Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

You would normally have to try pretty hard to self-incriminate this badly.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Trump should be leading, not lying.

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

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

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

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Stand up, dammit!

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Saturday Evening Gift Suggestion Open Thread: Let’s Give Up Doomposting Till January

Saturday Evening Gift Suggestion Open Thread: Let’s Give Up Doomposting Till January

by | 121 Comments

This post is in: ,

(Sarah Connor)

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  2. 2.

    CaseyL

    Sometimes the photos don’t load right away when I open a new post. I saw the headline about investigations and parties and immediately thought the tweet would be about the Xmas Party at 10 Downing Street that’s gotten Boris Johnson in more trouble than any of the more serious shit he’s pulled.

    Your version is much better!

    (And I wonder if that’s what Betty Cracker’s house looks like the day after Christmas!)

  10. 10.

    Anne Laurie

    @debbie: Notice how the Great Dane* seems to be disclaiming any association with those Boxer** miscreants?

    (*Hi, TaMara!)

    (**Hi, Betty C!)

  11. 11.

    Steeplejack

    I had a pretty good day. Long snooze in the midafternoon as part of my convalescence. I am still in the sore zone, but I can see the merely tender zone ahead. The swelling continues to go down, albeit slowly. I have my post-op phone appointment with the surgeon on Monday morning, and I’ll go over my questions with him then. No signs of infection or anything untoward that I can tell from my layman’s perspective.

    I think I need to get some N95 or KN95 masks as we get into the omicron zone. Up to now I have been relying on the blue surgical masks, which seemed sufficient for my socially distanced lifestyle. Is the BJ consensus that KN95 masks are better than N95, or does it matter? And I’ve been reading about these European FFP2 masks. Somebody just tell me what to do.

  12. 12.

    scav

    Love it how Lord Frost flounced off in his his bespoke seasonal Huffmobile simply livid that things weren’t more chaotic, unfettered and medically underfunded in Ye Olde Blight(ed)y.

  13. 13.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I was happy the Tories lost that seat they’d held for nearly 200 years continuously with a 30% swing or so to the Lib-Dems. Apparently, voters from the other parties are being strategic with voting for the best candidate to beat the Conservative and it’s working

  14. 14.

    MagdaInBlack

    @CaseyL: If you scroll down the tweet you can get your BoJo update

    Eta: or just read Tony Jay below, whom I was hoping to see comment.

  15. 15.

    cope

    For whom do you seek gift suggestions?  Or are we to suggest the gifts we suggest others give us?  If it’s the latter, I would like a copy of the re-released version of “The Last Waltz” please.  Thank you.

  16. 16.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Anne Laurie:

    This is a terrible thing to admit, but I completely missed seeing the Dane the first couple of several many times I looked at the photo. All I noticed were two guilty-as-hell-looking boxers.

  17. 17.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Steeplejack:

    Personally, I’d go with what’s available to you. Which would probably be industrial N95 masks from hardware stores. What matters most is having a good fit with your face. IANAE, but I think that European and Korean standards are pretty comparable to NIOSH

  18. 18.

    Tony Jay

    Update from Brexitannia

    2 Down: Enormous failure preceding the softest of tackles, poses a question in the French encore? (5,7)

     

    So, if you’ve ever been to Oswestry, or northern Shropshire generally, you really should have a word with your travel advisor, because while there’s some lovely countryside and Oswestry itself is nice in a ‘smallish rural town with lots of bijoux shops’ way, the place is rammed to the gills with Tories, which means wildly expensive beer, boulangeries selling creamcakes for the price of a starter home, and an undeniably steamy undercurrent of soulless hedonism hiding behind the upper middle-class certainties of property and propriety. It’s the kind of place you go to on a day out and end up being drugged, strapped in a bearskin and hunted through twilight forests by naked stockbrokers who’ve been convinced that giving pagan bloodletting a go might help save their floundering third marriage.

    It is, however, also the place that has just delivered Flobalob the firmest blow yet in his long and inglorious descent towards his destiny as just another skeleton scattered across the wolf-haunted bottom of Springfield Gorge. The parliamentary seat that has occupied this rough geographical area (boundary changes, etc) has apparently been Tory for 200 years, meaning the last person to seriously threaten the electoral supremacy of the Blue Rosette mob around here was Napoleon Bonaparte, and judging from its heavy tilt towards Leave in 2016 fear of the Corsican Ogre has coloured local views about Continental Types ever since, although I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have to look far to find a few local residents willing to regale you with their opinions on why “that Hitler fellow wasn’t wrong about everything” if you’re buying the drinks and don’t get all ‘Woke’ about the odd colourful joke and hot hands on your thigh. It’s that kind of place.

