Olly Olly Oxen Free

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

NOLOCSNEK

Come out, come out, wherever you are.

Tomorrow is what was known in the village as The Saturday of Hallelujah. Sunday is Easter. Passover night was between the eighth and the 9th.  Even though we’ll be pounded with snow this weekend, the year is turning to life and light.

And we’re stuck inside, the American economy in ruins, by the orders of our “betters” following those infallible computer models they’re so fond of. We’re subjected, every day, to more ridiculous, job-killing, wealth-destroying dictates from our lords and masters.

The latest insanity is that seeds aren’t essential, and nurseries and even the garden section of the local home improvement stores need to be closed.

Not ESSENTIAL in whose estimation?  Not essential by whose decision?  Nurseries, like many other small businesses live on a tight margin, and in this case are HIGHLY seasonal. They won’t be there next year, if they’re shut this year. Not that this matters, right? Because our betters know they’re “not essential.”

In a year when farmers are being hampered in planting (yes, I know the farmers are in the fields. DUH. If I had fields I also would be trying to save some embers from the blaze of ruin.  But farming isn’t the simple endeavor people like Bloomberg think it is. You don’t just poke seeds from last year into the ground, and voila, crop. That’s not how any of this works.  There are soil improvements that are needed, fertilizers, there are parts for machinery. Seeds need to be obtained and obtained in a timely manner. More importantly, planting and harvesting need to happen at regular times.  Oh, and your animals? They need fodder at regular times too. And if someone has decided fodder doesn’t need to be transported or isn’t essential…. well, hello losing most of your dairy herd.

Some of the stories already filtering out, despite the media doing their best to squelch them are that milk is being dumped for lack of a filter needed to sell the milk commercially.  Some of us have already seen milk getting really expensive/rationed in certain areas of the country.  And in California, produce are rotting in the fields.

Now, this being the soon to be independent (ah!) Glorious Bear Flag People’s Republic of California under Leader For Life Gary Noisome, that could be because they’re not letting farmers get to the fields.  Or it could be because our leftists and the press (BIRM) did such a great psy-ops campaign in their attempt to crash the economy so they could win the election (worked in 08) that they convinced a lot of illegal farm laborers they were all going to die if they stayed in the US.  They stoked the fire enough that Mexico closed their border for fear we’d come back and infect them. A situation — given the disparity of our medical systems — that by itself should have told people in the US how much bullshit was being piled on us. But it didn’t. And people read uncritically stories of Mexicans defending their border against Americans trying to escape there. (Rolls eyes.)  Guys, who in hell escapes to MEXICO?  I bet you anything those “Americans” were illegals repatriating. So, that might very well be why produce are rotting in the fields in California.  (And another failure of the internationalist open borders crowd who set unrealistic goals for minimum wage and other worker compensation, and then paid illegals almost nothing, while they kept natives in idleness on welfare.)

However, be that as it may, considering California is our main food producing region, such as it is, despite its best attempt to turn itself into a desert, that’s bad news.  But there are others: for decades now, a lot of our food has come from abroad.  How many of the vegetables in the store are stamped with “produce of Mexico”?  With the disruption of international trade caused by this insanity, things were always going to be tight.

So, what sense does it make for them to ban the sale of SEEDS as non-essential? In any sane society, they’d be looking at what’s coming down the pike and going “Plant a victory garden. Hell, we’ll give seeds and fertilizers to anyone who wants them and promises to plant a victory garden.  Any HOA preventing you from plowing your lawn under and planting food is working against the best interests of the country and their powers are suspended.” Because you know, winter will inevitably come. And this winter a lot of people, if they don’t outright starve, are going to come close enough to see it. Plus those of us with restricted dietary needs will either have to forget it, and know we’re shortening our lives or just starve. (So, diabetes or starvation, say. Yeah.)

So, why are they doing the other way?  Well, maybe they’re really really stupid and unable to think through third order effects. Which is possible. Or maybe they’re malevolent and trying to accomplish “green agenda” goals by other means.  How long have they wanted to drastically reduce population in the US?

In support of that later, there’s the fact they’re touting how great it is we’re “reducing emissions” and the fact they want to push the Green New Way of Starving Deal into any relief package passed. (BTW, no real reductions in carbon, as measured, because, well…. humans don’t contribute that much. Except maybe China, which is open for business again.)

There is also the fact that in the name of COVID-19 preparedness they emptied hospitals. Suddenly, things like heart surgery and cancer treatment are “elective.”  The hospitals, btw, sit empty, because Winnie the Flu hit well below even the bed occupancy at peak flu season (except for a couple of places.)  Which means….  Well, who was it who wanted to send granny home with an aspirin?  Mission accomplished.

The execrable Pope — great time to have an Argentinian Communist in power, people. Aren’t Communists excommunicated by the by — who ain’t too bright and has more trouble than his fellow leftists keeping his mouth shut, has already given the game away by saying the virus is Gaia’s revenge or some similar rot.  Somehow, yeah, China’s dereliction comes from “Global warming.” (Rolls eyes.)

And yesterday — rumor, or not? The source was highly credible — we got word that home improvement stores will be closing their garden section (I really, really , really didn’t want to spend 2k in everything I need for the summer work on the house) and that the only paint considered essential is contractors grade in grey or white.

Oh, hello socialism and command economy.  Since when do they get to tell us what types of paint are essential?  Also, who in heavens name doesn’t realize that closing that kind of production means you probably can’t restart it for years?  AND WHY?  Do other colors increase your chance of getting sick? Does the virus love pink?  WHAT SENSE DOES THIS MAKE?

None. Absolutely none.  This is all a cosplay cross between what was done to combat the flu in 1918 (most of which measures did nothing, btw) and a crazed attempt to recreat WWII rationing.  Only this virus is not nearly as lethal as the flu of 1918, (and importantly not to the same demographics) and there is no “war production” because there is no war to produce for.  Sure, okay, yeah, we need to bring a lot of stuff that used to be made in China back home. BUT that has bloody zero to do with restricting what paint can be made, particularly the COLORS.  I mean, yeah, I can see grey. We’re going to need to paint all those injectors to fight Winnie the Flu.

Has everyone gone utterly insane?

The disconnect between all these “urgent measures” (Attention Citizens!) and the actual “emergency” such as it is has become so mind boggling that there are crazed conspiracy theories criss crossing all over.  The most common is that this is SOMEHOW connected to 5G.  My favorite is that we’re all locked in the house because the Earth is going to be hit by an asteroid. There’s nothing we can do, and this will prevent panic. No, I don’t believe it, but holy hell, it’s more plausible than the stated reason.

Oh, but don’t worry, the President is starting a task force to reopen the economy.  I have two questions: Who is holding what over the president’s head to make him act like a moron who never ran a business?  and Will it be a five year plan?

The way to reopen the economy is to reopen it.  The way to reopen the economy is to get in front of the cameras and explain, “Yeah, infections are going to continue, and there will be a surge after we open up.  That’s because this was all designed to slow the rate of infections. Turns out we have way more medical capacity than we thought, and, sorry, we can’t save people from a virus. That’s not a legitimate function of government, unless it’s the type of virus that can be traced and contained. This one can’t. We’re taking measures not to do business with nations that will hide this type of outbreak in the future.  In the meantime, it’s going to hurt, though not as much as the highly manipulated numbers seem to show.  But we’re Americans and we’ve survived far worse. Hiding in your house for fear of a virus might be the most stupid thing we’ve ever done, dumber than sending American young men to die in WWI in a dispute that truly had nothing to do with us, but it’s time to end it. Go back to work tomorrow morning.”

That’s what the president should say, but he won’t. The political risk seems to him too high.  Partly because the loud mass media has silenced everyone else.

And the governors are having so much fun implementing socialism that they won’t. EVER. They’re sure you’ll love it, if you just get to try it. They finally see their opening to put their boots on your neck forever. I mean, normally if they said you couldn’t buy seeds, you’d hit the road, and go find your local organic co-op and buy them, right? If they said you couldn’t buy paint of a certain color, a million backyard paint mixing operations would start.  But ah, you need papers to travel, and hey, they convinced everyone you’ll die if you talk to a stranger or buy anything from them.  So now they can control you, reduce the population with an “unavoidable” famine due to the virus, get Americans used to bread lines, tell you where you can travel (such a carbon reduction) and what work is essential and what isn’t.  They can postpone your wedding (no more than ten people), make sure you have no babies (well, what are you going to feed them), deny you medical treatment, shame you when you complain.  And you’ll take it.

They’re wrong of course. You’ll take it for a time, but not forever. But they don’t get that.

Here’s the thing, though, the way things are RIGHT NOW, you can rebel now or rebel later.  You can rebel now, and go back to your life, or you can rebel later, when you’ll have to shoot anyone asking you for papers or keeping you from growing beans.

If you don’t assert your rights now, you’ll have to assert them in blood, when you’re starving and sick, cold and broken in winter, when the lights go out (we’ve already been having brownouts and blackouts) when your cars are not working, when getting factories back in a state to produce anything is almost impossible, when airplanes have been taken to “graveyards” in the desert forever, when your local hospital has shut its doors and has no money to reopen.

It’s time. It’s enough. If you let them they’ll pile on restrictions forever, and the “reopening plan” will cause more damage, because NO ONE CAN PLAN AN ECONOMY. Attempts to do it always end in poverty, misery and death.

And if you think I’m exaggerating this is the kind of innumerates we have trying to “plan” the economy.

This is the kind of power-addicted lunatics we have trying to CONTROL you and me:
curfew

This has nothing to do with controlling any virus. It has to do with power and control.
And every time — EVERY TIME — a nation locks down and imposes curfews, it’s never about what it says it is. It’s always about the rulers being afraid of the people.

As they should be. Because unless we massively disobey now, we’re going to have to kill them.  And a lot of innocents besides.  And blight our national wealth and life for GENERATIONS in the process.

It’s time to get back to work.  Start planning now. See what loopholes there are to allow you back to work.  Yes, I know, a lot of the stores and factories you work at will be closed.  The economy is very interlinked, which is why it can’t be planned.

It doesn’t matter. If your job no longer exists, if your boss won’t re-open the store, the factory, the restaurant, start looking around at needs.  All famines in the modern era have been failures of transportation, for instance, not of production.  Figure out which places have produce rotting in the field. For a fee, can you pick them? Drive them back? Can you arrange to sell them to friends and family, very loosely defined? (Hey, people on craigslist are part of this American family.)

I don’t know what you can do, because I’m not you.  And unlike our demented elites, I neither think I know what you can do, nor what you see in your area (physical and expertise.)

However I do know that following the American non-plan and getting to work doing what you can RIGHT NOW is the only thing that can save us.

Ignore the government at all levels. Yes, even the policemen trying to arrest you for playing ball with your kid. Point out to the idiots the courts are closed. Then point out to them you’re taking their name and badge number and bringing a lawsuit for violating your rights as soon as the courts reopen. “Orders are orders” didn’t work so well last time.

GO BACK TO WORK.  INVENT NEW WORK IF YOU HAVE TO.  Even if you were retired, find something you can do, some need you can fulfill.  GO work.
Yes, I will be writing, but I’m also trying to figure out what other needs there will be, and what I can do.  I have a new computer being built since three of mine died (yes, great time!) and once that’s up I’ll start putting books up.  I don’t know if that helps anyone, but I’ve been keeping myself sane with reading and audio books, and I can’t be alone.

After that, my abilities are limited, but I’m going to see what I can do.

Build under, build over, build around.  Ignore their plans. Their plans are not for our good.

The goal is to have everyone out of the house and doing the most productive thing they can by May 1st.

May First (Yes, I know, stealing the commies holiday is grand) is now National Hit the Streets Day.  If you can get out of the house and work, do so.  Open your shop, serve coffee on our front lawn, I don’t care. Be outside. Do something productive.  And if you can’t do something productive AT LEAST BE OUTSIDE.  Out in the street. Out in the park. Both of which are paid for by your taxes, btw.

May 1st, get out. Wear SOMETHING yellow (Hong Kong, the gillets jeunes, which though not like us also are fighting attempts at tyranny.) Snek optional.

Because we’re Americans. They govern by the consent of the governed. We don’t need their consent to exercise our natural rights.

They’re ACTING out this article, but it’s not OUR constitution (it’s Chapter 7, Article 39 of the constitution of the USSR.)
wrong constitution

This would be the only thing that would give them the right to do what they’re doing.  BUT IT IS NOT THE LAW OF THE LAND.

All they have on their side is force. But there’s way more of us than of them.

And they can’t arrest us all.

Start now. On Monday, go to work or plan how to go to work.

May first we’ll have obeyed our last “shelter in place” illegal proclamation. Olly olly Oxen Free. Come out, come out, wherever you are!

Make it go viral. The sort of viral they don’t like.

 

 

 

344 thoughts on “Olly Olly Oxen Free”

  2. I made a new FB-friend yesterday, ND Dem governor candidate. One of the more libertarian leaning pundits posted that she would issue a lockdown if she were governor. I commented that would likely leave her on shaky legal ground, and she asked back, “Why?” Because you can’t violate people’s rights simply because you declare some sort of ‘crisis’. One of the local radio talk-show hosts later read one of my posts on air when he was interviewing a local ‘constitutional lawyer’.

    1. You could also have replied, “Because we’re Americans and you don’t get to put the entire population into house arrest for any reason whatsoever. Or even individual citizens without a legal judgment against them.”

