Where We Are Now

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

First, and because I didn’t promise not to do this: I TOLD YOU SO, I TOLD YOU SO, I F*CKING TOLD YOU SO.

For everyone who came here to lecture me, that the China Coff was going to depopulate the world, and I was being irresponsible for saying it was like the flu with a lot of stupid number games added; for every one who flounced because I told them the masks were a f*cking stupid idea that did nothing (including, yes, the gentleman who knew that masks would work against a VIRUS because when he was six someone made him put on a mask to go see his dying father); for everyone who mask-Karened with “just put on the mask”; for every raging asshole (including Sprouts grocery store manager) who told me that if I had a mask issue, I could get delivery, making asthma a crime worthy of house arrest; for every insane, stupid governor — Polis might be the dumbest of the lot — who made us wear masks outside, thereby making escape to the zoo or the botanic gardens impossible; to the f*cking airlines whose f*cking stupid rules made it impossible for me to be at my dad’s 90th birthday.

Come closer so I can whisper in your ear: I TOLD YOU SO. After which I’m going to knee you in the groin so hard you’ll taste next Wednesday. Yes, even if you’re a woman.

So, yes, I KNEW from the beginning, and I was suicidally depressed that no one else seemed to see it.

Honestly? I still don’t understand why they couldn’t. The numbers from the Diamond Princess were clear enough, but more than that, the fact that our medical supervisory institutions announced they wouldn’t audit cases of Covid-19, meaning there was no penalty for inflating the numbers, which hospitals were being given extra money for; and the “must not question” policies of the social media and news media made it obvious what was happening: it’s a scam

The fact that we jumped from this to an utterly radical program for containing the disease, only the program — like masks — made absolutely no sense.

Understand now and forever that quarantines and lockdowns have been used in the past. But they’ve been used for severely affected, afflicted people and areas. You don’t quarantine the healthy you quarantine the sick.

I’m not in the mood nor do I have the time to teach you virology, which I only know at the yeoman level, and only because I write books of biological-based SF, but sweet dancing penguins on crack, people! “Asymptomatic transmission” IS NOT A THING. Rationally it couldn’t be a thing.

My brief explanation will be somewhat false, because I can’t explain it without taking the day to verify figures and give you precise facts. I don’t have time for that, so let’s do the high level and mostly wrong, but still a thing quicky explanation:

You see, virus work on load. You’re infected with some virus right now. Tons of them, probably. Here’s the thing, you don’t develop symptoms and it’s not a thing until it reaches a certain amount of viral load. You can be sort of kind of asymptomatic, like the (often) low slow descent into flu, where you feel not quite the thing, till suddenly it crashes on you. And yeah, it’s possible you spread the virus when you’re in “I don’t feel quite right” but I don’t know how “effective” you are. Why? Because it takes a certain amount of viral load. Unless you’re actually in a conference room or at dinner with three people who feel like that, and all are shedding virus. Or unless, of course, you share spittle with someone in that stage.

But for this one bout of panic porn, things that have been known for centuries were denied. Like the fact that viruses are small enough to be suspended in air BUT not coherent enough after a few seconds. A couple of minutes at most. And again, viral load will be too small.

There were and still are — the justification for masking outside — people utterly convinced that if they walk the path that someone infected but asymptomatic traveled, they’re going to catch it, because the virus hangs suspended mid-air ready to jump you.

All of this is bullshit. All of this is bullshit that has never been used to make people afraid of any other illness ever.

At the same time somehow the media, the panic, the insanity, was all in the holy name of convincing people this was the most lethal thing ever. (As we know from Fauci’s emails.) Oh, and crashing the economy. And being able to steal the election. (Thank you, Americans. Even with all that shit, all the crazy bullshit, you voted for Trump in such numbers these assholes needed to fraud openly, in the light of day, in the most clumsy way possible.)

ALL OF IT was a political coup; a way to take down a successful president and install a China stooge. ALL OF IT.

The side effects of this are horrific: we have unemployed people (and hey, suck what I don’t have if you’re going to tell me that it’s just because people don’t want to work because: a) many people still can’t work since the schools STILL aren’t meeting in person (Someone has to stay home with the kids. In most states it’s illegal to leave them alone till 14 or so). b)many people saw their businesses and efforts melt down and are now not disposed to try again. c) A VAST number of people, either retiring or just entering the work force, are looking at the taxes coming down the pike, and the “open the borders, give illegals everything, make Americans pay” and choosing NOT to work. Which is rational, unless you’re driven by internal forces.) We have people who missed their cancer diagnosis and are now dying. We have people who died of other illnesses, because going to the hospital wasn’t a thing. We have hospitals closing because they can’t keep their heads above water after this. Oh, restaurants and stores too, but hospitals inevitably are closing in the most underserved communities. We have elderly who lived their last few months in isolation and pain and misery. We have elderly who started developing cognitive problems after being isolated for over a year. We have teens committing suicide. We have food wasted in big honking batches because restaurants were closed. We have planting done weirdly because no one knew if that sh*t would continue this year.

And that’s in the United States. In the poorer countries of the world, this bullshit unleashed actual famine. There were communities doing okay who are now on the verge of starvation. And it will get worse, with the Chinese Puppet Junta in control, because when the US coughs, the world catches pneumonia. We are THE consumer of the world. We are also the most productive food grower per acre.

All this in the name of what? So a senescent kakistocracy could keep power and keep their crimes from being uncovered?

Sure, in China, but in the US too. If you’re one of the idiots who never looked into Hunter’s Laptop or what is really going on with Clinton’s foundation, or any of that shit, it’s time to look now. You have been EGREGIOUSLY lied to and abused for a year and a half. Are you going to believe them when they say this other stuff isn’t a thing? WHY?

The left (and a lot of the right) elite are the most corrupt and incompetent buffoons since late Roman decadence. It’s probably inevitable when you have vast resources, a concentration of power, and a fawning news media/public opinion.

Everything about them, from their family lives to their business doings to their public and private behavior, when poked at exudes a stench that tells you their bios are like a demon’s resume. It’s filth layered on filth and given a veneer of normalcy that wouldn’t fool anyone who looked at it more than two seconds.

BUT they keep a tight lid on it, and call you names if you try to look at it, and tell you they do what they do because they CARE so much.

Go read the paragraph of what they did when they were trying to get back into power and locked you, scared you and tormented you as a side effect.

THESE ARE PEOPLE INTENTIONALLY DESTROYING CHILDREN AND MIDDLE CLASS PEOPLE AND THE ELDERLY IN AMERICA FOR THE SAKE OF POWER.

THESE ARE PEOPLE STARVING THE THIRD WORLD FOR THE SAKE OF POWER.

FOR THE SAKE OF KEEPING THEIR EVIL SECRET A LITTLE LONGER.

And you’re going to believe them on anything else in the future? You — forbid the thought — want to “dismantle capitalism” by giving government powers of redistribution, powers of life and death over EVERYONE?

You’re going to believe a single word they say EVER AGAIN?

You’re going to scream and run at the next “plague” they announce to control you? (And no, I’m not afraid this was a cunning psychological maneuver. I UNDERSTAND the paranoia, but if the Chinese COULD create a virus to kill everyone else, they’d already have done it. They haven’t.)

You’re going to surrender your liberties to these “benevolent” overlords again?

Or are you going to fight tooth and nail to make sure no one else, ever AGAIN has the power to do this to a single nation, let alone the world?

I urge you very strongly to look at the members of the Junta and their helpers, and visualize the real people behind the masks. Visualize people who destroy a country and the world for the sake of more power over everyone, and to keep their misdeeds from coming out.

I URGE you to contemplate that they’d rather reign in hell than serve in heaven.

And then, if you ever again believe any of the media-ginned-up hysterias without checking facts or using your brain, be aware that next time the “I told you so” will have teeth. That knee to the groin will go all the way up. Oh, not administered by me, but by those younger and with more to lose who will be absolutely tired of this shit.

And what comes after might not be civilization as we know it.

542 thoughts on “Where We Are Now”

  1. Not of all us bought into the nonsense the CCP admiring and compromised elites were pushing. Some of us noted that “when you mandate healthy people to stay at home, that is called house arrest”, and noted all along that the entire intent was to facilitate stealing the 2020 election by any means necessary so that 2) they could continue to pursue their effort to complete Obama’s proclaimed “fundamental transformation of America” into a totalitarian Marxist state which they would rule Maoist/Stalinist style.

    1. Yeah and when people were starting to get out into the streets to protest the idiotic lockdowns suddenly a guy stuffed with drugs was murdered by a racist cop’s racist knee and we had destructive riots, what a weird coincidence right?

      1. And note how they got the “medical community” to assert that some protests were more equal than others so that government could issue decrees that banned protests against lockdowns but actively encourage those by BLM/Antifa. It’s as if they were giving totalitarian socialism a trial run….oh wait…they WERE giving totalitarian socialism a trial run, and now they are ready to go full speed ahead with it.

        1. It’s the people who say that they were more equal because they were for racial equality, and the other guys were white that get me.

        2. I want to know why “Systemic Racism™” being committed by members of a Leftoid Union, to another Leftoid (99.99% of the time, in the process of committing a crime and resisting arrest for said crime), in a leftoid controlled city, and most of the time in a leftoid controlled state, is somehow proof the Rightwingers™ need to be put under control at best, or completely eliminated from society at worst?

          1. Ditto. NIH et al (CDC, Lancet, NEJM) have lost all claims of legitimacy. About 50% of ALL deaths from all vaccines ever given from mRNA ‘vaccines’ which are now being promoted to those who have as much risk from the vaccine as they do from the ‘rona? Its been said that politics is medicine writ large, such malfeasance in medicine accurately reflects the same in politics.

          2. Yes. But He. Chauvin was filmed being a smug white male while doing so. That kid in D.C.with the MAGA hat was bloody lucky that Amerindian dude wasn’t an opioid addict who keeled over at his feet.

            You’ll note that NRO and all the usual conservative suspects leapt to condemn both MAGA hat kid, and confirm that the cops “accidentally” killed Mr. Floyd. Leapt, despite a DECADE of proof that in cellphone camera internet world it is wise to wait for the full report. Eventually one has to wonder about collusion.

            Why are the only cases of police misconduct that gain traction ones where the “victim” is obviously the peep, even though lawless cops #AshleyBabbitt #JustineDamond “#IHaveDozensOfNames are a clear and present danger to everyone except the oligarchs. Three guesses what kind of cop *they* fear. #Lawdog

      2. Meh. Chauvin handled the drug OD knee on neck by the book. The Minneapolis PD procedural book. Floyd was saying he couldnt breath before he was ever on the ground, in the back seat of the police car. The fake jury with their fake cowardly verdict was just bullshit. Id have voted to acquit and hung the jury.

  2. Yes, those of us who knew this from the beginning (those of who know how to effectively google things, for instance and have a gut instinct for funny business), are entitled to say ‘I told you so.”

    But damn—there’s no pleasure in it. I wish to Heaven we had been dead wrong–a perfect storm of idiocy would be easier to bear.

    1. Apparently Google doesn’t know how to google things as they claim to have had no idea that their “chief diversity officer” openly trafficked in patently antisemitic diatribes.

      1. But anti-Semitism is generally accepted, and totally not racism at all. From both extremes of the political spectrum.

        They’re probably astonished that anyone found anything offensive in those old blog posts.

        1. Antisemitism is allowed in these cases for the same reason that misogyny and racial hate is allowed. It is not a coherent religion, and it is not rational.

          I no longer care why some people, left or right, worship at the alter of Sancta Racisma. There are a million false gods, and thousand reasons to worship them. Try to figure out what is true, what is fair and what is virtuous and I am with you all the way. That is our common ground.

          Trying to figure out what THIS offense against Our Lady of Current Wokenss considers blasphemous is a mug’s game; a waste of time. Sancta Racisma is not just a false god, but a *stupid* one. Worship Thor*; Buddha; Amotken: They are a million times more sensible than the SocJus pantheon.

          Bonus: Eschewing devil worship makes you less susceptible to Judenhasse, contempt for blacks, and violent tribalism.

          (*A mistake, mind you: How will you make peace with your creator? But not functionally asinine)

      2. They had no idea that their “chief diversity officer” would get caught

        Fixed it for you..

        1. Right – they didn’t have to bother searching anything, because the other side is all anti-tech reactionary Neanderthal boomers who only use big-button flip phones and don’t even believe in masks, for Gaia’s sake.

          1. [grin] Could be. (Checks charge on normal-button-sized flip phone. I dislike the iPhone that I have. 🙂 )

            1. Yeah. It’s a hassle having to remember to charge the flip phone every two or three weeks…

              1. Every trip for me. I need to RTFM to figure out how to use the Subaru version of the bluetooth car phone app. Got it linked by casual inspection and a bit of diddling, but the onboard UI is odd (2016 vintage; the ’19 Honda’s is smooth.)

                1. (Battery usage goes way up when the phone can’t find a usable cell tower. That’s about half of each trip.)

          2. “… and don’t even believe in masks, for Gaia’s sake.”
            Quick, change the search engine to hide all the papers and research on effectiveness of masks!

  3. You are right it is all lies from the ruling Democrat party. Life without normal institutions must be planned. As a separate matter, good luck finding a home at a lower elevation. That is still an important goal.

    1. Lockdowns are actively harmful. Every lock down creates severe stress for the person unemployed. The stress causes havoc in the bodies systems and statistical studies have shown that the loss of job and unemployment impact results in a loss of years of life. The impact on the lockdowns will be felt for the next 20 years in the form of shorter lives. The years of life lost to the lockdowns will be greater than the years of life lost to Covid.

    2. Yep, and all those claims that Norway did better don’t account for the fact that Norway’s population is far younger than Sweden’s because Norway had a lot of elderly deaths from a previous flu epidemic within the past decade, which Sweden was barely impacted by. Thus, if you look at the data and account for the vastly larger number of Swedes in the key elderly demographic that was by far most impacted by the CCP Virus, the death rate is otherwise comparable between Norway, which locked down and wrecked its economy, and Sweden, which didn’t, and thus will fare better post CCP Virus.

      1. The progressive left use statistics quite effectively simply by cherry picking the ones that support their narrative with no regard for the methodology of how the numbers were determined while dismissing any statistic that contradicts their ever so precious narrative as anecdotal and irrelevant.
        Of course pretty much the same way that they use opinion polls to manipulate our low information voters.

        1. Anecdote: A magic word used by Leftroids to dismiss facts they can’t deny, and arguments they can’t refute.

        2. I thought Leftists use statistics the way a drunk uses a lamp post. For support, not illumination.

    3. The only positive results for locksdowns were from official Chinese channels after they imposed lockdowns and stopped the release of the vids showing panicked party hacks welding apartment doors shut. At that same point, when the national party took over from the local party (and reports got out of disappearances of local Party folks in the Wuhan region) they also stopped reporting any actual stats and started the disinformation statistics flow.

      The fact that the lockdowns and the disinformation statistics were both implemented at the same time resulted in an apparent causal link between lockdowns and the new “lower” numbers.

      Nowhere else around the globe did lockdowns coincide with a drop in disease stats.

      1. Note that the CCP announced another “virus lockdown” due to the “new strain”-the city that is the center of the lockdown just so happens to be the same one that is the center of the concentration camps where millions of Muslim Uyghurs are being held by the CCP.

      2. China never reported any accurate lock down statistics. Their claim of under 100,000 deaths is completely unbelievable. The most interesting statistic I have encountered is that China had a 2 million drop in the number of cell phone users. This is the first drop they have ever experienced, and I bet it corresponds to their actual death toll from the Wuhan virus.

        1. Hell, one of the BIG papers was reporting last fall that just from the crematorium numbers (as in they were running all the time, and family members were getting ashes), the number (at the time) was off by a factor of ten. I shared that story, but it sank out of sight.

          1. Satellite imagery tracking combustion products showed lots and lots and lots more “organic material” was being combusted from November through May in the Wuhan region while it was shut down. Before the full freeze on information getting out, local families were getting quoted months of delays before they could get cremains from family members who passed away in the hospitals, and there were reports from workers at the existing crematoria supporting huge backlogs even with 24/7 operations. And the local coal-fired power plant was also burning something for the entire period 24/7 at full blast, even though all the local factories were locked down and cold on sat imagery, so where did they need that much power?

            And on the cell phone user counts, I’m confident as soon as that story broke the raw user count data went under Party control, so that 2m number has to represent a very low end of the ground truth.

        2. So on the open-source intel topic and directly in line with “Who you gonna believe, THE AUTHORITATIVE PRESS or your lying eyes?” see the AP “fact” “check” at https://apnews.com/article/archive-fact-checking-8717250566 from 30 March 2020:

          CLAIM: Drop in cellphone users in China is proof that the coronavirus has killed 21 million in the country, far more than the official count.

          AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The decline in cellphone users is not linked to the number of people who died after being infected with coronavirus. Major cellphone carriers in China attributed the drop to people with multiple phone numbers canceling some service during the outbreak.

          Not answered: Why anyone who lived through the past year and a half should believe anything asserted by anyone employed by a company with “Press” in their company name that does not squeeze things.

          Seriously, the “fact” “check” didn’t even try – just “Those notoriously honest communist Chinese ‘companies’ told us it’s really just due to lifestyle changes, so it must be so!”

          1. And all of those – the rate of the rate in the public numbers from China early on, then the breakpoint and obviously fake numbers, the burning organics emissions tracked by satellite in China, and the China mobile account count thing, and yet how wimpy the bug actually was here or even on the cruise ships – impels me to don my aluminum foil hat and wonder if the bug that was actually running loose in Wuhan was the same bug that got spread worldwide.

            I mean, I wonder what was in those fogging tankers in the vids if the commies were cremating enough bodies that the emissions plume was as large as observed. It just does not line up with “slightly bad cold” that everyone I know who is confirmed to have had it reports.

            2. IMHO- there was a release of more than one bug in Wuhan. The more deadly one was contained. Which only makes sense. There were early stories from Italy and Iran- with high concentrations of “guest” workers from Wuhan – of people dropping in the street. Could be the deadlier version killed so fast that it’s spread was limited by having to be near the infected during the short period of time between when he (or she) was infectious and when death occurred.

              The dreaded covid has some similar characteristics of the more deadly bug- but isn’t as deadly to the healthy. Almost as if someone were trying to design a bug that would kill off “useless eaters”, the elderly and sickly.

              You can bet that all Western intelligence agencies have the information- along with the Russians. And, we’ll never be told the truth.

            3. “how wimpy the bug actually was here…”

              Maybe its a reverse World War Z? In that book they used a political crackdown to hide a destructive plague outbreak. This seems like the opposite.

                  1. Fauci’s Folly got into those areas and failed to bring doomsday.

                    Therefore FF by itself is not sufficient unless it has a very rapid decay from ultra-lethal while in West Taiwan to “bad flu” everywhere else.

                    1. I have been told that the COVID-19 prototype at Wuhan was known to kill 100% of laboratory test animals and supposedly killed all of the research scientists exposed to the first accidental leak in September 2019 (6 people). It was very unstable and mutated quickly into less-lethal forms within about two months, but the Chinese did not know what they were dealing with and reacted very harshly.

                      The virus is still mutating every week. That is what viruses do. The current versions do not seem to cause people to drop dead in the streets like the first generation viruses did. There were a lot of creepy videos of that. I believe it was real.

                      21 million phone numbers vanished from the national cell system in the next three months. Were they COVID-19 fatalities? Maybe not. Supposedly, those subscribers never existed in the first place; it was a scam to cover up revenue being diverted to corrupt officials.

                      How reliable was this report? I have no way to verify any of the details. I believe the people who absolutely know are letting a few things leak out now, because of factional disputes. Some of what they are leaking is true, some is false.

                    2. Viruses always mutate towards less lethal. New viruses are always more lethal. I can believe the Chinese believed this. But under totalitarianism lab reports can’t be believed and no one knows who died of what. Which our idiots are trying to recreate

                  1. And different standards for social distancing -we’re supposedly some of the most standoffish people in the world.

                    1. The not-a-joke about the 6′ social distance: “Only 6 feet? Why so close?”

                    2. I still can’t believe how many people have NO IDEA what six feet looks like.

                      I’ve done a lot of explaining that as Daddy is six foot tall, just imagine how far it is for him to reach out and grab someone’s hand. if it’s too far for him to touch fingers if the other person reached out, that’s about six foot. (arms spread out => height)

              2. There’s reason to believe that serious vitamin D deficiency is widespread in China. Vitamin D deficiency is a major risk factor with COVID19. Also a severe shortage of doctors, even more so when doctors started ‘disappearing’ after saying the wrong thing.

            5. SARS-1 (The actual Bat Flu as opposed to the manufactured, “Now With Added Pangolin” SARS-2 WuFlu Electric Boogaloo) was not really a SARS by the time it got here, as well. It was more a Moderately Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
              On the other hand, I know people who got the actual WuFlu and were well and truly hammered under sick for a week. I know of a few folks now that had it, suffered milder symptoms, but then later got it “again” and were just as hammered under by the bug. I will bet large sums their first positive tests were WRONG due to the “Hey, lets almost guarantee a Positive with horrible methodology for testing” test methods they were using for most of the pandemic. By coincidence, one of the Common Cold viruses is a Corona and will give a positive in the test.

          2. This is the same AP that labeled any claim as to their being a lab leak as a conspiracy theory, refuses to call the Temple Mount in Jerusalem the Temple Mount, publishes Hamas propaganda as if it were gospel truth, fake photos and all, and openly called on reporters not to use the words riot and looting when reporting on the BLM Antifa riots and looting.

              1. Hamas really shouldn’t hang out with AP.

                Keeping such bad company is going to ruin their reputation one of these days.

                1. You *just* missed out on making me spew the soda I’m working on now.

                  Practice on your timing, you’ll get it some day. 😉

        3. Wuhan Virus: Chinese code word operation for a planned purge of citizens with low social credit scores as an experiment to see if eliminating the less desirables from a society would create a more harmonious country. Commies have done things like this to state property since the beginning of their malignant ideology. Sure COVID killed some. Many many more “tested positive” and got loaded onto trucks headed straight to crematoriums. The lucky ones got a suppressed pistol the the head first. There’s video of that out there, or was. A couple were dragged out of their apartment and stuffed into a steel box in the back of a pickup. There were screams and two very distinctive suppressed shots fired. Then silence as the truck went to the next pickup.

          Coming soon to a country much much closer to you…

      3. meanwhile in The Land Down Under, Victoria is freaking out over a handful of cases, and one positive test is a screaming panic headline.

        1. As long as they don’t interrupt the AFL season…

          Then again, my team is near the bottom of the ladder…

  5. I have a folder that contains inspirational eve-of-battle speeches. I am adding this to it. Now I need to go clean the bathrooms because when I am in a murderous fury, bleachy cleanliness soothes me a little.

    1. I’m going to do the same thing.

      When I read this, I put Sarah up on stage, like at a poetry slam. Then I let her go, and good night was that fun to watch.

      Up here, children are muzzled up outdoors, muzzled in the stores, parents muzzled, Rite Aid won’t serve you if you don’t wear the muzzle, and QFC employees are openly wearing the BLM pins (and getting nailed for it).

      This isn’t play.

    2. Truly, this was an awesome rant…I’m sending it to all my Covid-sane friends….

  6. I work on the sales floor and in the receiving dept for a local Home Depot. What I’m seeing out of the supply chain right is continuing to freak me out. We have well and thoroughly proven the downside to the “just in time” stocking plans.

    Wood prices are through the roof. 7/16ths 4×8 OSB was $52.25 a board when I checked earlier this week. Thats up a dollar over last week btw. We’re sold out of lawnmowers (walk behind and rider) except for a few skus. Manual garden tools (shovels, rakes, post hole diggers) are in short supply. I’m already seeing shortages in garden hoses again. I don’t want to talk about patio furniture or pool chemicals. Oh, and what is it about getting locked down that made everyone buy new outdoor trashcans? Toilet bowl cleaner, and about any speciality cleaner thats made by a big name company, forget-a-bout-it! Plus the random holes across the store.

    Mind, HD is making money hand over fist, cause people WON’T STOP BUYING. But for how much longer if the supply chain continues to stay fucked? And if the big names like HD are having problems getting product, what are the little stores looking at?

    1. I am the local purchaser employed at a large pipeline company. What I am hearing from my vendors scares the ever-loving h*ll out of me. Purchases that normally take 3-4 days are now taking 8 weeks to no date in sight for delivery. Every item seems to have something in it’s component make up that is not available due to the fact that its subcomponents have not been manufactured in over a year, or it is stuck somewhere in the supply chain between factory, boxes on pier waiting to be loaded, no transportation available stateside, no young backs to load/unload said transportation, and on and on.

      Stand by, I am being warned that aerosol cans (any type) are the next general item to become “unavailable” due to the supply of the cans being unavailable.

      1. But, but, the Biden plan says we’re going to have 5.1% growth this year! Everyone must be lying to you!

        (The only way we’re hitting that number is because for some insane reason we include government spending in GDP. F*** you, John Maynard Keynes.)

        1. The Biden Plan also says that after this year, growth will quickly drop to 2% for the rest of the decade.

          And that’s from the WHITE HOUSE, and not the opposition!

          1. Its as if their goal is to frantically put into place enough socialism and to grant themselves perpetual power so as to make dismantling what they have done virtually impossible without outright civil war

            1. It will be like living in Ireland in the early ’80s. The year my parents were back in the States, they’d send me three months of rent/food/etc money, and after less than 2 months they’d be getting frantic letters asking for more money now because there was no way I’d be able to stretch it for three months. They’d send me some, along with snarky questions about what I was doing with it. The day they got back, Mum went out and bought supplies, and phoned me in Dublin that afternoon to apologize. They hadn’t really believed my tales of how much prices were going up could be true. I worked it out once and the inflation in Ireland for ’81-’84 was something like 20% a year.

              tl;dr : It wasn’t fun, and I don’t want to do it again.

                1. Carter gave it a go.

                  Don’t get me started on Nixon’s price controls, though.

                    1. At least he didn’t go full Atlas Shrugged and mandate that publishers re-publish the same books every year — and customers buy them again.

                      Today’s Leftroids aren’t nearly as smart as Nixon.

                      Come to think, Nixon is probably voting Democrat these days…

        3. I’ve been thinking about how to calculate the GDP. Granting that there is such a thing and that it is worthwhile to calculate, it is clear that government spending has an effect on the economy. The problem is that it is also clear that the effect is not a universally positive one, although GDP treats it thus.

          I haven’t been smart enough to figure out how it should be calculated, and all the other suggestions for improved GDP calculations that I’ve seen add terms for like the happiness or some such rot and don’t attempt to stay within the realm of economics.

          Perhaps observing that the GDP is all about money while what’s important is not money but goods and services might be a clue.

        4. It’s included because it can be measured. It’s like the drunk man searching for his keys by the street light, not because he dropped them there, but because that’s where the light is. There are other, better, ways of calculating the concept of GDP but there is a shortage of countable beans so they count what they can see rather than estimate what’s there.

          As bad as GDP is, and it’s very bad, it’s better than the various money supply measures.

      2. Everything that uses computer chips in particular is basically scarce right now and the use of such chips is so widespread, it is pretty much harming the entire tech industry, auto industry, etc.

        This is going to cause very widespread economic damage beyond what even the worst forecasts project.

        Oh, as an added “bonus” the materials used to make the chips is increasingly controlled by the CCP.

        2. Weirdly it’s not just high end chips. Really old boring stuff is as hard to get or harder than complex stuff. Wireless chips or embedded Arm cpus are sparse. Memory chips sparser. Boring old signal conditioners for USB lines. can’t even find enough to do a preliminary test production run (like 200) let alone the 5-10K a month for actual production. Some of these things are showing 30+ week lead times where normal would be 4-8 weeks.

          1. Most of the low end chips are fabricated on ‘hand me down’ 8 inch wafer lines; first introduced in 1992, which is an eternity ago in semiconductor dog years. I know from first hand experience that in the last decade 8″ fabs were only making money because they were fully depreciated (all the 8″ fabs in this country and many elsewhere had changed hands in bankruptcy several time). These businesses were at the bottom of the semiconductor supply chain, under constant cost pressure from customers and consequently had no incentive to do more than the necessary maintenance to keep them running. They were already running at capacity before demand spiked

            Moving these parts to modern 12″ wafer fabs is not a simple process. The design has to be updated to match the process differences and the resulting parts requalified (not a simple process if it is say an automotive part). Cycle time to do this is 12 to 18 months.

            2. This. The disposal of old fab lines, bumping the yet older generation equipment down another tier of suppliers, with rotating lithography turtles all the way down, is one of those ‘features’ of the semiconductor word that is not widely understood. The fact is, many of the chips that a traditional auto uses would be much happier being made on a previous generation large-feature-size fab line to help them avoid RF and EM noise issues. If you do;t need ultra-low-power and teeny-tiny-device sizes, you just want the most rock bottom cost per device that you can get.

                1. Feel free.

                  When they got to the geometries where they started talking about quantum tunneling being a regular thing to be accounted for in semiconductor design was when I realized it was just like all reality, turtles on top of turtles all the way down, and as it is well known that absent spinning no wafer would ever get processed, QED recursive rotating lithography turtles.

                  I am so glad I jumped off the semiconductor industry rollercoaster.

      3. I look at this as an opportunity. In the midterm elections, this can be used to remind voters to chose the cndidates that favor HOME manufacturing and sourcing.

        1. Why are you pretending next year’s ‘elections’ will mean anything? Have you been paying attention?

        3. Ignore the folks thinking they’re being clever by declaring things lost before they’re even fought.

          When the guys who are Democrat because it’s traditional are talking about switching their registration, and they had to do massive public cheating when they DIDN’T have to fix those guys as well, there is still a chance.

          Don’t quit, keep fighting.

          1. If the next round is not close they won’t have to cheat in plain sight. Do not underestimate the impact that has had. And if the next round is not close the other way, but a blowout, they simply can’t cheat hard enough.

            I understand the impact of the 4am crap on morale, but look at the House – they almost frigging lost the speakership because the emergency-backup-cheating didn’t extend down-ballot. And if that GA Senate seat had not gone to a runoff (which was an R own-goal) then dot-not-Black would not matter at all and Chucky would be irrelevant.

            Stay in the fight. Never give up. Never surrender. Make them do what they do in the full light of day.

    2. Some of the little stores have stuff they’ve been sitting on for years, now, they’re getting something out of it……

    3. The local Lowes normally sources its lumber from Canada or Ukraine, even though there are lumber mills a hundred miles away. Last week I paid almost $5 each for some 1x3x6s. But while the Canadian lumber tends toward “curly-fry” and the Ukrainian stuff it one step above firewood, the 1x3s were perfect; straight, clear-frained, and almost knot-free. Each had a large sticker saying “PRODUCT OF FINLAND.”

      That’s the first time I’ve seen that here. And yes, they were expensive… but given how much better they were than the previous Canuckistani boards, I actually felt I came out a bit ahead this time.

      I don’t know about Ukraine (mostly it seems to be mostly plywood, here), but Canada *does* know how to make proper lumber. But that’s not what is winding up on my local racks, for whatever reasons apply.

      1. Probably Troodeaoo (rhymes with voodoo) and the Libs are working with the Greens to Save the Old Growth Forests. And have put the best timber mills off-line because of the Canadian lock-downs. And are selling what IS milled to China, at least the good stuff. That would be my guess.

      2. I’d guess that Troodoo (rhymes with voodoo) and his Lib party are working with the Greens to “save the Old Growth forests.” And the lock-downs have shut down most mills and timber outfits. And that the good stuff is going to China. Those would be my guesses.

      3. Industry insights in article https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/news/woodworking-industry-news/woodworking-industry-wrestles-major-supply-disruptions

        At all levels of the supply chain, labor issues contribute and increase the disruptions.

        “Still the biggest challenge is labor,” said Thornberry from Powell Valley Millwork. “There are not enough people willing and able to work to produce our order file.”

        Thornberry blamed part of the problem on some of the stimulus spending and unemployment relief programs enacted by the federal government during the pandemic. “If could hire 20-30 people today, I would,” said Thornberry, who currently has a staff of 210 -215 people on board. “It’s just too enticing for people to stay home on unemployment. We’re competing regionally with other companies that offer initial hiring packages, and we’re competing with the federal government.”

        Ironically, Kip Howlett said the stimulus finding is a two-edged sword. While it has encouraged workers to stay home longer, it also has provided funds for people to feel enthusiastic about major home renovation or improvement projects.

        Bo Hammond from Collins Lumber sees a similar conflict between high demand for product, but a lack of labor to deliver the goods. “A market spike like we are seeing now with prices at this level normally encourages production to pick up, but current labor conditions are making it near impossible to staff extra production,” he said. “Meanwhile, pent up consumer spending is driving remodeling and furniture consumption creating backlogs among those manufacturers creating an insatiable need for hardwood.”

      4. The guy who helped me load my truck hadn’t known that the Canadian mills had shut down. He only knew that lumber prices have been jumping.

      5. I remember the first time I saw a box at Home Depot full of cheap wooden shelves- “Product of the Kingdom of Swaziland”. Swaziland exports stuff? Apparently so. The worldwide supply chain is indeed worldwide.

        1. From Swaziland? Really, I’d take a flyer on that, rather than another piece-o-crap from China…
          A couple of years ago, I bought a pair of wooden filing cabinets from Amazon. Which turned out to have been manufactured in Vietnam. And they were amazing; wonderful quality, and the instructions were comprehensive and detailed. All the bits were exhaustively labeled, and the units went together like a charm…

    4. The computer logistics chain is a mess, as well. My IT department has been told to hang onto “retired” computers instead of sending them back for disposal because there aren’t any guarantees that we can get new ones for new hires in anything resembling a timely manner.

    5. I talked to a couple of people at my local Lowe’s … and to some independent local contractors working in my neighborhood – and something about being stuck at home for long periods of time made a lot of people look very carefully at their home, and yard and think, “Hmm … I don’t like this: hey, what about sprucing it up a bit?” I did a pair of room renovations in my house. One neighbor had a whole outdoor pergola built, and a lot of people re-landscaped their yards.
      The Big Freeze in February made a lot of new plantings necessary in my neck of the woods. A lot of us lost plants, hedges and trees to the cold. We have since noticed that many items – bulbs, certain plants and supplies … aren’t to be had at any price.

      1. If by “a lot of people” you mean “everybody in the United States” then yes, you’re correct. 😀

        Demand skyrocketed at the same time that supply crashed. Go figure.

        I was looking at Lowes.com the other day and noticed that regular 7/16″ OSB was far more expensive than the fancy Huber ZIP System 7/16″ OSB with a fancy air/water barrier bonded to one face; I expect that’s because they’ve had the ZIP laying around in inventory.

        1. at Menards it is the Force Field that hasn’t jumped as high as normal OSB, but it is running $44/sheet but v. $53/sheet for normal OSB.

      2. One of the things that I did as an analysis for my marketing class was trends. And, one of the big trends I found was “nesting.” Short version-people are still unsure as to what will happen in terms of ability to go anywhere or do anything. A lot of people that could work from home discovered that they LIKED working from home and were making noises about quitting if their bosses made them come back to work again. Throw in a lot of people that discovered that they didn’t live at home…just kind of stayed there to sleep, maybe eat, and get out…

        Lots of contractors that are booked out for months as people fix up their houses. Plants are selling out when they come in at the local Home Depot and Walmart, and Mom and Dad are trying to get a new AC unit because they are trying to get ahead of the curve.

        Interesting times…

        1. > didn’t live at home

          That started becoming a thing in the early ‘oughts; “home” was just where you kept your toiletries, 97 pairs of shoes, and a few oddments. Otherwise, people “lived” at clubs, bars, or other people’s houses; they just returned “home” to clean up, sleep, and change clothes.

          I imagine there have always been people like that, but around that time it became a “new normal” instead of peculiar.

          1. I’ve known people that’s their lifestyle. It’s all about the Events for them-clubs, parties, that kind of thing. “Home” was where they showered, shaved, slept, shat, and did other things.

            It’s fun because a few of them have been stuck at home for the last sixteen months and they’ve gone a bit stir crazy…

        2. “Home is where you keep your stuff while you go out to get…more stuff.” — George Carlin

      3. Whereas here in the Northern Wastes, the garden supply department at my local Walmart is literally overflowing (last week a bunch of the green stock was out in the “brickyard” enclosure, there’s always some out there but this time it was packed to where you could barely walk); they get most of it from Bonnies, who have an in-state grower (and use deeper pots, so their stuff has better roots). Went from there to the local greenhouse and it was both overflowing and zoo’d up with customers; normally they shut down June 1st, but this year are staying open a month late. And they still had a good supply of the usually-rare, like hardy grapes. Ace’s new greenhouse (lost the old one to wind) was also flush. Found everything I wanted and a few I didn’t expect. Much better stock than usual for first of June (typically by now a lot of stuff is out of stock), but the timing was good for us…

        A lot of this is the late spring, I think, and delayed ordering (and probably some replantings up the line) — we had our last serious snow, as in winter-type snow-and-cold not just the usual first-of-summer spat, third week of May. (And you shoulda seen Cheyenne.)

        My own garden was planted a month later than last year; corn is just now up, usually by now it’s knee-high. Volunteer tomatoes are about two weeks later than normal. Volunteer peas, tho, are already producing. Volunteer potatoes are up but the planted ones are still just barely showing a crown. (Next season, I think I’m going to fall-plant the peas. And some of the potatoes and onions.) Strawberries are all blooming like mad and should have the first ripe in a couple weeks.

        The Nanking cherry never did bloom, in fact it didn’t even entirely leaf out (has chunks that look dead, but check the bark and nope, just dormant), and this thing is Zone 2 hardy. Wonder what it knows that we don’t…

        And we went directly from winter to 100F without troubling to have spring between, so didn’t get any rain you’d notice. Gonna be a tough year for them that don’t have irrigation.

        1. There’s a plant nursery visible from my backyard (if on a ladder or the trampoline.) A few weeks ago, when we were putting together a shed (and wasn’t that a shipping tale from hell), I noticed that the very large parking lot was so full that they had employees out in reflective vests directing traffic.

          Which is why I only go there on weekdays anyway. It’s a good store.

        2. Took a ride Thursday and a lot of the corn here is certainly not gonna be Knee High By July. We didn’t get the late snows locally, but our last subfreezing low was last Saturday, and most of the lows for May were in the mid to high 30’s and low 40’s

          1. Ha. Last year I had sweet corn =ready to eat= first week of July.

            Growing season has shrunk by about a month since I was my grandmother’s garden slave.

            1. The extended cold is from the anthropogenes, which are demons that the New Faith has empowered by the strength of their odd beliefs.

              The only way to fight this extended cold due to anthropogenes is by driving full size ICU SUVs, any ICU car with an engine displacement over 4.3 liters, and electric cars that use coal-fueled power plants to charge.

        3. “The Nanking cherry never did bloom, in fact it didn’t even entirely leaf out”

          Great metaphor for the virus

    6. It gets worse.

      Apparently during the Great Texan Blizzard a few major chemical plants froze solid. Do you have any idea how bad that is? MILES of piping that can’t be cleaned or disassembled because it is now just a steel wrapper around a cylinder of resin. It all has to be cut apart, disposed of, and replaced. They may as well build completely new plants.

      BTW hope you aren’t needing a whole lot of paint anytime soon.

      And then there is the factory that made A/C coils — the only one in the country — which had its roof collapse under the ice and destroyed a few of the coil making machines.

      1. While I’ve not had as big a rush for paint as I have in the past (some shake-ups before the nonsense cost me some sales to PPG and Valspar), I have had some large orders for the items I sell that are used in paint. We are selling more to Sherwin Williams and Dow, and luckily for us, the loss of Valspar and PPG sales, is offset by the higher margin of the versions we sell to S-W and Dow and an uptick, though slight, to Europe.

      2. Paint is another one, but we kinda expected it. Everytime there’s an issue with people being stuck at home more (rising unemployement for whatever reason) paint sells like crazy. Its a (fairly) inexpensive way to spruce up your house.

        But yah. A NORMAL paint delivery from Behr is 4-6 pallets of paint. The height of the shutdown? We had a 17 pallet delivery. We’re back down closer to normal now, but the shelves are pretty damn bare in that dept.

