I'd Probably Buy This....

Only in Florida

If you've spent any time reading any of the dozens of News-of-the-Weird-type web sites I'm sure you've noticed the over-representation of articles about Florida residents. And here is another:

NFL star Malik McDowell has been arrested in Florida after allegedly attacking a police officer and exposing himself in public.

But wait; there's more!

Yet this isn't [McDowell]'s first brush with the law. In 2017, McDowell was hit with a DUI charge in Michigan and booked for disorderly conduct for a fracas at an Atlanta nightclub.

In November 2019, McDowell was sentenced to 11 months in jail for a string of crimes such as assault, resisting arrest, and operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

So here we have someone given every chance in the world to succeed (including a free ride at Michigan State on the taxpayers' dime), and yet. Here we are. I've been offending people (and not giving a damn) by saying this for the last 40 years: You can take the boy out of the hood, but you can't take the hood out of the boy.

What Have I Been Sayin'?

This was posted on the NYT website a few days ago. Throughout two years of this stupid "masks work"/"masks don't work" screaming fit, some of us have been saying the same thing: It depends on what you mean by "masks" and what you mean by "work". No mask of any kind will absolutely, 100%, in all circumstances, prevent Covid transmission. Masks slow down transmission; crappy cloth masks barely slow it down at all while N95s increase time to infection from minutes to basically a full 24-hour day.

So while a cloth mask will probably keep you from getting Covid at the grocery store (as long as you wash the things frequently), a surgical mask would be better. (And for the love of God, throw the thing away after you use it a couple times instead of carrying it around for weeks in your pocket. Looking in your general direction, Dad!) Assuming you even worry about such things. We don't.

For kids sitting in a classroom in close proximity with 30-40 other kids for long periods of time, anything less than an N95 is Covid theater. So are the plexiglass partitions and the one-person plastic tents and all the rest of it. It does serve one important function; kids learn early to unquestioningly obey authority even when the authority figure is talking complete nonsense.

Happy 2022: The Year of Omicron

So everyone was hoping 2021 would be the end of all this Covid nonsense, but"Dr." Fauci and his merry bunch of misfits who reside in the news media, the tech companies and various 3-letter agencies of the Federal government have other ideas. From the FDA banning the use of antivirals for people infected with Covid to Twitter banning the inventor of the mRNA "vaccines", the display of sheer stupidity and naked greed by all parties was disgusting.

As if all that were not enough, the massive money printing by the Fed to the tune of $120 billion a month finally began to show up in other places than stock and real estate prices; namely in the price of food. We were already balanced on a knife's edge financially and would be in complete free fall if not for a bit of reserves we still had from when we were working. But those are gone and somehow we're supposed to pay a 7.5% increase in our rent, 50% increase in the price of gas, and a 25% increase in our grocery budget with a disability check that had a 5.5% COLA. And we are more fortunate than about half the country.

But no need to worry; Uncle Joe wishes 40% of the nation a Christmas full of pain and death.

So what do we have to look forward to in 2022? Nothing good, I'm afraid.

First, no matter what the Fed does, inflation is baked into the cake. There is so much money sloshing around in the banks and stock markets that it will continue to affect prices for some time to come. Second, the Fed can't really do anything right: stop printing money and raise interest rates to some reasonable level (say around 10%) and stock markets will crash faster and farther than anyone can imagine, and most debt, including a lot of government debt, goes into immediate default. The alternative is to continue to print $120 billion a month and hold interest rates nominally near zero (meaning negative real rates) and inflation continues to climb into the stratosphere.

In other words, we can be dirt poor and not able to afford anything, or we can have mountains of dollar bills that are not worth a loaf of bread. Either way, there will be a lot of hungry and angry people with nothing to do but roam the streets seeing how much damage they can do. Imagine the 2020 BLM protests times 100.

It looks like Omicron (which I swear was the name of one of the Transformers) will be the excuse for a new round of lockdowns and restrictions on churches (but not titty bars). The economy, already weakened by inflation and supply chain breakdowns, will simply fall over. The only ray of hope is the CDC's recent guidance that quarantine is only 5 days. No real science behind this; merely The Science and a sop to businesses trying to staff operations.

Another bright spot is the passing of peak Wokesterism. The witch trials are finally over and the hysteria seems to be dying down. Not that our college campuses are in any way safe for white straight males, but things are improving a bit out in the real world.

