Pain, Pain, Go Away!

I'll start with some  good news : "...residents 70 and older can now register to receive the coronavirus vaccine through the state [of Indiana]'s website." The CDC and some academics wanted to vaccinate essential workers to " level the playing field ," because "essential workers" include a higher proportion of non-white people than the over-70 crowd does. As readers surely know, the over-70 crowd is far more likely to die of COVID than anyone else. No, the link doesn't go to the Babylon Bee or The Onion : they really called for more deaths in the name of Fairness.  And sorry, teachers , but you don't get to jump the line in front of doctors, nurses, essential medical staff and old people, either.  Oldsters among the first to get COVID vaccines in Indiana. Photo from Pixabay . At least the state of Indiana is more interested in saving lives than ideology. Would that the state had such an interest in science and data. Like most other places,...

The Purge I've been nostaligic for the days five to ten years back when the worst interaction you might have online was a nasty comment or two. Moderators, who might have to deal with a few hundred comments at most, blocked the trolls if they became too disruptive. Now that Facebook and Twitter are excommunicating people wholesale, maybe we'll go back to smaller, moderated sites and leave the yelling and screaming to the maddening crowds over there.  Dave Rubin asked Tulsi Gabbard today how she'd moderate Twitter. In practice, I don't think it's possible. It's too big with too many users who are completely unhinged and ready to come after you IRL if they don't like what you say. Then there's Facebook, which seemed like a platform for narcissists during the few weeks I used it long ago. They say people used to live in groups of about 150--maybe it's time for virtual communities to return to something closer to that number. Not only was there less trou...

I just had the fastest recovery from a muscle injury EVER. Two days ago, I twisted the wrong way while playing with my dog and hurt my back. It felt like an oblique muscle was pulled. It hurt every time I moved, even in bed. The next day after I took a shower, it was gone. Not better, but gone.  Yogurt: stronger than it looks! Photo from Pixabay . A few months ago, working for a few hours on my garage left me feeling like I'd been run over .  The only thing I'm doing differently is eating yogurt made with Bacillus Coagulans Unique IS-2. I ate my normal amount of it, maybe even less, over the past few days. I started making and eating it around mid-November. I've had a number of muscle injuries over the years (including turf toe, which was nearly as painful as an infected tooth, and a couple of bad sprains that took a year to completely heal). I'm blown away at how fast I mended this time. Dr. Davis says his daughter, who plays competitive tennis, uses B. coagulans GBI...

Wholesome holiday or superspreader supper? Photo from Pixabay . Doomers warned of a Thanksgiving bump in COVID cases. "A surge upon surge," warned Fauci; " assume that you were exposed and you became infected," advised Birx . Some states instituted restrictions : New Mexico issued a stay-at-home order; Washington state banned indoor restaurant service for a month; Michigan banned indoor dining service for three weeks. North Dakota and Iowa, meanwhile, finally told people to wear face coverings if they're out in public. South Dakota stayed its libertarian course. What were the effects of these various orders, or lack of them? The US has seen increasing COVID deaths and hospitalizations over the past few weeks. Thanksgiving was Thursday, November 26; it's now three weeks later. Was it due to Thanksgiving gatherings? Charts below are from CovidTracking.com , accessed December 16. Thanksgiving bump? Well, it doesn't look like a bump, but a trend that starte...

 Biologists Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying discuss the unknowns of the new COVID vaccines.  Highlights: This is the first time it's been approved in humans It doesn't contain the virus (it's an mRNA vaccine and might be very safe) But we inherintly don't know what's down this novel road We don't know what the long-term consequences of the vaccine are Is vaccinating our whole medical workforce a good idea, not knowing the long-term consequences of the vaccine? Long video, but worth your time.

I'll start with the good news: my Thanksgiving vacation didn't give me COVID. Since I don't have any major risk factors and I'm not 80 years old, I'm not surprised. Yesterday I was able to whip the yard into shape with the mower, rake, hedge trimmers and a sawzall . It was a beautiful sunny day, like winter in Denver, and most of my coworkers who give me work were in training. I was outdoors in a t-shirt. The thyroid problems seem like they're behind me.  But my GERD is back. After coming back from Ohio, I bought a magazine full of delicious looking keto recipes and made some of them: keto pound cake, keto brunch, keto enchiladas, and keto broccoli soup. The last two were heavenly going down--then they started pushing up acid. It's thought to be too much bacteria that creates gas and causes GERD; I wonder if the culture in the cheese has something to do with it, too.  Cheese: my love for you is way out of line. So I was suffering after having the enchiladas ...

Expert advice for Thanksgiving was to stay home. But I've been ignoring most experts' health advice for ten years and enjoyed good health for it; we'll see in a few weeks if this latest decision was sublime or ridiculous. I drove 300 miles to Cleveland. I hugged my cousin and finally met her husband. I ate food I shouldn't have. The three of us went to restaurants and attractions. We didn't do anything ridiculous or illegal--we all wore masks in public places and none of us were sick. Nobody I encountered seemed ill and nobody formed a crowd. I hung out with people for the first time in almost a year, relaxed and slept nine hours a night. It was health food for the soul and I'd do it again.  Sublime? Ridiculous? It can be hard to tell. Photo from Amazon . The day before I left, I made vegetarian collards from the garden and low-carb pumpkin pie. My cousin is a vegetarian, but she cooks meat for me when I'm there and I bring vegetarian food when I visit. I al...