Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Not all heroes wear capes.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

The willow is too close to the house.

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

White supremacy is terrorism.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

T R E 4 5 O N

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Saturday Morning Open Thread: They Are What They’ve Always Been

Saturday Morning Open Thread: They Are What They’ve Always Been

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139Comments

  1. 1.

    satby

    Good morning Vietnam Balloon Juice!

    Was offline all yesterday and just peeking in before leaving for market today. Glad they caught the bomber, and doubly glad it turned out to be a Maga cult member, just so the right wing nut next to me keeps his yap shut about it today.

  4. 4.

    Viva BrisVegas

    Sinead O’Çonnor has become a muslim and is now to be known as Shuhada.

    To each their own I suppose.

  6. 6.

    TS (the original)

    So the “bombs” are upsetting his polls – while the bombs are life threatening to democratic politicians and their supporters.

    I need a brain clean after reading or listening to this horror of a person.

  9. 9.

    Lapassionara

    Good morning all. Today I start the long trek across the southeast to St Louis. If all goes well, it will only take two days of driving. But, from my experience getting here, we are very much in need of infrastructure week, or better yet, infrastructure year.

    I haven’t heard about Leto in several days. Any updates?

  11. 11.

    A Ghost To Most

    Shit Hitler becomes more like Authentic Hitler every day.

    And so do the Good Germans.

  13. 13.

    Schlemazel

    The MAGAts at his rally last night were, at one point, chanting “CNN SUCKS”. Which was a bit of Trumpism that was featured on the MAGAvan. The deplorables have no sense of shame, decency, humanity or, well just about anything that makes modern civilization possible.

  14. 14.

    HeleninEire

    This time next week I will be high above the north Atlantic on my way to NY. Can’t wait. It’s been a year and a half since I’ve seen everyone.

  15. 15.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Even the liberal Joe Scarborough

    “Is it any wonder that Trump Republicans are so desperate to change the subject from health care? After all, how do you face voters knowing that your primary political goal in Washington has been to wipe out health-care guarantees so multinational corporations and Mar-a-Lago billionaires can fatten their bank accounts and pour even more money into their children’s trust funds?”

  17. 17.

    Ken Shabby

    @Schlemazel:

    Just woke up and this is high lair russ-

    Things are different today
    I hear poor Melania say
    Counting money from his family’s just a bore
    So, she buys a few Big Macs
    And, she says go hide your tax
    And goes running for the shelter
    Of her mother’s little helper

    zzzzZzzt

  18. 18.

    Schlemazel

    @Ken Shabby:
    Comments like this are why we need upvotes!
    How about a system like deadspin/splinter/theroot where you can ‘star’ comments?

    Thanks for the laugh

  19. 19.

    Ken Shabby

    @Schlemazel:

    The deplorables have no sense of shame, decency, humanity or, well just about anything that makes modern civilization possible.

    Take the mic, stand him on a rock, light some torches and bonfires and they’re almost at cave’s entrance.

    “She turned me into a newt!”

  20. 20.

    Ken Shabby

    @Schlemazel:

    Oi ! and, Oy!

    Know we all keep saying, there’s no bottom to all this but, at some point, these wretched bastards have to bounce. Until then, I’m going to do my best to keep dumping shit on their heads until they fuck off back to their wallows.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @HeleninEire: (Huh, no blockquote etc tabs) “This time next week I will be high above the north Atlantic on my way to NY.”

    There’s no smoking on planes, so make brownies ahead of time.

  24. 24.

    MazeDancer

    It’s The Last PostCard Weekend.

    We are pouring on the volume for BJ Candidates Heidi Heitkamp and Antonio Delgado.

    Heidi stood up for Dems when it counted, so stand up for her. Antonio is running for office while a Rhodes Scholar, Harvard Law Grad, and Black, so his opponent runs ads of Mr. Dlelgado in a hoodie.

    Heidi PostCards are just copying a script. So easy!

