Tag: coronavirus

Fake News Live

 

Before the pandemic, I’d perform on cruise ships every few weeks. It’s a great gig: well-paying, responsive audiences and an opportunity to visit places as diverse as Ushuaia and Singapore. While I’m certain that restrictions such as lockdowns impacted others more than me, they certainly changed my life significantly. Much of it was for the good: I began spending more time with my wife and children than ever. I learned to cook – and to love it. I spent months intensely rehabilitating an injury to my foot and then seamlessly transitioning to another rehab after surgery on my knee, culminating in the completion of my second marathon. (Pro-tip: getting physically stronger is the closest thing to a cure-all for aches and pains.) I’m now again fully fit and looking forward to our family’s skiing trip.

All the while, though, I was writing, writing, writing. It’s kind of strange to write jokes with no imminent opportunity to perform them, even if it’s so much as an open mic. I did perform several so-called “Zoom shows” during the pandemic but it’s just not the same. There was something depressing about looking out at the audience while I’m performing and everyone is starring at their devices.

No charge for that joke.

What Happened To My Mask Mandate?

 

God has taken your mask mandate to live with Him in heaven: it’s a very special place where wars and diseases and billionaires don’t exist, only contentment. I’m sure you’ve experienced some wondrous places – on vacation in Costa Rica, watching Netflix or listening to NPR – but heaven is a gazillion times more joyous than even downtown Portland or Minneapolis. John Lewis and Woodrow Wilson live in heaven and so do Maya Angelou and George Floyd. Your mask mandate will be safe and happy in heaven forever, and God will always take care of it.

You can still wear a mask – you will always be able to wear a mask – but you can’t force anyone else to wear one, not ever. That probably sounds pretty harsh. One day you’re relishing the satisfaction that comes from imposing your militant risk aversion on people who don’t share your assessment and the next day you wake up to find freedom of choice is the order of the day. Maybe you got a bad feeling in your stomach or a feeling of emptiness or maybe you have those feelings still. You loved your mask mandate very, very much and you did not want God to take it away.

Your feelings are perfectly normal and natural – they are the way God made you – but God took your mask mandate in accordance with His wonderful plan, which is beyond our understanding. You must trust and have faith that He loves your mask mandate just as He loves you or Medicare For All. Someday, a very, very long time from now, after you have lived a very long and happy life with the Green New Deal, God will take you to live with Him in heaven, too. Then you will understand.

Masks For Thee But Not For Me: Cruise Ship Edition

 

Readers may recall the jarring images of maskless political elites such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Carolyn Maloney attending last year’s Met Gala as The Help stood by dutifully breathing up against pieces of fabric.

Some in the cruise and cruise-commentary world, far from seeking an escape from the reinforcement of such class divisions, find comfort in embracing them. Cynical as I am, I was surprised to learn that a cruise line would require a fully-vaccinated crew member to don a mask while working alone on the open decks of a ship even as passengers a few feet away enjoy the ineffable feeling of their lungs filling with fresh ocean air.

But such, it seems is the case.

Study: Plexiglass Barriers Successful at Trapping Virus Near Heads of Workers

 

A peer-reviewed study has concluded that the plexiglass barriers surrounding customer-facing retail workers successfully traps the COVID virus on, around and near their heads. The’s study’s summary report states “No doubt about it – the virus really gets up in your grill when there’s no proper airflow.”

According to the report, by encouraging the air surrounding employees to “you know, hang around,” the plastic barriers contribute an ideal transmission environment for the deadly COVID virus.

The study’s conclusion even went so far as to say that by removing the barriers to encourage better airflow, restaurants might then be able to safely seat more customers inside their doors during the winter months instead of “forcing them to live like animals by having dinner on a Chicago sidewalk. In February.”

