A MYSTERY WRAPPED IN AN ENIGMA

 “Nearly a week after a man walked into a supermarket in Boulder, Colo., and killed 10 people, investigators say they are still searching to understand a motive.”

---The Weekend Briefing, New York Times, 3/28/21

 

          The killer’s name is Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa.  He and his family emigrated from Syria when he was very young.  Last Monday, a few days before Passover, he drove over 20 miles from his home in Arvada to Boulder, probably passing a dozen supermarkets along the way, to a King Soopers market, located in a largely Jewish area, that bills itself on its website as “Your One-Stop Shop For Kosher Groceries.”

 

          Motive?  Motive?  Motive?  Damn, this is a tough one.

 

          Oh, wait…maybe it’s....  Mr. Sajak!  I want to try to solve the puzzle!

 

Copyright2021MichaelKubacki     

DEATH BY VACCINE

           The Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is a national database maintained by the CDC and the FDA.  It is composed of reports on bad things that happen to people after getting a vaccination.  It may be best described as a bulletin board---anyone may submit a report.

 

          Each entry is brief, and includes the date of vaccination, the date of injury or death, age of the patient, state of residence, and the type of vaccine.  There is also a short description of the event that typically provides little detail:

          “Fever, malaise.”

          “Found deceased in her home, unknown cause, 6 days after vaccine.”

          “DEATH ON 1/4/2021, RESIDENT RECEIVED VACCINE ON 1/2/2021”

          “Diarrhea followed by death 24 hours after vaccination.”

 

          While researchers may later use the VAERS data to investigate or authenticate specific events, there is no procedure in place to verify details of the incidents.  Also, there is rarely an established cause-and-effect link.  Almost always, the death or injury is merely suspicious, as in “the 58-year-old woman got her COVID shot at 1:00 and died at 2:52.”

 

          The database is updated every Friday.  As of today, March 26, 2021, there were 1920 reports of deaths in America from COVID-19 vaccines.  Hospitalizations so far total 13,297.

 

          No one---not doctors, not hospitals, not nursing homes---is required to submit these incidents to the government, and most people are not even aware the system exists, so it is assumed that VAERS captures only a tiny fraction of the deaths and injuries attributable to vaccines.

 

          (Hat tip for this research to Mark Tokarski, a very insightful internet crank and iconoclast.)

 

Copyright2021MichaelKubacki

       

THIS & THAT XVI

           I don’t think I’ve ever seen a positive portrayal of Albanians in the movies or on TV.  Are they all gangsters and psychopaths?

 

*

 

          The end of traditional journalism didn’t really bother me all that much.  It has been some years since I believed what I read in newspapers or saw on TV news, but the end of journalistic standards has coincided with the growth of the internet.  This means it has been possible to find out the truth on-line, if you were willing to spend some time on the search.  You could actually read the speech and see what the guy said rather than believe what NBC told you he said.  You could find the published scientific paper and figure out if the NYT’s spin on it had any relation to the truth.  During the media’s COVID terror campaign, it has been possible to dig up the truth about lockdowns, masks, vaccines, testing and so on.  There is real data out there.  There are working virologists and epidemiologists who write papers and do podcasts.  You don’t really have to pay any attention to Fauci or Whoopie Goldberg or Snoopdog.

 

          But the censoring of information today, and the “cancel culture,” presents more of a problem.  Those who report facts that conflict with the woke narrative now are banned from social media sites and silenced in a variety of ways.  Those with dissenting views or those who try to publish inconvenient data are smeared as conspiracy freaks or white supremacists or any number of other slurs.  Regarding information about COVID, Professor Beda Stadler, retired Director of the Institute of Immunology at the University of Bern, has gone so far as to warn against believing anyone who is currently employed in a medical faculty as a virologist or epidemiologist.  They are forced to toe the ideological line, or watch their research funds disappear and their careers stagnate.  We have seen this done for years to those scientists who question the prevailing views on climate change, but the extent of the de-platforming, and its brutal efficiency, has increased to the point that honest men of conscience often just bend their knee to it because they see no alternative.

