On Doing the Impossible

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

I woke up with a headache I can barely think past.

In talking to friends, I find this — or other manifestations of extreme stress — are pretty much universal, and I suspect beyond the crazy lockdowns and everything the people at the top are doing to kill our country, our productivity is in the crapper because none of us can think or get things done.

I also know this is shortening my life, since auto-immune is stress activated. But then a lot of illnesses are and there are doctors who will tell you that a few years of stress will cause cancer or worse down the road.

So, that’s where we are, and there isn’t a lot we can do about it. Well, except make life as difficult as possible for those supporting the would be thief in chief — grandpa bad finger, diddles girls and makes them cry, steals countries and makes them die — because they are objectively supporting the power of fascist China (really? communist? well, it’s a distinction without a difference, because they own some companies outright and others they control with the power of an overwhelming and insane government.) and supporting their stooge who wishes to destroy America (and the rest of the world.)

To make this clearer to all of you out there, China as a culture, has never had any issues destroying batch lots of its own people in the service of tyrannical authority. And running in possession (or possessed) by communism, they produced so many bodies during the Cultural revolution that they choked the Yalu river.

If you actually read Chinese history, they are prey to a resetting virus, even dumber than the great reset. Every thousand years or so, they burn all the books, and sometimes the storytellers, and reset history. This has worked so well for them, that until the west gifted them modern technology, despite being one of the oldest civilizations in the word, they were basically living mired somewhere around ancient Babylon level, and repeating ad-nauseum. Even now, most of them ain’t a lot better off.

I’m always puzzled and amazed, when my creative friends get stars in thier eyes about how much they can sell to China. This is based PURELY off numbers, and has zero to do with ability to sell to a people who a) don’t respect copyright. So if your book should be a hit, they’ll steal it b) the majority of the population are illiterate, dirt poor peasants living in conditions that would make our ancestors three hundred years ago BLUSH.

And the idiots who want to put Bad Finger and Commie LaWhorish in charge want to submit us to that corrupt, and frankly more than mildly insane culture.

And the ones who aren’t aware of how bad that culture is, or that this is the ultimate goal of the humanity-hating party, are still idiots who refuse to or are incapable of thinking, because they want more and more centralization of power into the federal government, in a continent-spanning nation.

Let alone the fact I never understood the rationale of why people think that if you can’t trust individuals, you can trust local government, and if you can’t trust local government, you can trust the feds, it is stupid to expect a nation as large and as complex as ours to be run from a central point, and by people who frankly all belong to a class, educated in a handful of schools, most of them in the East (and a few in California) and from an economic strata so far removed from need, want or real work that most of the country is opaque to them.

To put it another way, and something that should be obvious in the wake of the flaming covidiocy, is that people who have no clue where money comes from, and who could stop working tomorrow and still live better than 90% of the world, have no business being able to tell us how we are to earn a living, or in which manner we are to live our daily lives. Because they don’t know. They have no clue. And those of them who know and have a clue, are so distanced from human beings, that they have no clue that it is a bad thing to destroy the economy in this country. According to their redistributionist beliefs, they think it will mean that the wealth gets redistributed to other countries, not that everyone will become poorer and, because we produce most of the food in the world, people will starve to death.

That’s a big issue and again the result of our “government” people coming from a handful oof universities who are in possession (or possessed by) a millenialist cult.

But more important, or at least as important is the fact that our government, with its binding bureaucracy (but really most governments, anywhere) doesn’t know anything about the rest of the country.

You know all those facts and statistics they “collect?” 90% of them are wrong and the rest are misapplied. Anyone who has worked — even peripherally — for government, in those places that collect data know that the ruling deities are “I don’t know” “not my fault” and “Cover your ass.”

This means the data collected is often wrong, the reason for disasters obscured, and fault passed all around.

The way we collect death data is fairly representative of the way we collect EVERYTHING.

So, not only is a centralized government a powerful and insane giant lurching around, but it’s a powerful and insane and BLIND giant lurching around.

People who want more of that have a death wish. And the scary part of it is they won’t even get that. They will get lingering poverty and slavery. And then every thousand years, history will get destroyed so people don’t catch on to the con game. Which is how China has done it.

And here we are, fighting against a process that started before we were born (if you look at it a certain way millennia before we were born) and trying to reverse the power structure so most of it rests on the shoulders of the individuals who will suffer the consequences if they choose wrong.

It’s impossible!

Meh. We’ve done the impossible at least once before, otherwise this country wouldn’t exist. Heck, I, myself, am if not impossible fairly improbable. Think about it. What are the chances of someone born to a non-English speaking family and only learning English in her middle teens ending up writing fiction for a living in English? And what are the chances given when and where I was born, that I would join the people of Liberty?

More importantly, though it might be survivor bias, I can tell you, both in my life and the American revolution where many times that one chance in a million came through.

Impossible only betrays a lack of imagination.

We fight. We fight on. And we fight in every way possible, and in the way most advantageous at that time. Because the alternative is literally unthinkable.

Let’s achieve the impossible, ladies and gentlemen and uncouth sons of b*tches and those who aren’t ladies at all. Let’s fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And for America. Semper America.

The land of the free and the home of the brave will be so. And government that rests on the power of every individual to tell government “none of your beeswax” shall not perish from this world.

Because we say so. And we’re fairly impossible, ourselves.

372 thoughts on “On Doing the Impossible”

  1. “Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.” ― Terry Pratchett, Mort

    1. Indeed…

      Had the strange thought the other day that choosing a drinking song for the tune was a stroke of genius: Other national anthems require a stately delivery, and don’t do well when turned into marching songs (tho there exists a techno version of “O Canada”). Ours keeps its power under whatever circumstances it finds itself, even when uptempo’d to quickmarch and belted out at the top of our lungs.

    2. The stanza many of us were never taught in school, that I’ve never heard sung in public?

      “And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
      That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
      A home and a country, should leave us no more?
      Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
      No refuge could save the hireling and slave
      From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
      O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!”

      If that’s not a call to boogaloo, what is?

      1. Of course the morons of various persuasions try to tell us that the Anthem promotes slavery because of that verse.

        2. Huh. Looks to me like “hireling and slave” was a fancy way of saying “even the lowliest” and pointing out the opposition as just that oppressive.

        3. You know this, of course… but the idiots who say that should look up what a “press gang” is, and how Britain crewed its ships.

    3. And other people agree about Verse 4, too.

      When you enter West Point, you find that the Army doesn’t care a hang about the first verses of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It’s the last verse you must learn. It goes:

      O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
      Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
      Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
      Praise the Power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!

      Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
      And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
      And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
      O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

      — Jerry Pournelle, Preface to “There Will Be War” vol. I
      as quoted in “The Best of Jerry Pournelle” (John F. Carr / Baen)

      The third stanza (IIRC), as noted above, ain’t no slouch either.

      1. I got to sing the premier of an arrangement of the anthem that included all four verses. Several choir members were a bit nonplussed by the 3rd verse, but all agreed that the 4th verse should be sung more often.

  4. I’ve been reading about people worried that the vaccine will not be taken.

    When they talk about misinformation from others, and do not talk about self inflicted damage to credibility, I suspect that they are playing silly games.

    When you have the likes of Pelosi saying that the Biden fraud /and/ the vaccine are reason to change behavior, even the most vax positive opponent of the fraud must consider whether there is something seriously wrong with the vaccine.

    1. Alas, every occasion is a reason for them to call for a change in behavior. Every occasion is a reason everyone must submit to them and their fantasies and then by magic we shall reach nirvana (which boils down to them in power and living the life of their dreams on the backs of the slave class)

      1. Just like every failure is a need for more government intervention even when what is failing is government intervention.

        Or, to be fair and take a shot at “our side”, the geniuses in the GOP who think every foreign policy issue is solved by another war with a small country and every domestic problem is solved by a tax cut (not that I like paying taxes, but not everything is fixed by lower taxes).

        It is arguably a kind of mind virus where everything is a nail because you only own this one screwdriver.

          1. Even beyond the Ladder curve issue, you have issues such as spreading opiod addict or functionally literate adults where the connection between lowering marginal tax rates and addressing them is tenuous at best and often closing the barn door after the horses got out.

    2. The thing is, the Fascist Left (with some exceptions) doesn’t believe it IS fraud. They don’t believe that bringing in ballots for all the illegal immigrants who can’t vote is fraud. Or they don’t think that ‘correcting’ the ‘mistake’ the electorate is making is fraud. They don’t believe that moving the goalposts every time it looks like an opponent might score is cheating. They have live their entire lives being told that they are the Anointed, and can do no wrong.

      So when they are caught lying through their teeth, it always astonishes them when their next pronouncement from On High is greeted with skepticism. And outraged when the jeers start.

      1. Don’t know how “legit” it is but Ruby Freeman, the woman in purple in the Georgia Ballot stuffing video (the one that was “debunked” two seconds after being shown to the public for the first time) supposedly made a Facebook post bragging openly about the fraud she participated in, making it clear she saw it as a heroic act. Trying to find the screenshot.

          1. How convenient that they can’t resist bragging about their deeds… wonder how many more are out there not yet discovered.

            1. As I admitted in my introduction post it might not be. She’s on video committing fraud with her daughter though, and that video is not going away, no matter how many times it’s declared “debunked”. CodeMonkeyZ is also a great source.

              1. We are talking about a society where gang members post violent beatdowns on their social media to brag about them. Someone bragging about committing blatant fraud to steal an election does so because they expect to get approval from their target audience-the leftists who think Trump is literally Hitler and should never have been allowed to be President for four years much less get re-elected. Just like Team Obama’s coup plotters, she expects to be rewarded for her criminal conduct.

              3. Is this the one who passes a USB drive to her daughter, who then passes it to some unknown guy?

                And if I type weird, it’s cuz I can’t see through the avatar WPDE plunked in the middle of the comment box.

                1. Never did figure out what happened to get the big obstructing avatar. Reloading the page resets it, at least for me. YMMV and WPDE.

            2. It is quite unbelievably real as a gold tooth.

              Li’l Ruby the Soon To Be Felon also did a videotape to her “peeps” as she walked through the hallways, through all those buckets of ballots.

              When we say low IQ, we really do mean low IQ.

              These people never, ever think they’ll get caught. Even when they get caught they don’t think they’ll get caught.

              They’re the most surprised people in orange jumpsuits you ever want to see.

              1. You say soon to be felon. Has she been indicted? Given the GOP governor of Georgia refused a request by legislatures to call a session for the legislature to exercise authority on electors, I don’t see the state moving to convict anyone.

                Which explains why so few of us think the 1/5 election matters. Kemp let them steal the Presidency, I doubt he’ll lose any sleep over the Senate.

          3. As a Georgia voter, I say this damn well better be court-admissible as a legal confession. Unfortunately, I doubt it. It’s not like they can hold an Instagram post to legal-signature standards.

            She and her darling “baby” need to spend the next five general elections or so growing up at home, at an address out on Hwy 301…

            Miffed? Put out? Sure I’m feeling miffed. And Noah’s Ark was a bit damp, too!

            1. The rest of their purported “fact check” that tries to claim the video is not genuine ignored a Tweet by ABC News which announced the very halt in counting that the “fact checkers” claim did not take place, and which announcement expressly referenced observers being sent home. So there is direct evidence demonstrably proving the “fact check” to be patently false.

              The problem is that the RINO in charge of the election is a never-Trumper and it does not look like anyone in Georgia or the other states where massive electoral fraud occurred are going to do anything about it, certainly not by today, which is the deadline after which the electors are presumed valid and are the ones who vote in 6 days in the electoral college.

              1. a) I understand that it is tomorrow
                b) Alito has moved one of the items from Dec. 9 to 8am tommorow, Dec. 8.

              2. Yet they also clam the video is exculpatory:

                Georgia Vote-Counting Video Shows Ballot Boxes Followed Proper Chain of Custody
                A security footage video of Georgia poll workers lugging boxes of ballots out from under a table and scanning them after political party poll watchers had gone home for the night sparked controversy last week when the Trump campaign cited it as evidence of voter fraud, but upon further review the ballots appear to have remained in the proper chain of custody over the course of Election Day.

                The Trump campaign showed a portion of the election night surveillance video from Atlanta’s State Farm Arena during a Georgia State Senate hearing on Thursday, claiming the footage shows poll workers shooing election observers out of the arena before proceeding to scan boxes of mysterious and possibly illegal ballots.

