After months of persuasion, attempted bribery, empty threats, appeals to emotion, logical appeals, and everything else, I have successfully convinced Gerald to get vaccinated and he went and got the J&J one and done today. His whole family had it, and Breyana and his wife were hassling him daily, but I think I finally outstubborned the bastard when I told him point blank that he’s the only male friend I have in meatspace and I can’t have him dying on me.
I am counting this as a win.
In other news, super religious people are still nucking futz:
Mississippi’s Republican Governor Tate Reeves said southerners are “a little less scared” of Covid-19 because they “believe in eternal life.”
“I’m often asked by some of my friends on the other side of the aisle about Covid… and why does it seem like folks in Mississippi and maybe in the Mid-South are a little less scared, shall we say,” Reeves said.
“When you believe in eternal life — when you believe that living on this earth is but a blip on the screen, then you don’t have to be so scared of things,” the governor told the crowd during a Republican Party fundraiser in Tennessee this week.
So why you all taking metformin and insulin? Getting cancer screenings and chemo? Hell, why have ambulances and hospitals? Getting vaccinated is easier than all of that shit, you fucking weirdos.
anon
and gunz. why all the gunz
Jerzy Russian
I would also point out that when a group of people believes in eternal life and all that it is easier to get suicide bombers.
Just curious, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to: How many female friends to you have in Real Life?
Capri
The few times I’ve talked to someone from the “Jesus will protect me” crowd I ask them if they think they believe in salvation more than all those folks in the middle ages who died of plague. I’m no scholar, but I think society was a great deal more religious than it is today. Yet somehow a huge number of them died.
One such person will need to have a negative COVID test DAILY after her company’s November deadline. She’ll need to have it before she can come to work, which is 5:30 every morning.
Eunicecycle
That’s good news about your friend. My sister-in-law was fretting about the side effects of the vaccine (she’s retired so she didn’t have to worry about needing time off). I told her (maybe a little too scathingly I admit) “but one of the side effects of Covid is death!” She did get the vaccine a few weeks later.
Nicole
I’m so glad to hear your friend did the right thing. That’s awesome news. You did good.
Re: the MS governor- and yet, these same religious fundamentalists are the first to run to the hospital and demand every imaginable treatment to prolong their existence, even when it won’t do any good. Maybe they are afraid that when the moment comes, Jesus will look at them and say he doesn’t know them. After all, according to the Christian faith, Jesus was willing to suffer unimaginable agony on a crucifix for 3 days in order to save the (eternal) life of mankind. These asshats aren’t even willing to wear a slightly uncomfortable mask in a Walmart for 20 minutes to save their neighbors.
mrmoshpotato
Eternal life in Hell for being stupud, selfish, murderous motherfuckers?
These fucking people…
And STFU cicadas!
hells littlest angel
Believe it or not these are the exact last words I have said to each of the people I have entombed in my basement. Small world.
Origuy
A friend of mine finally got her first shot on Friday. She was waiting for FDA approval. She’s a germaphobe and really careful about cleaning and masking, but reluctant to get the vaccine.
germy
Weren’t these the same people screaming about death panels back when Obama was trying to pass the Affordable Care Act?
Odie Hugh Manatee
I want cars to have a drive mode for devout Christians, call it Jesus Saves mode. Upon starting the car they are asked if the driver is a devout Christian. If they select YES, all safety systems are disabled and the air bag in the steering column is replaced with a large pointy spike.
Yutsano
@Nicole: I’d bet $20 Governor Tate “Goober” Reeves is vaccinated. He just can’t admit it because it would torpedo him with the base and he’d get primaried. I bet any prominent Republican has. even the junior Senator from Kentucky with the slowly decaying Furby for hair*.
*I stand by this statement until proven wrong. And even then.
Mary G
Team nagging can work, also vulnerability. Good for Gerald and you get to keep your friend.
Raoul Paste
Well done. Sometimes an appeal that goes “I care about you” actually works
Baud
For the record, this
is almost certainly a lie.
Yutsano
@Odie Hugh Manatee: The cut of your jib. Me gusta.
Need to shower and dress. I have a fat check to deposit and food to eat. And coffee. Need coffee.
Origuy
South Lake Tahoe has been ordered to evacuate.
Specifically, the west and south sides are under evacuation order, while the north and east areas near the lake are still under warning. The west route out is narrow and twisty Highway 89 to Tahoe City, while the east route out is not much better, US 50 to Carson City. The Sierra-at-Tahoe ski area is burning, although they’ve been able to save some of the buildings by creating mist from the snowmaking equipment.
ETA. All of SLT is now ordered to evacuate.
dm
So, I’d say to the Mississippi governor: God gave you a miracle last year in the form of not one, but three vaccines of amazing effectiveness, and you choose to tell Him “That’s not good enough for me”?
