Wednesday’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. MarkedMan says:

    Andy had a comment in a thread yesterday that I think is worth unpacking:

    Because what is considered risky for one person is not considered risky by another person. The level of risk is subjective. Additionally, the tradeoffs that are inherent to risk reduction are also subjective.

    I hear variations of this argument but it is conflating two concepts which are actually independent: determination of the level of risk, and willingness to assume risk. The latter is subjective but the former is most certainly not. To give an example, the risk that you will not succeed in drawing that inside straight is precisely calculable; your willingness to assume that risk is subjective. Further, a mathematician with expertise in statistics is the person you want calculating that risk; your friend Joe who never got the concept of negative numbers in fifth grade or what “x” represents in high school algebra is extremely unlikely to correctly calculate it regardless of his confidence level.

    7
  2. OzarkHillbilly says:

    The US recorded the lowest rate of population growth in its history in the first year of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the US Census Bureau.

    The year from July 2020 to July 2021 was also the first time since 1937 that the population of the US grew by fewer than 1 million people. Only 392,665 people were added to the count, growth of barely 0.1%.

    The figures released on Tuesday would appear to indicate that although tens of millions of Americans were forced to quarantine at home in the early months of the pandemic, there was no consequential rise in the birthrate. If anything, analysts say, the numbers were far lower than anticipated, even though the tally of births in the US has dropped every year since 2008, with the exception of 2014.

    If one thinks about it, it’s not surprising. People forced to live closer and for much more time than they are used to under stressful conditions are far more likely to bicker and argue. Not exactly an encouraging environment for intimacy.

    1
  3. OzarkHillbilly says:

    From Why are women ‘failing’ to reproduce? Maybe it’s time to ask them:

    Demonisation of “birth strikers” will inevitably follow. As Sophie McBain has argued, declining fertility is already being blamed as a sort of “youth attitude problem” among those who are anxious about the climate crisis: “If only over-anxious young people would stop fixating on rising global temperatures and instead focus on producing future taxpayers.” She references a Spectator cover story from October that blamed “baby doomers” for “putting the planet ahead of parenthood”.

    While the climate emergency is undoubtedly a factor in some people’s decision about whether to have a child, it does tend to preclude discussion of other relevant barriers: a dire lack of affordable childcare and affordable housing, the motherhood penalty paid in your career, the pathetic – embarrassingly pathetic – amount of paternity leave offered in many western countries, a transactional dating economy and the continued imbalance of domestic labour. If you were going to make the decision purely based on logic, without considering the more profound, visceral longing that many women experience, you simply wouldn’t do it.

    Putting the planet ahead of parenthood… How selfish of them! Silly people, wanting their children to have a place to live!

    7
  4. OzarkHillbilly says:

    peace1
    @peace1

    ·
    15h
    John was hospitalized & forced to give his dog to the Rome Humane Society.
    When RN Jennifer heard about it, she went there & adopted John’s dog, so that she could bring him to visit while he completed his rehabilitation. This kindness is the most precious Christmas gift.(AW)❤️

    4
  5. Jen says:

    @MarkedMan: I keep thinking that there’s also a psychological aspect to it that has the potential to impact sales. Without the federal mask mandate, we’d be seeing in real-time what percentage of the traveling public is willing to accept what level of risk.

    Airlines can bleat all they want about HEPA filters, but being in a small, confined space for an extended period of time with a bunch of strangers is an ideal situation for spreading illness. Those of us who used to fly fairly regularly know full well that you can get sick while flying.

    The airlines have to know that for a certain percentage of fliers–myself included–having and enforcing a mask requirement is a necessary component of me being comfortable enough to purchase a ticket until this dang thing is no longer a pandemic but endemic (and there are actual definitions of this, not just “eh, we’re tired of complying”). I don’t think I’m alone on this.

