Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Reality always gets a vote in the end.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Giving up is unforgivable.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Consistently wrong since 2002

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

We still have time to mess this up!

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / You Dropped a Bomb on Me, Baby

You Dropped a Bomb on Me, Baby

by | 192 Comments

This post is in: 

As noted by Mistermix and followed up by Watergirl, Biden dropped some sweeping and LONG OVERDUE proposals (and I am not blaming Biden for them being overdue, but by our general political system), and I am here to tell you that I FUCKING LOVE IT.

I am tired of screwing around with these fucking imbeciles, I’m tired of loosing innocent people, I’m tired of destroying our medical community and wasting resources on idiots who refuse to get vaccinated, and I am not interested in watching my health insurance go through the fucking roof because of Y’All Qaeda’s refusal to vaccinate. I am well beyond the No Fucks Left to Give stage, and am in favor of enacting sweeping regulations and letting the courts sort it out. Go overboard, let corporate America go half way to cover their asses, and even if the shit gets struck down, we’ll have advanced the ball.

I am sick of this shit. Fuck your freedoms, get the vaccine, wear a mask, and shut the fuck up.

Reader Interactions

192Comments

  4. 4.

    A Ghost to Most

    Nice hasn’t worked for 40 years. Their tribe feeds off nice. Bullies don’t back up until you punch them in the mouth.

  6. 6.

    Cermet

    Regardless, the courts can’t counterman his orders for Fed employee’s and contractors nor the Med systems that take Medicare/cade. So, that will certainly make a big dent in the available petri dishes out there walking around begging covid to make them its next host.

  9. 9.

    HypersphericalCow

    So this seems to be all going through Medicare/Medicaid and OSHA. Biden has always known how use the levers of power

    ETA: and requirements on federal contractors, as mentioned above.

  10. 10.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Edward-Isaac Dovere @IsaacDovere

    Biden is leaning into an issue for which there is not just overwhelming public support, but support in an intense, visceral way. As @ForecasterEnten pointed out a few days ago, vaccines are now as popular as Christmas trees

    this means that the COVID vaccination political argument may be like the Afghanistan withdrawal political argument: susceptible to seeming divided because of loud voices on Twitter and TV, but really exhibiting much more agreement among the population at large

  12. 12.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @oatler: 1) comment for another thread?
    2) is there a Senator named Nancy? Nancy Kassenbaum is the last one I remember

  13. 13.

    Ken

    (You dropped a bomb) Well, there’s an earworm (on me baby) I haven’t had in a while… (you dropped a bomb on me)

  14. 14.

    CaseyL

    Between Biden’s speech on the mandates, and Garland announcing the lawsuit filed against Texas, I feel that we have left the “Fuck around…” portion of the program, and are now in the “..and Find Out.”

    And I am so Here For It.

  15. 15.

    hells littlest angel

    In retrospect, it is perfectly predictable that the coolest Vice President of all time would make a pretty fucking great President.

  21. 21.

    debbie

    I can’t find a transcript of this address. How did Joe refer to the obstructionist elected officials?

  22. 22.

    JoyceH

    @hells littlest angel: 

    In retrospect, it is perfectly predictable that the coolest Vice President of all time would make a pretty fucking great President.

    Really? I confess to being gobsmacked. It always struck me that Biden was perfectly cast as the Sidekick. And then boom – January 20 – Presidential. Me: “I did not see that coming.”

  26. 26.

    lowtechcyclist

    @hells littlest angel:

    In retrospect, it is perfectly predictable that the coolest Vice President of all time would make a pretty fucking great President.

    I’d agree with you if “coolest VP of all time” weren’t such a low bar!

    I mean, seriously, who’s the second coolest VP of all time?

  28. 28.

    germy

    Biden’s vaccine mandate is an assault on private businesses.

    I issued an Executive Order protecting Texans’ right to choose whether they get the COVID vaccine & added it to the special session agenda.

    Texas is already working to halt this power grab.t.co/TwoQMhDxoM

    — Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) September 9, 2021

    Don’t pretend like you believe in the right to choose, you hypocrite. t.co/csyYuQk4W5

    — Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) September 9, 2021

  30. 30.

