Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Come on, man.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

A consequence of cucumbers

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Let’s finish the job.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Winners in the Fuck Around and Find Out Olympics

Winners in the Fuck Around and Find Out Olympics

by | 192 Comments

This post is in: 

I’m at the airport for the first time in well over a year, and I see a few of the geniuses have decided that they don’t need to wear masks in the common area. Most of them are sitting at tables with a empty drink, looking pleased with their clever selves. I’m following my brother’s advice: he lives in a red state and has kept wearing his mask so he can mouth “fuck you” to all the maskholes.

Anyway, I hope one of these assholes decides to exercise “mah freedum” by pitching a fit on a flight — preferably not mine, but I do have a pretty long layover at my next connection, so I wouldn’t be upset if it happened. Then, after they get kicked off, I’ll wait for the next FAA press release announcing the fine they received. The latest group of yahoos got between $9-15K worth of fines. The $9K fine was for a maskhole who wouldn’t wear a mask, and threw the one that the flight attendant gave him on the ground. The $15K fines are for assaulting a flight attendant, or causing the FA to talk to the pilots — basically anything that interferes with crew duties.

I also look forward to the day that proof of vaccination is required to board an airplane. The bitching, moaning, crying and caterwauling of the “freedum” crowd will be sweet music to my ears on that glorious day.

Reader Interactions

192Comments

  4. 4.

    Another Scott

    Oh, I thought this was going to be about The Blog’s Favorite Senator from Massachusetts talking to the MotUs…

    Very bad move. https://t.co/Y6lcJNhGeu

    — Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) May 26, 2021

    They really are shameless, and she’s great at pointing it out.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  6. 6.

    Calouste

    I think the FBI might be interested in talking to the following person as well:

     

    $15,000 against a passenger on a Jan. 7, 2021, Alaska Airlines flight from Washington-Dulles International Airport to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. The FAA alleges the passenger pushed and/or shoved a flight attendant when flight attendants walked down the aisle to document which passengers were not wearing facemasks

  7. 7.

    Calouste

    Btw, the people who are fined by the FAA are only the tip of the iceberg. Airlines have banned thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of people from flying with them in the last year due to bad behavior.

  9. 9.

    Mike in NC

    Spending the night in Fort Myers Beach. A Diet Coke from the vending machine cost $5!

  12. 12.

    randy khan

    @Calouste:

    I don’t know if they’ll actually stick with it, but several airlines (Delta for sure and I think American among them) have said the bans are permanent – basically they decided that if you couldn’t do the simple thing and wear a mask they can’t trust you not to disrupt flights in the future.

    Also, while $15K will take a big bite out of most people’s finances, I think criminal charges are in order for anyone who assaults a flight attendant.

  13. 13.

    Another Scott

    @jeffreyw: There won’t be a federal one.

    KHN from March:

    White House Indicates Covid Vaccine Passports Are A Private Sector Matter
    Messaging from the White House suggests that there is no federal mandate for rolling out covid vaccine passport systems, leaving the matter to the private sector. Other reports highlight the potential scam issues such passports may bring.

    […]

    The idea of a permanent, secure vaccination record of course is a good one. But given the insane politics, the presumed need for boosters, the lack of simple universal standard IDs (RealID drivers licenses still are a hassle to get and expensive and not universal), it’s not a battle worth fighting now.

    Maybe we’ll get something figured out before the next pandemic. :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  18. 18.

    Jharp

    I haven’t been to the airport in over 15 years and have no intention of breaking my streak.

    Just not gonna do it anymore.

  20. 20.

    randy khan

    @Another Scott:

    . . . the presumed need for boosters . . .

    Speaking of which, there’s some new research suggesting that immunity may actually increase over time following vaccination or actually getting sick.  It’s obviously preliminary, and doesn’t necessarily help with variants, but it’s more good vaccine news we didn’t necessarily anticipate.   It’s not necessarily odd, as there are lots of vaccines that don’t require boosters, like measles and chicken pox, but it definitely wasn’t something that was guaranteed. (Don’t have the link handy – sorry!)

  21. 21.

    trollhattan

    Recall or no recall, Gavin can continue being Gavin.

    After canceling a planned vaccine-related announcement in Los Angeles, Newsom traveled to San Jose Wednesday afternoon to meet with law enforcement officials. At a press conference, he said said it’s past time Americans do more to combat gun violence.

    “What the hell is going on in the United States of America?” he asked. “When are we going to come to grips with this? When are we going to put down our arms – literally and figuratively – our politics, stale rhetoric, finger pointing, all the hand wringing, consternation that produces nothing except more fury and frustration… over and over and over again.”
    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article251705503.html#storylink=cpy

    Clearly a Freedom-hating monster who needs removal from office.

  22. 22.

    James E Powell

    @Calouste:

    I always wonder, do those people ever regain their flying privileges? What does it take besides the passage of time? Completion of anger management classes? A bribe fine?