    7. Just bought $400 worth of wood for two garden beds, roughly 2’x12′. Only redwood on the bottom layer. 2×6 sides (four deep, because I’m having to barrier off the ground pretty thoroughly due to Bermuda grass.) 2x4s for the uprights, and 2x2s for the top trellis. $400. That’s what I get for needing to get these built now (my poor, poor tomatoes.) At least I can wait on the rest of the garden, since I have to mattock and level it anyway.

      (Yes, only two feet wide. It’s difficult to access tomatoes in the middle of four foot beds.)

  7. Dear Sarah,

    Please don’t hold back. Tell us what you Really Think! [Crazy Grin]

    1. No, no… if she lets it all out too quickly she won’t have any energy for when she needs to go berserk…

  8. > You’re going to believe a single word they say EVER AGAIN?
    …
    You’re going to surrender your liberties to these “benevolent” overlords again?
    —-
    They *still* believe it. They drank the Kool-Aid, their whole self-image is committed.

    As far as liberties… they don’t even *understand* liberties. They do what they’re told, as they were programmed to from preschool. If they obey, they won’t get in trouble. It’s how their world works.

    The way you think, the things that you see, what bothers you… you’re not just alien, you are a visible threat to their peace of mind and the stability of their way of life. You are *wrong* just by existing. “Welcome to pink-monkey-land…”

    1. I honestly can’t see a path to admitting wrongness for a lot of folks, particularly the ones I know Back Home. Self-image is committed, including what they believe about being A Good Person, A Smart Person, and A Well-Informed Person. There will be nothing that can pull them off of how they were Heroically Saving the World by Staying Home. They gave up too much for it to be a mistake.

      (On the other hand, if things get too hard to deny I’m wondering if the soul has kind of an override where you can just… skip over Everything You Thought Last Year, compartmentalize it, and move on to incorporation of the new information that way?)

      (I hope not, because leaving all the mental software that left this possible in place can only be Really Bad.)

      1. Road to Damascus conversions?

        I think that’d be the overwrite sort of deal. And it can happen. Whether or not it can happen to enough people, though, that’s another question.

      2. Milan Kundera (? one of the novelists behind the Iron Curtain) actually described something like that happening in the Communist-controlled countries.

      3. A lot of people are know are beginning to warn that the end of the pandemic is going to cause a mental health crisis among people who don’t know how to return to normalcy, or who discover that they were wrong and can’t handle the mental shear. I… hope they’re wrong, and don’t think they are. :/

        2. Well, I’ve been warning for years of serious consequence (via the mechanisms of mental health) for failing to kill off the stoners.

          I could simply be insane.

          We are talking about human behavior here, in the aggregate. With unusual stresses. All of our mental models are based on historical information, back in the older circumstances. Which means that if behaviors shifts due to the new circumstances, our mental models cannot predict the shift.

          Anticipating stuff is reasonable. But, philosophically, we should try to avoid despairing when our mental models tell us of unavoidable problems.

      4. (On the other hand, if things get too hard to deny I’m wondering if the soul has kind of an override where you can just… skip over Everything You Thought Last Year, compartmentalize it, and move on to incorporation of the new information that way?)

        Nothing to wonder; the average “normal” person’s thought process is most closely comparable to 1984. None of those techniques could work for even a second if people weren’t already doing it.

  9. But…but… H10N3! Handguns! White insurrectionists! THEORETICAL Republicans in Congress! Kathleen Kennedy! Policemen interfering with ethnically appropriate knife fights! Nobody watching Joe Biden! SOMEBODY has to putativelyaccept our servitude! There must be SOME elite betters somewhere who will receive our fealty, if we’re just the right party, gender choice, approved ethnicity…

    Wait, we’re not approved? Oh, well, fights on, then.

      1. Yes. This.

        The idea that we can move forward without destroying the enemy seems naive. And no, I don’t know what that looks like yet.

        1. I’m going to come across as unduly optimistic. A LOT of the Leftist Viewpoint came about because women are strongly influenced by their surrounding peer group. For most women, that is:
          – Family
          – School Friends, and,
          – Work Associates
          Well, a significant number of Work Associates are down the tubes. Women either lost their jobs, or had to leave them, due to problems with child care. What that did is take a significant chunk of the middle class females, and leave them at home.
          Where they proceeded to do what women often do – nest.
          They tried Life in the Slow Lane, and generally LIKED it. So much so, that many are no longer planning to return to outside employment. Many have either adjusted their budget to accommodate the change, or have started a home business/work at home employment.
          Which means what?
          They are no longer surrounded during most of their waking hours with Leftist-thinking women. They learned that teaching kids is not that difficult, for the most part. They learned that, when kids don’t have to deal with the Middle-School B$, they relax and most of those tics and acting-out go away.
          Many people have looked at the antics of AntiFa and BLM and the associated hangers-on, and put their near-the-city home up for sale. If you own a home further out, you likely could sell it for top dollar.
          Of course, then you’d have to PAY top dollar for one to replace it.
          We’re in that process – we’ll still keep the home in the South, for the winter. But, we’re looking at a home outside of the city our kids live in, with some room for my business, and close enough to good medical care.
          Really, other than that, almost all our needs can be met – online, locally, or with periodic trips to the nearest large shopping places for ‘provisions’.
          Like my ancestors did. Well, except for the online.
          We have the capability to ‘hunker down’ and outwait the Leftist Forces. We can ally with neighbors to protect our places. We can escape The Elite’s drive to indoctrinate our children.
          Time is on our side. As the truth comes out about the Leftist plots, they will find that our attention span, and our memories, are not as short as they would hope.
          So, yeah, I’m optimistic.

          2. Many have either adjusted their budget to accommodate the change, or have started a home business/work at home employment.

            Or found out what their kids were being not-taught, and how much nonsense it involved…. K, HSLDA does a thing where they send out “here is a problem we helped people with, be a member!” type things.

            For the last like year or so, it’s been “schools utterly fail to do their basic job and then try to punish the parents when they have no freaking authority, HSLDA gently called up and said in Lawyer Voice that they should read X, Y and Z regulation, and the school agreed then said sorry.”

  10. Wish I had something more helpful to add. It looks like I’m going to at least be able to get out of debt; after that it’s anybody’s guess what will happen next. My Magic 8-Ball keeps giving me dead air….

  11. Honestly, I did think this was going to be worse than it was, and was not sure on masks. But I also tried to let people make their own choices, and chose their own level of risk.

    So much of this was about risk assessment, but so many people just acted like it was a binary black/white situation only.

    And, at the time, I had not seen how deep the rot went. Honestly, I’m not even sure I have seen how deep the rot goes now, and I’m afraid I still haven’t. :/

    1. It was always completely strange how any attempt to discuss risk assessment was just a justification for killing Grandma.

      wait, strange? I meant completely and retardedly evil >.<

      1. Yeah. I wonder if it is a cause or a result of safetism?

        When all this was ramping up, based on what I was reading, I figured I was probably going to die from it. I’m in several of the high risk groups and always had lung issues. But, as much as I really would like to live forever, I’ve also learned that some times bleep happens and that’s it. And, there are worse fates too.

        And initially we did do the full quarantine from geandma, because she was also in a high risk group, but even there, we saw it was doing more harm than good to her and her granddaughter, so we just became one “unit” instead.

        It feels like so many people were so sure they were right that they could not change course.

        I guess that’s also a little bit of the church thing too. One of the Orthodox doctrines is to have humility in one’s beliefs. Basically, just because you believe it, and are trying with all your heart to do good, doesn’t mean you will always get it right. So that’s a thing 🙂

        1. “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”–Oliver Cromwell, letter to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland (3 August 1650)

          1. I need to actually go read through what all was going on there. It is a great line, I just don’t know enough about the events of the English Civil War to know what was actually happening under the hood.

            1. If I remember the vague brushes correctly, that line was the best thing he ever did.

              Many many much nasty to go around.

      2. And many grandmas died anyways. Which, in my more conspiracy minded moods, I think was part of the plan.

        1. I’m very firmly of the opinion that just as many grandmas died as would have died had we done officially nothing.

          Because virus gonna virus.

          1. That is certainly possible. OTOH, the fact so many governments banned HCQ and Ivermection outright feeds the conspiracy.

            1. NY mandated that nursing homes take COVID patients. NY also has been dealing with a massive budget shortfall driven by Medicaid expenditures.

              My brain still largely hooks to it being a pileup of stupid, but can’t completely dismiss the concept of solving one problem with another.

              1. Honestly the left is like Cersei Lannister. It’s going to fuck up, cause chaos, be incompetent at absolutely everything except gaining more power, do stuff that utterly baffles outsiders because it makes NO FUCKING SENSE to anyone but themselves, all well patting themselves on the back telling themselves what political geniuses they are. Meanwhile the small folk are just wondering how they’re going to get their next meal and trying not to be consumed by the creeping chaos.

              2. You forgot the word “and”. They act out of both stupidity and maliciousness.

              4. The 30h worker requirements also meant that a lot of nursing homes were sharing staff, so they didn’t breach the 30h limit and have to provide the state mandated benefits for full time employees, So, if one nursing home got it, all of them got it.

                Pretty much the one area the lockdowns could have helped, and they screwed it up entirely.

              5. Cuomo is just a lucky sperm, but his father wasn’t actually the sharpest knife in the drawer either. Don’t matter. This is New Yawk and everything in NY politics is easily understood. Just follow the money. The NY nursing home and hospital chain owners are large Cuomo donors and the Cuomo policy was the most profitable path for them, Cui Bono? In a similar way, DiBlasio’s big real estate developer backers snapped up huge piles of property at fire sale prices. Cui Bono? Now this has gone on for centuries in NYC, but it used to be honest graft, now it’s killing people and nothing will happen because they’re all crooked and they’re all in on it.

              6. Don’t forget Cuomo pulled his mother out of her nursing home before the regulations went into effect. That says premeditation to me.

                  1. Oh yes, you’re referring to the ever stunning Richard/Rachel Levine. He/she did such an outstanding job of mass murder, that they were promoted to the President Witless administration.

                  2. That would be “Rachel” Levine… who’s now Assistant Secretary of Health for the US under the China Joe maladministration.

                    Surprising probably no one here, the nomination and confirmation spawned a whole lot of MiniTru articles about how Brave And Stunning(tm) Levine was as the first trans secretarial appointment, but not a word how Levine’s deliberate actions caused the deaths of thousands of elderly people, or how Levine used the PA SecHealth position to benefit close family.

            2. I believe those bans were only in the US by state governments. Other countries around the world, even in Europe, seem to be utilizing other treatments more than we are.

              Everyone I know who has had it has received the same instructions:
              1. Go home.
              2. Isolate as much as possible from others.
              3. If it gets worse, go to the ER.
              with the instated but very true: 4. Where we’re not going to do anything anyway that might actually be useful.

              1. Except in Italy, where (3) was “If it gets worse, and you’re over 70, tough shit. Doctors and hospitals won’t let you in.”

                1. Or have existing conditions.

                  Including stuff that isn’t life threatening, just means you need a little more medical care.

            1. You could calculate some of how many were killed by deliberate medical neglect by looking at the jump in deaths-at-home when New York put in the order that you had to be revived before you could be hauled to the ER.

              1. sounds a lot like the UK’s “keep them in the ambulance so they don’t die while in the waiting room” when they were mandated to see people within a set time of getting in the waiting room.

              2. A lot also died because the hospitals stopped doing ‘elective’ procedures. Most folks think that means ‘optional’, like cosmetic surgery, but what it really means is ‘you probably won’t die if you don’t get it RIGHT NOW’.

                700,000 patients were not allowed to schedule their cancer therapies. A lot of other people with serious medical conditions couldn’t get treated until they became critical — at which point it was mostly too late. And then they were counted as ‘COVID19 deaths’ to justify keeping the country shut down.

                The assholes-in-charge have a LOT to answer for. Not that they ever will.
                ———————————
                There are forms of stupidity that businesses can’t indulge in. There are no such limitations on the stupidity of government.

                1. As I’ve mentioned before, we had a family friend who had his “you have a 50% chance of living to the set date” heart surgery canceled.

                  His wife was able to terrify them into doing it anyways, and he has recovered…but what about places that don’t have the same fear of That Nice Lady Who Is Now Pissed? Or people who didn’t have a pocket Valkyrie?

                2. Note that one of those 700,000 was Larry Correia’s wife Bridget. Thanks be to God that she still got treated in time.

      1. More like “let’s hide our role in helping the CCP develop a biological weapon.”

      2. Newsweek is still doing fear porn for NEXT fall/winter. Words fail me.

          1. Years ago they were decent. Better than Time because they had a few more conservative writers. But that all went down the tubes.

            1. What are these ‘tubes’ everything keeps going down? Can we plug them up? 😛

              1. I wouldn’t suggest it. Plug them up and everything that SHOULD go down backs up into your toilet.

            2. Tim was a picture book for years, and not worth reading otherwise. Newsweek lost any good reason to exist when one need not wait a couple weeks to get in depth coverage of events. They went full Pravda to try to survive

              1. I read Time weekly growing up in the 60’s starting at age 8 or so. I had my own subscription after college but cancelled it when the published an editorial claiming that the environmental movement was so important it trumped objective reporting. My current Wall Street Journal subscription is about to go the same way.

              2. On the other hand, while I wouldn’t consider them honest reporters, Newsweek has in the past few years started publishing stuff that didn’t give the left a virtual hummer.

                Naturally, this has caused many in the commentariat to accuse them of being shills for the right (far, alt, or whatever).

  12. I think on some level they believe in their own superiority so much they believe they can drive things into complete chaos and are delusional enough to assume that they can restore order with them in charge after. They want to be seen as saviors so much that they are willing to destroy society to make it happen.

    To them it’s all worth it because they think they’ll create a utopia and be remembered forever as heroes.

    1. They will, because they have absolute control of (mis) information. You notice that North Korea does not have revolutions. Not only that, but they have huge support from the younger generations, because they are evil and so are the people from those generations.

      1. It’ll result in less control. They are actively trying to kill energy production. Control of the flow of information won’t do much good when there is no information flowing. They’re also perfectly willing to kill oil production with no thought to how food will be grown, transported, processed, or stored.

        Whether they will let things go quite that far or not has been one of my big questions because if they follow through with everything they want, things will look a lot like early last century and there are going to be a lot of bodies needing to be buried. They don’t understand anything and have no chance of fixing anything because they have no idea how anything works. At least outside of listening to what their paid social engineers tell them to say when they are in front of the camera.

        1. Point your Wayback Mackine to the late 1930s and the Depression. The Fed got its tentacles into agriculture, labor, and production then, and they had their Nazi-style public works organizations, and control over food and housing for maybe 20% of the population. The Raw Deal was a power junkie’s dream, the good old days, the way things *ought* to be, dammit! But that traitor Truman dropped the ball, and then the Republicans got in, and it all went to pieces.

          The Green New Deal, the Great Reset… they’re just visions of where they’d be now, if they hadn’t had those unfortunate setbacks. It’s their creation myth, their Golden Age. It was theirs, dammit, and they want it *back*.

        2. “It’ll result in less control. ”
          Yes. This all feels like it’s building up to something, something ugly very likely violent. Like Larry Correa’s metaphor of flipping a switch. Sorry if this sounds like shilling for Trump or hopium but I have to wonder if this is why he walked away so easily in January. I think he could he started a Civil War with the power and support he had at the time, but he knew the violence would have been “all his fault” better to sit back, allow the left to fuck itself over by visibly holding the bag when their shit plans turn to just shit. One of the articles Sarah links to in the “I told you so!”s points out that Trump is saying that since the evidence points to the virus being man-made should be considered an act of war from China makes any lesser response from Biden & co look weak and piss off the American people.

          1. I was an early Trump skeptic, and recall I was similarly a skeptic that Trump would properly follow through on the boog in December/January.

            Some of the confidence I have now is that the cheating shows that the American people mostly have the right instincts, and think there is a good chance many will pick the right time and place to move. This belief is not wrong to have.

            It is not wrong to suspect that Trump may prove to be one of the many.

            It’d be one thing if you were all ‘trust the plan’, and ‘sit on your rear waiting for Trump to come riding on a white horse to save us all’.

            There is stuff appropriate for us to be doing right now. Such as distrusting the lies of the left, communists, Democrats and PRC assets. If you are doing what you should be doing, it does not matter if you are trusting someone else to do what they ought to do. Just do not set yourself up for despair in your trust of others.

        1. shit I meant to ban the little wart. I might not be able to today because I need to shower and go meet friends (I’ve been sanding all day.) HOWEVER kindly beat the pathetic troll with sticks for me, until I get around to banning him.

          1. Maybe we should just keep him and make him the honorary pinata around here. Every blog needs one.

      3. North Koreans are also malnourished, most of the population, which causes cognitive damage as well as physical stunting. And they know very well what will happen if they disobey. And they lost the tradition of individuals fighting back against oppression at least two generations ago. Nice try, Ken. Although I agree wit you on the “the government is evil” part.

      4. Let’s see. 1) North Koreans are malnourished and that leads to cognitive development problems as well as physical stunting. 2) North Koreans have not had a tradition of individual resistance to government or self-organization since 1948, possibly earlier depending on how close you were to the Japanese occupying forces that moved in in 1910. 3) North Koreans have limited access to back-channels for information. 4) There is no armed general population in North Korea.

        I do agree that the NorK government is evil, though.

        1. North Korea is also a parasite nation. It extorts necessary goods through threats (and other nation’s pity for it’s starving masses) and the regime funds itself by such charming activities as cooking up drugs and counterfeiting foreign currency. If the rest of the world sealed it off completely its people would rebel or starve to death.

      5. Let us take this line by line, shall we?

        They will, because they have absolute control of (mis) information.

        There are several ways for this to be wrong, and you have achieved all of them.

        1. They do not have absolute control of the sources of misinformation, because sometimes misinformation from other factions slips through.

        2. They do not have absolute control of the sources of misinformation, because sometimes a little reality slips through.

        3. They do not have absolute control of the sources of information, because in that world no one ever saw the suitcase video. Or the videos of the Hero of Kenosha, just to name two.

        You notice that North Korea does not have revolutions.

        Country with no relation to ours in any way shape or form beyond “thar be humans in them thar hills” doesn’t do something and has no history of doing it. Therefore we cannot do something, despite having a close cultural connection to it. i r smrt

        Also no one has ever escaped from north korea. Ever.

        Not only that, but they have huge support from the younger generations, because they are evil and so are the people from those generations.

        Cute. I do hope you are old enough to fit the Boomer age profile. Because with your mindset the only other group you could possibly be is a Millennial.

        Meanwhile in the real world it is the younger generations who have most loudly said FUCK NO to the shit sandwiches being shoved down their throats. Part of the reason why the left sees enemies behind every door; because they still feel the shard of the gamer-blade in their gut.

        If anything the problem we face with the younger ones is to make sure they can see hope. Otherwise they might turn into losers like you.

        1. Yeah, there is a lot of good in the younger cohorts, but I could definitely stand to role model better behavior.

      6. I watched part of an interview of Yeonmi Park the other day.

        North Koreans don’t even have a word for revolution. They don’t have a word for freedom, or liberty, according to her.

        That’s the level of evil I’m seeing in America today–hatred and power lust so deep that they’ll change the language to their fellow humans can’t even imagine getting free.

        Death by systematic dismemberment is too good for this kind.

      7. North Korea is full of historically-compilant peasants, who have learned that the only way they can continue to eat is to say nice things about Fatboy Kim, lest the well-fed assholes with guns come around and teach them a nasty lesson.

        The U.S. is full of historically-prickly rednecks who when confronted by assholes with edicts, react with “Oh yeah? Try and make me.” And then proceed to teach the assholes the limits of their power.

        Don’t mistake the compliant types in Blue cities, who think the world ends at the city limits and are waiting for the wolf to eat them last, for normal Americans. And don’t mistake a tiny, uniform, and easy-controlled country like North Korea for the lumpy stew of wide-open every-which-thing that is America. Note too that American skepticism about the mainstream news has climbed past 50% across the board, per the last poll I saw, and it’s hardly in their interests to admit that.

