Very Afternoon Much Awake, Wow Wow Wow

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

So, it turns out the reason I was hacking up a lung was the blood pressure meds. Which I’d started when the coughing started. And of course, no one told me this. As a side effect I got told it’s “a diuretic.” At this point, it’s complicated by the fact that anything that makes people cough makes me cough ten times as hard (my airways are touchy) and that my throat is raw from coughing, but it’s …. tapering off.

However last night was another of those wake up every fifteen minutes coughing. I’m told it pretty much stops after twenty four hours without meds, and I hope so.

For now, I’m going to attempt to continue losing weight which is bringing the blood pressure down all on its own.

In the meantime I feel utterly blah. Like, I couldn’t be more blah if I were Ms. Blah.

Not helped by the fact that I woke up to a world in which, as friends remind me, Glenn Greenwald is the voice of sanity and reason.

Mind you, I thing Greenwald might very well have been a sincere “New Democrat” who believed Clinton was one of them, just like we were Defense Conservatives who believed Bush was one of us. In fact, they were both apparently part of a pincer movement of internationalist techno-power politicians who were executing a clever maneuver to take us to 2020.

On the good side, it’s becoming every day more obvious that they thought that 2020 would allow them to seize power globally to the same level that China supposedly has for its oligarchies. And that it would all run on rails.

This didn’t work. Unfortunately before it came apart it did enough damage that…. well, here we are. And getting out of here is going to be a lot of work.

It’s a good thing to remember, though, that we are not alone, and that people are resisting the new dumbocrats all over the world, pretty much.

Which is good, because of all possible tyrannies a tyranny by the intellectuals is the worst. Not only is what they want to impose on you impossible, but when it fails they’ll double down. And when it becomes obvious it can’t be done, they’ll hate you twice as hard for not conforming to their pretty plans.

So. So we don’t let them. We keep rubbing their noses on reality until they stop vomiting bs all over the house.

And we do it each of us where we are. And we hope if doesn’t take until it all crashes down.

Today, however, is not a good day for me to see it all working out. Because today I’m unslept and blah.

I’m going to go look over copyedits and typeset. There might be a nap in the not too distant future.

85 thoughts on “Very Afternoon Much Awake, Wow Wow Wow”

  1. Caffeine is a diuretic.

    Incidentally, getting the water out is one way high blood pressure medicines WORK, so I’m a bit surprised it’s a “side effect.”

    1. There are other classes of hypertension meds. ARBs work for me.

      Yes, caffiene is a diuretic, but it’s also a vasoconstrictor, so that may reduce mucus secretion.

  3. Of course, Glenn Greenwald might be a “Voice of sanity and reason” within the Left and still be a Kook-Ball. [Crazy Grin]

    On the other hand, Take Care Sarah. 😀

    1. He is still “The Glenns Greenwald” after all. Gleen is still Gleen and his being “reasonable” is just a sign of how fricken loony the leftoids have become. Like Tulsi leaving the party. Still a leftoid, still very wrong much of the time. But the Base™ now demands full wrong, full time.

      1. Same with Matt Tlaibi (sp?) and Bill Maher. Things have gone so far over the deep end that these guys are saying, “Hey, whoa… there might be a problem here…” And the response from the left is to call them conservatives.

        Uh…

  4. Shudder to think what the “voice of reason” might look like in a few years…Anyway, take care of yourself…a little pampering is in order…

          1. I was going to say 1/2 a brain is being generous. “Scarecrow Ticket! If they only had a piece of a brain ….” (FIFY)

        3. I think the tribe of orange cats with its time shared single brain cell has an infinitely greater ratio of creature/brain than Turnip Fetterneck.

  5. Unfortunately the Dumbocrats aren’t the lead lemmings leading from the front. Otherwise it would be “you first”, then go any other way that is not off the cliff …

  6. Interesting what you say about Glen Greenwald. Tucker Carlson has him on a lot. That’s how he first came to my attention. I like what he did (Greenwald) with substack. But I don’t know what to think of him. You seem to think there’s something off about him. Maybe you should expand on that. Or maybe other folks on here can tell me something I don’t know. And I hope you feel better soon.

    1. About fifteen years ago, Greenwald gained notoriety in the right side of the blogosphere for doing a really bad job of using sock puppet accounts to defend himself. (And mocked brilliantly at the time.) His honesty and integrity have been suspect ever since, although, in my view, he’s done a lot to redeem himself in the past ten years.

