Wednesday Morning Links

by | Apr 29, 2020 | Daily Links | 554 comments

Good morning my Glibs and Gliberinas!  And what a beautiful morning it is as 25% of New York City residents now have Coronavirus antibodies.

 

A fifth of all coronavirus deaths in the US happened in nursing homes, while a half of all coronavirus deaths in Europe have been in nursing homes.

 

Congress and Trump looking to possibly spend another $1,000,000,000,000 we do not have.

 

Amash launches an exploratory committee to be the official “throw your vote away” candidate.

 

Mesa City Police Department opens an investigation into the woman who fed her husband fish tank cleaner.  You remember the dumb Trump supporters who listened to Trump touting hydroxychloroquine and they took it and the husband died.  Except they consumed fish cleaner, and they were not Trump supporters but Democrat donors, and there’s now a possibility the wife was purposefully poisoning her husband.  Other than all that, our fearless media nailed this story.

 

According to Flynn’s attorney, his guilty plea was coerced by a threat to indict his son.

 

Class action lawsuit against South By Southwest over ticket refunds.

 

That is all I got for today.  I’ll leave you with a song and move along with my day.

 

About The Author

Banjos

Banjos

Wife of sloopy, mother to three bright, curious, and highly active young girls. Perpetually exhausted.

554 Comments

  1. Shpip

    More than half of the COVID-19 deaths in Europe have occurred in long-term care or nursing home facilities. It is “an unimaginable human tragedy,” Dr. Hans Kluge declared.

    Once again demonstrating the efficiency of Euro-style socialized medicine.

    Mornin’, Banjos.

      • R C Dean

        Where else will they go when they are too sick to go home but not sick enough to stay in the hospital?

      • Bobarian LMD

        The potter’s field, eventually.

        Just like all of us.

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

  2. UnCivilServant

    Mesa City Police Department opens an investigation into the woman who fed her husband fish tank cleaner.

    Shouldn’t they have done that weeks ago?

    • Not Adahn

      Murder investigations are nonessential.

      • leon

        A Chicago man I see…

    • Spartacus

      When they thought that the couple were mere deplorables, then it was easy to chalk up to stupidity. Now, not so much.

  3. Pat

    25% of New York City residents now have Coronavirus antibodies.

    NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! That means 25% of New York residents are going to drop dead immediately, but not before they spread the virus to literally everyone who they’ve ever made eye contact with in their entire lives!

    • leon

      I was in NYC once five years ago…. Am I going to die?

      • Pat

        Unquestionably.

    • R C Dean

      You say that like it’s a bad thing.

  4. SDF-7

    Mornin’ Banjos… I’d swear that’s Aubrey Plaza on the album cover. Nice song, thanks!

    “We still have checks left!” What are we on now… my son’s children’s children’s children’s children probably? As long as folks are coming up with crazy “You’re depriving children of their right to…” (education, climate change, whatnot) how about “No Taxation without Representation” since we’re spending money of future voters who can’t vote? One can dream….

    On a too-local note found out last week the local diner wasn’t actually closed and could do takeout. Figured I should support them and order out a bit… and yesterday they had a fire. Someone find Alanis already…

    • Banjos

      ‘I’d swear that’s Aubrey Plaza on the album cover.”

      Are you saying all Puerto Ricans look the same?

      • Banjos

        Mornin’

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Are you saying all Puerto Ricans look the same?

        Hawt and stabby crazy is very common.

      • robc

        something something island, something something limited gene pool.

        And, yes, that does look a lot like Plaza.

      • SDF-7

        Checks Wikipedia…. huh… did not know that.. I guess s-lord status confirmed? Crap.

    • leon

      Karen going full arson?

      • SDF-7

        I’d be surprised if that was it… pretty small town out in the farming area of Cali (Central Valley) — haven’t seen a lot of Karens here, thank goodness. I expect it was a plain ole grease fire or something. Hope it didn’t do too much damage though, this is one of the few stable places to eat in town. Worried they can’t take a double hit.

    • Ted S.

      You just want children to have the vote, don’t you?

      • SDF-7

        Heh… my son already thinks he does.

        I certainly don’t — but I sure wouldn’t mind a principle of “You can’t saddle future voters with obligations based on present representation”. Of course, since that would crash the current system I’d also like a Sovereign class starship, the command codes to same and a communicator to talk to it while I’m dreaming….

    • DrOtto

      (((lightning))) – that insurance money probably looks really good to a lot of small businesses right now.

  5. Rebel Scum

    A fifth of all coronavirus deaths in the US happened in nursing homes, while a half of all coronavirus deaths in Europe have been in nursing homes.

    And no one gets the seasonal flu anymore. Weird.

  6. leon

    “Amash launches an exploratory committee to be the official “throw your vote away” candidate.”

    I think this makes me hate amash more. If he wanted to do this then why not join the LP when you first left the GOP? But no you went independent.

    • Tonio

      The LP does have some baggage, and a tarnished brand. Not that it will matter in the end.

      • leon

        baggage like supporting slavery and writing Jim Crow laws?

      • juris imprudent

        You see, for progressives that isn’t a problem in their own brand – just proves how bad the past was and why we need to progress into the future. So if you are trying to conserve anything – you must want to conserve everything and all of that is bad mkay.

      • DrOtto

        Some people did some things.

      • Bobarian LMD

        supporting slavery and writing Jim Crow laws?

        Nothing so mundane…

        Did you see the fat guy dancing in a jockstrap?

  7. robc

    Looking at death data, US and Sweden followed same curve thru Day 32 (measured from deaths reaching 1 per million pop), but the US has flattened better on days 33-37 (Sweden is at day 40).

    Not a surprise, expected Sweden to be “ahead”, but that it took this long is the surprise. The long run is the key though. when the US opens up, do we catch back up?

    The more interesting piece is that apparently no one dies on weekends in Sweden. You can see a flattening every 7 days lasting for 2 days then a bump up on Mondays. This goes back to the beginning.

    • Not Adahn

      Because of their generous government benefits, Swedes can afford to relax on weekends instead of having to work at dying.

    • Nephilium

      Maybe it’s just the people reporting the deaths don’t work weekends?

      • robc

        That is what I figure. Paperwork gets filled out Monday morning.

      • Not a full set....

        Yes that is exactly how it is done, there is also a backlog so daily numbers can contain weeks old death’s.
        But we get to enjoy bars and restaurants with few restrictions, and the ones we have are mocked by most people.

  8. Rebel Scum

    Coronavirus stimulus phase 4 could exceed $1 trillion and include negative payroll tax

    What’s a few trillion among tax cattle friends?

    • robc

      I don’t know what the plan is now, but I said back at phase 1 or something that suspending the payroll tax for the rest of the year was the best method. Obviously, that doesn’t help the unemployed any, But combine a payroll tax reduction with a boost in unemployment benefit (although $600 per week is too much) is much better than Trump Bux.

      • Florida Man

        They could let people have their full check. They might get used to it.

      • leon

        Remember the angst when the fedgov let the payroll taxes for FICA roll back to their normal rates?

      • Agent Cooper

        WHY IS THERE A PAYROLL TAX?

  9. Pat

    Class action lawsuit against South By Southwest over ticket refunds.

    The sort of morons who attend SXSW already got all the value they were ever going to receive out of the ticket just by purchasing it and then telling all their friends they purchased it.

    • Not Adahn

      Pay for tickets?

      *laughs in band manager*

    • Festus

      “That’s GOLD Pat, GOLD!”

  10. leon

    “According to Flynn’s attorney, his guilty plea was coerced by a threat to indict his son.”

    Isn’t this well known and also the MO for cops?

    • Festus

      *sniffs* We’ve known this for years! So ugly, so dirty.

    • juris imprudent

      Well the spin here was that the prosecutors and Flynn’s own lawyers appear to be in cahoots – keeping that out of the plea agreement to avoid future disclosures should Flynn have testified for them against anyone they indicted. That has the potential to get some lawyers sanctioned if not disbarred. Covington is going to have a real black eye.

    • Drake

      It was reported 3 years ago. Nobody seemed to care.

  11. Festus

    Mornin’ Banjos! I really like That Riff-Raff chick and Amash is swollen with hubris. Have a great day and send that sentiment along to your friends and loved ones. Strangers, too, if it feels right.

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

    • Certified Public Asshat

      Amash is swollen with hubris

      So like every other Presidential candidate.

      • SugarFree

        Now, now… many are swollen with a variety of vile humours.

  12. The Late P Brooks

    NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! That means 25% of New York residents are going to drop dead immediately, but not before they spread the virus to literally everyone who they’ve ever made eye contact with in their entire lives!

    You, sir, have a bright future awaiting you in Public Health.

    • Tonio

      I’m just waiting for someone’s model to predict infection numbers greater than the actual population.

      • robc

        Bee did it.

      • juris imprudent

        Hell, the 80% in the Imperial College study wasn’t justifiable.

    • Pat

      Bitchute? No sir, I drive to a store 20 miles away from my house wearing a trenchcoat and fake mustache to buy my dirty videos.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        You’re thinking of poopchute.com

      • Tonio

        +1 Kevin Smith reference

    • Festus

      Great. Now 0.5% of the people that already agree get to watch.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      They banned them?!?

      • AlexinCT

        What he says may cause you to stop believing the narrative they want to peddle to you, so of course they banned it…

  13. Nephilium

    So with MLB possibly not starting until July. The teams are finally able to start announcing the refund policy for season ticket holders. One passage in the article really jumped out at me though:

    Two fans recently filed a lawsuit in California when they could not get a refund from the Yankees and Mets. The future of that case is unknown.

    Why the fuck are two (presumably) New York residents suing New York teams in California?

    /patiently waits for one of the lawyers to do free work to explain how this is perfectly normal

    • UnCivilServant

      You can’t presume they’re new york residents.

      They could easily be dual-coasters with too much money who have a Commifornia residence and prefer to sue where their lawyer is.

      • Festus

        No. California courts are basically how Lenin seized power in 1917 and they haven’t changed much since then.

    • invisible finger

      You want them to risk dying of Deep State Flu just because they want to file a lawsuit??

  14. Tundra

    Good morning, Banjos!

    And good morning to the rest of You People!

    Thanks for the lynx. It’s good to get my blood pressure up as high as possible first thing in the morning. Kind of sets the tone for the rest of the day, you know?

    The nursing home number is interesting. Here, we are right at about 75% of the deaths in long term care. I think the governors are starting to crack a little, because it has become crystal clear that they did precisely the wrong thing in shutting down. Add to that the common practice of sending sick people to the facilitates and you’ve got one hell of fuck up. Heads should roll (but probably won’t).

    Go away, Amash. You’re drunk.

    It pisses me off that the fucking LP is still trying the same, tired shit.

    “Trump has the Republican Party locked down, so any Republican at this point who is not voting for Trump is a potential Biden voter,” a GOP operative told The Hill earlier this month. “But if you’re a Republican who is just tired of the noise and you don’t necessarily agree with Biden on the issues and all of a sudden Justin Amash comes along, here’s a pretty attractive third-party option for you now.”

