I can list a couple.
I assume you’ve done the Polseen War Ringo stuff?
I don’t think so. I’ve done the Troy Rising and “Dark Tide” primary series and a few standalone titles. I’ll take a look at those in the future – normally go hard copy first (sometimes ebook) and then audiobook afterwards. Want to listen to the Dark Tide audio versions, but with a series with so many female characters, not sure they got the right guy to read them (based on the sample I tested).
I really liked A Hymn Before Battle. Then he got bogged down with the sequels – until he did some excellent collaborations with Tom Kratman in Yellow Eyes and the super politically incorrect Watch on the Rhine. Then Ringo re-launched the series with new baddies in Eye of the Storm and… completely stopped writing.
Fuck it – just read his zombie books starting with Under a Graveyard Sky – more timely right now anyhow.
“Dark Tide Rising” series….
Sorry – lost track of how they named the series.
PMBOK® Guide – Sixth Edition
No spoilers
Soylent green is people.
Sorry for the OT, trying to kickstart the economy with new monitor purchases:
Takes one to know one.
He must be quarantined to prevent the spread of his massive stupidity.
Too late.
John Kerry Is a War Criminal, but Massie, who made congress actually get a quorum together to meet the constitution only delayed the processs by 10 seconds.
So yeah. A Total asshole.
I’ve got a bunch of stuff going right now.
Let’s see, per SP I’m reading the Vera Stanhope series – I’m on the third one. At first I didn’t care for them, but they are definitely growing on me.
Per HM, I’m reading The Rational Animal. Very timely and quite interesting, but I find the authors’ styles grating at times. Nevertheless, it’s a compelling argument that our ‘irrational’ decisions become completely rational when examined through the evolutionary lens. Unless it changes dramatically, I can recommend.
Per Tulip, I read The Last P.I. series. Three books and highly recommended. I really enjoyed the main character’s anchoring in my favorite PI novels.
I’m working my way through Mo’s Allow Me to Introduce Myself. No spoilers! (But if you hate waiting, it’s recommended).
So thanks, fellow Glibs, for providing me with some good stuff to fill the hours of insomnia!
Vera Stanhope – related to Doug?
I’m also working through The Rational Animal, like a lot of books of this kind it gets repetitive a time so I seem to put it down often but it is interesting so far.
Yes, exactly. I think they could have easily cut it by a third.
Of course! They’re libertarians!
No chance. They agree way too much.
Being stuck in the house all day, I am generally to drunk to read. The letters are kinda blurry. Although sometimes if I close one eye they are clearer, which is strange although I assume there is an explanation which I could google. But am to drunk to google.
That being said, I started reading the firt Elric of Melnibone book after rereading parts of Gaimans Stardust and a short story collection by Bukowski on a whim
binocularity?
(I am trying and failing to find the name of the condition cops look for: amblyopia? strabismus? Ugh.)
Nystagmus
merci
STEVE SMITH NOT THROW ROCKS AT PEOPLE.
Bullshit
I have been re-reading Scintilla Vitae by me. Mostly to try to calm my nerves and spark creative energies.
I’ve been writing a short story about a Vampire in the Tarnished Sterling universe. If I finish it, I’ll probably submit it here as a serial.
I have recently had training that said to generate ideas, you should do random google searches and then free-associate on a Google Jam board.
(oddly enough, the training was not provided by google)
I have the ideas.
The energy needed is to convert them to words on the page.
I think Florida Man can help with that.
#contextfree
And?
Everything he said actually happens within the previous 20 parts of the book.
book?
Yes, book. Scintilla Vitae.
I will not log in to confirm my age
There should be an option for a guest to tell it to just show the mature content anyway.
Or if the download from DA is disabled, you can grab the mobi from the link in the description.
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Error code: SSL_ERROR_RX_RECORD_TOO_LONG
The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.
Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.
But I am joking UCS 🙂 I am aware of the concept “book”
I’ll have to fix the link
Suggested edit*:
I have
made mistakes that have cost people their lives. I have sold my services as a hired killer. I have bribed, lied and cheated. I have consorted with xenos, traded in slaves and reduced others to servitude. I have looked people in the eyes and cut out their soulspracticed law. Sometimes, I just want to do the right thing.*I know, doesn’t fit with the previous 20 parts.
Not reading anything but watching old films based on novels. This week I watched On The Beach, Dr. Strangelove, and The Third Man.
It Happens Every Spring is next in my queue.
Best baseball movie EVER.
Bull Durham for me, but that’s a good one.
I didn’t read or listen to anything new to glibs.
Wanted to recommend Hoopla to those of you that have it at your library. It is a digital library like Overdrive. I find it has a strong non-fiction catalog as least as far as Glib interests are concerned. It has several titles from Tom Woods’ guests or cross references from his episodes. It also has the whole Thomas Sowell catalog.
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels by Alex Epstein (Audiobook on Hoopla)
A short and concise argument for fossil fuels and the advancement of civilization they have brought to the world. Some great quotes from Death cultist showing their distaste for humans and their improvement.
Highly Recommend
Beyond the Edge of the Map
Nothing to add to other glib reviews
Highly Recommend
9 Presidents Who Screwed Up America: and Four Who Tried to Save Her by Brion McClanahan (Audiobook on Hoopla)
A strong first half. The second half (twentieth century Presidents) seems a little lacking. I like that McClanahan praises three often belittled presidents as well as the often praised Jefferson for their usually principled stands for the Constitution. He ends with how the Constitution could be amended to prevent the President from becoming king. That is a nice touch especially for those who like to do thought experiments on how you would redo the Constitution.
Recommend
The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic by Mike Duncan
Nothing to add to previous glib reviews
Recommend
I’ll echo the recommendation for Hoopla. It’s not perfect, but it’s quite good.
Also reading Storm before the Storm – it’s OK, but it has me wondering if the podcast would have been better.
carlin’s? I would say for the most part yes
Patrick Henry-Champion of Liberty by John Kukla
Mrs F is reading anniversary cards, after 46 years of bliss. I’m reading the obits to make sure my name is not there but if she didn’t kill me the first 20 years I think I’m safe.
Usually we would take in a celebratory meal at a restaurant but we’ll have to wait, my, my, how times have changed
Congrats to you and your beautiful wife, Fourscore!
She’s a saint 😉
Congrats, Fourscore! 46 years is quite an accomplishment.
Congrats!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JQS6H2AXdM
Hell, yes.
Brings a smile to my face.
Mazel tov!
If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6963760/)
46 years of bliss
So how long have you been married?
