*Note that was too pessimistic. Maybe. I thought just the lockdown would cause famines in the US. It just pinched us a lot. The rest… I stand by it – SAH*
Cures and Diseases – a blast from the past from 3/24/2020
Cures and Diseases
I’m sorry I’ve been largely absent from my own blog. The truth is that I’ve been largely absent from my own life.
It is a form of depression, but one I hadn’t wrestled with before. I’ve never before been THIS angry. Angry enough I had to shut my entire ability to work — including non fiction and short pieces down — in order not to live in a state of near-berserking.
And I’ve never before felt so impotent that it feeds into the depression. Of course I’ve never before watched the imposition of Cuba-style socialism on the bastion of free men (yes, women are included in that, and if you think I need to mention this every time you’re part of the people destroying civilization without realizing what you’re doing and one of the people I’m no longer in the mood to give consequence to.)
It doesn’t help that this dropped on top of other worries that were ALREADY consuming my life before: I appreciate the world’s and politicians attempts to distract me from a couple of things I’m waiting to drop to make sure the boys DO graduate this year, and from my fears the boob thing will be cancer by going completely insane. I particularly want to thank my state governor for attempting to crash the state economy in tandem with all the other crazy state governors, in what (if they keep it up) guarantees a famine event by next winter. I think HOWEVER you’re going overboard a little.
Maybe it’s time to back up?
Okay, to be clear, the chances that the Chinese Virus was ever going to wipe out 1/10th of our population, let alone more, were very, very, very low. HOWEVER when this started out, we didn’t know that. We just didn’t. And the sh*t coming out of China, including the crematoria running day and night were terrifying.
The virus is still horrible in China. PROBABLY. I mean, the Chinese are still dying and a lot are still locked in. But is it the thing that has many names but which started out as COVID-19?
No one knows. No one really knows what is going on in China. Partly because, as a friend of mine who loves the culture and has lived in China put it “It’s not that they lie. It’s that they don’t really have a concept of the truth.” Some Arab cultures have similar issues. You see, truth that can be verified by other people, truth that is “scientifically testable” is not only not a given for humanity, it seems to be a really difficult idea. Judging from oour plague of irreproducible results, it’s really difficult for US too and being lost here. It might be something that came to the west, or solidified in the west with the scientific revolution.
In China “truth is what serves our purposes.” For everyone. Which is why medicines made in China might be full of plaster. If you’re lucky.
Anyway, the point is no one knows what is going on in China, and though we know that people are dying in droves, and that we’re not being told the truth, we don’t know that it’s caused by this virus.
In fact there are tons of reasons to believe it isn’t, including the fact that the virus isn’t that lethal anywhere else. And before you say “Italy” — Italy is cooking the books, including counting anyone who dies of anything else and had this virus onboard as dying of the virus — besides the fact that Italy has other, systemic problems, just as China does.
There were always those of us who suspected that some purging of political dissidents was going on behind China’s facade of virus attack, and some of it might be true. But there are a lot of other things going one. One of them is that China was hurting — badly — economically. The 8 years of Obama’s Summer of Recovery had put a dent in how much “cheap crap” Americans were buying. There were already parts of their economy dying. They compensated by stealing patents and frauding more (remember they have no concept of fair dealing, along with no concept of the truth. And no, this is not racist, though it might be “culturalist” but I don’t know how, unless you believe all cultures are exactly the same, in which the technical name for you is “idiot.” And yes, I know there are a ton of you out there who were taught that. You were mis-taught. There is no value judgement involved. Cultures are different. I think ours is more suited to survival and thriving of the human race, but that’s me. However, if you’re going to be dealing with other countries you have to be aware of the differences. This, BTW doesn’t mean diddly about the character of people of Chinese origin. It just means that people who grow up in the Chinese culture might have blind spots which aren’t ours and which make business affairs cross culture difficult.)
But then came Trump’s sanctions and attempts to stop our bleed out of jobs and currency. And no, he wasn’t wrong. But it put the hurt on China, MAJORLY which is why all our press — who knew they were in the pocket of the Chinese to that extent — squealed like stuck pigs.
The thing is it might have caused FAMINE in China. China has a veneer of modernity and western civilization, but it is not. The average peasant in China still lives in conditions our 19th century ancestors would find primitive and stark. They might wear t-shirts, but they’re living in primitive, and close to the bone conditions.
When the sanctions cut into them, crematoria running night and day might be a sign of anything, including widespread famine. And Wuhan was particularly impoverished due to hosting the Military games, which means the government emptied parts of the city and destroyed people’s livelihoods uncaring of what happened. There were APPARENTLY a lot of people on the edge of starvation.
Which, yes, makes them more susceptible to disease. Or just dying of hunger.
On top of which, there have been rumors filtering out of a new bird flu, and worse of locusts in unprecedented numbers eating their crops. This comes on top of a swine flu that killed or caused them to kill most of their pigs, to the point rivers ran red.
So, you know, what happened with the virus and China is not a sign of anything.
But when I first became aware of this in January, I was briefly very worried. It looked like it would be bad, very bad indeed. And like everyone else, I kept thinking “Would China react like this if they didn’t have way more deaths/it weren’t way more severe?”
Well, yes, because as I’ve explained there are a ton of other (very bad) things going on in China, and blaming the virus is not as embarrassing.
