Wednesday Morning Links

by | Mar 25, 2020 | Daily Links | 566 comments

A CIA operative performing his duties

Is “Hump Day” even a concept anymore? Hell, I almost need to look at an actual monthly calendar to know what day of the week it is anymore. But that probably has as much to do with me not really working on a weekly schedule anymore.  I’ve lost the concept of the five-day work week over the past three years. The past couple of weeks have probably made it that way for a lot of you as well. And that’s all for sports news.

Steinem in better days

CIA cover-up participant Jack Ruby was born on this day. He shares it with director David Lean, legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell, onetime Playboy bunny Gloria Steinem, “The Queen Of Soul” Aretha Franklin, actor Paul Michael Glaser, genius singer-songwriter Elton John, horse-faced actress Sarah Jessica Parker, comedian Doug Stanhope, and auto racing waste-of-space Danica Patrick.

Gee, there were a couple heavyweights on this list. Some of the best in their field, IMO. And there’s also Danica Patrick. Anyway, let’s move on to…the links!

What, me worry?

Prince Charles has finally been corona-ted. I guess all those public appearances he’s made in close contact with groups of people might have not been a good idea.

Here’s a tweet for you to read. Jesus, these people have no fucking shame whatsoever.

Meet the next Neal Peart. Man, them’s some fast hands.  That kid’s gonna be able to start fires when he starts jacking it in 6-7 years.

All that blubber may come in handy soon. Those candles and lamps aren’t gonna fill themselves once the corona destroys the power grid.

Rand Paul defends his choice to not self-quarantine. In saner times, his explanation would be acceptable. But not with all the pants-shitting going on.  Hell, I just wish he’d take the Senate floor and filibuster again. Like this week. And shake everybody’s hand and thank them for being there.

It’s a metaphor

Looks like the spending bill is a done deal. I don’t think we’re gonna like what’s in it once we’re allowed to read it.

That dog won’t hunt. But he’ll sure sell some chocolate eggs.

Hope you all enjoy this. It’s a lovely song.

Now go have a great day! I’m gonna get the boat on the water before it hits 90 degrees this afternoon.

About The Author

sloopyinca

sloopyinca

566 Comments

  1. Scruffy Nerfherder

    OK, the Prince Charles pun wins the prize for today.

    • Fourscore

      I had to laugh, SP will understand why.

    • Swiss Servator

      Both sloopy and you get…

  2. Festus

    Everyday is hump day! Ask Q!

    • Festus

      Darn.

      • AlexinCT

        Why the negativity? Q’s humpday day linx are joyful…

      • Festus

        Not First! It reflects badly on the site…

      • Fourscore

        Don’t feel bad, son, you (and several dozen others) will always be first with me.

      • Festus

        *Feels actual feels* That means a lot Dad. I’m not being facetious. My Father and I never saw eye to eye on much of anything but he had some admirable qualities that I try to emulate. You’re a good man, Honey Harvester.

      • Fourscore

        Thanks, Festus, I wish and hope I meet your expectations but alas. Too bad the distance is such and my trips to Canada have been curtailed due to the calendar. Enjoy our fellow Glibs, they (you) are the best.

      • Festus

        Likewise! Your trips to Canada were to Ontario? That’s like 2000 miles away as the hate bird flies. I can probably never cross the border, now that it is current year…

      • Fourscore

        Yeah, Red Lake, fly out a 100 miles and fish

    • Festus

      Thanks Swissy!

  3. Scruffy Nerfherder

    $4B for NYC museums?

    What in the ever loving fuck for? Just shut the damn doors and send people home. Does it cost $4B to idle a building?

    • sloopyinca

      As an aside, the Met got 7.4 million visitors last year and has a $2.5B endowment.
      If those fucks deserve money more than the local pizza places the government forced to close their doors, then our country has truly lost its goddamn mind.

      • robc

        There was a great econtalk episode on art museums a few years back. Most of the large ones have huge surpluses of art that will never be seen. Some of it gets rotated in and out, but most sits in storage. And they aren’t legally able to sell it off.

        The guests suggestion was to allow them to sell off some percent of the surplus each year to help fund the museum….some of it would get bought or donated to smaller museums which would display it, others would go into private collections where at least someone would see it. And it probably ends up back in a museum eventually.

      • Tonio

        I’m wondering if they are contractually obligated by the terms of the donation (or their own policies) to not sell the art. Selling off donations could depress future donations as people who donate their art generally want it to be seen. Perhaps a lot of those lesser works were accepted in the hope that (or because) a donor would donate that piece of art they really wanted.

      • robc

        if they sell it to another museum, that might fit the spirit, if not the letter, of the contract.

        I don’t remember all the details, it has been too long, but it seems it is more a legal obligation than a contractual one.

      • Spartacus

        Most of the artwork we get comes with an explicit agreement not to sell it. If we did sell any of it, word would get out and that would be the end of donations. Our current gallery space is enough to show about 20-25% of what we actually have, so we try to rotate some, but we also host other exhibits so it gets more complicated. Our gallery usually has its events blocked out about 18 months in advance.

      • creech

        Based on what does get displayed, one wonders what real crap is being held in storage? If the art is worthy of display, then why not send it out to every school in the district so someone can appreciate it? Maybe it doesn’t measure up to what the 1st graders are doing?

      • The Last American Hero

        So you don’t need any more donations for a decade.

        Museums are also hoarding the collections. If someone offers to donate 10 paintings, you work with them to accept 3 and find happy homes for the other 7. But what museums do is take the 10, display the best 3 and sit on a huge amount of art.

      • robc

        One of the suggestions made in the comments of the episode I linked (see above), is that a business would open new branches, but museum directors don’t want to dilute their power.

        The Met could open small branch museums around the US and display the 90% they have in storage instead. Then they would meet both parts of the donation request, not selling it AND displaying it.

      • Tonio

        Yeah, those endowments should be enough to keep the essential personnel on duty — guards, maintenance, and anyone required to actively conserve delicate pieces of artwork.

    • Festus

      They can’t just drape cloth over everything and shut the place down for a few weeks? Dude, the painting is like five hundred years old and it’s been through worse than this. This is why those assholes are going to get their milkshakes drunk come November.

      • Tonio

        Security and HVAC have to keep going.

      • Festus

        Well sure. I get that conditions need to be met but $4 Billion? When people that will be suffering from this made-up bullshit are actually hurting? Dems in a nutshell.

      • Tonio

        No, I was just stating what their truly essential funding priorities are, and implying that those should be easily covered by their endowment. Sorry it was clumsily stated.

      • Festus

        No worries! I haven’t been myself lately for some reason. Really enjoyed your photo tutorial! Wifey is a semi pro photographer with her own side-line. All the comments reminded me of the equipment that she used to have that we had to sell in dank times including an 8×10 middie that some wonk gifted her when she was young and beautiful.

      • straffinrun

        Really enjoyed your photo tutorial!

        10X. Thanks, Tonio.

    • WTF

      Here’s an idea, let the people who like to patronize museums support the museums.
      Radical concept, I know.

      • sloopyinca

        Ignoring their endowment for a moment, let’s do the math:
        They get $7.5m visitors a year. Let’s average their ticket price to $20 each. That’s $150m in revenue (before concessions or parking). They have 2200 employees, many of which are most certainly part-time. They’d be able to pay each of those people a little more than the median household income in the US each year from that revenue stream alone.
        Of course that’s before any of their “gala” fundraisers line their pockets with a shitload more money.

        And this fuck wants to give them all that free money…to fight the coronavirus.

        Shameless.

      • WTF

        It really is shameless. I love the Met, my wife and I visit it, they have amazing art and antiquities, but there’s no way taxpayers should be funding it.

      • R C Dean

        And don’t forget their retail operation, which has to me them millions.

      • RAHeinlein

        NY residents (and others) are not required to pay – so a lot of visitors aren’t part of total sales. Those employees are fully loaded rates, and as with most museums this is a major cost center.

        I’m not for giving them a dime by the way.

      • sloopyinca

        Oh I saw that. It’s “pay what you want” for those NY residents…because the museum is on state-owner land. Which means the museum doesn’t have to pay for it or property tax on it.

      • Festus

        That little rider that the Dems tried to sneak into the relief bill was pretty special, $35 million for the Kennedy Center. It was so full of pork that even eGould wouldn’t take a bite.

    • Tonio

      Great pushback in the comments… “the rest of the country doesn’t care…you fund this yourself”

      • Festus

        Seeing increments of this lately. It’s reassuring. People are moving past the London Blitz and starting to get their combat boots on (metaphorically).

      • The Last American Hero

        bullshit.

      • Festus

        How so? The grumbling is imminent.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Can I buy Madame X? I’ll take good care of her.

      • Festus

        I like your style, Toxteth.

    • leon

      Seems like something the NY legislature can deal with. Not the rest of the country.

    • AlexinCT

      My bet is that the museum needs that much cash cause a considerable chunk of that $4 billion lands in Nadler and/or other team blue campaign coffers…

      Every time you see a politician ask for funding for one of these entities that produce nothing of value, you can bet the reason is said entity is a big donor to them…

      • Fourscore

        “Because of the Trumpian Austerity Programs all museums will allow viewing by Democratic voters only. Refreshments will be served.”

        “Overcrowding by others will only lead to a degrading of exhibits”

    • Invisible BEAM of the comment stream

      Does it cost $4B to idle a building?

      In NYC, it probably costs that much to cross the street.

  4. PieInTheSky

    Prince Charles has finally been corona-ted. – boooo

    • sloopyinca

      Vampires aren’t known for their sense of humor. So this means nothing to me.

  5. Raven Nation

    Wonder if any royalists in Britain are quietly hoping prince Charles succumbs – for the good of the crown of course.

    • AlexinCT

      I was wondering if some might not be thinking of helping him succumb…

      • Tonio

        “Wils, bring Grannie a pillow…”

  6. PieInTheSky

    Meet the next Neal Peart. Man, them’s some fast hands. That kid’s gonna be able to start fires when he starts jacking it in 6-7 years. – I never met the previous one. Then again he is not hanging around Bucharest so it was unlikely for me to.

  7. Rebel Scum

    Rachel Maddow MSNBC
    @maddow
    18h

    Do not amplify misinformation.

    If someone is consistently hyping snake-oil miracle cures, or making up stories about policies that aren’t real, stop putting a camera or a mic on that person as a source for information in this crisis.

    Rebut lies. Tell the truth. Cite sources.

    I would have to dedicate my life to addressing all the bs you spew.

    • sloopyinca

      Didn’t MSNBC’s lawyers defend her lying as hyperbole in a recent lawsuit?

      • Festus

        Sure did. Was it that kid from the Washington Mall? Something something Covington something something?

      • AlexinCT

        Yeah, and they ended up settling and paying up.

  8. Gender Traitor

    So (((Nadler))) is one of (((them)))?