    Hey genius, here’s an idea: run an actual libertarian who cares only for libertarian values and can fucking sell the benefits. Not the goddamn freak show or recycled repubs.

    Fuck!

    Any thanks for the lovely song. Her voice is really interesting and definitely grows on me the more I listen.

    Let’s be careful out there, people. It’s getting weird.

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

      • Fourscore

        A later good morning, Miss Banjos, Great music, Hank would be flattered.

        Its a big day for the Red Headed Stranger, the Birthday Boy is 87 today.

    • Pope Jimbo

      I thought it was closer to 85% in the homes. But I went to Memphis State so what the fuck do I know?

      The stat that I saw yesterday was the youngest person to die from CV who was not in a home was in his 70’s.

      Personally, I think the nursing home stat here is a combo platter of a) the homes are stuffed with frail old people and b) the virus has spread a lot more than anyone suspects and there is really no way to keep it out of the homes.

      • Tundra

        I hate math. It’s a big fucking number, anyway.

        And again, making these facilities take sick patients was a genius-level move.

      • R C Dean

        Where else should they go?

        They can’t go home. They don’t need to be in the hospital. So you either force the hospital to keep them, or you force the nursing home, which is probably where they were before they got sick, to take them (back).

        And don’t think nursing homes won’t dump a patient on a hospital by just calling 911 and refusing to take them back.

    • Festus

      It is getting weird. People are starting to drive like rally-racers. Jesus, I’m going 20 over the limit and some folks are passing me like I’m standing still. Granted, I do drive like a Grandma because wrecks are really expensive…

      • Festus

        And I am poor.

      • DrOtto

        We’ve been in that phase. Got my car totalled last week by some a-hole turning left from the right lane. Off to the chiro now thanks to that episode.

    • Naptown Bill

      Word.

      Dave Smith keeps making the point that *all* the deaths but a very, very small number have been seniors with preexisting conditions, and that this is something experts knew pretty early would be the case. Things being a little hectic Chez Naptown I haven’t had a chance to look into that, but if it’s true it makes the shutdowns even more of a scandal. An abundance of caution is one thing, but causing an economic catastrophe that *will* ruin the lives of millions of people is at least one of the biggest fuck-ups committed by the government class in our history.

      As for Amash, I’m glad the LP found another washed-up Republican struggling to maintain some kind of relevance. Justin will make a great candidate, and after he loses he’ll make a fantastic guest on morning talk shows. Plus, with his fanatical embrace of TDS he might be able to get a recurring spot as the “tame conservative” on MSNBC or something.

      • Festus

        Gay-Jay fucked himself out of that sweet gig last cycle. That interview wherein he basically mocked retards by being one.

      • Banjos

        I wonder if we are going to see a dip in overall deaths after all this blows over as people who got knocked out by the virus died a little earlier than they would have died naturally.

      • UnCivilServant

        I doubt it. The numbers are so low that’s it’s not going to show on those statistics.

      • Banjos

        Combine that with a tick up in suicides and ODs thanks to the government forced recession/depression, you are probably right.

      • invisible finger

        Depends on how you slice the numbers. In aggregate, you are probably right. If you take NYC, or nursing homes, or over 80, etc. the numbers may show on the statistics.

      • Festus

        Or sick people didn’t go to the cesspit and get infected thereby.

      • invisible finger

        I had that same thought yesterday. I know one thing, TV news will never have a competent actuary on to explain.

    • Atanarjuat

      For you and anyone else who gets riled up about the news, I hope you can find a way to not let it get to you. Life’s too short.

      Agree 100% about Amash/LP.

    • Contrarian P

      The trouble is there aren’t any libertarians that have any kind of name recognition with any level of the electorate.

      There isn’t much chance of building a complete unknown into any kind of contender, so the theory is let’s get someone who is at least a little known to the electorate. That’s how we ended up with Barr and Johnson. Who are you going to run? Penn Gillette?

      The only guy who might somewhat ring a bell with the average voter is McAfee and he’s batshit crazy.

      I have no idea who you’d even get who isn’t a washed up Republican. The last Libertarian run was such a disaster it may have permanently deep-sixed the party. Between the stripping idiot, what’s Aleppo, and Bill Weld, it couldn’t have been much worse. Unless you just don’t give a damn about your career or are a martyr like Amash, why on earth would you want to hitch your wagon to the Libertarian brand?

      • Mojeaux

        McAfee and he’s batshit crazy

        You say that like it’s a bad thing.

      • Pope Jimbo

        ^This

        We went pretty crazy with Trump and he’s been better than I had hoped for. McAfee is all the good crazy with none of the Trump’s still wanting to be loved by everyone.

        I want a Oval Office presser on the next virus where President McAfee says “I don’t think we need to shut down, but that is on the govs. All I know is that it won’t cut down on my whale fucking. Later jackasses”

      • Tonio

        And don’t forget the ecdysiastic stylings of Jimmy Weeks.

      • Tundra

        The party is nearly 50 years old and has accomplished something between jack and shit. There will never be a libertarian president, for the simple reason that we view the State as a hideous monster that needs to die, where most of the candidates think they can reform the fucking thing (or enrich themselves and others from it).

        Real libertarians are scary as fuck to almost everyone. The vitriol and hatred is staggering considering how tiny their numbers and miniscule their political power. Why? The message maybe?

        Start recruiting more charismatic, non-crazy fuckers and just do the work. This bullshit can’t last forever.

      • Nephilium

        Honestly, the quixotic running for president is the wrong target to begin with. They really should have started targeting city councils, judges, and local offices. Build up from there.

      • Tundra

        Schools.

      • Naptown Bill

        ^this. The LP should in theory be comprised of libertarians, not anarchists. In theory your talking about minarchists, more or less, with some finding more functions in the state acceptable and some less. Regardless, the kind of stuff that local governments do should be the LP wheelhouse. Local governments are where most people interact with the state and they have the most immediate impact on people, so a libertarian there has a better chance to make a difference.

      • The Hyperbole

        “Real libertarians” you forgot the air quotes.

    • wdalasio

      Okay. You’ve just pretty much said what I say later. Only you said it better.

  15. Not Adahn

    I see Caesar Andy has released his plan to keep gun stores shut down indefinitely.

    I find the media disconnect from actions to be fascinating.

    The news reports were all “experts agree, we must lock down at least another 18 months! Governors are heeding the advice of SCIENCE and it’s far to early to even think about ending the lockdown!”

    And then there were protests.

    And the media reported that “the protests are tiny and ineffective! Nobody supports them! Everyone agrees that SCIENCE demands the lockdowns must continue until everyone can be tested every two weeks and all restaurants must have chairs placed six feet apart!”

    And some governors decide to open back up.

    And the media reported that “Stupid rethuglican inbred hick science deniers are going to kill all of their residents! Sensible SCIENCE-believing Governors know it’s far too early to end the lockdown!”

    And in less than a week, Caesar Andy has decided to reopen. Though the media reports are all about how it’s impossible.

    • leon

      “I see Caesar Andy has released his plan to keep gun stores shut down indefinitely.”

      What?!? Even after they pinky promised to the SCOTUS to respect gun rights if the SC would just throw out that case as moot?

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Wait. Chairs or tables six feet apart?

      Why would I want to go to dinner and eat six feet from my family? I live with them. Wtf?

      I feel for restaurants. And schools. My wife is going back and they have no idea how these things will be enforced. Taiwan doesn’t bother with social distancing because they’re not retarded.

  16. Rebel Scum

    Amash launches exploratory committee for Libertarian presidential run

    To join an increasing line of non-libertarian LP presidential candidates.

    • robc

      Badnarik 2020.

      Okay, Hornberger, but same thing.

      And I am serious, not mocking the Badnarik campaign.

    • Naptown Bill

      I cannot think of a better match between a party and a candidate. And that’s about as backhanded a compliment as I can give.

  17. Rebel Scum

    Other than all that, our fearless media nailed this story.

    The truth is literally the opposite of the narrative.

    • Naptown Bill

      When I try yet again to explain to my wife what “redpilled” means I’ll forward her this story so she can ignore it at her leisure while listening to CNN.

      • Tundra

        You need to trick her into some Michael Malice.

      • Naptown Bill

        Dude, I’m so close. She’s semi-onboard with the idea that the media has an agenda but then she claims to only derive her opinions by hearing directly from politicians themselves, via press conferences and Twitter, and rejects the idea that context could be important or that, since politicians lie for a living, they might not be a reliable source for facts.

    • Suthenboy

      Why else would you weave a narrative?

  18. Florida Man

    Good News! The new COVID test is a spit test, instead of seeing how far they can jam a q-tip into your brain. I’m getting my test at 0900.

    • Not Adahn

      Awesome. That means some of us can give a sample while maintaining social distancing!

      *polishes Coweta county third-place target spitting trophy*

      • Festus

        *grumbles* Stupid dentures.

    • AlexinCT

      Phew! I was worried it might be a swallow test…

    • straffinrun

      It’s a trick. They wanna find out if your friend’s sperm count.

  19. Scruffy Nerfherder

    Powell replies, “Release of more documents that will show that Michael Flynn was innocent and was set up by the upper echelon of the FBI, that small group of the highest ranking members of the FBI that deliberately set about from at least August 15, 2016 on to catch Gen. Flynn in something and either prosecute him or get him fired. That’s what we’ve alleged all along and it’s proving true with every new document disclosed.

    That’s great for Flynn, but unless there’s some indictments and FPMITA prison time for the offenders, it’s going to do nothing to reform the FBI/DOJ.

    • Florida Man

      What I don’t understand is the FBI can railroad somebody in a month, but it takes nearly 4 years to do the investigation of the FBI, which will result in zero punishments. I’m seriously done with this country. I’m not wasting My time voting anymore and I’m just going to keep my head down and work until I die.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        We must preserve the (perceived) integrity of the institution.

        If people lose faith in our betters, then all hell will break loose and that’s a risk we cannot afford.

        /typical top man

      • juris imprudent

        Ya know it’s funny because sacrificing a lamb is such a time honored tradition. Oh, look we found this one bad person (who has agreed to fall on his sword). Much more effective way of appearing to keep the institution honest – without actually doing anything to really keep it that way.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Not anymore.

        I have nothing but disdain for the institutions because the institutions refuse to hold anyone accountable. This corruption goes from beat cops to the president.

      • invisible finger

        Yup. The institutions operate on bad faith and then wonder why people lose faith in said institutions.

      • juris imprudent

        You might not, but I think you would be surprised by how many people would be taken in by that ruse. As it stands now, we are fortunate that the institutions are being so forthright in their corruption, not even making a pretense of accountability. That only appeals to a much smaller slice of the populace.

    • AlexinCT

      Even though I understand that it is really the tax payers that will foot the bill, I also believe the FBI should suffer financially from this and Flynn should not only have the money they made him piss away reimbursed, but walk away with a super fat bank account because of the criminal actions the weaponized Obama bureacuracy took against him

  20. Rebel Scum

    Gen. Michael Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, spoke to Sean Hannity on Monday night and said Flynn’s plea was coerced by the lack of the Brady documents they’ve been fighting to obtain for months and the lead prosecutor’s threat to indict his son.

    Move along. Nothing to see here.