Since then, despite various attempts to stampede us, from the incredibly stupid computer model, to the numbers in Italy (note that only 12% of death certificates that show Covid-19 as the cause are plausibly even close to true.), to our own authorities doing testing only on people showing severe symptoms, and publishing the number of infected as though it were growing and not more people being tested for it, to as far as I can tell, hospital administrations assuming when we first tested is when people were first infected and having decided (PFA?) that the thing has no asymptomatic infections, but that most infections “take 16 days” which is why the surgeon general (medical degrees apparently don’t mean you can examine assumptions) thinks this week will be “the worst yet,” the truth is that this virus is probably one of the greatest panics incited over absolutely nothing in the history of humanity.
In the magnitude of delusion compared to the actual effects/danger, it is the elephant that birthed a mouse.
I’m not saying people won’t die from the infection. We’re humans. People die from a hangnail. People die from getting too much sun. People can and do die from sinus infections. It’s just not common. Every year, I guarantee, several people die from the common cold. I once tried to die from a really simple virus my two year old shrugged off in a week.
People will die. But in terms of who dies of Chinese Virus, we’re learning they’re the people who would die of …. well, anything. Most of them will be seniors who would have died in less than year anyway.
And when you type that people call you unfeeling and tell you how would you feel if that were your mother, or your grandmother.
The answer is DEVASTATED. Very very sad. I’ve said in the past, and it’s true, that I’d give years of life for the ability to have tea with grandma once more, in her kitchen.
But my mother is eighty five. My father is eighty nine. Both of them are adults and cognizant that they are MORTAL. They certainly wouldn’t want western civilization destroyed to save them. Particularly because when global economy crashes, they won’t survive, anyway. Nor will anyone their age. Hell, it’s unlikely anyone my age will survive very long, because we get the maladies and the things that don’t work very well. People are only living to their eighties and nineties because we’re wealthy and stable enough to give them medicine and think nothing of the cost. And because they can be well fed, clean, warm.
The proof that this virus is probably less lethal than the common cold is hard to come by, partly because we’re still only testing people who are showing symptoms. And we haven’t tested that many people, as is. And as proven we can’t trust numbers from China or Italy, and knowing the games they play with numbers for infant death and murder, I’d be very careful trusting numbers from the EU.
So, we lean heavily on the numbers from the Diamond Princess, because it’s a closed test case. Iceland might also be trustworthy. And South Korea might be more or less straight up. And there are studies surfacing of what is really going on that confirm THE VIRUS IS NOT A BIG DEAL.
COVID-19: the unwarranted panic
COVID-19: interesting data from Korea and from the Diamond Princess
COVID-19 – Evidence Over Hysteria
Don’t expect the media to tell you this. They benefit from the panic directly. Their almost gone influence has been revived. You see, most people don’t actually read news online. They learned to distrust the media from talking to friends at lunch/diner/office. Those are gone, and bored and scared people have the news on. And they BELIEVE them. So don’t expect the media to EVER give the all clear.
All the more so because they’ve seized on this to create a state of panic that will allow them to push their favorite political prescriptions. If you think your lefty friends saying that we’re adopting Bernie’s program is hyperbole, it’s not. The media has stampeded us into an horrendous recession, and the left is taking advantage of it.
The left will also never ever give the all clear. They’re seizing on the panic to create their socialist paradise by fiat. The fact it looks a lot like Cuba or Venezuela hasn’t hit them yet. And they might not mind, anyway. Most of them would rather reign in hell.
But I still think they have NO clue of the devastation they’re precipitating. Most of them are urbanites, work in offices, and have a degree in the soft sciences. Some are even extremely competent and successful in their own fields, but they are complete idiots when it comes to how the world works or what the economy is.
There are signs they are completely delusional. One of them is the charming illusion they can keep people in lock down for 18 months, and all that will happen is they “save lives” and “socialism.” Another is their uniform support for The Green New Deal, an underwear gnome solution based on wishful thinking and astonishing ignorance. Yet another is how they think printing money will compensate for everything. Yet another is an article I saw yesterday about how we recovered from the 2008 recession by 2009. Apparently someone REALLY believed those cooked numbers and the headlines on “summer of recovery” and didn’t have highly qualified friends unemployed for half a decade at a time.
And that’s the problem. It’s not so much the “enemies, domestic” though of course, it is a major problem. As is the fact these mal-educated emotional children have political power. I mean at the level of functionality and divorce from reality they’re the nobility of pre-revolutionary France. (And it would behoove them to remember how that ended.)
But the really, really major problem is that they have NO clue how their actions impact reality, other than what they want to see. It’s entirely possible they don’t believe reality exists. (College-educated people in possession of half-digested philosophy are apparently more dangerous than a buffalo in a china shop.)
What we have grown-size toddlers, walking around a room-sized computer, randomly smashing circuit boards with their hammers and giggling.
You see, they know the more functionality they take down, the more chance that Orange-man-bad who told them they couldn’t have whatever toy they wanted will be taken out.
BUT THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY’RE DOING is causing IRREPARABLE damage, and that it might never be repaired.
If they understood the economy and its complexity they wouldn’t be socialists or communists. Because the reason socialism and communism destroys economies and kills people is that it ignores the complexity of economy and people.