    On balance, as numbers are climbing and this virus is still raging, most reasonable people will get that being trapped on a plane with strangers–many of whom would be more than willing to lie about having symptoms (or be asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic)–puts you at higher risk for exposure. Thankfully, the mask requirement is a federal mandate and not up to the airlines, but honestly, I’m not flying Southwest because everything I’ve read says that they are total slackers about enforcing mask use.

    TL;DR: there’s a sales aspect here too that would affect their bottom line.

    3
  6. OzarkHillbilly says:
  7. OzarkHillbilly says:

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is poised to authorize a pair of pills from Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co. to treat Covid-19 as soon as this week, according to people familiar with the matter — a milestone in the fight against the pandemic that will soon expand therapies for the ill.

    An announcement may come as early as Wednesday, according to three of the people. They asked not to be identified ahead of the authorization and cautioned that the plan could change.

    Pfizer’s pill, Paxlovid, and Merck’s molnupiravir are intended for higher-risk people who test positive for the coronavirus. The treatments, in which patients take a series of pills at home over several days, could ease the burden on stretched hospitals with infections poised to soar through the winter in the U.S.

    The FDA declined to comment.
    ……………………..
    The FDA authorizations may come with limitations on who should get which drugs., one of the people familiar with the matter said. A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee narrowly recommended the Merck pill last month, with some members of the panel citing safety concerns including for pregnant women.

    1
  8. Mu Yixiao says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Putting the planet ahead of parenthood…

    Except that’s not what’s happening. Declining birth rates were a thing before all of this, and people would give the same base reason: “I don’t want to bring a child into this terrible world”. Hell… the term DINK is from the 80’s–showing that not having kids was popular enough 40 years ago to get its own acronym.

    The fact is simply that increased wealth and security is directly linked with reduced birth rates. When child mortality drops and you don’t need your kids to support you when you’re old, the reasons for having them diminish.

    4
  9. MarkedMan says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: The pills are interesting. My understanding is that their effectiveness is predominantly based on using them within 3 days of the onset of symptoms, which implies a level of awareness and monitoring that the great un-vaxed possess simply do not have, either because of capacity or denialism.

    OTOH, it sheds new light on the administration’s recent emphasis on home testing. Even our resident trumpers might quietly pick up a self test from an out of town drugstore and then privately see their doctor for a prescription if they start to develop symptoms. That way they wouldn’t have to break stride on their “Everyone’s an idiot! Fauci is the Devil” tirade.

  10. HarvardLaw92 says:

    Filed under “Don’t get mad; get even …”

    France just cut a $19 billion arms deal with the UAE, which essentially replaces a recently suspended $23 billion arms deal with the US. It’s also getting quite chummy with Qatar and SA.

    Ooh la la 😀

  11. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Mu Yixiao: I know. The comment was in direct response to this:

    “She references a Spectator cover story from October that blamed “baby doomers” for “putting the planet ahead of parenthood”.

    As far as, “I don’t want to bring a child into this terrible world”. I’ve been on this planet for 63 years. If I had a nickel for every time I heard that sentiment expressed, I’d be living my best life on the Riviera.

    1
  12. MarkedMan says:

    @Mu Yixiao:

    Declining birth rates were a thing before all of this

    Absolutely. For a couple of decades now the US wouldn’t have reached replacement rate without immigration, both because of direct immigration and because first and second generation immigrants have a higher birthrate than long term native population.

    The worry has always been that declining population will result in a scarcity of labor, and therefore a dwindling economy. I don’t think that’s actually a problem right now. I suspect there is still a very large percentage of jobs that could be automated, and that number is actually going up, not down. The more difficult question is how do we put purchasing power in the hands of retirees? If they are not earning a salary, how do they get income (and confidence in future income) to spend rather than save?

    1
  13. HarvardLaw92 says:

    Interestingly, the UMWA just came out, loudly, against Manchin’s opposition to BBB & urged him to reconsider. We’ll have to see how much, if at all, Manchin cares about a pissed off mine workers union.

    9
  14. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @MarkedMan: Denial is not a river in Egypt, and I’ve never known a person who was completely immune to it. I don’t know how we surmount that obstacle.

