Wednesday, May 20. 2020
I spoke with one of my local pharmacists today. He was harried. I asked him what was up. He told me all four of his assistants had taken a leave from work, then got copies of their unemployment papers from the government.
They are all getting $1600/week from COVID unemployment, and he only pays them about $1000/week.
He is an immigrant from Russia. He was not happy with the situation. Stereotypically cranky Russian. Asked me "Where is the work ethic?" How did he even know about that old fashioned phrase?
Related: 68% Of Unemployed US Workers "Are Eligible For Payments That Are Greater Than Their Lost Earnings"
Tuesday, May 19. 2020
 Dating today
Their Happiness Hurt My Feelings
Vice: “White Supremacy Led To the Climate Crisis”
House Democrats Say Trump-Russia Obstruction Investigation ‘Ongoing’ – Could Result in New Articles of Impeachment!
How ‘collusion’ conspirators tried to oust President Trump
On Trump-Hatred
Gallup: Trump Approval Rating Higher Than Four of the Last Six Presidents, Including Bush and Obama
New York’s emergence as the epicenter of the coronavirus was far from inevitable.
Grandma Killer: Andrew Cuomo Murdered 5300 Elderly New Yorkers But He's a Hero Because He's a Liberal Psychopath
Wuhan Virus Watch: NYC Mayor de Blasio’s Memorial Day Threat – Fence Off Beaches, Pull Swimmers Out of Water
Social Distancing Is State-Mandated Humiliation. Change My Mind
China slaps an 80 per cent tariff on drought-affected Australian exporters starting TODAY as brutal punishment for push for COVID-19 inquiry
Monday, May 18. 2020
How and why they dealt with the pandemic - compared with California: Two coasts, one virus
Scott's podcast: "The time to be scared is over; the time to be smart begins."
He also suggests that nursing home COVID death numbers be separated from others. Makes sense to me.
Saturday, May 16. 2020
 Stanley Tucci's life in quarantine
Samuel Pepys: The first pandemic blogger
The ACLU’s Conversion to Wokeness
How Dov Fischer learned to hate
Sad story, but understandable. I do not hate yet, but I do get p-ed off often
Transcripts: Clinton Aides Allied With Fusion GPS Pair After Election -- to Re-Push Anti-Trump Dossier
Big Surprise!
Nevada's vote-by-mail primary stirs fraud concerns, as unclaimed ballots pile up: 'Something stinks here'
Duh
Some Bearish Market Forecasts
CNBC: Get Ready For New Trump EO To Force Essential-Drug Production In US
Good
Florida Man Wonders: Why Does Cuomo Get Better COVID-19 Press Than DeSantis, When Florida Has Done So Much Better?
Cuz "D"
Coronavirus job losses are hitting these states the hardest
What’s Next For Bat Soup Virus? A Massive Wave Of Bankruptcy Filings
Head Of NYC Hospital System Urged De Blasio To Follow Herd Immunity Strategy
DeB followed different experts. In hindsight, locking down NYC for 2 weeks might have been enough, and saved a lot of states a lot of trouble.
Coronavirus Isn't Nearly as Deadly as We Thought. So Why Did the Lockdowns Happen in the First Place?
Because of fear + lack of good data. Nobody's fault.
Gov. Cuomo extends New York City’s stay-at-home order until June 13
Another Headline about ‘More New Virus Cases!’ That Ignores the Increasing Number of Tests
Obviously - but not to reporters who know no stats
"According to a CNN poll released this week, nearly three-quarters of Democrats said the worst of the crisis is still ahead of us..."
Interesting...
Related: The Lockdown Class War
Related, Protests show two Americas — those who lost their jobs and those still getting paid. People don’t appreciate being condescended to and bossed around, especially when the leaders ask them for sacrifices without empathy and humility.
There really are two Americas here: Those still getting a paycheck from government, corporations or universities, and those who are unemployed, or seeing their small businesses suffer due to shutdowns. And the America still getting paid is, so far, not showing a whole lot of sympathy for the America that isn’t.
He tactfully does not include the comfortably retired among the paycheck population. Is this an optimist-pessimist thing, or a rich and poor thing? Or is it nothing?
Friday, May 15. 2020
In my neck of the woods, traffic is up, bars are re-opening as speakeasies, Home Depot is full of customers. In other words, people are fed up. Many states are "opening up," whatever that means, but people are doing it regardless. Some of it is necessity, some of it is a refusal to live in fear, and some of it is people realizing that much of this is pointless.
