Programming note: Mark will be appearing on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News this evening at 8pm ET/5pm PT.
Greetings once again and welcome to another edition of Laura's Links, replete with links but void of American election results! Better luck next week, homies (fingers crossed). Like many of you, I'm trying to keep my spirits up and focus on the fact that there are some very impressive legal minds on President Trump's team, and certainly a lot going on behind the scenes.
The massive, mind-melding, psychological propaganda offensive and head fake from the left known as the completely made-up office/pop-up banner/seal/team/transition team/web site of the "President Elect" still doesn't change the fact that the election has not been certified and that Donald Trump has not conceded. President Gore (NOT!) considered himself the winner until December 13th, so gird yer loins Ye Great Unwashed, Deplorable Chump Normals, we are not there yet.
I'd like to clarify something from last week's column, which is that I am not, in any way, an expert on the American elections – not on the numbers or state-by-state analyses, anyway. What I will try to elucidate further is why non-American individuals such as myself have deep emotional, psychological and intellectual ties to America – why we get the feeeeelz about you, America, and why we care so much. Judging from comments that people have left in the comment section, or notes that people have sent me directly, I'm clearly not alone in this feeling so it's certainly something I'll talk about in a future column, maybe even on the occasion of American Thanksgiving.
There have been lots of emotional ups and downs this week as I continue to try to reclaim the real normal and not the "new", awful, dystopian, anti-human, malevolent, truly wicked and not normal "normal" that our feckless, malignant "leaders" want for us regarding the bad flu which is "not Ebola". I came across this helpful table that sheds a little light on the topic. The punishment of the citizenry is relentless even with the positive facts in our favour. It's ongoing, even with empty hospitals, repulsive lies embellishments about ChiCom-19 deaths, and not one but two vaccines within arm's reach. I've had it, I'm so angry at the days and months of life, and the joy, that have been stolen from us and our children at Chinese Communist viral gunpoint with the flaccid, duplicitous and gutless complicity of the politicians who are supposed to work for us.
Stay angry! Demand better. Be like Denmark, be a lot like Denmark. Look here, too. (And note the collective mainstream media omerta on this). Like Hizzzoner Master Unwoke Bloke Steyn always reminds us, they won't voluntarily do the right thing, so we have to force them to stop doing the wrong thing. Keep doing what you can. May the Force Them be with you.
As usual, my ever gracious host, the Great Prophet Mark Steyn, PBUH (Pocket squares Be Upon Him forever and ever, ameeeeeen ameeeeen) had another busy week. How busy? So busy. In his Thursday Notebook, he covered political lessons from across the pond in Looking for an Argument. He did a live Q&A on Friday afternoon, answered a motherlode of questions from Mark Steyn Club members (the replay can be found here). On Saturday, he guest-posted for the great Kathy Shaidle in a review of The Ghost, and on Sunday talked cancel culture in An Ambulance with No Chaser. Then, there were three fantastic hours of the Unwoke Bloke guest-hosting The Rush Limbaugh Show with a special appearance by one of President Trump's lawyers, the great Sidney Powell. It was electrifying and gave me great hope. Listen to the whole show here. And just before filing time, Mark shared the latest episode of The Mark Steyn Show, Global Domination by Algorithm.
Now here's a YUGE pile of links for you, and I'll see you in the comments.
~
North America:
Canadian PM Justin Blackface Hairdo Trudeau lets it slip.
This guy! But it's true.
Celebrate Thanksgiving by giving Covid crusaders the bird.
The 2020 election has been terrible for the Jews (and thus, America).
Guy who never held a real job gunning for Labor secretary position. Peak 2020?
Nice work if you can get it.
~
Israel and Jews:
A comforter and friend on the front line.
~
New Middle East:
~
Jihad:
~
The Formerly Great Britain:
Delingpole 1: Only Donald Trump can save us from the great reset. Indeed.
Delingpole 2: I'm sick of the roll over and die conservatives craving to Biden. Me too!
Cult. This is truly deranged. Collective love? Good grief.
Glorious. Read every word. Ho. Lee. Crap.
~
All Cultures Are Equal:
~
Human and Canine Grace:
Here as well.
When you can be that guy.