    I suspect these drugs will have very little in the way of a positive impact on the unvaccinated. After all, “it’s no worse than the flu if one is healthy,” and they all live very healthy lifestyles, not to mention that ivermectin is the real cure.

  15. CSK says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: @MarkedMan:

    As Jax noted near the end of yesterday’s open forum, the U.S. army has come up with what appears to be a very promising Covid vaccine.

  16. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @CSK: Yep, I’ve read of it. Sounds to good to be true to my skeptical ears, so I’ll believe it when I see it.

    Which isn’t to say that I reject the very idea, just that I have read of thousands of miracle cures that never quite deliver. It would be really nice if this one did.

  17. CSK says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    James Joyner writes for Defense One, which initially published the report about this vax, so it’s a legit source of information. The news has been reported elsewhere as well.

  18. Bob@Youngstown says:

    @Jen:
    Every time I hear the the airline exec tout their HEPA filters I wonder if they really believe their own BS.
    Their filtration system might be effective if all exhaled air were collected and passed through their HEPA filters (all persons on board breath into a collection system that is then processed).
    As great as their filters might be, my breathing the exhalation of the guy beside or behind me is not being filtered and therefore exposing my lungs.

    2
  19. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @CSK: It’s not a matter of the source. Peer review always knocks things down a notch or 12 from initial reports.

  20. Jen says:

    @Bob@Youngstown: Exactly. And anyone with any sense understands this intuitively.

    Also, people can be really gross. I was on a flight in November and the teenage kid next to me kept lowering his mask to pick his nose.

    Every time I get home after flying I take the hottest shower my skin can tolerate, Silkwood-style.

    1
  21. Slugger says:

    Maybe birth rates resulting in population growth are not “natural.” Over the last ten thousand years population grew very slowly for the most part. Yes, pregnancy rates were high, but infant mortality, maternal mortality, war, famine, and pestilence kept population growth down. Technology resulted in better medicine and improved farm output, and we had bursts of population growth. We are now returning to the baseline. I would guess that high reproductive rates were not due to free will choices by previous generations, and people are now freed from those outcomes.
    I’m not saying that this is good, but clearly the efforts of many governments to increase fertility, especially of the “right” people, have not been successful.
    My thesis: Low population growth is normal.

    2
  22. Michael Reynolds says:

    @HarvardLaw92:
    Interesting. There’s a low-grade cold war going on between Turkey and Qatar on the one hand, and Saudi and UAE (plus Egypt sort of) on the other. We sell arms to both sides, I suppose we can’t sniff at the French doing likewise.

    2
  23. CSK says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Well, I’m hoping for the best in this case.

  24. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Slugger:

    My thesis: Low population growth is normal.

    Interesting. Various commentators upstream are correct that as income rises, birth rates drop. As women are educated or go into the workplace, ditto. And no government anywhere, despite some impressive incentives, has managed to change that to any significant degree. Of course the invention of effective birth control is the mechanism that makes it all possible.

    It’s surprising in one way: giving birth is a whole hell of a lot safer, easier and less painful than at any time in human history. At the same time survival rates for newborns are through the roof. If what we really wanted was lots of children to love we’d be popping them out left and right. But economic incentives have reversed – kids aren’t your low-cost farm workers now, they’re enormous expenses and huge pains in the ass.*

    Once the means – birth control – arrived on the scene, economics weighed in and the whole childbirth plus child-rearing ordeal became much less attractive. For all the sentimental talk of love and preciousness and cuteness and whatnot, money spoke the loudest.

    *Insert joke re: if they’re pains in the ass, you’ve got your biology confused.

    1
  25. CSK says:

    Attention: Donald Trump will be holding a press conference at Mar-a-Lago on January 6, 2022, the first anniversary of the Capitol insurrection.

  26. @Michael Reynolds:

    giving birth is a whole hell of a lot safer, easier and less painful than at any time in human history

    This is true, but it is still not a ton of fun–having witnessed it thrice, I understand why so many women used to die in childbirth. My wife’s first was a long labor and a challenging birth that required some medical intervention and the second required an emergency c-section at 3am. The third was relatively easy, a scheduled c-section.

