Saturday, April 25, 2020

What We Are Really Afraid Of

“ A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.” Edward R. Murrow

I was listening to a local radio show yesterday and heard our local county Health Czar had announced that “we can’t have large gatherings again until we develop herd immunity or a vaccine is developed” And by his expert *cough* opinion, that could take up to two years. “Better safe than sorry,” “An abundance of caution” above all else, right?

I still cannot believe how we’ve allowed ourselves to be marched to the economic slaughterhouse with nary a peep. It’s so…un-American! We’re supposed to be the home of the brave, the land of free. Does this current situation look like either?

The trailing of the sheep, Sun Valley, Idaho - Mike Endminster photography

This American Spectator article, ‘Flattening the Curve"’ and Other Lies,  pretty much covers the waterfront on the follies to date conducted by the wolves amongst us. This is the wrap-up, read the whole thing.

The “new normal” means we can go back to work when you tell us, and we can live our lives how you dictate we can. And why?

Because we don’t want a “second wave” of the outbreak.

Wait, why would we have a second wave? Because not everybody got the virus in the first wave. And until everybody has more or less had it you can’t get to “herd immunity,” which is how these viruses are defeated…

So why wouldn’t we want to just get this over with and protect the people most vulnerable to the virus? Because that would be irresponsible, right? You have to — how does it go? — “test, trace, isolate” before you can let people do what they want. You might even need to give people “immunity papers” proving they’re safe to be around before you’ll let them go to work at their “non-essential” jobs or eat at a restaurant.

We promise we won’t notice none of that was in the initial justification for forcing us to stay home. We wouldn’t suspect you guys of bad faith for having bait-and-switched us like that. Because we know that if we did notice, and we did express dissatisfaction, we would be descended upon by our betters at the Big Tech companies, who are doing us a big favor by censoring “misinformation” about the virus like for example people questioning the WHO or noting the virus likely came out of a Chinese bioweapons lab. Or we’ll get arrested because protesting is “non-essential.” Or maybe we’ll just be griped at by the hordes of busybody Karens across the country who call us “selfish” for wondering whether this wasn’t all just a too-costly overreaction.

I don’t ascribe to the theory that the Wuhan Cooties pandemic was a One World Order conspiracy but can anyone blame us in retrospect for thinking that the Democrats’ “never let a crisis go to waste’ strategy is being been driven by a variation on the Cloward-Piven plan of complete societal upheaval in order to implement their vision of America?

Be very, very wary from this point forward; for once a system is overwhelmed the organism is in danger of dying. That is what we’re really afraid of. 

Friday, April 24, 2020

Collect $200 Every Time You Pass Go

This week’s words of wisdom from AOC:

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was the only Democrat in the House or Senate to oppose the $484 billion coronavirus relief package to replenish the depleted small business loan program.

She argued her problem with the bill — which was overwhelmingly passed — was “giving Republicans what they want.”

…and to be clear, her problem with them is they don’t want enough:

“McConnell is already talking about the deficit the moment we talk about getting people relief,” she told CNN, adding: “That to me is a signal that Republicans are done.”

AOC would clearly keep people on the public dole indefinitely. Because to her way of thinking (using the term loosely here) “work” is like slavery, or something:

“When we talk about this idea of ‘reopening society’ you know, only in America does the president, when the president tweets about liberation, does he mean go back to work,” she said. “When we have this discussion about going back or reopening, I think a lot people should just say ‘no, we’re not going back to that.'

“We’re not going back to working 70-hour weeks just so that we can put food on the table and not even feel any sort of semblance of security in our lives.”

Sorry babe, but “liberation” by definition does not come with security, but I wouldn’t expect a Thirty-something to know anything about that these days.

Just to help put things in perspective for her, here’s a story about the real economic impact of shutdown on just one university, along with it’s healthcare system.

University Of Michigan Faces Up To $1 Billion Loss From COVID-19, Announces 5%-10% Executive Pay Cuts, Salary And Hiring Freezes, Voluntary Staff Furloughs

While I understand the ambivalence towards state funded institutions of higher education, nobody can deny what a deep ripple just this one closure will have on a state’s economic well being. A billion dollar loss is huge for schools/teaching hospitals that don’t have 40 billion dollar endowment funds. And it reflects a lot of people left suddenly without “any sort of semblance of security in their lives.”

So hell yeah, let’s keep the country shut dpwn in order to not “give the Republicans what they want.” Remind me again Horseface, what’s your better alternative to work?

And don’t forget to collect $200 every time you pass GO!

That should get the country on the right course again real soon.

COVID-19 quarantine tips: Nintendo Switch games that'll give you a ...

