Daylight Savings Time, perhaps a good idea for five minutes when everyone milked cows and worked on a farm 80 years ago, is just insufferable dumb shit today (hence DST:Dumb Shit Time), an insufferable idea whose time has come, and looooong ago gone. The sumbitch who thought of it should get to rot in hell an extra hour every day for eternity.
So, after hearing the will of the people, your elected Grand Nitwits voted unanimously.
Not to end it. F**k no, that would have been too easy.
If Emperor Poopypants had the wit to veto this monstrous bit of shitheadedness, he'd go up 20 points in the polls, getting him almost to 2% approval. (DNC, call your office.) And we could let those @$$holes take a whack at voting us into nationwide STANDARD TIME (hence the name) instead, forever, amen.
But instead, those senatorial halfwits (but I repeat myself) will send this bill over with a case of pudding pops, and Gropey Dopey will be in a sugar coma when Jill, or some personal attendant, autopens it into perpetuity, and we'll never be rid of this God-damned asinine travesty.
And who sponsored this idiocy?
Marco Screwyoubio, of course.
If ever there was a Manchurian Candidate who should have been deported to Cuba, he is surely it. Thanks for nothing, Floridiots. Now we're even for Fineswine.
Government, doing what it does best: Screwing EVERYBODY, FOREVER.
This isn't a ramble. I have a number of lines of thought I've been stewing over at work all weekend, and I'll be going down each one until I'm done. Let's begin.
4000
8000
16000
32000
64000
128000
256000
512000
1000000
2000000
4000000
8000000
16000000
32000000
64000000
128000000
256000000
512000000
4000 is the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the U.S. now. (That we know about. Reality could be 100,000 or more.)
If that original number doubles seventeen more times, the product is a number larger than the populations of the U.S. (330M), Mexico(137M), and Canada(37M), combined. IOW, it's virtually everywhere in North America at that point. (No, I'm not particularly concerned about the banana republics between Mexico and South America in this regard. They can lump it.)
What I've read is that the outbreak is doubling every 4-6 days. So somewhere between 68 and 102 days from today, the shit sandwich on this continent reaches full maturity. If the spread of the disease is moving at that rate. If the current voluntary measures don't halt that growth, or even slow that pace. If it doesn't run out of people stupid enough to keep doing things to spread it.
With the above caveats: May 22nd, to June 26th, give or take. It crests 100M cases a week to two earlier.
Long before then, we'll have a great view of how lethal it is, and how many cases are serious. So by somewhere between mid-May and Mid-June, we'll either have metric f**ktons of people requiring hospitalization, and dead, or not. How much better or worse it is then will be a foolproof look at whether this is a nothingburger, or Spanish Flu. Oh, and if there are really 100,000 cases now, we get there a full month earlier.
Now maybe you can figure out why POTUS said this will last through July or August, at minimum.
And remember, the 85% (or more, or less) of all infected people who have symptoms ranging from none, to moderate flu, aren't the problem. They never were. They'll be just fine.
It's the hordes dying in droves, and crashing the entire U.S. medical system that could put a kink in this country that'll last for decades. And crashing the stock market. And everyone going broke. And crashing the economy even after this passes. And so on. And so on. And so on.
That's 5 1/2 months from now. How much food do you have? How much cash on hand do you have? How much of each of those does Gilligan's family have, and how far are they from you? So, how much ammo do you have??
That little thought exercise should concentrate your minds wonderfully.
----------
Now, a reminder about some other numbers. 900,000 staffed hospital beds. 93,000 staffed ICU beds. 60,000 ventilators. 1,000,000 medical doctors. 2,800,000 registered nurses. 106,000 respiratory therapists. That is the army you're gong to war with, in this pandemic.
And when I say staffed beds, I don't just mean doctors, nurses, and RTs. I also mean D.Os, PAs, EMTs, CNAs, pharmacists, radiology techs, facilities engineers, clean-up crew, supply workers, registration clerks, administration people, IT geeks, and hundreds of other clerks and jerks, without whose constant efforts and hard work, plus medical supplies in small mountains every single day, Dr. Hero and Nurse Awesome are just a couple of people in funny pajamas, and with about as much lifesaving ability on their own as there is actual magical ability in Rupert Grint and Matthew Lewis.
If it was just beds we needed, we could take all the surplus army cots from the 2M guys RIFFed from Uncle Sam in the 1990s, unfold them, and Presto!, have another 2M spots to dump patients. It doesn't work like that. I bring this up because if "only" 10% of Kung Flu victims require a hospital bed, because they're really that sick, then long about the time we hit 16,000,000 victims, in (44 to 66 days, so let's average it to) 55 days, we have more patients than we have beds for them. At that point, we're Italy. Say about May the 12th or so. (We may also have up to 480,000 dead, which if it happens would have crushed every ICU in the country 5 times over long before that point.)
We've covered this before, but it bears keeping in mind. Keep your thumb in this spot, as we move along.
----------
This weekend, all considered, from purely a Kung Flu cases standpoint, was just ducky. We had maybe half a dozen to ten "rule-outs" (meaning "maybe it is, maybe it isn't"; look for other things that rule out Kung Flu. Like actual influenza flu.) Given the abysmally slow return time of Kung Flu test samples, I believe at least one was positive for Kung Flu.