  25. 25.

    Just Chuck

    @jeffreyw: There won’t be a card, there will be an app that generates a QR code that gets verified with the CDC database.  They scan it, the scanner comes up with your name, they check it against your ID.  Presumably you’ll be able to print the code too.

    EventBrite does this kind of thing a zillion times a day (well, they did).

  26. 26.

    geg6

    So, I got an email today from the University President’s office that all employees who travel on University business (even just to a local high school college fair or financial aid night or a meeting at another campus) must be vaccinated.  No paying for plane tickets or mileage if you’re not vaccinated.  I was in the office today and several of the vaccine hesitant in other departments and the one admissions counselor in my department whose MAGAT husband has had a fit over her getting vaccinated were complaining that they’re now forced to get a jab.  I played a tiny violin in my office for them.

  29. 29.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Mike in NC:

    Spending the night in Fort Myers Beach. A Diet Coke from the vending machine cost $5! 

    When did they start bottling Diet Coke in gallon milk bottles?

  32. 32.

    CliosFanBoy

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:  The photos they censored were pretty modest judging from the ones I saw online, and they also covered shoulders. Of course they didn’t censor some of the male students, even the ones in swimsuits!

  34. 34.

    Calouste

    @James E Powell: I don’t know. But it’s not like airlines make a lot of money on economy class tickets, and the delays people cause by being assholes are pretty expensive. Look at those cases: diverting a plane mid-flight; 28 minute delay on a flight that takes less than 3 hours (and for which an economy ticket is about $200 round-trip). Unless those people fly weekly, or are regulars in first class, the airline is never going to recoup that money even in a lifetime.

  35. 35.

    Jeffro

    @mrmoshpotato: better still: “Yes sir, there is an Amtrak train to Hawaii and the terminal is right out there, just beyond the surf line.  If you’ll please start walking into the Pacific and keep going until everything goes black, you’ll be, um, departing right on time.”

  37. 37.

    Benno

    I wonder how vaccine passports would work for those vaccinated overseas? And I don’t mean Germany. I’m Sputnik vaxxed but I guarantee there is not CDC accessible record of my vaccination sitting in Pakistan, and I am dreading the day I’m banned from flying because I can’t demonstrate my vaccination status to their satisfaction.

  38. 38.

    Delk

    My husband is flying home this evening from the first trip for his new job. Looking forward to his report on airport/airplane happenings.

  43. 43.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    I flew from Charlotte to Denver last Saturday. The weather diversion to SLC because we didn’t have enough gas to fly in a holding pattern is an entirely different post.

    First flight since March 2020. Plenty of people in the airport maskless. Two women on our flight had masks but *never* had them above their noses. One of them, her mask was covered in all kinds of Texas shit. Figures.

    Hope they die..soon. Yes, I’m that kind of person.

  44. 44.

    mrmoshpotato

    @geg6:

    I played a tiny violin in my office for them. 

    I hope you rocked the fuck out on that tiny violin.

  45. 45.

    MomSense

    Another mass murder in the USA Today.  At this point fuck the Second Amendment.

  47. 47.

    cckids

    I see a few of the geniuses have decided that they don’t need to wear masks in the common area. Most of them are sitting at tables with a empty drink, looking pleased with their clever selves.

    Yes, we’re regularly seeing them at the grocery store now. Many of them are visibly self-conscious; they look like they are just dying for somebody to NOTICE THEM so they can start something, or just so they can be publicly aggrieved.

    I’m so tired of these fucking people.

  48. 48.

    Mary G

    Completely bonkers thread reporting a UK hearing grilling of Boris Johnson’s designated Covid scapegoat Dominick Cummings:

    Selected commentary by the tweeter because there are too many gobsmacking bits of testimony to choose from, but it gives you the idea:

    It’s like Aesop’s Fables for cunts.
    — Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) May 26, 2021

    Absolute deafening silence over Brexit in all these things the govt was so occupied by.
    — Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) May 26, 2021

    From his mouth, from the hole in his face those are the words that emerged.
    — Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) May 26, 2021

    Not sure what this refers to, but I’m sure it was bad:

    There was also pressure from Trump to join in a bombing campaign btw.
    — Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) May 26, 2021

    It’s like a murder mystery directed by David Lynch. Who knows what the fuck is true, or what’s going on, or if it means anything.
    — Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) May 26, 2021

    It just goes on and on and as bad as it is, you know our government was that bad on steroids.

    It’s a bonfire of bastards going down in that room right now.
    — Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) May 26, 2021

    It goes on and on, each admission worse than the last one, and you know if it was that bad over there, it was that bad on steroids here. Can’t wait for Tony Jay’s perspective, though he may be too incandescent with rage to be able to write.

    Serious question, though. Why haven’t we had anything like this here? Democrats control the government, don’t they? Why do Republicans get to wave their shiny objects and refuse to cooperate?

