Thursday Morning UnSloopy Links

by | Apr 2, 2020 | Daily Links | 653 comments

 

The day after our fearless governor put out his Cower In Place order, traffic on the roads and crowds in the stores seemed higher than before. And the company I work for has been sending out daily reminders that we’re open for business, everyone needs to be on the job, and business is still booming. Arizonans have an attitude that I like. Meantime, SP and I are using this as an excuse to spend our evenings watching more old movies, catch up on Better Call Saul, and sock away emergency wine. She’s about to get a tattoo that says, “Have people lost their fucking MINDS???”

Birthdays today include the originator of disposable cars; the definitive Jed Clampett; the inspiration for generations of pigs; Sloopy’s fantasy woman; arguably the finest female voice in classic pop; an actually interesting “public intellectual”; and a guy who was a real riot.

Now news.

 

For stat geeks, this is a fun site to see how wildly wrong the projections are.

 

Eduardo might be a touch nuts. Maybe.

 

This website runs on SCIENCE. Don’t tempt me.

 

I hate doing Twitter links but this was awesome. (h/t Lt Cdr Fish)

 

Browns fans, no doubt.

 

Joe is impatient for the meat grinder.

 

I’m sure, somehow or other, this is racist.

 

I’m rethinking my opposition to capital punishment.

 

Old Guy Music is a song I didn’t care for until I heard a fun cover by Southpaw Jones about ten years ago. And here’s a REALLY fun cover from a guy who is an amazing one man band- plays it all and does Tuvan throat singing on top of that.

 

About The Author

Old Man With Candy

Old Man With Candy

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me. Wait, wrong book, I'll find something else.

653 Comments

  1. PieInTheSky

    This website runs on SCIENCE. Don’t tempt me. – if you got it flaunt it?

    • Pope Jimbo

      Right On!

  2. Nephilium

    On the Hobby Lobby story, they caved and announced they were closing their stores. I’d argue that a craft store is fucking essential when you’ve got kids home for over six weeks with no where to go.

    • UnCivilServant

      They want riots, don’t they?

      • Nephilium

        I wanna riot

        Supposedly new shutdowns and extended cower in place in Ohio to be announced later today.

      • Patio

        Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

      • Patio

        Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

      • Nephilium

        Shit’s getting serious up here. The good local beer store is shut down per a sign on their door until April 6th. My options for finding good beer are getting reduced, and my most recent batch won’t be ready for another week or so.

      • Nephilium

        /goes and checks

        Looks like the homebrew shops have been deemed essential (at least for the present time).

      • Patio

        Not cool. When my mother in law lived in Lakewood, her neighbor was the owner of Rozi’s Wine House (which had great beer too). Just saw on their website that they are closed, but doing curbside pick up and delivery. Are any of your local shops doing something like that?

      • Nephilium

        I live in a good beer desert, there’s a good shop, then grocery stores (where I need to check dates on things). But several of the breweries are doing delivery and takeout. The issue is that the board of health “asked” that locations not refill growlers and only fill new ones (because the ones that have been sitting on the shelf are cleaner then the one I’ve got StarSan sitting in?). I don’t need more growlers. The crowler shortage has started to impact the locations as well. One place is offering take away in mason jars for the duration.

        When I lived in Lakewood, Rozi’s was my local. Talked to the owners quite a bit over the years.

      • R C Dean

        The local brewpub for Sentinel Peak Brewing was doing take out sales – growlers, cans, some food maybe?

        Haven’t checked if they are still open. Probably stop by today.

      • Patio

        The growler situation is beyond ignorant.
        Don’t drink those damned IPAs and you don’t need to worry about bottling dates…
        😉

      • robc

        …says someone who never bought a year old Oktoberfest because they forget to check and convert the date codes.

        I know how to decipher Spaten date codes for this reason exactly.

      • Nephilium

        Patio: I’ve seen sixers of beer that haven’t been made in years sitting on the shelves, I’ve seen beers from breweries that closed the year before sitting there collecting dust. Sometimes it does work out to my advantage. Once there was a local that was clearing out some old stock, and had Old Horizontal bombers (~3 years old IIRC), for $2.99 each.

        I bought a case.

      • Swiss Servator

        My local has done the same – clearing out their cellar – into mine.

      • AlexinCT

        Did you have to hand over cash to get that to happen Swiss?

      • DEG

        Seconded.

  3. Festus

    “Can’t we all just get along?”

      • Festus

        Duck season!

      • UnCivilServant

        “I’m a poacher”

        *Blam!* *Blam!*

      • Festus

        Two barrels. Not allowed!

    • Trigger Hippie

      *flicks Festus’s left ear, gives him a noogie*

      • Festus

        “Stop breathing my air! Gawd! Moooom….”

    • commodious spittoon

      Git along now.

      *motions with rifle from porch*

  4. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Are you mocking the sexual attractiveness of Shadout Mapes?

    For shame…

    • Bobarian LMD

      He’s more of an Alia fan.

  5. PieInTheSky

    For stat geeks, this is a fun site to see how wildly wrong the projections are. – well save them, compare to the actual, and report back here in June

    • Festus

      The freak-out has been pissing me off for weeks. Now that Wifey is stuck at home more often than not I’m about ready to fire up the wood-chipper. It kills oldsters that are already at death’s door. Whither the panic over SARS or MERS?

      • invisible finger

        Certainly if an old person is in the hospital for something else, the chances of them catching an easily-communicable goes way up the longer they are there.

      • R C Dean

        I’ve said for years that a hospital is no place for sick people.

      • AlexinCT

        Unless they want to catch something else that finally kills them, right?

    • Private Chipperbot

      I asked that yesterday. I can’t seem to find a way to compare their historical predictions vs actual on that site. You’d think that would be something they would highlight. I’ll have to dig more.

      • juris imprudent

        What and advertise how wrong their projections were?

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^^THIS^^^^

        If they kept the shit they peddled first, then the shit they peddled in panic, and then looked at the way shit played out, nobody would take them seriously ever again.

      • dorvinion

        I printed it out to a pdf for my state for future comparison.

        Their estimate for # of hospital beds in use is 300 to 360 on April 1st.

        State DPH is reporting hospitalization data and they say as of April 1st, that 63 are currently hospitalized and another 36 discharged, and 9 deaths.

        I think the model needs some work

    • Spartacus

      I just glanced at the paper. They are using a statistical model with several parameters, and they are estimating parameters using the most “long-term” dataset available, which are the numbers from Wuhan. So if you trust the Chinese reporting then maybe it’s a fair model. On the other hand…

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I’ve seen that and it was very reasonable but he’ll just be labeled as a kook and ignored.

      • westernsloper

        At the same time, the mistake is being made worldwide to report virus-related deaths as soon as it is established that the virus was present at the time of death – regardless of other factors. This violates a basic principle of infectiology: only when it is certain that an agent has played a significant role in the disease or death may a diagnosis be made. The Association of the Scientific Medical Societies of Germany expressly writes in its guidelines: „In addition to the cause of death, a causal chain must be stated, with the corresponding underlying disease in third place on the death certificate. Occasionally, four-linked causal chains must also be stated.“

        This.

      • invisible finger

        I wish the US was that precise on death certificates. Usually it’s just some medical coder picking whatever he/she can understand from what the doctor wrote, and then the over-worked doctor just signs it without re-reading it.

      • AlexinCT

        “Died from a boner that lasted more than 12 hours”….

        That’s what mine will say.

      • Invisible BEAM of the comment stream

        Died from a boner that lasted more than 12 hours while his wife was furiously taking advantage of the situation is what I want my death certificate to say.

      • AlexinCT

        No wife, the girlfriend(s) will suffice, and it was implied…

        I want the police pictures of my final scene to include a bed that lights up under black lighting, has sweaty sticky sheets, and three or more hawt young ladies crying about my demise during some real kinky shitz. I might even go out with an homage to HM!

      • Shirley Knott

        I believe you mean nomage.

      • invisible finger

        Such as cause will get coded as “erectile dysfunction” and future generations will think you couldn’t get it up.

      • AlexinCT

        My ladies complain that i seem to get excited by a cold breeze…

        And no, I don’t need any pills to make it happen (yet). I tell them that practice makes perfect. Use it or lose it… That sort of stuff.

        My NDA specifically says that I no longer want any medical care to keep me alive once Russel “The love Muscle” stops performing without assistance. Why freaking live if you can’t?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Excellent questions that would provide much needed illumination.

      • commodious spittoon

        Why would I listen to a German of all people? They’re literally Germ-men.

      • RAHeinlein

        I’ve been monitoring this site for the past week and posted in here a couple times. It’s now frequently touted by Feds, some states, and most recently Wired magazine (b/c Univ of Wash and Gates Foundation).

        What I find most disturbing is their claim that data is updated based-on actual – which is clearly not the case. Additionally, the measures in place (distancing, schools closed, travel limitations, etc. aren’t accurate). No excuse for that levels of laziness.

      • Pine_Tree

        Yeah, but I bet they’re never going to fix it, or be reflective about anything in Herr Dr.’s letter referenced above – all the key questions.

      • RAHeinlein

        Likely true – alternate agendas at-play and “if we tell the truth, people won’t comply” BS.

        I did send them a polite email pointing out errors.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I’ve been pleasantly surprised that most of the Powerline bloggers have been anti-Shutdown (of course Mirengoff is all in for it). Hindraker has a very good article on whether the models are good enough to set public policy.

      Is curve flattening, via stay-home orders and business closures, really as valuable as certain modelers and many politicians allege? It may be that if the models now being used to generate newspaper headlines were made fully transparent and subjected to rigorous analysis, the value of stretching out the COVID-19 epidemic to flatten the demand curve for medical services would prove to be minimal. And yet, this is the theory on which millions of American lives are now being ruined.

      You would think that the journalos (or even other scientists) would demand that anyone creating these models be entirely transparent with how they created them and what assumptions were made. What rationale can there be for keeping the way you created your model secret?

      *The fact nugget that started this blog post was the U of Wash’s prediction that Minnesoda would have about 1K deaths vs. Minnesoda’s gov claiming that there would be 70K deaths. (currently there are 17 actual)

      • Tundra

        Excellent post. Walz will not give up his grandstanding easily, though.

      • AlexinCT

        Free Tee-Vee time when people are forced to watch? Fuck not a chance in hell.

        I do tell you he is less of a giant asshat than the guy we have in CT.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I’m still upset that we still don’t have Gov. Mumbles (Dayton). It would have been amusing to have seen him run away when this shit hit (when he was a Senator he abandoned the Capitol in 2001 when the anthrax scare was going on).

        We might not have ended up with the stay at home order because Mumbles would have run away before getting around to issuing one.

      • Swiss Servator

        I will see both of yours, and raise you Governor Fatass (D-IL)

      • bacon-magic

        Can’t wait for him to get his orange jumpsuit. He’ll look like a big ol’ valencia orange.

      • Pope Jimbo

        That is an apples to oranges comparison. I’m sure Walz could be just as corrupt and Evil as your gov if he had the luxury of a state populated by Chicagoans.

        But he is stuck with a state full of Minnesodans.

      • AlexinCT

        And this catbutting holy man?

      • Pope Jimbo

        Don’t forget about Nutmegger’s trapped in our great state with their carpet bags.

      • AlexinCT

        journalos

        Insane clowns peddling marxist pablum?

      • Pope Jimbo

        I got that from Kmele on the 5th Column podcast back when I was still listening to them (Welch and Moynihan and assorted guests eventually became too much for me).

        Liked the term, even if I feel it may be unfair to fans of ICP.

      • AlexinCT

        That’s my point. The juggalos are sane and nice people compared to these fuckwads.

      • leon

        You would think that the journalos (or even other scientists) would demand that anyone creating these models be entirely transparent with how they created them and what assumptions were made. What rationale can there be for keeping the way you created your model secret?