"Ten patients? Is that all?!? Aesop is fulla sh*t! This is a big conjob nothingburger!" - every two-digit IQ soopergenius who ever read a word I wrote on this topic.
And herewith, we digress for a bit.
Scenario One: You're in the military. In a combat zone. The enemy is known to have chemical weapons. One day, a shell whistles over from the enemy side of things, and goes off with a less than enthusiastic bang. Then another, and another. You see a hazy white cloud forming at each impact site, coalescing into a large white cloud, now drifting lazily towards your position.
Do you a) send the company dumbass Gilligan over there to have a sniff for you, and report back b) send the whole company of men over, and see what happens c) put Gilligan in temporary command, and have him lead the whole company over there d) Yell "GAS! GAS! GAS!", while clanging metal-on-metal, and then rapidly don your MOPP gear and gas mask, before the cloud blows into your position, and prepare to treat anyone nearby who was slower on the uptake.
Scenario Two: You're working in a hospital. An ambulance arrives, and unloads a patient spurting blood everywhere, who tells you he just arrived from the Congo, where he runs an HIV and Ebola Survivors Clinic, and tripped on the jetway and cut his leg open.
Do you a) run over and apply direct pressure with your bare hands, while fountaining blood cascades into your eyes, nose, and mouth, and lick yourself clean afterwards b) yell at all your other co-workers to join you in performing "a" c) Both "a" and "b" d) put on appropriate gown, gloves, and mask with splatter shield, and apply an emergency tourniquet
In case you were wondering, the correct answer to both scenarios is "d". You always assume the worst, from common sense, and institutional policy, and over-prepare, so you can deal with it easily if it turns out to be less-than. You don't grab your .22 to go take on that African Cape Buffalo, and then find out you needed a bit more to get it done. Unless you're a farking moron. I told you that story so I could tell you this one:
----------
Some days back, I stated that I didn't think we'd bring Kung Flu patients into the hospital, but instead, triage them in tents outside, then send the ones meeting criteria to some FEMA-set-up Kung Flu Treatment Center, staffed as possible, and serviced by dedicated Hazmat 9-1-1 ambulances, whisking members of the community there as appropriate, in full protective gear, 24/7/365.
Because, as I argued with flawless logic, to do otherwise would be to a) risk our entire healthcare system being overwhelmed and destroyed, a la Italy, and b) make every other medical emergency impossible to deal with, thus doubling casualties from every other treatable and preventable cause of death, from heart attacks and strokes to appendicitis, because the entirety of any and every hospital would be filled with Kung Flu-infected plague petri dishes, in every nook and cranny.
Turns out, TPTB, top to bottom, make the Italians look like Leonardo da Vinci.
1) We're not putting tents up everywhere. 2) We're not segregating people out of the hospital. 3) We'll do a half-assed triage assessment outside the building somewhere (fill in the blank where___________) 4) Using screening criteria overtaken by reality a month ago, because the CDC, no matter how asinine, is always the CDC 4a) to wit, asking about foreign travel, even though homegrown community-acquired cases outstrip foreign travel candidates, and have for two weeks 4b) ask about exposure to known Kung Flu patients, even though the CDC and local public health departments refused to test for Kung Flu until four days ago, in most cases, (due to jackassery, fuckwittery, and a dearth of functional kits for two months) thus insuring via Catch-22, that if you never test for King Flu, nobody anyone was in contact with ever officially has Kung Flu 5) then bring the infected into an appropriate sealed negative airflow room 5a) which cleverly has no patient monitoring equipment 5b) will not allow you to get portable chest x-ray equipment into the room with the patient with respiratory problems (which, also cleverly, no one thought about prior to then) 5c) which would contaminate said portable x-ray equipment every time you got it into the quarantine room 5d) which would require an extensive, nigh impossible decontamination of said X-ray equipment for each and every subsequent patient 5e) thus leading to shooting x-rays outside the building, or in other places that probably violate 27 hospital safety policies, local health and safety codes, and probably eleventy Nuclear Regulatory Commission regulations regarding radiological safety of patients, staff, and bystanders, in a slow-rolling Chernobyl sort of way 5f) and taking them to CT scanners which are then contaminated, and failing to do a full terminal clean of said rooms and equipment each and every time, which would take them offline for hours each shift, and necessitate closing the hospital to ambulance traffic, so why bother cleaning? 6)unless you're fresh out of negative airflow rooms, in which case you 7) put them into open rooms with no protection or containment 8) thus insuring that all staff members and other patients are exposed over and over again 9) to cases which will not be tested for Kung Flu unless they're first proven negative for the flu 10) Or not. 11) All such "policies" being rather more like the Pirates Code ("just guidelines, really"), purely at the whimsy and caprice of whatever doctor(s), charge nurses, or cranky old bat nurse has phone duty that day at the Public Health office, and their personal and capricious interpretation of the current (of four or five or six, so far) CDC guidelines 12) which apparently are changed every hour, if not more frequently 13) while the managers, and senior management, who should be living in the same shoes and underpants 24/7/365 in the hospital until they sort this shit out, weekend or no, but whom are instead nowhere to be seen, heard from, or in any wise directly involved, until the total colossal clusterfuck falls over from its own weight seven or eight times over, between Friday afternoon and the middle of the following week. 14) while staff and patients, having to deal with the results of people with Acute-on-Chronic Head-Up-The-Ass-Syndrome, are repeatedly subjected to potential pandemic exposure, leading to sickness, preventative quarantine, lawsuits, and death 15) as the Low IQ staff members, who still think this is no big deal, continue to half-ass every bit of their response, 24/7/365, because half of them were below the upper/lower cut in their graduating classes as well.
THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE GETTING. The CDC (as per usual, going back years decades) has no f**king idea that it doesn't even know what it doesn't even know, including how to find its own ass with both hands, a map, a compass, and a rearview mirror. Hospital ManageManglement has no idea the CDC can't find its own ass either, and is looking for their own as well.
Supervisory staff puts on its Lemming Suicide Squad Crash Helmet and blinders, and announces that the Light Brigade will smartly charge right over the cliff.
Grunt-level staff, doctors, nurses, ancillary members, etc. will continue to work until a) they can't take the bullshit b) they get sick c) they realize their own family's safety trumps a paycheck.
Instead of learning from Italy's mistakes, and trying to save people and the overall healthcare system, we're going to keep on half-assing this until we're in it over our heads, and then drown, because stupid. Instead of making the hard call early, and working the kinks out now, when it would have been easy, when it's five patients a week, we'll wait until it's 500 patients an hour, and then crash and burn in a glorious orgy of stupidity.
I expect people to hit the wall. This is all new to everyone. There hasn't been a pandemic like this in 100 years.
BUT I ALSO EXPECTED THEM NOT TO BE SO GODDAMN STUPID AFTER THEY HIT THE WALL ONCE AS TO NOT THEN RUN HEADFIRST INTO IT TEN OR TWENTY MORE TIMES, IN RAPID SUCCESSION, SIMPLY BECAUSE THEY CAN.
That last expectation was misguided, being most clearly irrational hubris overcoming a solid and well-founded pessimism about people in general, the universality of the Peter Principle, and the inevitability of people, left to their own devices, shooting themselves in the feet until they run out of feet, or ammunition. And then, reloading.
Having said (and witnessed, firsthand) all of the above, and after understating it by at least half (you really have NO idea) there's only one way to deal with this, for me:
I mean that last, most sincerely. We're all going to go through this. Harden the fuck up.
Take care of yourselves. Take care of your families. Take care of your friends. Take care of Your People.
No one is coming to save you. Not me. Not the government. Not. Any. One.
Everything is Your Responsibility. Deal With your Shit. Get It Done.
YOYO = You're On Your Own
Best Wishes. Really.
And if, watching the economy do a SMOD impact into your life, and the entire nation go onto a (mostly voluntary) full lockdown quarantine, you still think this is just a hype and a nothing burger, I can't help you.
If you're right, I don't need to; and if I'm right, no one will miss you.
For those all butthurt elsewhere because I'm a "condescending cocksucker know-it-all", read comments here, like this gem today, and walk a mile in my shoes, before you pop off.
"You can't wash your hands every time you touch something. You can't wear a face mask 24/7 and if you did the likely hood is that you would become infected FROM the dirty face mask. AND as you pointed out, the virus will get here and go pandemic. So what it really comes down to is most everyone will be exposed and some will die, some will get pretty sick, some will get a little sick. So explain again why we should turn our world upside down in a futile effort to not catch this virus? IN FACT catching it early, before the hospitals are overwhelmed, might just be the best thing that could happen to you."
The jokes writes themselves. But as Senior Drill Instructor warned us once,
"There are no stupid questions, only stupid people."
(6,2 and pick 'em, some wiseass regular reader made that whole post up and threw it against the wall just to watch the fun, but I'll treat it as legit and use it as a Teachable Moment.)
Let's take it point by point:
You can't wash your hands every time you touch something. 1) Yes, you can. Unless you're a quadriplegic. 2) You could wear gloves, and just wash your hands when you take them off. 3) Millions of people do 1 and 2 every day. They're called medical workers. Handwashing is not a superpower. 4) No one told you to wash your hands "every time you touch something". Just before you stick your fingers in your eyes, up your nose, in your mouth, before you eat your food, and after you wipe your behind. Just like we teach preschoolers. Try that, instead of "every time you touch something", and see if you can manage it.
You can't wear a face mask 24/7, and if you did, the likely hood [sic] is that you would become infected FROM the mask. 1) No one told you to do that either. 2) If you don't have one now, you'll probably never get one, because they're mostly made in China, and they've declared them a "strategic national resource". So you probably won't be able to get any for a year or more, at least from the world's #1 manufacturer. 3) You only need to wear one when you go out in public, if a pandemic breaks out. 3a) If a pandemic breaks out, you shouldn't be going out in public to begin with, unless it's unavoidable. 3b) If it's unavoidable, you should be wearing a mask then, not 24/7. 3c) If you have a job where it's unavoidable, a mask should be provided for you by your employer. If it's not, it's not unavoidable. See 3a, above. 4) When you wear a mask, you wear it because of an actual risk. Unless you live in a homeless encampment, 24/7 wear is recockulous. 4a) If you live in a homeless encampment, you're already screwed, and coronavirus is probably the least of your worries. 4b) But if that's the case, how did you get on the internet? 5) If you wore a mask 24/7, you'd roll over it in your sleep, and ruin it. 6) Straw men always make for stupid arguments.
AND as you pointed out, the virus will get here and go pandemic. 1) -100% for reading comprehension. I pointed out neither thing. 2) The virus is already here. 3) Whether it becomes a pandemic is an open question. The likelihood is high, but not anything like certain. Yet.