  3. As I said in the comments of the previous entry, we’ll be celebrating Palm Sunday in two days (Russian Orthodox) with an in-person service as usual, and Holy Week services on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night/Sunday morning. Should the authorities try to stop us, I can confidently state that they will fail.

  4. I’ve noticed the beginnings of rebellion here in east Tennessee. An ice-cream truck drove down the street a couple of days ago…yesterday a guy came around who was going door to door offering to spray around the windows and foundations for ants and other pests…

    I think it’s going to change soon, and pretty rapidly, as folks decide “enough of this, we’re going back to work!”

    2. Even here in NJ among Phil Murphy’s emotional breakdown things are beginning to move. there’s a lot more traffic and the lines at the stores are round the block.Some of that is down to Easter but not all. Even my wine mom sister is starting to notice the lack of piles of bodies.

      In other news, the news about Gangelt Germany’s WuFlu rates are starting to appear in English language sources. 37bp infection death rate, 15% infected. All the Acela crowd are fixated on the 15% without understanding what the implication of that is. Morons. Gangelt has 20% over 65 and about 10% 75. Closest US state is Florida so even the 37 bp is high.

      I’m still looking at Easter for this to break open. Florida first and NJ last since our governor is an adolescent girl with spots.

        1. OK. I still think our adolescent girl with spots will beat your Gauleiter with boots. We should make book

            1. You’re well out of it. I’m here till I retire then we’re gone. I mean, where else can you pay $15k per year in property tax for quite a modest house and then get locked up in it indefinitely by some adolescent angst spouting governor. Plus income tax. Last tax rise was fuel. We were told that we were privileged to have low fuel taxes, so they jacked them up to NY levels. With all that, the state’s broke.

              As I said, you’re well out of it and I can’t wait until I am too.

              1. If they raise taxes because they are broke,

                they do not understand why they are broke.

          3. Please – leave us not engage in debate over whose governor is worst! Based on reports thus far I don’t think either of your governors has reached the levels of the tyrants of Michigan and California.
            –

            1. I agree that the governor of Michigan has been the worst so far. Vermont isn’t far behind. What an idiot

              1. Oh, I’d say Kentucky is a contender….

                https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2020/04/11/kentuckys-dem-governor-reminds-citizens-about-the-punishment-that-awaits-if-their-license-plate-is-spotted-outside-easter-church-services-or-other-mass-gatherings/

                “Kentucky will record license plates of those who show up to any mass gatherings, such as church services, and will provide that info to local health departments, who will in turn order those individuals to be quarantined for 14 days, Gov. Andy Beshear says.”

                1. It appears somebody else has noticed Beshear’s attention. While the DOJ seems late tot he party it looks like a bonanza for Religious Liberty Litigation.

                  DOJ: ‘Expect Action’ to Protect Churches From Tyrannical Local ‘Social Distancing’ Orders
                  On Saturday, Department of Justice (DOJ) spokeswoman Kerri Kupec announced that Attorney General William Barr would take action to protect churches from tyrannical local government orders that destroy their religious freedom.

                  “During this sacred week for many Americans, AG Barr is monitoring govt regulation of religious services,” Kupec tweeted. “While social distancing policies are appropriate during this emergency, they must be applied evenhandedly & not single out religious orgs. Expect action from DOJ next week!”

                  [SNIP]

                  This statement follows a week of legal clashes as Democratic mayors have explicitly banned drive-in church services where parishioners remain apart in their cars with the windows up. Police in the city of Greenville, Miss., have slapped worshipers with $500 fines and mobbed a drive-in service, apparently aiming to prevent attendance.

                  “One of the police officers said the mayor wanted to make an example of our church,” Temple Baptist Church Pastor Arthur Scott, whose drive-in service was targeted by police handing out $500 fines on Wednesday … “Government is clearly overstepping its authority when it singles out churches for punishment, especially in a ridiculous fashion like this,” Ryan Taylor, director of the Center for Christian Ministries at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) said in a statement. ADF is representing Scott in a lawsuit against the leaders of Greenville. “In Greenville, you can be in your car at a drive-in restaurant, but you can’t be in your car at a d

                  On Thursday, police mobbed King James Bible Baptist Church, near Temple Baptist Church, just as Pastor Charles E. Hamilton Jr. was preparing for a service. Hamilton responded by preaching Romans 13, condemning a tyrannical government that does not exercise its God-given authority to punish evil, but rather punishes good. He also cited Acts 5:26-29, when Peter refuses a command to stop preaching the name of Jesus, saying, “We are to obey God rather than man.”

                  The religious freedom law firm First Liberty filed a lawsuit on Hamilton’s behalf.

                  First Liberty is also representing On Fire Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., which has also been hosting drive-in church services. Yet Louisville’s Democratic mayor, Greg Fischer, announced that he would ban such services. On Saturday, U.S. District Court Judge Justin Walker granted a temporary restraining order preventing Fischer from carrying out the order.

                  “On Holy Thursday, an American mayor criminalized the communal celebration of Easter. That sentence is one that this Court never expected to see outside the pages of a dystopian novel, or perhaps the pages of The Onion. But two days ago, citing the need for social distancing during the current pandemic, Louisville’s Mayor Greg Fischer ordered Christians not to attend Sunday services, even if they remained in their cars to worship – and even though it’s Easter,” the judge wrote.

                  [END EXCERPT]
                  –

              2. I don’t think this columnist is a fan of Gretchen, Governor of Mishigas:

                Gretchen Whitmer is not VP material
                Few vice presidential picks have been as consequential as Joe Biden’s surely will prove. If the de facto Democratic nominee does indeed win the presidency, he will be 78 years old on Inauguration Day, older than Ronald Reagan, the nation’s oldest president ever, was on his last day in office.

                [SNIP]

                Biden is in far closer a position to John McCain of 2008 than to Obama, and the temptation to pick a noteworthy running mate is obviously strong. If the effective blinders from the too woke world of the “very online” have provided any indication, it’s likely that Biden isn’t going to jump at that instinct. The Left loves Stacey Abrams, but it’s hard to imagine Biden betting his candidacy on a former state representative who not only failed to win her only statewide election, but also allied with his former foe, Mike Bloomberg.

                But there is a candidate that Biden is surely considering and one whom he absolutely ought not to. Tapping Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would likely cost his candidacy, and her handling of the coronavirus crisis has proven it.

                Just a year into the job, Whitmer’s tenure as governor has already been a categorical disaster. While campaigning, she promised to “fix the damn roads,” only to propose doing so, once in office, by tripling the gas tax. Her budget negotiations fell into chaos, and ultimately, she broke her road promise and passed a deal full of concessions.

                Now, Michigan has become a coronavirus hot spot, putting both Whitmer’s sheer incompetence and petty authoritarianism on full display.

                [SNIP]

                Republican governors such as Texas’s Greg Abbott have innovated by waiving laws forbidding alcohol delivery trucks from transporting groceries and allowing industries to repurpose their production, and even Democrats have embraced deregulatory measures. Newsom, for example, waived medical credentialing requirements so he can recruit medical students and retired professionals.

                Yet, somehow, Whitmer has simply leaned into her tyrannical streak. Now, Michiganders are banned from traveling in between their own residences, and grocery stores cannot sell “nonessential items,” including lifesaving car seats that are legally required for children under eight, and gardening supplies that would allow people to grow their own food.

                The state of Michigan is not Manhattan. It’s not even Los Angeles or San Francisco. Outside of its major cities, it’s a fairly spacious state with plenty of people capable of gardening on their own property or traveling to a vacation home by car without ever coming into remote contact with another human being. And yet, Whitmer is acting as if she’s governing Wuhan, China, itself. And still, the coronavirus is massacring her state as though it were an urban area that first got the coronavirus multiple months ago, not 30 days ago.

                There’s no question that Whitmer thinks herself vice-presidential material. The question is why anyone else would. …
                –

        3. Pfft! He’s an amateur.
          The long lists of Michigan Governor “Half” Whitmer’s prohibitions includes purchasing seeds for gardening (you’re allowed in the home improvement store, but seeds are verboten)! Needless to say, schools are closed for the year and you can’t travel to your vacation home and, and, and …

    3. The local c-store where I get my pop had all the official signs up . . . and none of the staff wore masks or gloves. They wore them earlier this week. I think the new rules are the bridge too far. (If we really do get rain/snow on Monday night and Tuesday, the elderly folks lined up outdoors for Senior Shopping on Tuesday AM because of the new limits on grocery store users are going to burn up the city phone lines.)

        1. The dude in the middle? That appears to be one of those fancy chief’s mess type bandannas, folded then tied on.

          Which is actually rather brilliant.

        2. *clicks on link*

          Oh, cool, hey does his name tag say DC man? That’d sure explain the mask but why is he–
          *notices there’s a magnifying glass, clicks*

          KA BOOM OH LOOK YOU CAN EXAMINE THE CREASES IN HIS JUMP SUIT!!!!

  5. > Snek optional.

    Oh, definitely snek. The nutters are now claiming the Gadsden Flag is a “hate symbol.”

    It was the flag of the American Revolution, predating Old Glory.

    They should take that as a warning.

    2. It didn’t used to be a “hate symbol,” but with their constant shrieking of imprecations against us they’re gradually turning it into one, along with all other traditional American iconic items. Symbols of our contempt for them and everything they stand for.

        1. Bought a Gadsden flag several years ago when I was in Boston. I have to get hubby to dig it out and hang it (it was a gift to him).

      1. Hope it’s a day early

        Listen my Children and you shall here
        Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere
        On the Eighteenth of April in seventy-five
        Hardly a man is now alive
        Who remembers that famous day and year

        Grammar school recitation. Once learned, never forgotten

        If this goes on I might ride out myself

        2. Ahh Longfellow’s poem, beautiful poetry but with history almost as lousy as Mr Zinn’s. Dawes and Revere set out from Boston. Mr. Dawes directly, Mr. Revere after getting the signal of the North church set up and crossing the river (rather dangerous as night crossings were forbidden by the British). Both had been alerting various folks and setting off a network of other riders that get folks colonial militias marching for Concord. Ultimately they got to Lexington to warn Adams (Sam) and Hancock that the Regulars are coming for them. There they meet Mr. Prescott (who it is thought to have been courting a young lady in Lexington that evening) and head for Concord. In modern day Lincoln they are stopped by a British patrol. All three run for it. Dawes is thrown by his horse, Revere is captured and questioned. Prescott being a local goes cross country jumps several fences and looses the British and finally delivers the message to Concord.

          1. Her in NY we stayed more or less loyal to our rightful king. It’s a great conversation to have with your kids, what side would we have been on. We would probably have been loyalists given we are RC and fairly bourgeois. the down with the king and no popery flags would have played and the whole Whig thing was right out

            1. Another part of NY loyal to Crown were the Five Tribes in particular the Mohawks. Tradition has a Mowhawk marrying into part of my fathers matrilineal ancestors in the early 19th century. That never made much sense to me as the Mohawks mostly fled after the Revolution as the chose the wrong side. I did look and in doing some genealogy, and there are French Canadian imports in that line, but as far back as I get (6 generations) that alleged female ancestor has as much solidity as that of Fauxcahontas (Sen Warren).

              1. I have ancestors who fought in the French Army at Savanah, outside that my mothers family were all British & British Indian Army, they’re half and half RC and Church of Ireland. My mother’s family was on both sides of all Ireland’s wars. My father’s crowd were all honest peasants and sailors. I do think it’s a good practice, much like the doubt sessions in RAH’s Space Cadet.

                The whole revolution thing was much less clear then than it appears now and who, after all, would follow the lead of a bunch of malcontents from Boston 😀

                1. BGE says “My mother’s family was on both sides of all Ireland’s wars.”
                  I know how you feel BGE I have, English, Welsh, Irish (South and North) and Scots in my ancestry (plus Swede, Dutch, French (via French Canadian) and whoever else strolled by apparently). I am surprised I don’t fight with myself :-).
                  As for Boston Malcontents there were also some from Virginia and Pennsylvania as well other colonies. But yes far less clear cut than I learned in 8th grade US history, although not the utter nonsense of Zinn and the 1619 project. Junior year high school AP US history added some of that shades of grey although not yet the America is evil that my daughters seem to get. In my case my High School history teacher having been part of the rescue of the Bulge in WWII give a slightly different flavor to things.

                  1. Well yes, Virginia. Overspent, went into debt, Troublemakers the lot of them, and don’t start me on the Quakers.

                    Number 2 son used Zinn in AP US History. It was a very good lesson for him on how to live in a fascist country since Zinn was what the rubric required so Zinn is what they got. The tragedy is that’s what our best students get and it’s often the last thing they get. What he told me is it’s very easy to see where they are being lied to and a good lesson in not believing what you read, but he is, as all my family is, Odd.

                    1619 might have been a step too far even for them.

                    1. BGE at some level it is good your #2 son knows how to dissemble. But it is sad that we have to learn how to do that. Learning to lie reflexively does evil things to your conscience over time. Part of me wonders if it was ever thus that if you weren’t of the herd it was best to moo (no offense Orvan) or Baa along even if you really were a pangolin.

                    3. What we told all our children was to evaluate who they were talking to. All three of them are following academic careers, at least for now. While all of their professors are lefties, not all of their professors are a—holes. If the professor is honest and trying to be a teacher then tell them what you think, if they’re dishonest and you need what they have, tell them what they want to hear. if they’re dishonest and you don’t need what they have, avoid them.

                      I do think that it’s ever been thus and it can eat your conscience. I think the question is does one owe this dishonest person the truth if telling them the truth is costly to oneself? Casuistry, yes, but I was a Jesuit boy for a while. Others may think differently.

