MAYBE HE OUGHT TO RETHINK A FEW THINGS IN LIGHT OF NEW EVIDENCE: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says it’s ‘shocking’ most new coronavirus cases were people who stayed at home.
Archive for 2020
May 7, 2020
AT AMAZON, Face Mask, Pack of 50.
SCHRÖDINGER’S DICTATOR: Kim Jong-un deliberately faked his death to expose traitors in his circle: Report.
FOLKS LEND A HAND IN A HELLHOLE: San Francisco delivers alcohol, tobacco to addicts isolating in city-leased hotels.
MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany Reminds Media How They Downplayed Coronavirus Outbreak.
Reuters reporter Jeff Mason asked McEnany, “In a previous life, before you were press secretary, you worked for the campaign and you made a comment, I believe on Fox, in which you said President Trump will not allow the coronavirus to come to this country. Given what has happened since then, obviously, would you like to take that back?”
“I guess I would turn the question back on the media and ask similar questions,” McEnany responded. “Does Vox want to take back that they proclaimed that the coronavirus would not be a deadly pandemic? Does The Washington Post want to take back that they told Americans to get a grip, the flu is bigger than the coronavirus? Does The Washington Post likewise want to take back that our brains are causing us to exaggerate the threat of the coronavirus? Does The New York Times want to take back that fear of the virus maybe spreading faster of than the virus itself? Does NPR want to take back that the flu was a much bigger threat than the coronavirus? And finally once again The Washington Post, would they like to take back that the government should not respond aggressively to the coronavirus?”
Video at the link.
NEWS I HOPE YOU CAN’T USE: An Adult Cam Site Exposed 10.88 Billion Records. “CAM4 has taken the server offline, but not before it leaked 7TB of user data.”
FLASHBACK: Joe Biden’s 1988 presidential bid:
KARENS WITH RIFLES AND RIOT GEAR: Texas Sheriff Raids Bar Protest With Military-Style Assault Vehicle, SWAT Team: Arrests and Outrage Ensue.
YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED AFTER LOSER. Adam Schiff may be the biggest loser of Russia probe declassification.
SO ALL THAT KAVANAUGH #METOO POSTURING WAS JUST BULLSHIT LIKE I THOUGHT. I Believe Tara Reade. I’m Voting for Joe Biden Anyway.
Related, seen on Facebook:
May 6, 2020
ROBIN HANSON: Why Openers Are Winning.
Three main relevant groups have vied lately to influence pandemic policy: public, elites, and experts. Initially, public health experts dominated, even when they screwed up. But then they seemed to publicly assume that it was too late to contain Covid19, and the only viable option was “flattening the curve” to get herd immunity. At that point, elite opinion worldwide objected loudly, and insisted that containment be the official policy.
Experts and the public demurred, and elites got their way. Everywhere in the world, all at once, strong lockdown polices began, and containment became the official goal. But elites did not insist on any particular standard containment policy. Such as, for example, the packages of polices that seem to have worked initially in Wuhan or South Korea. Instead elites seemed satisfied to let the politicians and experts in each jurisdiction craft their own policy packages, as long as they seemed “strong”, involving much public sacrifice. And they allowed official public messages suggesting that relatively short durations would be sufficient.
A few months later, those duration periods are expiring. And in the different jurisdictions, the diverse policies now sit next to quite diverse outcomes. In some places, infections are low or declining, while in others they are flat or increasing. The public is feeling the accumulated pain, and itching to break out. If these flat or increasing trends continue, containment will fail, and lockdown harms will soon exceed plausible future gains from preventing medical system overload.
Elites are now loudly and consistently saying that this is not time to open; we must stay closed and try harder to contain. When confronted with the discouraging recent trends, elites respond with a blizzard of explanations for local failures, and point to a cacophony of prophets with plans and white papers declaring obvious solutions.
But, and this is the key point, they mostly point to different explanations and solutions. . . .
Winning at politics requires more than just prestige, good ideas, and passion. It also requires compromise, to produce sufficient unity. At this game, elites are now failing, while the public is not.
Elites today are too arrogant and entitled to compromise with those they see as beneath them.