*zing*
19 out of 46 is not too bad, make that 18, oops 17, oh Hell, I’m sure there were some in there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnf_cWYj1Uw
OT.
Hope Gord is doing well – haven’t seen him around recently, but sounds like he’s back on twitter (new name?)
Just found (checking my feed) that he did another podcast with Year Zero on 19 March – worth checking out to get his trucker take on the situation.
I am currently reading HST’s Songs of the Doomed and House of Assassins by Larry Correia. Assassins is pretty good so far but I’m still bummed about Angruvadal…
Steve Hamilton A Cold Day in Paradise *** 1st Alex McNight. Ex cop PI, suffers PTSD from getting shot, The shooter is serving life in prison but apparently stalking him and killing Bookies.
Kevin Wignal The Names of the Dead ** Double crossed spy/thriller nothing terribly good or bad about it.
Rennie Airth The Decent Inn of Death ***½ John Madden Book 6, Post WWII English countryside whodunnit. Will Madden get to his old friend who’s trapped by a blizzrd in a mansion with his wheelchair bound host and possibly a murderous conman in time?fairly obvious ‘surprise’ ending but well written with likable characters.
Charlie Portis The Dog of the South ** Seems a novel that one must be of a certain time to ‘get’ somewhere between Cool Hand Luke without the humor and a bad Jim Thompson novel. The scenes almost hold your attention and the story almost draws you in but I was left feeling like I must have missed something that I’m just not smart enough to appreciate.
Harry Dolan The Good Killer ***½ Stand alone action/thriller from the author of the David Loogan books. It lacks the Who-dun-it or Why-dun-it intrigue of the earlier works, no surprises no big revelations. A man’s past catches up to him and he and his girl are on the run from revenge seeking mobsters, the media, and the law. If I’m being cynical I’d suggest Dolan wrote this one with optioning it for a movie in mind. It’s a fast read and the characters are compelling, but it’s missing the sophistication (for lack of a better word) that I liked about his other books.
I hate myself, so I have had C-SPAN on for two hours waiting to see the Massie fireworks. For two hours, it’s dumbass after dumbass telling us this bill sucks but we need to pass it anyway.
This is time well spent, but actually putting your name on a vote is not.
The Massie hate was on Fox News this morning. The asshole actually thinks the Constitution matters.
And it ended up being very anti-climatic. He asked, was denied, shit bill passed.
Cavuto seems to admire him.
I watched CSPAN as well.
I follow politics fairly closely but I was still surprised by the long list of assholes, whom I had never heard of, come out of swamp to speak their 30 seconds of “CORONA BAD, CONGRESS STRONK”
It was terrible.
But, I think Massie will come out looking good in this. No publicity is bad publicity and all that.
I’m on book 10 or so of the Cadfael Chronicles, anyone else ever read these? They’re good.
Also reading the most boring, tedious, utter garbage I ever had – for work. This WFH shit is going to kill my brain.
Cadfael’s the spousal unit’s jam. It was also a really good BBC (?) series around the turn of the century.
Yeah, liked the Derek Jacobi portrayal. Well worth it. Some of the actresses are quite appealing, too.
I followed the books until I ran out of unabridged audio books. While entertaining, it wasn’t hard to pick up the author’s patterns and predict the outcome based upon that.
I read the first one, and then realized that none of the recurring characters would be introduced until book two and figured I’d get back to the series later and never did. Thoroughly enjoyed the first one though.
Yes, I’ve read all of them. They’re great.
Thanks! I’ll check them out.
$5 for a roll of paper towels
Does it come with smug certificates that your buying “green”?
I’m reading through A Tale of Two Economies: Hong Kong, Cuba and the Two Men Who Shaped Them by Neil Monnery. I have an academic background in econ and polisci, but this is a refreshing change of pace: Monnery’s thesis is that, absent theoretical considerations that we can never adequately address anyways, Hong Kong and Cuba are virtually ideal economic experiments to determine the relative behaviours/outcomes of “hard” socialism versus laissez-faire capitalism. It will come as no surprise to anyone here that the capitalist experiment which was Hong Kong seems to have worked out a lot better than Cuba’s socialist experiment. Monnery does, however, go into a lot of necessary historical and biographical background to set the stage for his “compare and contrast” story, and does a good job of judiciously using stats to illustrate his points, without turning the book into a dry, technical read. The info in this book would be great for beating progs over the head with in arguments, but I just like that it does such a good job of highlighting the differences between the two economic systems without requiring one to take courses in macroeconomics first. Recommended.
I haven’t read that one. I love the “Lillith’s Brood” books. Yeah, her characters are interesting.
I listened to Wild Seed while driving across country a few years ago and keep meaning to finish the Patternist Series.
I have, but haven’t read the Lillith’s Brood books.
I found “Dawn” in, of all places, the dive hotel I moved into on my first day in NYC in a bookcase in the lobby. Was immediately hooked. I had never heard of her before.
I personally think Kindred is her masterpiece. It’s what kids in school should be reading rather than Beloved, at the very least.
(OT, but:)
Sassy! with Massie
Hey Fourscore.
I wanted to say thanks for your gardening post a month ago. You inspired my wife and I to do the gardening thing again after a 5 year hiatus. We alterned the landscape of the place we are renting just a smidge, so we could make raised beds.
https://imgur.com/a/iwLnpnj
My wife did the woodwork and most of the research for our plant choices.
gardening is so plebeian
Was that Roman or Romanian?
Romulan.
That looks great. Are you using these?
Yup. The design ideas came from Pinterest. She did a great job bringing it to frutition.
Very nice – good inspiration.
Nice! Turned out well. I just put all the cool weather stuff in the ground.
Good job, T & T, You and the missus have put a lot of work into that space, garden looks good and productive. Enjoy the veggies and the therapy is a bonus. I have started peppers/eggplant inside but so far the results look a little worrisome. Fortunately I still have time to restart.
Good work
Thanks. Happy growing season to you
Looks terrific!
Sadly, I have been too swamped this year to even contemplate figuring out an outdoor garden here. I have stuff growing inside, though.
Reading/Watching: Just finished rereading the Takeshi Kovacs/Altered Carbon
books after watching the second season on Netflix.
Enjoyed it much more than the first because it doesn’t follow the book at all.
First season I kept glitching and thinking either that doesn’t make any sense or why would they change that part?
The books are still really good in spite of the cringy sex scenes.
Tried to read Market Forces
, by the same author, but a story about corporations where you kill other people to get promoted as well as random people on the highway just didn’t do it for me and after I finished the Kindle sample I gave up on it.
