And So They Drooled

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Pavolv’s dogs salivated whenever they heard the bell – even in the absence of food. They had been conditioned to associate the sound with the appearance of food.

The press reacts similarly when they hear the sound of Elon  . . . and that word.

“Electric.”

They are currently salivating over what Elon tells them is going to be the Truck of Tomorrow.

Which is quite possible – as we live in a lunatic present.

How to explain the demented approbation for the Cybertruck?

In any other context, its debut would have resulted in peals of laughter based on its cobbled-together and spray-can-painted appearance alone. All that was missing, when the curtain came up, was Gil Gerard stuffed back into his silver thermal underwear for a reboot of 1978’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

At least the Urbacar of the ’70s – whose design Elon’s designers appear to have cribbed – was meant to cost less than the other cars of its time. This thing will cost more (hang on, it’s coming) while delivering less.

But because it’s electric, people clapped.

Because that’s what they’ve been conditioned to do.

Anything electric is good – no matter how absurd. This includes calling a four-door SUV without even a four cylinder engine a “Mustang” – the vehicular equivalent of the Victory Coffee in Orwell’s 1984.

Up is down, left is right.

And cost is no longer an object.

Once upon a time, it was the goal of the car industry to sell more cars by making them ever-more affordable  . . . so that more people could afford to buy them. To reduce the cost of transportation – and to make it more convenient – in order to increase people’s freedom by increasing their mobility.

Today, the goal is reversed.

Sell fewer cars to fewer people. In order to get more people out of cars. To Sovietize the car business so that owning and driving a car becomes a perquisite of the nomenklatura.

This is not overtly stated, but it is the inevitable result of the 30-50 percent increase in the cost of replacing cars with engines with cars that have motors (and battery packs).

Elon promises that the Cybertruck – a vehicle which won’t be in production for at least two years and so he can’t possibly know what it will cost – will sticker for $40,000  . . . to start.

This, too, is gulped down with the gusto of Jim Jones’ Kool Aid.

When the production Cybertruck appears – and the starting price is $50,000 to start – no one will remember.

Or rather, no one will admit they remember.

Oceania is at war with Eastasia. Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.

But let’s pretend for argument’s sake that this promise comes true.

A $40,000 Cybertruck costs about $13,000 more than the current cost of a base-trim half-ton truck like the 2019 Dodge Ram 1500. The fact that the Cybertruck is quicker and can pull more (briefly, before the batteries wilt – another thing no one wants to talk about) doesn’t change the fact that the electric truck costs about 35 percent more than the current base-trim 1500.

Similarly, the electric version of the VW Golf – the $32k eGolf. It lists for $10k more than the base price of the non-electric Golf, which amounts to . . . a 30 percent increase in the price of the thing.

A Chevy Bolt electric car stickers for about $36k to start. The same-size Sonic non-electric car stickers for just over $15k.

Electrification, in other words, amounts to upselling.

And it will be forced upsellling, if Elon, et al have their way. Because there will be no alternative to electrification.

It’s fascinating. And, depressing.

People are cheering the advent of cars that will make driving much more expensive and far less convenient  . . . because electric.

Say that word and disbelief is suspended. People fall into a trance-like state. Magic at home when the Christmas sale begins at this place.

Some even get out their wallets.

Thousands of affluent marks have already put down deposits, unsightliness seen. And in spite of one of Elon’s many promises about the Cybertruck revealed to be a blatant lie right in front of their very eyes – the “shatterproof” door glass that wasn’t.

It’s wondrous, baffling.

Elon’s mesmeritic powers are so puissant he could probably get his followers – this includes the press – to bark like dogs if he asked them to.

Which might just be next.

. . .

Got a question about cars, Libertarian politics – or anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link and send ’em in!

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100 COMMENTS

  1. Some of these are priceless. And shameless. Elon just can’t help spouting absolute BS.
    -https://elonmusk.today/
    I have not checked all the references but the ones I did seemed correct.

