Comments

1

Re: the fire marshall, one thing we've learned over the past 1.5 years is there are a terrifying amount of people in public safety and healthcare positions who do not give a shit about public safety or healthcare.

I've traveled pretty extensively throughout the world and I've never seen a country more proud of ignorance and antipathy than my own.

2

stupidty + ignorance
Always trumpfs
Pragmatism
at least
Here it
Does.

thank you for your
Schlogs Chas!

3

@1: Ahh, you still need to visit France. Just that they're sophisticated enough to serve their sautéed proud ignorance with a compote of arrogance.

https://apnews.com/article/europe-business-health-government-and-politics-france-d25494f4cf4ca6c6d1464188a89ece6f

4

@3, yes, every country has idiots. That was not my point. And if you read your own article, you would know France is not letting their inmates run the asylum.

5

@4: Exactly, you can't define idiocy by nationality. That's my "roundabout" point. The human condition knows no borders.

6

Good thing I'm taking the shiny new light rail to my weekend distractions in in the city. Happy Friday y'all.

8

@7,

He's endangering people by virtue of his willingness to expose himself as a risk to take up a needed hospital/ICU bed, which are in short supply. If he and the rest of the eligible got vaccinated that shortage is significantly reduced, if not eliminated.

9

@8 - Yes, that's the distinction that needs much more media focus. It's never been like the airborne virus detects which nearby humans are vaccinated or not.

11

The unemployment rate is going down due to the mass exodus from the workforce. They’re no longer part of the labor pool.

The percentage of adults that’re actually working is at its lowest point since the 1970s, before women joined the workforce en masse.

This is due to Boomer retirements, the pandemic, lack of childcare, absence of meaningful employment opportunities, and refusal to invest in post-high school training and education.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

12

@ 5,

The difference is that our abusive, sadistic, destructive geography-based system of government guarantees that rabid screaming right-wing morons are always in charge, even when they lose “elections.”

This is why we’re always careening from self-induced crises and non-stop total chaos.

Who would’ve guessed that a system of government based on an 18th century genocidal racist kleptocracy would be bad.

13

@10,

That's.... quite the convoluted, logistical leap you've just completed there! Yeah, that's the good stuff for sure. Was gonna attempt a reply, but I'm gonna hold off in case blip's around, as he'd no doubt be so much funnier if he is.

14

@10 - I'm sorry, but that's not logic - it's a stretch between a false equivalency and a conflation.

15

@12: There is a cancer on our democracy that we will eradicate. Keep the faith.

16

@7 The reportage of the Massachusetts story by mainstream outlets like CNBC is problematic for reasons that have been widely discussed by media watchdogs, so I won't repeat them here. But even if there were no difference in contagion between the vaxxed and unvaxxed (there is), the fire marshal is an authority figure who has a special responsibility to be mindful of his public statements and behavior. If his doctor told him he was ineligible for the vaccine for a specific reason, that's one thing. But simply claiming that it's somehow bad for him, as he appears to be doing, only gives license to others to do likewise, thereby damaging public health. He should apologize or resign.

18

@10:

Even by the extremely low standards of "discourse" we've come to expect from you, this is perhaps one of the stupidest comments you've wasted electrons on in recent memory. Social

Security is a benefits program that people pay into during their working years in order to receive guaranteed benefits after they retire; if you don't pay into the system you don't get the bennies. When was the last time you or anyone paid a hospital in-advance for services to be provided at a future date? And no, health insurance doesn't count, because you're not paying the hospital, you're paying the insurance company, which may or may not decide to pay the hospital for services, depending on the circumstances and their own profit-motive.

19

@17:

See, you've gotten yourself tied up into such a Gordian Knot of imbecilic pretzel-logic, you're starting to argue with yourself...

20

@18 comte, and yet you people keep feeding him.

21

@17,

I mean, since the advent of Social Security our society has collectively recognized the right of all who pay into it to draw from it. I've never really heard that questioned, even by die-hard RWNJ types and am not sure how you're drawing this parallel to be honest. Of course our elected representatives have an obligation to insure it's funding remains solvent for the foreseeable future, and I don't deny that it'd be nice if it's distribution were made more equitable relative to an individual needs. But that's a vastly more complex and dynamic problem by orders of magnitude than the simple notion of a healthcare system that's unnecessarily and easily preventably overwhelmed, but for the actions of a select group of selfish free-dumb loving ignoramuses.

26

"The things we do for cars, the things we do for cars."