It's open thread time! Log into SteynOnline and let Laura know what you think of these stories or other happenings from week that was or the election results that never will be. Commenting privileges are among the many perks of membership in The Mark Steyn Club. While going off topic is permitted on Laura's Links, do stick to the other rules as you engage: no URLs, no profanity, and no ad hominem attacks. Meet your fellow Club members, including Laura, in person by joining us on our rescheduled Mediterranean cruise alongside Tal Bachmann, Michele Bachmann, and Conrad Black among Mark's other special guests.
Comment on this item (members only)
Submission of reader comments is restricted to Mark Steyn Club members only. If you are not yet a member, please click here to join. If you are already a member, please log in here:
Member Login
54 Member Comments
The song of the week should be "Banana Republics" I like the Steve Goodman version but the Jimmy Buffet version would also work.
Something else I ran across tonight that surprised me: a long-form (~40 minutes) Sun Politics interview of Meghan Kelly. She was unabashedly positive, even complimentary with an almost unnerving degree of warmth, in her positive comments on both Tucker and Trump. Provocative, indeed. No grudges or playing the victim card anywhere to be seen.
In this election, the greatest mystery to me is that of the dog that did not bark.
Cofer Black, still on the board of Burisma Holdings, is never mentioned in connection with the Burisma scandal. He is very close to Mitt Romney, and is publicly identified as a CIA man.
Anyone picking up on Glenn Greenwald's comments over the weekend, regarding the CIA's symbiotic relationship with the media might think that the dog knows its master.
"Meet Your Ruling Elites". Laura, are you sure that wasn't a picture of a Wuhan Flu Halloween party?
What the heck is that thing? And how did it get in a position of any kind of authority? This really is the worst, craziest year ever.
Best Regards
Hi Al Man, I know. It would be reasonable to assume that was a Halloween costume. Alas...
"The Coronavirus Prevention Handbook.
101 science-based tips that could save your life."
Chief Editor Wang Zhou MD,
Chief Physician of Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Yes, it actually exists. Just saw it in a bookshop.
Looking forward to this weekend reading, Laura.
We need to be follow the Great Danes!
Thanks, Kate. I agree with you. There was a great video out of Buffalo, NY to that effect. Really good.
Donald Kilmer's poem is excellent. Trudeau, Biden and Boris Johnson and other Westminster clones are Satan's placemen for the new cultural revolution grand global re-set. Looking at Justin Trudeau sporting a beard, which he has had for some time, is this to show some kind of genuine maturity or to prove he is not 12 years old?
"Nasty, brutish, and short,"
We're told life can be.
Government, we're sold,
Can help us to be free.
But does the King's violence,
Bring justice and fair play?
Or do those come about,
Perhaps, some other way?
Or maybe pure democracy,
Yields peace and ample wealth?
Or is voting just another mask,
For tyranny by stealth?
What other choices do we have?
Are we bound by these extremes?
Autocracy, democracy,
Are there any other schemes?
When civil society starts to fray,
When thugs and riots prevail,
What values did we abandon?
Is our culture doomed to fail?
Is it possible, is it true,
That government is to blame?
We had a Constitution once,
Leviathan was tame.
It's time to rediscover,
The system we once had,
Of limits on the government,
To keep THEM from acting bad.
I know it's not fair to judge people by their faces, but that picture of Trudeau... Even without blackface... Is that really who our friends in Canada chose for Prime Minister? Twice?
Yes, that is him alright. The only good thing it is that there is a certain honesty about it: Trudeau looks as dumb as he is.
Before Trudeau arrived on the scene, the Liberal Party was desperate and dying: Trudeau was (and probably remains) their last hope. Trudeau knows it and has been playing the saviour card ever since. He's so good at it that he's fooled many of his opponents. The painful tragedy of Canadian politics is that Trudeau's "conservative' opponents are trying to be like him.
If it helps anyone: Annals of Internal Medicine (that's US, of course; sorry wonderful Northern neighbors!) article 18 Nov 2020: "Effectiveness of adding a mask recommendation to other public health measures to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection in Danish mask wearers"—from Denmark, for those of us who went to US public schools. 3030 wore masks, 2994 didn't. The authors' conclusion: "The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates....[t]he data were compatible with lesser degrees of self protection." Infection occurred in 40 (1.8%) of wearers, 53 (2.1%) of non. "...no statistically significant difference in SARS-CoV-2 incidence was observed." They suggested that their results could imply anything from a 46% reduction in transmission to a 23% increase. Many other conclusions and discussion; their study did not look at "source" control—someone infected wearing a mask—which has been recommended for other respiratory conditions (eg TB) for many years. They don't help, folks. I snarkily assume that's why our betters (Fauci, Newsom etc) don't wear them...they just want their serfs (surfs, in Newsom land) to.