    In the last General Election, the Conservative Party incumbent, Owen Paterson, garnered 62.7% of the vote, which is 35,444 people and a honking majority of 22,949 over the Labour Party’s runner up. That’s a safe seat. Paterson himself had been MP here since the Election of 1997 when he held the seat for the Tories by 4.2% in the teeth of Labour’s nationwide landslide, with his margin of victory increasing each election as Blair’s New Labour shed votes and then was overtaken in 2010 as the main challenger by the Liberal-Democrats, though by 2015 even the not-Tory voters of northern Shropshire had jumped on the ‘Fuck the Lib-Dems’ bandwagon and returned to casting their losing vote for the Red Rosette gang. Chances are, if Paterson hadn’t been outed as such a corrupt S.O.B. (found guilty of illegal lobbying on behalf of companies who employed him as ‘an advisor’) and Johnson hadn’t been stupid enough to think he could successfully recast the self-entitled gobshite as the poster-boy for his No Tory Left Behind policy by forcing a vote on sparing Paterson any punishment and gutting the whole mechanism for overseeing MPs, this would still be a Conservative seat today. As it turned out the whole farrago exploded, focussing public attention on the seedy underworld of Tory MPs being owned lock, stock and barrel by their corporate employers and forcing Flobalob to abandon Paterson, whose subsequent resignation from Parliament led to the seat being open and this by-election to pick his successor.

    Ironically Paterson’s punishment for his crime was only a 30-day suspension (I know, how horrifying) and would, coincidentally, have ended on the same day as the vote. So well done, Flobby, even the calendar hates you.

    Now that the various factions of the Conservative Party (or should I say, the financial and ideological interests who own controlling shares in the various factions of the Conservative Party) have decided that the ambitions of Thatcher’s Thatch-Headed Hatchling are no longer aligned with their own, they’ve declared a broad amnesty where everyone is free to hand over their most incriminating examples of Johnson’s criminal malfeasance in office to friendly journalists. Stuff like that simply wasn’t allowed during Flobby’s effortless ascent up Mount Entitlement, back when the News Media’s eager willingness to shield him from any kind of scrutiny was the necessary counterbalance to the no-holds barred, full-spectrum Jihadopocalypse of calumny thrown against the then-Leader of the Opposition, and onwards from his 2019 victory as the journalissimos who had strewn his path with rose petals found their continued career prospects yoked to the legend they’d helped to create, so recently the Tory Party’s third echelon voter base has been exposed all at once to a literal avalanche of evidence that ‘Funny Old Boris’, the charming rogue who “Got Brexit Done”, slew the Chinese Dragon of Covid last summer and saved Britain from being trampled under the scuffed-brogue heel of History’s Greatest Monster, might not have been the jolly chap with his heart in the right place they’d been led to believe after all.

    What appears to have happened in North Shropshire is that thousands of active Tory voters lapsed into latent status and simply stayed home. Turnout dropped by 17,403, which accounts for much of the 23,412 difference between Paterson’s 2019 majority and his successor’s 2021 loser vote. The Lib-Dems picked up an extra 12,000+ votes, while Starmer’s Labour (which of course dumped its dirty Lefty candidate in favour of a shiny, Newer Labour approved candidate) shed roughly 9000. The usual idiots are trying to claim that the entire Lib-Dem success is down to smart Labour voters putting their X in the Lib-Dem box to ensure a Tory defeat, and I’m sure that some of them did. But it’s equally likely that most of the votes the Lib-Dems picked up were crossover Tories who had voted Lib-Dem in the past and wanted to send a message to Johnson, with the collapse in the Newer Labour vote driven by lifelong Labour voters just refusing to vote for the candidate imposed on them.

    But whatever, that’s for post-match analysis and exit polling which I haven’t actually seen any of. Wherever the votes came from, they came in hard, and punched a fist right through Flobalob’s myth of invincibility. Journos who have spent the last few years lazily churning out pamphlets popularising the self-fulfilling prophesy that it wasn’t worth obsessing over the slimy bastard’s many cock-ups because somehow nothing he did seemed to stick to him (funny how that works – Ed) were suddenly left aghast that pretty basic reportage on Johnsonian shithousery might actually have played a part in making people not want to vote for his Party. Well, fuck me with a sherbet loofah, imagine that. They’ll have to rewrite all of the course notes for Journalism 101 after this, eh? What next? Electoral defeats and vertical spikes in unpopularity might have some sort of effect on Johnson’s own job security? Wouldn’t that be a turn up for the… OMFG! Look over here! Tory MPs are revolting!