My advice for weathering all this is the same as it has been for the last couple decades: 1) get out of debt and stay out of debt. Do whatever you have to; sell everything that isn't nailed down, drive the oldest, cheapest thing you can find, downscale what you live in. Whatever it takes. 2) Keep the pantry stocked. I'm not saying buy 100-pound sacks of beans or anything; just the normal things you eat. Make sure you have a way to heat up food if the power is out. 3) Think about investing in a generator, especially if you depend on a well for water. Nothing sucks worse than being stuck in a house with no electricity for a week and no way to flush the toilet. 4) Keep some drinking water on hand. Again, nothing fancy; just a few days worth that you routinely use and replace.

Most importantly, keep your head on straight. Don't waste mental energy getting into pissing matches with "friends" on social media about vaccination status or Donald Trump. You have far more pressing concerns that are facing your immediate circle that you can actually do something about. I hate to say it, but the die are already cast as far as what happens to America. It's time to think small; your immediate family, neighbors, your church, etc. National events will play out regardless of what you do (and yes that includes voting). Go local.

And kids, always remember: don't do school; stay in drugs.

Happy 2022 everyone!

Merry Christmas!!

It's that time of year again!

And in celebration of 2022 being the Year of Omicron:

Exactly!

 

A Good Day

 

I know I do a lot of pissing and moaning about just about everything here on this blog, but some days are just plain good days. Saturday, we visited the Sweet Blossom Alpaca Farm during their annual Open Barn event. It can never be a bad day when you get a kiss from a llama.

Time Flies

So I look at the date of my last post and realize that it has been two months since I last posted. There are reasons, of course; the biggest one being that we've been working our butts off trying to get the place in Michigan ready for winter, then three days on the road driving to Florida only to find that the jungle had taken over down here while we were gone. One of our vines had even tried to eat the house. We've got things about 75% of the way cleared, but there is still a lot of work to do. We have a couple water control projects that we had hoped to get done while we were down here, but I'm not so sure we'll get to them.

Everyone has experienced what I call the Covid-excuse; due to Covid, wait times are longer, some items may not be available, blah, blah, blah. Recently, Covid-excuse has been replaced with other excuses like supply chain problems, labor shortages, etc.

(And just for the record, there is no labor shortage; we are in the first stages of a general strike.)

But on the way down to Florida, we hit the mother-lode at the Kennesaw, Georgia Chili's restaurant. The fun started before we even got in the door. Like many business establishments, the handicap parking spaces were closer to the dumpsters than the front door. We rounded the corner of the building only to be blasted with music so loud, it was pushing us across the parking lot. We looked like four mimes walking in the wind as we struggled our way to the front door.

We at last managed to fight our way inside only to find that the music was even louder. We tried to communicate with the hostess, but it was no use. We finally resorted to ASL to tell her there were four people in our party and that we would prefer a table. The hostess signed back that there would be a 35-40 minute wait. We settled in while Heart screeched at ear-splitting volume about how she was crazy on me. It was so loud, every beat on the kick drum banged our heads against the wall.

We were seated in about 30 minutes, grabbed menus, decided what everyone was having, then we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Twenty minutes later, the only server in sight came sprinting over to our table to take our drink order. We gave her our drink and food order. Our server told my dad that they were out of coffee. We stared at her in disbelief. How does a restaurant run out of coffee? Our server informed us that it was "supply chain problems", a "national coffee shortage". I just laughed, we figured out something else for my dad to drink, then off she sprinted. More waiting.

While all this was going on, in comes The Table of Nine. These were obviously Very Important Persons as their table had two servers plus someone running plates. Meanwhile, our server was literally running flat out trying to serve the rest of the restaurant.

After more waiting, our server comes out with Debbie's and my steaks, but not my parents order. All they had ordered was potato soup, so I was thinking that this had to be good. Sure enough. "Sorry but my manager just informed me that we're out of potato soup." Let me guess: a national potato shortage? And why did it take half an hour to figure out that you were out of soup? And why wasn't it the manager who came out to tell us? So were scrambling trying to figure out something light for my parents when my mom blurts out, "Can you manage a couple grilled cheese sandwiches?" Sure! Would you like some fries with that? Yes, please. And off she goes sprinting for the kitchen. 

Oh, and did I mention that we had no napkins? Debbie finally went out to the van and dug a bunch of Burger King napkins out of the glove box. I suppose there is a national napkin shortage....

So here we set with our food and my parents have nothing. Finally we dig in. We had ordered our steaks medium. What was on our plate was not medium. It was not medium well. It wasn't even well done. We had been served two charcoal briquettes. At this point, we were so tired and hungry we didn't care. We crunched on our steaks. At least our sides were good. 

