outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Were tamagotchis a mark of the beast, I wonder

look it's as clear as daylight if you just READ THE PASSAGE

11Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.12It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed.13It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people,14and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived.15And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain.16Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead,17so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.18This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.
—Revelation 13:11–18

and then i told my children, yay, if you say something in a vague enough manner and with enough confidence, the fallen humans will intepret thy words amongst themselves and adapt them to their own times. and no one will be able to deny another's truth, because they will know that their own truth is founded upon the untold piles of total horseshit that thee will unload onto them, burying their hopes and dream in unending streams of heavy horseshit that cannot be seen through nor cut through, not with the most powerful telescopes nor with the sharpest machetes.

"to be marked on the right hand or the forehead,"

you might be thinking WAIT! anyone who actually believes in this shit must be taking things like this LITERALLY, right? so this is an opportunity to point out that the "bill gates vaccine" is neither the "right hand or the forehead", unless you're going to say that the blood travels through the...-

--the blood SHALL travel and pass by both the right hand or the forehead, sayeth the glossolaliac interpreter. SHOM-la-HO-la-NIGH! Shom-la-ho-la-NANE-fee-non. HI LI! hi li -la NON-fee-non lo high, amen. and if that is wrong, than we shall find another passage and interpret it so wildly that the right hand can be anything it wants or that we say, amen

This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.

these words, alone, created tens of thousands of fucking morons

I remember in the punk years I thought Marco D'Beast would be a great punk name.

none of this is related to the outbreak, sorry

but since it came up i mean personally my "theory of 666" is that john the revelator was seeing the decimal based number system of 2021 (the year of the apocalypse, sha LO lie lie), and he saw the common number .666etc, meaning exactly 2/3. john saw a secret government document confirming that exactly 2/3 of the united states (god's "right-hand man" next to israel, the also chosen people, 3rd babylon, NYC, finance, evil) had fallen to worship of the Woke Corruption. but of course he didn't recognize the significance of the decimal point, being a man from the older days, and he didn't notice the line drawn over the last two 6's in 666, indicating that the 6's continue ad infinitum. and that's why what revelations is literally true and is happening now, don't take the vaccine, bill gates

the mark of the beast changes with technology.

radio, television, credit cards, the bar code, e-commerce, vaccines.

I wish someone would extend the beast mark to qr codes. I hate those goddamn things.

Supposedly Hobby Lobby doesn't use barcode scanners because of the mark of the beast.

Real commitment to the bit to make your multibillion dollar company less profitable because a guy in the first century ate the wrong mushrooms.

Rules, we got 'em

JUST IN: President Biden's new "Path out of the Pandemic" will include six major components, as outlined below. New vaccination mandates in businesses with over 100 employees will affect over 80 million people in the private sector.

See details here:https://t.co/bpRcQ9zgE7 pic.twitter.com/6MM8X3jcYK

— Benjy Renton (@bhrenton) September 9, 2021

Yup, about time.

I've told y'all about the guy who had strange, boil-like growths on his body who was a customer in the organic grocer where I worked? He picked two of every item, had you scan one, and then took the one that hadn't been scanned and bagged it himself. He would then carefully put back the scanned duplicate products. He apparently believe the scanners were what caused his boils. Meantime, he smelled like he hadn't had a wash in week, at least most days.

i had a friend who was convinced his lawnmower was causing his mental decline.

this may have been because it was a riding mower and one day he laid down while his wife accidentally drove it over his head.

New vaccination mandates in businesses with over 100 employees will affect over 80 million people in the private sector.

the infographic in the tweet says that there is no vaccine mandate for businesses with over 100 employees

which bit do we read

Health officials have warned against using ivermectin to treat COVID-19. But recent claims online that the drug causes male sterility are unproven. The FDA says infertility in men is not a known side effect of the drug. https://t.co/fZDeMoGw0c

— AP Fact Check (@APFactCheck) September 10, 2021

oops!

oops!

twitter: oops!

retweeters: oops!

nontweeters: what?
retweeters: oops!
nontweeters: wait what was that!?
retweeters: horse ivermectin is causing the fertility to change
nontweeters: wait what?!
retweeters: i said the horse ivermectin is not really about horses!
nontweeters: i'm like robin williams on the jay leno show in the 90s, i just can't sit down!!!
retweeters: i said the fertility of the horses is iverthecharts!! lol
ap: ivermectin is not a horse fertility
nontweeters: wait the ivermectin is doing the horse fertility now or what is
ap: we said you can't do ivermectin and get unfertile, studies say
studies: none of this can be interpreted by total fucking morons, which is the world lol
nontweeters: nothing is sweeter than a good study that you can cite
tweeters: hey now covid is bullshit, my 24-year-old weightlifting friend got it and he didn't even cough

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hyooooooooooonk

tower of babel

sarcasm undetected, sincerity interpreted as total sarcasm
bullshit alarm out of batteries

"i don't know!"

but there were 37 people in the sample! and i googled and anything above 30 in a sample is statistically significant! it's not rocket science!!!

'I gorged on fifty tubes of horse paste and all I got were these shrunken nuts!' tees will be flooding the quad this fall, mark my worms

Horse paste sterility falls under “A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth” IMO.

After Delta Airlines told its employees they would get charged $2,400/year if they didn't get the free vaccine, they had... wait for it... zero people quit over the policy.

Instead 4,000 more of their workers chose to get vaccinated. People are all talk. Mandates work. https://t.co/ZhnQzbLWFi

— Arlen Parsa (@arlenparsa) September 11, 2021

SF continues to show that high vax rates (73% of city; 90% of 12-18 yo's) plus sensible mitigation strategies can overcome Delta. Virtually no in-school spread https://t.co/yK8QBTRfnW; overall SF cases ~100/d (⬇by 2/3, Fig L); hospitalizations falling (Fig R; lags). Impressive. pic.twitter.com/R5ZSS8EHLG

— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) September 11, 2021

People are all talk. Mandates work.

