The Atlantic has an interesting article about the fact that the US — despite being the world leader in developing and manufacturing Covid vaccines — is falling way behind in actually getting our citizens vaccinated.
The U.S. is no longer in the top five in national vaccine rates. We’re not in the top 10, or the top 20, or top 30. By one count, we’re 36th—countries as varied as Malta, Canada, Mongolia, and Ecuador have all surpassed us. If the European Union or the G7 were countries, they would be ahead of us too. With about 66 percent of Americans over 18 fully vaccinated, some might be impressed that it’s possible to get two-thirds of the country to agree on anything. But America still seems to suffer from an internationally unique reluctance.
Why did we fall behind?
The data point to three key reasons the United States is 36th and falling: It is unusually uninsured, unusually contrarian, and unusually polarized. These are three familiar—even defining—attributes of American life.
Not just attributes of American life, but now of American death.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the only way for Americans to avoid catching Covid is to move out of America? The NY Times has a tracker for which countries are the most vaccinated against Covid. The top 3 countries, all three with 84% fully vaccinated, are Portugal, U.A.E., and Malta. Coincidentally (?) all three of these have large and thriving expat populations.
A subreddit — r/HermanCainAward — chronicles people who were against vaccinations and masks, but succumbed to the coronavirus. Slate has posted an article about the subreddit, which is also a must-read.
I’ve noticed that people I talk to are becoming more and more angry over those who refuse to get vaccinated. One big fear is that by prolonging the pandemic, we are flirting with having a new variant evolve that will resist vaccination, and thus put everyone at risk, with horrific consequences.
We know how to get rid of Covid-19. We just aren’t willing to do it. What the fuck is wrong with us?
Stephen Colbert gives you the big news about Nicky Minaj’s Cousin’s Friend’s Testicles:
But wait, there’s more!
Joe Biden recently encouraged private companies, government agencies, and other organizations to implement vaccine mandates. But some of these mandates include a religious exemption. Unfortunately for nut-jobs looking for a way to escape getting vaccinated, all major religions support vaccination, so a number of fly-by-night religions have sprung up just to fleece support anti-vaxxers.
Which raises the question of just what is a religion, which brings up the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Naturally, the Church isn’t against vaccination, they are against people who don’t get vaccinated.
Many people have asked what is the Church’s stance on vaccinations and vaccination mandates.
Many have asked if we provide exemption letters.
I find it weird that religious exemptions are an accepted thing in general, seems like it would be best to leave public health policy to the most knowledgeable, not religious leadership. But if Churches must take a position on the issue …
I am happy to announce that we are offering Official letters for those Pastafarians who would like to be exempt from working in proximity to the unvaxxed.
The unvaccinated may emit harmful virus particles which are forbidden to devout Pastafarians, therefore we expect all reasonable measures to be taken to help us avoid these virus particles. Please respect our religious liberty.
Here’s the letter they will give you. You can get your own through a handy form.
Filed in Humor|Comments Off on The BIG Vaccine Stories
The California recall election shows dramatically that you can only cry wolf so many times before people stop believing you. Trump-loving Larry Elder spent most of the election day claiming that he had discovered patterns of fraud in the vote tallies. There’s just one problem — as most of us know, vote tallies are not released until the election is over.
The final tallies won’t be in for almost a week, but it is clear that Newsom won in a landslide, with record turnout especially by democrats.
But some people believed the Republicans anyway. I wonder who that might have been. Maybe this comparison of two graphics can shed some light.
Stephen Colbert cheers on Biden’s speech, getting tough on requiring people to get vaccinated.
Electoral-Vote also has a good story about the hypocrisy of people who think the President doesn’t have the legal power to require people to get vaccinated.
At a school district board meeting in Texas on Monday, a father used irony and sarcasm to make the point that there are rules that we all should follow for the good of our country and our fellow citizens. He mocked the current crazy psuedo libertarian mindset against wearing masks and getting vaccinated with several examples:
On the way over here, I ran three stop signs and four red lights. I almost killed somebody out there, but by God, it’s my roads too. So I have every right to drive as fast as I want to, make the turns that I want to. I got over here to the school today and the parking lot’s full, and I decided I was going to park wherever the hell I want to. Which in this case happened to be handicapped.
While he was saying this, he stripped down to his underwear, saying he “hates clothes”. Watch the video:
He made an excellent point. Ain’t it the naked truth!
How ironic is it that today is the day that just under 9 million Americans lost their unemployment benefits. On “Labor Day”. These are special benefits enacted because of the Covid pandemic, going to people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own.
During the Great Recession, jobless benefits were extended from when the recession started in 2008-2009, all the way until 2013. The current pandemic is more severe, and isn’t even over with new variants appearing, and yet the benefits were killed in less than 2 years after the pandemic started.
Some (mostly Republican) states ended their jobless benefits even earlier, but multiple studies have shown that ending benefits had almost no effect on increasing the number of people looking for work. Some states ended benefits because of a false belief that the benefits were encouraging lazy people to not work.