They confuse symbol with reality (In this as in everything else, btw) so they think printing money creates value. They think that they can lock us in the house for eighteen months, and as long as they keep us in money, everything will be fine.
They miss not just that food/other necessities still need to be produced, but that they need to be transported. And that for them to be transported, there needs to be oil (no, please, this is not the time to have dreams of tech we don’t actually have) available to fuel trucks, and truckers willing to take to the road. They miss that just handing people money doesn’t mean they can buy food, even if it is available. They miss the interweb of value and interchange that keeps economy going, from building maintenance to paying your rent, to keeping the lights on.
They fail to understand you can’t stop the complex, chaotic system that is American economy and have it restart again.
They are pampered and confident, and they have no clue there can be a world with lates, let alone a world without beans.
If this goes on, we’re going to have a massive famine sometime next winter. Massive. People will die. Not just the very elderly people that the Chinese Virus targets, but people of all ages all over the world.
Even if we’re still producing enough food — we might be, America is a wonder, but I wouldn’t bet. Farmers needs seeds, fertilizer, maintenance for their machines, replacement parts, etc. — there won’t be a distribution network in place.
The stock market is not the way people who are very rich get money so they can build a money bin and swim in it. It’s the engine of the world. It supplies a way to move value around, so that farmers can borrow to buy seed, so that they can have tractors and other machinery. It is what allows trucking companies to operate. It is what keeps food on your table, clothes on your back, and the heat on.
Every part of the machine is interlocked. And what is happening is taking the wheels off. It’s smashing into the center of the economy with a hammer.
BTW when I say there will be famine and people will die, I mean in the US. PEOPLE WILL DIE. Of hunger. Of lack of heat. Of lack of medicine. PEOPLE WILL DIE. And not all of them the insane people who are instigating this.
In fact, most of the power mad governors will be just fine. And one can only hope that the idiots roaming facebook and saying this is their chance to smash capitalism get to FEEL what they’re encouraging. Dying of hunger ain’t pretty.
In the rest of the world? If people starve in the US, the rest of the world will starve worse. Russia thinks it can be resurgent. So does China. They’re going to find mostly they die. Their despotic systems only work in an hyper abundant world.
But what this whole thing adds to is that the Chinese Virus was not the problem. The people imposing crazy quarantines and measures are. The idea that you can shut the country down for two weeks is bad enough. The people trying to stampede us into doing it longer, are ignorant of the realities of economics, or indeed of reality.
Should you wash your hands and not slip tongue to total strangers? Sure, but you always should. Antibiotics have made us cocky and banished a lot of the social distancing and care of the past, but not only do they not work on viruses (viri) but are losing effectiveness.
IF you can work from home, you should work from home. If it’s possible to home school, you should home school. BUT I ALWAYS THOUGHT SO. And you shouldn’t go and lick doorknobs. Or shrines. BUT again, you never should.
Other than that? We need the restrictions lifted. Yesterday, if not sooner.
Listen to me, and start besieging your idiotic political leaders. WE MUST LIFT THE STUPID HAMMER FROM THE ECONOMY.
It will still hurt like a mother. Oh, it will hurt. The next two-three years we’re going to get hyper inflation, unemployment and it’s going to be really hard. But I trust you guys. You’re battlers. Build under, build over build around.
However the president is right. The cure is far far worse than the disease. In fact, the “cure” deliberate or not is an attack at the heart of the economic engine of the world. Which is to say it’s an attack on humans’ ability to lie at all.
And before the greens crow about this, oh, please. This type of thing is not GOOD for the environment (whatever that means. You guys are high on semantic stupidity.) The humans who survive are going to give fuck all for your precious “ecology.” They will do what they have to do to stay alive. Which means the end result will be like something of your worst nightmares, with wood fires everywhere, forests burned for the rich soil beneath, animals hunted to extinction. And yeah, there probably will be enough humans left to do really bad damage. Not that I care, because you see I’m for team human. I want humans to survive. But you idiots, who hate your own species, probably do care. And be aware you lose. In the end, you lose big.
If we continue with this stupid shit, and allowing marginally elected, probably with the help of fraud and disinformation ignoramuses to mandate where we can eat, where and when we can work, where we can walk, and what we can do, will only guarantee that millions die of starvation and disease within the next couple of years. And that’s JUST in the US. World wide hundreds of millions will die.
I beg you, with tears in my eyes, stop being afraid of the virus and start being afraid of the statists destroying our liberties, our economy, our society.
If we can save what remains of western civilization, in the end we win they lose.
They know that. They don’t mean to lose. And they have no idea that they can’t win.
They don’t know what they’re playing with, nor what they’ll unleash.
According To Hoyt 
The USA food supply chain is astonishingly resilient. During the height of the Covidiacy/F-tardiocy, the restaurant business became adept at tapping the “normal” food chain for necessities, and the grocery folks often repackaged restaurant bulk-pack items for retail. The food was there, just occasionally in the “wrong” packaging or truck.
Now the rest of the would could wind up in decidedly lean times if we get a bit more messed up. (Like in Ringo’s “Last Centurion”, with “President Bitch” calling the plays. FJB. Or even Harris-ment)
But we have managed to avoid true famine -here- for over three centuries. Because we combined free people and a free market for farming. We grow crops in places most others would give up as “barren”. While we have messed it up with too many “programs” and “supports”, it isn’t nearly as bad as some other industrial sectors.