    2. I was a reader and commentor on some of the blogs back then, The Glenns, and Gleen come from that time. Tiny Verde Ovoids (before Chuckles went full turnip), Patterico, Protein Wisdom, Ace Of Spades, Riehl World View, IMAO, egad, the list goes on.

      1. “Tiny Verde Ovoids (before Chuckles went full turnip), Patterico, Protein Wisdom, Ace Of Spades, Riehl World View” The only one of these people/blogs/? I’ve heard of is Ace Of Spades. Don’t know anything about tall of this. But, I think Greenwald was the ‘reporter’ in the Snowden affair. Wasn’t he the reporter who helped Snowden get his story out?

        1. Yes he was. That’s about the time I consider him to have done good work redeeming himself, since he was going against the Obama admin, “his” side, in doing that.

        2. “Tiny Verde Ovoides” was Redacted “little Verdant Sportsballs” (Search similar. Sarah Redacted because for frack’s sake, DeeDee, he searches the net and we don’t need an infestation), a once-excellent blog whose owner, Charles Word For Man’s Penis (Sarah’s redaction. Again, guys, he searches the web. Seriously.) was of the left, but saw Islamic terrorism as an existential threat (until Bush Derangement Syndrome got the best of him and he decided the Christian right was Even Worse).

          Patterico was a Los Angeles based lawyer who ran a blog of some influence. I seem to recall he had a minor meltdown (nothing like the one at L_F) and people just stopped reading him, because he had a personal vendetta against some other blogger on the right.

          Protein Wisdom was a hilarious blog by Jeff Goldstein, often done as a kind of post-modernist performance art. For example, he had a series of posts that were conversations between himself and John Bolton’s mustache. Or between himself and the ghost of Tom Laughlin, writer-director-star of Billy Jack. He has a Substack now that I really should follow more than I do.

          IMAO was a comedy blog by a sometime-guest poster here on AtH, Frank J. Fleming. It birthed several memes on the right, including the perennial campaign to nuke the moon.

          2. I don’t know the current status of Patterico, but he was doing good work Before Trump (TDS ate his brain, alas). He ran across a left-wing PITA (search for the book C!t!zen K [s/!/i, please]) and got sued. Said PITA sues a lot, defending his “reputation”. K also scrapes the web, and one of his minions tried some fecal matter here, with the result being a chewtoy for the Huns and Hoydens.

            Once P got TDS, I stopped reading him. No idea of his latter activities.

            1. Patterico had a fairly serious feud going with Jeff Goldstein at one point. Patterico was also a Deputy DA in Los Angeles last I heard. Anyone who’s working for that crew probably isn’t much of a conservative; they’d be fired if they were.

        3. T.V.O. was the blog where a LOT of us (including JihadWatch, Zombie Time/Pajamas Media, The Jawa Report, Gates of Vienna) and others got started. Then the boss of T.V.O* “lost his mind in the blog wars” as they say, and everyone started to specialize and go our own ways.

          *Mentioning either the full name of the blog and/or the full name of the blogger causes him to appear and cause problems, so we don’t name either him or the blog.

          2. The Blogger who shall not be named? I do remember Miniature Lime Oblate-speroids. It was mostly rational until Obummer/ Gay marriage fight and all of a sudden we of a religious bent were more dangerous and heinous than those who had killed 2700+ people. He just kind of snapped. Always had been on the self righteous I’m better than you side of the Atheist annoyingness scale but things went weird at some point. Classic example of enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my ally.

            1. Amazing to me how much I don’t know about all these vodka, zombie, pajama, jawa people. Missed all of that. Not sure what it was that took up my time so that I was not a part of all of that. It reinforces what my paranoid side (63% of me) always suspected about the web, it’s fun and a nice diversion, but it’s a swamp and more dangerous than ever.

              2. One blog I truly miss is USS Clueless run by Stephen DenBeste. He tired of it in the 2008 period and went on to writing Chizumatic which was a blog about Anime (not really my thing). Sadly Mr DenBeste passed in 2013 I believe.

        4. Ace and Insty have been around since the old days. The others, for the most part, have either gone somewhere else (Vodkapundit) took hiatus for what ever reason (health of self or family) but others are still going, or came back after a time away. Twitter sorta killed things, then their underhanded heavy-handedness caused many to go back to blogging or close to it. Just ’cause they banned or blocked us, doesn’t mean we are shutting up.

          1. I was in the back of the car one day in I think 2003 and told my husband about something Vodkapundit had written. My husband said “what pundit? Now you’re just making things up.”
            A few years later Stephen Green — Mr. Vodka Pundit — and his wife became some of our best friends. They still are, though now it’s harder to just drop by.