My parents' grilled cheese sandwiches came out. They looked perfect. We ate the rest of our food and waited some more for the bill. Our server brought it out and was gone in a flash. It was close to $50. We started looking at it more carefully. Debbie and I had ordered one of the $25 for two deals. That included an appetizer, two small steaks with sides, and a dessert. My parents' two grilled cheese sandwiches with a small handful of fries cost nearly the same. Seriously? At this point, we didn't have the energy to argue; we just wanted to get the hell out of there.

Just to be clear; I'm not blaming our server for any of this. This was a management failure pure and simple. At least we were entertained during our interminable waiting watching the Very Important Persons at The Table of Nine being endlessly fawned over by their two servers, table runner and even someone that looked suspiciously like a manager that came over and chatted everyone up while conspicuously NOT looking in our direction. I'm not sure who these people were, but I hope they give Chili's a lot of business, because I am done.

Inflection Points

I know people are constantly saying this, but it feels like we are living through a series of inflection points; socially, politically, economically. In its war on Ivermectin, the FDA is destroying what little credibility our political institutions have left. Between Wokeness and the undisguised lying by politicians, media and the rest, normal people are getting sick up and fed with the whole project. But first, our economy:

Imagine being at a party celebrating the vast wealth generated in the last ten months in stocks, cryptocurrencies, real estate and just about every other asset class. The lights flicker briefly but the host assures the crowd the generator powering the party is working perfectly.

Being a skeptic, you slip out on the excuse of bringing in more champagne and pay a visit to the generator room. To your horror, you find the entire arrangement held together with duct tape and rotted 2X4s, the electrical panel is an acrid-smelling mess of haphazard frayed wire and the generator is over-heated and vibrating off its foundation bolts. Whatever governor the engine once had is gone, it clearly won't last the night.

Large systems have huge amounts of inertia and can seem to be running normally for long periods of time before the wheels come off. Things have to be rather far along the process of disintegration for it to be so obvious to us smucks.

The FDA, the CDC, "Dr." Fauchi, the WHO all insist at the top of their lungs that the Covid "vaccines" are perfectly safe. Any attempt to say otherwise will get you quickly silenced by Big Tech followed by loss of employment. But we know these things are dangerous:

The spike proteins travel all through your body, through all your blood vessels, stick to their linings, and cause inflammation there. How would you like it if that happens to your brain, your heart, your lungs, your central nervous system? With no virus around? Remember, spike proteins are cytotoxic, they kill cells and/or turn them into spike protein factories, possibly for a long time. You don’t want these things in your body.

Yet, we inject millions of people every day with them, many two or even three times, and say this will make them safe. What do you think?

I think I'll pass on the "vaccine" and take my chances with Ivermectin, only now the AMA is threatening the medical license of any physician who has the temerity to prescribe Ivermectin to anyone with Covid. As luck would have it, there is a work-around; bed bugs. Just tell your doctor that your house has been infested with the little pests and that you need some Ivermectin. Just don't tell the FDA (or Google) that I told you.

Do you ever get the feeling the over half the country has completely lost any functional grip on reality? You are not alone:

Everybody I consort with has had enough of the whole nauseating game — the lying politicians, the lying media, the lying medical bureaucrats, the lying generals, the lying teachers, the lying celebrities, the lying tech moguls, the entire armature of counter-reality you want to impose on a once-fair land. We will never do your bidding. We will never peel your grapes. There are more of us than you. Go ahead, push just a little bit harder. 

Because most liberals are also pussies (literal or figurative) who have never thrown a punch or been hit by one, they have no idea what happens when you push too hard. We've been patient; we've waited for you to pull your own head out of your ass. We're done. From here on in, it gets very fucking real.

Odds and Ends

Some bits I picked up from the internets:

Hello Wordpress

 I never thought I would find myself here, but here I am. There are rumors floating about the internet that Google is considering dropping Blogger. I can find denials from high-placed officials, but we all know what those are worth. As a precaution, I copied all content from Blogger to here. Not sure what happens next; I guess I will keep both of them updated until something resolves.

Message from Sally

This is either Sally sending me a joke from the other side, or the simulation is developing a sense of humor. Family will understand....

Sally Otto, RIP

 A very hard day today; a funeral for someone who has been very special to me since I've been old enough to remember.

See you on the other side, Sally.

(Thanks Blogger for being too stupid to show the correct video. Here is a link to the correct video. The video below should be correct. I really need to find a better blogging platform....) [Update: You can also click on the title to open just this post and all will be right with the universe. And it also proves that I know what I'm doing unlike the morons over at Google.]