    • Festus

      We’re not bigots here, Dear. We just hate cuntes. Nadler is one of the gapiest of them all…

      • Gender Traitor

        Well, he’s got the parentheses right there in his Twitter handle. Do we need a special set of brackets for needledick weasels?

      • Festus

        Like this? – – – Nadler – – –

  9. Scruffy Nerfherder

    SJWednesday: Shock The Monkey Covid

    “Look, we know this script. In 2008, the last time we had a global financial meltdown, the same kinds of bad ideas for no-strings-attached corporate bailouts carried the day, and regular people around the world paid the price,” says Klein. “We know what Trump’s plan is: a pandemic shock doctrine featuring all the most dangerous ideas lying around, from privatizing Social Security to locking down borders to caging even more migrants. Hell, he might even try canceling elections. But the end of this story hasn’t been written yet.”

    “Instead of rescuing the dirty industries of the last century, we should be boosting the clean ones that will lead us into safety in the coming century,” Klein says, pointing to the Green New Deal. “If there is one thing history teaches us, it’s that moments of shock are profoundly volatile. We either lose a whole lot of ground, get fleeced by elites, and pay the price for decades, or we win progressive victories that seemed impossible just a few weeks earlier. This is no time to lose our nerve.”

    • Tundra

      Fuck off, slaver.

      Righties are annoying. Proggies are flat-out evil.

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^THIS^^^

    • Hyperion

      “Instead of rescuing the dirty industries of the last century, we should be boosting the clean ones that will lead us into safety in the coming century,” Klein says, pointing to the Green New Deal.”

      Allow me to translate that.

      A virus can’t kill nearly enough people, we need most of them to die from starvation and exposure to the elements.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        What kind of sick person sees a panic-inducing global pandemic and says to themselves “hmmm, maybe I should stoke these fires and use the panic to impose my worldview on the masses”? I try to avoid moralistic thinking when observing politics, but this is unfettered evil. The kind that used to be dealt with violently.

  10. PieInTheSky

    Extra things that annoy Pie: police cars driving on the street screaming stay in your homes over the megaphone. I am trying to pretend to work here!

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      Pie, I neglected to say that I liked your Romanian language piece. I had a Romanian friend in high school from whom I learned good day, good evening, good night, thank you, and cornmeal. ?

      • PieInTheSky

        Well I have an older post if you need to brush up on your swearing. But thanks.

      • Swiss Servator

        ^Knows what is important in a language lesson!^

      • Hyperion

        “Pie, I neglected to say that I liked your Romanian language piece. I had a Romanian friend in high school from whom I learned good day, good evening, good night, thank you, and cornmeal.”

        Nothing about vampires? Lame!

  11. Rebel Scum

    I don’t think we’re gonna like what’s in it once we’re allowed to read it.

    On the plus side, if you are out of toilet paper you will have plenty of Donald Dollars to use.

    • Don Escaped Texas

      The Constitution is printed on that silky, silky parchment.

      • leon

        Why would he want to use something people have been wiping their ass with for centuries?

  12. Evan from Evansville

    I wonder if Americans would be confused, shocked or ashamed at how S. Koreans are mitigating ‘The Crisis.’ I’d like to think that they’d lean towards the latter but I have zero confidence. Grocery stores here are up and running and absolutely no one is freaked out.

    It should be embarrassing.

    I hope everyone is well and not to beaten down by states’ nonsensical decisions. (Hi, Indiana! Thanks for fucking up my bro+SIL’s home parenting of my 6 and 4-year-old nephews! I do enjoy their FB posts. Yes. That is my job. I wonder if people try harder because they want their OWN kids to learn, or if it is more frustrating because they understandably are much more emotionally attached to the learning process.)

    My 5-year-old kids have 5 40-minute classes, the first of which starts at 9:40 and lunch is at noon. Damn. That’s a rough day. Goddamn these people take this shit seriously. I have never heard of that back stateside, though in my defense I haven’t ever lived there as a full-on adult.

    • Nephilium

      From what I (as a non-parent) see, schools are more daycare center/activity center for kids now. Any learning is incidental to the real job of keeping the kids busy so both parents can work.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        That is correct. My wife has had some recent conversations with moms that are being forced to deal with their kids. Many are being shown as to only want their kids to be occupied and out of their hair.

        She has had some serious conversations with moms / parents that they are not fulfilling their obligations to their kids by allowing the state to take control of the rearing of their children. Some moms have been receptive to this some have not.

    • Tonio

      So what is Indiana doing?

      • WTF

        Running guns to Illinois. Duh!

      • Evan from Evansville

        I should have been clearer. I’m not entirely sure what the entire state is doing. My bro runs his own business and works at home; SIL is about halfway to giving birth to my third nephew and before was working for the Children’s Museum and now the Zoo. That’s ending in toto soon.

        They are teaching the kids at home instead of sending them to school/pre-school. Our conversations have been fun as they are fully seeing what I’ve surrounded my life with. The big (and hugely important) difference being that My Kids are Other People’s Kids and Their Kids are Theirs.

        People imagine why I never, ever want to have children. GAH! I have tons of kids! When I’m done with them, the last thing I want to do is to hang out with them!! I want to be able to be Me again and to be free from them!

        The most kids I ever had during any semester this past decade was about 320. I knew all of them. Yeah. I’m checking out from that shit once the day is done. I don’t get the parental touchy feel-goody-ness with that many kids. Some of them can truly suck. That’s almost always because of their parents. Fuck that constant noise, though I do love the actual art, patience and skill of dropping knowledge and seeing kids pick it up. I just can’t do it for 20+ years focused on 1 (or so) kid.

  13. Tundra

    Good morning, Sloopy!

    Thanks for the lynx. Especially the nut punch that is the spending bill. Sweet Jesus we are gonna be in trouble when the bills come due!

    Poor Rand. He’s everyone’s favorite punching bag. And one of two or three dudes in Congress I’d miss if DC got kissed by the SMOD.

    Amazing song from an excellent (and appropriately named) album! Thanks for that!

    Have a great time out on the boat with the girls! And I hope the rest of You People have a fantastic and virus-free day!

    • leon

      Yup. Everyone loves to hate Rand. So I guess he’s doing something right.

      And fuck everyone saying he should have quarantined before knowing the results. Every other mother fucker in the Senate deserves to catch this.

      • Tonio

        Oh, nice.

      • Tundra

        HAH!

        Love it! Thanks, Scruffy!

    • AlexinCT

      Thanks for the lynx. Especially the nut punch that is the spending bill. Sweet Jesus we are gonna be in trouble when the bills come due!

      That ship has already sailed I believe Tundra.

  14. Juvenile Bluster

    Greater odds: That a single congressperson who votes “yes” on the stimulus actually reads the bill or I have a post-quarrantine threesome with my wife and Gal Gadot?

    • leon

      You seem nice. It shouldn’t be impossible to convince Gal to join you and your wife.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      “Imagine.”

  15. Not Adahn

    I’m gonna get the boat on the water before it hits 90 degrees this afternoon.

    Even with a day of melting and compaction, there is still 2″ of Monday’s snow on the ground. And I had to wait until my forehead warmed up enough to get a reading before entering the building.

    • leon

      If the dry weather persists it’s going to be a rough year for the ranchers.

    • Nephilium

      This entire week it’s been in the 30’s when I get up. When I look, the highs are in the 40’s. Every day this week, the forecast was that tomorrow the high was going to be in the 60’s. Each day that has failed to happen (but tomorrow!).

    • Tonio

      You mean they are doing temperature checks at the door? How does that work?

      • Not Adahn

        Yup. There’s an entranceway before the security gates where they have set up tables staffed by the medical personnel. There are tape lines 6′ apart to stand on while waiting your turn.

      • sloopyinca

        Do those tape lines go all the way out to the parking lot, because if they don’t, they’re fucking useless.

      • Not Adahn

        Honestly, between the massive WFH effort and the fact that my workday starts a half hour earlier than most of the other salaried types (and lasts a half-hour longer…) I’ve never seen more than one person ahead of me at the screening line.

        I could park closer, but out of habit I always park in the same place so I can find my car at the end of the day. They don’t believe in parking garages here, so we have a shopping-mall sized lot.

      • UnCivilServant

        It costs more to build a garage than to pave a lot.

        It only makes sense to build a garage when the land itself is expensive.

      • Not Adahn

        Initial outlays, yes.

        I wonder though, how many years of maintenance and snow-clearing services it would take to make up the difference. Unless those snow guys are mandatory jobs required as part of the terms of Cuomo’s bribe to the UAE.

      • UnCivilServant

        I’m sure someone does the math. But garages are not maintenence free either, so I’m going to wager that might be a wash in staffing.

      • R C Dean

        A whole lot of years. Decks cost $10-15K per car to build. A modest return on that money would probably cover the maintenance on a surface lot forever.

      • kbolino

        Parking lots don’t scale as well as garages. At some point, you’ll need to provide shuttle services when the lots get really spread out. That still might be cheaper than a garage, but people will start counting that as time wasted. For a large employer, that can cause morale issues.

      • Not Adahn

        My fab in Austin literally didn’t have enough land for parking so they needed a garage, plus shuttle lots. At the time, I was working a 6-6 shift, so I always got to park in the garage, which between that and garaging the Z3 at home meant the paint was in remarkable shape for a Texas car.

  16. PieInTheSky

    Because I did not have any masks, I bought 4 and I think I over-payed. Also I got a better one from a friend. But still I will keep them for the future.

  17. Scruffy Nerfherder

    SJWednesday: The Living Women Envy The Dead Men

    For those with caring responsibilities, an infectious-disease outbreak is unlikely to give them time to write King Lear or develop a theory of optics. A pandemic magnifies all existing inequalities (even as politicians insist this is not the time to talk about anything other than the immediate crisis). Working from home in a white-collar job is easier; employees with salaries and benefits will be better protected; self-isolation is less taxing in a spacious house than a cramped apartment. But one of the most striking effects of the coronavirus will be to send many couples back to the 1950s. Across the world, women’s independence will be a silent victim of the pandemic.

    Purely as a physical illness, the coronavirus appears to affect women less severely. But in the past few days, the conversation about the pandemic has broadened: We are not just living through a public-health crisis, but an economic one. As much of normal life is suspended for three months or more, job losses are inevitable. At the same time, school closures and household isolation are moving the work of caring for children from the paid economy—nurseries, schools, babysitters—to the unpaid one. The coronavirus smashes up the bargain that so many dual-earner couples have made in the developed world: We can both work, because someone else is looking after our children. Instead, couples will have to decide which one of them takes the hit.

    • Shirley Knott

      It’s easy enough to join them. Seriously, is there an easier form of envy to satisfy?

    • Gender Traitor

      We can both work, because someone else is looking after our children. Instead, couples will have to decide which one of them takes the hit.

      “We have to take care of our own kids??? INJUSTICE!!!”

      • WTF

        The horror, the horror…

      • Tonio

        They might have to go down to one car, or forego that $10K annual family vacay.