                However, at a press conference on Monday, Georgia elections official Gabriel Sterling said the ballots in question had been “packed into those absentee ballot carriers by the workers in plain view of the monitors and the press” around 10:30p.m. on election night, as seen in a longer version of the security video viewed by WSB-TV.

                “The reason they were packed away was that they were under the misbegotten impression that they were getting to go home,” said Sterling, who serves as Georgia’s voting system implementation manager. “They were tired, and they wanted to go home, and they thought they could.”

                The question of whether poll watchers from both political parties and members of the media were instructed to leave — and by who — remains unclear. Multiple media reports from election night indicate poll watchers were told to go home, multiple poll watchers have signed affidavits to that effect — and Fulton county public affairs manager Regina Fulton said on election night that poll watchers at the arena had been sent home, although she now denies they were. …
                ~

            2. You’re right. I probably could not be admitted as direct evidence, evenbif it were tracked to her personal phone or computer. BUT …
              A court could accept it as rebuttal evidence, should she deny such conduct, and / or as evidence of an intent to commit such a crime.
              Not that this will ever reach a trial court.
              See, for example, video of the “accident” that killed Kelly Loefflers’ staffer, also BF of Gov Kemps’ daughter, and maybe son of formet GOP Gov of GA. Pre first responders, car on fire front and rear, engine gone (60+ yds away), passenger cabin missing almost entirely.
              Looks like a bomb or missile strike to me, but hey, I’ve only watched the drone strikes on Youtube. No first hand experience.
              Sending a message, maybe?
              John Sage were

      1. Mr. BTEG has Crohn’s and several other autoimmune disorders. He has been worried about catching the virus for awhile, but around Thanksgiving, his sister, who also has Crohn’s, got diagnosed with it. She’s recovering just fine, doing some work from home, and needed no hospitalization. I’m hoping that will help Mr. BTEG not worry so much.

      2. I told my doctor that I don’t intend to take the vaccine. I’ve had significant adverse reactions twice now; once catching “flu-like symptoms” the night after taking the vax (in 1969), and similar bad results a few days after taking the “improved” pneumonia vaccine. The first just cost me a day out of school, the second a trip to urgent care and treatment for a suspicious spot on my lungs.

        The same doctor is invested (use of term deliberate) in the COVID panic and the horrible case count in the state. Yeah, with a cycle of 40, it’s papaya-positive test quality, so no.

        Alas, I’m pretty well stuck with that doctor or others of his ilk. Downside of a small county.

    4. I’ve been reading Pandemic and Genome by Riddle this past week which unfortunately makes me a bit leery of vaccinations of any kind. It’s not that the vaccines don’t work against the pathogen; it’s what else is in them for some other purpose.

      Now consider a situation where the Chinese decide to effectively eliminate the rest of the world by “accidentally” dispersing a nasty virus like COVID, and then developing a vaccine for it, only the vaccine causes sterility in most non-Chinese? And the Chinese use a separate vaccine for themselves that doesn’t.

      1. I suspect that is the plan with pushing Sinovax to the third world.

        Sure, that is one of a dozen, or dozens, of my theories that could purely be rabid paranoia.

        Thing is, all the people telling completely unnecessary lies widens the bounds of acceptable speculation.

        2. I saw a snippet that said one of the vaccines could attack placental tissue in women. (IIRC, it was one that uses mRNA.) If I decide to take a vaccine, I’ll a) wait a year, and b) use the FNP we normally* get flu shots from. I trust him more than my regular doctor on vaccinations.

          (*) Pressed for time because 2020, I used the pharmacy.

        1. Note also the Gates-funded live virus polio vaccine responsible for the Africa/Indo-Paki outbreaks, and the African vaccine “unexpectedly” contaminated with a sterilizing agent / long acting birth control compound.
          Not a doctor. Info from the Web. YMMV. But it _sounds_ consistent with some of Gates’ stated desires.
          John Sage

          2. The “contaminated” vaccines are actually worse than that– it takes a longer series of shots than the usual lockjaw vaccine, but it trains the woman’s system to destroy the same hormone that makes a pregnancy test change color.

            So she has a long series of miscarriages. Far enough along, generally, that she knows it. Besides the obvious horror, this is also really freaking hard on a woman in a purely physical manner.

            Was developed in IIRC the 70s, and dropped for obvious ethical objections.

                1. Well, I’m now past my child bearing years. But the one time they gave me injections of the hormone “at the risk of causing a false pregnancy” we call him Robert.
                  With the second son I NEVER TESTED PREGNANT. Which is why I didn’t know I was till the sixth month. I don’t know how that one survive. I think just stubbornness.

                  1. Well, and that’s the thing. Men and women past childbearing age might be okay, and old people are most at risk anyway. But giving it to young people that need their hormones? That seems weird and wrong.

              2. Miscarriage is a common effect of serious hypothyroid. There’s a feedback loop between gonadal and thyroid hormones, and if one end falls down on the job, the other usually does too. Also tends to lead to uterine fibroids (overgrowth of thyroid receptor tissue, trying to collect enough to function) which interfere with implantation.

                Works both ways, too. I know someone who is trans and takes really whopping doses of estrogen… with the side effect that it kickstarted her laggard thyroid and got rid of a bunch of nasty symptoms.

                [Sorry, tho, that you suffered this. Major suck.]

      1. Soooo, US licensed airline pilots might not be able to fly for airlines that require the vaccination certificate in order to fly. That . . . would be interesting to watch play out.

        1. And where do they issue the “I already had it” certificates?

          It is absolutely certain that represent a pool of good-to-go individuals for any number of applications, including piloty stuff – see Rand Paul doing his volunteer MD C19 ward work without a then-scarce mask after he had recovered from his bout.

          But no, can’t do that.

          1. Everyone on the Left is howling with glee that apparently Sweden hasn’t developed herd immunity by not having lockdowns.

            Well, guys, if you can’t develop herd immunity by exposure, a vaccine isn’t going to do squat.

            3. It could also mean it just isn’t really all that darn contagious, which if true has no implications one way or another on natural immunity or vaccine effectiveness.

              1. Which we can’t really tell because they’ve cranked up the sensitivity of the damn test until it says you have it when you don’t.

              2. COVID is about as contagious as the regular flu, possibly less. Children, and people taking ACE2 inhibitors are far less likely to catch it.

                It has at least a 15% totally asymptomatic presentation, probably higher.

                For those who do have symptoms, it has about a 10% hospitalization rate.

                For those who do have symptoms, it has about a 5 percent fatality rate.

  5. One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain.

    “One word. All you’ve been saying is quite right, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won’t deny any of what you said. But there’s one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things – trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.

    “Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play-world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.”

    Whot the two of you said. In spades and with bells on.

  8. I remember shortly after another totally not mysterious mass shooting shooting China’s newly minted Emperor Xi released an English language propaganda piece about how America needs to become more “civilized” like China and ban civilian firearms ownership. I laughed of course, but upon reflection I realized how serious they were being. They’re holding up their horrible evil oppressive tyranny to us western barbarians and are honestly expecting praise at how “well-ordered” their society is. I don’t think China has ever “got” other countries. L. Neil Smith once wrote “Other countries are not ‘real’ to them.” America must be totally incomprehensible.

    1. Because China understands, just as the Japanese did in 1945, that it is impossible to win an invasion of the U.S. while one third of the population is armed, with enough ammo, and training, and the inclination to lethally repel any invaders. They can’t effectively attack us until we are either disarmed, or so poorly armed that it doesn’t make a difference.

      Once they start passing executive orders, or laws, to further restrict gun manufacture, ownership, or use, or the same for ammunition, or by crushing taxation of the same; that is a crystal clear statement that they are destroying your right to self defense, your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is a crystal clear indication that they intend nothing less than your enslavement; that your life is not your own, but theirs to do with as they will. Taking a legal path to correcting that by that point is going to be futile, because they have nothing to stop them from shutting you up or shutting you down.

      There is only one response that any true patriot, any true lover of freedom, can take at that point. And it is a God-given right, even if they declare it an illegal one.

    2. Even worse, the Democratic Party media arm engaged in yet another of their “why we need to be more like China” screeds, which they issue like clockwork whenever leftists don’t get their way. Because the CCP’s one party totalitarian rule is the Democratic Party’s goal, and they will let nothing stand in the way of achieving it.

      The reason they call people who disagree with them “deplorables”, “Nazis”, etc., and the reason they are pushing the critical race theory nonsense, is so that they can justify (in their view) the gulags, concentration camps and death camps that they intend to send all of those “deplorables” to. They will even claim that doing so is “good for the environment” because population needs to be reduce for their to be a “sustainable” society.

      Thinking that they are misguided is simply in error. The Democratic Party is outright evil.

    3. The thing about China is that they have ALWAYS considered themselves to be the center of the world and the pinnacle of civilization. Always. No matter how many lousy Emperors they’ve had. No matter how badly their Imperial Bureaucracy has crewed things up, time after time. Hell, the reason the Chinese eat just about anything that won’t outright poison them is that over thousands of years or dead-brained governance and mismanagement they’ve HAD to.

      1. It is rarely discussed, but just how finicky Americans can be about food, and most of us are quite finicky by world standards, is a demonstration of just how pervasive our wealth is.

        1. I would add that my observation on visiting China was that anyone with the means to afford better never touches all the tourist dare food. They don’t want to eat the bugs and scorpions and the like. At the Night Markets it’s all tourists and the poorest of the poor buying that weird crap.

      2. You also should know that the Chinese are about the most racist people in the world. They make the KKK look like flaming Progressives. It is because of their long ingrained culture that China is the oldest and the Best. They were civilized when everyone else were barbarians. They sent a very large Fleet out to explore the rest of the world and it did, When it got back, the report was that there was NOTHING to interest China out there, so they destroyed the Fleet and ignored the rest of the world. When you are the BEST, why do you need the rest. Remember the ONLY reason that trade began in Hong Kong was that the Europeans were illegally importing heroin into China, getting cash and then buying Chinese products. The Europeans had no products that the Chinese wanted. It is NOT hard to see WHY the Chinese are racists, it is just funny that Progressives just can’t see it.

        1. Yeah, my brother once, during a recent visit said the Chinese are doing so well in Africa, because they’re not racist like Americans.
          I had to run to the basement to laugh like an hyena, because when we get in physical fights at our age it upsets dad.
          I then called a friend who had spent time in those parts, so HE could laugh like an hyena too.

          1. In your brother’s defense, the Chinese are no more racist toward Africans than they are towards any other (non-Han) race. They may be a trifle freer about displaying it as they no doubt find the Africans more easily adopt the appropriate posture towards Chinese bearing gifts.

            In your behalf, I merely suggest advising your brother to searchengine the phrase “Chinese treatment of Africans during Covid” for examples of how the Chinese treat potential nonvoluntary organ donors who they are uninterested in suckering persuading.
            ~

        2. Work or live with any Chinese people and you’ll know in about 5 minutes that what you said is exactly right. I’ll modify it to say Chinese are the single most racist–in the traditional meaning of the word–people I’ve ever met. And I’ve met lots, from everywhere. Everyone is subhuman if it is not Chinese.

          You can say that in front of a Chinese person you know pretty well and they’ll just nod their head and smile.

            1. Well, it’s been my experience that they all hate each other, and consider their ethnicity to be highest/best.

              1. Oriental to us are all the same. To the Oriental it isn’t. Chinese look down on Japanese and Korean as much as they look down on the rest of us not Chinese. Heck different Chinese consider them selves above other Chinese. To the Han the Cantonese are barely human, to the Cantonese the Han are barely human. Maybe one step above other orientals and rest of us subhumans.

  9. Not suggesting anyone else follow my example, but I have found I’m drinking far more since we’ve entered the crazy years.

    I’m finding it far easier to keep things in perspective, to laugh instead of cry, to plan instead of simply stand, if I view the world through a couple of shot glasses of Jameson’s every few days.

    1. I wish that option were open right now. Number 1 dog (16 years old) has Parkinson’s type symptoms from seizures in the past. Not sure how long she’ll keep going.

      Number 2 dog (13.5 years) managed to screw up her right front leg doing *something* in the house one night, and she’s not responding to painkillers. I’ve made an appointment, but unless the vet can pull a rabbit out of the hat, it’s probably time. Because of the COVID crap, she can’t see the vet until Wednesday, and we’re trying to give her extra love in the meantime. Number 1 dog sees there’s a problem and is trying to be nice.