        1. Note too that American skepticism about the mainstream news has climbed past 50% across the board, per the last poll I saw, and it’s hardly in their interests to admit that.
          –
          Exactly. Who watches news these days? Let alone politicians or polls? I mean it is known politicians open mouth, out comes lies, filthy lies depending on who is actually talking. Trump, first isn’t a politician, second you could tell when he was forced to not tell the truth or at least not the whole truth (he’s lousy at it) usually because national security, too soon, or downplay. Polls, please … who is paying for the poll and what are the results wanted … what are you going to believe, what you see and hear or what the polls tell you? News? Anymore most are politicians. What issues out of politician-news is lies, for the most part. There are a few that in retrospect can be relied to point back and say I-told-you-so, but most of them are commentators not news “readers”, and willing to admit when they get any part of their research and commentating wrong.

          FYI. Numbers must be so bad on skepticism on mainstream news for them to admit that it has climbed past 50% across the board. That they can’t cherry pick better numbers. No matter how they manipulate the statistics. I’m surprised they didn’t just change the subject like normal … oh wait … they have because their credibility poll results have dropped out of sight.

  13. I thought you were crazy for making such a big deal over “two weeks to flatten the curve”, but obviously I was wrong about that.

    It’s amazing how quickly that morphed into “stay closed until no one gets sick again, ever”, with no one apparently noticing.

    1. I noticed. Sarah noticed. From comments I’ve seen from many here who are also on Facebook- I suspect the majority of people who hang out here noticed.

      Even ordinary people noticed- but believed the media who lied and proclaimed it was necessary.

    2. It was an op. The facts were laid out here last year as they happened. A. bunch of Silicon Valley bros put up a website and sent a letter to every state and local government with a copy of the UW projections that Gates had paid for. This essentially told every politician that if you don’t ship it down now x number of people in your constituency will die and you’ll be blamed. This resulted in the rolling shutdowns. Ferguson at Imperial London, was used to the same effect in Europe, he’s back by the way telling the same story about “variants”. Within three weeks we found that the estimates were complete nonsense, remember the two million dead in the US by last summer, but then we here also knew that was BS because of Diamond Princess. So, it was an op. Gates and the tech bros were big in it. The only outstanding question for me is how much China was involved.

      What we need to do is bear witness and not let the facts be lost.

    2. There’s a great big new bug-processing plant being built in Canada (Ontario, I seem to remember) to produce bug-meal for the food industry. I’m not sure if it is a con (the Canadian government is paying some of the start-up costs through grants and some awards) or serious.

      1. I wonder if they’ve considered how they’re going to feed the bugs, as these schemes don’t seem to have noticed the rapacious appetites of all the bugs big enough to actually eat, and that grow fast enough to have a “sustainable” crop. I’d guess growing enough locusts to replace beef for just one week would require that said locusts denude the entire continent at the peak of production, leaving literally nothing for anything else to eat. (And that’s an educated guess based on having seen a couple of actual plagues of locusts. Well, grasshoppers.)

        One wit I argued this point with said they’ll feed ’em processing waste from veggies. Apparently with zero idea that bugs like to eat fresh food TOO, and have little interest in dried-out or rotten byproducts, at least not til you get to termites and maggots. And that this deprives the soil of what would normally be plowed back into it.

        Also, what are they going to do with all the bug poop? and the escapees?? I know what happened when someone grew rats for a movie, and they got out… I got to live in the zone of the subsequent rat plague.

        Also, I wonder what they’ll do when they realize that confined bugs STINK.

        Yep, methinks this is just venture capital vulturism.

        1. The piece I read (CBC for what that’s worth) said they had to go to the Subcontinent (South Asia) to find the proper bugs, but didn’t go into detail on the care and feeding.

            1. That, more than anything, might be the vector to use to put a stop to this idiocy — because bugs ALWAYS get loose. Get some envirowhack on the warpath about it… one who is not in a position to do the usual sue-the-government, then be put in charge of “mitigation”. (*cough* wolf introduction *cough*)

        2. Like Solyndra. There’s never a shortage of cronies who’ll line up for government pelf, results be damned. Their bank account is bigger: that is the result they were looking for!

        3. “(And that’s an educated guess based on having seen a couple of actual plagues of locusts. Well, grasshoppers.)”

          Apparently the Rocky Mountain Locust (the one in the Little House books and most of the 19th century) is a grasshopper. Until it hits a certain population level, which switches it into locust mode.

          You know why we haven’t had any locust plagues in 20th and 21st century USA? Because apparently farming in their natal valleys has taken the population down to the point where the switch simply doesn’t get turned on.

          1. They lay their eggs in the soil. Plow it any time between fall laying and spring hatching, and you’ve killed most of those eggs. (Maybe all of them in the plowed ground.)

            They do occasionally spawn in literal thick clouds (the ground appears to sort of HEAVE as you walk through the horde) but I gather not like they used to. And more localized, not everywhere at once.

            Had a barn cat kill herself over-indulging on grasshoppers… she just could not resist hunting and eating ’em, and the chitin shell is NOT digestible.

            1. Correct. We don’t have the massive waves of locusts sweeping across the country like were reported in the 1800s. Or clobbered Africa, South Asia, and parts of China in 2019-20.

        4. “I wonder if they’ve considered how they’re going to feed the bugs.”
          Pfft I really doubt anytime of math, reason or thought process went into this other than “Bugs are everywhere in large numbers right? And they have tons of protein, so we can just have the plebs eat the bugs and destroy the icky greedy meat industry and save the Earth yay!”

          1. Yep – bet anything you like that this was their thought process.
            Sorry, not going to eat bugs. I’ll go vegetarian first.

            1. They are just working their way towards their ultimate “sustainable” food – Soylent Green.

            2. Not vegetarian – Humanitarian.

              BBQ works for pig — Short or Long! 😎

            3. I would go cannibal first, not that leftists are all that human. 😁

                1. Well-cooked. Wouldn’t want to catch whatever they had!

                  BTW where did I see that someone got a nasty parasite from eating a raw random bug? trouble with consuming parasites adapted to another species is that said parasite might not know how to behave inside a human, and then you get things like… oh, roundworms that take a wrong turn end up in your eyes. (Yes, this really happens.)

                  I don’t particularly have anything against eating bugs. Fried ants can be delicious. I have a shitload of everything against being told I *must* eat bugs because they’re taking away the far more nature-friendly and sustainable meat industry, which mostly uses land not good for anything else. (Try growing crops, or even trees bigger than scrub juniper, on the marginal land that supports the vast majority of cattle and sheep. I’ll wait.)

                  Oh yes, and what do you plan to replace wool and leather with? cotton? oh, but that’s a thirsty crop, can’t have that. Linen? also thirsty, and most of us would be going naked. Polyester? what’s that about not wanting any petroleum industry?? Maybe hemp? Hair shirts for everyone!

                    2. I never could quite watch Angela Lansbury the same way I did before I watched that play.

                      And that was after the Manchurian Candidate. 🙂

          2. I think there’s a lot more focus on the humiliation aspect. The rest of it is mostly rationalization.

            1. They want to go back to the medieval days with food and clothing rules for the lower orders vs. those for the better sorts.

              1. > They want to go back to the medieval days …

                You could have stopped right there and been perfectly accurate.

    1. Same reason he’s fluffed so many other scientism memes and other liberal fare like the “it’s not censorship if a corporation deletes you”

      1. “it’s not censorship if a corporation deletes you”

        But if a private company doesn’t want to pay for your abortifacient drugs or bake your gay wedding cake well that’s Fascism and we need to force them to comply!

      2. Or the global warming panic porn.
        1) conflating increasing atmospheric CO2 with increasing global temperature is what you need to *prove*, not a proxy.
        2) recent decades of glacial core samples will necessarily have higher gas levels in general than samples that have spent centuries being compressed by unimaginable amounts of pressure.
        3) samples taken in a single location can be extrapolated globally only in very limited circumstances.

        He’s put out a lot of entertaining stuff, but that was pure propaganda. (And extremely effective propaganda, I have to admit.)

      3. If an online forum or social media site is openly about a certain point of view, then moderating in accordance with that point of view is fair play, whether that point of view is hard left, or John-Birch right, or sad-puppy science fiction, or fluffy-bunny Gaia worship, or…

        What’s wrong and shouldn’t be allowed is fraud about welcoming all “reasonable” points of view and then applying a hard partisan line about what is or isn’t “reasonable” – and then lying (both to themselves and others) about being partisan. Or when the “private” groups are acting as defacto government agents acting under government direction, even (especially!) when the government is being informal or confidential about issuing its directions.

        1. Problem is there is a difference between a forum intended for a single topic, whether it politics, hobbies, or something else and a general forum like the current bigs. Same with a small local bank vs Mastercard or Visa

          1. Not quite. If it’s, say, ostensibly just a knitting forum but actually a knitting-and-regular-two-minute-hates-against-Trump forum, then it’s in the wrong, just as much as the current bigs. And while a general-topics forum will usually claim to welcome all “reasonable” points of view, it is possible to have a general-topics forum that’s openly intended only for an audience with a particular point of view.

  16. Despicable Kate Brown may not be quite so stupid as Polis, but she’s bound and determined to have the most extreme “protection racket regimen” on the Left Coast. She has a picture of herself on the governor’s web page. Looking at that picture with *that* smile, I get the distinct feeling that on a nearby bookshelf, there’s a copy of To Serve Man. Her pushing the Vaxx Passport has even leftwing county commissioners objecting. I don’t believe they are in fear of getting de-elected; that hasn’t been much of a factor since vote-fraud by mail was introduced. I think some are listening to their sense of survival.

    Mask edicts are in place, both under the “Health Authority” and OR-OSHA. If a business gets caught, it’s a $8900 fine, and they don’t care that A) the science says it’s BS, B) The CDC says nope, and C) everybody the non-Karens hate the edicts.

    FWIW, 7/16″ OSB is holding steady at our HD at $62 a sheet. That’s holding steady since early May. Old production (before crazyness) came from Roseburg, OR, now it’s somewhere in Canada. I just saw copper wire prices last week. Ouch.

    1. I’ve been wondering if the knives came out for Saint Tony so that the die hard lockdown blue state governors can justifying keeping their lockdowns going by saying ‘its clear that white supremacists have taken over the CDC and we can’t trust it’? Crazy, huh?

      1. Sundance at CTH figures that the Wuhan Lab release (and hypovehiculating of St. Fauci) is to distract from something even more damaging. Which items aren’t clear; the gain-of-function funding with Fauci’s involvement is part of it, but even the probability that it was an intentional release of something with the usual signs of PRC production quality might not be all.

        I’m going to polish my tinfoil hat and just note that the push for the not-really-a-vaccine is pretty strong, with purported justifications not passing the smell test. Yeah, some of the warnings are bull, but others make you go hmmm.

        1. SOME of the push to vaccinate is that they have to get people vaccinated before the natural ebb and flow of disease puts the “Need a Vaccine” meme to be exposed as a straight-out lie.

    2. Another cause of all the craziness in lumber prices comes from the globalists/global warming fanatics. Forests all over the world are being held out of harvesting as carbon sex to prevent the nonexistent global warning. For example Norway takes money from its massive oil production and pays it to Third World countries to prevent logging in their forests thus sequestering carbon.All a complete scam as men caused global warming is a myth established as part of the groundwork for a global Marxist State.

        2. I believe your initial typo was correct. Forests kept unharvested are not carbon sinks, but they are carbon sex that gives the warmists a woody.

        3. Trees haven’t been carbon sinks since bacteria evolved lignase 200 million years ago.

      2. I’m told that a lot of smaller sheet goods mills were in trouble after the 8 Summers of Recovery. They were starting to do better under Trump, until Covidiocy smashed them completely.

        Supply issues would be a challenge, too. Harder to get wood chips with poor logging, especially with such wonderful people in the logging states’ governments. Sorry about the sarcasm drip.

        1. I suspect all the people who got wood pellet stoves to save money to heat their house will have sticker shock this upcoming fall.

        2. Some optimistic news from Zerohedge (for once): futures prices for softwoods are starting to drop. Curiously, if a price is too high for something, people tend to avoid buying it. Haven’t seen evidence of TPTB understanding that, lately.

          Link: https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/lumber-prices-slump-historic-boom-may-be-easing

          Don’t celebrate too soon. Same article says retail prices might stay high through the end of the year. OTOH, I can see a lot of deferred projects already.

          1. On the other hand, the China Joe maladministration is talking about doubling tariffs on Canadian soft lumber, backdating the hike to 2019.

            A cynical (or realistic, take your pick) view is that looking to bump up housing prices even higher is considered a feature, in order to prime the figurative pump for a “housing crisis” whose solution requires… yep, more government programs and money, and more “fair share” taxes (from which the leftist higher-ups are more or less insulated).

  17. I’m still remaining optimistic. Mostly because it’s the only thing I can do right now. More writing. Lots more writing. Advertising. Getting my resume out there more. In stage two of my home office rebuild. Saving money. Getting stuff fixed as I can, when I can. Doing more purging of the storage unit for an eventual move into a smaller unit.

    Realizing that I can only do so much. But, I will do everything that I can.

    That the people in charge of us are fools. And, I have no respect for them whatsoever. None.

    That I can still feel terrible for someone-and despise them as well.

    Chin up, eyes open, fingers crossed, and tap the bottom of the mag when you load. In some ways, we’ve been overdue for bad times.Wouldn’t want to wish them on anyone, but we’re here now. Tine to fight out way out of this hole.

    1. I’m focusing on resting, recovering, writing, and planning for the next school year, because teaching kids real history and thinking skills is going to be even more important.

    2. I’m with you. We’re not lefty misery merchants. We’re Americans. We see hard times ahead. We shoulder our responsibilities and move forward.

      We take care of our friends.

      1. Being a lefty misery merchant is easy.

        And, when have I ever done anything that was easy?

        (Okay, shopped at Whole Foods. But their store brand of butter shortbread cookies are like crack cocaine…)

        1. Whole Foods is a huge trigger warning for me. I don’t dare get hooked on any of their most delicious goods.

          1. Try going to Sprouts – a very nice organic-oriented market without the horribly high prices of Whole Foods. Just as socially-conscientious, though – but not nearly as obnoxious, and a way bit cheaper. Also, the local Sprouts in our neighborhood is OK about maskless. The sign at the door says “recommended” but not obligatory.
            Note – went and sold a bassinet at a local kid resale shop today. They were perfectly OK with being maskless. The on-duty staff members agreed with me – personal choice. Not a thing to have a cow about.

            2. But the Karens WANT to have a cow. It’s what they live for. That glorious opportunity to heap Virtuous Abuse on somebody and bask in their own self-importance.

            3. Be very tempting if they weren’t just far enough away that any savings I’d get would be lost in gas prices.

              Considering the migration from San Francisco, they might be opening one up around here sometime soon.

            4. Great store, Sprouts. We have one right down the street. That might be an option, thanks.

                1. I didn’t want to shame the suggestion, but I’ll never shop in Sprouts. Not ever.

                  It’s a great store for communists. The people there would stuff us into lockable muzzles for eternity, and make us swear fealty to BLM in order to check out.

                  I learned about Sprouts in California. Lots of us wouldn’t shop there, for those reasons. And that was years ago.

                2. And I say “not ever” knowing that QFC, Fred Meyer, Trader Joe’s, and Safeway are nearly the same anymore. So, it may have to be the lesser of the evils eventually.

          2. I don’t go shopping at Whole Foods unless it’s for something on sale. Otherwise, our local chain supermarkets are about as good and reasonably priced. That, and a good shopping trip at Safeway can get me up to $0.20 off per gallon of gas, that that takes to about $3.90 a gallon.

  18. “You’re going to believe a single word they say EVER AGAIN?”

    After the way they’ve banned HCQ and Ivermectin in Canada?

    Also, there’s this thing here to consider: https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/what-happens-when-doctors-cant-speak

    You won’t really be able to trust your doctor going forward. They’ll probably -want- to help you. People do, even in the worst circumstances. But it won’t be a safe bet that what they’re telling you is the best thing for you. It’ll be what they’ve been ordered to say is the best thing by some gender studies major. This is already true in Canada, doctors have been ordered to toe the Party line or have their credentials revoked. And you better believe they are lining up like good little public employees.

    2. In my local area, the independent GP is pretty much not-a-thing. The handful who are left haven’t taken any new patients in at least a decade. They’re mostly employees of hospitals or “practice management” corporations now, though there are still a handful of partnerships which I don’t think are going to be around too much longer.

      My doc is in his 70s and wasn’t planning to retire… but when I saw him a few days ago, it was obvious his health has taken a sharp turn for the worse. I think he’s already past the point where continuing to work is in his own best interest. And though I’m in one of the larger towns in my state, there are no other independents available; soon, I’ll have to drive to another town and take whatever McDoctor my insurance will cover, and from what I’ve read about turnover, I’d be lucky to get the same one twice. And I’ll get diagnostics and treatment from a rigid schedule, whether it’s appropriate or not, because the modern trend is to service the numbers, not the patient.

      1. Medical decisions are too important to be made by mere doctors; they are all made by bean counters and bureaucrats. 😦

        Just like education decisions are too important to be made by mere teachers, science is too important to be left to mere scientists…

      2. Doc-in-the-box is the new reality. With costs and particularly with malpractice insurance being the way it is, the stand-alone clinic is a thing of the past. These guys do their shifts, take their money and they never ever stick their necks out. Exactly what the corporate structure wants, not that great for the patients.

        They do it with physical therapy too, and you can imagine how well The Phantom fit in with that structure. 😡

        1. These days one is almost better of with taking the “assigned” clinic primary, but rather than seeing them, seeing a PA (physician’s assistant) same training as a full physician but without the surgical specialty rotations, hospital privileges, or liability insurance, latter is carried by clinic. PA’s can order tests, look at results, and issue prescriptions. Anymore even our primary doesn’t do anything in the hospital. Once in hospital you are in the hands of specialists and hospital staff.

          We’re about to lose our primary, again, too. When we do, I’m finding a clinic (same system) that will be closer. Current primary is at an “inconvenient” location, in that he is clear across the city. But convenient in that when he asks me (and limited extent my son) about family medical history, I can just say … “look at mom and dad’s records” … he was dad’s doctor, dad’s last 10 years, and is still mom’s. Not only that, but mom signed a full medical disclosure which is on her medical file. This means at my visits, once we’re done with me, one of things I do is ask the doctor if there is anything I need to be aware of with mom’s medical. Sometimes there is, so far she’s already told me.

          1. Besides the fact that he’s been my doctor for the last 40 years, his primary value to me was that he’s Seen This Before, or close-enough; that is, he has personal experience with diagnosing and treating ailments instead of going down flowchart A to diagnose and flowchart B to prescribe. And he’s been around long enough not to put absolute faith in this week’s official AMA propaganda.

            A doc-in-the-box is going to stay with the flowcharts; he’s just an employee, not a doctor.

            1. We’ve seen our current primary now for 20 years. Before that it was same doctor I had once I went to college. Still practicing when came back to the area. Then he retired, sigh. For about a decade we went through a doctor every 6 to 18 months. They didn’t stick around. When we first were assigned our current primary, he did check in when his patients were hospitalized, even when specialists were involved. But that changed mid 2000 sometime. Now he really isn’t allowed to by whatever rules. Frustrating. I mean there is no guaranty your doctor is going to be available when you have an emergency. Heck my chosen primary pediatric doctor or OBYN were when our son was ready to be born (brat was early). OTOH got to know another pediatric doctor from the same clinic, so win.

        2. One of my neighbors was OK with one of the doc-in-a-box clinics. He and his family had gone there for treatment, repeatedly, and was very happy with what was done for them, there. Honestly, I think there is a good case for – go to the doc, get treated, pay the bill… it’s almost 19th century.

          1. The “walk in clinic”?

            I’ve had nothing but good with those– far better than either ER or primary care sorts.

            They don’t think they know everything about you, they don’t try to preach at you based on what the system says your problem demographically should be, they don’t decide you MUST have {issue}– they listen to what you say is the problem, check it, check the other major issues, and then TREAT THAT.

            None of this “Hi, my hands feel like they fell asleep, almost all the time” “Oh, your BMI is 28.5, you must be diabetic, get this full blood workup.” ::blood workup comes back, I’m nearly the opposite of diabetic:: “No idea, use this steroid that has a major risk of miscarriage.”
            OBGYN: “Uh, these results say you’re seriously low on iron. Also, the baby died.”