    Of course they are, but they’re also revolting. Leaving aside the whole slow-burn exposure of how terrible their response to the Covid pandemic was (and is), the Paterson fuck-up, the unnecessary exposure of their 2nd and 3rd jobs racket, the long-expected 180 on high-speed rail expansion into the Bleak Northlands, and the humiliating hoo-hah over Flobalob’s Downing St routinely disregarding Covid rules about Christmas piss-ups while the rest of the country was sticking grimly to social-distancing and letting their parents die alone, all of this had already put Bully Bunter on very thin ice with large chunks of his Parliamentary Party. He might think he’s a World Historical Figure of Romance and Fecundity, but to most of the Party’s MPs he’s the media-frottaging frontman who they needed to bullshit the proles and get them (re)elected. Once word came down the line that Those Who Pay The Bills were thinking of changing the guard at Blubberjam Palace and the Teflon roof was retracted to allow the elements in, everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before Johnson stumbled and one or more of the carrion-eaters following in his wake would scent their opportunity to get jaws around the nation’s throat. It wouldn’t take much to kick off the endgame, just another few drops of fatty vein-goo hitting the jungle floor.

    That’s exactly what’s happened with the inevitable Delta wave coming home for Christmas and the unexpectedly vicious sucker punch of Omicron cresting the horizon like Attila’s Huns, forcing Johnson to ask Parliament to bring back a lot of the protections he’d glibly jettisoned with much triumphalism at the start of summer, and this in the teeth of a revolt by the Libertardian wing of the Tory Right, which in turn forced him to commit the cardinal sin of relying on the votes of Starmer’s Labour to get the legislation through. Then the catastrophic loss of the North Shropshire seat to the Lib-Dems, which will have a shit ton of Tory MPs in marginal (and not so marginal) seats laundering their brown pants at the thought of how much more plausible this makes the possibility of their disgruntled voters choosing to register their disapproval in the same way. All of a sudden we’re hearing ‘senior MPs’ warning that Johnson only has a year left, maybe less, unless he somehow changes everything about himself and becomes a hard-working policy maven with the self-control of a functional human being. When the fear-factor goes, that’s when there’s no authority left, and that’s when everyone is just waiting around to see who’s hand is on the hammer when it falls.

    Such weakness breeds even more failure. Johnson’s choice to head up the Charity Commission has had to step down even before assuming the role because of bullying allegations. That wouldn’t have happened six months ago. He’d have simply assumed the post and dared any journalist to pursue the issue past a screen of unified Tory support, then if the bullying allegations ever got brought before a judge and found to have merit Johnson would have “found the verdict lacking in real-world context” and ignored it. Johnson’s Cabinet Secretary, appointed with much fanfare last week to run an ‘independent’ investigation into the various rule-breaking parties held last Christmas, has had to recuse himself after evidence emerged that he had hosted his own illegal gathering. Again, that wouldn’t have happened a while ago. No one would have dared release that evidence and Simon Case would have been free to deliver the verdict his boss wanted without anyone in the Press raising an eyebrow.

    And the latest kick to the Johnsonian plums, just this evening, the resignation from Government of Lord Frost, the stubble-headed peddle-bin who Johnson had appointed as the UK’s chief non-negotiator and repetitively obnoxious stirrer-of-shit with the EU. Frost’s entire purpose was to deliver tabloid-friendly ‘crises’ with Europe whenever Johnson needed one. For him to resign now, citing concerns over various issues important to the lunatic Right, could well mean that he wants to get out before Johnson asks him to do another 180 and suddenly start looking for a real deal with the EU that Johnson could then use to curry favour with the ostensible ‘moderates’ in the Tory Party. Or it could just mean that he can see Johnson tottering and doesn’t want to be in place when his successor is looking for a scapegoat to blame for Johnson’s “failure to Get Brexit Done”. Whatever his reasons, Frost has cut Flobalob to the bone with this resignation.

    This is rats and sinking ships time. Johnson is going to have to go back to Parliament to ask permission to go back into Lockdown sooner rather than later, and that could be it for him. I’d have more sympathy if I didn’t hate every mottled inch of the fucker.

