suggested listening

 

Forgive a trite title and threadbare content, but here goes with a whole lotta vaccine nothing with a little nip-o-fun to kick around.

Proposed:  no uberpassport is coming

 

any time soon.  Maybe y’all already settled this when I wasn’t looking, but fears and outrages about vaccine passports were still in style earlier in April, so maybe it’s not a dead letter . . . . yet.  I got to thinking about all the people with those stupid little cards, and I put that with how indifferently data and such are recorded, and I realized that two things can’t happen:

 

hallelujah !

A serious program of vaccination compliance managed at pickets by minimum wage types via a half billion scraps of ratty, suspicious, dog-eared, coffee-spattered paper can’t be deployed to wrangle all of America.  Don’t have yours?  can’t get it back/replaced?  no record found in the state system where they can send you another?  That’s okay; we know:  we’ve already heard that one 50 million times this week.  Go on in, at least at Walmart and other mundane and necessary venues.

A national system of phone apps and databases and barcodes and satellites hooking up to prove you can super-super-safely go to this football game or board that cruise won’t happen, either.  Tens of millions of people have already been inoculated and documented, poorly (hat tip, Frank Zappa), interwebs notwithstanding; what data got keyed and where those piles of ones and zeros ended up aren’t ever going to get perfectly aligned.

 

 

And you can’t make generations get re-re-re-vaccinated just to get a new piece of paper or to make super-super-sure that your name is in the computer right.  That sort of thing will come to pass right after 10 million Mexicans get deported and Muhammed al-Mohammad gets to fly again.

 

the government gets more efficient and effective every year

Well, maybe so, Don, but would you please tell me an anecdote that proves nothing whatsoever?  Yes; why, yes, I will:  I escaped my first dose until recently, about two or three months after I could have . . . because I’m a special case as you all well know.  Originally I had signed up with the county of Shelby of which Memphis is the seat and, when the time came, I went down to get my fair share of abuse, and, while idling there in the Group W queue, started filling out their paper.  I guess they deserve a name, but I believe that race BS is ruining the country, so, @kmele-like, I don’t identify as any of their arbitrary cohorts, and I’m morally opposed to filling out anybody’s race stuff:  I won’t help them ruin this country.  So the county of Shelby waved me right on through and I found my happy arse back in the road uninspected, undetected, and uninjected.  NO RACE = NO JAB.

 

 

Then I thought I’d just go to Walgreen’s and pay my way around this bull mess, but their app wouldn’t let me pick the store right next to my office.  Wouldn’t work on my phone.  Couldn’t do on my laptop.  No way on NewWife’s laptop.  Geeze.

 

 

get off my lawn !

 

Then I thought I’d just go to Baptist Hospital where all my suburban white-identifying geezer golfer bros been a getting stuck, but their online form makes you put in your social security number.  Nothing necessarily wrong with that, maybe, you be the judge, but I hate being tracked and I hate my SSN being used as ID and I just look for reasons to stay pissed off and I guess I find them.

 

 

 

So I went back to Walgreen dot com and signed up for the store that they would give me and they emailed me a lovely reminder that listed that I must bring my

    1. driver’s license
    2. medical insurance card
    3. and a copy of this letter

and I certainly did none of that.  But I did drive the ten miles past the SuperConvenient Walgreens right next to my office and went in, I mean . . . . . . . . . . I mean I went, I went in and sat down right there in the line at the OtherWalgreens and they gave me a form and it sezs right thar:  whatchorace?  I had been real nice to the receptionist grinning through my mask and Barney- and Gomer-ing through the pleasantries and I fly through the form and broke down.  I broke down and checked a race box:  OTHER.  Ethnicity:  DECLINE TO DECLARE.  DL:  REFUSED TO PROVIDE.  Insurance:  they didn’t ask for it, of course.

And she, a gal who might well happily identify as NotWhite, didn’t give a $**t about any of that or force the issue or argue or even look at me cockeyed.  She simply typed a moment, clicked Send, and promptly gave me a receipt and vaccine-training papers and sent me to sit over there . . . NOW, KID!  And five minutes later I was stuck, and ten minutes after that I had a card with my name utterly mispelt.  I have a very, very rare Scottish name that got rolled and ruined somewhere between Ulster and Appalachia, and The Card I got completely obscures any connection I have with my father, son, wife, or ancestry.  That’s what my governor got from OtherWalgreens:  no SSN, no DL, and the wrong name.

