There’s a lot of stuff going on in my life and my local environment that have created a bunch of noise in my head.
I’m worried about a lot of things, and even ignoring the larger issues of the world at large the static is making it very hard for me to put thoughts together in any coherent order.
There have been a lot of false starts in blog posts and other projects, they’re not progressing because lately I have the attention span of a gadfly.
The more I try to set aside time for me. Just me to sit quietly, collect my thoughts and plan a day, the more interruptions, or disasters, rain down on my life.
I’d love to actually plan a day and not have every single plan blown to hell almost instantly. Perhaps I’m asking too much!
The more distracted I am of course the less gets done that I need to do and the greater the frustration I have, because my stuff is piling up.
It’s a vicious cycle and really starting to harsh my buzz.
The latest annoyance is that the most recent MacOS update is killing my laptop’s battery in just a couple of hours. I discovered this when I decided to take my laptop and myself outside to enjoy the nice weather we’re having.
I thought perhaps being outside would assist me in clearing my head. The plan was to remove myself from all the distractions inside the house and just sit looking for a job, and perhaps writing a bit, in the sun and fresh air. HA!
On balance I got about an hour of what I wanted to get done, done before the unusual power drain became apparent. Then I was sucked down the rabbit hole of identifying what was causing the power drain.
Still unsure about that. After turning off all the communication channels. BlueTooth, WiFi, etc. The drain was still happening. That led me to all the crap running in the background, (most of which is Apple’s ill defined subsystems,) according to Apple’s monitoring software there was nothing wrong. Uh Huh sure! Looking at the UNIX monitoring software there were 600 processes running most of those were sleeping but several of their “New” modules were consuming a lot of CPU time. It’s unclear how to actually turn off any of these modules which I’d do in a heartbeat because I don’t use them.
This kind of thing annoys the crap out of me because clearly Apple dropped the ball again! They’re apparently not doing real world testing and that annoys the hell out of me because I’m a software tester that has applied to Apple at least 20 times for testing positions, only to be completely and rigorously ignored.
I’ve said it before. Automated testing has its place, but an actual human working with the machine is still necessary because automation can only spot those items it’s programmed to spot.
In other words, automation will confirm that the software completed the expected task. A human on the other hand will spot things about the requested task completing, with other collateral issues, (like excessive power drains,) and get curious about what’s causing them.
But God Forbid, the great and wondrous Apple actually considered that!
As I said, I’m annoyed. Here’s an axiom for you:
Shitty software is still shitty software regardless of the logo. No-one is immune to creating shitty software. Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, are all guilty of unapologetically foisting shit on the public. Apple never apologizes for anything, no matter how bad it is! (Unless they’re forced to do so by a class action lawsuit.) Just once, I’d love to see Tim Cook apologize for a crappy Mac OS or IOS release in his opening remarks at a convention or online event. I’d probably have a heart attack but it would be worth it.
The MacBook Pro isn’t the only device having battery problems. Apparently, some iPhones are sucking their batteries dry after the latest release of IOS 15. Apples response, in typically Apple fashion is, “**smug** You’ll just have to wait until we get around to fixing it. **smug**”
So for the time being, I’m chained to my power adapter, instead of enjoying the spring weather and being able to write. What happened to my MacBook outlasting the competition?
Oh yeah… poor testing & verification on one of their products core advantages!
To make matters worse, this has been an ongoing issue for at least the last four releases so you’d think someone in their software development and testing team would have a big assed sign that said, “TEST BATTERY LIFE IN REAL WORLD SITUATIONS!”
I’d be happy to design a sign for them if they’d be willing to pay me a year’s salary for it.
There’s a report from Apple Insider where a former employee alleges that Apple changes their job title to “Associate” once the employee leaves.
While that probably didn’t hurt Jonny Ive when he left, for the hundreds of other employees that simple change in their job title after they leave, can be devastating.
Just imagine yourself working for Apple for 10 years, working your way up the corporate ladder. You started out as an associate, and through hard work, education, and perseverance you make it to manager of your department. Then your spouse has to take another job in a different city.