 

          This makes it harder for someone like me to learn the truth, even though I’m willing to spend some time and effort in doing so.  I have two recent examples.

 

          It is almost impossible to find any reliable information about deaths and injuries caused by COVID vaccinations.  There is plenty of speculation, and there are many theories, and some of the theories may be nutty and some may be not-so-nutty, but factual reporting is not permitted.  (Or at least it is not being done.)

 

          Hank Aaron got vaccinated on January 6, in public, and he did it in part as a signal to other black people that vaccination was safe.  Nineteen days later, he was dead, and we still do not know why.

 

          We are told the vaccine had nothing to do with his death.  We are told nothing else.  If you want a medical opinion, or an autopsy, or some fact-based conclusion from somebody who examined him at the time, forget it.  The official story is that he did NOT die from the vaccine.  That’s all you need to know, and if you ask any more questions about this, it’s only because you are a Trump supporter or a QAnon loonie, or a Proud Boy, or something worse.

 

          The other issue about which it is impossible to find any real information is the cause of death of Brian Sicknick, the U.S. Capitol policeman who died a day after the January 6 riot at the Capitol Building in Washington.  It has been two-and-a-half months since he died, and nobody seems to care how it happened.  Originally, the media reported that some Trump yahoo hit him on the head with a fire extinguisher, but a week later that story was withdrawn.  (How do you even publish such a story unless there’s a fire-extinguisher-sized dent in the guy’s head and you have a photo of it?)  More recently, “they” seem to be floating a tale that a couple of Proud Boys hit him with some “bear spray,” (not entirely sure what that is), and this led to his death a day later.  Those Proud Boys have not been charged with homicide, however.

 

          I would like to think that Officer Sicknick was a hero and deserves our highest honors.  There is obviously something about the story that runs contrary to whatever acceptable narrative Democrats and the news media wish to present, however, so we are told nothing about what happened.  The result of this is to defame Sicknick by making it look like he did something seriously wrong, and that the circumstances of his death were not heroic, but disgraceful.  Otherwise, why not give us the truth?                   

 

*

 

          Whenever I am paying cash at a self-checkout machine, and I have no change in my pocket, the total is always something like $28.02.

 

*

 

          One of the biggest problems with the current authoritarian takeover of the American republic is that most people are not able to take it seriously.  They do not understand how evil and satanic our world can become, and how quickly it can happen.  (Hat tip: Naomi Wolf.)

 

*

 

          There are COVID “laws,” “mandates,” “guidelines,” “recommended practices,” and “restrictions.”  They differ from state to state, from city to city and from store to store.  They may be enforced by local police, federal law enforcement like the TSA, school administrators, private businesses and other entities, some of which may have statutory legal authority and some of which do not.

 

          The confusion this engenders is by design.  This is one way authoritarian governments destroy the rule of law, by blurring what “the law” is in such a way that the individual is never entirely sure whether his behavior may lead to arrest.  The path of least resistance, and least anxiety, is simply to do what you are told, no matter who tells you to do it.

 

*

 

          I have written about herd immunity before.  It is endlessly discussed by the public health bureaucrats and their media outlets, and it is used to justify their continued restrictions, vaccination programs, mask mandates, and so on.  When 40% of American have had the shot, will that mean we have “herd immunity?”  60%?  80%?  The issue is purely a red herring.

 

          We have known from the beginning that about 80% of us have a natural pre-existing immunity.  That was the lesson of the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship stranded in Yokohama in January of 2020, where only 19% of those aboard became infected, though everyone was exposed to the virus (and each other), for weeks.

 

          Studies of household transmission now give us the same range.  A review of 54 studies, published by the JAMA Network on December 14, 2020, reported that the “secondary attack rate” in households, among 77,758 people, was 16.6%.