From my end, I am back in the office today, fishing this weekend, and getting together with friends on Sat. night. No masks - enough of that except for the supermarket which still requires them. Time's up for the extreme stuff.
What are our readers doing this weekend? Quarantining, Soft Quarantining, or doing your best to get back to normal work, recreational, and social life?
Good news, but I am waiting for NYC to reopen.
Many states are going to look foolish with their extreme measures. It has been extreme enough already.
Coyote chases Roadrunner
Georgia officials warn of 4-foot-long invasive lizards that eat 'anything they want'
Norway to excavate first Viking ship burial mound in 100 years
Getting Distance Learning Right - Once again, Success Academy leads the way.
Climate Change Experts Explain to Insurers They Don’t Understand Risk
Are Democrats Trying To Eliminate Proof Of Who You Are To Vote?
Flynn Was Never Charged With Perjury, But Now Could Be Facing Charges…of Perjury
The New York Times Surrendered to an Outrage Mob. Journalism Will Suffer For It.
Pediatrician: Closed Schools Could Be Harming Kids' Mental Health
Is Sweden's Herd Immunity Strategy the Best We Can Do?
36,000,000: America's Disastrous COVID Unemployment Crisis Deepens
The ‘Just Stay Home’ Message Will Backfire. We need less extreme and more nuanced recommendations for navigating life during the pandemic.
Los Angeles Will “Never Be Completely Open Until We Have a Cure.”
Why shutdowns are useless
Why Do Progressives Want To Keep The Economy Shut Down?
"Science shows" - which science is that?
World Health Organization doctor says coronavirus 'may never go away'
Powerline:
The conventionally posed choice between fighting the disease and salvaging our economy is entirely wrong. The choice is not disease vs. economy. The disease is here, and there is nothing governments can do to stop it. (They can, of course, close down access to nursing homes, a mixed blessing if you are elderly.) The real choice is between the disease with a flourishing economy, and the disease with a devastated economy. The disease is a constant.
Revisiting of Sokolow v. PLO gives hope to victims’ families. The case, Sokolow v. PLO, has its roots in the bloody years of the Second Intifada – a terror wave that killed more than a thousand Israelis and dozens of Americans.
Communist China Continues to Target American Creativity
Rolling Back Iran in Iraq
Thursday, May 14. 2020
One of my favorite people to listen to, or read, is Mike Rowe. Lots of good, common sense. I've not always agreed with him, but I'm sure plenty of people don't agree with me all the time. It's all fine, as long as we understand each other's point of view. I completely understand Mike's, and respect it even when I disagree.
Mike's podcast recently told the story of the Staplehurst Train Disaster, in which Charles Dickens played a prominent (and for a long time largely invisible) role. He spun from that to a discussion on safety, and covered his conceptualization of "Safety Third" as a means of managing risk.
On my earlier post today, someone commented safety should always be most important. Here, Mike explains why that's simply not true. There are always other considerations. Read the article or listen to the podcast. Both are excellent.
The Real Killer Is COVID-Lockdown-Driven Unemployment
Experts predict 70-90,000 sucides in the US due to economic disasters, crushed dreams. Hope that is not true, but I no longer believe anything, especially from experts. Wrong about everything thus far.
Related: The Subtle Tyranny Of The ‘Expert’ Class. Some believe our intellectual betters should be able to censor the internet. They don't know nearly as much as they think they do.
Mike "Mish" Shedlock provides a good review of the debate between what Sweden has done vs the rest of the world.
There are many reasons, all legitimately different from cultural and societal considerations, why Sweden would be successful with their approach. But that doesn't mean every culture is unable to utilize variations on it to make it work for them. He swung, and missed, on that point.
The primary discussion point is "what is a life worth?"
Whether you like it or not, and I'm just stating a fact, the idea of "one life saved is worth it" simply makes no sense whatsoever. Cuomo is very, very wrong about that...anyone who thinks that way falls short understanding of life.
There is a cost, or a value, to every life. It will vary based on relationships, love, and commonality. However, productivity of each life must also be considered. Losing a farmer and his family, so a farm that feeds 10,000 people goes abandoned, is far more damaging to society than losing the same number of people in a nursing home. Losing 20 doctors treating the virus is more damaging than losing 20 people who build apps. These are just simple facts of life. It's hard to swallow, and it's not something we want to consider, but it is very true.
Nobody wants to see anyone die, and as a country we've directed resources to saving as many as we can through pharma and academic research. In addition, we've implemented social distancing, masks, and a variety of other methods to reduce or limit spread.