The books are still really good in spite of the cringy sex scenes.
LOL. Morgan is just terrible at writing sex scenes. Plus you get the feeling that he’s got some weird fetishes going on in his head or something.
OT: Nice rig. Would anyone else be keen to see a “Trucks of Glibs” feature? Sort of like a readers’ wives edition. Nope? Just me?
I don’t have a truck, I just live vicariously and occasionally spec out a fantasy rig on a configurator or something. Trucks.
Thanks, she’s a 2001Cummins Diesel manual 5 speed with 350,000 miles on her.
Here are more pics
That’s cool. Right up my alley. It reminds me I haven’t checked out Gale Banks’ youtube in a while. I think I’ll binge some videos this evening.
2000 Dodge Ram 1500.
MINE. Mr. Mojeaux doesn’t drive it much. We got it as a going-to-Home-Depot truck when I was doing a bunch of DIY.
I’m not doing that anymore (or at least, not on this house).
My next project, when we are settled somewhere, and should I overcome my fear and trepidation, is rehabbing a camper trailer (or sprinter van or cargo trailer or cargo/passenger van) to be an office for me. Then I can wrap up my hair in a rockabilly bandanna again and clomp around in my steel-toed boots with a crowbar in one hand and a container of spray insulation in the other.
My dream camper. Friends of ours have one, and I’m jelly as hell. Word to the wise: a minivan is NOT sturdy enough to tow one of these through the mountains of Colorado.
You need a classic if you’re going rockabilly: https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/920071783562100737
That is very sweet, but not my style. I would like to DRESS rockabilly, but I don’t want to live in it.
About as rockabilly as I have gotten lately.
*sigh*
April 8th was supposed to be the start of vacation, and Viva was cancelled. Working from home also means no real reason to bust out the shirts.
That would make a sweet glibs feature if you’d be willing to write it up and take some photos.
Oh, of course I would do that. IF I do it, I’m planning on filming the whole thing.
Trying to put a link for pics but it’s in moderation.
Market Forces is supposed to be the beginning of the Altered Carbon universe, that book leads to the Corporate/UN power structure that colonizes the stars.
By the way, I cannot recommend anything else he wrote. Thirteen is a lame retread of Altered Carbon and his fantasy series is hilariously bad.
The only thing notable about Market Forces was the driving sequences, which were remarkable. The man is amazingly good at writing action scenes. Everything else about it was laughable.
Agree about his fantasy. I couldn’t even make it all the way through The Steel Remains. It’s turrible.
I thought Thin Air was pretty good.
It’s a detective novel set on Mars.
Interesting story and tech, but same cringy sex scenes.
I gave up on him totally after Steel Remains.
his fantasy series – read that, one book at least . it was baad.
Market Forces was his first, I believe. And it sucks. You chose well.
Looking for another large project after finishing The Count of Monte Cristo. I’m thinking I might re-read Ben Hur.
Spending time between 60’s-70’s pulp science fiction and Sherlock Holmes for lightweight stuff.
After some talk here about The Count of Monte Cristo, I splurged on the Robin Buss translation so I could read it again. I’d only read the old unabridged translation from the mid-1800’s before. Obviously can’t compare it to the original French, but it’s clearly superior to any other modern translation I’ve seen excerpts from.
China: ‘We’ve Completely Cured Coronavirus And Everything Is Fine Here And No One Is Allowed In To Check’
BEIJING—President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping made a surprise announcement to a few invited members of the press. “Everything is great here!” he said. “In fact… um… we’ve completely eradicated Coronavirus here — cured it even. Yep, cured it. We found a cure. But it… um… only works on the Chinese so we can’t give it to you. Yeah, that’s the ticket. China-only cure; can’t share it. But, uh, everything’s perfectly all right now. We’re fine. We’re all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?”
Reads like a NYT article…
Yeah, this one merges with reality a little too well.
And a fun star wars reference to boot!
Our Chairman! Some hotshot! Here’s his “Ancient Chinese Secret”—Organ Harvesting!
If I recall correctly, a transplant recipient is stuck on immunosuppressants for life. Forcing someone with an active infection onto immunosuppressants seems like a bad idea.
Interesting story. A close family friend has a cousin who had Hep C. He needed a liver transplant, but because he was older and the disease had progressed so much, he was at the lower end of the list. Doctors were preparing to transplant a liver into someone else, when they found that liver had Hep C, so they couldn’t transplant it into the patient who didn’t have Hep C. So they turned to this guy, who was basically at death’s door, and said this will give you a year or two of extra life, are you game? So, he agreed.
Shortly after the transplant, the first pharmaceutical treatments for Hep C were announced. He looks and feels great.
That’s awesome. A leap of faith and a new lease on life.
I remember Stern interviewing David Crosby not long after his liver replacement, and Stern said “so are you back to booze and partying?”. Crosby said, “No, Im not doing any of that.” Stern said, “why the hell not? You got a brand new liver and you’re almost 60. Its going to outlive you.”
It is, but Fauci has a sad.
That’s barely even satire.
The Dispossessed by Ursulak Le Guin. An anti-capitalist, pro-syndicalism sci-fi novel.
If our library was open I’d check that one out. Right now, I’m re-reading Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness.
Both of those are old favorites that I re-read every few years, along with The Lathe of Heaven.
Walking the Kiso Road by William Scott Wilson. Part travelogue, part history lesson; fascinating journey through old feudal Japan
William Scott Wilson – sounding like cultural appropriation to me
What’s SPACE SMITH reading? Does he like funny hooman sci-fi, or is it just too confounding to read for someone already familiar with the lifeless, boundless abyssal void of space?
1493 by Charles Mann 3.3/5
Spoiler Alert: in the global economy, Spain gets gold, Ireland gets potatoes, and the Aztecs get new dick diseases
Most of the points are solid but well understood, of course, but it is interesting to put the flow together, and there are a few new bits of trivia; I’m particularly ignorant of Asian history beyond generalities, so some of the who shot john is neat.
I thought the Aztecs gave the Europeans syphilis?
Could be; I’m not a detail guy, so I was enjoying the idea of disease and technology going both ways; “dick disease” is just something that alliterates, the sort of throwoff that I used because I’m too lazy to dig out the actual diseases we’re pretty sure came to the Americas at that time via galleon.
There’s a bunch of ideas about syphilis that point certainly your way; gene-tracking stuff will paint a useful picture sooner or later.
Syphilis is a “New World” disease, In 1491 Mann addresses this in a chapter at the end titled, “But what about Syphilis,” and noted it is likely the only pathogen that went the other way.
