Category: WTF?

Posted on

Hmmm. Interesting, and they wonder why we don’t trust them…

REVW0406So this cold is annoying enough that I was thinking about getting some over the counter cold remedy. Then I thought about it and seemed to recall seeing something about the FDA doing a study on cold medications and discovering problems with them.

Off to the internet, Boy Wonder! CBS Reports this

Ahh, there it is:

Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously on Tuesday against the effectiveness of the ingredient found in popular versions of Sudafed, Allegra, Dayquil, and other medications sold on pharmacy shelves.

“Modern studies, when well-conducted, are not showing any improvement in congestion with phenylephrine,” said Dr. Mark Dykewicz, an allergy specialist at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine.

So here’s the deal, these medications use phenylephrine. They used to use pseudoephedrine. Pseudoephedrine worked but was taken out of the normal OTC medications because it was possible to convert it into Meth.

Phenylephrine was grandfathered into use without much in the way of testing for efficacy by the FDA. It should be noted that there are tons of drugs, and products that are grandfathered like this all the time. Some of these grandfathered products are later found to be, at best ineffective, and at worse harmful.

The cold medications appear to be simply useless if they’re not using Pseudoephedrine. But it does beg the question, how many other medically approved products are nothing more than Placebos or as it was said in the past “Snake Oil”. Placebos have their place in clinical testing, because they provide a baseline to determine if a drug under test is doing anything.

In the past, purveyors of  Snake Oil may have been tarred and feathered and run out of town, if they weren’t hung for hurting and swindling people. The FDA was created to provide a measure of safety to the public because of the prevalence of snake oil and quacks.

Yet here we are, the FDA having been complicit in cold remedies that don’t work, a.k.a. FRAUD! The cost of a box of these cold remedies is /was  $10 to $15 and were sold to millions of people. The fraud generated billions for drug manufacturers.

I’d like to have my money back! I looks like I’m due a refund from 1980 forward??? I’d have to find when Pseudoephedrine was swapped out.

On the plus side, we all got over our colds pretty much naturally! This also might explain the apparent conflicting data between the folks who swear by natural remedies versus Doctors recommending OTC remedies. It’s possible that the natural remedies actually performed better because these remedies survived and were handed down based on centuries of accumulated observational data.

The OTC cold remedies on the other hand were not thoroughly tested and no better than sugar pills.

I wonder about the collateral damage during COVID-19. Most people would have initially thought COVID was a cold, they would have gone to their ineffective OTC cold/flu medication. Their symptoms would have gotten worse until they were hospitalized. Then, they would have been given more ineffective treatments because the treatments that actually worked, (as shown time and again in other countries,) were forbidden. By… guess who, The FDA!

I guess my point is why should I or anyone trust the CDC or the FDA at this point? They’re not protecting us from medical quackery, or big Pharma selling snake oil.

Why should I trust a doctor, or a hospital?

Bottom line is this.

If a Doctor or a medical person can not explain something to you, or can’t produce test information showing the efficacy of a treatment, drug, or vaccine.

DON’T FUCKING TAKE IT!

Perhaps I’m being overly harsh. However as we keep finding more out about COVID, and the vaccines, and how it really looks like the medical establishment is covering up something truly evil. We shouldn’t give the medical profession the blind trust that we gave them in the past.

It’s really strange that a tattoo / body piercing shop might be a safer place than a hospital, laboratory,  or doctors office, when it comes to having needles stuck in your skin.

Posted on

From the only for MORONS page!

This post is bumping one that I was working on for today.

The reason is that I picked up the mail and there were some things that caught my attention. So much so that comment is necessary.

Credit card companies keep sending my other half, who has been dead since the beginning of the year, all kinds of applications.

This cracks me up!  The only way to reach him might be via a medium, or séance.

Since these are credit card applications I dutifully open the oddly sized, overly thick, packages then feed them to the shredder. The applications are specifically built to not go through the shredder without being opened. I’ve been looking for a heavy duty shredder.

These applications usually have his name all over them and even though he’s dead, I don’t need to make it the least bit easy for some illegal alien to break the law by committing identity theft and/or credit fraud in addition to breaking our immigration laws.

I know… I’m a mean, Old, Racist, MAGA, Terrorist Threat, KKK Member, Transphobic, Self loathing fag, White, CIS, Male.

As I was shredding the 4 different mailings addressed to my other half I noticed the first thing.

Back in the day, Credit Card companies would send people with really good credit, a Pre-Approved application. We all were on the lookout for these. They were golden tickets. In some cases all you had to do was sign the form, put it in the supplied prepaid envelope and drop it in the nearest mailbox. 