    • AlexinCT

      It looks like despite all the stalling and criminality, the truth will come out. Of course, if the perps are not punished and we do not lay blame at the foot of Obama and team blue’s weaponization of the bureaucracy while being protected by the dnc operatives with bylines because it was “their guy” doing it, we better be prepared for this to become SOP.

  21. Pat

    Utah attorney general suspends state contract with Banjo in light of founder’s KKK past

    The Utah attorney general’s office will suspend use of a massive surveillance system after a news report showed that the founder of the company behind the effort was once an active participant in a white supremacist group and was involved in the shooting of a synagogue.

    The University of Utah also said Tuesday it would suspend its contract with Banjo, which has business deals with several cities and police departments across the state.

    An official with Utah Department of Public Safety said that agency had launched a review of its relationship with the Park City-based firm in light of the reports.

    Damien Patton, who helped launch and now leads the secretive startup Banjo, was part of the Dixie Knights of the Ku Klux Klan as a 17-year-old and joined a leader of the group in a drive-by shooting of a synagogue in a Nashville suburb, according to a report by the online outlet OneZero, citing transcripts of courtroom testimony, sworn statements and more than 1,000 pages of records produced from a federal hate crime prosecution.

    Yes, we must maintain the integrity of our state surveillance systems by ensuring we only use vendors with pure Stalinist inclinations.

    • SDF-7

      That whole situation bugs me a bit (not that I really am thrilled with surveillance companies and all…).

      The guy had a rough childhood — ended up lashing out as a teenager against his {{mother}} by getting into anti-semitic groups, did stupid crap — ended up in prison (iirc) and then turned his life around.

      Yeah, what he did as a teen was dumb and repulsive… But rebellious teenagers do dumb crap. That’s why we used to draft them to do dumb crap for the collective after all (40 year olds aren’t going to climb that trench wall into machine gun fire typically!). At what point do we stop believing in redemption? Why are some sins eternal if there is actual atonement (and recompense to victims preferably… there’s a debate there on when someone has “paid their debt” after all…).

      I know, I know… it is only the sins on the wrong side of the political fence that are eternal. If he were Antifa burning something down (or the Weather Underground, etc.) everything would be peachy.

      Where’s JATNAS these days for these questions anyway? 😉

  22. Pope Jimbo

    I look forward to seeing a bunch of CNN newsmongers hyperventilating about Pence not wearing a mask to our famed Mayo (and giant tax leech) Clinic. And I’m sure they will all be doing it while wearing their masks.

    It has been more than two weeks since the Mayo Clinic required all patients and visitors to cover up, a rule that everyone else but Pence was wisely respecting, even though Mayo had informed the VP of the mask mandate beforehand. That Mayo tweeted that and then deleted the tweet doesn’t change the fact Pence knowingly ignored medical guidance.

    If Pence manages to make it through the panicdemic without getting the virus, I hope he comes out and attributes his deliverance to his faith in doG. Just to watch the proggies go bonkers.

    • Tundra

      Hiya Holiness!

      Walz is running scared.

      Johnson got ignored yesterday after his excellent question on Monday. People are noticing. And the Red Star is actually admitting that the LTC facilities are the killing fields.

      Turning point? Or will the motherfucker double down?

      • Pope Jimbo

        Tundra, I saw that article yesterday and have some hope that the tides are turning.

        You would think that some muck raking journalo would want to make a name for themselves for hounding the shit out of Walz for this. How hard would it be to point out that Walz originally said that 74K would die (but only 50K if we cowered), then when the numbers turned out to be completely wrong he said they were only “directional” and no one ever said they’d were accurate.

        Finally, ask him why when his own models that were only to be used to tell you what to do showed that the impact of shutting down everyone and just shutting down old people were almost identical, he chose to shut down everyone.

        I really am stunned that the MSM is carrying so much water for the DFL here in Minnesoda.

    • RAHeinlein

      Because providing a mask and saying “Vice President Pence, please wear this” would be too easy?

    • straffinrun

      He convinced Covid not to be gay.

      • AlexinCT

        Wait, those no-homo camps work?

    • Gustave Lytton

      Good. Fuck Pence, Trump, the Govs mandating masks and doing press conferences without them and the rest of the Top.Men. bullshit believers that their shit doesn’t stink so they don’t have to do what they’re telling everyone else to do. Social distancing, going without a haircut, etc. Fuck them all. Lead by example is dead concept to them.

      • Frank Dux

        ^upvote

  23. The Late P Brooks

    Lessons learned?

    All over the country and the world, parents of younger children who have not learned to work independently are suddenly navigating between keeping their jobs — if they still have jobs — and schooling their children. I’ve come to see teachers as essential workers, not just because of what they teach our kids, but because without them, many of us cannot work ourselves.

    Some teachers are making a heroic effort, but even parents talented enough to win Guggenheim fellowships are exasperated by what distance learning requires of their kids, and thus of parents too. In the words of the now-famous, ranting Israeli mom, “If Corona doesn’t kill us, distance learning will.”
    As more and more school districts announce that distance learning will continue for the rest of the school year, we should reevaluate what school should do and be during a pandemic. To borrow from NBC’s “The Good Place” — I mean, um, T.M. Scanlon — what do Departments of Education owe to us and we to them? During this national emergency, I’d like to try to answer that question in a new way.

    ——-

    Many children, regardless of economic status or neurodiversity, are experiencing massive social regression in the absence of their peer and teacher connections, which is of more concern to many parents than academic regression. I believe that for the 56 million kids whose worlds have been turned upside down, schools should now prioritize social-emotional learning over academics.

    ——-

    This pandemic offers an incredible opportunity to reassess what school is for and what it should do in the long term. I look forward to having that conversation later, when the urgency of this time has faded. We as parents are learning so much: What our students and children are capable of and where they are behind. How PTA meetings can be better attended when video conferencing in is an option. How kids can stay connected when they’re out sick, if the technology is universally available. And how academic work can be done remotely for certain learners even in non-pandemic times. But nothing replaces the value of face time with teachers, and the social learning that comes with interacting with peers.

    tl;dr- I want my free babysitter back!

    • Pat

      Many children, regardless of economic status or neurodiversity, are experiencing massive social regression in the absence of their peer and teacher connections

      You mean I actually have to browbeat my kids into regurgitating my ideology myself?! But then who will beat the shit out of them, steal their personal belongings, call them names, and pressure them into conformity?!

  24. Scruffy Nerfherder

    SJWednesday: The New And Improved Pavlik Morozov

    Dad, you are a white man.

    I know this might come as a shock because people do not tell you this too often. You are not approached on the street, in the movies, at the workplace, and ordered to explain your race so strangers can “read” you properly and treat you accordingly.

    You have both the privilege and the curse of living in the unmarked, white blind spot of the American racial imaginary. If you have enjoyed living there, departing only to return comfortably home to White every night, I’m afraid you have a problem.

    Me. I am your problem.

    I am the brown-bodied child with the boisterous curls who colored your mother’s whitewashed scrapbooks and inspired obnoxious inquiries about our relationship and your paternity whenever we were out together.

    I am the “ethnically ambiguous” woman who strategically reads Gayatri Spivak in your kitchen while you bob along to James Taylor and bake batches of blueberry scones.

    I patiently wait for your questions, longing for the flurried attentiveness I was once greeted with when I read Nancy Drew, Little Women, and all the other innocuously white narratives that populated my childhood.

    I am your problem, Dad. You are the white father of a black daughter. You are accountable to a life that is squarely outside of the jurisdiction of the whiteness that swaddles you. I should be the problem that won’t let you come home white and blissfully unaware, but somehow this is not the case.

    Somehow, you feel like a white man first and my dad second. You asymmetrically toggle between the two, coming into focus as one only to obscure the other.

    I have always known you were white, Dad, at least on a descriptive level. I did not see you as a “white heterosexual male” with all the privilege this historically and institutionally connotes until your whiteness started hurting me.

    • Not Adahn

      Sometimes, abortion is the correct choice.

      • Atanarjuat

        I laughed.

        The dad seems like a nice guy, baking scones and all, but he either fucked up big time as a parent, or that level of crazy isn’t fixable.

      • Mojeaux

        A lot of kids go to college and come back at Christmas break with crazy ideas.

        Some kids either change their minds when they get a little life experience or they don’t have time for them or they forget them in the hustle-bustle of daily life.

        Or … they’re drama queens who milk them as long as they can to feed their need for outrage.

    • Pat

      You are not approached on the street, in the movies, at the workplace, and ordered to explain your race so strangers can “read” you properly and treat you accordingly.

      Probably because he’s never demanded that everyone who he meets, in the movies, at the workplace, treat him in a manner appropriate to his race.

      • R C Dean

        Also, things that never happened.

        “Ordered”? No. Curiousity? Sure, occasionally. And probably rarely to never from complete strangers.

    • leon

      Daddy, hold me please!?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The author’s self-description word salad:

      Kelsey earned her B.A. from Wesleyan University in 2015 with High Honors in American Studies and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her work concerns medical, legal, and cultural histories of legislating and diagnosing distinctions between proper and improper growth, including un/childlike cognition, premature aging, and other instances of age inappropriateness. She is particularly curious about the invocation of health/illness and ability/disability and the influence of race, gender, and sexuality on theories of developmental impropriety and the life course. At Yale, she is pursuing an M.A. in History of Science and Medicine en route to her PhD in American Studies. Kelsey’s work is supported by the Dean’s Emerging Scholars Fellowship and the Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship.

      History of Science and Medicine, Histories of Race, Gender, and Sexuality, Disability Studies, Science and Technology Studies, aging and life course theory, motherhood, reproductive science and politics, care work and emotional labor

      • leon

        Geeze…. I shoulda had more drive in life. Could have become a Harvard grad.

      • Contrarian P

        If you can’t summarize your work in three or four words, you’re engaged in bullshit.

        I’m a doctor. I treat illness. A lawyer practices law. Or sues people. Whatever. A construction worker builds houses. IT people work with computers. And so forth.

        A bullshit artist’s work “concerns medical, legal, and cultural histories of legislating and diagnosing distinctions distinctions between proper and improper growth, including un/childlike cognition, premature aging, and other instances of age inappropriateness”.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        You forgot my favorite phrase, “theories of developmental impropriety”

        All I can gather from that is that she studies adult men who like to wear diapers and pretend to be babies.

      • Contrarian P

        One of my professors gave some great advice, something along the line of “your idea isn’t going to get any smarter just because you smear extra layers of bullshit on top”. He meant that brevity and clarity made for good writing.

        Unfortunately in academia the pattern is to add more and more words, the longer the better, to your writing with the apparent conceit that it makes you sound sophisticated and erudite. Bonus points for putting words together that mean the exact same thing (i.e. “last and final”).

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        The Sophists rule the day.

      • kbolino

        I was in high school when they decided to add a writing section to the SAT. We were all told it would be very important which turned out to be bullshit. Anyway, when I took it I paced myself so that I had time to structure the essay before I wrote it and edit it after I was done writing it. It was a nice, neat, coherent essay. I got a middle-of-the-road score on it.

