Month: April 2022

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I Do feel a little sorry for him

I honestly didn’t know that Obama was going to be at the White House. Not that it matters to me at all. I still feel a little betrayed by Obama. I truly thought that he would deliver on his promises when I voted for him. By his second term, I was completely disenchanted because I’d come to believe he was yet again another President who was into the power not the people.

It’s not Obama I feel sorry for. It’s Biden. Just because I think Joe Biden is an incompetent senile old fool, doesn’t mean I can’t feel sorry for him as a human being.

Watching the videos of the Obama visit, it was pretty sad to see Biden trying to interact with the shakers and movers.

Biden was clearly the unpopular kid at the prom. I kept waiting for the pigs blood to pour on him, (if you haven’t seen the original Carrie movie you might not get that reference.)

The fact that I was reminded of a movie genre that deals with cruel high school cliques by the “Movers & Shakers,”in Washington D.C. probably says as much about their behavior as it says about my high school experience.

I wasn’t one of the pretty people, I wasn’t particularly popular and not in any of the “cool kids” cliques, but I was necessary.

I was the guy who knew how to get things done, who to contact for certain illicit things, and how to make some troubles just disappear. I guess I was The Mechanic, I would get my hands dirty so that the cool, rich, and privileged dilettantes didn’t have to… But I didn’t work for free.

Unfortunately Biden isn’t even that.

He’s the kid whose parents made him go to the prom, “stag” because they thought it was important for his social development. He’s the wall flower, the kid sitting alone at the furthest table who is totally invisible. He’s the joke, the “poor kid” from the wrong side of the tracks, wearing a hand me down suit, instead of being able to rent a tux.

One advantage of my “Mechanic” role was that from the shadows I got to watch people. I got to observe the social fabric and how cruel a smile from some people can be. I also wore a tux to the prom that I didn’t have to pay for. (I’ll do this thing that you ask, but one day you’ll have to repay the favor… Ahh capitalism!)

Biden reminded me of the kid at the dance desperately wishing to be noticed and wondering if he could leave and walk home before his parents come to collect him.

Biden has become the crazy unpopular old uncle at the family reunion. Invited because he’s family and no one knows how much money he’s got stuffed in his mattress, ignored because he’s got nothing to say. He’s always invited, treated cordially for the first 15 minutes and then handed a tall glass of vodka and sent to the kids table.

It was there for all the world to observe.

At the press conference Biden was discarded once his usefulness ended. Obama was introduced, and Biden wandered around begging for relevancy. Hoping for crumbs from the cool kids table.

Biden has never learned even the crumbs are doled out carefully.

Remember, the Biden administration crowed very loudly about the “adults” being in the White House again.

Uh huh, right!

That’s why I feel a little sorry for Biden. The realization that you’ve been used and thrown away is always a bit soul crushing. In his case, the sting may not have much of an impact because of his cognitive decline.

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I was looking at the VAERS database the other day

I’ve been watching VAERS for a while. Not just over COVID but I’ve been curious for a long time if the Anti-Vax movement had a leg to stand on.

I’m still undecided about the Anti-Vaxxers in general.

I noticed something interesting in the charts located here.

In the conservative media there’s been a lot of talk about adverse reactions to the COVID vaccine and the VAERS database does tend to back up their allegations. Bear in mind this is only one data source and there may be contributing factors such as other comorbidities.

It is, and always has been that the sudden rise in death wasn’t necessarily only the COVID vaccine. It’s possible that the deaths might be associated with the vaccine triggering a cascade of issues that resulted in the patient’s death. This is very much in the vein of the CDC and others revising their COVID cause of death statistics.

In both situations, if the patient had diabetes and perhaps pneumonia then it’s possible that having COVID contributed to the patient’s death but was not the sole reason they died. Likewise a patient getting the vaccine may have died after getting it, but the vaccine is not necessarily the sole reason they died.

It pays to keep that in mind when looking at the data.

To get a clear cause / effect relationship you need to exclude everyone who had comorbidities or some other pre-existing condition. Only then, can you reasonably draw some conclusion as to whether the vaccine is dangerous. If the preponderance of deaths due to adverse reactions were in an otherwise healthy population, that should raise a red flag.

The overall numbers of deaths isn’t my point. What caught my attention was that the number of “Vaccine Related” deaths is dropping.

If, as the Anti-Vaxers say, the COVID vaccine is universally bad and dangerous, I wouldn’t expect to see the numbers dropping off.

Thinking about it. I came up with three hypotheses.

1 The really vulnerable population has died off. That’s gruesome to think about, but doesn’t exclude it from the realm of possibility.

2 Fewer people are taking the COVID vaccines. If those people who were never going to take the vaccine in the first place are still not taking it, and the population that ran to get the vaccine have already had it, then the numbers wold start to fall pretty much due to reason #1.

3 People are giving up on reporting adverse reactions because they’ve come to the belief that the government won’t listen anyway and therefore it’s pointless to report anything.

As I said, these are only hypotheses. Like all hypotheses they can only be proven or disproven. The science, (A.K.A. Truth,) of the situation doesn’t care if it hurts my feelings. Since I’m not a “Scientist” my hypotheses are pretty much not going to matter in the least.

However, this little exercise might give some of you insight into the workings of my mind. I’m dogmatic to be sure, but there’s a part of me that’s always asking, “Are you sure?”

It’s the “Are you sure?” That makes me go back and reevaluate.

While I may think the traditional Anti-Vaxxers are incorrect in their declaration that all vaccines are bad, I keep looking at their data and determine for myself if I agree.

I suppose it’s along the same lines as watching Ancient Aliens. I find that sometimes there are points they make, that clearly can’t be explained away with our current knowledge of ancient civilizations. There are items, stories or customs that don’t seem to make sense.

