Hi all. I had planned to post this week but, unfortunately, I'm now three-for-three in getting Covid during or after vacation travel. That annoying little bug seems to have just the right key to open the door and get past my fully vaccine-enhanced immune system. Anyway, my head is way too full of congestion for any DD-related inspiration to pierce the mental fog.
For those of you in the U.S., I hope you have a great week, including time spent with family and friends. I hope you eat well, rest up, and travel safely.
Dan,
ReplyDeleteVery sorry the Trump virus got you again ( sorry , could not resist). But seriously, for a guy in your condition and fully inoculated, it seems unusual ( but may not be ) for one to contract the virus three times ( unless of course you have had regular and prolonged contact with an anti-VAXers) Having said that, it looks like Covid is going to be with us for another winter, so maybe you were just unlucky. It wouldn't be a bad idea to ask your GP for a Full Blood Count test when you feel better to rule out a compromised immune system. Get well. Its harder to be disagreeable when you aren't around.
Alan
Thanks, Alan! Haha! I'll try to be more consistent so we can be disagreeable together.
DeleteI agree with you on the blood count. I've had one run annually, and my white count isn't ideal. Not out of normal range, but usually at the very bottom of the range. But, another explanation may be that while I did get the most recent booster, I did it about a week before our trip. So, the full immunity may not have kicked in by the time we traveled.
Dan - wishing you a speedy recovery and a happy Thanksgiving. And a happy holiday season to all! --al
ReplyDeleteThanks, and same to you al!
DeleteDan, Happy Thanksgiving to you and everyone on the blog. I received the first shot and then a few months later got Covid. I received a booster and then got it again. I will never get another shot. By the way Alan, it’s actually not that unusual to get Covid multiple times. I know a bunch of first responders that have had it three times and a friend who developed blood clots after his second booster. I guess that is what happens when we develop a vaccine in three months. Not to get political, but I hope there is a massive shift in this country in our next election.
ReplyDeleteHope you get better soon Dan. Happy Holidays to all.
T
The fact that we got the vaccine and the virus doesn't necessarily mean the vaccine had no value. It's impossible to know what they symptom severity would have been like without it. And, I don't think development time has a lot to do with it. Flu vaccines have been around forever, and the one year I got a very serious case of the flu, I had gotten the vaccine. As for the political shift, let's remember that vaccine was developed during the Trump administration, and it was that team that developed, promoted and took massive credit for Operation Warp Speed.
DeleteAs I said, I'm not a big fan of this administration, but the fact is tax rates haven't changed since the Trump administration, so if you're paying more it's because you're making more money or because your state taxes have gone up. The market tanked because of a pandemic and because artificially low interest rates in place for a decade created an asset bubble that popped as soon as rates went up. Inflation surged because of the extra liquidity the US and every other 1st world country pumped into the market to prevent a further meltdown. Inflation has actually been LOWER in the US than in almost every other western country, and it's gone down faster here. Another big reason for the increase in inflation is government debt, which Trump added to by $9 TRILLION. States, not the feds, regulate insurance rates, including approving premium increases. So, like I said, I'm not a big fan of this administration, but when it comes to fiscal discipline, the Trump administration was a disaster and the Republicans in congress care about deficits when, and only when, the other party holds the presidency.
DeleteDan,
DeleteYour response is the perfect vaccine for the political virus that has taken down so many of us: facts, evidence,accurate information, and a search for objective reality. Too many have let their tribal identity and preconceptions dictate their opinions--and then search for " facts" that support those opinions. To those who really want to go back to the "way things were", a good place to start is to get reacquainted with facts and evidence as a way to reach opinions about the way things are . Old Joe Friday on the original dragnet had it right: "Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts
Alan
President Obama had the largest deficits. By the end of his final budget, FY 2017, his budget deficits totaled $6.781 trillion over his eight years in office. That's a 58% increase from President George W. Bush's last budget.
DeleteObama took office during the Great Recession. He immediately needed to spend billions to stop it. He convinced Congress to add $253 billion from the economic stimulus package to Bush’s FY 2009 budget. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act added an additional $534 billion over the rest of Obama’s terms.7
In 2010, the Obama tax cut added $858 billion in deficits in its first two years. Federal income decreased due to lower tax receipts from the 2008 financial crisis.
I guess none of the past presidents have done their part to control spending in any way shape or form. That’s why we continue to pay out the wazoo. Dan, that why I don’t talk politics or get into it. It will be my last comment on them, because I do not consider myself a republican or democrat. Each side has zero dog in the fight. Their agenda is for us to pay more and themselves to pay less. A majority of congressmen and senators came into politics broke and have amassed significant wealth.
Alan, I do get depressed about the trend the country seems to be on, and particularly the tribalism. But, I also try to remind myself that my perspective is pretty limited. What if I'd been alive in the 1930s? My grandparents lived through the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Or, if we're sticking to politics, I was a baby during the late 60s, so I don't personally recall the tumult, but you had the Vietnam war, mass protests about the Vietnam war, the kiilings at Kent State, civil rights protesters beaten and killed, political assassinations of a US president and prominent civil rights leaders, the attacks by police at the 1968 Democratic convention. I kind of suspect that as bad as things seem now, our parents and grandparents had as much reason or more to think that everything was coming apart.