 

*

 

          Some months ago, I wrote about spending a week in Rehoboth, Delaware, and the local customs regarding the mask mandate, distancing rules, and other restrictions.  Though the rules were very similar to those in Philly at the time, people’s attitudes were very different, and that was obvious from differences in public behavior.

 

          I recently returned from a long weekend in Las Vegas.  Both cities have mask mandates and distancing rules and capacity restrictions in public places and “guidelines” for disinfecting surfaces, but though the rules in Vegas are strikingly similar to those in Philadelphia, the behavior and the attitudes could not be more different.

 

          In Philly, my liberal hometown, there are lots of people who wear masks even when they’re not required to, and they will scold you if you do not wear one.  They believe in mask-wearing and they believe we should all be forced to wear masks by the police or other authorities because wearing a mask is virtuous.  By insisting on the practice, and the enforcement, they are telling us how virtuous they are.  The rights of other people mean nothing to them.  The individual circumstances of other people mean nothing to them.  The “science” of the effectiveness of masks means nothing to them because they have been told what to believe hundreds of times by other liberals on TV.  The question is settled.

 

          Capacity limits for restaurants and such are also strictly observed in Philadelphia.  No restaurant would dare seat more than 35% of their capacity because somebody would call the cops and have the place shut down.  Distancing rules here are also important to many.  Even in a crowded place like a supermarket or Target, people are constantly trying to avoid getting too close to each other.  Apologies are immediately offered if your six-foot bubble is inadvertently breached.

 

          The irony of Vegas is that while mask mandates, disinfectant wipe-downs and other measures are enforced much more rigorously by casinos and other businesses than they are in Philadelphia, it is immediately apparent that nobody really believes in it.  There is no virtue-signaling in Las Vegas because there is no virtue.  There, COVID restrictions are strictly about the cash.  In Las Vegas, everything is always about the Benjamins.

 

          If you sit at a bar or a blackjack table in Vegas, your mask must be properly in place at all times.  When you take a slug of beer, you may pull down your mask to do so but you must immediately replace it over your nose and mouth or you will be admonished by the dealer, bartender, or other employee.  If you are having a meal in a restaurant, the rules are somewhat more relaxed since eating is a continuous process, but when you are finished, the mask must be re-positioned or you will be spoken to.

 

          In addition, there are disinfectant sprays and towels everywhere.  When a new dealer appears at a gaming table, he or she will arrive with a damp towel and wipe the chips, the card shoe, the felt table, etc.  When a player leaves, a new player is not permitted to sit down until his chair and everything he will touch is swabbed.  This will not be done until the player arrives, however.  It is essential that the newcomer sees that his area is made “safe.”  The maniacal wiping and swiping is particularly laughable since we have known for months that the virus is transmitted through the air and you’re not going to catch it from a doorknob, but hey---the show must go on.

 

          This is the compromise sin makes with virtue in the neon city.  Mask rules are constantly enforced and every surface is wiped because these are relatively inexpensive measures to implement.  However, capacity limits and other rules that could actually interfere with the flow of cash are completely ignored wherever possible.  We went to a restaurant one night where the hostess could not give us a table because, she said, she was forced to observe the 35% capacity limits.  The place, however, was packed.  Every table was full and people were sitting shoulder to shoulder.  Later, on Fremont Street in the Downtown area, we had to fight through jostling, drunken crowds of mostly 20-somethings falling all over each other and rubbing against us.  Yet even there, there were security guys telling you to pull your mask up.

 

          Some years ago, I wrote that the thing I found most charming about Las Vegas was that, much like all of America a hundred years ago, everybody was looking to make a buck and nobody thought there was anything wrong with that.

 

          It’s still true.

 

Copyright2021MichaelKubacki   

 

           

 

              

 

                  

PODCASTS

           For some time now, whenever I spot an Amazon Alexa machine in someone’s house, I sneak over and, when no one is watching, tell it: “Alexa, wake me up with whale music at 6:30 tomorrow morning.”

