☕️ Coffee & Covid ☙ Monday, August 23, 2021 ☙ Failing Upwards

So, yours truly became part of the C&C news this weekend after some local university-affiliated person or persons made threats against me and my family. In the news, things in Australia seem to be reaching the breaking point and the Ozzy government might be starting to blink. Protests begin in Israel, finally. The Afghan train keeps wrecking, shedding yet more light on the administration’s awful Covid performance. Good news from Toronto even as the Ottowan government apparently prepares for an awful lot of vaxx deaths. Hawaii, masked and jabbed, spikes its serious Covid cases. And more.

🗒️ *NOTE TO CERTAIN C&C GUESTS* 🗒️

On the same day I politely offered to publicly debate Covid issues with Shands Hospital’s Chief Executive Officer Ed Jimenez, someone called my elderly mother and threatened her. They told her that I was “doing sedition” on Facebook and you know what happens to people who do sedition. She was frantic and terrified, and refused to tell me who it was. But as I calmed her down over the course of an hour, I managed to pry a few clues out of her. So I would like to briefly address that person and others similarly situated.

First of all, let me assure all of you lurkers that nobody is “doing sedition,” insurrection, or anything of the kind, here at Coffee & Covid. I am a LAWYER. For the record, I don’t even KNOW any Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, January 6th-ers, or Q-Anoners. I’m not in a militia and wouldn’t have the first clue how to join up even if I wanted to, which I do NOT, mainly — but not only — because I don’t like sleeping on the ground. Where the ticks are. Which is an awkward fact that my 12-year old brings up with great relish whenever he gets the chance, usually in large public settings.

I’ve never even been to a Trump rally.

When we talk about an “army” here at C&C, what we are referring to, good doctors, is an “army of volunteers.” You might think of them as “community organizers,” if that’s helpful. Nobody’s running around in the woods doing sedition and stuff. I’m a LAWYER. I rely on LAWS. Laws require a working government. I believe in the beauty and majesty of the law. We work within the LAWS here at C&C.

For the record, nobody should do any sedition of any kind. They shouldn’t do insurrection or overthrow either. People should obey the laws.

Doc, I and the folks here are working for change WITHIN the system. We aren’t looking for a new system. We like the system we already have, thank you very much. Even with all its problems, it still beats your beloved Chairman Xi’s system by a country mile. You might want to read up on marxism, it isn’t going to work out as well as you think it will.

Now that we’ve cleared all that up, you should be ashamed of yourself. Threatening old ladies? You need to take a long, hard look at yourself, Doc. I’m sure you think you are doing something virtuous or whatever, saving the planet, defeating Covid, and generally feeling superior and self-satisfied along with all of your political buddies. But you’ve let your brain become so deranged and deformed that you are acting like a criminal. You are ACTUALLY committing crimes. Here’s a hint: the good guys never threaten old ladies and commit crimes. You might consider that as a little “red flag” suggesting that your life has gone off the rails somewhere.

Here’s another hint. If you’re wandering around Facebook during the workday, reading blogs and texting all your political buddies, you’re distracting yourself from the pitiful failure of your professional career. All that stuff you’re up to means that what you’re NOT doing is teaching college kids, researching, publishing, or managing your department. Politics is a way of distracting your mind from the fact that you aren’t living up to your intellectual view of yourself. There’s no accountability in thug-like political activism, is there? You threaten an old lady and feel super great about yourself. But that’s not the same as discovering a breakthrough therapy or novel biological configuration. You aren’t ACTUALLY curing Covid. You’re just brainlessly parroting the chimeric advice of an out-of-control government agency in the death throes of regulatory capture, and committing crimes.

Like it or not, you’re a BAD PERSON.

Look, my mother is a wonderful, dear human being, and I love her very much. But one thing she isn’t good at is keeping secrets. I’ll get it out of her sooner or later. And then do you know where we’ll be? Police reports and civil lawsuits. So. I’ll give you the whole day. Call my office, fess up, and I’ll give you a piece of my mind. You know, let’s handle this like adults. Like men. If so, I’ll let the whole thing go. If not, if you’re too chicken to take a few minutes of harsh language, well, that’s fine, we can do it the other way too.

And now that I’m thinking about it, I’m going to ask the C&C Army (*of volunteers) to give me a little assist today. So, there’s that.

🗞 THE C&C ARMY* POST 🗞

(*Not an “actual” army. Just political volunteers on a Facebook blog. Don’t panic.)

☎️ Guys, I apologize for interrupting our very important work of calling for a special legislative session. But today’s calling script — just for today — if you’ll give me a hand — will be as follows: “Some UF staff and admin are engaged in illegal left-wing political activism. They just threatened attorney Jeff Childers’ elderly mom. Investigate UF immediately, find the criminals, and fire them.” We’ll be calling the Board of Governors today.

🪖 Join the “team” (not an Army!) of C&C community organizers. You know, just like Obama was. I could be president one day. https://www.patreon.com/coffee_and_covid_army

🗞*COVID NEWS AND COMMENTARY*

🦘 Things are getting real Down Under, and the Australian government might have just blinked.

First, the New South Wales Morning Herald reported that the NSW government shot a bunch of rescue dogs — to stop volunteers from traveling there to pick up the animals for relocation. To prevent Covid or something. Dog lovers were not too happy. These are the same geniuses in charge of the government Covid response.