You’re faced with divorce or moving to be with your family.
You choose family, thinking that your years at Apple will be worth something as you attempt to find a new job in your new city.
Your resume says you were a department manager but when new prospective employers contact Apple, they say you were an associate for those years. So now you’ve “lied” on your resume and job applications.
Not to mention being an “Associate” for 10 years doesn’t look like you’ve got much ambition.
It also means that your career is being torpedoed by a company you gave your all to. Most HR people wouldn’t question a major corporation like Apple. They’re the “Good Guys” after all.
It’s almost as if Apple is being the hurt lover. “If you leave me, I’ll make sure no-one will want you!”
This is abusive and wrong!
Apple looks a little less fresh and a lot more rotten.
There have been rumors for years that Apple wasn’t particularly fair or nice when it came to their treatment of employees. Up to now, I’ve wondered if the rumors were true, or just ex-employees being upset. I’d chosen to believe it was sour grapes on the part of the employees.
After all a shitty executive can make the entire company seem bad to those suffering under their direction. I’d chalked these rumors up to that sort of thing. Now, I’m not so sure.
When I was dealing with hiring directly, all I could ask a former employer was if the person had worked for the employer, their last job title, and the dates of employment. Way back in the day, I could ask about last salary, and if the employee was eligible for rehire. A discrepancy between the last job title reported by an employer and the job title listed on a resume was a red flag.
It honestly never occurred to me that any company would change a former employee’s last job title after they’d left the company. That’s just superunfair and pointless.
Perhaps I’m just sensitive from my own eternal job search. But I’m glad Apple has never responded to any of my applications. The last thing I need or want is another job that should be amazing to turn into another shithole experience. If Apple is changing job titles like this, I rather think Apple might be the latter instead of the former.
I’ll be wondering, and thinking about this, the next time I consider an Apple purchase.
Will my concern be enough to prevent me from buying something from Apple? I think it will depend on the item and if I can find something similar at a better price.
Apple may well have become evil, just like Google, Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, and God only knows how many others.
This kind of thing has always concerned me. I’ve worked for several companies that I LEFT because of health insurance or corporation biases.
There was one company that noticed I had a motorcycle endorsement on my driver’s license during the onboarding process.
The HR person told me that I’d have to provide them with a bill of sale for my bike within 30 days. She then went on to tell me that riding my motorcycle onto company property was a fireable offense.
After saying this, she went on as if she expected me to just comply without any pushback. When I asked her what the hell? She was quite shocked that I didn’t understand. After a bit of prodding she explained that the group insurance policy forbade anyone being covered from riding a motorcycle.
She was even more shocked when I told her we were done and asked for the hiring paperwork that I’d already filled out so that I could shred it. Then she got mad. I remember her screeching, “We’re only trying to protect you!”
My retort was, “Yep, at the price of becoming an indentured servant whose rights are granted by my employer, instead of The United States Constitution. What’s next? Approval of my sexual practices? Will I have to bring in the bedsheets weekly to prove that I’m not having sex if I’m unmarried? Will I have to prove that I’m not masturbating as well?”
Hey, I was younger and more prone to hyperbole.
I remember walking out of that place so pissed off I literally had to sit in my car in a mall parking lot to calm down for the drive home. Then I realized, “I’m at a mall, screw it! I’m going shopping!”
Then there was another company where smoking was suddenly forbidden, dictated again by a change in their insurance policy. This was not just on company property but in your home. I’d quit smoking a couple of years before, but that day when I stopped for gas I bought a pack of smokes. Then I found a nice bar and ordered a double. I sat there drinking and smoking much too late. I quit the job the following Monday, I quit smoking again about a month later. I made sure that when I went in to quit I reeked of cigarette smoke.