That’s all well and good, Don, but Memphis could f**k up a wet dream and won’t we, nationally, do much better later with boosters or variants after this first national nightmare passes and we’ve had time to better organize and invest those

$$$trillions$$$

in helpful and efficient ways and don’t you know what I’m trying to ask here?  Well, friend, I reckon not.  No one is going to stop you from getting Vaccine 2024-7F because you can’t prove you got one of the earlier rounds of good-old-like-your-mom-useta-make COVID19 shoulder soup; it’s hopeless, coffee-spatted forms all the way down.  So this game of trust me is going to be like a TS16949 audit:  liars being wrong and getting caught and smoothing it over with a frivolous fix and the auditor writing up his opportunities for improvement and cashing his check and getting out of town and good CompanyXXX getting their little form to frame and hang in reception even though there’s no way to prove that their Tier-CXCLIII suppliers aren’t using child- or slave-labor to handle chemicals known by the state of California to make you want to pay 66% taxes.

Maybe there will be a fancy system for careful people doctored on in proper facilities, but that’s going to be under 10% of folks and activities.  You simply can’t run a railroad on the nonsense we’ve built.  We can’t even pretend to run a railroad this way.

So why not have a little fun with this.

 

Picket:  ihre Papiere, bitte

Escaped:  (hands over crumpled form that I wish I had printed out on yellow paper like real German vaccine records)

P:  umm . . . doesn’t look like the other forms

E:  they do things differently in Germany (not a lie:  they certainly can’t say that ain’t so)

P:  this isn’t CDC approved

E:  well not everyone got their vaccine here (not a lie:  it was at least a mile away from this particular theater in my case)

P:  I should warn you that fake forms are illegal

E:  (smiles and vigorously nods agreeing . . . that using CDC logos is a crime because I didn’t use a CDC logo)

P:  enjoy the movie (hands back useless stunt form)

E:  (tips hat, moves on, and wonders when Congress will get around to writing any definitive laws in this matter or creating enough prisons to house all those deplorables with their secretly 2D-printed 80% lower would-be OFFICIAL VACCINE PASSPORTS)

 

Remember Alice?  This was a song about Alice.

 

About The Author

Don escaped Memphis

Don escaped Memphis

all my exes live in Texas

163 Comments

  1. R C Dean

    All good reasons why its a terrible idea that can’t be implemented worth a crap, especially since they are now begging people to get it without ID.

    But since when has “its a terrible idea that can’t be implemented worth a crap” been a hard stop for the government or big biz?

    • rhywun

      Yeah, they will carry the theater out as far and as long as they feel like whether it works or not. What’s one more doorstopper of laws which can’t be enforced but will be selectively enforced at will?

  2. juris imprudent

    Bravo [Zulu] Don!

  3. CPRM

    SSN being used as ID

    It says right on the Social Security card ‘Not to be used for Identification.’ Means as much as that constitution thing them dead slave owners wrote.

    • Mojeaux

      It says right on the Social Security card ‘Not to be used for Identification.’

      You haven’t seen my kids’ SS cards they got assigned at birth. It most certainly does NOT say that. In fact, I don’t think the one I got after I changed my name when I got married says that.

      • rhywun

        Mine doesn’t either.

      • CPRM

        Now that I looked at mine it doesn’t say that either. I’m claiming Mandela Effect, and I’m now in a shittier time line.

      • Mad Scientist

        The one I had as a kid had that written on it. The replacement I had to get in the late 90s does not.

    • DEG

      I think mine does. As soon as my work meeting ends, I’ll dig it up and see.

      • DEG

        I found mine. It does not say “not for identification”.

        I also found my birth certificate. It says, “Not legal to duplicate” or something like that. I remember whenever I presented it for I-9 purposes, people copying it.

  4. R C Dean

    I guess they deserve a name, but I believe that race BS is ruining the country, so, @kmele-like, I don’t identify as any of their arbitrary cohorts, and I’m morally opposed to filling out anybody’s race stuff: I won’t help them ruin this country.

    When possible, I leave this blank. When forced (typically an electronic form that won’t let you leave blanks), I go with “Other” (when available) or “Mixed Race”.