More likely later than sooner. The bacterium that causes syphilis has been found in pre-historic Old World skeletons, but, depending on subspecies, it can cause different diseases. As I’m sure you’re aware, subspecies are differentiated based on phenotype and not genotype. However, while there is interaction between phenotype and genotype, when we’re dealing with sources so old and with bacteria so simple, it’s hard to tell what leads to what in vitro or in silico, even.
As I’m sure you’re aware
Oh, no: that’s way too much detail for me and way over my head; the toothpick models of life I carry in my head would be criminal cartoons to any man learned in those fields.
I do have this notion: whatever Columbus took back to Europe, its great grandpappy germ was likely taken to America via land bridge only a dozen millennia before; whether that stuff looked new to conquistador immune systems would tell the tale.
That’s my general whimsy: of course, the second law wins in the end, so the original piles hardly matter at all. I will die wearing underwear made in Malaya after a final meal of Mexican melons and snakehead fish with a zebra mollusk plugging my ass. I muse rather than accuse, a trend that might be hidden by poor turns of phrase like who shot john.
As
The disease cause by the bacterium differs greatly based on the locus of infection. It is possible that that Amerindians were the first population unfortunate enough to get it on their collective dicks.
The Aztecs invented the vacation
One of my favorite albums, and the source of many of my quotes.
Also invented a vacation
Aztecs are asshole.
What? Are you saying that if we Don’t murder children in the name of Tlaloc, the rains will still come?
Maybe they will, but why take a chance?
*Sneaks across the hall. Quietly barricades wife in her office*
Actually, Mrs. TARDIS agrees. But she really only has a piece of it. For her, mainly it’s about getting the diagnosises documented correctly.
She asked what some of the titles were, SP. If you would be so kind.
I diligently cultivate my ignorance of healthcare reimbursement methodologies. I have people for that. Praise Allah.
“Wellington’s Wars: The Making of a Military Genius” by Huw J. Davies. Thesis: Wellington’s military success was an exceptionally keen understanding of the relationship between politics and war.
Steny Hoyer Pleading for everyone to come together. I think they are doing a two hour of hate to try to brow beat Massie into voting for a voice vote.
They said they had a quorum… So i guess….
Looks like it passed, but the traders must be out to lunch. Nope, markets moving a-bit now.
Yeah everyone had their fun shitting on Massie for nothing. He delayed the thing passing by 10 seconds and never gave him time to speak during “the debate.”
I know. They made it seem like he was a lone man between the masses and their money.
He could have given the Davy Crockett speech.
I’m trying to figure out who was actually there. It didn’t look like 200 folk…
Its terrible. Making elected officials actually do their job.
Non-essential people just “voted” for $2 trillion dollars.
I’ve read bupkis of general interest this month. Slightly disappointed in myself. Tried yet another re-read of some of Neal Asher’s stuff, but I’ve read them too recently for them to be satisfying. I do recommend his stuff, especially if you like Space Opera. He’s one of the very few SF authors who take biology & ecology seriously.
Tangentially, several months back someone asked for reading recommendations and picked up 2 I had suggested. I’m curious about his/her reaction. The two (very different) books were The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins and The Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton.
I also love Asher. Just fun to read.
Yup. He’s pretty active on Facebook. Seems a good guy.
Some of his stuff can really creep a person out, especially if you have an aversion to parasites and worms. But he holds the attention and unfailingly (so far) delivers solid reads.
Y’all read?
Nerds.
I’m still working on reading the Cryptonomicon.
“I don’t like the word ‘addict’ because it has terrible connotations,” Root says one day, as they are sunning themselves on the afterdeck. “Instead of slapping a label on you, the Germans would describe you as ‘Morphiumsüchtig.’ The verb suchen means to seek. So that might be translated, loosely, as ‘morphine seeky’ or even more loosely as ‘morphine seeking.’ I prefer ‘seeky’ because it means that you have an inclination to seek morphine.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Shaftoe says.
“Well, suppose you have a roof with a hole in it. That means it is a leaky roof. It’s leaky all the time–even if it’s not raining at the moment. But it’s only leaking when it happens to be raining. In the same way, morphine-seeky means that you always have this tendency to look for morphine, even if you are not looking for it at the moment. But I prefer both of them to ‘addict,’ because they are adjectives modifying Bobby Shaftoe instead of a noun that obliterates Bobby Shaftoe.”
For reason, I remember Rufus posting that quote ages ago.
Not sure if on topic or off, but given last month in this very thread I expressed my displeasure at Consider Phlebas, what is the most interesting sort of far future / post singularity SF you read recently?
How ironic that I just started that.
I don’t think that is what ironic means.
I missed your displeasure, but I will read on and form my own opinion. I guess you’re right, that isn’t ironic.
i just did not like the writing overall and the world was uninteresting
I enjoyed the Night’s Dawn trilogy by Peter Hamilton. Space Opera. I think it’s about 6,000 pages in total, so it should last for your quarantine.
I read that and don’t count it as post singularity (ignoring the naked singularity deux ex machina )
it was entertaining but kind of silly. But I was younger then
Neal Asher’s Polity books. The Agent Cormac series, The Skinner, The Technician, The Engineer ReConditioned (short stories, much bio-horror among other treats).
I’m reading GUITAR: AN AMERICAN LIFE by Tim Brookes, a history of the guitar and how it developed.
I do not like Twitter. I find it mostly incomprehensible and unrelentingly vapid. I’d rather read the graffiti in a truck stop shitter.
Then you’d know where Winston’s mom is at.
What works for me: having a truly ancient iPad. It shows the posts without the arguments or pop-ups. There are surely people you like on it. I’m not on it but it can be amusing to check.
I have an ancient iPad. What I need to know is how to upgrade the brower(s). Can you point me in the right direction?
Safari?
Did you try holding down both buttons at the same time?
//Apple Genius
Sarc or serious?
I work at the Doofus Bar.
I’m purely Sarc. As somebody with an iPad2 (purchased in 2011) I was under the impression they all run Safari and they all receive periodic software updates from time to time.
You can’t.
Who can’t what?
Dr. Fronkensteen can’t upgrade his browser.
He has to either deal or buy a new device. I’ve been through this. Twice.
Es tut mir leid, Doktor F.
Mine is 1st gen and is can’t be updated past iOS 5.1, so I would keep anything similar only near already trusted networks.
A tank though. Google Maps still works great, and no camera! Not sure if Twitter videos work. Probably not.