            1. The latest thing here in DFW is “concierge doc in the box”…. where you’ll get plenty of attention, all of it geared to getting you into the affiliated hospital for “observation”.

          3. I didn’t mean to imply that the doc-in-a-box clinics don’t do anything. They’re great if your case is uncomplicated and doesn’t need proper followup. Nice, quick, cheap. No problem.

            The downside is that you’ll rarely see the same physician twice, and it will always be new grads or foreign medical grads. Age and experience will not generally be available, turnover rate is high.

            Therefore subtle issues will be missed, and followup will be the doctor struggling to re-do a Visit 1 in a Visit 5 time slot. Visit 1 gets 15 minutes, visit 2 and up get 5 minutes and the nurse does the rest of it. No, that is not an exaggeration, that’s what they do. You might be lucky to get 15 minutes.

            Got headaches? Diabetes? Fibromyalgia? Weird spot on your x-ray? Not so good.

  19. This, thing in the Senate, is either totally oblivious, or she’s so crooked she should be the poster child for scoliosis.

    Senator Shaheen
    To: houmid@live.com

    Dear Michael,
    Thank you for contacting me about elections in the United States. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.
    I strongly oppose placing constraints on the constitutional right to vote. While fraudulent voting is illegal and should be prevented, instances of such conduct are extremely rare. Attempts to discourage democratic participation in New Hampshire give credence to debunked claims of voter fraud in our state. I oppose recent attempts in New Hampshire to make it more difficult for students and other young people to vote. As Governor, I twice vetoed voter identification legislation and will continue to resist efforts that limit democratic participation.
    I was deeply troubled by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which struck down a decades-old landmark civil rights law that required federal approval for electoral law changes in districts with a history of discriminatory voting practices. I am a cosponsor of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore the protections of the original Voting Rights Act and provide the tools to address discriminatory election procedures that may arise in states with a history of discrimination. I am also a cosponsor of the For the People Act, which would enact sweeping campaign finance, voting rights, election security and ethics reforms. These reforms would restore confidence in our government by limiting the influence of money in our politics, safeguarding the right to vote and ensuring that elected officials are held to the highest standards. I support this legislation because the American people deserve a transparent government that works for them, not special interests. The legislation has been considered in the Senate Rules Committee but has not come before the full Senate.
    I believe we can both preserve New Hampshire’s strong tradition of fair elections and robust civic participation while increasing access to the polls across the country. Please be assured that I will continue to engage with stakeholders in New Hampshire on how these reforms will affect our state as the Senate works to pass much overdue election reform legislation. Thank you again for sharing your thoughts with me and please do not hesitate to contact me with any future concerns.
    Sincerely,

    Jeanne Shaheen
    United States Senator

    P.S. It is my priority to ensure that you receive a timely response. However, postal mail may be significantly delayed in reaching my office due to security measures in the U.S. Senate. I encourage you to stay in touch through my websites: http://www.shaheen.senate.gov/contact, http://www.facebook.com/SenatorShaheen and http://www.twitter.com/SenatorShaheen.

    1. Removing dead people from the lists IS voter suppression; that’s where the Democrats get about half their votes. 😛
      ———————————
      Grandpa voted Republican until the day he died — but he’s been voting Democrat ever since!

    2. You should ask her how she’d feel if 100,000 Massholes drove across the border and voted in NH elections.

      1. No, you say, “Imagine if 100,000 Massholes drove across the border and voted again in New Hampshire. Only, don’t imagine it.”

        1. With fraud by mail and ballot harvesting they don’t even need to drive over the border to vote “early and often” as they say in Chicago.

      2. Shaheen would welcome a hundred thousand Massholes coming north to vote in her elections — because most of them would vote for her.

        In fact, it’s likely that already happened. Not 100,000, but at least 5000, and maybe as many as 10,000. Shaheen consistently wins on the votes from Durham. The main University of New Hampshire campus is located in Durham, and the leftism in that town is so thick you can smell it. NH law permits university students to vote in state and local elections if they reside on campus, regardless of where they (and their parents) actually live. They come to NH, they vote for vermin like Shaheen, and then they go home and leave sane NHers to deal with the messes she causes.

  20. Yeah, I think I may owe you an apology.

    My vague impression is that I was pretty reluctant to see some of this stuff.

    I was trying to figure out if you were over reacting. Well, now I know that you definitely were not.

    Trying to keep my emotional reactions separate may have been the correct call. I’m perhaps none too tightly wrapped in the best of times, and staying together as much as I have maybe took some work.

    No further analysis to add, no ‘witty’ comments to make. I’m not rested enough to have the spoons for the one, nor comfortable enough to have the basis for the other.

  21. Sarah, you’re preaching to the choir as far as I’m concerned. From day one of how the MSM were presenting numbers I knew it was a psyop worldwide, but especially for the Trump US. The nastiest thing is that they are far from done. The vaccines are just about as suspicious as the covid, considering the possibilities of how they could be used once they’re in people.

    We will have crisis on top of crisis, but only those really awake will be aware that they are not accidental or coincidental. The players include mega wealthy, health dictators, eugenicists, power freaks, communists, etc.

    I know too many people that have stopped caring because it’s all beyond them, and those that still haven’t a clue there’s anything afoot. I have a hard time having any smart conversations with them, beside me being a smart ass in certain situations.

    So, I’m not sure who is higher on the pissed off level. You, I, or another esteemed reader here.

  23. Gates and others have said the “next one” will get our attention. They are probably brewing it up right now.

      1. For people who keep asserting that the Earth is overpopulated and that population must be reduced to “save the Earth” from “the climate crisis”, genetically manipulated viruses are certainly one way they can speed up what they seek to achieve.

  24. Everyone knew in the beginning, even before the beginning the algorithm were showing us ads for n95 masks on everyone’s Fbook feed as early as April 2019.

  25. Just in case nobody’s already said it: The REALLY depressing thing is that BECAUSE it’s Democrats and that ilk, nobody is ever going to spend one minute in jail or pay one penny in fines or damages because of it — when they ought to be swinging by the neck until dead, dead, dead for the Brobdingnagian betrayals of trust.

    1. I don’t think that concern is real enough to be depressed by.

      Sure, there have been games played with releasing criminals from prison, pressure brought to bear on judges not enthusiastic for The Plan, and attempting to prevent lawyers from representing certain grievances. If those games are as perfect as they think, dispute resolution merely shifts from the formal legal system to vigilantism.

      Current scale of the US prison system is 2-4 million. There isn’t capacity or guards for everyone concerned about whether legalities have been properly followed.

      Now, vigilante hangings or helicopter rides might be too expensive to be a viable remedy to the communists. Plastic sheeting/bags seems like it may be a cost effective alternative.

      Opposition are animists of rules and curves fit to data. They reify these things, and take them much too seriously.

      They may believe that they have everything locked down, but you should not let yourself share this confidence with them.

  26. And there are so many bad things underway in the globalist/Democrat camp. Global warming as an excuse to destroy the economy and stop world growth. Iran developing an atomic bomb with the active support of the Biden administration. China saber rattling concerning Formosa while expanding it’s military. US deficits in the proposed Biden budget that will destroy the US economy. Existing and already approved that levels will put us on a path to high inflation where any response is painful. Now that there’s been a test run, a new virus may emerge that is more dangerous or targeted.Follow our leader keep your clothes and weapons handy at night.

  27. California OSHA just proposed wearing masks indoors for all businesses unless everyone is vaccinated. If there is even person doesn’t take the shot, then the employer has to provide N95 masks and require everyone to wear them. The governor can still veto this, and maybe he will since he’s facing a recall vote, but it’s disturbing how many people so firmly believe in (making others) wear those things.

    1. “If there is even person doesn’t take the shot, then the employer has to provide N95 masks and require everyone to wear them. ”

      Well that’s a garaunteed way for skeptics and refuseniks to be a target of hate and social pressure.

    2. They have become talismans. They have mana. Not that people would say that – no, it’s because they Believe in Science!

    3. These people just love them some group punishment. I still remember how our sixth grade teacher went on and on to my folks about how group punishment helps teach responsibility for one’s community. All I ever saw was that my efforts were meaningless, because if someone else in the class wanted to use me as a chew toy, all they had to do was break a rule that got us all punished, then lap it up when I got upset. A year of that left me with a permanent hate on group punishment.

      1. This. Too many teachers would rather let the class pick out a chew toy than, you know, teach the class to behave like semi-decent human beings. It’s so much easier. For them.

        1. Enforcement is HARD.

          So much easier to cheat and have the authority of *loco parentis* while not doing the work…..

          (Don’t get me started on folks who get the idea that classroom management techniques are all authority, not a ton of work to shore up that authority.)

          1. I met my old second grade teacher, Sister Mary M, years later and asked her why they were all so mean. She told me that she had been put in front of a class of 60 hooligans in Hell’s Kitchen when she was a 17 year old novice. “You kept order or you went under.” Is what she told me.

            1. And you have to deal with the stupid stuff everyone else has done, too.

              My mom accidentally beat the stupid at her very first teaching job because one of the punks decided to try to stab her. (Mexican 15 year old idiot– yes, I’m being redundant with the 15 and idiot part!– mid 70s. He may have been trying to scare the pretty lady, too, but mom’s a bad choice for that…..)

              Thank God, he wasn’t any good at it. She disarmed him because her brothers idea of showing love was teaching her about knife and bar fighting, read him the riot act and informed him that his parents would have to ask for it back.

              His grandparents invited her to the summer BBQ as a guest of honor and she still sometimes corresponds with his mom. 😀

        2. Unfortunately for those teachers, and admin staff, was Mom. They were warned, I really did warn them. The poor scoffers. All I had to do was be as innocent as falling snowflakes 🙂 They quickly learned what a ton of bricks felt like. She was firm. The process stopped, at least in the classes I was in. Bonus. I was the eldest. So by the time siblings went through the same schools … well have I mentioned that we’re pretty sure the HS staff got together because when they graduated my youngest siblings, they also got rid of graduated mom. Fast forward 25 years (don’t think any of the offending staff were still teaching) I always imagined their horror when they realized mom’s grandchildren were now attending the same HS (sister’s kids). Next up … great-grands, and I fully expect mom to still be around, at least as the oldest starts the same HS, in 6 years …

            1. When my wife gets crusading, I can always make her laugh by telling her to bring a crying baby. Her mother was the absolute queen of this and my wife, being the youngest of seven, was usually the baby and my mother-in-law had the raising of a fair few children after my wife was grown so there was always a baby. My !IL didn’t actually have to say very much for, as my wife says, passive aggression is still aggression.

          2. Unfortunately, my folks believed that the teacher was right by definition, and that anything they might do on my behalf about the bullying would “only make it worse.” So the message I got was effectively, “suffer.”

            1. You did note that I had to be 100% innocent and pure as the falling white snowflake and had done nothing, other than warn, that this was wrong, and I was telling … i.e. go along with group punishment. It was parental authorities job to deal with that, and any fallout. I learned that lesson early. (Yes. I was in the right. BUT it wasn’t my job to protest.) I was in school where teachers could still manhandle, hit, throw things (mostly erasers, which generally hit too), etc.

              1. So I’m not the only one who remembers teachers throwing erasers. My 11th grade American History teacher made a habit of it (normally at someone who clearly had zoned out). He was pretty accurate; even to the back row.

                1. Accurate if student was zoned out, true. Not when student was reading in class … not undeserved, I wasn’t exactly reading class materials, but not zoned out either. Yes, erasers missed because they do that when one can dodge. Which didn’t endear me to those at the desks behind me. But by then they should have known better. OTOH I wasn’t always the only one reading in class so who knows who the target was. Teacher was better off asking me a question, catching me off guard that way, happened, not often, but did happen.

                  1. Said history teacher above left me alone after attempting to disrupt my working on something else by peppering me with questions on the Civil War. After I expounded on all the answers in a 10 minute soliloquy, in far more detail than the textbook material covered, he left me alone to do my other work. Somewhere during that period I threw the eraser back it him. Told him (much later) that the Civil War had been a reading obsession for me since age 8 or so.

                2. Math teacher. Also had a spray bottle of “student eraser” used to moisten the truly obdurate. Who were then ignored for the rest of class. Which meant no participation points, if there were any that day.

                3. My high school band teacher (Kirke B. Muse, how perfect is that?) famously once threw his baton at a drummer in the back row, only to have it stick in the cork veneer like a knife.

    4. My guess is WA State will do something similar.

      It’s not helped by idiots claiming that “masks are appropriate in certain situation.” Yes. IN A SURGERY.

      But now, the commies in WA want to force us all to wear the muzzle indoors, in public, forever.

      I will not work with a muzzle face, not ever.

      1. Oregon’s trying to do this with the not-vaccine passport. The idea is that a store/church/public building will have a designated vax-checker (Stage-musical German accent and monocle not required, but desireable) and to ensure that the great-unvaxxed have to wear a mask. Either that, or they must insist on everybody wearing a mask.

        Since the number of people willing to bet their sense of survival to do the passport checking (and for the entity to suffer the likely boycott), at least in our county, universal mask requirements are still a thing. Whether they are enforced is a matter best left for the individual observer.

        This was a goal-post move* after Kate’s ostensible goal of freeing the state after some 70% of the people got the shot(s). Not clear if she figured that the number was unobtainable, or if she’s just a [redacted, redacted, and redacted] sorry excuse for a humanoid being.

        I find myself wondering if the Romanian solution will be applied.

        (*) I think she has them on wheels.

        1. Ran into that at Costco. Two greaters now, at least in Eugene. Standard greater, and someone asking if you have had the vaccine, if you aren’t wearing a mask as you come in.

            1. Yes, Ceaucescu and wife. They even got a (quick) trial.

              I think I recall a bit of the orphanage stuff. I want to sleep tonight, so I won’t look it up…

  28. Yep. Pure bullshit from start to finish. Such a shame that “common sense” went away in much of the world.
    Idaho rocks Sarah, check it out.

    1. N. Idaho is lower elevation and might even work, at that.

      And the R. Gubernatorial primary is shaping up to be interesting in all the best ways.

    2. I’m looking at Idaho, Beautiful territory and only one state away.

      You all have property tax, sales tax, and income tax.

      No thanks.

  29. I texted a copy of Jeremy Clarkson’s smug face to my lefty sister. Nothing more need be done.

  30. And, just in case anyone (with a halfway-open mind and enough sense to find a clue in the dark with a flashlight and a map) even at this very late date STILL does not believe “Sarah was right!” on this one… see, for instance, recently:

    uncoverdc dot com slash 2021/06/04/former-pfizer-vp-an-urgent-appeal-to-humanity/

    and/or the linked video. Former Higher Up at Pfizer, purveyors of messenger RNA ‘vaccines’ (and/or ‘toxic spike protein delivery sytems’ see Byram Bridle etc.), basically begs us to believe… much of what Our Esteemed Blogmistress repeats here, having said most or all of it before… only with more credentials etc., and before it’s too late. “Au urgent appeal to humanity” — yes, that.

    Now going to try buying at the grocery store barefacenaked as the day I was born… for the first time in Way Too Long.

  31. Sorry if this was already posted, I did a quick scan of the comments first.

    “Sources tell RedState the defector has been with the DIA for three months and that he has provided an extensive, technically detailed debrief to US officials. In DIA’s assessment, the information provided by the defector is legitimate. Sources say the level of confidence in the defector’s information is what has led to a sudden crisis of confidence in Dr. Anthony Fauci, adding that U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) personnel detailed to DIA have corroborated very technical details of information provided by the defector.”

    https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2021/06/04/exclusive-high-ranking-chinese-defector-has-direct-knowledge-of-several-chinese-special-weapons-programs-n391238

    2. Money graph:

      Sources say DIA leadership kept the defector within their Clandestine Services network to prevent Langley and the State Department from accessing the person, whose existence was kept from other agencies because DIA leadership believes there are Chinese spies or sources inside the FBI, CIA, and several other federal agencies.

      1. One possible conclusion is that Clinton, Pelosi and Obama screwed up when it came to packing the DIA with PRC assets.

        Would be interesting to find out about other federal agencies similarly overlooked. Possibly the sort of interesting I would regret learning about.

        Would also be informative if the defector suffers a fatal accident.

        There’s another Redstate article discussing PRC noise wrt nuclear warfare.

        An argument can be made in that context that failure to fund missile defense at the expense of social programs is and was an act of capital treason. I think this argument probably should not be considered to hold. Federal organizations and programs commonly have major problems with competence, and missile defense is a challenging technical area. Supposing that the missile defense programs were deliberately sabotaged seems to require assuming that these organizations could have been managed to do better than they have done. Which may yet prove to be good enough.

    3. Good to know. I wonder if they have any US personnel over in China spilling the beans about our programs?
      Or maybe Dr. Falsie covered that already.

  32. And just to add to the fun, I saw this today, in a moderately upscale beauty salon:
    ” I do not want to see your grin.
    I do not want to see your chin.
    I do not want to see your nose.
    I should not see your lips exposed.
    The lower region of your head
    Should be concealed from sight instead.
    it’s for YOUR sake I wear my mask.
    Please wear one too.. It’s all I ask.”
    Yes, I stayed. I didn’t hassle the stylist, who told me she thought the whole mask issue should never have started but they had to due to the owner. (I suspect he’s afraid of lawsuts).
    What got me, though, was the infantilization of the customer. Appaarenty Aveda thinks their middle- to upper-middle class clientele is mentlly about six.
    i’ve seen this before in other “higher class,” places like Trader Joe’s. Color me insulted.

    1. And if a group shows up and chants the response,

      Big disgrace,
      Panty on your face,
      Spreading phobia,
      All over the place!

      They are the disruptive?

      1. “We will – we will – shun you!”

        Governor Diaperface rescinded his mask EO more than two months ago, and at least half of the people I see in town are still diapered up. Voluntarily.

        Somewhere, P.T. Barnum and Vlad Ulyanov are high-fiving each other while knocking back vodka shots.

        1. If the last line is referring to a comment about the birthrate of suckers, Barnum never said it. That was from one of his competitors (name forgotten, offhand) in regards to Barnum’s fake Cardiff Giant drawing more crowds than the competitor’s fake CG.

          Yes, the above is nitpicking, but that’s what the internet is for, after porn and cat pics/video. 😛

          1. >> “Yes, the above is nitpicking, but that’s what the internet is for, after porn and cat pics/video.”

            You just HAD to remind of this, didn’t you:

            [Notices video was made by someone called “Evilhoof.” Pointedly does NOT ask what Orvan’s relatives get up to.]

              1. Item the first – are those model manipulations or are those actual in-game dance moves? If the latter, were the dances modeled after what the video showed?

                Item the second – between the two of you I just got sucked down the rabbit hole of WoW music parody videos. Damn you both:

    2. Oh, the infantilization is on purpose.

      Fish and reptile store in town had a bunch of “mask required” signs on the door about “It’s been a year, I could have trained a dog in that time” and suchlike. See, if you haven’t already gotten with the program, it’s clearly because you’re stupid, immature, and (in the case of the fish store owner) less trainable than a dog.

      …I spent a while after wondering why the hell anyone thought that being as trainable as a dog was something to strive for.

      1. A weird thing I’ve noticed in Iowa is most of the local PSAs are funny, not obnoxious.

        You can almost always tell when an ad is a national one because it does the “I am speaking to a really dumb 4 year old” thing, while the local ones are “I’m trying to make a point with humor.”

        ….and I just absolutely blanked out on the examples I had in mind.

        It was like a two line rhyme that included “mask up” for local mask order, or “put on your mask and your seatbelt,” while the national one is 15 minutes of a woman I’d want to slap talking about how we’re all in this together and we need to pull together and make a difference and save the world, wear a mask.

  33. any US personnel over in China spilling the beans about our programs?

    No need to travel – China Joe’s muppeteers are able to do that direct from DC.

  35. Also has anyone seen the news story from Australia about one week ago that dealt with a 261 page paper on bio weapons in a Chinese military publication. The story indicated that Covid comes from a Chinese weapons program . The person breaking the story is writing a book which is expected to be published in September. If no one has seen the story I can provide reference points . Just let me know.