Thursday, April 23, 2020

“I Find Your Lack of Concern Disturbing”

Rules are for the little people and by any objective measure George Stephanopoulos would qualify as a little person.

A.G. Willliam Barr on Twitter: "HOLY SHORT & SWEET BATMAN! I just ...

How 'GMA' hides George Stephanopoulos' 'little-boyish mini-legs ...

But Georgie’s chosen profession and affiliations automatically granted him ‘elite’ status – the equivalent of adding a foot to his diminutive chassis.

George Stephanopoulos: Senior political advisor to Bill Clinton, Democrat operative at ABC News and charter member of Ezra Klein’s JournoList.

So normally he’d get a pass for not following rules others are expected to adhere to. But apparently this is not  the case when it comes to the Wuhan Cooties – or the Hamptons, where there currently are no actual little people because none of the places they work are open. In their absence the natives have begun eating their own.

One outraged witness said Stephanopoulos — who announced he tested positive for the virus last week after his wife, Ali Wentworth, contracted it — was seen leaving his Hamptons home in a pair of shorts and walking for about a mile along East Hampton lanes, with his mask down the entire time.

The witness said, “For somebody who reports on the pandemic every day, and is broadcasting guidelines about safe social distancing, George didn’t really seem to care.

“He was on his own, walking through the lanes and past East Hampton Guild Hall, on his cellphone the whole time, yakking with his mask around his neck.

“He tested positive, his wife tested positive, why can’t he follow the local mandates to wear a mask in public, why can’t he just stay home?” – Page Six

Funny, his inconsiderate behavior and lack of concern for others seemed to surprise no one other than other elites.

“I find your lack of concern disturbing”

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

Earth Day Fifty Years Later: Don’t Forget To Shut Off the Lights

Happy Anniversary EARTH DAY! Hard to believe it’s been 50 years since the first in 1970.

Earth Day in New York City 1970 - The Bowery Boys: New York City ...

Ever since that watershed event people have been looking for ways to shut down civilization and take us back to pre-industrial times when all the women were strong, all the men were good-looking, and all the children were above average. As long as it doesn’t impact the way they live too much that is.

I remember the first Earth Day: I was in college, it was a beautiful spring day and celebrating Earth seemed like a great excuse to skip classes. I don’t remember exactly how my friends and I celebrated the auspicious beginnings of a soon to be worldwide movement but I’m quite certain it involved adult beverages.

Also nearly 50 years ago, in 1971, the Boeing company, teetering on bankruptcy due to a severe slowdown in new airline orders, laid off 60,000 of its 100,000 employees. Nearly everyone in Seattle either worked for or knew somebody who worked for Boeing. The layoffs had a huge ripple effect in the local economy, leading someone to put up this billboard:

New sign of the times? Imagining a modern version of Seattle's ...

It became a tagline for every economic downturn anywhere over the next half century. During the dark days of the great auto downturn of the 1980s it cropped up everywhere in Michigan as people were fleeing the state in droves in pursuit of job opportunities.

It was a jokey bit of black humor about a decidedly non-humorless situation, but it was a joke. But it isn’t anymore. Where political pressure, and decades of public indoctrination and shaming didn’t work. We found something else to finally turn the lights off in Seattle and Detroit, along with every other major city around the world – the Wuhan Virus.

The First Earth Day - HISTORYClarification: you can’t get off alive

Earth Day proponents are ecstatic over the resulting “clean air” and lack of pollution from a shutdown of the global economy. While the hoax of a dying planet didn’t move people to change the basic nature of modern life, a much greater fear - of dying - has moved people  in less than 4 weeks time to voluntarily close schools, empty office buildings, malls, museums and airports of nearly all human activity and ‘shelter in place.’ In other words, to “shut the lights off.”

So what have we learned in 50 years? That fear works but that it has to be a great fear and it has to be of an immediate threat.

So there’s your future formula for manipulative hoaxes. Be on the lookout.

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Giddy Up Little Cowgirl

Just in time for Earth Day tomorrow:

Her tweets drew attention from trolls who compared them to Soviet Union-era propaganda artAOC's Green New Deal Looks Exactly Like the Old Red Deal - Granite ...AOC’s posters were admired for their resemblance to Soviet and/or Nazi propaganda posters

   Some additional words of wisdom from AOC – in a tweet she later removed for some reason:

Sweet mother, could this woman be any stupider? Or more evil? “The right time for a worker-led, mass investment in green infrastructure” – hey little genius economist-turned-bartender-turned-legislator, I’ve got some bad news for you. First, this means millions more U.S. citizens will be out of work, the economy will be in a shambles and “you absolutely have to love it?” You should be horse whipped. Secondly, are you actually so dumb that you don’t understand that when oil is cheap your “green energy infrastructure” is economically non-viable? Which means investing in wind/solar is…oh, never mind, pretty sure you won’t understand.

