Category: annoying people

Day 377 – Wizard Poison

Posted on

I spotted this on Twitter and it made me smile.

“Wizard poison” – what a lovely turn of phrase.

The latest anti-vaxxer (for it is they that Patton is referring to under his “idiots” tag) arguments demonstrate a couple of their usual methods very nicely. I thought I’d run through them.

Firstly, there’s their claim that the vaccines amount to “gene therapy”. Nope.
What they’ve done here is looked at the vaccine, seen the acronym “mRNA”, extrapolated the N and the A to give themselves the phrase “nucleic acid” which they then associate with genes (even though genes are actually made up of DNA, not RNA) and then somehow leapt to the assumption that the vaccine will in some way replace the genes within their and your DNA, thus altering their and your genetic code. wut?
This is plainly incorrect, but – as we’ve discussed many times on here and everywhere else – that simple fact will not stop the rumours from being spread far and wide across the internet.
There’s a further point to this as well, though: the suggestion the gene therapy is a bad thing. Not so. Gene therapy will save countless lives, but that’s very much a secondary issue here, because none of the Covid-19 vaccines are gene therapy.

So that’s the one tactic: getting things completely wrong without any care or repercussion. The second one is cherry-picking the data to suit their narrative.

There may be a problem with the AZ vaccine in that there seems to be a link between it and instances of blood clots in patients. That’s clearly not a good thing, and because of that, the anti-vaxxer brigade have joyfully leapt all over it.

The thing is that we’re looking at 30 suspected cases in the UK, after 18 million doses of the vaccine in question. That amounts to 1 case for every 600,000 doses administered. Those are the numbers, and that’s what’s prompted a full investigation.

However…

Blood clots are also a side-effect of Covid-19, possibly by triggering an autoimmune antibody. The instance of this is approximately 1 in 6,000 cases (nice number). So while you might – possibly – suffer from blood clots as a result of having the AZ vaccine, if you get Covid-19 as a result of not having the AZ vaccine, you’re about 100 times more likely to have problems with blood clots.

Surprise surprise, this is the bit that the anti-vaxxers choose to omit from their shitty monologues.

You can’t believe everything you hear. Or indeed anything that comes from their mouths.

Take it from me: the vaccines are far safer than running the risk of getting Covid, which is very much not safe.
And they contain very, very little wizard poison. Promise.

Day 371 – Covid news

Posted on

A quick one here because things are going to get very busy very shortly.

First off, this:

There’s been a 5% increase in Covid-19 infections in the Western Cape – and 16% increase in Cape Town over the past seven days, according to the Western Cape Health Department.

That’s a very significant increase. And that shouldn’t be happening just yet. But it is.

Still, you shouldn’t believe everything you read on the local new sites. Especially the ones that blindly quote politicians.

Like this:


Because in actual fact, the recently published regulations say nothing of the sort:

Dlamini-Zuma might well have wanted the transportation of alcohol to be banned this weekend. She might even still get the transportation of alcohol to be banned this weekend. But that will only be by amending the published regulations. The current regulations don’t ban the transportation of alcohol this weekend, no matter what the erstwhile Minister might think. She’s either lying or incompetent. Or both.

Still, no-one reads the regulations, they only look at the headlines, so good luck with arguing your case at a roadblock tomorrow morning.

Day 369 – Tuesday Ephemera

Posted on

A few short lines to document my thoughts today.

The goose drank wine.
Anyone else look at the title and have memories of The Clapping Song evoked? Yeah. Me too.

The beagle has lost its bark.
Yep. The beagle has a sore throat: a bacterial infection that was headed towards pneumonia before the vet and some antibiotics kicked into action in the early hours of Monday morning. There’s been some decent improvement today, but it’s still pretty glum about the whole situation. We’ll all be much happier when the beagle is bouncing around and chatting to its neighbourhood friends once again.
In Co-Amoxiclav We Trust.

Ramaphosa is addressing the nation this evening.
It was going to be at 7pm, but then there was this:

All the best, Noxolo.

There’s been much speculation about the contents of Ramaphosa’s speech. There are a couple of public holidays on the way and we have an incoming third wave due at some point (although our R=0.92 right now). So why is he bothering to talk at all? Will he close the beaches? Will he ban alcohol sales? Will he allow (much) greater numbers of people to attend religious gatherings? And if so, why? We have plans for the weekend. I’m sincerely hoping he doesn’t ruin them with some crappy pointless temporary legislation.

I have different music for different occasions.
No surprises there: you can’t reasonably expect to get away with Slipknot at your Granny’s tea-party. But moreover, I have different music for just me. Like this:

I’m still doing a lot of DIY around the house.
New lights here and there – and especially there. New sockets in the kitchen. New bathroom furniture. A touch of gardening. Some lying on my beanbag (not strictly DIY as we know it, but I did choose to do it myself). It feels like a never ending list. There’s some painting to do tomorrow. I can’t wait.

Unusual cover versions can actually be quite good.
I mean, Elbow’s Independent Woman is right up there. And here’s Future Islands covering Tina Turner.

Because, why not?

Day 362 – I don’t do movies

Posted on

And I have no problem with that. It’s other people who seem to find it difficult to understand.

When someone tells me that they don’t watch football, I just let them get in with their lives without any fuss. Each to their own. None of my damn business how they choose to spend their valuable free time.
But wow, tell someone that you don’t like movies and it’s like you’ve just defecated on their granny’s portion of chicken casserole at the family dinner table.

We have covered this before.

Anyway, I was wandering through Facebook before bed last night and I found this, which describes a tactic I routinely use to prevent the expressions of horror and disgust when I tell people that I don’t do movies (and the granny’s dinner plate thing):

Well, of course there’s no list. You don’t make a list of things that you are never going to do.

Hmm…

And while I’m happy to defend my complete lack of interest at the latest Hollywood nonsense, it’s actually much easier to just pretend that yes, obviously I’m going to do something about getting around to watching Dave McActor in his latest role as Detective Sergeant Steve Platinum, the renegade cop who does things his own way and gets results.

When actually, what I actually going to do is to come home, watch a quiz show or two, write a blog post and have a brandy in front of the football.

Day 358 – I did not click through

Posted on

These adverts at the bottom of otherwise sensible, grown-up news articles are getting more and more bizarre.

Who Could Blame The Vet? What Can The Police Do About It? And Why Are All The Words Capitalised?

Also:

Total teeth! Surprising stairlifts! Look at Bras!

These were on this article about an ISIS-related group allegedly beheading children in Mozambique.
Dentistry, transport for the elderly between storeys* and supportive underwear seem horribly insignificant and incongruous.

* No matter how unexpected