It looks like we need a new thread. I guess it’s in my wheelhouse to comment on the value of injecting disinfectant or swallowing lightbulbs, but that seems to have been discussed already, and I just don’t feel up to it.
And here are a couple of cats doing yin and yang to balance us all out.

schrodingers_cat
Dead from the cute
?BillinGlendaleCA
And so you put up pictures of clowns?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@schrodingers_cat: Dead from the clowns.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Is Faygo a disinfectant?
cain
@schrodingers_cat:
qutality!
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: We warned people. No one listened. “Oooh, they’re afraid of clowns! How funny.” Let’s see who’s laughing when they start eating people. Fuckers.
Adam L Silverman
@Martin: It sure as hell isn’t a potable beverage!
cain
What’s there to discuss, if people want to drink disinfectant and bleah, I say they should and tell us how it goes. We need to both sides it. I’m sure the New York Times can hep.
Elizabelle
The Guardian:
The Rolling Stones release Living In a Ghost Town, first original music since 2012
Mick Jagger says new single will ‘resonate through the times we’re living in’ and references coronavirus with the lyric: ‘Life was so beautiful, then we all got locked down’
Mick Jagger in good voice, and plays harmonica too. Video — just a camera sweeping through deserted city spaces — is on point.
Jinchi
Will nobody think of the poor oilman?
Achrachno
@Adam L Silverman: Of course it’s not drink! You’re supposed to inject it. Cures COVID and many other things, I hear.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: @Omnes Omnibus:
dmsilev
See, Trump is doing something that Obama apparently was unable to do. Next up, “Playing in traffic will cure you of the virus”, followed by “licking live power outlets will get this country open again!”.
Brachiator
I noted in an earlier thread that the most idiotic and obnoxious conspiracy theories about the virus are popping up, many in service of the idea that the pandemic is no big deal, and so we should just open up.
One of the things I find worrisome was an interview on CBS radio. The hosts of the show wanted to believe that just because a potential has been mentioned in the news, it must be potentially effective and the main question is how soon it might be available. Fortunately, the guest, who was an actual expert on infectious diseases, tried to shut this nonsense down and argued for a measured approach, including clinical trials. Still, I was amazed at how quickly even veteran reporters wanted to seize on the idea that “if it’s in the news, it must be a potentially valid cure.”
In times like these a recent story about Carl Sagan and his “Baloney Detection Kit” is appropriate. It should be applied liberally when idiots try to insist that pseudoscience and ideologically driven nonsense are appropriate remedies.
A few principles:
Also, I notice that some people, even folks who otherwise are pretty good critical thinkers, keep trying to ride the Correlation Express to prove an idea. Don’t buy a ticket for that train! It always takes you to Fallacy Land.
HumboldtBlue
Gonna try out some Covid-related pickup lines in the coming days.
Hey, if the virus doesn’t take you out can I?
You can’t spell virus without a U and an I!
Do you need some toilet paper, cuz if so I’m your Prince Charmin!
Adam L Silverman
@Achrachno:
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: Bye.
smedley the uncertain
Anybody else notice a dramatic reduction in Robo Calls? Must be non-essential.
Jinchi
Has anyone measured the overlap of people selling snake oil cures and antivaxxers? I expect it’s distubingly high.
Seriously people, if you want to ingest a proven coronavirus killer just eat a bar of soap.
dmsilev
(Slightly) more seriously, from what I read this afternoon, the whole bleach thing comes out of the fringe vaccines-cause-autism movement, so uh yeah.
Has anyone talked to Trump to try to sell him on the benefits of colloidal silver? If nothing else, the blue base layer mixed with the orange bronzer ought to result in the discovery of brand new skin tones.
Omnes Omnibus
@HumboldtBlue: Best of luck.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
For the 1-2 punch, Obama should announce that people should not inject bleach, nor should they shove blacklights up their ass.
Brachiator
@Elizabelle:
I liked the lyric,
If I wanna party, it’s a party of one
Cheryl Rofer
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I deleted the comment where you got your nym wrong
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: The issue with the injecting disinfectant is that the President has been marinating in vaccines cause autism conspiracy theories for years. And injecting or drinking disinfectant is a staple in that community for reversing autism caused by vaccinations.