        But transparency is only for people you don’t trust. This is why Obama ran “The Most Transparent” admin ever while also prosecuting journalists under the espionage act.

  6. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Rather than risk compromising our health, this is a great opportunity to extend Dry January to “Dry Covid”. It’s only in the absence of a substance that you find out what your relationship with it is, and can hope to recalibrate it. For some, this process could be revealing; for others, life-changing. Of all drugs, alcohol is the one from which we feel and see the most rapid transformation – from improved sleep to better appearance to improved mood – when we eliminate it.

    Everybody expects the New Puritans…

    • robc

      The Puritans get a bad rap when it comes to alcohol. One of the first things they did was set up a community brewery.

      • Festus

        Enh. Beer ain’t real booze. Just ask an expert. Like me!

    • Nephilium

      I know WHO to blame.

      • Tres Cool

        WHO do they think they are ?

      • Rhywun

        They really are wrong about everything, aren’t they.

  7. AlmightyJB

    Harsh

  8. PieInTheSky

    I’m sure, somehow or other, this is racist. – I’m sure he could have squeezed a maths joke in there somewhere

  9. PieInTheSky

    I’m rethinking my opposition to capital punishment. – I really should drink less though. Damn the huge discounts on wine.

  10. Rebel Scum

    An engineer deliberately ran a train off the tracks at high speed near the Port of Los Angeles in an attempt to crash into the USNS Mercy hospital ship, prosecutors say.

    That an…interesting strategy.

    • Mad Scientist

      You have to be creative to break into Hollywood.

      • UnCivilServant

        But there’s nothing worth stealing there, why would I break in?

  11. AlmightyJB

    You do know what “pop” means right? Lol

  12. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Paglia is intimidating. I usually enjoy being in a conversation with someone really intelligent and view it as an opportunity to learn, but Paglia scares the shit out of me. I would say something mildly incorrect and she would stomp all over it.

    • Slammer

      Love her. She also has this weird tic of always saying “ok?” over and over that I find endearing

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        She’s fantastic. She never gives ground just to sate the mob and says exactly what she thinks.

      • Slammer

        The Jordan Peterson sit-down with her was a very good conversation, almost 2 hours

    • Festus

      Correct me if I’m wrong but she started as kinda soft Pinko and grew disgusted with Indentitarianism. I like her.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I think that’s correct. I know she was saw the sixties as an opportunity to truly liberalize higher education, but the seventies as regressive with the introduction of women’s studies et al…

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Yes.

        My sister went through the same trajectory.

        They weren’t filled with hate, rage and envy especially against men.

        She completely doesn’t understand the latest waves of feminists. These are losers.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Your Marcottes, Valentis etc.

        She can’t stand them.

    • R C Dean

      One of those people who I will generally read, even though I will often wind up disagreeing with where she lands.

    • Agent Cooper

      I don’t think she would do that as long as you argue in good faith.

  13. Stinky Wizzleteats

    “Alcohol is ‘unhelpful coping strategy’ for coronavirus lockdown says WHO”

    The WHO is an incompetent organization filled with CCP felating holier-than-thou autocratic jackasses. If the flow of alcohol is cut off while people are stuck in their homes with nothing to do the world will burn.

    • Festus

      Well, My world will burn! Or maybe I’ll start watching Hallmark and my liver will regenerate…

    • bacon-magic

      Fuck the WHO. What does “eminence front” even mean?

      • Patio

        You *will* get fooled again, citizen.

    • Drake

      If China was a major booze exporter, they’d have messages like this. And “safe” gatherings like this.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      The same organization that is standing by the idea that wearing a mask doesn’t help prevent spread?

    • Rufus the Monocled

      I hope people realize once and for all ONE SIZE orgs like WHO are USELESS.

  14. Trigger Hippie

    *pulls down pants, shoves bare asshole in the commentariat’s faces*

    Hello. Love you, guys. Scratch my butt, please.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      *grabs belt sander*

      • Trigger Hippie

        Ha!

    • Rebel Scum

      *Reports TH for failure to social distance and blatant disregard for the safety of himself and others in the community.*

      • Trigger Hippie

        I’m a bad kitteh.

    • Festus

      He wuz jus’ bein’ freinly!

    • Shirley Knott

      Paging Mr. Smith, Mr. Steve Smith, to the white courtesy butt please.

    • bacon-magic

      STEVE SMITH SCRATCH PIMPLY BUTT WITH BALL HAIRS

      • Festus

        Brillo Pad.

  15. Slammer

    The guy Eduardo is nuts. Everyone knows you’re supposed to take over the ship and use it to ram the train, not the other way around.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      My inner dermatologist is freaking out at all the latent skin cancer on the first one.

      • PieInTheSky

        You have an inner dermatologist? You should get that checked out

    • AlmightyJB

      Oh hell no!

    • Slammer

      Yikes. That looks like the printing press over at the Fed

    • robc

      What percent go over the edge? Like 10%?

      • AlmightyJB

        Driving test route?

    • straffinrun

      Not turning off the music made that badass AF,

    • I. B. McGinty

      What. The. Fuck. I would have got out and waited.

    • westernsloper

      No Way! That freaked me out just watching. If I was in the car they would have had to stop because of the smell.

    • Shirley Knott

      Now that’s how you precautionary principle.

      Meanwhile, memo to self: Never leave the day room! /grampa Simpson

    • Tundra

      Land Rover?

  16. westernsloper

    Changing our collective relationship with alcohol would yield more for the nation’s health than almost any other policy intervention,….

    Fuck off slaver.

    • AlmightyJB

      We should also outlaw cars and ride bikes everywhere.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      I can’t think of a worse time than now to push that bullshit.

    • Spartacus

      Changing our collective relationship with alcohol authoritarianism would yield more for the nation’s health than almost any other policy intervention,….

      That’s better.

    • invisible finger

      Changing our collective relationship with GOVERNMENT would yield more for the nation’s health than almost any other policy intervention,….

      • invisible finger

        Damn your nimble fingers, Spartacus!

    • ruodberht

      Yes, let’s try Prohibition for the very first time.

      • Festus

        “I’m not doing that! Why should anyone be allowed to do that?” said every Karen ever.

  17. Stinky Wizzleteats

    So Biden’s ready to debate Trump, huh? That’s either going to be all kinds of hilarious or all kinds of sad.

    • AlmightyJB

      No, like usual the “moderators” will debate Trump on why Trump is so incompetent. Then they will ask Biden questions about how he deals with his own awesomeness.

    • Slammer

      Trump would destroy him. But Trump is cunning, I could see him doing something like the exact opposite of what everyone would expect… completely tone it down, go very quiet and understated, and let Joe go. Don’t interrupt and abuse him, just quietly let him roll and fumble and stumble and confuse himself. Then stand and look at him with a look of utter pity

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        He probably does need to take it easy on him, I can’t stand Biden but I actually feel sorry for him now. He was mostly lucid when he debated Bernie though so maybe his doctors have found the right combination of Aricept and amphetamines to keep him going.

      • Festus

        This. He has to humor the old fool and rather than attack let him Sideshow Bob himself. Otherwise it would look like “bullying” and soccer moms don’t go for that, nuh uh!

      • Drake

        So like a visiting granpa in the home on one of his less lucid days.

  18. Rebel Scum

    Rather than risk compromising our health, this is a great opportunity to extend Dry January to “Dry Covid”.

    Yeah, sure. *cracks beer*

  19. Count Potato

    So I called the doctor’s office. Now I wait.

    • Slammer

      Praying for you and your mom, man

      • Festus

        Yes. We make light but certain of us do have vulnerable people that we love. God speed, Count.

    • Tulip

      Good luck!

    • Tulip

      I hope it’s just allergies. I also hope you get the info you need in case you get sick later so you can have coverage for your mom.

    • westernsloper

      Good luck Count!

    • straffinrun

      Good. Take steps and ignore the destination. Best of luck, CP.

    • Count Potato

      Thanks, to all of you.

      • Old Man With Candy

        You have friends.

    • Drake

      Good luck – make sure they know you are the care giver of somebody at risk.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Good luck.

    • Tundra

      Prayers for you and mom, CP.

    • DEG

      Best wishes.

  20. Rebel Scum

    “I’m ready to debate President Trump on Zoom or Skype, anytime he wants,”

    “I mean, can he even do a push-up? Come see me on the Google. Wait, why am I stopping?”

    • PieInTheSky

      While working out from home I found it is more difficult to do correct, strict pushups than the pushups most people do. I can do 31 correct ones, probably 40+ less correct ones.

  21. PieInTheSky

    Reports from Guayaquil in Ecuador are harrowing, corpses are lying on the streets. Hardest hit city in Latin America.

    Shows what can happen in a country where infrastructure and healthcare far below first world standards

    These images are horrifying.

    https://twitter.com/RealYeyoZa/status/1245489478019485701

    This would not have happened id the population of Ecuador had moved to the US. Trump is to blame. Also I have no idea if this is real, I don;t much trust that twitter account.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It looks horrible, but I’m suspicious.

      • WTF

        Yeah, seems like bullshit.

  22. Rebel Scum

    So cats may be ‘inviting’ us to check them out

    The same does not go for strippers that bend over in front of you.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      They’re presenting? Is that what they’re doing? I thought that was just their way of saying they want my money.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      -1 Stink Finger

      • Festus

        I did that once and she paid me back a few weeks later by poking me in the eye at a club. Worth it.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        For pink eye?

  23. Rebel Scum

    Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said his office sent a cease-and-desist letter to Hobby Lobby after reports that the craft supplies chain had re-opened its stores across the U.S., including Ohio.

    Arts and crafts are essential, particularly for parents at home with their kids. This asshole probably also wants to release violent criminals while not allowing the innocent to buy weapons.

    • RAHeinlein

      That stuff is a necessary part of education. Studies have shown that kids exposed to art do better in school!

      • leon

        Everyone else gets to say they are necessary.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Releasing violent criminals is also a necessary part of education for the coming end-days.

    • Rhywun

      This asshole probably also wants to release violent criminals while not allowing the innocent to buy weapons.

      Like this asshole?

  24. Slammer

    I heard a theory that the reason Trump and the USA are starting to fuck with Venezuela hard right now is that the ingredients to manufacture chloroquine are found in a type of tree in Venezuela’s Western border with Peru.

    • UnCivilServant

      A href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Venezuela_Orthographic_Map.svg”>Venezuela doesn’t border Peru

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Does chloroquine even require any natural ingredients for its synthesis?

      • UnCivilServant

        Don’t know, but I want to know it it was Peru or Venezuela that annexed that Columbia-Brazil border.

      • Shirley Knott

        It appears not. See this (which is above my pay grade).

    • straffinrun

      Looked at the studies claiming chloroquine efficacy and I’m no longer convinced. Hope I’m wrong.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        The debunkings I saw involve chloroquine as a preventative, I haven’t seen any saying it doesn’t work as a treatment if given in combination with other meds in a timely fashion but I didn’t do an in depth dive.

      • invisible finger

        The number of studies about chloroquine as a preventative total a whopping ZERO. Studies like that take several months, which haven’t actually elapsed yet.

      • straffinrun

        The French study didn’t use febrile patients and the China study was, uh, done by Chinese. As far as I could tell it was only proven effective in vitro testing. But WTH do I know?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It’s being large scale in New York and we should know before too long what the outcomes look like. Here’s a link to an interesting review from the University of Washington School of Medicine if you’re interested (hasn’t been peer reviewed yet though):

        https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202003.0275/v1

      • straffinrun

        Thx. I look at it later. *Gets back to drinkin`*

      • RAHeinlein

        Given NY’s testing, I’m hoping Cuomo backs usage as an RTB.

      • robc

        Everything I have seen suggests HCQ works better than CQ.

      • straffinrun

        Better because of side effects, but neither really have been proven to statistically change patients conditions all that much.

