First off, I just wanted to state that I started my day with a nearly perfect latte and breakfast and then had an amazing shave. Nothing that important about that, but it is nice when you hit the trifecta like that.
Second, in personal news, it has now been over two years since I have been sick. I have had my unavoidable low grade sinus infections that just make me miserable, and I have had a reaction to the shingles shot, and a couple days where I am just run down and had a man cold, but I have not had a serious cold since November of 2019, and I attribute it ENTIRELY to simply wearing a mask in public places, avoiding crowds (more than I usually did), and handwashing. So while yes, there are tons of scientific studies that show that wearing a mask works, I don’t need them, because I am aware of it from my own personal experiences. And again, the days of the unwashed masses breathing on me in public are over. I will be wearing a mask in grocery stores and similar places for the rest of my life, and I give nary a fuck what anyone thinks about that. THE END.
Third, the markets absolutely shit the bed at the news of a new covid variant. I think most of you know how I feel about the markets in general, but this time around, I am not so sure they are wrong to lose their shit. Only half the US is vaccinated, almost no one is wearing a mask, and people are just go about things as if everything is back to normal. I personally expect covid cases to skyrocket over the next few months, although I suspect it might be less lethal because a lot of the cases that will be reported will be among people who have been vaccinated. However, with the new mutation, I expect by January we will be in the shit again. A season of shopping, mingling, christmas parties, travel, and new years should give us a solid chance to really get a ton of people sick, and since we are the stupidest fucking country on the planet, I expect that is precisely what is going to happen.
Whatever. I am over it now. My friends and loved ones are vaccinated and careful, children can not CAN NOW be vaccinated, and while I feel terrible for the immune compromised who really are getting screwed by people over this, the rest of the people who choose to be dipshits and want to fuck around and find out can, well, fuck around and find out. I just refuse to live my life concerned about the health and welfare of the stupidest and most evil among us. I’m gonna devote my energies to taking care of my own and those who want help.
Zzyzx
“children can not be vaccinated”
I think you meant “now” not “not” :)
waspuppet
I think most of you know how I feel about the markets in general, but this time around, I am not so sure they are wrong to lose their shit. Only half the US is vaccinated, almost no one is wearing a mask, and people are just go about things as if everything is back to normal.
And yet this will be Biden’s fault. Because Republicans — office-holders and voters — are high-drama preteens, and the entire pitch is “Doesn’t life suck? Well then vote Republican.” And it works. Because they’re high-drama preteens. And because the best Chuck Todd can come up with is “Well, life does seem to suck, or at least that’s what these Republicans told me to say …”
JPL
A store clerk mentioned the same thing without the colorful language. Some people have noticed that masks work.
dkxkee
Amen.
Mousebumples
@Zzyzx: those under 5 still cannot be vaccinated. Hopefully early next year. ??
dmsilev
In my neck of the woods, a fair number of people are wearing masks outside and virtually everyone is doing so indoors. Something like 97 or 98 percent of 12+ at least partially vaccinated, and already about a third of the younger group. I feel the city government should tout that as a new slogan: ‘Come to Pasadena. We have sane people here. Ok, mostly sane, the Rose Parade is still kind of a bit nuts’.
Cermet
All I can say is we will see if this new variant is anything to be a concern; yet, I’m not really worried very much. The new variant is likely too changed to be successful.
My neighbor and good friend was feeling off for a few months (attributed it to his heart – he had a stent put in three months earlier.) He went to the doctor and they suspected cancer (one of the lymph system types.)
Scheduled for a test to see how bad the cancer was, the day of the test he collapse at work and had to be rushed to the hospital – brain bleeding (and a big thanks to all the blood thinners the MD’s gave him that he didn’t really need.)
There they discovered he has stage IV; not good. I’m hoping he still gets cured (and there are good reasons he could be – as long as it hasn’t entered his brain.)
So, covid is not something that is significant nor something that I’m all that concerned about. But this shows why we really need to vaccinate people in Africa!
Justin W
I have to say that with respect to “almost no one wearing a mask” I think that is entirely dependent on where you live. I live in a purplish suburban area east of St. Louis and while the people are probably 50/50 in terms of politics, almost everyone wears a mask in the stores and gas stations still. It’s very rare to go in a store and see people not wearing a mask. But when I drive 50 miles or more from the city it becomes mask-free almost everywhere. I think more and more that this anti-science shit is being pushed almost entirely by outside sources (Russia; China; whoever else is our “enemy” and has a computer). Of course it helps that our country is about 85% absolute fucking dipshits at this point with no clue and no interest in getting a clue about anything that isn’t personally relevant to them in the moment. In conclusion: fuck.
Betty
Cases are already raging in rural areas with lots of unvaccinated and without the new variant. Still no air travel for me for a good while yet.
terry chay
Masking and compliance looks to be very regional in nature and strongly tied to political affiliation than anything.
In the SF Bay Area, and San Francisco in particular, mask wearing is still very high outdoors and mandatory indoors. Vaccination rates are also extremely high. To give you an idea, the last two times I went to Costco (SF and south san francisco), I only saw one person in the entire store unmasked and that was my 14mo son (too young to wear one). I remember seeing one person improperly masked (nose out), and people do pull down their masks to eat the samples and in the food court (in South SF, the SF store didn’t have seating because of the vaccine require,ent for indoor dining), of course. When you do the math, we are over 99.9% compliance in this anecdotal sample set, in a region that is amongst the highest vax rate in the world.
The math is such that you are 14x more likely to die if unvaccinated which is a phenomenal number when you think about it. COVID is likely to become endemic if it hasn’t already so the unvaccinated people will all get their turn eventually to spin their wheel even if they are currently surrounded by vaccinated people like here or in Vermont (where a anti-Vax in-law of mine lives). Such is as it is.
different-church-lady
Bingo. Sick of talking about it. Moving on with life, and deliberately avoiding the sniper zone between the chronically fretful and the idiotically careless.
Kay
It just keeps marching on, doing what it does, regardless of whether people “believe” in it or not.
different-church-lady
@Kay:
Virus doesn’t give a shit, virus just takes what it wants.
dmsilev
@Betty: I’ve done a few flights now, and while strapping on an N95 for six or eight hours is no fun, it is doable. I do wish airlines were a bit more aggressive about telling people to pull their damn masks up, but all things considered it’s hard to blame the flight attendants.
Zzyzx
@Mousebumples:
in the context of the sentence, it’s about the rest being able to be.
dmsilev
@terry chay:
Means that for vaccinated people, COVID is indeed pretty much about as dangerous as the flu. Kind of ironic really.
