JIM TREACHER KNOWS THE ANSWER HERE: Jonathan Turley: Say, why isn’t the media talking about Biden’s paranoid-conspiracy mongering?
Archive for 2020
April 27, 2020
JIM TREACHER: Australia to China: Don’t Push Us on COVID-19, Mate.
China did this. If you think that’s racist, you’re out of your damn mind and I don’t care what you say about me. Glad the Aussies feel the same way. And the Brits aren’t taking this lying down either. This Chinese virus almost killed Boris Johnson, and now he’s very cross indeed. The only people who aren’t glad he’s okay are Chinese communists and Western leftists. But then, they’re one and the same.
Kudos, Aussies! China can kill you, but they can’t make you lie.
Related: The Chinese Art of War.
YOU CAN’T STAY CLOSED FOREVER, AND TRYING TO DO SO MERELY LIMITS YOUR INFLUENCE ON WHAT COMES NEXT: Nevada Is Reopening, Ready Or Not.
These shutdowns were always meant to be temporary, emergency measures, like a donut spare tire you can only use until you get to the shop. It was to give us time to expand our hospital capacity, which we’ve done, and to spread out the infections so we didn’t overwhelm the medical system. It was to give us time to get more data, and to plan, and to act.
But it could not last. Humans aren’t built to be isolated from one another for this long, and we all recognize that life must still go on. We have to feed ourselves, pay for our homes and utilities, preserve our livelihoods for the future, and do all the things that make life worth living. Americans in particular don’t put up with boredom or confinement well, and we definitely don’t like being bossed around, at least not quite so overtly, and certainly not so arbitrarily. Under the best of leaders, where we knew what “victory” over this virus meant and where goalposts weren’t being moved, maybe we’d stay hunkered down for another month if clearly necessary, but even then it wouldn’t have lasted. And we don’t have that best-case leadership scenario. . . .
When people begin to understand that their leaders aren’t leading any more, they will either find other people to follow, or just go off and do their own thing. Political power is not only taken away at the ballot box, it’s also taken away when people just stop listening to you, which they will do when it becomes apparent you have nothing to say. And if someone else does have something to say, well, your power bleeds away that much faster. . . .
Individually, people are already making their own plans, and are slowly but surely executing them. They aren’t going to wait indefinitely for an as-yet-undetermined amount of testing to take place – they can’t afford to. Every day we’re seeing more traffic on the roads. Every day we see more people in the stores still allowed to be open. The protests will get bigger, and will expand far beyond a few cranks and conspiracy theorists. People will start hosting their own parties, with more and more people caring less and less about social distancing. Desperate small business owners will begin operating again, legal or not – what threat is a fine when you lose ten times that amount every day your doors are closed? The legal marijuana industry is struggling because a well-used black market was already in place – how long will it be before passwords to speakeasy barber shops (or hell, actual speakeasies) start floating around, or illicit home deliveries or services become the norm?
When other states open before we do (which they will because they all are actively planning for it and we’re still just planning to plan until more numbers come in), how many people will drive across a border to spend their money, leaving Nevada businesses and Nevada workers in the cold longer than necessary? COVID-19’s impact on our state will be The Worst without additional self-inflicted wounds.
And once these seals are broken without everyone suddenly dropping dead in the streets, are people really going to listen when the next “second wave” shutdown order is issued?
Trust is the most important resource during a crisis, and it’s the resource our ruling class takes most for granted.
HEATHER MAC DONALD: The paranoid style in COVID-19 America.
To grasp the urgency of lifting the ubiquitous economic shutdowns, visit New York City’s Central Park, ideally in the morning. At 5:45 am, it is occupied by maybe 100 runners and cyclists, spread over 843 acres. A large portion of these early-bird exercisers wear masks. Are they trying to protect anyone they might encounter from their own unsuspected coronavirus infection? Perhaps. But if you yourself run towards an oncoming runner on a vector that will keep you at least three yards away when you pass each other, he is likely to lunge sideways in terror if your face is not covered. The masked cyclists, who speed around the park’s inner road, apparently think that there are enough virus particles suspended in the billions of square feet of fresh air circulating across the park to enter their mucous membranes and to sicken them.
These are delusional beliefs, yet they demonstrate the degree of paranoia that has infected the population. Every day the lockdown continues, its implicit message that we are all going to die if we engage in normal life is reinforced. Polls show an increasing number of Americans opting to continue the economic quarantine indefinitely lest they be ‘unsafe’. The longer that belief is reinforced, the less likely it will be that consumers will patronize reopened restaurants or board airplanes in sufficient numbers to bring the economy back to life.
Read the whole thing.
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LUXURY BELIEFS: CNN Reporter Pens Insane Climate Change Letter to Newborn Son.