      $SIBLING is complaining about something going on with my mother (at 97 years, she has a right to an imperfect body). I’ll see if there’s something I can get to help. 2000 miles away from most family drama, but it’s either too far or not far enough. Sigh.

      I need some ballistic range therapy as soon as practical.

  10. I remember starting a book by one of Mao’s former associates (he did not survive becoming Mao’s Trotsky) saying Chinese history runs on an 800-year cycle, from warring states to small kingdoms to unification under a new imperial dynasty to dynastic incompetence to civil war to small kingdoms to warring states. Then he got racist and I got turned off. Now I wish I’d kept the book.

    1. So, was the first half of the 20th small kingdoms to unification or is the CCP the tale end of dynastic incompetence in the Qing period?

      1. ChiCom = “imperial dynasty” –> “dynastic incompetence” – They will soon lose the “mandate of Haven” hopefully.
        The really scary thing is what if they really go Capitalist. Socialist Government but Capitalist economy.

        1. Meh, they’re about half communist, half fascist now, using the definitions that communism is when the state controls the factories and fascism is when the state controls the factory managers. While the fascist system does run slightly better than communist — at least the factory managers have a clue of how to do their jobs — it still doesn’t work in the long run, because the managers who know how to run a business successfully are still hamstrung by stupid mandates and high taxes. Contrary to the popular narrative, Hitler did not save the German economy. The German apparent economic recovery of the late 1930s was done by enormous deficit spending; between 1933-1939, government spending (101B RM) was 163% of government revenue (62B RM), creating a debt of 38B RM. And that’s even with using privatization and stealing from Jews to raise funds. Lebensraum was about looting anything they could get their hands on to finance their spending.

          This is what I fear about China: Their economy is as bad as the Soviet one, where everything is a house of cards that looks good until a strong wind comes in. The party members I met believe in Communism about as much as a Democratic politician believes in Christianity — the Party/Church is what you join to signal you’re a good person. The leaders don’t know their real power is far less than their paper power, but they do know they have deficit spending now and a demographic crisis coming. Now is their best chance to make gains and loot other countries before they run out of enough men between 18 and 40 they can spare from the economy to be soldiers. In 20 or so years, the problems they’ve kicked down the road will destroy them as a threat. It’s just that they can make a lot of trouble in 20 years.

  11. But of course.

    “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
    Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
    This day shall gentle his condition;
    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
    Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”

    We win. There is nothing else.

    1. Here is the Kenneth Branagh version of the speech:

      The English of course were facing a significantly larger force and were very much the underdogs in the fight; and won a very solid victory. A lesson for all.

      1. I saw that particular version in the theatre, and bought the VHS the day is was released. I recommended it to a co-worker who was leery of Shakespeare, and told him “take the tape. Watch the first half hour. If you don’t like it, I won’t be offended if you stop.”

        He came in the next day looking like 180lbs of condemned veal. He’s watched it THREE TIMES, back-to-back.

        1. I have it in high def now. I know people like the Olivier version (which is good) but I think Branagh (who also directed) hit a monster home run with his version. Of course most of his work, whether directing, acting, or both, is superb.

          1. Branaugh was the right age to play Henry, and I think he “got” the character in a way that Olivier, as good as he was, didn’t. The mud, blood, horror . . . Branaugh’s Henry is serious in a visceral way about not wanting war because he knows what it will bring. I don’t think that Olivier quite got that across. *shrug* That’s my impression, at least.

            1. I agree. There was a grittiness to the Branagh version that showed the ugliness of war and why Henry didn’t want it, but went to war because not doing so was an even worse alternative.

            2. Olivier’s film of Henry was released in 1944. Anybody able to think of anything happening in the world around then that might have influenced his Henry’s attitude toward war?

              Historically, of course, Agincourt was a glorious end to a dismal venture, an effort by Henry to claim portions of France. He invaded, got bogged down besieging the port of Harfleur, then his effort to withdraw while showing the flag after a desultory campaign left him trapped by a numerically superior French force.

              In the event, Henry was one lucky royal bastard and even so it took Shakespeare to burnish his legend.
              ~

              1. It turns out that Olivier was a pacifist during the Thirties, at which point he actually did soul-searching about playing Henry V in honor of the new King George VI. But he ended up changing his mind over time, did a lot of anti-Nazi films, was told to stick with it when the war started in 1939, and then finally got home and joined the Fleet Air Arm, where he was stationed with a training squadron, as well as doing films.

                He and his actor friend Ralph Richardson both crashed a lot of planes. Richardson’s nickname was Pranger, but Olivier actually destroyed more planes than Richardson.

  12. I can imagine, if I try hard, why some of the idiot Republicans are going around saying stupid things like ‘”there is no fraud”. It’s painful to live with the knowledge of so much corruption and fraud and evil. If you just refuse to acknowledge it (take the blue pill) you can pretend that things are “normal” and escape the pain. What a choice… The world is a much worse place than I thought, or disconnecting from reality.

      1. Imagine this: Daddy federal worker leaves work and rides the metro back to his Virginian brick mansion. He stops at the grocery store and has his groceries delivered to his trunk by a fawning, scraping retail worker in a tux. He drives his new model Lexus/Mercedes/Range Rover to the house and parks it in the driveway. All driveways on his block have new model expensive cars. All yards are manicured. The streets are spotless, and quiet.

        Daddy federal worker encounters mummy who does nothing but enjoys the fruits of her husband’s labor. Mummy has the two perfect children in the right private schools, soccer teams, dance schools. Mummy has big budget for mummy’s needs.

        Daddy and mummy talk about the upcoming jobs for the two perfect kids: a residency with a high level elected official; another residency with a high level foreign official. There are 30-day stays in China, Vienna, and Paris to be planned for.

        If Daddy federal worker says ANYTHING that jeopardizes mummy’s plans for mummy and the kids, Daddy will be garroted and left in the street for the garbage truck.

        That’s how this stuff works.

        1. An older version from 35 years ago: “Curb Your Dog” https://reason.com/1995/05/01/curb-your-dog/

          No, this isn’t an autobiographical story. It’s an attempt to explain the attitude people in official Washington have toward Americans who flinch in fear at the advances of the allegedly benevolent state. Where the rest of us see a giant creature with sharp teeth and claws, they see only a friendly pet.

          1. When I was pregnant I went through a weird double vision phase when I saw both Sheba : the best dog we ever had, thoroughly acclimated to both kids and other dogs, beautifully trained-! Andvat the same time a 75 lb. monster whose jaws could crush my newborn child’s head like a grape. We doubled down on the training regimen and built a system of gates and pens (for both babe and doggo).

            That’s probably the healthiest attitude anyone working in or for the gummint can have.

            Thanks for the link.

        2. Problems with your scenario; Daddy Federal Worker doesn’t ride the Metro. In the first place it just barely makes sense financially, if you take advantage of all the possible discounts, figure in wear in the car if you use it, AND are sure you won’t have to drive anywhere any time during the ‘monthly pass’ period in order to do your job. In the second place, the Metro is broken by over strain and insufficient maintenance. Mommy almost certainly has a job, too, unless they live waaaay out, because those houses ain’t cheap, and the living expenses are through the freaking ROOF. Or, if Daddy is high ranking enough that his salary CAN support them, he won’t be riding the Metro because his ego is the size of Montana.

            1. Now that we have all the details as you’d have them, tell me this: How likely is he to screw his own gig, for any reason?

          2. OK.

            Daddy drives a late model Mercedes. Mommy works for another federal agency. The nanny takes care of the kids.

            Now, what about my conclusion doesn’t work, given the changes? Neither one is going to tell the truth to jeopardize that sweet, sweet gig. Are they?

    1. Speaking therewhich, sheriff of Riverside County CA says he won’t be enforcing King Gavin’s latest edicts.

      1. Nor will the Sheriff of Orange County, Sacramento County, or El Dorado County. There’s finally some visible fight showing up in my beloved state (I live in PA now which has its own set of total incompetents.

        2. As of last week, our county commissioners and the Sheriff (normally he keeps a low enough profile that he disappears from local media*) have stated clearly that they will not comply with the local LEO virus-stasi edicts from Despicable Kate Brown (D-umbass, OR).

          (*) Two of his predecessors got more media attention; one because he was a bit of a glory hound, the other because he had a volcanic temper and got caught roughing up perps. I think he avoided doing jail/prison time, but…

      2. None of the Sheriffs in the counties that make up the Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area are going to enforce the demands. The LA County Sheriff is in trouble right now, and *really* needs to keep the population from getting upset with him (thus his back and forth on gun sales during the initial lockdown). And the other four counties (Riverside, Ventura, San Gabriel, and Orange) all lean more conservative.

    1. When WordPress is acting correctly, (which happens on occasion), two valid links will put your comment in moderation. When WP is acting up, any post can get eaten.

      I will obsfuscate posts, such as accordingtohoyt dot com/2020/13/31/2020-is-almost-over-does-2021-say-hold-my-beer

    2. It showed. Eventually.

      Good to see you here, VMom!

      Probably one of the most important things to keep in mind regarding China’s foreign policy is this –

      Most countries act or talk as if they’re the center of the world. China is – so far as I know – the only country to actually call itself that. China’s name for itself – “Jong Guo” (probably mispelled) literally translates to “Middle Country”. Middle, in this case, refers to its geographical location. Or in other words, China is at the center of the world.

      Interestingly enough, the US is geographically on the opposite side of the world. I leave it up to all of you to figure out whether to attach any particular additional meaning to that.

  17. One thing that just struck me, half of the country,the part that values law and order and follows rules, has, essentially, been in solitary confinement for the past eight months. That’s not really a recipe for sane or rational responses to wrongs done.

    But the elite can’t understand that because they have been violating their own edicts to have their own essential human interaction.

    I wonder how long we have left until people start blowing up?

    1. It’s already happening, and I’m the one blowing.

      I was on the phone to the unemployment office today. Sigh.

    2. Since conservatives and Republicans ALWAYS “take the high road,” are gracious in defeat, clean up after themselves, protest politely and are generally good sports, of COURSE they will continue to do these things. It’s “who they are.” (The other stereotypical comment being , “We’re better than this,” as the reason to accept openly bad behavior without complaint).

      But there’s a lot of griping going on, and if it’s ignored or dismissed long enough, we may all find out how long we have.

      1. I also recall part of the reason the general US population was so angry at Japan, was the general perception that they had cheated by attacking prior to us receiving their declaration of war…

        1. It’s what they were officially told by the Fed. By the time Stimson’s alterations of the messages between the Japanese and FDR came to light, nobody cared.

          1. Missed that part. What had happened?

            From what I could recall, the State Department people all had an idea of what was coming and had been studiously avoiding any contact with the IJ diplomats, mostly to ensure they weren’t the ones holding the bag, so to speak

          2. Note also the Gates-funded live virus polio vaccine responsible for the Africa/Indo-Paki outbreaks, and the African vaccine “unexpectedly” contaminated with a sterilizing agent / long acting birth control compound.
            Not a doctor. Info from the Web. YMMV. But it _sounds_ consistent with some of Gates’ stated desires.
            John Sage

      2. I think that you are missing something in the charachterization of conservatives. Yes rule of law, yes patience, yes tolerance. That said there is both a limit and an experation date. We have probably passed the former and are rapidly approaching the latter. The anger on the street is palpable and white hot.

        Last point is that when you try to define a conservative this way, you miss that we have been the ones that mostly fight and die for the founding principles. Also like a ‘real’ gentleman, it is force retreained. A real gentlemen knows internally exactly what he can do because he has proven himself throughout his life whether in service or building his family and community, but voluntarily restrains the power inherent in that knowledge for the greater good. This current circumstance is such an abridgement of all that we hold dear that the restraints (which are self imposed) will not hold. This is an existential threat to ALL we hold dear.

        I look forward to peace but not at the price they will offer. Peace through strength. They have no idea what they are unleashing.

        2. Interesting.
          How many liberals volunteer for military service?
          How many liberals dodged the draft?
          How many liberals left the country to avoid the draft?

          1. I never met a lefty in the service. Some of the girls tended more that way, but only vaguely, and never out loud.

            The others? 100% those that did it in both cases.