Sure Lurkalot
Quick trip to the grocery for the first time since dumb Denver, in the midst of rising case counts for 2 months, re-enacted a mask mandate (day before TG)…signs on doors announcing mask required as well as large stand up signs in the entries…still a fair number of people unmasked. Hopefully it will improve over time.
Unfortunately, we may bemoan our country but I look around and there are few safe havens from this plague, we are a silly human, silly human race.
terry chay
@dmsilev: It could be related to the route and time of flight. My wife went SFO to BOS for a funeral and mask compliance (and politeness) was very high on both flights, but when you think whose on that flight it’s not surprising. Where Betty lives and is likely to go/when, fear and caution might be more warranted.
realbtl
Here in my county in Montana 36% fully vaccinated- state is 57%- my choice on masking is being made by all the assholes.
SpongeBobtheBuilder
It is completely dependent on your location. I live in suburb just north of Chicago, we are all wearing masks all the time, my son attends a giant high school and they are about 98% vaxxed and still wear masks. I work in SE Wisconsin and virtually everyone there does not wear a mask except in schools/colleges. To the point I am thinking about ditching the salon where I get my hair cut, which costs half as much as where I live, but they stopped masking entirely. They were so good about it at the beginning.
But yes, Cole, I will be wearing a mask in any crowded place, especially public transit, from now on. Why not?
geg6
Sitting right there next to you, Cole, masked and vaxxed.
i, too, have had almost no illnesses since masking became a thing. And the few I’ve had are more attributable to my allergies than germs (sinus issues, mostly). I plan to keep masking in indoor public places for the near future.
I also have no plans to change getting takeout instead of eating in. Too many unvaxxed assholes around here and I can wait to eat out until the weather is nice enough to do it outside.
My socializing for the next several months will be limited to my siblings and their families (all vaxxed except the babies, which I don’t handle much anyway because I am not a fan of small children), a small circle of vaxxed friends and one holiday gathering with my co-workers, all vaxxed finally, at my boss’ house for a game night.
Too many GQPs around here to risk anything more. Plus, I really am pretty sour on most of the American public these days, even taking COVID and it’s difficulties out of the equation, and that makes me not want to be around 99% if the population. I hate this timeline.
HeleninEire
NYC is still WAY masked up. I would say inside 95% compliance, outside 85% compliance. Boosters are easy to get (I just walked into the nearest pharmacy today and got one). Restaurants are asking for vax cards as required. NYS is stuck flat (which I guess is OKish) in terms of numbers. I am not paying attention to cases or hospitalizations, but deaths are been between 25 and 32 a day and we’ve been at that number for weeks, maybe months now. For a state with 19 million people I say that’s good.
Damned_at_Random
Spousal Unit finished chemo two months ago and is no longer in the ranks of the immune-compromised, so of course it’s time for a new variant. A am grateful this year for our governor,
Kate Brown (D) who understands her job is to protect the public first and who is uninterested in winning a Republican primary election.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
I don’t know if it’s real or just what I notice but I think there’s been a shift here in Trump Country. There’s less anger and denial and more just plain fear and dread. Every person that dies has a circle of family and other people. It just becomes impossible to ignore or minimize or theorize about. That stops mattering.
I don’t know where most people will be in a year on it but I suspect not the same place they are now.
Tony Jay
Oh, really?
I live in a country ruled by people who want to start international incidents via Twitter, have adopted anti-immigration policies directly responsible for the deaths of children, and who think having a female Doctor Who is driving young men to commit crimes.
And they’re opposed by people who worship at the feet of a dictator-fellating war-criminal who only today announced that the Party I’m a member of needs to come out in opposition to ‘Wokeism”.
Stupidest? Not even close.
Shantanu Saha
In my neck of the woods (Central New Jersey, in a relatively wealthy, well-educated community near a university), almost everyone I see when I go outside to shop is masked. NJ still has a state order in place requiring masking when in public enclosed areas except when eating, and none of the restaurants have taken down their outdoor covered seating areas. A lot of places are doing much more takeout than they’ve done before the pandemic (or at least I see that when I get takeout myself). Near the Jersey Shore, however, a highly MAGA area, that’s not the case. I’m going to let the virus burn through that area before returning there next summer.
sab
If you are masking and current on vaxxing, aren’t you doing pretty much all you can do anyway?
We did cancel Thanksgiving again this year and the kids were thrilled. We are a blended family (divorce, remarried) where the children of divorce now have their own significant others also from divorced families. The kids were being pulled in at least four directions between all the remarried parents all hosting Thanksgiving on or near that Thursday. Too much eating at multiple stops. Too many relatives bickering or asking deeply personal questions in public. And the grand-kids with multiple half-siblings.
Our local grocery chain has pre-ordered Thanksgiving dinners that come in a big box. Pre-cooked Butterball turkey sealed in the ususal Butterball plastic. Stuffing in a tinfoil tray, bean casserole in another tinfoil tray, mashed potatoes in a bag you drop in boiling water, side of cranberry/ orange sauce, gravy, and either a pumpkin or an apple pie.Just heat and serve. Serves 10 with no leftovers, or fewer with lots of leftovers.
We ordered one for every kid that wanted one. The kid who didn’t will get to spend this long weekend visiting his fiance’s out of town sibling for the first time in ages.
It was so easy. We had a close friend with no family drop over. He never came before when it was a big bash. He and my husband watched tv. It was so easy and so peaceful. Though we all agree my cooking is better. But Thanksgiving at multiple households with me doing most of the cooking has been a three or four day grind for me for the last twenty years. I am thankful it’s over.
We can have a big outdoor or indoor bash on my husband’s next birthday in the summer. That will be easier and much more fun.
dmsilev
@terry chay: I did LAX to BOS a few days ago. Close to all of the people were masked; annoyingly, one of the exceptions was sitting in my row. He had a mask, but it was almost always either below the chin or hanging from one ear. Eighty-something year old guy, so I confess the phrase ‘well, it’s your funeral’ did pass through my head once or twice.
Kelly
Meh, S&P 500 down 2.27% on low volume. Low volume is ordinary for the day after a midweek holiday. The top 20 of percentage losses ranges from -20.47% on Oct 19th 1987 to -7.47% May 14th 1940. Probably have to wait for everybody to get back to work Monday for a real crash.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
COVIDiocy isn’t just an American phenomenon, sadly. Read an article about an apparently prominent Greek stage actor who publicly quit a production because they weren’t letting unvaxxed people into the theater audiences. This while at the same time the major indicators here are still climbing. ICUs are filling up with intubated COVID patients, it’s impacting non-COVID medical procedures, and I’m just done with COVIDiots the world over.
