leh-nerd skin-erd

Listen, I’m as quick to jump to conclusions as anyone and struggle with the evolving politik-scientifico of the COVID clusterfuk. I made two stops today, one to Lowe’s and was really amazed how many folks still had masks on. The store was quite busy and I’d bet the ratio was 20-1 for the masked. It was an odd feeling. You’re correct about the slow creep of authoritarian ideas, but on the other hand we deal with branding on many other issues. Wanna drive? Submit to the state and be identified as an example. I can’t take this journey with you, but acknowledge I could be wrong on this issue. I tend to think it’s more nanny state bs than anything else.

Personally, I find it interesting—all these Nazi and Holocaust references that have gone mainstream. That the rhetoric has increased substantially since citizens of that era are largely gone—and thus unable to stand up as a group and say “Are you people f&$#img crazy??” should be lost on no one.

**UPDATE*** old man fan has developed a raging messiah complex:

Oldy has been getting a bit cantankerous of late.

Crybaby.

What were they offering for the hot dog gig?

It’s often easier to allow someone else to do the thinking and go along then do the heavy lifting personally. Your point on the Wuhan virus is lost on folks like that, but God bless you for trying.

Fair enough--it's my opinion that it's a fact that comedians like Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock often use derogatory, edgy, sexist and insensitive language and have become wildly popular in large part because of it. I may be different than you, but when I heard Eddie Murphy running on about women "throwing the p@ssy" at him, I saw no great societal message in it, I just saw a brilliant guy who developed, worked and likely focus-grouped a series of lines and words designed to maximize laughter in an attempt to maximize revenue. Interestingly, or not, I didn't like that particular bit when I saw him live, I thought it was vulgar and tasteless (yeah, I said it) true though it may have been for EM, and felt the same when Trump's secret audio recording about the same subject was released later on. I deleted my post shortly after sharing, as I saw that you had shared additional information regarding people like Pryor, Carlin and Hicks. It's true what you said above, you mentioned comedians and cheap shots...and also made the point about the bigots who might find that sort of humor funny. My point simply was that people can laugh at a variety of topics that you might find funny without being bigots...and many do. In fact, I'd go so far as to say most can on some level. That explains the popularity of movies like The Hangover and Detroit-born actor Ken Jeong portraying exceptionally effeminate International Criminal Leslie Chow and his wildly funny butchering of "Quid Pro Quo, Douchebag". Anyways, follow your heart on whether or not to reply to me in the future. I enjoy interacting with you in spite of--my opinion here--the fact that you have some fairly large blind spots when it comes to discussing certain issues that teeters on hypocrisy.

There’s this gem, too, from July of 2020. His response to being outed and ignoring social distancing mandates was to lament the mischievousness of the photographer. The world was in free fall, the virus surging, people dying and Fauci chose to model behavior diametrically opposed to what he was preaching. Then, when called on it, he blamed the photographer as the privilege tend to do.

I’m not so sure— The sun shines? People forget.

I’m not 100% convinced that omf isn’t actually Tony Fauci. His level of commitment to the guy is impressive.

He’s a numbnut, that comes with being a career bureaucrat.

I don’t agree with you on just about everything, but we’re on the same page here. That said, it’s really ironic that you, me, all of us...have a “mask mandate” when we’re fully vaccinated now. Absurd.

Here you go—we can agree on this. People should be allowed to mask up and be left alone. I mean, it already happens with regularity as burka-clad ladies move about freely and unencumbered, but if someone is concerned and feels they need to mask 247365 that’s understandable. Those folks, too, must be awfully confused by the bastardization of some pretty basic common sense standards of science when mated with socioeconomic political dogma. Likewise, those who choose to de-mask should be respected as well. There’s too much divisiveness in the world already. Folks who want to mask up can surely avoid the demasked and everybody wins.

So happy, BUT. The Ya Great Society cheer was uninspiring: Ya Great Society! Ya Great Society! We’re filled with righteous piety! Go Greaaaaaaaaat Society!