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      RC Dean is miscegenated.

      • R C Dean

        In fact, I am. Euro mutt ancestry crossed with (likely) Navajo mestizo, with a soupcon of African according to the genetic profile. The records on the Navajo mestizo side were lost in a church fire in a tiny town in NM 50, 60 years ago. Bro Dean has put together an extensive genealogy.

      • Animal

        We all are. That’s what makes the entire discussion of “race” so idiotic. Humans have less genetic diversity than any of the other great apes. Less than chimps, bonobos, gorillas or orangutans. There are no “pure” racial groups, and in most of the world, intermarriage is making the issue more and more moot.

        And nowhere more so than here. We’re Americans. Our ancestors were kicked out of every respectable country in the world.

      • rhywun

        Insofar as “race” means anything, that’s not what they’re really after anyway. “Race” here is being used as a shorthand for something like “cultural cohort for the purposes of granting victim status points”. I.e. for discrimination purposes and of course unconstitutional AF.

      • Animal

        Which makes it even more idiotic.

      • Mojeaux

        So if I have a DNA test that proves I have west African ancestry, I can put “black”?

      • UnCivilServant

        I identify as Native American.

      • Mojeaux

        I don’t think there’s a category for melungeon.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        About a dozen years ago I heard of a white South African woman, American resident, who innocently checked African-American on a form. She didn’t sound terribly observant.

  5. Gender Traitor

    One shot makes you larger
    And one shot makes you small…

    Wait…wrong Alice?

    • pistoffnick

      And the ones Fauchi gives you might not do anything at all…

      • Gender Traitor

        ::fist bump::

        Are the kids still doing that? Or is it strictly elbow bumps now? Do they even get that close together?

      • UnCivilServant

        *shrug*

        I don’t understand either gesture. It just feels awkward.

      • CPRM

        As long as the ‘hand clasp + hug’ is out, I’m fine, that was a terrible fad. STOP TOUCHING ME!

      • pistoffnick

        *pokes CPRM, hoping for a Pilsbury dough boy giggle*

      • pistoffnick

        I’ll let you decide if that was my finger or not.

      • CPRM

        *lets out an extended fart that goes on way too long*
        Thanks, I needed that.

      • R C Dean

        I shook someone’s hand for the first time in over a year last week.

        I’ve never done an elbow bump, and hope to keep my perfect record.

      • Tundra

        I had a meeting with a banker this morning. Actual handshake and no goddamn mask.

        Excellent essay and I’m coming around to your opinion. Thanks!

      • R C Dean

        I’m coming around to your opinion

        That certainly speaks well of you.

      • UnCivilServant

        Does it count when the other people were Glibs?

      • Gender Traitor

        Glibs are people??

      • UnCivilServant

        or reasonable facimilies thereof.

      • Gender Traitor

        I’m an unreasonable facsimile of a person. Close enough? ::extends hand::

      • Not Adahn

        Ve ist nicht pipple. Ve ist Jaegerkin. Ist better.

      • robc

        My rental house agreement for Aug-Dec was done via a literal handshake deal.

      • DEG

        When bars reopened here in southern NH for outdoor dining, a bar in Nashua had its outdoor dining area set up with a cornhole game.

        The first Wednesday that bar was open, they revived their Wednesday “Beat the Clock” special. Select beers are $0.50 per drink starting at 8 PM, with the prices going up every half hour.

        I was there for that night. A huge number of people showed up. A bunch of folks started playing cornhole. I joined the game. I remember shaking hands with one of my fellow players. He said, “Thank you for shaking hands. I want normal back!”

        Unfortunately, someone must have ratted the bar out. See, under the then-in-effect rules from the Clown Prince, having games of any type (cornhole, darts, pool, etc.) at a bar wasn’t allowed. The bar took the cornhole game away.

      • Nephilium

        One of the events I was at last weekend had a sand volleyball game, as well as “full sized” beer pong (red garbage cans, and bouncy red balls to throw back and forth), and cornhole that people were playing all day.

      • DEG

        The Clown Prince’s remaining business restrictions end tomorrow.

        Currently, you can play darts or pool, but as far as I know, no other bar games. Live entertainment is allowed but only if there are fewer than three performers who are at least nine feet away from patrons.

        I know of more than a few businesses that have been ignoring the remaining business restrictions for the past two weeks.