I just hope that I didn’t shoot myself in the foot by getting the J&J booster after getting Pfizer as my primary…
dmsilev
@Tony Jay:
Ill granted you the Doctor (are they worried about a wave of Dalekism or something?), but, uh, have you seen our previous guy’s Twitter feed? His immigration adviser?
Miss Bianca
@realbtl: Right there with you in ruby-red rural Colorado.
@Kay: Our county has spiked upwards ridiculously in terms of COVID cases, to the point where it’s made regional and state news if not national news. I am beginning to sense that “fear and dread” seeping into the usual wing-nut bluster about COVID here as deaths start accumulating among people the wing-nuts actually know and care about. There’s still a lot obfuscation about just *why* these people died, but even the nuttiest of the wing-nuts can apparently only deny reality for so long.
Brachiator
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
All boosters seem to be pretty good.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think eventually all unvaccinated people will get Covid. I’m done worrying about them in the U.S.
UncleEbeneezer
@dmsilev: Yeah, Pasadena is pretty good (Altadena resident here). But man, once you start getting away from LA (Bishop, Pismo Beach were two places we traveled to over the past 6 months) NOBODY wears masks :(
James E Powell
If we get another wave like the Delta wave, people of every political stripe are going to lose their minds.
Kay
@sab:
We did a premade meal for a covid Thanksgiving one of these covid years, I’m not sure which one. We rented a house in rural NY – in an attempt to make driving distances “fair” – and had everyone come there and socialized and ate in parkas on the porch. It’s my best bizarre covid memory. It was fun and the meal was fine. You wonder why you fussed so much about it before.
Primer Gray (formerly Yet Another Jeff)
@Cermet: Today is 6 months and three days since my Stage IV kidney cancer diagnosis, no one expected me to survive the first week. Immunotheraphy is amazing so far, hope he responds well to his treatment.
We really need to get more people vaxxed, I’m on my third shot so far.
NotMax
Indoor mask requirement remains in place throughout the state. Never has been otherwise this entire time. Every retail establishmnet I’ve been in has been strict about enforcement all along.
Kay
@James E Powell:
I would bet it goes the other way. We reach the exhausted, sad acceptance stage. That’s what I see here in a county with some of the highest rates in the state.
Another Scott
1 hour ago:
WHO – Omicron Variant of Concern
Someone said months ago that we probably won’t have “waves” again, but will have regional flare-ups in the unvaccinated. 70% of the country has one dose, so there should be less death this time around, but 1000-1500 a week dying now is still far too high.
:-(
Here’s hoping that the mandates kick in soon.
Cheers,
Scott.
West of the Rockies
@different-church-lady:
Ah, yes, the Goldilocks Zone between the rightwing CT folk and the Chicken Little pity ponies of the left (thankfully that second group is a narrower collection).
I’m not Candide (this is the best of all possible worlds), but I really dislike the chronically We’re Doomed Brigade.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev: Vax rates here in Glendale is still lagging behind at about 67%.
Ksmiami
Between our crazy gun culture and its intersection w our crazy anti vaxx /anti science culture, I’ve decided that I can wait for normal for a long long time; perhaps it is easier to simply outlive your opponents vs fight them.
Kelly
What? Omicron?
Twitter been calling it Nu for a day or so.
UncleEbeneezer
JMG
My Cape Cod town has a 99.6 percent vaccination rate. Suburban Boston former town is 92 percent. Masks mandatory in indoor public places for both. Because its year-round population is so small, Cape town’s positive test rate swings wildly, as just one or two households getting infected can drive the rate through the roof. But I feel quite safe. I felt safe in France, too, as proof of vaccination needed to enter restaurants, bars, theaters, etc. In fact, its government just announced that as of New Year’s, you must get a booster to keep your health pass.
Sister Golden Bear
@UncleEbeneezer: Not surprised. Bishop is red-county California. Pismo Beach gets lots of tourists from red counties in the San Joaquin Valley.
As others have said, mask wearing (and vax rates) are highly dependent where you live. Here in San Mateo County (just south of SF), 92.1% of those 12+ are vaxxed, 86.6% of those 5+. Indoor mask wearing is still mandatory, and most people mask up outdoors if it’s a crowded area, e.g. downtowns, farmers markets, etc. Still see the occasion bandana wearing and those wearing their masks “dick nose” style, but they’re definitely the minority.
Cameron
When I ride public transit, most people are masked – drivers will give you grief if you’re not, transit has masks for free by the driver, recorded gov’t announcement that Feds require you to be masked when on a bus. Of course, they pull the mask down when they want to talk to each other, thus voiding the whole fucking purpose of wearing one.
Publix I go to is about 50-50 masked/unmasked, though most people do seem to take a stab at social distancing. Figure I’ll keep wearing a mask until about next March, then see where we’re at. If we have to keep wearing them, well, I can live with that.
Anoniminous
In my rural NM county chock-a-block with ignorant hick Evangelical bigots there’s a ~51% vaccination rate, the hospital is at 140% capacity and shipping people out, and there’s a growing nursing shortage.
Overheard at the DMV: “I’m not going to get vaccinated because I don’t want animal DNA in MY body.”
feh upon them
debbie
Just got back from Krogering, and despite the sign requiring masks, there were more than a few who were maskless. I couldn’t say anything, but great timing, assholes.
Ksmiami
@Kelly: it’s an over reaction and a buying opportunity tbh.
Feathers
@different-church-lady: COVID is a honey badger.
Saw your comment and that ole honey badger just popped into my mind.
I’m in an inner suburb of Boston. Mix of masks and maskless on the street, but town has a mask mandate for indoors.
Ken
I’d hoped that they would skip the letters that will turn every discussion into an Abbott and Costello routine.
Ksmiami
@Anoniminous: just noticed today in Taos, mask wearing outside is climbing.
Matt McIrvin
A lot of people are going off half cocked about the Omicron variant. Our big problem for now is still Delta and it’s raging where I live. Right now I am not where I live but I go back on Sunday. My biggest worry is that this news makes people put off getting vaccinations or boosters, which would be very dumb.
Brachiator
@Tony Jay:
I posted this earlier elsewhere in reaction to some of Boris Johnson’s immigration plans.
We Americans were very smart, and lucky, in defeating Trump. By contrast, a good number of British people desperately cling to the vile fantasy that keeping immigrants out will make their lives better. Meanwhile, Tory incompetence is outpaced only by Tory cruelty.