 

          That’s how it started, anyway, by which I mean my interest in whale music.  Then I started listening to it myself, on my phone.  You can find a lot of it out there on the internet.  I started turning it on as “white noise” when I went to sleep.  It worked at first, but then I found myself listening to it, and that’s not what you want when you’re trying to fall asleep.  But I couldn’t help trying to distinguish the different voices and trying to make some sense of it and trying to figure out what they were thinking and feeling and saying to each other, and so on.

 

          Then, as luck would have it, my wife bought me a CD called “Song of the Whales” from the Nature’s Relaxing Sounds series.  I am grateful for this present, though I suspect she may be starting to have second thoughts about it.

 

          The CD package is somewhat unusual in that it lacks any information about the sounds.  Where was it recorded?  What sort of equipment was used?  What kind of whales made these noises?  What scientist or naturalist produced the recording?  Nothing.  Nada.  No clue.  The one thing it does tell you is that it is “Not Subliminal.”

 

          And that’s the truth, brother.  You can fall asleep to the soft and distant crooning beasts you find on the internet, but this is the hard stuff.  “Song of the Whales” is more like Ozzy Osborne.  There are certain kinds of music that make you automatically turn up the volume, like Wagner or the Rolling Stones,  just because it doesn’t sound right otherwise, and this whale music goes in that category.  I mean, these cetapods have issues.  They’re hungry, or they’re horny, or a tugboat just bumped into them, or something.  And they’re not going to be quiet about it.  You want to crank it up and listen.  You need to.  They want you to listen.

 

          As time has gone on, sitting in my kitchen soaking in the barking and grunting and the bird-like screams, I have started to recognize the voices of individual whales.  There is the low-pitched honk that sometimes rises at the end as if asking a question and other times ends abruptly as if issuing a command.  He’s a boss whale of some kind, or maybe an elder statesman.  Then there’s the elongated grunt that seems to go on forever and somehow embodies all the pain of existence from the beginning of time.  And you give them names, of course---Ozzy, Abraham, Huey, Dumbo, Leopold.

 

          Completely different are the many voices that shriek.  They can sound like birds or cats, and because they’re so high-pitched, it’s natural to think of them as female, a chorus crying out their eternal dismay.  I call them Meghan, or Juliette or Jennifer.

 

          You start to think you understand them.

 

          Ozzy: “Don’t you just love krill?  I love krill!”

          Dumbo: “Totally love krill.  Krill are great!”

 

          Juliette:  “Don’t play with the sharks, Junior.  They bite.”

 

          Leopold: “If I have to eat another squid, I’ll puke.  God, I hate squid. They give me gas!”

 

          Abraham: “Sometimes I wonder if I’m not really a whale, but a man dreaming he is a whale.”

 

          Jennifer: “I like krill, but sometimes I just want a huge biomass of zooplankton.  Do you ever feel that way?”

 

          Huey: ”Meghan, come here.  I want to have whale sex.”

          Meghan: “No.  Not now.  I’m too fat.”

 

          On the TV show “Cheers,” you may remember that Frazier and Diane had a French Day every week (I believe it was Sunday), when they only spoke French to each other.  Sandy and I will be starting Whale Day next Thursday.  I know she’s looking forward to it as much as I am.

 

Copyright2021MichaelKubacki       

This & That XV

 

          Viruses come and viruses go, but the use of the pandemic to effect an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government is a much bigger story.

 

*

 

           Things you are no longer allowed to say because you may be silenced, fired from your job, stalked, threatened, doxxed, and physically attacked:

 

          The 2020 election was stolen and Joe Biden is not a legitimate president.

          Lockdowns don’t work.

          Most scientists and mathematicians are male because men and women make different choices.

          Bruce Jenner.

