Tag: vaccines

Fridaz Wandering Political Thoughts

Oh no!

Moms for Liberty lost elections on Tuesday. That’s good news for the United States. Looky how Wikipedia describes them:

Moms for Liberty is an American political organization that advocates against school curricula that mention LGBTQ rights, race and ethnicity, critical race theory, and discrimination.[6] Multiple chapters have also campaigned to ban books that address gender and sexuality from school libraries.[2][7][8] Founded in January 2021, the group began by campaigning against COVID-19 responses in schools such as mask and vaccine mandates.[2] Moms for Liberty is influential within the Republican Party.[9]

Out of 31 elections, Moms for Liberty won zero.

Moms for Liberty Shut Out Nationwide with Every Candidate Losing in 2025 Elections

Such a shame.

Meanwhile, in news that doesn’t surprise anyone with a few brain cells, Meta has been making money off dodgy ads and scams.

Meta is making billions from scammy ads, leaks to Reuters show

Given the great rate of Facebook enshittification over the past several years, it’d be a surprise to learn that they weren’t making money off of scammy ads. I don’t go on FB much these days, as I felt like I was drowning in the enshittification on that site.

Locally, Jackson County, Oregon, declared a state of emergency over the loss of SNAP benefits.

Jackson County commissioners declare state of emergency amid ongoing food scarcity

Sadly, this is a bit of FAFO. While my little city of Ashland went for Veep Kamela Harris for POTUS in 2024, Trump carried Jackson County by over five percent. What, they’re not blue voters? Why no, Sleepy Donny, they’re not:

Some 47,000 Jackson County residents who receive food benefits — nearly 14,000 of which are children or individuals living with disabilities — have been facing uncertainty since the announcement of suspension of SNAP benefits, previously known as food stamps, Oct. 1.

These are your people, Sleepyhead Trump, your base. It was clearly evident during 2024, as Trump flags flew in lawns and on trucks. But as we the blue knew, you didn’t really give a crap about them. You just wanted their votes. Now that you won, you turned your back on them.

As we knew you would.

Finally, measles outbreaks are surging anew.

Map shows more than 1,600 measles cases across U.S. as outbreaks grow

The number of cases in Texas alone grew to over 760 before the state declared it officially over in August, while total cases nationwide have topped 1,500, with infections confirmed in at least 39 states.

Measles is one of the most contagious infectious diseases, and in some cases, can cause severe infections in the lungs and brain that can lead to cognitive issues, deafness or death. But doctors and health officials say the vaccine, which is normally given as part of the combination measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, is highly safe and effective.

While most people’s symptoms improve, about 1 in 5 unvaccinated people who get measles will be hospitalized. About 1 out of every 1,000 children with measles will develop brain swelling that can lead to brain damage, and up to 3 of every 1,000 children who become infected will die, the CDC says. 

So much winning, right?

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Health Cares

Two From Clay Jones

A little reminder of the bullshit which surrounds reports about Trump’s health.

Snippet:

Unless you care about the president’s (sic) health (and I do not), it doesn’t matter to you or me what he weighs or how tall he is. What is important is that they’re dishonest. What’s important is the depth into which this regime sinks the cult into the government.

Trump, who is 78, needs to appear as a Superman to his cult. I’m shocked the memo mentions he takes aspirin for cardiac prevention. As we’ve learned, they lie about everything.

Right now, the regime is lying to the Supreme Court by claiming they can’t have a man they illegally snatched off the street and sent to a prison in El Salvador brought back to this country.

When Trump was running for president in 2016, Dr. Harold Bornstein stated that Trump would be the “healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” A couple of years later, we learned that Trump had dictated that letter, which didn’t surprise anyone. A doctor should lose his medical license over that. And it wouldn’t surprise us to learn he dictated “224” and “75 inches” to Captain Barbarella and wouldn’t allow him to mention that Trump’s cholesterol is just Big Mac Secret Sauce. His first White House physician was a lying alcoholic lunatic, Dr. Ronny Jackson, who doesn’t practice medicine anymore and is now in a place where he can’t hurt anybody, Congress.

Ronny Jackson claimed that Trump could live to be 200, and judging from the way our luck works, that might be true.

The memo does show that despite spreading debunked lies about vaccines, like his Health Secretary does, Trump is up to date on vaccines.

The part we should care about, and is more absurd than claiming he weighs 224 pounds, is the claim he scored 30 out of 30 on a cognitive test. I checked to be sure the memo didn’t state that he also has hands that are not tiny.