  2. At no point during my childhood do I ever remember thinking how one day, I would grow up and drive a truck that looked like a DeLorean mated with a Dustbuster.

    Somebody take away this pinhead’s access to 1980’s media.

  3. There was Etruscans. Bronze age- iron age but nobody speaks “the” langu•age*. Archaeologists dig those folks did a funeral rite of incineration in terracotta urns. I’m watching some of those descended ones now. De Niro’s playin’ Sheeran. Pacino’s Hoffa. Prolly no urn for burned up Hoffa, but archaeologists are still digging.

    E\t\ructions’re comin’, belches zap n’ whacker Elon, he of the lithium age. The earns aren’t real & the urns aren’t terracotta & they don’t wait for ya’ to die to cremate ya’, having streamlined the ritual. But this too shall pass into anticswitty, give archaeoanthropologists & professors things to do & talk\write\preach about.

    Amazing how much waste work goes into trash middens, gets recycled into a lil’ learning that’s mostly lost on, does not apply to or net-net do, or can be used to do, anything profitable or positive for, the legions of union label makeworkers whose revolving lives are spent returning it all again, along with themselves, to the middens. Formiddenable’s catch-22 DNR o’ DNA…eh? Roll on waveform, roll on.

    *language, for a mummified co•coon’s age now: for every seeming solution, or apparent particle of progress, talkie-scribble facilitates, it tacks on varying amounts of vicissitudinous vig. Particles on parade professing progress are told — superfluously & redundantly, since cogdis done did the self-deception deed — to pay no attention to all those anti-particles “behind the curtain” couture – including electric dreamcoats — they’s all stylin’ about in…

    …There is a theory, elegant I think, that *communication* – language symbology – developed for practical straightforward purposes at the cellular (can you hear me now?) start. *That* is food to “us”, *“we”* are food to *that*. Etc. But only later (10 minutes or so…”in the beginning was the word”) went multicellular metastasis in service of & to…weight for it – the sleight o’ mind very low in the water freight — deception. Much of communication is merely pandering. And boy do the pande•ring encode…them precoded to be encoded. With this ∞ we* ∞∞ thee* ∞∞∞ wed us* all* ∞∞∞∞…. Some people walk in the rain, but a whole lotta’ others just get wed…*pl•urals be the mountains of melted (fooled), then cooled, folk…

    …♪♫♪ Cue up & queue for Jive Talkin’ & The Hustle\serpentine line dances. The tattered web weavin’ practice to deceivin’ is the how & why of most shades o’ gray matter development & deployment goes that same elegant theory. That became a very bad habit(ual offender) quicker than nicotine or heroin ever could. It’s been the pushers heyday ever since…

    …Just look around (assuming, generic sense, the ability to do so hasn’t completely withered away to vestigial uselessness) & say it ain’t so…

    …If you (generic sense) are amongst the vestigial version – the post-people — then the burden is not on you (generic ditto), since it’s beyond you (behind you?)(dittoGditto) – but, same time, you(dittoG) & your (Gditto) ilk are the burden. Ya’ll’s (GdittoG) the body politic…1G or 5G or any other prefixG, Gangs is gangs is generic is ditto is mirror images of “each other”…

    …Best deceivers of others are receiver-hitched self-deceivers (is that a dollop o’motive•incentive, or what?)…the saleswo\men who believe their own bs. I like how Raleigh puts it (&, almost of course, his head was lopped off – which he handled in rare form – look up details if unfamiliar):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHhvKpp2PA0

  4. This truck will not pass safety in Australia. The stainless steel does not have any give to protect pedestrians and the driver and passengers of the truck. It has too many sharp edges that will cause problems to whoever or whatever collides with the truck. Remember that if the forces involved in a collision are not absorbed by the vehicle, those forces get transferred to the passengers of the vehicle. Visibility out of the truck is at an all time low. Even visibility out of a cave in total darkness is higher than in this ugly abomination of transportation. The protruding wheels will decimate any pedestrian or motorcycle rider that gets near the truck.

