THIS is Why I Still Wear a Mask in Public

From Mock Paper Scissors:

As we say here, we might be done with the pandemic, but the Trump-Virus ain't done with us:

"The number of attendees who have tested positive for the coronavirusafterlast weekend's Gridiron dinner has risen to 67, organizers say, including Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who became the third member of Biden's Cabinet in attendance who was infected."

The subhead of the article says that "More than 10 percent of attendees of Gridiron dinner have been infected with the virus." And as is typical for D.C., the WaPo didn't include the health status of anyone who worked the event. I guess the invisible are truly invisible.

As the Gridiron dinner was announced and the society pages at Der Tiger Beat auf dem Potomac filled with stories of who was going, tuxedo rentals, the bon mots of the guests, I kept wondering if it was going to turn into a super spreader event, and lo! it has.

Look, I get it. I've been hunkered down since March 13, 2020, and so going on 3 years without dining out, going to a concert, no travel, doing much of anything in public has been a chore and always a gamble after assessing the odds. But even a nobody like me,  I knew that this thing was not going to end well, and I wondered why the connected and powerful didn't see it.

Anyway, this is now an object-lesson for the rest of us. Keep following protocols. Stay safe.

Great Takes on the Current Madness

From Darwinfish 2:

I love that President Biden has come out publicly for a tax on the Super-Rich. It's about time. But it's funny seeing so many of the lunch-pail brigade criticizing the proposal as if it wouldn't make their own lives so much better. It just shows they've been well-trained by their overlords at Fox "News," who bleat about the plight of those poor, trod-upon billionaires, who are only trying to put bread on their family's tables, just like you and me. And by "bread," I mean thick bundles of cash and reams of stock portfolios, possibly tinged with the blood of those who did the work that reaped such benefits for the executives.

Already I see lots of moaning about the terrible unfairness of it all, how these put-upon billionaires would be taxed on earnings they haven't even realized yet. I say, screw'em. All the better to get some of that cash before they stash it in off-shore accounts.

This is a group that has had so much for so long, they don't even understand how badly the rest of us get screwed. Or maybe they do but WE don't. All I know is they can afford to shake some cash down to better the lives of the rest of us poor wretches, slaving away in stores, factories, or god-forsaken open office seating areas. And once they've been taxed, they'll STILL be billionaires, with plenty of dough leftover to fund their next yacht.

And if they still want to complain, my counter-proposal would be to keep the tax structure the same but eliminate all the loopholes they use to pay a lower tax rate than do you or I or the janitors who sweep up their offices after they leave. Just pay the taxes as already directed by the tax code, on the straight up. Then we'll see how they like the new proposal.

Russia Russia Russia!

Did you see this headline/story?

So this is how they're going to handle the acts of savagery being brought to light in Ukraine… by putting out absurd lies that no one with half a brain cell believes*.

*Except on Fox "News."

I wonder if Republicans know that this is how the rest of us look at their ongoing stream of bullshit stories. You know… BLM and Antifa were behind January 6th, Democrats are Satan-worshipping, child-eating pedophiles, TFG really won the election, tax cuts to the top trickle down to the rest of us, abortion laws are to protect women, recent local election rules were passed to fight election fraud, etc.

I don't think it's a coincidence that both Russia and the Republicans dissemble information and distract our attention from the truth in the same way. Top Republicans crave the kind of sheer, all-encompassing power wielded by Putin and Kim Jong Un. It's such an inconvenience to have to pledge fealty to a system of government that sometimes puts them out of power for the flimsiest of reasons, like ""The People" want someone else in charge" or "they totally botched the economy the last time they ran things." It totally interferes with their siphoning tax dollars into the pockets of those who have the most. The rest of us would just waste it, I guess. Stupid peasants…

Out, Out Damned Twat

Speaking of distractions, did you see the latest verbal excrement from the Colorado half of the famous performance art duo, Heckle and Dyed?

The quick answer is that buying beer or cigs is a decision, whereas sexual orientation is not. And I think most kids know pretty early on regarding where their interests lie. I know that even from my earliest school days, I was interested in holding hands with girls, not boys.