So I doubt we can get to “famine” absent someone blatantly doing it, via just stopping the wheels with military force, for example. And that would trigger a rather spicy response, assuming it was even obeyed. Because the Army will always get fed.
Heck even the restaurants, at least locally, pivoted. We aren’t ones to get precooked takeout (exception Chinese, but we didn’t have a *favorite to patronize, until recently). So we didn’t get takeout. But we did buy steak cuts from our favorite stead franchise, as well as their nice gooey rolls. Crossed our fingers for our family Mexican and Shrimp restaurants (both survived).
((*)) Had two. One changed ownership and while technically the same style, wasn’t. Stopped going there before the panic. Restaurant did not survive. The other, closed down, not because of the panic, but because the proprietorship wanted to retire, no one in the family would carry it on, no one would buy it. Current one inlaws have been going to forever. Tried it. Now we have a favorite Chinese Szechuan style restaurant.
The places where we were eating before Covidiocy managed to survive, though it was a struggle. One had been hounded by the OR-OSHA goons, and you had to let them open the door to enter. I stopped eating there for the duration, and would get takeout, either Chinese or from the taqueria. I hated to wear masks, but $SPOUSE refused to, and it’s meant that I’m the designated shopper. Kat-the-dog doesn’t do well alone, so it’s continuing.
I had already stopped going to an asian buffet, since it was clear they were very lax on food safety. They closed for Kate’s lockdown, and never recovered. The building was rebuilt (I have serious doubts as to the quality of the construction; they have a lot more faith in the ability of OSB to span long lengths than is warrented.) Similarly, a Sizzler franchise closed “temporarily”. That sign came down last month as the building is getting repurposed for two smaller eateries and a shop.
Despicable Kate seemed to be quite gleeful at the shutdowns she was doing, compete with egregious actions against people who defied her. Child Protective Services against a woman who kept her beauty shop open? Arggh. OTOH, one local restaurant defied the ban and the county people told the state to pound sand when TPTB told them to shut the place down.
Eugene, and Lane County. So anyone in TPTB category sure weren’t telling OSHA to pound sand. Sigh.
I’ll wear the mask. But everyone else gets to watch me sneeze and cough. Which means I know dang well the cloth masks are worthless. Beaver mask in Duck country, so there is that. Seriously. I do not have allergies. Apparently I am wrong because I seem to be allergic to masks. Yes, they were clean (dust free).
I tried an N95 mask once and nearly passed out. Alternated between a basic deperado bandana, a full face visor, and the hated paper masks. Usually at a medical office, though I frequently got admonished because I let my nostrils free. Hey, I like to breathe… The worst with the paper ones was when I was doing physical therapy. OTOH, the PT people refused to notice bare nostrils. If/when I go back for PT, that’s where I’m going.
Paper mask. Huge gaps for the win. Yes. New, out of their medical box. I sneeze & cough. To the people in the waiting room, I just shrug, and say “it is the mask” (after I’ve lowered it because no one is hearing what I say if I have a mask. No one.) Once I am in the room it comes off. By then the check in nurse has heard me. Not a word is said. When I leave? The mask has already gone in the trash in the room.
With a little creative use of an X-acto knife or sharp pen-knife, you can ventilate an N-95. Defeats the function, but done properly its almost undetectable. Also works on paper masks if needed.
You can also mock your betters by making a space/biohazard helmet our of a plastic 5 gallon water bottle and some odds-and ends. Worn with a rain suit and a stern look, you can scare the bejeebus out of officious nincompoops.
Or so I have heard….. (grin)
I got a Medieval Plague Mask, as used during the Black Death 600 years ago. Just as effective as the cloth and paper masks (as in, not at all) which I was more than happy to explain. In detail. Along with the idiocy of forcing people to do something that is known not to work.
———————————
The government can mandate stupidity, but they can’t make it not be stupid.
I got a Plague Mask too. Even though I don’t need to wear it anymore, I really want the hat, the coat and the stick as well. Maybe for Halloween.
Before the OR-OSHA Covid-nazis caught on, some of the grocery checkers were using heavily rhinestoned masks. They looked gorgeous, and if the light was just right (or wrong), you could see that they were just tight enough to discourage a mosquito.
Only upside to the mask madness was I had to buy a big box of them (small packages out of stock) and now have them for sanding projects and when doing dusty cleaning.
I had a stash, largely from woodworking and in an abortive attempt to do some pottery work. I have problems with cedar dust (maybe redwood, too, but that’s extremely hard to find in Flyover County), and try to use dust collection schemes rather than the masks. Waggles hands at the effectiveness of that approach.
the time to be concerned about COVID-19 was exactly when all the Democrat politicians were telling us it was racist to be concerned because Trump
When they all became concerned was right around the time anyone who was looking knew that it would suck but not be a big deal because Trump. They managed to get it exactly wrong. Every … single …. Thing.
I will never forgive nor forget what they did to us
Yep. Yep with bells on.
And of course you now have some of the culprits saying, “I/we NEVER supported lockdowns.” (Looking at you, Randi Weingarten). And poor, broken souls STILL terrified of, “the virus,” and angry the rest of us won’t mask up and cater to their fears. Grrrr.