      • CPRM

        Patriarchy!

      • AlexinCT

        So making the choice to have kids imposes the horror and injustice of responsibility?

        Progressivism in a nutshell: I want immunity from my choices & actions. Especially the ones I deem a negative…

      • Tonio

        “But it’s not FAIR! I was promised free childcare at everyone else’s expense.”

      • AlexinCT

        These people feel everything (except that which results in them getting paid) should be free, or as Tonio wisely put it: paid by someone else…

      • Hyperion

        “We have to take care of our own kids??? INJUSTICE!!!”

        The real shock is going to be when the parents are going to have to educate their kids and find out that after years of public school, they don’t know any math or history, or science, but they know the most important thing right is that everyone in the house uses the proper non-binary pronouns.

    • WTF

      Yeah, yeah, “World ends tomorrow; women, minorities hardest hit”. What else is new?

    • leon

      Do femenists actually wonder why people think the advocate irresponsibility? But yes let’s cry because parents have to decide how to take care of their children.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      Waaaaahhh I have to spend time with my kids! Everybody else doesn’t have to subsidize my childcare anymore! UNFAIR!

    • Tejicano

      Whenever I read some similar screed about the unfairness of a woman having to care for her kids I wonder if the author has really deluded herself to the point that she believes her children don’t feel her resentment. If she feels this so strongly enough to write a long essay and have it published for the world to see she would have to be a sorceress to be able to hide those feelings from the beings who are as intimate to her as is humanly possible.

      And children who are resented by their mothers generally turn into monsters.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        I just wonder why these people decide to have kids just to pawn them off on hired help for their entire lives.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        (nothing against the daycare providers, after school providers, nanny, etc… Just an observation that some parents go pretty far out of the way to distance themselves from their kids)

      • Hyperion

        Look, we need to fund abortions for ages up to 18 years, it’s the only way to fix this.

      • The Last American Hero

        It’s not just “Oh gawd not the kids”. It’s trying to do a full workday remotely and meet your job commitments under less than ideal circumstances while the antsy little gremlins scurry around the house causing chaos. If you didn’t have to also do the work thing, the managing the gremlins thing would not be that burdensome.

    • Rebel Scum

      But men are losing a dollar for every 79 cents a woman loses.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Nice mother.

  18. Rebel Scum

    The hypocritic oath.

    A nationwide shortage of two drugs touted as possible treatments for the coronavirus is being driven in part by doctors inappropriately prescribing the medicines for family, friends and themselves, according to pharmacists and state regulators.

    “It’s disgraceful, is what it is,” said Garth Reynolds, executive director of the Illinois Pharmacists Association, which started getting calls and emails Saturday from members saying they were receiving questionable prescriptions. “And completely selfish.”

    • leon

      Those Ethics classes really took hold

      • Rhywun

        Yup.

        But I doubt there will be any supply problem as I am sure they’re already ramping up production.

    • Not Adahn

      If the supply of a drug can be consumed by the personal use of doctors and their families, the drug is undersupplied.

      • PieInTheSky

        Meh if it is not that widespread a drug it usually has little reason to be supplied in large quantities.

      • R C Dean

        I don’t think it’s hard to manufacture. If there is a shortage beyond a few days, there will be an FDA permit clogging the pipes, I would bet.

        And doctors aren’t supposed to prescribe anything for themselves.

      • AlexinCT

        Someone should tell them to go buy aquarium cleaning products…

        Too early?

      • UnCivilServant

        But doctors do tend to know a lot of other doctors, some of which can be trusted to provide a little professional courtesey.

      • The Last American Hero

        They don’t. They prescribe it for their wife/husband/brother and then consume it. Do you even hospital, bro?

      • R C Dean

        We had to slap down some docs who were writing prescriptions for themselves out of the hospital pharmacy. That’s two strikes, right there.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      If they’re prescribing it to hoard it, I agree there’s a problem since the availability is artificially limited by the prescription process.

    • invisible finger

      It would take me hours I don’t have to correct all the errors in that article.

  19. PieInTheSky

    So let’s have a prediction game:

    In how many days US coronacases overtake “official” China cases?

    Will US overtake Europe as a whole?

    When will it be considered safe to fly for holiday purposes?

  20. Semi-Spartan Dad

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/white-house-senate-strike-deal-on-historic-2t-coronavirus-relief-bill-but-house-support-remains-uncertain

    “This bipartisan deal is a raw deal for the people,” Amash tweeted. “It does far too little for those who need the most help, while providing hundreds of billions in corporate welfare, massively growing government, inhibiting economic adaptation, and widening the gap between the rich and the poor .”

    Justin Amash, former libertarian and now a commie cuck. TDS is a helluva drug.

    • Trials and Trippelations

      ???

    • PieInTheSky

      commie is a bit much but the man needs to be reelected don’t he?

      • Trials and Trippelations

        He’s running as an independent in the general

      • Trials and Trippelations

        Should not be a reply just a statement. Not sure what his chances are. It would seem both parties could hit him oretty hard

    • AlexinCT

      This cunte is just pissed bad orange man took a flamethrower to his investments in China and his need/desire to have the U.S. suck Chicomm dick like the administrations that came before TrumpPutin.

    • invisible finger

      He may have TDS, but he is correct about this stupid bill.

      • Semi-Spartan Dad

        Arguments against the bill can be made without bringing AOC-style class warfare into it.

      • AlexinCT

        Exactly!

        He is only against the bill because it is not spending the money on shit he wants. That’s not the same as thinking the spending in and of itself is the problem…

      • leon

        Exactly. The AOC-style class warfare does not attack the root problem of the bill, it just gripes with where the money goes.

      • invisible finger

        He’s actually making the Austrian Economics argument that money-printing is a driver of the gap, not a corrective of it. You’re the one reading AOC-style into it.

      • AlexinCT

        I beg to differ.

      • kbolino

        While he explains his position on direct transfer payments vs. corporate welfare and other incentives (in favor of the former, putting choice in the hands of consumers vs. government), I didn’t see anywhere that he went into detail on the “gap between the rich and the poor”. As far as I can tell, the quote is from his Twitter feed, and there’s no lengthy Austrian argument there (unless it happened before the recent “crisis”).

      • Trials and Trippelations

        I don’t think the disappointment is in being against the bill. It is adding in the rich vs poor gap myth

  21. Certified Public Asshat

    Barack Obama Pointedly Says Nothing

    It would be good for the most popular Democratic figure in the country, one who is already publicly engaging in political action, to do so to real effect—to come out in support of Rep. Maxine Waters’ bill calling for direct cash payments to citizens and the suspension of consumer and small business debt payments, for instance. It would be good for him to support the obvious truth, under attack for generations by the most powerful elements of society, that there are public interests that can only be served by public action. It would be good for him to say that individual good works are necessary, but not sufficient.

    This is probably too much to ask of the Netflix-deal-having dude whose stimulus plan sold out ordinary people during the last recession so that banks could give their executives billions of dollars in bonuses. It probably isn’t too much to hope that in absence of anything useful to say, he wouldn’t say anything at all.

    Lol.

    • leon

      It would be good for him to support the obvious truth, under attack for generations by the most powerful elements of society, that there are public interests that can only be served by public action.

      Another case where i have been so steeped in libertarian ideas that the idea of this being obvious is so foreign to me. Now i could be an ideological stooge, but I do remember when i used to think that way. But what makes something public action? can i form a group of friends and say we are here to do public action things? I don’t think the author would count that. No only state action would count. What this person really means (consciously or not) is that some things take fucking people over coercively because they are things I want.

    • AlexinCT

      What’s that emperor with no clothes going to say? His priority is right now to help the efforts to get Trump out of office so his people can keep the criminal and illegal behavior that was rampant during his administration from resulting in people actually knowing how corrupt and scandalous they were abusing the power of government and demanding some kind of retribution/punishment. This virus is a good thing to keep people distracted.

    • R C Dean

      Yo, thanks for drawing down the ventilator reserve for your pandemic and never replenishing it, Obama. We are in much need of your wisdom on how to handle pandemics. Asshole.

    • The Last American Hero

      Many people turn to Jesus in times of crisis. Some turn to Chocolate Nixon. Who am I to judge?

  22. leon

    It’s nice to see the Dems coming out and trying to defend why they Porked up the bill. Who are the two big ones I’ve seen? Schiff and Nadler. Those two seem to be doing whatever they can to screw over the Dems.

    My theory is that they (like AOC) come from safe blue seats and so pandering to your base is a strategy that works. They have no idea how that plays out nationally.

    • Festus

      They’re in NYC so they think that everyone is afeared of dying and they are cuntes that never let a crisis go to waste.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      Trump has all the ammunition he needs to wage a very effective campaign in the fall. “When our country was in crisis, the Democrats were focused on [insert pork here]”. He could do a whole series of ads on that theme.

      • Don Escaped Texas

        I doubt this moves the needle; I haven’t heard anyone change their mind about anything in about 40 years.

        The sides are set; all that matters is demographic changes and turnout in the right states.

  23. PieInTheSky

    I ran put of ginger. Had to do without for lunch. And I don’t think I’ll go shopping anytime soon.

    • PieInTheSky

      I used ponzu instead because I had a bottle like that and overall it is completely unlike ginger

      • Tonio

        Ponzu is citrus flavored soy sauce.

      • PieInTheSky

        I know.

      • Festus

        Ponzu. Ground-up bones of plague victims or less cool version of Henry Winkler? Need to know!

    • Nephilium

      The horrors Pie, do you need some of our Corona bailout money to be made whole again?

      • PieInTheSky

        I would take 1000$ if you are giving.

      • UnCivilServant

        1000 pesos? That’s 183 Romanian monies.

      • Nephilium

        Sure thing! You’ll just need to buy these appreciating government bonds with the money. We’ll be good for it, we promise!

  24. blighted_non_millenial

    Brisket is in the smoke!

    • WTF

      “The cat has left the basket!”

      • Private Chipperbot

        John has a long mustache!

      • Chipwooder

        The dolphin is in the jacuzzi.

      • Not Adahn

        My hovercraft is full of eels?

      • Shirley Knott

        My hovercraft is full of eels.

    • PieInTheSky

      During a quarantine one eats gruel not brisket

      • blighted_non_millenial

        If one has a brisket in the freezer waiting for a day it is actually not raining, one eats brisket.

        Took it out Friday night expecting a window today and/or tomorrow without rain.

      • Tejicano

        I got one of those 10′ X 10′ folding canopies for my BBQ set up. Gives me shade in the Summer and keeps me out of the rain.

        It also shields me from the jealous eyes of Japanese neighbors who get riled up when they see a round-eye enjoying his own place.

      • Nephilium

        It’s an American style quarantine. We buy liquor, beer, and meat.

        Oh and flour and yeast.

  25. Certified Public Asshat

    Don’t Forget About Us!