The Word(s) of the Day

Today's Word(s) of the day is ADE (antibody-dependent enhancement). This now appears to be just the latest in a long line of serious side effects of the covid-19 "vaccines". Here's one take on where we are, how we got here, and where we may be going:

When ADE becomes too widespread to ignore and people begin to die in significant numbers, expect governments to proclaim the arrival of the predicted new hyper-lethal variant and impose a new round of shutdowns, mask mandates, and the like. The media will insist that the people who are dying are all unvaccinated as long as they can get away with it; pay attention to the vaccination status and health outcomes of people you know for a reality check. Unless some way of stopping ADE-enhanced infections can be found in a hurry, medical systems will buckle under the caseload and triage will become the order of the day. How soon this will happen, if it does, is impossible to say in advance. It’s also impossible to know in advance how soon it will become clear that the vaccines are responsible—or just how violent a backlash against the political and economic establishment this could provoke.

Good times, for sure. Stock up on beans and ramen.

The New Hokey-Pokey

 

The Jab

I refused the Covid "vaccine" largely for personal reasons: I've already lost several organs and the use of my legs due to some sort of autoimmune disorder. The last thing I needed was to have myself injected with something linked to autoimmune disorders. I was simply not willing to take the risk especially given that it was completely unnecessary; I've already had and recovered from Covid-19. 

And as it turns out, the CDC now admits that after jabbing over half the country (and making billions for the virus-makers) we have evidence that the "vaccines" do nothing. They do not prevent infections or transmissions, and even the claim that they make infections less severe is looking shaky. Just to repeat, this isn't from some conspiracy theory, Q-Annon BS website. This is from the CDC. Ya know, "The Science".

All downside and no upside. No way in hell will I ever get jabbed.

Happy Anniversary

 

 

 You are my breath.

You are my life

You are the reason I exist.

I will love you through all eternity.

Heh...

 

Ivermectin and Other Radomness

For a little over a year, Amazon, Google, Facebook and Twitter have waged a desperate campaign to silence any discussion of using Ivermectin for Covid-19 infections. Some of us in the cynical camp have always assumed this was to a) allow the mass distribution of untested vaccines under the Emergency Use Authorization leading to b) massive profits for politically connected Big Pharma. Now the conspiracy is unraveling as I type this. More and more studies show the effectiveness of Ivermectin (especially when combined with zinc and Vitamin D) is equal to or greater than the (heavily inflated) numbers for the vaccines.

Meanwhile, Democrats insist that Donald Trump is a murderer for not telling people to wear masks. Leaving aside that masks have very limited use to prevent the spread of Covid-19, if Trump appearing on national television maskless makes him guilty at least in part for over a half-million deaths, how much more do Zuckerberg, Bezos, Dorsey and Pichai have to answer for? How may of the millions dead could have been saved by the early use of Ivermectin? How much sooner would we have known that Ivermectin works if these four... gentlemen had not decided to conspire to silence any discussion even among virologists of Ivermectin?

In completely unrelated news, we just suffered through one of the coldest first days of summer I can remember. It "only" got down in the mid-30's here, but further south, there were several inches of frost on some people's gardens. Then we had storms blow through that hit us with lightning, hail and waterspouts in Traverse Bay. For a minute, I thought we were back in Florida. We got outside today and got a bit done before the rain moves back in tomorrow for a week straight. We're going to need a row boat to get around the yard.

Not much else going on with us. We've sort of settled into our little hideout in the middle of nowhere. Governor Mussolini has finally lifted all restrictions, but we still don't leave the property any more than we have to. Summer Fudgey Season is nuts enough at the best of times; after being locked up for year, things are likely to be... well... lively. I'll take a hard pass on that.

Well, it's getting close to midnight and I have a delivery truck showing up at 0730, so I'll be signing off.

Fentanyl

 During the (completely unnecessary) lock-downs, fentanyl over-doses have more than quadrupled to 88,000 deaths over the last year, up from 19,000 the previous year. Seizures are up 800% at the Texas border. We know who and where in China this stuff is coming from. We've told the Chinese government who and where this stuff is coming from. They do nothing, and we do nothing about them doing nothing.

Meanwhile, 88,000 people are dead in the last 12 months alone. Add to that, all the spouses, parents, children, friends whose lives have been destroyed forever. This should be the primary focus of our conversations with China. It isn't. Not even close.

Scott Adams talked about his very personal encounter with fentanyl on his podcast from June 11, 2021. The relevant part starts at 20:15. Fair warning, it gets a little intense.

We are at war and we don't even realize it. Fuck Trump. Fuck Biden. Fuck China.