DeleteT., true re: Obama, but let's add some context. Ronald Reagan put in place huge unpaid for tax cuts, promising that the resulting economic activity would generate more tax revenue, thereby preventing deficits. Didn't happen. Deficits and the national debt exploded. George Bush tried to bring down the deficits with targeted tax cuts, and his party basically voted him out of office. Clinton inherited the Reagan-Bush deficits but put in place budgets that actually resulted in a budget SURPLUS. George W. Bush inherited that budget surplus from Clinton. But, he followed Reagan's playbook, cutting taxes without reducing spending and promising the tax cuts would somehow pay for themselves. Once again, they didn't. He then put two wars and a massive Medicare spending increase on the national credit card, leaving Obama with a $1.4 trillion deficit. That deficit surged in the initial years of the Obama presidency because, as you point out, the efforts to mitigate the 2008 financial meltdown that started during the Bush administration. But, by the end of Obama's term, that deficit had been cut in half. Trump then came in and, like Bush, put in place a tax cut that wasn't paid for with decreased spending and, over the course of a single term, racked up $9 trillion in new deficits. Those are simply the facts when it comes to Democrats vs. Republicans on deficits and taxation.
DeleteDan,
DeleteI wish I could believe that we are just living through a tough patch that will end like all those you allude to as well as dozens more “bad times” back to the revolution. Alas, I cannot summon my normal optimism for our future.
Up to a third of our fellow Americans are prepared to vote in 2024 for a pathological liar, proven rapist, authoritarian despot, virulent racist, and committed misanthrope.
Trump however, despicable as he is, is not the problem nor the reason for my pessimism.
Instead, my concern is that a third of Americans-- most of whom are good, loving, hard-working people-- believe things are bad enough and they are angry enough to vote for such a candidate. Even worse, a significant proportion of them have given up on democracy, as well as government.
Trump, flawed and heinous as he is, remains just a vehicle for the outpouring of fear, anger, hopelessness, and hate so many are experiencing. Many friends have expressed the view that once Trump departs public life, normal times will return.
That is a dangerous illusion. Trump is not the problem; he is a symptom of the problem. Unless we tackle the problems that dismay so many, Trump or his doppelganger will be around for a long, long time
Alan
All very legitimate points. I go back and forth on whether Trump is the symptom or the disease. My best guess is it's a little of both. I think there was always about 10 - 20% of the population who are simply assholes. But, in the past they were forced to repress their assholery because they'd rightly be made pariahs. Then, Trump came along and showed you could be a total asshole and adopt shamelessness as a personal brand. He basically gave permission for the assholes in the population to be what they always were.
DeleteDan said: “… whether Trump is the symptom or the disease. My best guess is it's a little of both…”
DeleteI hope you are right. But even so, that leaves us to answer what was the catalyst for the population boom of A-holes. Every age has a surfeit of Trump-like nefarious personalities. One might make a reasonable historical argument that we had (proportionately) more of them at many other critical moments in our history.
But none ever took the nation as close to the brink of authoritarianism as we are now. Some have compared our times to the antebellum Civil War period. If we continue on our path, our descendants (survivors?) might look back at the Civil War as the second-greatest crisis in American history.
Well said Dan
ReplyDeleteDev is a germaphobe and has every shot out there. To be supportive I do too. Last year while returning from a Rhine River cruise we needed a precovid test before we could fly. We were in Switzerland and I’m bored. There were eight of us waiting to be tested. I’m talking to her loud enough for the couple in front of us to hear. I said in Europe they do the test differently. She asked how. I said they do the test in the rear. She asked how it worked. I said you go in and bend over. They turn the swab there times to the left then three to to right. They get a faster result. The people in front of us were listening and when their time to go in arrived they walked very slowly into the room. They came out five minutes later laughing. I said gotcha ! We became instant friends and had a great trip home.
ReplyDeleteThat's hilarious!
DeleteHope you are now fully recovered?
ReplyDeletep
x
Not fully, but getting there.
DeleteDan, I agree that there are millions of assholes in the USA that seem to feel it's now ok to subject the rest of us to their bad behavior. (BTW, lying is bad behavior in my book)
ReplyDeleteThe vast majority of them would probably behave much better if they were with a strong woman who was willing and able to spank that bad behavior out of them. Last night I had a little too much to drink, and this morning I found myself over her lap, getting the hardest spanking I've ever had. It seems her tecqunique has improved, and I was kicking uncontrollably and making a lot of noise. I haven't been punished for quite awhile, and it was very hard to take. Some friends were coming to pick me up, and fortunately, the spanking ended just before they arrived. Had they knocked on the front door while I was being spanked, they would have heard it, as I am usually spanked in the middle of the living room. I am pretty sure I was red faced and sweating when I opened the door, and she was not at all concerned. One of my buddies commented on how well she takes care of me, and I said, "you don't know the half of it"
I had similar experiences just before company arrived. My wife had no concern to have me greet guests just moments after pulling up my pants. I had a notorious "bad back" to excuse my shufffling gait from a bruised rear end.
