HUH: Evidence that cats (but not dogs) can be infected with the coronavirus.

Now I know why one of our dogs always goes so crazy when the neighbor’s cat wanders into our yard.

EVEN MORE GOOD NEWS: Coronavirus Delays Key Global Climate Talks.

The session, known as the Conference of Parties, had been scheduled to take place in Glasgow for a week and a half in mid-November. It was postponed to 2021, the world body’s climate agency and the host government, Britain, confirmed late Wednesday.

“In light of the ongoing, worldwide effects of Covid-19, holding an ambitious, inclusive COP26 in November 2020 is no longer possible,” the British government said in a statement.

The conference venue in Glasgow, an arena where tens of thousands of delegates from around the world were to have gathered, is being turned into a field hospital for people with Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Covid patients are also being housed in the convention center in Madrid where the Conference of Parties took place last December; Spain has one of the world’s largest outbreaks.

Coronavirus keeps environmentalists off of private jets — is there anything it can’t do?

SLOW BOAT TO NOWHERE: Coast Guard Tells Cruise Ships With COVID-19 Cases To Stay Away From U.S. Ports.

IT WAS FUNNY, BUT IT WASN’T FUNNY-FUNNY: Biden’s Offer to Call Trump to Give Coronavirus Response Advice Is the Best April Fool’s Joke Ever.

I SURVIVED BEING YOUNG AND STUPID, AND HOPE THESE KIDS DO, TOO: I’m old enough to remember when the worst thing you might bring home from spring break was a sunburn and maybe gonorrhea, but how would you enjoy a touch of potentially deadly pandemic when you get back?

GOOD NEWS FROM ABOVE THE LAW’S DAVID LAT: “Not an #AprilFoolsDay Joke: after 17 days at @nyulangone, including 6 days on a ventilator, I’m being discharged!”

AS SAM JACKSON SAYS, “STAY THE F*** AT HOME”: How a bridge tournament led to 4 coronavirus deaths in El Paso County and exposed hundreds to COVID-19. “El Paso County is home to the country’s sixth-highest case fatality rate from the coronavirus.”

I live in El Paso County.

(Neoclassical reference in the headline.)

CHRISTIAN TOTO: Hollywood’s ‘Trump Is Hitler’ Argument Even More Pathetic Now. “The current crisis reveals how badly far-left celebrities embarrassed themselves.”

To be fair, embarrassment requires a degree of self-awareness rarely seen in Hollywood.

PRIVACY: Two more macOS Zoom flaws surface, as lawsuit & government probe loom.

The second flaw, which is arguably more concerning, allows a local user or piece of malware to piggyback on Zoom’s camera and microphone permissions. An attacker can inject malicious code into Zoom’s process space and “inherit” camera and microphone permissions, allowing them to hijack them without a user’s knowledge.

While local exploits like these typically require physical access to a computer, they’re usually much more common and difficult to prevent should the rest of the criteria that are needed are fulfilled.
…
The class action, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that Zoom gave personal user information to third parties without being explicitly clear about the data-sharing practices, CBS News reported. New York Attorney General Letitia James has also launched a probe into Zoom’s privacy policies.

In a separate development, Zoom may also be inadvertently leaking user email addresses and photos to complete strangers, according to Motherboard.

It’s pretty safe to conclude that Zoom is Chinese spyware masquerading as a videoconferencing app.

WHAT? Virginia Clerk Is Locked Up for Shooting at 3 Masked Robbers in His Store. Not a Typo.

BATTLESWARM BLOG: Dispatches from the Texas Lockdown.

NO GOOD REASON: There Is No Reason to Believe China Is Reporting Its Coronavirus Cases Accurately. “And yet media outlets have taken the numbers at face value.”

Pushing the Communist Party line makes Trump look bad, and anyway is a longstanding habit for the American press.

ABOUT AS SHOCKING AS FINDING ME AT A BAR: Democrats and U.S. Media Star in New Chinese Propaganda Video.