Then I’d ask him what the Bible says about humility.
gwangung
@Eunicecycle: Actually, most of the so-called side effects I’ve heard attributed to the vaccine are actually side effects of Covid (and the Covid side is worse).
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@hells littlest angel: You too? Glad to hear it.
If memory serves, it’s not a good idea to test God by trying to get to your final resting place early. It doesn’t go over well with the boss
Kent
@Baud: Good catch. You are almost certainly right. I grew up around these types and the lies about “others” just come fast and furious. They don’t usually even realize they are lying because “it is in the service of the lord”
Mike in NC
Mary Trump called Governor DeathSentence a homicidal sociopath, which apparently applies to a bunch of these whackjob Republican governors. They’re determined to be the death of us all.
eclare
@Baud:
There is no way he has friends “on the other side of the aisle.”
Nicole
@Yutsano:
Absolutely. As it said in the Covid post earlier today, it’s the middle management and below folks who are dying; the ones with actual power are in on the grift. And they’ve all gotten their shots. I guess, when you’re a Republican politician in a state as red as Mississippi, you figure you can lose a number of GOP voters to Covid and still not be in danger of losing your seat to a Democrat.
debbie
@Nicole:
Zippo sympathy for these fanatics.
germy
JoyceH
I saw the most awesome vaccine ad! (I doubt it was a genuine ad, just a funny meme.) Picture of a Viagra tablet, which genuinely does say “Pfizer” right on the tablet. Caption: “You trust us with your penis. Trust our vaccine.”
And it reminded me of when Viagra was first released and all the guys went thundering out to get it. None of this worrying about long term effects and was it tested enough and maybe wait a few years for that!
Scout211
@Origuy:
I posted this new development in a thread downstairs. This is is a very dangerous fire and we are facing fire weather conditions that are making the fire fight extremely difficult. There are a lot of people who live and work in South Lake Tahoe and with two of the three roads out of Tahoe to the west now closed, it will be a nightmare to drive to safety.
Added: nbcnews.com/video/caldor-fire-threatens-lake-tahoe-as-residents-forced-to-evacuate-119769157686
rikyrah
Yeah for Gerald!
Glad you kept at it, Cole.
Yutsano
It doesn’t help that Mississippi is gerrymandered to Hades and back. It also doesn’t help that voting in Mississippi is so restricted that they barely had to change any laws to make Dolt45 happy. Considering Mississippi has one of the largest concentrations of Black residents in the country and the state should really have more Democratic representation.
tom
So now judges are practicing medicine. What, as they say, could possibly go wrong?
The Moar You Know
@germy: WHY YES, THAT’S ODD
dmsilev
@JoyceH: I can’t wait until Moderna gets their full approval and starts their ad campaign. For those who haven’t heard, they went with ‘SpikeVax’ as the public name. Expect lots of ads with manly men in their manly pickup trucks doing manly things and ending their manly days with a nice shot of SpikeVax.
The Moar You Know
@eclare: There is no way he has friends.
eclare
@The Moar You Know: So true!
West of the Rockies
As discussed down-blog, it comes down to ego, vanity. They’d rather be dead than wrong in their opinions.
Terminal Dunning-Kreuger.
Old School
Congratulations on Gerald! Can I hire you to work on my brother next?
Roger Moore
@Nicole:
I think this is what they ought to be afraid of:
Ken
@dmsilev: I feel sorry for the person at Pfizer who came up with “Comirnaty” and was probably expecting a nice bonus.
Baud
@Ken: If that were the name when I got my Pfizer, I would have taken my chances with the virus.
mrmoshpotato
@Eunicecycle:
Hilariously direct
dmsilev
@Ken: Yeah, doesn’t really leave much of an impression does it. I’m sure they were hoping it would enter into the language the way Viagra has, but I’m guessing that won’t happen.
At least the actual drug development team has proven to be highly effective.
Peale
@dmsilev: To me it evokes a breed of chicken. The kind kept more for the fancy plumage than the eggs.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@Yutsano: That’s awfully unkind to Furbys, don’t you think?
Ten Bears
If all those people are so confidant in their everlasting life, that their time here is but a blip on the grand scale and hurricanes, wildfires or worldwide pandemics are not to be feared, why do they need all those guns?
Ken
@Baud: Now I can say I got my SpikeVax before it was cool.
John Cole
@Jerzy Russian: I have a number of male friends, but Gerald is the only one I ever do anything with. Rest live elsewhere.
I have a lot more female friends. Five or six around here.
Yarrow
@JoyceH: Covid does affect men’s ability to get and maintain an erection. I don’t know why there haven’t been some viral marketing campaigns aimed at young men using this info. “Vax up to keep it up” kind of thing.