            When I lived in Key West I knew a fellow who had dodged, gone to Canada; his Dad disowned him, legally. It cost him millions, ’cause Papa was a rich man from North Carolina.

      1. Hush you! Nothing of value here, never was, especially after that unfortunate boating accident.

          1. Somebody get Sarah a Taurus Judge, preferably the lightest version since the 6 round 410 revolver is pretty heavy. But then she shouldn’t have to worry much about aiming..

      1. I caught a few moments of that performance.

        “I’m also just happy I’m no longer the first thing people think of when they say, ‘What’s the worst thing about Staten island.'”

        I doubt people think of him at all, first thig, second thing or last thing..
        ~

  18. <blockquote.government, with its binding bureaucracy (but really most governments, anywhere) doesn’t know anything about the rest of the country.

    We had a county supervisor who was the poster child for this. “Town” meeting (wide spot on the road), where the subject of road maintenance and snow plowing came up. Quote the supervisor: “Is [redacted] road a county road?” No dummy, it’s a 30 mile track between Town A and midway to Town B that is a) paved, b) not in a city c) not a state highway.

    He lost the next election, then ran for a state legislature seat. Lost the Republican primary, so he thought he’d get clever and talked the miniscule county Democrat party into putting him on the ballot as a Donk. And promptly got curbstomped in the general election.

  19. I made this up a couple of days ago after reading about Thatcher in the Claremont Review.

    Assuming that I know how image links work.

          1. Nah, WordPress Delende Est– pardon spelling am trying to hurry and don’t latin, sadly– is said when WordPress messes something up yet again. So, said so often that it’s an acronym, though a very local one!

  20. Gee, if only America had a mainstream, oppositional press — one willing to afflict the comfortable, challenge entrenched power structures, advocate for the rights of the people of this nation – I wonder what that would be like.

    If only there were five “journalists” in this country who understood what “Science” actually is.
    ~

    1. If only there were five “journalists” in this country who understood what “Science” actually is.

      I think that was part of Abraham’s bargaining when trying to save Sodom and Gomorrah.

    2. If someone has the intellectual capacity to understand science, why in the world would they go into journalism?

      3. Consider: per a survey a few years ago, 90% of Democrat congresscritters are either lawyers or journalists by training. (Tho seems a lot of the lawyers failed the bar for one reason or another.)

        Which is to say, people who live off the misfortunes of others.

        [For comparison, 50% of GOPs were of this career set; the rest were businessmen.]

        Occurs to me to wonder how much overlap there is between GOP lawyer/journalist set and never-Trumpers.

        1. They are also that segment of the populace which prospers from manipulating symbols rather than Reality. For example, ponder the distinction between lawyers, who are trained to think in terms of loopholes, and engineers, whose conditioning involves safety margins.
          ~

  22. I reckon the cycles began about 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. That is when some nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers settled down and became farmers. Shortly thereafter, itinerant bands of pillagers and rapists settled nearby and became a government.

  23. “Anyone who has worked — even peripherally — for government, in those places that collect data know that the ruling deities are “I don’t know” “not my fault” and “Cover your ass.””

    One of the more plausible reasons for why the Intel community missed the impending fall of the Soviet Union is that they were reading the same information that the Soviet leadership was getting, and believing it.

    No one (or least no one that was listened to) on either side of the Iron Curtain contemplated the fact that those reports were fabricated to make the lower level apparatchniks look good and secure their jobs, and so on from the bottom of the food chain to the top.

    1. I’m given to understand something similar is why we believed Saddam had a functioning nuclear weapons program too. Turns out he didn’t really, but he did have a large number of people in his administration doing elaborate shell games to convince him he did.

      1. Not through lack of effort though. Without the prior Israeli air raid, he probably would have gotten working nukes. He certainly did have chemical weapons (which are also WMD’s and violate the Geneva conventions) and A LOT of his material was moved to Syria in the days and weeks prior to the 2nd Gulf War. Saddam of course was a serial violator of the terms of the cease fire from the 991 Gulf War. Failure to enforce such things or hold to red lines renders them not credible and thus such agreements and lines become meaningless on a very broad scale.

        As I have noted in other threads, the issue with the 2nd Gulf War, was not with removing Saddam. It was the futile “nation-building” effort that took place afterwards; incompetently at that. A suitable general should have been found and told “you’re in charge, don’t make us come back, you won’t like what happens”.

        It is also noted that Qaddafi very quickly gave up his own weapons programs very quickly after Saddam was removed in a classic “message sent”

        1. And then Obama and Hilary decided that they needed to teach the world that it is not a good idea to give up your weapons after all! Grrrr!!

        2. And after Hillary & Obama got Libya and Qaddafi destroyed, the new message was “Don’t trust the USA”.

      2. Saddam *said* he did, and that he was willing to use it against the United States of America. And biologicals too. And the CIA chose to back that up, though they tried to weasel out of it later.

        Misinformation, cultural braggartry, political pressure… doesn’t really matter. Hey, he was their chief of state making an official statement; we took it at face value.

        1. Well, yes. He thought he had them too.

          Doesn’t mean we didn’t need to clear him out; he was shooting at our aircraft in the no-fly zone on a regular basis, and committing serial violations of the terms of surrender. But the newsies latched onto the nuke thing as a convenient kudgle to pumel Bush with, and wailed for all their might. (And conveniently forgot that Saddam had a penitentiary of children…)

          That and the fact that he was trying to get them, even though he apparently, had not succeeded, did not mean that he never would in the future. Kind of the way it is still illegal for someone to attempt murder, even if the attempt itself results in no harm. The newsies conveniently ignored that part too.

          1. Dr. Pat Santy (“Dr. Sanity”) had a great piece using her Cake of Waistline Destruction (a triple-fudge chocolate cake) and explaining why having cake mix, and fudge sauce, and chocolate chips, and a cake pan, might lead people to suspect that she would be making more of that cake after they’d asked her not to.

  24. One (very memorable) cinematic take “on doing the impossible” —

    CASE: Cooper, there’s no point in using our fuel to chase…
    COOPER: Analyze the Endurance’s spin.
    BRAND: Cooper, what are you doing??
    COOPER: Docking.
    CASE: Endurance rotation is 67… 68 RPM.
    COOPER: Yeah, get ready to match our spin with the retro-thrusters.
    CASE: It’s not possible!
    COOPER: No. It’s necessary.

    — from “Interstellar” by Chris Nolan etc., ~2 h 08 m.

    Someone who’s more adept at Internet-movie research might well be able to find a ready-made clip pre-synced to the above… but I’ll just commend this remarkable scene out of a rather unconventional SF movie to your attention.

    Because sometimes, in extraordinary times or dealing with way too much of what “is not supposed to be able to happen” but does anyway — the hardest part happens not in the external world (which is usually challenging enough), but in the depths of your heart and the back of your head.

    So, there as elsewhere, use the tools that come to hand.

  25. You know all those facts and statistics they “collect?” 90% of them are wrong and the rest are misapplied.

    Timely.

    *glares at hysterical idiots over on Insty*

    Good heavens, we’re supposed to be the ones that pay attention to humans as they actually are, but stick numbers in front of some people and their freakin’ brains shut off.

    1. I think the big conservative sites are getting a lot of “defiant panic trolls”. I can’t confirm anything, but at one particular blog I visit, I’ve noticed a large uptick in panic posts pushing the idea that the end is nigh, and we need to burn it all down. And if you don’t start RIGHT NOW, then you’re just another blowhard keyboard warrior.

      A few of the people posting like that are names I recognize. But most are unfamiliar to me.

      1. There are some definite Sex War Idiots involved, I’m mostly annoyed at folks not even giving it a *first* thought on how men and women tend to respond differently when they’re not trying to pick a fight.

        For example, if you ask Jane Doe if she’s worried about COVID she’ll most likely say yes because saying no would be picking a fight; if you ask John Bull, he’ll probably say no but he’ll act like it to be kind, because that’s face-saving.
        No matter if he’s a hard-core karen and she thinks there is no novel virus at all.

      2. Yep. Happened at thedonald a lot last week. And then there was yesterday where some numbskull was trying to get everyone to buy in to the leftist’s favorite hobby of jew-hating.

        We are over the target.

        1. It’s fun destroying trolls on TheDonald. Eyes are quite sharp there, and we’re held to a standard of behavior that makes a troll stick out like a neon sign in West Texas.

      3. I’ve seen the same thing. It’s not just you.

        Downvotes and troll comments abound, where there were none before.

        We’re winning.

  26. Many of our masters believe in magic. There’s a thing called the yield curve, which is simply the difference between the yields on bonds of different maturities. An upward sloping yield curve (longer maturities have higher rates) is considered to be a good thing and an inverted yield curve, where the short rates are higher than the longer rates, is a reliable predictor of recession. There are stacks of papers by FRB and other government economists that say that all they have to do to eliminate recessions is keep the yield curve from inverting by driving down short interest rates. This is magic since the interest rates are a real thing and they invert because of changes in inflation and inflation is driven by changes in the money supply, which are driven by the FRB believing in magic. They have to drive down interest rates and eliminate cash — think about it for a second — to cover up the breakdown created by the last time they drove down interest rates.

    Look up interest rate determination and see how many of the paper’s first words are “policy makers.” Policy makers have sweet b-gger all to do with it but all the “scholars” start with that assumption, except the Austrians.

    For what it’s worth, the yield curve had inverted In July 2019 and a recession ought to have arrived right around the time one did — WuFlu be damned. really wonder if i am sufficiently cynical about public officials.

  27. We wiped out polio with a vaccine. (two, actually) Measles is now mostly unheard of. All sorts of child-killing awful are now largely gone. Smallpox is -extinct- in the wild.

    I haven’t gotten full blown flu since I started getting the annual flu vaccine. I had it twice before that, once with permanent damage. I intend to avoid a third one.

    Why do so many folks assume vaccines are sinister? They demonstrably work. The anti-vax rumors seem to be the best way to keep us all hiding in our homes. I would assume the anti-vax rumor stuff would be the easiest way for a hostile foreign power to keep the USA all fouled up from a “pandemic”.

    Rumor was HCQ was “bad”. Hmm.

    Like any other medicine or treatment, vaccines can have side effects. Some folks shouldn’t because good reasons. But why this “they” are up to no good? I have been hearing this “there is a secret harmful ingredient in (product)” since childhood. One gem was “cola X is owned by the Klan and will make minorities sterile”. Seriously. Some folks are convinced jet aircraft are secretly dosing them with something.

    You don’t put ” secret ingredients” in a vaccine. The stuff is easily inspected. The manufacturing process is hugely controlled. Lawyers drool over the prospect of finding contaminants. And how do you keep such a thing secret? The effects would be obvious.

    I just don’t get this. These endless rumors about vaccines do not seem valid to me.

    It seems like what would be said by someone who wants to spread the disruption of fear. Frightened people are easily misled, and seldom are those frightened people effective at resistance.

    2. The current election gaslighting, that we are observing right now, is so blatant and extreme that none of the writers here would dare to include such in their works – it would destroy the3 suspension of disbelief.

      When one is *seeing* something that one would have dismissed as a fever dream, one tends to ask oneself what other “preposterous” things might actually turn out to be true.

      Our election process also has many safeguards …

    3. I haven’t gotten full blown flu since I started getting the annual flu vaccine. I had it twice before that, once with permanent damage. I intend to avoid a third one.

      I never got a full blown flu before I started getting the annual flu vaccine.

      Then I started getting it every year.

      The last time I did, I persuaded myself that I’d just gotten sick because I was going into medical, which I never did otherwise.

      …that’s the year I was seven months pregnant, had two toddlers, my husband was deployed and I quite literally crawled to the toilet for two days until I was able to stop puking for long enough to drive over the cascades to my parents’ house. I was at the point of trying to figure out how to manage the toddlers if I had to call an ambulance, because I know they can’t take little kid passengers.

      Why do so many folks assume vaccines are sinister? They demonstrably work.

      Vaccines are literally hacking your immune system to try to make it believe that you had a disease, without having to go through the full disease– or at least without being able to pass the disease on to others.