  7. After two years of a hacking cough I was drugged up for a camera down my throat.
    The nurse asked what I was being examined for and I told her about the cough.
    Checking my meds one last time she said “lisinopril”, that can give you an awful cough.
    We did the camera tour anyway since I was already prepped.
    Stopped the drug and the cough went away.

      1. My wife had a similar, not quite as severe, reaction to lisinopril and quickly got her doctor to change it for something else. It’s quite a common side effect.
        Her previous BP meds had been working well for almost 2 decades so of course the pharmaceutical companies had to push doctors into changing it.

      2. I was on some BP meds years ago, then dropped them when insurance (COBRA) expired. Had to restart about 5 years later, and was on enalapril. Seemed to work, but the price went through the roof and got switched to lisinopril.

        I get the cough periodically with lots-o-mucus, but allergies usually seem to be the culprit. Didn’t help this year that I had a multi-week project of removing the wrap-around deck (serious fire hazard and too good at caching pine cones). At least it wasn’t all that wet, since mold is my worst allergy. OTOH, I’ve had problems with a chronic sinus infection in the past that turned into asthma and pneumonia.

        A web search on lisinopril isn’t encouraging. My BP numbers still are spotty, though the side effects seem to be negligible. I see the doc for a 6 month checkup early December. Might be time to discuss a better med, though I still don’t have prescription coverage. (Medicare Rx Part D wants you to pay back premiums if you start it after the other sections go into effect. I’ll pass on that. Makes note to recheck the handbook, though.)

    2. My wife had to stop taking Lisinopril because it made her cough. On the other hand, I’ve been taking it for years and it doesn’t bother me at all.

    3. Fascinating. I don’t think Lisinopril itself is a diuretic, but it is often paired with HCTZ (Hydrochloro Thiazide I think) in a single tablet and that is a diuretic. That pairing is in the first line of defense for High blood pressure as it is cheap and short the cough (and the usual issues of a diuretic) relatively side effect free in most folks. I do have some mild phlegm/ cough issues so maybe that’s it, although It could also be living in a sea of cat hair. Of course you’ll get my cats when you pry them from my cold dead hands…

      1. Hubby has very small pills for both Lisinopril and HCTZ. Very small, as in when drops on the floor, our very young, very small puppy grabbed it before hubby could get to it. Major Panic Time. Given what the medication was figured the problem wasn’t the medication itself, but the difference between 220#’s and 4#’s (our prior dog had heart problems and her meds were typically prescribed to people, just dosage difference, 25#’s). Even the veterinarian didn’t know. Ended up paying for Pet Poison Control call … worth every penny to avert the panic mode we were in (just make sure she had access to all the water she wanted, this was almost 6 years ago now, she’s fine). Now he makes sure the medication dropped falls into the sink. Might lose the pill dropped, but at least the dog can’t get to it.

        1. I have had a similar issue, mine are smallish and coated so slippery to handle. I dropped it and one of our cats (Stoick the Vast) started playing with it. I was deeply concerned as I know lisinopril is used in veterinary applications too, and my 260# bulk is considerably more then his 14#. Luckily eating didn’t come into possibility as he just wanted to play with it. Retrieved it and all was well. Glad the puppy is OK.

      1. It makes one wonder when everyone I know on Anxiety Meds is also on Omeprazole, sometimes due to another med causing GERD or whatever, sometimes the anxiety meds cause the heartburn, but soon after taking the Omep, they have to up their anxiety meds. I started Prilosec and had to stop as it made me non-functional. I mentioned to a fellow who is on tons of stuff and he has changed shrinks recently and is trying to find an ADD med that doesn’t cause GERD in him so he can drop the Prilosec, because I mentioned my issues, and he didn’t have anxiety issues until after the ADD and following Omep intake.

  9. I’m back home. I anticipate getting some sort of crud in the next two weeks, because all my students were also traveling and will bring home new wonder-germs to share. And because it is choir season, which gives upper respiratory bugs a +10 Murphy-boost.

  10. FYI, Jeff is back on substack https://jeffgoldstein.substack.com/.

    When I get prescribed a new medication, I’ve learned not to depend on the Dr for info. There’s always a ton of paper in the bag with the pills and I read it all. Oh f course, I keep getting that pile of paper with every refill, but I have a big trashca.

  11. I find it hilarious that Mr. WEF – Klaus Schwab – apparently recently praised China’s government as a model for the world… just in time for anti-CCP protests to break out across the entire country.