I think that ignoring the signs from your child regarding their orientation would be akin to abuse. Why punish a child for knowing that they're "different" at an early age? This needs to be an issue between the parent and child, and not the government, least of all some uneducated freshman Representative who's better versed in attention-whoring than passing legislation.

Knowledge is Knowing That We Know Nothing**

I see a lot of impatience afloat regarding the progress of filing charges against TFG and the rest of the 1/6 Planning Commission. All I'll say is what I said while the Mueller Report was being assembled: There's no sense in speculation or even forming opinions because we don't know jack shit yet. This process has been buttoned up and leak-proof. The wheels are turning slowly and that goes against the grain of our "I Need Answers NOW" culture. If we don't have the beginning, middle, and end of the story in 42 minutes, plus commercials, we have a collective fit.

Look, you'd like to see TFG get rung up, I'd like to see that too. But they have to tread carefully if they want charges to stick. It will be unprecedented to charge a former US President with such serious crimes. And you know what they say, "If you take a shot at the King, you'd better not miss." Because if he beats the rap, it will be open season for presidential corruption for the rest of our days. Given what we already DO know, you'd think charges should be obvious. But we don't know what we don't know. So there's no sense in squawking about the lack of progress while we don't know what progress has been made. So let's just breathe, huh?

And hope we're not in for another Mueller-sized swing and miss.

Gas Prices

Get used to it, my fellow humans.

Gas prices are never going down again. The days of sub-three-dollar-a-gallon petrol in the US are gone and never returning—unless demand completely dries up like it did under the lockdown two years ago. And I don't see another lockdown being put in place at this point no matter how horrific COVID variations become.

People will be dropping dead in the street before a certain segment of society—and you know who they are—will ever agree to it (and even then I doubt they would). I mean,"MAH FREEDUMBS!" Just getting those people to wear masks has been a lesson in futility.

I realized this yesterday while passing my usual fuel stop and seeing that the price had gone up ten cents a gallon after dropping—even though the price for crude has dropped.

Corporate greed knows no bounds. And now it seems the prices on everything are going up, because. Yachts must be purchased and private islands maintained after all.

I'm somewhat fortunate that while the MINI demands Premium Grade, it is a light drinker. On our recent trip, Rabbit averaged 31.375 MPG (the highest being 35.49 to which I incredulously said, "WTF?!"). Usual city driving comes in at the low-to-mid 20s.

Teh St00pid, It Burns

From Second Nexus:

GOP Senator Proves She Has No Idea What the Constitution Says With Mind-Numbing 'Abortions' Tweet

Throughout the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings this week to consider Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's historic nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States, far-right Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee has interrogated Jackson with some of the hearings' most incendiary questions.

On the first day of hearings, Blackburn suggested Blackburn's "personal hidden agenda" was to embed critical race theory into the American legal system. On the second day, Blackburn demanded Jackson define the word "woman" and suggested she was soft on child pornographers. All the while, the Senator heaped praise on Jackson's family and composure.

On Twitter, Blackburn's opposition to Jackson's appointment was even less restrained. The Senator's timeline has offered a steady stream of quips decrying Jackson's near-inevitable appointment to the Supreme Court.

One such criticism attempted to discredit the idea that Americans have a right to an abortion, or rather, a right not to bear children.

Blackburn erroneously cited the Constitution.

Blackburn insisted to her followers that "The Constitution grants us rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — not abortions."

There's just one problem: the famous phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" isn't in the Constitution—the document that forms the basis of government in the United States and the document that created Blackburn's very position. Those words are from the Declaration of Independence, the letter wherein the 13 original colonies unanimously asserted their rationale for breaking from Britain, citing its disregard for "self-evident" truths that governments must recognize to warrant the consent of the governed.

For many Americans, it's been a long time since a civics or American history class. But for a Senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee tasked with considering the nomination of a historic Supreme Court appointment?

Social media users thought Blackburn should've known better, and they were quick to point out the error.

But it wasn't just the conflation of documents that sparked reactions, it was the entire premise of Blackburn's argument.

Today marks the final day of Judge Jackson's confirmation hearings, after which the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to advance her nomination to the Senate floor.