Ah, the affordably luxurious stridency of the eternally juvenile.

Btw, Marshall, in your context, it's Marshal.

27

Quite the misrepresentation and subsequent leap on the tunnel. What the story actually says it will undergo minor warranty work at the expense of the contractor. The implication of major flaws is false.

28

Oh, those giant house spiders. (Which is an acknowledged common name.)

My, oh my !!

29

@7, @10, You are simply wrong. And I suspect you know it. Yours is a vile errand spreading such confusion.

34

@25: Essentially, being vaccinated removes oneself as a fuel source for the raging virus fire - if you agree that such a analogy could apply.

35

@30:

And Flemming v. Nestor has been almost universally derided - practically from the moment the ink was dry - as a BAD ruling by SCOTUS, on the order of Dred Scott v. Sanford.

37

@fax,

Yes, by all means, if our elected leaders continue in their failure to guarantee solvency of the program (and by your count, they've currently got well over a decade to right that wrong, but I'll be the first to admit they've got a track record that's questionable when it comes to problem solving, so I'll begrudgingly concede that it's a real possibility) then yes, those of us who've been fortunate enough to procure future financial stability can and should be expected to sacrifice some measure of our own benefit to insure that our fellow citizens don't wind up starving or on the streets.

Egad.

38

Countdown to a comment stating that the lack of a single, universally agreed upon moral standard somehow invalidates my point in 3, 2, 1.....

39

@ 37/38,

For what it’s worth, the Social Security tax is capped; currently it applies only to the first $142,800 in income for 2021.

Most Americans don’t know this because we’ll never come close to earning the max.

Any income over that amount is not subject to the tax, so that the pweshous millionaires never get their fee-fees hurt by being expected to pay their fair share of anything.

All CONgress has to do is lift the cap in order to tax all income, and the program is solvent in perpetuity.

42

@11, @12, and @39: Original Andrew slams a three run homer out of the park for the WIN!
And a Gold Star, too, in @11 for so beautifully nailing why people like me have dropped out of the workforce. The U.S. Department of Labor no longer has me in its statistical data. I would be hesitant to fully believe the national unemployment figures given---especially those that suggest that unemployment is down. A lot of people besides me are left out of the loop.
I find it appalling what most employers construe as "jobs" these days! The average working class citizen can't afford to buy a house on the unsustainable wages offered, usually with no benefits, company healthcare, sick days, paid overtime, retirement or stock options. Why sign one's life away on the dotted line of a W-4 form when the only ones benefitting are the grossly overpaid CEOs at the top? Social Security? I'm sure I'll never see it.

@23: 'Tis the season for eight legged males to be cruising for eight legged babes before they croak--somewhat arachnologically akin in the animal kingdom to bucks out scoping the neighborhood for does this time of year. Note the "Deer Xing" signs. A neighbor friend and I were headed to a local movie theater to see a film one November afternoon last year. Out defiantly crossing a multi-lane arterial was a big buck with four point antlers, like Dustin Hoffman in "Midnight Cowboy", angrily addressing oncoming traffic:"I'm walking here! I'm walking here!"
I agree with you, though about dealing with spiders--if suddenly I see a big one on my bathroom wall or scurrying out of nowhere, I'll get creeped out, too. But I'd sooner get occasionally creeped out by spiders than face the unlivable alternative---unending swarms of insects making this planet uninhabitable.

45

if we blast* our horns at deer
in or close to the road
perhaps they'll learn
that Cars are
Terrifying

but Watch Out for
other motorists
and/or Peds.

coupled w/quick beeps

46

@43 MichaelClayton: The suggestion of short horn beeps is a good one. I would hate to see squirrels, deer, or any other wild animal out on a highway in fast traffic though. The defiant buck out looking for love crossing the busy 4-lane arterial was a surprise to many of us who encountered him that day. He obviously had his mind set on finding a suitable doe before sundown, and we drivers were supposed to get the fuck out of his way in midst of mating season.

@45 kristofarian: I'm waiting for the day that the urban deer of Bellingham start donning Smartphones, backpacks, ear buds, noise cancelling headphones and enroll in Western Washington University. They have no fear of humans whatsoever. If you planted prize winning roses they're gonna eat 'em. They consider gardens one big salad bar.
We have met the wildlife and it is us.

47

I wish deranged peckerheads Donald Jackass Trump and Greg Abbott would get head fucked by rabid pigeons before getting properly butt fucked in federal prison.


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