So what it really comes down to is most everyone will be exposed and some will die, some will get pretty sick, some will get a little sick. 1) No one knows how many will be exposed to it. 2) 3% of those exposed will die, give or take. 3) Virtually all the other 97% exposed will get sick. How "little" that is depends on a lot of things. 4) An unknown number will be sick enough to hospitalize, some of them in the ICU. IDK about you, but my co-pay, even with gold-plated Blue Cross, runs about 20% for hospitalization, which runs $2K/day, and $10-15K/day for ICU. Maybe you're rich, but ICU is usually several days to a week, and I can think of better things to do with a spare $2-10K. 5) You'll also pass your sickness along to family, friends, and co-workers, usually giving it to 2-4 of them. Including kids or older adults, who may die because you were too lazy to wash your hands. 6) See if you can guess why none of the other folks will want to work or play with you, come the day.
So explain again why we should turn our world upside down in a futile effort to not catch this virus? 1) It's not futile. 2) See 6, above. 3) If it gets big enough, you probably won't be given a choice. Read this. It's straight from the CDC.TL;DR? Public health authorities have the ability and the will to cancel all sorts of things in the interest of public health. Schools, public gatherings, closing businesses, etc. And if that happens, most businesses, and all people brighter than you, will decide that going to work or leading a "normal" life isn't worth the risk. And if nothing's open, you're not getting gas, you're not going anywhere, and you're not doing anything. As in the case of China, that may be enforceable, as are all government edicts, at the end of a gun barrel. So then, you're either shot, or in jail, with a bunch of fellow rugged individuals, and no mask. Best wishes on your chances then. 4) "Turning your life upside down" will greatly inhibit the spread of the disease, and make it far less likely that it propagates wild and unchecked to the entire population. See 1, directly above. 5) "Turning your life upside down" will probably save a number of lives. Which most folks would agree was worthwhile, unless you're a sociopath. 6) I'm not saying this is you. But if anyone is a sociopath, they probably deserve to get infected, and hopefully they'll be in the lucky 3% who'll die. But the Universe is random, and we probably won't get that lucky.
IN FACT, catching it early, before the hospitals are overwhelmed, might just be the best thing that could happen to you. 1) Catching it early will guarantee you hordes of attention from the CDC you really don't want. In a jabbing you ten times a day and cramming things into bodily orifices you'd rather avoid, while being in guinea pig prison, sort of way. 2) I assure you, those of us who work in hospitals have a finely-honed radar detector for @$$holes who deserve the problems they have, and we talk about it amongst ourselves all the time. And we really, really, really don't have one fuck left to give for people so narcissistic as to live out the hypothetical you expressed. Please believe me when I suggest that at the leading edge of a pandemic, you do not want to be That Guy. 3) What ever makes you think hospitals aren't overwhelmed now, even without coronavirus pandemic? 4) If you're not dying, you're going to be kicked the hell out after minimal treatment. Not least of which because there isn't much we can do. Ask me how I know this. 5) If you are dying, you're going to ICU, and if you're that sick, you're already pretty well fucked, at that point.
Dear Anti-American Broadspewing Company (and your parent corp., the dopes at Mauschwitz),
This is what happens when you hire low-70s IQ morons to host a show about a coven of bitchy frunts and their kooky bloviations on things far beyond their grasp:
Dowd was incredibly soft on Bozo's gaffe, but you can tell that even after being corrected, she had no idea in her entire vacuous head why Republicans winning Senate seats isn't due to gerrymandering, which Bewhore couldn't spell, let alone explain.
For anyone similarly confused: the Senate boundaries were set when those states were admitted to the Union. Unlike House races, the districts cannot be gerrymandered, ever. Because cleverly, everybody in the entire state votes for their senators, ever since the XVIIth Amendment clusterfornicated up the original workings, as the second of four cornerstone Progressive demolitions of the republic.
As Casey Stengel was fond of telling jackholes, "You could look it up."
Me?
I'm wondering why Bozo is wearing those Intelligent Person Glasses, as if she was ever literate enough to read.
On the heels of some other horrible revelations about the monster nominated to SCOTUS, we've just come up with this:
"It was a Saturday. Late spring. I work the daywatch in the Malicious Mischief and Stolen Bicycle Division of East Mayberry. My partner is Frank Gannon. The boss is Captain Crunch. My name is Friday. I carry a badge...
We'd just cracked an overdue library book ring at the local grade school when the call came in. Greg Martin's house, at 148 West Crabapple Street was the kind of idyllic neighborhood parents want to raise their kids in. Until juvenile vandalism destroys the peace in suburbia. I've been doing this twenty years, and it still turns my stomach.
When we pulled up at 10:42 AM, the evidence team was already gathering samples, and Latent Prints was dusting the entire lot.
"Anything, Jimmy?"
"No chance, Joe. There was dew last night, and this ultra-absorbent stuff blurs the prints. We may be able to get a clean index finger if they ding-dong-ditched the doorbell, but otherwise, we've got nothing."
Since the doorbell had already been dusted, Frank and I rang the bell. We questioned the homeowner, who said she hadn't heard a thing. We took her statement, then we split up to canvas the neighborhood.
Next door down, we struck the jackpot.