    • That’s just what I said about it in the US. Of course, congress passed a bill a couple years ago allowing every carmaker to not have to conform to the same safety fatwas that ICE cars do.

  5. This thing is an abomination; I’ll believe EV’s are ready for prime time when the Army starts using battery powered tanks. 😆

  6. Many valid points in Eric’s article today. It must be noted that the big media roll-out for this eTruckish thing was a huge bust due to the glass smashing incident. Plus that thing doesn’t look like a truck nor does it look as if it can do real Truck stuff.

    In TX here trucks are something of a cult though many need them for hunting, rural driving/hauling, deep water fording (on your local streets!) and hauling large boats, RVs, etc. which Texans require. The electric thing will only work (now) when the recharge stations are abundant or charge requirements every 300-400 miles. Men mostly buy these pickups. I don’t think average women want a Star Wars looking “truck” either. They are the ones buying new furniture that Daddy needs to haul back. And few are SciFi fans anyway.

    • In MY Texas, people use them for work. It’s the reason there’s so many one ton’s. If you want to buy a wore plumb out truck, west Texas is the place to look. Those other parts of Texas people drive pickups because it’s the style. No boat, no camper, not a damn thing to pull or haul, city slickers.

      That is simply a make-believe pickup. It’s for city people who think they can now be “non-polluting” pickup drivers. Stupid is as stupid does.

        • And here all this time I thought they were pickups. They sure come in handy when you have to haul a dozen or more 24.5’s to put on the big rig. They come in handy hauling just about anything. Maybe that’s the reason they are listed as “light trucks”. Nothing I’d like better than to have a scaled down 18 speed transmission in a one ton but nobody seems to be headed that direction. I reckon the NVG 4500 with a 3 speed Brown-Lipe behind it will be fine.

          • Production pickups already have automatic 10-speeds so only those who have seen too many commercials with them pulling big rig’s loads would need an 18-speed with engines that can wind up to twice the RPMs of a big rig’s engine. Splitters aren’t of much use to those who couldn’t drive them in a big rig, assuming they could get it into any gear in ignorance of the clutch brake. With the biggest fleets going to automatics, the manual transmission endorsement gets ever closer.

    • Anyone who considers anti-social media their “lifeline” should indeed hang themselves with a USB cord whenever it goes down. But then again, it’s really not their (our) fault. If you think about it long enough, you’ll realize that this is the true purpose of anti-social media; to make us millennials feel “left out” so as to aid in the depopulation of the planet.

      Thankfully, though, I was wise enough not to eat the tainted feed, and…here I am.

  7. Based on previous Musk predictions over the last 10-15 years, this “thing” is 5 years away, will cost much more than expected, will not be very competitive with gas/diesels options (if they are still selling them) and will have very limited usefulness. Speaking of the Soviets, back in the 1970s, a company I worked for built and shipped over 100 heat treating furnaces to Russia to a monstrous auto plant that was many square miles large. I don’t know what happened to the plant or of if it is still in operation. It reminds me so much of Musk and his epic, if not silly, visions for the future. A world full of EV’s and reality do not come close to jiving. About the only thing I can agree with Musk on is his fear of the world’s population declining in the decades ahead. I am sure he is worried about future customers being able to buy his junk at any cost.

  8. When will Elon create a mass marketing campaign to convince ‘Merica, that driving a Tesla is a marker for High Status? High Status trumps utility, for some people.

    • Tesla didn’t strive for money for its own sake, just for enough to outfit the next laboratory he needed to perfect his next device, after which his failure to express an interest in marketing left him broke again.
      Tesla would be as unaffected by Musk as he was by Westinghouse.

  9. Musk reminds me of the J.T. Walsh character in The Grifters movie. (The scene where Walsh implores the mark to examine the nonexistent bank of computers.) Musk is a gregarious, blustering conman. At the same time, he’s covertly challenging the media and his marks to call him on his con, and yet none will. He’s playing the media (and many analysts) as the malleable rube they are. Give credit where it’s due, he does it superbly.