VeniceRiley
@Yarrow: Pfizer gonna get em one way or another!
Suzanne
@Yarrow:
Anyone who is interested in penis-havers should make a Tinder or Grindr profile and put “swipe right if you’ve ever had Covid because I need BDE”. Watch those vaccination rates skyrocket.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@dm: It’s scriptural!
Matthew 4:7, NIV: “Jesus answered him, ‘It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.””
Deuterominy 6:16, NIV: Do not put the LORD your God to the test as you did at Massah.
So the faithful aren’t supposed to insist on help when it’s already been made available.
JCJ
I convinced a 91 year old patient the other day. She has metastatic lung cancer but is doing well on targeted therapy (Tagrisso – a tyrosine kinase inhibitor), but there is one site of progression in her spine I will treat with stereotactic radiation. She was concerned about “all those chemicals”. I first met her over a year and a half ago when she presented with double vision caused by metastatic disease in the skull base which made it impossible to read. I was able to treat that and she has been able to read since. I told her that after fixing her vision I did not want her to die from a preventable disease.
Earlier a patient told me she had gotten vaccinated thanks to a gift card at Meijer (grocery store). She was concerned what the vaccine would do to her. This is a lady I had treated (along with chemotherapy) for advanced lung cancer and twice since with stereotactic radiosurgery for brain metastases. The logic impresses me.
UncleEbeneezer
I indirectly helped convince a Black FB friend’s nephew to get jabbed. I think he was in the “vaccine is another Tuskegee experiment (aimed at Black people)” camp. To which I suggested she ask “then why are so many white people getting it?” It was a super obvious point that Rod of TheBlackGuyWhoTips podcast mentioned.
piratedan
@John Cole: well…. more likely that Thurston, Lily and Steve have some female friends that they share with you…… :-)
Suzanne
@JCJ: As I know you know, but others here may not…. Chemotherapy is so full of really, really strong “chemicals” that it has to be prepared in pharmacies that meet ISO 900 guidelines, including specific rooms with hoods and very high ventilation and with PPE on.
Being concerned about “all those chemicals”…. what about the ones they already had infused for hours?!
Whatever.
Nicole
@Yutsano: You’re not wrong. But at the current status quo, I don’t think the Governor of MS is worried about losing a few ten thousands of those gerrymandered votes. Ugh.
Dan B
@a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio: Um…There are other meanings to Furby. I’d stick with a simple reading of Yutsano’s comment. That way no one gets
hurtshocked. <del datetime=”2021-08-30T20:19:37+00:00″raven
Veteran dies of treatable illness as COVID fills hospital beds, leaving doctors “playing musical chairs”
trollhattan
@Scout211:
Yeah, as they say, the story “continues to unfold.” Ugh.
To give folks an idea of the scale, the fire started near Pollock Pines two weeks ago. It takes an hour to drive from Pollock Pines to South Lake Tahoe when traffic is light. This is the most heavily populated swath of the Sierra Nevada range.
Fire’s cause is “under investigation.” The last fire to start at Pollock Pines, which jumped Highway 50 and headed northward, was arson.
Dan B
@raven: This story and the kid with cancer sitting in the car in the parking lot because the hospital was overloaded are a couple of thousands of people suffering because of conspiracy theories and high tech means to spread them.
rikyrah
@raven:
he should be considered a COVID DEATH
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Try the most scared to death of death itself. Being screamed at three times a week that you are going to burn in hell while while being serviced violently by Satan for voting for the wrong candidate or rooting for the wrong football team doesn’t make them placid about the hereafter.
raven
We have now officially unassed that motherfucker.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@hells littlest angel: You are a humanitarian I take it?
raven
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
Suzanne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Absolutely right. All those people are secretly terrified of going to hell.
Spooky Mormon Hell Dream is instructive.
Old Man Shadow
Do not take medical advice from someone named Tater.
Also, if they really aren’t afraid of COVID because of Jesus, then they should be willing to sign a Medical directive stating that the only care they want from a doctor is palliative care. Leave hospital resources for the rest of us who value human life and have tried to be responsible.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
This is a big reason epidemiologists want to look at excess deaths rather than death certificates that say “COVID-19” on them.
Baud
@raven:
You talking about Gerald?
SiubhanDuinne
@Jerzy Russian:
Good grief, it happened again. Literally (LITERALLY) as I read those words in your comment, some Pentagon type on MSNBC said the words “suicide bombers.” The exact same instant.
Obviously I know that suicide bombers are in the news and on people’s minds, but this thing of my reading a word or term in a book or online at the precise moment someone on the radio or tv says the identical thing — well, it’s getting spooky, and it’s been going on for weeks now, if not months. It’s not an algorithm thing. It’s just strange.
Roger Moore
@Baud:
We’re officially out of Afghanistan.
raven
The last military planes have left Kabul airport.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
@raven:
One day early!
ETA: I assumed we were operating on US time. Another appeasement to the terrorists, using their time zone.
Citizen Alan
@dm: I’ll answer it. Jesus rebuked satan for daring him to jump off a tall tower and expecting angels to save him, saying God will not be tested.
trollhattan
@Baud: Taliban daylight time moves clock ahead one day.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@SiubhanDuinne: And some preacher told them that a “vaccine needle is the very Tallywacker of Lucifer, injecting them Blazing Poison Seed of Satan Himself into their veins and filling them with Sin and Depravity like a transgendered Gen Z reading Das Kapital; Critical Race Edition while noshing on an avocado and toast sandwich!” (or words to their effect) they will need de-wormer to deal with the horror
And meanwhile they are also terrified of COVID.
Jerzy Russian
@John Cole: Well, you got me beat. I don’t have any friends at all.
raven
@Baud: It’s the 31st there.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jerzy Russian: Baud will be your friend for a small monthly fee.
Scout211
@trollhattan:
The Caldor fire started 35 miles south of Pollock Pines between Omo Ranch and Grizzly Flats, near the Middle Fork of the Cosumnes River. The town of Grizzly Flats was almost completely destroyed while Pollock Pines has been spared (so far).
gvg
@Suzanne: I don’t think most people know that. I also remember decades of news about which chemicals CAUSED cancer. Many common things were found to cause cancer latter, like cigarettes and paint and food additives , etc. People just got in the habit I think of assuming you needed to be careful.
I don’t think everyone is clearly told chemo is poisons that kill cancer cells slightly better than they kill you. I had chemo but I already knew that fact. Not sure where I learned it, but it was not in the handouts I was given…
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Mormons have a different game; when Grandpa gets his planet from Jesus on the Planet Kobold, the quality of that world will depend on how good the family is. So the fear is ending up the black sheep of the family and getting disowned with less torture porn.
Scout211
And more bad news for Lake Tahoe:
kcra.com/article/traffic-backed-up-along-highway-50-evacuation-route-toward-nevada/37434701
Another Scott
Good job, JC.
There are millions like Gerald out there in the USA, and around the world. We need to keep trying to reach them, while also rolling out mandates and all the rest.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sure Lurkalot
It is nice to read about people convincing hold-outs to go get their vax.
One of my good friends has a brother who lives in Mississippi and what a whacko. He had a pretty bad case of Covid at Xmas time but certainly won’t get the vaccine because baby parts. He won’t wear a mask because “why would I”? He won’t stop sitting shoulder to shoulder singing at church because God’s plan for him is whatever it is.
I recently connected with a friend I haven’t seen in decades. Vaxxed, family sounds as if they have been and are taking COVID very seriously. She mentioned to me that she was curious about Ivermectin after hearing Joe Rogan talk about it. I asked her why she would listen to Joe Rogan for medical advice (when I really meant “at all”).
I think its more than worth considering that there may be medications whose off-label use may be effective against COVID…given the sheer number of medications…but if you’re shilling it on a radio show, I advise to follow the money and not the advice.
SiubhanDuinne
I wouldn’t call this just “mildly good news,” John. I’d call it a huge, consequential win! Good for you for not giving up on your friend, and good for Gerald for listening to you!
Suzanne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Nah, all my ex-Mormon friends are terrified of hellfire. They have talked about nightmares and unrelenting doubt. All those controlling, right-wing religions are essentially the same.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@Dan B: I will gladly accept your guidance.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yutsano:
Wait, someone is giving out checks for being fat? Where do I sign up?
SiubhanDuinne
@Origuy:
Crikey.
Suzanne
@gvg: Chemotherapy (“chem” is literally in the name) is really hardcore shit. Not to mention, if they have lung cancer, they probably spent a while breathing in some chemicals!
I repeat: whatever.
dnfree
@Nicole: This is definitely one of the contradictory aspects, at least for some Christians. They’re ready to go when God says it’s their time….but first they want every possible medical intervention.
I knew one good Christian who had COPD and there was nothing that could be done. She died with such grace and good humor that I hope I can do the same. The minister told the story at her funeral that he came to visit her one day and said he would pray for her, and she told him to pray she died that night. The next day when he visited, she said to him, “You didn’t pray hard enough!” That seemed like real faith.
L85NJGT
This was the alternative. aka “Trumpcare”
On the plus side the Lt. Gov is politely pointing out they’d have higher workforce participation rates if they expanded Medicaid. So, baby steps.
dnfree
@mrmoshpotato:
Cicadas? That’s nothing. Try tinnitus. When people complain about cicadas, or tree frogs, or whatever, I tell them to imagine it going on all day and night, every day and night.
trollhattan
@Baud: Can you dig it?