I cannot believe this commie bimbette has her hands on America’s purse strings.

If she doesn’t like the way things are going here maybe she should apply for a job in South America where it seems there’s always room for another communist economy. Or perhaps North Korea; I hear there’s likely to be an opening for a top level pinko there pretty soon.

And if nothing else pans out you can always get back on the horse you came in on.

Baltimore's The Horse You Came In On Saloon | National Trust for ...

Giddy up little cowgirl, you’ve so got this.

Monday, April 20, 2020

What Did You Do In The Great Wuhan Cootie Flu War Mom?

The one and only accomplishment I can list for last week technically belongs in this week’s column as I didn’t complete the task until yesterday. But since I started working on it a week ago Sunday I’m counting it as last week’s achievement.

What sort of onerous task took a whole week you ask? Fixing my mobile phone after a system “update” that’s what. How To Use Real Photos As App Icons On Android Devices | Redmond Pie

In addition to all the normally annoying things a Samsung update does – turns your notification offs, mutes the ringer, etc., etc. – this time it reset the alarm times on my clock as well. It’s a minor annoyance having to reset most of your preferences, but that wasn’t my biggest problem this time. For some reason my phone decided to replace my standard QWERTY keyboard with an AZERTY for a little change of pace. Perhaps this was Samsung’s contribution to alleviating boredom in the Age of the Wuhan Cooties.  Suffice to say I wasn’t amused. And I’m too old to see the benefit of a French layout.

QUERTY, left, AZERTY, right

The main difference between these keyboards is the position of the Q, W, Z and A keys. The QWERTY keyboard is prevalent in the Americas and in several regions of Europe while in France and Belgium, AZERTY is the norm.

It proved more difficult than one might imagine to get it changed back. My normal course of action under these circumstances is to give it a half hearted attempt by looking into the obvious places in ‘Settings’ one might find a fix, in this case ‘Onscreen Keyboard’ and when that doesn’t work solicit Raj’s assistance. His fix was to switch to the Gboard instead of the Samsung keyboard which was indeed Qwerty. But it had other glitches I disliked like different icons altogether and a refusal to take my long press characters. So I changed it back and continued looking around the internet every other day or so for a fix. Every video I watched instructed me to go to a place in settings that my phone either didn’t have or didn’t link to the next step. Apparently every release of the phone lays things out differently. I’m beginning to see the value of Apple’s gestapo-like control and consistency, although it still goes against my nature.

I finally found an older video yesterday which gave me the hint I needed: you can’t just go to your ‘General management’ find your ‘language and input’ setting and select ‘on-screen keyboard’ and select whichever keyboard you preferred. No. In fact you can’t get to it from the ‘on-screen keyboard’ at all. You have to go to language, select English which should then give you a choice of either QUERTY or AZERTY – or even QWERTZ, a keyboard that is used primarily in Switzerland and German speaking countries which is pretty much identical to the QWERTY except it switches the ‘W’ and ‘Y’ keys. To what purpose I have no idea, but now you know - You can choose your own vehicle of assimilation.

What was your greatest accomplishment (so far) in Great Wuhan Cootie War? Please share.

Sunday, April 19, 2020

The World Doesn’t Need Any More Gumbys

Michigan’s Governor Grunhilda (GG) is taunting her subjects with the hint of a temporary, teeny-weeny reprieve. If citizen moral improves, she might just grant some of her plebeians short shore leaves. Some people think she’s a real blockhead.

Advice for the Newly Married…What Not to Say | Lucy van pelt ...

But yikes! I have another issue with the good Governor. We really need to talk fashion. Remember our cat from yesterday’s post? Of course you do. 

“Some girls can work the black and white look, others, meh.”

Well GG’s frock looks like it came from the same dye lot.

Am I right? Of course I am, I’m a professional; I can spot these things.

And here’s another bit of unsolicited but desperately needed advice for the Gov: snakeskin is not the best sartorial statement for politicians or lawyers – and GG is both. And while I’m at it – and because nobody else seems to be on the case – here’s another fashion tip for GG: square faced women ought not wear their hair pulled straight back or parted down the middle. Especially if they have an abnormally high forehead. Side parts and/or long bangs tend to de-emphasize that “blockhead” look.

I guess I’ve been in quarantine too long as I seem to be regressing to my former incarnation as Lady M’s Mirror – a persona which was roundly criticized for being a mean girl. But look around people: what could this world use more of right now, mean girls or blockheads?

Amazon.com: NJ Croce Gumby Blockheads G & J Bendable Figure Pair ...

Frankly I think we’ve got altogether more Gumbys than we need.