    The Dangerman

    And if they show a fake proof of vaccine, there should be hell to pay. Like slammer time (can’t touch that).

  31. 31.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: I am sorry to report that Biden did not use the words “those fuckers” in referring to the obstructionists.

    In a more helpful vein, I think it was pretty early on.

    I just checked for a transcript, and it said it was put up “one second ago”.  Maybe I need to run out and buy a lottery ticket!

    Link

    edit: is that the right vein?  It doesn’t seem right, but vane and vain seem worse.

  35. 35.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie:

    And to make matters worse, there are elected officials actively working to undermine the fight against COVID-19. Instead of encouraging people to get vaccinated and mask up, they’re ordering mobile morgues for the unvaccinated dying from COVID in their communities. This is totally unacceptable.

  37. 37.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    I’m announcing that the Department of Labor is developing an emergency rule to require all employers with 100 or more employees that together employee over 80 million workers to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated, or show a negative test at least once a week.

    President Biden: (08:35)
    Some of the biggest companies are already requiring this. United Airlines, Disney, Tyson’s Food, and even Fox News. 

  38. 38.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie:

    The vast majority of Americans are doing the right thing. Nearly three quarters of the eligible have gotten at least one shot, but one quarter has not gotten any.

    That’s nearly 80 million Americans not vaccinated. In a country as large as ours, that’s 25% minority. That 25% can cause a lot of damage, and they are.

    The unvaccinated overcrowd our hospitals, are overrunning emergency rooms and intensive care units, leaving no room for someone with a heart attack or pancreatitis or cancer.

  42. 42.

    lowtechcyclist

    I am sick of this shit. Fuck your freedoms, get the vaccine, wear a mask, and shut the fuck up.

    Seriously. If their freedom to swing their fist ends where my face begins, their freedom to spread their germs does too. But since they can’t stop their germs an inch away from my face, they’d better keep those germs in the immediate vicinity of their own, IOW, by masking up.

  48. 48.

    lowtechcyclist

    One thing I want to know: does a franchise-based operation like McDonalds have to get the franchise employees vaxxed? In theory, each franchise is an independent business, and most of them probably have well under 100 employees. But their independence is practically nonexistent; McDonalds should be treated like one giant company, rather than a whole bunch of different companies. Ditto for all the other franchise restaurants.

  53. 53.

    evap

    Preach it, John.   If you had told me back in 2009 that Biden would become president 11 years later and would be a great president, I would have scoffed.  And here we are with me a big ol’ Biden fan girl.

  55. 55.

    Mike in NC

    When there is only one ICU room left in all of Texas or Florida, their lunatic governors will auction them to the highest bidder. That’s the American way!

  58. 58.

    Another Scott

    @lowtechcyclist: Google tells me that McDonalds owns 2770 of its own stores (out of 38,000 locations worldwide).

    My understanding is, once the rules are published they take effect.  Sensible businesses are going to take advantage and strongly encourage their people to get vaccinated – for competitive reasons if nothing else.

    “XYZ Foodville has all their employees vaccinated.  ZYA VilleDeFood doesn’t.  Why would you get lunch at ZYA when you might get infected there??!”

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  59. 59.

    debbie

    Fuck your freedoms, get the vaccine, wear a mask, and shut the fuck up.

    Not wearing masks, not social distancing, not vaccinating. These aren’t even the freedoms the Founders had in mind!

  61. 61.

    banditqueen

    Not all the usual suspects are squawking about Biden’s speech on mandates–the ‘business roundtable’ is all for getting the pandemic more in the background. I’m glad Biden is saying that the pandemic must end whether the snowflakes want it to or not.

    Minna is awake, per a quick note from her brother.

  69. 69.

    Anotherlurker

    @oatler: Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House of Representatives.  She has nothing to do with the Filibuster, which is a racist obstruction in the United States Senate.

    Open up “Civics for Dummies” and do a little reading up on the subject.

    Moron.

  70. 70.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @debbie: Here in Philadelphia, we had a major yellow fever epidemic in 1793 that ultimately killed 1/10 of the population.

    Somehow I doubt that the leadership of the brand new country would have looked favorably on claims that “freedom” meant “freedom from quarantine or any form of disease control”.

