WELL, THAT MEANS SOMETHING: Truck Drivers Say They Won’t Deliver To Cities with Defunded Police Departments.
Archive for 2020
June 12, 2020
TENNESSEE: Gov. Lee to demonstrators: “Autonomous zones, and violence will not be tolerated.” Well, good.
HOW DIFFERENT TYPES OF GYMS ARE ADJUSTING TO LIFE AFTER THE PANDEMIC.
A LITTLE LATE, BUT OKAY: In light of COVID-19, study looks at tradeoffs between economic value and public health.
WAS IT OVER WHEN OBAMA BOMBED PEARL HARBOR? Chris Cuomo Criticizes Trump Economy Using Data That Stops In 2016.
(Bumped.)
FREDERIC BASTIAT, CALL YOUR OFFICE: More businesses in Seattle’s “CHAZ” fearing property damage hire private security guards in wake of protests.
(Classical reference in headline.)
THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS: Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan Says Anarchy in City Could Be ‘a Summer of Love.’
AS ALWAYS, LIFE IMITATES SPINAL TAP: Lady Antebellum Is Now ‘Lady A.’ But So Is a Black Blues Singer Who’s Used the Name for 20 Years. “’I’m not about to stop using my name. For them to not even reach out is pure privilege’ — Anita White, known professionally as Lady A.”
In accordance with the prophecy:
Marty: Let’s…uh talk a little bit about the history of the group. I understand Nigel you and David originally started the band wuh…back in…when was it…back in 1964?
David: Well before that we were in different groups, I was in a group called The Creatures and w-which was a skiffle group.
Nigel: I was in Lovely Lads.
David: Yeah.
Nigel: And then we looked at each other and says well we might as well join up you know and uh….
David: So we became The Originals.
Nigel: Right.
David: And we had to change our name actually.
Nigel: Well there was, there was another group in the east end called The Originals and we had to rename ourselves.
David: The New Originals.
Nigel: The New Originals and then, uh, they became…
David: The Regulars, they changed their name back to The Regulars and we thought well, we could go back to The Originals but what’s the point?
In any case, I suspect that Lady Antebellum’s appeal is about to become “more selective.”
WALL STREET JOURNAL: The Second-Wave Covid Scare: The numbers are better than the headlines, and reopening is necessary.
Democrats cite a spike in cases in Florida, Arizona and Texas as evidence of a virus resurgence. But more testing, especially in vulnerable communities, is naturally turning up more cases. Cases in Texas have increased by about a third in the last two weeks, but so have tests. About a quarter of the new cases are in counties with large prisons and meatpacking plants that were never forced to shut down.
Tests have increased by about 37% in Florida in two weeks, but confirmed cases have risen 28%. Cases were rising at a faster clip during the last two weeks of April (47%) when much of the state remained locked down. Now restaurants, malls, barbershops and gyms are open if they follow social-distancing guidelines.
In Arizona, cases have increased by 73% in the last two weeks though tests have increased by just 53%. But a quarter of all cases in the state are on Indian reservations, which have especially high-risk populations. The rate of diabetes is twice as high among Native Americans as whites and the rate of obesity is 50% higher.
Liberals and the media demanded more testing before states could reopen, yet now are criticizing states because more testing has turned up more cases. Keep in mind that New York has reported about the same number of new cases in the last two weeks as Florida, though it ramped up testing earlier so the relative increase appears less significant.
A more important metric is hospitalizations. In Arizona the weekly rolling average for new Covid-19 hospitalizations has been flat for a month. Emergency-room visits for Covid-19 have spiked this week, but the number of ER beds in use hasn’t changed since late April. Hospitals in Arizona (and California) have reported an increase in cases from U.S. citizens and green-card holders returning from Mexico where hospitals are overwhelmed. But with 22% of ICU beds and 62% of ventilators available, Arizona hospitals should have capacity to manage an increase in patients as it reopens.
Texas has also recently reported an uptick in Covid-19 hospitalizations, mostly in the Houston and Austin areas. Current Covid-19 hospitalizations are up about 20% since the state began to reopen, but Gov. Greg Abbott says hospitals aren’t overwhelmed and much of the increase is tied to nursing homes. The number of currently hospitalized patients per capita is still about 80% higher in New York City than in Texas. Mr. Abbott started reopening six weeks ago while Mr. Cuomo began letting manufacturing and construction resume in the Big Apple this week.
Fatalities are a lagging epidemic indicator since most people who die have been in the hospital for two to three weeks. But deaths also aren’t surging. Texas has recorded 151 deaths this past week versus 221 in the last week of April. Florida has reported 239 deaths, 72 fewer than in the last week of April.
Deaths are probably declining in part from better and earlier treatment, but this means there’s less to fear from reopening.
In my own area we keep finding new cases, but it’s going on two months since our last coronavirus death (total in Knox County: 5 with more than 500 confirmed cases). And hospitalization numbers have stayed low.
NEWS FROM NIELSEN ON THE RESTAURANT RECOVERY:
The latest on-premise (bar / restaurant) research from Nielsen CGA, based on a survey of 1,600 consumers (from June 5-7) within California, Texas, New York and Florida about their most recent on-premise habits.
Here are some highlights:
. Return to on-premise
. 30% of consumers have been out to eat in bars/restaurants to eat in the last two weeks.
. Pre-COVID-19, approximately 82% of total U.S. consumers visited bars/restaurants for a meal at least once every two weeks, revealing there is still much more capacity to fill.
. 12% of consumers have been out to drink in bars/restaurants in the last two weeks
. Of those who have returned to the on-premise, 20% have visited just once, while 38% have done so twice.
. Promisingly a large number have had a high frequency of visits; 42% of consumers have visited 3 times or more in the last two weeks
. Those who have not returned to eat or drink said the biggest concerns are not feeling safe being in close proximity with strangers in these places (45%) and not feeling safe going out at the moment (41%)
Plus:
We also consulted consumers on the impact recent protests have had on their decision to go out to the on-premise.
. 57% remained unaffected
. 35% decided not to go out due to the protests.
So there you are.
WHY NOT TAKE A BREAK FROM THE SERIOUS NEWS FOR A FEW MINUTES? Florida Man Friday Challenge: Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?
QUESTION ASKED: Okay, So You’ve Abolished the Police. Now what?
MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Tom Cotton EVISCERATES Cancel Culture in ‘Obelisk of Wokeness’ Speech.
ANDREW DAVIS: All Enemies Foreign And Domestic.
THE FRUITS OF THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Abolitionist Monuments Defaced By ‘Anti-Racism’ Rioters Is What Teaching Fake History Gets America.
And yet another educator displays an appetite for destruction: Professor of ‘art crime’ instructs protesters on better way to topple statues that offend them.
As highlighted in the above screencap, “Just to make clear that she was specifically addressing those who vandalize and destroy public property, Thompson referred back to another taxpayer-funded archaeologist, the University of Alabama-Birmingham’s Sarah Parcak, who had previously given even more detailed instructions for toppling a ‘racist monument’ – an obelisk in Montgomery, Alabama.”
HMM: In new filing, Flynn’s lawyers say judge ‘exceeded his power’ in not dismissing case. “The judge ‘has no authority to gin up his own case or controversy where none exists’.”