Here’s Trump on vaccines and autism:
And here’s the explainer on the anti-vaccine/autism conspiracist promotion and use of disinfectant as a “cure”:
HumboldtBlue
@Omnes Omnibus:
If they don’t work I’ll just try and use food again. I haven’t posted doña Angela in a while.
Almuerzo De Rancho Barato: De Mi Rancho A Tu Cocina
Mnemosyne
I ventured out to Target today. It was a little stressful, but I guess I’ll know how it went in about 14 days. It was my first time shopping in person in over a month.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@Adam L Silverman: We all joked about how we could take care of the insane conservative problem (big overlap) by having Obama go on national TV and say that drinking bleach was a bad.
And now they just did it to themselves without any prompting.
We truly live in the worst of evil stupid clown timelines.
Patricia Kayden
burnspbesq
WTF? Kavanaugh has been on the right side of two major decisions this week.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/04/opinion-analysis-opinion-analysis-the-justices-purpose-full-reading-of-the-clean-water-act/
Mike in NC
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Gerbils stuffed up the ass might also be a “game changer”. Pass it on.
FlyingToaster
@smedley the uncertain:
Nope, if anything, it’s an increase.
We’re getting a Lisa from Chase Bank call on the landline every day around noon, a “Computer Maintenance Company” every day around dinner time, and ~3 spoofed returns on all 3 of our mobiles (that’s an average of 11 a day, for 4 lines). Plus a weekly Watertown PD advisory and Kathy Clark telephone town hall invitations.
Whoever picks up the phone for the computer phonespam gets to abuse them; even the 12-year-old knows more about computers than those asshats.
khead
@Patricia Kayden:
I have been saying this repeatedly on social media. People REALLY need to see this shit and most folks are home with nothing better to do. Bring your kids too so they can ask “What the hell is wrong with this guy?”
Adam L Silverman
@Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]: Other than the fact that no matter how many lectures, papers, and blogposts I write on the topic, Americans cannot tell the difference between a civil war, a rebellion, and an insurgency, this is pretty accurate.
dmsilev
@Mike in NC: Guns. Solves every problem, right? Just shoot the virus. Best use a shotgun, just so you can be sure you hit all of the virus particles.
Jackie
@Adam L Silverman: ????
Jinchi
I’m confused. Aren’t anti-vaxxers always talking about the hazards of injecting foreign substances into your body? How do they make an exception for bleach?
I say this knowing a few anti-vaxxers myself, and yet as soon as I heard Trump suggest it, I immediately thought that they’d be the ones most likely to try it.
FlyingToaster
@Adam L Silverman:
LMAO. ?
I assume calling what we’ve got “fascist suicidal cosplay” is not too far off the mark?
Adam L Silverman
@Jinchi: Their belief system, for lack of a better term, is neither logically coherent nor consistent.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
Hey sc,
I did respond to you at the end of the previous post
Adam L Silverman
@FlyingToaster: I refer to them as cosplaytriots.
rikyrah
The cats are so cute ??
cain
@burnspbesq:
Gotta have clean water if you want good beer.
Adam L Silverman
I’ll just leave this here:
Adam L Silverman
HumboldtBlue
Gaggles, flocks and some turkey preening.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: Does it count if someone isn’t, technically, selling the products but instead is ‘just asking questions’? What about if someone’s son-in-law just happens to have acquired stock in companies that do sell the stuff?
You know, hypothetically speaking.
Jinchi
@Adam L Silverman: It worries me because the two I know best have 5 young kids between them.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: Depends whether the AG is Bill Barr or not.
Adam L Silverman
@Jinchi: Call them into whatever the state they live in calls Child Protective Services for a welfare check.
divF
@Adam L Silverman: I haven’t been able to decipher what Dr. Birx is blinking in Morse code.
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@Adam L Silverman: Can’t lie, you made me snort on that.
Adam L Silverman
Here’s the alternative explanation. Apparently he watched The Man With Two Brains recently.
Elizabelle
@Adam L Silverman: Birx takes a deep breath. “Am I really hearing this?” Looks over. “Yes, he is still talking. OMG.”
Adam L Silverman
@Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]: My remarks or the meme I stole?
Adam L Silverman
@divF: Nuke it! Nuke it from space!!!//
dmsilev
@divF: ‘Be sure to drink your Ovaltine’
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: Like she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her on the spot.