UncleEbeneezer
For those of you who have Hulu, Padma Lakshmi’s Taste The Nation Holiday episode about Thanksgiving was really good. She visits Barnstable MA where the Wampanoag are still fighting to keep their culture alive and reclaim the Thanksgiving myth:
“The best episode (and one that’s all too relevant this month in particular) shines the spotlight on the Wampanoag Nation, whose ancestors bore the brunt of colonial wrath during the first supposedly idyllic “Thanksgiving.” In “Truth and the Turkey Tale,” Lakshmi speaks with Wampanoag fishermen, historians and chefs who consider this holiday to be a catastrophic turning point in history, when white settlers took what they wanted and rewrote the narrative to make it seem like they were doing Native Americans a favor. There’s food, of course. The episode ends with Lakshmi eating a dinner of ingredients that may look familiar to the Anglo Norman Rockwell vision of Thanksgiving, but were in fact stolen from the Wampanoag land and rebranded for white comfort and profit.
Many of the meals Lakshmi eats on this show are nostalgic, but the Wampanoag one is downright defiant, a reclamation of traditions warped beyond recognition. It’s “Taste the Nation” at its best and most insightful, allowing marginalized people to not just share their fraught history with viewers, but force them to confront their own parts in perpetuating it. Unlike the first season, there is no attempt here to say that breaking bread will fix these wrongs: only a solemn acknowledgment that the wrongs exist, and will continue to exist, as long as this supposed melting pot of a country refuses to acknowledge them with the depth and lucidity they deserve.”
NotMax
@dmsilev
Ooh, a musical cue.
;)
Leslie
I’m in a purplish district outside LA. I made a very rare visit to a grocery store yesterday; I’m still having most everything delivered. I have a weekly produce/basic foods subscription, an occasional organic meat subscription, and Instacart or curbside pickup for the rest.
I saw close to 100% masking in the store, but roughly 1/3 of those were wearing their masks below their noses or even pulled down to their chins.
When I made my appointment for my booster shot a week+ ago, the nearby medical facility was completely booked up for however many weeks their schedule extends; I had to go out to the overflow vax site at the fairgrounds. So it looks like there’s heavy uptake of the boosters, which is encouraging.
debbie
@Another Scott:
Wait. Wasn’t it being called Nu this morning?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@UncleEbeneezer: Yup, noticed that on my recent trips up to the eastern Sierra, no masks, anywhere. I don’t spend much time indoors up there.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: When we went to Pismo Beach in August, there were all kinds of Recall Newsom!! signs everywhere.
Driving through Kern and Inyo it always feel like big time Trump-ville, at least until we get to the relatively Blue safe havens of Bishop, Mammoth or June Lake.
Anoniminous
@Kelly:
WHO labeled the B.1.1.529 variant “Omicron” and called it a “variant of concern” today. As of a paper published yesterday in Nature the only sure molecular biology information is the 30 mutations in the spike protein that keys into the endothelium cell ACE2 receptor. In general it seems, as of 11/26/21, to becoming the most prevalent strain in the countries around the Cape of Africa.
But nobody really knows what’s going on
Another Scott
@debbie:
True? Maybe not. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: The only thing that made the J&J less effective in the first place was that they positioned it as a single dose vaccine. I think you’re fine using it as a booster.
JoyceH
@debbie: When they’ve used up the Greek alphabet, I hope they move on to the military alphabet, though they’d need something different for Alpha and Delta. The Bravo variant would sound sorta cool. Foxtrot. Whiskey!
debbie
@Another Scott:
Sigh, thanks. We’re gonna run out of letters soon! ??♀️
dmsilev
@Ken: I figure we’ll make it all the way to The Omega Variant, because who among us has not wanted to live inside a Robert Ludlum novel?
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: no English speaker can pronounce “Xi”. In particle physics there’s a particle notated as a capital Xi and they call it the “cascade” (after its characteristic decay pattern, but I think the main reason is to avoid saying “xi”).
Anoniminous
The WHO announcement:
(B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
They’re moving fast on this one
Jackie
WA state is still mandating masks for public indoor places, schools, and must have proof of vaccination to large indoor and outdoor events. Thanks, Gov Inslee!♥️
My side of the state has constant anti-mask and anti-vaccine mandates protests. Almost every letter to the editors is bitching about government overreach and hating Inslee.
I’m with Cole – masking indoors for the foreseeable future. No colds, viruses etc since pre 2019 – even tho exposed to sickly grandkiddos – who even wearing masks at school – have managed to bring colds home. Twice being sick enough to get tested for Covid and miss a few days of school. All tests were negative, thank dog!
JoyceH
Anyone else remember when newspaper horoscope columns wanted to avoid the word ‘cancer’ and started using ‘Moon Children’?
LongHairedWeirdo
Yeah, but don’t forget: it’s not just that people are unvaccinated. It’s the headwind you run into trying to explain to Republicans that “wow, actually, the vaccines are a godsend, and masks and distancing protocols are annoying but SAVE LIVES.”
And on top of that, just think of the courage needed. A member of Congress might have to LOSE THEIR JOB if they explain that Trump was derelict, negligent, stupid, and wrong. Can you imagine that? Losing your job, and having to become a lobbyist? Just to save a few lives that, face it, no one is blaming Republicans for anyway?
Still: yes, if Republicans were to decide that they love America, and Americans, and that they were going to do the right thing, it would cause major upheaval, but it would save lives.
So, yeah, I agree – markets are right to lose their shit. They know when the choice comes between God and Mammon, the right thing, and making money, saving lives, or poisoning the poor, Republicans will say “just make sure it doesn’t make us look *too* bad, and let’s cancel the annual Mammon parade during our convention this year, okay?”
sab
We had to put our second pet down this week. The extremely sweet and very elderly cocker I inherited from my uncle. Some of the other cats and dog are surprisingly upset.
We went to the Metro Pet hospital. Unlike our primary care vet the Metro is still on full covid control. Owners can only come in for euthanasia farewells and must be fully masked.
I felt really bad for the vets. Lately they never get to meet happy people hearing happy news any more. That is all by telephone to people in their cars. Like me with Ponyo. All the people these vets meet in person are very sad and often sobbing people saying goodbye.
My husband hasn’t come in with me before, so this was his first sight of actual euthanasia. These guys were his favorites so I made him sign off on it. Bad idea. I should have just taken them in on his instructions and not made him watch.
JoyceH
Article in the Post about the death of Chief Moose, who was Police Chief in Montgomery County during the Beltway Sniper days – you guys realize that was nineteen years ago?!
