“The most popular link on Facebook about the Johnson & Johnson news was shared by a conspiracy theorist and self-described “news analyst & hip-hop artist” named An0maly who thinks the pandemic is a cover for government control.”
Free speech. What a concept.
Shut ’em down. Just shut ’em down and start over. Let’s see if the modern robber-barons can learn how to spell the goddamn word “security” before they go running around on the Internet sharing spurious bullshyt. Jezus-h-fucking krist.
I’m pretty sure Zuck belongs in prison at this point. Good luck with the non-existent law necessary to put him there.
It seemed pretty obvious to me, just from the inflammation symptoms, that Cannabis was going to be a good contender for Covid treatment. That it went this fast is remarkable. I expect the healthcare industry and government in this country to roundly ignore it, in favor of more expensive, dangerous, profitable avenues.
Israelis have their act together. UK tries to capitalize.
The big problem I see going forward is the market for specialized products like Provacan. This stuff is a commodity – a plant that grows in the ground. The Pharmas have already demonstrated their penchant for profiteering on diluted, synthetic substitutes that do not perform nature’s intended function as well as the real thing.
I updated this last Symptoms Log entry to include the latest impression of what’s going on with me today:
30 MAR 21: No change. I’m going to start using the brace and/or cane continuously, whether I think I need it or not. Maybe that will at least delay the daily onset of more acute symptoms by evening. The lumbar has settled into somewhat of a steady state over the past couple of months. It’s the same thing that happened to my C-Spine in 2001, only much worse.
Is it any wonder mass shootings continue un-abated? Or how everyday life stressors are directly linked with negative healthcare outcomes of all kinds? When things like Qanon enmesh with political activity at large, it becomes plainly apparent we don’t have a healthcare system – we have a sickcare system – with some of the most dangerous sickness not being cared for at all.
Social media’s contribution to this sad state of affairs is a classic example of ends-justify-the-means mindset. One good thing about their ubiquitous presence in the digital domain is how the data they keep has conclusively shown in numerous studies how social media algorithms drive sensational content, regardless of it’s veracity. Profit at all cost has taken the leading role in yet another emerging American industry.
Brazil set out to make a pandemic statement of the worst kind at the outset. At least the U.S. had the opportunity to change Presidents and shift into proper response mode. Brazil OTOH, is set to become the world’s SARScoV2 petri dish.
Around the eight years ago time-frame, my upper right quadrant including the upper back and right shoulder got into a real bad trajectory. I’m pretty sure things finally went south there for good after trying to catch the rear axle coming out of that ’74 Duster. Can’t really pin any one event on the shoulder issues, but it had been bad for years, rated for disability at retirement from the Air Force.
So after the shoulder finally became more-or-less non-functional and hurting pretty bad, we went through a two-year VA diagnostic process detailing what I summarized in the 1st paragraph above. The C-Spine has been a worsening chronic factor since 2001, so I had some PT for that, and after some more time, x-rays and indecision, Dr. Sylvestri finally ended up rebuilding the right shoulder, somewhere short of a total arthroplasty. IIRC, the final tally was the sub-pectoral, 3 cuff tears and some bone spurs. It’s still pretty painful, but at least I can use it now, so that eventually became an overall great outcome.
During that process I’m thinking this disability thing’s getting more real all the time and applied for a rating increase on the C-Spine, which was summarily dismissed. This must be a big issue for the people with hard-to-see stuff like me. I’m pretty sure unless you show up missing a leg from an IED attack or something similar, they just deny every non-obvious claim by default. So after being around this block once already with the right hip replacement, I determined an appeal was in order. It took awhile, but they finally got it right. I wonder how many years worth of my increased compensation benefit it will take to match the amount spent trying to deny it:
Process started six years ago.This is mostly just claim correspondence. I’m gonna need another binder.
Note that is just the last page of a fifteen page decision letter. The level of byzantine detail they go into is unnerving – no pun intended. I would like to know why they included recent year’s evidence in an six-year-old claim appeal decision, referring to a lumbar injury only a few weeks ago determined to be degenerative disc disease by a VA administrator(?). It’s insane. They were probably going to rate me totally disabled before I had my back broken on the operating table two years ago. Maybe that was just to make sure.