Nil from me. Too busy getting house prepped and project planning for a software dev project at work. Ml
3) This is the perfect example of what happens when government gets involved in healthcare.
We just need a pricing transparency bureau.
Just started Consider Phlebas (my son gave me his copy) – toggle to fiction after finishing On Killing. That book had some things I found very interesting, and some, hmm, not so much. Ironically, Grossman is a big fan of SLA Marshall – who got a serious debunking in About Face. So I struggled at times keeping an open mind.
Fuck Grossman. He’s a fucking psychopath.
Yeah, that was the other part I kept having to put out of my mind – what he’s done since he wrote the book. The book still definitely has some value.
I think FDR’s thoughts, in this case, are more insightful.
Oh yeah, the last chapter was really pathetic. And given what’s happened since he wrote (even the updated version which is the one I had), just wrong. Completely wrong.
That gets into what was really weak about the book – very narrow slice of time and humanity. If you take out the assumptions based on Marshall – you lose a huge part of his thesis.
That said, I think his discussion about VietNam vets was very solid, and I could see how it applied to one of my brothers who is a VN combat vet.
fuckin LOL
Reading the Grossman wikipedia…
OK, I admit to confirmation bias, but I have a hard time believing this is false:
Inciting significant controversy and anger, Grossman has been documented on video as claiming that when police kill on the job, they often report to him that they go home and enjoy their best sex ever.[9]
Which is weird, because his book doesn’t go that direction at all. I really have a hard time reconciling what was worthwhile in the book to his whole police shtick.
Next book in the on deck circle is Permanent Record – my son also lent me that copy so I wouldn’t have a record of purchase tied to me. 😉
IMNSHO, Consider Phlebas is the least of Banks’s work. Look to Windward, Player of Games, Use of Weapons, and Surface Detail are much much more interesting, and rewarding.
Feersum Enjin and The Algebraist are annoying as hell because he’s busy showing off authorial tricks.
I forgot to say in the am thread: Happy “Opening Day” to all the baseball fans!
?
Your avatar is a perfect match for that message.
Meh. I’m sure the Astros are cool with it.
/bangs trashcan…
Hey!
watching ARI @ ATL 2014-05-18
That was yesterday here in CLE. The Tigers were supposed to play the Indians at 13:10. When I got out for my bike ride, I saw lots of Wahoos about.
It would have been yesterday for the Twins, as well. I don’t know why the MLB has to do a handful of games a day early.
Same here in Cincy. ‘Posed to be v. St Louis.
Oh, MA-A-A-A-AN!! (Reds Traitor/Cardinals fan)
Meh. The way our club has been for the past….oh…..decade or so?
Its tough to call myself a ‘fan’.
Love the Dragons games tho.
I’m gonna be jonesin’ for the between-innings Toddler Races. : (
The reaction of some people to Massie forcing the House to actually constitute a quorum solidifies what i wrote the other day. Certainly Politicians look for any reason they can to subvert the sovereignty of the people, but it is almost always at the pleading and behest of the people “to get something done”.
I could truly imagine Navin Johnson saying, “We must do something! This is something. (beat) We must do this!”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079367
I guess some are using the hygiene argument.
Yep, those poor old politicians being forced to fly and vote on something.
Some of them are in fact geriatric. Whether they’re flying commercial, I dunno.
We all knew it wouldn’t be long until it penetrated the left.
1993 – meh. I would say a bit late
But believe women and shit.
I watched part of Jimmy Dore’s commentary on it, but i really couldn’t watch to much. I knew he was going to unquestioningly accept the story. I’m skeptical. I’m not saying it would surprise me that Biden did this, or that any politician gets away with this. But the whole wait 30 years and then tell? And then to claim that you have been trying to tell? Why not tell Fox News when the Guy was VP? You think they wouldn’t have been sympathetic?
The problem is she hasn’t even accused him of sexual assault, just low level sexual harrassment at worst.
His hands were on me and underneath my clothes. And then, he went, he went down my skirt and then up inside it, and he penetrated me with his fingers…and um…He was kissing me at the same time and he was saying something to me,
Erm, I’m not sure that qualifies as low level sexual harassment.
Ok, this is different from what was in the news yesterday where the strongest detail was he touched her in the back of her neck with his finger
That is what she said last year when her and 6 other women came out against her.
I can get it being embarrassing to talk about a sensitive subject. But that can’t be enough for us to toss out skepticism of the claim when it comes 30 years later.
The Dems want to damage Biden so he doesn’t get enough delegates to get the nomination on the first ballot, then they can nominate whoever they please, like Andrew Cuomo.
If Cuomo is between Hillary and the nomination, well, he’s bound to have some kind of unfortunate accident. Like being run over by a commercial lawnmower.
…loading…
If true, her brother is a piece of garbage.
Narrator: And her brother’s name…Corn Pop.
I put it in the last post but it was already dead, but if you need something to watch I’d highly recommend Tiger King. At least two episodes in it is highly entertaining. Tigers, lions, dyed mullets, sex, guns, bigamy, slavery, mutilation, and more. I’d read the story of Joe Exotic before, but this takes a nice deep dive into the madness of the situation.
Tigers, lions, dyed mullets, sex, guns, bigamy, slavery, mutilation
too much shit to jam into one tiny avatar, you’re sayin’ ?
Heh, heh. It doesn’t hurt to try. Needs more bigamy me thinks.
did one of his boyfriends remind anyone else of Zippy the Pinhead?
With less teeth.
I made it through the first two episodes last night. I plan on finishing it over the weekend.
Besides they mentioned the Ohio big cat retreat. I mean, I knew the guy from this story.
Yep, those poor old politicians being forced to fly and vote on something.
They should be allowed to vote by mail.
And so should everybody. On everything.
Wow! Despite the Majority of seats being held by republicans, the vote for Speaker went to Nancy Pelosi 5000 votes to 270…
No. Make them show up and make them vote electronically by closing a 120v circuit on pair of electrodes that can only register the vote via a brief, but painful electric shock.
…with both hands, electrodes placed no less than 40″ apart.
I have made barely any progress on “Das Kapital” but I try. I’m still on the section on money.
When I read it, sometimes I think hitting myself in the head with a sledgehammer would be less painful and be more productive.
My two cents. Das Kapital, like “Wealth Of Nations” is one of those books that should just be cliffs noted. Not saying it’s not worth understanding Marx’s arguments, just that those classical economists were rather wordy and you can get the point much faster in a condensed format.
I was going to make this very comment. Even Theory of Moral Sentiments isn’t as tendentious as WoN.
