Category: 2020

Posted on

Checklist

Runny nose — Check
Headache — Check
Fatigue — Check
Sneezing — 60%.
Sore throat — Check (minor, from drainage; progressed to major, for a few hours until ameliorative effects too hold)
Persistent cough — Check (Well, intermittently persistent *heh*)
Hoarse voice — Check (But that’s pretty normal from time ti time nowadays; progressed to full-blown laryngitis, but that’s been a lifelong likelihood with such illesses)
Chills or shivers — Check
Fever — Check
Dizziness — Check
Brain fog — Check (Or is that Olde Pharte Syndrome?)
Muscle pains — Check
Loss of smell — Nope. (Just slightly dulled)
Chest pain — Check

So, pretty much a Winter cold. Fever was pretty bad last night, but broke this AM (somewhere between 0444 and 1038 — I got back to sleep between those times, so can’t pin down the time any better).

Is it Omicron? I do not care. Apparently, I’m going to survive a Winter cold. Who knew? Been doing that for 70+ years, so there was a decent chance I’d live through it.

Oh, earaches, but again, those are pretty much normal for me with colds. Lil warm olive oil, cotton balls. Worked a charm.

One week beyond the above: I see to have mostly seen the back of this checklist, apart from muscle aches and fatigue, which are still very much hanging on, but I understand from my primary care doc that I should expect a slow recovery from those symptoms. My blood oximeter readings are not all that encouraging, falling below both my own norms and what is considered a baseline optimum of 95. Deep breathing exercises seem to ameliorate this, though.

Posted on

This Is Utterly Appalling. . .

. . .and thus to be expected of DC pols and the Hivemind: just another day of completely, totally, and absolutely ignoring and disrespecting the primary foundational document of our nation. Regardless what I think of Trump, as a person (and I can’t imagine a circumstance where I’d even want to hold a casual conversation with the man–seriously), these Enemies of the Republic who have decided to hold a show trial, a SHAM show trial if that’s not too redundant, these evil (yes, evil) children of Satan* (and yes, I mean that, too), these despicable, rotten, asshat slanderers were what convinced me to vote for Trump in 2020, even if I had to crawl over broken glass to do it. Yeh, yeh, while in office, his actual policy decisions and actions on the national and international stages effected more good for both the USA and the world at large than all the best of the previous four presidents combined, but that might not have been enough to convince me to vote for him “come hell or high water” instead of a third party candidate. But these evil asshats convinced me to do so.

Here is the initial filing of Trump’s lawyers in answer to the spurious, ridiculous, slanderous articles of impeachment:

https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trumps-lawyers-offer-former-presidents-answer-to-impeachment-article-on-incitement-of-insurrection

THey thump the constitutional DISqualifications for the impeachment trial bone pretty hard, but how many in the Senate give a rat’s ass what the Constitution actually says, when they have their own lies?

I am tempted, now that voting at all is a sham, to simply take myself off the voter rolls and let the country burn to the ground.

Posted on

DEFINITIVE PROOF!

That the Hunter Biden emails are false. STOLEN from a FarceBook comment thread

The laptop had a base plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two main spurving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fan. The latter consisted simply of six hydrocoptic marzlevanes, so fitted to the ambifacient lunar waneshaft that side fumbling was effectively prevented. The main winding was of the normal lotus-o-deltoid type placed in panendermic semi-boloid slots in the stator, every seventh conductor being connected by a nonreversible tremmie pipe to the differential girdlespring on the “up” end of the grammeters.

Thus, the emails are false.

So, there you have it. THE definitive proof from an Internet IT Genius. (Well, Internet Satire Master)

Posted on

A Conspiracy of Dunces?

I have now participated in three Decennial Census efforts as an enumerator. 2000 and 2010, and now 2020. I worked in each of them for a couple of reasons:

1. The Census is one of the very few things the “feddle gummint” does that have a clear, unequivocal constitutional mandate, and as much as I gripe about the feds exceeding their constitutional limits, I do appreciate any of the few opportunities I have to support legitimate exercises of federal power.
2. In the first two, I got paid (admittedly not much) to simply add a bit of “side business” to a hobby of mine: driving the back roads of America’s Third World County™. 2020? Notsomuch.

This time, the whole thing was so very screwed up from the very beginning that every new screwup simply made the whole thing a real drag. You know the old saying, “Once is happenstance; twiceis coincidence; three times is enemy action”? Yeh, that. *sigh* I thought at first, as the “training” began, “Oh, this is just incompetence.” But then as “training” continued and continued to worsen I started to wonder how the actual field work might go. I mean, after all, there were a few mapping problems in 2000 and 2010, but surely the GPS positioning and such like used by the mapping crews that supposedly worked in 2019 and who had their work checked in the update operation at the beginning of 2020 would make things better there? Right?

No. Mapping problems from 2000 that had been corrected for the 2010 Census were inexplicably re-introduced in 2020, and naturally even more were introduced, to the point that roughly half of the work was just saying, “THERE IS NO SUCH ADDRESS, NOTHING HAS EVER BEEN THERE. EVER!” or variations on that theme. And then new things like retail businesses that have been in existence for 30-40 years listed as housing units (NEVER have been, and were not so listed in previous censuses). Housing units listed with THREE DIFFERENT ADDRESSES, at least one of which was physically impossible. And more, much, much more.