    1. I don’t read Chinese, am not a life scientist, and haven’t read the paper. I do not have a background in reading PRC military publications. I would hesitate to draw strong conclusions, especially running the information through a journalist.

      Thing is, especially in late stage failure, Communist regimes lie about all sorts of things, and sane rationality is not a proper guide for analysis. I could imagine such a paper being written purely as internal propaganda.

      Could be weakness in the PRC government, weakness in the US government, or the PRC’s hadn being weaker then the US’s hand, even with the PRC assets officially running the US.

  36. Thought I typed in a comment on the mask jingle I saw today at the beauty parlor. Am I being moderated again?

    2. WP has been Odder than usual the past three days. Something must have been updated. Or it’s the waxing moon. Or just Friday.

  37. I lost Dad, in part because a lot of his medical was being done remote, and somewhere he told someone he was coughing blood and it got forgotten or something (it was the VA so, who knows?) and it took a few calls before he asked again, and to get his chemo he needed to be vaxxed, though I can’t really blame that for the clot and pneumonia that took him, he’s had his body get pneumonia before and they’d just nuked the hell out of his lung and pneumonia had killed him once before (he got better, and they jump started him a few times and had high levels of O2 pumped into him). But, week before last, my Uncle (Dad’s 6 year older brother), who had been looking more frail than usual since flying back from Phoenix, fell and cracked some ribs and other bones. He was still in the hospital last Thursday when he died of bacterial pneumonia. Excessive mask use (rated as anything over 4 hours, in my training for N95 useage) is one of those things that can cause it.
    Everything done was not only to exert control, but was tailor made to cause an excess of deaths, mostly in our old folks, all for effing political reasons, then a crap-ton were mis-attributed to get money. Money the hospitals needed because they were otherwise shut down.
    Testing was also tailor made to give false positives, and people who had a cold or other form of flu were told Positive for WuFlu! Now, some are actually getting WuFlu and the smart ones are saying “Yeah, first time musta been a false positive”, ordering items from vet supplies and self treating.

    1. This country treats its elderly like rabid yard dogs that have escaped into the house.

      Mom got the jabs, two months later brain clot and stroke. She chose hospice rather than pretend anymore that she wants to be alive.

      We’re all carrying a lot of heavy stuff. Even if it’s the insult of that disgusting salon-jingle that treats adults like errant children.

      2. Sorry to hear that. I feel fortunate in that no one I know has had anything covid related happen to them. They feel the masks and shots have saved them. Time will tell about their “vaccine” shots. Of course they’re always on me about getting the shot or wearing a mask sometimes, even here in FL. Give me a break!

    2. Sorry to hear that about your uncle, so soon after the passing of you dad.
      I had been kind of worried about masks trapping bacteria, since my grandson had to wear a mask all day in school. He was okay, but I think it was foolish to have the kids masked all day.

  38. I was worried for the 10 minutes it took me to look at even the Wuhan data, let alone the Diamond Princess and the Theodore Roosevelt that somehow doesn’t get talked about. I’ve been furious ever since.

    One more thing: the lockdown of nursing homes is incredibly evil, and the death numbers coming out of them – about 2/3 of the total deaths – have little to do with COVID. Anyone who has spent time in nursing homes knows that it’s the families and visitors who keep the staff on their toes – it’s a wretched, unpleasant job, taking care of often difficult patients who are likely to die soon anyway. Add terror – those workers were convinced they were going to die if they cared for an alleged COVID patient – and the quality of the ‘care’ is going to take a serious hit.

    Lock out the families and visitors, so that no one is there to notice grandpa needs his diaper changed, that auntie’s bedsores have become infected, that dad can’t eat on his own anymore, or even that mom has fallen out of bed and is lying on the floor for hours on end – and the medical people will start deciding a little more morphine, or a little less antibiotics, maybe a slap across the face is what is needed. Who’s going to notice? It’s mercy to speed their passing.

    Thus, that deaths are now under historical trends is something I expected all along. A whole bunch of people were hurried to their deaths in nursing homes, and aren’t there to die now, when the would have under better conditions. Unfortunately, since the median survival time for a nursing home patient is only about 6 months, this means by the fall, our nursing homes will be restocked and ready to do it all again. I’m pretty sure that’s what happened in November, after the purge of April 2020.

    1. Just reading your true words has me violently angry. These people have no idea what will happen if they try to lie to me, or prevent me from going into the facility.

      My sister almost blew a handful of hospital bureaucrats out the back window the other day when they tried to prevent her from seeing Mom in the hospital after her stroke. “NOW!” Got results.

    2. >> “let alone the Diamond Princess and the Theodore Roosevelt that somehow doesn’t get talked about.”

      Hang on. The Theodore Roosevelt? I don’t remember hearing about this…

      2. Back in March, 2020, the pandemic ‘raged’ across the crew of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. Out of about 5,000 crew, about 1250 – 25% – were infected. 45% of those infected were asymptomatic. Of the about 688 crew showing any symptoms at all, 3 required hospitalization; 1 crewman died. He had been flown to Guam after having been found unconscious in quarantine 5 days earlier.

        So: among the crew of an aircraft carrier, who, are isolated and somewhat crammed together on a ship, only 25% catch the virus. So, not super infectious? Also, one hopes, crew are at least moderately healthy. A total of 3 – 0.06% – get more than flu-level sick. The population fatality rate was 0.02%. The story around the one poor man who died sounds odd – ‘discovered unconscious’ while in quarantine? Huh? And then dies 5 days later? When only 2 other guys on the whole ship got seriously ill? Maybe that’s legit, but, at least, I’d like some details about the guy’s pre-COVID health. Also note, this was back when treatments most likely did more harm than good.

        Anyway: the logical conclusion from the Theodore Roosevelt is that COVID among a reasonably healthy populations is no more a threat than a flu. That’s the conclusion I drew.

          1. At the time, I thought: No more. Since then – yeah.

            I was more struck by how not contagious or fatal it was – for a horrible, deadly disease, it sure skipped a whole lot of people despite a navy ship’s cramped quarters, tight hallways, and mess halls. Certainly, under those conditions, everybody got exposed.

            1. For the inside baseball angle, the TR also had massive lack of sleep and high stress going on– it’s one of those Cursed Ships that even I heard about, usually from someone who went TDY there and went back to their primary command finding it much, much less bad than it had been before they were on the TR.

              So sleeping packed three deep, with three-four foot aisles between them, two to eight long lines, hundreds in a room, under the kind of stress that makes it REALLY EASY to catch bugs you should be able to shrug off….

              Assuming that they had no false positives, only one in four people got it.

              For normal cold, it usually goes around the ship and there may be one in eight who don’t catch it and have minor symptoms. That’s why “cold packs” are OTC medicine, not things to chill pained muscles, on a Navy ship…..

              1. “Assuming that they had no false positives, only one in four people got it.”

                Since they were almost certainly using the 40-cycle tests, that’s what’s known as a “certainty.”

                2. We all know that, which is why granting a ludicrously generous assumption where it’s STILL not very infectious is more effective.

        2. It took FOREVER to get any kind of details out about the guy who died on TR, but they finally reported it was a “cardiovasular” type death.

          That is, the way that any infection can trigger blood clots? He had the bad luck to be That Guy, this time.

          1. The one detail about ALL deaths ascribed to COVID I’ve wanted to know from Day One: underlying health issues. Somehow, for some reason, the information about the stroke or drug overdose that landed the poor deceased in the nursing home or hospital is only told in paragraph 8 on page 27 – if at all.

            1. “The Johnson Nursing Center lost 25 people to COVID!”
              *go look up Johnson Nursing Center, find out it’s the Johnsen Nursing Center for the Terminally Ill, they don’t accept anybody with more than six months to live*

              Yeah, a lot of odd gaps in coverage.

  39. I’m over 60 and have COPD. According to my governor (Stitt, Oklahoma) I meet a medical exception to wearing the Fauci Face Diaper. The only two places that resisted this are the local hospital, and my doctor, both of whom should know better. Well, my employer now, too since I’ve been called back in to the office to see peeps instead of working from home like I did for the last year. But once I get Chinaflu shot #2 next week it becomes mask optional…feh.

    1. my employer would not make that exception, though if you were office worker, you were able to WFH. A line worker with COPD? wear the mask or you are off!
      not surprisingly we had the rot run through the production lines anyhow. Well, (un)surprisingly, the folks who were sick with the “Extream, Flu like” symptoms in late December ’19 and January ’20 never seemed to get the CCP Rot. I managed to avoid it while forced into DOT Haz Mat training with several folks crooping and hacking.

    2. Oh, and credit to my boss and boss’ boss, they ignored my not wearing one when they came in, and only said something if a higher boss who would have to take notice was due in, and it was always “X is on his way later.” I also bought Sonovia masks in an effort to not get something from the feckin diaper

  40. I remember when Speaker tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to inject actual science into the conversations a year ago. And I would share his posts. Never mind. Most of the dipsticks who need to hear, I told you so still won’t believe you. Even my sister in law the nurse has forgotten her grade school science classes.

    1. “The Science Is Settled!!”

      “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

      1. wandering a tad off to the side: I tell the High Church Dawkins acolytes that while science does not have any solid proof that any form of God exists, it also has no proof otherwise, and being a believer in science, they have to leave open the possibility, no matter how small the possibility is in their minds.
        and all too many have very small minds

          1. They do tend to take too much inspiration from The Prof who is an asshole. “He can come across as an asshole because he is so smart he doesn’t interact well at times” me- “No, he comes across as an asshole because he is an asshole, and is smart enough to know that. He chooses to be an ass.”

            1. He’ll even maim his own points in order to be more of an ass, because it’s a power trip.

              Hard for folks to admit that’s part of the attraction, sadly. (Bad Boy appeal but for philosophy?)

        2. As a friend says, “If you postulate an infinite universe, the probability of God is 1.0.”

          1. That makes no sense. How could an infinite universe prove the existence of something which is not OF the universe?

            1. It is playing with the definition of infinite.

              A purely material universe is finite in certain ways.

              1. There are an infinite number of equal numbers. That doesn’t mean one of them has to be odd.

                1. That would be infinite universes, and whether one of them is certain to have an infinite spiritual dimension.

                  The material model of one universe implies three spatial axes each going to plus and minus infinity, and a temporal axis going to positive infinity. Such a universe can be described as infinite.

                  You can also describe as infinite a universe with three spatial dimensions, a time dimension, and some sort of spiritual dimension. If that spiritual dimension goes to infinity, is the existence at infinity God? (Okay, this is a physics-lite New Age definition of God, not a Christian definition of God, but it demonstrates the fundamental bait-and-switch of the joke.)

                  The word infinite is ambiguous, because there is more than one possible interpretation. To speak clearly, one has to nail down the specific meanings of infinite intended.

                  It is a joke that pokes fun at the ‘love science’ crowd, by pointing out that they do not think carefully and precisely enough to distinguish statements they approve of from statements they disapprove of.

        3. I use “lack of evidence does not prove a negative,” and I get told that I “don’t understand” science.

          1. Train yourself to quote Inigo Montoya.
            “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means….”

            Seriously, though, game out the response. It can short circuit that “hands shaking I hate confrontation” reaction and make it useful, which will be good for folks of good will, and really piss off the bullies who depend on triggering that “I hate confrontation” response so they get a public win.

          2. Lack of evidence is, however, evidence of lack. How good it is depends on the circumstances but it can go all the way up to “proof” in some.

  41. I recall the “highly credible” charges being thrown at Trump and his various nominees, and wondering “what kind of diseased puppy do you have to be to find these claims anything but laughable?”

    Then I recalled Hillary’s campaign manager being blasé about being invited to a satanic ritual.
    Then all the “everybody knew” surrounding various media, political, and Wall Street panjandrums started being exposed to the general population.

    And I realized it was all projection.

    Which was confirmed when “Biden is corrupt, therefore impeach Trump” actually happened.
    In open defiance of the law and common sense, I must add. With nobody in government or the media even batting an eye at the flagrant abuse of power.

    The swamp needs depth charges at least, but neutron ‘spoldeys are likely optimal.

    1. Naw, neutrons are contagious. They turn other things radioactive. Just give it a nice baking with gamma radiation.

  42. Hello…I am a 77 yr. old retired RN who spent 42 yrs. working in hospitals in various specialty areas. I just want to say this: I agree with every word you wrote today in your blog!! Thank you. thank you!

      1. one nurse at Dad’s VA (Memphis) refused the masks but wore the only reasonable thing to wear if you want self protection. She had the whole head encompassing facemask with a pressure fan and filter canister.

          1. one advantage was you could see her whole face. There is a similar design for welding/grinding especially used by those welding something with nasty fumes (like zinc galvanized metal but prolonged breathing of molten metal fumes isn’t very healthy) or just welding and grinding enough extra protection is best called for.

            1. I couldn’t work where you work. I couldn’t watch that mess coming at me. Could. Not.

              1. For most of the “pandemic” I’ve been lucky to be stuffed in a multi-acre warehouse with, depending on the day and how busy we are, up to 11 other people, and the occasional maintenance person or contractor. Often far less, and Fridays 2 of us in the place. Even with the Contractor (cleaning and building maintenance) there are less than 10 people 90% of the time in the place, and my work area is off away from everyone else (I like it like that) though I do share office space with one other

  43. Right on Sarah. I didn’t believe any of it either and your nightly posts on instapundit helped me cope with the loneliness I have endured for the past 15 months. I am waiting to unleash my inner Viking against those responsible for this, starting with Newsom. There will be no quarter given.

    1. I’m sorry for the loneliness. That’s the worst. It burns.

      Things will get better, though. Be sure to take pictures of that “Inner Viking” for me.

  44. I have rarely, if ever, approved of EVERY WORD of an internet post by anyone (except, perhaps for the esteemed Dr. Victor Davis Hanson), until this. I fervently wish it could be posted on every website on the ‘tubes. It should be required reading in every high school and should be the only required reading for the next twenty-two semesters of every college and university in America. My admiration for Ms. Hoyt is boundless.

  45. Completely off topic, but I just have too.
    I watch British coverage of MotoGP on BT Sport and saw this Domino’s commercial and giggled

    we all know that one person . . .

      1. I find UK commercials better than US ones for the most part, but that is a low bar, and I see a lot of the things I hate most creeping into the UK ones now, too. This one though, was worth looking up and sharing

        1. Most of my mindless “tv” watching is online from the UK. I feel like I at least have a chance at finding something entertaining. That seems to go for their commercials as well.

    2. I was half-expecting the old woman to join in.

      You know, I haven’t watched TV in many years and I wonder what other entertaining commercials I’ve missed. One of these days when Sarah is feeling lazy she should just throw the floor open for us to share these things.

      Hey, if she was willing to do that chicken post a couple of days ago…

  46. I am one of those awful old school, small-l libertarians everyone loves to hate, having been turned into such by studying history. After observing the actions of the extremely wealthy and their hireling political class and media, I have concluded:

    1. They want us all either dead or totally subjugated
    2. They will never have enough money and power
    3. ===> They are all sociopaths

    If one views their actions through the above lens, then everything makes perfect sense. Their willingness to casually kill millions to achieve their goals have been repeated throughout history.

    Oh, and observation 4: There will always be plenty of minions willing to serve them to secure a place eating the scraps that fall off their table.

    The solution, of course, is to bypass the minions and eliminate the sociopaths directly.

    1. I always thought I was a boring, bog standard constitutional libertarian. I have, suddenly, in my late fifties, discovered my opinions and beliefs make me a dangerous radical. Who knew? I never thought I’d be this cool this old. I will not go quietly into that good night. And I’m far from alone.

      2. I was noticeably left-of-center in the 1970s. Without any substantive change in my ideas, I am now so far to the right that even Literally Nazis would take a few steps back, hold up their hands, and say, “Chill, dude!”

        Funny, that…

        2. Seriously, me too. I was, in my sillier days, pretty much a small-f feminist. I was OK with registration of guns, voted (by mail) for Anderson, was mildly revolted by Reagan. In my defense, I was also disgusted by Jimmy Carter – that incompetent feeb! — and worked to help refugees from the fall of Vietnam resettle in the US.

      3. As i have noted, if they come to take you the gulag/concentration camp, fight like a Klingon,

    2. 3. ===> They are all sociopaths

      –
      Some of them are also malignant narcissists. Queen Hillary, NecroNancy, Fauci, Cuomo & Cuomo…
      ———————————
      There is no shortage of people convinced they can create the perfect world. They just have to eliminate all those imperfect people who don’t fit in it.

  47. For pretty much the entire Trump administration we watched as the hard left rioted, looted, and burned mostly minority businesses and neighborhoods. And murdered a number of people including several cops.
    The choice visual takeaway from all that was the scene where a major media type stood in front of burning buildings while explaining to we ignorant folks that these were mainly peaceful protests.
    Then a bunch of us gathered to show our support to a candidate whom we had just watched be cheated out of his reelection by a wave of lies, media bias, and fraud. A select few then decided to stage their own small protest, engaged in a bit of trespass, and managed to horrify and outrage our betters by violating their entitled safety and security. Riot? I suppose so. Looting? A few souvenirs may have been taken. Murders? A few natural deaths and one unarmed veteran female business owner shot to death by law enforcement yet to be identified.
    On January 6 we committed the ultimate sin, we disrespected elected officials, threatened them in their ivory towers of power, and gave them a taste of what they had been foisting off on us for four years. How dare we! I’m sure we instilled in their minds that same sense of outrage felt by our good King George when first he heard of similar crimes committed by those upstart rebel colonials.

    1. One minor problem with your characterization of the smaller group: They were lead to it by leftist agitators in a false flag operation. Sure, there were actual “right wingers” involved, but although it’s not necessarily easy to find thanks to MiniTru, there is documentation out there that the driving force was from plants.

  48. “I’m sure we instilled in their minds that same sense of outrage felt by our good King George when first he heard of similar crimes committed by those upstart rebel colonials.”

    THIS

  49. Pingback: Required Reading: Sarah Hoyt Lets Us All Know Where We Are Now
  50. Pingback: Where We Are now | Transterrestrial Musings

  52. “How dare we! I’m sure we instilled in their minds that same sense of outrage felt by our good King George when first he heard of similar crimes committed by those upstart rebel colonials.”

    The outrage wasn’t from the fact it was done. That was condoned, planned for, encouraged, and allowed by them. They orchestrated those events. The outrage was over the people’s politeness.

  53. At least the ‘Clinton Foundation’ is merely a front for the Clintons’ graft. The ‘Gates Foundation’ actively promotes evil agendas around the world.
    ———————————
    “I have looked into the darkness, Na’Toth. You can not do that and ever be quite the same again.”

  54. For the record, anyone bringing up the Rothschilds, or the trilateral commission or whatever other insane boogaboo is a cue for anti-semitism (DUDES if the Jewish people ran the world, I’d be in on it. I’m not. Your idiocy is invalid.), the lizard people (unironically) or the templars is immediately bitbucketed if new, or bitbucketed when I catch them if they’re old.
    Like the people bringing up “the plan” or “the storm” I’m fairly sure they’re false flags. Or just invencibly stupid.
    Whichever. Not in the mood.

    1. If anybody is actually running the world, they are so fooking incompetent the world might just as well be run by random idiots.

      That’s my theory. The world is being run by random idiots, and each one is running it a different way. What we’re seeing is the collision of their various idiocies.
      ———————————
      “Oh, no. You can’t-a fool me. There ain’t-a no Sanity Clause!”

  55. I am in total agreement with your wonderful article, but one thing you wrote puzzles me:

    “Asymptomatic transmission” IS NOT A THING. Rationally it couldn’t be a thing.”

    When I see this phrase, I immediately think back to Typhoid Mary. She was unquestionably a thing. What are you trying to say here?

    1. I understand her to mean this: the ‘Rona doesn’t have asymptomatic transmission.

    2. If a virus could possibly be of natural origin, then there is a predictable relationship between periods of viral reproduction (and hence greater infectivity), and periods of worse symptoms (and hence lethality). Viral reproduction is rather intimately tied to viral symptoms.

      A virus that has good asymptomatic infection at one point in time, and good lethality at another time is rather improbable. Natural ‘designs’ will ‘implement’ one, but not both. If a natural ‘design’ infects with symptoms so mild that it isn’t noticed, it will probably not be very lethal. If a natural ‘design’ is very lethal, then the infectious period probably has noticeable symptoms.