    1. As someone who lived in China for several years before Winnie the Xi-t took power, I don’t find it funny at all.

      And the protests only validate Klaus the Pretentious. They prove that the lower classes need to be controlled and dominated, while he and his cronies ensure that there is no mine shaft gap.

      1. Here’s hoping Winnie the Xi tells us before he makes a doomsday device. Of course they just had their Communist party jamboree (or whatever they call it) where they might have announced it :-).

      2. It’s amusing. The face that China presents to the world is a blatantly false one. If Schwab knows what’s really going on, then his lies have been exposed for the world to see. If Schwab is clueless about the real state of affairs, then he’s been revealed to the public as a fool.

        And note that I’m not talking about the repression or totalitarianism (including the original meaning of that word) in China. I’m referring to the Potemkin image that the CCP presents to the world regarding what an amazing, prosperous, and wonderful place to live China is. The demonstrations are indirectly exposing the failure and rot underneath the facade.

        1. When I was there, there was real prosperity. Sure, plenty of false-face stuff, too, but the old men in charge of the Party remembered, with terror, Tiananmen, and knew quite vividly what could happen if the post-Tiananmen bargain they struck with the people (economic prosperity in lieu of political freedom) were to fail. They also knew that the People’s Liberation Army was not necessarily on their side if that happened, given the utter shame the PLA commanders had over failing to protect the people in ’89.

          But Winnie the Xit thinks he’s speshul. And I really fucking hope he gets to relish, briefly, how wrong he was when he ends like Mussolini.

          1. Something that the guys at The China Show (the China vlog linked elsewhere in the comments here) have repeatedly mentioned recently is that they have friends in China who in general like the CCP since they were able to get rich as a result of it… and are now desperate to get out of China because they see the writing on the wall. They’re afraid that Xi is going to introduce a new Cultural Revolution. And things like videos of groups of school kids or office workers singing pro-Mao songs that have been out of favor since The Great Helmsman died aren’t helping matters.

            1. Yeah, that’s not going to work out well for Xi. A lot of other people, mostly innocent, too, but for him, if he keeps pushing that way… his days are seriously numbered.

    1. I was referencing a vaguely remembered Chinese proverb, and the wonders of the Internet found the original, sort of.
      View at Medium.com

      In an address on April 12th, 1959, U.S. President John F. Kennedy INCORRECTLY stated:

      “The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word ‘crisis.’ One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger–but recognize the opportunity.”

      If we ignore President Kennedy’s orthographic error about “brush strokes” (likely thrown in for a sense of “ancient” gravitas — since, by 1959, the Chinese used pens like everyone else!) we might say he’s at least right about the Chinese word for crisis —wēijī — being a combination of two components. The first is indeed the character for danger (危 wēi)… but the second (機 jī) doesn’t really mean an ‘opportunity’ so much as ‘a pivotal moment.’

      In other words, wēijī means crisis — insofar as it’s a critical moment fraught with danger — but, ‘opportunity’ isn’t automatically part of the word.

      However, there IS a chéngyǔ that captures the spirit of JFK’s point — and it’s found in a classical Daoist text known as the Huainanzi.

      “Old Sai Lost His Horse”

      The story is fun, but too long to post here.
      It reminds me of a couple of European folk tales.

    3. Yes, I posted about this in the previous thread. The fire isn’t the only cause of the demonstrations, in part because people are protesting all over the country while the fire is a local event. Rather, it’s been a long string of things that have built up until things have boiled over.

      Though there’s apparently evidence to suggest that some at the Chinese universities found (temporary) ways to get around the government censors and were communicating with each other about some of this.

  13. This is OT but possibly something…..
    Given that this is China, the 48 hour rule applies however a youtube channel called the China Show posted this about 10 PM EST.

    It apparently shows anti CCP and anti Xi protests that broke out across China after a message to end Covid lockdowns went out.
    Given the topic source and lack of trust I have no idea what to make of it except that it is interesting.
    The english subtitles on the clips ….anyone here speak any of the Chinese languages to be able to verify the captioning?

      1. The word is that xi’s name was used in vain which never happens. There are protests in China all the time, it’s not nearly as orderly as we are led to believe. This seems to be more widespread. The police are more weaponed up than usual and it seems to not be the regular police. My cousin is fluent in Chinese and has been keeping me posted.

        CCP staked it’s prestige on Covid, which was really really stupid.