COLLATERAL DAMAGE: Exclusive: Lord & Taylor to liquidate its stores as soon as they reopen.
STILL MORE ON THE HYPOCRISY OF “DR. LOCKDOWN.” Global elites refuse to abide by the very rules they’ve created and imposed on the proletariat.
While Michelle Obama told us to stay home, Obama was duffing around the golf course. As Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot was threatening to arrest citizens for violating lockdown rules, she chose to have her hair done by a salon stylist. A Texas mayor, who locked her citizens down, subsequently went to a nail salon to get her nails done. In another Texas town, salon owner Shelley Luther refused to close down her salon – and on Tuesday was ordered by a judge to spend 7 days in jail in addition to paying a hefty fine.
These stories have been commonplace during the coronavirus chaos and just serve to show how we, the peasants, are mere pawns in this illegitimate power grab.
A pawn can take a queen.
I LOVE WHEN JOURNALISTS GO BALLISTIC OVER BEING TREATED THE WAY JOURNALISTS TREAT EVERYONE ELSE: Politico Reporter Melts Down Over Conservative Media Citing New York Times Letter From Politico ‘Founder.’ “What might have been expected would be for Politico to come out with a strong statement in defense of journalism over partisan activism. What might have been expected would be for all real journalists to condemn Torchin’s statement, even if just to pretend they disagree with it. What Politico did instead was attack people who noticed the letter to the editor. Really.”
At this point, does anyone really expect Politico, or journalists, to behave as described above, as opposed to how Politico actually did behave?
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE, CRACKS IN THE ESTABLISHMENT EDITION: Is going to school in person obsolete? Cuomo wonders why ‘old model’ persists.
Huh. Do tell.
SERVICE GUARANTEES CITIZENSHIP! A new U.S. Space Force recruiting ad.
OPEN THREAD: Livin’ undercover don’t do no good.
SPACE: Exclusive: Trump administration drafting ‘Artemis Accords’ pact for moon mining – sources. Well, that’s not exactly a scoop, as Taylor Dinerman and I wrote about it in the WSJ a couple of weeks ago. But it’s a very important Trump Administration effort, and it’s notable that they kept it moving through the domestic and foreign-policy process chains at full speed even while dealing with a pandemic.
TO BE FAIR, THE LEFT HAVE REJECTED “THE KAVANAUGH STANDARD” AS WELL TO PROP UP BIDEN: Betsy DeVos’s New Title IX Rules Reject the ‘Kavanaugh Standard’ on Sexual Assault.
THE CODE WAS CRAP: Ferguson’s Imperial Model. “On a personal level, I’d go further and suggest that all academic epidemiology be defunded. This sort of work is best done by the insurance sector. Insurers employ modellers and data scientists, but also employ managers whose job is to decide whether a model is accurate enough for real world usage and professional software engineers to ensure model software is properly tested, understandable and so on. Academic efforts don’t have these people, and the results speak for themselves.”
HUGH HEWITT: Things That Are Going To Happen.
Thing 1 – As things open up, and simultaneously testing becomes more widespread – diagnoses of Covid-19 are going to increase. This is going to cause the press to declare the second wave has hit. This will create hysteria and panic in some circles, causing further and tighter clampdowns in some areas. Nothing will actually change from the current situation vis-a-vie the illness itself.
Thing 2 – At some point, not too distant, one of the ever tightening officials is going to make good on their threats and start actually arresting people. The people arrested will be put in holding cells in far greater proximity to other people than they were doing whatever it is that got them arrested to begin with. Then, and only then will they catch Covid-19. I hope they sue the bejeebers out of the ever-tightening official.
Thing 3 – From my perspective here in “Clampdownville,” the signs of “cheating” on restrictions are ever increasing. People are almost literally chomping at the bit. If restrictions are not lifted very soon, when they are lifted people are going to go a little crazy and do intemperate things – thus creating an actual problem with spreading the disease. Authorities will deny any responsibility and try to reimpose the excessive restrictions that created the problem to begin with. See Thing 2. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I know some of you think that the Democrats are going to successfully seize a lot of power this way. I rather expect the opposite.
AND BACK INTO CARBONITE: Justice Ginsburg discharged from hospital.