Tag: Suckage

Things that totally suck

Lockdown / Shutdown

Education, Plagues and Poxes

I know that this is just stating the obvious, but here it is anyway:

Babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic are ‘falling behind’ on key milestones including talking and crawling because of a lack of social interaction, early learning staff and scientists have warned.

Studies have also revealed children born after March 2020 are less likely to be able to vocalize than their peers were at this age, and are yet to develop social skills such as sharing and waiting their turn — leading to more fights.

Scientists suggest a lack of social contact with family and relatives due to restrictions is behind the shift.

The long-term impact of the pandemic on children is not yet clear, but experts have warned keeping children away from their peers for so long with lockdowns is bound to have harmed their development.

Look, I’m not remotely an expert on this stuff, but it’s a well-known fact that childhood learning (particularly during the early years) requires continuous stimulation — and by “continuous” I mean uninterrupted.

While it is generally acknowledged that children’s brains are absolute sponges when it comes to learning, it is also true (to continue the metaphor) that letting the sponge dry out during the process, even for short periods of time, can affect its absorption capacity.  And once that is lost, there is no recovery of the ability.

So for the (dubious) purpose of saving a few lives, an entire group of children has been irremediably harmed.

A paper published in JAMA in January this year that looked at 225 children born in 2020 revealed babies were less likely to be crawling and smiling at themselves in a mirror within six months. It also showed they had reduced social and problem solving skills.

And a UK-based survey of teachers released last month found those teaching children in the early grades were now seeing more biting and hitting in the classroom than previously.  [New Wife reports the same from her preschool, incidentally]

British-based charity Ofsted has also suggested in a report that after reviewing more than 280 educational settings, children are struggling with basic skills such as writing and speaking in the wake of the pandemic.

They said some teachers even said they had seen youngsters lack confidence in group activities, and struggle to share and take turns.

Similarly, Brown University scientists, who assessed 1,000 children, found there was a 23 percent dive in ‘pandemic’ babies scores in three cognitive tests.

Any time in the future that the Panic Purveyor Set (e.g. Fauci) suggests that we isolate ourselves in the Covid-19 manner, we should set about them with baseball / cricket bats (apply according to national preference).

For the children.

Compendium Of Wrong

Law and Order, Punks

It’s difficult to imagine just how much more could have gone wrong in this situation:

Jay Conway, 33, was spotted dealing drugs by two plain-clothed officers in a park in May.

They tried to apprehend him but he got away before another uniformed officer, who was on patrol in a police car nearby heard a radio alert and took up the chase.

Dramatic bodycam footage shows brave Constable Dan Clayton hauling Conway off a stolen push bike, before pulling out his taser and ordering him to “Get on the floor now.”

But Conway, who was wearing a balaclava, ignores him and instead pulls a loaded pistol out of his sock.

Conway is immediately tasered but, as he falls to the ground, he points the gun directly at Constable Clayton, who can be heard shouting, “No, no” and “gun, gun, gun,” as he sprints for cover.

Of course, all my Murkin Readers are no doubt going “WTF?  Why didn’t the cop just shoot the asshole dead when he pulled the gun?”

If I were to tell you that this didn’t happen in the U.S. but in Britishland, then it all becomes clear.

Pro tip:  If a scrote points a gun at you, the correct response should be “Blam! Blam! Blam! [repeat as necessary] ” and not “No! No! No!”

If, however, your police force refuses to provide you with a “Blam! Blam! Blam!” option, perhaps you should reconsider your career choice.

Just sayin’.

Changing Cards

Corporate Fuckery, Scam Artists

Last Monday morning I went out to run some errands — nothing fancy, just dropping off a document at the tax guy, paying for the sooper-seekrit mailbox, and a quick trip to Kroger for some top-up items.  Basically my spend was less than a hundred dollars, but I knew I had way more than that in the bank account, so no big deal, right?

Wrong.  I got home, check the email and there was a warning message from the bank saying I had less than $100 in my account (I am so glad I have this feature).  When I looked at the account, there was an ATM charge from some company for $336 dollars — a company I’d never heard of nor visited, and when I looked at the details, it noted that the transaction method was a “tap”.

Didn’t happen.

I then called the bank and told them about the fraudulent claim, which got the wheels turning.  Net result:  they changed the transaction to “pending”, but then the crap began:  policy is to issue a new card number/card, which takes ta-da!  up to five business days to process and deliver.  So basically, I end up without an ATM card for that period, plus I have to contact all the autopay vendors and give them the new card number so that my life can continue uninterrupted, without such things as wifi being disconnected and so on — you know the deal.

What disturbs me about all this is that apparently there’s no guarantee that a fraudulent transaction can be “clawed back” if it’s been made against a checking account — it’s considered your problem — but with a credit card, however, it’s the bank’s problem and they have all sorts of ways to get the money back.  Seems weird, but that’s banks for you.

I remember seeing one of those EeewwwChoob videos a while ago wherein some smart money guy said that he refused to use an ATM card, ever, and only used a credit card because of just such a situation.

Here’s my take:  I don’t owe a lot of money on my credit card, and thanks to an upcoming tax refund I could pay it all off without any problem.  (I normally pay 6x the “minimum” each month, so I don’t get stung too badly by their loanshark interest rates.)

I am thinking, now, that maybe I should do what the Smart Money Guy said, do away with the ATM card and treat the paid-off credit card like it’s an ATM card, and just pay the balance in full each month.  (I don’t spend a lot of money on the Visa card so this shouldn’t be a problem, and our income — from New Wife’s job and my SocSec gets automatically transferred out of our current accounts into an interest-bearing account anyway, so we never have that much cash in the current accounts.)  I have full faith in my and New Wife’s self-discipline to do this, by the way, so on that score there should be no problem.

My question for y’all:  if I do the above and pay off the credit card balance in full each month, is there a risk that Global MegaBank Inc. will realize that they’re making no money off their loansharking, only from their transaction fees, and cancel my credit card?

All input is welcome.