  51. 51.

    Honus

    Damn if one of those same turtles Cole moved the other day was in the middle of my road today. I went to move it and it took off, and yes those suckers are fast!

    It ran under mg car and camped out. I scaredit out and caught it, using Cole’s turtle carrying instructions, and got it into the woods where it took off towards a creek.

    coming back home a few hours later and there was another one in the middle of another road about a quarter mile away.  Or maybe it was the same one that had circled around. Anyway while I see a lot of snapping turtles here, I’ve never seen one of these before.  Then maybe two today.  I blame Cole.

  55. 55.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mary G:

    Serious question, though. Why haven’t we had anything like this here? Democrats control the government, don’t they? Why do Republicans get to wave their shiny objects and refuse to cooperate?

    Ian Millhiser @imillhiser 21h
    This is a friendly reminder that, if there is a bill you really like that passed the House, that Biden supports, but that only has 48 supporters in the US Senate, then your beef is not with “The Democrats.” Your beef is with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

  56. 56.

    Dan B

    @Baud: All over the gay blogs.  Her credentials are amazing.  For me it’s amazing in my adulthood to have gone from “mentally ill”, perverted, kicked out of an honors program in college, FBI file, knew guys who suffered electroshock, dozens of friends and lovers dead of AUDS while the President did nothing to : Openly gay people in high level positions (FU Peter Thiel – not talking about you) being no big deal.*

     

    *Unless the RWNJ’s steal the mid terms and hand over the country to the Gileads.

  58. 58.

    Dan B

    @mrmoshpotato: Yep.  Guys in Speedoes.  Showing off the family jewels.  Asshole jocks got a pass.  Young women were treated to prudish prickery.

  59. 59.

    Baud

    @Dan B:

    For me it’s amazing in my adulthood to have gone from “mentally ill”, perverted, kicked out of an honors program in college, FBI file

     
    to Balloon Juice commenter.

    Not what many would consider progress.

  61. 61.

    debbie

    @geg6:

    Can the university require vaccinations before the vaccines receive final (not emergency) approval?

  62. 62.

    VeniceRiley

    @geg6: I don’t get these people at all. I might ask if they’re fine with letting the healthcare premiums go through the roof next year for everybody there-because of all the vaccine shy people getting 100k worth of monoclonal antibodies or kajillion dollar hospital stays, or long covid instead? All because the special no-jab snowflakiness?

  63. 63.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @debbie: It’s not requiring vaccinations.  It’s saying no travel on university business without vaccinations.

  65. 65.

    Roger Moore

    @debbie:

    It sounds as if they are doing it indirectly.  They aren’t requiring people get vaccinated, just saying that people who have to travel need to be vaccinated.  As long as they aren’t actually punishing people who don’t get vaccinated, I think they’re legally in the clear.

  68. 68.

    Calouste

    @Mary G: Keep in mind that the Tories have a majority in Parliament even. But here comes catch: Cummings was testifying in front of two House of Commons committees (Health and Social Care, and Science and Technology) and both those committees are chaired by Tories who were cabinet ministers, but were sacked (or resigned) from the cabinet when Johnson became Prime Minister. It also looks like Cummings had a bit of a come-to-Jesus moment, or at least he wants to get back at Johnson for sacking him and/or thinks things are coming down the pipe and wants to get ahead of them.

  71. 71.

    Scout211

    @trollhattan:

    Yes, but did you read the two eye witness accounts from two different local news websites? Color me shocked that our local Fox station found one eye witness that blamed it on the flight attendant!  No, seriously.

    First, from Fox40:https://fox40.com/news/california-connection/witness-says-southwest-airlines-flight-attendant-provoked-violent-incident/

    Video shows passenger Vyvianna Quinonez punch the flight attendant before an unidentified man intervenes. But Manner says it was the flight attendant who provoked the incident.

    “Vyvianna had said to her three times, that we could hear, get off of me. Quit touching me. Get your hands off of me,” Manner said.

    This one seems a bit more credible, from the local NBC affiliate:

    https://www.kcra.com/article/witness-describes-attack-airplane-from-sacramento/36542565

    “The passenger repeatedly ignored standard inflight instructions and became verbally and physically abusive upon landing,” said Southwest spokesman Chris Mainz.

    Dr. Susan Stidham Gillen, who was a passenger sitting in the front of the plane, told KCRA 3 she turned around to see the suspect out of her seat and punching a female flight attendant and bloodying her face.

     

  72. 72.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Don’t read the replies to that tweet:

    This is a friendly reminder that this strategy is known as “Villain Rotation,” and that if it wasn’t Manchin or Sinema it would be someone else. Like Biden in the case of student loan debt, he could do it unilaterally, but refuses to.

    It’s this and constant Biden/Dem bashing in that thread.