  72. 72.

    patrick II

    Pushing Joe into this corner was the cold-hearted Republican plan from the beginning – – but they  did not plan on the Delta variant or that Joe would be so effective in his response.

  75. 75.

    Omnes Omnibus

    OT on Minna:

    September 9, 2021

    Journal entry by Steven Hong — 8 minutes ago

    Here at the hospital, and she is responsive to commands. She can open her eyes and squeeze finger, and answer questions with a nod or shake of the head. This is positive news.!  Was able to zoom call with Julie and Ian.

     

  76. 76.

    Barbara

    Mandating vaccines for Medicare participating providers levels the terrain for employers worried about losing employees to facilities without comparable mandates. Now there’s nowhere to hide.

  79. 79.

    Bard the Grim

    @Baud:
    No human can come up with exquisite bon mots like these so often. Admit it, you’re a sentient AI, right? Or maybe somebody at IBM running a little experiment on Watson? Has anybody ever actually met “Baud!” in the flesh? I for one, welcome our robot overlords.

  80. 80.

    Bill Arnold

    @patrick II:

    Pushing Joe into this corner was the cold-hearted Republican plan from the beginning

    And quite OK with killing 1500 Americans per day for this stupid political operation that will have effects opposite to their intent, and we should be mercilessly pointing out that the Americans being killed and maimed (long COVID) by Republicans are mostly Republicans, of voting age. (Probably the net R voter deaths will exceed the D margin of victory in one or more races, and we should make a point of pointing this out. No mercy.)

  82. 82.

    James E Powell

    I want to give a shout out to my employer, The Los Angeles Unified School District, for approving a vaccine mandate for students 12 & up. Our union agrees. We are all working together to keep schools safe so that we do not have to close again.

  87. 87.

    trnc

    Fuck your freedoms, get the vaccine, wear a mask, and shut the fuck up.

    I count at least 7 bumper sticker opportunities.

  90. 90.

    Tony Gerace

    @Roger Moore: Yup.  That’s true of virtually every issue with these jackasses.  They are a minority — and a dwindling minority — and they try to hide that fact by being as loud and obnoxious as possible.

  93. 93.

    RSA

    @JoyceH:  It always struck me that Biden was perfectly cast as the Sidekick. And then boom – January 20 – Presidential. Me: “I did not see that coming.”

    Same here. If nothing else, in 2009 Biden was 67, in 2017, 75. But I have not been disappointed at all.

  95. 95.

    raven

    I know this may be a problem but I’m going to post it anyway. This is behind the paywall at the Chronicle of Higher Ed but a friend sent it to me. Sue me,.

    The University System of Georgia, which opposes mask and vaccine mandates across its 26 institutions, appears poised to discipline professors who defy these policies in their classrooms. At the same time, many professors are ramping up their opposition to the system’s stance on COVID-19 mitigation.
    “I’m getting basically an email an hour: ‘Are we walking out? Are we going to court?’ Every day, all day,” said Cindy Hahamovitch, B. Phinizy Spalding Distinguished Professor of History and incoming chair of the University of Georgia’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Senate.
    Faculty members in Georgia aren’t currently planning a walkout, and they’re legally prohibited from doing so in that state as public employees. (Hahamovitch didn’t exactly rule out a future walkout, however, saying that state law “doesn’t mean we can’t do it, just that you have to do it en masse.”) Professors are currently planning a series of actions, starting today with a Franklin Senate vote on a resolutioncondemning the system’s “failure” to protect its campuses and demanding a mask and vaccine mandate.