I’d post a snippet from the boilerplate malpractice claim denial I received a few weeks ago, but there’s no point. I wonder if they’d approve that claim for somebody picked up off a battlefield with a torn lumbar?
Seems like every news outlet, social media pundit and YouTube™ channel ran a missive marking the anniversary of the pandemic yesterday. I guess the trouble started here around that time, so that’s probably as good a date as we’ll ever get. I’ll be no different, except to expand on the theme and place my journalistic exclamation mark. Let’s not forget influencer and influenza have the same etymological root.
Three things simmering in failure just below society’s surface were dramatically revealed to our country last year. They are three of the biggest, most important institutions in our society. Taken together in the face of a pandemic, they form an ominous warning.
The Government portion of the failure will be briefly commented in the following post tomorrow. Suffice to say for the purpose of this list, they caused more problems than they solved. I won’t bore anybody with a litany of egregious missteps, already extensively documented, except to say any Repuglican remaining in support of The Fuckwit at this time, is an enemy of the State. Being too stupid to know any better just makes me hate them more. Being an elected representative in that group puts you in my crosshairs.
The Police, as an institution, have been working in earnest towards their big fail for decades. The slow march to widespread public disgrace was enabled and mostly supported by the government over the years, so they can claim ignorance – as a group. But the individuals perpetrating the ongoing subjugation of our society, starting with that piece-‘o-shyt Chauvin will be punished – over and over again, until they learn their job and start respecting human rights. FUCK THE POLICE.
Last, but certainly not least is The Healthcare System. There must be plenty of quality doctors out there trying to do good, but with pharma, insurance and big HMO’s in cahoots with the legal system to extract financial blood from their customers at the expense of basic PPE supplies, there is no hope. The CDC’s performance does not even rate a mention for the purpose of this post. I will always sing the praises of the front-line workers, and they certainly are the big heroes in all this. But the people they work for are greedy cocksuckers who will drive this country into the dirt. FUCK THEM TOO.
Mississippi, too. Remember that stupid whore from South Dakota bragging how they never had a mask mandate? Funny the bitch never mentioned how they also have the highest per-ca pita death rate in the country. Fucking idiots. The whole – goddamn – GOP.
Fuck the Republicans and to Hell with the government.We’ll see what Hickeyloopy has up his sleeve…
“My battle with cancer really prepared me for space travel,” Arceneaux told the AP. It made me tough, and then also I think it really taught me to expect the unexpected and go along for the ride.”
Talk about inspiration. What’s it take to get YOU going? This kid’s doing better than most anybody else – with a prosthetic leg!
I’ll be waiting to hear what the implant feels like in zero gravity!
Damn – somebody start making a list! Imagine the possibilities with some of THAT information. People used to believe the earth is flat – some still do! The primary predictor of that disposition was plainly obvious. Just look around in every direction.
Unfortunately human nature , being the fickle, easily fooled thing it is, often prevents people from comprehensively seeing unfiltered reality. This country’s long, tortured history with Cannabis is just another great example, along with diet/nutrition, politics and any number of topics in life people simply refuse to get right because of personal hubris, willful ignorance and plain old laziness.
I have a newsflash for the government, medical community and anybody like Jeff Sessions, who thinks “good people don’t use Marijuana:” It’s over. People in Colorado spent and average of $1.5B/yr on pot since 2014 – in one of the states everybody wants to move to for some reason – state full of “bad people,” and all.
So let’s take just one aspect of this matter, the DUI issue, to task. I’ve been using weed to manage numerous injury-related maladies for going on six years, since around the time I retired from Lockheed. I can tell you with absolute certainty, the active ingredients in Cannabis have no adverse effect whatsoever on driving, at least for me – none. In fact, I would suggest it improves my driving, for the most part.
I took three cross-country trips since retiring in 2015. Once to Atlanta for some car business, and twice to PA for family visits, going clear around through either New Hampshire or North Carolina, at times doing 14-hour stints behind the wheel stopping only for fuel and bathroom facilities, before pulling off to a rest area or hotel for the night or day, depending on clock readings at the time. I did this pretty much stoned the whole way. Put that in your DUI calculator and smoke it.