I was at the bank Tuesday and some of them still wear masks.
I explained carefully that cheap cloth and paper masks do nothing to reduce the spread of viruses, and that we (and Teh Publick Health Authoriteez) have known that for 100+ years. Didn’t seem to make any impression.
They’re lying, they know they’re lying, but they keep right on lying and idiots keep right on believing them! Sometimes I despair of finding intelligent life on this planet.
I have some chickens that are showing distinct signs of intelligence. Also, look at ants, dolphins, and pigs. If you’re looking for human intelligence, that’s more complicated.
Humans are doing exactly what they have been programmed to do for thousands of years. But what worked for a nomadic society doesn’t exactly work for the post-industrial.
It was downright surreal to see the known failures of 1918 demanded in 2020.
Seeing people mock the folks who pointed out that it didn’t work, too, and then they suddenly go silent when the studies made to try to explain why the solutions didn’t work– in the 1920s!
>known failures of 1918
…I think I found the problem.
It is always Year Zero, comrade.
And for the majority who aren’t drinking the Red Kool-Aid, school probably didn’t cover it.
Yes, the Bolshevik revolution was also a known failure of 1918.
THIS.
Hey, on the upside, I got blocked for pointing out that in the modern world, you can and do go back to China for really big events, or have cousins come here… so I didn’t have to deal with getting scolded by those folks when stuff flipped?
c4c
All I can say is thank G-d for this place. Kept me from panicking
Of -course- they lie to us. Why should today be any different?
Except for a very few token doctors and pundits that admitted they were dead wrong, nobody (gov, media, courts, medical, Karens) has apologized one bit for fncking the world economy, killing mass numbers of people with mandates, or pissing in our mouths and calling it lemonade, or feeding us poop and calling it chocolate.
It was an golden Alinsky opportunity for TPTB. And the ultimate red pill moment for freedom loving people to see how almost every organization will betray them given a chance.
And nobody will get punished. Events of this magnitude are ongoing…
And just the other day the Feds got spanked about Ivermectin and they were forced to change the “horse medicine” wording they went with to discredit Trump and those stating it worked for them. Also HCQ is again listed as a viable and working med for it.
I used to be one of those “Yeah, occasionally the Pharmas do something sketchy, but it is hard for them. [insert description of the work needed to get approval] Then they come with this B.S.
Now F#^k Em. Even J&J, who got screwed a few times for “Reasons” (my guess is not enough ‘donating’ to the right people), have dropped in my estimation and Novavax/Covavax folks acted like they didn’t want their shot to get an EUA for the US and it seems to have been the most effective of the lot, (when the FDA wasn’t dragging its feet, the company kept dropping the ball and missing deadlines) and you hear nothing about it still. J&J didn’t work well, but tended to not try to kill you as often as the abhorrent mRNS atrocities that are now futzing the blood supply.
Main take away from this should be: NEVER trust drugs pushed by the same people saying we have too many people on the planet.
I was intrigued by all the articled about a month after the J&J shot came out about “blood clots in women!!!!! Danger, Wilhelmina Robinson, danger !!!”. But it wasn’t the J&J that has caused all the problems. Then a few month after the breathless warnings, poof no more stories. That was about the time the PTB started touting the first booster after the two-rounds-for-everyone wrapped up.
I recall when the articles hit, someone did the math (gasp) and the J&J clot side effect was lower in rate to “The Pill”. Anything to force the mRNA on people.
SIL and her hubby got the J&J without adverse effects. A friend of one of the dental workers ended up paralyzed from it. Lord knows what happened.
$SPOUSE’s older brother got a booster(!) at the same time as a flu shot. The combination did him in, with fatal pneumonia.
I gather that Walgreens is pushing the bit of combining all needed (for values of) vaccines into one shot (a witch’s brew from hell). Gotta admit that I’m happy that they didn’t take over the regional box store’s pharmacy department. I still remember Jerry Pournelle’s comments about vaccinations (particularly multiples) and cytokine storms.
With flu shots going mRNA and the pushing of the latest and greatest pneumonia shots, I’m extremely hesitant to take any. Tetanus, he said, hoping that the mRNA crowd doesn’t mess with it…
All before everything went mRNA additive. Hubby and I got the J&J shot and booster with no side effects. He got the J&J and flu shot with no problems. I got the J&J and flu shot, at the same time, but not combined, and got really sick. (Also about 2 weeks after son had confirmed, by test, covid. Three days of fever. Dad was “sick”, 24 hours fever, not confirmed covid, but right after son. So, probably was timing. But dang I was very sick compared to them.)
Otherwise. Don’t know of anyone with side effects. Mom, both sisters, and their husbands, have regularly gotten their shots and boosters. But then they are glob trotting and want to continue to do so. Shots may be worthless, but they’ve toed the line, and going. Don’t know about all the nieces. Suspect they too are getting the shots. One has lupis but shots, while sure they aren’t helping any, are not the cause. Son has not has the shots and won’t.
I hear ads for one (pneumonia?) and love the disclaimer in the ad – “Don’t take it if you are allergic to [this brand new vaxx], continued offering pending results of an ongoing study”
Wait, WHAT?
yep.
Every new vaxx or medication ad on TV these days. Go figure.
Just about every vax I’ve ever seen: “Are you allergic to [27-syllable technical name]?”