Tibsy was captain the Great Society Cheer Squad (pictured here), 1986-2014

Maybe, GPinC, but my experience was quite a bit different than yours. Most, if not all, business owners I know or interact with complied with the lockdown. They shuttered their doors, hung plague warning signs on windows, sent people off to work remotely, or laid them off, and went about their business masking up like Fauci said they should (or, they shouldn't depending on when he was speaking and whom he was speaking to). They hunkered down for the two week curve flattening, which of course, we know extended well beyond that. The reality is that when push came to shove, government and to a certain extent, science were completely comfortable with virus transmission and the death so long as it occurred during social justice gatherings. That is obvious. Sure, we got the obligatory milquetoast "Jeesh we really don't recommend it" from Das Fauch, but nothing on the magnitude of a clear message from him about the death and pain that would surely follow. I'd be interested to speak to your Ohio director of public health and quiz her on the 10-12k and how mass gatherings from multiple households contributed to the spread. Likely, I'd get the same type of response I get here, the one where that while the science suggested that masking up, distancing socially, avoiding crowds, avoiding gatherings from different households and shutting everything but essential business down---it's impossible to even begin to consider the extent of spread when tens of thousands of individuals, from tens of thousands of households, arriving by all means of transport from across the cities and towns in America, walking shoulder to shoulder, protesting, co-mingling and violating every sane and sensible rule designed to reduce the likelihood of spread. Same bullshyt, different day. In addition, when you consider many of those who protested came from disenfranchised communities that Das Fauch himself says were at highest risk, it certainly seems reasonable to assume that the mass gatherings added hundreds of thousands of deaths to the count. I'll grant you that throughout history, science has saved us too many times to count, but woke science is responsible for massive amount of death and despair over the last year and a half. That's not on business owners, that's on Fauci, governmental authorities who did not stand up and tell people the truth about their actions and beseech them to be patient and hold on just until we got through it. As I said, we tend to call bullshyt when bullshyt is obvious. For the record, again...I sent my employees home, adapted, modified, masked, changed our processes and waited until the 'all clear' came from Albany. I trusted Fauci, believed then that the virus was very dangerous for some, not so dangerous for most and held the line. The only change to now--I recognize he's not the hero of this story. Peace out.

Agreed. Nothing gets accomplished, no big fish fry, it’s a gigantic circle jerk. Same with the panties twisted in Georgia etc etc.

Finally, someone with common sense to shut down partisan circus sideshows.

I went at this a different way. I removed 107 rushes from his career stats, mostly because I don’t like odd numbers. His ypc jumped to 7.31, which I’ll round up to 8 (odd numbers again). These are real numbers.

It’s the only game in town. Zero competition, zero need to run a balance sheet, effectively people are captive to the system. Yet still, with a costumer base at 100% penetration of eligible candidates for 5.5 decades, the system is broken badly. https://www.actuary.org/node/13535 This report concludes the Hospital Trust fund will be depleted by 2026, absent bold action, yet as bad as that is, the author goes on to suggest this projection might be overly optimistic. To put it in perspective, Medicare born in 1965, is unlikely to live long enough to participate in itself absent massive life sustaining intervention.

Maybe, but business owners often are quick to recognize hypocrisy and bullshyt in action, and are likely less compliant than the average guy on the street. The pandemic lockdown would have ended in 15 minutes if govt employees were impacted in the way people who “refused” to watch their livelihoods evaporate overnight were impacted. Pushing forward—I’d be hard pressed to believe lockdowns are in my best interests moving forward, and there is ample reason to feel as such. First time, I shut down, moved folks to remote, paid the costs associated with distancing and the plexiglassamania and generally served as a compliant citizen.

Absolutely true. The govt created a have/have not class, and sheltering in place at full salary actually created a bit of a windfall for the haves. No gas, no tolls, no need to stop at Dunkin on the way in, eat at home, etc..... But, those tax bills came as scheduled with the obligatory warning that any late payment would be met with a tax penalty, even though the tax offices in many locales were closed.

I saw that Fauci gave the commencement address at Emory University this past weekend. He took the opportunity to discuss the role racism and society played with respect to COVID in historically disenfranchised communities. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/16/fauci-racism-covid-us-black-hispanic-native-americans-emory-university-graduation I've tried over the past year and a half to figure out what the deal is with this guy. Is he science dude, or science douche? There is little debate that he had a crisis of almost incomprehensible proportions to handle, and he certainly should be given some leeway to misspeak, provide conflicting guidance and be given an allowance for the knowledge on COVID to develop and change. Still, here he is discussing the impact of this virus on communities, no doubt inspiring some in the crowd to get out in the world and do more, to leave the world better than it is today. However, I'm struck by these comments when juxtaposed to his very tepid and impotent guidance during last summer's extended massive demonstrations. Here he is when asked about the mass gatherings last year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyNzVbnr2dI Where was the passion, the leadership, the recognition that the virus was decimating communities and inflicting massive pain and loss on the very people he's speaking of now? Surely he knew that the people gathering en masse would lead to spread directly to the most vulnerable in society, and that death and pain would follow like night to day. With each passing day, he appears much more Science Douche than Dude. I'm up to three or four different scenarios: 1. He's an incompetent buffoon who should have retired eons ago; 2. He truly believed what he said, but was fearful of being targeted by social justice warriors if he provided the type of guidance that would have significantly reduced the spread. In other words, his priority was virtue signaling, not preventing loss of life; 3. He knew early on that masks and distancing guidelines were ineffective, but chose to push forward for some political/behavior modification reasons yet to be revealed; 4. He's a hard core eugenicist, recognizing that allowing folks to gather while paying lip service to non-recommended behavior would lead to the inevitable, and the inevitable was the desirable goal; 5. He's the victim of a series of unfortunate events that were completely beyond his control. Unfortunately, #5 seems the most unlikely of all. Something is not right here.

These inconvenient truths are largely ignored here by those full of phony moral indignation about Trump contesting the election. It’s nothing new...they looked the other way when Pelosi and Schumer tried to flip the election, when Biden bragged about US manipulation of the Ukrainian government, and Biden’s acknowledgement of groping women.