      If a virus has these qualities, it almost has to be artificial. Speaker to Animals helped Kratman game out an approach to managing it for Caliphate, but that possibility is would require implementation to actually demonstrate feasibility.

      The thing about tuberculosis, typhoid, and leprosy is that they are caused by bacteria. Bacteria can breed in material that isn’t alive, so spread can occur without symptoms even for something that is still potentially lethal.

      IIRC, Anthrax can be distributed as spores, and Anthrax is also caused by a bacteria.

  56. “senescent kakistocracy” – totally stealing that.
    And, yeah, right with you from the start.
    Makes no sense to me, but I’ve been assured, and my observation confirms it, people WANT to be deceived. Its what keeps the Gods of the Copy Book Headings going.

  58. Pingback: Tongue-Lashing – Splendid Isolation
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  62. I can think of at least two ways all of this can blow up in no time:

    Right now, states are passing their own laws to pre-empt unconstitutional Federal gun control laws. I could see the ATF raiding gun stores to confiscate all those ‘EEEVUL Assault Weapons’ and hunt down the ‘White Supremacist’ buyers, and the state police and/or National Guard called out to stop them. The FICUS (probably Kommie Harris by then) calls it an ‘insurrection’ and declares war on Florida. It WOULD be Florida. Ron DeSantis is their biggest threat at the present time.

    Alternatively, if some states manage to overcome the Nationalization Of Election Fraud, beat the localized fraud and elect enough Republicans to take back the House and Senate in 2022 (big IF), NecroNancy and the Democrats would refuse to accept the results and declare that the Democrat candidates won. Even though it was ‘treason’ when Republicans merely questioned last year’s election.
    ———————————
    Elections are far too important to be left up to a bunch of uncontrolled voters. The Party MUST exercise oversight and management to prevent mere voters from electing the wrong candidates!

  63. Pingback: Where We Are Now – Darkness over the Land…

  64. Sad to say we’re still not out of trouble as these freaks are going to push wherever they can to force people to get an experimental drug injected into them or else they will not be allowed to do something they want or need to. It’s the NEED TO do something that’s the bugger. Something that could save their life or keep from going bankrupt or just carry on ones daily living. Not something that is a desire but a NEED. And they will make you take this drug before even a year is out on how much damage the shot itself can do.

    Not everyone will be affected the same way by side effects cause then it’s not a side effect. So far in the reporting system they have up is that some 4000 people have died immediately or soon after getting the injection. Keeled over dead on the spot some of them. No getting around it was the shot that did it.

    We stopped with other vaccines that caused reactions like this after fewer deaths. What’s going on here?

    And that’s on top of the labeling of other therapies that are/were safe but that entailed using a drug for an off approved use. How many dies from the covid that could’ve been saved by the alternate therapies. Cause the shot won’t help you once you’ve got the virus.

    I am scared they will force me to get a shot to continue my government provided health care. What’s to stop them?

    1. Empathy here. My income consists of unemployment plus the federal gravy. I’ll guarantee you the state/feds will try to force me to take the jib-jab to continue the benefits I’m entitled to.

      Bye bye benefits. I won’t jab.

      I suggest you find healthcare from another source if the choice is to take the jab. There are other options, and a lot of creative, knowledgeable people on this site.

  65. The only things that surprised me about the whole Wuhan Flu debacle is that so many otherwise intelligent people bought into what was clearly a political game and that the game has continued for so long.

    People seem to want Kings who will tell them what to do and are willing to believe anything those so-called elites will tell them.

    Oh, and Fauci is running his own Unit 731 with the whole world as his laboratory. He should be brought up on Crimes Against Humanity.

  66. Great read, as usual, Ms. Hoyt.

    I’d also argue that China ruthlessly exploited their mistake in order to take over the US and install their puppet in the White House. I say that, because the amount of cheating needed to rig the election costs money, lots of money, money the DNC had to get from someone.

  67. ““Asymptomatic transmission” IS NOT A THING.”

    Piffle – our “elected” representatives and the MSM routinely engages in asymptomatic transmission of intelligence.
    ~

    1. Objection! What they transmit is stupidity, and they are highly symptomatic!
      ———————————
      It took geniuses 3,000 years to develop mathematics. It took idiots 3 years to ruin it with ‘New Math’.

  68. I love you!
    Your article stated what I have screamed from the rooftops for almost a year and a half. When all of this sewage was dumped on the country in January of 2020, I told my wife that it had all the earmarks of a biological weapon. CNN went from being the Clinton News Network, to being the Covid News Network, to being the Communist News Network. For 2020, CNN was “all WuFlu, all the time”.

    I fear Washington far more than I fear the flu.

  69. Heck sarah my then 87 yo mother knew it was a scam in February 2020. My sister and believe it was about getting Trump in March 2020.

  70. I’ve been saying (screaming) the same damned thing for over a year. This virus is not as deadly as the media advertized. Some authorities even admitted that. The Director of the Department of Health stated: “Even if you died of a clear alternate cause, but you had COVID at the same time, it’s still listed as a COVID death.” That is a clear indication that the numbers are being inflated for political and monetary reasons. Hospitals get more money if they diagnose patients with the virus, even if it isn’t so. The inflated numbers and incessant ‘reporting’ is like a 24/7 infomercial for hypochondriacs, germophobes, and sheeple who believe every doomsday prediction coming out of MSNBC.
    Most people who contract the virus survive. Like yours truly. That fact is ignored by the media, which prefers to keep them riveted to the propaganda. The reaction to this COVID virus is overblown and hysterical beyond reason.
    This scamdemic has been wrung for all its worth. The virus will run its course without taking the entire country with it. The streets are not filled with corpses, much to the dismay of the doomsday crowd. The only people that should be concerned are those with compromised immune systems and pre-existing medical conditions. For that matter, the flu should be a major concern every year. That virus kills thousands worldwide.
    I haven’t worn a mask or “social distanced” during the entire politicized episode.

    People who are afraid to come out of their homes and dress in full-body condoms if they do are batshit hysterical. Sheeple who don’t mind sacrificing their rights in deference to the State are braindead.
    This country was shut down over a virus with a 99% recovery rate. Millions of more Americans are now unemployed. People lost their jobs, homes, livelihoods, and businesses because of this induced panic. The economic impact will take years to overcome. Cancer treatments were postponed. EMTs were told not to transport any cardiac arrest patients. More people were endangered than saved because of the government idiocy.
    The coronavirus will come and go. But the government will never forget how easy it was to take control of your life; to control every event, restaurant, sports facility, classroom, church, and even if you are allowed to leave your house. Remember that the next time they try to manufacture a crisis.

    A government drunk with power is more dangerous than a virus.

    1. What scares me is they called “Wolf” loud, clear, and long. Anyone with two brain cells and an ounce of sense, know they did. The evidence is clear.

      Now. What happens the next time they call “Wolf” are we going to listen? Not without the evidence. What happens to those who won’t believe them or look at the evidence. Are they setting us up for “bring out your dead”? Are they doing it on purpose?

        1. “Sorry, no. They don’t have the competence.”
          –
          Thanks for the reply.

          That is what my gut says too. But … that little bitty bit of doubt raises that ugly thought.

  71. This rant is looking even better today with the release of news that WuFlu is pretty much for sure an engineered virus. The proof is in its its genome, it carries GCC-GCC, the sequence they use in engineering viruses.

    Which means that every expert who read that genome knew it was engineered. According to the paper, the sequence is right where it ought to be, meaning right where you would look to see if the bug was made in a lab.

    So either the experts got jiggered data sets, or they lied. Or both, because it’s a poor expert who can’t tell a fake data set with a bit of work.

    2. It is also a sequence which natural corona viruses DO NOT use.

      COVID19 is identical to its natural bat-virus progenitor EXCEPT for the specific changes that make it infect humans instead of bats. No more, and no less. Probability that those changes were random mutations?

      “There’s statistically improbable, and then there’s ‘violates the fundamental principles of the universe’.”

      And don’t forget, at the beginning of 2017 Fauci predicted ‘a surprise pandemic’ during Trump’s Presidential term. How better to make such a prediction than by planning to cause it?

  72. I completely agree, except for the asymptomatic spread. My best SWAG was that there was no COVID asymptomatic spread, but we now finally have the science to indicate that there is significant asymptomatic spread.

    https://sebastianrushworth.com/2021/06/06/can-asymptomatic-people-spread-covid-19

    Among the countless COVID crimes is the fact that we’ve been prevented from reading the science we need to combat this engineered virus for a year and a half. We’re fed self serving statist propaganda and told it’s science, and anyone who tries to inject actual science is shouted down as a science denier who wants to kill grandma by authoritarians in government and media, and social media “fact checks”, censors and bans them. This debasement of science is an epidemic and if it continues, it will destroy western civilization. Most people don’t understand science and have no idea how crucial it is to the maintenance and advancement of the modern world.

    Truth is treason in The Empire of Lies.

    1. No. Seriously. There is no asymptomatic spread. That’s bullshit. There have been COUNTLESS studies. The closest we can come to it is “people using so many anti-cold meds they appear asymptomatic” and even that was China. Which means no real.
      Look, “asymptomatic spread” makes no SENSE.
      If you mean someone with no symptoms tested positive? Well, the tests are little better than flipping a coin. And other people around them tested positive? Again. Flip a coin. BAH.

      1. I’m definitely not referring to the RT-PCR test that is of extremely poor quality and designed to generate scary false positives. Please, take a few minutes and read the article at Dr. Rushworth’s blog. He practices evidence based medicine. There’s more COVID science on his blog than all of mainstream media combined. While the asymptomatic spread data wasn’t derived from randomized controlled trials (it’s a bit unethical to put people in cages and infect some of them with SARS-CoV-2 to study how it spreads), the data was based on contact tracing at the start of outbreaks when it’s a good assumption that the people who were infected were not infected by someone else in the community because at that early stage, there was essentially zero community transmission.

        Admittedly, we’ve been lied to so consistently and persistently that the pathologically mendacious propagandists in government, media and social media have zero credibility, but occasionally the truth aligns with their agenda. Not often, by design, but it does happen.

        It’s yet to be determined whether children asymptomatically spread COVID-19. Preliminary data suggests they don’t, so all of the teacher’s union propaganda to justify a year and a half of paid vacation with very generous benefits was all predicated on a big fat lie. One credible study suggests that families with younger children were somehow protected from COVID-19 although the mechanism is unknown and there may be confounding effects at work.

        1. I’m definitely not referring to the RT-PCR test that is of extremely poor quality and designed to generate scary false positives.

          The article you link specifically states “as diagnosed by PRC.”

          Last sentence of the 6th paragraph.

          The Marine study, after I clicked through several links to reach it, was likewise using the PRC test.

          The article you link even declares that the PCR test is extremely accurate using the positivity rate of Australia– except Australia uses at least three different tests, and the problem is the massive over-cycling when conducting a PCR test.

          If Australia is using the less expensive, fewer cycles version, they will have a much lower positivity rate.

          1. > The article you link specifically states “as diagnosed by PRC.”

            You guys made me go back and read the article, which I should have done before posting.

            The Singapore study did use PCR as a way to generate objective data, rather than only asking people if they feel sick. It would have been better if the expensive viral load blood tests were made instead of the RT-PCR, but I don’t know anyone doing that in a public health setting, and certainly not when testing as much as Singapore apparently did.

            Rather than cranking up the cycle threshold to create false positives to scare people as has been done in western countries, Singapore was apparently trying to follow the actual science to produce a positive health outcome. They were quarantining the sick (symptomatic or not) and not locking down healthy people. They almost certainly quarantined a lot of noninfectious people who still had leftover viral fragments causing false RT-PCR positives out of an abundance of caution, but that’s still better than quarantining everyone when most people aren’t infected.

            More relevant to our discussion, the RT-PCR data was analyzed in a comparative fashion, analyzing the percentage of people who tested positive after exposure to a symptomatic positive test person versus the percentage of people who tested positive after exposure to an asymptomatic positive test person. When comparing the data, the test inaccuracies, false positives or false negatives, would cancel. It’s a test method used to extract good data from inherently noisy data.

            When I posted the link, I was mostly thinking of the case where Japan patient zero is a tourist from Wuhan who infects someone, who goes to a party and infects ten people, and some of those people (symptomatic and asymptomatic) infect others. When studying the initial outbreak, there would be no community spread so the data wouldn’t be contaminated by multiple contacts with different infected people. I found that data fairly compelling, with the caveat that it’s observational data and not a rigorous controlled experiment, which would probably be unethical.

            I was disappointed to read that asymptomatic people can spread COVID, and even though they’re probably 3-4 times less infectious than a symptomatic COVID patient, they may spread COVID more because they’re not at home in bed. Asymptomatic spread plays into the hands of those who rule us by fear. It’s a reason to lock down everyone and make everyone fear everyone else.

            Now that we have effective treatments, we really do need a well constructed experiment where 20-40 year old volunteer subjects are well paid to be exposed to SARS-CoV-2 so that we could understand much more about how COVID is transmitted, including a solid answer to the issue of asymptomatic spread.

            1. You guys made me go back and read the article, which I should have done before posting.

              Not just before you posted it, but before you scolded us about how the support wasn’t that.

              That makes three strikes– you’re out.

              You very clearly are not interested in making sure of your data before you lecture people, and when challenged you double-down.

              Not playing the moving goalpost game with someone who has shown nothing but “browbeat and dodge.”

              1. > Not playing the moving goalpost game with someone who has shown nothing but “browbeat and dodge.”

                I’m neither browbeating anyone nor dodging. I’m interested in what the science says about COVID, and like so many topics these days, we need to dig for kernels of science while the government, media and social media have turned up the pseudoscience, propaganda and noise to 11.

                I usually encounter people who are not interested in science on the left side of the political spectrum. They claim to “follow the science”, but their idea of science is whatever their politically affiliated authoritarian rulers tell them. However, I do sometimes find ideological people on the right side of the spectrum denying facts and data that do not align with what they feel is right or what they want to believe. Scientists may have strong opinions but they don’t ignore, dismiss or shout down information that differs from what they believe.

                The Earth isn’t the center of the universe, or the solar system.

                The Earth is approximately 3.8 billion years old.

                Evolution is a real phenomenon.

                We’re not quite so sure of COVID’s asymptomatic spread, but the best data available strongly suggests that there is asymptomatic spread, no matter how much we may not want to believe that’s true.

                For those scoring at home:

                1) COVID is spread significantly by asymptomatic carriers. Children are almost always asymptomatic, but we still don’t know to what extent they spread disease. Some evidence indicates that children are rarely carriers and for some reason, homes with children are less likely to have infected adults, although that may be the result of confounding issues with a correlative rather than causative relationship.

                2) Masks don’t work.

                3) Social distancing in the extreme (isolation) works, moderate social distancing improves the odds, but the six foot rule is completely arbitrary. Walking 20 feet behind someone indoors would be more dangerous than standing three feet upwind, outdoors.

                4) Lockdowns don’t work.

                5) COVID-19 is primarily an airborne disease, with negligible spread from surface fomites.

                6) The vaccine provides very specific immunity to a single protein, at significant risk of serious side effects that are probably more dangerous to those 25 and under than the disease itself. The Emergency Use Authorization vaccines also have unknown long term risks because they are not FDA approved and haven’t gone through the longer term studies required to demonstrate long term safety. The mRNA vaccines have never been used before so this large scale experiment is inherently riskier than a different type of attenuated virus vaccine when we have ample experience with previous FDA approved attenuated virus vaccines. Surviving COVID-19 conveys a more robust form of immunity than the current vaccines which will require annual boosters for different COVID strains. COVID survivors should not be vaccinated as they incur the same vaccine risks with none of the benefit.

                1. I’m neither browbeating anyone nor dodging.

                  That’s #4.

                  This is text.

                  You are in black and white doing exactly what I described you doing.

                  Sarah can’t edit comments without breaking the formatting.

                  So buzz off, it’s not working, and I will not waste my time engaging someone who has now borne false witness, in black and white, repeatedly, and then tried to deny it.

                  1. > I will not waste my time engaging someone who has now borne false witness….

                    Bearing false witness? I did not do that.

                    Sorry you’re not amenable to facts or civil discourse.

                    1. I think you’re acting like a much bigger jerk than anyone else here is acting like. If you want civil discourse, you should probably be prepared to provide some. Listen more and talk less. You cannot change someone’s mind if you’re shouting at them about how incivil they are. The people here are amazingly well-read and used to examining data and poking holes in it and don’t really care about credentials nor do they have any interest at all in shibboleths.

                      Perhaps agree to disagree and then change the subject. That sort of thing can work.

                    2. *nod*

                      Manners, effort, and bad reasoning, will get an explanation.
                      Effort, evidence, and bad manners, will get an explanation.
                      Offering evidence you didn’t read, declaring it good, scolding people for not reading it, and then admitting you didn’t read it, with bad manners– nope.

                      Repeatedly pushing something, declaring it said the opposite of what it said, and then being offended that people noticed?

                      Nope.

                      As folks here know, I’m flatly obnoxious (possibly incredibly so) in trying to get to the bottom of something…if I think someone has some sort of evidence of either attempting to get to the truth, or is in any way effective at misleading others.

                      Lacking that? Nope. I got better things to do. Like re-watch Dan Vasc videos.

                    3. Kathy told me to, “Keep your lying BS to yourself.”

                      Bob told me. “a) you are either slow, and need to up your game to keep up here b) you are lying, and should go fuck yourself.”

                      Foxfier accused me of being “someone who has now borne false witness, in black and white, repeatedly, and then tried to deny it.” Basically, I was called a liar for presenting reputable data from a reputable source with which people disagreed. Foxfier also accused me of, “Offering evidence you didn’t read”. That one is on me. I meant to say that I should have reread the article before posting it, but I said that I should have read it. I had read the entire article when it was published, but I was remembering one part and Foxfier seized on a different part of the article in an effort to discredit it.

                      I’m not “shouting” at anyone. I’m calmly explaining a position with which people disagree. That’s civil discourse. We all share information and the best data wins, and that’s how we learn. I didn’t accuse anyone of being “incivil”. I said not amenable to civil discourse. There is a difference. I certainly haven’t accused anyone of being a liar, told them to “buzz off”, or told anyone to GFY.

                      Yet I’m “a much bigger jerk” for sharing unpopular information. Asymptomatic spread was an unpleasant surprise to me as well, but I didn’t deny the data because it didn’t match my political opinion or even my best scientific understanding. I looked at the credible evidence, was convinced, and I tried to share this new information with others who obviously are not interested in it.

                      In all of these personal attacks, I’m yet to see credible evidence to disprove asymptomatic spread. The posts disagreeing with asymptomatic spread are ad hominem attacks. Shooting the messenger doesn’t change the message, but nobody is under any obligation to believe anything. Everyone is obviously free to believe as they will.

                    4. Foxfier accused me of being “someone who has now borne false witness, in black and white, repeatedly, and then tried to deny it.” Basically, I was called a liar for presenting reputable data from a reputable source with which people disagreed

                      And again, you bear false witness.

                      To quote, for the most basic of things:

                      I’m definitely not referring to the RT-PCR test that is of extremely poor quality and designed to generate scary false positives. Please, take a few minutes and read the article at Dr. Rushworth’s blog.
                      When it was pointed out that your link did, indeed, rest on PCR, you said:
                      You guys made me go back and read the article, which I should have done before posting.
                      Both of which were AFTER your initial balls to the wall boldness of:
                      . My best SWAG was that there was no COVID asymptomatic spread, but we now finally have the science to indicate that there is significant asymptomatic spread.

                      You made a claim.

                      You cited evidence that showed the opposite.

                      You denied those who said no.

                      When it was directly quoted where it said no, you dodged.

                      You.
                      Are.
                      A.
                      False.
                      Witness.

                      And a bold one, at that.

                2. 2) Masks don’t work.
                  4) Lockdowns don’t work.

                  –
                  That depends entirely on the intentions of those imposing the mask mandates and lockdowns. I suspect both are ‘working’ as far as those authoritarians are concerned.

                  Reducing spread of the virus, not so much.

            2. “I was disappointed to read that asymptomatic people can spread COVID, …”

              If you’d read any of Foxfier’s or Bob’s posts, you could not have written that in good conscience.