Only possible response: “How the hell should I know??!?”
Lawyers… 😡
The only saving grace I have about getting the shot, and booster, was we, hubby & I (son never did) got the J&J, the non-mRNA variety. Hubby and I are old enough, that yes, a bad cold (which COVID was) could be bad for us, even if we’d had our flu and pneumonia shots (he’d had both, I hadn’t had the later). Being in the right demographic to have a bad cold not good for us, we are still swearing off the mRNA based vaccines. If that means not only avoiding the COVID boosters, but pneumonia and flu vaccines ongoing, oh well (more like “Oh S*” and “Son of a B*”, oh well. But you all get the idea.)
But hey, in 79 years, they will allow folks to see the data on mRNA shots, so what’s the worry? [eyeroll]
I got it around March 10, ’20 and asked $SPOUSE to take me in for a flu test I hadn’t had real flu ever, to the best of my knowledge. It was pretty bad, but I flunked both the Type A and Type B. Driving back home, $SPOUSE started to feel awful; my guess is we were both exposed at the same time, but her immune system is a bit more robust than mine. So, we were both down for several days. IIRC, I was able to do a dump run after 2 weeks, and my wife was sorta OK a week later. OTOH, her sense of smell still is weird. A bathroom cleaner that used to bother her now smells like baby powder (says she–my sniffer was always poor), and ground coffee is horrible to her. Lots of other people were in the same situation at that time.
COVID tests were not available to the Deplorables in the county for a month, which might explain why my doctor could say with a straight face that “no verified COVID infections hit the county until mid-April”. I didn’t compare his response to raw cattle manure, but he eventually figured I’d get the not-vaccine on the 12th of Never.
We knew one guy (a cabinet maker) who succumbed to “COVID”, though there’s a strong chance he had to get the shots, since he was contracting to some state projects. There’s a lot of people who deserve proper recognition of what they did in the name of the WuFlu panic.
Can we recognize them with a nice custom Sicilian necktie?
I am pretty sure I had *it* Dec 2019. I thought it was just a super bad cold. Hadn’t been sick since before I retired (no longer around those with family members indentured to the petri dish schools), 3 years before, so not only due, but that long, going to be very sick (how sickness works). Exactly the same as what happened in Jan 2021. Not that, even now, anyone will acknowledge 2019 was covid (not “here” yet. BS.) Obviously, no tests available. 2021 son’s positive covid test means what hubby & I had was covid, whether we actually took a dang test or not. Both times my symptoms were a bad cold. Very, very, bad, Niqul every 6 hours, getting out of bed as little as possible, for 3 weeks, bad cold. Given I have sleep apnea and use a mouth piece, it was not a fun 3 weeks. Note, this year’s sickness, was not the same symptoms, for all that it was a cold with sore throat, upper chest congestion, and some sinus congestion.
I’m pretty sure it was in my kids’ school in December 2019. “Super nasty flu that just hangs on” taking out a third of my youngest’s class at once, dontcha know.
I mean, not only does the math work for verified nursing home deaths after community spread, but I have a clear chain of provenance from someone whose BiL went to a conference in Wuhan in early November, came back, went to Thanksgiving dinner, everyone got sick. (And stayed home, as well they should, but that leaves a period of pre-symptomatic time to spread it at that school.)
Shutdowns? Barn door. Horse was gone.
We don’t have kids in school. But have great-niece and great-nephew, and family across the street who has under 18 children, who do. Eight different schools, three different districts, who were hit with 1/3 to half the students out, at the same time, from a very bad flu/cold. One of the neighbors, an special ed teacher, said both local districts, all the schools, were being hit, hard.
Yes. Horse was long gone.
I know one person who got blood clots in his lungs from the J&J shots. (I mean… no COVID in his system, hospital-verified clots in his lungs within ten days of the shot, no prior symptoms—it’s not hard to diagnose.) I know another person who almost died from blood clots in his lungs from the disease itself in 2021 (almost certainly no vaccine but I don’t know for sure.)
The two are friends.
Whole damned thing is a crapshoot in many ways.
I’m glad you were wrong about the famine. I wish you had been wrong about the other economic effects. Esp. the hyperinflation.
Me too.
The PTB didn’t think about people comparing notes and saying, “Hey, waitaminute. My cousin in South Dakota’s doing fine, and no one’s dropping dead despite them ignoring the lockdowns.” That sort of thing, word getting out about the worst of the governors’ actions [glares in a New Mexico-ward direction], and other stuff, the rise in home gardening, and the disgust with what was being said in on-line classes by the teachers … That spread, and is remembered. The PTB never, ever anticipated that effect of the Coof.
We built under and around. We’re still powering through. The PTB don’t know what to do about it, although they seem to be trying everything, then trying it again harder.
I get a kick out of two things.
And some places are waiting for announcements other places are going back to the office, and poaching people.
I love it.
Plus, all the folks who talked to me about how to homeschool…and found it wasn’t actually that hard….
I am too far out of the work place to know. Trying to keep in touch with former work place. Not doing too well at that. They are one company who has downsized the physical office and only 3 or 4, who want to be in the office, are. Two others are working outside of the Eugene office. One in Portland (who is new since I left). One who is in Redmond (who I do know). Down 6 employees, because 3 newer ones who didn’t stay (probably left for higher pay, again, new since I left). Myself (which doesn’t count because I was gone before the panic) and two other subsequent retirements (they were 70, again, retired before the panic). Horribly short handed. Guessing pay is an issue. The company just got sold by the Canadian private equity firm to a firm in Montana, Black Mountain Software, who has software in the government sphere.