JoyceH
@Sure Lurkalot:
Some of the feed stores have started putting signs on the Ivermectin shelf, saying for sale to horse owners only. To purchase, you have to be able to show a picture of yourself with your horse. How have we come to this?
Mary G
@Origuy:
@Scout211:
@trollhattan:
That is horrifying. Lake Tahoe is one of my favorite places in the world and was #1 on my list of trips to take after the pandemic is over. I hope the idiots who put off evacuation until they could pack their whole house will wait their turn and not cause accidents by trying to go around stopped cars, but I have my doubts.
Ken
I’m imagining dozens of neocons and reporters weeping uncontrollably.
It’s a pleasant thought…
David Fud
The fundamentalist crowd is very much afraid of death. This is why they speak of the afterlife all of the time, and why they twist themselves into knots to invent rationales for their behavior: motivated reasoning to avoid thinking about death. This also leads them to live sadsack lives, because they spend all of their time focused on the end.
Another way this displays itself is in the hospital. They want God to save them, but realize at the end that intervention is all that will save them and then you get the character God as unlikely hero in the hospital in their mind. From this Herman Cain Award reddit thread:
moops
I think, in a few weeks, I’d ask for an apology from Gerald for putting you through all of this with no good reasons. Not right away, of course.
SiubhanDuinne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Just amazing how some dude on NPR said those exact words!
danielx
Good news is good.
In other, not-so-good news, Ohio judge orders hospital to treat patient with ivermectin. Some guy’s wife asked judge to issue emergency order after hospital refused prescription from nutcase physician. So now they not only have to prescribe something which doesn’t work, but will have to deal with ivermectin side effects, which may include shitting the bed in spectacular fashion.
Variation on old saying: anyone who has a judge for a doctor has a fool for a patient.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, in NFT news, …
You mean scammers are trying to get into the NFT craze??
Unpossible.
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@JoyceH: I have some photos of my horse, but no fucking *selfies* with my horse. Jesus Christ, if I have to get someone at the barn to take a photo of me with Ember just so I can go get her some fucking wormer…
*face palm
Another Scott
ICYMI,
(I assume she meant EDT.)
(via dick_nixon)
Cheers,
Scott.
Jerzy Russian
@Suzanne:
They need to be more specific about “chemicals”. For example, water is a well-known chemical (H2O), vitamin C is a chemical, oxygen in the air is a chemical, etc.
Roger Moore
@danielx:
To get technical, the other guy has already prescribed the medication; they have to administer it. It’s still awful and stupid. If the wife thinks the other doctors is so good, she should have her husband transferred to his care.
WaterGirl
@raven: which motherfucker?
edit: oh,
thatmotherfucker. I assume you are referring to the last plane leaving Afghanistan?Suzanne
@Jerzy Russian: I KNOW.
I can’t handle the stupid.
This is why it might be best for me to take a decade off-grid and away from others: I’m not very nice.
Ohio Mom
That’s *my* hospital that judge is forcing to maltreat that patient with horse dewormer — it’s where I had my mastectomy and where some of my doctors’ offices are. I feel enraged on their behalf.
raven
@WaterGirl: Afghanistan
Ohio Mom
Duplicate deleted
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Afghanistan.
StringOnAStick
@raven: I’ve had an emergency gall bladder removal. All I can say is that poor man suffered horribly before he died from a gall stone.
raven
@StringOnAStick: Oh I am sure but some antivaxxer got his place in line.
JoyceH
Maybe so many of these 1/6 defendants shouldn’t have hired the lawyer that Kyle Rittenhouse fired.
washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/capitol-riot-lawyer-pierce-covid-disappearance/2021/08/30/d7b9…
If you’re too wacky for Kyle Rittenhouse…
CaseyL
Excellent news – both on Gerald getting his jab, and on the US getting out of Afghanistan, finally.
On Twitter, there are a lot of posts regarding many studies recently released of post-vaccination breakthrough infections. The data samples are very small, and the conclusions are all over the place:
Vaccinations work great against Delta, with breakthrough infections being generally very mild
BUT: Vaccine effectiveness does wane with time. (No cross-ref whether the severity of the breakthrough infection is relational to how long it’s been since the person was fully vaccinated.)
AND: Even vaccinated people have more Delta viral load in their noses than the unvaccinated had with Alpha. (Significant in deciding how much risk the vaccinated are to the unvaccinated, esp. kids who can’t get vaxxed yet.)