    Anyway. It’s late, I’m tired, and I’m sure there’ll be more disaster to report on tomorrow. Be well, be safe, and when you have to kill, cut away from your body. No one needs a face full of arterial blood.

  19. 19.

    trollhattan

    “We’re Good Boys! Good Boys don’t have parties, do we, fellows?”

    Friends once had two boxers and a doberman. That home was chaotic.

  23. 23.

    Another Scott

    @Steeplejack: They go through different testing standards.  I bought some 3M N95 masks a while ago, but only used one.  They’re a bit of a pain to wear (elastic around the head).  No real N95s have ear-loops.

    We’ve been using Powecom KN95 masks.  I use the ones with ear loops, but they have a version with around the head elastic too. A bag of 10 lasts us a long time, but it depends on your comfort level.

    HTH a little.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  24. 24.

    debbie

    @Steeplejack:

    You may be wise. I just got an email from work (they’ve never mailed me at my personal email) telling everyone to feel free to work from home for the next few weeks. They must be worried. There’ve been a couple of cases reported in the area where I work if I weren’t working remotely.

  25. 25.

    Anne Laurie

    @Yutsano:  That magnificent medieval-mastiff head (such flews!) and skinny greyhound tail say ‘Great Dane’ to my eyes.

    (Also, a Labrador would not have the good sense to stand aside — he would either be vibrating with joy at perception of a job well done, or looking befuddled that his intentions should be so brutally misunderstood.)

  30. 30.

    Cameron

    I’m really looking forward to January – haven’t taken a theater class in about a year, and there’s a new one that hasn’t been offered before.  Seven playwrights, seven actors matched up one on one; each pair creates a 10-minute play which the actor performs.  One week in January via Zoom (brainstorming and writing, I guess); one week in February live (rehearsal, final edits, performance).  Should be really interesting,

  33. 33.

    dmsilev

    @debbie: My employer just announced that we’re going to have a booster-shot mandate. No from-home orders for the time being, and that would be a big deal for us (university, so it’d be a switch back to virtual instruction).

  35. 35.

    dmsilev

    @Steeplejack (phone): Make sure not to choose masks with vents, since a lot of construction-style masks have them. Those are designed to protect you from inhaling stuff (paint fumes, etc.), but are less useful at protecting everyone else from your exhalations…

  37. 37.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Love the concept, but I’m aware of my limits and I know I’ll be reading doom-posts before the hour is up.

  39. 39.

    prostratedragon

    As to title: good idea!

    From the tail end of last thread:
    At 10 Eastern TCM is showing Gold Diggers of 1933. Standard 30s “let’s put on a play to save our bacon” musical, but ends with a really great number, “Remember My Forgotten Man.” It was Busby Berkeley’s tribute to bonus marchers that he had seen the previous year. The main performers of the number are Joan Blondell and, in the sung part, Etta Moten.

    It was a bit radical to have a black woman in that number, representing all women many of whom were white. Ms. Moten was in later years known around Chicago as Etta Moten Barnett, local journalist and host of a popular radio show. I met her at tea parties a couple of times in the early 60s, where she might talk a bit about her Hollywood days. She specifically referenced this number as one she was very proud of, and said she enjoyed working with Berkeley, as she did a few times, and with Blondell. Mrs. Barnett lived to be 102. In those late years my father visited her regularly, as pastor of her church, and I think co/officiated her funeral. He said she was a firecracker all the way.

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @dmsilev:

    Yeah, I know that part. I might just order some of the ones that Another Scott linked to.

    I wonder if there are KN95s in black or ones that don’t have the industrial verbiage on them. Will look.

  41. 41.

    sab

    Back when I lived in the wilds of Marin County I had a dog door, and that is how my house lokked when my pups invited their best friend over to party in the trash when I was at work.

    They never did it on their own. Only when their pup pal was there.

  45. 45.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Isn’t it pretty to think so.  Is it too meta for me to go doomer about some people’s inability to avoid going doomer?

  47. 47.

    Chetan Murthy

    I quite like my http://www.gatapack.com silicone mask.  It has a spot for an N95 filter insert (comes with 10) with a backing plastic thing to hold it in place, and the earloops are pretty sturdy, so I can really tighten ’em down when I wanna be sure of a seal.  You can really feel the suction when you breathe in.  It’s got a couple of notches for eyeglasses, though honestly, they don’t work too well, and really it’s a way for me to tell if the mask is well-sealed — b/c if not, you can tell b/c your eyeglasses mist up when you breathe out.