The driving improvement part comes NOT from reduced inflammation and pain – that was supposed to be the whole point in the 1st place, right? No -it’s from the psychoactive part providing calm, clarity and focus, as opposed to road rage. I speed less. I’m more alert and mindful. There is clearly no question I am at least a SAFER, if not better driver when driving high. Fuck Jeff Sessions and any flat-earthers in government and the medical community. No driving simulator data here – I proved it to myself, for real.
The contrast between that last trip and the first time when I remember almost falling asleep at the wheel with a Tramadol hangover was pretty dramatic.
Road Trip 2017: Yeah, I stopped at Woodstock. The problem with Cannabis is it’s just another one of the big lies uninformed people like to tell.
The PSU Panther & me.
DISCLAIMER: There was one time in upstate New York, when I sat under an overpass studying the map for a few minutes, because I could not remember where I made the wrong turn! 🤣
It’s a matter of adapting and learning to do things differently. Use leverage, split things up into smaller chunks, take lots of rest breaks. For example, it took almost 3 months to complete the deck refurb last spring/summer, on a job I’d conservatively have estimated taking 2 weeks max, if I could just work on it all day. The worst part is one of the things I really enjoyed and planned to spend my retirement doing more of – hiking with the dogs – is mostly out the window. It’s just no fun anymore. Any time on my feet is a forced march now. I’ve lost full use of the entire right side of my body. I am what we call “butthurt” – literally.
24 JAN 21: Took the dogs on a long (1hr) walk yesterday trying to establish Monday as “long walk day.” Muscle strain/soreness was acute last night and little diminished this morning, with the right thigh twitching at an alarming resting rate. Sometimes I can drive it and the right glute into continuously twitching to the point of making me stop whatever I’m doing if the particular activity is aggravating things in just the wrong sort of way. Basically any type of movements on my feet be it walking, light housework, playing with the pets – anything involving ambulatory movement aggravates it to some extent, with the glutes and right leg stiff and sore 24/7. The glow from L4-5 expands to eventually include the entire midsection and right thigh until muscle exhaustion sets in before long. It’s difficult to describe, not pain, but a building tension or intensity that eventually becomes overwhelming. Actual pain now comes from the left side rebound and the right knee, when it flares.
…but they do seem to be among the most zealous in their willful ignorance. I suppose most of those people are just too stupid to understand how, if they’d simply followed instructions in the spring, they might not be in this predicament now.
Coming up on a year with SARScoV2 spreading throughout the country. I wonder how many people have deluded themselves into believing we are not still in the 1st wave here in the States? The UK is well into the real 2nd wave now, including a new mutation that is even more contagious.
looks like some seriously extreme Brexit we got goin’ on now.
So OK, there’s no scientific basis for any claims to Cannabis’ medical efficacy. That is after all, the whole point for it being on the Controlled Substances list, right? Fine. Last time I checked, some alarmingly high percentage of all CBD products recently tested had little or in some cases even NO CBD in them. Isn’t that an even more obvious and potentially dangerous fraudulent claim? Anybody remember the vape scam? Whether or not Cannabidiol holds any medical therapeutic efficacy is rather irrelevant if the medication does not even contain it. Medication efficacy is pretty much up to the patient and quite variable in the licensed pharmaceutical industry anyway.
FDA maybe? I’m thinking DEA. While we’re at it, let’s get the FBI on the case. Maybe even the Surgeon General could help, if he’d stop sucking Trump’s dick long enough to get anything done.
Incredible. I think some Catholic leaders need to get off their fat, lazy asses and do a few shifts down at the local ER. These filthy bastards are exploiting the pandemic to their own ends just like Trump and the legislative arm of his criminal enterprise, the GOP. Cocksucking Mutherfuckers, the whole lot.
Seems the bible thumpers want to leverage human reproduction as a subsidiary business. What better way to generate demand for more babies than making plenty of room with a raging pandemic? Brilliant! And if the “immoral” vaccine was the only one available? Arbiters of science now, huh? Just pointing out a few ambiguous facts to help keep the flock guessing?
Apart from supporting their parasitic leaders, this is what religion is good for: Fucking things up. Watch the goalposts go clear out of the stadium on this one…