BLUE STATE BLUES: LA County Fires Sheriff as Head of Emergency Ops Center … During an Emergency.

WHAT A STRANGE THING FOR A COUNTRY TO DO AFTER THEY HAVE NO NEW CASES: Chinese Backed Company Raids Australia’s Medical Supplies, Ships Them Back to China.

GOOD: Bend it like the Bay Area: Doctors see flatter curve after 2 weeks of social isolation.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Down the Coronavirus Classic Sports Rabbit Hole. “I spent much of the day reliving my favorite moments from that Super Bowl on the NFL YouTube channel. To my surprise, the trip down Memory Lane was just what the quarantine doctor ordered. Revisiting happy sports moments was a nice respite from coronavirus news.”

PJMedia VIP Gold members can join Kruiser and me for an Ask Me Anything-style video live chat today at 4pm Eastern.

There will be cocktails.

FINALLY, SOME GOOD NEWS: Coronavirus is killing the Biden campaign — and making him look like a fool.

It is hard for anybody to compete with the president of the United States — regardless of what party he or she is in. That’s why the responses to the State of the Union addresses usually fall flat. So Biden and his campaign were admittedly fighting an uphill battle going up against Trump. Compounding this challenge is the need for sensitivity — it is important for Biden to criticize the president, but he can’t seem petty, small or overly political in a moment when the people crave real leadership.

This would be a major challenge for a Winston Churchill or Franklin Roosevelt. For Biden, it turned out to be impossible. His public statements this week have been unfocused, error-ridden, full of awkward gaffes. They ran directly contrary to the message that his campaign is trying to convey: that he is battle-tested and ready to handle any crisis. Unsurprisingly, the Biden campaign canceled a major address.

Biden is clearly not working for the Biden campaign.

So what is his team going to do? Probably very little for now. The news is all coronavirus, all the time. If Biden doesn’t have anything productive to add to that conversation, he isn’t going to be involved in it.

As I wrote last week, Biden couldn’t even handle a fake press conference that somehow took four days to set up.

SHE KNOWS WHO HER CONSTITUENTS ARE: Party of the Working Man? Pelosi Proposes Something That Will Give Millionaires Billions in Benefits.

CLOSE QUARTERS: Aircraft carrier captain pleads for help after more than 100 crew are infected with coronavirus.

DECOUPLING, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG: Spain’s foreign minister hopes health crisis can lead to closer ties with Chinese medical equipment suppliers.

Seems to me like Spain could use a foreign minister who knows which country she’s supposed to be ministering to.

SOMEONE NEEDS TO EXPLAIN TO HIM THAT HE HAD HIS TURN AND IT’S OVER: Chicken Little Obama Frets About Trump’s ‘Climate Denial’ Amid Coronavirus Pandemic.

I LIKE THEIR COFFEE: Black Rifle Coffee Company Steps Up To Help Support Medical Facilities and Military Personnel Battling The Coronavirus.

PRIVACY: Zoom macOS install ‘shady,’ plus video chats aren’t end-to-end encrypted.

Increased usage of video conferencing app and service Zoom during the coronavirus outbreak is leading to more security issues being uncovered. As well as previously sending user data to Facebook, which it says it has fixed, it has now been accused of two separate security issues.

Twitter user @c1truz_, technical lead for malware tracker VMRay, reports that Zoom’s Mac app installer uses preinstallation scripts and allegedly displays a faked macOS system message.

“This is not strictly malicious, but very shady and definitely leaves a bitter aftertaste,” continues @c1truz_, “The application is installed without the user giving his [or her] final consent and a highly misleading prompt is used to gain root privileges.”

“[These are the] same tricks that are being used by macOS malware,” he concludes.

Zoom’s product development team is largely located in …wait for it… China.

TAR, FEATHERS: HOA Threatens to Foreclose on Residents Conducting Business from Home During Lockdown