    Study reveals which applicants didn’t submit test scores
    Biden’s higher ed proposals begin to take shape in Congress
    How a college is using DEI data to drive change (opinion)
    If administrators continue to fail to act, the resolution says, the faculty would be acting “ethically, responsibly” and according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance by changing course modality — in other words, by moving courses online.
    Also today, members of the United Campus Workers of Georgia will hold a “die-in” protest at Georgia State University, to demand mask and vaccine mandates and flexible teaching and working arrangements.
    The Georgia conference of the American Association of University Professors is planning a week of protests, starting Monday, at more than a dozen campuses. Scheduled at staggered times each day to minimize any impact on instruction, protests will take place in designated campus free speech zones.
    Matthew Boedy, associate professor of rhetoric and composition at the University of North Georgia and president of the Georgia AAUP, said via email that the university system, by his count, “saw an astonishing 4,400 cases in August 2021 alone. This after a spring semester — 3.5 months — of roughly 8,000 cases.” COVID-19’s Delta variant, he said, “is burning through campuses.”
    The conference is seeking an immediate mask mandate, at minimum. Boedy wrote to the university system’s acting chancellor, Teresa MacCartney, alerting her to the protest, but he has not heard back.

    Some professors are taking individual action, including in the form of resignations. Irwin Bernstein, Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia, even quit on the spot last month when a student refused to wear a mask, after Bernstein explained that his age and health conditions put him at high risk for severe COVID-19.
    “The student in question had missed the first class. When she showed up, I explained my personal situation and asked her to wear a mask,” Bernstein said. “She had none, but another student gave her one. She started to put it on but said it was uncomfortable and refused. I told the class that I was retiring effective immediately. I had been, after my first class, told that I could not write my [‘No mask, no class’] message on the blackboard or enforce masks in any manner.”
    Joe Fu, professor of math at the University of Georgia, doesn’t plan on resigning, but he said at a recent meeting of the Franklin Senate that he was requiring masks in his classes. He also said he’d take his courses online if local COVID-19 hospitalizations exceeded their pandemic peak, some 319 beds, in January.
    In response, Alan Dorsey, dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, wrote to Fu that “continued enforcement of a mask requirement in your classes or effecting a change in the modality of instruction without the approval of the provost would violate [system] rules and constitute grounds for disciplinary action.”

    Professor fired for refusing to teach in a classroom with no mask mandate
    COVID-19 roundup: At Georgia, a professor quits midclass
    Hundreds of Positive COVID Tests at Mostly Vaccinated Duke
    Fu later went public with the exchange in the student newspaper. He told Inside Higher Ed Wednesday that he was undeterred by the threat of disciplinary action, though he hoped that his university would choose not to enforce system policy and thus pave the way for other concerned professors to take adopt classroom mask mandates or even take their classes online.
    Either way, he said, “My hope is that this will amplify these issues … You know, morale is extremely low. People are very unhappy with the situation, and yet, people are afraid to raise a finger. I’m not a smartest guy, but at least I can do that.” Fu said that Wednesday’s local patient count, based on the Georgia Medical Facility Patient Census, was 302.
    The environment for professors who would act to mitigate classroom COVID-19 transmission on their own chilled further this month with the leak of a partial draft document on how system institutions may discipline these faculty members. The document, a screenshot of which is circulating online and shown below, says that “progressive discipline steps” include a verbal warning, a written reprimand and suspension or reduction in duties and compensation.

  100. 100.

    NotMax

    @lowtechcyclist

    That Alben Barkley was such a scamp.

    //

    More seriously (but not by a lot), would rate it a toss-up between T. Roosevelt and Chester Arthur. Runners-up: Adlai Stevenson I and Walter Mondale.

  102. 102.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @germy:

    Biden’s vaccine mandate is an assault on private businesses.

    I issued an Executive Order protecting Texans’ right to choose whether they get the COVID vaccine & added it to the special session agenda.

    Texas is already working to halt this power grab.t.co/TwoQMhDxoM

    — Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) September 9, 2021

    Don’t pretend like you believe in the right to choose, you fucking hypocrite. t.co/csyYuQk4W5

    — Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) September 9, 2021

    I hadn’t even finished reading the words “Texans’ right to choose” before I had the identical reaction as Ilhan Omar.

    Oh, by the way, I added a word to her response. I think it scans better.

  106. 106.

    SpaceUnit

    I’m thinking that Biden’s vaccine announcements are just gonna be the opening ceremony to the Stupid Olympics.  All the foot dragging and mask protests and airplane temper tantrums that went on before now are going to look like practice and time trials.  Shit’s gonna get crazy with these clowns.

  107. 107.

    JoyceH

    Hey, has anyone yet mentioned Biden’s brown suit? Personally, I like men having more options in office-wear, but wondered if the right wing mouthpieces were declaring it an affront to this great nation.