      Most of the anti-vaxxers I know distrust vaccines because of people who think vaccines are a magic wand.
      This is after, of course, one removes those with moral objections to the routine use of a human deliberately killed of the purpose and the people who are “antivaxx” only in as much as they actually understand how vaccines work usually via decades of using them on large populations in animal husbandry. (It was freakin hilarious, in a dark way, to be told I was a science-hating antivaxxer when I literally copied the notes from the course offered by the University of Washington and a vaccine manufacturer for cattle producers, explaining “please please please do NOT use this on bred cattle, it causes miscarriages, I don’t care what the FDA says.”)

      A lot of the actually anti-vaxxer are like the alt-right where they finally realize someone is lying to them, and dump the entire tub including the kid out the door.

      Have literally never met even ONE antivaxxer who gives a flying fig about the Lancet study, although there are several that would be caricatured that way because the side effect their kid got was the one with brain swelling. (It’s possible with any immune response– a malfunction of the immune system, basically. Can happen even if you can’t infect others.)

      1. It isn’t hacking your immune system. It’s a controlled exposure. If your immune system cannot handle controlled exposure, it’s not going to handle uncontrolled wild exposure either. There do exist people whose immune systems overreact to vaccine and they get sick from it, but seems to me they’re also at more risk for cytokine storm, so pick your poison.

        If you just get a given vaccine ONCE, what usually happens is that it was just enough to negate existing immunity, either maternal or acquired (because immune system cannot tell the difference, and each virus particle uses up one footsoldier), but not enough to generate new immunity. Which is why we do repeat vaccinations spaced some ways apart. This is also why high dose vaccine works better — there’s more than enough to get canceled out AND generate new immunity.

        You don’t use some vaccines (generally MLV) on pregnant mammals because developing fetus is a special case (vulnerable to disruption at certain stages) and I expect since the dam’s immune system is somewhat suppressed for the duration, introducing a stimulus can make it eject ALL the immunologically foreign bodies, including the fetus. Various diseases cause abortions too.

        1. It is hacking the immune system. Programming in recognition for a disease we have not had. Hopefully without as many bad effects.

          It’s when people ignore that “hopefully,” and demand that the people who do get the same effects as a wild load, that you’re pouring gas on any good will and setting it on fire.

          We don’t know who is at risk of cytokine storm, it is theorized to be the same as some over-strong immune reactions– of course, if there is actually something to fight, it is also theorized that the over-strong response would not attack the body, because it would be busy fighting an actual attack rather than a vaccination load.

          I have never heard of a theory that vaccines remove existing immunity. Exhaust the immune system, yes– although that’s one of the things that gets you labeled anti-vaxxer for disrespecting the magic wand of vaccines.
          Many vaccines are given in a series to try to build up greater immunity without major risk, but if they functioned by “using up” existing immunity, the pre-through-K kids would be at higher risk for MMR than the unvaccinated.

          1. Vaccines negate maternal antibodies: One antibody unit eats one virus/vaccine particle. When all the maternal antibodies are used up, and if there aren’t enough virus/vaccine particles left to stimulate immunity (and dose matters, too little can be worse than none) bye-bye immunity.

            This is the problem with conventional canine vaccines — they’re just strong enough to use up the maternal antibodies, so after the first shot, and sometimes even the 2nd shot, the young puppy goes from some unknown level of maternal protection, to little or even none at all, yet there are also no virus/vaccine particles left to stimulate immunity. This is why we have to do repeat vaccinations, sometimes four or five of ’em, to get solid immunity against parvovirus. (Which is 50-90% lethal in puppies.)

            Enter NeoPar, 3x as strong as conventional vaccine — one dose is enough to clobber all the maternal antibodies AND provide the stimulus needed for pretty good immunity. Two doses suffice for complete immunity, and one need not keep the puppy in isolation for 3 or 4 months during a parvo outbreak, nor be paranoid about unwittingly passing through a contaminated area (parvo tracks around readily, can remain infective a year or more outside the body, can be shed for a year or more after recovery, and as few as SIX particles suffices to infect).

            I’ve seen whole litters die from parvo. Do I vaccinate? Do I use NeoPar?? Hell yes.

            1. I cannot find anything close to the system you describe..

              There is the known partial resistance sheltering the child’s immune system, which is a lot more complicated than that– the problem is in long lasting immunity, not immunity at all, and it is not a matter of it being “used up” but of the immune response being muted– it is also noted that t-cell response is triggered, even without seroconversion.

              https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X15010634

              You might notice the note about “subsequent studies of the high titer measles vaccine demonstrated that it was associated with increased mortality in female vaccine recipients.

              Which is a major difference between animal and human vaccines– possibly losing a couple of dogs at an expected time at the choice of the owner is much, much different than losing a couple of kids because some other human decided that their lives were an acceptable cost for a precautionary measure.

            2. Nemo is well past puppy and still gets a distemper/Parvo booster every 3 years….. tomorrow, in fact.

              1. And he went, but didn’t get the vaccinations. He’s still fighting canine lymphoma (after two years which means he was diagnosed after getting them the year before) and stimulating WBC production is contra-indicated according to his vet and oncologist. Now I get to explore the Plano regs and see what I’m supposed to do now.

    4. Indeed. It has occurred to me that the fearmongering against CV19 vaccines very likely originated from the Bad Guys (variously China and their Donk asskissers), because if we’re reasonably protected from it by said vaccine, we (speaking generally) will lose that fear, and they lose their ability to control us via house arrest and economic destruction.

      So, by all means, let’s get all the dissidents, the people they’d most like to do away with or at least have an excuse to persecute, to fail to protect themselves due to fear of the vaccine.

      I am reminded that when I backtracked some bit of EbilJoos propaganda attributed to *gasp* neonazis, I eventually arrived at a pamphlet from the Muslim Brotherhood.

      As to the rumors that Bill Gates’ vaccine did this or that in Africa — I remember when it came out that this was actually local shaman fearmongering, NOTHING to do with the vaccine. Naturally if you want to keep your power, you make your ignorant tribesmen afraid of the white devils and their evil needles, using the worst fear of people who depend on their kids in their old age.

      And polio is rampant in Pakistan because they refused vaccination, not because they received it. Y’all oughta look up the videos of the last few iron lung survivors and see which option you’d prefer.

      Same experience with flu vaccine. After about four rounds (presumably making my way through all the common variants) starting back in the 1970s, I no longer got flu at all, and almost never catch whatever else is going around either, tho I still get updated every year. This year, being now officially an old fogey and therefore eligible, I got the high-dose, being very aware of the difference through long experience with canine vaccine.
      ~

      1. I’m glad to hear that you don’t get the flu anymore, likely due to the vaccines.

        However, even the flu vaccine manufacturers will tell you (generally at the end of flu season, when they’ve had a chance to evaluate the effects; the cynical will note that this is also after they’ve sold all that they’re going to sell for that year) that the vaccine was only such and such a percent effective. For example, the CDC calculated that last year’s flu vaccine had a 45% effectiveness rate. Or in other words, a lot of people still got really sick even after taking the vaccine.

        Even MMR isn’t fool-proof, It’s only 95% effective, as my sister discovered the hard way after a trip to Disneyland some years back. Now in that particular case, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take the vaccine. I’d put MMR right up there with Polio. Everyone should take them. But vaccines are not a magic wand, and they don’t work the same on everyone. And in some cases – flu vaccines, for instance – the statistics provided by the medical institutions themselves tell us that for a very large percentage of people, the vaccines in question really don’t seem to do a whole lot.

        1. If you are interested in getting more people to take the MMR vaccine– or the MMRV variant– pushing for an ethical option would be the most effective route.

          As long as the only variety available in the US uses fetal stem cell lines, you’ll have folks walking away from Omelas.

          1. THIS!!! I’d be a little more forgiving of being told everyone ought to vaccinate, etc, if they weren’t using fetal tissues to culture certain lines. I have friends mostly in the, “obviously vaccinate” camp, but a few hard core absolutely against it, so I looked into it myself. And using fetal lines in vaccine production is a hard no morally in my playbook. Whatever other objections I found, that’s a non-negotiable for me. I won’t stop you, but don’t make me!. There was a Vatican statement several years back (I’m not a Catholic, but seemed a thoughtful piece) on whether it was moral or not, and the conclusion was that a faithful believer could fall either way, for various reasons, but that ALL should inform the doctors that alternatives needed to be provided. It looks to me that the only way to convince those who could provide an alternative is to refuse to use the objectionable product. I’ve seen zip since then on any alternative being developed. It’s quite frustrating to me. I’ve tried to convince my nearest and dearest, who have comparable standards on ethical treatment of fetal materials and been told “it’s just the internet” They won’t look at the source material from .gov sites explaining just what those fetal tissues are and putting together just how they were obtained from the admittedly obfuscated official wording. And I can’t shove the words in front of their eyeballs.

            1. The reasoning used by Catholics is the same used for cannibalism. Basically, you can do it if there’s no option to save a life, but eeeeeew.

              There are ethical vaccines in existence for most of the big bugs, but many aren’t approved in the US. Has to do with a lack of demand.

              The Shingles vaccine that just came out is an ethical alternative that is also more effective, for example.

              1. It is also “remote cooperation with evil,” ie, the fetal lines have been around a while. But some of the fetal lines are now newish, and that is what the new vaccines are using; so yeah, they are really working hard to be ethical. Sure. And testing on animals is bad, mmmkay, but fetal cell lines from known to be voluntarily aborted babies is okey-doke.

                1. I’ve taken to identifying the people that died for the cells. It seems to reach the kind of people who wave around ‘debunkings’ about things nobody is saying. (“There’s fetal tissue in vaccines!!!” … wonder how long they’ve been false-flagging? )

                  *************

                  WI-38 Swedish girl, would’ve been born in the early 60s.

                  RA-273 – Mother had therapeutic abortion from fear of fetal abnormalities due to infection with rubella. Sex not given.

                  MRC-5 Boy, England, 1966, noted as a healthy child and mother.

                  PER-C6 Boy, 1985, from the Netherlands.

                  HEK-293 Boy, 1970s, Netherlands.

                  WALVAX-2 – Girl, China, about 2010. “Voluntary” abortion. Showed up shortly after it was hitting the news that the other cell lines are getting worryingly close to their end of life.

              2. I can’t find an ethical measles vaccine in the US. When I looked at the list, that was the one that jumped out as all the approved measles vaccines were using the fetal tissue lines. Most of the others had options, but not the MMR.

              3. I don’t know enough practicing Catholics to know, do those you know generally refuse those vaccines, are they aware of the issue?

                1. I don’t know a lot of practicing Catholics, especially not ones that are a having-kids age, and the ones I do know wouldn’t bring it up because it’s getting so close to the incredibly touchy subject of the Mommy Wars.

          2. You all have made an interesting conversation to read.

            No. The answer is no. Not fear-based. Just nope, not interested.

        2. I was told that the flu vaccine is designed around what they think this year’s popular strains will be–and sometimes they don’t guess right.
          Also, with a big enough viral dose you can overwhelm your system even if you’ve had the vaccine. At least so said a 100-year-old book on cattle medicine, and it makes sense from first principles.

        3. For example, the CDC calculated that last year’s flu vaccine had a 45% effectiveness rate. Or in other words, a lot of people still got really sick even after taking the vaccine.

          –
          Everything our medical has stated was if you get sick when you’ve had that year’s flu vaccine, you won’t get as sick as you could have. Which is scary as heck when you get very sick with the flu despite having the vaccine. Also, it isn’t just the effectiveness against the flu varieties in any particular year’s flu shot, it is did they guess correctly which varieties are going to hit. They can vaccinate everyone for the Swine Flu only to have the Bird Flu sweep through.

        4. There are only so many variants of influenza. They tend to cycle back around every few years. If you’ve had a few different flu vaccines, eventually you have immunity to most of the spectrum (plus there’s probably some cross-immunity). I’ve had probably 20 over the years, lot of variants, and that’s a very broad spectrum of immunity. Antibody-based immunity tends to fade away over time, but having the template in your system still gives you a leg up when you’re exposed again. And some immunity is generally better than none.

          The real problem is that most people alive today have not experienced an epidemic with a truly high mortality rate, and don’t realize how bad it can get when that disease lacks a vaccine, nor what a huge difference vaccines made especially in child mortality. To their minds, vaccine risk is worse, not understanding that if enough people think that way, the lethal risk will return.

      2. So, by all means, let’s get all the dissidents, the people they’d most like to do away with or at least have an excuse to persecute, to fail to protect themselves due to fear of the vaccine.