Then, an Instagram video went viral in Australia over the weekend. The guy speaking is a hard-looking Aussie truck driver who I would NOT want to mess with. This is what he says, in an super angry but tightly-controlled tone of voice:

> “This is to the government of Australia. The so-called corporate government. We run this country. We the people. And I’m a truck driver. We, as truckies, we WILL block all your highways, we’ll block all your ports, and we’ll even stop what we need to stop. There is NOTHING you will be able to do. You back off. These are our roads, this is our country, and we will run it how we want to run it. This is OUR country. You and your ‘vaccines,’ these is bullsh*t. You can fock off. You are not going to mandate nothing. And, for the kids, what you’re doing — right? — is disgusting. What you’ve done to round ’em up in New South Wales, is disgusting. WE are going to run this country. WE are takin’ it back. We truck drivers are going to be the front line, whoever’s behind us. WE are going to take our country back. You politicians make me sick. You guys are filthy. You guys do NOT represent us people. And you don’t represent this country. Fock you. We’re going to take our country back.”

It’s pretty intense. Here’s the link: https://twitter.com/retro_sista/status/1428706132097261568?s=20

So then, early this morning, Australia’s prime minister announced with great fanfare — out of the clear blue Australian sky — that, well, MAYBE things can’t keep going on this way. It’s so clear now. Late Sunday, Reuters reported that “Australia must start to learn to live with Covid-19 when higher vaccination targets are reached, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Monday, despite concerns in some states about the impact of a surge in cases in Sydney.” (Australia is 17 hours ahead of the US.)

Oh. How about that? Reuters reports that Prime Minister Morrison said in a news conference today that “Lockdowns cannot go on forever.” Now you tell us. He continued, “This is not a sustainable way to live in this country. This groundhog day has to end, and it will end when we start getting to 70% and 80% (vaccination rates).”

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, also attending, added, “Once you get to 80% double dose, every state will have to live with COVID. You cannot keep Delta out forever.”

Well, I’m glad we’ve cleared that up. I wonder what caused the shift in tone and the quick Monday-morning press conference? Those guys had a busy weekend, didn’t they?

If you know someone in Oz, tell them about C&C. I love Australians. They should get in on the fun too. And since they’re locked down at home anyways, they have plenty of time to read back issues of C&C. Well, except for the truckies.

💉 Large protests have broken out in Israel against vaccine passports.

💉 Hospitalizations in Hawaii are up 854% in 2 months, despite one of the longest mask mandates and highest vaccination rates in the U.S. You read that right. Eight HUNDRED and fifty-four percent in sixty days. In fact, hospitalizations there are higher than at any previous point in the pandemic. Way over Florida rates. So, jab more, silly! The good news is that experts and the media in Hawaii are super focused on forcing masks on 2-year-olds. Maybe THAT will do the trick, who knows?

💉 Good news! The Toronto Sun reported Friday that the Ottowan government will now — generously — pay for burial costs for Canadians who die after taking the safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines. According to the report, Ottowa has budgeted $75 million for all claims. At an average burial cost of $5,000, that would allow for 15,000 burials. The population of Ottowa is about the same as Duval County, Florida. So.

🤡 It’s not just Britain and Germany and France. Joe Biden is losing the celebrities. In an op-ed that she published in Time Magazine on Friday, actress Angelina Jolie ripped Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, which she called “sickening,” and “a betrayal and a failure impossible to fully understand.” She said she was “ashamed by the manner of our leaving.” She’s not wrong.

A viral Tik-Tok video making the rounds this weekend shows a string of major (and a few minor) Hollywood celebrities telling Joe Biden to go … do something that is probably anatomically impossible, especially for someone in Biden’s condition. He just doesn’t seem that, well, limber. You know?

Adult language warning: https://www.tiktok.com/foryou?is_copy_url=1&is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=6997949136859434246#/@jasonelectrik/video/6997949136859434246.

But Joe respectfully disagrees. By contrast, in a Sunday afternoon presser, Biden said, “I think that history is going to record this was the logical, rational, right decision to make.” So much for what everybody else thinks, huh? Responding to a question from reporters, Biden said he wasn’t inclined to fire ANYBODY over the failed Afghanistan mission. He thinks they’re doing super great. Probably should get promotions. Stuff happens.

Do you think Joe even knows what’s going on over there? Chris Wallace asked that exact question of Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, saying “Mr. Secretary, does the President not know what’s going on?”

Now, a question like that is usually a good time to emphatically say, “of COURSE he knows what’s going on.” But that’s NOT what Blinken said. Actually, he didn’t answer the question at all. It was just word salad. So.

But to his credit, Wallace hung in there. “Sir, respectfully, I’m not questioning whether or not al Qaeda has a presence. The president said al Qaeda is gone. It’s not gone. The president said he’s not heard any criticism from the allies. There’s been a lot of criticism from the allies. Words matter, and the words of the president matter most.” Blinken changed the subject.

Does anybody else who remembers it think this feels a lot like one-term presidential failure Jimmy Carter’s disastrous handling of the Iranian hostage situation, and the debacle of a rescue mission that imploded in the desert? It does to me. Younger C&C readers might enjoy looking up the facts about that embarrassing military train wreck.

Biden said, anyways, it’s Trump’s fault. So. Don’t blame him.

You see where I’m going with this? We’ve been wondering why, after all its mistakes and reversals and bad scientific and medical advice, nobody at the CDC has ever been removed or replaced. And they’re not going to be, either. If you can fail as spectacularly as the State Department did in Afghanistan, nothing is likely to change at the CDC over its own disastrous handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Fail upwards!

What can I tell you guys? You’re the best. Have a marvelous Monday, and I WILL be back here tomorrow with more caffeinated Covid news for you.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Join the C&C Army (of community organizers)! https://www.patreon.com/coffee_and_covid_army

You can also find me on MeWe, mewe.com/i/coffee_and_covid.