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
The issue is that the president is an idiot. His supporters believe him and the GOP leadership backs him up and will not call him out.
I just saw a clip of Trump talking about light and heat and disinfectant. Every appearance at these briefings simply confirms that Trump doesn’t have the reasoning ability of an ignorant pre-teen.
Trump consistently chooses to believe nonsense and woo, which is to be expected from a guy who thought that Obama was not born in the US.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: That too!
Elizabelle
@Adam L Silverman:
Reviewing her life choices.
I truly believe that Fauci and Birx are staying on to try to prevent an even worse outcome. What do you do with a problem like the Donald, though?
JaySinWA
They can help by telling everyone not to do it. The usual suspects will decry their interference in radical attempts to control the virus. OTOH they might just both sider it to have an equal oportunity death toll.
Ian R
@dmsilev: Surely, the shotgun should be loaded with Dragon’s Breath rounds.
Yutsano
@HumboldtBlue: Needs moar beep.
Also: the breeds of hens in that flock are almost identical to the ones my mom owns.
Adam L Silverman
@Ian R: You know it’s too much when even Floriduh! bans it:
dmsilev
Anderson Cooper discusses bleach
A strong vibe of ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation’.
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: You really don’t want me answering that.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
I was sure Birx would assume the posture of most of Trump’s ex-aides: head bowed, eyes covered to hide their disbelief. But no.
Yutsano
@debbie: Nah. She’s a Pence hire. She’ll go down with Team Drumpf because her evangelical soul demands it. Remember the Indiana HIV outbreak? She had her hands in that too.
debbie
@Yutsano:
Didn’t know about her past. Still, I bet she’s as appalled as Fauci.
Achrachno
@Adam L Silverman: There! That’s what we need in this crisis.
Jean
I almost never watch and listen to Trump’s comments after others speak. Tonight, his musings about bombarding the inside of the body with ultra violet light and injecting disinfectant to the lungs–was so CRAZY that I couldn’t believe I even heard that. So the experts just sit there?? They don’t even try to correct him even in a diplomatic way? They let that insanity hang there in the air like a virus? What’s the point of being near the podium in the capacity of a health expert if you just freaking SIT THERE?
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Amazon Prime and I have become good friends. Apart from paper products, which are consistently unavailable, I have been able to get a lot of necessary items.
Does Target have social distance protocols, etc.?
Hkedi [Kang T. Q.]
@Adam L Silverman: the meme
Mary G
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: He is correct.
patrick II
I don’t think they are going to start drinking bleach. I think they will find it much easier to force it on their autistic children than to drink themselves.
HumboldtBlue
@Yutsano:
Someone posted this or a similar video the other day featuring the woodcock’s rhythm.
Yutsano
@Mary G: @Adam L Silverman:
I do not know how anyone serving in this administration will be able to work after it ends. They are damaged goods. How cab they have any credibility after defending a deranged narcissist like him? I know there’s always wingnut welfare, but when Fox heel turns on Dolt45 why would they need his sycophants?
Emma from FL
@Elizabelle: Christ almighty. We’re in the end times.
Emma from FL
@burnspbesq: The end times, I tell you! The end times!
Ahem. Sorry. Today was my first time out of the house other than to my backyard for five weeks. It was… disorienting. In every possible way.
Mai naem mobile
@Yutsano: I don’t know about that. CNN had Brownie on as an expert during some hurricane after Katrina, after Dubbya’s administration was over.
The people I want really shunned here are the Trumpovs and the Kushners. Partly because they seem very concerned with status and being seen at the right places. I want the enablers shunned and prosecuted for whatever crimes they’ve committed if they’ve committed them. No plea deals with a slap on the wrist either.
Mai naem mobile
I guarantee you ERs are going to see goobers coming in with uv flashlights up their asses and idiots who’ve swallowed bleach. I knew somebody who tried committing suicide by swallowing bleach. Definitely not the route to use for suicide. This is an ugly way of fucking up your esophagus.
FlyingToaster
@Brachiator:
I suspect it varies from state to state and store to store.
Here in Watertown, MA, we have a medium size Target; they have someone by the outside door and another by the Mall door w/walkie-talkies enforcing the “40% of capacity” per order of the Commonwealth. I’ve been going once every other week for the necessaries (TP, shampoo, kleenex, ziplocs, school stuff), and all of the normal protocols of masking and social distancing are in place. The in-house Starbucks and PizzaHut are closed. Stuff is in stock, if in smaller quantities than we’re used to buying them (no 30-packs of Charmin Ultra Soft, just 12-packs).