I read The Communist Manifesto and really thought I read the wrong book.
I have no idea how a book so vapid was able to influence people.
Das Kapital also did nothing for me. I tried to finish it, but gave up when it said that a jacket is worth more if it’s made by hand than the exact same jacket made by a machine because of reasons I couldn’t figure out.
Labor theory of value is bullshit.
I’ve been meaning to work on an article to explain Marxs labor theory of value and exploitation theory of capital
I have no idea how a book so vapid was able to influence people.
Envy. Marx and Engels had a lot of dumb ideas, but the one thing they understood exceptionally well was the powerful force of envy.
Maker of Purell Hand Sanitizer Denied in Request for Trump Tariff Relief
Gojo Industries, the inventor and manufacturer of Purell-branded products, builds its hand-sanitizer and soap dispensers in the U.S., but a key input that ensures the dispensers work is made in China and subject to a 25% duty.
It’s not the end of the world, but, back to my whimsy: it’s funny.
Gojo said it’s exploring third-country sourcing but added that unilaterally moving production would require reverse engineering of a key chip that’s manufactured by a Canadian company in China. “Such action would violate their intellectual property” and Gojo “does not control the ability to move that production,” the submission reads.
Yeah, well, that’s no big deal:
a/ Canada will get in line for a fee; add it to the $2T somewhere
b/ my last decade sez IP counts for doodly squat unless that’s a rule that only applies to Americans; the one thing I have had proven to me repeatedly (upside my head) is that China will do anything for a price
c/ show me your damned jar and I’ll gin up a new dispenser and quote it to you before the close of business next week
Seems like you could put that stuff in a dishwashing detergent bottle and call it a day.
They do. I think this is for touchless dispensers, which they also sell.
Reading Ken Follett’s Fall of Giants. I’ve been a fan of his every since On Wings of Eagles.
I finally read my Christmas book from my MIL. I burned through it in a few days.
Robots of Gotham by Todd McAulty
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/35721141-the-robots-of-gotham
It was a fun read with good Sci Fi premise. I was entertained enough to ignore several unlikely occurrences and a every-man hero who takes unrealistic risks for unknown reasons.
After long years of war, the United States has sued for peace, yielding to a brutal coalition of nations ruled by fascist machines. One quarter of the country is under foreign occupation. Manhattan has been annexed by a weird robot monarchy, and in Tennessee, a permanent peace is being delicately negotiated between the battered remnants of the U.S. government and an envoy of implacable machines.
Canadian businessman Barry Simcoe arrives in occupied Chicago days before his hotel is attacked by a rogue war machine. In the aftermath, he meets a dedicated Russian medic with the occupying army, and 19 Black Winter, a badly damaged robot. Together they stumble on a machine conspiracy to unleash a horrific plague—and learn that the fabled American resistance is not as extinct as everyone believes. Simcoe races against time to prevent the extermination of all life on the continent . . . and uncover a secret that America’s machine conquerors are desperate to keep hidden.
I would recommend as it has a great premise. AI’s don’t have to be the cold logical thinking machines, they can evolve to be as varied as humans with potential for pettiness, ego, and kindness.
Plus the mechs and drones are well described and thought out. Some of the machines are truly horrifying.
Update from the front lines:
We are being fucked so hard by our idiot governor’s prohibition on elective surgeries, and on panic-induced avoidance of all things healthcare (try to rationalize that), that we have started furloughing staff. Surgery volumes are down 60%, inpatient volumes down 40%, primary care and other office volumes are down 50%.
Way to go, geniuses. You are destroying the healthcare system in your dumbass attempt to save it. The only reason to ban elective surgeries is free up hospital capacity, when our capacity is absolutely cratering. Nobody is going to catch the CCP Virus getting their knee replaced, you dumbshit.
To keep my furloughed staff whole as long as I can, I am giving them my PTO. I am pounding my fist on the table demanding that we go to “dollar-for-dollar” PTO transfers (which leverages the shit out of one of my PTO days when I give it to the administrative assistant we just furloughed). Everybody is nodding along “Great idea, RC”, but nobody is fucking doing it. They have next week to figure it out, and if they don’t, I’ll put myself on furlough and let the dumbasses deal with the avalanche of CCP Virus legal issues on their own.
Yesterday’s kerfuffle over bioethics/resuscitation/allocation of scarce resources went my way, although I haven’t seen the final policy yet. Turns our the doctor who wrote it pulled a shift in our COVID unit, and after looking at a few actual sick people, she decided standing in the hall buffing her nails while they arrested maybe wasn’t such a good idea after all.
The news is also that the R value for the CCP Virus is being raised to around 3, making it more transmissable than the flu. This, of course, implies that a lot more people have had it, and supports the reduction in the models of this things likely impact. The mortality rate in the US stubbornly refuses to stop declining, although that’s mainly an artifact of increased testing, but still – there it is. This thing is transmissable as hell, and a nasty bug, no doubt, but I remain confident that the net excess deaths from it in this country will not break 100,000.
I felt weirdly optimistic yesterday, and then today I see that the news that the modelling that drove this panic has been drastically revised downward is being completely ignored. We, as a nation, are morons, ruled by idiots. Actual burden on the healthcare system (outside of three, maybe four, hot spots, including, unfortunately, the Center of the Known Universe, NYC) is a statistical nothing. Yet, here we are.
I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel for this. The disease is definitely not as bad as advertised. So once that news gets around, the disease itself won’t be the cause of much. But the economy is completely fucked by the ridiculous response to it.
Nah, they’ll just say the drastic measures they took was the reason why in the end it didn’t seem so bad.
Classic “heads” we win “tales” you lose scenario.
If the virus did turn out terrible with lots of deaths you would have heard that we didn’t do enough.
Its not the governor’s fault. He’s just a milquetoast technocrat that wants to be loved.
This CCP are you referring to Tom Hanks Disease?
Classic government interference that “sees” a problem tries to do something about it and totally botches everything else. Nice work fellas.
Saw some similar notes from pediatrician Joe Pilot (@joesilverman7), but looks like he got suspended.
Wow.
I am sorry you’re going through this. I’m also happy that you’re still fighting the good fight and won the ethics fight.
Amen to both sentiments.
R value
I’m in favor of anything that reintroduces the use of the word naught to daily life
/ Jethro
Here’s something to look forward to April 14th
IIRC you are also a fan of Empire of Silence
Pre-ordered.
I’m excited, really loved the first two.
Thanks for this. Reading so much bullshit, it’s really helpful to get the straight shit.