Then there was a company who sent out a survey to each employee asking if they were SCUBA divers, or skydivers, pilots, mountain climbers, motorcyclists, dirt bike riders, or enjoyed hang gliding. Most employees thought they were doing one of those HR team building things where the company would build clubs of likeminded people to tout their work life balance. My antenna went up immediately after reading the list of activities. I didn’t send my survey back.
Two weeks later an HR representative was standing at my desk with a stack of surveys demanding that the employee named on the survey fill it out while they waited. The representative testily pointed out that lying on a company form was grounds for dismissal.
She had maybe 30 other surveys in her hand. I asked, “Why is it so important for you to know if an employee participates in this specific group of activities?”
She told me, “the reason was none of my business.”
I told her, “Then write that I do all of them, then you’ll have whatever reason you’re fishing for to do whatever you’re going to do.”
Ahh… The fun of open office plans with 4′ cubicle walls. Several of my colleagues had incomplete surveys to fill out too. They heard the exchange and marked all of the above as well.
I’d already interviewed for another position with a competitor, and been offered the job.
The little lady stomped off, and I finished my resignation letter effective immediately. My boss pointed out that 2 weeks was customary and I said, “I’m not going to allow a company to dictate my personal life.”
My boss sat back and said, “Oh, you’ve heard.” I said, “Nope, but I’ve been to this rodeo before and know how it ends. Out of courtesy, I’ll give you two weeks because you’ve been decent to me.”
The next week, HR announced that the company decided the activities listed on the survey were too dangerous and employees were not to participate in them because medical insurance would not cover “Dangerous Activities”. In the HR announcement, they said they’d be reaching out to employees with acceptable methods that employees could prove to the company they’d given up these “dangerous” hobbies.
Over the next two weeks, the company received the resignations of about 20 engineering employees. In the end, they were begging for people to stay. HR remained intractable and started trying to hire replacements. But the word was out in the engineering community. It turned out that American engineers like to have fun in their off time.
These are examples of employer overreach from my own life and personal experience.
I’ll grant you that COVID vaccination was a bit different when the vaccines were being touted as providing immunity. But now?
We’ve been told by the CDC, and Dr Fauci that the vaccines against COVID-19 are therapeutic not preventative. We’ve seen articles in the mainstream press saying that the vaccine will prevent hospitalization with COVID but that even vaccinated persons can still get COVID and spread it.
So NOW with this knowledge, is it reasonable for corporations or governments to demand their employees be vaccinated? Is it right for those corporations to insinuate themselves into the personal lives of their employees? Will the future hold that an employee with HIV or cancer, or heart disease be threatened with their job if they don’t take HIV meds, or choose not to have chemo, or refuse a pacemaker?
This comes to mind because T-Mobile can be added to the list of employers demanding that their corporate employees get vaccinated. The article is here.
Since I’m adamantly against a corporation dictating any aspect of my life except when I must be at work to do my job, I’m in a bit of a conundrum.
I don’t want to support companies that do this sort of thing. But after doing some research it turns out that T-Mobile provides the best plans and pricing for me given my family’s needs.
Generally speaking, I’ve been terminating my connections/subscriptions to companies whose policies I disagree with. Apple being a notable exception although I have been reducing the new dollars that I give them.
There’s a problem being entrenched in any corporate ecosystem. You try to get out and they keep pulling you back in… To paraphrase the movie line about the Mafia.
I miss the good ol’ days when companies were just about making profit and were publicly apolitical. I know we’ll never get back to simple transactional relationships with Corporate America.
By now, you may have heard of or seen the altercation that happened on a Delta Flight from Tampa to Atlanta. When I read the text of their exchange I was laughing my butt off.
The other half said, “Thank God you weren’t that old man…”
Yeah, I do have a bit of a temper and do not respond well to phrases like, “Stand your ass up!” Believe me, I’d have probably stood up, then given this particular “Karen” a verbal dressing down she’d not soon forget.
Had she slapped me, all bets would be off. As annoying and frustrating as flying anywhere has become I’d already be edgy. A slap to the face and her rearing back as though she was going to punch me, (as some reports have indicated she was doing,) would have resulted in extreme violence and rage on my part.