I think a similar study was done in Alberta where 70% of people who caught the C***D disease got it while wearing a mask.
I'm sticking to my story that the media created this mass hysteria, and they're using masks as a pacifier to quell the hysteria to prevent it from getting out of control.
Excellent thought, Andrew! I also believe that virtue signaling and a rather odd willingness to bow the head to misperceived "authority" play roles as well.
I thought for a long while that the media hysteria was little more than virtue signaling nonsense. But after listening to some of the people around me, I realized that the fear around C***D is very real. A sizeable minority of people, maybe even a near-majority of people are terrified of becoming infected. The actual impact of the disease may be exaggerated, but the hysteria and fear of the C***D bogeyman is very real and not to be underestimated.
Beside the fact that masks don't work, I try to explain that the virus itself becomes milder by the day: viruses mutate over time, and the more contagious mutations of the C***D virus are, by the process of natural selection, the milder mutations. The severe mutations of C***D take their victims to the grave or into isolation before they can spread very far.
But none of this matters to the person living in fear. The C***D bogeyman is out to get them, and he's impersonated by anyone whom they see who is not wearing a mask.
A friend and I, who have discussed the Great COVID Panic at some length, have noted a curious thing: Most of the response to COVID is superstitious.
Many senior women upend their lives over COVID who are little concerned about flu shots or breast self-examination, even though flu and cancer kill thousands of women every year in Canada. And none of those women know anyone who died of COVID. But they probably know women who died of breast cancer.
Some of it appears motivated: People announce they're not "doing Christmas" this year who don't sound very disappointed. Before, they didn't have an excuse; now they do.
More sadly, some people have found a way to reframe neglect. I won't soon forget hearing senior women tell me, "My children don't want me going shopping or coming to see them" - the words feel surrounded by a golden halo of some kind, as in "They care so much about me."
But the woman who tells me this never says anything about what the children are doing to make up for the deficits they demand - because they aren't doing anything and that's too painful to confront.
Government has an incentive to keep the panic going but so, it seems to me, do many private parties, for a variety of reasons that, in future times, skilful sociologists and novelists, may have the freedom to painfully explore.
"More sadly, some people have found a way to reframe neglect."
This is a profound insight - and very true. Just as churches seemed keen to abandon their congregations, so too families have indefinitely "distanced" older members in some cases.
In some ways, it's consistent with the so-called "Convergent Opportunism" seen with Covid.
Or, put differently, "If it wasn't for the media constantly talking about it, you would not know that there is an epidemic going on."
I can name multiple family members and acquaintances who have died from cancer and heart disease, but nobody from "covid".
Denyse, I have said for many months that Covid Psychosis has given very deranged types a lot of licence to project their mental sickness on others-control freaks especially. It has also given not very nice people licence a "reason" for treating others very badly. It's the justification for a lot of really sh*tty behaviour ("sorry-RULES"). There's a lot of very cruel behaviour out there, and now Covid rules are giving people the perfect cover. I know many people who have experienced this first-hand, myself included. The rules also give very shallow and pathetic people a lot of meaning in their lives.
Many thanks, Laura, for continuing to spell it out. This week, our parish priest wrote, with dismay, to say that Mass has been cancelled by order of the BC government, until at least December 7 - but not bars. Why is a person more likely to get COVID-19 at Mass than at a bar?
Answer: No rational reason to believe that at all. We have been faithful about social distancing at Mass.
This much I know is true: The faithful Catholics who are deprived of Mass will not riot and smash things as a result. I don't know what would happen if the bars were closed. So one outcome of this kind of government is default to the lowest common denominator. And, unfortunately, it is bound to get worse.
I think part of what fuels the fear is that there are certain communities who were hit quite hard by ChiCom-19. My mother, who is a very balanced, full-time working senior is still practicing social distancing because she knows too many people who had it and are still suffering from problems with their lungs. Her boss, who is a bit older than she is, had it and it took months for his voice to come back because he needed to be intubated.