    4
  27. Stormy Dragon says:

    @MarkedMan:

    To give an example, the risk that you will not succeed in drawing that inside straight is precisely calculable; your willingness to assume that risk is subjective.

    Pardon my pedantry, but the word you’re looking for is “extrinsic”, not “subjective”.

    The willingness to assume risk is objective. Indeed your specific example includes one of the most obvious objective measures of willingness to assume risk: the amount of money one is willing to wager provides a very precise numerical measure of how much risk a particular player is willing to assume which the game is comparing this measure to each of the other players as the betting continues.

    While willingness to assume risk is objective, it is not however and intrinsic property of humanity and thus varies extrinsically both from individual to individual and for a given individual based on context.

  28. Michael Reynolds says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:
    I watched one. That was enough. What came next was harder: the kid was two months early so it was off to the NICU for a couple weeks. Spoiler: she survived to plague me with impertinence, disobedience and outright contempt whenever technology was involved.

    5
  29. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    I think it was mostly Macron needed a win heading into April, but yea, I agree. I’d love to see the discount they had to cut on those fighters to get the deal closed.

    2
  30. CSK says:

    @Michael Reynolds:
    “…impertinence, disobedience, and outright contempt…”

    Gee, I wonder from whom she inherited those traits? 😀

    9
  31. Michael Reynolds says:

    @CSK:
    God enjoys his little jokes.

    4
  32. CSK says:

    @Michael Reynolds:
    Well, as they would have said in eighteenth-century England, she’s a saucy wench.

  33. Mister Bluster says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:..Putting the planet ahead of parenthood… How selfish of them! Silly people, wanting their children to have a place to live!
    @Mu Yixiao:..Hell… the term DINK is from the 80’s–showing that not having kids was popular enough 40 years ago to get its own acronym.

    Norman Lear and his crew at All in the Family covered this issue in an episode that aired September 8, 1975.

  34. MarkedMan says:

    @Stormy Dragon:

    Pardon my pedantry, but the word you’re looking for is “extrinsic”, not “subjective”.

    I was responding to Andy – subjective was his word, although I may have used it in my own. Equally important variable: ability to understand a complex risk.

    But you glided over the main point. Andy was claiming risk itself is a variable. I was pointing out that risk is calculable and, for complex risk, may require an expert to calculate. Willingness to assume risk is a varable.

    2
  35. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @MarkedMan:

    Might be more accurate to say that risk is estimable, and willingness to assume risk would depend (at least in part) on the degree of faith one places in the accuracy of the estimates.

    2
  36. Mikey says:

    Update on my Mom’s COVID: so far mild symptoms. At this point she hardly sounds like she even has a cold. She still has her senses of taste and smell which seems to be a difference between the Omicron and earlier variants, so we’re assuming Omicron is what she got.

    My brother is still working on getting her the monoclonal antibody treatment. It’s not overstating things to say this is an utterly confusing and colossal pain in the ass. Who can authorize it? Who writes the order? Where does the order go? When the order is finally sent, how do we know when to take her? Nobody knows! It’s ridiculous. Two and a half days on the phone, my poor brother. Apparently the order’s in and now it’s “don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

    But at this point…fingers crossed, her case seems relatively mild. Of course with COVID things can go south in a hurry, so I won’t relax until I know she’s been treated.

    (Am I a bad son for wanting it to be just bad enough that it doesn’t kill her but makes her say “shit, I don’t want to go through that again, time to get vaccinated?”)

    5
  37. Mu Yixiao says:

    @MarkedMan:

    But you glided over the main point. Andy was claiming risk itself is a variable. I was pointing out that risk is calculable and, for complex risk, may require an expert to calculate.

    I’m going to nitpick.