I think the older gentleman handled this “Karen” situation far better than I would have.
According to some of the police reports I’ve read, this whole thing started because Patricia Cornwall was trying to get back to her seat after coming from the bathroom. She was blocked by the beverage cart.
Most civilized people who have flown before know that you have to wait for the cart to clear the aisle, you have two choices, remain standing or “borrow” an empty seat until the cart has passed your seat row. It’s not a difficult problem if you think about it.
I’ve been in the exact situation and simply asked a passenger seated next to an empty seat, “May I borrow this for a minute?”
Ms Cornwall demonstrated that she was clearly a product of the American Educational system given this simple logic problem evaded her.
Things went off the rails when the flight attendant told Ms. Cornwall to grab an empty seat until the beverage service was complete. At this point Cornwall replied, “What am I Rosa Parks?”
According to reports, this is when the elder gentleman pointed out that Cornwall wasn’t black, they were not in Alabama, nor were they on a bus.
I’d have added, “Unlike you lady, Rosa Parks had a point!”
It appears that after this exchange the two of them were, “off to the races” so to speak.
At some point during the dust-up Cornwall was demanding that the gentleman put his mask on, (hers however was being worn as a chin diaper,)
There may have been the word “Bitch” tossed around, and the elderly gentleman is quoted as saying, “Sit down Karen.” If the elderly man called this woman a bitch, he was being as polite as possible given her behavior. I’d have called her much worse, and stood by my descriptors.
In the ensuing scuffle, Cornwall appears to have injured two other passengers and at least one Delta employee.
Ms. Cornwall was taken into custody in Atlanta and paid 20,000 bail to get out of jail.
This is one of those things that speaks volumes about the society.
There was a time when you treated elders, even crotchety elders with respect. When you’re on a flight, or a bus, or any other public transportation you are supposed to mind your manners and be cooperative. Apparently Ms. Cornwall missed those days in etiquette class.
But hey, she was a playboy bunny and an actress right? She’s special… Uh huh.
It’s been reported that the gentleman is 80. Given that he is about 30 years her senior, he legitimately called out Ms. Cornwall on her poor behavior. She was being childish. He may well have been a father, or grandfather. I’m betting that slipped into “Dad” mode without even thinking about it.
Even I, as much of an ass as I can be, I listen to an Elder. One telling me to cool my jets would be met with a contrite, “Yes Sir.”
Too many women like Cornwall seem to think that it’s perfectly okay to smack a man and that they’ll get away with it. Those same women run to the police when, after smacking a man, he hits ’em back.
A man’s only recourse today is to involve the law and doing so makes us feel weak and powerless, even if the police take the matter seriously, (often they don’t).
That’s why I hope this gentleman presses charges and doesn’t just let it go. I hope he puts it all out there. Elder abuse, Assault, pain and suffering due to the public nature of the crime, and anything else his attorney can toss into the mix.
The trouble is, as men we’re taught to “Suck it up,” and move on. If he happens to be a “Southern Gentleman” I’d say the odds are high that he’ll let it go.
In the same situation, I might do the same even knowing that letting it go would be tacitly condoning women getting away with abusing men.
I have some good news though. There may be some actionable data that will reduce my hesitancy and perhaps yours.
(Okay, this is a really long post. I’m sorry but there’s a lot of it that I felt I needed to explain.)
I know we’re all sick and tired of the COVID doom articles and talking heads. After two solid years of DOOM, and “bring out your dead.” It’s understandable that we’re all shoving this to the back our minds as just another bunch of pointless noise.
As I wrote a while ago it’s becoming the same noise as The Russians are gonna nuke us at any moment. After a point you just want to get on with your life and take a Devil may care attitude.
That’s the risk the climate change activists have been running into for years. BLM has encountered it as well.
When a problem is too big, or so far out of individuals control, they ignore it in favor of living in the “now”.