  108. 108.

    Barbara

    @raven: Of course. I expect nothing less, and he might have a better chance with some of them than others but he won’t even have standing for most of them.

  109. 109.

    geg6

    @raven:

    Like I said in an earlier thread, he needs to extend the mandate to any institution that gets Title IV funds.  No Pell Grants, no FSEOG grants, no federal student or parent loans, no federal work study.  Also too, let’s extend it to VA educational benefits.  See how the UGA system board likes that.  Fuckem.

  113. 113.

    cmorenc

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I mean, seriously, who’s the second coolest VP of all time?

    Teddy Roosevelt, who in fact may modestly edge even Joe Biden for coolest VP, although in T.R.’s case, he took over as President after only six months of McKinley’s term (when McKinley was assassinated), and so only had a relatively limited run as VP.  Nevertheless, T.R. was the original progressive President.

  115. 115.

    Barbara

    @geg6: They might be exploring that but there are greater obstacles to using the federal purse to regulate educational institutions in the same way.

  118. 118.

    raven

    @geg6: It’s the University System of Georgia Board of Regents and they are appointed by the Governor. The structure actually came about in 1932 when the governor had even more control! I don’t know what is going to happen but the state provides about 50% of funding so something has to give. I hope it’s not my retirement!

  119. 119.

    Barbara

    @JoyceH: OT. Saw your post on the Lee thread. My SO grew up a stone’s throw away from Stratford Hall, and we still have a house in the area.  

  120. 120.

    geg6

    @Barbara:

    There are schools that refuse Title IV funding because they want to be able to not follow federal requirements about discrimination on the basis of religion and to avoid Title IX requirements.  Grove City College, just up the road from where I live does just that. All schools are free to do the same, if they think they can survive.

  122. 122.

    Mike E

    @Sister Golden Bear: heh

    Fuck you, you fucking selfish fucking shit-banana, you unredeemable ass-caterpillar, you fucking fuck-knob with two fucks for eyes and a literal poop where your heart should be.

  123. 123.

    geg6

    @raven:

    They can’t survive without Title IV funding and VA benefits.  They aren’t a small college.  And how many of their students can afford to pay out of pocket or fund strictly with private loans?  How big is their endowment?  Unless it’s Harvard x10 level, they can’t make up the losses.

  124. 124.

    Jeffro

    @schrodingers_cat:Biden was my choice in the primaries and he has been a better President than even I had imagined. He is effective and he knows how to get stuff done.

    Yes, yes, yes, and yes.  (high five!)

  126. 126.

    NotMax

    @cmorenc

    Nevertheless, T.R. was the original progressive President.

    Although his time in office was cut short, would award that position to Garfield.

  128. 128.

    raven

    @geg6: They are 26 colleges and universities and they can’t operate without the funding from they state legislature either. Like I said. . .

  130. 130.

    Barbara

    @geg6: I just mean that the Federal government routinely sets health standards for participation in Medicare — mandating vaccines for employees is the kind of thing they do all the time to protect program beneficiaries. The landscape is different for regulating universities.  The nondiscrimination laws are congressional enactments. Executive orders or regulations without underlying statutes will be harder to justify.

  132. 132.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @geg6: Do you think the Republicans in the Georgia State government give a shit about public education or students?

  135. 135.

    Jeffro

    @Another Scott:

    My understanding is, once the rules are published they take effect.  Sensible businesses are going to take advantage and strongly encourage their people to get vaccinated – for competitive reasons if nothing else.

    I’m hoping that’s the next step: businesses step it up and note that their employees are 100% vaxxed, that they will enforce mask mandates, etc.  And restaurants, concert halls, etc will enforce proof of vax to get in.

  139. 139.

    geg6

    @raven:

    So the state will be willing to fund 100% of it’s budget then, I guess.  It will, of course, have many fewer students because the students won’t be able to afford it unless the state wants to cover those tuition and fees and will have to close a bunch of campuses and colleges.  Sucks to be Georgia, I guess.  But FREEDUMB!

  140. 140.

    NotMax

    FYI.