                      I admire people who don’t compromise their integrity, from a distance. I have a line that I will not cross, there are things that I will not do, and compromises I will not make. Outside of that. I do the best I can in a fallen world and hope that God doesn’t judge me too harshly for it.

                    4. Our Daughtorial Unit was home-schooled grades 6 through 12, History being largely self-directed reading and discussion with teachers. When she reached college she claimed as much credit as possible through CLEP (College-Level Examination Program) Exams. When she took any of the “Social Studies” curricula she expedited excellent scores through the expedient of selecting the most politically correct answer and disregarding the actual right answers.

                      Classroom engagements with teachers provided a greater challenge, especially when one Anthropology professor initiated expulsion proceedings for the crime of introducing FCN (Facts Contrary to the Narrative) into the classroom. Defense arguments pointed out that she was coming to that class from a Culture of Science (Biochemistry) and accustomed to supporting arguments with data — thus the problems were due to cultural differences and needs must be forgiven.

                      She was allowed to withdraw from the class without penalty (beyond time wasted, a fair payment for lessons learned.)
                      –

                    5. I used to admire people who wouldn’t compromise from a distance.
                      Then they pushed the line I couldn’t cross, and i came out of the closet with a bang.

              2. Not sure what records you’d have been using so you might have already corrected for this, but a known issue is folks not wanting to cause waves– basic example, “French trappers” whose grandfather was from France, no other branch has crossed the ocean in generations. Or the family friend who is of Cherokee ancestry, dad even has the paperwork to prove it…he could also play Dumas in a TV show, very easily, though he might need some hair relaxer.

                Folks got upset about the stupidest things, at least from this POV; for example, I can’t remember what county the actually-first-generation-Irish lady my grandmother was buddies with was from, but everybody said it was county Cork, even though it wasn’t, and that was very important.

                I’ve already complained about the cousin who insists that my grandmother’s name was changed because one document, that got everybody else’s name wrong, listed her under a different name. *facepalm* Give her a chance, and all the records would be “updated” to show this; then give it a generation or two….

                1. Big chunks of mother’s family are listed in the stud books and the family has lived in the same house for a long time. My father used to say he brought hybrid vigor to it because my mother didn’t have so much a family tree as a family stick. Too many cousins marrying cousins.

                  My father’s crowd was different. His mother always though her father’s crowd were French Canadian, and it’s listed that way on several of the documents. Turned out they were English, came over with the army. Oh well.

                  1. We’re cousins. That was mom’s family.
                    Dad’s family married as exotic as possible, and most of them left the country. I MIGHT take after that side.

                    1. Could be, a bunch of them ran around in the wine trade and in the Army though that was a bit south as I remember it. There were some in the Spanish Army and I think I have one who was a Portuguese general. Lot of Irish were back In the 18th Century.

                      My kids find it hilarious that my cousins in this country and I know precisely how we’re related to one another. We’re second cousins mostly. This mattered because of the canon law impediments to marriage and how expensive the dispensation would be. Our parents were always matching us up to fix some land feud back in Ireland. Americans have no idea what it’s like to live in a genuinely rural, largely feudal society. Mostly gone now.

                      Father’s crowd were sailors mostly. Most Irish trade was to Portugal and Spain rather than North because that’s the way the winds went. Later it was the China trade and moving fertilizer back from Chile.

                  2. Virini: “When you trim your family tree down to a family bush, you just can’t hide as much under it.”

                2. Yeah all sorts of nonsense in various parts of the family trees. Paternal Great Grandfathers given name was Kiernan. You should see the ways that gets mangled in the records from mid/late 19th century. Other fun is on matrilineal side in 17th and 18th century. They’re ALL from the same 2 or 3 towns with the same 1/2 dozen last names. One very prominent one is Kelsey
                  (https://www.thekelseykindred.org/ ) Several times 2nd cousins both with the last name Kelsey intermarry. There is at least one marriage that is first cousins (Though NOT both named Kelsey). Also limited Female names to add to the confusion (and odd ones seem to repeat a lot Hepzibah, Mehitable (several spellings) ) It makes figuring out who is who like trying to sort out a Russian novel…
                  One fun thing is my Brother in Law’s last name is a variant spelling of Kelsey. Happens to be he is like a 7th or 8th cousin. So my nephew and nieces are also cousins to me and cousins 2 ways to my daughters.

              3. “Another part of NY loyal to Crown were the Five Tribes in particular the Mohawks. ”

                Which is why Washington decided that earning the title of “Town Burner” was a necessary thing. Now, of course, he’s just another Genocidal White Male.

                1. Yeah my understanding of the Mohawks is their relationship to the Five Nations was roughly analogous to the Spartans relationship to the Greek city states. Also they were a very warrior oriented group. If they were a 1/10th as nasty as the Spartans I suspect Washington had little choice.

    6. I’m going to get myself a yellow Bison hat next week, all of mine are green. Might have to order a Gadsden flag as well now.

    7. They started that with the tea party.

      You see surprisingly many of them here in NJ, you also see more NRA stickers here than you might expect. I have the sticker and the flag.

      1. They are GOOD people, don’cha know, so any hate must be coming from the folks opposing their efforts to make life better for everybody. Must be. Like the tools of Antifa their response to us is our fault.

        But don’t worry, they will bring the American People together, even if they have to (ever so regretfully) eliminate those few who refuse to relinquish their hatred — something they will never forgive.
        –

    8. Clearly the Nutters are nutters. The first US Naval Jack was a snake across a field of 13 red and white stripes with the motto “Don’t Tread on Me” very similar to the Gadsden.
      (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Navy_Jack) It was in use again 9/11/2002 until June last year. It still flies on the U.S.S Constitution, I can sometimes see if flying in the distance there if I’m later for work.

        1. I think legalistically what you have there is a 1st Naval Jack. The traditional Gadsden is a coiled rattler on grass on a yellow field (No I have no clue what the proper wording is I’m a software engineer not a vexillologist darn it). The Naval Jack seems to be a mix of Gadsden’s flag (its motto) with the stretched out snake (though still clearly a rattler) combined with Ben Fraklin’s political cartoon Join or Die (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Join,_or_Die). The snake in Join or die is NOT a rattler. Just goes to show people have been stealing (pardon me borrowing) art and thoughts for a long time.

          1. The rattlesnake motif was fairly common at the time, it appears in many cartoons and broadsheets. Evidently, the rattle has 13 layers.

      2. It still flies on my uniform shoulder, too, even though they’re pushing unit patches. I have a unit ballcap. I will not comply with attempts to erase my heritage and history.

    10. If I’m not mistaken the Gadsden is now required wear on the Navy’s new camouflage uniform. Those racist Squids! 😉

  6. And people read uncritically stories of Mexicans defending their border against Americans trying to escape there. (Rolls eyes.) Guys, who in hell escapes to MEXICO? I bet you anything those “Americans” were illegals repatriating.

    Oooh, ooh! I’ve actually got a cousin who is down across the border from San Diego, has been for weeks, now.

    But he’s being a self-destructive idiot in a plausibly deniable way, and entered legally, etc.

    I just thought it was darkly funny to share.

      1. We all do. My son seems to take what he’s being fed by the MSM at face value, although I’ve been pushing contradictions at him as I find them. I don’t know if it’s convincing him, but I’m trying to get him to question the numbers he’s seeing. On the other hand, one of my sisters is a wild-eyed, foaming-at-the-mouth leftist who you can’t talk with about anything vaguely political. She’s reasonably normal until you get to anything that questions what gets preached to her on MSNBC. So the rest of the family just avoid talking about any of that around her.

        1. I dunno, the distribution seems to be pretty even across income levels here. The rich, who think they’ll move up to entitled nobility, the middle class, who simply accepted their indoctrination at school and don’t think about it, and the poor, who hate the idea someone else might be better off than they are.

          The Left’s starting base was the poor, then the “working class” via unions and public school, then the intelligentsia via the colleges.

          1. We were Union. Hubby was his entire “career. Is a one employer Union. Required to join (when still legal), and they had to vote you in, or you didn’t have a job. Don’t know what would get you not voted in, but it was the bylaw of the union. 279 members at highest. Now runs 40 to 60 depending on jobs available. OTOH we despised most other Unions and made fun of them, regularly. Difference? Union Officers, although voted in, had to be working at the job, didn’t get paid for being a officer. Not. A. Single. One. Union paid for days lost work if they had to take time off without pay to do union business, plus any expenses incurred, that is it.

            Unfortunately they had to become an affiliate of the Carpenter & Joiner’s larger union because of the single employer pension plan legal changes. At the time that larger union was the least objectionable to the remaining members.

  7. Probably should point out that the article you linked to is from the Babylon Bee, a parody site.

      2. The New Rules:

        Sounds insane?

        Is it the NYTimes or WaPo? It’s fake news.
        Is it the Bee? If it hasn’t happened, it’s probably about to.

    2. Wrong link, actually. GO LOOK NOW.
      That link was the last I did at insty this morning, and my brower held it. I need to be more careful.
      The link I meant to put up is from Business insider, and means they have NO CLUE how money works.

      1. Not surprised Business Insider went stupid. Even Elle Decor recently had a cover proclaiming: “The Future of Design Is Female”.

      2. What? You go to the right schools, you make the right connections, you support the Narrative, money happens.

        Specifically, their view of “money” is so abstract there’s no connection between “work” and “money.” That’s peasant thinking with no place in modern banking.

        2. Worse, there is no understanding that money is not wealth or, perhaps worse, that wealth is not money and that income is not wealth. Every time you hear them talk about taxing the rich they seem to think:

          1. Being a millionaire means $1,000,000+/annum income

          or

          2. Being a millionaire means have 1,000,000 $1 bills or other money (anything that qualifies as M0, M1, or M2 at most) that is just readily available and liquid.

          They don’t get that requiring conversion of x% of that wealth will decrease the wealth sharply just due to mass liquidation of assets driving the value of those assets down.

          And at the same time they don’t realize that even if the government replaces the money every person not working would have received the wealth that would have been created by them working, the economic output, is just not there.

          Much less do they realize some of it can never exist now and even that which can be made up, say by working double shifts, will cost more to make.

      3. Speaking of Insty – what’s going on with the site right now? Whenever I try to connect to it, I get a “Database not found” error. It’s been doing that since the start of the week.

          2. I cleared my cache after reading FlyingMike’s post. No luck. The exact message is “Error establishing a database connection”. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that particular message on the internet before this week.

            1. Since I brought it up, I thought I’d note that the site is finally coming up for me now.

    3. The big problem with the Bee is that parodying the left is becoming nigh unto impossible, as anything you can say about them will probably become accurate within the week if it isn’t already. As the Instapundit calls it, “America’s new Paper of Record.”

      2. The Bee will have a tough time topping this one: “The howling: Americans let it out from depths of pandemic”

        “From California to Colorado to Georgia and upstate New York, Americans are taking a moment each night at 8 p.m. to howl in a quickly spreading ritual that has become a wrenching response of a society cut off from one another by the coronavirus pandemic.

        They howl to thank the nation’s health care workers and first responders for their selfless sacrifices, much like the balcony applause and singing in Italy and Spain. Others do it to reduce their pain, isolation and frustration. Some have other reasons, such as to show support for the homeless.

        In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis has encouraged residents to participate. Children who miss their classmates and backyard dogs join in, their own yowls punctuated by the occasional fireworks, horn blowing and bell ringing.”

  9. The trouble with wearing yellow is here, people will assume you’re following the mayor’s orders about supporting “first responders.” [ICU nurses are great people, but are not first responders.] She’s going a bit overboard, but in her defense (as a person, not as an official), she has developed a medical condition that means she is severely immune suppressed, and anything could lead to very serious problems for her.

    1. > first responder

      After being on the scene at a particularly nasty wreck about ten years ago, I realized that a first aid course might be a good idea.

      There used to be several organizations that had first aid courses… what I found out was, they’re practically nonexistent now, at least in my area. You have the Red Cross, which is pretty much limited to CPR and their jump box, or “wait for 911.” I’d just been at a crash site with no cellular service and no land lones; I had to stand in the road, flag cars down, and ask them to call for help when they got to some place with phone service. It took about an hour for a fire truck to arrive; pretty good, considering how far it had to come from. But city people are so used to pervasive cellular service and 911 response times in the single-digit minutes that their minds can’t wrap around “ain’t no 9-1-1.”

      Balked at the Red Cross, BSA, local hospitals, fire department, and police department (most of whom expressed shock at the potential legal liability for teaching first aid…) I found an old USAF combat aid manual. It came down to, basically, “if they’re squirting blood, stop it. If it’s a sucking chest wound, seal it with something. If they can’t breathe, try to clear the airway. Otherwise, sucks to be them, but they’ll probably live until the medical corpsman can get there.”

      Well, that sounded reasonable. I worked out various scenarios, assembled a small package of potentially useful items for the tailbag, and mentioned it on a couple of forums, where a number of people were outraged that a “non-professional” or someone “without proper training” might touch them if they were bleeding out by the side of the road.

      Yeah, whatever. They can just lay there and die, then. Gorons.

      1. Yup. You need to honor the wishes of the perpetually outraged and let them bleed out rather than be touched by some “non-professional” like you or me. For the good of the order, you know…

      2. So, legal liability as analyzed by judges and lawyers, concerns about ‘non-professionals’ and ‘not properly trained’ no doubt exacerbated by information provided by teachers and journalists.

        Guess who don’t have the training and experience to understand the systemic effects of the recommendations they make?