    Probability and risk are not the same thing. In your example of cards, the probability is an objective number that can be calculated. But the risk is subjective. Risk is a function of “pain vs. reward based on the probability”*. If I’m playing poker for Oreos, there’s no risk. If I’m playing $1 limit, it’s low risk (I can afford it). If I’m playing $100, it’s high risk (it could really hurt me financially).

    If Elon Musk was sitting in that same $100-limit game, the risk to him would be non-existent–even though the probability of any hand is exactly the same for both of us.

    ==============
    * Dictionary definition: “a situation involving exposure to danger”. If there’s no danger, there’s no risk.

  38. Stormy Dragon says:

    @MarkedMan:

    No, I got your point, which is why I categorized my response as pedantry instead of being substantive.

    People saying “subjective” when they mean “extrinsic” is just one of my pet peeves. =)

    1
  39. Sleeping Dog says:

    America is now in fascism’s legal phase

    The history of racism in the US is fertile ground for fascism. Attacks on the courts, education, the right to vote and women’s rights are further steps on the path to toppling democracy

    Jason Stanley
    Wed 22 Dec 2021 05.00 EST

    “Let us be reminded that before there is a final solution, there must be a first solution, a second one, even a third. The move toward a final solution is not a jump. It takes one step, then another, then another.”

    So began Toni Morrison’s 1995 address to Howard University, entitled Racism and Fascism, which delineated 10 step-by-step procedures to carry a society from first to last.

    Considering the times, last week I picked up Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism It begins with a discussion of antisemitism, the parallels are easy to draw. I need to add Toni Morrison’s talk to my reading list.

    2
  40. JohnSF says:

    @HarvardLaw92:
    @Michael Reynolds:
    It’s a long term thing that the Saudi’s have hedged their arms purchase bets.
    IIRC about half the Saudi air force is European made: Typhoons, Tornados, Saab AEW.
    Not bought much French before, though there were serious talks re. Mirage 4000 before they decided to go for mix F-15 and Tornado; a third whole system would have been a bit rich even for Riyadh.

    re. Turkey, it’s interesting that France is also selling warships to Greece (also edging out a US sale) And Rafales; and a defence treaty additional to NATO!

    Also of interest: the US is increasing force basing in northern Greece, IMO indicating desire for alternative basing options to Turkey in event of conflict with Russia and/or full breach with Ankara.

    So the Franco-Greek deals aren’t overriding that strategic imperative.

  41. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @HarvardLaw92: Is “minus 12” on the pool for this question taken yet?

    1
  42. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: My guess would be a similar impact to that of Tamiflu and that the effectiveness window may be the critical point. Another question in my mind is if the biological in question is safe to take if you DON’T have Covid-19 with in-home rapid tests (assuming you have one available) are still spotty last I heard and the test you take at the doctor’s office routinely having results several days away.

  43. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @CSK: Yet another reason not to tune into CNN.

  44. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Mikey: Wa! I wish I could send you the clinic I go to for your town. The doctor/owner’s message before you wait in the phone tree currently includes “remember, if you get Covid, we can set you up with monoclonal antibody treatment right here in our office, so call us first.”

  45. CSK says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:
    The glad tidings appear to have been announced on a number of other news outlets as well.

  46. Kathy says:

    Work’s been worse than usual, as everyone is attempting to finish enough of it so we can leave early on the 24th.

    I thought of an odd question: do dogs understand clothes?

    All dogs I had worse a sweater when it was cold. All three of them found the means to remove it without human help (then they engaged in shivering sometimes).

    Emm liked to chew on the oversize sleeve of an old sweatshirt I sometimes wore around the house, while I was wearing it. She clearly knew she wasn’t hurting me, but did she know the clothes were not part of me?

    The other thing any dog owner must have noticed, is their dogs can spend lots of time sniffing our laundry, as well as shoes and slippers by the bed (mine did).

    This reminds me of some lines in season 1 of Miracle Workers, when God is explaining the weird animals in his planet:

    Man: what’s a cow?
    God: It’s like a large dog you can get a drink from.
    Man: And what’s a dog?
    God: It’s like a small cow you can be friends with.