        That only works if it’s more than an exceptionally nasty cold.

        Since I’d have to nearly double my age to get to a risk zone, and am not in otherwise interesting health….

      3. It’s a post-trust society. I don’t want some Fauci-type patting me on the head and telling me to be a good boy and take my shot. I want to see clinical testing that meets FDA approval standards. Make that 2018 standards, if they’ve changed them recently. I want the full test protocols, to read for myself. I want *names* of the developers, the corporate honchos, and the bureaucrats that signed off on it. And then I want some kind of assurance that what’s in the vial is actually the same vaccine that was approved. And then… given it’s a 99.44% survivable nothingburger, no, I probably won’t take it anyway. And if they want to tie it into some kind of internal passport and Federal ID card system… I’m not planning to be cooperative.

          2. Never trust them again? Heck, lass, I never trusted them before – and they’ve never disappointed me.
            ~

        2. then I want some kind of assurance that what’s in the vial is actually the same vaccine that was approved.

          –
          Do not remember the book name or author. Premise was the endemic in rodents Plague (true), which infects about half a dozen people a year now through out the west, particularly SW (true), blows up and becomes congestive and air borne. All drama ensues. Exactly what is mentioned above is what happens. A cure is found, or at least a treatment that means people survive that contact it. Tests ran. Works with no seen side affects, or limited, not life changing, etc. Approval done. Freedom from lawsuits applied. Treatment distributed. By this time treatment essentially all but meant vaccine. Treatment was also prophylactic for any exposure whether showing signs or not. BUT suddenly major side effects start occurring (Blindness for one). Choice became die or roll the dice go blind, or …. Reason? *Profit motives.*

          What happened is the pharmaceutical company had a cure previously, it was expensive to produce, it had major side effects, they had lots of doses in storage just sitting there. The old treatment was sent out instead of the new treatment. A whistle blower distributed the actual cure to TPTB protagonists. As it turns out the cure was simple to create, did not need a lab, anyone with any chemistry knowledge could cook it up with readily available ingredients.

          * Who says the Motive has to be Profit?

          1. Bubonic plague: In the real world, City of Los Angeles sprays the parks with malathion to kill the fleas harbored by rats, which tend to congregate in the big public parks. Dunno about now but they used to do this fairly regularly.

              1. Bubonic Plague is endemic from the South West, north through the Rockies, including the eastern approaches, into Canada, and west to the Pacific Ocean. All, (most?) rodents, including Rats, and Squirrels/Chipmunks, etc., carry non-lethal (for them, at least not quickly) variant that is transferred by fleas. Do not know how far this runs eastward. It is a known risk for those of us who venture into the woods, or wilderness, for work or play. Not particularly big risk, but still a risk.

                Technically that would extend to the Urban rodents, Rats, and for us locally Squirrels. I’ve always been fanatic regarding flea control. A lot easier now with the current topical like Revolution for Cats & Dogs. Our current dog uses Simplex Plus, a chewable, because it covers fleas, ticks, heartworm, & other worms. I haven’t had to flea bomb the house or backyard, in almost 2 decades, since we started using them. Would like to say Bubonic was the reason, but reality check, both son and I are allergic to bug and spider bites. As adults as long as the bites aren’t in joints, especially fingers and toes, or on our feet, we typically don’t need antibiotics, but it has happened.

    5. Concerns I’ve heard about the vaccine: 1. The speed and lack of more than 3-4 months of observing for possible side effects. 2. Bad memories from the Swine Flu scare [based on personal experience, and related to #1] 3. Personal immune problems with recent flu/other vaccinations. 4. Various mish-mashes of the Bill-Gates-microchip mess.* 5. Fears about a one-two bioweapon from that will affect those who are vaccinated. The last two are the least common in my circle.

      *Mr. Gates has a gift for not thinking about how his words sound to the Little Old Lady from Peoria, and he can’t understand why so many folks “take it that way.”

      1. I’m going to add #6 as Oregon-specific. Despicable Kate Brown wants everybody in the state to to take the vaccine (whether or not they’ve had the disease). The “or else” implicit in the message is setting off the usual red flags when she proposes something she want to do to us. In that case, more than a few flags.

        The assumption that everybody really, truly wants to take the vaccine is interesting. (The last poll I saw indicated maybe a third of the population would rather wait a year or ten.) I can understand wanting it right away; I have relatives in the highest risk groups. Then there are people like me who had such a terrible reaction to the first flu shot that I waited 30 years before I had another. My body doesn’t tolerate some other vaccines very well. I’ll pass for now. The not-a-flu I got in March had the symptoms of COVID-19. AFAIK, it’s too late to look for antibodies, but I’d rather rely on my own immunity.

        1. I already had the Coof last year (unfun as it was), so I don’t need a vaccine. But even if I did need one, I sure as heck don’t need to take an mRNA vaccine in its first year or two of usage. I will let other people be the guinea pigs, thank you.

          I mean, I wouldn’t let my Shadowrun or Cyberpunk character take this stuff. Why would I put my actual self at risk like that?

          1. I saw a headline about the People’s Republic of Ontario (Canada, not Oregon or California) about to the effect that Chinavirus vaccinations will be voluntary, but freedom restrictions would apply. OK, it’s a RT piece, but the money quote is from the Ontario Health Minister Christine Elliott:

            There may be some restrictions in terms of travel or other restrictions that may arise as a result of not having a vaccination, but that’s going to be up to the person themselves to make that decision on the basis of what’s most important to them.

            It’s a sad world when RT does stories the MSM won’t touch.

            Yeah, it’s Canada. We might need a fair amount of lawfare, boycotts and general Deplorable behavior to convince certain entities from attempting such. I’ve read predictions that Fake Documents ‘r Us are preparing for the arrival of such attempts. Soon to be an eBay featured product, thought the writer. Nah, Craig’s List, thinks me.

            When my doctor assured me that I couldn’t possibly have had the Chinavirus in March because it was pleasantly ensconced in Seattle and New Yawk at the time, I didn’t (couldn’t, not yet–few alternatives) fire him, but I know I no longer can trust him on anything politically sensitive. I got a flu test when I got the COVID symptoms, turned up negative for Flu A and Flu B, and the senior doctor (specialist, his weekend in the barrel) who gave the results said they had two admitted patients in the hospital who they could *not* get tested, because our (rural, conservative) county had not been given access to testing at the time.

            So yeah, $CURRENT_DOCTOR can take the vaccine right away. Give me a year and I’ll think about it.

            1. Sounds like Coof spirit. The chills and fever were impressive, which was why I wrapped up, used the heating pad on my chest, and had the heat up in my room to about 85 for a solid couple-three days, until a while after my fever broke.

              Fun fact: we have cells called pyrogens that cause fever. If the body thinks you are not getting your temp up fast enough, there is a systematic way to make you feel cold. That is the chills part.

              1. Correction: pyrogens are not cells. They’re any substance that induces fever by hitting the right cell receptors. But some are endogenous pyrogens that the body produces on purpose (they’re cytokines released from monocytes), and some are external, produced by bad microbes, which apparently the body takes as a warning, and which set off more of the body’s cytokines.

                Obviously this process can go wrong; but as a person who doesn’t run hot as a rule, I have a lot of respect for letting fevers do their thing, within reason. Plus hospitals try to freeze everybody to death, and not give them enough blankets or socks.

            2. Here’s a bit of “encouraging” news about the Pfitzer vaccine. The 104.9F fever *was* survivable. Yikes!

              –
              Wait? What! The time I had an 102 fever as an adult my ass was slung in to a hospital so fast I still have whiplash, and that was 44 years ago. I still remember that lecture. Or rather series, of.

              Yes. Yes, I am a tad concerned when reading that. My 86 year old mother shouldn’t be getting in line for the vaccine either. Though I suspect she will as she has been invited to go with a friend (another widow) who wants to go to Hawaii this next winter (February, I think). Honestly? … Her Choice.

              1. Mom’s 97 and planning on getting the vaccine. I’ll suggest she talk to her doctor rather than go through one of the assembly lines.

                I’ve had 102F fever at least once, at least for my reaction to the pneumonia 23 vax. Was in Medford at the time for a retina preop appointment. That was seriously no fun, though the fever broke overnight.

    6. a) My personal belief is that they are potentially a valid tool, if you have a good vaccine, and if the disease is bad enough.
      b) My health condition is absurd, inexplicable, and crippling. I’m willing to consider that vaccines as a class would be a problem for me. I could be persuaded for certain otherwise if complete information was available for all of the messy biology.
      c) Not all vaccines can coast off of the reputation of the Polio vaccine. Forex, the bullshit that is the cervical cancer vaccine and the program for administering it.
      d) The genocide carried out by the PRC proves a government without a shred of humanitarian feeling. Yet this same government is funding Sinovax distribution to the third world for humanitarian reasons? Nonsense, there is another explanation, even if it is not as damaging as I speculated.
      e) Colds are corona viruses and rhinoviruses. There are three explanations for the origin of this strain. 1. natural 2. research program, accidental release 3. weapons program, deliberate or accidental release. A vaccine for this recent cluster of strains is useful if there are people who have not already been infected, and various other conditions are met. If the origin was a freak of nature, we have probably already passed the point of having use for the vaccines. If there ever was one, after you sort out the data for confounding factors. If a research program, then maybe it is weird enough that the usual cold statistical observations do not hold, but a vaccine will not prevent future research accidents. If a weapons program, then then the vaccine is waste of effort, because the next weapon will likely be entirely different.
      f) We don’t have the logistics to have avoided infecting everyone already by way of the food supply. It may well be that it is so mild that pointing to Polio to try to justify a vaccine for it is like pointing to the Holocaust to justify my proposal to liquidate all of the pot smokers.

      1. The answer to d.) might be that the Chinese want the virus to go away so that people stop talking about something that’s inextricably linked to mainland China. They still haven’t given up trying to blame it on someone else (last attempt I saw was on India a few weeks ago).

        1. Yeah.

          Regime is probably pretty stressed.

          My most charitable guess is that for internal propaganda reasons, they have to been seen as competitive with the outside, and the third world is a market that is less likely to figure out that they’ve been given something worthless, and less able to hold the PRC accountable if they do find out. Or simply do not deliver.

          But one of the downsides of carrying out mass murder and having a comprehensive disinformation operation is that outsiders can’t be sure when you are not carrying out mass murder.

          Here, I’m hearing that the vote by mail push was a ruse to enable massive electoral fraud. In RL, I hear stuff like ‘Fauci stood to profit from drumming up excuses for the government to pay for vaccines’.

          If any of this stuff is true, those are some pretty profound betrayals of trust. If I have been so betrayed, what grounds is there to expect me to accept alleged fact pattern x?

    7. If I understand the folks involved (and I may not)

      1. Getting advance indemnity for your product is super suspicious.

      2. Corporations that don’t buy Congress critters and FDA stooges get creamed. The ones that do are super sus. (Catch-22. I know)

      3. And most of these corporations *are* crook.

      4. And converged. SJW Engineering firms build diversity bridges that collapse and kill people. What do you think they’re doing with vaccines?

      5. Read the history of the polio vaccine. It was a lifesaver…Eventually. The original was a killer crap shoot. See #1

      6. Those crook companies have a track record of blithe human experimentation. For the greater good, of course. Who are you peon, to object? Any new vaccine us more and more now… Super sus.

      7. It took considerable fuss to stop vaccines using mercury and get them replaced with non-neurotoxin-containing versions: What else are the the chemical oligarchs claiming is harmless (and being backed up by the speechless thoughtless brutes in gummint) which is, in fact not? Consider the sheer scientific stupidity and dishonesty bandied about by the !Experts! From gender theory through global warming to the magic fabric masks to contaminating the blood supply with HIV in order to stop feelbads… Super sus.

      8. And speaking of Govinda, the establishment press and Blue-checkmarked dancing bears on social media are all-in on on suppressing vaccine dissent. Considering what these folks suppress – and what they permit – it makes vaccines look super sus.

      9. Everyone knows of a product like Oxo that used to be excellent, got bought by the CCP and is now junk. Guess who is making the vaccines! The same people who put poison in your dog food and baby formula.

      10. Insisting people cannot manage risk and skip flu shots at age 25 is super sus.

      #8 – #10 Are the biggies. If we can stop gaslighting people and address the production questions, we might get regular vaccinations for killer diseases back on track.