Instead, with less money being spent by people who are unemployed, it is believed that ending the previous unemployment benefits will actually hurt the economy, and lead to additional job losses.
I’m getting convinced that unless a significant portion of the people who believe the coronavirus is a hoax suddenly wake up and decide to get vaccinated and wear a mask, the pandemic will never end, and will just be something we live with (or die with).
There have been a couple of really good opinion pieces in the Washington Post recently about Tucker Carlson and his trip to Hungary (or was it Mordor?).
For example, Michael Gerson writes under the headline of “Tucker Carlson’s Hungarian adventure gives right-wing populists a new tagline: Disdain America first“. Here’s a little taste:
Tucker Carlson and the right-wing populists’ weird fascination with Viktor Orban’s Hungary — revealed during Carlson’s recent valentine visit to the country — is slightly less weird when you consider the context.
The country such populists leave behind when flying to Budapest — in their telling — is in pretty dismal shape. The United States is a nation in which the valiantly unvaccinated are assaulted by disease-ridden border violators and subject (in Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s words) to “a biomedical security state.” It is a nation in which the most recent presidential election was stolen by a nationwide conspiracy of Republican state election officials, Black mayors and Communist Chinese hackers. It is a nation in which pedophile socialists comprise a “deep state” dedicated to the confiscation of guns and Bibles. It is a nation in which Marxist advocates of critical race theory teach children to disdain America for all the wrong reasons — things such as slavery and segregation — rather than for the right reasons, such as the removal of Confederate statues and the very existence of Drag Queen Story Hour.
What’s a right-wing populist to do? Why, trade all that they hate about America for a two-bit authoritarian regime. Especially one that is racist. And especially one in which they don’t have to live:
All but the most committed political pilgrims will eventually fly home to the United States from Hungary. And what a disappointing return that will be — to a diverse, colorful country of gloriously varied traditions. But at least MAGA World now has an easily summarized foreign policy: Disdain America first.
But wait, there’s more! And there’s satire, which always gets my attention! Alexandra Petri headlines “Forget Hungary. Tucker Carlson is all about Mordor now.” (You knew I’d get back to that Mordor quip eventually!)
I certainly did enjoy my fun speaking engagements in Hungary and quality time with Viktor Orbán […] But that is all behind me now.
I am honored to announce I will be speaking next week at the Mordor Summit in Barad-dur at the invitation of Dark Lord Sauron! This is the future of conservatism, and I’m excited to throw open the Overton Window and let in the nazguls.
God, what a difference from America. Honestly, my country makes me sick, and I look forward to croaking that out next week before a rapt audience of trolls and, if I’m lucky, a balrog. A pluralistic democracy founded on free and fair elections in which what binds us is not ethnicity or the shared fear of the watchful, unblinking eye of Sauron, but an idea? Disgusting.
According to a few sources, Donald Trump has decided to run for president again in 2024.
Is it time to start planning a move to another, more sane country?
Of course, this is probably one of Trump’s trial balloons — he sends out rumors that he is going to do something controversial, just to see how the public (especially his base) responds to it (and to feed his ego, of course). So this could just be more noise.
I pray it is.
In other Trump news, I saw someone refer to him as “Pobrecheetoh” — I love it!
According to FiveThirtyEight, the popularity of Covid vaccination mandates is now increasing (probably in response to the Delta variant). These mandates can come from the hospitality industry, such as bars and restaurants that allow only vaccinated people to enter, employers who require their employees to be vaccinated, schools or universities, or even from federal or state governments.
According to a recent poll, 64% of Americans approve of the government mandating that everyone get vaccinated.
As you might expect, most of the support for mandates comes from people who have already been vaccinated. After all, if you trust the vaccines, and have seen the news that virtually all new Covid cases are happening among the unvaccinated, then of course you want other people to get vaccinated. In fact, right now a fully vaccinated person has a higher probability of getting accidentally electrocuted, than of developing severe coronavirus symptoms.
But here’s the irony: 28% of unvaccinatedAmericans support mandatory vaccination. How could this be?
You want to get vaccinated, but your spouse or (if young) your parents won’t let you. You want someone to help!
Your friends are anti-vaxxers, and you don’t dare cross them.
Like a lemming, if everyone has to, then that will convince you.
Does anyone have any other good ideas? I can’t figure this out!
SeditionTracker.com tracks people who are suspected of participating in the January 6 Capitol riot. This includes:
559 suspects, who have been charged with a crime
Of those charged, so far 267 have been indicted (48%)
Of the indicted, 1 has died, 1 has had their case dismissed, and 26 have been convicted
Of the convicted, 1 has been sentenced
The site shows photos of the suspects. You can also track them by date (the first people were charged on Jan 7), by name, by state, and by status.
Note that people are continuing to be charged. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but at least they are still turning. I’m still hoping they indict the Congresspeople who participated in the insurrection.
In this case, SOS stands for Save Our Snopes. I’m sure all my regular readers know who Snopes is. But do you know that Snopes has been under attack? There is a chance that we could lose them, so they are sending out an SOS call. If you want to find out more about this, and what you can do to help, see https://www.snopes.com/sos/