SFBayAreaGal
I was at Disneyland last week. No masks when outdoors. Masks are required once you get indoors. They are pretty strict about wearing your masks properly. If you don’t wear the mask when told to do so, they won’t hesitate in taking you off the ride or out of line. While in line at the Haunted Mansion the cast member told one guy “no mask, no mansion”
My sisters and I wore our masks outdoors and indoors.
Matt McIrvin
@dmsilev: I flew MHT to BWI and I still can’t figure out how we were supposed to “keep our masks on at all times” while consuming the drinks and snacks they served.
JCJ
@Cermet:
and a big thanks to all the blood thinners the MD’s gave him that he didn’t really need
If he had a bare metal stent perhaps not. A quick question of the Google finds:
Dual antiplatelet therapy with aspirin and clopidogrel is recommended for 12 months for patients with drug-eluting stents and for at least 1 month for bare metal stents and preferably for 1 year.
Why drug eluting over bare metal?
About a quarter of all coronary arteries treated with bare-metal stents would close up again, usually in about 6 months.
High rates of in-stent restenosis (ISR) associated with bare-metal stents (BMSs) led to the development of drug-eluting stents (DESs), which modified the healing process after stent implantation, attenuating neointimal formation, and resulting in a reduction of the incidence of ISR to rates ranging from 5% to 10%.
Another Scott
@Kelly: +1
The market moves up and down. Nobody can be a successful market timer.
Google tells me that the S&P500 is still up 9.5% over the last 6 months, even with the drop today.
Don’t panic.
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@SFBayAreaGal:
Well, they’re never going to get their 1,000th happy haunt with THAT attitude.
Aziz, light!
@Tony Jay: Perhaps we can’t match you Brits in the quality of stupidity, but we make up for it in volume.
sab
@JoyceH: I think that the Beltway sniper had much more to do with the country going nuts in the early aughts than 9/11. The sniper attacks went on for months and personally scared the DC punditry and politicians.
Another Scott
STATNews: What’s known and unknown about Omicron.
Cheers,
Scott.
La Nonna
We are all masked up when out of the house, and of course wearing masks in all shops,theaters, transport, museums etc. Such a normal part of life here in Italy, people definitely look askance, and will say something if an unmasked person is around. I am just hoping that my all vaxxed and boostered family will be able to enter Italy in mid-Dec so we can see each other after 2.5 years, and that the US cavalier attitudes toward the pandemic don’t screw everything up again. Gah, so over worrying about the unvaxxed idiots among us.
debbie
@sab:
I am so sorry. I missed your other announcement. Two loved ones in the same week must be especially difficult.
scav
@Brachiator: Additionally funny in that their post-Brexit explicit fast-track offer to lure prestigious and prize-winning academics (et al) failed to attract a single bite in six months. I love this quote about it: “The scheme itself is a joke – it cannot be discussed seriously. The government thinks if you pump up UK science with a verbal diarrhoea of optimism – it can somehow become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
Verbal diarrhoea assuming self-fulfillment — if that isn’t flobalob in nutshell.
Miss Bianca
Meanwhile, I am just about to head downtown and get my COVID booster shot. I wanted to get my flu shot at the same time, but was discouraged from doing so by the person making my appointment at public health. Since my county Public Health Director is a moron, I’m inclined to take the word of his telephone staffers with a grain of salt, partly because the state is saying that it’s okay to get both at the same time. On the other hand, I am used to feeling sufficiently crappy after getting vaccinations that I am not sure whether I feel more like spacing out the agony in the hopes of lessening its severity or just wanting to get it all over with at once. Thoughts?
Tony Jay
@dmsilev:
That’s why I chose those examples of fucknuttery. The UK is run by people doing all that now, after the example of Trump, and after the American people (mostly) told the Pustule and his mob to fuck the fuck off. Now that’s stupid.
@Brachiator:
Very well said. They’re taking the Trumpy playbook and running with it, and even if Flobalob gets kicked to the curb in the non-too distant future, his successor is still going to go to the Well of Performative Cruelty because their supporters have been indoctrinated to like it.
And Tony fucking Blair thinks Labour should overtly reject ‘the Left’ in order to go after those voters. Fuck that worm.
Matt McIrvin
@sab: I remember the anthrax mailer being a major source of fear, and that kind of fell down the memory hole. I never was 100% sure they pinned it on the right guy.
gene108
Thanks for the concern. As a transplant recipient, I’ve pretty much resigned myself to being a shut in, with occasional run to the store to just get out and do something normal for my sanity, for the next several years, because COVID won’t go away. It will be endemic.
My only hope is a less deadly mutation becomes dominant, so it’s just as bad as the flu.
LongHairedWeirdo
I remember in the beginning of the pandemic hearing how this was a bit like a military mission. If you’re not hearing grousing, discipline isn’t tight enough, and things are getting bad. (Or, worse: things are so horrible, the men are no longer letting their grousing be heard ,which generally means something bad is going down.)
I also remember how proud I was to see Washington go from having one of the initial outbreak areas, to having an ever dropping position in raw cases and deaths, cases per million, and deaths per million. (As of today, Washington is number 45 in deaths per million!)
And… wow, does *this* seem like an eternity ago: xkcd.com/2287/
Ah… good thoughts about compassion for humanity.
Then back to the real world. Oh well….
Tony Jay
@Aziz, light!:
No small portions! 8-)
UncleEbeneezer
@Miss Bianca: You can get both at the same time according to the CDC. We did. Felt shitty for about 48 hours but otherwise fine. Ask your doctor if you can, but mine said it was fine.
sab
@Another Scott: I am cashing in some of my retirement investments to meet current family issues and I don’t feel even a qualm. I have seen bubbles before. Better to get the cash out now and not say no than to sit tight and watch it evaporate anyway in a correction… I would only recommend this approach if meeting current issues. Otherwise sit tight.
Kelly
@Miss Bianca: I got my Pfizer booster and quadrivalent flu in one visit. Worked fine. Mrs Kelly had to make two visits due to an arm injury. She had pulled the muscle they aim for.
MazeDancer
Upstate NY, people wear masks. Not really a thing, people just do.
You wear your mask, you get vaccinated and boosterized, you take reasonable precautions, you may get a breakthrough case, but you don’t die.
Friend of mine in NYC has her niece and nephew up for T-Day from Arkansas. Niece said the best part was not having to argue with patients about mask wearing.
That’s right “patients”. As in hospitalized patients.
The virus is going to build and flare as long as there are idiots out there it can attack.
So, being among the immuno-compromised, I am prepared to never leave NY.