The Jewish community of Crown Heights, NY, saw devastating losses in the very early days of the virus.
A close friend of ours just lost his sister - a young woman in her 30s - to complications from coronavirus.
So while I'm the first one to say, to heck with all of these ridiculous rules because they don't help anyway, I do understand those who are fearful. While I try to gently tell them the facts on the ground that are being hidden by Big Tech, I also don't tell them they have nothing to fear - because there's no point. They're scared, and that's that.
Dafna, I think the real problem is that many things can be true at the same time. The rules are ridiculous and this is a deadly infection for many. Unfortunately we still don't know why some people get a typical flu and others have complications that are deadly. The political rules don't help, common sense does. Politicians cannot get rid of this virus with their rules, man does not rule over nature.
Exactly. That's my point, that on the one hand the government lockdowns and regulations and power plays are ridiculous and do nothing. On the other hand, people really are afraid and it seems that the feeling that they're doing something, anything, makes them feel better.
I would like to respectfully disagree with the link and Newsweek article that the year has been terrible for the Jews. I could not get through the entire Newsweek article...all the author seemed to do is complain about big tech (Zuckerberg, Brin, Page, Wojcicki, etc., and the odd goy Gates etc. thrown in there). Jared ran a lot of policy...will Biden's 3 Jewish children-in-law and Harris' husband do the same? Mayor Frey of Minneapolis made his headlines, Trump signed an Ex Order (maybe that was 2019 or 18) basically outlawing anti-semitism on college campuses (boy, the day when Christians could get such a privilege in America!). About 20 states make people who want to do business with the state sign a pledge not to support BDS of Israel (wow, can any other country get a forced pledge of loyalty from American citiizens!) Soros basically continues to run the entire election and open borders frauds. Gun grabbers Bloomberg, Schumer, etc. seem in good position if Biden gets in...true, the Supreme Court now only has 3 Jewish justices, which will apparently result in it leaning more traditionally than progressively....the last year has been terrible for many people, not just 1.8% of the US population. Maybe the canary in the coalmine analogy needs to be rethought....gently asking, maybe it's time to rethink some well-worn memes.
Hi John, of course feel free to disagree. I think it has been a very good year for Israel diplomatically thanks to Donald Trump, so that's a good thing ("good for the Jews"). And yes, even today, the announcement by Pompeo about BDS and product labelling-good stuff. But I think the bad things are the rise of leftist extremism in America, the normalization of violence-bad for everyone. The antisemitism and anti-democratic measures running rapid in NY to me seems like a trial run for the rest of the populace. That's where I think the canary in coal mine analogy is still accurate. Leftist Jews are power drunk. In my view, that's dangerous to the civilized world regardless of what country they are operating in
Watching that gag-worthy Covid News Network interview with that nurse was like watching a 12 year old lie about getting into the liquor cabinet. Just watch her eye movements and body language as she pretends to recall experiences with patients. She is clearly making this stuff up.
We'll trade you Brad Pitt for Laurence Fox.
A thought for Mark.
Following on from your excellent Brit wanker copper of the week feature would it be possible, i.e. without too much threat to your personal Liberty, to start something similar for the US wanker Judge of the week starting with an honorary lifetime award for Emmet Sullivan?
Hi Laura,
Channelling my inner Abou Ben Adhem may I ask you to add my name to the list of those with feeeeelz towards the USA.
Yesterday I was due to fly across the pond to spend Thanksgiving with my family. To add insult to injury my iPhone, made by the damned Chinese but with an Israeli processor - hah, kept sending reminders that it was boarding time for my irrelevant flight. Just when I thought nothing could make me even more pissed off.
I appreciate this is totally insignificant compared to the greater issues at hand so offer my apologies and a promise to recite the liberal Jewish equivalent of ten Hail Marys.
And finally, thank you for another excellent read.
John
Hi John, thank you. I'm glad to know you have the feeelz as well but I'm gonna pass on an official list, can you imagine if it fell unto the wrong hands?!??!
I guess you could say ten Oy Veys? Or Oy Gevalts?