      • Festus

        *Looks at Wifey’s nostrums and tinctures* Must be working! She’s still among the living…

      • RAHeinlein

        Agreed. The hysteria is around the ICU cases – chloroquine (with or without an adjunct) isn’t going to do squat there. Yes, potentially some level of symptom/illness reduction and prevention.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Seems to me that the main objective should be to keep people out of the hospital by treating the disease early and shortening its period of transmissibilty.

        Right now, we’re just telling people to go home and don’t come back until they need a ventilator.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        ^This, upon diagnosis it should be prescribed along with an adjunct. Considering its relatively benign side-effect profile unless you have heart rhythm issues I’d think it’d be worth a shot.

      • RAHeinlein

        Stop with the logic already – it’s like you think Andrew Cuomo’s mother is expendable!

      • invisible finger

        Too bad hydrochloroquine is a drug and not a dietary supplement.

      • R C Dean

        The hysteria is around the ICU cases – chloroquine (with or without an adjunct) isn’t going to do squat there.

        Naturally, we lack a baseline, and we also have few ICU cases, but we’re hitting them all with chloroquine (no cocktails yet, as far as I know), haven’t lost one yet, have pulled some off vents and have sent some home.

        Is this better than without the chloroquine? No idea. Either way, though, it shows that even very sick people can survive this thing.

  25. Rebel Scum

    Well, a few bouts with cancer hasn’t stopped her.

    But those rules apparently don’t apply to 87-year-old Ginsburg, who, with multiple bouts of cancer in recent years, is in the highest of high-risk groups. Bryant Johnson, her trainer, told Law360 that Ginsburg is not about to let something like an order from the mayor or the prospect of spreading or contracting Wuhan flu get in the way of her twice-weekly training sessions.

    “Everybody’s been shut down. The only reason why I didn’t shut the justice down is because, hey, she ain’t having it,” said Johnson. “She has that grandfather status to me and if she wants to train, that‘s the least that I can do.”

    Ginsburg has apparently gotten a special dispensation from someone to maintain her fitness routine at the SCOTUS gym. She actually gets a “choice” in this matter, while poor schmucks like us are basically on house arrest, minus the ankle bracelet (for now).

    Meanwhile, cities are locking up pastors who are holding church services and people of faith who want to pray outside abortion clinics.

    Shut up, peasant. Also, that witch is going to cling to power until the bitter end.

    • leon

      Maybe trump have her the dispensation hoping she catches it…

    • Nephilium

      Just wait until the arguments about how she would have voted on cases is why the current justices should vote that way.

    • Slammer

      The worship of her is creepy af

    • Festus

      She’s a Skeksi. The only way to topple her from power is for her to lose at the rock-cutting contest.

      • The Last American Hero

        Does that mean if she goes down we lose Ron Paul or Gene Epstein?

    • Bobarian LMD

      That which is dead can never die!

  26. PieInTheSky

    Good news: Italy, Spain, France, all leveling off.

    National lockdowns work and stop the Coronavirus.

    Combine this with #Masks4All and widespread free testing to track the remaining cases.

    The best time to do all this was February, or March.

    The next best time is now.

    https://twitter.com/erikbryn/status/1245450081505103873

    • AlexinCT

      Wait until they tell people they are gonna stay locked down forever….

  27. Private Chipperbot

    A record 6.6 million seek US jobless aid as layoffs mount

    The figure for last week is much higher than the previous record of 3.3 million reported for the previous week. The surging layoffs have led many economists to envision as many as 20 million lost jobs by the end of April. The unemployment rate could spike to as high as 15% this month, above the previous record of 10.8% set during a deep recession in 1982

    This is after 14 days. By all means, let’s keep everything closed for another two months.

    • leon

      Dang. We are all just pieces to be moved and sacrificed for the politicians good.

      • Q Continuum

        Orange Man Bad. If we have to ruin a few million people’s lives, it’s all in service of the greater good to GET DRUMPF.

      • Don escaped Oklahoma

        There’s not a single electoral vote that’s going to leave Trump because a community changed their mind on him because of the disease, the stock market reset, or the resulting unemployment.

        The needle will move, but not because of this.

      • Q Continuum

        Agreed. If anything’s gonna work to beat Trump, a much better strategy is going after the AWFLs, the Karens and the soccer/security mommies. Destroying the manufacturing and service sectors is not going to likely hurt said mommies’ white collar husbands so their biggest inconvenience is having to start drinking wine in the AM to numb themselves to the annoyance of the kids.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      When businesses are told they can’t open this is to be expected.

    • WTF

      The Democrats have huge boners imagining this will help them beat ORANGEMANBAD.

      • Private Chipperbot

        Priorities USA started running attack ads yesterday in Michigan based on the virus response.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        Let me guess, they claim Trump said the virus was a hoax, right? That just might work.

      • Private Chipperbot

        Yep. They certainly did.

      • Q Continuum

        I believe that is the current party line verbatim.

      • WTF

        Think about what a piece of shit you’d have to be to tell lies like this over something like this just to try to gain power.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Help me out here.

      There are 930 000 cases of Wuhan in the world, correct?

      America now has 6.6 million out of work. Canada is at around a million I think.

      Does the math seem off or is this need to ‘save mankind’ as someone put it to me?

      I responded, ‘my dear man, the economy IS mankind’.

      I’m not liking this at all.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        to ‘save mankind’

        This hyperbole brought to you by 25 years of environmentalist indoctrination and LARPing.

      • Bobarian LMD

        It’s a cookbook.

    • AlexinCT

      How many of these people are filing now because they can not only get unemployment, but because of the new bill, more money than they were making at a job? I would not be surprised to discover a large portion of these filers are people figuring they can make more money being unemployed than actually finding any work. But yeah, team blue is hoping this is the economic catastrophe that helps them finally take back control of power so they can hide the corruption and criminality of the Obama administration and how they tried to soft coup an elected president to hide these criminal activities.

  28. westernsloper

    Old guy music……? ?

  29. straffinrun

    I’m longing for skinship.

    • Festus

      I shudder in anticipation.

    • AlexinCT

      Erm, your wife avoiding you again?

  30. Rufus the Monocled

    “Kirstie Alley
    @kirstiealley
    ·
    12h
    When this is all over let’s honest to God start making everything in the United States that has anything to do with survival”

    Rebecca ain’t stupid or wrong on this one. Mr. Drake would be proud.

    • invisible finger

      Let’s find Kirstie’s take on corporate tax rates…

    • Mad Scientist

      OK, let’s start by getting rid of the rules that make it prohibitively expensive to manufacture certain things here.

      • WTF

        Those regulations are the only things that keep you safe!!

      • Certified Public Asshat

        *points frantically to the test kit shit show*

    • Don escaped Oklahoma

      I don’t disagree, but, like I constantly ask my whining Commie Mommie: why don’t you do something other than flap your gums?

      You’d learn a ton if you ever tried to
      * raise capital
      * build a strategic marketing plan
      * hire staff
      * secure clients
      * industrialize a product and manage its life-cycle

      There would be lot more shutting up in this world if the these thinkers without portfolio actually ever built something. And the second-guessing of property and capital and the bozo notions like gentrification would fall out of the popular lexicon.

      • Private Chipperbot

        You spent your money and built that. Now shut it down. You’re non-essential. We’ll let you know when you can open again.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        No, you didn’t build that.

      • Q Continuum

        These are the same people that think Big Daddy is responsible for all private sector success and that corporations sole reason for existence is to impoverish and kill their own customers. I’m thinking logical though capacity isn’t real high.

      • AlexinCT

        The fascists won: way too many people now feel totally cool with government dictating winners & losers, and accusing anyone that will not kowtow to the inept political class’ insatiable demand for other people’s money of being the bad people.

    • Slammer

      Sounds like shes advocating for more guns

    • Drake

      In some of the risk assessment / disaster preparedness session I used to do, we would identify being too reliant on a single source. Doesn’t necessarily mean just using American sources instead of Chinese. Do they make these widgets in South America. Mexico, Turkey, Taiwan, anywhere else?

    • Festus

      She was a firecracker in Runaway and then she turned all fat and Republican.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Guys. All beside the point. Her SENTIMENT is a good one.

  31. leon

    Sigh. I’m really burned out on this CV stuff.

    • AlmightyJB

      Aren’t you looking forward to the “acceptable deaths” arguments? 0 vs some random number?

      • AlexinCT

        Risk? We don’t need no stinking risks!

        Moronic people that believe anything that isn’t absolutely perfect should be replaced with either the same old system that caused the death of 120 million people and held 3 billion plus in misery in the 200th century, or the one that grew out of it, where government allowed the illusion of property rights while choosing winners or losers that gave us WWII, because this time they will do it right.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Come on Leon, mass monomania can be fun.

      • leon

        I just wish society would collapse already so i can form my own petty kingdom.

    • AlmightyJB

      He would know.

    • Festus

      52. *wraps self in foil and Saran*

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Well damn…

    • AlexinCT

      The last paragraphs point out he suffered from some other “complication”….

      What could that have been? He doesn’t look obese. Did he have cancer? Alternative lifestyle that compromised his immune system? Indubitably, when you dig you find this god damned virus fucks people with something else the hardest. Maybe I should be worried since I have only 1 and 1/3 work lungs (I had an, lets call it accident, and on the left side where I broke 9 ribs one of them punctured my lung and caused a large chunk of it to need to be removed.). Have never had a breathing problem except in those occasions when I was stuck in tight spaces with some assholes that love Taco Hell food.

  32. Festus

    Beer stores up here are doing delivery now. Five dollar surcharge but what the fuck? Wonder how long this lasts.

    • Q Continuum

      Some of our “betters” are probably already thinking of ways to make it permanent.

    • Nephilium

      Several breweries around me are offering free delivery on certain order sizes (one is $25, one is 2 six packs, the other is a case). If I lived closer to downtown, I could add several more onto that list.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I’ve been saying for weeks that this crisis will be the stake in the heart of the EU project.

  33. Slammer

    Donald J. Trump
    @realDonaldTrump
    Somebody please explain to Cryin’ Chuck Schumer that we do have a military man in charge of distributing goods, a very talented Admiral, in fact. New York has gotten far more than any other State, including hospitals & a hospital ship, but no matter what, always complaining…..

    It wouldn’t matter if you got ten times what was needed, it would never be good enough. Unlike other states, New York unfortunately got off to a late start. You should have pushed harder. Stop complaining & find out where all of these supplies are going. Cuomo working hard!

    • RAHeinlein

      Cuomo slammed Shumer (and other NY congress critters) during one his pressers last week due to restrictions for the Medicaid allocations. No alternations to Medicaid are allowed and NY had initiated a cost-saving plan.

    • Festus

      “Cuomo working hard!” Jesusth Donald! Don’t exthartherbate the sthituation! He hateths uth!

  34. Festus

    The greenies have an end-in for shutting down major projects. Plague! Leprosy! Carbuncles! Yep, they are trying to close every remote mining, infrastructure, and resource camp in the country. I don’t think that I’ve ever been as disgusted in my fellow citizens as I am right now.

  35. Annoyed Nomad

    Anybody else watching the latest season of “Ozark” on Netflix and needed eye bleach after a certain romantic relationship was depicted?

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Was it any worse than some of the scenes in Hunters?

      • Annoyed Nomad

        I tried to watch Hunters and quit somewhere in the middle of the second episode.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        I finished the fourth but I am not really dying to watch the next. I will, because what else am I going to do, but I am not seeing why everyone was raving about it a few weeks ago.

      • Tundra

        Same. My wife passed even starting the second episode.

    • Q Continuum

      I tried but could not get into that show. I really like Jason Bateman but something about the characters just rubbed me the wrong way.

    • Festus

      Nope. Wifey has been watching but I recall a certain scene in “Penny Dreadful” wherein I just got up and walked away.

    • Gdragon

      I mean, I didn’t watch it intently or start pitching a tent but was it really that bad? It’s not like Darlene is RBG

    • robc

      At 9:30 he suggests what I have been suggesting, a random sample testing to find the number actually infected.