          Minimum wage laws benefit skilled workers at the expense of unskilled workers, and hurt poor people.

          The 1964 Civil Rights Act has had a number of unfortunate, unintended consequences.

          PCR tests were never intended to be used to diagnose COVID.

          Athletes born male will usually defeat athletes born female.

          We have known for years that masks are virtually useless in stopping the spread of respiratory infections, and may even make matters worse.

          The more complex the issue, problem or system, the less likely it is to be handled effectively by one-size-fits-all central planning edicts.

          There was significant voter fraud in the swing states of Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia in the 2020 election.

          Racists, misogynists and anti-Semites have a right to believe whatever they want.

          In relations between men and women, “no” sometimes means “no.” 

          What is called “hate speech” has always been legal in the United States, and should remain so.

          The 40% of COVID cases who have no symptoms are not COVID cases. 

          Your sex was determined at birth.

          Acts of political violence should be prosecuted even if you share the political beliefs being expressed.

 

*

 

          Somebody could make a very interesting movie about the life of Grand Duchess Hilda von Baden, who lived through everything that happened in Germany from November 5, 1864 to February 8, 1952, and somehow managed to hang on to her tiara, inlaid with 367 diamonds, until the very end.

 

*

 

          Somebody smart and famous once asked how you would go about determining whether you were living in a Dark Age.  I’ve discussed this with people.  It’s not an easy question, but given the deranged, cult-like response of people and governments to SARS-CoV-2, it’s one I’ve been thinking about these days.

 

          We have been stuck in this lockdown/masking phase of hygiene fascism for ten months now, though the pandemic ended last July for most of America and the world. Yet more people wear masks now than at the beginning, though evidence continues to mount that masking does no good.  We are also seeing the beginning of a “Zero COVID Movement,” which demands even more stringent restrictions on all of us until the virus completely disappears.  This, despite all the evidence lockdowns have done nothing to halt the virus and have caused a great deal of harm.

 

          Is this a blip?  Is it another episode in the madness of crowds, like the tulip mania or the cat massacre or Y2K?  Or is it a sign of some deeper malaise that indicates we are losing our ability to reason?  And is that the definition of a Dark Age?

*

            I'd like to know who is actually the President of the U.S. right now, wouldn't you?

 

Copyright2021MichaelKubacki

CORONA---The Politics of Hygiene Fascism

 

          Ever seen a commercial for “West Coast Psychics?”  For a buck a minute on the phone, they will tell you whether that new cute guy in Accounting likes you (spoiler alert: he does, but he might have issues so watch out), whether your 87-year-old auntie will die soon (sorry, she will), and whether you might get a surprise check in the mail in a month (thanks, Nancy Pelosi---like, who knew?)  Nobody ever gets told they will lead a dreary life, their plants will die, the cute guy will never notice them, and they will still have to slog off to work every day.  Accuracy, in such a business, pays no dividends.  Neither does understatement.

 

          The business of computer modeling for COVID is much the same.  We need results!!  We need something we can run with!!  If the fatalities are overestimated by a factor of ten, we can work with that.  We’ll find you the bodies.  But don’t tell us this will be just another flu.  That’s not what we’re paying you for.

 

          Bureaucrats of all sorts operate on the same principle.  If the worst winter of the last thirty years used 3000 tons of road salt, a bureaucrat will order 6000 tons this year.  The only danger such a functionary faces is from under-estimating the extent of a problem.  “Why didn’t you buy more salt?” he will be asked, but never, “Why did you buy twice as much as we need?”  More importantly, prestige comes only from the expansion of one’s mission, and budget, and staff.  There are no incentives for accuracy or efficiency or a hard-nosed assessment of risks and rewards.

 

          The biases are built in by the nature of systems that are not market-based, and thus carry few penalties for being wrong.  The famous Neil Ferguson, the UK’s Imperial College modeler, is a perfect example.  In 2005, he predicted 150 million deaths from the bird flu.  In fact, between 2003 and 2009, 282 people worldwide died from it.