Hang in there.
Re-listening to the Monster Blood Tattoo trilogy by D.M. Cornish. Finished Foundling, listening to Lamplighter. The third book is Factotum. I’ve cycled through the audiobooks several times; the narration is great. They are YA, so if you have kids you need to distract, this is a good option. Cornish creates an interesting world and characters. (And aspects of the trilogy are “libertarian-ish.”) I highly recommend the books.
So Ohio has quit reporting the ages of people who die from the Kung flu. But the 11 out of 19 that were reported are 84, 85, 88, 93, 83, 88, 91, 85, 76, 93, and 58. The 58 year old had underlying health conditions. Four of the flu victims were from the same nursing home. So lockdown the old folks homes and open the businesses.
My [dead] grandparents aren’t expendable!
/Cuomo
But if one could go back in time and at the very least sterilize Cuomo’s grandparents…
fapfapfapfapfap
/social engineers
Of course they’ve quit reporting the ages. The actual information doesn’t instill enough panic.
Ohio has quit reporting the ages of people who die from the Kung flu
What was their given justification for that?
With the smaller counties I thought maybe it was for privacy reasons. People maybe able to figure it out or at least speculate. But for the second death in Cuyahoga Co which is Cleveland, they offered no details either. Old people die every day. Certainly at this point they could give age range percentages for the state. I think they don’t want everyone without a senior citizen discount to say wtf.
Well if you really want to, they have a breakdown of confirmed cases by ZIP code for Cuyahoga. Mine has 2-3 confirmed cases…
Which is fucking stupid because it would probably save both lives and money if they would have focused on testing, isolating, and protecting the elderly rather than sending the whole nation into a panic over 25-year olds catching this thing.
Most of my reading is on WWII history, any theater.
Advance to Barbarism: The Development of Total Warfare from Sarajevo to Hiroshima
by F.J.P. Veale (Author)
Obscure and interesting little book on the “code of conduct” of the vanquished by the victors over history culminating with the Nuremburg Trials. A fascinating read.
I also have a copy of The Origins of the Second World War by A.J.P. Taylor I’m getting to crack open, heard it was a worthwhile read.
Finally I’d like to recommend an outstanding book on the Battle of MIdway, one of the best books I’ve read on this epic battle. Focus is from the Japanese perspective which is not very well known. Thoroughly researched and fascinating.
Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway
by Jonathan Parshall, Anthony Tully, et al.
I’ve read Taylor’s “The Origins of the Second World War”. It’s been a few years since I read it. I remember it being interesting.
Good to hear, I bought this book a couple of years ago and recently found it under a pile of papers while cleaning up my home office desk. Probably should clean up a little more often….
Just finished “The Fued” about the Hatfields and McCoys. I think it was recommended by someone here. It was confusing with all the names, but an interesting portrait of life in a time and place I’m very unfamiliar with.
Currently reading “Fair Land, Fair Land” by AB Guthrie. It the 3rd book in a series about the old West, starting with the trappers in the Great Plains in the first book, and the emigrants on the Oregon Trail in the second book.
None of the latter books quite matched The Way West in my opinion, but I was still always glad to go back out west with Dick Summers and breath the fresh air.
How many cars are in Manhattan and how many gas stations?
We, as a nation, are morons, ruled by idiots. Actual burden on the healthcare system (outside of three, maybe four, hot spots, including, unfortunately, the Center of the Known Universe, NYC) is a statistical nothing. Yet, here we are.
The truth is ugly.
Well, my range shut down. Retail store is open, though.
We’re sneaking out to the county tomorrow to play golf since the munis are closed.
Guns, not golf.
But I just heard on the radio that the fucking county sheriff’s office showed up at a local course because they had the temerity to stay open.
Fucking assholes. The chances of catching the virus are about a million times better in a fucking supermarket than a golf course.
I just noted that the local discount grocery has plenty of water now, but still no toilet paper. WTF? Seriously, which would you be more likely to die from first, lack of toilet paper or no water? People are stupid.
I just got back from Total Wine. A dude got in line right behind me and the cashier told him to step back behind the tape on the floor. So stupid. I was three feet from the cashier as he would soon be.
When you get to the register, you’re no longer contagious, it’s been registered as a no virus zone, duh!
When I was in the local grocery, the only not uppity one where the poor huddled masses shop, they had 2 women in masks staffing the self checkout lines. Their old dated POS terminals almost never work and so people are standing in line with the little red light on and both of them were pretending not to notice that anyone needed help.
I’m reading shit like this:
Hundreds Dead from Methanol Poisoning
Why did Trump tell them to do this? This time bad orange man has went too far!
300 people ? Pikers.
The US Gov’t deliberately poisoned something like 10,000 during prohibition.
Those were drunken sinners and hedonists, fornicators drinking the devil’s dishwater, I tell you, they deserved it.
A quick search gave me this article (TW slate)
And they claim 10K deaths. Way to go, government!
Drugs are bad, Mmkay?
https://preview.redd.it/rbuuwcond7p41.png?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=369d6ec67c0cdb255be263633203a9b48423107a
It’s funny cause it’s true.
Lol. Yup.
And of course even though they are going to spend 2 Trillion dollars, and wipe out any Tax Revenue in one shot, they can’t just abolish the income tax.
My wife asked why they can’t at least suspend the income tax for a few months.
My theory (possibly stolen) is if they did that the plebs would really see how much is being stolen from them every month
If I’m not mistaken, this was one of the first things Trump suggested. But I knew it could never get through Congress because of Democrats. Like I told my wife today, I don’t want any fucking money, give me a tax Break. You know, let me keep my own money instead of stealing it from others and handing it out how they decide?
Doesn’t help anyone laid off by all the government mandated shutdowns or the businesses crushed by collapsing travel and tourism.
Doesn’t help anyone laid off by all the government mandated shutdowns or the businesses crushed by collapsing travel and tourism.
True, but it would have helped to mitigate the stupidity.
I know at least the BA was lobbying for a 30-60 day push back of due dates for alcohol taxes (with no interest or late charges) as a way to try to help the breweries stay afloat.
“In its recommendations for coping with stress during the pandemic, the World Health Organization advises: “Don’t use smoking, alcohol or other drugs to deal with your emotions’.”
Yet the WHO recommends Traditional Chinese Medicine as a valid treatment. And then there’s this:
“South Africa will ban the sale of alcohol during its containment period from Friday”
Yes, let’s take people who are already going stir crazy and take away one of the few sources of entertainment and pleasure.
https://news.yahoo.com/lockdown-lock-fears-alcoholism-addiction-confinement-225114617.html
This entire fiasco is just an excuse for authoritarian statist shitheads to go down their Christmas list.