    Antonio’s are saying anything you want to Real Dems. So fun!

    Get addresses: PostCardPatriots.com

  25. 25.

    Ken

    @Schlemazel:

    Comments like this are why we need upvotes!

    I can’t remember, did Cole nix those in his recent ranting tirade thoughtful discussion of commenting options? I know threaded comments were Right Out.

  26. 26.

    Ken Shabby

    @A Ghost To Most:

    Shit Hitler becomes more like Authentic Hitler every day.

    And so do the Good Germans.

    We’ll know it’s close when hats get pointy with feathers and lederhosen starts showing up. Circle dancing with slapping legs, all that.

    ja-JA!

  28. 28.

    debbie

    I just listened to a neighbor saying that the MAGAbomber was constantly complaining about CNN, liberals, abortion, etc., but she never thought he would resort to violence. Really???

  29. 29.

    Ian G.

    The various radical Islamic clerics out there will be happy to know that if they call on their followers to murder Jews or Shi’ites or whatever, and their followers do so, the Republican Party will blame the Jews and Shi’ites for being murdered.

  30. 30.

    Ken Shabby

    @Ken:

    Originally came here for ranting tirades…

    My humble nay to threaded reddit looks, where finally a ‘graph is two words long and three scrolls deep and stars may cause fights. I’d overuse them; this place has great comment sometimes. Come for the articles, stay for the comments.

  31. 31.

    debbie

    These Mike DeWine ads against Richard Cordray smell of desperation. “Cordray voted to raise taxes 100 times.” “Cordray will harvest your money and leave Ohio barren.”

  32. 32.

    Schlemazel

    @Ken:
    Yeah, voting was right out for comments. The thing is sometimes I want to express appreciation for a comment but have nothing to add (unlike normal when I just have nothing to add) but I have to drop in a comment because I can’t just ‘tag’ it in a way to show I liked it

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken Shabby: Jackals, they’re not just for breakfast anymore.

    (And my most recent previous comment keeps reappearing in the comment box. Alain is up to no good again.)

  36. 36.

    Schlemazel

    Just heard Tony Joe White died this week. Hated “Poke Salad Annie” but a lot of people liked it I guess. “Rainy Night in Georgia” is a good song

  37. 37.

    Ken

    @Ken: I didn’t mean that +1 to be snarky, in case it reads that way. It is annoying to have to click on the link to see what comment is being incremented.

    (Not half as annoying as the edit button, which at least for me behaves like a cross between the Cheshire and Schroedinger’s cat – impossible to predict if it will be there or not.)

  38. 38.

    Ken

    @debbie:

    she never thought he would resort to violence

    There may be more surprises when the FBI starts tracing his network. Assuming they bother to interview more than nine people this time.

  39. 39.

    WereBear

    @Viva BrisVegas: Sinead O’Çonnor has become a muslim and is now to be known as Shuhada.

    One can hardly blame her for changing religion, I suppose. Just hope it’s not a Cat Stevens thing where “Whoopsie! The sect I picked doesn’t allow instruments in music!”

    Everyone get a flu shot this year! I did, and I was still down for 2 weeks.

  40. 40.

    Schlemazel

    @WereBear:
    WAIT! . . . you got the shot . . . got the flu . . . it lasted two weeks . . . and that argues FOR the flu shot?!?

    Yeah, I got mine and am hoping to avoid two weeks of misery

  41. 41.

    TaMara (HFG)

    Is it morning?18 innings of baseball which means I made it through a little more than half the game. Ugh.

    Morning all. Mealy-mouthed is now my favorite phrase of the day.

  42. 42.

    JPL

    @TaMara (HFG): I fell asleep and woke only to check the score. At that time it was listed as 2-1, so I assumed the Sox won. It wasn’t until a few hours ago that I realized that the game continued.
    ugh

  45. 45.

    RSA

    “Twitter has removed many people from my account…”

    Trump has been on Twitter since 2009 but hasn’t yet learned the basic vocabulary of the platform.