    Refusing to wear a mask on an airplane is about to get really expensive. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that it was doubling civil penalties for those who refuse to comply with federal mask mandates on commercial airlines, at airports, or on certain forms of public transportation like passenger rail or intercity buses. Repeat offenders could now face fines of up to $3,000.

    First time offenders will be fined $500-$1,000, up from the previous amount of $250. Second offenders will be fined $1,000-$3,000. The new TSA penalties, which are separate from the fines issued by the Federal Aviation Administration for unsafe behavior, will take effect September 10th. Source

  144. 144.

    geg6

    @Barbara:

    They set standards for participating in Title IV funding, too.  The DOE makes regulations and sets standards on the regular.  As does the VA.  I work with those rules and regulations every day and get constant updates when they they change. As they do.  Without Congress.  All the time.

  147. 147.

    Ken

    @Kay: mRNA cancer therapy works (in mice).

    “Here in this oncology ward, we’re talking to Trump voters who refuse to take the vaccine….”

  148. 148.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Kay: I would much rather have a shot or a series of shots than taking the liquid tamoxifen daily for the next five years, let alone surgery!

    Yes, I got my hands on the liquid tamoxifen, and it’s a bear to pour, it tastes horrible, and the pharmacy had to put it into a ziplock bag labeled “chemotherapy treatment,” which is going to freak out my parents when they see me in person again.

  150. 150.

    geg6

    @Steve in the ATL:

    We had a bump in out-of-state students on my campus from Georgia (and Texas and Florida, for that matter) and now I’m wondering if this is a factor.  We have all been scratching our heads as to why.

  152. 152.

    Barbara

    @geg6: Yes, and the issue relates to finding the Federal interest.  For instance,  Medicare has had infection control policies in place for a long time so it’s easy to say Covid vaccine mandate is required for infection control. I think the most likely path for higher education is analyzing the extent to which universities are fulfilling a duty to make programs accessible to disabled students, and protecting disabled staff.

  153. 153.

    Steve in the ATL

    @geg6: UGA, and to a lesser extent Georgia  Tech, are quite difficult to get into these days.  My kids had friends who went to places like Columbia and wake forest when they got rejected by UGA.

  154. 154.

    Gvg

    @geg6: Students have to pay tuition and rent and food. I can’t imagine Biden cutting the schools off that way. Maybe a threat down the line, but actually I think it would have to be Congress.

    I am wondering if our research University is a federal contractor? I think there might be some.

  157. 157.

    James E Powell

    @bbleh:

    For a kick, go back and read Agnew’s comments on the press/media and see how many you agree apply today.

    But my favorite Agnew quote will always be “nolo contendere.”

  159. 159.

    Another Scott

    In the wake of May's overwhelming (90%) LSU Faculty Council vote for a vaccine mandate, the LSU Board plans to abolish the Faculty Council at tomorrow's meeting. (See. p. 5 of tomorrow's agenda) t.co/xZDzA2J54a

    — Robert Mann (@RTMannJr) September 9, 2021

    Looks like things are going to come to a head quickly in lots of places…

    (via CherylRofer)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  160. 160.

    geg6

    @Gvg:

    PSU has a mask mandate and any staff, faculty and students who aren’t vaccinated are required to test weekly, just as Joe set out today.  Unvaccinated students who miss class due to COVID are not offered alternate learning during their quarantine and will be charged with absences if the faculty require attendance as part of their grade (most but not all do). Based on the latest figures, our 24 campuses have higher vaccination rates than any of the counties in which they are located.

  162. 162.

    Another Scott

    Posted before Biden’s speech.

    Rep. Don Beyer introduces a bill to mandate covid vaccination or test within 72 hours to travel on domestic flights & Amtrak. Also creates a vaccine-or-test mandate for transit workers:

    "These are easy steps we can take to make travel safer," he says, calling it "common sense." pic.twitter.com/47y4gR6TKN

    — Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) September 9, 2021

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  165. 165.

    Another Scott

    Phys.org:

    Beards aren’t just cool and trendy—they might also be an evolutionary development to help protect a man’s delicate facial bones from a punch to the face.

    That’s the conclusion of a trio of scientists from the University of Utah who are among the winners of this year’s Ig Nobel prizes […]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  168. 168.