    • robc

      His best guess is that fatality rate is about the same as seasonal flu, maybe a bit higher. Close to 1/10th of a percent.

    • robc

      Italy hospitals run at 95-98% capacity every winter. So they were running close to the edge even before CV.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Similar for the UK

      • Q Continuum

        I <3 socialized medicine!

      • Nephilium

        It’s due to the budget cuts! The ones from 40 years ago! That’s what killed the NHS.

      • PieInTheSky

        My favorite argument is for NHS “it costs less” followed by “it’s underfunded”. Well it would not cost less if it was not underfunded, would it?

    • PieInTheSky

      Is that a new article or the one that made the rounds a couple of weeks ago?

      • robc

        The video is from March 26.

        The article is probably the old one, but it has an update as of 4/1.

  36. Tundra

    Good morning, Old Man!

    Thanks for pinch hitting today.

    I thought Sloop’s dream woman did a nice job in the classic Silverado, so I don’t think I’ll mock.

    Cats are gross, Eduardo is nuts, and the World Health fuckos are a joke.

    The numbers look an awful lot like horseshit to me, but to what end? I can’t believe that this is a coordinated, multi-country attempt to wreck everything. I seems like chicken-shit fear of being wrong, so everyone goes to DEFCON 1 just in case. Retards.

    Fun song. You’ve linked that dude before, but I had to look up Tuvan throat singing. It’s not nearly as dirty as it sounds.

    Make it a great day, people! I hope everyone stays healthy and safe.

    • Nephilium

      The numbers look an awful lot like horseshit to me, but to what end? I can’t believe that this is a coordinated, multi-country attempt to wreck everything. I seems like chicken-shit fear of being wrong, so everyone goes to DEFCON 1 just in case. Retards.

      This is where I am too. The simplest explanation just seems to be panicked decision making, and fear of being blamed for grandma dying.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        +1 snow day for 1/2″ of snow.

      • Chipwooder

        Yep. It’s almost a form of one-upsmanship: Gov. Schmuckatelli over in West Bumfuckia is ordering people not to leave their homes, so I have to do the same thing here in East Bumfuckia or else I look like a callous monster.

  37. RAHeinlein

    JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon returns to work – thank goodnes (not sarc).

  38. ttyrant

    Bah – sad morning already. The small group of (White) Sox fans here (Swiss, anyone else?) may be saddened to hear that Ed Farmer died last night. I was never crazy about him and Darrin Jackson as a pairing, but I thought he and John Rooney were fantastic together. Steve Stone is now all that remains of the Sox’ old guard of announcers.

    • Don escaped Oklahoma

      My son’s first game was CHW . . . attending in utero.

      I carded out (quite easily, of course) Buehrle’s perfect game at home over TB, 2009-07-23 last week. I’d probably shrivel up and blow away without the rebroadcast of classic games.

      • ttyrant

        I’ve been watching bits and pieces of the Buehrle perfect game over the last week. That game still gives me chills. I’d forgotten that after Wise makes the brilliant catch, Buehrle nearly loses it by falling behind the next hitter 3-1. Hawk may have dropped dead in the booth if Buehrle would’ve lost it there.

      • Don escaped Oklahoma

        I’m an unapologetic NL guy

        but an AL perfect game is tougher, no doubt

      • invisible finger

        I watch random old games on YouTube (there aren’t that many). A couple of them are full broadcasts complete with pre-game show and commercials. My favorite was the one from 1980 where Harry Caray interviewed Tony LaRussa before the game – earlier in the day LaRussa had graduated law school.

    • invisible finger

      Ed was a good color announcer. He tried his best at play-by-play but that wasn’t really his forte and DJ was not a good partner for a PBP newbie. (I like DJ, but the pairing with Farmer did not work on radio.)

    • Swiss Servator

      Farmio….gone?!

      NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    • RAHeinlein

      SCOTUS gym – is that like the spa in “A Cure for Wellness”

      • Festus

        If 1990’s era Bridgette Fonda is there? Oh sweet Jesus, Yes!

    • Q Continuum

      D’oh. Missed it by… well y’know.

    • The Last American Hero

      Is it wrong to hope she dies in pain and denied of pain meds?

  39. straffinrun

    How is anybody getting arrested for “non essential travel”? In my head the conversation goes something like:

    Cop: “What are you doing out?”

    Person: “I’m taking medicene to my sick mother.”

    Dude walks away. Or:

    Cop: “What are you doing out?”

    Person: “I’m spreading Corona.”

    Dude gets handcuffed.

    I don’t have any of these restrictions, so I really don’t know how it’s playing out on the streets where you are.

    • UnCivilServant

      I get the impression the cops aren’t stopping people.

      • straffinrun

        Good. They are throwing out the “180 days in jail” to scare the crap out of people.

      • Naptown Bill

        The text of the Maryland ban IIRC includes mental health as an essential reason for travel, so presumably you could be taking a drive because you’re going stir-crazy. I mean, they’ve also put a ban on recreational boating, hunting, and fishing, and within seconds half the state lost its collective mind. Maryland is a stupid blue state, but you don’t fuck with boaters, hunters, or fishermen here. I would not want to be the first DNR cop to try to enforce that shit.

      • Pope Jimbo

        Ice is out here. It is way earlier than I would normally try to go fishing, but if the weather is decent this weekend, I think the boat is getting some use.

      • Naptown Bill

        In a month or so the water’s going to warm up enough that fishing will kick into gear, and there’s no way the charter boat guys are going to sit at home and shelter in place. Not a chance in hell. There are already guys mock-threatening the governor over turkey season.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Around here, people are getting antsy. They’re continuing on their normal pace of life (with certain precautions), but they’re side-eying the cops, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It won’t be pretty once officer friendly starts handing out tickets to people around here trying to make a living.

      • Chipwooder

        As far as I can tell, no one’s getting stopped on the streets. What they are doing instead is waiting for snitches to report that so and so is having people over at his house, or that there are kids playing pickup basketball at the park.

        The Stasification of America, iow.

      • Tundra

        Not in my neighborhood. For the first few days of house arrest I saw shit like this.

        Then, after awhile, a few kids out playing. Now, there are bunches of neighbor kids playing in the streets, building forts in the woods, etc.

        No chance this thing goes into June.

    • PieInTheSky

      I agree. Arrest takes time and resources. Just shoot em.

    • Nephilium

      Road traffic is down up here from the times I went out. No questions from the breweries I stopped at and bought beer from. Just gives one more excuse for the cops to pull you over.

    • dorvinion

      Very limited shutdown orders here in Iowa from the Governor. Basically no gatherings over 10, no gyms, spas, health clubs, dine in eating, and such.

      Apart from that, the Governor is giving recommendations but pretty much everything is being decided locally. How refreshingly practical.

      Schools can be opened but pretty much all districts independently decided to close.
      Counties and towns are deciding whether to close playgrounds and green spaces. To my frustration, county parks decided to close, but many of the local Army Corps places are open for foot traffic, or they are just keeping bathrooms and water fountains off.

      We bike/hike every day its nice out, we get takeout from some local restaurants 3 times a week, and every few days we go on a joy ride in the car (EV so its cheap to drive).
      Fully plan on continuing these practices even if the Gov reverses course and mandates cower in place.

    • Q Continuum

      MUH FISH TANK CLEANER

      • Festus

        Is mine! *sharpens door machete*

    • UnCivilServant

      Dr. Stephen Smith

      *squints suspiciously*

      • Slammer

        The cure is definitely worse than the disease

      • Festus

        DR. STEVE WIDEN EYE! AND BY WIDEN EYE MEAN RAPE!

      • Pope Jimbo

        Well the treatment does require a special method of injection….

        The good news is no needles are required.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Side effects include gastro intestinal soreness, trouble defecating, and anal leakage.

    • leon

      Lift? Quarantines? Good sir this is the “New Normal”, you best get used to it.

    • straffinrun

      I can’t do anything with that. The links are to a YT video of his interview with Laura and a link to his organization’s home page.

  40. Certified Public Asshat

    Let’s check in on Mr. Fair Tax:

    You think COVID-19 is bad? Give me a break. Wait until Muslims hit critical mass in America. You’ll look back on these times fondly.— Neal Boortz (@Talkmaster) April 1, 2020

      • Certified Public Asshat

        April Fool’s? No, looks like he is still defending it.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I wondered what happened to Neil.

  41. Rebel Scum

    Mighty fine police work.

    In her briefing, Best called upon the expertise of a former local news anchor, Lori Matsukawa.

    “Hate crimes have no place in our community,” said Matsukawa. “We are all trying to deal with the COVID-19 public health crisis together. If you are a victim of a hate crime or hate-based harassment, please call 911.”

    “We will document and investigate every reported hate crime,” Best continued. “Even racist name-calling should be reported to police. If you aren’t sure if a hate crime occurred, call 911. We are here to help.”

    • leon

      But if you get burgled, shut the fuck up, we aren’t dealing with that right now!

    • Mad Scientist

      Nancy said I’m a stupid moron with an ugly face and a big butt and my butt smells and I like to kiss my own butt! Can you please come over and shoot her?

    • Naptown Bill

      I’m glad saying mean things is so dangerous, because it’s a hell of a lot easier to call the person breaking into my house at 3:00 AM a racist epithet than to shoot him. Next time someone’s breaking into a car on my street I’ll just call them a wetback or a jungle bunny or a wop or something to scare them off.

    • R C Dean

      the expertise of a former local news anchor

      Expertise in what, exactly?

      • Not Adahn

        Reading telepropters, wearing makeup, selecting clothing patterns that don’t do weird things on TV…

      • UnCivilServant

        “Blue and green checks. Perfect, I’m ready to read the weather, whatever chromakey they use!”

  42. PieInTheSky

    Romanian healthcare is complete and utter shit on the best of times. Right now it is beyond chaos, based on what I understand. So if I get any illness unless I think I am close to dying I aint setting foot in no hospital. There is one where more doctors got the bug than patients right now. But because of the panic normal hospital activities are fucked. Now government are trying to ease all sorts of rules that had people coming to the hospital all the time e.g refill prescriptions and allowing internet/video options. Wonder if they will keep em later.

    • Tundra

      So if I get any illness unless I think I am close to dying I aint setting foot in no hospital.

      Actually, this is sound policy pretty much anywhere.

      • Bobarian LMD

        Interacting with the hospital is like interacting with cops.

        Don’t unless you think someone should die.

    • leon

      I heard some people suspect that the DNC needs Bernie to drop so they could plausibly replace biden. I don’t think that is going to happen. Biden is the Man and barring death he will be running against Trump.

      But it does say something about the corruption of your party that people just casually say that they think you will pick someone else to run.

      • juris imprudent

        It is especially delicious given Biden’s not-all-that-long-ago statement on “we must believe women”.

      • Pope Jimbo

        There’s a reason why mainstream journalists such as Ronan Farrow of the New Yorker and Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey of the New York Times — all Pulitzer Prize winners for their meticulous coverage of the 2017 Harvey Weinstein investigation — are so careful when reporting allegations of sexual harassment and assault. (Salon is not addressing any individual outlet’s choice not to cover this specific story, but the general considerations typically involved in such a decision.) It’s not just about fairness to the accused, but also to the accusers. Women who tell these stories inevitably get blasted by skeptics who pick their stories apart, so it’s critical to their safety that the reporting holds up under close scrutiny. That’s only going to be more true when the story has major political implications or confusing twists that could be interpreted as red flags — or both, like this one does.

        Look, we aren’t burying the story because we are covering for the Dems! We just care soooo much about the well being of these women. How can you expect a frail, delicate woman to be able to cope with people asking her questions?

      • The Last American Hero

        But stories about rape trains at high school parties organized by supreme court nominees to which a purported college chick continued to attend after being gang-raped- totally plausible.