    Say you want to blame the Republicans? You’re “deflecting blame onto the minority party”. Say our democracy is at stake? “We don’t have a democracy now. In 4 years Biden will come back and ask voters to re-elect him to save democracy. All Biden and AG Garland care about are big corporations and the rich”, etc.

    Lots of people also complaining about not seeing any arm twisting by leadership, etc

  73. 73.

    Dan B

    @Mary G: The tweet stream from Dunt is epic.  There were cabinet meetings where it was reported that ventilators were rejected because the price went up, there were shortages of oxygen and PPE.  It seems these weren’t anticipated and nothing substantial done after the reports.  Plus the minister who was in charge didn’t understand the scientific reports.

    And were the money managers launderers of London sending bales of money to 10 Downing Street?

  80. 80.

    Tony Jay

    @Mary G:

    Oh, believe me, I’ll get to it. Seven hours of that testimony was like watching a particularly malicious goblin running wild with a straight-razor at a Nudist Colony inhabited solely by middle-aged men with advanced elephantiasis. I can’t not vent about it, but there’s sooooo much true-blue gore sloshing around Casa WTF that it’s going to take some extended period of alcoholic contemplation before I can get my head around just how incandescently furious each individual dewdrop of insider bile should make every single person still drawing breath in this wet-cardboard fort of a country.

    Fucksake. There’s a picture of a whiteboard up in Downing Street covered with brainstorming bullshit from mid-March last year with “Who do we not save?” scrawled on it. Spin that you inconceivably incompetent jizzites!

    Grrrrrr. I fucking hate these people.

  82. 82.

    Just One More Canuck

    @Baud: the tweets were a bit on the tame side for Tony – he must save the good stuff for us

  83. 83.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    When you say a lot of people, do you just mean people in general? I don’t know, this “villain rotation” thing…

    I also can’t blame people for being frustrated. I’m angry and frustrated. Not enough gets done in time before the GOP gets back into power and fucks shit up again

  84. 84.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Dan B: ​
      It is important to remember at all times that Dominic Cummings, the “person” giving evidence to the Select Committees is a prime-cut vindictive fabulist of the first water and anything that comes out of his mouth is to be distrusted and disbelieved just as it should have been when he was a mover and shaker in Number 10 and BoJo’s best mate. Anything he says, everything he utters is filtered through a fractal mirror of self-gratification and creative distortion when it isn’t just made up out of whole cloth.

    Many other people might be more condemnatory of the waste of oxygen in question but I’m too nice and over-eager to see the good in people. Silly me.

  86. 86.

    JMG

    So an interlude: Tomorrow morning was supposed to be my colonoscopy, Earlier this morning I called the doctor’s secretary with a prep question. An hour later she called back saying the doctor is away the rest of the week and she had called me several times two weeks ago to let me know. This was a lie. I don’t check my phone much, but there’s no record of that at all. She then rescheduled me for 10 days from now. This was all one hour before I was to take the laxative of death. I am extremely angry, to the point of talking to a lawyer unhappy, but on the other hand, do I want to ruin this poor young woman’s life just because she’s an incompetent?

  87. 87.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @JMG: If you call a lawyer, what would you want the lawyer to do?  How were you actually harmed by what happened?  What would be then end result that you are looking for?

  88. 88.

    trnc

    @Calouste: Airlines have banned thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of people from flying with them in the last year due to bad behavior.

    If some of the other things repubs throw fits about had that kind of immediate consequence, we’d be a lot better off as a country right now.

  90. 90.

    Anonymous At Work

    Mastermix,

    If the FAA fines you for being a maskhole, do you get put on a watchlist?  Or just a fine and no further trouble?

  92. 92.

    trnc

    @JMG: An hour later she called back saying the doctor is away the rest of the week and she had called me several times two weeks ago to let me know.

    I don’t suppose you asked her why she didn’t leave a voice mail any of the “several” times she tried to call.

    Like Omnes, I doubt legal action is appropriate, but a complaint to the office manager would be warranted.

  95. 95.

    burnspbesq

    @Another Scott:

    This is a little disingenuous on SPW’s part. She knows what the real problem is, yet I don’t see her lobbying the Delaware Legislature to change the GCL to redefine to whom officers’ and directors’ fiduciary duties lie.

    Dimon is doing what the company’s lawyers have told him he’s legally required to do as CEO of a Delaware corporation. SPW knows this, but she seems more interested in scoring debating points than fixing the problem.

  96. 96.

    NotMax

    I also look forward to the day that proof of vaccination is required to board an airplane.

    Howzabout instead looking forward to the day when proof of vaccination is no longer a consideration?

  98. 98.

    Warblewarble

    The Dail -the Irish Parliament has passed a motion to condemn the ‘de facto annexation’of Palestinian land by Israel. Please copy.

  99. 99.

    MomSense

    @Dan B:

    She is so fabulous.  Brilliant beautiful badass!  I still remember when she took care of that person who crashed the stage to get to MVP Harris.

  103. 103.