  46. 46.

    Immanentize

    If the bomber was living in his van (DOWN BY THE RIVER!) where did he make the bombs? You think the many people at the news conference would have mentioned the amount of bomb making material found in the van.

    Then again, that “news” conference sounded like a bad Oscars night with each policer thanking the same folks around them over and over. BORING!

  48. 48.

    Amir Khalid

    @WereBear:
    There are plenty of working musicians who are Muslim. Yusuf Islam’s decision to focus on his faith after converting was a personal one that really had nothing to do with what his religion demanded of him. As I recall, the BBC story on Sinead O’Connor’s conversion said she is planning to release a new album next year.

  51. 51.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Ken Shabby: I think you’re new here. Threaded comments have come up many times in the past. The proprietor is unalterably opposed, as are all right-thinking people.

  54. 54.

    Gin & Tonic

    @RSA:

    Trump has been on Twitter since 2009 but hasn’t yet learned the basic vocabulary of the platform.

    He has been living among humans since 1946, and hasn’t learned how to interact with them, so this doesn’t surprise me.

  58. 58.

    Immanentize

    @JPL:
    Actually, this is one time I hope Trump’s “amazing political instincts” are right — the bombings are reversing any GOP media narrative effects (MAGAvan not caravan).

  59. 59.

    debbie

    In case not everyone watches Colbert (horrors!), he’s publishing a children’s book based on Trump’s stupid statements when visiting states after Michael and Florence. The title is “Whose Boat Is this Boat?” and all of the profits go to help hurricane victims.

    This book started as a comedy bit. Stephen held up a dummied-up book and read to the audience. Now, preorders have made it #1 at Amazon.

    Might make a good stocking stuffer for those MAGAt family members…

  60. 60.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Immanentize: There is a LOT about the bombs and their manufacture that the FBI has not yet said. I have particularly been waiting to hear what the explosive is and what kind of detonator was used. The photos that have been released are particularly unhelpful. It’s possible they think someone else is involved.

  62. 62.

    Immanentize

    @Cheryl Rofer: That has been my thinking as well. The lone wolf news conference has often been used in history to make co-conspirators sigh with relief while an investigation continues.

  63. 63.

    Schlemazel

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    I was wondering about that. I assumed they will track back every piece and find where & how he got it but thought it very odd they the way they refered to a couple of bits. Particularly the term they used for what would be the explosive bit. I forget the actual wording but it was something like ‘active agent’ it was weird.

  66. 66.

    Amir Khalid

    @Immanentize:
    I don’t mind it myself, and the pontiff reference got a smile out of me; but as you develop your material, you need to keep in mind that audiences tend not to get complicated humour.

  67. 67.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Cheryl Rofer: I have read that the explosive was from fireworks. Also read that an alarm clock was involved which made no sense at all to me. FWhateverIW, which isn’t much.

  68. 68.

    Amir Khalid

    @debbie:
    New converts to any belief system, not necessarily a religion, are often like that. I think it’s more about distancing from their past beliefs than anything else.

  69. 69.

    Immanentize

    @Amir Khalid: Strident is not a bad word for someone who said:

    [Salman Rushdie] must be killed. The Quran makes it clear: If someone defames the prophet, then he must die.

    I know Yusuf wants us to get over it and has some complicated explanation that seems to not be mindful of his audience.

    Especially here and now when people are openly calling for violence against people who are simply speaking out against power.

  70. 70.

    HeleninEire

    @OzarkHillbilly: No joke. I’ve been using CBD oil (a derivative of weed without the psychotropic affects) to help me get to sleep. As a lifelong insomniac it’s be OK but not great. Was gonna bring some to NY. Totally legal here. Turns out I’ll end up in Rikers after going through customs. Who knew??

  73. 73.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Schlemazel: The term they used is “energetic material.” That includes explosives, but also a few other things, like gunpowder, which I saw referred to once. It could also include stuff from fireworks, as OzarkHillbilly points out. I think I heard that too. Whether either of those references comes from official sources is not clear, but they were not mentioned in the press conference. They are holding that information close.