              1. I read Bob’s replies to me and Foxfier’s replies to me. Frankly, most of it was ad hominem attacks. The reasoned argument I saw was that there are people who take a lot of over the counter medications to suppress their symptoms and then report being asymptomatic. That’s nuts, but people are nuts, so I found that to be a credible point, but it didn’t effectively negate the data in my linked Dr. Sebastian Rushworth article.

                It should be noted that under Dr. Rushworth’s blog post, he also had many detractors. These were people who were his fans when his evidence based medicine indicated that masks don’t work, lockdowns were ineffective and there are potentially serious problems with the mRNA “vaccines”, but as soon as he had data that demonstrated that there actually is asymptomatic spread, he was accused of selling out, etc. Most people are far more ideological than scientific. Most people hang out online in forums where their ideological opinions are validated. They’re not only not looking to challenge their beliefs, they’re openly antagonistic to those who try to convey facts they don’t like.

                I haven’t read every post in under this blog entry. If you have credible data that there is no COVID asymptomatic spread, I’d like to read it. I found the data in the Rushworth article to be compelling, but not absolutely conclusive. I believe it’s the best data on asymptomatic spread to date, but it’s not the high quality data I’d like to see from several well designed randomized controlled trials with different test methods that agreed.

    2. Keep your lying BS to yourself. The world is enough of an uproar without this garbage.

      You cannot spread what you do not have. It’s fiction, delivered by a fevered brain.

      STOP IT.

      1. Asymptomatic spread is not spreading what you do not have. It’s being infected but not suffering any symptoms, yet passing that disease to others. There are numerous examples in medicine.

        1. How many of those examples, beyond the current claims, are viral pathogens?

          Typhoid? Bacteria. Leprosy, TB, Anthrax, etc. are all bacterial.

          Bacterial, Fungal, Animal, and Vegetable pathogens have a fundamental difference from Viral pathogens. A virus is not alive, and only ever replicates via living cells of a compatible creature.

          Bacteria, Fungus, Animals, and Vegetables can live off of dead matter that is not part of a creature. Okay, some parasitic animals may be so specialized that they cannot live outside of host, at least during certain parts of the life cycle.

          This is really basic life sciences.

          If you have any wit at all, and have studied your examples, you should probably have already noticed this.

          Which suggests that either a) you are either slow, and need to up your game to keep up here b) you are lying, and should go fuck yourself.

          1. > How many of those examples, beyond the current claims, are viral pathogens?

            The first example that comes to mind is AIDS. HIV is an RNA virus, like SARS-CoV-2 and AIDS is often spread by people while asymptomatic. Fairly early in the COVID panic, Indian researchers announced that SARS-CoV-2 contained genetic sequences from HIV, and the researcher who won the Nobel Prize for genetic AIDS research confirmed it. Then the curtain came down on the lab leak theory and the researchers were forced to recant. Now that most people finally realize that SARS-CoV-2 came from a lab, the HIV gene sequences references have reemerged.

            One example is sufficient to disprove the claim (or insinuation through question) that there are no viral pathogens passed through asymptomatic spread, but it’s worth mentioning that the peak virus shedding in diseases caused by airborne viral pathogens occurs just before the onset of symptoms. That’s a very common example of asymptomatic spread, even though the person later develops symptoms. The symptoms are not directly caused by a viral infection. The symptoms are indirectly caused by the infection, and directly caused by the body’s immune system fighting the viral infection. Once the immune system ramps up its defenses, the viral loading and viral shedding decreases, assuming the infection isn’t fatal.

            1. That’s a very common example of asymptomatic spread, even though the person later develops symptoms.

              That’s a common example of prodromal spread.

              What’s been (I think deliberately) confused in this last year is the distinction between prodromal (not noticeably symptomatic yet) and asymptomatic (never gets any symptoms ever, only could know they were infected via a test) spread.

              Bringing up HIV is a red herring: HIV isn’t a respiratory virus. Respiratory viruses are spread by, well, respiration, which can certainly include mere breathing, but mostly means coughing and sneezing and fomites (touch your runny nose then touch a table).

              And from everything I’ve read, “prodromal” carriers usually feel a bit “off” but don’t feel “sick” — yet — and the best thing that can come out of this pandemic is the notion that if you feel only a little bit off then you should stay home because that’s when you’re most likely to spread whatever bug you’ve got.

              1. the best thing that can come out of this pandemic is the notion that if you feel only a little bit off then you should stay home because that’s when you’re most likely to spread whatever bug you’ve got.

                –
                Exactly.

                AND keep children home from School and Daycare. (We used to have sick care options for younger children. Do not know if that is still an option. Never used it. I could work from home, if needed.)

                Plus have the above not be a reason for someone to be fired, furloughed. “They called in sick too often.” Should be a strike against every employer.

                1. I’m sure folks here are tired of my old rant, but one of the non-zero benefits of homeschooling is my kids don’t get sick with every bleepin’ thing down the ramp.

                  Usually, we only get sick from 1) Sunday School, 2) Somebody’s Grandkids gave it to my husband’s co-workers.

              2. What’s been (I think deliberately) confused in this last year is the distinction between prodromal (not noticeably symptomatic yet) and asymptomatic (never gets any symptoms ever, only could know they were infected via a test) spread.

                And both deliberately conflated with “was obviously sick but not enough to go to the hospital” or “was Just Too Important to stay home sick.”

                1. And it is only with true asymptomatic that this thing of “don’t do 2+ weeks quarantine for international travelers” and “stay constantly paranoid about reinfection of infectious spread from hidden domestic population reservoirs” would make sense.

                  Making international travelers isolate for a minimum of two weeks, and for two weeks after last symptoms, on entering a country, would basically eliminate the ‘need’ for general special precautions.

                  Lockdown/masking was and is fraud to steal the election. Or, fraud to steal the election on behalf of PRC assets, and the ‘border crisis’ is how they are planning to spread the bacterial weapon this fall.

                  Times when my most extreme fears can not be reasonably disproved are interesting times, but not good times.

              3. I do agree that there has been obfuscation, probably deliberate, between people who are infected and never have any symptoms and people who are infected but haven’t shown symptoms yet, but in the context of epidemiology, it may be a meaningless distinction. A person who is infected by someone who hasn’t shown symptoms but later will is just as infected as a person who is infected by someone who will never have any symptoms. The public health response would be the same, and logically, so should our individual decision making processes.

                HIV wasn’t a red herring. As Bob stated, he asked for an example of asymptomatic spread of a virus and I provided a common example that most people would acknowledge. I’m not looking for a fight. I’m seeking consensus. I agree that from an epidemiological perspective, HIV isn’t very relevant in a COVID discussion, which is why I specifically mentioned airborne respiratory viral diseases as being commonly spread from asymptomatic carriers who either are not yet showing symptoms or in some case may never have any significant symptoms if they have an immune system that responds after some significant viral replication but before symptoms develop.

                I have a friend who had COVID very early in the process. He felt slightly off and had “weird diarrhea”. He kept working, but he was working by himself so he didn’t spread it to coworkers. He felt fine a few hours later. His kids were all infected and had very mild symptoms or no symptoms. His ex-wife became very ill. She should have been hospitalized, but wasn’t. She’s apparently one of the long COVID cases.

                I completely concur. If you’re sick, even if it’s a cold or the flu and not COVID, stay home until you’re not contagious. Why do people think they’re a hero for going to work and making others sick?

            2. One example is sufficient to disprove the claim (or insinuation through question) that there are no viral pathogens passed through asymptomatic spread

              –
              Nice straw-man you got there, be a shame if something happened to it…

              Fox never said, or implied, anything of the sort. Her question was whether ‘asymptomatic spread’ OF COVID19 was a threat significant enough to justify the draconian lockdown decrees imposed by tyrannical Democrats, or just a flimsy excuse. I’m leaning toward ‘flimsy excuse’. Especially after all the other flimsy excuses we’ve seen.
              ———————————
              A good Zombie Apocalypse novel is at least as believable as anything we’ve heard out of the ‘Publick Health Authoriteez’ over the last year.

              1. In fairness, they were responding to me, and I was specifically suggesting that viral asymptomatic spread was improbable. And they did show that the general case of viral pathogens can have prodromal spread.

                However, I did ask ‘how many’ of those examples were viral. They had previously suggested that there were examples of asymptomatic spread of infection known to medicine.

                Obviously, there a lot of viral diseases, and a lot of bacterial diseases. We can estimate, but not count the numbers.

                ‘How many’ is a subtly different request for information than ‘are there even any’?

                If I wanted to know the whether something is even possible, one example does prove it.

                But, if there are N viral diseases and M bacterial diseases, and X known potentially asymptomatic viral diseases and Y known potentially asymptomatic bacterial diseases, then comparing X and Y, and X/N and Y/M, tells me something about the probabilities.

                If X is only one, and Y is much larger than one, asymptomatic transmission in a new virus is not that probable.

                X can be larger than one, and asymptomatic transmission of a new virus should still be presumed improbable so long as Y is much larger than one, or Y/M is much larger than X/N.

                A hot new study of a difficult measurement done quickly should be suspected as error if theory or solid empirical results tell us that the result is improbable.

                And my earlier comment today this post does fairly clearly lay out my reasoning for thinking that respiratory asymptomatic spread might be expected to be improbable,and what the context of my reasoning is.

              2. The text you quoted was a response to Bob, not Fox. I haven’t read all of her posts, but I don’t recall any of her replies to me mentioning draconian lockdowns, but since you mentioned it, I’ll respond to you. The data clearly and repeated shows that the lockdowns were utterly ineffective at reducing the spread of COVID-19, and those lockdowns caused great economic harm, psychological harm, damage to childhood education and development, suicides, increased substance abuse…. Asymptomatic spread was a serious consideration when lockdowns were first contemplated but we didn’t have the data needed to answer the relevant questions at the time. We now know that lockdowns don’t work and at best delay the inevitable.

                In hind sight, we’d have had a much better outcome if we quarantined the sick and those with contact with people known to be sick to slow the spread of the disease to avoid overwhelming hospitals, isolated the elderly and immune compromised who are most at risk, and allowed young healthy people to go about their lives, contract COVID-19 and develop robust natural immunity to it that’s needed for persistent herd immunity that ultimately protects us all.

                Instead, we’ve been lied to constantly, and “two weeks to flatten the curve” turned into a year or more, and now experimental “vaccines” are being administered to children who are at almost no risk from the disease and people who have already had the disease and are therefore immune. This looks like it’s all about the “vaccine”. I can only hope it’s just the usual Big Pharma greed and not something more sinister.

            3. AIDS/HIV can spread with a relatively low number of replication acts because it is an STD, and intercourse basically bypasses the time/distance issue of ultraviolet killing particles. If a disease spreads because people are having sex, the spread can be curtailed simply by ceasing to have promiscuous sex, watching blood supplies, etc.

              The mode that we were warned heavily about was respiratory, people being near each other, not sexual intercourse. One of the major claims has been that this was a natural cold virus, having the usual cold transmission mechanisms, and was spreading without leaving any evidence, until people suddenly died.

              Fundamentally, if it is obviously a synthetic disease, and operates by mechanisms new to colds, the experts were lying, and the claims of asymptomatic transmission should also be distrusted.

              You describe carriers who get sick soon after.

              The fear mongering has been heavily implying carriers who get sick never, with other infected suddenly dying.

              The two scenarios have different implications for what we can figure out once we know to discard all the recent expert studies.

              If carriers get sick soon after, than either it hasn’t spread in the US (is not super infectious), or it has spread in the US, people got over it, and it is not super lethal without Governors screwing around with the management of nursing homes.

              Only with true asymptomatic carriers can it be potentially super infectious, with a possible extreme lethality that has not shown up yet.

              If you are relying on the AIDS in Chinese lung AIDS being literal, then you are already conceding that the recent studies by ‘experts’ should be discarded as misinformation.

              1. > AIDS/HIV can spread with a relatively low number of replication acts because it is an STD

                I completely agree that AIDS is not a good comparison to COVID-19 transmission. It was only offered as a readily acceptable example of a virus that can propagate asymptomatically.

                SARS-CoV-2 is unique enough that humans have no acquired immunity to it. That makes it more infectious in the general population than the viruses that have been mutating in humans for centuries. The virus is also more infectious because it’s designed to be more infectious, being the result of gain of function research. Scientists tried to find a recent host species for zoonotic spread but were unable to because the virus is best adapted to infect humans, which is strong circumstantial evidence for a lab creation.

                Children are still acquiring immunity to infectious agents but they have strong innate immunity and that’s why COVID isn’t much of a bother to them.

                COVID will be with us forever. Fortunately, viruses tend to become more infectious and less lethal as they evolve over time. SARS-CoV-2 started by being very infectious, having been designed to infect humans. Unfortunately, the “vaccines” confer very specific immunity to a single protein strand. Pfizer is already giddy about the idea of annual booster shots as COVID mutates, but COVID vaccines will be almost as ineffective as influenza vaccines. Both are rapidly mutating RNA viruses. The vaccines will be of limited use but they’ll be very profitable for the manufacturers and those who administer the shots. My personal hope is to avoid contracting COVID until there are more effective and widespread treatments. The treatments were horribly suppressed to focus exclusively on vaccines, so we’re off to a slower start on treating COVID. I’ll eventually contract COVID and hopefully I’ll survive (I’m in the 99.5% survival cohort) and will have lasting and robust immunity.

                Good news! Research shows that any recent respiratory infection confers some resistance to COVID… even a cold from a completely unrelated rhinovirus. The bad news for me is that I had three back-to-back respiratory infections and was sick for the entire January many years ago, and haven’t been sick since.

                Eat nutritious foods (a big salad every day is a good start), don’t be overweight, get some fresh air and sunshine every day, take 4000 IU of vitamin D3 if you can’t get sunshine, try to get enough regular sleep – all of these things support immune health that will help you kick COVID sooner rather than later.

          2. Be sure to read to the end for that final touche. 🙂 That matched my mood today perfectly, Bob, thank you.

        2. Note: I have been extremely slow to figure this out. I am not a life scientist, have not seriously studied this stuff in years, and spend most of my time thinking about other things.

          It took until someone mentioned asymptomatic spread of thyphoid here, recently, for me to fully remember that bacterial pathogens existed. I’ve been thinking about bacterial and viral sinus infections, without thinking about the fundamental nature of bacteria and virii.

          So, part of my intensity on this is precisely because the final realization was so recent.

        3. Yes. Your statement is correct.

          The ‘Rona does not have asymptomatic spread, either by my definition or yours.

    3. Several issues with the support, starting with tests that are known to get very high false positive rates (and a single positive being enough for diagnosis, which gives you a “positive that never had symptoms”) and moving on to diagnosis via symptoms, in which case things like the bacterial infection going through our house right now (known risk of extended masking) would be incorrectly identified as COVID.

      In a third place, there is the assumption that it wasn’t spreading before the WHO admitted that it was there, which is WHY there was such explosive spread right at first, with no apparent vector other than asymptomatic cases, insanely long virus life, and incredibly long, irregular incubation periods.

      That’s on top of much of the evidence being built on that infamous “study” where they didn’t contact the woman involved who was described as asymptomatic, and she contacted them to say she wasn’t asymptomatic in any way shape or form, she was stuffed to the gills with OTC flu meds and soldiers through even though she was STILL miserable.

      **********

      The Marine study in particular should not pass the smell test– the life of someone who went “oh, sorry, can’t go to Boot because I had a runny nose 9 days ago” would be…. well…. let’s leave it at “that would be bad,” OK?
      It’s on par with that “anonymous survey” that they sent out about ten years back, where it was sent to your email and you had to enter a number and password that they carefully explained was locked to your identity. But yes it’s totally anonymous and secure, right. (Yes, people were discharged for their responses.)

      1. I have one Major Problem with this “asymptomatic” stuff (especially the idea that if you had it and no longer have the symptoms then you’re still a danger to others).

        The Problem is Simple, if this was TRUE, the logical thing is that we should TEST EVERYBODY and imprison everybody with the virus permanently especially those people who had the symptoms but now don’t.

        After all, if “asymptomatic” is real and asymptomatic people are a major danger to others, IT IS LOGICAL TO PREVENT ASYMPTOMATIC PEOPLE FROM BEING AROUND OTHERS.

        Especially when we hear about How Deadly This Disease Is.

        1. At one point there was a study where they tested everyone, removed those who were positive, and still had positive tests later on.
          Those folks, of course, didn’t have symptoms…..

  73. Re: skepticism about so called asymptomatic spread…

    There are three ‘unknowns’, but we can reason out some of the chances of relationships when we are talking about a virus. Bacteria, fungal, animal and vegetable pathogens are a different matter.

    The ‘unknowns’ are infectiousness/spread, symptoms, and lethality.

    The key information is that a virus is not alive, and only ever replicates via living cells of a compatible creature.

    Infectiousness basically depends on number of viral particles. Particles do not move under their own power, they are moved by a carrier material, or human contact with a carrier material. This is basically statistical, as is rate at which viral particles are sterilized by things like heat, and ultraviolet. Fundamentally, the limit is generation of viral particles within living cells, the number of viable particles from generation decreases with time and distance. Where you do not have generation within living cells, where you do not have living cells, you do not have infection.

    Generally, symptoms correlate with viral particle generation within the living cells of a patient. Lots of particles generated mean more survive the immune system to infect more cells. If there is no eventual causal origin in viral replications, the symptom is not caused by a virus.

    Generally, lethality correlates with viral particle generation within the living cells of a patient. Lots of particles generated mean more survive the immune system to infect more cells. If there were never viral replications, then the death was not caused by a virus.

    Draw a grid, with one side being increasing infectiousness, and the other being increasing symptoms. Ideal from a viral weapon perspective is lots of infection, and no symptoms. This basically requires two stages of replication, one all infection, one all symptoms. Most real viruses are a single stage of replication, causing both symptoms and infection. Distinct stages are really difficult to realize. For a single stage type replication virus, you will probably be filling in grid squares as follows. High infection, low symptom probable, can probably exist. Low infection, low symptom is probable. Low infection, high symptom, is probable. You do not fill in the high infection, high symptom. Basically, you have a triangle. One side of the symptom/infectious matched line is probable, the other is not probable.

    Grid with infectiousness/lethality, same logic, similar triangle. A very lethal viral infection may produce a lot of viral particles. The main difference is that if an individual dies fast, they move less, and the viral particles are more concentrated in time and in distances. So the particles are passively sterilized more rapidly compared to generation, and the spread of the infection dies out fast.

    Grid of symptoms lethality, will need to be diagonal line of squares. Low symptoms, low lethality. High symptoms, high lethality. Symptoms are the mechanism by which lethality occurs.

    With any sort of natural virus, looking at ‘first principles’, it is extremely improbable to combine infectiousness, asymptomatic spread, and actual lethality.

    Fundamentally, measurement is difficult. We uses statistics to do measurements, and help us understand if we have made trustworthy measurements. Measurement of biological things are harder than measuring mechanical, electrical or other widget type things. More difficult types of measurements require more measurements, statistically, to reach the same level of trustworthiness. Increasing # of measurements increases cost, and may increase time. If conditions for a measurement are rare, you have to wait longer before you have captured enough measurements. So, when you rush you hurt the quality of your measurements.

    If you are trying to deal with something rare in an emergency, your measurements are very likely much less reliable than any aggregate measurement/estimate you make over decades.

    Fundamentally, when we do sanity checking from first principles, we see that the recent much hyped examples of unusual aggregate measurements may be errors originating from taking very few measurements. In fact, it would be extremely surprising if they were not all such errors.

    Therefore, the selection of ‘experts’ telling us to take these specific measurements seriously are most likely lies.

    Therefore, the pattern actually speaks to two likely scenarios. Scenario one, an ordinary harmless natural cold, and people lying to make it sound significant. Scenario two, an actual viral weapon, and the experts are lying to conceal the maliciousness of the PRC’s regime. Even if the viral weapon came out of a US lab, and was spread in China from that source, it was irresponsible of the regime not to shut down international travel. The experts claiming to believe it was serious were also not demanding that international travel, generally, cease. (If you have played the Pandemic flash game, that is the AI ‘strategy’ that results in Madagascar not shutting down the port before you can set up a successful run.)

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