John Harrold
@Zzyzx: At least those 5 years and older. I’m not as sanguine as John because of the kids under 5, the immunocompromised folks he mentioned, and kids who’s parents won’t let them get vaccinated.
Cermet
Everyone is forgetting the the Pfizer covid treatment is outstandingly good – and this has zero to do with the spike or most aspects of the virus so it is EXTREMELY unlikely any covid variant can evade that treatment. So if you are vaxxed, had a booster, and this new variant somehow hits you (and regardless, being vaxxed will give you a big edge up regardless of the mutations) then the Pfizer treatment will take care of you. People, covid isn’t a significant threat for vaccinated people thanks to these further developments. And also remember – thanks to mRNA, any serious mutation can quickly be countered in weeks with a new vaccine! We are in a whole new world thanks to these developments. Covid can go fuck off.
MazeDancer
@Another Scott:
Netflix is up $7.35 today.
Of course, could be a commentary on the upcoming lockdown…
Ken
@Miss Bianca: Separating the shots mean you won’t be worrying “what if I’m only feeling crappy because of the flu shot, and the COVID shot isn’t working”. I got my booster Monday, and I felt pretty good Tuesday because I felt nasty!
Cermet
@Miss Bianca: I spaced my out by a week – personal choice; the CDC says to get both because you might not bother to show up again (esp. if it is for the flu). While I haven’t had a flu in forty years, and rarely got flu shots, over the last five years I haven’t missed the flu shot.
sab
@Matt McIrvin: Me too. I always thought they didn’t pin it on the right guy.
Kelly
@Another Scott: My first market crash was Black Monday Oct 19 1987. My 401k provider didn’t have any way for me to react to that one. The experience kinda steadied me in subsequent plunges.
JoyceH
@Cermet: Is that the treatment that’s already out, the infusion? I remember hearing that the new pill treatments didn’t depend on the shape of the spike but couldn’t remember about the infusion. And the pills aren’t out yet.
But yeah, this mRNA tech is awesome. A game changer. New vaccines used to take years to produce even if you stayed on the right track all the way through development.
Howard Campbell's Soup
We don’t need a new variant to see that the winter is going to suck, just look at what’s going on in Michigan and other parts of the upper midwest (and NH and NM) right now… not enough vaccination, fewer covid restrictions from the state and the virus has had almost two years to spread to pockets around nearly every community.
Michigan’s at record cases and there’s no new restrictions or lockdowns, just “we have a vaccine, go get it” Well, about half the state refuses to do that. What do you think will happen?
From my extended family, the vaxxed octogenarian three-time cancer survivor who recently had surgery with immunosuppressors caught a covid breakthrough case and said “it was like a head cold”, but an unvaxxed cousin in her fifties ended up being taken to the hospital by ambulance since she couldn’t lift herself out of bed (“you’ll never force me, I’ll quit my job first”)
as great grandma said, for Pete’s sake, get your shot and if you’ve got the shot get your booster!
Cermet
@JoyceH: No, its a five day treatment cycle using a pill (and will be over-the-counter!) Unlike the Merck, it is utterly and completely safe. The virus can’t really evade it because it works within the cell on a protein that is essential for the virus to reproduce.
sab
@debbie: Nothing like TaMara’s year.
We are old and so are our pets, so there will be years like this. I do scream at my 70 year old in-laws about adopting puppies. We mostly adopt older pets. Prince the cocker was a puppy when my uncle was 75. Prince should never have had to spend his last years in an unfamiliar house with a bunch of cats he was slightly afraid of while he missed Uncle George.
Geminid
@Tony Jay: I’d tell those people, “better a woke bloke than a bent gent.”
sab
@Tony Jay: Have you read Fiona Hill’s book? She is very diplomatic, but I did like that she doesn’t much like Blair.
He had issues with her accent when they met ( in the US after she felt the need to emigrate) although they are both from County Durham. What a class snob he is. What is wrong with UK Labour that they don’t see this?
Kayla Rudbek
@Miss Bianca: I got my booster shot in one arm and the flu shot in the other at the same time. All that CVS asked was whether I was right-handed or left-handed, so that they could give me the COVID booster shot in my non-dominant arm. And I was pretty much fine other than having to sleep on my back due to sore arms on both sides, and being fairly tired after the shots and for the next day.
Another Scott
@Kelly: I can’t dig it up now, but someone once claimed that most of the gains in long-term investing happen in a bunch of very short time frames. So if you try to be a timer and get out when things look bad, you’ll usually miss the gains when things turn around. I’m sure it was cherry-picking, but the general point holds I think – people can’t successfully be market timers.
Relatedly, CalculatedRiskBlog:
For the population as a whole, the panic about gas prices is manufactured. People need to know the context in just about any reporting these days, and too many in the press have no interest in providing it…
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@sab:
Jeez, missed that too. I don’t think I could ever be a pet owner. I get upset enough when a plant starts ailing.
Origuy
@UncleEbeneezer: @?BillinGlendaleCA: I was a little farther north, in Mono County, in August. There were signs everywhere saying that county regulations required masks and most people appeared to be following them. Certainly the park offices and the Bridgeport Inn were being careful about masks. Some of the local stores, not so much.
Tony Gerace
Three young male idiots in my extended family (at least one of them a MAGA gun-nut) have refused to get vaccinated. As a result I will not see them at Christmas time this year for the first time in their young lives. That’s fine with me, and most likely, with them. Maybe I’ll never see them again. I will be with the members of my family who have some common fucking sense.
sab
@debbie: I don’t think I had mentionned Prince the cocker before. He wasn’t as sick as Mac. Mac’s decline was sudden. Prince’s was gradual. That took us longer to realize how bad it was, especially while we worried about Mac. Prince woke up every two hours with diarrhea for his last six weeks. Not a happy situation for a housebroken dog.
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
I wouldn’t be able to muster 10% of that politeness. Blair and his acolytes are a toxic lot that need a short conversation with a long drop onto rocks ASAP.
@sab:
Lots of Labour do understand who and what he is. That’s why he shed votes like dandruff when he was in power and had to step down when he wanted to carry on. It’s also why the current leadership had to lie so brazenly about what they planned to do in order to win the vote. If they’d announced they planned to bring the likes of Blair and Mandelson back as advisors they’d have been told to swivel. It’s not their Party anymore, hence the mass purges.
And I promise I will give that Fiona Hill book a read one day.