    Journalism Needs a Stimulus. Here’s What it Should Look Like

    In the face of this pandemic, the public needs good, economically secure journalists more than ever. As most of us are sheltered in place, journalists are out there tracking the spread of COVID-19, separating fact from fiction, and holding politicians and powerful institutions accountable. We need the press asking tough questions and digging through fine print—starting with this fast-moving recovery bill, which is both absolutely necessary and particularly ripe for corruption and boondoggles. Crucially, we need local reporters delivering information on how to stay safe and healthy, who is saving lives, what institutional failures are making matters worse.

    To support that work, we need a journalism stimulus now. Free Press is asking for at least $5 billion in emergency funds right away—which would be less than half of one percent of a trillion-dollar recovery package—and that Congress put a foundation in place to help sustain journalism over the long term.

    • PieInTheSky

      In the face of this pandemic, the public needs good, economically secure journalists more than ever.- any idea how to get some of that?

      separating fact from fiction, – lol

      we need local reporters delivering information on how to stay safe and healthy – I need that like I need an asshole on my elbow

      • Gender Traitor

        I need that like I need an asshole on my elbow

        Romanian expression or original to you? Either way, consider it appropriated.

      • PieInTheSky

        I do not know if it was in the book though

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Fuck…

      Off….

      And…

      Die…

    • Tonio

      Learn to code.

      • AlexinCT

        That’s the way you do it Tonio. No fucking money for nothing and chicks for free for these douchebags.

      • invisible finger

        Most programmers know how to ask pertinent questions. That might be good training for journalists.

      • westernsloper

        *wild applause*

      • mexican sharpshooter

        Learn to code.

        BAN! BAN! WHERE’S THE BAN BUTTON

        …wait, I don’t have one. Carry on.

      • straffinrun

        …DNA

    • Trials and Trippelations

      The only tax money that needs to be spent on journalist is for those that are rotting in prison for all the fraud they perpetuated

    • leon

      and holding politicians and powerful institutions accountable

      need to see some evidence that this is done in the first place by you.

      • kbolino

        Their definition of “accountable” is radically different from normal people’s. For example, screaming in someone’s face is not normally considered a form of accountability. Nor is asking asinine, leading questions. Nor, for that matter, is constantly, relentlessly, and regardless of the circumstances criticizing every aspect of everything they do.

    • Chipwooder

      After their disgraceful performances of the past two weeks? Piss up a rope.

      • WTF

        After their disgraceful performances of the past two weeks three years? Piss up a rope.

      • Drake

        The rot goes way farther back than that. Walter Duranty, Cronkite… fuck all of them.

    • Agent Cooper

      I thought this was the Babylon Bee.

  26. Festus

    Ah. 1960’s era Gloria! Where to fit into the Hot/Crazy matrix? A little to the burn your stuff on the lawn side, I’d venture.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Who has stuff on their lawn besides in the movies?

      My dream is to get a statue of a Mexican pissing into a donkey’s mouth.

      • Tonio

        I think he meant take your (as in her boyfriend’s) stuff out of her dwelling and burn it on the lawn.

        I live in an area with moderate lawn art. Including my neighbors whose lawn art was featured on the judgemental map of Richmond.

        But I applaud your vision and hope you realize it.

      • Not Adahn

        This is the only place I’ve been to where people have lawn jockeys non-ironically.

      • Festus

        I need one just to watch peoples’ heads explode, Scanner-style…

      • Gender Traitor
      • Nephilium

        If you ever make it back to the US, you should come visit us out here in Parma, the land of pink flamingos and lawn orbs.

      • Festus

        So Van was always terrible? Say it ain’t so! Sorry, overdosed on that during the 80’s “everything from the 60’s is cool!” part of my life. I was listening to that stuff when it wasn’t hip. I was a hipster.

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Apparently I can’t say anything right lately…

  27. PieInTheSky

    The history of a months-long rent strike of 30,000 Glasgow residents against profiteering landlords, forcing the government to freeze rents for the duration of World War I.

    During the First World War, rent increases across Glasgow provoked massive working class opposition, mainly from women organised in tenants’ groups. Their struggle against profiteering landlords during extremely difficult circumstances is a valuable example of how collective action really gets results.

    https://libcom.org/history/1915-the-glasgow-rent-strike

    • Rhywun

      That doesn’t sound biased at all. ?

      • Rufus the Monocled

        NEW NARRATIVE:

        We didn’t fight the Nazis for liberty.

        We fought them to wrestle the essence of socialism out of their arms because they were ruining it.

        We never won the war.

    • kbolino

      What are rents in Glasgow today like?

  28. Rufus the Monocled

    Re Paul. He broke requested protocol. Can’t do that in a pandemic and with people panicking. Even if the statistical probability of getting it are rather low. In his case, he got it but it’s not surprising public figures are contracting it.

    It’a all fucked up. People can lie all kinds about questions being asked. I went to one grocery store and they asked me if I had any symptoms or been out of the country in the last two weeks. People can lie right there and if asymptomatic won’t even know anyway. Then they were spraying the carriages and I had to wash my hands in a sink they set up. It all happened so quick and in a tightish area but that didn’t stop some fucken idiot washing his hands say, ‘you need to be one meter from me’, I was far enough from him but now everyone is a fucken ruler now.

    Then I went to another grocery store and nothing. Their strategy was to put up fibreglass panels at the cashes.

    Not only that. I know someone who got tested. My friend’s wife. They didn’t get the nose swab and asked her to come back. I think she said no.

    When they called me they were at Wall-Mart shopping – after the test. Like Rand Paul. The funny part is where the powers that be decided – almost flippantly apparently – her symptoms demanded a test, the husband was told no despite similar ones. They also admitted they piled on saying they had high fevers. He’s also very nervous about it all yet doesn’t think they have it.

    It’s crazy out there.

    • AlexinCT

      I told the person at the store when asked about my health that my dick had turned orange, but that was likely from sitting at home watching porn & eating Cheetos (which I was looking to resupply)…

      She gave me a dirty look. So did my girlfriend.

      I have just not had it in my to panic about this shit.

      • invisible finger

        Asked about your health? Tell them HIPAA regulations do not allow that information to be divulged.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        I fear I’m at that point. At my age, I’ve become a little too loose with my opinions in public now. You know it’s getting there when your wife and daughter discuss in front of you which cartoon or comedy character you resemble. My kid has been binge watching South Park and she declared, ‘Daddy is like Randy’.

        Now that one left a mark.

        The other day there was a sign at the grocery cash ‘Please pay by plastic and not paper’. While I appreciated the alliterative style, I told the girl, ‘Oh, now you like plastic?’

        Who could miss the irony of banning plastic bags but during a health crisis running back to the material?

      • Festus

        Yeah. That “Randy Marsh” one is bound to leave a mark.

      • Spartacus

        I’m sorry, I thought this was America!

      • Spartacus

        Give her a handful of used ziplocs and say “keep the change.”

      • AlexinCT

        WTF?

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Ah Dan Fuckenfolberg.

        Is there a more ubiquitous name on ‘Yacht’ stations?

        Him and Seals & Croft. And England Dan and John Ford.

        And Chicago.

      • straffinrun

        I’m guessing you turned it off too soon.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        I paused it to get some yogourt and then watched it.

        It’s a piece of art that should be at the entrance of the Vatican museum.

      • straffinrun

        Yeah!

      • Festus

        Kill eet with fire!

      • WTF

        Ripped off the 1812 Overture.

      • Tejicano

        I mentioned that the first time he posted the lyrics but nobody got it.

    • R C Dean

      “No, you need to be one meter from me. Now, back off. Oh, and shut your cakehole. I don’t need you breathing whatever you’re infected with on me.”

  29. Rufus the Monocled

    Been reading Tweets from Democrat reps.

    Holy sheet are more insane and immoral bunch I can not think of in politics.

    What the heck? Adler wants money for museums. Apparently baby parts trafficker Planned Parenthood is getting money. Ilhan Whoremar wants student debts cancelled. AOC is babbling. Reich is completely unhinged in his nauseating and appalling opinions (this asshole was Secretary of Labour?) etc.

    They’re using this pandemic as if it’s a Christmas stocking. Even by their sinister and cynical standards this is astonishing.

    ‘When they go low….’

    • Rufus the Monocled

      “Holy sheet are more insane and immoral bunch I can not think of in politics.”

      Holy shit is there a…

    • Tonio

      When doesn’t AOC babble?

      “They’re using this pandemic as if it’s a Christmas stocking.”

      Yep, and all the while whining about “disaster capitalism” while trying to sneak socialism in via the relief bill.

      I’d love to know how much (by pagecount) of that bill is actual direct relief to people, and how much is unrelated BS.

      • leon

        Socialism is Direct Relief to the People!

      • Tonio

        Indeed. Poorly phrased.

  30. Fourscore

    I am greatly discouraged. We learned from our American history that this great country was settled, not by the weak but by the hardy. P. Henry was 29 when he spoke of “Liberty or Death”. Our forefathers went West in covered wagons, lucky to make 10 miles a day, through hostile country and yet we have been conditioned/ordered not to go to the store because the boogie man virus is lying in wait.

    This time our ‘saviors’ are going to have a tough time when the immutable Laws of Economics become apparent. I saw a figure of 6 T bantered about, with loans to the big guys, to insure they stay in business. Loans, uh huh, to be paid back, uh huh.

    • WTF

      Hard men make good times – good times make soft men – soft men make hard times – hard times make hard men – etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum.

  31. Rufus the Monocled

    We’re all essential services now.

    • PieInTheSky

      Ass is canceled in a pandemic.

      • Q Continuum

        Tell that to HM.

      • AlexinCT

        Touche!

    • Fourscore

      I continue to be greatly discouraged. Watching Joe for 37 seconds is frightening but it speaks of the dangers we face.

      • WTF

        The idiot left could actually elect him.

      • Drake

        It’s like a kindergarten class hoping for a blind & deaf teacher so they can go wild without getting in trouble.

      • The Last American Hero

        If he had a blah blah faceless running make, sort of a Team Blue Pence, it wouldn’t usher in the end times since Joe doesn’t survive 2021. But we know that ain’t gonna happen.

  32. Rebel Scum

    Self-important

    “We need to work to flatten the curve and fight off COVID-19. I think in times of crisis, I think we all know that it’s the celebrities we count on most,” Reynolds cheekily said. “They’re the ones that are going to get us through this.”

    After a brief pause, Reynolds then remembered that celebrities are actually the least important during these trying times.

    “Right after healthcare workers, of course,” he said. “First responders. People who work in essential services. Ping pong players. Mannequins, they’re great. Childhood imaginary friends, sure. Like 400 other types of people.”

    • Gender Traitor

      I love him so much! <3 <3 <3

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      It’s nice to see a celebrity with a bit of self-awareness.

  33. Not Adahn

    Morale level: High

    Work bosses has implemented free meals for people coming in to work (limit 1/shift). Gonna use mine at lunch today — I find that eating a big breakfast makes me hungrier at around 13:00.