4 weeks later, often sooner you’d get a brand spanking new credit card typically with a stupid high limit and not too bad an interest rate. I made the down payment on my first new car with one of those credit cards. (Another story entirely and indicative of being young and falling in love with a set of wheels.)

The language was, “You’re Pre-Approved for XYZ credit card.”

These applications I was shredding today said, “You’re Pre-Approved to apply for a Capital One credit card.” That’s when my brain rebooted. Pre-Approved to apply? What a waste of ink!

Literally everyone is Pre-Approved to apply. I could fill one out and have Jesse sign it. 

IMG 2920That was sort of offensive to me because it treats people like idiots. Granted there are a lot of idiots! 

I shrugged my shoulders, and with a smile fed the stupid waste of words into the waiting maw of the shredder. 

The second bit of information was the interest disclosure.

As I was shredding, a bit of paper fell onto the floor and this one really blew my mind!

This was the disclosure paperwork about the interest of this credit card my dead husband was approved to apply for.

30.49%

WTF???

No one but a moron would apply for this card! Jeez! I bitch about 16% or 18% on cards. But it gets better, the second package also had a disclosure, this one was, 

30.74%

Bear in mind, these two bits of mail arrived within 7 days of each other. Regrettably I didn’t happen to notice the disclosures from the other two “Pre-Approved to apply” mailings. 

What kind of dipshit would apply for a credit card with this interest rate? If you do the math, just a few thousand dollars of carried debt could screw you for years to come. You’d never get out from under it.

However, since reading and math are racist… I’m sure there will be a bunch of college kids applying for these cards. Then 5 years later, these dumbasses will be begging for the federal government to pay their debt off again. Just $5000 debt could run someone straight into the poorhouse. Something like 1500 dollars added to the debt per month??? 

How is it that a savings account pays, (the best I know of is Apple’s) pays 4.15% most others, you’re talking 0.04%. The discrepancy is mind boggling. The bank loans my money out, then charges 30% and only pays me 0.04% ? What a rip off! The bank is pocketing the difference and the bank executives are rolling in coke and hookers.

Again, I suppose that’s why the powers that be say math is racist. If you can do the math you can see the outright theft. If you can’t do the math, then you’re happily going to be owned and drowning in debt.

This is why I think people aren’t concerned about the national debt, or the insanity of our administration borrowing trillions. Eventually, our nation won’t be able to pay the interest, much less the principal. The young folks may not get how this works.

I didn’t, when I was young. I ended up in front of a bankruptcy judge because all those “You’re Pre-Approved” cards were just too sweet to pass up. I wasn’t looking at the interest rates and never planned on losing my job. Once I lost my job, I could pay for rent, utilities, or credit card debt. But there was now way to pay for all three. Oh and did you notice? I didn’t even include food in my list of necessities.

It was a very hard lesson and I learned it well. I watch my credit card interest and debt really closely. I’ve got one card that that worries me & I have a plan to kick it in the balls.

I’ve called out another of the credit card companies recently because they started applying the current interest rate, (sent up because of the Feds efforts to control inflation,) instead of charging the rate in effect when the debt was incurred. They fixed it, but it was one of those little tricks banks like to play.

The bank is hoping you won’t notice and they can make some extra bucks profit.  This particular card, hasn’t changed the agreement about how interest is charged on existing debt. I’m sure they will, and when they do, I’ll have to decide if I’m going to pay ‘em off and terminate the account or not.  That’s a bridge I’ll burn when I get to it.

Posted on

What? Brain rebooted….

Yesterday while I was on hold with Apple, I was scanning news articles and one from Bloomberg caught my attention. The headline was a jaw dropper.

Is it me, or are the titles of officials sounding more and more like the stupid titles of drooling inbred Barons and Dukes who were 6th cousins to the king from old Europe?

Here is the persons’ title, “White House Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security”  what the fuck? The translation of this title is, another cocksucking bobblehead yes person.

I’m gonna call him “Bobblehead” Amos Hochstein.

This person actually said publicly, “one reason why oil prices have surged and gas prices is that Bidenomics works.” Then started blaming OPEC for decreasing supply.

WHAT? 

OPEC wouldn’t have the ability to fuck with global oil prices if Biden hadn’t within days of his inauguration screwed domestic oil production and caused oil prices to jump, not due to constraint… but due to Biden’s actions destabilizing oil futures.