        1. After an egregious lawsuit back in the… I think it was 1970s, my legislature enacted the “Good Samaritan Act”, protecting citizens who provide assistance during emergencies.

          The trigger event was when a bystander dragged someone out of a burning car, who promptly sued them for exacerbating the back injuries they had sustained during the crash.

          Here in hillbilly-land, that sort of thing is considered ne kulturny and ungrateful.

          But hey, if they tell me they don’t want to be saved, I’m cool with just standing back and figuring out how to use my phone to video their death agonies for YouTube. I’m not exactly a fount of human kindness, and it takes very little to flip that to “got better things to do.”

          1. Some years back I was just too late to stop a person being dragged out of a non-burning car. Found out later from the EMT that responded (and was teaching my CPR class) that she was paralyzed by that good Samaritan. That is the problem with the Good Samaritan laws, they do not account for utter incompetents that mean well.

      3. …their minds can’t wrap around “ain’t no 9-1-1.”

        I’ve been in places where one does NOT let someone “wait for the next car” because, Brother, you ARE the ‘next car’. And they got damn lucky you happened by. There ARE places that redefine LONELY. Once upon a time I was traveling through a blizzard in backwood North Dakota. A simple lit Christmas treeing outside, far from the house, was wonderful spirit-lifter: You. Are. Not. Completely. Alone. Yes, even then it would have been a MIGHTY NASTY* walk from highway to house…. BUT.. there WAS a house!

        * Closest I ever got to frostbit was refueling some mile earlier, sheltered from most of the DAMNWIND. Wind I can deal with. This was, indeed, DAMNWIND. There IS a difference.

        1. I was on I-40 once, rolling through western Oklahoma on the bike, and realized that I was on a major interstate highway, and there were no vehicles – not even anything alive (not counting plants) – for 360 degrees, all the way to the horizon. Not even birds. Just strips of empty road in both directions until they faded out in the haze.

          I’m sure it’s not all *that* unusual even given I-40’s heavy traffic, but it was a first for me, and a very strange “Vanishing Point” moment. (or, perhaps something out of KW Jeter’s “The Glass Hammer”)

          1. Head farther west through Cimarron County, OK. Talk about miles and miles. US 54 in eastern NM is another one. Or the road from Logan through Mosquero. Beautiful country, but mighty lonely in winter.

            1. I’ve mentioned OR/NV 140 from Lakeview OR to north of Winnemucca. I’ve been on that stretch two round trips, and the cell service is nonexistent for probably 100 miles. When it looked like I might have to go back to see Mom in the Midwest, I played tape of the route and wrote it off from October through the end of March, and only viable near those dates if the traffic cam at the OR border looked OK. I’ve seen maybe 5-10 cars going the other way, this in a couple of Aprils.

              It’s not really an option to go back anymore for multiple reasons, but I’m glad that road isn’t on the likely list anymore. Nevada touts US 50 as the loneliest one in America–I’ve seen it and the competition. There’s worse.

              OTOH, one of the local souses managed to get her car stuck one winter, maybe 2 miles from a house if she walked the right way. She didn’t. That road takes a big bite out of a drunkard or two every so often. On the gripping hand, family history says a G,G, [not sure how many] Grandfather fell off the farm wagon after an evening of drinking. The horse made it home and they found his body in a snowbank the next morning.

          2. Happened to me driving south to Monument Valley a couple years ago – driving along, I realized that the cool mesas off in the distance and my car were all that was in sight save sagebrush. And the most amazing purple-tinged sky I’ve ever seen. I even pulled off and got out to try and see if that color would show up in a photo – kinda – and still not one other vehicle in sight until I was done and getting back in the car.

          3. Mine was the overnight run through the Mojave from Barstow to Bakersfield to get to the 2002 Worldcon in San Jose, California (back in the days when Worldcon was still the Big Con, and actually worth going to, and the Hugo still meant something). Completely dark, almost no traffic beyond the very occasional truck, and no evidence of human habitation except the tiny blue lights in one area that looked like faerie lights (and turned out to be the warning lights on a wind farm when we made the return passage in early morning after an overnight in Bakersfield). Even the entrance to Edwards AFB was quiet, and the town of Mojave looked like a ghost town.

            Will probably never make that trip again, for the simple reason that the economics don’t work any more. We skipped the 2018 Worldcon in San Jose because, even with free crash space from my youngest brother, the booth costs, gas, and hotels en route would far exceed what we could expect to make. We went to the first Michigan Comic Con in Detroit instead, and actually made more than we had at Tampa Bay Comic Con two weeks earlier. I’ve looked into some of the California anime and comic cons, but their booth costs are just too high for us to have a reasonable expectation of making money.

          4. I-20 through West Texas. Four hundred miles of flat, dead, empty, windy, dusty NUTTIN’. There was one place where the highway curved about 15 degrees to the left, and signs announcing the curve for MILES before you got to it. It’s like they had one curve in the entire county, they were unbearably proud of it, and didn’t want anybody to miss it.

            Counties in Texas are bigger than states in the Northeast, and bigger than some European countries.
            ———————————
            If you wind up in charge in a crisis, you have to either Do, or Delegate. If you do neither, you are Dithering, which is useless, and leads inevitably to the fourth D, Dying.

      4. One of the times I was between jobs I signed up for “First Aid for First Responders” at the local JC. I was the Old Guy, and the rest of the class was about evenly split between future firefighters (locally they all have to be paramedics when applying) and future RNs (local public college nursing program admits on a lottery, so they were waiting to win a slot to start).

        I ended up with about ten Red Cross certification cards and a lot of interesting knowledge.

        Best new thing: All-compressions CPR. No counting, no breaths, Just keep pumping.
        Easiest card: AED (Automatic External Defibrillator) certification card. Steps for running an AED: 1) Turn on the AED. 2) Do what the voice prompts tell you to do.
        Best mental memory aid mantra: “Scene safe; PPE.”

        Never had to use the skills yet, hopefully never do, but definitely worth doing.

        1. Never had formal training in so much of that. Even so, what I’ve “picked up” here and there, I hope I NEVER *have* to use. (So many friends/relatives who have or had medical jobs/etc… The Big Two Lessons: 1) Drink OR Drive – NEVER both. There lies stories you do NOT wish star in. 2) Wear the seatbelt/helmet. You might just barely survive, but SURVIVE. Oh, you look silly in seatbelt/helmet? Like a casket will be SO much cooler.)

        2. I might follow up on the CPR thing. I had a cert long ago, but after herpes and AIDS and epidemic hepatitis, I decided that other than for family or *very* close friends, I wasn’t willing to take the risk.

        3. For work we have to do CPR/ Auto-defib. We actually have a “baby” auto-defib as well as the usual ones, because some of the smaller students really are small.

      5. BSA requires three people to be certified in “When Help Is Delayed” & “Wilderness First Aid” annually. Originally only required for High Adventure, has morphed into anything that takes pack/troop/crew out of first responder range whether cell phone coverage is present or not; no cell coverage is considered out of range, even if you are within 5 miles of a station (possible locally).

        It was strongly recommended, required for Philmont crew in ’03, which is when son & husband went. All the leaders of son’s crew, & their son’s, which included hubby & son, plus me, took the coarse that spring. Hubby & I took something similar in ’78 when working for the USFS. At the time it was put on by the Red Cross certified instructors. Anymore I know of Troops & Crews that just have the entire unit, adults & youth, take the coarse. Logistics of making sure outings have the required number of required certified people present is a PIA. They do the same for youth protection required training.

        Oregon also has the good sanitarian law. But instructors still recommended that if the person was conscious it was polite to ask if they need help, if they were willing to let you help them, if you had a chance (car on fire, or other immediate danger, comes under “don’t have a chance, ask afterwards”). If unconscious they don’t get a say.

        1. When I worked rural fire and ambulance a couple years in the Aughts, they made it clear that the Good Samaritan Law did *not* apply to first responders. The situation was rather crufty (one of the reasons I didn’t stay long), but the Fire people usually had CPR training, while the EMS people were Basic or Intermediate. The ‘bus service dropped below critical staffing levels (fire people were not welcome to train for EMS because Shut Up) and closed its doors.

          I heard the nearest fire district was going to try to get a measure on the ballot to annex our area, currently without official fire service. I was sick as a dog when they held the meeting, and haven’t heard if anything happened before Loc Snek. Haven’t heard anything about ambulance; I suspect one or two of the “responsible” people need to leave the area before anything restarts.

          Klamath Falls has a combined Fire/EMS service, with an entry grade Firefighter needing an Intermediate EMS cert to get hired. The rurals usually separate fire and EMS into two entities. (The sole exception is near the junction of three highways, two of which have high traffic. They have a decent tax base and staff who search and apply for grants.)

      6. You might try and find a Wilderness First Responder course. They’re a little pricey, but built around the idea you’re not in a position to wait for “professionals.”

        If the lawyers and the techocrats get their way First Responders will end up looking like this:

        2. Unlike Democrats, Dolores has always been rather honest about what she wants to do. Democrats are only honest about what they want to do when they let the masks slip off.

      7. I’ve been told that the Red Cross Wilderness First Course is more like an actual first course than what passes for one these days.

        You might check to see if there is any Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training/teams available in your area. Here they are mostly run by Fire Departments with some teams sponsored by PD or EMAs.

        They teach actual First Aid in a disaster situation (including CPR and AED usage), as well as basic fire fighting (as in when/how to use an extinguisher and when to just run like hell) and light Search and Rescue. Classroom training with practical practice and a disaster exercise for graduation. Built on the concept that in a major disaster the First Responders are going to be over tasked and members of the community can organize and help out their neighborhoods and then move out as required. I thin realists in the emergency response community realized that such spontaneous organization was going to happen anyway (at least in most of America) so they might was well be trained.

        If you can’t find a local class, check with your State EMA. The course materials are online at: https://www.ready.gov/cert

        1. Oh, and if you get into training class (at least around here) you also get a (free to you) CERT kit with PPE (helmet, masks, gloves) basic gas shutoff tool, and first aid supplies. (The FD that sponsors my team supplements the bags with additional first aid supplies including CAT tourniquets .) You can buy the kits online but my advice would to be to look at what the online kits contain and build your own from local outdoor/hardware etc. stores if one is not issued to you. Mine is somewhat non-standard. (Why yes, that is an aircrew survival vest, why do you ask?)

        2. Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training/teams.

          They teach actual First Aid in a disaster situation (including CPR and AED usage), as well as basic fire fighting (as in when/how to use an extinguisher and when to just run like hell) and light Search and Rescue. Classroom training with practical practice and a disaster exercise for graduation.

          –
          Essentially what the BSA Wilderness First Aid is. Only they are adding in tailored exercises to wilderness backpacking situations.

          Why is WFA important?

          WFA prepares participants to identify and address medical issues that can arise in the backcountry.

          WFA courses contain substantial medical information and teach skills to respond to medical emergencies in the wild. WFA training can and has enabled Scouts and Scouters to provide assessment and treatment miles from advanced care.

          Treatment skills are important, but so is educating Scouts and adult leaders to recognize illnesses early and minimize the potential for injury. WFA skills can save lives.

          Finally, we depend upon emergency services in urban areas. In the event of catastrophes, these services may be strained. WFA knowledge can be lifesaving during hurricanes, floods, fires, or mass casualty events as well.

          “When an emergency occurs in the wild, the goal must be to provide the greatest good for the greatest number in the shortest time, and do no harm in the process.”

          –
          Local council got volunteer scouters instructor qualified … and/or they got scouters who were already instructor qualified … to provide regular classes through the council (for a fee). Because it was a PIA to get the class.

    3. I have first aid training, current CPR certification, routinely carry a knife with seat belt cutter and glass breaker, go hyperfocused in a crisis and freak out later (peritrauma, which makes you more vulnerable to PTSD oddly), and am a veteran.

      Oh, and I know who is there now needs to respond because when seconds count the police are minutes away.

      By any reasonable definition, I am a first responder.

      1. Exactly. I’ve always objected to the term “first responder” referring to the police and fire departments. The true first responders are those immediately on the scene, passersby, neighbors, etc. It behooves all of us to get some training in first aid and CPR so we can be capable first responders at need.

        2. MIL life was saved from a medical event because FIL called the neighbor, then called 911. It was 45 minutes before the EMTs got to the scene. Neighbor was a retired school nurse. They performed CPR & assisted breathing on MIL for 1/2 an hour before emergency showed up. This was ’87. Emergency services aren’t any closer now, than they were then, although La Pine has more services now than they did then. House is between there & Sun River. But even if there was a rig sitting at hwy 97 junction, it just takes time to get down the road & through the winding gravel roads that make up the development.

          1. I suspect a lot of the ranchers and farmers out here are well versed in self-first-aid. Like the old gent who showed up in the ER with a fence-post wired to his leg. He’d broken it that morning, used the post as a splint, finished the fence repair, then drove 90 minutes to town. Priorities and all that. 🙂

      2. There’s a word for that? Oh, good, I can search it.

        Well, a lot of neural advantages in the moment are basically a tradeoff in processing power. And later on, you’re tired as well as getting brain freakout. Also, an increase in analysis and memory processing at the time bad things are happening means that PTSD has more imagery and thoughts to draw upon. So yeah, I can see that.

        1. Actually a lot of the peritraumatic reaction papers are talking about every way that people react abnormally at the time or around the time of a crisis event. So they call thinking clearly at the crisis “peritraumatic dissociation,” but they also call freaking out and being unable to move or think “peritraumatic dissociation.” And if you have trouble sleeping or fear dying in the next day or so, that’s also “peritraumatic behavior.”