        When it came time to do the GRE (although I didn’t end up going to grad school), I read up a bit on how this works. You are basically graded for length. So I took no time to think beforehand nor to edit afterward and just wrote for 30 minutes straight. I got a much better score than I had on the SAT. I have no idea the quality of the essay, because well I didn’t even save enough time to read it afterward.

        That, combined with a lot of other factors, is why I stopped at a Bachelor’s degree.

      • straffinrun

        Seriously, what is “emotional labor”?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That’s what they do when they cry to get to you to give up in an argument.

      • straffinrun

        *Downs half bottle of RU-486*

      • Fourscore

        “emotional labor”?

        “That’s what they do when they cry to get to you to give” them flowers? a new dress? car?

        Little girls learn well and grow up to be wives and mommas but the tactics never change

    • Q Continuum

      “I couldn’t let these “real” black women see me cry as I apologized to them for allowing a white man into their sacred space. It was theirs, not mine. You were mine, you were a white man, and I was a liability.”

      Christ these are some damaged people.

    • straffinrun

      George Jefferson’s neighbors raised a bitch.

    • Naptown Bill

      “Daughter, you’re an evil, ungrateful twat with so little self-awareness that you’re bitching about my privilege using vocabulary you learned at two expensive private schools with no obvious means of support apart from the charity of others. Christmas is canceled.”

      • leon

        If he gets offended that she would write something like that, and publicly publish it, well that just goes to show the depths of his depravity whiteness

    • Chipwooder

      What a fucking ingrate.

    • B.P.

      I’d be a little annoyed if my father listened to James Taylor too, but I wouldn’t develop a full-blown mental condition over it.

    • Ted S.

      I hope Dad writes her out of the will and says “Nope, you’re not my problem any more.”

    • Agent Cooper

      “… while you bob along to James Taylor and bake batches of blueberry scones.”

      Shitlord status confirmed.

  25. Scruffy Nerfherder

    SJWednesday: In Glorious Communist Utopia There Will Be No Pandemics

    In countries all over the world, we salute the front-line workers in the healthcare, transport, food, logistics, and sanitation industries, as well as other sectors. They are engaged in a daily struggle against a pandemic that is not simply biological but has deep social and political roots. For decades, the capitalists and their governments have destroyed public health systems and made the working and living conditions of the masses more precarious, generating brutal inequality with the sole aim of increasing their profits. Their criminal policy was to ignore the warnings of a pandemic for years. When it arrived, the majority of capitalist governments ended up ordering generalized quarantines, without providing massive testing or expanded hospital capacity. As a result, the necessary “social distancing” measures were accompanied by a paralyzation of production and world trade, a fall in stock markets (as well as in the prices of raw materials), and an unprecedented economic collapse. There are also governments that took very limited social distancing measures with the sole intention of preserving capitalist profits, at the cost of increasing the spread of the contagion and causing thousands of additional deaths. The big capitalists and their governments are taking advantage of the crisis to carry out layoffs, factory closures, and wage cuts, making working conditions worse and more precarious. This means misery and hunger for billions. Faced with this reality, another “front line” of struggles by workers and poor people is emerging in different countries — a preview of what will come after the pandemic peaks and the full extent of the social, political, and economic consequences manifest themselves. The journalists of the bourgeoisie are warning of “insurrections” and “revolutions” by the working class and the oppressed.

    • Q Continuum

      “For decades, the capitalists and their governments have destroyed public health systems and made the working and living conditions of the masses more precarious, generating brutal inequality with the sole aim of increasing their profits”

      Yes because the health system, working and living conditions are pure bliss in the Soviet Union, Venezuela and North Korea.

      • Pat

        Italia has socialized medicine. Just sayin’.

      • Chipwooder

        bzzzzzzzzt Wrong! Not REAL socialism.

      • PieInTheSky

        Look Q is it normal for governments to spend less than 2% of GDP on healthcare?

    • Pat

      I’m not exaggerating when I say that I wouldn’t be disappointed one tiny little bit if a lot of cops and politicians ended up with their brains splattered on the pavement.

      • Chipwooder

        pour encourager les autres

  26. Certified Public Asshat

    Treasury wants stimulus payments to dead people repaid

    A Treasury spokesperson indicated the department is developing a plan to retrieve the coronavirus-related payments, but didn’t provide details.

    Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said “heirs should be returning that money,” in an interview with The Wall Street Journal Tuesday. He said the department is checking databases that would help Treasury track payments worth up to $1,200 to individuals, based on their 2018 or 2019 tax returns, but who have died.

    The plan sounds like they are going to tell you to return it but can’t actually do anything about it.

    • Agent Cooper

      My grandmother got a check. She died in January at 100.

      Fuck you, government. You messed up.

    • Akira

      With all the spying that the various government agencies do, how come they can’t even determine whether or not you’re dead before mailing you a check? I swear, if they’re gonna steamroll over the 4A like that, they should at least get their shit together and make it a little more convenient for us.

      When I worked at the prison, about 15 inmates got rounded up and questioned by the investigator. Turns out they were having people file for tax returns on the outside, and since they weren’t employed, they were getting a shitload of money back. They all got a few months added on to their sentence for that. I was just dumbfounded that with all the IRS’s power and resources, the fact that the person is in prison does not raise any flags at any point in the process.

  27. The Late P Brooks

    Unanticipated effects are beginning to arise

    President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday invoking the Defense Production Act to keep meat processing plants open, a senior White House official told CBS News. Plants owned by some of the country’s largest food companies have struggled with outbreaks of the coronavirus among workers and a growing death toll.

    The executive order also applies to plants that have already closed, which will have to re-open with healthy workers.

    The executive order declares meat processing plants critical infrastructure to protect against disruptions to the food supply, a person familiar with the matter said earlier Tuesday. The federal government will also provide workers with additional protective gear and guidance, the person said.

    ——-

    During a meeting in the Oval Office with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Mr. Trump told reporters he planned to sign an executive order Tuesday to address “liability problems” in the food supply and said “there’s plenty of supply.”

    The order from the president to require meat processing plants to continue operating comes as several of the nation’s largest meat producers have had to temporarily close facilities after employees tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

    Wherein the Top Men peer into the future and become extremely concerned for their own wellbeing.

    • PieInTheSky

      Are there vegans losing it somewhere with this meat being essential thing?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      become extremely concerned for their own wellbeing

      They should be. We haven’t a major disruption to the food supply in a very long time. That would be the kind of thing which would put people in the streets looking for some blood.

    • Pat

      I’ll be looking forward to the Cato think piece breathlessly accusing Trump of becoming a tin pot dictator, as if the plants were closed by the free market.

  28. PieInTheSky

    So if you have all those spare trillions why not throw old pie some cash? I will use it for good – buy whiskey to review

      • PieInTheSky

        screw you buddy

      • Incentives Matter

        Sadly, not just a restricted weapon in Canada (for which I have a license to purchase/possess), but actually prohibited (barrel length is under 100mm/4 inches).

        God, our firearms laws are irrational.

      • Tejicano

        “God, our firearms laws are irrational.”

        Nature of the beast. All gun laws are as rational as fences put up to keep birds out.

    • Nephilium

      The bread and circuses are only to keep the rabble in line. Not the barbarians outside the gate!

  29. Pope Jimbo

    As always Minneapolis proggies keep their eye on the ball. They know what is important.

    Starting April 29, Minneapolis will be adding 11 miles of “Stay Healthy Streets” — loop routes to support more space for active recreation while social distancing.

    There are three separate loop routes — north Minneapolis, northeast Minneapolis and south Minneapolis. These loops will mostly follow along residential streets, and will generally be closed to thru traffic to allow people to safely walk, bike, rollerblade etc.

    If only these Stay Healthy Streets had been thought of earlier, those old geezers from the nursing homes would have been out rollerblading and not sitting around getting the CV and dying.

    The story didn’t say anything, but I’m sure the city found a way to make those 11 miles of closed streets cost a ton of money.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      I’m a simple man.

      The fact progs are embracing social distancing to this degree is enough for me to conclude it’s theatre.

    • Rhywun

      They’re pulling this in NYC too. The way to make it cost a ton of money is to post cops on every block (not kidding).

      • Fourscore

        Well, the LEOs need work to do, what with all murders/robberies/rape/ having been solved by techniques learned from TV shows.

    • Pat

      24 and 32 bringing the double double.

      I wonder if 8 would be willing to amputate the arm with the sleeve…

    • straffinrun

      That top one is fabulous.

      • Sensei

        +1 – That’s great!

    • Q Continuum

      “I combined 12 prescription drugs and slept with a hooker to experience why mornings are transphobic”

      LOL!

    • Not Adahn

      Poking fun at oneself? Is that even legal?

  30. PieInTheSky

    Coronavirus in Scotland: Parents and children left to struggle after councils ban online teaching

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/coronavirus-in-scotland-parents-and-children-left-to-struggle-after-councils-ban-online-teaching-sl66vvmlf

    However, a number of councils in Scotland have banned state education via live video interaction. East Dunbartonshire council said: “Streaming live lessons is not recommended at this time due to safeguarding and possible equity issues.”

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      possible equity issues

      I’ve seen this elsewhere. There’s probably not a more egregious real life example that illustrates how the progs will only be happy when we’re all equally poor.

  31. leon

    I see that some on the left are calling the GOP the “Hoover 2.0” cause they won’t pass all the stuff the left wants and so are being stingy….

    Is it Irony if they are right but in the complete opposite way to what they think?

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      History doesn’t repeat, but it definitely rhymes.

  32. Mojeaux

    Mornin’, Banjos!

    I like these. I think I’m going to try making hand pies with breakfast stuff in them.

    • Banjos

      Mornin’

  33. Nephilium

    In good news, it looks like the backlash against the BBC America’s version of The Watch has pushed someone to do an “absolutely faithful” TV adaptation of the Discworld books (with PTerry’s daughter being involved, she had no creative control over the Watch).

  34. Festus

    Good Day all! Try to keep positive in these trying times and just remember that by working together we can beat this thing! Stay home, stay safe, stay fucked!

    • Atanarjuat

      I’m all of those, but only in not-the-good-way.

    • Atanarjuat

      Nice one.

      • Atanarjuat

        Oh wow, you have an entire oeuvre.

      • straffinrun

        *Nods* One a day until I get booted.

      • AlexinCT

        Go straffinrun, tis’ your birthday!

  35. The Late P Brooks

    Somehow, you feel like a white man first and my dad second. You asymmetrically toggle between the two, coming into focus as one only to obscure the other.

    I’m going to go out on a limb, here, and surmise this person has skipped a cog, as the saying goes.

    • Pat

      “Daddy, why did you have to be a nigger-lover?” sounds so much better with a little florid high school level English applied.

    • Rhywun

      Nah, higher education just rotted her brain.

  36. The Late P Brooks

    In all this breathless raving about meat processing plants being corona plague hot spots, they don’t talk much about symptoms, overall.

    Obviously, they pluck out the worst, most sympathetic examples, but what about the people who just got the flu-like symptoms and recovered? Of the deaths, how do they relate to overall mortality in an industry segment which employs thousands? Not merely work related, but general sickness/accident/random misfortune.

