Diary of a Fat Slob: The next COVID variant...

Cranky Old Man #78

Italian police raided a tiny news site run on a Facebook page, and the raid made the site much more famous and successful.

It's the Streisand Effect, for a worthy cause.

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Here's a one-question quiz to see where you fall on the political spectrum:

What comes to mind when you envision a police officer?

If your immediate thought is of someone coming to the rescue, making an arrest or otherwise stymieing lawbreakers and evildoers, you're probably a Republican.

If the first image in your mind's eye is of someone with a badge using violence or threats against someone who doesn't deserve it, maybe you're a pinko radical for civil rights, like me.

And if you can't answer the question with a sentence but instead need a paragraph, with lots of caveats and the word 'but' keeps popping up, you're probably a Democrat.

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Doc Fauci says that the damned fools who aren't vaccinated will be about 10 times more likely to be infected with the omicron variant of COVID than the vaccinated, 17 times more likely to be hospitalized, and 20 times more likely to die.

I can live with those odds, and Republicans can die.

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Wanna explore a long-abandoned Ukrainian bomb shelter from the Cold War?

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Yet another news site, Grid News, has come online "with millions in funding and a team of more than 20 journalists."

Mr. Bauman, who started the project in August 2020, said he had raised about $10 million in the first round of funding from Abu Dhabi-based International Media Investments and Brian Edelman, a tech executive. In March, he hired Laura McGann, formerly an editorial director at Vox, to build the newsroom and establish Grid’s editorial identity.

Meh. It's starting without a paywall, so I'll take a look, but all the money involved has me expecting not much. Matt Yglesias is also part of Grid News, and he's been boring me for twenty years now.

That said, this (from the site's first day) is fairly informative…

Interview with an ER doctor on life and death in the pandemic

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This article wonders whether America can make it through omicron without shutting down the economy again.

That's even more pessimistic than me. What I've read suggests that the omicron spike will peak and begin its decline in a few weeks. Of course, it's already hellish for health care workers, and for teachers, retail workers, etc, but so's the entire last two years. I think we'll make it through without a shutdown or collapse.

It's the next COVID variant, a few weeks or months from now, that'll cause the collapse of just about everything, if morons continue refusing the vaccine.

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Under pressure, Bank of America agrees to (temporarily) be less shitty

Fuck 'em. Do yourself a favor and join a credit union.

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Texas schools ask parents to fill in as substitute teachers

That's idiotic, dangerous, and the opposite of education.

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It ought to be lovely to be old
to be full of the peace that comes of experience
and wrinkled ripe fulfillment.

The wrinkled smile of completeness that follows a life
lived undaunted and unsoured with accepted lies
they would ripen like apples, and be scented like pippins
in their old age.

Soothing, old people should be, like apples
when one is tired of love.
Fragrant like yellowing leaves, and dim with the soft
stillness and satisfaction of autumn.

And a girl should say:
It must be wonderful to live and grow old.
Look at my mother, how rich and still she is!

And a young man should think: By jove
my father has faced all weathers, but it's been a life!

Beautiful Old Age, by D. H. Lawrence

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Center for COVID Control appears to be a nationwide chain of bullshit COVID testing centers, where "negative" test results are for sale, allowing COVID deniers and "muh freedom" assholes to continue spreading the disease while carrying "proof" of a negative test.

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COVID was again the leading cause of death among us law enforcement in 2021

That's not a coincidence, of course. Lots of US police officers are monsters and Trump-supporters (are those two separate things?), and likely among the vaccine-hesitant.