 

          Nevertheless, when COVID came along, Ferguson’s prediction of 500,000 deaths in the UK and two million in the U.S. was instantly believed by PM Boris Johnson, who subjected the Brits to an unprecedented, horribly destructive, and pointless lockdown regime.

 

          Here in America, the really smart guys who govern us accepted the same apocalyptic forecasts without question.  It’s not that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a dope, or an evil man, but he’s not really a scientist either, or at least he doesn’t think like one.  He has been a government bureaucrat for 52 years; he has never actually practiced medicine or had a private-sector job.  It was absolutely predictable that Dr. Fauci would believe the most dire projections from computer models and make government policy based on those projections.  Subjecting children to a nightmare of isolation and sadness, driving tens of thousands of businesses into bankruptcy, and throwing tens of millions of people out of work---these are horrors that could never enter his calculus because of who he is, and who the bureaucrats at the CDC are.

 

          But it is hard for me to blame Fauci, or those like him, for the dark curtain of hygiene fascism that has descended upon most of America and many countries around the world.  We know who Fauci is, and the WHO is, and the CDC, and Neil Ferguson, and we have a pretty good idea what they will say and why.

 

          The true villains are those who allowed these public health bureaucrats to take over the world.  It was Trump’s job, and Boris Johnson’s job, and Angela Merkel’s job to listen politely, as they would listen politely to any and all howling special-interest groups, and then make rational policy decisions that take all aspects of the situation into consideration.  Their failure to do so brought us to the current state of affairs where masks continue to dehumanize us and lockdowns continue to destroy our society, yet no one dares to halt the madness.

 

*

 

 

          One aspect of the COVID mania that has continually amazed me has been the sheer persistence of the sense of terror.  Time after time I have expected people around the world to rise up, throw off their masks, open up their gyms and restaurants and schools, and demand their freedom.  In some places this has happened, or at least there have been attempts to throw off the yoke through street demonstrations and other signs of defiance, but it has been rare, and usually unsuccessful.

 

          The terror has been supported and reinforced in several ways.  First, the visual cues have been essential.  When you venture out of the house, you see people wearing masks.  They are everywhere, and it’s unnerving.  We have all gotten accustomed to it, but it will never seem normal (I hope).  Much like the required veiling of women in Muslim countries, the effect is to dehumanize the people whose faces are hidden.  In public, we are our faces.  That is our social identity; it is who we are and how others can know us.  And when it is taken away, so is our individual nature.  We become anonymous.  As social beings, we thrive on the sense of community with others, but the anonymity makes us impotent and afraid.   

 

          The masking requirements change frequently, and they differ from state to state and city to city, so it is always necessary to be aware of what the latest rules are.  Whenever you leave the house, you must think about where you are going.  Do I have a mask in my pocket?  Is there one in the car?  In addition, despite the end of the pandemic and the increasing difficulty in believing masks provide any protection, the requirements grow more stringent.  Ten months ago, I didn’t have to wear a mask at my job in a big-box store.  Now Pennsylvania wants me to wear one when walking through the park by myself.

 

          We have been in this lockdown/masking phase for nine months, though the pandemic ended in July for most of America.  Yet more people wear masks now than at the beginning, though evidence continues to accumulate that masking does no good, just as all the studies from the last twenty-five years told us.

 

          There are other visual cues, like signs on the doors of businesses, and social-distance stickers on the floor so you will know how far away to stand when waiting in line.  There is no escape from the constant reminders of the peril we all face.  In addition, the warnings over the PA system never end.  “Because of local regulations, you are required to wear a face-covering in this store.”  This message is repeated in my store every ten minutes.  At this point, is there really anyone who is not aware there are regulations?  The purpose of these constant announcements is not to educate, it is to keep the virus perpetually in the forefront of our consciousness.