    Also, Annual bonus reviews this morning — corporate multiplier was only 80% this year, but my personal multiplier was 112%

    *Victory hip thrust dance*

    • UnCivilServant

      My annual bonus is the same it’s ever been: $0.

      And I may not get paid next week.

      • Gender Traitor

        WTF???

      • UnCivilServant

        If there is no budget passed, they don’t cut paychecks to state employees.

      • Gender Traitor

        Let me guess – 3/31 deadline?

      • Not Adahn

        The three people who decide what the NY budget is don’t actually have to be in the same room, do they?

      • UnCivilServant

        Nope, but they haven’t come to an agreement.

      • Not Adahn

        I can’t believe that Caesar Cuomo would let the vital state employees go unpaid in this time of Cataclysmic Trump-Caused Crisis.

      • UnCivilServant

        Andy hates state employees. If it were for noble reasons, it would be his only redeeming feature. Instead it’s because we tell him his impossible requests are impossible.

    • leon

      It’s not fair that you get this bonus at this time of tragedy, so we are going to raise your taxes to pay for every pet project in DC coronavirus relief.

    • PieInTheSky

      personal multiplier was 112% – we don’t have a personal multiplier. And the corporate multiplier is I assume 0 this year

    • straffinrun

      I’m just glad that I’ll be able to WFH from this weekend. Now I gotta figure out Zoom. Company has the paid version. Easy?

      • PieInTheSky

        I have skype and if that don’t work webex. No idea what zoom is.

      • UnCivilServant

        Zoom is a webex alternative, like gotomeeting

      • robc

        zoom is easy.

      • straffinrun

        Looks easy enough. My home pc is filled with HM links and I don’t want to accidentally play one during a meeting.

      • Nephilium

        Biggest catch is that zoom (at least the version my company uses) defaults to computer audio, even if you don’t have a microphone/speakers hooked up to the computer. I’ve had to walk far too many people through changing the audio over to the dial in.

      • straffinrun

        Might need to walk one more through. ??‍♂️

      • Nephilium

        Look for the arrow pointing up just to the right of the mute button. Click it, and select connect through dial in audio. Unless you’ve got a microphone and speaker (or a headset) plugged into your computer.

        Entertaining me is the current backlog for USB headsets. With everyone going WFH, there’s a shortage. I joked on a call that my spare headsets could be worth more then my spare rolls of TP.

      • straffinrun

        *Book marked* Thanks. Probably install it tomorrow.

      • robc

        If you plug in headphones, doesnt it default to those?

        Works better than computer audio anyway.

      • Nephilium

        Probably, but these people don’t have headphones either. Call center environment.

    • Nephilium

      There’s already rumblings in my company of no raises this year. And bonuses cut.

      If that happens, I think it may be time to start the new job hunt.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        You mean “stagflation will kill us”.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Good luck

        I’ve already warned my employees that I will do what is necessary to save the business and by doing so, preserve their jobs. If that means pay cuts for everyone, myself included, then so be it.

      • Nephilium

        No offense meant, and I could understand if they were talking about some of the workforce. This is just the rumblings of a couple of other employees so far. And based on information I can’t share publicly, business should be ramping up for my company (but that’s another department).

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        None taken. Just trying to make the point that jumping jobs could be a tricky play right now. Everything is up in the air.

      • Don Escaped Texas

        My view is most people are too conservative: they keep playing not to lose and never get around to winning. Their notions of certainty about present circumstances are overwrought: nothing particularly safe about where anyone is on any day.

        Of course, if you don’t have the kids’ college paid for yet, that moves the needle.

        For most folks, I think you’re picking which room on the Titanic you prefer. If the benefits and pay are similar, punching in at Ford is just as good as Chevy. But getting away from unfair workload, a bad boss, or hopeless prospects is a measurable benefit.

        Last thing: there aren’t enough signals in the market. People need to negotiate, and some people need to quit. It’s good to learn whether you had a good job; it’s good to know you’re underpaying your staff; velocity and liquidity in markets is a good thing.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        they keep playing not to lose and never get around to winning.

        that’s what happens when a pink slip today means a trip to the food pantry next Friday.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Agreed

        I’ve made a couple of large jumps in my career. I just was certain to time them carefully.

        A fortunate/unfortunate side of small business is that you tend to become reliant on long-term employees. It’s provides an advantage in the experience realm but it also makes you vulnerable when there is increased labor velocity.

    • Swiss Servator

      Maybe you will tell fewer of us to fuck off now?

      *runs from room*

      • Not Adahn

        Since it’s you.

        Over the last 15-20 years, his posts have been:

        1% White-knighting for Nikki and Epi
        1% Saying “my neck is so thick I need to wear shirts designed for cattle”
        5% Saying “squat moar”
        92% Calling other people racists.

        Now it’s possible that his great reputation among TPTB is solely from his savvy outgroup bashing, but I prefer to maintain some faith in humanity and believe there some IRL interactions that make you like him.

        Because he’s literally more tiresome, repetitive, and less original than Winston. And his mom is nowhere near as hot.

  34. Rufus the Monocled

    I was always more into ‘Rock Americana’ and other genres of hard rock back in the day and generally under estimated the sheer awesomeness of the melodies and harmonies of bands like New Order. My sister had all those albums in our family collection from Echo to Morrisey to Joy Division to Black Flag (I know punk). I would listen to it but it didn’t click. It wasn’t until, maybe, five years after I graduated high school did I get more into it and are part of my private collection.

    • Rhywun

      Considerably older brother heard me listening to ‘Movement’ (New Order’s gloomy first album) during a college visit home ca. 1989 and gave me a “dad look”. Made me proud.

  35. AlexinCT

    What’s the odds that this actually works out?

    A law firm advised by the younger brother of former Vice President Joe Biden has partnered with a lobbying shop with deep connections to President Donald Trump to push a federal class-action lawsuit seeking to hold the government of China accountable for the economic carnage caused by their mishandling of the coronavirus crisis.

    And considering the players, WTF is the end goal?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      WTF is the end goal?

      To collect federal funds while pursuing an unattainable end.

    • straffinrun

      I know it’s Daily Caller ( not a bad site at all), but they shouldn’t use “deep state” in news articles. Probably true, but really a clear phrase.

      • Naptown Bill

        Agreed, and you can say that for several other terms. If you want to be seen as a legitimate news organization you have to avoid using loaded phrases. Unless you’re part of the Progressive media machine, e.g. WaPo, in which case go nuts.

  36. Viking1865

    2 people died of the COVID in my county. Now, fun fact, my county has exactly 1/1000th the population of the United States. So it gets real easy to do back of the envelope math.

    34,000 people died of the flu last flu season in the US. Which means that 34 people, roughly, died of the flu in my county last year. But no one was worried about the flu. It wasn’t front page news.

    • Fourscore

      They told me that someone else would do the math, wasn’t supposed to be you though.

  37. Toxteth O’Grady

    Barn door, all this.

    • Festus

      Don’t sell yourself short. Those horses will wander back like they always do, in their own good time. Oats and water and brushing. Maybe an apple or three?

  38. Rufus the Monocled

    Not only is this a wicked good jazz tune, Filthy McNasty is the greatest name for a song in the history of mankind. Even the name Horace Silver is cool.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3s6Vua5c6U

    • PieInTheSky

      This jazz thing kids are into these days is just noise.

    • Festus

      Three thumbs up!

    • Swiss Servator

      I thought McFilthy and McNasty played for Philly back in the day…

    • Not Adahn

      In humans, our cells contain different chromosomes, depending on sex. Females have two X chromosomes while males have an X and a Y.

      WTF is this racist bullshit? I can’t even with the BBC right now.

      • Festus

        The BBC is cancelled!

    • straffinrun

      A lion in a too small cage. Not inspiring.

  39. leon

    I’m at that a part where i’m waiting for two separate tasks to complete and I don’t know if trying to get started on a third one would be beneficial…

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I face that same quandary when commenting on this site from the shitter.

    • UnCivilServant

      I have so many tasks that need doing that my brain has locked up,

    • Don Escaped Texas

      Same:

      post one transaction, wait on db to update, go get a cup of coffee

      click to other module, see if data has move, type something snarky on Glibs, oh: it’s there, execute next transaction in flow

    • Nephilium

      I’ve reached a point where as new requests come in, I flag them for follow up in about an hour. Because inevitably, they’ll send me an update just as I’m getting ready to batch in their request.

    • leon

      You probably wanted to Kill Big Bird too!!

      • sloopyinca

        Yep. Hang him up by the lamppost.

        And do the same for his blue Dutch cousin Pino on Sesamstraat.

      • AlexinCT

        Wat een gelul!

    • Festus

      It’s not even the politicians so much but the ones dripping poison in their ears. If you hang out with a bunch of reprobate meth-heads what’s the first thing that everybody can agree upon? That’s right! Moar meth!

  40. Rebel Scum

    Bored women are cutting bangs during coronavirus quarantine

    “Yesterday I was complaining to my friend that I was bored with my hair, and I kept seeing tutorials on TikTok about how to get natural, nice-looking bangs,” Christine Thomas, a senior at Purdue University who’s staying with her parents in Noblesville, IN, to ride out the pandemic, tells The Post.

    “I took a shower last night and had professional scissors in my bathroom, so I just did it.”

    While most of us are shut inside our houses for the foreseeable future thanks to the coronavirus, Americans are experimenting with home workouts, intricate recipes and, yes, new hairstyles. One popular trend has emerged on social media: cutting bangs out of boredom.

    • PieInTheSky

      I would think one would want to go out with a bang …

      • banginglc1

        *narrows gaze*

        Did you get hair in your eye or something? Might want to trim your bangs.

    • Festus

      Thanks to the yellow peril we can have more girls rocking the “Zooey”? I’m sanguine.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        No, bangs are awful. They work on her I guess, but she would look better without them.

      • Seguin

        You can pry my Mia Wallace fetish out of my cold dead, hairy palms.

    • Festus

      Nice how she mentioned her “professional scissors” as if her readers are going to start sawing off hanks of hair with a sharpened bit of flint. Income inequality for the Winzies! sksksksksk

    • sloopyinca

      If the pic on the left is the “before”, then she done fucked up.

      • Festus

        Disagree. As is my wont as a Glib. Much cuter with bangs. More “bang for the buck”.

      • Agent Cooper

        She actually doesn’t look that bad with bangs. Most women do, however.

    • Toxteth O’Grady

      Women, hair, and boredom. ‘Twas ever thus.

      You bangs-haters: I have a five-head. What would you have me do?

      • sloopyinca

        What would you have me do?

        ::shrugs::

        Maybe Christina Ricci cosplay?

      • Festus

        Hawt-ish! She has dwarfish arms. Off-putting. Great rack, though!

      • Toxteth O’Grady

        Well, some 34er out there must be into the Winnie Cooper look.