    • straffinrun

      Time to retool the plants. Soylent Green.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      Aren’t they going to pay the workers extra and offer other incentives? If they do that they might have to beat off potential workers with a stick.

    • Q Continuum

      What about the *majority* of people who catch and don’t even know?

  37. Incentives Matter

    A fifth of all coronavirus deaths in the US happened in nursing homes, while a half of all coronavirus deaths in Europe have been in nursing homes.

    Pffffffft. Pikers. Our FedGov CMO, Theresa Tam (or “Tam-Tam” as I’m hearing her referred to), stated in a news conference yesterday that SEVENTY-NINE PERCENT of all COVID fatalities in Canada have occurred in nursing homes. So we have an excellent idea of who the really at-risk sub-populations are in Canada.

    But we must shut down our society and cripple our economy. It’s The Only Way™.

    • Pat

      It’s amazing how this virus has turned the sort of people who customarily advocate for euthanasia and denial of care to the old and dying into the sort of people who think we ought to keep 20 and 30-somethings from going to work to save the lives of the ancient and decrepit.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Now it’s about not spreading and preventing me from not getting sick.

        When I told a friend I wasn’t going to wear a mask he incredulous. ‘What?! You want to get sick?!’

        I fear the mob now.

      • invisible finger

        “‘What?! You want to get sick?!’”

        Sorta, yeah.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      YOU’RE CANADIAN?

      I thought we all agreed I was going to determine how many Canadians get in here?

      Oooh. Tam is compromised on so many levels that she hasn’t been fired or has resigned says a lot about who we are as a country.

      • Incentives Matter

        D00d, I’m just BEAM under a new moniker (the old one, with its TWO OR MORE CAPS IN A ROW, apparently triggers the new ultra-sensitive spam filters and won’t let me post links; somehow, user DEG is able to do it, so I’m assuming that FOUR OR MORE CAPITALIZED LETTERS IN A USERNAME is verboten).

      • Incentives Matter

        Obviously, I’m being discriminated against.

      • Pat

        D00d, I’m just BEAM under a new moniker

        Sounds exactly like something a TULPA would say!

      • Incentives Matter

        Tulpa throwing shade at me to distract attention from him/herself. Up yours, Tulpa!

  38. Not Adahn
    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Sounds to me like Platzker was according the meeting all the respect it deserved.

      The little tinpot dictators are already looking to make voluntary compliance permanently mandatory.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Huh? Social distancing? How the heck are you going to enforce that?

      • UnCivilServant

        Imprison people in giant hamster balls.

  39. sloopyinca

    I don’t know if I should be happy or sad that Banjos filling in for me results in better links for you guys.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      I would rejoice if someone in the family could load the dishwasher better than me.

    • straffinrun

      Fishing for a compliment in a pond of scum. Bold move. 😉

      • sloopyinca

        I’ve been outed!

        ::scurries back under rock::

    • Pat

      Wait, there’s links?

    • AlmightyJB

      Now now. It’s not a competition. It is common knowledge that we do like Banjos better, but you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself since there’s nothing you can do about it.

      • sloopyinca

        See, this is why I love this place. All the refreshing honesty.

    • Certified Public Asshat

      I like the 100% less OSU and Liverpool talk.

      • Ozymandias

        You mean tOSU talk, right, heathen? Is there anything more douchey than that? (No offense, Sloop, but that whole schtick with “THE” is either master-level trolling or Jonesboro-level mass psychosis. My experience inclines me to the latter).

      • The Last American Hero

        They’re insecure about being confused with Ohio University.

      • Ozymandias

        As I said, I incline toward the mass psychosis. Every state has multiple colleges/universities with the state name. Oklahoma/Ok State, Kansas/K State, etc. And we all know it’s a vestige of the Ag schools, blah blah blah. Only THE OSU has turned themselves inside out over this. It’s one of the few things that really gets under my skin that I can’t quite explain, but I fucking hate it.
        You have a nice semi-pro football team; the best money can buy. Awesome. Congrats. Now kindly go fuck yourself.

      • Agent Cooper

        This strikes me as football-related jealously.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      “ She left her £8-an-hour admin job to embark on a spending spree which included a second home and £50,000 on procedures.”

      Not my type but the doc did pretty good work.

    • AlmightyJB

      IDK. Her first act was to throw away her kneepads. Lol.

    • Agent Cooper

      Still can’t pony up to hide that TV cord, though.

  40. The Late P Brooks

    I don’t know if I should be happy or sad that Banjos filling in for me results in better links for you guys.

    Be sure to reward her in an appropriate fashion. Take out the trash, or do the dishes, or something.

  41. Warty

    IFCOME AMISH IS A RELL LIBRATARIAN THEN WHY BE HE AGINST TRUMP HUH???????

    • Old Man With Candy

      WHYCOME

      Jesus, dude, get it right.

      • Warty

        FUCK U DEMONRAT

      • Frank Dux

        Go use your Smith machine

    • straffinrun

      They seem more like Luddites to me.

    • PieInTheSky

      He will be good competition in the primary for Vermin Supreme and J. McA.

    • leon

      I don’t give a fuck about amash’s TDS. But he’s not my ideal Libertarian candidate, and call me a party man, but after Weld I’m tired of washed up GOP pols using the LP as some bitch to fuck up the message and then toss it aside.

      • PieInTheSky

        But he’s not my ideal Libertarian candidate – why, policy wise? or WHYCOME if you prefer

      • Pat

        Becoming an apologist for the surveillance state and an opponent of due process because Orange Man Bad wasn’t a good look.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        This. Amash opposes Trump, who cares? Amash heartily endorses the overreaching and unaccountable permanent state apparatus to get at Trump, I start caring.

      • R C Dean

        This, exactly.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        At the same time, it’s not like Trump opposes either until it is used against him.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Absolutely

        Trump is a “Get Shit Done” executive. Certainly doesn’t agree with my worldview, but still infinitely preferable to the Obama “Permanently Cement My Power” executive.

      • Atanarjuat

        Yeah, it’s possible to be libertarian and against the Deep State and against Trump.

      • Atanarjuat

        Exhibit A: Jacob Hornberger.

  42. Rufus the Monocled

    A friend was telling me that coronavirus is indeed as bad as the Spanish flu but it’s because of technology and knowledge we were able to prevent it from spreading. In other words, the 200 000 is equal to the 50 million deaths. Seems like a stretch to me.

    Also they talk that a second wave is almost inevitable as soon as June. My question is will they shut down again? That would be nuts. We know about it no so we should be able to handle it. The hospitals are now ready.

    Any thoughts about this?

    • Warty

      The Spanish flu mostly killed young adults, so punch your moron friend in the dick.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        That too.

      • invisible finger

        It’s also important to point out that the Spanish Flu originated in the warfare trenches, which were not in Spain, being neutral. A nice reminder that MSM has always been filled with statist morons.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      The global population in 1918 was about 1.8 billion and density was lower.

      I think if you adjusted for that, the number of dead from the Spanish Flu would easily be in the hundreds of millions.

      Additionally, our approach to preventing spread now is decidedly low-tech. “Social distancing” isn’t a product of decades of research.

      • PieInTheSky

        “Social distancing” isn’t a product of decades of research.- I am sure there was a lot of sociology behind the idiea. Things like this don’t come outta nowhere

      • The Last American Hero

        Leper colonies nod in agreement

  43. straffinrun

    This will take on new meaning if the kid looks half Asian.

  44. Not Adahn

    Well, the boss’s boss’s mom died of the ‘vid. I would guess that I’d need to be careful about the jokes I make now, but since he’s full time WFH now I no longer interact with him.

    • invisible finger

      Ask which nursing home to send a donation to.

    • Incentives Matter

      Six degrees of separation applies to the ‘Rona, too.

      (I have a friend who had an acquaintance who died of the ‘Rona here in Alberta; not surprising.)

    • straffinrun

      On a more somber note, the Father in law has had a low grade fever for the past few days. Called him today and he’s got a dry cough, too. He’ll go to the hospital today (hospitals closed today because of a holiday. Yes, a holiday during a pandemic. *Sigh*). He had part of his colon removed a couple years ago due to cancer. I’ll admit I’m worried for him. Great guy.

      • Sensei

        Sorry to hear! Hope he feels better.

        I’ve always been fascinated that there are “hospitals” and HOSPITALS in Japan. You can go to a HOSPITAL 24/7, but not not the plain old “hospital”.

      • straffinrun

        The overnight hospitals are few and far between. And they will strongly discourage you to go there if you call first. Universal healthcare FTW.

  45. PieInTheSky

    Danish news site reminds people of being skeptical of how news photographers take pictures. Here is the same place, one picture taken with a zoom lense, and the other with a wide-angle lense:

    https://twitter.com/baekdal/status/1254460167812415489

    • Pope Jimbo

      I was in Chicago working the night Trump won the election. My wife called and was worried because on CNN it looked like mobs of people were swarming around downtown Chicago.

      I stayed about 2 blocks from Trump Tower and where I was I had no idea what she was talking about. So I walked over to see what was going on.

      The cops had surrounded Trump Tower, but I bet there were only 20 people tops on that side of the river (North Loop). On the other side, the cops had blocked off the bridge and there were maybe 100-200 protesters tops. They were jammed into the bridge entry where they were stopped by the cops. On the news, that is what you saw. A small group of people jammed into the entry to the bridge.

      There was another group of about 50 protesters that were parading around, but overall it was way busier, boisterous the night the Cubs won the NLCS (I wasn’t there for the night they won the Series).

    • The Last American Hero

      Yep. I walked past a BLM protest at lunch a couple years ago. That spot in town normally has 200 people in it at a given moment, there were 100 protesters and 50 cops, so nearly double. Evening news made it look about 10x as many.

  46. Florida Man

    I just spoke with chief of surgery. He doesn’t think we will be back to a normal operating schedule anytime soon, even with restrictions lifted, because people who lost their job lost their insurance or if they still have a job can’t afford the co-pay or can’t get the time off. Plus some people are afraid to come to the hospitals now.

    • PieInTheSky

      Go to their houses and operate on them whether they want it or not.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      The cases listed in the article seem to be pretty egregious. I hope you’re wrong. Certainly the elimination of QI is unrealistic but seeing the scope limited seems like something that could actually happen.

  47. The Late P Brooks

    Serious journalism

    Billionaire Elon Musk, America’s dumbest smart guy, spent the night tweeting about how America needs to “reopen” its economy, despite Musk’s failed predictions about the trajectory of the coronavirus crisis. A month ago, Musk insisted that new coronavirus cases in the U.S. would be “close to zero” by the end of April. Well, it’s the end of April, and the country is still reporting over 20,000 new cases per day, according to the CDC.

    “FREE AMERICA NOW,” Musk tweeted overnight after sending out news articles about plans to relax social distancing restrictions in various parts of the U.S., the country with the highest number of coronavirus deaths in the world by far.

    “Give people their freedom back!” Musk wrote in another tweet that linked to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by millionaire T.J. Rodgers. The 72-year-old libertarian held up Sweden’s relaxed lockdown rules as a relative success because, “Older people in care homes accounted for half of Sweden’s deaths.”