HYGIENE USED TO BE PRIORITY #1: How Infectious Disease Defined the American Bathroom.
HARSH BUT FAIR.
NEVER LET A PANDEMIC GO TO WASTE: Never waste ‘a crisis:’ IMF chief sees coronavirus as ‘great opportunity’ to create a green economy. “Environmentalists have an unprecedented chance to turn their policy hopes into a global reality during the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, according to the head of the International Monetary Fund. ‘You know, a crisis [is] never to be missed as an opportunity to do better,’ IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva said Monday.”
GOVERNOR ABBOTT OUTLINES PLANS TO REOPEN TEXAS DURING CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC: “He said based on advice from health experts, Texas businesses will be reopened in phases beginning Friday, May 1. With Gov. Abbott’s new executive order all retail stores, restaurants, malls and theaters can reopen on Friday, but at 25% capacity. Texans 65 years old and older should still stay home for now. Barber shops, hairdressers, gyms will not be able to reopen on Friday. They could open in Phase 2. Phase 2 could begin as early as May 18. That would expand occupancy to 50%.”
TOO MANY COOKS: When Crisis Planning Doesn’t Work. Why didn’t Washington have a plan to deal effectively with a pandemic? Because its bureaucracies had been ordered to create so many different plans that no one could keep track of them.
UNLIKE CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD’S CHARGES AGAINST KAVANAUGH, WHICH NEVER WERE: Tiana Lowe: Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden is now credible.
Related: Former neighbor recalls Tara Reade telling her details of sexual assault by Biden in the mid-90s.
Plus: What does CNN know about the Biden assault allegation that we don’t?
Also: Tara Reade lashes out at Democratic politicians, women’s groups and the media.
It’s as if #MeToo was just another anti-Trump agitprop operation that’s being shut down now that it’s rebounded onto Democrats.
DON’T SEE THIS MUCH ANYMORE: The National Taxpayers Union Foundation (NTUF) and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group Foundation (USPIRGF) issued a joint report recommending nearly $800 billion in federal spending cuts. Who knows, it might be the start of something positive.
LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE, LONG-TERM WE REALLY DON’T KNOW: How Coronavirus Has Impacted the Price of Cars. But dealerships around here aren’t closed, and they’ll be happy to sell you a car, and deliver it to your door while driving your trade-in away.
MORE ON FOOD SUPPLY CHAIN ISSUES from InstaPundit reader/farmer Bart Hall:
Poultry have an extra-ordinarily tight “best by” date for slaughtering. Tyson owns all those birds in any case, and they don’t wish to feed them.
With pigs, the slaughter window is a bit wider, but they, well, eat like pigs. On a family farm with a few hogs for local sale you can shift their food mix to slow ’em down, but not in the standard commercial operations.
Beef cattle (and bison) have loads of manoeuvrability, especially going into grazing season, particularly for family farms. Feedlot cattle are another deal, and they’re probably going to be eating a bunch of shredded paper — yes they can digest it — to keep feed costs down. Good time to by *local* beef or hogs.
We’re also starting to see all sorts of **packaging** supply issues for produce and even things as banal as flour and oatmeal. Things are very fragile, intercalated, and interdependent.
Indeed they are. They’re also pretty resilient, but not without some lag time.
I’M NOT SAYING IT’S ALIENS: ‘Wow, What Is That?’ Pentagon Formally Releases Three UFO Videos.
I LOVE THIS: Scientists Have Recreated Medieval Battles to Solve Debate Over Ancient Bronze Swords.
Researchers commissioned the creation of seven bronze swords using traditional methods, then tested them out with the help of local experts used to setting up medieval combat reconstructions, applying techniques from the Middle Ages.
By analysing the marks and indents left on the weapons by the mock battles, and comparing them with a close-up study of 110 ancient Bronze Age swords found across Great Britain and Italy, the team was able to show that the patterns of wear did indeed match up with real combat techniques – indicating these weapons weren’t just ceremonial items.
“Taken together, the archaeological, analytical, and experimental data contributes a strong case for prehistoric swordsmanship being a contact martial discipline involving a certain amount of wilful, skilfully controlled blade contact,” write the researchers in their published paper.
“This is not something that one could improvise. As was the case in later times, mastering sword-twisting and binding techniques would require initial guidance and regular follow-up practice – in other words, structured weapon training.” . . . What’s more, by looking at differences between sword wear and tear across the centuries, the researchers were able to map out an evolution in sword fighting style – a sort of early form of fencing – across Britain and Italy from the late 2nd to the early 1st millennium BCE.
That doesn’t surprise me. These were elite weapons of the elite in their day. But you can imagine how a sword made out of meteoric iron would seem almost like a magic weapon compared to bronze swords and armor.
NEWS I COULD SURE USE: Quarantined? 5 “Quaran-tinis” To Make At Home.