[Member Post]

 

Not long after the coronavirus and COVID-19 bloomed around the globe, I wrote an op-ed for my then-local Philly suburban newspaper, the Delco Times, calling on President Trump to establish a presidential commission to independently (as possible) investigate our national response to the pandemic. I further proposed that he entice former US Senate Majority Leader and renowned heart-lung […]

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CDC: Healthy Lifestyle No Substitute For Booster Shot

 

CDC director Rochelle Wallensky announced today that when it comes to reducing the threat from COVID-19, exercise, a well-rounded diet rich in nutrients and a generally healthy lifestyle are no substitutes for receiving a vaccine booster every seven months.

“So by all means avoid direct sunlight, runny eggs and more than one alcoholic beverage per day” said the CDC director, “but the main thing is to get that BioNTech in your arm like it’s going out of style.”

Wallensky backed up her claim by citing the nation’s chief immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci who, in turn, cited the same CDC press release issued by Wallensky. Wallensky further elaborated that “The science has spoken – directly to Dr. Fauci” as the latter stood behind her waving his doctorate.

Illinois Flooded with Ex-Governors as Prisons Emptied Over Coronavirus Concerns

 

Springfield, Ill – The Land of Lincoln has been inundated with a rising tide of former governors as state penitentiaries released hundreds of convicts over concerns of the latest Covid variant Omicron, referred to by local residents as “Omi-crony.” In Chicago, residents were forced to evacuate their homes as basements became flooded with the likes of George Ryan (R., racketeering) and Rod Blagojevich (D., lying to federal agents.)

Downstate, what few residents remain in the formerly thriving port city of Cairo, were forced onto rooftops as the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers overflowed their banks with the addition of former Illinois governors Otto Kerner (D., mail fraud, conspiracy, perjury) and Dan Walker (D., bank fraud, filing false financial statements.)

At press time, current Illinois governor and billionaire J.B. Pritzker had declared a state of emergency in order to receive federal funds for purchasing a new home on high ground.

This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute’s Visiting Fellow in Life Sciences, Dr. Bill Smith, about his newest research paper, “An “Impending Tsunami” in Mortality from Traditional Diseases,” which sounds the alarm that the public health community’s focus on COVID-19 has caused many to avoid seeking medical attention for other illnesses. As a result, more Americans are dying from fear of COVID than from the disease itself.

Guest:

President Oprah’s Dingbat Appointees

 

In our pandemic era, the American press has deemed it its solemn — and urgent — duty to protect news consumers from pseudoscience and misinformation. Snopes, for example, has a comprehensive list of ratings for assessing various claims: true, mostly true, mixture, mostly false, false, and Obama.

Enter the words “Trump fact checked” into any Internet search engine and you’ll find more than 20 million results, from organizations such as factcheck.org and politifact.com. This is as it should be. The man was, after all, president of the United States and therefore should be held to the most rigorous standards of probity, as is President Biden (pause for laugh). And yes, if Trump were still president today, he would no doubt be saying things like “And thanks to my beautiful vaccines, you’re damned right you can gather for Christmas!”

In other words, we can all rest assured that the wealthiest, most prominent, admired, and powerful purveyors of pseudoscience in popular culture are vetted at every turn by fact checkers, right?

Party of Government Threatens Government Shutdown

 

Things come to a head this week on Capitol Hill as Congress considers hard infrastructure, soft infrastructure, reconciliation, the debt ceiling, and the tantalizing prospect of a government shutdown. Speaking of which, how awesome would a government shutdown be when every governing institution in Washington is controlled by the Party of Government™? Naturally Democrats would blame such an outcome on the minority party – would that Republicans were so competent!

At this point I half expect Pelosi to simply wash her hands and advise her coalition to vote their conscience – if any.

Fauci: ‘Nothing Is Over Until I Decide It Is’

 

A sullen Nancy Pelosi is demoralized about the increased public focus on Covid outcomes rather than Covid case rates. Dr. Anthony Fauci enters and attempts to rally her and the political consultants seated around her.