At the Rottencrotch's house, we found an eyewitness. Little Suzy had recognized one of her classmates.
"It was those football guys!" she exclaimed. "I saw their bicycles, and I recognized one of them. It was Brett Kavanaugh and some other boys from the school. I'd recognize that blue Schwinn anywhere!"
A call to Maple Street Middle School confirmed the address of the suspect, Brett Kavanaugh. Before questioning the suspect, we got some background at the school. Kavanaugh was a model student, but things started to come unglued when we got to Maisy Walters. She'd been slinging hash at the cafeteria for 32 years, and she confirmed the criminal bent of the suspect.
"Many's the time I've seen him sneaking his broccoli into his lap napkin 'stead of eatin' it. He throws his beets away too, after I slaved over those pots all morning. Just terrible. And once, he was laughing, and I seen him shoot milk out his nose all over the table. The nerve of that boy. Anybody won't eat broccoli probably kicks puppies too. I bet he even teases his sister. What's the world coming too, Sergeant?"
I could only shake my head in disgust at this unfolding chain of criminal behavior.
We left Maple Street School, and approached the suspect's residence. We found Brett at home doing his homework. With his mother present, we began to question him. I noticed his left shoe wasn't laced the same as his right one, his wastebasket was overflowing, there was a dirty t-shirt still not completely in the clothes hamper, his "g" and "j"s were lazily penned, and he'd misspelled "parliament" in his homework essay, leaving out the "i". Just the sort of giveaway to all sorts of juvenile delinquency, if we could get him to crack.
After rubber hoses and thumbscrews, and some serious threats of being grounded for a week with no supper, and no TV, he broke.
"Yeah, it was me, and Steve, and Tim. Greg was being a jerk all week in school, and he was always complaining he was bored, so we decided to liven things up. Steve and me bought the toilet paper, then we both went over to Tim's house. The Martins don't have a dog, so we just waited until they were watching WKRP In Cincinatti, and we knew we had half an hour to go to town on his place. I know it was messed up, but we were all giggling as we were throwing those XL rolls over the mulberry tree. That stuff'll be up there for days, man!"
"Is that all son?"
"Well, I teased my sister last week, I forgot to walk the dog and he peed all over the garage in the corner, sometimes I stick my gum on the bottom of my desk at school, I don't like broccoli, and last week I told Mr. Andrews in social studies that President Carter is a pussy jerk for not gettin' those hostages out of the embassy! And I don't care who knows it!"
I'd had a bellyful of his adolescent rage, so I unloaded on him.
"You probably think that was a great prank, son, but what about all those hard working lumberjacks sawing trees down all day, and all the guys who've lost fingers working at the paper mill, just so you and your friends can squander 75 cents apiece on a few six packs of toilet paper? Do you think paper grows on trees?? And what about the neighbors? They'll probably make fun of Greg's parents too, and they'll have to leave their lights on at night wondering if you and your crew are coming back to do their houses, but you and your buddies never think of the consequences when you're out being hooligans. What about the neighborhood dogs and cats that'll pull that stuff down and spread it all over? All those people raking and plucking tissue out of the begonias and chrysanthemums, just so some punks can have a good laugh. And the landfills will get filled up too. You wasted, what...? Twenty-four, maybe thirty rolls? And instead of doing your homework, and sitting at home and watching TV, all those commercials and programs will go unwatched, because you weren't at home to do it. And while you increased profits for Charmin, that's money you won't have for college, getting a good house, shopping for necessities for your own kids someday, and for paying your taxes to Uncle Sam, no matter who's president. Yessir, your little caper just about undermines everything the US of A stands for, but you never thought about that, did you, boy?"
He was crying in a heap on the floor, so I left him with one final thought.
"And your mother slaves away over a hot stove every evening to give you a balanced diet; so how about from now on, you eat your vegetables, son? And ALL of them, not just the ones you like. Instead of destroying this great country that grown-ups have built, just to hand down to you in a few more years? Is that so much to ask??"
His mother pleaded with us. "We've tried, Sergeant. He's getting straight As, he's in the Boy Scouts, and he eats his corn and peas, but he just hates broccoli. What's a mother to do?!"
"I don't know, ma'am. I just don't know."
On June 7th, in the Superior Court of Dad's den, Brett Kavanaugh was sentenced to two weeks mowing lawns in the neighborhood for free, a stern finger-wagging, and having to take his friends over to Greg Martin's house to clean up the mess. They never did get all the tissue out of the top of that mulberry tree. And he still won't eat his broccoli.
- 30 -
Thank heavens the Democrats and their full-time pubic relations wing at ABCNNBCBS are out hounding the bushes from hell to breakfast to uncover the true temperament of this man, before it's too late, and we're stuck with him on the Supreme Court until he's as old as Ruth Vader Ginsburg.
IANAL. (Not my fault: I couldn't attend law school; my parents were married to each other.) Despite that fact, *I* could now get federal convictions against Sen. Chuck Schumer, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Adam Schiff, and Sen. Mark Warner, as well as against FBI Director Wray, DNI Dan Coats, and Dep. AG Rod Rosenstein.
Conspiracy, insubordination on the parts of the executive branch members, as well as sedition.
18 US Code 371 If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
18 US Code 1001 (a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—
(1)
falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;
(2)
makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or
(3)
makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years
The mere act of writing that letter makes the four signatories culpable, prima facie, of conspiring with agents of the executive branch to withhold information from the White House contrary to US law, and for the co-conspirators to deliberately fail to follow the express written instructions of the Chief Executive, individually and collectively.