    Felanius Kootea

    I’m so grateful that my school has a vaccination and mask mandate and that I live in California. If I were teaching in the Georgia state system and encountered sociopathic students willing to let me die for their “freedumbs,” and an administration unwilling to back me up, I’d quit on the spot too.  Unfortunately, not everyone is in a position to walk away.

  169. 169.

    The Moar You Know

    Google tells me that McDonalds owns 2770 of its own stores (out of 38,000 locations worldwide).

    @Another Scott: fun fact:  those corporate-owned McDs are ALWAYS the worst of all. They are stores that the company puts in places where there is traffic that could justify it, but no franchise owner is willing to deal with the hassles.

    The best example of this is the McDs at the top of Haight Street in SF.   Crammed full and surrounded by homeless, they get as many overdoses as customers on any given day, but to the company it’s worth having the territory.  There’s another one on highway 1 in Santa Cruz, same deal, far fewer homeless but it’s probably not making it’s expenses.  Santa Cruz is not exactly a McDonald’s kind of town, lol.

  176. 176.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Out  of curiously Ran Paul was babbling about there were people who don’t need the vaccine because they have “Natural Immunity”.  This sounds like some kind of Christian-Fascist code phrase. Anyone ran across this before?

  177. 177.

    NotMax

    @Yutsano

    Maybe not the coolest but the most effective at moving his president’s agenda through Congress must have been Garret Hobart, McKinley’s first veep (who died in office during McKinley’s first term).

  179. 179.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: He’s talking about people who got covid and recovered.  And arguing that that’s as good as (or better than) vaxx-induced immunity.   So far (though, hey, it might change) the preponderance of the evidence is that that’s false: “natural immunity” wears off faster and is less “polyclonal” than that from the vaxxes.  And in The Real World, we see many stories of people who have gotten (even severe) covid more than once, whereas it’s pretty damn rare for a vaxxed person to get severe covid, and almost always the case that they had significant co-morbidities.

  185. 185.

    Bighorn Ordovician Dolomite

    I check out the front page daily, but I don’t generally have time to read the comments, and I only actually comment once every couple of years or so; having said that I just have to respond to Mr. Cole.

    Word.

  186. 186.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @bbleh:

    Oh come on, obviously it was Spiro Agnew.

    Not so obvious. No loathing for murderer and likely traitor Aaron Burr?

    I say this as someone who not only despised “Ted” Agnew but at age 16 unwittingly missed his best shot (sic) at changing US history when I stood about 20 feet from him at a library dedication. All I needed to do was bound up onto the dais, rip off my horn-rimmed glasses and use them per The Godfather. But of course that flick wasn’t even a gleam in Coppola’s gimlet eye in 1965 – and like most Marylanders, I thought he’d already reached his Peter-Principled level of incompetence as Baltimore County Executive. Little did we know what a charmed political life lay in his future, always being in the right place to seem the harmless alternative during the internecine wars and racist undercurrents of that era’s MD Democratic Party….

  187. 187.

    RuralDoc

    @Cermet: 

    I’m Humanities Professor’s wife, having commented under his nym a few times.

    Our county currently has about 30% vaxxed. Elderly are at about 70% (neither are typos, both pieces of info are from the med exec meeting yesterday). Damned near every nurse/CMA/hospital employee on my FB feed has the fucking “I Stand For Medical Freedom” frame. Just giving this as background info so you can see where this is coming from. We docs are nearly universally vaxxed because we’re not stupid.

    I am so THRILLED that my hospital will now be forced to mandate it. Trump won this county by an insane margin (and Jim Jordan is the rep) so they can blame him but it won’t hurt electorally. At least around here, it WILL budge the needle significantly.

  188. 188.

    RuralDoc

    @geg6: My kid’s (admittedly tiny) college has mandated vax AND masks. When we dropped them off, they had us leave phone # and emails for contact tracing. I really fucking hate red area living compared to that.

  191. 191.

    J R in WV

    @Yutsano:

    Harry S. Truman. He just didn’t end his term that way.

    S. B. Harry S Truman… the ‘S’ doesn’t stand for anything, it’s just a stand alone letter.

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