I’m still struggling with whether to go to Maine. I was fully vaxxed by last January, so my immunity is pretty “old” at this point. They’re rolling out Boosters for Everyone too soon before my trip to be of much use to me.
Damn. And I had just decided, this morning, that I would go on the trip…
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
This! I have cousins who are serious RNs in College Station TX (I know, I hate TX too!) one of which worked on an ICU for cancer patients, and preped Chemo for those patients. She demanded a transfer after a couple of years, when she started to work on having kids.
Worse than a chemical plant, really. No one doing chemo should hesitate more than a few seconds before taking a Covid vaccine.
Wendy works in a neonatal ICU now… two wonderful kids! They live on the family farm outside town.
Munira
@SiubhanDuinne: Happens to me all the time, too.
Another Scott
@David Fud: I’m amused (though I’m often easily amused) that stories about child sacrifice and burning garbage dumps outside Jerusalem get turned into supernatural places where one is tortured for eternity.
It’s like the Springfield Tire Fire but with more pointy sticks.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
AOC, Tlaib and Pressley want Biden to dump Powell. They have written a letter.
trollhattan
@Mary G:
It once took me 12 hours to get home from South Tahoe over Highway 50 because of snow. Now they’ve lost two main routes out of the basin, so the traffic will be epic.
Guess if there’s “good news” is the tourists are long gone, dunno about the gamblers.
Kay
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: That is too funny. Science doesn’t care whether you believe in it or not.
CaseyL
@Kay: So bunch of RW nuts hire more RW nuts as attorneys – and said attorneys are incompetent liars and corrupt.
Quelle surprise.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Powell isn’t removable at will. Is his term up?
J R in WV
@dnfree:
Wife and I both have tinnitus pretty bad. Doc recommended we listen to music at bedtime, so I put together a thumb-drive full of restful classical music, which has about 24 hrs of really good performances. We listen to it every night, all night long.
Claire de lune stuff. Trio, etc. Tony Bennett and any female duet partner, etc.
cleek
that there is whatcha call a “virtue signal”
Baud
@Kay:
Quite the conundrum.
germy
Kay
@Baud:
I need the county for the common pleas court in Pennsyvania. Dying to know what he did that was felony fraud while working for the judge.
Geminid
@Baud: Those three Representatives don’t care about the terms of the Fed Chairman’s tenure. They know President Biden will not dump Powell anyway. They’re just stirring up shit, and building their brand.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
He might be lying. I myself would need more than what his felon, fake-lawyer associate said.
Amazing. He just stopped showing up.
Baud
@Geminid:
I read the statement, and I guess his term is up. It mentions reappointment.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: His term expires in 2022. I am used to seeing ridiculous demands and misunderstanding of Fed’s mandates by the likes of Rand Paul not by people who win on the Democratic ticket.
WaterGirl
@CaseyL: You forgot the part about how the attorneys they hired were not attorneys at all!
zhena gogolia
@raven:
Wow. Feels weird. Feels strange. Feels somehow good, despite all the tragedy.
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
Their reasons for dumping him- he’s not good on climate and he’s relaxed bank regulations- both seem entirely sensible. I don’t know if the Fed is the first place to look on climate, but its importance in bank regulation is obvious.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: a new green lanternist fantasy litmus test for Rose Twitter to declare Biden a failure
zhena gogolia
@dnfree:
I know a lot of Christians like that. They don’t get all the publicity.
Baud
Biden will make an Afghanistan speech tomorrow.
Kay
Still doggedly and incorrectly insisting there’s some master list of Americans and that the Biden Administration can order them out at gunpoint.
Will there be a time they admit that there was never an intention of getting all Afghan “allies” out since they never defined that term? They refuse to accept the Biden number. Doesn’t that mean they have to come up with a number of their own?
ljdramone
@Another Scott: shot of (what the TV said was) the last C-17 taking off on tonight’s TV news was in daylight, so I’m guessing they meant 3:29 pm Afghan time (GMT+4:30). EDT is GMT-4, so 3:29 pm EDT would be 11:59 pm in Kabul.
Or maybe it really was 11:59 pm, one minute before the deadline, and NBC just used B-roll of a random C-17 taking off?
Baud
@Kay:
Also, it’s a lie that Biden assured everyone would get out. I heard him specifically say that was impossible.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Biden may want his own person there anyway.
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Fed is in charge of the monetary policy. Their dual mandate is to keep inflation in check and promote full employment.
Congressional reps can write laws to address climate change instead of being scolds to the Fed chair.
Kay
@Baud:
The media deliberately never defined which Afghans they were referring to. They preferred to mislead the public into thinking there was some much larger group than the number Biden use but they never told us who they were or why they would have precedence over any other Afghan who wants to leave. There’s 40 million people in that country. They’re going to have to come up with a number if they don’t like Bidens.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
Are you familiar with Positive Money? I’m not, so I checked out their website, but was getting 404 errors on individual pages.
