Oh dear. Those poor authors of that dreadful argument for bad policy, the Great Barrington Declaration, are complaining that they’re being silenced. You know where this is going, right?

In fact, these individuals are rather omnipresent figures in the COVID-19 media landscape. They have been on many large podcasts. They have given many TV interviews. They have been interviewed by and written many editorials in large newspapers. They’ve been profiled by the New York Times and Medpage Today. They have a large presence on social media. They have made a truly remarkable number of YouTube videos (Dr. Jay Bahattacharya, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, Dr. Marin Kulldorff), some of which have been seen by millions of people. They have testified before Congress and in courts regarding COVID-19 policy. Some have gained new funding sources or found new employment in right-wing think tanks. They’ve met with and influenced powerful politicians, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. They held a “medical experts roundtable” at President Trump’s White House. Dr. Gupta met with and influenced UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Journalists rightly say the’ve become “famous voices” this pandemic.

Please, don’t hurt them any more. Poor babies.

You know who’s actually getting silenced? Nebraska.

Nebraska plans to stop reporting coronavirus numbers online after Wednesday.

The state Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday that it plans to retire the online dashboard that it has used to report statistics on the coronavirus pandemic for more than a year. The current state virus emergency is also set to expire on Wednesday, and along with that Nebraska is eliminating the last few social distancing guidelines that remained in place.

It’s OK. Don’t you know the pandemic is over?

The state also said that 48.2% of Nebraska’s population has now been vaccinated against the coronavirus. The pace of vaccinations has slowed significantly since April

Over the past two weeks, the seven-day rolling average of daily new cases in Nebraska has risen from 29 new cases per day on June 14 to 43 new cases per day on Monday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

Fall Semester 2021 is done, except for the inevitable stress of dealing with unhappy students complaining about their grades — I’ve already got two of those, I’m sure more will be coming.

So what next? How should I celebrate? I’m kind of at a loss here, with my poor narrowly strictured brain turning immediately to thoughts of getting started preparing for next term, but there must be something better to do.

I guess I could put up our Xmas tree, but it seems a little bit pointless. We’re not doing anything for the holiday, not getting together with other family, no social events, nothing. I’m tentatively penciling in watching the The Muppet Christmas Carol with my wife on Xmas eve, if she approves. Is that festive enough? Because otherwise, I’m not feeling it.

The clincher for me is that spiders don’t have to grade piles and piles of papers.

(I’m halfway through — I think I will finish the task today!)

John Cleese wishes to register a complaint (see? It must be an old Monty Python routine). He is complaining to the BBC that, in a recent interview, he came off sounding “old-fashioned, uncaring and basically harmful”.

In other words, the BBC was dead-on accurate. Given the BBC’s recent record on these matters, that is surprising.

Cleese’s comedic routine is rather rusty, though, since he stomped out in a huff at being asked questions on subjects he’s been shouting about lately, like cancel culture and trans rights. He only wants to talk about those things when he’s the only voice, and the interviewer is only a stenographer.

Cleese then removed his headphones, as it was “not the interview I had agreed to,” he noted.

“Karishma had no interest in a discussion with me. She wanted only the role of prosecutor. The BBC needs to train her again.”

He had only “agreed to” a fluff piece, I guess. Oh, for the days when media interviews were challenging and interesting and put people on the spot…

This is an actual exchange between an Amazon delivery driver and dispatch during the recent catastrophic weather.

7:08 p.m.

Driver: Radio’s been going off.

Dispatch: OK. Just keep driving. We can’t just call people back for a warning unless Amazon tells us to do so.

Driver: Just relaying in case y’all didn’t hear it over there.

7:40 p.m.

Driver: Tornado alarms are going off over here.

Dispatch: Just keep delivering for now. We have to wait for word from Amazon. If we need to bring people back, the decision will ultimately be up to them. I will let you know if the situation changes at all. I’m talking with them now about it.

Driver: How about for my own personal safety, I’m going to head back. Having alarms going off next to me and nothing but locked building around me isn’t sheltering in place. That’s wanting to turn this van into a casket. Hour left of delivery time. And if you look at the radar, the worst of the storm is going to be right on top of me in 30 minutes.

Driver: It was actual sirens.

Dispatch: “If you decided to come back, that choice is yours. But I can tell you it won’t be viewed as for your own safety. The safest practice is to stay exactly where you are. If you decide to return with your packages, it will be viewed as you refusing your route, which will ultimately end with you not having a job come tomorrow morning. The sirens are just a warning.

Driver: I’m literally stuck in this damn van without a safe place to go with a tornado on the ground.

Dispatch: Amazon is saying shelter in place.

Dispatch: I will know when they say anything else to me.

Dispatch: [Driver name] you need to shelter in place. The wind just came through the warehouse and ripped the rts door and broke it so even if you got back here, you can’t get in the building. You need to stop and shelter in place.

Driver: Okay.

Isn’t it curious that the US Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, is a corrupt Republican who has been slowing down mail delivery, while corporations like Amazon are cracking the whip and compelling their workers to risk their lives to get packages shipped faster and faster?

Here’s the deal: nothing I ever order from Amazon is so time-critical that I’ll get upset if it’s a day or two or three late. Next-day delivery is not a big issue to me — I’m not ordering live organs and human tissue, ever. At least not yet. I don’t want any drivers to die so I can get a rush of gratification.

I’m still required to wear backless shoes as I recover from Achilles tendinitis, and the only such shoes I have are a pair of sandals. I also still have to take a very short walk to the lab to take care of spiders and flies. Today, while wearing my heaviest, warmest socks and making only a short shuffle from parking lot to science building, I discovered that this combo, despite being awesomely stylish, provides no protection for one’s toes on even a mild Minnesota winter day.

Said toes are now snorgled down in a hot heating pack. You could get frostbite really quickly out there if you aren’t properly prepared!

I’m sitting here all innocent-like when suddenly all these alerts come streaming across my desktop.

Uh-oh, that’s not good. We’ve got students planning to go home today and tomorrow.

Volatile weather? Never seen here before?

Plummeting temperatures and slippery roads…what could be causing this?

POTENTIALLY HISTORIC HIGH WIND EVENT! Wait, I might be responsible. You see, I ordered a whole bunch of mutant flies earlier, thinking the weather was going to be mild during the middle of the week — I check the weather before ordering these things, because it’s a bit dicey in December, and I’ve received shipments of biological specimens frozen rock solid before. I honestly thought this would be good timing to sidle past the Weather Gods and the Fly Gods. They are expected to arrive…

TOMORROW. <duh-duh-DUUUHHH>

I taunted fate, and this is what I get.

I guess we better batten down the hatches and make sure everything movable is secure — I remember a year when our garbage cans took flight. Everyone be safe. I hope my flies make it.

All the supermodels are going to be copying her look.

I suggest that she call this “Filamentous”.

Or she better be — I thought her series usually started off provocatively and interestingly, but then dribbled off into confusing and weird Catholic mysticism, and also got increasingly self-involved, so any Anne Rice revenant is likely to get tedious fast. She did manage to define a whole horror sub-genre, so I’ve got to give her credit for that.

She was…unique. What else can we hope for?

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Oh no, I was just reminded of her response to criticism. Authors who chew out readers for not liking their books is always cringe.