      The intersection of knee-jerk petty tyranny, corporate malfeasance, Red China, corrupt bureaucracy (but I repeat myself), censorship and scientific illiteracy make this a hot mess. If you are interested in getting folks to get the really necessary vaccines (for all our sakes) please be willing to listen and try to understand anti-vaxxers.

      As tiresome as some of their loudest online elements can be, this really is a life or death issue.

      1. Re point 1: The reason (excuse) given is that vaccines have such a low profit margin, they’d have to drop the product after a lawsuit. I doubt Chinavirus vaccines will be low profit, but I’m a cynical bastard.

        4. And converged. SJW Engineering firms build diversity bridges that collapse and kill people.

        I’ll take issue with that. The Die-versity push was not a factor in the FIU disaster, but rather an engineering firm that decided to rest on its laurels and pushed key design tasks to people who didn’t understand what they were doing. The (formerly respected) world-famous bridge designer who was the Engineer of Record blew off reports that the trivial pedestrian bridge he “designed” was falling apart. He also skipped looking at the cracks shortly before the failure.

        The women in the design/build construction project were pretty much in the dark about the impending disaster. (Along with others at the construction company.) They hired experts to help with the relevant parts, and were let down and/or lied to. The Engineer of Record carefully got his phone in the washing machine after the bridge fell. OTOH, they *could* have had the road closed, but there was enormous pressure to not disturb the flow of traffic. Florida DOT could have intervened, too. Plenty of blame to go around, but the engineering firm and the designer therein deserve most of it.

        I was confined to a Comfy Chair for a few months as the story played out, and read the myriad (roughly 2800) posts in the Eng Tips forensic forum on it. Some really sharp engineers got to the bottom of the problems. FWIW, that engineering company got fired from a major Texas bridge project as part of the followup.

        Aside: Jerry Pournelle had a hypothesis on the adverse consequences in some infant vaccinations. To wit, by combining so many different vaccines in one shot, there was the possibility of the immune system going bonkers. (Cytokine storm, if I have the term right. I’ve heard of that as one mechanism for respiratory failure in severe Chinavirus infections.)

        2. Re: combo vaccines do seem to be a problem. I saw a list of what is recommended for babies now, and it is ridiculous, compared to the shot schedule I had as a kid/baby. I suspect it is to get the babies ready for daycare as early as possible. But it seems stupid.

          1. We aren’t holding the childhood inoculations steady, and we aren’t seeing steady cohort over cohort outcomes for weird health issues in the adult years.

            It is easy to say that I’m simply naturally fragile, and would not have survived to my current age if I had been born a significant number of decades earlier.

            But you would really need comparable populations, one with the full set of infant shots and one without, but otherwise the same nutrition, health, and statistical records, to sort out weird health issues caused by early vaccination.

            The purported increase in trans is probably social influence, but if you see it increase you do not necessarily know that it isn’t vaccine damage. The teachers could have been accidentally trained to pick up on signs of vaccine damage, and direct those to an actively harmful healthcare program.

        3. Thanks for the correction on the bridge details – the “doing everything but the engineering” is always a problem, whatever form “everything but” takes. I’ll have to use a different example for convergence fail.

          And I remember that hypothesis. It was one of the reasons I played it safe and spaced out the vaccines for the rug rat, even though more visits = more cost for me. I was able to convince at least one online friend who was leaning to no vax to get her kids vaccinated using this method.

          I have heard (not substantiated) that pediatricians will no longer work with parents on this. If so… Super sus.

          Oh! Another one I heard: If *all* vaccines really were as effective and safe as claimed, why aren’t folks caught at the border required to take them?

          It’s almost as if the PTB were going out of their way to convince anyone suspicious of them not to get vaccinated. (And there’s *my* tinfoil hat moment)

      1. Not when your choices endanger Liberals others.

        Pay no attention to that growth of tissue in your womb – it isn’t an “other” until we say it is.
        –

        1. Flu vaccine is and has always been voluntary. It shall remain so, regardless of the variant. That’s all I’m saying.

          There seems to be no legitimate reason to do otherwise.

          Vaccines for TB, measles, rabies, the ones you take for school, and in the military? Mandatory–you want to bring yourself into crowds of people, fine, but we need to be prudent. This seems reasonable.

          1. “There seems to be no legitimate reason to do otherwise.”

            In my lifetime I have observed the Left do a great many things for which the only legitimate reason is “because we can.”
            ~

            1. That’s their universal, never-ending shriek: “Because We Can!”

              Not this time you can’t.

  28. I think the tachycardia I started showing is definitely stress activated. I did an experiment at the doctor’s office last Friday. I was almost hit a couple of blocks near his office. When the nurse did my blood pressure, the top number was 180. He let me sit and relax (while I thought of puppies and Foxy), my blood pressure dropped to 118. The pulse (tachycardia) stays high longer. So yea– I am seeing health problems start from this madness.

    1. Make sure you have enough electrolytes in your system. That can be one of the things that sets it off. Also look up how to do a carotid massage. And add garlic and other drop your blood pressure things to your diet if you can. I’ve had to drop garlic and onions due to stress, and I am extremely unhappy about it.

      …Yes, I have tachy. In my case it’s hereditary. My siblings lucked out and don’t show symptoms, though at least 2 out of 3 of them also inherited it. Me? Oldest, most stress from being forced to raise my siblings and deal with everyone else’s problems, oh yeah.

      There’s a reason Covid doesn’t scare me. And the prospect of a civil war, not as much as it should.

      1. Thanks for the info. I’ll have to watch the electrolytes. It think I lose some of mine during dialysis. My second sister also has tachycardia. My mother has a heart murmur.

        2. You probably already know this, but make sure you look up “compensatory pause”. Otherwise it can scare the bejesus out of you.

          At this point I’m pretty much used to it, I just make sure I’m near a phone in case this is the time it doesn’t start back up.

        3. Electrolytes and a ton of sodium in my diet help tremendously. I don’t have anything other than age, but I’ve found the sodium guidelines for the rest of the world will destroy my system and leave me with barely enough energy to crawl to the loo.

            1. I just cursed in your honor. Dialysis? I just don’t even know what to say. Your courage is so immense I can’t even comprehend it.

              I’ll try to remember to pray for you and an improvement in all things. I say “try” because it’s honest. If I remember to pray at all, you’re in there! These days, I need to be on my knees more, and the enemy of souls tries to keep me from just that.

                1. So glad!

                  I’m exploring the work of Wim Hoff, as a way to age in the best way I can. It’s extreme, even the baby steps are hard–cold shower for 2 1/2 minutes? Working on it. Holding my breath on the exhale for 90 seconds? Working on it.

                  Anyhow, I’m glad you’re feeling the best in awhile. I’m glad we met.

          2. I’m pretty sure that I really need magnesium. I find that magnesium stops a severe cramp in minutes. I’m told to reduce it by my nephrologist, but I can’t because it is sooooo helpful.

            1. Magnesium uptake – absorption by the body – is slow and sort of iffy. And the kidneys do a good job of pulling it out. Diuretics or “hydration” will flush magnesium out even more rapidly.

              1. I didn’t know that. What’s your advice for the best way to keep a good supply of magnesium in my bloodstream?

                I don’t want to take a supplement if my body is just going to say “meh”.

                1. As far as I know there aren’t any *good* supplements. I alternate between magnesium chloride and magnesium oxide. Some people take what’s essentially elemental magnesium powder in liquid carrier. It’s sort of a case of “whatever works best in your particular case.”

                  Then there’s the problem that you may have to stop supplements below the level where they *need* to be, because an unwanted side effect is “the squirts.”

                  Anything is better than nothing, though.

            3. Do you keep a public journal or blog at all, about your medical… life? I’ve had to look up practically every thing you’ve mentioned (or avoided it till later because I understand in context). It’s really interesting. Partly from a medical perspective but mostly from a people perspective. What does it look like to live and/or thrive in such circumstances? Such unpredictability? All the things.

              I think you’ve got a lot of wisdom and experience to share.

              1. I should write another memoir. 😀 I did write one that was full of essays of my first couple years with Wegener’s Granulomatosis– it’s on amazon– In the Shadow of Death: Reflections on a Chronic Illness by Cyn Bagley

          3. Sodium likes to be balanced with potassium. Might be something to look at.

            I take the basic cheap potassium supplement, does wonders for blood pressure. Lemon juice will do, too.

            Was finally a long-term (multi-decade) study on sodium intake vs mortality from all medical causes. Turns out unless you’re having sodium-specific issues, too low is worse than too high, tho the mortality curve is steeper at the high end. Best results in the middle, around 2000-2500mg/day, or about what most people eat naturally.

            1. My potassium will go high quickly– and that makes all of my doctors nervous. Before dialysis I was taken off anything with potassium so that my heart wouldn’t stop. Yea, yea… I have some many things to watch.

      1. Mulberry leaves or tea made from leaves can lower blood pressure. Sometimes more than people want. White mulberry is best, but I gather that normal mulberry does it too. Chrysanthemum tea also.

        But if you are diabetic, be careful, because either of them might mess with insulin meds. (In the “works too well” kind of way.)

        1. Huh. There seem to be a lot of natural foods that lower blood pressure or dilate blood vessels. This would seem to be something that should be better known, especially if people don’t want their blood pressure to drop like a rock.

          1. There’s some simi-active suppression of the very thought of blood pressure dropping, because the symptoms match so many of the ones for blood pressure spikes, and the spike is so much more dangerous.

            When I was pregnant with the Chief, I spent part of Christmas Eve on the phone with the nurse line because I had the lovely dancing lights in front of my eyes that are noted as a Really Bad Thing.

            (Obviously, we were both fine. The nurse was very reassuring and sympathetic with my borderline cussing about NOT dropping that bit of information in all the scare you to death lit.)

            1. When I was young I was naturally low-blood-pressure. As in, they didn’t realize I was pre-eclamptic because my bp was “normal” to low ranges. Which is how I ended up hospitalized with convulsions. NM.
              BUT I found out an excess of lemon would put me in dangerous ranges.

          1. My BP is low naturally too. Which was also a problem my last 4 months of the pregnancy of our son. Never ended up in emergency, but made I don’t remember how many times to the doctor’s or urgent care for BP check, which, naturally wasn’t “too high” or even “elevated”, for normal people … for me yes. BUT that wasn’t the problem, exactly. Symptomatic. But not the problem.

            Had an episode late afternoon/early evening after FIL funeral. Dinner was going to be delayed for reasons and I needed a nap. Mom & Dad had driven me from Eugene to Bend for the funeral, that day. Hubby had already straightened out Hwy 126 days before trying to get there before trying to make it to the hospital before his dad died … he didn’t make it. My going with him was deemed ill advised as I was entering the 8th month. Anyway, the drive, then the funeral, then back to the house, where we found Cody, the last of their 3 Malamute/Siberian Husky’s collapsed on the ground … emergency trip with MIL, & the boys to the veterinarian. I held out until my folks left to go home. All in the mean time, said kid was dancing on my kidneys & stomach … I hadn’t been gaining a whole lot of weight the last trimester, something the doctor was not happy about, with probably good reason. So dinner being delayed after MIL & boys got back from the veterinarian with the dog. So nap time. SIL being a registered nurse radar triggered & came in to check on me. She had her kit, checked my BP, which was “fine” again. Then she insisted on checking my BS, she’s a diabetic. The number, 50, her reaction … Dinner was NOT delayed. I’m Reactive Hypoglycemic. Had eaten, but hadn’t had enough to eat, or incorrectly eaten (sugary), to consider that the problem so how can my system be over reacting to higher BS?

            1. Oh, that was a very bad day. Glad they got you some help.

              I have noticed that certain kinds of stress seem to drop blood sugar faster than the calories would seem to warrant. Sometimes not easily noticeably.

  29. Anyone else have the feeling that even more surprises are in store? Sort of a “You ain’t seen nothing yet” thing?

    1. Less feeling, more certainty.

      Because while I may not know the details, or how far it may go, the one thing I can know with certainty is that Trump has a wipe-the-board level plan.

      There are simply too many “insignificant details” that have happened in the last few weeks to few months (and going all the way back to 2012) for any other conclusion.

      3. I am hoping. Also I think a lot of this stuff (voter and election fraud) has become institutionalized and it needed to be exposed. I’m hoping that it stays in the open so it can get fixed.