        But tomorrow, it doesn’t matter.

      • rhywun

        Shake hands or GTFO.

        I remember all the articles from last year from people getting a tingle up their leg at the “death of hand-shaking”.

        Yeah, right.

      • CPRM

        I hate handshakes. I try to match the shaker, but some are like ‘fuck you I’m going to crush your hand!’ and some are like ‘I don’t want to be touching you, here is a squeeze you might not feel..also my hands are wet and smell of fish.’

      • rhywun

        Well, other than weirdoes like you, I think everyone will be back to shaking hands in no time. It’s just ingrained.

      • CPRM

        Sounds like a very WASPY interpretation of history, watch out, they’re coming for you!

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Hey! I told you that somebody had thrown a whole seabass into my trashcan!

      • CPRM

        That also wasn’t your hand…

      • DEG

        Here in southern NH, I see a mix of fist bumps and hand shakes.

      • DEG

        🙂

  6. Dr. Fronkensteen

    You don’t have to provide your SS number as an identification.

    It is “voluntary”.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Lol. So as I have lamented on here about my son’s job search. Subway finally broke down and accepted a document from column B and C of the I-9 that wasnt his SS card.

      • CPRM

        Your son is Messican!?

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        Score one for OBE!

    • Dr. Fronkensteen

      You’ll need a vaccine pass in order to vote. Not sure what the other 16 will be for.

    • CPRM

      developed with IBM

      HAHA! Really? !

      • R C Dean

        I wonder who at IBM is related to who in the NY government.

      • Plisade

        ^^^

      • UnCivilServant

        A few CIOs back we had someone from IBM who still held a good deal of their stock.

        He had to “Move on to new opportunities” after making us buy a lot of AIX systems.

        A number of his people are still in place, despite the many reasons to fire/incarcerate them.

    • rhywun

      At least 32 stars is a nice, even number for the new flag.

      • CPRM

        32 is my favorite number. Yes, I’m the kind of person that has a favorite number.

  7. Yusef drives a Kia

    Cool story, hope it works out that way

    • R C Dean

      I’m very mildly optimistic. The COVID panic seems to be receding, and people are starting to object to COVID panic overreach.

  8. pistoffnick

    “Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie, I put that vaccine card under that garbage.”

    • Animal

      +1 Group W bench.

    • pistoffnick

      +27 8″x10″ colored glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one.

  9. Semi-Spartan Dad

    Interesting article Don.

    And you can’t make generations get re-re-re-vaccinated just to get a new piece of paper or to make super-super-sure that your name is in the computer right.

    I’m not really following you on this one. Seems like exactly something the bureaucracy would pursue. An annual booster requirement is already being floated without much pushback.

    • Tundra

      I think this is key:

      A serious program of vaccination compliance managed at pickets by minimum wage types via a half billion scraps of ratty, suspicious, dog-eared, coffee-spattered paper can’t be deployed to wrangle all of America.

      Yes, the bureaucrats will do their level best to make our lives miserable, but their enforcement arm is scrawny and weak.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Do they really care, though? Does it matter if 100% compliance actually happens, or is it more important for them to institute yet another identification and obedience regime that, frankly, they’re happy to let fester for a decade before using to its full potential?

      • Tundra

        Of course they don’t care. It simply means that we can avoid the panopticon for awhile.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The bureaucrats don’t enforce their own edicts. If they tried to directly enforce their myriad rules the citizenry would revolt. They put that burden on businesses instead.

        “Hey Busch Gardens! Guess what? You can finally open fully and maybe avoid bankruptcy as long as everyone coming into your park provides proof of vaccination!”

        “Hey there private school! Guess what? We’ll let you take those masks off if all your kids are vaccinated!”

      • Gustave Lytton

        Scrub out the covid knee jerk reaction, and most people wouldn’t give mandatory vaccinations a second thought other than a few antivaxxers. They haven’t until current year.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I probably pay closer attention than most simply because I have a son with a genetic defect that makes vaccines more dangerous for him.

        But pushing this new, experimental technology on everyone is just freaking nuts.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        but their enforcement arm is scrawny and weak

        Currently. My biggest fear is that CPS gets drafted into enforcement role with law enforcement as backup. They’ll never get everyone, but they don’t care about everyone. I’m seeing more and more of Inner Party, Outer Party, and Proles. Enforcement is enough to hit the party members and leave behind the irrelevant proles.

