209 nature for the win


Yesterday, I had a bit of a stuffy nose. This either means allergies...or...a cold? How did I catch a cold? 

Because if I did, I could have caught Cov2. They're both coronaviruses.

Oh, Paso. Was it the ten minutes I spent in a restaurant's lobby, with unmasked diners a few feet away, waiting for a table outside, because the inexperienced hostess wasn't using the list right in front of her? Was it my trip to the bathroom, where aerosolized-poo-virus particles linger in the air for seven minutes after a flush? I wore my mask and washed my hands. But there were two door handles I had to touch going in and out.

 A stuffed up nose is not a common early symptom, but a runny nose is. Is this a runny nose? 

No. But what is it, and how did I get it?

(In which a congressperson points out one study which found that, um, people are catching Covid whether they report wearing a mask or not. But the same study also reported that the people who caught it while "always wearing a mask" had also been twice as likely to have eaten at a restaurant indoors in the past two weeks, so...)

(We all know sitting down to eat makes you immune.)

(FYI, that's a joke. It doesn't. Most humans still have zero immunity to Cov2.)

Paso Robles isn't the only place of course I might have caught something. There were the gas stations, a drive thru, and a trip to a hardware store last Friday.

In general, we're getting more opportunities to get sick. 

It's because we've got more testing and less transmission.

And parklets and closed streets. And a lot of pent up demand.

But honestly, I can barely read the headline, I'm so in love with these car-free streets, baby!

File under: it will be free, just like Bernie said


Did anyone catch the part in the rose garden sales pitch where dear leader said his taking Regeneron, or Regn-Cov2 as it is properly branded, was his suggestion? Two days after meeting privately with donors at this golf club?

So far, I haven't seen anything saying this guy was actually there.

And he's being very modest as his net worth continues to grow.

Although it does look like this extra publicity is helping to sell the early promise.

Schleifer's path to billionaire? He grew up in Queens, near dear leader. Then he did legit science, getting a PhD. In 1988, he launched the company, with a one million dollar investment. They then proceeded to lose money for 20 years, without launching any successful products. During which time, he taught part-time at his alma-mater. (Which admitted his son, a third generation legacy, who went on to be a prosecutor in the pay-for-admissions scandal a couple years ago.) Finally, in 2008 or 9, they had a hit, one drug "Eyelia" or something like that. It sold $4.7 billion dollars worth last year, and the CEO/founder is now worth $2.2B. He lives a fifteen minute drive from Grump National Westchester, where he's been a member for a number of years.

File under: another Bernie quote to bite

 File under: there's an election, let's dump on San Francisco

For reference, here's a picture of the hell outside our front door.


File under: and other "blue" states

File under: owning our bodies

File under: #SingularityNow

The pandemic angle to this article is a bit of a reach. In general, companies are more than happy to use machines where they can, regardless of whether people are getting sick or not.

File under: nature for the win

The birds sounded louder in the early lockdown, but really, we were quieter.

They may have been happier, though.

Ah, subtlety.

File under: factory farming for the loss



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