Fauci: Hey!!! What’s this maskless B.S.?

Pelosi: War’s over, man, Pfizer-Moderna dropped the Big One.

[Member Post]

 

From what little I can gather (or guess), the Powers That Be decided to handle Covid with a policy of Lockdowns, Vaccines, Masks, and Nothing Else.  I propose a new word for LOckdowns, VAccines, MAsks, and NOthing Else: lovamanoe, pronounced “lo-va-ma-no.” That the Powers managed to institute lovamanoe without the cooperation of the President of […]

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I Stand as an Ally to the Vaccine Holdouts

 

I’m vaccinated but I don’t ask, as have many vaccinated Facebook users, that you “respect my decision.” Vaccinated people like me get plenty of respect already, thanks: from public health officials, the political class, employers, and the media, just to name a few. No, the lay of the cultural landscape makes it abundantly clear that it’s not the vaccinated but the unvaccinated who aren’t getting enough respect.

At the end of the day, each individual must make a cost-benefit analysis based on a constellation of variables such as age, health, pregnancy, family history, science, and, yes, anecdotes from sources you trust. Different people will come to different conclusions and behave accordingly. This is how it should be – must be – in a free society.

People question the vaccines for a whole host of reasons, some of them legitimate in my view, others not. I don’t think the vaccines’ image for being safe and efficacious – again, justified in my view – is burnished by shaming those who question them, those who take a wait-and-see approach, or decide to avoid them altogether. This is to say nothing of mandating them.

[Member Post]

 

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya at Stanford gives a clear-eyed critique of how Silicon Valley health officials implemented and overbroad and destructive lockdown strategy on local population.  Full article here: https://www.opportunitynowsv.org/blog/stanford-professor-challenges-sj-mercs-coronavirus-lessons-learned-assertions Key quote: Preview Open

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[Member Post]

 

A Coronavirus Commission is More Relevant Than One on January 6th. Nearly 14 months ago, on April 7, 2020, I proposed a commission. Not the January 6th commission blocked this week by most Republican US Senators on the evolving and overblown incursion of unarmed yahoos at the US Capitol, which of course, had not happened yet. But a […]

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The Best Commencement Speech of 2021

 

Purdue University President Mitch Daniels warned that the pandemic snuffed out the American eagerness to take risks and move ahead boldly.

There is no finer commencement speaker at any level than Purdue University’s President and former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. And not because his speeches are relatively short. Nor are they delivered in a flourishing style reminiscent of former Secretary of State and Harvard President Edward Everett, the other Gettysburg speaker in 1863, giving a speech for two hours that no one remembers.

Oh, sure, there are other terrific commencement speakers. Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame comes to mind. Not to a college or university, but this short, memorable unsolicited speech via his Facebook page to trade school graduates and high school grads who forgo college for a trade. Delivered last year during the height of the pandemic, it is timeless.

Fauci Downplays Lab Leak Hypothesis

 

Anthony Fauci, an epidemiologist who plays a doctor on TV, is working overtime to ensure that the elite consensus continues to hold that the Covid 19 lab-leak hypothesis is conspiracy theory garbage.

The official investigation tasked with getting to the bottom of it all was, after all, was a joint venture between two epidemiological Dream Teams: the World Health Organization and China. (What’s next, putting James Comey and Adam Schiff in charge of FBI oversight?) No surprise, then, that when little evidence emerged for the preferred zoonotic origin of Covid 19, the team nevertheless felt compelled to state that its likelihood was “likely to very likely” while deeming a laboratory scenario “extremely unlikely.” In other words, “Based on our modeling…”

[Member Post]

 

Who doesn’t remember the public reactions some 13 months ago as mask mandates were imposed in response to the then-raging Coronavirus pandemic? It was a reversal of course. Dr. Anthony Fauci and others demanded, even ridiculed people not to wear masks. Then they changed their minds. Preview Open

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