        They could also very easily restrict air travel starting tomorrow to only those with vaccine passports from approved locations. They have the enforcement available for that. It would also serve their goal of restricting movement and isolating those icky proles who won’t comply. That would have been tin-foil hat crazy to say a couple years ago but look at what’s happening with travel restriction in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

  10. Fourscore

    There will be color coded cards that will qualify you for the express line and the manager level shopping experience, depending on your social value. Of course I am sure I’d qualify for the Platinum level because of my , ahem, qualifications .

  11. Fourscore

    Thanks, Don, good article.

  12. Scruffy Nerfherder

    suburban white-identifying geezer golfer bros

    *tugs at polo collar uncomfortably*

  13. Mojeaux

    Your unsubstantiated anecdote is amusing and oddly reassuring.

  14. R C Dean

    hands back useless stunt form

    Its not useless at all. In addition to providing amusement, it gets you into movies and whatnot.

  15. CatchTheCarp

    Any watch this “woke” CIA employment add yet?

    https://twitter.com/i/status/1389457095951486980

    There are terms I have never heard before: tragically colored, generalized anxiety disorder and being an intersectional.

    • Toxteth O'Grady

      Heard that.

      Hadn’t heard 1 before. AFAICT 2 is what used to be called neurosis.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      GAD is an anxiety disorder in which people experience a constant state of heightened anxiety independent of identifiable triggers as you’d see with a phobia or PTSD. It’s just the kind of thing you’d just love to have in your national intelligence agents.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        It’s a description of symptoms as opposed to an actual disorder. It’s the type of thing doctors like to throw out when they can’t explain why you’re afraid of everything and want you to go away or take a Prozac and leave them alone. Or it’s the type of thing teenagers self-diagnose with because they’re angsty teenagers with access to Google.

        On the other hand, some people (like my son) have an inability to shut down their adrenaline gland once triggered because of a specific genetic defect. Now that is a sight to behold when it kicks in.

      • db

        Berserker?

      • slumbrew

        “Olaf, metal”

      • db

        My love for this reply is like a truck.

    • rhywun

      America’s future on display.

      wheeee

    • Mad Scientist

      Normally the CIA recruits the neurotically paranoid. They’ve just changing the name to “generalized anxiety disorder.” Business as usual.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I suppose it’s the innate need for a guardian figure that they seem to have.

      • Nephilium

        I forget what the organization was, but Niven had an entire department of paranoid people who would be taken off their meds during their work shifts in several of his stories.

      • Toxteth O'Grady

        pantophobia! -Lucy van Pelt

      • CatchTheCarp

        When looking up pantophobia this word showed up: Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia – fear of long words.

  16. DEG

    Vaccine passports aren’t going to happen this time around. For all the reasons Don said, plus all the different competing interests (which vendor makes the app, whose app do we trust, which vaccines do we trust, etc. etc.), plus legal push back (example: pushes to ban use of vaccine passports at the state level in the USA).

    Next time around? They’ll be back.

  17. grrizzly

    Given that the Biden-Fauci regime copies everything from China, maybe they’ll copy this, too.

    NEW: Chinese government calls for a halt to COVID-19 vaccine mandates by local Chinese authorities, says people should only be vaccinated voluntarily

    • UnCivilServant

      I suspect the Chinese are covering up for the fact that they know their vaccines are at best 50% effective. Any new clusters will be blamed on the unsocial not doing their duty to the CCP.

  18. R C Dean

    Interesting article on the Dunbar number, which has come up around here recently.

    I hadn’t realized it was originally based on neocortex size, rather than something more observational. Saying there’s a hardwired limit on our more or less well-known social circle seems unlikely. I still think its good concept, though.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      Id have more respect for the journo if the article had led with this:

      There surely is an upper limit to the social capacity of the human brain, but the authors of the latest study suggest that limit varies from person to person and is likely heavily influenced by cultural factors.

      The Dunbar number is a good heuristic for familiar groups versus unfamiliar groups. Trying to treat a group of 600 like a familiar group is stupid. Regulating a group of 30 like an unfamiliar group is similarly stupid.

    • UnCivilServant

      Why do I get the impression that instead of Taiwan, China’s war will be against India?