This letter puts all seven parties to this letter on the hook for ten years in pound-you-in-the-butt federal prison, which conviction a jury would reach in about 5 minutes.
The president, right this minute, could direct the AG to arrest all seven for seditious conspiracy, and have them thrown in jail, and be well within the boundaries of settled black-letter federal law. Right. This. Minute.
Think about that for a minute.
The two most senior Democrats in each house, together with the opposition ranking members on the congressional select intelligence committees, have admitted in writing to have previously conspired with the current head of FBI, the deputy AG, and the DNI, to disobey the orders of the Chief Executive, withhold information he directed them to provide, and thus violate actual federal law.
That's a coup, boys and girls.
Not "feels like one".
Not a "soft" coup.
This is an actual conspiracy to usurp the President of the United States.
And these four assholes signed their names to it. So, what is to be done about that?
If they're not in federal custody by noon today, the Rule of Law is completely dead in this country, and you don't live in a constitutional republic, you live in a banana republic.
USCG PO2 Garrett Brada gives the OK sign before an ice dive. -DoD photo
Make no mistake: if your ship is foundering, or you're overboard, or floating in an exposure suit or raft on the open sea, or having a heart attack 300 miles from land, or sitting on your roof after a hurricane, the Coasties of the USCG are the finest thing you'll ever want to see. If you're smuggling dope or breaking the law on the water, they're the last thing you want to see. And when activated to federal military service in time of war, they've consistently punched far above their weight.
But the reason they'll never shake off the pejorative term "Puddle Pirates" among the actual military, and forever be regarded as little better than some third world brown-water navy, is silly PC horseshit like this:
And solely because of PC-pants-wetting hysteria spawned by a 4chan meme joke, the USCG relieved the hard-working Coastie in the hurricane center who was simply doing his job, not flashing KKK gang signs.
And only monumental commissioned jackholes of the most moronic sort, with their heads shoved so far up their asses they can see out of their own throats could think, or pretend, it was ever otherwise.
It's also an open question if their parents were ever married.
But two can play at this game.
Alternatively, you could relieve every one in the chain of command who played any part in removing the Coastie from his position in that hurricane center, put permanent official letters of reprimand in all their files, restore the officer removed from his post back to it without any further prejudice, issue him a formal letter of apology from and signed by everyone from the Secretary of Transportation and the Coast Guard Commandant on down to his immediate OIC, and send everyone else from CPO to Rear Admiral in the USCG to mandatory "How Not To Be A Monumental Jackass" training, to ensure this kind of bullshit ceases immediately and Coast Guard-wide, NLT noon Monday.
But since we're talking about the Puddle Pirates' senior management, I'm not holding my breath.
Maybe it would be simpler to just relieve everyone in that service above a certain rank (LT or LT j.g. is probably the cut off (though I'd allow LtCmdr's with sterling records to make a good pitch for retention), and then just let common sense percolate up as normal promotions replenish the removed officer corps over future years.
Or, all y'all can just keep walking around with your heads up your asses, and giving me fish in the barrel to shoot from this blog.
You can get odds on which is likeliest.
And some serious history by Vox, from Kenny at Knuckledraggin:
So much for jokes pinning that to white supremacy, Coast Tards. Pry your heads loose, and come up for air, will ya?
In 2010, the US Congress acted on a problem that very few of us knew existed: electric cars are too quiet, especially at low speeds, and therefore pedestrians and bicyclists are more likely to get hit by an electric car. The answer? Make electric cars noisier. That raises the questions of exactly how noisy and exactly what kinds of noise. After years of study, it appears they've started ruling on just how to fix this.
...
This sounds like a job for The Federal Government!
But you can shoot its authors in the head, which is even better.
Nota bene the idea of holding the bicyclists and pedestrians accountable for putting their iPhones away, and watching WTF they're doing, and where they're going at all times was never, for even a fleeting moment, considered by our governmental would-be overlords.
I'm sanguine in the long-run; I have both a gambling marker at Vegas, and a stake in the copyright, for the first class-action lawsuit when thousands of people sue the car makers for hearing problems after long-term exposure to governmental-induced noise, so my retirement is now fully funded, with the certainty of the sun rising.
But as for civilization itself, and general sanity?
There's only one answer.
Heads.
Pikes.
Assembly required.
Barring personal tragedy, if you're old enough to read this, you'll probably see it in your lifetime.
And if we're voting, I want my EV to sound like the old TV Batmobile's jet engine, complete with flames from the tail exhaust every time I accelerate. If it can use spotted owl carcasses, diesel fuel, the dirtiest crude oil, high-sulfur coal, or nuclear power for that effect, bonus points.
So much for zero emissions.
"Green" communists' heads exploding: just a serendipitous cherry on that cake.
World-class semi-finalist in Hide-and-Seek, and 35-year Air Farce deserter found to be working for Janet "Sabotage America" Napolitano, because no one in the UC system had ever, y'know, done a basic background check on the @$$hat deserter who'd been working for them for nearly two decades.