  74. 74.

    Amir Khalid

    @Immanentize:
    I thought at the time that this statement about Salman Rushdie was most uncharacteristic of him, and was likely an acute attack of foot-in-mouth disease. I still think so.

  75. 75.

    HeleninEire

    @OzarkHillbilly: Melatonin did nothing for me. I finally asked my doc for Ambien. While it put me to sleep and kept me asleep for 7 hours I still woke up tired. And after a few months it started to depress me. As in, I’d be walking down the street and just burst out crying over nothing. So I stopped it.

  77. 77.

    Immanentize

    @HeleninEire:
    I wish you were coming through Boston — where the Irish still rule!

    And maybe I know a guy who knows a guy who could set you up…. Because, LEGAL!

  81. 81.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Amir Khalid:

    If it was uncharacteristic of him, then he should have apologised unreservably to Salman Rushdie.

    Instead he has offered up mealy mouthed self-serving and unconvincing excuses.

    These are not the words or actions of someone who should be claiming any spiritual authority.

  85. 85.

    germy

    This is Debbie Cox, the county clerk of Ford county , Kansas. She is jeopardizing the voting rights of 13,000 , mostly Hispanic residents of Dodge City Kansas. When the ACLU emailed her to get her to do the right thing, she forwarded that email to Chris Kobach with an "LOL" pic.twitter.com/DgYE4Q3Mr5— Terrypdx (@terrypdx1) October 27, 2018

  86. 86.

    debbie

    @Immanentize:

    My publisher was one booth over from Rushdie’s publisher at the book national convention the year the fatwa was issued. Pretty chilling to watch German Shepards sniffing out bombs before they let the booksellers in.

  87. 87.

    HeleninEire

    @MazeDancer: Thanks for the info. I definitely don’t have a prescription. I might try it if it had a huge affect on me. It doesn’t so I can live without it for a week.

  88. 88.

    Schlemazel

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    OK, the stories I read made it sound like that was the official term used & it appeared on multiple sources so I ass-umed.

    Thanks.

    I still think something is up & it might be a week or two before we find out more about what actually happened. The clock bit makes me think these were garbage devices and if that is true I hope it is more than 2 weeks before they say that as it will really fire up the tin foil brigade if they are just crap.

  89. 89.

    Immanentize

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    Not in opposition to anything you said, but it is good for all to remember that the explosive materials used by the Boston Marathon bombers all came from fireworks.

  90. 90.

    Kirk

    Right thread topic so:

    If you know people in the Harris county Texas (Houston and most surrounding area) remind them they can vote from 7 to 7 today at early voting sites. Where’s that? Here’s a (large) PDF map and list.

    Since I’m going to be running all over reminding people today I probably won’t be able to lurk and reply, so this feels like a drive by post. But it seems right.

    Suggestion, though? All of you jackals, why don’t you post early voting info as well – just in case we’ve got more lurkers who haven’t yet caught up?

  91. 91.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @HeleninEire: I was once prescribed an anti-depressant that my wife takes daily for my sleep issues. It .was. horrible. I walked around in a fog for 2 days, all from one teeny tiny pill. My wife said “Once you get used to the med, it won’t affect you so badly.” Screw that. I’d rather not sleep.

  93. 93.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @ThresherK: By the time I realize I forgot it, it’s too late. That happened to me earlier this week when I woke up at 12:30 (not unusual) and could NOT get back to sleep. That was the telltale. Gave up the ghost at 1:30.

  95. 95.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Amir Khalid: New converts to any belief system, not necessarily a religion, are often like that. I think it’s more about distancing from their past beliefs than anything else.

    it’s a well-known thing among lifelong Catholics– at least the ones I grew up with– that converts are usually annoying and sometimes a little bit scary. When I mentioned to my father, whose parents tried to steer him into the priesthood and is now as lapsed as I am, that Ross Douthat was a convert, he rolled his eyes and said, “Oh good lord, that explains a lot”.