    “Bravo Texas!” Musk exclaimed in yet another tweet overnight about how Texas plans to reopen restaurants, malls, and movie theaters on Friday. Texas has seen at least 690 coronavirus deaths, though the real number is believed by experts to be much higher.

    Musk also agreed with a pro-Trump conspiracy theorist overnight who tweeted, “The scariest thing about this pandemic is not the virus itself, it’s seeing American so easily bow down & give up their blood bought freedom to corrupt politicians who promise them safety.” Musk simply replied, “True.”

    Will we ever be rid of the stinking rotten corpse of Gawker?

    • PieInTheSky

      Will we ever be rid of the stinking rotten corpse of Gawker? – no. It has achieved immortality. It is already a lich

    • B.P.

      “Texas has seen at least 690 coronavirus deaths, though the real number is believed by experts to be much higher.”

      I assume Texas failed to rake a whole bunch of tangential deaths into the coronavirus category, expert-style.

    • Agent Cooper

      I’m having cognitive dissonance on this Musk fella.

  48. LJW

    “Mesa City Police Department opens an investigation into the woman who fed her husband fish tank cleaner”

    Why am I not shocked?

    *Puts on tin foil hat* The recent uptick in calls to poison control from people claiming they ingested bleach are just TDS operatives. Also why does Trump get the blame for this, the media is just as culpable for sensationalizing and misrepresenting the dumb comment he made.

    • OBE #Learn2Essential

      Regarding uptick of posion control calls…the news makes it a big deal but typically near the end of the article is a statement “no inceased hospitalizations have been noted”

      People calling posion control to pad the numbers and media looking for it.

      • JaimeRoberto Delecto

        And all the calls came from the CNN offices.

  49. Not Adahn

    Global company meeting: worldwide, we have had 15 people contract Trump’s Disease. All have recovered.

    • UnCivilServant

      They turned orange?

      Poor bastards.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        Shrunken hands.

      • straffinrun

        Causes diarrhea and bleeding from the mouth. I may have that backwards.

      • Not Adahn

        When IBM paid us to take a couple of their fabs, they wheeled out a program called “Orange is the new Blue.”

    • PieInTheSky

      We had 0 I think so ha in your face

      I mean it was not officially announced but it would have been had it happened.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Age does not bring wisdom.

      Park ranger at King’s Canyon would sit at the top of the pass and remind backpackers that if a bear gets a hold of their pack, it’s not their pack anymore, it’s the bear’s.

      • AlexinCT

        At least this old fucker didn’t fall off the ball washer and break his leg like a douchebag I know….

      • JaimeRoberto Delecto

        I learned that one the hard way.

    • AlmightyJB

      Damn, that is one cheap MF.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’ve been playing that same ball for three years!

      • PieInTheSky

        If that ball was good enough for my father and my grandfather is good enough for me.

    • straffinrun

      That did not end the way it should have.

  50. The Late P Brooks

    worldwide, we have had 15 people contract Trump’s Disease. All have recovered.

    Must Try Harder.

  51. The Late P Brooks

    Musk is a relatively smart guy. But just because he owns a rocket company doesn’t mean he understands what’s best for public health. And in that way, Musk is the dumbest “smart guy” we know. Musk is not afraid to show his ignorance on this issue, sometimes bordering on trutherism in his suggestive tweets about the pandemic.

    WHYCOME HIM NO LUV SCIENCE?

    Sticking up for Musk makes me feel dirty.

    • Stinky Wizzleteats

      But the experts who overestimated the numbers by a factor of ten or more should still be listened to. Why does this only work one way?

    • Pat

      Musk is a relatively smart guy. But just because he owns a rocket company doesn’t mean he understands what’s best for public health.

      He lacks the credentials of, say, a Bill Gates, with his advanced degrees in medicine, immunology, virology, and public health.

      • RAHeinlein

        I’m not listening to anything from Elon Musk until he signs the giving pledge and commits to an all-union workforce. Stronger Together!

    • leon

      Further Evidence that the right loves to be hornswoggled by snake oil salesmen…

    • Chipwooder

      I particularly enjoy the ominous “Texas has seen at least 690 coronavirus deaths” while not noting that Texas has a population of 29 FUCKING MILLION.

  52. Hyperion

    “Amash launches an exploratory committee to be the official “throw your vote away” candidate.”

    The upcoming NTY headline will read: How radical libertarian might spell doom for Trump

  53. Rufus the Monocled

    My cousin works with respiratory illnesses in ICU at one of the major (and best) hospitals in Montreal. She’s been in the thick of things and one of those ‘heroes’. Which she thinks is dumb by the way.

    Anyway. Here’s what she told me last night: Completely under control. They were hyper prepared. Yes, it was very tough for about 10-14 days but they went from 35 in ICU to 14 this week and they expect it to remain so unless there’s a second wave. She added not a single person under 60 came through. Not. One.

    She hates China and added this virus isn’t going to control her. Live with and go out there and support business.

    Love her.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Safe to say media won’t be interviewing her.

    • R C Dean

      Similar here. We are holding steady at 20 confirmed Commie Cough patients, but our new admissions have dropped way off. They do stick around awhile, which is why the 20% premium from Medicare isn’t unreasonable. I believe most, maybe all, are over 60 or 70. Possibly a few exceptions.

      That’s basically one ICU. We have capacity for 100 patients on ventilators, and could stand up more ICU beds than that. We were never anywhere close to being at 50% of our baseline ICU capacity, which we could double in probably a week or ten days (mostly need more “negative pressure” rooms, which requires HVAC work).

    • leon

      Vespasian?

      • Rhywun

        “No New Yorker will go hungry,” de Blasio promised. “Your city will provide.”

        Like I said last night, he is enjoying the fuck out of this mess.

      • UnCivilServant

        That sounds like an ad for Soylent Green

    • Not Adahn

      It’s not antisemitic when it’s a (D) doing it.

      • Pat

        Forget it Jake, it’s Hymietown.

    • invisible finger

      Petain?

    • Rhywun

      To speak to an entire ethnic group as though we are all flagrantly violating precautions is offensive, it’s stereotyping, and it’s inviting anti-Semitism. I’m truly stunned.

      I’m not.

      • Drake

        He’ll be hearing from a great many really good lawyers…

    • leon

      The head of state accused the Social Democrats, who have majority in Parliament, that they want to give “Transylvania to the Magyars”, while denouncing the deals inked in Parliament.,

      Magyars vs Vampires

    • Drake

      We tried federalism too.

    • Atanarjuat

      The trend of political decentralization in Europe seems like a good thing.

  54. creech

    Here’s an interesting take on “flattening the curve.” An acquaintance, ex-medical profession, says that by flattening the curve – i.e. delaying herd immunity – there will be hundreds of thousands who don’t currently have underlying conditions who will develop those conditions in time for Phase II. If the virus had been allowed to run its course, these thousands would have developed immunity while still absent heart disease, diabetes, etc. etc. that will put them at extreme risk later.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      I’ve been told there’s no proof of this!

      My counter is how is it any better to isolate healthy people?

      All I get back is ‘we had to!’

      • Rufus the Monocled

        There’s no question there will be a spike. People are coming out (cue Diana Ross song) and getting back to normal. We should have taken the hit and move forward that way. Like Sweden. But i want granny to die apparently.

      • R C Dean

        There’s no question there will be a spike.

        Depending on what you mean by “spike”, I think there’s very much a question, indeed, for two reasons.

        First, this thing looks like heat and humidity will knock it down like just about every other coronavirus.

        Second, we don’t have a very good idea how many people are immune already. Herd immunity has been building in the background the entire time. We probably slowed it down (stupidly) with the lockdowns, but I question how many infections were actually prevented by the lockdown. Some, I’m sure, but I wonder how many. Infection plus not dead = immunity.

        I think if this thing has a second wave that matters, it will be next fall, when it will stack on the normal flu season to some extent.

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Yeh and that’s when it will get interesting because people are going to conflate the two.

        We did such a disservice to people shutting down. We basically said this virus was so dangerous we had to shut it all down.

        We traumatized people and when this happened the first thing I told my wife is ‘good luck getting people back into normal routines. When you sufficiently scare people they will stay scared. Just look here in Quebec. The premier wants to open up but he has to do it steps like a theatre play to calm the pant shitters down. People are saying ‘what’s the rush?’ That’s how blinded by fear they are. But apparently they’re the rational ones and I’m the emotional person that needs to calm down.

        It’s enough to drive you clinically insane. Insane people are telling you you’re irrational.

        I also heard that one of the most influential doctors in Quebec is of the opinion ‘OMFG THIS IS BAD WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU HAVE TO HIDE!’. Doctors know too much. That’s why we need to put on our skeptical hats and big boy pants and conduct our own cost-benefit/risk reward analysis. If we leave up to the doctors we’d all be barricaded in our homes.

        No. You get OUT THERE.

    • invisible finger

      Flattening the curve’s ONLY purpose was to keep the hospitals from getting flooded. That was accomplished three weeks ago.

      • Drake

        Yep. Zero chance of the hospitals being overwhelmed now. Unfortunately they took down the goalposts and hid them.

  55. PieInTheSky

    Goddamnit stupid work vpn connection keep interrupting, I have to occasionally switch to another site.

    Also it is damn sunny outside. Pushing 25 degrees today. If no corona this would be a good time to have a beer (not corona) in the sun. Then again if no corona I would be at work. Although at this hour I would not be at work anymore.

    • Nephilium

      I’m getting sick and tired of the company I support pushing updates to their VPN/Firewall rules without letting us know. After almost every one of those updates, there’s issues with the soft phones (one way audio, calls dropping, no audio, etc.).

  56. The Late P Brooks

    She hates China and added this virus isn’t going to control her. Live with and go out there and support business.

    Love her.

    Is she hot?

    • Incentives Matter

      Is she hot?

      With an attitude like that? Damn straight she is.

  57. Tejicano

    “…I am the “ethnically ambiguous” woman who strategically reads Gayatri Spivak in your kitchen while you bob along to James Taylor and bake batches of blueberry scones….”

    An’ what you gonna say if tha’ honkey muthafucka try ta pretend he down wit dat?

    Yeah, that’s what I thought.

    Shut up.

    • leon

      It’s oppressive to point out that someones a whiny bitch no matter what the situation is!

    • straffinrun

      What would you know about biracial children?

      • leon

        So as an American in Japan…. Does the white privilege carry over or do you get to claim victimhood status?

      • Not Adahn

        Even worse. Not only does he have White Privilege, he’s a colonizer.

        And since he knocked up a PoC, he’s an exoticist orientalist fetishist.

      • PieInTheSky

        Somewhere in the middle I would guess. He does not look like an Anime white guy. He needs spikier hair to be fully privileged.

      • straffinrun

        Truthfully, there are some scumbags here that prioritize whites over blacks.

      • Tejicano

        Yup. That’s what the above screed sprung from. If either of mine came home with anything in the general direction of this they would be instructed on what’s up without delay.

      • straffinrun

        Can’t imagine my daughter ever saying that shit either. I wouldn’t have to do a thing. The wife would fix her wagon toots sweet.