      • CPRM

        *swoons*

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      News…

      Obviously journalism needs a bailout.

    • CPRM

      All the people are white, when do the conspiracy theories start?

    • Q Continuum

      People like porn.

      • Festus

        I don’t! (hides random sock from the dryer)

      • Private Chipperbot

        More like Narwala Gangbang, amirite?

      • AlexinCT

        I got nutting man…

    • leon

      Damnit. Society has been going to hell in a hand basket longer than we thought.

    • Seguin

      Sex wasn’t invented until the 60s. Fake news.

  41. Naptown Bill

    At the risk of anal drug leakage, what’s the deal with this Fauci guy? I mean, he’s a doctor, and he has some experience with epidemiology, but why is he the expert and not any of the other doctors who would also fit the bill? It seems like people are really glomming on to his public disagreement with Trump as evidence of his expertise.

    Did I just answer my own question there?

    • The Other Kevin

      I think you did. When it comes to the press especially, hating Trump is an important credential.

      • leon

        +1 Don Lemon accusing you of homophobia when you refuse to denounce the president.

        (and ticker change to “controversial reverend”)

    • Trials and Trippelations

      I think the bigger problem is neil ferguson and the imperial college. Guy has yet to encounter a disease he hasn’t stated could become a pandemic. His H1N1 model for mexico sucked and grossly overstated the outbreak and harm. It seems his kung flu model is just as terribly overstated.
      I saw in one article while I was looking into this guy that a GW prof of epidemiology said Ferguson is way too pessimistic about h1n1 and prone to gloom

      • Trials and Trippelations

        I call out Ferguson bc everything went to shit freedom wise after they released their model 2 weekends ago

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        No one wants to be the guy who underestimated what became a pandemic. The incentives for overestimation and general ass covering are just too strong.

      • Festus

        I cover my ass with a 24″ cast-iron skillet when I’m out and about, just to be sure.

      • Seguin

        Gonna be hard to use with a hole punched through it.

      • Trials and Trippelations

        I get that especially where the politicians are concerned.

        But when you are only as good as your model this guy should no longer be deferred to

      • ruodberht

        -538

      • Festus

        *Nick Cage voice* “Well played!”

    • Festus

      “Judge” Nap? Is that you?

      • Naptown Bill

        I know, I thought I’d throw a statement in just to break it up, but no dice. What can I say, the world fills me with a sense of wonder.

      • Naptown Bill

        +1 Cloudy w/ a Chance of Meatballs

    • Don Escaped Texas

      I don’t have all my citations in order, but the progression that I think a neutral party would observe is:
      a/ Trump calls it no big deal
      b/ Trump calls national energy, underwriting a wave of gubernatorial and mayoral mistakes
      c/ Trump decides we need open up the economy promptly

      I don’t know if Fauci is right or wrong, but why doesn’t the buck stop with Trump? He is absolutely wrong for signaling a, b, and c; there is no logical vector, PR angle, epidemiological requirement, bully pulpit imperative, or management technique that can absolve Trump for tacking in circles instead of toward port. I’m glad for Fauci to be sacrificed if the more basic question would be answered: which Trump is the wrong Trump?

      My vote is b. He’s a moron, and much of this panic and overreach is his fault. So much for the financial wisdom, the operations insights, and libertarian idealism of OrangeMan.

      • Naptown Bill

        100% agree with your vote. I’m not as pessimistic about Trump as some people around these parts, but I think this is a situation where his legendary cockiness ran straight into his total lack of experience in dealing with a (potential) crisis. I think the Trumpian deconstruction of the presidency and refusal to play ball with the MSM ran aground here, where a more somber, statesmanlike persona could have offered a few confidence-building and meaningless platitudes that might have calmed the herd. Trump, though, being the kind of guy who apparently never does a thing halfway, keeps overcorrecting from his initial wrong turn. With the stipulation that Obama was the chosen son of the left-wing media and couldn’t lose their total support even after siccing the FBI on them, he dealt with H1N1 much better.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Trump is a flaming bag of dog shit on DC’s front porch.

        He’s the random drunk factor. Whereas pols like Clinton are almost uniformly horrible, Trump occasionally wanders across the line into something positive and then back across to negative. Sometimes in the same day.

        I have no love for the man, but I recognize that our alternatives continue to suck even harder. Whaddaya gonna do? Maybe the best we can hope for is that the very few pols that are worth supporting learn from Trump’s example and actually try to win a damned election in the future (and that it doesn’t all burn down before that point).

        Ah fuck it all anyway.,..

      • Naptown Bill

        You mean national politics doesn’t fill you with a sense of optimism?

        /passes half-full bottle of bourbon

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        /passes bong to Bill

      • Endless Mike

        This is how the virus spreads!

      • Endless Mike

        “Trump is a flaming bag of dog shit on DC’s front porch.”

        Is probably my favorite Trump analogy. I will be stealing this.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Credit due to P Brooks on that one

        I think my analogy was “Trump is a middle finger to DC from middle America”

      • Endless Mike

        A fellow Montanan, no less. Well, that IS how we talk.

      • Raven Nation

        He’s definitely a fool in that he spouts whatever happens to be in his frontal lobe at any given moment. And, as someone here once said (TH maybe?), what’s in the forefront of his mind is whatever the last person he spoke to told him.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Absolutely

        I’ve known managers like him. They’re the first to be taken in by the outside consultants.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        That’s why we need Rand coming to him and working with him.

      • Festus

        He’s desperately grasping at straws because the only thing keeping him afloat was the economy. I also aver that this viral scare is bullshit that enemies of the status quo have latched onto for their own ends. It’s not a conspiracy, perse, just dumbfucks doing what they do best.

      • Fatty Bolger

        a was a political mistake.

        b is SOP and has nothing to do with what states are doing (Obama also declared a public health emergency for H1N1 in 2009, and nobody lost their shit) and is actually necessary, given the way things are set up where funding and capabilities are “unlocked” by the declaration. I don’t see how b was possibly avoidable.

        c is excellent because it puts the focus on ending the madness, rather than prolonging it, and will help put off some drastic moves companies would be making right now if there was no end in sight.

      • R C Dean

        He is absolutely wrong for signaling a, b, and c; there is no logical vector, PR angle, epidemiological requirement, bully pulpit imperative, or management technique that can absolve Trump for tacking in circles instead of toward port.

        a and b – sure.

        c – nope, he’s right on that one. Somebody has to put the brakes, and an expiration date, on this panic. And there is some logic to mid-April. The business closures and
        shelter-in-place is justifiable solely to “flatten the curve” to keep from exceeding hospital capacity. By mid-April, the flu season is on the decline (freeing up hospital capacity) and the virus season is running out anyway (reducing the likelihood of a big spike). That, and a month of this insanity is probably all a lot of businesses 9and people) can stand.

      • Don Escaped Texas

        c – nope

        yeah, thanks: that’s the point: c proves he’s an idiot on the others

      • R C Dean

        Unlike most of his “peers” in executive positions or misc. pubsec public health nannies, he at least recognizes that a and b are overreactions that need to end. Its one thing to fuck up; its another to be in denial that you fucked up.

        No fuckups is best. Next best is recognizing you fucked up. Last (and where most of Our Masters are) is not recognizing they fucked up. It would be nice if we weren’t ruled by mental midgets, but once again Trump is looking like one of the taller midgets.

    • westernsloper

      If I am not mistaken, he has been head of NIH for decades and has always been on the worst case scenario side. Also, If I am not mistaken, Pres’s have always initially played down an illness in an attempt to not cause panic, also, CV is not the first virus to cause a Pres to declare a National Emergency after initially playing it down. Given those things, if I am in fact correct about them, why have we not shut down like this before?

      • Naptown Bill

        Well, compare this to swine flu. I think a really big part of this is that Trump’s lack of support from the Federal bureaucracy, career politicians, and the media is laid bare here. Obama had about three firewalls between him and the consequences of mishandling a response to a pandemic; Trump not only lacks those firewalls, but he has enemies who have been waiting for a weakness to exploit. I think this, finally, is the thing he wasn’t ready for.

      • straffinrun

        No comparing it to the Flu! What we’re supposed to compare it to, I dunno.

      • Naptown Bill

        Can’t call it a disease, either, apparently, despite the fact that the CDC refers to it as a disease all over its website.

      • straffinrun

        This Covid 19 outbreak has the side effect of juicing the humor levels around here. *Nods in agreement*

    • Gustave Lytton

      It’s the office Fauci holds, not necessarily his personal expertise. He’s the public face for the CDC right now.

      • Festus

        Oh. A Bureaucrat. Face the wall, Citizen! This will all be over soon…

    • Festus

      Ha! I’ll laugh if all the “Guy Smileys” die of a chicken fever! Poetic justice.

    • Nephilium

      Illegal in my town. But there’s a little grandmother around the corner from me who has some in her back yard. You can hear them, and when the wind blows right, you can smell them.

      • UnCivilServant

        How dare you call her grandchildren chicken!

      • Festus

        N.A.P.

      • Nephilium

        In the before times, I thought about offering them the spent grain from my brewing to use as feed.

      • Nephilium

        Considering we’re on lockdown, and she’s a high risk person. I’ll at least hold off until after the pandemic passes. Besides, most of the spent grains from the last batch have been processed into flour (it takes time and an over on low heat, I’ve got lots of time at home now…).

    • Tundra

      I just got my delivery of fresh eggs yesterday. I sometimes think it would be cool to have chickens, but then I realize it’s much easier to just have my farmer continue to drop them off.

      • Naptown Bill

        I think that now and again. Problem is, we’d have chickens for about as long as it would take the dogs to figure out we have chickens.

      • Don Escaped Texas

        How does that work?

        My grandparents had free-range chickens: no ticks in the yard but you step in it every now and then. No coyotes, but plenty of bobcats, owls, and dogs. How did they keep chickens and peacocks going for decades for only a few handfuls of crushed corn from time to time?

      • Festus

        Well-timed shotgun blasts?

      • Naptown Bill

        We’d be one of the urban chickeneers, so free range would be about 800 sqft.

      • R C Dean

        I was thinking the other day I’d have to get our fab shop to make me a chicken coop and enclosure that was proof against:

        rattlesnakes
        packrats
        javalenas
        hawks and owls
        coyotes
        bobcats
        mountain lions

        Which would actually be really cool – concrete footers, pipe and heavy metal fencing on sides and top, tight mesh around the bottom, double layered with the outside layer electrified.

      • banginglc1

        Or . . . you could pay 99 cents a dozen at the store.

      • UnCivilServant

        He wants coop roasted chickens.

    • CPRM

      NY Post 3-24-20

      Trump helped create a recent flurry of demand for the drugs when he announced last week that chloroquine “could be a game-changer”

      NY Post 3-12-20

      The Chinese experts recommended he be treated with the antimalarial medicine chloroquine and the HIV drug Kaletra — which is a combination of lopinavir and ritonavir.