          I think this might be a tad broad of classification.

          Anyway, several of the studies seem to be, “People who feel bad and have trouble sleeping after a trauma are more likely to have PTSD after a trauma.”

          Which kinda boils down to “People who are deeply bothered now are more likely to be deeply bothered later.”

          (I think there are probably some useful papers, and then there are a lot of papers that are just jumping on a bandwagon topic, possibly to fill their publish-or-perish quota.)

        2. My understanding is it often (mostly?) results from training to handle stressful situations. The reason it makes you susceptable to PTSD is the shutdown to act during trauma can prevent processing the trauma period if things go just right.

    4. “she is severely immune suppressed, and anything could lead to very serious problems for her.”

      Her fragility does not justify garbing everyone in bubble wrap..

      OTOH, from the Friday WSJ:
      Haywire Immune Response Eyed in Coronavirus Deaths, Treatment
      An immune system gone haywire may be doing more damage than the coronavirus itself in patients with the severest forms of Covid-19, doctors and scientists say, a growing theory that could point the way to potential treatments.
      –

        1. I’ve heard a possibility that sickle cell anemia may be a factor. That is, blacks may actually be harder hit.

          1. Ach, I hope not. Occasional Cortex would get even more crazy eyed behind her cosmetic-only glasses and screech even more about the damn virus being racist.~_~

            (Not making light of the effects this would have on sickle-cell sufferers if true; the more annoying side effect just occurred to me.)

            1. There have already been complaints “it’s hitting the blacks!” A biological cause would take the wind from their sails.

              the truly looney will act as if we gave them sickle cell anemia but they are unreachable anyway.

              Though it would make the whole Africa question more acute.

              1. In NYC adjusted for age, Hispanics have been hit the hardest, blacks next, Whites are about half the black fatality rate and Asians lower still. The Asian thing is going to cause a huge conspiracy theory if true especially as they were all the early cases. I’m not going to try to split the difference between white and black Hispanic since there lies madness.

                1. A cultural tendency toward extended multi-generational families would increase risks from this virus, even if pointing that out is culture-shaming.
                  –

                  1. Living in high density public housing explains some of it, lifestyle, co morbidities, and genetics probably some more. The problem is, we don’t actually know what the rate is. they’ve been very careful to emphasize that there is no ethnic bias in infection, just in death rates, but we don’t actually know if that’s true. We know the dead, we know the diagnosed, we know the relative proportions in the population. We don’t know the infection rates. given the reaction to the Surgeon General, I suspect they’re rightly afraid of being called racist or, at best, blaming the victim if they conclude that one group is more likely to catch it than another because social distancing is working so well *snort*.

                    looking at where the hotspots outside NY are, it’ll only get worse.

                    Fauci was in charge when Aids came and they were afraid to close the bathhouses in NYC because that would be anti-gay and blaming the victim. That’s where the super spreaders were. WHO, I know I know but there isn’t anything else, estimates 32 million have died.

                    What price PC?

                2. …and a month ago, the Ministry of Truth was telling us it was Asian males who were hardest hit.

                  BTW, any web pages you think you might want to refer to later, use “save page” in your web browser to snarf them down to local storage. Because the four main search engines have a habit of de-indexing “old news” that doesn’t comply with the latest Narrative.

                  1. Print-to-file is an option, too.

                    Anybody got even an archive for the Seattle Flu guys finding stuff back in December or earlier?

              2. A biological cause would take the wind from their sails.

                –
                No, it would only prove that science is RAAAAACISSSST!!
                ———————————
                Some folks believe ‘Soylent Green’ had a happy ending.

              3. Nothing can take the wind from her sails — she generates her own gale-strength hot air.

                It would limit the resonance of her arguments within the broader culture; putting more padding on the walls of her echo chamber.
                –

          2. IF, as some reports assert, the virus attacks blood hemoglobin it would stand to reason that any prone to anemia would be harder hit.

            Not that making sense is in any way a preventative of hysterical denunciation.
            –

            1. I should think it would be the other way around. Sickle-cell anemia is the disease you get when you have two copies of a gene that is protective against malaria. Since we’re all aware that an antimalarial drug seems to be pretty effective against the virus, and also it doesn’t seem to be penetrating into Sub-Saharan Africa very badly at all, I would hypothesize that people with the sickle-cell trait (single-copy) would be less likely to contract the virus.

              (Of course, people with full on sickle cell anemia are probably so sick already that infection with CV will be very bad.)

              If it really does have higher rates of infection in American blacks than American whites, it can probably be put to (a) lower levels of the sickle-cell trait than African blacks, and (b) poorer health overall in terms of obesity, diabetes, smoking, etc. Whether that correlates at all with socioeconomic status across races remains to be seen.

              It will also be interesting to see if people with the different versions of the thalassemia trait (also protective against malaria) are protected.

              1. Could it be that COVID-19 attacks hemoglobin differently than does malaria?

                As you note, other factors — living arrangements, general health — may be more of a factor and the greatest problem of all is the dearth of validated information on this virus. It is a shame that Chinese authorities lied, withheld, misrepresented and destroyed early epidemiological information from the earliest phases of this onslaught.
                –

                1. Oh, it’s absolutely possible. I have no special knowledge one way or the other.

                  But I’m trying to reason from known facts:

                  1. The drug that seems to be having an effect is an antimalarial
                  2. The disease doesn’t seem to be too bad in Sub-Saharan Africa
                  3. People in Sub-Saharan Africa carry a widespread genetic trait that protects against malaria

                  Therefore, the facts would suggest that even though a virus is very different from a parasite, maybe due to some commonality of mechanism people with a resistance against malaria should have a resistance to the virus.

                  Then you have to explain why American blacks are being infected at higher rates or higher virulence. If that’s true — and I deeply distrust the people making that claim — then lifestyle factors and lower prevalence of the protective genetic trait (due to admixture with non-African stock) might explain it sufficiently.

                  1. American blacks tend to be in the cities; cities both have more cases, are doing more testing, and are more likely to have someone tea-leaf read a case of kung flu from “evidence of possible pneumonia before death.”

                    1. “Might have been exposed — we can check that box, after all, they were in contact with medical personnel”?

                    5. Yeah, that too.

                      Solid data analysis on this whole thing is going to have to wait at least a year and probably two or more, until the social/political pressures have died down somewhat.

                  2. I think it’s very likely that American blacks are a high proportion of the dead. The rest of course, we don’t know. NY, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans. Yeah,. I think they probably over represented among the sick and the dead. Everything else we don’t know and won’t know until serology testing is done. We certainly don’t know why but the narrative is well underway.

                    The great mystery is why a first term rep from NY 14 is known outside N.Y. 14.

          3. Which would actually make sense, given that the most effective known treatment is partly an anti-malarial drug.

            1. There’s a great deal going on with this …

              Race and coronavirus: There are no easy answers
              [SNIP]
              Nationwide, the underlying issue seems to be a disparity in preexisting conditions, reports the US government’s top infectious-disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci: “It’s not that they are getting infected more often, it’s that when they do get infected, their underlying medical conditions — the diabetes, hypertension, the obesity, the asthma — those are the kind of things that wind them up in the ICU and ultimately give them a higher death rate.”

              In the city, at least, blacks and Hispanics may well face greater exposure to the virus, since they’re likely a more-than-fair share of the essential workers still riding (and operating!) the subways and generally taking greater risks.

              [SNIP]

              When it comes to disparities in public health, the “weaknesses and foibles in our society” are a lot more complicated than anything as simple as racial prejudice.
              –

    1. That only works if y’all let it. If you just start ignoring the police state edicts in droves, they’ll find themselves with more trouble than they can, or are willing to, handle.

      2. The troll can go pound sand. But here it’s not gotten too stupid yet. Too far from Lansing or Madison. 3 cases still showing on the Marinette county side of things, none on the Menominee Michigan side of the river. 109 tested for it in Marinette by the by.
        Heard rumors one died here and a case in Menominee but not showing on data. Local radio had reports of the Menominee case.
        I think the death was Delta county and that was misheard as being here (local news covers from GB north to well into the U.P.)
        1 death as well for Brown county (Green Bay etc)

        1. I just looked at the WOOD-TV website (Grand Rapids station), and it looks like most of the (reported) cases are centered around Detroit. Kent County (Grand Rapids and its suburbs) is the only other obvious hotspot, and many of the northern counties aren’t even reporting any cases (although with the asymptomatic/low-symptomatic case issue, it’s possible they’ve got some, all people who are just feeling like crap but not bad enough to go to the doctor and get tested).

          It’s ridiculous to be imposing statewide restrictions when cases are primarily in a few hotspots (and I’m saying this as a resident of Indiana’s biggest hotspot, which has three or four times the number of reported cases as the next highest county). It should be done county by county, with minimal restrictions on the rural counties so farmers and small businesses there can keep working with minimal disruption. I grew up on a farm, where I had to budget half an hour just to bike to the neighbor’s to visit their daughter. There’s no reason to put a county like that under the same restrictions as an urban hotspot.

          1. Ha, The Trollette thinks nothing of the upper 2/3rds of the state other than Traverse City and Grayling as places folks have second and third homes. The U.P. only enters her tiny mind if it’s something dealing with NMU or Mich Tech. As she has now reversed her anti-Trump Chloroquine ban, I hope survivors of any deaths that happened during her ban and those who’s suffering she prolonged with it, sue the everloving crap out of her.

            I believe the Death in Escanaba/Delta County, was someone very ill to begin with, with likely the same possibility of mortality if they got the flu, or even their current problems flaring up.
            The death in Green Bay was also someone with high enough comorbidities that death was probable with any serious added illness.

  12. About those furshlugginer computer models. ‘Infallible’ means incapable of error. ‘Fallible’ means capable of error. Surely there’s a word for incapable of correctness?

    Other than Democrat.

    1. You know, if the serious modeling literature does not have such a word, then the literature is deficient.

      And if academic German does not have some absurd compound word, academic German is deficient.

    2. Brigadier: It’s impenetrable.
      Doctor: Never liked the word ‘impenetrable’. Too much like the word ‘unsinkable.’
      Brigadier: What’s wrong with ‘unsinkable’?
      Doctor: “Nothing.”.. said the iceberg to the Titanic.

      1. The only thing that can be truly impenetrable is stupidity.
        ———————————
        Let’s not go to Camelot, it’s a silly place.

    3. I am absolutely certain there is a Yiddish work with the precise definition you’re reaching for…

        2. I always liked the definition of Schlegel and Schlemazel my Father taught me.

          A Schlemiel is the waiter who spills a whole tray of soup.

          A Schlemazel is the one the soup lands on.

          In a real way, that’s why I found Discworld so hard to get into. The first two books are about Rincewind, and Rincewind is a Schlemazel. He doesn’t do thing, things happen to him.

      1. *blink*

        Has anyone else listened to “What does the Fox Say?”, that annoying earworm song?

        I swear, that word is nearly identical to one of the WAG declarations of what the fox says.

        1. Fraka kaka kaka cow. Looked it up, had no idea.

          Lot of my neighbors growing up we’re Jewish, you learn the lingo. They usually knew what Catholic Parish they lived in. Made it easy to explain exactly where you were from. That’s all gone now.

  13. And yesterday – rumor, or not? The source was highly credible – we got word that home improvement stores will be closing their garden section

    FWIW, yesterday when I went to Home Depot the garden section was open and doing a brisk business.

    This is all a cosplay cross between what was done to combat the flu in 1918 (most of which measures did nothing, btw)

    We have good evidence of what had strong corellation with about the best set of natural experiments (different cities doing slightly different things) here. Some highlights:

    Isolation of ill persons and quarantine of those suspected of having contact with ill persons refers only to mandatory orders as opposed to voluntary quarantines being discussed in our present era. School closure was considered activated when the city officials closed public schools (grade school through high school); in most, but not all cases, private and parochial schools followed suit. Public gathering bans typically meant the closure of saloons, public entertainment venues, sporting events, and indoor gatherings were banned or moved outdoors; outdoor gatherings were not always canceled during this period (eg, Liberty bond parades); there were no recorded bans on shopping in grocery and drug stores.

    So, we haven’t really done the first in that our isolation is not focused on known ill persons. We have done the second. We have done the third, but turned up to eleventy-seven. Note the article is very specific about what was banned: gatherings. Not working in offices or factories, but gatherings. The specific businesses were places people gather socially.

    I’m not sure if you’re saying most of 1919 was ineffective or doing them now. We know three things that seemed to work based on the best data (not model, but data) we have. We’ve done two with a huge overload on one.

    Only this virus is not nearly as lethal as the flu of 1918, (and importantly not to the same demographics)

    To the degree that the specific interventions in the JAMA paper that worked might not be useful today, I think the ban on public gatherings is probably the best candidate. For whatever reason the Spanish flu hit young adults the hardest. They are also the target demographic isolated from each other by the public gatherings ban, especially on places like saloons. In that respect even implementing that item might have been overkill this time, although I think based on demographics it was very useful in 1919.

    They finally see their opening to put their boots on your neck forever.

    If your concern about food shortages is correct “forever” will last until sometime between my 54 birthday and Valentine’s Day 2021.

    Here’s the thing, though, the way things are RIGHT NOW, you can rebel now or rebel later. You can rebel now, and go back to your life, or you can rebel later, when you’ll have to shoot anyone asking you for papers or keeping you from growing beans.