    I’m well-pleased by it, over all.

  48. 48.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @prostratedragon:

    I will heartily second the recommendation for Gold Diggers of 1933—probably my favorite of the big ’30s musicals. Excellent production numbers and (a rarity) the script is pretty tight. And it’s got my pre-Code horndog Warren William, playing against type as a straitlaced patrician who comes to New York with Guy Kibbee to rescue his younger brother and set these gold-digging showgirls straight. Hilarity ensues.

  50. 50.

    Anne Laurie

    @raven: I assume that means no virus posts every morning?

    The daily virus posts are not doom posting, they are let’s-avoid-doom posting.  She said, firmly.

    But seriously — I started doing those posts as a personal alternative to panicking about what ‘we’ didn’t / couldn’t know.  I keep doing it because it still works that way, for me, and for at least *some* of the commentors who read them!

  52. 52.

    scav

    @raven: We’ll be lucky if we don’t get mood music to go with the mandatory universal seasonal shmaltz. Question of type I or type II error.

  56. 56.

    zhena gogolia

    I’ve been teaching in the blue surgical masks. We all have to be boosted by the time we come back. I can’t teach in anything more drastic. I just have to chance it. Blech.

  59. 59.

    sab

    @raven: Our indoor cat fell out the one we have here, spent the night outside terrified and bit me so hard when I picked her up to rescue her that I ended up in the hospital with an infected hand and hand surgery in March one tax season. My bosses were furious.

    We took out the dog door. Just as well, because one of our dogs would spend hours half in and half out, letting all kinds of insects have free run of the house.

  68. 68.

    sab

    @zhena gogolia: I’ve been double masking with a surgical mask underneath and a cloth mask on top. It makes me ears stick out straight sideways. My husband says I look like a pixie or one of Santa’s elves.

  69. 69.

    Scout211

    @WaterGirl:

    Amazon has Powecom masks, too.

    That’s where I purchased them.

    Added: Bonifide is the official seller of the powecom mask in the US, but they use PayPal for payment and I don’t have a PayPal account.

    Added:  you have to watch Amazon sellers, though. I had to return an order that was advertised as Powecom but was not even close.

  71. 71.

    different-church-lady

    January is more than six hours from now, so I really doubt I can hold out that long.

  78. 78.

    JoyceH

    @Steeplejack: I’ve tried both the N95 and the KN95, and I infinitely prefer the KN95. With the N95, I got out of breath walking across a small parking lot. The KN95s are supposed to have the same level of protection but aren’t as hard to breathe in. And I don’t know if it matters to you, but I like that the KN95s fold flat when not in use, for easy transport in a purse. When I wear a KN95 for too long, the loops start to hurt my ears, so I got these stretchy band things that attach to the ear loops and then behind your head, so takes the pressure off your ears.

    Just today I was moving my PPE collection from a tatty old cardboard box to a more decorative storage bin, and turns out I have at least half a dozen different types of masks that I tried out, but these days the KN95s are all I wear.

  79. 79.

    sab

    @raven: What a cutie! Ponyo was raised from infancy by a bunch of chihuahuas, so she is fearless and kind of loud. Aside from the occassional bad apple, I really love most pitties and pit mixes.

  81. 81.

    Major Major Major Major

    @JoyceH: I’ve always assumed that if it’s easier to breath through one kind of high filtration mask, that just means it doesn’t fit your face. There’s no way most of the KN95 people I see are wearing them right, there are big visible gaps.

  91. 91.

    cope

    @raven: My wife and I experienced the same change of opinion about pits after our 12 pound Jesse (July) tunneled into the neighbor’s yard to play with/boss around the two pit bull brothers who lived next door. They have moved but their owner (now apartment bound) brings them over three times a week to run and get pushed around by Jesse (now filled in to about 30 pounds).  Sweet, loving dogs to be sure, just scary looking.

  93. 93.

    Chetan Murthy

    @raven: Same here.  I only knew of pitbulls from reputation.  But my landlord/neighbor would have one over to dogsit while her owner was away, and eventually Billie started climbing up the back stairs to my porch.  At first, I didn’t come outside, but eventually I’d start coming outside to pet her and all.  I’d sometimes leave the back door open, and she’d never come in — just sit on the porch, waiting to be noticed.