In the meantime, we've learned it's not as contagious or deadly as we thought. That doesn't mean it couldn't mutate and become both. But it has not been as damaging as we were originally told, and we have developed more treatments for the symptoms - which, at this point, is the best we can do.
All of this adds up to one thing. Reopening is the only option. Nobody knows enough about the virus to categorically state when we will, or how we will, be 'safe'. But 'safety' is no longer the primary issue we should be considering. Whether we like it or not, we are far past that point. Now we're talking about simple long-term survival.
I like Mish's review. What he failed to do was connect the dots. Lack of knowledge about the virus and how it operates doesn't make us less 'safe'. But preventing us from earning a living, being productive, and living our lives as we see fit, does make us less safe. And less healthy.
How much of a lemming was President Trump? Or the state governors? All of them were, to one degree or another. Thus, we were plunged into the grandest of experiments in authoritarian paternalism, whereby we plebeians — i.e., those without government jobs — are deemed incompetent to judge if it's safe to take a dip in the ocean or a walk in the woods. We can, though, crowd into a Walmart or the local supermarket.
Los Angeles Headed To Lockdown … Forever?
California Universities Cancel ‘In Person’ Classes for Fall Semester 2020
To reopen, Washington state restaurants will have to keep log of customers to aid in contact tracing
Makes zero sense
As Lockdown Grows Political, Resistance Stirs in Rural Maine
Ace:
We've been told that we need to "flatten the curve" before we can reopen the country. We were told that we don't want to overwhelm our country's healthcare system.
But I think we've done this. In fact, many hospitals that have geared up for a covid-19 rush are nearly empty and are laying off staff.
But now, suddenly, it's different. Now we're being told that we can't reopen the country until we get widespread testing. And when you ask them how much is widespread, the response is always more than we have now.
Soon it will be we can't reopen the country until everybody gets tested.
Coming up:
We can't reopen the country until there are no new cases
We can't reopen the country until we have an infallible vaccine
We can't reopen the country until Luke Skywalker and his plucky band of rebels destroy the Death Star
We can't reopen the country until Marshall Dillon marries Miss Kitty
We can't reopen the country until Jerry Lewis releases his 'The Day the Clown Cried' movie to the public.
We can't reopen the country until the return of Halley's Comet.
We can't reopen the country until Arthur returns as the rightful king of England
But ultimately it all boils down to: We can't reopen the country until Joe Biden becomes President.
Wednesday, May 13. 2020
Scott expains (podcast) why Sen. Rand Paul, MD, is the only intelligent person in the federal government.
I agree. Scott: "Do you want the f-ing government to decide when you live or die?" Scott is aware the experts are flying in the dark.
Scott's main blind spot is that he has become a wealthy guy with no need to ever work, and seems to assume that everybody has the money to live comfortably for a year or two without income. That's wrong. Good disctinctions between the childrens' table and the adult table.
Tuesday, May 12. 2020
Sorry about that, but either the bug or governments' responses to it are messing up everybody's life in the US. May I ask one question: What happened to the "two weeks to flatten the curve" that was offered?
Let's return sanity to college admissions. Coronavirus pandemic gives us an opportunity.
Rutgers University prof: Reopening the country is about killing black people
Column: Americans are too afraid of risk. What we need in this pandemic is balance
Social Distancing' is Snake Oil, Not Science
Could help flatten the curve, maybe, but lengthen the pandemic
Should Patients With Mild Cases Isolate At Home?
Jacobson: The center did not hold under prolonged and arbitrary lockdowns, as predicted. We are at the inflection point I predicted two months ago would arrive in May. Reopening the economy is the only sustainable option.
Scientists Pushing The Goal Posts Further …Vaccine Needed Before Normal Returns
Don't hold your breath for that
Americans create new economic threat with their own savings
Steven Mnuchin: Reopening needed to avert 'permanent economic damage' to the public
Some permanent damage has already happened. Seen it.
Now Chinese Hackers Are Trying to Steal Coronavirus Research
Duh
Was there an emergency shutdown of the Wuhan lab in October?
Whistleblower Chinese all died. Sheesh.
Saturday, May 9. 2020
Former Obama Official Admits She Lied About Having Evidence of Russian Collusion
It was a coup attempt, wasn't it? But why? And, as Scott asks, what is the punishment for that?
Friday, May 8. 2020
Good guy, likeable, mostly sensible and non-ideological. City Journal Podcast interview
I do not agree with him about everything, but nobody agrees with me about everything.
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