We got so much of our life and money back by not having to commute to the office every workday. Saving about 20 hours a week total, plus transportation, clothing, and food costs. Having the ability to start a load of clothes or walk the dog at lunch is an added benefit. Contractors can drop by without us having to take PTO. Company was able to downsize their lease. Security at the house was full time.
Plus we helped “save” the environment by not commuting. <smirk>
And public transportation is just getting more dangerous. Even before Covid, transit police were letting the “oppressed” people harass the “privileged” people. Downtown was already bad with homeless and poop.
Not glad “Covid” happened, but remote work helped our family. It did end plenty of marriages as well once partners had to be together 24/7 without that usual 50-60 hours disconnect.
I retired (quit) in 2016 (really end of 2015) because wasn’t allowed to move to working from home. This after boss had been informed before, multiple discussions, that because hubby had retired we were discussing when I was going to retire. Or maybe I could transition to working from home. (Whether he remembered or not, he had been informed.) Already had one remote (Colorado) programmer, in fact, I never met him. Second remote worker had started that summer (moved for family reasons). I was told “No. Not happening.” Fumed a bit. Talked to hubby. His answer was “quit now” (other reasons too). Did wait for bonus check, then gave 7 weeks notice (3+ weeks vacation. Did work out to 10+ days, so two weeks, working notice). Boss was not happy. 2020 happened after he sold so their current conditions are taking advantage of the panic.
Your “we win, they lose” blogs have meant a lot to me, so for your amusement and depression ammunition…
Last Friday, I went out on our balcony for a Rosary (It’s Lent, OK? 😉 halfway back from Bermuda (yeah, I know, you hate me 🙂 and there was a squall line about 10 miles off, blowing down on us, getting nastier and nastier as it approached. As time went on, it was clear we were not going to clear the line, but plunge right through the last cell on the line. About 300 yards off, it began to blow itself out, and we sailed through with dry decks.
Sign? Let’s pretend it’s one meant for you.
…and for your schadenfreude, Friday’s menu had real Surf & Turf (fillet and lobster) and we had to settle for fish & chips (Lent, right? 😉
Eh. The rosary thing makes perfect sense to me. I need to get a bracelet made, so I can say it when the mood strikes, without losing count. (Yes there are some for sale, but I can’t feel the difference. My fingertips are dull from typing so much.) So mix of square and round beads ought to do it.
Yeah. do you know I’d almost rather not eat than have fish. I hate fish that much. I’d go meatless, but Dan LOVES fish and chips and seizes on Fridays in lent as his excuse to get them at local Irish pub.
I’m not going to interfere with my beloved’s enjoyment, so he has no clue how grateful I am only one more to go. Tomorrow.
Not quite that bad. Don’t mind salmon, trout, or shrimp, occasionally. Any other fish, any dough covered fish, no thank you.
Was raised on trout. Salmon was a rare treat growing up, until mom and dad started salmon fishing off the Oregon coast, and went commercial during the summer. They could still sports fish before commercial season opened (as long as commercial lines weren’t used). Unfortunately they limited out the Friday I was due to report for work for the season. When I was moved to where the work was mom gave me 3 big fat salmon, for my meat until I got paid, six weeks later. For years afterward I wouldn’t touch salmon.
Salmon and trout (both wild), flounder, tuna, snapper, some shark, shrimp, lobster, calimari: all good. Some others OK, but most are pretty bland. Wife *loves* barracuda. Forget bluefish.
I will eat ALL your fish, Sarah!
Of course, your kitties would probably get there first, since they live a lot closer.
This really hits home.
We just had to cut our second-largest convention. And I lay the blame on the COVID shutdowns.
The original promoter was really great, treated us vendors as an important part of the show, not a cash cow, and really worked to bring everybody a great but affordable show. They had a good mix of celebrities — one or two A-list celebrities to draw people in, four or five B-list celebrities with a small but strong fan base, and several C-list celebrities who did a lot of character work (what TVtropes calls “that guy”) — that didn’t suck all the money out of the vendor hall.
In 2019 they overextended themselves and had a new convention flop hard on them (I heard the figure $200,000 tossed around). So they cut back to regroup in 2020 — and then everything shut down. Instead of rebuilding their financial base, they had to sell their conventions to another promoter, with a different philosophy of con-running.
I’ll grant the new promoter this — they didn’t come stomping in and insisting that everything be done their way. But in the last three years, they’ve been slowly but steadily moving things more and more to match the show they created from the ground up. More and more big-name celebrities, and a general increase in the number, until the focus becomes grinding through the signing lines, not shopping. Ever increasing booth costs (beyond inflation) and now changing the mix of available booths to the way their main show does it, eliminating the three-booth setups that are our mainstay (four booths is too much, but two simply aren’t enough except a few special cases).
I took a hard look at the cost of booths at that show for this year and then saw the steadily declining sales over the past several years (even 2021, when people were excited about being out and spending again, was below 2019, which was down from 2018, and 2022 and 2023 were each worse than the previous year), we decided that going back again this year would be a guaranteed loss, and quite possibly a hefty one.