    As it is, I’m already more restricted by the places I would be being closed and other people being afraid than I am. My Friday game would be on if right before this started a player hadn’t died and another (his wife) moved to New Mexico the week the restrictions started to be with family and the other players (dad, daughter, and exchange student they host) weren’t buying all this.

    I doubt I’m alone. I suspect most people are going to see the original Easter deadline come and out and be out and about. Habor Freight and Home Depot were crowded. They had a max people in store rule and an employee at the door enforcing “1 in then 1 out”. Yet both had lines. I suspect by the time I left Home Depot people were waiting a hour, but they were waiting instead of giving up.

    Problem is, I can’t make Tin Roof open and host Thursday Trivia or make D come over with M and F to game.

    As for a Victory Garden, that was already something I was doing. I don’t even know where local growers are, but I’m happy to do various repair work as needed. I’ll even give a shake at making your furniture instead of just myself (but understand you’re dealing with an apprentice without a master beyond YouTube and books). We’re going to the park for a walk later today and then have a picnic even if it is in the car in the parking lot or off the side of a walking trail.

    1. We were out yesterday. The parking lot at Lowes’ was fuller than I’ve ever seen it before. Wal-Mart looked like business as usual. Most small businesses, closed. Restaurants, about 50/50; some have gone to a simplified menu and take-out only.

      1. Yeah. Odd one here is my favorite BBQ place, which seems to do more take out any way, is closed for the duration.

        I think that is one reason leftards like this. It is achieving what their “Contractors” law in CA was designed to do (and what the Dems are trying to put in the Covid bills), make everyone part of a big corporation that the gov’t can easily deal with.

        2. It isn’t just that they’re easier for government to manage, they are also more susceptible to the kinds of Twit-Storms at which the Left excels. Allow individual Starbucks stores to set concealed (or open) carry policy? Not when the screeching mob can browbeat HQ into over-ruling them.

          The Left wants big corporations for the same reason Sauron wanted the One Ring.

  14. I saw an article about what South Korea is doing. They isolated the vulnerable—and then let everybody else out. Tests for everyone, and they’re building herd immunity.

    Why don’t we do THAT? (Yeah, I know, because that would be smart.)

    3. Having done some poking at the subject, I still have my doubts about those tests.

      One unmentioned feature is that if you’re not in any of the not-official DNA registries yet, you probably will be afterward.

      I also noted a couple of news stories this morning, about tests being re-run on samples from October and November of 2019. Just ordinary pre-COVID-19 stuff. When your doc sends your sample off to a lab, it typically becomes the lab’s property to do with as they wish. But who’s saving ordinary flu test samples in cold storage, anyway? That kind of storage is expensive.

      That’s like the “ghost texts” from last year, when we found out that A) the cell providers were outsourcing something that was supposedly an integral part of how the cellular system works and B) the third party they chose was saving every text in a massive database for reasons they couldn’t explain.

      1. I don’t think the samples need to be stored that well– the Seattle Flu Study sends out sample thingies in the mail.

        If it doesn’t take special handling once you’re swabbed, then holding on to them for about a year is a good idea for liability.

          1. They started swabbing in the summer and keep swabbing until spring. They started asking to look for COVID-19 back in January, but the CDC didn’t let them re-examine their swabs until March. And they found out that COVID showed up in swabs from October, November, December, January, etc.

            Which is pretty much what you’d expect, given China travel to and from Washington State, and given how long COVID-19 was in China before they reported it.

            Of course Chinese propaganda is using this as “proof” that WuFlu came from the US, blah blah blah.

            1. I’m starting to wonder how much of the Seattle blob is in Chinese pockets; Washington health decided to squash their ability to contact people, and BOOM all the reports vanished from search results.

            2. COVID showed up in swabs from October, November, December, January, etc.

              Yeah, the Chinese are starting to publish carefully worded medical papers as part of their propaganda push showing how their labs have checked back in their own flu swabs and found COVID-19 in Wuhan as far back as early in January, but no mention of finding anything earlier, which flies right in the face of their people on the ground raising the alarm before the end of 2019.

  16. Guys, who in hell escapes to MEXICO?

    –
    Criminals fleeing from the cops!

    I am going to work Monday, just to pick up what may be my last paycheck for a while, for the two days I worked last week. We’ve got orders, but we can’t get parts to make products. A lot of our customers have been shut down ‘to protect the public’.

    HOW DOES EVERYBODY NOT SEE THE MADNESS?!!
    ———————————
    There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.

    2. Why does treason never prosper? When treason prospers, none dare call it treason.

      Likewise collective madness.

  17. One small positive sign: this morning I wanted a walk in some place new, just for variety, so I went to the local open space. One thing I noticed was that there were a number of gates that could be closed across the trail to close it in bad weather–but none of those gates were closed. I don’t know if this was a locality deciding that “shelter in place” was stupid, or the government trying to show of its generosity by kindly allowing us to walk on a trail through a field in the middle of nowhere. Regardless, though, it was a positive sign, and we haven’t had enough of those, so I thought I’d share.

      1. And a toothpick dipped in RED Locktite and broken off in the lock.
        (No, haven’t done it myself – but I am aware of that bit of… pointed communication.)

    2. Or a decision that closing them would ONLY result in destruction of closure mechanisms – likely in the most expensive way to repair possible, as an indication of just how stupid the closers were considered to be.

      Once upon a time, so the story goes, rather than a University parking lot be first-come, first-parked, they added a padlock so only The Right People could park there. If ONE padlock is secure, then TWO must be MORE SECURE, and THREE.. FOUR… etc. After a few days of having to cut through n-padlocks, the policy reverted to first-com, first-parked. Obviously this was NOT a STEM place — no thermite. Or other… interesting… reactables. Not even a big squirt-gun full of brake fluid to modify paint jobs.

  18. Another thought. Has any single government agency been declared non-essential and sent home? Anyone? How about the Dept. of Ag unit that enforces animal handling regulations on magicians who use rabbits, given there are no magic shows (yes, it is real).

    2. I heard DOJ decided processing of FOIA requests was non-essential, but I don’t know if they actually sent home the people who would normally process the,.

      1. It’s up to their area manager if DOJ goes all telework for an office– although some of the area managers decided that teleworking wasn’t needed, and then got informed that the totally different department that manages their building was shutting it down so they DID go telework.

        Of course, the online submissions for FoI would be dead easy to telework, so unless it’s one of those miscommunications where they were made non-essential because some of the records are physical and that part can’t be done so you have to declare the entire thing non-essential or the “must respond in X time” timer runs out that sounds really suspicious.

    3. A lot of folks have been put on work from home; my brother is still active, stationed at the Pentagon, he’s working from home.

      Click to access M-20-13.pdf

      MEMORANDUM FOR THE HEADS OF DE:f ARTMENTS AND AGENCIES
      FROM:
      Acting
      Russell
      Director
      T. Vought CL
      SUBJECT: Updated Guidance on Telework Flexibilities in Response to Coronavirus
      In light of the evolving situation concerning the novel corona virus (“COVID-19”), including
      emergency declarations in multiple States and the District of Columbia, the Administration wants to
      ensure that department and agency leaders assertively safeguard the health and safety of their
      workforce.
      All Federal Executive Branch departments and agencies are encouraged to maximize
      telework flexibilities to eligible workers within those populations that the Centers for Disease
      Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified as being at higher risk for serious complications from
      COVID-19 (CDC High Risk Complications) and to CDC-identified special populations including
      pregnant women (CDC Special Populations). These CDC-identified populations include older
      adults and individuals who have chronic health conditions, such as high blood pressure, heart
      disease, diabetes, lung disease or compromised immune systems. Agencies do not need to require
      certification by a medical professional, and may accept self-identification by employees that they
      are in one of these populations. Additionally, agencies are encouraged to consult with local public
      health officials and the CDC about whether to extend telework flexibilities more broadly to all
      eligible teleworkers in areas in which either such local officials or the CDC have determined there
      is community spread. Agencies are also encouraged to extend telework flexibilities more broadly to
      accommodate state and local responses to the outbreak, including, but not limited to, school
      closures.
      Departments and agencies are further encouraged to approve leave for safety reasons to
      employees who are at higher risk as identified by the CDC and not telework-eligible. Federal
      Executive Branch departments and agencies may also grant weather and safety leave due to a
      “condition that prevents the employee or group of employees from safely traveling to or performing
      work at an approved location” (5 U.S.C. § 6329c(b)). Because COVID-19 prevents employees who
      are at higher risk from safely travelling to or performing work at an approved location, agencies
      may grant these employees safety leave under 5 U.S.C. § 6329c(b) at the agencies’ discretion.
      In determining their telework and leave decisions, agencies should consider the missioncritical nature of their work.

      (next part snipped because it’s got a URL)

    4. Down in Florida, for some reason the Concealed Carry Permits are run through the Department of Agriculture. Only statewide office held by a Democrat. So of course, new and renewal of permits are ‘delayed.’

  19. their attempt to crash the economy so they could win the election (worked in 08)

    “Maverick” McCain did that all by himself – the proof in the pudding being when, the phrase “mission first” seeming to have escaped Mav’s recollection, he “suspending” his campaign when the crash was hitting so he could sit in his senate office by himself instead of staying out there telling the voters why even he would be better for the country than Barry Lightbringer.

    1. “telling the voters why even he would be better for the country than Barry Lightbringer.”

      I think you’ve a minor fallacy of construction there. Shouldn’t that be “telling the voters why even he would not be worse for the country than Barry Lightbringer.”?

      It’s a difficult matter to decide; in the short term Barry would certainly have been worse but in the long run the damage done to the GOP brand and to conservatism might have been greater under Maverick. I shudder to think of the Supreme (and lower) Court appointments he’d have likely perpetrated, and with The O-man we at least got the GOP T.E.A. Party pushback and several years of GOP control of the legislature. Contemplating McCain and the likelihood of a Democrat-run legislature gives nightmares.
      –

      1. I bet we would have seen Tea-Party push with President Maverick as he implemented much the same …agenda in “reaching across the aisle” mode as we got with The One, which of course means the Tea Party would have been pushed relentlessly by the media as a profound and heartfelt grassroots uprising of the people, and internally co-opted and taken over by what became occupy/antifa.

  21. So, that might very well be why produce are rotting in the fields in California.

    Much of California farming, especially harvesting, is very much hand work, involving paying a big enough crew to walk down the rows to hand pick the ripe whatever – which means transporting them in vans and buses, and their working in close proximity when moving the harvested whatever to the trucks, and then sorting on the conveyors, so the six feet distance does not work.

    And the pickers and sorters are all working out in the open air and sunshine. Labs have noted the Chines coronavirus that causes COVID-19 that came from Wuhan, China where Winnie is God-Emperor is particularly susceptible to (i.e. quickly destroyed by) UV light, so applying the still-air/indoor-lighting six-foot-interval makes no sense at all.

  22. I lost my job due to this insane coronavirus panic. Me and 20 million others, at least. I blame the media for a lot of it. They’ve created a situation where the governors and other politicians *know* that every single death that can even vaguely be connected to covid will be tied to them. I really don’t see how we can recover if this goes on for another month. The one thing that gives me hope is that today I noticed a lot more cars out and quite a few parked at one “non-essential” business or another.

  23. There do seem to be those enjoying the Current Crisis far too much.

    all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

    But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain State Governors is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

    FAR too much.

    Emphasis added.
    –

  24. Sarah, I searched the Azfamily site, and that curfew was imposed by the White Mountain Apache tribe yesterday morning. The reservations have their own government. I live on the outskirts of Phoenix, and while there are closures (most notably schools) there seems to be quite a bit of normal life continuing here.

  25. BTW, the CDC numbers for week 14 are now out.
    Total mortality dropped another 4,000 from last week to 44,402.
    That’s 12,000 fewer deaths from all causes than week 14 last year – 10,000 below the last 5 years average for week 14.
    Over last year’s week 14, pneumonia deaths were up 423, Influenza deaths down 159. That’s trivial for a nationwide number.
    More ammunition on the President’s side that it’s OK to start opening up again – but also a potential issue once things start opening up since deaths from normal accidents, other communicable diseases and from those forcibly put-off non-kungflu related procedures will likely bump those rates back up in a hurry…

    1. 800 people die every day from medical mistakes. Reducing the number of people in hospitals getting ‘optional’ procedures could account for much of that decline.
      ———————————
      He’s a lumberjack, and he’s OK.

  27. Boss says we’re going back to work Monday on a rotating schedule; we’re getting 40 hours regardless and the boss plans to get it back from the government and pay enough in salary and expenses for it to become a grant (CARE). I’m working from home because I’m figuring to have enough allergies that I’d be coughing and sneezing too much to stay at work anyone (under the guidelines boss has laid down) plus my mother’s condition.

    Back to work; gotta find where I put my W-2 so I can do my taxes.

    2. Thankfully, we got ours done before everything went nuts, and got our Federal refund before the really severe restrictions went into force. We would’ve gotten them done earlier, except the construction from the storm repairs had stuff from my office piled where we usually set up the table we use as the tax prep desk.

      Next year I’m hoping to have everything ready to go as soon as we get all the spousal unit’s retirement income documentation. Unfortunately, I’m thinking that, at the rate things are going, our business income is apt to be very small. Although I’m going to send a newsletter to the people who are signing up for the COBOL mailing list and see who is wanting stuff that he can do from home. Right now we can use the income, but it’s not really where he can travel any great distance.

      1. Working on the assumption that I didn’t screw things up (last year, I borked the taxable portion of Social Security), taxes are done, with the only ongoing gubbage being the quarterly estimated tax payments.