  10. Folks are understandably concerned that Uncle or his fifty nephews may soon issue fatwas to “turn in your guns.” But they may instead (or also) issue fatwas to “turn in your motor cars.” Not only will Mr. Toad at Toad Hall not have the means to ride up to Ms. Mousie’s door with his sword and pistol by his side, millions of poor shnooks like us will be waiting by the curb for the bus that never comes. We had better begin to revive our local cottage industries and barter networks because a lot of us, in our buckboards, won’t be going very far from home.

    • That seems to be the idea. I assume that eventually, one will not even be allowed beyond the city limits without “permission”.

      • And like cars and the ever decreasing number of folks who care to get a license, at some point the majority decide that the minority don’t really need a car, or freedom, or the ability to leave the city. All very democratic don’t you know.

        “I don’t want it, screw those who do”. Mantra of the clueless and self-absorbed.

      • It will more closely match Checkpoint Charlie than a TSA inspection station.
        It will be easy to embargo concentration cities and drive them into violent disorder.
        After their compatriots fall to the existing glut of handguns, many will abandon their oppressive mandates in favor of looking the other way.
        Anyone who can escape the cities will and head towards what will be called rebel areas or terrorist camps. Mad Max was never this organized or opulent.

        • Yup, even escaping to the hills is not really going to work. The control freaks simply cannot abide ANYONE not being controlled. Threat or not, any visible example of freedom might inspire wrongthink in the herd and will need to be eliminated.

          One thing all the ‘outsiders’ need to remember is the fall of Rome. Slow decline until the ‘barbarians’ got smart and smashed the aqueducts. The elite were very screwed as most of them had become so pampered that they were unable to grasp where to get water if it was not pouring out of a pipe. Little different from where the elite are today.

          When the day comes, smash the infrastructure.

  11. Was it Barnum or Bailey, and I’m sure this quote isn’t perfectly accurate, “No one ever lost a dime underestimating the American public”.

  12. Hideous is the right word for this ugly Tesla pick-up. I just cannot understand that Tesla is planning to sell this car with the ugly exterior design, that was shown at the presentation.

    I as an European can at least say that American cars, including pick-ups, mostly are stylish and pleasing to the eye. This is not the case with this new Tesla pick-up.

  13. I gotta give an ounce of credit to ol’ Eloon on this one. I believe he figured if he could design (well, his designers as he’s never designed anything in his life) something so hideous, that people will look right past all it’s deficiencies. Touche Eloon, touche.

    • Crap, forgot to login before posting.

      Anyway, I saw a great comment on another site regarding this monstrosity. Eric has pointed out the shortcomings of electric vehicles in northern climes but can you imagine if you had this thing parked outside in an ice storm and then have the task of trying to clear all that ice from that massive raked out windshield?

      • And chip the ice captive door handles loose?

        And move closer to town because the range has dropped to half of summer range?

        The list of “but Elon didn’t seem to consider….” is a very long one. But does anyone think Elon thinks much beyond, “I have this cool idea”? Like about the little details like the real world use by people not him, not where he is?

  14. There is no limit to the BS of EVs except reality. And that is not part of this fairy tale. My big picture view of this topic is embedded in the ongoing effort to control our lives by the oligarchs. So is the destruction of the 2A and all things Confederate, male and excellent.
    I believe the above-mentioned reality lies in the apportionment of energy. While I cannot quantify the one-day use of all petroleum fuels to move our national transportation fleet from automobiles, trucks and motorcycles, I would bet that the same amount of energy is not remotely available from the electric grid. We certainly do not have the distribution system for anything but a trickle charge.
    Never mind all the other flaws in the EV fantasy, that dog will not hunt !
    Let’s see: Take their Constitution, 1865. Take their money, 1913. Take their culture, 1965. Take their productivity, 1994. Take their guns. Take their mobility, EVs…
    Ever heard of Agenda 21 ?