  97. 97.

    WereBear

    @Amir Khalid: Thank you, Amir. I I know there are many layers to Islam, just as there are in Christianity. Interviews made him sound clueless about his religion: but that might reflect media bias, as well.

  99. 99.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Schlemazel:

    @WereBear:
    WAIT! . . . you got the shot . . . got the flu . . . it lasted two weeks . . . and that argues FOR the flu shot?!?

    Per the CDC, approximately 80,000 people died in the USA from flu and complications of flu last year (recorded as 2017-2018, because “flu season” starts in fall and continues through the winter).

    That’s a lot of families who lost someone they loved.

    WereBear is right to remind us: If it’s medically possible, please get a flu shot.

    Thanks to the ACA (thank you, President Obama and Speaker Pelosi), flu shots are free. Check with your health insurance plan to find out the specifics.

  101. 101.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Cheryl Rofer: Back when I was in middle school, and you could buy chemicals by mail-order from those teeny-tiny ads in the back of Popular Science, my best friend at the time and I would spend hours making explosives. How we didn’t lose a limb or digit remains a mystery to me.

  102. 102.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Viva BrisVegas: After her experience as a teen in a Magdalen asylum, it hurts me to see images of her in a headscarf. I equate this with her trading one version of oppression of women for another. But, she is one mixed up woman, so I hope she finds peace.

  103. 103.

    Immanentize

    It is rainy, cold and raw here. Looks like I have no reason not to do laundry and start cleaning up the basement.

    Blech

  107. 107.

    WereBear

    @OzarkHillbilly: My doctor has prescribed Xanax for panic attack emergencies, since my illness triggers high cortisol from stress. My research indicated it affects GABA receptors, so I started taking a GABA/L-theanine supplement. Works great!

    Melatonin can be habituated to, but apparently GABA does not have this effect. Don’t want to use the Xanax if I can help it: I got such a lecture on how addicting it is.

  108. 108.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Cheryl from Maryland:

    I know what you mean, but it seems there are some people who cannot live without a god of some kind and they will spend their lives searching for one that will not betray them.

    I hope she finds what she needs, but these kind of quests rarely end well.

  109. 109.

    Mnemosyne

    If any praying jackals would be willing to add my mother-in-law to your prayers/good vibes/etc, I would greatly appreciate it. She has surgery on Monday for a weird mouth cancer that she seems to have inexplicably developed. The good news is that it looks to be in the very early stages and slow-growing, so her doctors think they’ll be able to remove it completely and she won’t even need radiation or chemo. Still, we’re all pretty nervous about the surgery, especially her.

    I’m starting to suspect that she was given some kind of “preventative” radiation treatment of her head back in the 1950s when doctors still thought that was a great idea, because she had a thyroid tumor a few years ago that also was caught in the very early stages, and now she has this mouth cancer that usually only tobacco users get and she’s never smoked or chewed a day in her life. ?

  110. 110.

    Eric U.

    someone on twitter says these violent MAGA peeps are part of MS-45. Seems like there should be quite a list, but outrage has erased my memory. Did the Kroger killer have MAGA ties?

  112. 112.

    J R in WV

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    At the time of the publishing of Satanic Verses, he was all in favour of delivering up Salman Rushdie to a lynch mob.

    Some people, actually probably a lot of them, do not understand that fiction is not reality, nor even a recommendation about reality. It really puzzles me, because so much of the fiction I read has, for examples, starships, vampires, time travel, werewolves, active gods, etc.

    All of this is stuff that does NOT EXIST in the real world. Much like James Bond does not exist in the real world. But some how many folks want to take action in the real world based upon fiction.

    Many people can not tell the difference between fiction and reality, right now, today. And this is a big problem, as fiction and propaganda are so closely related, today. I don’t know how one would go about even attempting to teach people about fiction, witches and gnomes, and how they can be fun to read about even though they do not exist at all, really.