I personally have always tried to dial my wastefulness down to a close to zero as I personally could. While I like driving, I try to drive as little as possible. I combine stops and save gas at the same time.
I recycle anything and everything that can be recycled. I prefer scooping nuts and dried fruits out of barrels rather than buying stuff like that pre-packaged. I try like heck to capture rainwater or snow in places in my yard so that it goes into the ground instead of running down the street into a culvert. I’ve replaced every light in my house with LED or (much as I hate them,) CF bulbs. I pick up other people’s trash on hikes and do my personal best to leave a place as clean or cleaner than when I arrived.
I’m not rabid about it. For me, this is a personal choice that helps a little, and represents a philosophy of being ecologically responsible. It’s my choice, I’m not going to force my beliefs on you.
The thing is, I’m doing all I can within the limits of my reach. Hopefully, I’m showing by example how being a caretaker of the environment isn’t a burden. Being an example, I hope that others will follow my lead and join me, but I don’t demand it.
All that being said, I’m not willing to pay some group (over which I have no control) an arbitrary carbon tax. I’m not willing to sit in the cold and dark because some jackass in a mansion thinks I should be reminded that manmade climate change is real.
Our planetary climate is changing. It has for 4.5 billion years and will likely continue to change for another couple of billion years. When the sun of our solar system begins to expand the planet’s climate will change a lot. This is well beyond my lifetime and ability to stop. It’s just physics!
So for me, climate change doomsayers became background noise. I’ve lived long enough that I remember when these same people said we were going to be in an ice age in 20 years. They were wrong.
The planetary ecology is far too complex for humanity to predict. We can model it, but our models cannot account for all the variables, because we don’t know all the variables to put into the model.
Let’s just agree that climate changes. Let’s do what each of us can to be responsible and clean up our messes. That’s it, that’s the best we can do, and as we develop new technologies, let’s use them to make things better.
BLM is the same thing. Yes, racism exists. Yes, we need to do better. Burning down city blocks doesn’t address racism. It does however contribute to man made climate change.
I personally don’t like racism of any kind. If you’re making value judgements about people based on the color of their skin, you’re being racist. It’s that simple, and in my thoughts it’s cut and dried. No one gets a pass for singling someone out based on the color of their skin.
I’m a moron, I don’t have the brain power to deal with nuances of skin tone. I also don’t have the time.
BLM, made their statement. They brought an issue to everyone’s attention and now they’re done. Message received. Time to move on.
BLM doesn’t see it that way, they keep hammering and so in my world they become background noise.
I’ve explained the above as a rather long preamble because it will help you understand a little about how my personal thought processes run. Now, to the point I was going to make in the first place.
For two solid years we’ve all been inundated with COVID doom. This has been a planet wide phenomena.
The virus is still 99% survivable without any medical intervention. That’s a fact. Cold & Flu are also 99% survivable without medical intervention. This too is a fact. I’m not going to quibble about the fractional percentages because it’s pointless.
Any of the aforementioned conditions are much worse if you have comorbidities. If you’re fat, if you have diabetes, if you suffer from breathing issues, if you’ve got, or recovered from cancer, if you’re very old, or very young, or are in any way immune-compromised. This too is a demonstrable fact.
The greater number of comorbidities you personally have, the greater the percentage that COVID, the Flu or a Cold will kill you. This too is a fact.
They used to call this having one foot in the grave and the other foot on a banana peel. (That’s probably not politically correct anymore in this humorless world we occupy.)
At one time the statement was a common truism, and widely accepted is an acknowledgement that Life is fleeting. Death comes to us all, sometimes sooner and sometimes later but Death will visit all of our homes many times in our lives, and eventually each of us one final time.
This is living in the natural world. It’s normal.
As humans, we always attempt to control the natural world because it’s our nature to do so.
We make drugs, and figure out what’s ailing us, then search for solutions. We’ve created vaccines to protect us from a wide variety of illnesses and generally speaking, we’ve gotten pretty good at it. Many of us take the yearly Flu vaccine and think nothing of it.