      • R C Dean

        Women who tell these stories inevitably get blasted by skeptics who pick their stories apart

        Why, the nerve of expecting that an accusation of a very serious crime should stand up under scrutiny! Literally shaking, etc.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Cut off my ad blocker for a Salon article? Surely you jest. That being said, I’m sure it’s suitably stupid.

    • juris imprudent

      I was game until I saw the byline.

  43. Sensei

    I decided to go to the source for the Twitter link from OMWC.

    https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

    Good information plus this:

    Note: Due to the small number of cases among transgender and gender-nonconforming people, data on those cases are not included in this table at this time.

    • Nephilium

      Damn it Sensei. I’m working now. Don’t tempt me to throw in the towel and grab a beer already.

  44. PieInTheSky

    Facts and figures flu in the Netherlands Winter 2018/2019

    https://www.rivm.nl/sites/default/files/2019-09/TG_123539_011592_Griep_cijfers_A4_EN.pdf

    The main issue with comparing wu flu with basic bitch flu is that there is no clear info for either. Most flue season deaths etc that are bandied about are also models, estimations etc. There is no clear effort to know: how many actual cases of actual flu are in an year and how many actually lead to death.

    • juris imprudent

      SCIENCE-DENIER!!! Heretic!!!!

      • juris imprudent

        Thank you edit-fairy!

  45. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Carnival Cruises is attempting to raise $6B with a yield of 12.5%.

    It will be interesting to see if anyone bites at all.

    • straffinrun

      Yield doesn’t matter if they are getting a pile of cash from the government.

    • robc

      This is the proper approach to recover. Unfortunately, it doesnt work for small businesses, in part due to government regulations.

      Looking thru history of British breweries, many (most?) small breweries in the UK in the 19th century issued preferred stock to raise funds.

  46. Rebel Scum

    The hero we need.

    Andrew M. Cuomo is having quite a moment. Using the bully pulpit that the first Gov. Roosevelt, Theodore, made famous, the current governor of the Empire State hopes to emerge as our era’s equivalent to the second Gov. Roosevelt, Franklin. It’s an astounding, complex transformation brought on by the coronavirus crucible, and the nation is transfixed.

    The pandemic is Cuomo’s Great Depression. Unlike our juvenile president, Cuomo has been clear, compassionate and inspiring these past weeks. He has taken the words of Franklin Roosevelt to heart (and to Twitter): “The news is going to get worse and worse before it gets better and better, and the American people deserve to have it straight from the shoulder.”

    Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic

    In his daily news conferences, Cuomo doesn’t deflect responsibility, but rather accepts it: “If someone is unhappy, blame me.” Instead of making sweeping, silly statements, he’s hyper-specific on everything from the number of ventilators the state needs to the number of tests administered. And instead of scoring political points, or humoring free-market fundamentalists who argue that stabilizing the economy should be prioritized over saving lives, he is eloquent in his plain-spokenness. “My mother is not expendable and your mother is not expendable and our brothers and sisters are not expendable … we’re not going to put a dollar figure on human life.”

    Cuomo has captured the nation’s attention. Millions of Democrats, and no doubt many independents, are asking why he is not the Democratic nominee for president. The answer lies in the contradictions that this remarkable politician has never been able to resolve.

    *Vomits*

    Also, false dichotomy is false (and FDR was a tyrant).

    • Naptown Bill

      I don’t want his mother to die. I also don’t want whole families to lose their homes and wind up on the dole with no job prospects because they’re suddenly flat broke because the Feds tanked the economy out of an abundance of caution and bad policy.

      • invisible finger

        Last stat I saw said we’ve lost 46 jobs for every positive test for the virus.

      • leon

        That’s a number i can live with /Bill Gates

      • Naptown Bill

        Considering the CDC is now handling topics such as “food insecurity” I figure they’ll be in a great position to give us a good comparison of the potential damage of corona and the actual damage of massive unemployment and sudden, prolonged poverty.

    • Slammer

      That fucker told me he didn’t want me in his state if I was pro-life. So I left. Fuck him

      • Pope Jimbo

        While you can’t put a price on human life, turns out (thanks Planned Parenthood) that you can easily set a price on nonviable fetal masses.

      • leon

        Michael malice had an interview with a Pro-Choice person and asked her to explain things. I really liked that Michael pushed back on her. He said “Look i consider myself pro-choice, but i get pushed to the pro life side of things because of the pro choice side, and when you explain late term abortion you are purposely avoiding using words like baby, and “give birth” to describe it.” I found her very disengenous about the whole thing.

      • invisible finger

        Most of the pro-choice side is against choice for everything else.

      • Don escaped Oklahoma

        Most

        I really don’t think so. Media is not people: very few people agree with the extremists on either side . . . not on this, not on anything.

        Mom has this great line about VietNam: 88% of people were going to work, mowing the yard, and changing diapers, not having a sit-in at the chancellor’s office in Berkeley; changing diapers doesn’t make the news.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        Pro-choice is very strongly aligned with progressivism. Whether or not those people are intentionally anti-choice with everything else, or have unintentionally aligned themselves with the apex slavers seems a bit pedantic.

    • leon

      And instead of scoring political points, or humoring free-market fundamentalists who argue that stabilizing the economy should be prioritized over saving lives,

      Everyone who wants a job is holding grandmas life in their hand and squashing her. Also, i gladly welcome the idea that wanting to let people work is a free market fundamentalist idea, maybe it will move people away from the socialist central planners.

    • R C Dean

      “My mother is not expendable and your mother is not expendable and our brothers and sisters are not expendable … we’re not going to put a dollar figure on human life.”

      Looking forward to NY outlawing swimming pools, boating, motorcycles, ladders, etc. ad infinitum* and issuing shutdown orders for November through April for flu season.

      *How many people die from electrocution every year? If its more than one, shouldn’t we shut down the electrical grid also? No? Why not? Remember, if it saves just one life, we don’t do cost/benefit analysis.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    Cats are gross

    Says the guy who derives a Triumph Spitfire.

    • Pope Jimbo

      That Spitfire is any integral part of his self-image, so go easy on him

      • Tundra

        Lol!

        Mad Scientist now has one. We’re taking over!

  48. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Let’s all pray this is true.

    Oil prices rallied on Wednesday after President Donald Trump said he recently spoke with leaders in Saudi Arabia and Russia to address concerns over their price war. Trump said he believed the two countries would make a deal within a few days. The deal is expected to lower production and bring prices back up.

    The Saudis are sorely testing the US’s commitment to them. I think they may end up regretting it in the long term because this particular oil-price war is not going to be forgotten soon.

    • invisible finger

      They’ll make a deal… and then they’ll both try to cheat.

      Imagine the supply if Venezuela wasn’t run by idiots.

    • Nephilium

      So no more cheap gas? I’ve seen some stories mentioning that oil storage is getting full as well. No idea how true it is though.

    • RAHeinlein

      CNBC just reported this, crude is up over 15% on the news.

  49. The Late P Brooks

    10F and snowing. If it weren’t for global warming, the weather might really suck.

  50. The Late P Brooks

    Last stat I saw said we’ve lost 46 jobs for every positive test for the virus.

    Think of the unionized government omelette makers.

  51. Slammer

    Schiff and Pelosi are gonna try to hold hearings to impeach Trump over coronavirus

    • bacon-magic

      Tards gonna tard.

      • Tundra

        It’s actually shrewd. Their apparent ‘tardness will almost certainly get Two Scoops re-elected. Which means four more years where they can avoid their day jobs and any actual accountability.

    • Rebel Scum
    • Rhywun

      Master of optics.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      If that actually happens it’d be the stupidest move they could make so I welcome it.

    • R C Dean

      *House subpoena hand-delivered to White House.*

      *White House counsel asks courier to hold up one minute, he has the response for the courier to take back.*

      *Hands courier single sheet of paper, with the single line: “Fuck off, you fucking fucks” clearly visible.*

  52. Naptown Bill

    As we enter week two (three maybe?) of the shutdown, er, corona virus pandemic lockdown thing as dated from the start of the Maryland closure of bars and restaurants, I increasingly feel that the smart thing to do here would have been to encourage people in vulnerable demographics or who have close family members in those demographics to self-quarantine. Take the money they’re planning on sending practically everybody in the next couple weeks and spend it on the much smaller group of people who might need to self-quarantine because of their own higher risk of serious illness or death and use it to help them financially, if need be.

    I was pretty sanguine about Trump’s presidency, but I am coming closer and closer to the conclusion that he has really, really bungled the response to this. He was a great anti-President, but this is a time when you needed someone who could offer a carrot to the swamp critters and the media in order to keep an economy-shattering, liberty-eroding shitstorm of overreaction from happening. Instead, you’ve got a guy who seems to be all over the place in his messaging and who thinks this is a great time to turn on the money hose because apparently inflation isn’t a thing and perverse incentives don’t really exist. Oh, and yeah, clearly this is an optimal time to solve Mexico’s gang problem.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      What he’s doing right now is the only politically acceptable response, unfortunately. The loudest and most highly lauded criticisms are coming from those who say he should be way more ironfisted in his actions.

      • Sean

        I feel the same way.

    • Don escaped Oklahoma

      we didn’t want a guy with guiding principles

      we elected a guy without guiding principles

      we have watched him wander because he has no guiding principles

      Cults of personality and identity politics are ruining this nation.

      • leon

        Hardly. The voters are ruining this country.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        This country was ruined 100 years ago. We’re just in a phase where it’s more obvious than usual.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        It’s their Country to ruin you know,,,,

      • leon

        I’d be fine to let them do what they want, if they would leave me and mine out of it. Until then i’ll criticize them.

      • RAHeinlein

        I disagree – Trump’s guiding principles seem pretty clear to me.

      • Naptown Bill

        we didn’t want a guy with guiding principles

        Speak for yourself, there, padre, I’ve been in the market for a strict Constitutionalist or, God forbid, someone who actually comes out and says “all political considerations and indeed moral judgments must be evaluated with the sole guiding principle being whether or not they advance the cause of maximizing individual liberty” for a while now. Unfortunately, that person never shows up on the ballot, and the vote happens whether I approve or not. Plan B then is strategic voting, which, sadly, is the lesser of two evils approach, and prone to shit like this.

      • Don Escaped Texas

        of course; mine was a frivolous over-generalization

      • Shirley Knott

        We didn’t want anybody but not-Hillary.
        I persist in my belief that voting against carries more weight than voting for. It’s not like we get acceptable choices.

      • Don Escaped Texas

        it’s certainly a different matter at ground zero

        down in deep Red country, I get to throw my vote away making any statement I wish with zero consequences; it’s hardly a laughing matter in MI

    • Heroic Mulatto

      Trump shivving Massie in the back should tell you all that you need to know.

    • Naptown Bill

      That is pretty good.

      • Nephilium

        It would have been better before the market tanked.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        That is what I total my investment guy. We’re going to get a bunch of idiots taking out money of their meager 401k to buy a bass boat.

        He says, “Then we’ll be there to buy up on the cheap”

    • robc

      How many people will withdraw and then get hit with a hard tax penalty in 3 years? Not that that doesn’t mean it isn’t a good thing to have the flexibility.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        That’s true but it’s good to have another arrow in the quiver. If people withdraw and the economy really does go into the skids long term there might even be waivers for repayment or at least penalties but it’d be unwise to rely on that.

    • Don escaped Oklahoma

      repay

      precisely three people will accomplish this

      • Naptown Bill

        Why did I immediately think of payday lenders?

  53. Tejicano

    Wife and I were talking and figured we don’t know anybody who has mentioned they know somebody who has been infected by the ChiCom flu yet. SO I guess it’s going to be a while.

    I am waiting for the time after that when you can get tested to prove you’ve already had it, you can’t spread it, and are immune. I wonder what kind of document or ID card they will provide so I can work, travel for business or leisure, and go back to my normal life. Will you wear a purple ribbon? Green pin? Blue arm band? …to show you are OK? I kinda want to get infected so I can get this over with and get back to normal.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        Perhaps with a red rectangular backdrop and with four smaller stars to the right of the larger one in the upper left corner?