HomeDepot, across the street at Arsenal Mall, is much sketchier. About 10% of the customers are maskless, and frankly, just dickbats about every damn thing. The floor staff helps me find stuff (in my St.Pat’s inifinty scarf cinched up over my nose) and looks up on their handhelds for out-of-stock stuff (“its on-shelf in Waltham, but not Dedham!”), while ignoring the fuck out of those he-men.
There’s a lot of weirdness with the box stores. Some are playing it very straight, either online-order pick-up at door (Best Buy), online or instore with # limits and masks (Target), and just trying to keep a lid on shit (HomeDepot). I don’t belong to any of the membership stores, but the parking lot at the nearby BJs is rather scant.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
Fucking LOL! That made my night!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
BTW, has anything new been found out about why Alain sadly passed away, yet?
It’s always tragic and confusing when somebody so young passes away for seemingly no reason
Brachiator
Fox News story claims that “public health officials” back Trump.
Bryan is not a doctor or expert on infectious diseases. He is a military veteran.
It is amazing to see the degree to which right wing media will go to back Trump, even to the degree of killing some of their own viewers.
TS (the original)
@Adam L Silverman:
Then she should stop working for him and say WHY. Enough of medical people & scientists who support him at these daily campaign rallies.
mrmoshpotato
Hot Sale Face Scarf Bandanas
Oh hubba hubba.
smike
@HumboldtBlue:
Saddle up, ’cause those’ll have you ridin’!
Funny, too.
NotMax
Ragga-fragga hands won’t stop sympathetic trembling after carpentering and using power tools out back this afternoon. Arthritis acting up so much that had to ask a neighbor to remove the battery pack from the sawzall am using as I was completely unable to grip it strongly enough to release and remove it for recharging. But the second of three originally crappily constructed walls which went bye-bye in heavy winds and rain now has had the original framing (of course neither square nor plumb) reinforced and new exterior materials attached for the hot water heater shed.
Third wall is the tricky part, as that’s the entrance. Maybe will replenish the gumption required by sometime next week.Then a new roof (easier job than the walls), some caulking and it’ll be done , albeit a bit at a time.
Yutsano
@Mai naem mobile:
Come sit six feet away from me.
NotMax
@smedley the uncertain
Definitely. One of a select smattering of bright spots present in otherwise stygian purlieus.
prostratedragon
@Elizabelle:
And then sinks into an agonizing reappraisal of her life choices.
Mai naem mobile
I got a text from Rep David Schweikert(not my rep – was redistricted years ago.Hasn’t been my rep with this phone number) yesterday asking if I wanted to be put on an email list for COVID19 updates. I replied no and that I was all set with the hydroquinone like the President had instructed with smiley, prayer hands and thumbs up emojis to make it look authentic. I know it was a mass text etc. but the only reply I got was okay, call the office if you have any questions.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I went to what we refer to as the mini Target, which is a smaller “city Target” built into what used to be a long, narrow, one-story office building. They were only allowing a certain number of people into the store at a time, had big red dots on the sidewalk showing where you should stand for social distancing, and wiped down the checkouts after each customer. I felt pretty good about their procedures.
To me, the best part was that they put a signboard out front with the 6 or 7 most-wanted items to say if they were in stock or out of stock. It was definitely useful to know that they did have some paper towels in stock before I waited it in.
Uncle Cosmo
@smedley the uncertain: Hand raised here. The spam checker on my Caller ID (probably should rename it Culler ID) is going stir-crazy for lack of junk calls to screen.
(Pro tip for when these arseholes start up again: Robocalls generally ring a bunch of numbers simultaneously & drop all but the first that hits a live human voice. The longer your outgoing message on voicemail, the more likely you’ll be dropped & never have your answering machine cluttered with their shit. So be creative! Wax prosaic!)
Another Scott
@Yutsano: You’re mixing things up. Birx isn’t one of Pence’s Indiana people.
https://www.state.gov/biographies/deborah-l-birx-md/
I don’t know why she doesn’t speak out more forcefully, but she’s not a kook.
Cheers,
Scott.