And then there were things like specific instructions via updates to handheld devices (iPhones with software provided by an obvious low bidder) issued for all interviews, reporting, etc., instructions to do such and so that when followed led back to management wusses who had no clue whatsoever how to perform their part of the instructions.

Cases dropped when reported. Reporting devices (yes, I asked other enumerators) frequently “borked,” even losing a days’ worth of work. Obscurantist case reporting parameters within the software that worked. . . inconsistently. Re-re-re-re-interviews of cases already completed, reported, submitted, and accepted.

It goes on. And on. And on.

It is almost as though a conspiracy of dunces set out to sabotage the entire effort. Well, that and apparently blatant fraud, especially on the part of the mapping operations. (NO ONE could honestly have “mapped” some of the locations listed. Period.)

Ad so the Census asked a federal judge to extend the deadline for submitting data. And the (Chicago area?) federal judge acquiesced. Thankfully, the SCOTUS has said, “Fugetaboutit,” and shut the thing down. Could not have happened to a better bureaucrappic monster, IMO.

Posted on

A Lil “Not-an-Experiment” Quasi-Semi-Sorta Experiment

No protocols for measurement of results, just a combination of procedures from different well-designed-and-conducted (IMO) experiments as presented in several papers downloaded from PubMed, as well as info posted directly on CDC site (no link here; anyone who’d “smarter than a third grader” can find the info for themselves with a simple web search. Not gonna hold hands and be “internet crossing guard” for adults):

Took a used disposable N-95 and (per CDC) subjected it to 170°F temps for 20 minutes (CDC says 165 for 15 mins), after having soaked it in a solution comprised of 75% ethanol, 25% concentrate of a medical-grade disinfectant (compatible with ethanol) that remains after ethanol evaporates.

Stored in disinfected (with above ethanol solution) vacuum sealed bag for use as filtration media–in place of HEPA filtration media-as supplementary filtration in a simple two-layer cloth mask that has the exterior treated with a hydrophobic compound to resist moisture (“droplets” anyone?)

This will be a very slight step down from the HEPA filtration media. . . but is plenty for allergy season. 🙂

N.B. Will also be just fine for wearing into those stores that “can’t” stay open w/o “masked bandits” for customers.

Posted on

Sense Amid All the Nonsense About COVID-19

Just a couple of observations from my own amateur reading of research papers from PubMed, et al. . .

The severity of illness from a virus depends, to a VERY great extent, on how many viral particles one is exposed to at any one time. A large number of viral particles accumulated over a short period of time usually results in a more severe illness, while a small number of viral particles accumulated over a long period of time usually results in a much less severe illness, often with few or no symptoms expressed at all, with an immune system then able to ward off future infections by that virus.

This is why lowering viral load and spreading that lower viral load out over time is a more sensible strategy than foolishly attempting absolute prevention of infection by a virus (which is impossible unless one LIVES in a Level 4 biohazard lab, with absolutely NO infectious agents present–even in yourself).

Posted on

Unpreparedness

Some site (no, no link, because I don’t think the info is all that reliable, just. . . moderately interesting as a viewpoint to take off from) suggested that the following list was what grocery stores ran out of quickest at inception of the recent pan(dem)ic. *shrugs*

Pasta and tomato sauce
Yeast
Flour
Sugar
Milk
Eggs
Butter
Rice
Beans
Peanut butter

So, folks weren’t already stocked up on staples. Had NO idea how to bake w/o commercial yeast? *yawn* I have bought exactly one of those items in the last six weeks. Had all I needed of the rest (didn’t need any milk, but I’ll admit to buying a couple of gallons of cream. . . ) Grocery stores ran out/low on only one item on my own replenishment list, and I had alternatives for that. But then

1. We have a pretty well-stocked pantry and
2. Our diet is not normal. *heh*

Posted on

Affliction Becomes Benefit

Some folks are more prone than others to vertical ridges in fingernails as they age. Oh, anyone can experience them because of nutritional deficits or some physical malady, but mine are apparently age and genetics related. I can recall as a young boy times spent with my maternal grandfather’s mother. Spending time with Great Grandmother was an enriching experience for me in many ways, but one lil thing has remained fascinating to me over the years: her hands. She was always doing interesting things with her hands: needlework, paging down pages in her Bible as she read (sometimes aloud for me, though I was close and reading along), sharpening her always-at-hand pen knife, and even trimming her nails with that very sharp pen knife.

And then there were her nails. Yep. Ridged just like mine are now, like Dad-Dad’s (maternal grandfather) were, like my older sister’s are. I have dealt with mine by checking my nutrition (no problems there), by making them less brittle with applications of different kinds, and. . . by trimming them as short as possible in order to minimize the real problem with ridged nails: frequent splitting and chipping.

And how has this become a benefit in recent days? Ease of keeping things really clean under my fingernails (because there’s hardly any “under my fingernails” to clean, for one thing).

So, a lil piece of heritage coming around to being a benefit.

Sweet!