  54. The Late P Brooks

    I was pretty sanguine about Trump’s presidency, but I am coming closer and closer to the conclusion that he has really, really bungled the response to this. He was a great anti-President, but this is a time when you needed someone who could offer a carrot to the swamp critters and the media in order to keep an economy-shattering, liberty-eroding shitstorm of overreaction from happening.

    And what if that economy shattering liberty eroding shitstorm was largely driven by opportunistic deep state Trump-haters who have no compunction about sacrificing the lives and livelihoods of millions of people as long as they think it will make Public Enemy Number5 One look bad?

    I look at that “prediction” of deaths in a range of 100 – 250 k, and can only think, “They have no fucking clue. They just want to scare the bejesus out of the public, so they can make Trump look bad.”

    I hate everybody.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      From a litany of bad options he’s followed a less bad course than most of his rivals would have chosen which is about all we can hope for right now. Some are even calling for him to impose a federally mandated nationwide shelter in place which he hasn’t done (yet), thank God.

    • Rhywun

      Congress was going to destroy the economy with or without Trump’s help.

    • R C Dean

      My disappointment is that he has been talked away from his initial position, which was there was no need to panic because the media was driving a narrative based on shit modelling by people driving an agenda which wasn’t really public health.

      I still think in six weeks we will discover that this was the correct position all along. I only hope that the colossal economic damage being inflicted on people leads to a re-think of our response, to something more along the lines of “restricted contact protocols for the at-risk, masks/gloves/wipes for the general public, and . . . that’s it”.

  55. Tundra

    Horowitz: It’s time to make the state governments feel the pain and consequences of the disproportionate shutdown of America

    As of now, governors can virtue-signal on the cheap without owning up to the consequences of their actions and being forced to balance tough decisions and outcomes. Unlike federal taxes, most state taxes come from sales and property and are still being paid. Plus, governors have the federal government paying for the entire economic mess and bailing out the states with printed funny money. Thus, from their end, they can keep this charade going forever, even if prudence dictates within the next few weeks that we should pursue a different strategy for coronavirus.

    With most property tax bills coming due at the end of June, it’s time for legislatures to reconvene and suspend payment for six months. They should also waive other state fees and taxes and ban salaries of top state executive officials until the shutdown is at least partially lifted.

    Most of all, it’s time to return to self-government. It’s simply indefensible for Congress and state legislatures to remain out of session without public hearings and debate (at least remotely) over every aspect of the lockdown strategy and its cascading effects on our lives. If at this juncture in history – with the outcome of every aspect of our lives hanging in the balance more than at any time since World War II – elected representatives are hiding in their bunkers, then why do we even have them?

    That’s a good question.

    • leon

      Unfortunately there’s not leagal ability to suspend the property tax. Or at least that is what some smart guy said yesterday

    • RAHeinlein

      I’ll second that sentiment. I’m also angry that Governors who don’t fall into lockstep are mocked/harangued by the media and virtue-signal Gov’s.

    • Don escaped Oklahoma

      on the cheap

      Tangent: Who can decide anything or do anything or hold anyone accountable until the government clearly establishes winners and losers so we know what’s inbounds and where the bases are? I have no idea if 12% notes from a cruise line are a great idea or grade Z paper.

      My friends think I’m a ranting moron for dwelling on this point: apparently it’s unseemly to scream about the $6T ruining righteous families and firms when most of the people who hear you are waiting on their checks to arrive.

      • leon

        Why are you being so heartless? what is your plan? You want people to just have no help from government? You have no plan! Now don’t criticize me as i vote to disregard more of your rights.

      • Tundra

        Massie nailed it. Fight the fucking virus, not the American people.

    • Idle Hands

      I’ve filed a flat zero in retail sales taxes the last two months because fuck them. But It’s also pretty close to the reality.

  56. CPRM

    I think these pols are loving this, they’re the new Oprah. Must see TV. Literally, or you might commit a crime. “You lose a job! And you lose a job! You all lose a job!”

    • PieInTheSky

      this needs white wine but I have a bottle of red open. I could do a beer I guess.

      • AlexinCT

        BARBARIAN!

      • UnCivilServant

        Don’t complement him. Only degenerate ‘Civilized’ people drink wine.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      It’s a nice presentation Pie

  57. The Late P Brooks

    If your default assumption is that everybody in the administration is lying to you in order to undermine your authority and prevent you from being successful, you might choose to not believe them, even when you should.

    Considering the last three years, whom should we blame most?

    If I sound like a Trump- apologist… whatever. Who among our Great Leader Class could have substantially altered or improved this situtation? Hillary? Bernie? Romney? Jeb!?

    • PieInTheSky

      McAfee

      • Swiss Servator

        Unfortunately he has been reduced to whale chasing…

      • AlexinCT

        Don’t knock a guy for loving himself some fat chicks, yo!

    • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

      *turns on dramatic echo*
      GARY JOHNSONNNN
      *turns off dramatic echo*

      Lackey: Mr. President, what are we going to do about Wuhan?

      Gary: What’s Wu on?

      • Heroic Mulatto

        Say what you want, but weed cures coronavirus.

    • CPRM

      Who among our Great Leader Class could have substantially altered or improved this situtation?

      The Yang Gang! Free Moneyz More So!

    • leon

      Romney was :this close: to improving the situation, but then he tested negative for CV.

      • Bobarian LMD

        :rimshot.

  58. Private Chipperbot

    Sigh. And Whitmer closed school for the rest of the year. Looks like we’ll be locked down until June.

  59. Idle Hands

    Anybody else find it funny that the only exponential curve that exists relating to the virus are the jobless claims? I guess funny is the wrong word.

    • CPRM

      You’re doing math when we all gonna die!?

    • Nephilium

      Well after two weeks, the girlfriend was finally able to file for unemployment. She had been calling into the wrong number, and selecting the wrong option this whole time. That’s why you read everything, and don’t skim.

      • PieInTheSky

        See this is why you should hook up with essential workers. They keep bringing in money and are not in the house all day*.

        *yes, not a joking matter but this is glibertarians

      • Nephilium

        Well, I’m essential (or so the company I work for says, as does the primary one I support), and I’m stuck at home all day.

        Bringing in money, and not in the house all day… so a delivery prostitute service would be essential?

      • Don Escaped Texas

        skim

        I’m the worst

        but I blame decades of ambiguous writing

      • leon

        skim

        Yeah i’m kind of a Whole Milk kinda guy, personally.

    • Idle Hands

      My neighbor is a nurse in hospital, somebody died last weekend because he couldn’t get a stint due to the fact the state has deemed elective surgery nonessential. At their hospital they’ve had two death in one month due to corona and at least one death in two weeks due elective surgeries being cancelled.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        We are fucked….

      • AlexinCT

        No, we are just trying out the socialized medicine system the Brits or other Euros have…

      • CPRM

        at least one death in two weeks due elective surgeries being cancelled.

        Check one more for Covid-19 Related, the death toll just keeps on climbing. PANIC!

      • PieInTheSky

        I though the latest research was that stents are of dubious usefulness

      • Idle Hands

        Don’t know. Just what I was told.

  60. creech

    Let me ask our religious Glibs this. Do these kinds of events drive you farther from God or closer? War, 9-1-1, etc. always push me away from the concept of a God. If God cannot stop such horrible events, then God isn’t omnipotent and therefore not a god. If God causes such events as a “lesson” to humankind who has strayed away, then God is cruel. If God can stop such events, and chooses to do so in His own good time, then God is spiteful. Every Sunday, for centuries I gather, pastors have asked us to pray God deliver us from evil, but evil triumphs time and again until , what, God hears enough prayers and decides finally to stem the evil?

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      See below, I’m thinking this is the second 42 months before You know Who shows up,
      Really

    • Tundra

      I’m not religious, but I would attack it from a different direction. Life is suffering, right? Perhaps God gave each of us the ability to reach deep and fight the suffering through faith and acts. Inner strength and the ability to find happiness and do cool stuff despite all the shit.

      As far as stemming evil, since that’s the other important part of our nature it seems to me that it’s on us individually to do that.

      But what the fuck do I know? I’m an old cynical yeti with a penchant for small cars.

    • Don escaped Oklahoma

      SkyDaddy sez: love thy neighbor with all thy heart. It’s the right answer more now than ever. One commandment, no thinking or memorization required.

      • ruodberht

        No thinking required? Geez, I’m going to have to burn all my Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, Ockham, Duns Scotus…

      • Don Escaped Texas

        It’s fair to say that I have a profoundly, rebelliously whosoever cometh to me Protestant upbringing

      • Swiss Servator

        I just love that term SkyDaddy. Maybe you can follow up with Bleever, Christfag, Godbag or Xtian?

      • Don Escaped Texas

        * flips over tables and storms out *

      • robc

        Thats what Jesus did in the temple.

      • Don Escaped Texas

        * blinded by the light, falls down in the road and begs forgiveness *

      • Heroic Mulatto

        אָבִינוּ מַלְכֵּנוּ

      • Swiss Servator

        You missed the first part…

        “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

      • robc

        I was about to call him out for miscounting.

      • AlmightyJB

        “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’

        By calling the cops on them for the most trite matters?

      • R C Dean

        St. Karen of the Sandy Bits.

      • Invisible BEAM of the comment stream

        By calling the cops on them for the most trite matters?

        The Church of Karen-ianity.

    • CPRM

      Unless you’re omnipotent how can you judge? Our Metaphorical John Conner could be here now, and this is what drives him to save us from Google Sexbots when Bernie militarizes them a la Small Soldiers.

    • Swiss Servator

      No offense, your version of God sounds like Big Mommy who will make it all better and safe.

      We have free will, and what choices we make, what actions we take, and what we hope and pray for are how we are judged.

      • creech

        O.K. but I have a hard time reconciling free will with, say, a 4 year old Jewish kid being shoved into a gas chamber.

      • Swiss Servator

        So you are saying that was preordained…? I haz confuse.

      • creech

        No, I believe in free will. I guess what I’m questioning is why a God couldn’t limit free will consequences to those who are using it and not to innocents. Or, if all powerful, why not limit the damage: climb a rickety ladder, fall and break your leg. Not fall and get killed and your wife and kids lose their breadwinner. Let the Nazi and Red gangs rampage against each other and keep the neighbors out of the fight.

    • AlmightyJB

      I’m an Atheist but I watched this take in that question a few weeks ago. Discusses at 20 minute mark.

      https://youtu.be/XakNK5lfbmE

    • Q Continuum

      I always figure G-d doesn’t micromanage. It’s also part of the mission of existence to learn and understand oneself and others; you can only do that through hardship.

      • CPRM

        I thought if anyone would step on my sexbot Terminator comment it would be you. I am disappoint.

      • Q Continuum

        I don’t want to be saved from the sexbots.

    • PieInTheSky

      i think the best argument is god allows free will and as such shit happens. Also the universe is made to work in a way without interference e.g earthquakes. Then again I a not religious. If I were I would probably be inclined to a gnostic-ish view the the Big Man is outside the material universe which is an imperfect stage of existence for whatever fucked up reason.

      • PieInTheSky

        Or something along the line is if life was paradise there is not much value in being virtuous

    • Pine_Tree

      Full-on Calvinist here: God’s in control of every molecule all the time. He is actively in charge of this. When I die, and/or when my loved ones suffer or die, he’s in charge of that, too. He’s sovreign, not me.

      And sometimes brings suffering for his own reasons. Examples might be humbling an arrogant person/nation or reminding us of our dependence on him.

      The “God’s only good if he’s good by my definition” is a god (albeit an extremely popular one) that humanity has created in its own selfish image, and is completely divorced from the God in Scripture.