    If you can’t pick that up by second grade, how do you expect to be able to make a living?

  113. 113.

    Mnemosyne

    @Cheryl from Maryland:

    I remember the huge blow-back that happened when she ripped up the photo of the Pope on SNL, but hardly anyone wants to remember what she was protesting: the cover-up of sexual abuse of children by the church.

  114. 114.

    MazeDancer

    @WereBear:

    Everyone is different.

    Everyone has different backgrounds and triggers and hard-wired survival systems.

    If you have found something that works for you – Hooray!

    Theanine wires me up. GABA has zero impact. 5-HTP (but only Solgar brand) is a good daily support. SeriPhos was good for a while, but when Cortisol levels evened out – meditation possibly, hard inner work for sure, and Ashwagandha (only Banyan Botanical brand) definitely – not necessary. And CBD oil definitely takes the edge off.

    Would not have discovered CBD Oil if Vet hadn’t prescribed for my dying cat.

    Happy you have a no side effects source of relief.

  116. 116.

    debbie

    @H.E.Wolf:

    Too scary to get the shot. One of my bosses was in bed for three weeks after getting the shot. I’m relying on the pneumonia vaccine to take the edge off the flu if I come down with it.

  117. 117.

    geg6

    At least four people dead with active shooter near the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh. Possibly up to seven or eight shot. Cops also shot. Believed to be people inside hiding from gunman.

    ETA: Now seven dead and the shooter is in the building. Fuck!

  120. 120.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Schlemazel:

    WAIT! . . . you got the shot . . . got the flu . . . it lasted two weeks . . . and that argues FOR the flu shot?!?

    Playing the odds, yes. The shot isn’t 100% effective, but it provides some degree of protection–better if most people get it, so herd immunity kicks in, preventing the spread of the disease–and the flu is bad news.

    I got mine on Tuesday when I went for a checkup. Some years my shoulder gets sore and I get a headache, but this one seemed to have no immediate effect at all on me.

  121. 121.

    zhena gogolia

    @debbie:

    One of my bosses was in bed for three weeks after getting the shot.

    That could not possibly have been caused by the flu shot.

  122. 122.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Viva BrisVegas: Religions give comfort to a lot of people. They find a certainty within them that they are denied in this uncertain world. If it helps them get thru this vale of trouble and woe, I can find no fault with that.

  126. 126.

    WereBear

    @MazeDancer: Happy you have a no side effects source of relief.

    Why I share. I’ve had to craft my own treatment since medical science has told me to my face they can’t do a thing for me. Which is fine: I’m come up with my own strategies and even consider it a plus, since them doing a misguided wrong thing would make matters worse.

    I just want to encourage people to explore further if what they are offered is not working.

  127. 127.

    Amir Khalid

    @J R in WV:
    I read The Satanic Verses a few years after the furore. (It was banned in Malaysia; the copy was a loaner from a friend who’d purchased it in London.) It’s definitely fiction, and a lot of it is whimsy and fantasy. But I have to note that Rushdie put a lot of stuff in that he had to be aware would push the buttons of Muslims sensitive to perceived slights against the faith.

  128. 128.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: Like all vaccines it is designed to infect you with a weakened form of the virus so that your body will react with appropriate antibodies so that when your body comes into contact with the real deal it will be armed and ready. The operative word is “infect”, and people react to the infection to varying degrees. Some hardly notice, some get violently ill, most are somewhere in between.

  129. 129.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @zhena gogolia: from: Deaths following vaccination: What does the evidence show? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4599698/

    “Vaccines are rigorously tested and monitored and are among the safest medical products we use. Millions of vaccinations are given to children and adults in the United States each year. Serious adverse reactions are rare. However, because of the high volume of use, coincidental adverse events including deaths, that are temporally associated with vaccination, do occur. When death occurs shortly following vaccination, loved ones and others might naturally question whether it was related to vaccination. A large body of evidence supports the safety of vaccines, and multiple studies and scientific reviews have found no association between vaccination and deaths EXCEPT IN RARE CASES..”