  15. Oh, look! Yet another non-existent “affordable” EV promised by Elon the Great. If Ford, GM, Chrysler/FCA, and other auto manufacturers (or any business for that matter) pulled that kind of stunt even just once, they’d be wiped off the face of the earth. But since Elon and his company only produces electric cars, apparently he can never do any wrong.

    The good news, however, is that even the best con jobs only last for so long, because unlike pie-in-the-sky dreams, reserves are finite. When “uncle” and the investors finally decide enough is enough and put the kibosh on Elon’s circus, I’ll be sure to have the popcorn ready.

  16. It’s a concept vehicle … with a concept price. Who knows what it might look like or cost should they ever get it into production.

    I guess their market would be the people who buy pickups as status symbols rather than practical work vehicle – Cadillac Escalade sales would likely tank should this ever get on showroom floors. I recently test drove a used low mileage Mercedes S class they were asking a bit over $20k for. Salesman said Teslas have tanked the sales for the S class, and E class too.

  17. So far Tesla marketing has been first rate, so I will just accept it on faith Tesla knows what it is doing.

    Tesla’s retail’ customers are not buying because it is electric, they are buying it because of Autopilot, Smart Summon, and the other software. When the Germans offer a high speed electric car with little or no software but a very expensive busy cabin that is hard to clean, I cry. I have to guess that the Tesla pickup truck will really stick out at the Tesla only charging stations at the Premium mall, which makes the crazy design more not less desirable.

    Tesla commercial customers may have special needs. If it is a profitable business they can buy a Tesla and cut their taxes to the extent they can deduct and depreciate it. Some business, like mining and farming, might have superior access to electricity than diesel. Mines often have their own electric power supplies but not pipelines. Farms might be located near wind farms. So I can see a legit business need for an electric truck. I can also imagine an electric utility giving electric trucks a try as they will almost always be near electricity.

    It is also possible a completely angular vehicle is cheaper to build.

    • I liked the looks of Via motors vtruck, which was a modified Silverado with a plug in hybrid power train. So electric range plus infinite gas range. Don’t know what happened to them…

      • I liked the VIA plan too. But it seemed to be just vaporware. Never saw anything but CGI.

        Either way it was not edgy, unique or anti-pertochem so not SUPERGREEN enough for them. (yes Fifth Element)

        Looks cool, signals virtue, feeds ego, so we will ignore the shortcomings. Thus Elon’s folly continues.

    • Of course Tesla “knows what it is doing” – it is mulcting funds from other manufacturers for bogus carbon credits, without which Musk’s zombie company would have long since folded. Tesla is being artificially propped up by government diktat.

      We had some electric delivery trucks running around the area a few years ago. They are all gone now. I’d say they have a good ways to go before being truly competitive with conventional vehicles in the absence of subsidies.

      • Hi Jason
        Those back in the early 1900s were much smarter when they converted to Internal combustion. Of course people back then weren’t near as gullible as ‘modern’ Americans with their Smart devices and social media. Schools back then taught the three ‘R’s. Today’s modern “education” centers teach anal intercourse, Feminism, Global Warming and Transgenderism starting in Kindergarten so it’s easy to see why EV’s and other stupid crap are all the rage.

      • Tesla will make more from Starlink than from anything else. That is why he is moving quickly to get the 2500 level constellation in place. Starlink will put most of the other satellite-provided content out of business by eliminating the final mile of the Internet.

    • Sir: Just being in the same zip code as a wind farm does NOT mean you have access to the wind power as it is dumped into a grid and not into a local sub, sub station.

      • There is a not a single wind turbine in the country that will ever pay for itself in energy output. I don’t have any idea why a zip code would have anything to do with the wind power scam. I have been off the grid since 1984, so I wouldn’t have any use for the power.

          • So are everything else that humans build, but at least most of them have a legitimate use outside of scamming the government, and ignorant taxpayers, for subsidies.
            It is time for a complete separation between government and society.