Another Scott
@ljdramone: I think the Pentagon said the last plane left a minute before the deadline.
It’s 2:45 AM in Kabul now, so leaving at 3:29 PM EDT seems to jibe with that.
I assume the TV shows are showing video during the day just for dramatic purposes (hard to see much at night).
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@debbie: Nope never heard of them.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
That’s what I was thinking.
Geminid
@Baud: Interesting. Biden may appoint Powell to a second term. I suspect he will take Treasury Secretarary Yellen’s advice on this matter, despite her paltry Twitter following.
Baud
@Kay:
They don’t care about specifics. They’re trying to induce an emotional reaction to Biden’s betrayal of all that is good and holy.
zhena gogolia
@Kay:
Kay, thank you for all your posts on this. You are so clear-eyed and precise. I wish you and Adam Silverman could take over the TV news.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
So Joe must have close to a million gadflies buzzing around his head by now, right? I hope he manages to have the same kind of grace Barack had, despite all the criticisms of every little thing.
MomSense
Congratulations, John. My Dad told me that my niece in Montana is not vaccinated and doesn’t plan to get vaccinated. She’s on leave from nursing school because she had a baby two months ago.
UGH.
My Dad said she is a fan of Ben Shapiro and listens to his nonsense. My dad bought one of his books so he could try to talk to S, but he is not breaking through. From my dad’s brief book report it sounds like Shapiro is more idiotic than I realized.
Part of me wants to call my niece and talk with her, but now that she and my sister are close again, it would end up with everyone mad at me.
debbie
@MomSense:
At least she’s out in Montana. She may be social distancing without even realizing it.
Baud
@Geminid:
Agree. Yellen will be influential. She has a much bigger following on Instagram.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
“Kay, you ignorant slut!”
Kelly
@trollhattan:
@Mary G:
@Scout211:
@Origuy:
When we evacuated from the Beachie Fire last year every driver was courteous and orderly. Around 10,000 households and a two-lane road. At 2 am. In heavy smoke. People can be alright.
WaterGirl
@Kelly: Do the hurricanes and fires give you flashbacks to last year?
Ksmiami
@Suzanne: I used to be a nice person but that ship sailed about March 2020
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
They knew damn well it was a process of exclusion because they themselves were a priority to get out and they were treated as a priority because their powerful employers made sure they were.
They can’t report on the girls robotic team getting out and continue to pretend it’s some vague, standardless process. Why the girls robotic team and not any of the 5 million other Afghan girls who might like to get out? Immigration excludes. That’s what it does. No one starts with limitless capacity and adds to infinity. They subtract.
If they had said “Biden says 70k but there are more groups of people who should be included and we’re advocating on their behalf so it should be 100k or 200k” I would be fine with it. They’re advocates, but at least there’s some rational bound, some measure. That’s a disagreement. This is just misleading.
Doc Sardonic
@J R in WV: Interesting. My wife has a bad case of tinnitus, and every time we go to an indoor concert and she gets her ears blasted(because she forgets her ear plugs) she says it doesn’t bother her for about 24 hours.
Kelly
@WaterGirl: Oh Yeah. We felt secure from Covid for months at home and then we were flushed out into the open. Must be how deer feel with the wolves after them. Heavy smoke from a nearby fire really had me wound up this weekend. The Beachie fire scar is a 30 mile wide firebreak between us and this year’s fire so very unlikely to get anywhere near here but…
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I hope people know the reference!
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
It’ll be more fun if they don’t. But most people here are old.
Ella in New Mexico
@JCJ: What I see in primary care among my resisters is they’re being told and believe the vaccines have some sort of infinitely unpredictable assault capacity to the body that can cause more harm than anything they’ve ever dealt with before. Even brain metastasis.
And that everyone in power is just lying to them, for some apparent –but not yet fully understood–reason. Depends on who you are as to your motives for “lying”. I’m lying because I’m a Sheeple, I’ve been brainwashed by my education and training in “mainstream medicine” or my employers “make “me say vaccines save lives. I’ll see someday they did their research and I’ll be embarrassed about how foolish I’ve been.
I’ve had more than one bring me reams of printed “studies” from the internet, lots off this new site pushing Ivermectin called the “Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance” (a doctor from which is involved in this crazy Ohio lawsuit we saw today in which a judge ordered a hospital to administer it to a guy who’s been sick for at least 3 weeks with COVID).
The list of purported “side effects that are killing thousands of people who got the vaccine but Fauci is lying to everyone” is literally unlimited. You name it, whatever your symptom is it was definitely caused by the vaccine. Only imagination limits what vaccines cause that is far, far worse than a COVID-19 infection. This also applies to the fake/unapproved cures and remedies.