UncleEbeneezer
@Origuy: Wow, that’s great (and surprising from what I know of Mono County). Love Bridgeport. Got married there in 2012 :)
Kelly
It’s very familiar but I don’t remember where I read it either. I’ve invested on a steady as she goes basis in broad, cheap index funds since the 1982. Worked just fine. Handy to have started saving at the beginning of the best stock market run of all time.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Cermet: I’m not sure it’s going to be OTC (as in: non-prescription). I’ve seen a lot of talk about how pills are game changing, because shelf stable pills can be shipped and stored locally, and handed out at high speed – far, far, faster than an IV infusion. You can probably hand out pills *so* fast, that you probably don’t even need to worry too much about whether people are taking the pills right, and you’ll still be saving more lives over IV infusion treatments.
(Obviously: you want people to take the pills on the right schedule. But if you can get 10x as many people on pills as you can treat with monoclonal antibodies, if 20% of those people take the pills properly, you’ve treated twice as many as you could have with an IV infusion.)
And yes, the pills try to stop viral reproduction.
Infection is complicated. Antibodies try to stop an infection – they try to blunt the spike protein, so it can’t attack a cell.
If you’ve been immunized, your body should be able to whip up antibodies quickly, and activate other defenses as well. However, after two doses of Pfizer or Moderna, antibody levels drop eventually.
Boosters for Pfizer and Moderna are working very well, because they create more antibodies, and more advanced antibodies, and, antibody levels remain high for longer. (So tell the anti-vaxxers to stuff that so far up their butts it’ll take a dose of ivermectin to get it out. No, not an enema – I don’t want to drown the idiots!)
Okay, but: if your antibodies aren’t sufficient to prevent an infection, you *are* infected, and some of your cells *are* creating new viruses. Your body’s secondary/etc. defenses now come into play. Here’s where the pills help. They make it harder for new viruses to be built.
So long as they keep the viral load low, long enough for your body to create boatloads of antibodies and other defenses, your body will kick the metaphorical butt of the virus.
And right now, they are a massive game changer… but, we do need to keep in mind, so were Pfizer, Moderna, and J&J, at first. I’m not sure if a virus can gain an immunity to the pills or not.
There’s good reason to feel confident, but also plenty of reason to think that Republicans could pull a defeat-for-America from the jaws of “oh noes Biden’s gonna have a victory!”
Chetan Murthy
@terry chay: I live in SF (Noe Valley). And you’re right, that a lot of people wear masks. Problem is, that isn’t producing the reduction in cases (not even among the vaxxed) that we need. So somewhere, there are people mixing, not wearing masks. Maybe restos, maybe homes, who knows. But the case rates alone are enough to know that whatever we’re doing, it’s not enough.
Today [actually 7 days ago], we were at 56 cases/day (5.6 cases/100k/day vaxxed, 11.2 unvaxxed). That’s far above a level that anybody would call “suppressed” (doing the math from a 1% CFR and Fauci’s 10k deaths/year, we should be at 3 cases/100k/day). So clearly we’re not doing enough.
J R in WV
Here in central WV, in the state capital, mask wearing in Kroger’s has dropped from the high 90% range to perhaps 20%. I’ve been wearing surgical masks for quite a while, am thinking of graduating back to my industrial respirator, with which I can’t even smell the blue engine smoke from the elderly Suburban next to me in the parking lot, let alone any other aroma in the grocery store. Bad Onion? Who knows?
Will be wearing some kind of mask for the long haul… haven’t had a cold since the plague got well underway. Chronic issues for both of us continue, no surprise there, being 70+ has its downside, upside is we are still alive to watch this clusterfuck!
Bruce in Greece, I would look for a full bore Moderna shot… then you would be totally covered vaccine wise.
Best of luck to everyone.
Sister Golden Bear
@UncleEbeneezer: Mono County is home to Mammoth, the major summer/winter tourist town in the county, and by far the largest employment center and tax source. It’s a favorite with folks from the LA area, so the county supervisors undoubtedly didn’t want risking the tourist trade.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Another Scott: The other big thing about market timing is simply this: if it was easy, people would do it. Others would notice it being done, and copy it. Eventually, so many people would be trying to squeeze out some easy money via timing that the profit in the idea would vanish (at least, to the small time investor).
It’s not *proven*, but it’s generally *accepted*, that no one can pick securities to beat the market consistently – so much so, that some people had spoken of Madoff “I didn’t know how he was cheating, but I knew he was; no one always beats the market.”
Ella in New Mexico
@Miss Bianca: Get ’em both. We’re really encouraging it in Primary Care, and people doing it seem to do just fine. Worse side effects–outside of your normal COVID shot reaction– will be two sore arms (assuming you get one in each).
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca: I know a bunch of people who got them at once with no more than the usual trouble. I guess if you feel sick you won’t know which one to blame.
J R in WV
@JoyceH:
Charlie Foxtrot for this new Cluster Fuck, amiright?
Marfks
I teach at a college and all the students are socialized to wear masks, not even to think about it. Someday it may feel as obvious and trivial as covering other vulnerable places
Miss Bianca
@Ella in New Mexico: Thanks for the advice – I opted to space them out after all, just because I always feel miserable and feverish after my flu shot, and based on my reaction to the Moderna shot, I will after this one too and I am an UTTER WEENIE about feeling sick. So…same time, same bus, same day, next week, for my flu shot.
randy khan
I just want to point out that it’s not just 50% of the population vaccinated. In fact, 59% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated, and 70% have had at least one shot. Of those who are eligible – that is, 5 year plus – 63% are fully vaccinated and 74% have had one shot. Since 5 to 12 year olds have been eligible for vaccination for less than a month, it’s likely those numbers will keep climbing. And adults currently have a 71% vaccination rate, with 82% with at least one shot.
What’s worrisome, of course, is that the state vaccination levels vary enormously, from 73% fully vaccinated in Vermont to 42% in Cole’s home state. That means that a fair number of places are potential reservoirs of illness that could create new outbreaks. This is why we need the federal mandate to be reinstated.
eddie blake
in nyc, the only people i’m seeing on the subway who are consistently sans masks are my fellow red-sea-pedestrians. and it’s ALWAYS the conspicuous ones, the yarmulke wearers and the crow-black chasids.
they act like the fucking rules don’t apply to them. ALL the time.
always making the rest of us look bad.
FFS.
Seanly
My wife is still considered y her doctor as immunocompromised but she isn’t. She was able to get the vaccine and got a full dose of Moderna. I have my own health issues, but got the regular 1/2 does Moderna booster.
Unfortunately for us, we finally got the moxie to redo our 2 small bedrooms that we use for working from home. Just waiting on the flooring to be installed, but that means my wife is back in the office and I am in a small corner of the LR. Just for convenience I’ve been going back in the office a bit more lately.