So why have I been personally slow to get the COVID vaccine? What is the source of my hesitancy?
Data.
It’s that simple. When J&J came out with their COVID vaccine I was going to take it. Why? Because it was made using the tried and true methods that the annual Flu vaccine is made with. That in my opinion added a level of safety.
But… then there were reports of reactions to the J&J vaccine. So I decided to hold up a bit. I expected for there to be logical analytical reports and explanations about the reactions, and some reporting about who was most likely to have those reactions and why.
But there wasn’t as much information as you’d expect. Instead, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were pushed with a lot more force.
These vaccines, while apparently effective were made with new technology. This technology hadn’t been widely used in the past and since I know new medical techniques and vaccines are often tested for a decade or more before they’re approved for use in humans, I personally thought they exposed me to an unacceptable level of risk. I felt and still feel that neither of the vaccines or the way they work has been properly tested in humans.
At the same time, the media and even government agencies were only talking about the number of infections that had been detected. Number of infections is not the same as number of hospitalizations or number of deaths.
But in many of the media reports the three numbers were conflated and it truly sounded like COVID was akin to the Black Plague which had a death rate of between 30% – 50 %.
Yet, government agencies like the CDC were reporting less than 1% death rates for COVID.
So that started making me ask questions. I wasn’t alone in asking questions. Lots of people were asking questions and some of those asking questions were eminently qualified to do so.
Then censorship of COVID information and even reputable Doctors became rampant. You could find any number of articles speaking about doom and gloom, but Doctors and scientists presenting alternative research were silenced? Something was seriously askew, this is not the way information flows in this country.
I was willing to suspend my skepticism over the mask / no mask flip flopping from Anthony Fauci. I could chalk that up to new research results causing the change in direction. That’s what happens in science. What I couldn’t abide was that skeptics were shouted down in the public square and their valid research was painted as some kind of heresy.
We’ve seen similar behavior in the area of climate change and the theory of evolution. A theory accepted as truth, and woe be unto anyone skeptical of that theory.
(Full disclosure: I tend to think the theory of evolution is probably correct. However, it is still a theory, as yet unproven.)
That is not the way science is supposed to work. Scientists are supposed to read the research, poke holes in it, try to reproduce the results and either confirm or disprove the research.
Anyone remember Cold Fusion??? Some labs could reproduce the effect, and others could not. The general consensus was that there was some other reaction taking place that we didn’t understand, and couldn’t account for. Additional research was needed.
That’s how Science works. Science is not a religion, science is looking truth in the face and accepting what you see. Science is not faith based, we learned the folly of that path with the inquisition trial of Galileo Galilei. BTW Galileo was right, and the faith of the church was wrong.
Suddenly, it was as if facts and reason didn’t matter. We had scientists actually dismissing our evolutionary heritage that granted acquired immunity, in favor of induced immunity.
Honestly, I tend to trust 5 million years or so of biological adaptation a bit more than a vaccine in a bottle. That being said, I don’t have much of a problem giving my body a leg up on creating immunity by allowing it to sniff a germ in small quantities and saying “Hell No!” Then running off to build antibodies against it. Which led me back to the J&J vaccine.
But nagging in the back of my mind was how much about the virus was unknown. I’d read that the virus was unstable and mutating at a rather alarming rate. Viruses tend to do that, but they almost always mutate to more infectious, less lethal versions of themselves.
Viruses that kill the host organism are biological dead ends. Without a host, a virus has no choice but to be inert. So a fatal virus essentially kills itself off or mutates to something that serves the biological need to reproduce, leaving the host alive. Even Ebola, isn’t 100% fatal.
The problem with any biological system is that it’s always in a state of change. That’s the advantage too.
We’ve known for years that the over use of antibiotics can give rise to stronger more pernicious bacteria. Turns out that the same is true of vaccines that only address one particular aspect of a virus.