    Such a sweet doggie.  I haven’t seen Billie since the beginning of the pandemic, but I hope she’ll come back once it’s over.

    It’s so sad, not being able to pet all the good boys and girls I see when I’m out walking.  Will be glad when we can do that again, too.

  96. 96.

    Chacal Charles Caltrop

    @Steeplejack (phone): agreed! Those posts are not doom but necessary information.

    also the dogs have not destroyed Christmas – the tree is still standing. Now if a cat had been part of that wrecking crew, that tree (& everything on it) would’ve been all over the floor.

  97. 97.

    gene108

    @raven:

    Amazon has a fake review problem. On top of what’s mentioned in the article companies pay people or use bots to drive up their ratings or drive down competitors.

    There are millions of products available for sale on Amazon. Deciding which of these products to buy can be tricky, especially if it’s a product, brand, or seller you’re unfamiliar with. Reviews can help with making purchase decisions, but not if they aren’t real.

    When shopping on Amazon, it’s important to look beyond the 1- to 5-star rating at the top of the listing. Here’s what you should know about fake reviews, why they exist, and why you should care.

    SNIP

    Often they are particularly glowing or negative,” Sabatini said. “These reviews may be written by Amazon users on behalf of a brand or third-party seller, even though the reviewers themselves have not purchased or used the product.”

    Fake reviews are also written by people who have actually bought or tried the product. “In some cases, the seller will contact the buyer and ask them to write a particularly glowing assessment,” Sabatini said. “In return, these users may receive refunds and free products.”

    There are several reasons why fake reviews exist. Sabatini noted that they’re sometimes used by brands and third-party sellers to mislead people into purchasing their products.

    “These reviews tend to exaggerate a product’s quality and usefulness,” Sabatini said. “On the other hand, negative fake reviews are a tool used by sellers and brands to discourage people from buying a competitor’s product.”

    SNIP

    How to spot Amazon fake reviews

    While spotting fake reviews isn’t an exact science, there are some red flags to look out for, according to Sabatini:

    Look at the percentage of 1- to 5-star reviews. If 70% of the reviews are 4 or 5 stars and 30% are 1-star reviews, that is unusual.

    Check if the reviews are vague. If the reviews are extremely positive or negative but don’t specifically mention what makes them good or bad (like “Love it!” “Great,” or “Horrible!”), the review may be fake.

    If the review mentions a competing product, that’s a red flag. For example, if a user says not to spend your money on a product but to check out another brand, that’s definitely suspicious.

    Take into account the popularity of the product. If a fairly unknown or less popular product has thousands of reviews, it’s worth giving those reviews a closer look.

    businessinsider.com/amazon-fake-reviews?amp

  101. 101.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Tony Jay: As the moment approaches for “piercing ululating screams, slowly dying away, terminating with a wet smack on concrete” of Lord Flobalob’s being defenestrated, I anticipate your screeds becoming more and more delectable. Today’s portion I could not manage to save for multiple snacks, instead greedily devouring it all at one go.  But rereads saved me, especially the bit about fatty vein-goo!

  102. 102.

    Jay

    @Anne Laurie:

    I read them every day, in the am, to arm myself for the day.

    thank you and the commentators so much, every day, for your round ups.

    they help me stay safe, aware, keep my family safe, my co workers,

    Right now, it is amongst on one of the most valuable things BJ does.

  103. 103.

    Bill Arnold

    @raven:

    I’m looking at Amazon and every mask has a bunch of negative reviews!

    I bought 1 box of these(amazon) in Jan 2021: they have a tight fit to my face and the elastic lasts a very long time, unlike some that use a rubber band that decays if you leave it in a hot car. I cycle through a couple and really go out only every 2-3 days so they’re not worn all day; they would not be comfortable to wear all day long IMO. Still about 1/2 way through the box and that’s having given some away.
    NIOSH Certified Makrite 9500-N95 Pre-Formed Cone Particulate Respirator Mask, M/L Size
    (I’m 6’1″ and have a proportional head and clean-shaven face, and they fit it snugly, with no side/top/bottom leakage felt while inhaling cold air as a check before going into a store.)

    But since delivery will take a while this time of year, calling around local hardware stores then going to one to pick up at least one N95 might be a good idea, and buying a box online if the retailer isn’t selling more.

  104. 104.