If Omicron spreads and is vaccine resistant then I hope we get that damn floor installed soon! Luckily my company requires a vaccination if you want to come into the office. Most of my coworkers are vaccinated (and this is in Idaho).
I did travel for Thanksgiving & can’t say that I enjoyed wearing a mask for the 7 hours waiting in airports or in transit. But I will put up with it to stay safe.
Julie
I live in a blue state with a mask mandate, but in the red part of my county the library just announced they might shut down due to people who are yelling and yes, spitting at librarians for being asked to wear a mask.
Dan B
@sab: Sorry for your loss. We had a traveling vet put down one cat. I held him in my arms. He went limp instantly so it didn’t seem as bad but holding the cat while the vet got ready was agonizing. It was emotionally potent so the memory is vivid.
Hugs to your husband.
Dan B
@Miss Bianca: I spaced out the jabs and had five not too great days. My partner got the flu and Pfizer booster at the same time and had only one funky day. My jabs were flu, Pfizer, and Shingrex. I didn’t want all three at once.
IE: Everyone is different.
Dan B
@Cermet: I read that the drug companies say they can get a vaccine for new variants in one hundred days.
J R in WV
@John Harrold:
Parents who don’t get their kids vaccinated should lose custody of those kids. No questions, ifs, and, buts, take those kids for the day, get them their shots, return them to the parents. Who should be warned that they could lose those kids forever if they continue to abuse them by neglecting their health care!
Soprano2
@Another Scott:
I told my husband to check his watch list because there might be buying opportunities there. I figure they’ll calm down by Monday and it’ll go back up in a few days. Only people who don’t know how the market works will panic.
Soprano2
@sab:
My mother told me about 5 years ago that she wasn’t going to adopt any more cats no matter what. The four that she had were an average age of about 13. I feel badly for them that they have to live their last few years without her, but I know the rescue that took them will do right by them. Once they see how much money she left them, they’ll probably get a place of honor if they’re still there! I wish I could have taken one or two of them, but we have big dogs and they’ve never been around dogs at all, so I figured that would be way too stressful for them.
UncleEbeneezer
@Sister Golden Bear: Speaking of Mono County, I started an Eastern Sierra Facebook group called “Inclusive Eastern Sierra” (for anyone interested) where we could discuss Global Warming, Wildfires, Covid, Manzanar and other topics that aren’t usually allowed in other Eastern Sierra groups because those groups are filled with tons of MAGA fishermen types who need No Politics!!1! safe spaces. Anyways, for awhile we had a member who was a Mono County Supervisor and she would get all kinds of shit and harassment from conservatives up there. She eventually quit our group because she thought we were too harsh on Trump supporters and her can’t-we-all-get-along sensibilities didn’t really fit our group.
PS I always forget that Mammoth is Mono, not Inyo County.
J R in WV
@Julie:
In my book, that’s assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, they should all be in jail. But I’m a nut job, fully vaccinated, still wearing a mask.
J R in WV
OT kinda:
Our 3 big outdoor farm dogs have quit eating their kibble, because they can eat all the venison parts they want. They bring quite a bit back home, and throw it up around their beds. If I don’t clean it up instantly,, they eat it shortly after, as soon as they have room for it. They aren’t throwing it up because it’s bad, not because they’re sick. It’s because that’s how they bring food back to their den for the pack.
We don’t need or want it… their aroma is pretty bad lately also too, as well. But we love them anyway. I napped with one of them earlier this afternoon. Dogs…
laura
@sab: Man, the hits just keep on coming- I hope that Ponyo gets well and the remainder of your companion herd all thrive for the foreseeable future.
rikyrah
I feel you, Cole.
I feel you ?
Gretchen
@geg6: restaurants here have installed powerful heaters on their patios. I’ve seen people eating outside in apparent comfort when it was 45 degrees.
rikyrah
@sab:
??? So sorry
WaterGirl
@Dan B: How many months get added to that for the approval process?
Tony Gerace
I have been fully vaccinated since February, with a booster shot in October. I continue to wear a mask whenever I’m out of the house, whether outdoors or indoors. I feel like it’s a way to signal to other humans that I am not a fucking asshole anti-vaxxer/anti-masker. A beneficial side-effect might be that I have not yet gotten my annual cold-weather bronchitis.
Tony Gerace
This afternoon i listened to the vocal stylings of Robert Kennedy Junior on “The Gary Null Show” on fucking WBAI in New York City. Junior went on and on like a guy yelling on a subway platform about how covid is a conspiracy hoax cooked up by Anthony Fauci and Bill Gates, and how the REAL DANGER is all of those vaccines sapping our vital fluids. I really wish that his father’s ghost would get up from his Laz-ee-Boy recliner where he’s been hanging out with his brother and Jesus, and come down to kick Junior’s ass.
sab
@Tony Gerace: I could preface this comment with a not-to-be-snarky, but I am so old that I remember my sister’s best friend in elememtary school got a scholarship to RFK’s boarding school. When RFK’s father was murdered the press glommed on about how he cried. My sister’s friend (a very nice, kind person who had also and already lost his own father very young) said that he cried every time he failed a test.
As they say about others and should say about RFK Jr, that boy ain’t right, and he never has been.
brantl
It is a strategic mistake to misconstrue abominable ignorance for evil. I am (by marriage) related to people who are committed to Republicanism, so much so that while they deplore much of what Trump did, they feel obliged to defend the rest, and if you brought his policies into their personal lives, they would never behave that way, to their families and friends, but they think that it’s perfectly acceptable to do that to people in the world at large. It’s emotionl, not r easoned. Emotionally, they’re 5-year-olds, trying to take back the things that they think the other pre-school- children-competitors have taken their favorite toys. I hear stupid, spiteful things from them about Biden, and how he’s a disaster, despite the fact that, objectively, he’s going gangbusters. I have tried to get through to them, including my wife, and it’s hopeless. It’s just fucking hopeless.
brantl
@sab: He still did a hell of a job, cleaning up a bunch of rivers. Look it up.
Mel
@Cermet: I’m so sorry. That is such a hard, heartbreaking situation all around.
Mel
@J R in WV: This is so true.
Purposefully denying safe, life-saving vaccinations to a child is no different, in my opinion, than denying them them the food their bodies need to survive and grow.
Mel
@debbie: Kroger has been an anti-mask nightmare in my neck of the woods, as well.
The teenage employees carrying out the curbside pickups have their noses or mouths hanging out, or masks around their necks. So damn frustrating.