    John Revolta

    @JMG: There must be something going around. I just spent the last two days telling multiple people that no, I do NOT have an appointment for a colonoscopy on Friday, because I rescheduled that appt. and had it last week instead. If somebody shows up at my house tomorrow and makes me drink a gallon of Gatorade at gunpoint, I won’t be the least bit surprised.

  104. 104.

    Nora

    @burnspbesq:

    Since Warren is a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, I’m not sure what kind of authority she would be able to bring to bear against the state of Delaware’s legislature.  If you want to pick on her for not doing something in the U.S. Senate, fine.  She really has no power over the Delaware legislature, though.

  105. 105.

    Dan B

    @Robert Sneddon: It seems as though the simplest explanation of Cummings testimony is there is much more damaging in the pipeline about to arrive and he wants to be ahead of it.  Of course your explanation that he’s a fabulist who wants attention is as good an explanation at this time.

    His testimony does seem in line with the 10 Downing Street whiteboard that had, “Who do we not save?” written on it.  BoJo seems like a leader who likes nut cases around to keep his job entertaining interesting.

  107. 107.

    burnspbesq

    @Nora:

    Did you miss my use of the word “lobby”—a word which has a commonly understood meaning—or did you choose to deliberately ignore it?

    JFC.

  110. 110.

    Tenar Arha

    @VeniceRiley: The Wisconsin legislature apparently turned down $1 Billion from the Feds to expand Medicaid. AFAICT it’s because continuing systemic racism is more important than even ensuring medical care for their voters.

    ETA added legislature for accuracy.

    They’re not unique, none of the states that are currently rewriting their laws to enshrine minority rule are unique.

  111. 111.

    lgerard

    So there is a big “Patriot” hoedown this weekend in Dallas featuring all the crazy Q people: Lin Wood, Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell along with other more obscure nuts.

    I took a look at the homepage Patriot Voice, the organization sponsoring it, and found this gem

    The security team making this possible is a croud funded orginization. They don’t make money from this event as they rely solely on donations

    Evidently spell check is a deep state thing.

  112. 112.

    MomSense

    @Dan B:

    I was reminiscing with my Dad about ACT Up a few weeks ago. When HW Bush was president they staged a rally that started in my dad’s church and we marched out to the Bush compound.  It was a powerful experience in many ways.  For me the best part was seeing all the interactions between the older women who were the hospitality committee and volunteers and our ACT UP guests.  Lots of tears and hugs and love.  I don’t think they were expecting to be welcomed at a little church in Maine with so much love.

    One of the other churches had police officers to keep protesters out. They were wearing riot gear.  It was pathetic.

    I still can’t believe the horror that was AIDS in the 80s.  I was still dancing then and it took so many.  Some of those feelings came back during the pandemic – the feelings of being forsaken and forgotten.  There are dancers I can still see so clearly – their beauty and artistry just gone.  It’s overwhelming.

  113. 113.

    seefleur

    So, if a person who has health insurance refuses to get a covid vaccine, and then gets covid resulting in high medical bills; would it be a bad thing if the insurance company refuses to cover the medical costs? Just asking because I know of at least a couple of co-workers who have declined the vaccine on the basis of “if I end up getting sick, my insurance will cover the cost”…  And these are people who work in “public safety”.

  114. 114.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    I just hope it’s going to be enough to undo the damage and neglect of the last 40 years

  116. 116.

    Steeplejack

    @Mary G:

    You’re right, that Ian Dunt thread on Dominic Cummings’s session before the parliamentary committee is astonishing. Anatomy of a colossal, extended fiasco. Highly recommended end-to-end read.

    The mind boggles to think what similar hearings in the U.S. Congress would could reveal.

  118. 118.

    NotMax

    @Geminid

    Once Yellen’s signature appears on currency, and presuming Biden appoints a woman (as has been the case for the office since 1949) to the currently vacant office of Treasurer of the United States, it will be the first time the signatures of two women are a part of U.S. dollars.

  120. 120.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Dan B: Dominic Cummings has no career in politics left ahead of him so getting out in front of any bad stuff is pointless for him and there’s nothing legal he’s liable for, he was a private individual working for PM Johnson. I can only see his “testimony” as self-justifying revenge on the hordes of enemies in government who stabbed him in the back.

     

    The reality was that back in Jan and Feb 2020 there was no case to be made in the UK for hard lockdowns. Doing something like that at that time would have taken a military-coup-grade effort to override local and Parliamentary controls on government and that just wasn’t going to happen. Maybe in the movies it could have been done but not in a Western democracy.

     

    An epidemiologist I saw quoted somewhere during the early days of this planetary clusterfuck said something to the effect of “The only proper reaction to a pandemic is overreaction”. The problem is that no-one will even begin to react to a bad situation until it is too late to over-react and prevent really bad things happening or at least damp down the consequences. People are people, basically and that includes the politicians we choose to put in charge of the polis (i.e. us).