If 2020 had been business as usual, the original promoter probably would’ve been able to recoup their losses, rebuild their financial footing, and be in good shape for 2021. Instead, I’m cutting one of their cons and looking at a very real possibility of having to cut the other when it comes time to buy booths for 2025.
We are over at my wife’s grandparents for Easter weekend. They have MSNBC on. I feel like I am trapped in Orwell’s 1984 and two minutes of hate just won’t end as they go on and on about Trump.
I’m sorry.
Thanks. Have a happy Easter weekend with your family.
Every wild, insane thing they accuse Trump of…
…the Democrats are actually doing.
Just pretend those moonbats are griping about Biden and the Democrats.
c4c
Forgot to subscribe again…
Okay, I subscribed that time but it didn’t work. Damn it, WordPress…
Is anyone else not able to get a subscription email?
After the update, the “email me new posts”, “email me new comments”, turned on, (I) no longer get verification “are you sure” emails. Don’t know if it worked until start getting comments on the new topic.
I’ve checked my inbox. Despite dozens of new comments being made since I tried to subscribe, only one has been emailed to me. And it’s the one you just made in direct response to me. So apparently subscriptions are useless now.
I finally return to AtH after a long absence and it seems WP is doing everything in its power to make me leave again.
If you look to the bottom left of the text input, there might be an icon with a gear; if so, there’s now a slider, so you get emailed new posts and comments… all of them.
No such luck, I’m afraid.
When the most recent change was made I finally had to *subscribe to WP and follow AccordingtoHoyt. Then for awhile I was only getting responses to my comments. Now it is working like before except I don’t get emails to “confirm subscribing” to that day post. It was frustrating at best.
((*)) Which meant I had to give up my “d” handle, and use “dep729” (minimum 6 chars). Sigh. Then everyone was wondering what happened to “d”. Yes I commented what happened. Even though after the immediate switch I commented to let Sarah know, because, while same email, “dep729” was determined to be “new” to the blog. Rolls eyes. Some did catch on with that original comment, and commented. Lesson learned that if going to be gone from the blog (traveling) I leave a note.
I don’t have a WP login, and don’t select anything, but if I post a comment, almost all (yeah, almost. Hey, it’s WordPress) the responses below mine get emailed to me. Didn’t ask for it, but they don’t chew up my limited bandwidth (HughesNet Delenda Est).
I get all replies to any comments I make, as far down as the comment thread and all it’s branches after that, TWICE. Lucky me.
I don’t know if the not-Vax had anything to do with it, but one of my nephews just passed away after a long struggle with cancer. Aged 47, with three small kids. (Oldest in 1st? grade.)
I wasn’t close to him (he was born about a decade after I left the Midwest, and there was a personality clash between various people that made things messier), but damnitol, it’s just not fair. I spoke to his oldest sister, and it’s devastating.
I gather he had the big C about 4.5 years ago, and it went into remission. Some time later it came back and went to stage 4. (This was a few years ago, so I’m suspecting the notVax, but ain’t going to kick any hornet’s nest.) Ugh.
Wasn’t supposed to be posted in this spot in the comments, but…
Let me make another copy.
I don’t know if the not-Vax had anything to do with it, but one of my nephews just passed away after a long struggle with cancer. Aged 47, with three small kids. (Oldest in 1st? grade.)
I wasn’t close to him (he was born about a decade after I left the Midwest, and there was a personality clash between various people that made things messier), but damnitol, it’s just not fair. I spoke to his oldest sister, and it’s devastating.
I gather he had the big C about 4.5 years ago, and it went into remission. Some time later it came back and went to stage 4. (This was a few years ago, so I’m suspecting the notVax, but ain’t going to kick any hornet’s nest.) Ugh.
I don’t know if the not-Vax had anything to do with it, but one of my nephews just passed away after a long struggle with cancer. Aged 47, with three small kids. (Oldest in 1st? grade.)
I wasn’t close to him (he was born about a decade after I left the Midwest, and there was a personality clash between various people that made things messier), but damnitol, it’s just not fair. I spoke to his oldest sister, and it’s devastating.
I gather he had the big C about 4.5 years ago, and it went into remission. Some time later it came back and went to stage 4. (This was a few years ago, so I’m suspecting the notVax, but ain’t going to kick any hornet’s nest.) Ugh.
WordPress!!!!!!!!!!
Spite it. Don’t leave.
What amazes me is that Penguicon (which started well, but evidently was captured…pre-2020, IMO. I bailed in 2018, and would have in 2017…but $HOUSEMATE told the con chair there would be One Last Try… well, it was trying alright) is, this year (yes, 2024) DEMANDING everyone be masked save for when dining. Whiskey Tango Photon-Torpedo?
Last year they were, I think, demanding masks AND {proof of quackcination OR a “very recent” negative Wu-Flu test}. A fellow who lives 20 minutes away from the event bailed for that idiocy. He’s a LibertyCon regular (Totally Random Cocktail Hour).
I’ve had both vaccination and the disease. Probably wouldn’t count having had the latter as proof of antibodies, even though both rounds of those are more recent.
From what I’ve seen, antibodies are supposed to last for a year for the Coof. Take that with a large quantity of salt.