    2. 2021. Hold my beer and watch this…
      It’s not that I am exhausted preparingbfor what I think nay come, it’s the preps for tge unexoected and “oh sh*t, where the F did THAT come from” that are wearing on me.
      John Sage

      3. How about Texas suing the “swing states” for fouling up the election and violating the US Constitution by means of their changes to their election laws? That’s pretty out there.

          1. The politician don’t-really-have-honor Klingons would probably fit.

            Hoping for Klingons that recognize the awesome honor-is-more-than-life of Worf would definitely be too much fun.

              1. “We would like to apply to join the United States of America.”

                “You are out of your ever-loving mind. So, perfect fit! Let’s figure out how to make this work!”

                1. “Today we prepare to admit 1000 new states…. Obviously we’re going to have some adjustments in the legislative branch…. Oh, and California says they are totally in favor of electors now.”

                  1. It was one of those where somebody commented “Vulcans say ‘fascinating’ because they can’t say ‘WTF?!?'” and I I have completely adopted it. 😀

                    1. Humans doing stuff like that is why humans were able to fight off the Borg while everyone else got assimilated. Just because Vulcans complain about not being able to think outside the box doesn’t mean that others shouldn’t limit themselves to such rote thinking.

                    2. Believe it or not, I learned this joke from my mother:

                      Two women meet after spending a summer apart. One has taken a world cruise, the other attended Charm School. The first woman tells story after story about the amazing things seen in her travels, each time evoking a response of “Fascinating.”

                      Finally running down, she asks the second woman what she learned in Charm School.

                      “I learned a polite word for bullshit.”
                      ~

                  2. Yep, that was the main premise of Harry Turtledove’s ‘Worldwar” series. Aliens send probes out, and one of them sends back data from 12th Century Earth. Pre-industrial, pre-gunpowder, haven’t even invented the single-stage steam engine.

                    Aliens prepare to invade, taking the time to do everything just right. Between politics, re-balancing their economy to build the invasion fleet and weapons, building the follow-on colony fleet, and trip time, they spend just about 900 years getting here. How far could those hulking primates advance in a mere 900 years, anyway? Better bows and arrows maybe?

                    The alien fleet arrives in the spring of 1942…
                    ———————————
                    It takes two to make peace. It only takes one to make war.

          1. “We have met the aliens, and if you don’t check their left foot for the mark we put on there’s no way to tell them from us!”

              1. That one gives me utterly irrational theology glee because it would confirm the logic of The City of God, book sixteen, Chapter 8.

        1. Hmm… too bad we couldn’t convince the media that Trump is “Lying to the American people” about aliens. You know CNN would bite, they’ll run anything anti-Trump no matter how made-up it is. If we could make it big enough news, maybe we could spring-board that into driving Biden to distraction for the next 4 years with bigger and bigger claims of a Fed. Gov. alien coverup.

          1. Well…. there’s something weird going on with the Navy program suddenly coming up with engines for FTL, and a bunch of other skiffy sorts of things, all at once, and the paperwork that says they got this stuff from extraterrestrial sources. And they’ve allegedly got That One Brilliant Guy doing all this crap, and yet nobody seems to have met this guy or know anything about him.

            I am not convinced that they’re not just messing with other countries’ intel services, and obviously Israel has been known to do official trolling. But.

            1. US Navy. Israel trolling.

              And yeah, there’s also all that admission of valid UFO footage and encounters by Navy pilots. Which may or may not be connected.

              OTOH, I still refuse to believe in secret subways from Wright-Patt to Area 51, especially if these were seen by summer temps on their days off while smoking illegal weed.

            1. Remember 2016, when Hillary! announced we had contact with aliens, and she was going to release all the information as soon as she was elected?

              Too bad they didn’t have any sophisticated election-stealing technology she could make use of…

              1. I’d put it this way: The Dowager Empress of Chappaqua could not win even with all the Dem sophisticated election-stealing cheatotron stuff in place.

                Look, China Joe would have lost handily even with cheatotron if the Wuhan Flu had not been an excuse to change all the rules and allow totes legal totes full of stacks of clean new flat uncreased ballots marked with only China Joe votes that had to be totally legally counted totally in secret at 3am after kicking out all observers, by individuals who were simultaneously posting to ZuckerBook, including videos of crimes in progress, bragging about how they had conspired to disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters with whose votes they did not agree.

                For their own good, of course.

                So nothing to see here, move along, and remember to unificate with the new permanent majority on demand.

                1. My apologies. A very simple “Even Hill couldn’t win with all the push that existed” has a warp core runaway and turned into a 2020 rant.

              2. Unless, of course, those aliens used their sophisticated election-stealing technology to ensure she would not be able to reveal their existence to a dangerously volatile human race.

                Especially if those aliens happen to be Jewish. (Something which would explain a lot.)
                ~

      5. We already have – don’t governors Whitmer, Newsome and Cuomo seem suspiciously rund-shouldered to you?

        Has anyone seen their bare backs?

        Asking for a friend.
        ~

  30. Good morning.

    Hostile forces, some internal, some external, seek to overturn the unprecedented Liberty of the United States.

    Your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to preserve, protect, and defend that Liberty.

    Good luck!

  32. One more for the 2020 Sucks file: WaPo has moved a story that Chuck Yeager has died at age 97.

      1. Just remember: In the case of the virtuous, you haven’t lost a friend; you have gained a friend with powerful prayer.

        Chuck Yeager dying in 2020 is more like him being called up for promotion than him going away. If you want to ask for his prayers about certain favors as an experiment, I would just suggest that they be a serious ask.

      2. Also, Ben Bova, Granted, he of late seemed to be drinking the Climate Change Kool-Aid by the barrel, but I was a major fan of his earlier works. Sam Gunn, anyone?

        1. That’s “Sam Gunn, baby. Unlimited!”

          I have the omnibus.

          Sent from Workspace ONE Boxer

  35. >>>What are the chances of someone born to a non-English speaking family and only learning English in her middle teens ending up writing fiction for a living in English?

    *Ahem* Joseph Conrad.

  36. F.A. Hayek received a Nobel prize for his insight into the natural blindness of government bureaucracies. This also applies to big corporations, and big tech is in that category. Look up Use of Knowledge in Society. This is also a theme of the Austrian School of economics. See: Mises.org

      2. It is a long standing condition, celebrated on Broadway in the (opening number of) Frank Loesser’s 1961 musical,How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, inspired in part by research at New York based corporations:

        [Narrator:]
        Dear Reader, this little book is designed to tell you everything you need to know about the science of getting ahead.
        Now let us assume you’re young, healthy, clear-eyed and eager
        Anxious to quickly and easily rise to the top of the business world
        You can!

        [Finch:]
        I can!

        [Narrator:]
        If you have education and intelligence and ability, so much the better
        But remember that thousands have reached the top without any of these qualities
        Just have courage and memorize these simple rules in the chapters that follow
        If you truly wish to be among the lucky golden few, you can!

        [Finch:]
        I can!

        How to apply for a job
        How to advance from the mail room
        How to sit down on a desk
        How to dictate memorandums
        How to develop executive style
        How to commute in a three button suit
        With that weary executive smile

        This book is all that I need
        How to, how to succeed

        This book is all that I need
        How to, how to succeed

        [Narrator:]
        How to choose the right company
        Before applying for a job, make sure you have chosen the right company
        It is essential that the company be a big one
        It should be at least big enough so that nobody knows exactly what anyone else is doing

        [Finch:]
        How to observe personnel
        How to select whom to lunch with
        How to avoid petty friends
        How to begin making contacts
        How to walk into a conference room
        With an idea, brilliant business idea
        That will make your expense account zoom

        This book is all what I need
        How to, how to succeed
        ~

  38. I’ll admit, for now, I’m just holding my powder dry and concentrating on more personal impossible. I’m thinkings of learning miGen (sp) and trying to implement my own MIL-1750 processor.

    That or the slightly more reasonable prospect of modifying one of my TS1000s to the point it can “run” CP/M. I mean, the Specy can do it, so in theory, the ZX80/81 should if the 82 can. The display will be crappy.

    Speaking of, having had enough of Scrivener, I’m going back to writing in my weird mix of vim, noweb, and *TeX, which means I might be looking for an older laptop to run text mode only Linux or even FreeDos. The later *TeX work would be done on a larger machine, but the writing and weaving for word count are easily in the Dos world.

    But back to the real point, I’m taking longer and longer news breaks. Quit watching most YouTube commentary (part of that is politeness to Z since I’m still at her place recovering…I fly home Saturday). I’ve watched a couple of cuts from Carl Benjamin’s new podcast, Podcast of the Lotus Eaters (whose name shows he knows the nature of our age), and parts of a couple of Tim Casts. I’ve cut back on Insty, PJ Media, and the Federalist, but up a bit on Conservative Treehouse (where I rarely went).

    1. You might try the Raspberry Pi 4 with one of the available cases and a screen. Probably run you about $100-$150 depending on how much thumb drive you need. Not quite as portable as a laptop, but close. Parts available cheap if there is a failure. Runs several variants of Linux.

      1. I have a couple of Pi boards, bought for my PiDP-8 and PiDP-11. I’m giving serious consideration to finish my portable monitor built from a dead HP laptop (inspiring video below) and one of the new Pi 4 completes in a keyboard.

        I could even run VMS on it as I have a hobbyist license for simh.

        1. What no PiDP-10 :-). I looked into running TOPS 20 on a pi 3b. Simh would work, but doesn’t have the networking devices to support TOPS-20. Also I don’t have the wheel installation knowledge for a 20. Did do a LOT of VMS system management/installation early in my career at DEC, but no hobbyist license.

            1. OK the 11/70 front panel replica is really neat. Never worked on an 11/70 but saw plenty of them in various places (Especially the Mill in Maynard) and that’s a dead ringer. Worked on 11/23’s running RT on them early in my career. Had a loaner PDT 11/150 running RT displaying on my Heath H-19. What are you running for an OS on the PiDP-11? And I just looked this dude is trying a PiDP 10 as 16 bits is not enough got to have 36…

              http://obsolescenceguaranteed.blogspot.com/

              1. Looking there is TOPS-20 for simh. That said, I’d really like to spend a few days playing with ITS.

                For the PiDP-11, I don’t have an OS installed right now as it is still a kit, but while lots of people use it to run Unix V7, my principle goal is a VMS install.

                I am amazed no one has copied the ideas in the filesystem. Versioning file systems, or at least the option for versioning, should be a no brainer.

                1. Herbn VMS? Mind you I love the OS, spent probably 15 years working on versions of it up to 7.x But on an 11/70 (which is what the PiDP-11 aims at), I don’t think so. Simh does have vaxen (microvax2 and the vax 3000 I think) but to the best of my knowledge no vax ever had blinkenlights. Certainly the first gen vaxen (11/780, 11/750 and 11/730) machines I started on had none except simple power and boot state ones. Maybe on a prototype? I believe 11/70 officially only supported RSTS-E or rsx-11. Rsx-11 has similarities to VMS, not surprisingly as it had the same designer/architect Dave Cutler (As did Windows NT). Certainly the RMS file system on RSX is identical in early VMS (though later it evolves greatly to support clusters becoming a true logging file system). Rumor had it that the 11/70 could run RT though that wasn’t a supported configuration, and why would you run a single user MS-DOS like OS on a multimillion dollar machine? And there was an asymmetric 4 cpu pdp-11 the 11/74. I think three were built, two were in DEC, one went to somewhere in Canada to a government office although it was sent back (and became spares for the 2 at DEC). They ran a highly modified RSX-11. The asymmetric CPU support was later pulled into VMS to support the 11/782 dual cpu 11/780.

                  1. I thought VMS supported the 70.

                    Hmmm…I know simh has the Vaxen, which is why I got my hobbyist license.

                    I guess either early Unix or some DEC OS.

                    1. To the best of my knowledge VMS require either a VAX, an ALPHA or an Itanium . I do not think the hobbyist license supports Itanium. Simh used to have vax 3000 (late 80’s nice hardware) Microvax 2 ( Limited early vax on a chip circa 1985) I think they added the 11/780 (iconic first generation). I think there is an alpha there but I think its early so clunky addressing of bytes and would probably be slow on a pi3/4. For the 11/70 its rsx or rsts. RSX looks more like vms rsts more like TOPS/ITS.

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