  123. 123.

    NotMax

    Why is the former (and obsolete) blogroll all of a sudden showing up in the sidebar?

    Also too, something now there as well called TWiB.

  124. 124.

    Dan B

    @MomSense: Congratulations on your church!  The reactions of churches varied enormously from fear and hatred to embrace and support.

    I lost a friend who’d become a dancer.  The worst was my friend from elementary school who was gay but it was invisible in Ohio.  We went backpacking and hung out.  One night he got disgustingly drunk.  I got very angry and didn’t answer the phone when he called a week later.  A fiend informed me he’d called me from the hospital.  He died of pneumocystis two weeks later.  I’d abandoned him when he was most in need.  35 years of friendship gone on a moment of false pride.

  128. 128.

    Dan B

    @Robert Sneddon: Does this mean that there are no legal consequences for Cummings?  It does seem that outside of totalitarian states that an effective Covid response would have been impossible.  Is that failure of the Tories the only dirty business in the pipeline?  It seems Brexut is the same since the public voted for it.  But even if they were deliberately dece8ved?

  129. 129.

    Martin

    @Robert Sneddon:

    An epidemiologist I saw quoted somewhere during the early days of this planetary clusterfuck said something to the effect of “The only proper reaction to a pandemic is overreaction”. The problem is that no-one will even begin to react to a bad situation until it is too late to over-react and prevent really bad things happening or at least damp down the consequences. People are people, basically and that includes the politicians we choose to put in charge of the polis (i.e. us).

    This was the conversation we had at work. I told leadership late Feb/early March which decisions they would be making. The choice was whether they’d be making those decisions before or after people get sick and die. But that they’d be making those decisions wasn’t up for debate.

    They didn’t like that conversation.

    At the heart of it is that the trajectory of a pandemic isn’t that hard to predict as you see the consequences several weeks after those consequences have been committed to. Really it comes down to whether you have the leadership skills to act when the consequences can be predicted, or whether you wait until those consequences can be seen by all.

  132. 132.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Delk: Hopefully he doesn’t have any stories of stupidity, even with flying into our bigger, busier airport.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    The New York Times
    @nytimes
    Eric Carle, the artist and author of “The Very Hungry Caterpillar,” a tale that has charmed generations of children and parents alike, died on Sunday at 91. He wrote and illustrated more than 70 books for young children

    My daughter went thru the book so many times the pages came loose, so she’d carry it around carefully in front of her, flat, using both hands so the pages wouldn’t fall out.

  134. 134.

    MomSense

    @Dan B:

    Please forgive yourself for that.  Disgustingly drunk must have been so scary for you to witness.  You can have that call with him now.  You can say what you wish you had said then.

  136. 136.

    Dan B

    @Delk: And with the persistence of the woman scientist who kept working on RNA their may be a vaccine for HIV and possibly advanced treatments.

    Hello Chicago!  I had many mind boggling Gay Liberation experiences there from ’69 to ’71.

  137. 137.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud:

    If infrastructure gets done next month, do the roads taste less sweet? 

    So that’s why the country’s infrastructure is in such piss poor condition – you’ve been munching on all the new roads!  Please stop that.

  139. 139.

    Cameron

    When are they going to have flight attendants carry Tasers from take-off to landing?

  143. 143.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    It would be supremely fitting if the first instance of that could be the Harriet Tubman $20 bill. (Yes, I still wear my “Women on 20s” tee-shirt all the time. Why do you ask?)

  144. 144.

    MomSense

    @Delk:

    Amazing.  Its a science miracle that we have such effective treatment.  It was hard fought and it shouldn’t have been.

  148. 148.

    Benno

    @Dilbert dogbert: I don’t know! I no longer have a doctor in the US and nobody will provide advice to someone who isn’t a patient! It’s very frustrating.

  149. 149.

    Mary G

    Elections have consequences, part elevenby million:

    BREAKING: US Planning to Evacuate Afghan Interpreters, Top US General Says // Milley: “…for not just the interpreters but a lot of other people that have worked with the United States.”https://t.co/TGMvARdOQK @TaraCopp— Defense One (@DefenseOne) May 27, 2021

    TFG’s abandonment of the Kurds is still one of his most heinous actions on my list.

  151. 151.

    divF

    @Kay: The news brought tears to my eyes. One of the children I babysat had memorized Saturday’s menu from The Very Hungry Caterpillar and would recite it from time to time (he was four then, now is 19).

  152. 152.

    Dan B

    @Benno: My understanding is the risks from getting a different vaccine are extremely low.  I got the Salk Polio vaccine one year and the next year or so afterwards got the Sabin.  We get flu vaccines yearly that vary more widely than the differences in the Covid vaccines.  It also appears that boosters are likely and there’s been no discussion of potential problems.

    If you can locate a vaccine site here they should have no issue

    The only issue is if you need a two dose vaccine and can’t spend a month in the US.