Anyone who believes Trump, the shark boat battery guy, scored 30 out of 30 on a cognitive test needs to take a cognitive test. I don’t believe this doctor would let us know if Trump scored less than 30.

Trump’s last presidential physical had him at 244 pounds. His 2023 arrest in Georgia listed him at 215 (they don’t weigh the prisoners but take their word for how much they weigh), and this exam says he’s 224.

If Trump does weigh 224 pounds, then that’s 224 pounds of walking/talking bullshit.

The one number that’s accurate about Trump is 34, as in 34 felony convictions.

And that’s the bottom line.

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Sunday’s Theme Music

“Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.” That echoing baritone used to herald local events during television and radio commercials. Monster truck shows. Wrestling at the armory. That sort of thing.

Today is Sunday, August 8, 2021. Smoke continues plaguing us. It’s better than fire. So many fires continue burning out here in the western U.S. that only the most positive of people can stay upbeat. White clouds are skulking through the sky. Temperatures will be on the cool side, with a high around 82 F, they say. But Alexa told me yesterday that it would only get to 86. Then 90. Then 91. That’s where it peaked. Hope it stays cool

Sunrise’s gray, gold, and pink marbleized lights and shadows came into the valley at 6:09 AM. We’ll have another red ball sunset at 8:27 PM.

COVID-19, the Delta variant, vaccines, and masks continue to dominate my news cycle. Despite the Olympics and the new U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan. All ‘water is wet’ news anymore. The U.S. has been bombing someone throughout my lifetime. Probably will be after I’m gone.

Yesterday had me getting rid of some old exercise equipment. I disassembled things to make it easier to load, transport, and unload at the dump. (Yes, nobody wanted any of it, further depressing me.) The bike required an allen wrench. I have several sets. When I realized I needed one and headed to the workbench, Billy Joel began singing “Allentown” (1982).

Well, we’re living here in Allentown
And they’re closing all the factories down
Out in Bethlehem, they’re killing time
Filling out forms, standing in line

h/t to Genius.com

Well, the song won’t leave my head. It played even when I was lying in bed. Even while feeding the cat getting a drink by the kitchen sink. So, I must spread it out to others to remove it from my mind. Sorry, friends. That’s how these things work. It’s been so since the first recorded song.

Stay positive, test negative, wear a mask as needed — and they do seem needed again in the U.S. as the nation records record numbers of new cases — and get the vax, if you can. The vax may not fully and completely protect you from the virus but it will mitigate its symptoms and the probable results. In other words, you’re more likely to survive with the vaccine than without it.

Cheers

0

Three Mini-Dreams

The dreams had variety tonight. The essence of each:

  1. In a paddleboat on smooth water, circling a larger boat.
  2. Turned on by a gorgeous young naked woman.
  3. Tracking and registering the results of clinical vaccine trials.

The paddleboat one was shortest. It was also funny to me; I’d dreamed the other night that I was battling muddy water, a not-infrequent dream experience for me, but didn’t have any sort of water conveyance. Alone, I was in one of those little boats that you propel by cycling, as if you’re on a bicycle. Instead of turning wheels on ground, paddles through water move you on. It’s white and blue, in such good shape that it could be new. The water surface is a gorgeous dark indigo glass on a blue-blessed day. Sunshine and silence abound. A green tree line provides a distant horizon.

Paddling along without issue, I knew in the dream where I was going although on awakening, I don’t have any idea what the mission was. In the dream, I came alongside a structure. It’d arrive out of nowhere. I started paddling along the structure. White and red, it could have been a large, sprawling boat. Down by the water line, its structure offered a zigzagging series of platforms. As I took them in, I grasped that I needed to dock at one of them. Then I could just climb to where I wanted.

The young woman dream aroused me. First, I walked into a room where I found a young woman changing clothes. A big room, it was essentially empty and bland. Young, dusky, and voluptuous, the young woman’s thick hair hung straight down her back. She was totally naked. I was chagrinned to have come in on her. She was matter-of-fact. My wife was present and seemed indifferent to my arrival.

Later, my wife and I are in bed in our jammies. I’m spooning her. We say at the same time, “You’re so warm.” Feeling my erection pressing against her, she asked with an amused look over her shoulder, “Really?” Laughing, I answer, “Really.”

I’m then in bed with a friend, again in jammies. I’m spooning him. We both say, “You’re so warm,” and then laugh.

I once again walk into the room where the young woman has become naked while changing clothes. She’s alone. I smile at her and act flustered. She calls me on walking in on her, accusing me of being transparent and deliberate. I feebly try denying it, but can’t pull that off.

The final dream finds me in a secure building at the day’s end. It’s a cluttered and dark place. Secure filing cabinets with dials to open them are all over. Like others there, I’m getting ready to eave for the day when some shipments come in.

Two are for us. They’re vials. One set of vials have been used in clinical trials while the other are unused. Everything are numbered by lots. Both need to be signed into logs, which involves re-opening the safes. A woman, my boss, and I volunteer to do it. After the others leave, I tell her that I can do it all. Hesitating, she asks, “Are you sure?” “Yes,” I answer, so she leaves.

The vials are red, with a sharp needle attached to an end. As I handle the returned products, I accidently scratch my finger with one. Or did I? Even as I’m worrying, I’m not sure it happened. I’m also concerned about which set of vials it is. At first, I think that it was the used vials, which increases my anxiety. Then I investigate and conclude, no, that were the unused vials. Then, checking numbers again, I decide that it was the used ones, and then decide, no, they were the unused ones. I’m not sure at all but, again, there’s no real sign that I actually did anything to myself.

While I’m worrying and fretting, I’ve been working, opening the safes, making the entries in the logs, and securing the vials. But then, weirdly, I don’t know how to document that I opened the safes. I think I know what I’m supposed to do but can’t find the forms. I’m rifling through files, trying to find them. A friendly co-worker comes back in. I tell him that I can’t find the right forms. He starts searching; he can’t find them, either. As he’s looking, I’m babbling on about how I used to know this, and then recall more details. The co-worker has become irritated because he was just being friendly. Now he’s involved in a problem. Then I remember, oh, we’ve been looking inside the files when they’re attached to the outside of the safes, of course. Of course! How can you annotate what time you’ve closed the safe when the safe is already closed? How can it be verified as closed and locked if it’s not on the outside.

Others have returned to work and are asking what we’re doing. I shrug them off. By now, the co-worker is angry and embarrassed because he was looking inside. It makes him look like he doesn’t know what he was doing.

Dreams end.

0

Chipgate

A recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that “44 percent of Republicans believe that Bill Gates is plotting to use a mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign as a pretext to implant microchips in billions of people and monitor their movements.”

I said, what? Is this the BillGatesgate? Or is it called chipgate?

I hope it’s not chipgate. Chipgate should be about ridiculous chip flavors being inflicted on the salty, greasy crunchiness that are potato chips. If I want a maple doughnut, I’ll eat a doughnut, not potato chips.

Note to self: get doughnuts.

Other polling results include the Chuck Norris kick to the head that only 26 percent of Republicans were able to “correctly identify” a false and “widely debunked” conspiracy theory. More than 80 percent of Democrats realize that Bill Gates isn’t microchipping people. I pause, though, to think, 20 percent of Democrats believe this crazy idea.

Hmm, I wonder. What’s old Bill up to, chipping us like that? Is he trying to take control of us to stop the spread of crazy ideas about him?

That they’re spreading the idea via social media explodes my head with irony. Many people have cell phones almost glued to their hands. “Where’s my phone?” is a common question people ask themselves. “Why did I put my phone?” “Where did I leave my phone?” “Has anyone seen my phone?” It’s like another child. Or do they not own iPhones and other smartphones with GPS, or cars with navigation systems or net connectivity? Are they using VPN at home, not accepting cookies, and wiping their tracks from the net?

I’ll bet over eighty percent of you said, “What?”

No surprise, then, that madhatters are out there insisting that no mask is a good mask, mocking the maskers for being sheeple. Meanwhile, over half of the social media posts demanding that the U.S. re-opens for business can be traced back to bots. Well, if it worked once, then it’ll work a zillion times, right? Sure; bludgeon people with the same information again and again and they’ll start believing it.

I mean, it worked for invading Iraq as part of the response to 9/11, ‘her emails’ to smear Clinton, show us the birth certificate trumpshit, and the whole, ‘the poor wealthy need a big tax break, cause trickle-down’ nonsense.

Now, excuse me, but a doughnut awaits. I just read that eating a doughnut a day will help you live longer, keep you mentally sharp, and improve your sex life.

Can you believe it?

 

 

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