Archive for 2020
April 11, 2020
21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Coronavirus Diaries: I’m a Lesbian. But Since the Lockdown, I’ve Been Sleeping With My Male Roommate.
BUT IT’LL PROBABLY COME FROM CHINA: We probably won’t see the next COVID-19 coming: The novel coronavirus is just one of many microbes that have jumped from animals into people.
As a precaution, we probably need to isolate China, and ban dense cities and mass transit.
EVERY JOKE IS A TINY REVOLUTION: One Twitter account may have the best way to silence the rise of Chinese trolls: Winnie the Pooh is the answer.
Shades of the old Soviet Union joke: “Is it true that there is freedom of speech in the USSR, just like in the USA? Yes! In the USA, you can stand in front of the White House in Washington, DC, and yell, ‘Down with Ronald Reagan,’ and you will not be punished. Equally, you can also stand in Red Square in Moscow and yell, ‘Down with Ronald Reagan,’ and you will not be punished.”
Related: Throughout history, dark humor has helped us cope in a crisis.
(Classical reference in headline.)
WHEN BILL MAHER IS THE SANEST GUY AT WARNERMEDIA…Bill Maher defends calling coronavirus ‘Chinese virus.’
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: COVID-19 is far from the deadliest event to face humanity. Here are 10 other catastrophes that were far deadlier:
TEXAS GOV. GREG ABBOTT: Executive order to reopen businesses expected next week. “This announcement came hours after Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick said on a town hall call with the Texas GOP that he would like to start opening businesses back up by the first week of May. ‘We’re not going to open up everything immediately, but it will be done in phases, but we need to get started, and I hope that’s the first week of May, barring any unforeseen big spikes,’ Patrick said on the call.”
MOON MINER’S MANIFESTO: Trump Makes It Official: The U.S. Will Mine the Moon.
“IS STAGE 4 TDS CONSIDERED AN UNDERLYING MORBIDITY?” CNN coronavirus town hall accidentally features Trump Derangement Syndrome question.
MY GRANDPA WAS RIGHT: SMOG MEANS JOBS. AND CONVERSELY: Stunning Satellite Images Reveal Pollution Plummeting Across Europe in Lockdown.
VIRGINIA POSTREL: Pandemics Come and Go But Medical Masks Are Eternal.
FAILURE WAS NOT AN OPTION: Apollo 13’s 50th anniversary recalls NASA tragedy turned triumph.
TO MAKE A GOOD MODEL, YOU NEED RELIABLE DATA AND A SOLID UNDERSTANDING OF THE UNDERLYING PROCESSES: Why It’s So Freaking Hard To Make A Good COVID-19 Model. Otherwise you’re just playing with numbers and fancy graphics.
MEDIA FALLS FOR FAKE NEWS ACCOUNT CLAIMING COLIN KAEPERNICK SIGNED TO NEW YORK JETS. Including former MSNBC host Touré Neblett.
After getting ratioed, Neblett then tweeted, “GOD DAMNIT THIS IS A PARODY ACCOUNT. FML.” (F*** my life).
Flashback: Touré falls for faketastic Hurricane Sandy photo, well-deserved mockage ensues:
EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE YOU GET SOMETHING USEFUL FROM THE NYT’S HOUSE CONSERVATIVES: Covid-19 and the Big Government Problem: What happens when bureaucratic dead weight meets a horseman of the apocalypse?
From 2007 to 2019, the total number of employees in the Food and Drug Administration increased by nearly 80 percent to more than 17,000 employees, according to a Cato Institute report. That includes nearly 500 additional workers to review the safety of medical devices.
Has it helped? In March, Julia Ioffe wrote a must-read account in GQ of the F.D.A.’s almost-comical mishandling of an effort to roll out coronavirus test kits. First the F.D.A. approved a flawed test. Then they stymied an effective test by requiring its developer to submit his request not only electronically but also mailed in paper and via thumb drive. Then the F.D.A. demanded that the developer see if his test worked against other coronaviruses. Then the F.D.A. shut down a testing regime developed by the Seattle Flu Study because it lacked the correct licensing requirements.
And yet some idiots are blaming these problems on “small government” ideology. If only! Plus: “It says something that among the most important steps taken in recent months to advance public safety has been to waive regulations enacted in the name of public safety.”
Related: The CDC was Fighting Racism and Obesity Instead of Stopping Epidemics.
Flashback: You had one job, CDC.
CURVE, FLATTENED: Doctors: Eight Reasons to End the Lockdowns Now. I’d give it a week or two more, myself. But it was never meant to be more than a temporary response. Now the thing to do is to let up in areas where it’s safe to do so, in ways that maximize benefits while minimizing increased danger. NYC, on the other hand, will have to stay locked down for quite a while longer.
Excerpt: “Those who want to continue the lockdown indefinitely should show clear evidence regarding the benefits of indefinite lockdown. There needs to be a clear reliable model that shows how many additional lives will be saved considering we have already flattened the curve and there is essentially no further risk of overwhelming the health care system. The previous models were wrong. The consequences of indefinite lockdown are quite staggering, to the tune of one million jobs lost per day.”
EUGENE VOLOKH ON Libertarian dispositions during a pandemic.
NEWS FROM MY NECK OF THE WOODS:
The Knox County Health Department is reporting one new case on Saturday, bringing the total case number to 155.
Previous: Coronavirus in Tennessee: Active Knox County cases down to 35, 154 total; race, ZIP code data coming
There are now 28 active cases in the county as of April 11.
The total number of recovered cases now stands at 123. Recovered cases refer to those who have been released from isolation after seven days from their onset of symptoms, plus 72 hours of being symptom-free. Recovered does not mean necessarily the person had to be hospitalized.
19 of the 155 cases have resulted in hospitalization at any point during the illness. This figure does not reflect the number of patients currently hospitalized in the county.
In Knox County, 3,410 total COVID-19 tests have now been conducted.
Still at 4 deaths. I’d say our lockdown has worked.
THAT WOULD BE VERY FAST: Coronavirus vaccine could be ready by September. “Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at Oxford University, told The Times she was ’80 per cent confident’ that the vaccine being developed by her team would work, with human trials due to begin in the next fortnight.”
HOWIE CARR ON “JOE BIDEN’S BASEMENT TAPES:”
In the tradition of Bob Dylan’s Basement Tapes, what follows are Joe Biden’s Basement Tapes.
As usual, all dialogue guaranteed verbatim.
This first quote, about Uncle Joe’s house arrest in the basement, comes from his recent teleconference of sorts with union leaders. Incidentally, one of those pinky-ring bosses on the line was apparently Richard Trumpka of the AFL-CIO.
You can imagine how confusing that was for Sleepy Joe – Trumpka, Trump…. Perhaps that was why in another online chat this week, he referred to “President Strump,” which is not to be confused (although Biden was, as usual) with his earlier reference to “President Hump.”
But back to the AFL-CIO. Sleepy Joe thanked the “essential” workers, who, he said “literally are carrying our nation on their backs.”
Literally.
“I promise you,” Sleepy Joe told the union caporegimes, “I’ll do whatever I can. I know, I’m locked in a basement like a lot of you are but again, I wanna thank you.”
I miss the Onion’s 2009-era parody of Joe Biden as an aging lunch-bucket guy with a bitchin’ ’81 Pontiac Firebird. Geezer Joe Biden is quite painful to watch: