I update this blog three times a week, most weeks, not every goddamn day, so Neil Steinberg beat me to the punch, but the punch deserves to be delivered twice, a one-two, if you will.
Croaky and his boss, President Shit-for-brains, have blood on their hands. Specifically, that of David Rose, the responding officer for the attempted mass shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Friday. He was killed by Patrick Joseph White, the shooter who toted five rifles to a CVS across the street from the building and opened fire. White was said to be increasingly obsessed with the idea the Covid vaccination had made him sick. Wherever could he have gotten that idea?
Our HHS secretary has called the Covid jab “the deadliest vaccine ever made,” citing reports to VAERS, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. Intended to be a democratic way for anyone to report sore arms, fevers, etc., it was most certainly set up for a simpler time, when people would be honest brokers of this information. A friend of mine, then a reporter for a prestigious magazine, was asked to poke around in it, see if there was a story, maybe.
He poked, and came away after a couple days with his conclusion: No. Why? Recall that the Covid vaccine was first given to those most vulnerable to the disease — the elderly and immune-suppressed. And so VAERS is full of accounts that run like this: My father had stage IV lung cancer, and received the vaccine. Three weeks later, he died. Or: My mother, 97 and bedridden in her nursing home, received the shot, and died after 10 days. Neither of these people had Covid when they died, so: Very suspicious!!!
And because VAERS is open to anyone — seriously, anyone can make a report — it is of course subject to manipulation by bad actors. And I’m sure it is. Anyway, it’s not a reliable source of information. Which Croaky should know.
One caveat that I should note: Something that’s always interested me is how mental illness cleaves to the culture of its time. People used to believe incubi and succubi came into their rooms at night and had sex with them. Today, it’s aliens who abduct victims to their ships to stick probes into their anuses. (Always the anus. Huh.) The man who killed four people in New York City a couple weeks ago was convinced he had CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, from being hit in the head as a football player. (He was in the building housing the NFL.) He was 27 years old (well below the age when CTE typically presents), played only high school (potentially dangerous, but hardly NFL-level dangerous) and had not been diagnosed with anything.
So both these men, White and the NYC shooter, had fixated on current events to explain whatever was jangling around in their heads, and it’s possible that White would have fired on the CDC in the absence of a led-from-the-top damning of the work they do. But I’d say those chances are slim.
How did Croaky react? With the usual thoughts-and-prayers statement, made on Instagram. Fuck him.
Finally, I leave you with this, which is so ironic I can’t stand it:
As a record number of people in the U.S. are sickened with measles, researchers are resurrecting the search for something long-deemed redundant: treatments for the viral disease.
After the measles vaccine was introduced in the 1960s, cases of the disease plummeted. By 2000, federal officials had declared measles eliminated from the U.S. This success led to little interest in the development of treatments. But now, as vaccination rates fall and infections rise, scientists are racing to develop drugs they say could prevent or treat the disease in vulnerable and unvaccinated people.
“In America, we don’t like being told what to do, but we like to have options for our medicine chest,” said Marc Elia, chairman of the board of Invivyd, a Massachusetts-based drugmaker that started working on a monoclonal antibody for measles this spring.
Yes, that’s correct: A drugmaker is looking for a treatment for measles (because “we like to have options for our medicine chest”) because increasing number of dumbass Americans are refusing a safe, long-established vaccine for measles. I can’t stand it.
OK, then! On that cheery note, go start your weeks! I’m off on a bike ride before it gets to…checking…89 degrees. Ugh.
Jeff Borden said on August 10, 2025 at 11:30 am
We’re committing suicide by stupidity.
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Deborah said on August 10, 2025 at 11:57 am
I was out of coffee this morning so I went to the grocery store to get some this morning. I spent $49.67 on 2 bags of coffee. The last time I went maybe 3 weeks ago it was $14 a pound which is high enough, and this morning it was $17 a pound. I’m going to stop getting that coffee, that’s just ridiculous. It’s the kind in those tall bulk cylinders that you bag yourself. It’s quite good, but not that good. It’s hazelnut flavored and it’s decaf. I can get coffee much, much cheaper at Trader Joes, not hazelnut, and not great. I think I’m going to mix the good stuff with the mediocre and try that, and when this expensive stuff is gone I’ll just get the the TJs stuff from now on. I mean there’s a limit. All for stupid tariffs. I don’t know how long Trump is going to get away with this. People notice.
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Pam H said on August 10, 2025 at 12:17 pm
We now live in an Idiocracy and soon we will be watering our crops with sports drinks. Or Mountain Dew. Have you noticed how all the vaccine averse folks are now using Supplements? Expensive and with no oversight whatsoever as to ingredients or manufacture. More idiotic behavior. Carolyn was right about her cousin, he is killing people and feels very righteous about his insanity.
@Deborah: Do you have a Dollar Tree in your neighborhood? Someone I know has been going there to buy coffee from Harry and David for $5 a bag (don’t know how many ounces in bag). He says it’s the cheapest coffee he can find and it tastes good. He buys the plain coffee, not the flavored. Just sayin’.
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Mark P said on August 10, 2025 at 12:45 pm
At least with some covid deaths, it was the stupid who paid the price. With measles, it’s usually the innocent children of the stupid who pay the price. Of course croaky knows that VAERS is not reliable. But it does support his conspiracy.
The difference between modern American and Idiocracy is that in Idiocracy, society naturally devolved. We have chosen the greedy and the stupid to lead us intentionally into the dystopia we are now living in.
And, speaking of price, I found some ground beef at Walmart the other day for nearly $9 a pound. They did have some that was somewhat cheaper.
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Suzanne said on August 10, 2025 at 1:08 pm
The anti-vax, anti-science rot is deep here in middle America. I did a cancer survivor program at the local YMCA last year. The leader of the group told us that she personally knew of several people who got the COVID vaccine and died from it (that was the day I walked out). We were also told about the healing power of foot baths and essential oils. Did you know that you can put drops of different kinds of essential oils on your spine and those oils will know which nerves to reach, all by themselves? And the foot baths will pull the toxins from your body! Which toxins, we were never told. During COVID, the amount of people I was in contact with that refused to mask was astounding, citing things like freedom, and the fact that a mask will cut off your oxygen supply to the point of death.
Even Jerome Adams, Trump’s first Surgeon General has made a statement that people will die due to RFK Jr’s idiocy.
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Deborah said on August 10, 2025 at 5:33 pm
I went to another grocery store today that I hate, it’s owned by Albertsons but called Market Street, it’s huge and the checkout lines are a mile long, but there are some things we have to get there because none of the other stores we frequent have those items, like Duke’s mayo (if you haven’t tried it, you should). I checked out the coffee there and it has gone up a lot too, 12 0z bags for $15 – $17, I haven’t gone back to Trader Joes yet, it will be interesting to see how much their’s costs now.
Also, the produce aisles had areas with blank shelves, so the disappeared farm workers are starting to have an impact, at least it seems that way from my shopping trip today.
We don’t eat that much meat so I can’t really tell how it has changed.
I bought eggs from the farmers market last time I needed some and they’re always pricy so I can’t go by that either.
This could get interesting.
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Sherri said on August 10, 2025 at 6:47 pm
Instead of being a normal billionaire and building his compound in Atherton or Los Altos Hills, Zuck has to take over a Palo Alto neighborhood, buying up houses on 1/3 acre lots and creating his compound that way. And not so his kids can attend Palo Alto schools; he has a small private school on his compound.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/us/mark-zuckerberg-palo-alto.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dE8.4ejX.ZiyyVcZcI-Zt&smid=url-share
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FDChief said on August 10, 2025 at 8:02 pm
The idiot fucker RFKJr always reminds me of a comment one of my Army pals used whenever someone would do or say something truly astoundingly stupid:
“Ah, (name of person). Can’t live with ’em. Can’t shoot ’em.”
But in all honesty, what would We the People lose if someone replaced Croaky’s brainworm with a juicy dose of hot lead? Beuhler..?
And the same goes for all these other MAGA skinsacks. Hegseth. Bondi. Patel. Vance. Trump. Think of the perfectly good oxygen these worthless hairbags are wasting!
Will no one rid me of these meddlesome MAGAts?
We’re hamstrung by our own conventions. In a sane polity all these scum would be lined up at the steps to the National Razor.
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Julie Robinson said on August 10, 2025 at 8:19 pm
Sherri, I read that story this afternoon and I’ll admit my jaw dropped. There was also a story a month or so back about a school Priscilla Chan was sponsoring and running. It seems that after the friend who was head of school died, Priscilla lost interest and abruptly closed it. The school was in a economically challenged area, and represented hope for the kids and their parents. Families were told after the good schools in the vicinity were full, when if they’d known earlier they would have had good choices available.
And a Zuckerberg reminder that Instagram will now share your real-time location unless you turn that feature off.
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Colleen said on August 10, 2025 at 9:24 pm
I was gonna make a pot roast last week. Until I saw the chuck roast was 27 dollars. At Aldi.
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