      • DEG

        Why not both?

      • UnCivilServant

        China’s sealift capacity is still poor.

      • R C Dean

        I’d love to know what kind and how many anti-shipping weapons Taiwan has.

        I’m sure the ChiComs would, too.

        My impression is Taiwan will be one tough nut to crack militarily.

      • db

        That’s an exocet question.

      • DEG

        Minor details. I’m certain they will just throw more people at the problem like they always do.

      • juris imprudent

        Human bridge formed across strait of Formosa – film at 11.

      • Sean

        “Border squabbles” is kind of like teenage knife play. Just some cultural hi-jinks.

    • Gustave Lytton

      And the teams from deaths with covid vs deaths by covid will flip sides because it’s convenient to their own narratives.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Yipe, no wonder the drug companies insisted on (further) exemption from liability.

    • R C Dean

      Went to the VAERS site. Getting to any data requires signing up and going through the usual CDC horseshit about downloading data, blah blah. Can’t confirm that chart.

      • Sean

        I went too, but didn’t know how to configure all the data points and closed the window.

        I didn’t see any sign up stuff.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I’ve read the same elsewhere.

      And I personally know of one case where a 90 year old man took the Pfizer vaccine and dropped dead a week later due to clots. He had no history of clots.

      The death certificate did not mention clots. Funny that.

      • Sean

        https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html

        Over 245 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020, through May 3, 2021. During this time, VAERS received 4,178 reports of death (0.0017%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. CDC and FDA physicians review each case report of death as soon as notified and CDC requests medical records to further assess reports. A review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records has not established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines. However, recent reports indicate a plausible causal relationship between the J&J/Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine and a rare and serious adverse event—blood clots with low platelets—which has caused deaths. Get the latest safety information on the J&J/Janssen vaccine. CDC and FDA will continue to investigate reports of adverse events, including deaths, reported to VAERS.

        They’re only copping to the J&J one at this time.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        And the attributable deaths to the J&J were insignificant overall, what was it, 6 cases?

        Something stinks.

      • Sensei

        Before the pause I think it was 7.

        After the pause I seem to recall reading something 3 or 4 men with a possible connection and a woman vaccinated pre pause with a death attributable to a blood clot, but not counted.

    • grrizzly

      I downloaded all VAERS data for 2020 and 2021 and imported it into Stata. There are 166 deaths in 2020 and 3,441 deaths in 2021. That includes all vaccines, not just COVID. That agrees with the chart in the tweet.

      • Sean
      • Sensei

        So, surprising nobody who works with data like this, do we know if anything reporting-wise changed here? Plague related lack of updating, new eligibility, etc…

        I’m not sure what the criteria is for eligibility as well. Since I and many other got the shot can I now get somebody from Dewey, Cheatem and Howe to help me get compensated for my newly discovered chronic pain? So I can see a surge for that for sure.

      • R C Dean

        Since I and many other got the shot can I now get somebody from Dewey, Cheatem and Howe to help me get compensated for my newly discovered chronic pain?

        Regardless of what kind of immunity their products give you, the vax companies have very strong immunity from liability. So who will be compensating you for this chronic pain, exactly?

      • Sensei

        Like that’s stopped the plaintiffs’ bar.

        (But I don’t disagree.)

      • R C Dean

        The plaintiffs’ lawyers run businesses. They don’t waste their time on cases that aren’t profitable.

        Now, when (not if) there is a tax-funded thing set up to compensate people for vax-induced problems . . . .

      • Sensei

        Can you say “mesothelioma”, I know you can.

      • Plisade

        1. Politicians invest in crutches company.
        2. Pass laws that break proles’ legs.
        3. Pass laws requiring govt to provide proles with crutches.
        4. Profit!

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Now, when (not if) there is a tax-funded thing set up to compensate people for vax-induced problems . . . .

        I’ve been riding that hobby horse for a while now. It’ll be a multi-trillion dollar industry if something comes out 10 years from now about those vaccines.

      • grrizzly

        Downloaded data for 2018 and 2019.
        Deaths in VAERS:
        2018: 164
        2019: 183
        2020: 166
        2021: 3441

      • grrizzly

        The total number of vaccinations:
        2018: 49,138
        2019: 48,444
        2020: 46,455
        2021: 108,190

        I see a magnitude more deaths per the number of vaccinations in 2021.