    (I miss my blockquote etc tabs)

  130. 130.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: Some, like the nasal-spray flu vaccine, use a weakened virus, but the one used in a flu shot is a dead virus. It can’t infect you–the genetic machinery to do that isn’t there. It’s just got enough of the virus particle to provoke the immune response.

    The immune response can involve some symptoms like the ones I mentioned, and there are some rare people who have a strong allergic reaction. But the vast majority of people who get really sick after a flu shot just had the bad luck to catch the flu in the few days before the immunity fully took effect. Because it happened after the shot, they blame the shot.

  131. 131.

    J R in WV

    The current flu vaccine does not contain any live virus, so it cannot give anyone any diseases.

    On the other hand, our daily environment is filled with a wide variety of highly infectious virii that can indeed put one down in bed for a while. One can already have been exposed to any one of several different flu virii before or while receiving a vaccination.

    The annual flu vaccine does not ever immunize us against all varieties of the flu. There are dozens of varieties of the flu, and it mutates rapidly so that new flu outbreaks happen.

    So yes you can get the flu regardless of your immunization status.

    Nevertheless, getting the flu shot greatly diminishes your odds of dying from the flu. Or even of getting just sick for 2 weeks.

  132. 132.

    WereBear

    @Matt McIrvin: But the vast majority of people who get really sick after a flu shot just had the bad luck to catch the flu in the few days before the immunity fully took effect.

    Which happened in my case, I am sure. And who knows if it didn’t help? I am still in a very low state of health, and that could have meant far worse consequences.

  133. 133.

    Tenar Arha

    @OzarkHillbilly: Always blows my mind people would inoculate themselves with actual pox from someone suffering from smallpox to gain those valuable antibodies.

    Onesimus (late 1600s–1700s[1]) was an African-born man held as a slave by Puritan minister Cotton Mather, who helped mitigate the impact of a smallpox outbreak in Boston by introducing Mather to the principle of inoculation.[2]

    (Of Bostonians who deserve monuments, this guy definitely should have one).

  134. 134.

    VOR

    @J R in WV: Flu or Influenza is nothing to sneer at. I recently read a book about the 1918 “Spanish” Flu which had mortality rates over 40% in some populations. More people died from the flu in 1918-1919 than died during World War I and that includes civilian casualties in the war.

  135. 135.

    Bill Arnold

    @HeleninEire:

    I’ve been using CBD oil (a derivative of weed without the psychotropic affects) to help me get to sleep. As a lifelong insomniac it’s be OK but not great.

    Another thing to try is “Pantothenic acid” (B5) (maybe 100mg to start) if there is stress.
    Most helpful for me in suppressing general anxiety has been meditations leading to a Yoga Nidra state.
    An Indian scientist gave me a cassette tape a couple of decades ago that was helpful (there are a lot of crappy videos/tapes; his was good), but the above link is the best I’ve found. (In English at least) E,g. method 1
    One good thing about it is that if you don’t succeed you’re likely to fall asleep, on your back, at worst risking some snoring.
    Autogenic training is essentially a westernized form of this, stripped of much of the nuance and depth, but some find it helpful.

  136. 136.

    Ruckus

    @Schlemazel:
    Every time I’ve had a flu shot, I get sick. Either I’m completely weird, and that is very, very possible or really shouldn’t get the shot. I don’t get the flu shot. I get the pneumonia shot for old people, that doesn’t do anything bad.

  138. 138.

    frosty fred

    Take it as read that everyone’s reaction is going to be more or less idiosyncratic. I used to get some kind of flu every time I took a long flight; since I started annual flu shots the most I’ve picked up has been a cold, which is a great improvement. (The second pneumonia vaccine, on the other hand, pretty much laid me up for a day and a half.)

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