 

          Then there is the hygiene theater, as it is now called.  In my store, there is an employee whose job it is to (ostentatiously) spray and “disinfect” each shopping cart before presenting it to a customer.  We have known for months that people get COVID through the air and not by touching infected surfaces or water fountains or doorknobs, yet the charade of wiping down and spraying the presumed sources of disease grows ever more elaborate and silly.  For me, the most distressing spectacle occurs when the store is busy, and rather than just grabbing an untreated cart, a customer will wait for the employee with the spray bottle to wipe one down for him.

 

          Then there is the relentless drumbeat of the “positive” cases, and the numbers of those in hospitals, and on ventilators, and the fatalities.  It is constant, on TV and on the radio, and in newspapers.  Today, all day, I heard about the grim milestone we have just passed---500,000 COVID deaths in America.  Based on CDC statistics, I believe the actual number is probably about 30,000, but we can have that argument another day.  The point is that nobody really knows how many there have been, and we won’t know for at least another eighteen months when we can see what the excess deaths for this period have been as compared to earlier periods.  That, however, does not stop the apparent celebration of death and fear by the news media and by the politicians and bureaucrats who have orchestrated this reign of terror, day by day.

 

          And perhaps the most insidious tactic is the constant shifting of the rules and edicts and guidelines that are imposed on us.  Can local restaurants admit 10% of capacity for indoor dining, or is it now 25%?  And what are the HVAC standards the restaurant must meet in order to seat you at all?  Can I invite 10 people to my house for a backyard barbecue, or is it 15?  And what about your daughter’s lacrosse team?  Is she allowed to play?  Are you allowed to watch?  And why should the rules be different in Pennsylvania than they are in New Jersey?  Is the “science” different over there?  It becomes almost impossible to keep track of all the state and municipal rules, and the effect can be paralyzing.  Only a year ago, it was easy to go to a restaurant, go to a ballgame, go to the library---all you had to do was show up.  Now, well, it often just seems like too much trouble.  And the ensuing isolation, and separation from our friends and neighbors, only reinforces the fear that now is supposed to guide our every movement, and every decision.

 

*

 

          It is a testament to the corruption and secularization of religious organizations, from the Catholic Church to our various forms of Judaism, to the innumerable Christian churches and sects, that there has been almost no pushback against the irreligious (and frequently atheist), government forces that have wanted to shut them down and have now found a means, in the “pandemic,” to do so.

 

          The First Amendment to the Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….”  Nowhere does it say, “unless there’s a pandemic.”

 

          Churches should be open.  There is no legal authority to restrict them or close them, and if priests and preachers and rabbis were willing to insist upon our right to assemble for religious purposes and be dragged from their pulpits and thrown in jail, I and tens of millions of Americans would be pleased to go with them.  But they are not.  They are cowards, and this is one of many reasons why the churches and synagogues of America are increasingly empty.

 

          And this is not just occurring in America.  The Pope himself bent his knee to the government hygiene fascists by altering traditional Ash Wednesday services.  Instead of impressing ashes on the foreheads of the faithful, he sprinkled ashes over their heads, maintaining social distance the entire time.  And this was done despite the fact that he and almost everyone else at the Vatican has already been vaccinated!

 

Copyright2021MichaelKubacki     

NFL PLAYOFFS 2021---SUPERBOWL LV

           For a while, there was a trend in popular history writing to tell a vast tale, often world history, via one particular and unexpected item, usually involving food.  There was a book called “Salt: A World History.”  There was “The Truth About Baked Beans: An Edible History of New England,” and “The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell,” and “The Course of History: Ten Meals that Changed the World,” and “Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World.”

 

          It would be possible to write a similar tome about Tom Brady.  Maybe it wouldn’t cover the history of the world, but his story could certainly be used to tell the history of the NFL over the last twenty years, and maybe even a bit more than that.  It would be possible to stretch the Brady story into the history of America over the first bit of the 21^st Century.