In both cases, there will be bugs that somehow survive. When those bugs reproduce, their children carry resistance to the antibiotic or vaccine. Continue that cycle enough times and you end up with so called “Superbugs”. These bugs may mutate to inhabit another biome or they may simply get tougher to kill.
See, inadvertently humans have been doing gain of function research for decades.
We just didn’t realize until recently that it could be really dangerous. Penicillin, sure… Now we have Penicillin resistant bacteria. Ampicillin gives rise to Ampicillin resistant bacteria, and so on & so on because we’re actively engaging in a biological war that’s been going on for millions of years. Get the picture?
Apparently, the same process is true of viruses.
With the rise of the COVID variants, I decided once again to hold off getting a vaccine.
My hope was that more research would lead to a better vaccine that stopped COVID cold, and prevented the escalation of variants. I’d prefer a one shot and done approach, instead of endless boosters every six months.
Think about Tetanus. It can be deadly and there is a vaccine. Generally speaking, you get a booster every ten years. But there are people who, because of their work, are exposed to Tetanus all the time. In their case, a booster isn’t technically required because their bodies see Tetanus so regularly their immune system has the antibodies on hot standby forever.
This speaks to the one size doesn’t fit all theory.
If your body has a continuously replenished supply of antibodies to something due to repeated exposure why do you need a vaccine? Your body sees each variation of the invader and creates a counter to it automatically. Therefore, anyone whose had COVID probably will be able to fend off all but the most radically changed variants. That’s the logic of the situation.
But try to find a discussion that addresses why or why not that logic works and you run into nothing but, “Get the damn vaccine, you fucking idiot!”
That worried me because it ignores the issue of acquired immunity altogether. That answer is not an answer. It’s akin to your mother telling you, “because I said so.”
So I held off a while longer. I was still hoping for enough research to be completed so that I could make an informed choice. I was hoping that there’d be an investigation into the Wuhan lab and that we’d know what exactly happened.
Was the virus naturally occurring or was the virus a chimera. I still believe that if the virus was created in a lab using gain of function technology then if we see the constituent parts we can build a vaccine that shuts it down.
If the virus is something totally natural, then at least we know and can concentrate on dealing with all the mutations. Either way, more knowledge is power. Except, every time someone asked that question… It was shot down as if asking the question was a conspiracy theory. Don’t we want to know?
At least we still had / have freedom of choice about getting the vaccine even if we’re not able to make a fully informed decision about getting it.
Then President Biden tried to mandate vaccines. But he didn’t do it above board. Oh no, he tried to do it in a fucking underhanded way that made me suspicious all over again.
Why is it so important to get a vaccine that The President would try to mandate it? Our government (Democrat & Republican) has shown over decades a rather pointed disregard for the people, except as chattel who provide fabulous sums of tax money that can be spent frivolously. Why the sudden about face? What is it that makes this vaccine so fucking important?
Could it be that the pharmaceutical companies are making a fortune? Could those fortunes result in kickbacks to certain politicians? Could it be that because the pharmaceutical companies bear no liability for harm caused by their vaccine, the payout is better than usual? I know this sounds like conspiracy stuff but “come on man…”
So I wait a bit longer. I watch friend after friend go get vaccinated even though they don’t want to. Why? Because their companies are anticipating Biden’s mandate will be upheld in the courts, and therefore are being good little sheep, obeying The President, forcing their employees to get the vaccine and then provide that medical information to their HR dept.
Several of these friends have had the light go out in their eyes a bit. They have now had their noses rubbed in the undeniable fact that they are slaves.
I’m hoping they get over it. Most of them state without question that they hate their companies, their executive officers, their management, and don’t give the least shit about doing their best work anymore. Their employers told them, “You’re easily replaced so you better obey us.”
It’s technically not about the fucking vaccine, it’s about the realization that they felt they had to choose to violate their caution and/or their beliefs in order to have a paycheck.