      • Sean

        Yet anyone who tested positive for the ‘vid and died, became a covid death. I won’t even bother with the “presumed case counts”.

      • R C Dean

        Which raises another question – at what point does the CDC clean that data up? If they never do, then comparing this year to prior years is still apples-to-apples, right?

      • Animal

        I’m not familiar with VAERS and how it works, but if it’s like the Medical Device Reporting (MDR) database, then raw reporting numbers aren’t really useful. Those are just reported incidents, and almost anyone can file a report. What counts are the numbers after investigation and cause determination.

    • trshmnstr the terrible

      Stossel is what effective libertarian evangelism looks like.

  19. juris imprudent

    From the Department of Ludicrous Numbers (aka the Univ of Washington IHME).

    According to the new analysis, the countries with the highest COVID death tolls are the United States, with an estimated 905,289 fatalities; India, with 654,395; Mexico, with 617,127; Brazil, with 595,903; and the Russian Federation, with 593,610.

    However, the official death tolls in those countries are significantly lower. In the U.S., the official toll is 574,043; in India, 221,181; in Mexico, 217,694; in Brazil, 408,680; and in the Russian Federation, 109,334.

    • OBJ FRANKELSON

      Sounds like we need to get the DNC working on jacking those vot… I mean, death numbers up.

    • rhywun

      OFFS on multiple levels.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      How in the fuck do they establish that?

      Particularly when there’s a financial incentive to report deaths as COVID even when it wasn’t the primary cause of death?

      • Mad Scientist

        Establish!? They want it to be true, so establishing it as fact is just a matter of repeating it often enough. Isn’t that how the game is played now?

      • OBJ FRANKELSON

        CNN wants to hire to host the “Mostest Reliable Sources.” Can’t be worse to look at than Steltzer, *shudder* It is like the Joker and one of those navigator things from Dune had a baby.

  20. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Customer just came in cursing a blue streak.

    Interviewed a CDL carrying candidate for a dump truck driver position. Said the guy told him he would fail the driving test, then he purposely did so by grinding the gears while shifting.

    When he asked “Why are you tearing up my transmission?” The candidate responded with “I’m getting $900/week to stay at home. I just need the interview on my record.”

    • DEG

      Fuck.

    • Sensei

      Is it really necessary to go to that length? Here in NJ most people seem to figure out how to get their government checks without actually having to leave the house.

      I’m just surprised he had to show up.

      • Sean

        PA currently has no need to apply. The legislature is working on it right now to roll that back.

      • Sensei

        Last time I looked in NJ you just had to “certify” you looked for work under penalty of something if you lied.

        I can guarantee the amount of people actually prosecuted under lying was zero.

      • db

        “Have you killed this week?”

        “No.”

        “Have you *tried* to kill this week?”

    • R C Dean

      “You know, the unemployment money is going to run out someday and you’ll need a job. We keep a “do not hire” list of people who are permanently barred from being employed here. Congratulations. You just made the list.”

    • The Other Kevin

      My brother just got fired, for the first time in his professional career (30+ years). He’ll get $1100 a week for a year, and the mortgage company reduced his payment by 40%. He’s planning on a nice summer.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Jesus

  21. Tres Cool

    WTF happened last night ?
    Im totally polluted.

    • db

      I’d be curious if the author(s) of that can justify or provide data to explain the inflections in the curve on the left side and the relative lack of detail on the right. (Other than to say “true libertarianism/minarchism/anarchocapitalism/anarchism haven’t been tried enough to give empirical results over here”)

      • Animal

        Yeah, there wasn’t really any narrative provided with it. Here’s the article and the text that accompanied this image:

        It seems like every week there’s some new chart or graph like this one, but Insanity Wrap thought this one was particularly thoughtful and well done.

        No origin for the graphic provided.

      • TARDis

        That’s an interesting chart. You should repost on the PM links.

      • db

        agreed

    • R C Dean

      I saw that. I thought it was interesting. As ever, infinite opportunities to quibble, but overall, worth looking at.

  22. Don Escaped Texas

    I hate that I missed this real-time, but thanks for the interest. I find the commentary excellent and the tangents tasty.

    Normally you like to be around when your article, but this got scheduled for 11 on a school day, so I had the Rufus problem.