        • Vonu, you are wrong. period. There is at least one wind turbine company in Texas that has never taken a subsidy and makes plenty money.

          Now, the cost of wind turbines has decreased to a great degree. Of course the big companies still take the subsidy since “it’s money on the table” so to speak. Of course electricity is still over-priced even though the wind turbine companies pay as high as $8/KWH for people to take their “off-peak) power.

  18. The King has no clothes
    This truck has no use.
    On target Eric. Looks like a modified El Camino except the El Camino was useful.
    Hope you recover quickly. Did you miss your flu shot? 🙂

  19. Actually, I’d like the design no matter what fuel it used. It’s the first Tesla I’ve been even slightly interested in. If you check my blog post from 11-26-2019 you might understand why. (blog dot kentforliberty dot com)
    Would I want it as my only vehicle? No way.

    • I do think it’s cool in some ways, but I like the fact that for most, they will look at it as crazy and hopefully it will discredit this electric movement.

      • No such luck; the same people who defend the Mustang Fake E are already declaring it a “better truck” than any of the Big 3 have ever made.

        If I could afford it I’d probably be an alcoholic and stuff like this is why.

    • I liked it from the first time I laid eyes on it. I like unique/oddball stuff though. At the same time I’ve been critical of current truck body design. No one is taking any bold styling risks… since what – the 93 Dodge Ram? It’s all kind of bland lately.

      Not a fan of electric power though. Maybe drop a 4 cyl diesel in this and you’d have something.

  20. I’m glad this thing turned out like it did. It may open the eyes of enough people to see through this electric nonsense. You need a bad electric vehicle to illustrate this idea. This thing is truly bad. Elon did pop pills before releasing this thing out. I think his brain is wired as well.

  21. Obviously it’s a shell of a concept truck, but did anyone notice the pic of the front of the truck sticking up in the air with the 400lb quad in the back. hahahahah….
    Love the ramp built into the tailgate. That would be great for us bike users. doubt it can be done practically though or it probably would have been done already. iee…. sheet of metal would bend pretty easy without some support structure.
    And as many have said already, even with more room for batteries in a truck, there is no way in hell you can tow/move 2-3K lbs more any practical distance. a typical 4-5K boat/trailer? forgetaboutit.

    • BTW. My F150 5.0 V8 can get 700 miles range on a tank no load. With 600lbs in the bed it goes to around 500, up and down mountains, pretty darn good. It has the optional larger tank, don’t know what size it is.

  22. That “truck,” with its crudely folded, plain metal body, reminds me of a DeLorean. I suspect there’s a lot of character overlap too, between Johny Z and old Elon……except Mr DeLorean probably had more integrity. 😉

    (ps. Hope you’re feeling and sleeping better soon. Have a Restful and Recuperative Thanksgiving!)

    • Thanks, Mike!

      And: DeLorean, for all his many faults, was a brilliant engineer and a car guy. He gave us the GTO. That alone punches his ticket into Valhalla!

    • Musk must have smoked an extra big one, downed six Ambien, abottle or two of red and watched a Damnation Alley/Back to the Future double feature before coming up with this.

        • Actually when Mel Blanc was doing it, it was okay. It’s when they fired Mel and had someone else do it is where it got really bad.

          It was another sci-fi show that had potential but was squandered with cheapness and poor writing which comes with that.

  23. “Jim Jones’ Kool Aid.” Just pedantic but it was “Flavor Aid”.

    On The CyberJoke,

    Fifth wheel capable?
    Range at ‘ludicrous’ load or whatever pantload name they give it?
    Crash testing result? has it even been done?
    Assuming it is hit with a sledge made of steel not nylon and in a place that does not have an intrusion bar directly behind the outer skin, how are repairs accomplished if it is an exoskeleton.
    What is the rear headroom?
    Has it passed any SAE standard tests?
    Is it road legal as shown (no, for sure)?
    Can it tow a F150 backwards if you actually engage the four wheel drive instead of stacking the deck for your silly ‘fool the clueless sycophants’ stunt?
    How the F#$K can you set a price for something that clearly infinitely closer to a wet dream than a retail product?