      • Tejicano

        My situation is the same. I can’t imagine either of mine getting this kind of attitude – but you never know.

        And, yeah, my wife would school them proper should they take one step in that direction.

      • Sensei

        From a cultural perspective something like that seems atypically Japanese.

        But you and straff would know how true and widespread someone doing that in Japan is better than I would.

      • Tejicano

        I will never forget how a brief conversation about a month or two after getting married. We were out for dinner with my in-laws and my wife brought up some minor complaint about me to her mom. My mother-in-law cut her off quick with “You chose to marry a foreigner, don’t bring that crap to me now”. I didn’t think I could love her mother more than I did at that moment.

      • Mojeaux

        I think I remember that straff had something similar happen with his wife and MIL.

      • R C Dean

        “You chose to marry a foreigner, don’t bring that crap to me now”.

        Hmm. That could be very backhanded, indeed. I’m sensing a possible previous conversation where MIL strongly advised against getting involved with a white-eyes.

      • Tejicano

        When her parents found out we were dating again (after splitting us up the first time they got wind of it) I ended up in a 3 hour interview about how it would only work if I accepted their conditions. They were right up front about how they viewed the situation and their view of foreigners in particular.

        Nothing backhanded here at all. M-I-L was very clear to both of us from the start.

      • Sensei

        So you’re saying your sonkeigo got a workout?

        I’m guessing that you put yourself through that helped demonstrate your level of commitment.

        Mojeaux – I’m guessing straff went to bed – with his wife he made a bad joke and she playfully hit him over the joke. Her parents felt it disrespectful and made her apologize. Definitely cultural here as the loss of “face” for her (and by extension him) over the whole thing was definitely worse for her than here.

      • Tejicano

        One of the things that probably helped – during that 3 hour ordeal her mom stated that foreigners are not serious. But then a few weeks later after getting to know me she told me “You’re too serious” (taken as a compliment).

        20 some-odd years later, as she is lapsing in/out of brief moments of lucidity through the Alzheimer’s, when she recognizes who I am (speaking my name) she breaks out in the most happy, peaceful smile.

      • Sensei

        真面目すぎる!

        I’m going through the whole Alzheimer’s thing right now with my in-laws and it breaks my heart. I have a few moments where my MIL helped me out with my wife that I’m eternally grateful to her for doing.

        She’s gotten quite ornery with the disease and can be unpleasant so this helps me remember the person she was before getting sick.

      • Pope Jimbo

        My kids love using the biracial shit to get out of trouble.

        “Of course I drove like a maniac, I’m half asian! What did you expect?”

        Seriously, they are always using those excuses as a joke. They don’t believe in any of that shit, but have learned that they can get out of a lot of crap by using the PC language correctly.

        The youngest said he would have died during his freshman orientation at THE U of M if he had just been a white kid. But he was able to get out of stupid self-criticism shit by claiming that as a half Korean kid he already knew all about racism, etc, etc.

      • Q Continuum

        Try being one of (((us))); it’s the worst of both worlds. We’re simultaneously loaded with white privilege, but also Zionist cockroaches.

      • Ozymandias

        Friends of friends are a bi-racial couple: both are doctors, live in CA, and are very well-off. Mom is white and dad is black; daughters tend toward black more than white skin-tone. Mom and dad both speak like they’re George Will. Welp, one teenage daughter came home one day and started doing the finger-snapping “nuh-uh” and put her hand up to mom. HO-LEE SHEE-IT. I got to listen to that story in my friend’s kitchen; I was laughing so hard I cried. To say Mom was having none of it would like saying the A-Bomb made a loud noise. Dad was none too pleased either.
        But it’s also a great lesson in how influential schools and pop-culture are, no matter how “good” the parents are or try to be. You give me your kids 8-10 hours a day every day for most of the year, and I also get to dictate their “homework,” and you only get them for a few hours for dinner before bed, I guarantee you I can make an impact on 95% of them no matter what you do or say.

  58. Not Adahn

    OK, need to renew my resume. They just posted the cringiest lip-synching inspiration music video since “Friday.”

    I hope I can find it online.

    • PieInTheSky

      I hope you don’t 🙂

  59. The Late P Brooks

    Unforeseeable

    A new report from University of Montana researchers suggests the state will face a “striking” economic downturn, with the loss of more than 50,000 jobs.

    That forecast is contained in a special report prepared and released by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research analyzing how Montana will fare under what researchers call an “unprecedentedly swift and severe decline” in economic activity connected to COVID-19.

    The findings include a projection that Montana will “suffer an average employment decline” of 50,000 jobs in 2020, a decline of 7% from the upbeat outlook BBER had released in its annual report to start the year.

    ——-

    Most of those losses will impact businesses dealing in accommodations and food, but the researchers say retail and all other sectors will see their share of impacts. That’s more than twice the rate of of job decline in Montana during the Great Recession from 2008 to 2010.

    “Personal services, accommodations, certainly food, and some retail, things like that,” said Barkey. “And clearly that mixes in with the kinds of things that we produce in the economy which are discretionary, and which as I put it, I think they’re social distancing challenged.”

    The report says the loss of those jobs will drive a $3.9 billion hit in personal income for Montanans, also a drop of just over 7%. That’s also expected to have a deep impact on tax revenues for local and state government.

    ——-

    The Bureau also says while Northwest and Western Montana, and Southwest Montana will see most of the impact because of population and the core of those regions’ business, “no region of the state” will escape the downturn.

    The report concludes by saying the “COVID-19 pandemic has produced a recession that is more severe than anything Montana has experienced” in the decades since World War II.

    We meant well. Nobody knew this would happen.

    • R C Dean

      the “COVID-19 pandemic has produced a recession

      To be perfectly honest, if the economy had been left unmolested by the government, we’d probably be in some kind of downturn now. But this is fundamentally dishonest – the proximate cause of the damage to the economy is the government, not the virus or disease.

  60. Rufus the Monocled

    Why social distancing will naturally collapsed unless made mandatory.

    Yesterday I was choosing which beer to buy at the grocery store. As I looked, I noticed a woman just standing there. All creepy. I looked over with a ‘and?’ look. She said she had to pass. I looked around and gave the gesture of ‘well, pass then.’ I don’t what SD means to her or people but I didn’t realize it meant we can’t take a minute to select items. I didn’t budge forcing her to go around the little island (which any NORMAL person would have done to avoid needless problems) to where she wanted to go. Nope, she wanted ME to move.

    People are sheep.

    In fact, watching them move around in the grocery store was cringey as fuck. You dummies. You’re nothing but pawns. The virus is already out there.

    But leave it to my buddy to take this stance. He rails against people who ‘don’t follow the rules’.

    We’re sooooo fucked. Which is why the 2A exists I guess.

    • Rufus the Monocled

      Oh. Then it hit me that a person like that could go complain. All I needed then was a tap on the shoulder with someone saying, ‘Come with us sir’.

      I’m discovering more and more the wold is divided between those who are Randle McMurphy in practice and/or sprit and those who aren’t.

    • PieInTheSky

      What did you choose and does it have moose or maple leafs on the label?

      • Rufus the Monocled

        I chose Sam Adams and Archibald White Ale.

        Moosehead is puke.

      • PieInTheSky

        wait there is a beer with a moose on the label? Are you sure it was not a bear with antlers?

      • Rufus the Monocled

        Yes, there is. It’s Canada. /slap!

  61. Banjos

    Perfect breakfast: two eggs over easy with Louisiana hot sauce, two strips of bacon (not crispy), black coffee.

    • PieInTheSky

      Turning eggs in the pan runs unnecessary risk of breaking the yolk.

      • PieInTheSky

        Unnecessary. You get perfectly good eggs without the turn. Also poached are better.

      • Chipwooder

        Poached are a pain in the ass to make well, though.

      • UnCivilServant

        That’s why you’re supposed to steal them from someone else’s kitchen while they’re distracted.

        Otherwise they’re just improperly boiled and not poached.

      • PieInTheSky

        not really.

      • PieInTheSky

        I did in in a normal pot. It takes to most to get the water boiling, after that 3 minutes and your done.

      • UnCivilServant

        We already know you don’t eat eggs.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      two strips of bacon (not crispy)

      SACRILEGE

      • Banjos

        Crispy bacon is useless, it needs to be dripping with grease.

      • Rhywun

        Perfect bacon is on the edge between not-crispy and crispy. Basically, when the fat sets and gets crumbly.

        Remind me to stock up on bacon before it disappears.

      • UnCivilServant

        Thanks for reminding me – I have bacon in the freezer.

      • bacon-magic

        I know a guy.

      • Mojeaux

        Good idea. I still have room for a few more big packages.

      • Agent Cooper

        You have to cook it in the oven. It gets a bit of a crispy glaze and it’s melty inside.

      • Mojeaux

        Baking bacon has never worked for me. It’s just gummy.

      • bacon-magic

        400 deg 20 minutes.

      • Incentives Matter

        Some folks like it . . . rubbery.  {waggles eyebrows}

      • Chipwooder

        I’m going to sound like the prissiest baby here, but…..bacon is best just a hair shy of crispy, so it retains a bit of chewiness. Has to be just right.

    • Tejicano

      I’ve been perfecting my omelets.

      A bit of spinach mixed in the first layer topped with a little fried onion, bell pepper, and cheese before rolling it over. Rolled over three more layers of egg after that. This goes with some maple smoked bacon or sliced, fried bratwurst – variety being the key. Bread machine whole wheat toast on the side. Coffee should go without saying.

      • Sensei

        Have you gone native and added, shudder, sugar into your omelet?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Please tell me that isn’t a real thing.

      • Incentives Matter

        Tamago? Absolutely. Always mildly sweet. I don’t mind it in sushi (the vinegar in the rice plays against it pretty well), but it did surprise me the first time I tried it.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I had never considered that they would use tamago for a full omelet.

      • Tejicano

        Are you asking me if I have “STUPID” tattooed on my forehead?

    • Q Continuum

      “(not crispy)”

      I knew there was a reason I liked you.

      • Incentives Matter

        So, you like it . . . rubbery too?

        I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, considering your penchant for silicone.  ;-)

      • Q Continuum

        Silicone appropriately installed makes me anything but rubbery.

      • Incentives Matter

        Pics or it ain’t true.

    • robc

      runny eggs and runny bacon.

      Pass.

      • Banjos

        Heaven

    • R C Dean

      Mrs. Dean’s fried egg technique:

      2 eggs in a small frying pan, with a little bacon bacon grease. When the whites are, err, getting white, put in a splash of water and cover with a lid. When they are done as much as you like (she does whites fully cooked and yolks runny), they slide right out.

      Perfectly. Cooked.

      • Mojeaux

        This is exactly what I do, but I use butter because I never have bacon grease.

      • R C Dean

        When she’s tried butter, the eggs haven’t released as well. She uses a small stainless steel saute pan, like this.

      • Incentives Matter

        Try clarified butter. Changed my life. Easy to do, too. (I make batches, couple of pounds at a time; if you’re feeling lazy, you can go buy some ghee instead.)

      • R C Dean

        Why would I substitute anything for bacon grease?

