Doug's Darkworld

Some good news for a change. The electoral college voted today, exactly as they were expected to, and Joe Biden is president elect of the United States. Trump’s quixotic delusional attempt to overturn the election results through legal means has come to naught. There’s been some Trump rallies and demonstrations, but no serious violence today. And honestly, the number of Trump supporters taking to the streets has been minimal. The Million Man MAGA Rally in Washington Sunday drew … thousands. A huge percentage of Republicans may believe the election was stolen, but apparently very few of them care enough to actually take to the streets. Good for them.

Still it’s not over yet, Trump is going to continue to claim Biden isn’t the legitimate president, gotta remember Trump was the biggest pusher of the birther nonsense during the Obama years, another evidence-free conspiracy theory. And unfortunately Trump is going to do everything in his power to cripple the Biden administration both before and after he leaves the White house. And with the GOP mostly falling in line behind him, especially congress, this could do serious damage. Well see, if the Dems can win the two runoff Senate seats in Georgia, the GOP will lose control of the Senate and their ability to hamstring Biden will be considerably diminished. January 5th, save the date.

The first Covid vaccines inoculations started today, more good news. It’s too late to prevent the upcoming winter Covid catastrophe, but at least health care providers and such will be much better protected. Unfortunately vaccine resistance is very high in the US, so any chance of eliminating Covid seems remote, but at least most of the damage will be limited to vaccine refusers. I mean tens of millions of Americans are still mask resisters, so there’s limits to what science and modern medicine can do.

In more good news (I’m on a roll here,) New Zealand declared itself Covid-free today, and lifted all restrictions. Back to normal life. Wow, that must feel so good. Foreigners are banned for the foreseeable future, and New Zealand citizens have to spend fourteen days in a government quarantine facility upon their return. That’s likely how it’s going to be in a lot of countries when they get this under control, at least until science gets us to the point where people can be instantly and accurately screened for Covid infection upon arrival. And that could happen, when money gets thrown at science, it can make amazing progress. The vaccines are proof of that.

I guess if there’s a day for good news, Monday is the day. The department of Transportation finally took action against emotional support animals: Why the Emotional Support Dog Ban Is Good for Everyone. Or to be more accurate, they took action against the huge and rising number of, well, assholes; who were bringing their pets pretty much everywhere claiming they were “emotional support animals.” The “emotional support peacock” being a great example of how absurd it had gotten. Understand, I have no problem with legitimate emotional support animals, and these changes shouldn’t cause any problems for them, it’s just for the people who apparently conflate freedom with privilege and entitlement. People who think freedom means they can do whatever they want. No, that’s anarchism, not freedom.

Well, a bunch more links, but none of them really qualify as good news, so I’ll leave them for another day. Ending on a high note so to speak. No worries regular readers, I’m sure there will be reams of bad news to blog about tomorrow. For tonight, I will celebrate, Trump’s departure and the vaccine’s arrival. No snow yet here in Iowa, but getting a bit chilly. The lake is refreezing, it’s been an unusual winter to be sure. Stay safe and sane everyone. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #FelesRegula

Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved.

(Image: Found on Facebook, attribution unknown, claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. It made me laugh, heck, I sprayed coffee like this guy.)