      • creech

        And CBS chimed in on “60 Minutes” on Sunday with a clip about labs that were testing chloroquinine’s effectiveness. I guess all the telethons and medical charity begging for 50 years which haven’t found the cures yet for cancer, ms, lou gehrig’s disease, etc. etc. should be roundly condemned for promoting “snake oil” and should keep their mouths shut until they do?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      That is expressly up to the doctors/patients and the governor has no damned business getting involved in that. I hope his constituents lynch him.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Agreed..I guess this means Nevada doc’s can’t prescribe chloroquine off label but I’m not sure about that. Every person that dies unnecessarily if the meds are found to work (and there’s strong evidence that they do) should be on his head.

      • Drake

        Seriously – imagine have a relative dying of corona virus and treatment blocked by this fuckhead.

      • AlexinCT

        No need to imagine. He just fucking went there….

        I hope there are consequences to this shit.

      • leon

        No you see, having a non-doctor tell doctors what they can and can’t do is good in this case.

        Also we need to stop airing Trumps Coronavirus updates because he keeps getting in the way of doctors.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Medicine isn’t magic and laypeople are perfectly capable of grasping the statistics as presented in various studies (I don’t think you think that but I’m starting to think that a lot of people do).

      • leon

        For sure. As Scruffy said this is a decision that should be made between a Doctor and the Patient. If a Patient has doubts he has every right to tell the doc to go fuck himself.

        Just contrasting how the technocrats are really just authoritarian hypocrites. “We can’t let some anti-science dummy dictate medical policy”. But then they are perfectly fine letting someone ban a potentially helpful drug because TRUMP!

    • Festus

      Anything to stick it to the Orange man. I remember this nonsense from boy-hood. Mind you, there were a lot more explosions and assassinations back then… It wasn’t duly elected officials trying to ham-string the Country. Mostly.

    • Tundra

      Fuck him.

      These governors are going full-on tyrant. They need to be slapped down.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        This is worse than a stay at home order in my view. Denying a person who’s in bad shape the use of a potentially lifesaving drug is just so wrong, both practically and morally.

      • Shirley Knott

        Yup. Where are all the ‘right to try’ advocates?

      • straffinrun

        “Try” became “Die”.

      • invisible finger

        My Body My Choice

    • straffinrun

      Not Free To Try. Put that on your fucking license plates.

      • Drake

        Or tombstone.

    • LJW

      Doctors can still prescribe it for inpatient use, so it’s not a complete ban.

      • Drake

        Maybe the Nevada Constitution and laws give him this authority, but I doubt it.

    • R C Dean

      Nevada governor bans malaria drugs for coronavirus patients

      The only proper response is “Fuck you, you fucking fuck.”

  42. Q Continuum

    When Waffle House is shutting down, you know it’s serious.

      • Gender Traitor

        If you eat at Waffle House, COVID-19 should be the least of your worries.

      • Drake

        I go there every time in the south. Breakfast for a few bucks, in a few minutes, made after I order.

      • Gender Traitor

        We knew a couple of folks who dropped dead of heart attacks shortly after eating at WH, so it’s made us a wee bit leery.

      • Drake

        I’ve seen people waddling in who I expected to drop dead before they made it the table…

        They remind me to skip the carbs.

      • Chipwooder

        Skip the carbs? Most of Waffle House is carbs!

      • Drake

        I like their eggs and sausage. Maybe a little rye toast.

      • UnCivilServant

        I think they needed some pre-existing condition to have the heart attack so soon after having the food.

      • Gender Traitor

        Almost certainly in both cases. One was morbidly obese. The other, while slender enough, had (IIRC) recently complained to his girlfriend about heart palpitations but, of course, had not seen a doctor.

        With the Mister having needed to get a stent put in his carotid, I think that’s a hard “pass” for us.

      • Tres Cool

        Tres Sr. had that stent installed. And a few years later, a 4X bypass.

        Fucker has been re-plumbed, and will likely outlive me.

      • Tundra

        I remember the pecan waffle as being exceptional.

      • straffinrun

        Can’t make up my mind if I like pecans, either.

      • robc

        A saw an interview with a high end chef who said every aspiring chef should work at WH. You learn how to run a kitchen and get food out. You will serve more customer in a shift than a high end restaurant will in a week.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        They have good coffee, well not bad coffee anyway.

      • Nephilium

        GT: The FedGov actually uses Waffle House as a barometer of disaster scope. Waffle House DR/BC planning is a level I’ve not seen in legitimate essential businesses.

    • mexican sharpshooter

      In all fairness, they’re usually the first to re-open.

      • Pine_Tree

        Waffle House (I’m a cracker, so I’ve been around them forever) is perhaps the best example of a business that LOOKS kinda low-end to an outside observer, but is actually an EXTREMELY well-managed high-end enterprise. They’re very good at what they do, including when nobody else is able (see the WH Index touched on above), and while their customer loyalty isn’t quite at CFA levels, it’s close.

      • robc

        Waffle House execs are majority Georgia Tech Management College grads.

      • Fatty Bolger

        What I love about Waffle House is that every single one looks like it was built in the 50’s, even if it’s brand new. I joke that they aren’t actually built, they simply spring into existence in a time warp bubble from the past.

    • CPRM

      This plague is taking all those so full of vim and vigor!

      • PieInTheSky

        He did not die of the virus idonthink

      • Nephilium

        But you’re not sure… so count it as COVID.

    • AlexinCT

      I would like to “work out” that ass… Maybe HM can give me a few pointers…

    • Gender Traitor

      Oh, lordy! She should be quarantined for wearing an outfit like that!

    • Akira

      All the numbers show that the it’s killing about twice as many men as women.

      But no, don’t let that disrupt your “wahmin hardest hit” narrative, lady.

    • leon

      Glenn Holmes
      @Mountaingoat55
      ·
      6h
      Replying to
      @MehreenFaruqi
      and
      @deniseshrivell
      I am a green member and to say this is wrong and at the wrong time. Men do the dirty and dangerous jobs and 95% of workplace deaths are men. There is enough the LNP are doing wrong without this nonsense.

      Shea Watt
      @tlightly1
      ·
      6h
      As a teacher I disagree.

      ain’t
      @voschamp
      ·
      5h
      but do you agree as a farmer

    • leon

      Mehreen Faruqi
      @MehreenFaruqi
      ·
      9h
      Replying to
      @MehreenFaruqi
      Let’s also not forget that not all homes are safe places. Quarantine or self-isolation at home will put many women and children at risk.

      Look if it saves one life, then those women will need to deal with being forced to stay with their abusers.

  43. Ownbestenemy

    So LA mayor threatens to shut off power and water to businesses that dare defy the business ban….

    Oh does anyone know of a reliable online source for vapor juice? All the fucks are closed down here in Nevada….

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      So LA mayor threatens to shut off power and water to businesses that dare defy the business ban

      Do they want armed conflict?

      • ChipsnSalsa

        You would instinctively say “no” but the more you think about it…

      • leon

        They are at WAR! if you are against the virus, you are for the virus!

      • Rhywun

        Interesting. Poking around there, I was wondering which nicotine level corresponds to “average” smoking.

      • CPRM

        I used to smoke a pack and a half a day, I went with 12mg.

        0mg/mL is best for individuals who have worked their way down from higher vape juice nicotine levels, or want to vape without the existence of nicotine.
        3mg/mL is best for vapers who are stepping down from higher vape nicotine levels, or those who were only light (less than 10 cigarettes per day) smokers previously.
        6mg/mL is usually best for new vapers who were formally light to moderate smokers, or those who were formally smokers of “light” cigarettes.
        12mg/mL is usually best for new vapers who were formally heavy cigarette smokers (up to 30 cigarettes per day), or smokers of unfiltered cigarettes.

      • Rhywun

        Thanks! I hope the measures on the Halo site are also per mL – it doesn’t say. Also, they go up to 50mg there – yikes!

        I’m stocked up for a month or so here. I’ll wait a couple weeks before trying these guys out & crossing my fingers that they actually deliver to New York.

      • CPRM

        Yes, it’s per mL.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Thanks CPRM.

  44. AlexinCT

    When i read this story, the first thing that came to my mind is that team blue usually is very cunning and always has an agenda and plan to profit from the chaos and damage they cause. SO they are tanking Biden’s odds? I have a feeling that is by design now that they got rid of Sanders and see Biden is a serious liability. Contested convention or even just losing this election cycle hoping to increase seats to capture the Senate and deny evil orange man the ability to get anything other than what they want done might be a reason (especially protect the corrupt and criminal leadership of the many weaponized three letter agencies that the Obama admin sicked on their political enemies). Then again, I feel team blue has botched things up so bad in their desperation to stop orange man from letting everyone know how corrupt and criminal they are, that they have all but tanked their chances to take the Senate and likely might end up losing the house. Of course, that result will be bad for us all, based on experience, since team red is a bunch of fucking idiots and will find a way to make that work to everyone’s disadvantage (they will fuck it up like they did with Obamacare and other things).

  45. straffinrun

    Koike is starting to ramp up the restrictions here in Tokyo. For now it’s only for the weekend, but I can’t imagine she’ll stop there. The comments from the article (below) make me want to Unit 731 those people. Sure, the numbers are low because of lack of testing, but I doubt docs here have been hiding stacks of bodies outside the hospitals.

    https://japantoday.com/category/national/Koike-urges-residents-to-stay-at-home-at-weekend-as-Tokyo-posts-biggest-daily-jump-in-coronavirus-infections

    • UnCivilServant

      “Today’s Special at Hospital Cafeteria – Crowned Long Pork.”

      • straffinrun

        As long as it comes with a cute corona mascot, people will eat it.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Choking on my coffee here.

        The mascot seals the deal.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Jinkatsu sando.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Has she banned smoked to fight the virus yet?

      • straffinrun

        The LDP tried to screw her over, but she still needs the chain smoking geezer vote to win.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Uh, some bad news about most at risk group…

      • straffinrun

        They’d freak out more if you took the cigarette out of the dying hands.

      • Gustave Lytton

        *insert pic of Chinese guy with lit cigarette stuck through hole in face mask*

    • Sensei

      If we include one of my Japanese friends I’m now aware of only two people in Japan who have acknowledged the existence of Unit 731! (Did I do that right?)

      Good luck! As we talked about yesterday you could tell she was itching to do her part. Probably let down after the Olympic postponement.

  46. DOOMco

    I’m essential on a closed campus.
    They let some students move back the other day. Today they’re telling the few here to leave.

    But we’re still here I suppose.

    • Don Escaped Texas

      essential equipment guy here

      nothing in my inbox in 12 days

      • Gustave Lytton

        Work is starting to pick up thanks WFH* driving data usage.

        *wank from home

      • DOOMco

        We could shut the water off and leave.

  47. Hyperion

    Florida Man Up North?

    What even in the fuck is wrong with people?

  48. PieInTheSky

    I just took my temperature. 35.8 . So no COVID symptoms here

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Sounds like a normal undead temperature to me.