    I often think tautology works really well in comedy.

  47. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Kathy:

    It’s your odor on the clothing. There is nothing our pug likes more than rollicking in the dirty laundry when one of us is trying to sort it. He’ll pull stuff off the bed our out of the hamper if it is left open and drag it to his bed. Sometimes he gums it, other times just lays on it.

    All our dogs have had a thing for dirty clothing. The sweatier the better.

    Dirty clothes are the bees knees to a dog.

    1
  48. CSK says:

    @Kathy: @Sleeping Dog:
    I’ve heard and read that when your dog is very young, and you have to leave it alone for a few hours, you should put a dry bath towel you’ve used in the dog’s bed so that the dog will be reassured by your scent.

    I’ve never known a dog that didn’t adore dirty laundry, particularly underwear.

  49. dazedandconfused says:

    My dog likes to take my dirty socks out to the back yard and carefully bury them.
    He does not dig a hole for them in places where a new hole would be obvious, he goes for the bark and then noses the bark back over the place, a deliberate effort to conceal. He does not want them to be found again.

    2
  50. Jax says:

    @CSK: Dirty underwear are the BEST, according to my daughter’s puppy. Clean ones will do, in a pinch, she’s figured out how to open dresser drawers, drag out some undies, chew out the crotch, then puts them back! Pants, too, but she has no luck putting them back. The legs are too long, I guess. 😛

    1
  51. Mu Yixiao says:

    A minor rant about unimportant shit that annoys me to no end.

    I’m an “Administrative Assistant” (glorified secretarial pool). Our job is to support the other departments.
    But unlike most of my fellow admins (who are half my age) I have a Swiss army knife of skills* and experience. I’m the one that gets called for the weird shit.

    So… I’ve been assigned to a project for Marketing. They’re releasing a new product (and, it seems, updating some older ones) early next year. The product sheets for each of these products is being revamped–in 9 different languages.

    My task is to take the supplied translations and insert them into the InDesign documents for each language (6 docs/language).

    Easy, right? Just copy & paste the German or Russian or Chinese in place of the English. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy!

    BZZZZT! Wrong answer!

    I have no idea who created these documents, but I want to print them all out, roll them up, wrap them in stretch-wrap, and use them to bludgeon that person silly. These are the most sloppy, un-thought-through InDesign files I’ve ever had to deal with. The most basic practices are ignored. Rather than “This was created by a highly-skilled designer working for a world-wide industry leader”, it’s “this was slapped together by a high-school student who left it until the night before it was due”.

    Sure, the end product looks good. But… making any changes requires digital gymnastics of an olympic level.

    =======================
    * I’ve worked a lot of jobs in a lot of industries.

  52. MarkedMan says:

    @Mu Yixiao: And so, yet again, an argument devolves to definition. I view the “risk” of drawing an inside straight as being exactly calculable. You contend that the “risk” must include the impact of a negative result. I assume that if you accept my definition then you would agree with me. If I accepted your definition I would agree with you.

    1
  53. Jax says:
  54. Jax says:

    No Edit button, so I’ll add this here….if you’re in Kansas, unvaccinated, and reading this, here’s a different option!

    Vaccines work by triggering a safe immune response, so your body will produce antibodies to the virus. The problem is, if it were ingested, it would be killed by your stomach acid before being absorbed.
    “It has the advantage of the protein that stimulates the immune process is covered with a substance that avoids the stomach acid. So it’s passed on to the small intestine, and it’s absorbed mucosally. Mucosal absorption increases the IGA and the T-cell content, so it should last longer,” said Poling.

    In order to advance toward FDA approval, he needs more people to sign up for the study. If you’re 18 to 75 years old, are unvaccinated, or it’s been more than six months since you’ve been vaccinated, you can sign up, and researchers will even pay you up to $1,525.

  55. Kathy says:

    @Jax:

    You’d think they were developing the first medical pill ever. I mean, if there’s something the pharmaceutical industry has down cold, is how to deliver medication taken orally and through the digestive system.