This broke their spirit. Time will tell if they’ll heal, or if as one friend said, “I don’t care about anything anymore. I don’t want to live like this, or ever have to compromise like this again. I felt I had no choice given that the holidays were upon us and the kids needed to have something normal.” He added, “I will never vote for a Democrat again, and I may just not vote again, because it’s pointless.”
He’s talking about putting his house on the market in June. He said that even if they don’t move out of state, they’re going to just rent. His plan is to get a small as possible, pay off debt, and not buy anything that isn’t absolutely necessary. No new phones, new cars, new TVs, washers or dryers, nothing in the durable goods category at all. He’s dropping cable after the first of the year and says everyone will just have to get used to watching what stations they can get with an antenna or what can be streamed over the internet. He’s not angry per se. He’s just wounded in spirit and has no knowledge or support to help him treat those wounds.
Thankfully none of my friends have reported ill effects from the vaccine itself. But it raised the question. If they had, would they have been able to sue their employers for enforcing a mandate that is not law, has been suspended, and may be rescinded by court action? I’m guessing not. I’d bet that the company would say, “We were only following The President’s order,” and the Government would say, “It wasn’t law so we have no responsibility.”
How many other workers have been so wounded? Could this be a part of why US productivity has taken a hit?
On the other side of the coin, there are friends who have drunken deep from the draught of fear porn. Their lives too have been irrevocably changed. Their Christmas cards or letters denote what they’ve not done, the trips or visits they cancelled. They speak with almost loving tones of their masking and not allowing people into their homes. They talk of their vaccinations, boosters, and socially distancing, as virtuous.
These are people who were active, and vibrant. They were healthy with so little risk as to be considered zero. Yet they are talking in their holiday letters are if they’re in their homes making signs to ward off evil.
None of this makes me want run out and get the vaccine. I don’t go to LA or Portland, or San Francisco, or New York, so I don’t want or need to comply with their NAZI vaccine papers or proof of negative infection.
To my friends in LA County, you’ll not have to worry about me darkening your doorsteps. I have no desire to deal with not being able to go into a bar or restaurant with you.
All I want is the facts. Give me hard data from which to make a decision!
Fortunately, someone has provided that very information.
The person producing the article went at it from a partisan position. While I wouldn’t think this is partisan, this view provides some interesting data. It turns out that heavily Republican districts have a higher incidence of deaths from COVID. Not just cases.
The raw data further down in the article shows a higher death rate among unvaccinated people as well. The correlation tends to suggest that Republicans are more vaccine resistant than Democrats. That might make a lot of sense, given that most Republicans I’ve known over the years really hate the government telling them what to do.
In the highest Republican counties or states the COVID death rate is as high as 100 persons per 100000 versus 18 persons per 100000 dying in the bluest of the blue counties or states.
Okay, I can get my teeth into that data. The numbers still support that less than 1% of folks die from COVID. But it speaks to the efficacy of the vaccines themselves. When you pull the partisan evaluation out of the equation, and look only at deaths Unvaccinated versus vaccinated you get a little over a 4X decrease in death for those folks that are vaccinated.
That makes sense. It is data that allows an honest evaluation of COVID risk to Vaccine risk. Someone like me can look at this and say, “The odds of my dying from COVID are less than 1% and with the vaccine I can reduce those odds by approximately 75% which makes the vaccine worthwhile.
Then I can look at the odds of an adverse reaction to the vaccine based on the number of persons who have taken the same vaccine I’m considering, and determine if I’m comfortable with the odds.
From there I can weigh out both scenarios and make an informed risk assessment. That’s an assessment where my decision is mine and come hell or high water, I can defend my decision sleeping secure in the knowledge that I did the best research I could. I can own it and be proud that I did what I thought was in my best interest.
That’s all I’m asking for, and I’d bet that’s all the other vaccine hesitant are asking for as well.
This is why censorship is evil. If there had been open honest debate instead of censorship I’d bet that a lot of the vaccine hesitancy wouldn’t have been an issue.
Of course looking at one set of data doesn’t mean I’m running right out to get a vaccine. I’ll still go find additional confirming sources.