    Fingers tired or I could come up with several more pages of questions for the God of the Electrofools.

    • BTW the range at ‘ludicrous load’ is quite relevant.

      My F350 460 gets around 9-10mpg empty. It also gets around 9-10mpg hauling a trailer. My buddy has a ’17 (iirc) TT eco Ford.

      It gets around 25 carefully driven. It gets about 11 when it is towing.

      I imagine a trailer holiday with the CyberJoke would be something like,

      Drive an hour or so, charge and hour or so. Rinse, repeat.

    • Anon, you bring up some points I was going to myself. When cuntgress voted in a law allowing any automaker the right to build 200,000 electric cars per year with no safety mandates ICE cars must have. They don’t need crumple zones, pedestrian friendly front ends(the pitiful look of the current pickups that can’t be used in rural areas till you spend $1100 on a RanchHand bumper/cowcatcher/brushguard. Even up to 2000 pickups had real bumpers, front and rear. All my old pickups would knock down 3-4 inch mesquite trees without causing any harm to pickup. Try that with a new one…..of any brand.

  24. Hey Eric, what took you so long – been wondering when you’d do your article on this thing every time I saw a beta hipster soy boy whos never been in a pickup talk about what a good idea this thing is on TV…..

    The one funny thing is everyone everywhere keeps quoting the headline range numbers…. without even once mentioning how much they’d drop if its towing something or carrying a load…. which is basically the whole point of a pickup!!! Imagine stopping for a couple hours ever few hours on a cross country trip towing something…. the Oregon trail would seem quick….

    • Hi Nasir,

      I’ve had the flu/something similar since last Thursday – and that has aggravated the lack of sleep from my screwed up shoulder. I apologize for the delay – and hope this one’s coherent!

      • eric, you most likely got sick from not sleeping/stress. The wife started that about a week ago. I take a 1,000 mg Vit C with zinc tablet every day. It’s made a difference in my constantly running fever from Shingles and MRSA(you can’t have one without the other as the old song goes). I started her on 2 a day of these and haven’t heard her mention it in a couple days and acts much better(well, acts like she feels better). This is certainly the time of year to take daily B complex, C, D3 and zinc. I can’t remember the brand(you can get it at Sam’s)that has the complete B vitamin complex in a liquid form a friend swears by.

        Plus it’s this time of year that even those who normally get plenty of D due to being outdoors get very little from being covered with clothes and even face masks. When it’s bad cold I wear a duck hunting cap that’s ancient but still sheds water and has earflaps along with a face mask and when the wind’s blowing hard(almost always)ski goggles too. No skin showing which helps those old frostbit places on my face.

        • Here in good ole Australia the disease of rickets is making a comeback due to the overuse of sunscreen, sunhats, and wearing winter clothing in heat waves over 5 deg C. The skin needs to be exposed to sunlight to make vitamin D. The melanoma rates remain the same.

          • I am sorry to hear that the diet of the average aussie does not contain enough vitamin D3 to prevent rickets, but that would also be insufficient to nourish a proper immune function as well. Melanoma prevention requires an immune system that receives more vitamin D3 than is required to prevent rickets. Unless ones skin is very fair, vitamin D3 production is very deficient. If you also want to prevent arteriosclerosis, you need to get enough vitamins A and K2 to prevent a sufficient amount of D3 from causing deposition of calcium to take place in your blood vessels. For reference, I daily take 5000IU of vitamin D3, 25,000IU of vitamin A, and 200mcg of vitamin K2 (as MK-7), and I do not have a detectable amount of plaque at 65.
            I’d highly recommend reading Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox: How a Little-Known Vitamin Could Save Your Life by Kate Rheaume-Bleue.

            • Even in west Texas I take D3. We’ve been locked in with fog and rain for days. Even if it were warm enough to be outside without a jacket, not much good can be had when there’s no sun shining and it’s dark during the day.

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