Totally agree with this. Remember the smoking ban? “Buttmah freedoms!” Not even a ripple.

Good tweet somewhere yesterday about the disconnect between a nation that still requires every airline passenger to remove their shoes based on a once-in-a-lifetime event that happened 20 years ago vs being hesitant to require masks during a live pandemic that’s killing thousands of people a day.

And how much longer?

https://time.com/6096505/covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy-family/

thanks for sharing that; it's one of the better versions of that story i've read.

sometimes i wish that all the unvaccinated could be forced to walk the halls of an ICU for just a bit and see what's really going on. there are so many layers of irony with the incredible degrees of Protection that the unvaccinated benefit from. there's the obvious, the worldwide effort by EVERYONE ELSE to get vaccinated, to wear a mask, to try to do reasonable things. but then there's the psychological protection they get, from the dying being in these ICUs, their families, the doctors and staff, all going through living hell to try to protect them. they get protected from all that, too. they don't have to see it, they don't think about it. they're free to come up with conspiracy theories indicating that it's actually the doctors who are the enemy here. because they do it for money.

of course, as i drift off onto the conspiratorial tangent, i'm reminded that even if you could make the unvaccinated witness it for a while, it wouldn't likely change many minds. maybe the ultimate, third level of protection they have is their own mind, trying to look after their own by completely deceiving itself

i think we should start paying people to get vaccinated. it's not fair. it is completely unfair to all the people who had to take off work (losing money). and it would be giving money to some of the very worst people in the united states. but also, it might convince some of them to do it and save lives.

i don't know. what the fuck do i know, i don't understand any of these fools

some positive news in Florida. Hospitalizations due to COVID under 12,000 for the first time since 8/1 (they were 17,500 only a few weeks ago). ICU bed occupancy below 3,000. New admissions have gone down by about 5,600 per week.

None of this due to any form of intervention from DeSantis, or local government. basically just due to the virus spreading uncontrollably and finally burning out.

Ohio is now back up to Jan. 8th numbers for new cases.

ugh :(

Illinois is sadly only back to late January numbers atm but if we roll down our sleeves and make a little less effort I'm convinced that entropy will carry us back to where we were all the way at the beginning of the year!

interesting thread

Today, Denmark lifted all restrictions & COVID-19 is no longer deemed a "societal threat".

I led the country's largest behavioral covid-project (@HopeProject_dk) & advised the Danish gov.

Here are my thoughts on how DK got here, what can be learned & what lies ahead.
🧵 (1/14)

— Michael Bang Petersen (@M_B_Petersen) September 10, 2021

Wow

Funny. In March 2020, I can recall reading at least one expert saying that the key to an effective public health response to covid was total transparency in communication with the public, giving accurate and timely information whether it was good or bad. It's not like this was some arcane secret formula.

The problems in implementing that strategy came almost exclusively from those who saw the chance to use the pandemic in service to their political and financial interests, whose voices were much louder and better focused than the public health establishment. For example, in the USA, Dr. Fauci tried to serve that role and Trump undercut him over and over again.

(2) avoid polarization;

sure, sure, we'll get right on that.

I would argue that a necessary factor besides total transparency from experts and leaders is having a populace comprised of <40% frothing maniacs. Transparency would never have helped us in our current state.

It's just a small step for him
It's a nice break from Vietnam
(Filmed in a factory)
Out on the back lot in Houston
Who says the world isn't flat

(thumbs up to KM)

https://i.imgur.com/9P789R1.gif

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/94716861_1608037062690235_7499681981706272768_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=_maURxRPLK8AX_85bSF&tn=nMaCpl2pu4gQQq4y&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=e97d47100a2ac9cb281e8283095f8866&oe=6162695D

I’m guessing indoor masks are going to be a “thing” (be from outright mandates or just because numbers drive safety and recommendations) for another couple of years until we really nail down effective boosters for the non-death cultists of us willing to get them. I don’t think even next spring is going to look much different than things do now, unfortunately.

I think that strongly depends on where you live.

Masks mostly disappeared here in the spring. They are back now in places like grocery stores, but absent in packed restaurants and bars.

Im not really talking about mask mandates being initiated, enforced or followed, since that’s been a patchwork shit show from the start, but rather that the case counts, transmission rates and other metrics will mean that masks in indoor public spaces are going to remain a necessity for those wishing to protect themselves and/or loved ones. Trying to predict where their mandates will be followed through on in any official capacity is a fools errand at this point.

More reacting to folks I see saying, essentially, “this fall and winter is going to suck but we will emerge next spring with the pandemic largely behind us”. I think the first part is true, though I’d argue we still aren’t mentally prepared for just how bad it’s going to get, but I don’t think the latter half of that is true at all. Yes, cases will subside again, but not enough to where we can begin to hit June 2021 levels of optimism again.

I also wasn't talking about mask mandates. I'm not nearly as pessimistic about the outlook over the next couple months, but that may also be due to location. Things seem to have peaked here and are declining, but of course it could jump back up again too.

Everyone in the US occupies the same enormous landmass, wherein those from COVID-rich regions can freely cross over into COVID-lite regions. So I'm not sure how meaningful any seeming COVID peaks are within a particular region.

I mean until a particular region either crosses a huge threshold with respect to vaccinations or is slammed so hard that they essentially achieve herd immunity.

everyone in the US is in a dreamland

me too btw. not trying to do some sheeple shit. i dream hard