Re the Great Reset: am I the only one reminded of similar sounding initiatives out of China? The Great Leap Forward, for example, and its offspring the Great Chinese Famine? I didn't think so. And am I the only one who fails to find anything "great" in state-made starvation that claimed (in Wikipedia's very large ballpark) 15-55 million lives? I didn't think so. The moment I realized what the ChiCom virus was all about was when I first heard the phrase "climate lockdowns". My blood still hasn't returned to 98.6F.
But the dog walker guy is a big help.
Definitely echoes that on purpose.
Just read that wonderful piece by Julie Kelly. Thanks, Laura.
Now can we take out huge billboards across the country and plaster this article across them?
The Jews are, as always, the canary in the coal mine here.
Cuomo and deCrazio can't stand each other. Yet they still unite on one issue: Using NY's Orthodox Jewish population as the whipping boy for corona. Muslims can gather outdoors for religious purposes - maskless - but the Satmar community cannot have a wedding. Trans-BLM can have a huge, packed rally at a park while simultaneously the gates on a park used by the Orthodox Jewish community are welded shut. Policemen are sent with predetermined lists of Jewish businesses to target in so-called "red" neighborhoods while businesses owned by blacks in the same area are left alone.
And then they wait to see if anyone notices. Why? Because that's their plan for everyone who doesn't get with their program. The Jews are just the dry run.
Definitely agree with you about the dry run.
Laura,
I want to believe you that there are "some very impressive legal minds on President Trump's team" but I don't see the evidence. As reported by AP today:
"In the plaintiffs' counties, they were denied the opportunity to have an unobstructed observation and ensure opacity," Giuliani said. "I'm not quite sure I know what opacity means. It probably means you can see, right?"
"It means you can't," said U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann.
"Big words, your honor," Giuliani said.
That's fundamentally unserious. I mean, if that's the best that money can buy, Trump is screwed. As are we all.
Hi Jean-Pierre, I understand your concerns. I take some reassurance that Rush Limbaugh has been addressing this issue specifically, saying that he really can't imagine lawyers like Lin Wood and Sidney Powell risking their entire professional reputations on an Al Capone vault moment. That really doesn't make any sense.
As for the AP article, I haven't seen it myself but I generally regard most wire services and pretty much all news services as suspect, especially when they suffer so transparently from wicked Trump Derangement Syndrome and anti-Americanism. If those are direct quotes, then yes-that's quite unimpressive. But I would reserve judgement until I saw either a transcript or context. It's extremely easy, as we have seen repeatedly, to take things out of context or fabricate quotes entirely.
Agreed that Sidney Powell is very impressive and unfathomable that she would expose herself to an Al Capone vault moment. A wee bit of hope is rekindled that the truth will come out, whatever it may be. I was just so blinded by disgust at Giuliani's quotes that I had forgotten she was on the case.
Feeling disgust would be understandable if, and it's actually a big if, those quotes are verbatim and in context. I'd have to see the article to really get a sense of that. I really think you have to remember that the wire services in particular have a terrible record. Did you see any of the press conference today? I thought things were presented quite comprehensively, intelligently and confidently.
Actually, no. I saw a headline to "Watch It Live" but when I clicked it, it brought up an article about the Trump campaign dropping it's case in Michigan. Maddening. On Fox, no less. I'll look it up and also double check the context of the Giuliani quotes.
Just finished watching the Giuliani portion of the press conference... very good. It's refreshing to hear someone calling out the press for their remarkable lack of curiosity, and I agree with your assessment of the presentation. I'll keep an open mind and assume that the quote in Williamsport came off worse in the isolation of the reporting.
By executive order yesterday, President Trump ordered that any action pertaining in the US mainland by FBI, CIA (?) and NSA only pass through the acting Secretary of Defense( who has been the director of national counter-intelligence center.). The CIA director was excluded from a recent cabinet meeting by Trump. The fact that several "battleground" states simultaneously halted counting does indicate a central communications source. Just snippets of information but interesting to think about.
Good for the people of Denmark for pushing back. But isn't it kind of terrifying that the elected government of a theoretically free nation thought it would be just fine to have a mandatory vaccine program with the police in charge of restraining people for forcible injections? Would the formerly great British resist this?
Yes, it is terrifying and good on them for pushing back. I am sure many countries are considering mandatory programs.
Of course PM Useless Idiot is going to ban Christmas: He's following in his (alleged) real father's footsteps.