      • straffinrun

        That was excellent.

    • straffinrun

      Stick it in farther.

      • AlexinCT

        Not an oral thermometer, man…

      • straffinrun

        Didn’t realize. In that case, stick in sideways.

      • Tres Cool

        “no wonder this tastes funny!”

      • straffinrun

        Funny? Think you meant “familiar”.

    • pistoffnick

      Cold blooded.

      35.8 degC = 96.4 degF

      Isn’t normal 98.6?

      • PieInTheSky

        I know under 37 but not to low. I consider normal 35.5 to 36.9

      • Hyperion

        Used to be. Mine’s 97.3. I think humans are moving down the cold blooded evolution tree. Soon, we’ll need to sun ourselves on a rock outside before we can do any work.

      • Chipwooder

        There was recently a news item saying that they’re adjusting that downward a bit, and also that normal temperature is a range more so than a specific number.

    • PieInTheSky

      What kind of thermometers do you use? I have one that goes in the armpit. Mouth/ear are generally used for kids. When I was a kid, that fancy mouth/ear tech was not available in Romania so rectal it was…

      • grrizzly

        Most thermometers for adults sold in the US are meant to be put into the mouth. They beep when it’s time to read the temperature. They actually work if you put them in the armpit as well, but then I don’t hear the beep and a minute later the thermometer turns itself off and you need to start from scratch all over again.

      • Tres Cool

        mercury-in-glass FTW

        Its a primary standard, after all.

    • DOOMco

      That doesn’t sound right…

  49. Festus

    Carding out Glibs! I’m essential for now. Hope I didn’t ruffle too many feathers (I never mean to). As stated above, I’ve not quite been myself for awhile. God Speed!

  50. R C Dean

    Update from the front lines. I hope this gets through:

    We are taking temps of everyone at the door. In front of me today was a line of nurses. No social distancing was in evidence. Among the questions: “Have you taken care of anyone sick in the last 24 hours?” The responses from the nurses were amusing.

    Weirdly, this thing is absolutely hammering the health care business. Primary care volumes are down at least 50%. Hospital volumes are down at least 30%. We are probably going to start furloughing people. The hospital is weirdly empty – we’ve closed several units, and without visitors (and fewer patients and staff) the hallways are bizarrely empty. As in, during normal times, they are busier at 1 a.m. than they are now in the middle of the day. By a lot.

    We are seeing a real divide in our staff’s reaction. The millenials, raised to be radically risk averse and entitled to a safe environment, are making a fuss about having to come to work. Including the nurses. The older staff is mostly “meh”. Their attitude is pretty much “If you didn’t want to be around sick people, you shouldn’t be working in a hospital.” The millenials are more “How can you expect me to come into this building when we know there are COVID patients in here?” Slight exaggeration for effect.

    A bunch of schoolkids came around yesterday and put the most adorbs chalk messages on the sidewalks around the hospital. The li’l vandals brought a smile to my face.

    I am beginning to detect a backlash to the hysteria and panic, but it could just be confirmation bias.

    • PieInTheSky

      SO this is the time to get a prostate exam, less waiting.

      • AlexinCT

        Not essential procedure….

      • Gender Traitor

        Yup. Got the message this morning that the (routine) mammogram I was supposed to have Friday will have to be rescheduled.

        But of course I got the (likewise routine) colonoscopy in before the SHTF. ::glowers::

      • l0b0t

        #metoo My eye appointment today was canceled.

      • robc

        My hernia surgery tomorrow has been rescheduled to late April. I bet it moves again.

      • Private Chipperbot

        Twice a week. For the nurses.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Has your state put the kibosh on elective/delayable procedures? I worry if this gets stretched out for too long, there will be a decrease in health outcomes for some of those folks.

      • Private Chipperbot

        My son tore his ACL two weeks ago. He’s going to be a senior in HS next year, so he’s going to wear a brace and delay surgery until after his fall season. What he needs it PT to get strength back and his next appt was pushed two weeks out because they are cutting hours due to cancellations.

    • Pine_Tree

      “…millenials, raised to be radically risk averse and entitled to a safe environment…” – stealing this.

      Nurse friend said similar: All the elective things and visitors are off, so it’s super-quiet in general, but they’re all pumped up on the new protective measures, and the few cases in our county/hospital are getting lots of attention, even though most of them are treated by “go home and stay there”.

      I think normal people are starting to get tired of the stoopid, while the disaster-LARPers in the community are steadily increasing in cranial pressure.

    • CPRM

      HOSPITALS ARE OVER RUN! DON’T GO TO THE HOSPITAL UNLESS YOU HAVE THE VIRUS!

    • AlexinCT

      I stopped cause at this point it is just wallowing in misery, man…. 🙁

  51. pistoffnick

    The Saaaaaaaafety Department sent some people home for violating the 6 foot social distancing rule. Don’t know if that is a temporary or permanent suspension.

    Those fuckers have way too much power.

    • Drake

      Men Without Hats is playing on a loop in my head now.

  52. AlexinCT

    HAH!

  53. SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

    Grrr, basement shower is now leaking substantially when turned off. Can I just get out of this fucking house without another plumbing fiasco?

    *schedules a time to shut off the water to the house and get a new cartridge for the shower*

    • Don Escaped Texas

      I’ve got to do the same thing on one

      With mine, it went from fine to a pretty good gush; maybe it’s just a torn o-ring?

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        That’s the hope here, too. However, I can’t assume anything with this house. Last time I engaged with a plumbing issue, it involved digging moldy blankets out of the wall, removing half of the kitchen cabinets, and a shit ton of drywall removal.

    • CPRM

      I just added a ball valve before the shower head.

  54. Don Escaped Texas

    2 out of 773

    Tennesseans just don’t seem to be dying like in other states. I’m not saying that it’s easy to do this math in your head, that the data are perfect, or that TN is a monolith . . . just: wonder what’s going on? We’re just as fat and lazy as anyone else, and there are several areas with demographics/culture leads to serious concentrations of complicating, pre-existing conditions. I figured it would burn brightly here once the match was struck, but it’s pretty quiet.

    • straffinrun

      There are a lot of outliers around the world. Makes you think that maybe we haven’t gotten all the necessary info necessary to go full Draconian.

      • Don Escaped Texas

        outliers

        No doubt: I’ve spent years juggling trends like this and did a lot of design of experiments in grad school. This isn’t unlike Weibull analysis; when I was doing warranty work and people would freak out about monthly trending and some (later-proven-to-be) false hockey sticks early in the tracking: relax, the data haven’t fully bloomed yet.

      • straffinrun

        It’s known that women will beat men at the marathon. Look at the trends.

      • Don Escaped Texas

        The other metaphor I gave yesterday is you can’t sample the batch until the agitator has been running for a while.

    • juris imprudent

      Swiss aren’t dying like Italians either – though they have a similar rate of infections.

  55. The Late P Brooks

    Something something nobody I know…

    These greatest of our national crises—the eras of the Civil War and Reconstruction, and of the Great Depression and World War II—are replete with the guidance we now crave. Whatever we call the multitrillion-dollar package about to emerge from Congress—Big Government, emergency relief, stimulus, federal overreach, tyranny—it stems from social “necessity,” a word used ubiquitously in the 1860s and the 1930s. The creation of massive armies, the emancipation of enslaved people, and the energetic imagining of what their freedom would mean—direct aid to people, the creation of public works and jobs, and the mobilization of industry for national ends—all became matters of military or human necessity.

    All across the country, Americans are responding to the shock of events, and wondering how this public-health crisis and economic collapse hit so suddenly. And we are once again, as in 1861 and 1933, struggling in fear to understand whether our political institutions, our moral imagination, and our leadership are equipped to respond. In whom and in what do we believe? How should we act in our social isolation? Are our institutions of medicine, public health, education, banking, and politics a match not merely for a virus but for the social collapse that has come with its infection?

    Individualism runs extremely deep in the American mind and culture. But it is in our most profound crises that we discover, against the suspicions and beliefs of millions, that government can be our friend, even our savior.

    Yes, yes, of course. There are no individualists in foxholes. Libertarianism cannot survive a crisis. Only Big Nanny can pull us out of this ditch. Abide by the social contract.

    • leon

      social “necessity,” a word used ubiquitously in the 1860s and the 1930s

      You know who else talked about social necessity in the 30’s….

    • juris imprudent

      That’s funny, 1933 – you wouldn’t expect The Atlantic to treat the inauguration of FDR in that way.

    • leon

      that government can be our friend, even our savior

      Yup. Not a cult.

      • UnCivilServant

        The government is your enemy and you damnation.

        Trust me, I’m from the government.

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      In whom and in what do we believe?

      God, free will, innate human dignity, and the righteousness of liberty, even in hard times.

    • ruodberht

      The fucking crisis is entirely the product of the government shutting down business. Slightly more severe flu? Yeah, that’d suck to get, but I could get by. Being out of work for…what are these assholes saying, 18 months? Because the government made that happen, not that the disease was doing it? Fuck right off.

      “WE NEED STIMULUS TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM WE CREATED”

      FOH

    • Chipwooder

      “Crave”?? Speak for yourself, dipshit. I’m not craving anything other than a nice G&T.

  56. The Late P Brooks

    Their attitude is pretty much “If you didn’t want to be around sick people, you shouldn’t be working in a hospital.”

    Much heartless.

    • DOOMco

      “the virus is shooting at us!”

  57. The Late P Brooks

    But Americans of all political beliefs now face the same risk of severe illness and hospitalization. Public servants will labor heroically to save them, despite the risks they face themselves. When our governments serve and welcome us, when they protect our civil and political rights, when their laws advance equality of opportunity, when we feel their values and creeds in our hearts, we owe them our allegiance and our civic duty.

    Har dee fucking har.

    • juris imprudent

      The love of Big Brother is special, like a pimp’s love.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “When our governments serve and welcome us”

      I can’t roll my eyes enough to convey what I think about that.

    • leon

      Methodology: driven by data science for actionability

      Unacast’s robust team of data scientists and PhDs focuses on data accuracy to ensure that our partners and clients get high-quality insights that reflect real-world events.

      Anytime someone starts hitting up their “team of data scientists and PhDs” my bullshit meter goes off.

    • juris imprudent

      Wyoming, with a 0% change in travel, got an F.

      Wyoming, where social distancing was a norm long before coronavirus.

    • juris imprudent

      Also, gang-bangers who can’t shoot straight hit hardest.

    • leon

      My county. Which has held steady at 2 infections for bout a week has an F.

      • straffinrun

        Imagine it’s followed with “off slaver”. You’ll feel better.

    • Rhywun

      Convenient way to measure where the economy is tanking the fastest, I guess.

    • DOOMco

      It was inevitable.

  58. pan fried wylie

    I just wonder why these people decide to have kids just to pawn them off on hired help for their entire lives.

    adjunct retirement plan.