Employees in the University of California president's office in Oakland knew their former colleague Tim O'Beirne as the personable, brainy number-cruncher for the UC system's vast health benefits program. They were stunned Tuesday to learn that the Air Force has identified him as William Howard Hughes Jr., a then-USAF captain with top-secret clearance who vanished in 1983. The Air Force declared him a deserter and one of its most wanted fugitives – and some suspected he had defected to the Soviets – until his capture last Wednesday.
The Air Force said O'Beirne admitted last week that he was Hughes. He is in confinement at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield amid an investigation, and has not been charged with a crime, said Linda Card, a spokeswoman for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. No bail or court date have been set.
Kudos to the Air Farce OSI cops who stayed on this case for 35 years before getting their man.
We saw one deserter in the USMC during the mid-1980s frog-marched in under close MP supervision after deserting in early 1970s, middle-aged, head-shaven, in "P"-marked cammies, and being processed through to court martial via our whistle-stop because our unit was the one he had last belonged to when he bailed out at some point during the Nixon presidency. Our exemplar was caught while getting a traffic ticket, and it was sufficient to drive the point home that the military never, ever stops looking for deserters.
But the Queen of "What Immigration Laws?", Napolitano had no clue that one of her senior contractors was tops on the USAF's "Most Wanted Deserter" list.
Which explains why HopeyDopey made her the head of DHS, and why immigration in this country got so much more effed up in the prior administration, and descended so far, and so fast.
This is also why background checks should be mandatorily run on all personnel in previous administrations by incoming ones. One cannot but suspect that a close scrutiny of the Obozo White House would probably turn up a few more such long-term criminals among the staffers. Pity the FBI has been too busy concocting evidence against their political foes on behalf of the prior communist regime to catch that sort of thing, but once again, that just argues for disbanding the whole lash-up, and starting over from scratch with a better candidate for the tasks of those at Far Beyond Insanity.
(FUCKTARDIA) A law goes into effect March 1 that bans the common cooking method of tossing a live lobster into a big pot of boiling water, quickly killing the tasty crustacean. That practice is being outlawed because the Swiss say it's cruel and lobsters can sense pain.
The same law also gives domestic pets further protections, such as dogs can no longer be punished for barking.
...cats must have a daily visual contact with other felines, and hamsters or guinea pigs must be kept in pairs.
And anyone who flushes a pet goldfish down the toilet is breaking the law.
The law also stipulates that lobsters must be transported to their final Swiss destination in their natural environment — seawater — rather than on ice.
The government vows that offenders will not slip through the net. State officials will be responsible for enforcement, and Kunfermann said offenders could land in a lot of hot water, with sentences of up to three years in prison.
No, it's not The Onion. Those silly jackasses are serious about this bullshit.
New Blog Rule: "Swiss" and "fucktard" are henceforth interchangeable terms. E.g.: "Hey, that's a nice Fucktard Army knife!" I can but marvel that they can manage to draw breath without assistance. They have clearly lost all contact with the sentient and rational universe.
"Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad..."
Personally, I'm going to the firing range.
When I'm out of ammo, (but doubtless, long before my blood pressure settles back to the stratosphere) I'm going to Lobsterfest at Red Lobster.
I will there specify that all the lobsters I consume must be thrust into the boiling pot, alive, screaming audibly, writhing, flailing, and in full agonizing extremis, until they are torn asunder, disemboweled, and their plump muscled tails are deposited next to a suitably large container of melted butter. I also want a seat near the tank so all the other lobsters can watch in shocked horror as I consume their fellows.
And I'm taking the empty shells home, to mail to the Swiss Embassy, and I intend to dare them to prosecute me at the Hague for crimes against lobsteranity. Come and get me, you silly fucktards Swiss pigdogs! I fart in your general direction.
Just a hunch, but proximity to France and Germany clearly rots the brain, the miasma from Italy can't be helping, and this is very likely the same sort of self-apparent theory as the one that posits that cancer is hereditary in white laboratory mice.
It would definitely explain the nonsense out of Eurostan the last 500 years and more.
Me: Minding my own business in the front seat of the boat... Special Snowflake in the second row to her two friends (all about 14-15): "Hey! Wanna hear something gross? The pirate holding the map and key used to be holding a woman's skirt, and instead of Jack Sparrow in the barrel, it was a woman the pirate was after! No, really! The ride used to be really sexist! Me: (No! Don't turn around and throw her ass out of the ride! No! No! Bad Aesop! Must. Maintain. Silence. Deep breaths. Deeeeeep breaths.) Yes, that's right, little Miss Fuckwit, the pirate there used to be holding a lady's petticoat.
(You should look that word up sometime, strumpet.) And yes, the pirates in that section were actually booty pirates, >gasp! ZOMG!< who were chasing attractive women around. (Except for the land whalestress chasing the skinny pirate around.)
Yes, this was back in the horrible old days when himself, Walt Disney, was working on the last ride he actually designed, which has been reproduced at multiple theme parks, and turned into 5 movies (at least two of which were flat-out awesome), raking in a paltry few billion$ from before you were even a gleam in your daddy's eye. And doubtless, he never imagined that fifty years after designing his ultimate masterpiece attraction, the history behind it would be re-written because whiny little wenchlets couldn't handle it.
Mind you, this bit of overheard fucktarderry was noted to her friends' speechless wonder after said pirates on the very same ride had been seen by them
a) shelling a peaceful town with cannon fire
b) waterboarding the town's mayor to get him to cough up the town's treasure, and shooting at his wife, and
c) selling women roped together at gunpoint, as pirate brides.
No sexism there, nosiree.
Not a peep about those tawdry little indiscretions, huh, Cupcake?
And this before they loot the town, and set it on fire. Pirates who kidnap, kill, pillage, burn = good. Pirates who chase women = bad. Got it. Pure curiosity, wenchlet, but who wipes your ass these days when you mess yourself? Mummy, or your nanny?
Of course, we know from history that pirates were always gentlemanly with women, and would never do any bad things to them, which is why the petticoat-holding pirate had to be sent to sexual harassment re-education camp, after the harpies, beta cucks, and LGBTEIEIO poofters took over Disney Inc., and made it kinder and gentler for little prissy progtards like Ms. Second Row Sugar-Coated Shitforbrains With No Sense Of Humor.
Mission Accomplished.
Maybe our intrepid historian might have noticed the ride is called Pirates of the Caribbean, and not Progtard Sexual Harassment Instructors of the Caribbean. Just saying.
There also used to be a flaming cabin on the Rivers of America with the owner killed by savage Indians, before that harsh historical reality was too unpalatable, and they became noble misunderstood native peoples living in harmony with Mother Earth until the evil White man came and stole their ancestral lands, which they'd been stealing from each other happily unhindered for 10,000 years and more, after they trespassed here from Asia. (Historical secret: there are no "native American peoples", as far as anyone can prove. Everyone here's an immigrant, including the tribes Columbus found here.)
Vegan lions: coming soon?
And one can only await with bated breath the dawn of the Jungle Endangered Rainforest Cruise, once the lion pride is decreed henceforth to be vegan, and the "sleeping" zebra is replaced with tofu cakes made from sustainable algae farming, which everyone knows is what lions really eat on the African veldt.
Suffering cats. Literally.
But don't worry, Ms. Budding Anthrophobe, Disney's already set to eliminate the Wenches Auction from the ride this year, and replace it with one of pilfered treasures. Again, because pirates historically were considerate like that.
So if you're still traditionally built enough to concur that "We wants the redhead!", visit soon, because that doll is gone the first chance the PC Mafia has to finally rip it right out of the ride at the next refurb. (Still, probably better than replacing it with one modeled on Melissa McCarthy or Rosie O'Donnell, along with a gratuitous lecture about fat-shaming, but not happening because Disney would have to clean the vomit out of the pond daily.) And any ladies yearning for such treatment from yesteryear will instead either have to flock to the next installment of Fifty Shades Of Awfully Scripted Porn, or emigrate to Eurostan to get themselves merkeled by swarthy Worthy Oriental Gentleman immigrants with no sense of shame. Try train stations in Germania around the holidays.
And for you, Sugarbritches, and your historically retarded and gender-fornicated indoctrination, here's a head start on how life is going to turn out for you if you never learn to think beyond your Common Core programming:
Because with your "enlightened" attitudes, that's the only pussy at your house that's ever going to be touched, for the rest of your shriveled shrewish life.
Assuming, of course, you aren't eaten by wolves or bears or mountain lions because you think the fuzzy little things sing "Bare Necessities" all day in real life, are cute and cuddly, and you try to pet them.
One can only live in hope.
SJW/PC harpies, and their beta male bitchbois in comments will be cheerfully relegated to oblivion.
Like the missing bits on certain rides.
Because Nature seeks a balance.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We pillage, we plunder, we rifle and loot.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We kidnap and ravage and don't give a hoot.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We extort, we pilfer, we filch and sack.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Maraud and embezzle and even highjack.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We kindle and char, inflame and ignite.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We burn up the city, we're really a fright.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We're rascals, scoundrels, villians and knaves.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
We're devils and black sheep, really bad eggs.
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.
We're beggars and blighters and ne'er do-well cads,
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Aye, but we're loved by our mommies and dads,
Drink up me 'earties, yo ho.
Not counting the news outlets or websites along the full range of accuracy and veracity, I follow multiple actual individuals' handwritten blogs. (Bot news aggregators don't thrill me.) Looking them over, many are current serving or former military and a couple are some variation of high-speed low-drag elite forces ninjas. Or just funny as all. Because life without humor is just despair. So in other words, the same folks I trusted in the military not to wet the bed, sh*t themselves, or otherwise run around like headless Nancys, are the same folks I trust on the interwebz, for demonstrating pretty much the same trustworthiness and circumspectly responsible behavior. Color me shocked.
Comments are fully moderated, due to idiots and trolls. Grown up discussion here will appear just as soon as I have the time to push it through. ANONYMOUS UNSIGNED COMMENTS WILL BE AUTO-DELETED WITHOUT MERCY, and the url added to the spam filter, or mercilessly mocked at the bloghost's sole discretion. If you're too chickensh*t to come up with an alias for online purposes, you're not tall enough for this blog. Pick a name, and stick with it, and you're good. Get cute, and you're wasting your time and my electrons, and your masterpiece will never see the light of day. No warning shots will be fired. If you can't maintain decorum and polite behavior, I won't toy with you, I'll squash you. If one of your comments disappears, YOU f**ked up. If all of them do, it's time for you to go. Disagree with the points made, on the merits, and you're good. Go after me personally, or other commenters, and your comment will never see daylight here. My tolerance for skirting the line is at absolute zero, and will remain there. Don't f**k up.