  153. 153.

    TomatoQueen

    @Delk: It was. Between the Pasteur Institute, where the virus was first isolated, and a young man named Anthony Fauci at NIH, HIV/AIDS taught us everything we know about retroviruses, and even more the powers and limitations of vaccines.

  154. 154.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Dan B: ​

    My understanding is the risks from getting a different vaccine are extremely low.

    The UK is launching a double-blind test of a booster vaccination to follow-up the existing rollout of vaccines to the adult population at the moment. If implemented the booster shots would be started in the autumn before the predicted third wave of COVID-19 cases starts hitting the hospitals through into the winter. The booster vaccines are hoped to be more effective against the spreading variants of the original COVID-19 virus.​

  155. 155.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Tony Jay: Tony, that thread …. wow.  I’ve been following the UK situation off-and-on via The Guardian, but …. this is just bonkers.  Contra some others, I think that such testimony would never happen in our country: it’d get hushed-up, tamped-down, etc, b/c y’know, can’t spook the livestock.  Sigh.

    I continue to be appalled at how Europe-descended Western civilization [and sure, excepting NZ/AU] has failed us all.  I persist in believing that this is a civilization-changing moment, in which the baton passes to the Far East, and not just China, but the democracies of the Far East.  They have demonstrated a social cohesion, an ability to remember what citizenship means, what their *responsibilities* to each other are, and not merely their *rights*, that ….. well, we’ve long ago lost.

  156. 156.

    satby

    @Another Scott: and tonight when I got home from work I notified the CDC about a pharmacist whose kids need proof of vaccination for school, so she forged the cards. Presumably she also wasted two doses of Pfizer (four shots total) just in case she gets audited because the doses are tracked. I hope she loses her license, but I only had partial details to report.

  158. 158.

    Kay

    @divF:

    I loved the illustrations. I looked it up tonight and he made those using tissue paper. Which is exactly what they look like!

  160. 160.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Dan B: Mixing vaccines might even be better. It’s just that that wasn’t what the field tests tested.

  161. 161.

    Gin & Tonic

    Long time no thread. Anyway, good news here – my Knickerbockers have won a playoff game for the first time in way, way too long.

  162. 162.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Benno: History might be a guide.  This has been a problem since time immemorial, yes?  People get some vaccines in (say) India, come to the US, and need to show proof of vaccination.  Voila, they get the same vaxx again.  As others note, it’s rarely a problem to get vaxxed twice for the same bug.  I’m sure that that’s what’ll happen in this case.  I mean, they’re not very expensive, vaccines, compared to anything else in life.

    Hell, I *look forward* to getting the J&J (or AZ shot (I’ve had the Pfizer) just b/c I know that it’s a completely different technology, and of course targets different parts of the spike protein.   Suspenders *and* a belt!  Ceinture *et* bretelles!  Of course, I’ll wait until there’s clearly a massive oversupply.  But I’m looking forward to it.

  163. 163.

    Dan B

    @Matt McIrvin: I believe that the Sabin polio vaccine was considered superior to Salk.  It wouldn’t have mattered to my parents.  My father had “Spanish” flu as a young boy and was left with a draining sinus for nearly forty years.  We would have gotten four polio vaccines. Six – even better!

  167. 167.

    satby

    @Dan B: IIRC, lots of kids got both after it was discovered one allowed you to still be infectious with polio even though you personally didn’t get sick. I’m pretty sure I got both a couple of years apart.

  169. 169.

    satby

    @Dan B: I couldn’t provide a name, just pharmacist mother of students at xxx town high school. It’s not a big town, they’ll figure it out of they investigate it at all.

  173. 173.

    Mike in NC

    Had a nice dinner in funky Fort Myers Beach, then strolled around town near the public beach after hours. Walked into a 7-11 for a bottle of wine. Shirts and shoes are not required, and apparently neither are pants. Lots of Floriduh Men in evidence here, and we’re told they love the Fat Orange Clown a lot in this state, where we once visited a restaurant that ran out of orange juice for breakfast.

  174. 174.

    Benno

    @Chetan Murthy: you are almost certainly right, but I’m a fretter and  this is the first time in my life there’s been talk about barring travel for lack of vaccine, and I’ve been everywhere. You’re talking about arriving then getting vaccinated. The scuttlebutt with vaccine passports is get vaxxed then travel. Luckily I’m in the US for a couple months yet so I, too, will wait for a clear local oversupply and get re-vaxxed. Just, you know, a fretter.

  175. 175.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    @John Revolta:

    I missed a message that they needed to reschedule the *follow-up* appointment to my colonoscopy yesterday–the doctor got called into surgery. He was still able to see me, though.

    Good news: nothing wrong in there, not even any inflammation. Bad news: no diagnosis for my other symptoms, so he’s referring me to a gastroenterologist. But so it goes.