  56. Jax says:

    @Kathy: I like how they added the part about how it survives the digestive system because it’s pretty obvious some of our unvaxxed (cough cough) friends on here don’t understand how a lot of things work. 😛

    1
  57. Jax says:

    @Kathy: Plus, $1,5oo and no needles! Plus the chance of not dying of Covid! Win win.

  58. Sleeping Dog says:

    @CSK:

    Almost anything with your scent is comforting for them. We’ve had dogs that when we need to leave them at the kennel while we were gone, we’d send along an old dirty shirt for them. Others were hammerheads and couldn’t wait for us to leave so they could be with the other dogs at the kennel.

  59. Kathy says:

    @Jax:

    What? Like the 5G chip and the super-duper magnets won’t survive with the pill through the intestines?

    1
  60. Jax says:

    @Kathy: Shhhhh!!! You’re not supposed to mention superior cell phone reception and the ability to shit barbed wire out your ass with magnets! 😛

    Did you see the Dallas Q’s think they’ve been hit with Anthrax because they caught Covid? Waiting for them to show up on the Herman Cain awards.

    https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7wz5a/people-got-sick-at-a-conspiracy-conference-theyre-sure-its-anthrax

    2
  61. Kathy says:

    @Jax:

    Two things:

    1) I’m so certain about what they’re ill with, I’d be willing to bet them everything I own and can borrow and steal, that it’s not anthrax.

    2) This wouldn’t have happened if they’d taken an anthrax vaccine 🙂

    2
  62. Jen says:

    @CSK:

    I’ve never known a dog that didn’t adore dirty laundry, particularly underwear.

    Our pup, who is 11, has never touched the laundry basket. It’s on the floor in our bedroom and she has zero interest. Zero. She’s also never tried to get on our bed, and I’ve left bacon cooling on the counter and left the room and she hasn’t touched it.

    I can’t decide if she’s really well-behaved, understands boundaries, or just isn’t that bright.

  63. Jen says:

    @Jax: I’m sorry but WTAF is this??

    While Oltmann said he was “sick, sick,” he claimed his symptoms were tempered because he was already taking the antibiotic doxycycline as a result of impaling his leg on an arrow in an accident in his brother’s garage weeks previously.

    And…this is quite a sentence:

    Pulitzer, a failed inventor who once created a barcode scanner listed as one of the 50 worst inventions ever, was heavily involved in the bogus Arizona recount, consulting for the Cyber Ninjas and promoting the idea that box of ballots had been flown into Arizona on election night from Asia to swing the vote in Biden’s favor.

    According to Oltmann, Pulitzer has not been heard from in several days and he reported more severe complications including “body lesions and weeping skin.”

    I’m agog.

    1
  64. Jax says:

    @Jen: I’m going with “They’re gonna wish it was anthrax and not stupidity” for $500, Jen. 😛

    There’s a vaccine and treatment for anthrax. But not stupidity. Not even with a 2×4 or duct tape.

    1
  65. Kathy says:

    @Jen:

    One time at the Main Street Station buffet in Vegas, there was this couple with a service dog, which are allowed in the dining room. The dog lay under their table, eyes open and looking here and there from time to time, but utterly calm.

    Every other dog surrounded by lots of food and lots of people would be moving around, excitedly, sniffing and begging. This one, I’m assuming still, was really well trained.

  66. CSK says:

    @Jen:
    If she has pups, I’ll take one,please.

  67. CSK says:

    @Jax: @Jen:
    They want to believe someone poisoned them with anthrax spores because it makes them feel important, as if they’re a real threat to the Deep State that needs to be eliminated.

  68. Scott O says:

    @Jen: “as a result of impaling his leg on an arrow in an accident in his brother’s garage weeks previously.“

    Left unsaid, alcohol may have been been involved.

    2
  69. Monala says:

    @Jax: how did the polio sugar cube vaccine survive?

  70. JohnSF says:

    @Jen:
    @Scott O:

    “I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow in the knee.”