        I built a spreadsheet like the previous year, but I also did the gawdawful* hand calculations a couple of times. Yes, Turbotax would be easier, but I won’t let the Windows 10 machine see the outside world, and TT doesn’t play with Linux

        We’re trying to decide what to do with the hypothetical $1200 per person advance. Have to redo the state estimate to see how much that screws up the state taxes for next year.

        The pacing item for returns was from a mutual bond fund. Everybody else got info to us by Jan 31, but it took an extra couple weeks for them to crunch the numbers.

        (*) If you want to see how not to do detailed instructions, go through the taxable SSI worksheet. They cleverly obscure all references as to what the line items mean, so real-world sanity checks are difficult to envision.

        1. You could try TT under Wine or ReactOS. For that matter, download Windows 10 from Microsoft, put it in a VM, and use that. Microsoft now allows “unactivated” use of Windows 10 for 30 days, which ought to be enough to get your taxes done. Save the files to your main storage in case you need to refer to them again.

          1. The last I’ve looked, at least Quicken would not play on Wine. Not sure about TurboTax. The Windows laptop has an authorized/registered copy of Win 10 on it, but I’m not letting it see the ‘net, so it’s not getting any updates. (I primarily bought it because the latest version of pdf files don’t play well with Okular, and the only Linux version of Acrobat that I’ve found is V-7.

            OTOH, our taxes are more-or-less repeatable, (sources are constant, though one credit union gives unplanned dividends depending on how the year went. On a good year, it’s enough to make me review the quarterly calculations.) As long as the Feds don’t get too cute with the worksheets, I can puzzle them out. I usually download the forms sometime in January, and go from draft data to rough them out.

            According to the notes, I’ve been doing taxes this way since ’07. It’s good enough (at least as long as my brain is doing what it’s supposed to be doing…)

            1. Oh yeah, it’s Acrobat forms with XML stuff that cause trouble for Okular. I used to use $SPOUSE’s Win 7 machine, but that’s needing a new battery (if available) and a bit too sketchy.

        2. Our taxes were done as soon as we had all the 1099s. Filed mid-February. Still don’t have State refund, & while not substantial, thanks to the kicker it isn’t chump change either. Feds will be paid Monday (guessing they’ll still pull it). State sent letter requesting the 1099 forms. We manually file State, won’t pay $20 to file electronically. Not required to attach 1099 forms per instructions. We don’t have W-2’s.

          Either they finally noticed one 1099 form income level is only $1458/year (what do they expect $121.53/month?), noticed that only $1500 from one IRA (not required to pull anything yet) which was a drop from last year, and halved what was pulled from the other IRA accounts (well DUH, another source of SS income, and again, not required to pull anything from any IRA’s, yet).

          Heck between the decreased spending (grocery spending up, but gas & dining out is almost non-existent) because of shelter-in-place, Feds $2400 pre-refund, state 2019 refund, we might not have to pull anything out of IRA’s before maybe November for property taxes, if then.

          1. We try to set it up so that the refund is a close approximation of the first quarter estimated payment. The only time I had trouble was when the state “accidentally” lost the mandatory copy of the 1040 couple years ago and proceeded to disallow all the federal stuff that’s backed off of the state income. Grrrr. Had to resend everything to get the numbers unscrewed.

            Now, I send a cover letter and staple all the crap together to make it harder for them to have “accidents”.

            1. We try to set it up so that the refund is a close approximation of the first quarter estimated payment.

              We don’t do quarterly payments. We have it set up so that the larger pension, & all the IRA withdrawals have both Fed & State withholding. We try to owe something to both. Once I wasn’t pulling in income, the state refund covers the Fed owed. Except this year, because of kicker, and what type of money coming in (SS taxable IRA taxable), + kicker, it’s more like 3 times. Hubby went into the setup’s to change the State withholding and 8% is the lowest you can set it at. So either set 0% and do quarterly, to state, which he doesn’t want to do, or ???

    1. OTOH, they’re a hotspot (although not as bad as NYC), so it might make sense to extend restrictions until they can get a handle on the asymptomatic spreader problem. But then they really need to double down on getting everyone tested ASAP so they can get things reopened.

      But it’s the People’s Republic of California, so it may well be just an excuse to exercise control for control’s sake.

      1. I’ve seen enough news stories that indicate some California sheriffs are enjoying doing the Jackboot Dance, with massive fines for behavior that is not threatening. I think a few are due for unpleasant surprises fairly soon; with luck it will be at election time.

        1. Much better that it be “vote ’em out of office” than they get to discover the hard way just how many companies have bucket trucks that can reach a modern street light.

          1. Voting them out of office is impossible when the local election process has been subverted. With electronic voting machines you don’t even have to do the traditional ballot box stuffing and “losing” contrary ballots like in the old days.

            They’ll be in office as long as they’re useful to the Democratic Party.

            1. Short of rope/lamp post, there might be the possibility of a recall. Yeah, they can jigger the election, but it’s a wonderful way to refocus a politico’s mind, and in our county, there are a couple of former county commissioners who discovered that the recall does have teeth. (One RINO tried another office, and got clobbered in the primary. He then shifted to DINO, and somebody “persuaded” the Real Democrat ™ to bow out. The *INO still got curbstomped. Had a schadenboner over that…

              1. I’d sort of like to see a class-action lawsuit for damages done under cloak of legal authority … the courts would probably block it (for good reasons*) but oh my! wouldn’t Discovery be fun?

                *Don’t make me have to explain. OTOH, if politicians personally profited from the shutdowns – and inspection of investment portfolios might be productive – then the complaint becomes “abuse of public trust for personal gain” and might yet be actionable.
                –

    3. I’m going back to the Despicable Kate Brown moniker for our Oregon governor; the restaurant/hair/whatever closures were supposed to end April 15, but she’s still worried (she says) about the horrendous Chinese Coronavirus surge that has managed to avoid Oregon. (Hey, we’ve had 48 deaths. Sorry for the friends and families, but 48 dead and 340 hospitalized versus the famous IHME model might just mean that the model is utter trash.) We’re going to lose a lot more people to depression and worse if we don’t start opening, and soon.

      And in other news, Jackson County parks are now closed. If you’re fishing, the stray person who comes up might just possibly have the Kung Flu. Arggh! (County parks over here are still nominally open, although restrooms are closed.)

      And once again, we’ve cancelled our expedition to boat up the Mighty Wood River again. I think we last did it in 2015 or ’16. Great river to watch birds, though it’s a challenge to turn around at the upstream portion of our trip. That thing is narrow. (Yes, I have seen wider creeks.)

  30. I work in a garden center. I finally got to go back to work this week, when I normally start beginning of March at the latest. Now the state has decided to clamp down on us, and we had to slash our big annual order in half. It’s up in the air if/how much I’ll be able to weasel my way in to work, or if the place will even be around next year. I’ve been stating seeds like a lunatic since this started, and plan to garden like there’s no tomorrow.

  31. Our governor wants everyone tested if they have a cough and fever so now I have to go get tested.

  32. Fauci is saying he could see a national,ID card to identify if you’ve been infected. I have a better idea, why not a yellow triangle. Given Fauci’s role in the AIDS epidemic where he failed to take significantly less intrusive public health measures than we have now, which could have saved a large number of lives, we could have pink triangles for those at higher risk for AIDS. I don’t know, how about carrying a bell an calling out unclean if you have a sniffle.

    We could make it a world organization. Put it in Berlin at Tiergartenstrasse 4.

    This guy went from short guy on spectrum who finds himself on TV to creepy fascist crank faster than I thought possible. I’d like to shake his hand.

      1. I exploded at the TV and my wife banished me for bad language. Yet another casualty of the ego of Faucilini. Duce, Duce, Duce!

  33. Our Boy King here in Canada wants an “Emergency Act” to give him more power. I’ll bet you anything that all the Canadians who squawk “FASCISM!” whenever someone to the right of Trotsky wins an election will be falling over themselves in their zeal to praise Trudeau for this.

    May their chains rest lightly upon them.

      1. Like I said before, it’s not a Trudeau government without troops in the street.

  34. “Guys, who in hell escapes to MEXICO?”

    Silicon Valley techno-barons, fleeing to their “vacation” compounds staffed with 72 beautiful (non-virginal) maidens.
    –

    1. A favored location for zombie apocalypse getaway homes of the rich and richer from Silicon Valley is New Zealand – they have a “buy your way in” residency path in their immigration laws (as long as you speak english) that is not very expensive given exchange rates if you have a pile of eBay options just sitting there, plus they are part of the Anglosphere.

  35. Do you want to be Free?

    Disobey.

    Make it a habit.

    “I aim to misbehave.”
    – Mal Reynolds

  36. “we’re all locked in the house because the Earth is going to be hit by an asteroid.”

    Not coincidentally, this date — which straddles two of the world’s most significant festivals of salvation — is ALSO the anniversary of Mount Tambora (1815) beginning its three-month long eruption. April 10 is the one hundredth (ten squared!!!) day of the year — except this year, being leap, it is the 101st!!!!! On this date in 837 Halley’s Comet made its closest ever approach to Earth!! This day in 1821 the Ottoman Muslims hanged Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople from the main gate of the Patriarchate!!! The RMS Titanic began it first ad last voyage on this date in 1912!!

    Most ominously, it was on this day in 1925 – 1925!!!! – that they first published The Great Gatsby!!!!! On 1970, just 45 years after, Paul McCartney announced his departure from The Beatles! FIFTY years ago today!

    Coincidence? Unlikely – the portents are aligning. Have you heard, it’s in the stars – next July we collide with Mars!

    What a swell party this is.
    –

    1. Headlines that make a body go hmmmmm …

      Infamous volcano Krakatoa erupts near Indonesia

      ‘Compromise our democracy’: Obama rips Wisconsin for primary voting mishandling in rare statement
      Former President Barack Obama made a rare political statement on Twitter to chide Wisconsin for its handling of primary elections.

      In a thread of tweets on Friday afternoon, Obama made a point to endorse voting by mail, asserting that forcing people to appear at polling stations during a pandemic, as was done in Wisconsin, can compromise an individual’s right to vote.

      “No one should be forced to choose between their right to vote and their right to stay healthy like the debacle in Wisconsin this week,” Obama said in an afternoon tweet. “Everyone should have the right to vote safely, and we have the power to make that happen. This shouldn’t be a partisan issue.”

      Kentucky police to record license plates of vehicles near mass gatherings on Easter weekend
      Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear intensified state orders to prevent mass gatherings on Easter weekend.

      During a Friday press briefing, Beshear announced that Kentucky police would record the license plates of all vehicles near mass gatherings, transmit the data to health departments, and enforce a mandatory 14-day quarantine for eventgoers.

      “We’re having to take a new action that I hoped that we wouldn’t. It’s that any individual that’s going to participate in a mass gathering of any type that we know about this weekend, we are going to record license plates and provide it to local health departments. The local health departments are going to come to your door with an order for you to be quarantined for 14 days,” Beshear said.

      “We absolutely cannot bring people together in one building like that, because that is how the coronavirus spreads, and that is how people die,” he said, later adding that the order simply asks people “not to harm other people.”

      Beshear said the order does not apply to drive-in services that comply with CDC guidelines.

      According to the New York Times, there are nearly 1,600 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state of Kentucky, with nearly 90 deaths.
      –

    2. Historically speaking the Tambora event makes the more famous Krakatoa eruption look like a popcorn fart in comparison. The debris shot into the upper atmosphere caused all of the northern hemisphere to forever after refer to the year 1816 as the year without a summer. Perfect example of a nuclear winter without nukes.

  37. “If you don’t assert your rights now, you’ll have to assert them in blood later.

    In the News:
    Mississippi church sues after police shut down drive-in service
    Also:
    Trump approval among black voters near 20%: Poll

    There need to be more legal challenges to arbitrary exercise of authority, and a call for impeachment of a governor for … what was the phrase used by Schiff & Pelosi? Oh yeah: abuse of power.
    –

    1. Oh, one more news item:

      ‘Ironic’: Declassified footnotes show Steele dossier likely compromised by Russian intelligence
      Declassified footnotes from the Justice Department watchdog report on the FBI’s Russia investigation revealed new details indicating British ex-spy Christoper Steele’s dossier was likely compromised by disinformation efforts carried out by Russian intelligence.

      The footnotes, which were previously redacted, were made available for the public to see on Friday through a declassification determination made by Attorney General William Barr at the request of Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Senate Finance Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

      In the report released in December, DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz described “Person 1” as a “key Steele sub-source” who was attributed with providing information in Steele’s dossier. The newly unmasked details show that a document circulated among members of the Crossfire Hurricane team in early October 2016 showed that Person 1 had “historical contact with persons and entities suspected of being linked to RIS” — or Russian Intelligence Services. The document described reporting that Person 1 “was rumored to be a former KGB/SVR officer.” Further, the declassified footnote shows in late December 2016 DOJ official Bruce Ohr told SSA 1, believed to be FBI agent Joseph Pientka, that he had met with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, who assessed that Person 1 was an “RIS officer” central in connecting Trump to Russia.

      The newly declassified footnotes also show the Crossfire Hurricane team received information from a still-redacted source “indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele’s election reporting” seemingly related to the biggest salacious and unverified claims in Steele’s dossier — that Trump watched prostitutes urinate on a bed in Moscow during the Miss Universe Pageant in 2013 and that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen met with shady Russians in Prague in 2016.