As I theorized before, Bidenomics may indeed be working exactly as designed. Bidenomics isn’t to help the country, it’s to help the filthy rich and punish any and all Americans who might not be marching in communist lockstep with the Democrat party. A.K.A. all those who disagree with the direction the country is moving in, and are therefore domestic terrorists.

I’m predicting it here and now. It is going to be a very cold expensive winter for the average American Family. Because Biden’s energy policies will continue to drive up fuel prices. Don’t forget it’s not just gasoline.

Diesel fuel is what runs the container ships, the 18 wheel trucks, the farm equipment, the construction equipment, and petroleum byproducts go into almost everything else throughout our product and supply chain. So when fuel gets or remains expensive… the average American Family takes it in the ass.

An Interesting side note, Biden and his bobblehead staff all say repeatedly that The President is very concerned that the American Family doesn’t have undue hardship.

When you run that statement through the Democrat/Biden translation matrix… You get “The President want to make sure the American Family is hungry and cold.”

After all if you keep people cold enough, hungry enough, poor, and hopeless, long enough, then offer them free shit and relief if they vote for you, or if they’re asked to offer up their first born to be slaves, most of ‘em will say “yes”.

There’s a story about Vlad Țepeș of Romania inviting the poor, homeless, and destitute, of the town to his castle for dinner. He asked them what they wanted of him, they replied, “give us money, give us food, end our suffering.” At which point he ordered the palace guard to slaughter everyone in the dining hall.

VladIII

He ended their suffering right then and there.

I don’t know if that is a story that actually happened or if it was a teaching tale.

I do know, that every time I see people with their hands out to receive “Free” stuff. I always think of Vlad Țepeș and his “Solution”.

“Free” in politics is just a word that obfuscates the actual price. If more people knew that, politicians would have a lot less power.

Vlad Țepeș actually Vlad III,  had quite a life. Wars, imprisonment, loss of a throne and regaining it.

Stories about his “Unheard of cruelty” were circulating in his lifetime. Note we’re talking in the fourteen hundreds. By todays standards just living in that time would have been considered cruel and unusual punishment. This guy was considered unusually cruel then.

… Turkish messengers came to [Vlad] to pay respects, but refused to take off their turbans, according to their ancient custom, whereupon he strengthened their custom by nailing their turbans to their heads with three spikes, so that they could not take them off.

— Antonio Bonfini: Historia Pannonica

The pope was informed of Vlad’s methods. A Poem about him was performed at the court of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor during the winter of 1463.

While the story of him slaughtering all the poor from the town near his castle might be apocryphal, given the other stories about Vlad III I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually did it.

Interestingly, stories about Vlad III were some of the first best sellers to be printed with moveable type.

Bram Stoker did a great job of romanticizing Vlad III. As the source of all the vampire myths, in my Goth phase I was curious about Vlad III so I found out a about the real person.

I think he was an Arch Villain. This is certainly true through the lens of todays standards. It’s probably true through even the lens of the fourteen hundreds. But there was a lot of political intrigue and a lot more involved in keeping his kingdom together. Perhaps his cruelty was justified, perhaps not.

For some reason, Vlad III always pops into my mind whenever I hear Biden or his bobbleheads speaking. I think Biden and his administration are cruel and they call it “kindness”. They call failure, “success”. They call crime and criminal behavior, “Righteousness”.

By the way…. 

I did not preorder the new iPhone after all. 

Apple wouldn’t allow me to preorder it and use their interest free financing without me declaring which cellphone carrier I was going to use. In other words they wanted me to buy a carrier locked phone and I won’t do that.

They didn’t make me declare my carrier when I purchased my iPad with cellular capability. Nor did they ask for me to declare a carrier when I purchased my Apple Watch. Yet I was allowed to put those items on their interest free financing.

For some reason, they wouldn’t allow me to do the same with a new iPhone. 

I’d actually filled out the Pre Preorder forms that was supposed to make the preorder easy this morning. I stopped when I realized that for me to have the phone I’d have to put it on my card at whatever the interest rate is. Since the Apple Card is among the highest interest rate cards I have, that was a big RED NO GO!

Who am I kidding? All credit cards have nightmare interest rates these days!

The Apple Card is convenient, but it’s not something you carry a balance on unless it’s interest free. To be honest, I’m questioning keeping the Apple Card moving into the future. I don’t like the way they handle some things. The question is, does my dislike outweigh the convenience? It’s about neck & neck right now.

I’ll wait on the new iPhone. Maybe, I’ll wait until the next iPhone, or the next… I can wait, the battery on my phone isn’t that weak yet.

Sure there are things I’d like to have, but do I need them?

Maybe not…