  176. 176.

    Another Scott

    @burnspbesq: Really?  A CEO’s job is to squeeze every nickel and dime and dollar out of every customer to the maximum extent possible?  No matter the consequences to institutional reputation, risk of attracting attention from regulators and legislators, etc., etc.?

    Really?  That’s what you took from that hearing?

    Hmm…

    I guess IBM’s and AT&T’s decades of funding the arts and public broadcasting was against their fiduciary duty?? They should have given that money to their shareholders!!11

    I guess the banks’ boards should throw them out because they’re not charging, say, 50,000% APR on loans under $1000 with terms less than 60 days in Delaware? They’re leaving money on the table and not doing their jobs for the company owners!!11

    Sheesh. :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  177. 177.

    Dan B

    @Mike in NC: It’s amazing there’s wine in Fort Meyers, then again it wouldn’t last a second in Spring Break without…

    My experience of Florida is limited to a layover at Miami Airport after we “went tropo” in the tropics – Costa Rica Beach- and got to our plane 24 hours late…  That and an episode of Sky King where a little girl got a deadly tropical disease on vacation in Florida and survived long enough for Sky King to get the medicine.  Had a traumatic fear of Florida for decades.

  179. 179.

    Dan B

    @Benno: If you visit Seattle, and many other places (red states with “patriots for freedum”) there is plenty of supply.  In fact there is already oversupply almost everywhere.

    Don’t fret – get!

  180. 180.

    satby

    @Benno: Sputnik vac has lower efficacy than ones here, and mixing even with J&J will provide you with better immunity anyway. Just go to a walk-in pharmacy and get it again

  181. 181.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Benno:

    this is the first time in my life there’s been talk about barring travel for lack of vaccine

    Wait, really?  I distinctly remember when I was young, getting shots so we could visit family in India.  And I’ve read about what was called the “yellow card” (your vaxx record) required for travel to certain countries.  I thought it was much more common previously, though for the US, sure, it’s less common these days (b/c we’re governed by idiots who don’t understand how infectious disease works).

  183. 183.

    satby

    @Chetan Murthy: Yes, depending on where you came from or traveled through and where you were going, proof of vaccination via the internationally recognized yellow card was required. Proof of vaccination against covid is not a novel idea.

    edit: In fact, I’m bringing my yellow card to my local health department for them to enter my covid vax on it. Even though I have the CDC cards, which are forgable.

  184. 184.

    SWMBO

    @Gin & Tonic: My Florida Panthers and the Pittsburgh Penguins were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs tonight. JC and geg6 are probably not happy about this either.

  186. 186.

    Dan B

    @Chetan Murthy: Still need some wild vaccinations to go to India, and the malaria prevention pills you start a few days before the flight.  We went to Costa Rica where our luggage with the camera and malaria pills were stolen and then I arrived in Mumbai, in a different airport than scheduled thanks to huge east coast blizzard.  Sat in the airport with mosquitoes buzzing everywhere with no local cash (closed currency) until I was given a phone.  So thankful!

    It was interesting that tropical Costa Rica required no vaccinations.

  188. 188.

    Benno

    @Chetan Murthy: travelled to Brazil a number of times in the 80s. Had vaccines, of course, but proof of vaccine was never required (of us) either to board a plane or to enter the country. Been traveling to India and Pakistan for the last 25 years; got recommended vaccines but documentation has never been required. All over east and Southeast Asia over the last 10 years, same same. We always get vaxxed per recommendations because it’s sensible, but I can’t recall a single time that documentation was ever required for boarding or entry. I’m not including any European travel here. Anyway, my experience. But I don’t originate in a country with yellow fever, so I suppose I never needed the yellow card. Pakistan certainly hasn’t enforced it for the last decade.

  189. 189.

    Jim Appleton

    In a former life I flew a lot.

    Not long after 9/11, I was in a seat just in front of a prep area where a coffee pot was way too hot and giving off an unpleasant odor about a foot from my nose.

    I asked the stewardess to change the coffee.  She freaked out for some reason, parked a drinks cart in front of the cockpit door, and was clearly agitated by something she perceived I had done.  I only said the coffee odor was unpleasant.

    This might be a flip side to the original post.

  191. 191.

    Benno

    @NotMax: but that’s the difference, innit? The discussion I’ve heard is not about entry visas but about physically boarding the plane, and mostly limited to travel in the US. Again, lots of experience here to and from South Asia especially, but I’ve applied for many entry visas over the years and reapply for some annually for work.

  192. 192.

    Booger

    @Another Scott:  That’s not exactly wrong. There was a radical change in thinking and law about the duty of corporations, which used to include ‘stakeholders’ v. shareholders.’ That went down the tubes in the Reagan era, probably some Milton Friedman/Chicago School/Brown Water Economics/Glibertarian Randian BS; now it’s pretty much law that it’s 100% stockholders and to hell with the world.

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