I highly recommend beer. This is just more proof that WHO have not a fucking clue about anything.
The urge to be in control (and not just in the totalitarian sense, though that’s what it leads to) during a crisis is crazy. You see this with young, and poor leaders. Anytime something bad happens they try to clamp down on everything to give themselves some illusion of control.
O’Hare: the rent-a-cop screaming in traffic at the Uber drivers creates more problems than if they were just left to queue up to suit themselves.
Operations: “manager” with limited statistical competence causes more variation in production output than just letting machines run.
Finance: sales managers goaded to accelerate or delay orders to better fit budget alienates clients without impressing equity owners.
I see it every day.
Here in St. Louis the local labor unions are all clamoring for “first responder” status…. they want first dibs at the Govt teat.
“Upon hearing Wednesday that Parson would not classify grocery workers as “first responders” — which the local grocers union said should give its workers priority access to testing, wage reimbursement and state-provided security at stores — the head of the union blasted Parson on Twitter.”
“On Thursday, the AFL-CIO of Missouri asked Parson to designate home health care workers, building and construction trade workers, grocery store workers, prison guards, gas station workers and others as “first responders.”
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/we-need-you-to-step-up-missouri-union-leaders-fault/article_30d45a4d-d237-5780-a260-56ac7494da11.html
Just. Get. Tests. For. Everyone.
Got into an argument at work over testing. As I have said on here before, I think I already had CV and got over it. My verbal combatant told me he would eat his hat if I did. Since he is a Cosmo with TDS, I hope to be purchasing a KAG hat in the future.
Im a denier like you. While Jugsy shits her (sizable) panties over this, I remind her how sick she was end of January.
“You already had it. They just didnt have a name then.”
Current capacity isn’t even doing a good job of keeping up with the volumes under the current restrictive screening.
As our CMO said this morning when somebody asked if we could test all hospital staff.
“Testing everyone is stupid. By the time we get results back, all it will tell us is you didn’t have it a week ago. What are we supposed to do with that?”
I was under the impression that there are increasingly faster and easily administered tests.
Can’t we, you know, throw some of that 2 trill at that?
I was under the impression that there are increasingly faster and easily administered tests.
Yup. Still takes time to go from a small number of tests to thousands a day. Some of the new tests aren’t panning out well, is what I hear. Whether its a design or manufacturing problem, I have no clue.
The University of Arizona put together a bunch of sample kits. They were all rejected, because they use wooden sticks for the cotton swab, not plastic ones. When you rush to market, you make mistakes.
Taking a week or longer due to capacity at some of the private labs. One news article of a sample was sent by the primary lab to one or two other companies’ labs in turn because of issues. I’m sure there’s shortages of material and teething trouble at any lab that’s ramping up. And shortages of sample kits and PPE for taking the samples according to some providers. It’s a mess.
Everyone wants to be first to get their head in the government’s slop trough. We’ll worry later about why our money is only valuable for playing board games with. If we’re lucky, a day may once again come where the gruel is not being rationed.
Obligatory: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t0nzZ8-kIf0
This is truly the end times, isn’t it? You know, is anyone else not only worried about the pandemic, but the serious unprecedented outbreak of Tulpas going on?
“Close the borders!”
Are you joking? After years of this place, we have the immune systems of junkyard dogs!
Let ’em in!!
The Tulape are doubling every day! Just like the model predicted !
2 MINUTES!
And that comment wins one internetz. No one is topping that today, we can all go home now.
Are profiles automatic or approved? I got the idea once that someone has to click yes on each one. Is this eating into SP’s midnight hours?
Massie: “I came here this week to make sure our Republic doesn’t die in
an empty chamber by unanimous consent”
https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1243596740630138880?s=20
Damn right!
Hey, Tom, don’t tell anyone, but it died a long time ago.
If only we could get Joe Biden in the Whitehouse, we could finally put this miserable creature out of it’s misery!
It’s getting close to time for a reboot. Republic 3.0 still downloading….
Herd indoctrination posing as education is not compatible with liberty. We either change the public school system model, shut it completely down, or we’re done as a Republic. I mean we still may still be around as a nation, but most of us living today wouldn’t recognize it or want to live in it. Think Communist China and maybe even more totalitarian and dystopian.
In thinking about CCP ( A cure!) , urban transmission rates, mortality rates, mobile phone usage decrease..it is entirely possible that population in China decreased by 20M. Theoretically, they were losing 20X more people than were being born over the first quarter of this year. Typically, their population increases 20K/day.
No wonder they had to kick out all the foreign reporters (cure)–not for what they had negatively written…but for what they could not ignore…
“Fixed the newel post!” — Clark W. Griswald
Something that I couldn’t help thinking up earlier today. No conspiracy theory here, I know it’s unlikely, but. What if the virus was actually created in a lab as a bio weapon and the details of that finally leak out and it’s confirmed by scientists? Does anyone else think that the leftist media here would continue to be supportive of the CCP and try to pass the blame again to bad orange man? Because I have a 100% certainty that would happen.
I don’t think it was a bioweapon, but it is now.
While I’m nothing close to an expert, I do have some college coursework in it, and my job involves setting up patient accounts with insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and other insurers, resolving rejected claims, and solving other insurance-related mysteries. Once you learn 90% of situations that occur and how to resolve them, it’s a pretty easy job, and everyone else thinks I’m a miracle worker (even though I’m just typing in numbers off a faxed copy of an insurance card).
It has given me some insight into what makes our healthcare system so fucked up. Also, I will rage scream at anyone who says that American healthcare is “completely unregulated”.
I’m down to three liters of scotch
and beer:30 is coming earlier and earlier
It’s always beer:30 somewhere.
Sacrifices must be made.
I got on a Native American history kick about a month ago. This started with “Empire of the Summer Moon” – given the subject matter and my moniker it’s strange that it took so long before I found out about this book. This is a history of the Comanche with a lot of detail on their way of life. Their story in the 19th century is braided together with that of Texas, the Rangers, and Colt’s revolvers.
I followed that up with “The Heart of Everything that is”. This is very similar to the above book, but about the Sioux.
Then I had to read “Nine Years Among the Indians” – a book by Herman Leahman who was kidnapped by the Apache at 11 years old and raised as one of them. He eventually ran away to the Comanche and lived with them.
Now I’m on “Blood Moon” – which is basically a history of the Cherokee during the 18th-19th centuries.