      • UnCivilServant

        but if he’s in control of every molecule, then the hubristic person/nation were made to be hubristic at his command.

        Is the argument then that we’re just a game of the sims?

      • Pine_Tree

        Within the natural limits of a forum conversation on the relation between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility for sin:
        – Yes. See Pharoah in Exodus for most well known example. Look up something like “hardened heart” for others.
        – Not as mechanical as that, no. But probably more than most of us would like to admit.

      • bacon-magic

        *Just Say’n signal is lit

    • Heroic Mulatto

      Let me ask our religious Glibs this. Do these kinds of events drive you farther from God or closer?

      I am a Buddhist, and Buddhism explicitly denies the existence of an omnipotent creator god. So my answer to that question is “mu“.

      The Buddha taught, however, that no human can escape sickness, old age, and death. To be human means that you will experience all of these things at some point. Our denial of that is what causes our psychological anguish. The Buddha developed the Nobel Eightfold Path as a practice to train ourselves into accepting the world as it is.

      If you are interested in learning more, please ehi passiko (Come and see for yourself).

      • Tundra

        So what called you to Buddhism? You are not exactly the typical American celeb or suburban mom who gravitates to it.

      • Heroic Mulatto

        That’s a very personal story that I’d rather not go into in such a public forum, even under my nom de blog. I’m sure you understand.

      • Tundra

        Of course.

        I was gifted a purloined copy of The Teachings of Buddha from Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai and have read quite a lot of it over the years. Not sure I really got it, though.

    • Akira

      The existence of a creator diety is not the part I struggle with; I do think there’s always going to be a “where did that come from” question that cannot be answered, so I don’t think people are dumb for believing in a supreme being.

      But the part I get hung up on is how it is deduced that this creator:
      – Pays attention or cares what we are doing
      – Sends us to a good or bad place after we die based on our actions in life
      – Communicates with humans occasionally and informs them of his will

      I think the closest I could ever get to religious belief is a sort of deistic view that this creator made the universe but isn’t involved or concerned with human affairs.

    • Bobarian LMD

      A God who is omniscient might look at all the possible paths and see this one as the least damaging for Man (in the whole).

      Something about — “God works in mysterious ways” & “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

    • juris imprudent

      Not religious, but the best book I ever read on that was by a rabbi – When Bad Things Happen to Good People.

  61. The Late P Brooks

    I’ll go back to something I said a week or so ago. They (the establishmentarian class and their media lapdogs) are pissed because President Cartoon Villain was throwing water on the fire of panic they were busily stoking. You can make an effort to calm people, even as you try to get your teams in position to work on the problem.

    What was it their idol, FDR said? “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” If Trump had said that, in so many words, they would have flipped out.

    • AlmightyJB

      They’ve been perpetually pissed since he was elected. I don’t know how they can keep people listening to their raving BS for that long.

    • invisible finger

      “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” was just code for “You’ll get government good and hard and you’ll like it!”

  62. Slammer

    Donald J. Trump
    @realDonaldTrump
    Just spoke to my friend MBS (Crown Prince) of Saudi Arabia, who spoke with President Putin of Russia, & I expect & hope that they will be cutting back approximately 10 Million Barrels, and maybe substantially more which, if it happens, will be GREAT for the oil & gas industry

  63. Tejicano

    In Japan the school year is supposed to start next week. Kids have been out of school since the end of February. Tokyo has just announced that their school will remain closed until after Golden Week (the first week of May).

    • invisible finger

      Shit, they’re going to wind up being as stupid as Americans.

      • leon

        Good, it will give the other kids a chance to catch up / Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

      • AlmightyJB

        While they’re out of school, they’ll probably collaborate online to invent time travel.

    • PieInTheSky

      that is silly. the new school year should start in autumn.

  64. Yusef drives a Kia

    And the Great Whore of Babylon fell into sea, and all Cried, Who will buy our Wares?

    • PieInTheSky

      Great Whore of Babylon fell into sea – does she have big tits and a tshir that becomes see through when wet?

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        America always has the best Titties!, ask Q!

    • AlexinCT

      So these hoodlums robbed her because she was infected? Are they on the payroll of some politician trying to set examples of people not abiding by their demands we all move into our basements and await the end times?

  65. Rebel Scum

    No good deed…

    Hizzoner told the New York Post that he found it “very troubling” when he heard that Samaritan’s Purse would open a pop-up hospital in the park to help during the coronavirus crisis. de Blasio views the charity with suspicion because its president and CEO, Franklin Graham, has championed the Bible’s stance on sexuality.

    “I said immediately to my team that we had to find out exactly what was happening,” de Blasio told the Post. It seems he was concerned that Samaritan’s Purse would “discriminate” against those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). “Was there going to be an approach that was truly consistent with the values and the laws in New York City, that everyone would be served and served equally?”

    While Hizzoner “received those assurances from the organization,” he announced that he had partnered with the local health system in order to monitor the field hospital. If the evangelical Christians step out of line, their relief efforts will get the boot.

    “I spoke earlier today with the CEO of the Mount Sinai [health] system, Dr. Ken Davis, who was adamant that they will only continue their relationship with the organization if those rules are followed, that they have a written agreement, that there’s going to be no discrimination whatsoever,” de Blasio explained. Of course, he has to send his goons to make sure.

    “We’re going to send people over from the Mayor’s Office to monitor” the emergency field hospital, de Blasio added. “So I’m very concerned to make sure this is done right. But if it is done right, of course, we need all the help we can get.

    But not from wrong-thinkers on marriage/sex. Of course, I do no believe Lung Pow Sicken has anything to do with either.

    • leon

      What do they think they are going to do? Poison the gays and lesibans that come for help?

      • AlexinCT

        Worse, they might preach to them that what they do is a sin as they are taking care of them! Or something. Seriously, these people would sacrifice anyone else’s life for their principles…

    • Rhywun

      I can’t even. What a fucking asshole.

    • B.P.

      I’m sure someone will helpfully fabricate an incidence of discrimination.

  66. The Late P Brooks

    “I said immediately to my team that we had to find out exactly what was happening,” de Blasio told the Post. It seems he was concerned that Samaritan’s Purse would “discriminate” against those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). “Was there going to be an approach that was truly consistent with the values and the laws in New York City, that everyone would be served and served equally?”

    What are the odds of an exodus from the coastal megacities when this blows over?

    • leon

      As i read this i seriously thought it was an April Fools joke or something. It couldn’t be real. I know i had made a joke about this the other day, but not even to stoop to this level of bigotry. This is why people get insular and how you get people who refuse to help those outside of their community.

    • invisible finger

      Shorter DeBlasio: Government is the only entity allowed to offer help with strings attached.

      • ChipsnSalsa

        Except that there won’t be any strings attached for Samaritan’s Purse to help someone.

        What they will hear is that God loves them and sent his Son as a sacrifice to atone for their sins. They won’t have to accept this to get treatment and they won’t get better treatment if they do accept that. They will be treated as someone who needs help.

      • RAHeinlein

        What if there is a cross on the logo, have you thought about that? Why should people who need help be subjected to religious propaganda!

      • leon

        Being forced to listen to morality discussions in exchange for aid is the same as being forced to pay taxes /Left libertarians.

  67. The Late P Brooks

    My question, to put it bluntly, is this:

    Will people finally open their eyes and see what monstrously dysfunctional shitholes places like New York and Seattle and San Francisco have become?

    • invisible finger

      Your problem is that you don’t understand that such dysfunction is what is attracting the people there in the first place.

      • AlexinCT

        ^^^THIS^^^

  68. Yusef drives a Kia

    My Landlord is trying to get me to Vegas to do an install, HAHAHAA!

    • leon

      Just make the trip at night, you should be able to sneak past the border guards.

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        I’m not leaving, My Smokers cough has become very wet, and my voice sounds like I just finished a 5 night stand at a Club,
        and I’m very tired…..

  69. mrfamous

    The park near my house here in Phoenix has now put up police tape around the basketball court, volleyball court, all the kid’s playground equipment, and the resistance training bodyweight circuit that rings the park. Jog or walk or go home, tovarisch.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      At my park in Bullhead, they Disinfect everything all day, including the Disc golf baskets,
      and then they do it again,

    • B.P.

      They did the police tape thing to the playgrounds in my city. They also removed the basketball hoops and…. tennis nets. I guess because tennis is well known for crowding lots of complete strangers together in tight spaces.

    • R C Dean

      Give the AZ governor this sliver of credit: he has held firm against hysterical mayors, and refused to remove outdoor recreation from the list of essential businesses that they are not allowed to fuck with.

      • R C Dean

        Clicked too soon:

        So, how Phoenix can disassemble outdoor recreation facilities is a mystery to me.

  70. The Late P Brooks

    How much do Americans value freedom?

    In furlongs?

    • Q Continuum

      She told me size doesn’t matter!

      • AlexinCT

        Yeah, sure….

        That’s why she ogles donkeys….

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      Cubits,

    • Pope Jimbo

      furlongs furloughs

      Fixed that for you.

  71. commodious spittoon

    If nothing else this ordeal has taught us that if we ever face real calamity, we’re done.

    • AlmightyJB

      And to never trust your fellow citizens

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      you had me at We’re done….

    • commodious spittoon

      If nothing else, at least this work from home crap has got me making my bed every morning. Real Jordan Peterson I am.

  72. PieInTheSky

    Some Romanians have called the police because a nurse who works in an infectious disease hospital lives in their building and thus puts them at risk. Seems a bit much to ask all doctors / nurses to leave their homes for a few months.

    • leon

      Quick! Call the Cops ^^^ Pie isn’t being sufficently panicky enough.

      • UnCivilServant

        *calls cops on leon for sowing public disorder*

      • PieInTheSky

        Funny thing is I am more panicky that you lot, but a looot less then most Romanians I know. I think the 30s urban hipster demographic is the most panicked, cause they rarely have ideas of their own and absorb what is fashionable.

    • Pope Jimbo

      At least your aren’t a Frenchie

      The wartime appetite for la délation — reporting wrongdoers to the authorities — has reappeared. In country towns, people are denouncing neighbours to the gendarmerie for breaching le confinement and leaving their homes too often. …

      Tempers are fraying in supermarkets, with unsmiling shoppers in the Paris suburbs treating others with suspicion. Angry locals in coastal areas are seething over the 400,000 Parisians who are estimated to have fled the capital to spend the lockdown in their holiday homes. Some have been refused service and Parisian cars have been vandalised in Brittany and the southwest.

    • CPRM

      Everyone’s raping everyone! A country of rapists! Jail everyone!

      • leon

        Jail everyone!

        :Looks around:

        Yup. Done.

      • AlexinCT

        HAH HAH HAH!

        Now lets do the prison rape thang!

    • leon

      “Buried within an influential campus sexual assault survey last year by the Association of American Universities is evidence of hundreds of incidents of inappropriate and potentially criminal behavior by faculty and staff against female students,”

      When i read this the first time i read it as “Faculty accusing female students of assaulting them”.

    • Pope Jimbo

      The call is coming from inside the faculty lounge!

    • Gustave Lytton

      “he virtually raped me when he gave me a D. Just because I didn’t turn in a bunch of the home work and did poorly on the exams”

  73. UnCivilServant

    *grumbles*

    The lowest my gas prices have gotten is $2.259

    • leon

      Gas Prices have been irrelevant since i haven’t driven anywhere in 3 weeks.

    • CPRM

      I’m Donald Trump, and I here to stop you from paying any less!

      • Swiss Servator

        I wish Cheeto FDR would leave the market alone…I like cheap gas, dammit.

      • See Double You

        Trump, unfortunately, is just as into picking winners and losers in the market as the last president.

      • Rhywun

        I’m Donald Trump Andrew Cuomo, and I here to stop you from paying any less!

        FTFY

    • robc

      Filled up on 3/31. 2.029. $1.029 after Krogers discount.