In those situations in my mind I relegate the Ancient Aliens “proof” to anomalous items. A kind of a TBD pending further research. I don’t believe that every odd shaped stone, pot, or weird custom is proof of alien contact.

For all we know, 4000 years ago an apprentice craftsman did something weird and the Master craftsman said, “Run with that, you’ll find out why it won’t work for yourself,” The apprentice may have put the item on their workbench as a reminder not to get too wild with innovation.

I myself have done this. I’d hate to think that 4000 years hence, a cult of some sort rose up around one of my failures.

Anecdotal evidence in my mind isn’t evidence. It’s an observed situation that deserves further inquiry. That’s why I reevaluate the Anti-Vaxxers data from time to time. That’s why I’ve been interested in all the COVID issues. That’s why I have always liked science in general. I like testing the anecdotal against the provable.

I like being able to convert anecdotes into demonstrated facts, or disprove anecdotal evidence as an odd coincidence.

The latter is more interesting. You can have a repeatable event, that anecdotally looks like proof but when you really look at it, you discover that what appeared to be a clear cause / effect relationship was dependent on a bunch of conditions that weren’t obviously related.

The puzzling part of that kind of discovery is the most fun to figure out. Then again, I like puzzles so it’s probably just me.

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It’s going to be a lot harder to be a Doctor or Patient

I’m not an anti-vaxer by any means. I had all the usual vaccines during childhood and have as a result lived a pretty healthy life. I keep up to date on the boosters like tetanus etc.

That being said, I haven’t had a COVID vaccine. This is in part due to medical advice based on a physician observing how my body reacts to drugs that seem to work for everybody else. If there are weird rare side effects associated with a particular drug, I’m the one to exhibit them.

Elsewhere in this blog I’ve discussed my desire to be vaccinated against COVID and my confusion, worry, and ultimate selection process of the vaccine.

To be honest I didn’t see the necessity of being vaccinated against COVID, but was considering the vaccination as a gateway to employment, and resuming normal life. President Biden really. made a mess of employment rules with his attempted mandates and subsequent statements.

Regardless of where you come down on the vaccination question, more data is coming out daily that suggests the COVID vaccines may not be all they were cracked up to be.

First we were told the vaccines would prevent COVID.

Then we were told the vaccines would reduce the spread of the COVID

Then we were told the vaccines would reduce the risk of hospitalization. (This one may still be true for some populations.)

We were told the vaccines were safe and effective. The effectiveness is at this point demonstrably questionable, and the safety question is still out for debate.

We were told we needed a booster, now it looks like another booster may be required every six months.

All this for a virus that is 98% to 99% survivable.

When you put the questions raised about the COVID vaccines against the other medical screwups over the past 20 years it begs the question.

Does the medical / pharmaceutical industry really have the high ground?

Leaky Breast Implants, weight loss drugs (Phen Phen), vaginal mesh, defective replacement knee or hip joints, pacemakers, and a plethora of medications that were found to be harmful enough that they were removed from the market after years of common use because the law suits piled up.

These issues, have always made me question my personal doctor. But now with the constantly shifting story about COVID vaccines, I find that I’m going to be demanding more time from my Doctor during my annual visit. I also find that I’m far less trusting of the medical establishment in general.

As a patient, I’m probably going to be labeled “Difficult” because I’m going to demand logical and concise explanation of the problem, and options to address or solve the problem. I’ve never been one to look at the “One Size Fits all” solution as the only solution. But now…

I’m going to be asking a lot more questions and I’m going to be expecting real answers not platitudes, or hand waving. I’m going to be much more likely to walk out of a medical practitioners office if I’m not getting real, verifiable, information. That information had also be in reasonable, normal, everyday English, not some heavily accented pigeon English.

I’ve always believed if a doctor couldn’t explain something in plain English, they didn’t really understand the subject matter.

I worked with computers. People have a hard time with computers and computer people have our own variation of English or terms to describe the functions of machines. Generally speaking it’s the terminology that causes folks to stumble. The trick is converting all the technical jargon into something that a non-computer person can relate to.

There are some computer terms for which there is no direct translation, at that point it’s best to draw a picture either with words or literally. If a computer person really knows the subject matter they can effectively do either. If they don’t know the subject matter and really understand it, typically they’ll try to baffle with bullshit jargon.

I believe that medical professionals have for too long gotten away with the jargon and perhaps don’t understand drugs, procedures, and medicine as well as they should. I’m all for holding them to the same standard as the lowly computer technician.

This is going to lead to more time spent with patients and impact the Doctor’s bottom line. Their insurance billing is based on number of patients and number of diagnosis per day. I personally think this is a shitty business model that doesn’t really serve patients but that is another story.

Being a Doctor is a tough job. I generally respect the profession.

But given that I feel the medical establishment had obfuscated and perhaps flat out lied to me and every other person on the planet for the past two years, I can’t say that I trust them. I doubt that I ever will trust them again.

This is not just about St Anthony of The Mask, a.k.a. Dr. Doom, a.k.a. Sir Follow the Science.

This is also about those Doctors who were silent, those who didn’t question, those who went along with the establishment and didn’t feel it was necessary to do their own research or thinking.

I especially loath those Doctors and researchers, who abdicated their responsibility to question what they were being told in favor of a fat paycheck and Wednesdays on the golf course.

Don’t be surprised if you see a lot of Doctors retiring. Some of them are probably realizing that the loss of trust their patients are showing, signals the end of the gravy train.

Others may simply be retiring in shame over how so many of their profession have behaved. These doctors are as much victims of the medical establishment as the rest of us.

I don’t think I’ll ever in good conscience be able to write Doctor as a title of respect anymore. I wonder if anyone would notice that I write doctor and md in lower case and what I mean by that.