        1. While demonstrations in China are not unheard of, there are a couple of things that make these ones different.

          First, most demonstrations are pre-approved by the authorities. They tend to be fairly sedate affairs with banners and people acting in a more or less orderly fashion while chanting slogans related to the protest. And they’re aimed at targets that the government views as “safe” (meaning, non-threatening to the CCP, or its members).

          Second, even when a demonstration isn’t approved by the authorities, it’s always aimed at something local. The CCP tries to very carefully control what news gets spread around, and so citizens have a tendency to think that any problems are purely local ones. “The rest of the country isn’t suffering from COVID outbreaks. It’s merely a fluke outbreak in our community (probably introduced by a dirty foreigner who brought it into the country), and everything will be fine after the lockdown.” Residents of a city can be completely unaware of a COVID lockdown taking place a dozen blocks away unless they personally know someone affected by it, as the government is very careful to censor news and social media.

          These new demonstrations are obviously not pre-approved. And they’re aimed at the national government. The former is rare (and likely to get the COVID QR code on your smart phone turned red). The latter is basically unheard of, and a month ago guaranteed that you would vanish and never be seen again.

    2. Now all I see is a notice ‘This video is age-restricted’ and you have to sign in to watch it. Since I don’t have a Gurgle, Farcebook or Twatter account, I can’t sign in. Censorship comes in many forms…

  14. Really OT, when you write an essay do you start with the title or compose it to the theme of the essay before you hit “publish”.

    1. Usually I have the idea, and come up with a title before I sit down to write.
      Sometimes I forget to write down the title, but that’s been…. 10 times in ten years or so.

  16. There are reports that 70% of the ‘aid’ being sent to Ukraine has gotten ‘lost’ along the way. Seems like FTX was not the only money-laundering operation.

    Plus, how stupid do you have to be to go broke laundering that much money?
    ———————————
    It takes a LOT of education to make somebody that stupid.

    1. Potentially, all the money donated to Dems can be clawed back as part of the bankruptcy. Especially as they can show it was customer money. The campaigns can’t claim good faith purchase either. I might buy some popcorn though I must admit it’s just one more reason this will get buried. I’m only encouraged because the people handling the bankruptcy are first class pros.

      1. ‘First class pros’ at what, though? Exposing the truth, or covering it up? There are far too many ‘pros’ of the latter ilk around for my taste.

        1. Exposing the truth, or covering it up?

          …………..
          Follow the money. If clawing the money back provides a big payday, then they are on the side of the righteous. There could be a few looking into the future, who they can pull down, and ride that into the money, which puts them on the side of the righteous for this. Either way, follow the money and power (was going to say or, nope, it is and).

        2. The chief guy did Enron, Nortel, and Fruit of the Loom among others. He’s an old school pro. The pressure on him is going to be amazing though. Let’s see how far he can go. So far, he’s done all the right things.

          I suspect that few here have any idea what the vast majority of people on Wall Street actually do since they only find out when it goes wrong or when some a—hole speculator blows up. Too much cynicism is as bad as too little. Then again, I’m an old Wall Street pro myself so I might have different criteria and different information.

    1. All these tech pukes are down with the struggle until money is involved. They have to kiss up to China because they put all their manufacturing there. Cook, the current chairman, made that decision, built his career on it in fact. They’re trying to move it but they left it way too late. I owned a boat load of apple stock for a while but I don’t have any now. Too expensive and management is doing really stupid things. They’re all about Steve Jobs’s annuity now, not much more. Management is terrible.

  18. Found an announcement in Yahoo! news feed:

    Young Crypto Founder Shocks Industry With Sudden Death at 30 in His Sleep

    Tiantian Kullander, the influential young founder of cryptocurrency company Amber Group, died suddenly in his sleep on Nov. 23, the company confirmed.

    —and I just gotta wonder, did he take the mRNA COVID shots? I’m betting he did. Probably the ‘boosters’ too, like a good little Leftroid. Will the connection ever be investigated, or even mentioned? I’m betting it won’t.

    (Trying something new with <blockquote> — inserted a blank line ahead of the close tag. Did it work?)

  19. I think that one of my “favorite” boss sayings was “If everyone would just get on board, it would work.” As in, those who choose not to comply, or do not comply wholeheartedly, are at fault for the inevitable failure of a flawed plan.

    It got more people “on board,” and the failure was blamed on those who still weren’t wholly on board. That failure led to the company being acquired by an “asset group.”

    3. One I heard constantly between ’96 – ’02 was “Let’s agree that the deadline is” half what engineering spec deadline. Along with “What do you mean it won’t be done!? We Agreed!!!”

Comments are closed.