 

          It began with XXXVI, when Brady was basically unknown, but led his 14-point underdog Patriots to defeat the Rams.  Then there was XXXVIII, in which we all learned what a “wardrobe malfunction” is, and XXXIX, where Donovan McNabb puked on national TV.  His next win was in XLIX, which left us all with two questions: 1) why didn’t they call it Superbowl IL? and 2) why didn’t they just hand it off to Marshawn Lynch?  He then gave us LI, memories of which still cause Matt Ryan to awaken screaming in the middle of the night, and LIII, which was tied 3 – 3 at the end of the third quarter and is arguably the most boring Superbowl of all time.

 

          Then there were the three losses, in XLII, after an undefeated season, XLVI (losing AGAIN to Eli Manning) and the glorious LII, in which Brady set a Superbowl record with 505 passing yards but could not beat the sainted Nick Foles.

 

          QBs who lost to Brady in the Superbowl were named Kurt Warner, Jake Delhomme, Donovan McNabb, Russell Wilson, Matt Ryan and Jared Goff.  Mahomes won last year in his only Superbowl appearance.  His victim was Jimmy Garoppolo.

 

          Superbowl LV is unusual in that both starting quarterbacks have already led teams to Superbowl wins.  This has only happened on five prior occasions, three of which occurred back in the Pleistocene Era when the Earth’s crust was just beginning to cool and all the quarterbacks were named Starr or Bradshaw or Staubach.  The other two times both involved---wait for it---Brady.  In XXXXVI, Eli beat Brady to win his second ring.  Then in XLIX, Russell Wilson sought his second consecutive ring, but Tom Brady said no.

 

          All of which means what?  Well, maybe not much.

 

          In our all-important adjusted yards/pass, KC is a 7.4, and Tampa comes in with a 6.7 AYP.  Of course, Tampa has already beaten Green Bay (NFC 1-seed, 7.7 AYP) and New Orleans (NFC 2-seed, 6.8 AYP), so maybe Tampa is good enough in other ways to beat KC as well.  Their defensive AYP is slightly better than the Chiefs’ and they outscored their opponents this year by more than the Chiefs did.

 

          Brady and Mahomes have faced off four times and each QB has won twice.  All four games have been decided by seven points or less and KC has outscored Brady’s teams by 121 – 120.  In the most recent matchup, on November 29, 2020, Mahomes and KC beat Brady and Tampa Bay by a field goal.

 

          The game is being played in Tampa Bay and there will be about 22,000 people in the stands, which will probably be this season’s largest attendance at any game.  They will not all be Buccaneers fans, but this might actually be a 2020-21 game where the home field can make a difference.

 

          Everything I see about this game suggests it will be close.  Kansas City is favored by three points and I cannot say the line is wrong, but I will be taking Brady and the points.

 

Copyright2021MichaelKubacki    

REMEMBER THE FLU?

 

          The CDC tracks a variety of diseases from sources around the country and reports the numbers periodically.  Flu cases, based on clinical results from both private labs and public health facilities, are reported on the Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report, which is found online at https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm

 

          These are the numbers of verified flu cases in the U.S. in the first weeks of 2020 and 2021:

 

          Week 1, 2020:  12,400 cases

          Week 1, 2021:  107 cases

 

          Week 2, 2020:  10,425 cases

          Week 2, 2021:  26 cases

 

          Week 3, 2020:  12,646 cases

          Week 3, 2021:  68 cases

 

          Another item the CDC reports at the site is “Influenza-Associated Pediatric Deaths.”  Here are the numbers for the last three flu seasons as well as the current one:

 

          2017-18 flu season:   188

          2018-19 flu season:   144

          2019-20 flu season:   195

          2020-21 flu season:       1

 

          The coronavirus has apparently killed off the seasonal flu.

           Let’s party.

 

Copyright2021MichaelKubacki