      [SNIP]

      Johnson and Grassley reached out to Barr to aid them in their effort in late January, but the senators said they were meeting resistance from the intelligence community, and therefore, they decided to reach out to acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, who oversees the coalition of 17 spy agencies.

      Mueller’s report, released last April, found the Russians had interfered in the 2016 election in a “sweeping and systematic fashion,” but “did not establish” any criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.
      * * * * *
      But you already knew that, did’t you?
      –

    2. I’m glad they’re suing. That was so over-the-top asinine that I hope sovereign immunity is cancelled and that the mayor/city council are on the hook for the damages.

      Note: the governor of MS said church services were OK, but it was the town. I got the impression that the mayor and the minister aren’t exactly friends, and there was more than a bit of malice in the shutdown.

  38. Something tells me that our Usual (Socialist) Suspects don’t know what they’ve done.

    Which, I admit, is par for the course for them, but let me explain.

    There are an amazing number of people that are not doing their “usual thing,” that are doing things. Making face masks. Teaching classes online. Writing things (I need to write more, I’m just unable to get into the headspace and the Parents have CNN on pretty much all the time…though I have a naughty little erotica story that I’m making progress on). Restaurants around here are making food boxes for people-order on their website, they’ll deliver a week’s worth of groceries using THEIR supply chains. Microbreweries are canning their beers and doing “at the door” pickups of online orders.

    This is NOT going to go away when the “stay in place” order lifts. Hell, it’s not going to be there now. Too many people have been looking at around and over and under and through.

    We just need to make sure to keep the energy up. Use the alternate channels. Tell anyone that stops us to STFU and FOAD.

    1. I’ve already figured THAT out. Also more work from home, more homeschooling, and THE THING THEY REALLY DON’T GET?
      This is their one bite. ONE. Next time they try this, it’s going to go ugly from day one.

      1. Oh yeah. And people in states with governors like those in NY, CO, and MI are going to look at states like TX and IA and start saying, “Ah, you know what? It’s a long d-mn way from Denver to us out here in Grand Junction/Limon/Springfield/wherever. Go jump in a lake.”

    1. Darn. I’d been hoping to send some books with Mad Mike to get signed and possibly sold.

      If venues are already forcing the cancellations of June cons, things could get very interesting for Indiana Comic Con and JAFAX. I might suddenly no longer have a conflict, if one of them cancels. Or I could end up with both of them canceling, and having no con at all.

  41. We had not one, but at least two Karens, sourly taking pictures on their phones of two cashiers at the self checkout who were not wearing masks.

    The cashiers were not within six feet of them. There was a big sign letting customers know that store associates are now getting their temperatures taken. There are incredibly long closed off aisles for going in and coming out. The only thing that’s not mandatory is wearing masks.

    But Karen and Karen had to harass the cashiers. Not ask questions, not leave a suggestion in the suggestion box or on the webpage, but take passive aggressive pictures for their Twitter, or whatever.

    Sigh. I bet they’d love to run a HOA.

    1. Dear Karen,

      You want us all to stay home. Remember, we’re cleaning the guns and inventorying the ammo.

      Have a nice day,

      John & Jane Q. Public

        1. So I’m not the only one using this as source material for art.

          I’ve got enough posts now at Shepardsport Pirate Radio to start promoting it. However, I’m still looking for a better theme, preferably one that feels more futuristic, and which allows me to actually put the sidebars on the side instead of as footers.

    2. I’m on Nextdoor. It’s really amazing how many of our local Karens (and Kens) don’t seem to realize that boasting about it on a site that will narrow your location down within a few blocks even if you “hide your address” is a Bad Idea.

      My “little list” has acquired quite a few entries….

  42. Here is the word from on high in Canada:

    https://globalnews.ca/news/6799110/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-return-to-normality-trudeau/

    TL/DR, there will be no return to normal until a vaccine is in place. In another development, RCMP is tooling up to enforce “quarantine.” Or whatever it is decided that means this week.

    Having -utterly- dropped the ball and stumble-kicked it into their own goal, the Canadian government is now reversing course and going Full Karen.

    Which is why I live out in the sticks far away from everything. I’ve been afraid they were going to pull this shit since 1990. Well, now they’re going for it.

    1. What can you expect from Trudeau, a man who spent four weeks in a two week quarantine?

      1. This is -exactly- what I expected. First do nothing, then freak out, then impose idiotic overkill on everybody else. Next step will be the cronyism and corruption, I’m sure that’s already well underway.

        Let them eat cake, he said.

        1. It may have been a letter from an English nobleman in the 18th Century writing home, wherein he stated:
          “Yukon’t believe how cold it is here.”

  43. If Coronavirus has taught us anything it’s that journalists not only can’t do math, they don’t understand that other people can. — Christopher Balding

    1. I discovered 40 years ago that if any newspaper article had two related numbers in it, one of them was usually wrong. Reporters for the most part (there are a few exceptions) are innumerate.

      1. I like the older business reporters. The ones on the early morning Fox Business tend to be numerate, even if they sometimes err when they wander outside of the business world. (Usually their errors seem to be “bad data/no data” mistakes more than “three times four is three-fourths” errors.)

  44. As an interesting note re: economic disruption, another blogger I read (Aussie, expat now in Europe someplace) had this to say:


    These are difficult times but I am optimistic at how things will turn out. The thing is that due to crony capitalism our economies haven’t had a good clean out for a very long time; we were well overdue for a seismic economic event that would wipe the slate clean and allow fresh green business shoots to emerge. This is how economies work best, but due to mass regulation and the propping up of noncompetitive companies and corporations by government, (the aforementioned crony capitalism), the clean out has been artificially deferred for decades.

    Take Virgin Airlines as an example. The Australian branch is breaking down the government’s doors in an attempt to pry $1.4 billion out of the Australian taxpayers. Let them crash and burn. If you haven’t had a bit of fat tucked away for unforeseen events such as this then why should anyone else look out for you? Companies complain about government interference in their business but then run crying with their empty cap in hand when things get tricky. You can’t have it both ways and the best way is for no government involvement at all apart from that of a most basic level.

    Not sure I agree with his full conclusion, but it’s definitely a good premise (either you deregulate and de-crony, or you live and die by the government handout, bailout, and loophole, but not both). Full essay here:
    https://pushingrubberdownhill.com/2020/04/10/friday-hawt-chicks-links-the-great-clean-out-edition/

    Happy Easter, all!

    1. The obvious response is that “revenue drops to zero for six weeks” is not the sort of “unforeseen event” that “a bit of fat” will get you through. Pretty sure that except for the very largest companies, that sort of unforeseen event will cause bankruptcy no matter what sort of plan you had for emergency.

      The other possible response is “the government is the one that shut you down, the takings clause more or less requires the taxpayers to compensate you for it.” Now, that one is a little more questionable given that it isn’t obvious how much the economy would be shut down even without government enforcement, but still, it’s worth taking into consideration.

      His idea that we’re going to clean out crony capitalism seems delusional. If every company except those who allow serious government interference goes bankrupt, what makes him think that we’re going to get a whole bunch of totally independent companies springing up rather than ones that do everything they can to be subsidiaries of the government.

      1. You’re right, it isn’t a guarantee even when we DO divest of the weeds (government-dependent leech enterprises) that flowers and vegetables (healthy independent businesses) will now grow. In most cases, what does grow are the next crop of weeds unless we deliberately plant and cultivate the healthy and healthful crops we do want to see, and diligently weed the garden.

        1. I would actually argue that it’s a guarantee we won’t see healthy, independent businesses. If the moral of the Wu-Flu is “You shouldn’t go into business unless you have sufficient capital that you can run for the better part of two months (optimistically speaking) without revenue,” there will be no businesses except those who have either the government or a very large corporation behind them.

          However, I have the feeling that you and I see the economy very differently. “Deliberately plant and cultivate…and diligently weed” sounds to me like exactly the sort of central planning I think would be a disaster.

          1. I meant that the business-owners were the ones “deliberately planting”, and the diligent weeding would require a pruning of the regs that invite such weeds to thrive (business bailouts, government licensing requirements for any and every job above Unskilled Labor…)

          2. Yep. And a lot of the hospitals won’t have the money to reopen, so single-payer here we come.
            Guys, it might be put off ten years, but we’re going to have to fight.

      2. “The obvious response is that “revenue drops to zero for six weeks” is not the sort of “unforeseen event” that “a bit of fat” will get you through. Pretty sure that except for the very largest companies, that sort of unforeseen event will cause bankruptcy no matter what sort of plan you had for emergency.”

        —————————-

        Even the largest of companies will likely have problems. The IRS (and, I would imagine, similar agencies in other nations) tends to take a dim view of companies that save up large amounts of cash with no immediate plan for using that cash. If a company does get that much money saved up and declare a large dividend payout to shareholders, then expect the IRS to be especially cranky come tax season.

        1. That should read… “If a company does get that much money saved up and *DOES NOT* declare a large dividend payout to shareholders, then expect the IRS to be especially cranky come tax season.”

  45. Europe’s death numbers from WuFlu show fewer deaths than in 2016/17 and, had they not been specifically identified wouldn’t be noticed in a long term chart. Source is euromomo dot eu. Italy death rates by age show more people over 90 died than the sum of people under 60. Germany and Iceland studies show IFM of less than 40bp and extremely widespread infection.

    American Media reaction …. crickets. Governor’s reaction is to tighten the screws.

    I can understand that the media isn’t really prepared to deal with partial differential equations, but the NYT put their theater correspondent on it. But then the NYT has been shown again and again to be unable to read never mind do math q.v., the leaked FEMA prediction from March that they had as current.

    There’s an old Jacobite song that has stuck in my head, — we were bought and sold for English gold, What a parcel of rogues in a nation.

    Cui Bono?

    3. Major digression– it’s funny how education can screw you up.

      I hear the phrase “differential equation” and my mind goes blank.

      But see an equation with two or more variables, and it’s fine.

      1. Differentials aren’t too bad. Now, Integrals…
        ———————————
        I agree with the British bloke who calls the 2000 – 2009 decade ‘the Naughties’.

      2. Once I grew less frightened of ordinary differential equations, I found out about partial differential equations.

        At one point I thought I had a handle on integrals. Then I forgot a lot, and later on kept on finding myself trying to remember, look up fundamental principles somewhere, and then later trying to look up tables of integrals.

        Approximating an integral with a summation wound up less scary than I feared. But I sure did procrastinate dreading.

        Anyway, it is all really really cool. Way neat when it comes together, and many awesome applications. It is just that the applications which make advanced math great are personal taste, so nobody can put your reasons, and all the math, in a box for you and wrap it with a nice bow.

        There are so many great resources that I regret the time I’ve wasted, and how much I’ve hurt myself being to passive. Health makes it hard to think about this stuff some times, but it makes life richer.

  46. And it appears we have implement bad parts of 1919 (ie, things not in retrospect to have matter) with the mask police pulling people off buses and trains.

    But I thought we weren’t to wear masks because they didn’t help (until they did).

    1. It’s the fault of those peons for not listening to authority, of course.

    2. From various contextual stuff, it looks like the CDC’s internal position was “We know masks help limit the spread, but the stupid kulaks will buy them all and we didn’t stockpile any in the strategic reserve, instead spending that budget on studies about idiotic trivial stuff so my idiot brother-in-law could get a research grant, so we have to say masks don’t work until the hospitals get some more in stock from Home Depot.”

      1. My understanding as well.
        The amount people think advanced degrees mean wisdom and deep throught is frightening.

      2. They only limit the spread by preventing the infected from passing it on. They do NOT prevent healthy people from getting it unless the aforementioned infected person is wearing one.

        Which is what they said at the time. But people thought, and still think, that wearing one as a totem would prevent them from getting it, which is where the mask hysteria comes from now.

        1. RIght – at least out here, masks are now all about signaling conformity with the herdthink. All Hail Imperator Gavin!

          Which means they are all about camouflage for those who do not conform.

    1. “… the public health director quoted throughout says we’re nowhere near that point yet”

      By which, of course, he means he’s nowhere near that point. He’s still getting paid, right?

      Perhaps Congress ought enact legislation suspending salaries of public health directors for the duration of any pandemics on their watch.
      –

  49. “Who is holding what over the president’s head to make him act like a moron who never ran a business?”

    Who: Voters. Panic stricken voters
    What: Re-election

    2. Also lawyers. I guarantee you the hacks-in-black across the country are just waiting to tell various government and union types that they can close down or sue any business that opens up….

  50. Sarah, regular Instapundit reader here. Typically I find very few of your pieces interesting (although a few over the years have stood out). Here today on the recommendation of my husband to read this piece. It’s spot on. And really, you’ve been one of the few who has understood this situation from the beginning. I was shocked to look around Instapundit, Reason, and other sites as this WuFlu thing started only to find most people willingly going along with the fear-mongering. You stood against the crowd and kudos to you. Heard you got featured on Rush and that is indeed an honor: I have listened to him for many years and his insight is uncanny. For him to agree with you is good reinforcement.

    We’re thankfully still employed at my house. But resisting in ways I can, by encouraging those with bigger microphones than me to keep speaking out and by putting lots of emails in the spam folder of my elected officials telling them to give me back my liberties and give me back the services that I, as a taxpaxer, should be receiving. (Or will I get a refund on my taxes since I can’t use the state parks or go to the courthouse or county clerk?)

    Keep up the good work.

    1. Have you considered you might like my fiction writing?
      Half joking, because people who like my non-fiction seem to bounce off my fiction.
      So, who knows? 😉

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