I can't generally pretend to be an admirer of Delingpole, but he does seem spot on in both of Laura's links here. While it took the Canadian bear of very little brain to say it out loud, there can be no denying that governments around the world are using the pandemic as an "opportunity." Why else would Boris Johnson use charts easily exposed as fraudulent to "justify" a new lockdown? Why does Britain's Health Secretary, in the first two weeks of a (supposedly) four-week lockdown, already talk about extending it? Why does the Telegraph report health officials formulating public policy, as if that's what they're entitled to do?
Delingpole is also on good ground with regard to the US election: this is an event with massive repercussions for the whole world. That is why it is really quite concerning to see strong evidence of malpractice either dismissed, or ignored entirely. As Jonathan Sumption has argued very cogently, Boris Johnson has violated the British Constitution. Now Johnson has shown himself to be in an unseemly haste to salute Biden's "victory," ignoring the extensive evidence of voter fraud. What's the betting Johnson gets Dominion in to run the UK's vote counting, before 2024?
The flaws in the US electoral systems (there's one, right there) are many and consequential. The urging of so-called conservatives to accept Biden as President reminds me of a speech by another pseudo-conservative, John Major, when he was the UK's PM. The EU, or whatever it was called that week, was imposing ridiculous laws. Major acknowedged that, but suggested that, rather than objecting to bad law, we should get used to not enforcing it too rigorously. Possibly not coincidentally, Major, who lost office twenty-three and a half years ago, has been quite vocal of late. Perhaps, in an Age of Reptiles, characterized by Biden, Harris, Boris and the Davos crowd, Major thinks he's due for a comeback.
Ilhan Omar's statement: " I don't pay my husband, I pay the firm to do work.." sounds like she took the same mail order ethics course as Trudeau.
By this stage, I think she struggles to remember who her husband is.
Sounds like a person of outstanding character. One we can all emulate. I get confused. Is this the husband who is her brother, or is he the second husband that is the face of her campaign organization? It's like a piece of impacted poop in the bowels trying to sort it all out.
I thought she was merely her brothers keeper.
I'll get my coat.
As far as I know, she is now on Hubbie Three. In a sane world, she might have had to answer a few questions by now, concerning her marital arrangements, but I don't recall when we last lived in a sane world.
No, that's true. Was it sometime back in the sixties or fifties? I just viewed a b&w short video from the fifties predicting what the future will hold for us. Somethings like an average person hopping on a plane and being anywhere in the world in hours. Being able to transmit one's thoughts through the air to the entire world in an instant by typing on a miniature device; having robots help us with things around the house (Alexa took over my reading of poems to an elderly blind friend in a senior center; now she just says "Alexa recite for me 'Wreck of the Hesperus.'" Also, the close of the video warmed that a virus starting in one town somewhere in Asia could make the entire world ill.
Were advances in technology worth it? Sure, many lives were saved and lengthened and made more comfortable but the downside sure seems to be that people grew imbecilic as the machines grew more sophisticated.
There is no rhyme nor reason to why certain businesses not selling food items are closed yet again. To make it all worse, this is the third time in under eight months we're trying to ask the same questions. Even now the data that masks and shutdowns don't work. We're not learning from our mistakes. Politicians have dug in. Them vs. us. The days of investigative journalism seem to be dead and unless the citizens all become journalists and some brave ones go undercover like they do at Project Veritas we're are all headed for Norman's Woe.
Looking forward to another Links, Laura. Trudeau is a slippery b***ard but these people are so full of themselves they don't hide who they are anymore. I appreciate your empathy and honesty and look forward to the future discussion you promise. I hear you that we need to stay angry, but I'm weary of being angry. I just want joy back in my life again. I want to give the grandchildren real live hugs again. These people are killing all of that. We have our third shutdown going down now and we can expect it to go through Thanksgiving. So the stores are closed for the Christmas shopping season which is probably no big deal because the Governess will probably next tell us no Christmas and no Chanukah. That will delight all the Leftist-Communists-Marxists in power and they think that will be all we need to make it through to the other side. Knowing that they have kept us from living our lives and supporting our families. Let me guess, it won't affect how they celebrate. They'll still get their hair done maskless and make reservations at the French Laundry for their extended families. They can all shove it up their you know what.