I told my colleague the other day, after she cut short a Zoom visit with an angry patient demanding she sign a document saying he has a medical condition (doesn’t BTW) for the vaccine that this whole anti-vaxxer population needs its own DSM-V diagnosis because it’s like hypochondriasis and paranoid delusional disorder had a baby.
Viva BrisVegas
We had the head of the fundamentalist christian lobby here saying the same thing as Reeves.
I wondered if they truly aren’t afraid of dying of covid, are they also not afraid of taking out their children, parents, friends, or even strangers while achieving their own martyrdom?
If they aren’t afraid of that, are they really christian, or even human?
debbie
@Baud:
And there, children, is an example of a backhanded compliment.
Doc Sardonic
@Baud: Kay gonna bust in here any minute now with couple rolls of quarters in a sock, and let you know Kay don’t play dat.
Just One More Canuck
@Mary G: Mark Twain shared your opinion- “I thought it must surely be the fairest picture the whole earth affords.”
I’ve never been there, but definitely on the list
H.E.Wolf
Back in the day – oh so far back; Terry O’Reilly was still playing for the Boston Bruins – there were frequent commercials for LaBatt’s (a Canadian beer) on the local sports TV channel.
The ads featured very manly men doing their very manly work and having beer in the most manly way possible.
We called them the LaButts commercials, because by golly, that was a whole LOT of beefcake. :)
Spanky
@MomSense:
My God!!!!
trollhattan
@Kelly:
The evacuation is precautionary–hopefully the fire doesn’t enter the basin–so there’s time. It’s more the capacity of the roads around the lake that folks need to take to leave the basin are narrow and winding in places, some have 5mph corners.
It will take some time, but everybody should have had their cars packed. Folks of the Uber set will have a second set of problems.
WaterGirl
@Kelly: I thought it was likely enough to be that way, but I’m still sorry to hear it.
I supposed these hurricanes and fires are similar to wakes and funerals in that it always reminds you of the people you have lost before.
zhena gogolia
@Ella in New Mexico:
Wow. Disturbing.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
They will never do that. They don’t want to directly advocate for anything because it will shatter the carefully crafted illusion that they’re dispassionate observers who describe events without participating. Of course they do advocate; they just try to hide their advocacy. But every time they ask, “How will people react to such-and-such policy?”, they really mean, “We disapprove of such-and-such policy and will do everything in our power to rile people up about it.” I think they sometimes even believe their own BS.
Kelly
@trollhattan: Definitely better get folks moving early, in the daylight. Most people in the Beachie evac had gone to bed and the power was out. First responders and neighbors that happened to be awake were going door to door waking us up and getting us going.
Alice
The traffic cams make it look like South Lake is pretty well cleared out . newtoreno.com/ca-us50-webcams-south-lake-tahoe.htm
I did hear they were running some of the roads, like Kingsbury Grade, one way, out only .
Gravenstone
@hells littlest angel: Did you offer them a drink of Amontillado before you closed up the wall?
Scout211
@Alice:
That’s good news. Hopefully, everyone will be able return soon. Fingers crossed.
stinger
@SiubhanDuinne: Seconded.
There go two miscreants
That made me laugh!
Fake Irishman
@Roger Moore:
Powell has also been the most aggressive chair in decades on embracing the fed’s dual mandate, taking unemployment as seriously as inflation.
end of the day, it really doesn’t matter what three back-bencher Dems in the House think. The senate confirms.
Another Scott
@Fake Irishman: +1
I thought Yellen was good about mentioning the “dual mandate” in the public speeches I saw of hers, but Powell has been deadly serious about it. Finally.
I don’t know if he did anything he shouldn’t have under TFG, but he’s at least making the right noises now (talking about actually taking the 2% inflation number as a real goal, not an upper bound; talking about getting to actual full employment; etc.).
Cheers,
Scott.
Richard
@Baud:
They are scared shitless. They double down because they can’t deal with it. They don’t want to look at themselves. I don’t identify with them but my family history has roots with them.
They perceive themselves as victimized misunderstood people.
I’m done with that. The whole thing. They did have some good music tho, back in the day.
And now the government that they hate so much is going to have to bale them out from another hurricane, and the covid, and as usual their chronic poverty and ignorance.
If i didn’t have family living with these idiots, i would say cut them loose before they sink the whole ship.
Richard
@dmsilev:
Yes SpikeVax might go better. Cominterly or whatever makes me wish i had paid more attention in my Welsh class. Apologies to all Cymraig speakers!
Dave
@David Fud: Having lived in the south(Tenn. And NC.) 8 years I can understand why death seems like an acceptable option