      • Shirley Knott

        Filled up on the 24th, $1.79/gallon. $1.19 after my Kroger fuel points.

      • Tres Cool

        $1 off?

        You spend a LOT of money @ kroger

      • robc

        My Mom spends a lot at Kroger and hasnt filled up since January. We share points.

      • robc

        Actually, none at Kroger now, but Harris Teeter (who are owned by Kroger).

      • grrizzly

        $0.959 premium after the $1.50 Stop&Shop discount. On Saturday.

    • PieInTheSky

      who do you care? Not many places to drive to these days.

      • UnCivilServant

        It’s the principle of the thing. Real states have gotten sub-$1/gal rates.

      • PieInTheSky

        a crisis is no place for principles

      • UnCivilServant

        A crisis is the best place for principles.

      • Don Escaped Texas

        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ this

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      I finally saw 1.99, amazing

    • See Double You

      $1.94 here.

  74. PieInTheSky

    Which superpower coping better w #COVID19 ?
    Telling graphic in @FT
    @ftopinion
    :

    https://twitter.com/fromTGA/status/1245240152835985408

    NB The message is *not* that dictatorship>democracy….
    it’s about failure of @realDonaldTrump
    & lack of national health service in US

    • leon

      That is just disengenous. How can the message not be that dicatatorship > democracy? The whole ability (if at all) of China to contain Wuhan Virus to just Hubei is because they are a totalitarian state.

      • PieInTheSky

        one may be excused in thinking some journalists are enemies of the public…

      • PieInTheSky

        neah that is just alt right talk

      • UnCivilServant

        They failed at that too, and had to lock down a second province.

      • commodious spittoon

        Trump is Literally Hitler in all ways except acting like it when it counts.

        These people do not make a compelling case for favoring their candidates.

    • commodious spittoon

      Any followup will be tweeted from behind the woodshed, ‘cuz that’s where the replies took him.

    • Raven Nation

      “& a lack of national health service in US”

      I really don’t understand how any sentient person can make this argument. Does he just hand wave away Italy & Spain?

      • PieInTheSky

        That is not TRUE national health service

      • See Double You

        And that’s what I get for not scrolling through the replies. Oh well, it needed to be repeated.

    • See Double You

      Yeah, socialized healthcare really stemmed the tide in Italy, Spain, etc.

    • Rhywun

      “Any” work-from-home activities. WTF??

      • R C Dean

        Oh, please. Being an employee is not a “commercial business”.

        You know what is a commercial business – owning and renting out residential property. If I got a letter like that, I’d be on his porch asking him if he really wanted to go to the mattresses in a “you or me” cage match, because that’s what he would get unless he immediately retracted all such letters and sent a written apology to every HOA member. I might or might not demand his resignation, depending on my mood.

    • robc

      From reading some of the reddit thread, apparently the President owns about 10 units in the HOA that he rents out. This is obvious not legally valid, and some think (and I agree) that he is hoping people will choose to leave and sell and he can buy the units cheap.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I think I might respond to that by sending him a horse head.

      • Tundra

        Poor horse.

      • UnCivilServant

        It was a terrible nag and deserved it.

      • leon

        Y’all are making too much hay over this.

      • Tundra

        Always looking to stirrup trouble, aren’t you?

      • bacon-magic

        Neigh, he gallops through it.

    • Sensei

      Good luck enforcing that.

      Wow…

    • Drake

      I’ll never live in an HOA community again – but I’d be more inclined to believe it if the return address wasn’t blacked out.

      If I received such a letter, it would be on the local news tomorrow. They’d eat it up and destroy the HOA President just for fun and to relieve some boredom.

      • Tundra

        Meh. I live in one. Overall, it’s been fine. People in my neighborhood generally take really good care of their properties and the houses here sell instantly.

        It’s a 25 YO neighborhood, so most of the busybodies have left or have been so defanged by the newcomers on the board, we sail along fine.

      • R C Dean

        Ours is also fine, in (large?) part because it is so small and easy for everyone to understand that whatever goes around, is going to come around fast and hard.

    • Trolleric the Goth

      wow, just wow.

      that HOA president is cruisin’ for a bruisin’

      • leon

        I mean, I could be convinced to vote to aqcuitt if he was found tarred and feathered….

  75. The Late P Brooks

    The faculty are the ones raping everyone!

    Have you looked at tuition costs, lately? “Rape” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

  76. RAHeinlein

    The ventilator issue is about to heat up because hospital doesn’t know how to use them. Cuomo let it slip in one of his pressers that FEMA is needed so people don’t have to learn on the job. I doubt that any of the national stockpile ventilators will be used in NYC.

    • Gustave Lytton

      I’m sure respiratory therapists can be conjured up, just like ventilators.

      • commodious spittoon

        We just need another My Pillow guy to start manufacturing doctors.

  77. Sensei

    And you all thought you had it tough…

    When the Picture Isn’t Pretty: How Influencers Are Adapting to Lockdown Social media stars face uncertain futures as multibillion-dollar revenue streams dry up.

    Now 3/4ths of the way through the article they do manage to get to reality:

    It may be easy to hate influencers, whose job is essentially to live a life better than yours (and then sell you on it), but the career has gone from punchline to a $5 billion to $10 billion industry in its own right.

    • R C Dean

      Nope.

      Still a punchline. Of course, an essential requirement to be an influencer is a total lack of self-awareness, so its no surprise they don’t get it.

  78. RAHeinlein

    NY – current hospitalizations 13,383, ICU patients 3,396.

    Also, learned from Cuomo that NY is a microcosm of the US, so those rural areas need to learn from them, Westchester, Nassau, and Suffolk counties are “just like” suburban areas across the country.

    • straffinrun

      Just like NY except when they hate DeBlasio. The red pill cures Covid 19.

  79. The Late P Brooks

    Noble. Selfless.

    Thrown into the breach, public schools are setting out on an unprecedented experiment: With little training and even fewer resources, in a matter of days they’re shifting from a system of education that for centuries has focused on face to face interaction, to one that works entirely at a distance.

    ——-

    But as a crisis often does, this one has exposed existing inequalities — among schools, among districts and among students. Just over half of the nation’s public school children are from families considered low-income, and an estimated 12 million lack broadband Internet access at home.

    Robin Nelson, an educator with 10 years experience, says one of the students in her class has special needs and needs significant accommodation, and the family also struggles financially. “I’ve spoken to his mom. There’s another little one on the way, if not already arrived.”

    And, Nelson notes, for that family and many like it, “survival is a priority and not, you know, accommodations right now for him.” Nelson thinks the student may end up repeating a grade. She’s also concerned about children whose parents must go out to work, and who are sending their kids to home-based daycares that remain open.

    She tears up talking about her “babies” and how much she misses greeting them at the door with a fist-bump, handshake or hug. Sadie Hernandez wrote a note and drew pictures to leave on her beloved teacher’s doorstep.

    Because of these inherent inequities, some researchers are advocating that public schools focus on making up lost learning when things get back to normal — through summer school and other remediation. That will take extra funding, including money to pay teachers. Douglas Harris, an education researcher and fellow at the Brookings Institution, has written a post calling for school districts to focus on making up time, not on teaching remotely.:

    “Studies of online learning suggest not only that students learn less in online environments, compared with in person, but that disadvantaged students learn the least. And that’s true even when online teachers have experience and training with online teaching. Under the current emergency, most teachers will not have any experience at all with this approach.”

    ps- SEND MOAR MUNNY!

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      “centuries”

      I guess if you mean anything over one, including fractions.

    • Gustave Lytton

      her “babies”

      Nop, nothing wrong there.

      • leon

        Yeah. Fuck you, they are not your kids.

    • Pope Jimbo

      No way they are going to try summer school to make up for lost time.

      The strategic thinkers in the educational unions are dancing with glee over these developments. For at least 15 years they get to blame every metric that shows kids are not learning on this shut down. “You can’t blame us. These kids were completely screwed when Trump made us shut down the schools”.

      And everyone knows that the only way to try to make up learning is by throwing MOAR money at the schools.

      So yeah, 15-20 years of “It isn’t our fault, noting can be done, but send us more money”

      • Tundra

        So glad I only have a month or so left of government schools.

    • ChipsnSalsa

      That will take extra funding, including money to pay teachers.

      there it is.

    • R C Dean

      Not bad.

    • Trolleric the Goth

      I’m really surprised this is something we’re just learning – new symptom from the different strains? you’d think we’d know about this from China from 2 months ago

      • R C Dean

        China had barely any cases, and has pretty much eradicated it. Just ask them. Why would they have much info about symptoms and so forth?

      • Trolleric the Goth

        I don’t mean via official channels, I just mean in general.

        we’ve known about the general GI symptoms/contagion vector since January and the CCP wasn’t mentioning that either yet we found out

    • Pope Jimbo

      Uffda. I’ve tried washing my key over and over again, but it still smells! And now you are telling me that that is going to give me the corona virus?

      Doesn’t seem right, but TOP MEN and all. I’ll go lay down and prepare to die.

    • UnCivilServant

      *writes ticket for littering*

  80. The Late P Brooks

    Also, learned from Cuomo that NY is a microcosm of the US, so those rural areas need to learn from them, Westchester, Nassau, and Suffolk counties are “just like” suburban areas across the country.

    Yeah. Guess what, Nipples- Warren County, in your own state, is about as similar to Nassau County as it is to the fucking moon. We won’t even mention those counties up there in the north central part of the state, a stone’s throw from Canada.

    • Drake

      So I wasn’t the only one to noticed something weird going on under Cuomo’s shirt?

      • Gustave Lytton

        The geriatric country club pool boy.

    • RAHeinlein

      For a second, I thought “Nipples” was the new pseudonym for female Glibs.

      • Pope Jimbo

        I thought it was the code name for the Japanese Glibs meetups.

  81. DEG

    I like that twitter thread but nobody that matters will care about it.

  82. robc

    Picked up some Chevron at $54 at the last dip with the spare change in my account. May have to send my broker a thank you note.

  83. DEG

    Communist style bread lines coming to NH?

    After grocery store workers at three Shaw’s supermarkets tested positive for COVID-19, grocers are eager to reassure customers that stores are safe.

    John Dumais, president and CEO of the New Hampshire Grocers Association, said he is confident grocery stores are taking appropriate measures to keep workers and customers from exposing each other to the coronavirus.

    He said most stores are posting reminders for people to stay six feet apart — about the length of two carriages — in checkout lines.

    Shaw’s spokesman Teresa Eddington said the store is putting up plastic shields around cashiers, and Dumais said other stores around the state are starting to do the same.

    Starting Thursday, Market Basket will limit the number of shoppers allowed into its stores at one time, and staff will sanitize a carriage for each customer coming in.

    • Heroic Mulatto

      I’ve felt that way ever since they closed the Nissen’s bread outlet in Manchester.

  84. KSuellington

    Dad homeschool day 1. We started on the food pyramid and why it is wrong and why you shouldn’t trust the government for shit.

    • R C Dean

      Day 2: Small unit tactics, emphasizing advance-and-cover. Day 3 will emphasize the more difficult fall-back-and-re-assemble.

    • Tundra

      Well done.

      How old is the kiddo? Maybe econ next week?

      • KSuellington

        4, 7, 9 year old boys.

        And yes, RC, that may be coming soon.

  85. The Late P Brooks

    Nevertheless, with its latest guidance, the federal Education Department has encouraged schools closing due to coronavirus to pursue distance learning quote “creatively” and with “flexibility”, even if they can’t reach every student that way.

    When I think of the American public school system, “flexibility” and “creativity” are not attributes which come immediately to the fore.

    • leon

      You don’t find “Lockstep pushing of NEA Propoganda” flexible or creative?

  86. The Late P Brooks

    So I wasn’t the only one to noticed something weird going on under Cuomo’s shirt?

    Rhywun gets the credit for “Nipples” Cuomo.

      • Drake

        What, The. Fuck?