DeleteKOJ
"If you don't want to greet guests in a disheveled state and a burning bottom, then don't misbehave shortly before they arrive! You knew what time they were coming, and you chose to ______ (fill in the blank) right beforehand anyway. Your embarrassment is on you, mister!"
DeleteKOJ
ReplyDeleteI also don’t identify with either political party but regard myself as independent. However it feels to me as if the republicans have left any vestige of honesty or actual public service behind - although I’m no fan of Biden, I can’t forgive him for Afghanistan. I do believe however that he honestly believes in public service, unlike Trump who has to be the most corrupt occupant of the White House - at least in living memory. I have tickets to hear Liz Cheney speak in a couple of months, I have a lot of respect for her and will be interested to hear what she has to say. You talked about unfunded tax reductions and so on, perhaps the most extreme and damaging of these recently was by the short-lived Liz Truss government in the UK. I have a theory that much of the root cause of the problems in the US has been gerrymandering. Balanced constituencies tend to encourage centrists and compromise, gerrymandering to secure seats encourages extremists. TG
DeleteIf you want a deep dive into the key causes of today's political dysfunction, you will want to read :
Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point--
https://www.amazon.com/Tyranny-Minority-American-Democracy-Breaking-ebook/
It does identify gerrymandering as a critical problem but puts it and a fistful of related problems in context. . It's also well written
Alan
TG, I couldn't agree more than gerrymandering is a huge source of the current polarization, and probably THE source of it. The two-party system is also probably another root. I'm a big fan of structural changes like non-partisan redistricting commissions, open primaries and ranked-choice voting.
DeleteI think Biden did screw up Afghanistan, though that too needs to be put in context. It was Trump who entered into a formal agreement with the Taliban, then as usual he fucked up the implementation, in two ways. First, the timeline was too aggressive and his administration didn't put any actual plan in place to meet the deadline. Second, the Trump administration not only didn't leave Biden with any workable plan to pull-out but actively refused to cooperate in a transition on this or any other issue. So, Biden inherited both the unreasonable timeline and the lack of any plan to implement it. Where Biden screwed up was not calling the Taliban's bluff. He should have simply refused to honor Trump's agreed-upon deadline and refused to pull out the US presence unless and until an implementable plan was in place. I blame Blinken, who I also blame for prolonging the Urkaine war and enabling Ukraine not to lose but not actually enabling them to win, denying them sophisticated weaponry over and over again until his hand is forced.
It's funny, but I used to absolutely hate Cheney (and her father even more so), until the insurrection turned her into a hero. She certainly has bigger balls than most of the male members of her party.
Alan, I'll take a look at that. I've been needing to re-load my Kindle with some holiday reading anyway.
Delete
DeleteSounds like you know more detail about Ukraine than I do, but i certainly get the impression that some of the European countries have been more whole-hearted in their response than the US. I don’t get how some people don’t understand that Russia’s intention is to keep expanding step by step. We should have stopped them when they went into Crimea, we have to stop them now. Otherwise they’ll gradually take over more and more of Europe until they feel strong enough to threaten us directly. No one is interested in attacking or taking over Russia, but we have to do whatever it takes to stop them attacking others. As for Liz Cheyney, I suspect that there may be little that she’ll say that I agree with, but i respect her integrity and could probably have a civil conversation with her (like that’s ever going to happen, I’ll be with five thousand other people listening to her.). Thanks Alan, I need to look at that. TG
We don't usually wander into politics here, but it's interesting that all commentators so far agree that the republican party is bankrupt, and only interested in power. I agree with Dan, Alan, and the rest of you about gerrymandering and other corrupt methods that republicans resort to in order to win, because their policies are deeply unpopular, and usually only benefit the very rich. It isn't surprising that most of us are disgusted by the lack of accountability by the republican party, because being held accountable is one of the fundamental desires of those who contribute in this blog. A successful F/M DD relationship requires men to be honest and have respect for women. The republican party and Trump have no respect for women, and both are completely dishonest.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Norton. Though, recall that these comments started with T.'s observations, and those were anti-Biden at least (not sure whether they could be described as pro-Republican, though that seems like a solid inference). And, I definitely saw a big drop-off in readership in 2019 and 2020 when I commented more openly about Trump, his attacks on democracy, vaccine denial, etc.
Delete
DeleteThat’s interesting in that it supports the view that we are inclined to focus on articles and commentary that support our own points of view. You’re critical of Trump, therefore Trump supporters - who may fit well into the main theme of this blog - withdraw from it. I guess - full disclosure - that I am also guilty of this to some degree. I’d like to believe that I can listen to a viewpoint I disagree with and respond with rationality and respect (and indeed do so on those rare occasions when I get involved in a political discussion on Facebook) but it’s much more difficult to read something defending Trump, who as far as I can see is fundamentally corrupt. TG