    JoyceH

    @Major Major Major Major:

    I’ve always assumed that if it’s easier to breath through one kind of high filtration mask, that just means it doesn’t fit your face. There’s no way most of the KN95 people I see are wearing them right, there are big visible gaps.

    I don’t find it so – when I wear a KN95, my breath moves the mask in and out, which tells me I’m breathing through the mask itself, not the gaps. Where I see gaps is with the cloth masks and the paper surgical masks.

  107. 107.

    sab

    I gave some money to a street corner panhandler a couple of days ago. He noticed the masks lying on my car’s passenger seat and asked if he could have one. I said no since I had already used them, so I gave him a new one from my glove compartment stash. Next time I saw him he was wearing it

    ETA This time of uear he was probably wearing it as much for warmth as for hygiene.

  108. 108.

    Jay

    @JoyceH:

    I wear a standard non medical, medical mask with a nose bridge, as it’s mandated by corp, I take an old ear loop and tie it in so it takes the ear loops off the ears and around the back of the head,

    overtop, I wear a Pillar Heights fabric mask, with an inside filter. It fits tight, neck and head loops. It has a horizontal inside pocket, comes with HEPA filters cut to size, but I use M116 washable medical Covid filters cut from damaged hospital retrofit filters.

    Between transit and work, I wear a mask 10 hours a day, changing the paper medical masks every 2 hours.

  109. 109.

    Jay

    @sab:

    in many areas, the unhoused have difficulty getting clean masks. I always have a ziplock full to give away, along with “how to” advice, because they don’t often get that.

  110. 110.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    just turned on the last few minutes of the Pats-Colts game and I think Carson Wentz is wearing a mask on the sidelines, under his nose. I don’t see any other players wearing masks

    long shot of stands I didn’t see one mask among the crowd

  111. 111.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    The long-running sketch comedy show [SNL] announced on social media Saturday afternoon that the night’s episode, featuring “Ant-Man” star Paul Rudd as host, would tape without a live audience and with only limited cast and crew “due to the recent spike in the Omicron variant and out of an abundance of caution.”

    ***

    New York state reported Saturday that nearly 22,000 people had tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday — eclipsing the previous day’s mark for the highest single-day total for new cases since testing became widely available. More than half the positive results were in the city.

    Real War on Xmas

  115. 115.

    Lyrebird

    @Steeplejack: Hello Steeplejack, I wish you a great continued recovery!  Anyhow, I am trying to find the right link and failing, something aimed at kids but should be true for grownups too, that cloth mask over surgical mask does provide more protection than either of those alone, and it’s easy and comfy.  Hope you find exactly what you need for protecting your health.

  116. 116.

    Lyrebird

    @Anne Laurie: Thank you so much for your doing that labor.  It’s only through your work that I have read posts from Laurie Garrett or had more realistic info about what is going in Korea where some of my neighbors are from & have family.

    Between your amazing work and David Anderson’s tip about covidactnow (used to be covidexitstrategy I think), I have been able to provide useful information both to my family and to my HR department in a time of stress and bad info.

     

    I need to re up on Patreon,  but it will have to be after some sleep.

  117. 117.

    Brachiator

    @Tony Jay:

    Good stuff. The Frost resignation was fairly recent. Good to see you were able to include it. I heard some news program claim that Frost jumping ship was a sign that hard core BREXIT supporters were tired of Johnson. But where are they going to go?

  118. 118.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    I’ve got the conversational equivalent of a doomposter in my family, but when I need relief from it, I just think of all the black Americans who’ve been fighting to make America live up to its promise for generations if not centuries. “Y’all got no stamina,” the joke goes, and I take it as an admonition to not give up, keep working at it, and have a little faith.

  119. 119.

    Origuy

    Has anyone tried the Airgami masks? I got one after my Scottish Dance teacher started wearing one. If you are dancing, singing, or doing something else that requires heavy breathing, they really work well. They claim to have passed “N95 pre-certification tests”, whatever that means. They are expensive, though, about the same price as the Under Armour masks. I use a KN95 or a cloth mask most of the time.

  120. 120.

    Betty

    @Anne Laurie: They are a blessing and very much appreciated . They make me feel smart when the subject of Covid comes up. Keep on keeping on as long as this thing lasts!

  121. 121.

    J R in WV

     

    i’m not sure *anyone* predicted that georgia would have two liberal democratic senators in 2021

    Not quite the same thing as “predicting” — but I contributed to both of those senatorial campaigns!! And we won !!!  TWICE !!!!

Comments are closed.