      • Incentives Matter

        Hey, if you’ve always got it, you do you. Yet, different fats have different flavour profiles, and I like butter too. Variety something something spice of life.

      • Incentives Matter

        You’re in good company. There are several professional chefs who’ve let it be known that one of their “interviewing techniques” for line cooks/chefs at their restaurants is to take them into a kitchen and ask them to make eggs “sunny side up.” If they use that technique, they’re usually hired on the spot.

      • Mojeaux

        I actually got it from a short-order cook.

      • Incentives Matter

        Shmarht, very shmarht.

    • Akira

      Same thing I had, except with two slices of wholegrain toast smeared with fig-raspberry-orange-ginger jam.

      PS: For those interested in baking, the “tangzhong” water roux method results in absolutely amazing sandwich bread.

  62. wdalasio

    Here’s the thing I’ll say about Amash. I wouldn’t mind throwing my vote away (I’m in one of the states where it’s thrown away before I even step into the polling station). But, I really don’t feel like I’d be throwing my vote away for anything. I mean, if he’d come out against Trump as a fire-breathing libertarian, not willing to compromise with Trump’s statism any more than anyone else’s, that would be one thing. But, his attack on Trump was basically kissing the rear end of the deep state and permanent bureaucracy. What’s the point?

    The Libertarian party seems bound and determined to run major party has-beens as protest votes. I don’t really think that’s a winning strategy.

    • PieInTheSky

      Is there a link with a short description of what he did cause i don’t remember minor US politics stuff

      • Atanarjuat

        I don’t recall the details either, but basically he went along with all of the Russia Collusion nonsense.

      • Donation Not Taxation

        Here you go.

        freep dot COMet slash story slash news slash local slash michigan slash 2019 slash 05 slash 29 slash justin-amash-bio-donald-trump-impeachment slash 1260183001 slash

        dot = .

        slash = /

        Ignore the et of COMet

      • Donation Not Taxation

        Here you go.

        freep dot comet
        slash story slash news slash local slash michigan slash
        2019 slash 05 slash 29 slash justin-amash-bio-donald-trump-impeachment slash 1260183001 slash

        dot = .

        slash = /

        Ignore the et of COMet

    • straffinrun

      Hornberger has been really hard on Trump and yet that doesn’t stop him from railing against entrenched bureaucrats.

      • wdalasio

        If Hornberger were the candidate, I’d throw my vote away for him. As you’ve said, his criticisms of the Trump have been libertarian criticisms. I just don’t think he’s going to be the candidate. And I really don’t see the point of voting for a guy who wanted to impeach Trump because he wasn’t deferential enough to the national security apparatus.

      • leon

        If Hornberger were the candidate, I’d throw my vote away for him

        Yup, and this is something i think a lot of LP insiders forget, is that people voting for them are already primed to not having their vote count. Most LP voters are under no “Vote for the party, no matter who” mindset. If they were, they would be the kind of person voting for a major party. So why do they keep trying to run wishy washy mealy mouthed guys who will piss off much of their natural base?

    • leon

      The Libertarian party seems bound and determined to run major party has-beens as protest votes. I don’t really think that’s a winning strategy.,

      Exactly. The LP is way to focused on the Presidential race. A third party will not win the presidential until one of the other parties has gone the way of the Dodo. The benefit of the presidential race is to get the idea out that there are alternatives and they are real alternatives. Nominating washed up GOP pols just means “we say were different, but we aren’t really that different”.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        But focusing on down ticket offices doesn’t bring the media attention and cocktail party invites nearly as much.

      • leon

        True.

        This is why i’m not a member of the national party. I’ll participate in the State Party shindigs, but for now i’m not going to support the national party.

      • robc

        Many states go ballot access for 4 years after the last election? did any of them do anything with it?

        I wanted the KY LP to run 100 state rep candidates and 19 state senate candidates every 2 years. But nothing.

      • Atanarjuat

        The Presidential race has some value for the LP though. It’s a more visible platform. It’s where I first heard about Harry Browne back in the day. It’s where a lot of people became influenced by Ron Paul, though he chose a different party.

        Nominating a squishy swamp creature creates no new libertarians.

    • Q Continuum

      My problem with Amash:

      His butting heads with Trump doesn’t bother me in the slightest, it’s his enthusiastic embrace of the TOTAL STATE in his zeal to try and distinguish himself as a member of The Resistance™. The LP is such a dumpster fire anyway that it would take something special to get me to take another look at them. They remind me of a small market professional sports team trying to build a championship team by buying up has-beens rather than trying to dig up legit new players.

      I’ve repeatedly said (but I’ll say again), the path forward for small-l libertarianism is through entryism into the Pachyderms. IMO, the LP ceased to be a viable option about 4 election cycles ago.

      • wdalasio

        I would have voted for a pre-TDS Justin Amash. I liked a lot of the guy’s principles. But, post-TDS Amash seems to let hatred of Trump take priority over love of liberty.

      • Chipwooder

        I agree. The Donks are completely hopeless. The only hope for liberty is to try and drag the GOP in that direction. Probably still a futile effort, but one with at least a glimmer of a chance.

      • Gustave Lytton

        RIP Harry Browne

    • Chipwooder

      Bingo. Don’t give a damn that he hates Trump. I do give a damn that he showed a disturbing level of enthusiasm for the FBI and lack of enthusiasm for due process and civil liberties, just because OrangeManBad.

    • Drake

      His split with Trump seemed to come right when Trump’s China policy started hurting his family’s business. That isn’t going to win any votes outside die-hard libertarian circles.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      It was a metaphor for the Baltimore political system.

  63. Donation Not Taxation

    ‘Congress and Trump looking to possibly spend another $1,000,000,000,000 we do not have.’

    Why are Europe, Japan, and the United States of America still collecting non-‘negative’ taxes if their governments are just passing bill after bill of spending borrowed money?

    • Donation Not Taxation

      Is US President Donald J. Trump a hypocrite for speaking out against ‘blue states’ doing this as ‘decades of mismanagement’ but signing these things?

      • leon

        Is US President Donald J. Trump a hypocrite

        I think this is a tautology….

      • Q Continuum

        It’s been said before: Trump is basically a ’90s Democrat. It’s entirely unsurprising that he would embrace this kind of stuff. It’s instructive as to how far the Overton Window has shifted.

      • Sensei

        So much this. Politically he is probably to the left of the Clinton presidency.

    • Drake

      Seriously. Just stop collecting taxes in 2020. Probably a more efficient way to stimulate the economy while accelerating towards hyper-inflation.

    • Donation Not Taxation

      If they want to redistribute $1,000,000,000,000, get peope to voluntarily donate $1,000,000,000,000 to them to spend. Donation not taxation.

  64. The Late P Brooks

    Slipping away

    There is no political debate in the US more important right now than the fight over how the federal government should spend to help the economy recover.

    Currently, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is setting the pace of stimulus and the terms of the debate. Democrats are being baited into negotiating “victories” that consist of measures every reasonable economist agrees is necessary. Efforts to secure even those basic measures are being denounced as hostage-taking, and Democrats in the House, forever attendant to their skittish purple-district “moderates,” have proven typically easy to scare. “We’re terrified that we’ll look like obstructionists,” one Democratic Senate aide told Politico reporter Michael Grunwald.

    The fear, like most Democratic fears, is overblown. There is an enormous amount of bluffing going on among Republicans, who need stimulus measures just as much as Democrats. Sooner or later, if Democrats don’t want to get steamrolled, played, and blamed for the next six months, they are going to have to call some of those bluffs.

    ——-

    Think back to the debt ceiling fight of 2011. Raising the debt ceiling was also something every independent analyst agreed was necessary to keep the economy healthy. But Republicans framed it as a Democratic ask, something for which they could extract enormous concessions. They were entirely willing to gamble with the economy.

    With each successive stimulus bill in the coronavirus crisis, there will be a little less fear and urgency within the GOP caucus and Democrats will have a little less leverage. Republicans dragging their feet, treating obvious necessities as concessions, prevents any true progressive priorities — expanded health care, paid sick leave, higher wages, green infrastructure investment, postal banking — from entering the conversation. Republicans define the playing field, and Democrats dutifully play on it.

    ——-

    When Democrats pushed for state aid and McConnell suggested that it was a “blue state bailout,” an attempt to rescue fiscally irresponsible blue-state governors who had let their pension obligations get too large, he knew full well that it was bullshit. There is no moral hazard in a pandemic. There’s no point means testing states. It’s not a reward to states to bolster their budgets when consumers are literally being told by the government to stay home. It’s one reason the federal government exists.

    Evul genius Mitch is gaslighting those poor Democrats, and they’re too noble and kindly to fight back.

    Also- The federal government exists to bail out the states (because state balanced budget laws are totally unfair and probably racist).

    • wdalasio

      I’ve said it before. I almost wish the McConnell or Trump would offer to let them have their bailouts. On the condition that the participating states’ budgetary process would be delegated to a federally appointed administrator. As much as I don’t like the idea of bailouts or the federal government taking over the states’ budgets, the sheer pants-shitting from the usual suspects might be enough to justify it.

      • R C Dean

        State bailouts should be allowed only if the state reverts to territorial status. After it has shown it can be a full-fledged adult state again, it can be readmitted to the United State. The need for a bailout is prima facie proof that the current government of the state is incapable of meeting its most basic duties.

    • RAHeinlein

      Pelosi is certainly making the rounds talking about a “heroes” bailout for state and local. She’s on Squawk now – treated with absolute reverence and no real questions. According to Nancy, polls say Americans are 7:1 against reopening.

      • leon

        Abolition was a minority opinion too, i guess slavery was ok until 50% of the people were against it…

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      Call me old-fashioned, but the whole finger in the ass thing ain’t my cup o’ tea.

      • PieInTheSky

        have you tried it?

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        About thirty years ago, there was an attempt by a girlfriend.

      • PieInTheSky

        well did she know what she was doing? You need a professional. Two, actually. One to suck your dick the other to expertly finger your ass.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        I’m a simple man. I have a penis. I like to stick it in appropriate receptacles. It makes me happy.

        I don’t need that other stuff.

      • Q Continuum

        Are you expected to enema beforehand? Asking for a friend…

      • PieInTheSky

        off course not.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        I haven’t cum that hard since my last visit to the proctologist (will never be something you’ll hear me say).

      • KSuellington

        Wait a second, I thought the finger in the ass was the old-fashioned way?

    • PieInTheSky

      Blended Orgasm or whole body orgasm It’s not as difficult as you might imagine. A blended orgasm is essentially when you climax while several areas of your body are being stimulated simultaneously. For instance, if your partner is playing with your nipples, clitoris or G-spot all at once and you orgasm as a result, but are unsure which area is responsible for the delicious feeling. – ehm wait what?

      • Not Adahn

        Males can have clitori and G-spots too you bigot!

      • PieInTheSky

        and G-spots – yes me and Scruffy are debating that very point

      • Pope Jimbo

        Is a male g-spot, some sort of some sort of sticker a guy wears on his dick to show off? Sort of like women wear g-strings to show off?

        So, so, so NSFW

        Also maybe one of the stupidest products I’ve ever seen.

      • Q Continuum

        What exactly is that product supposed to accomplish?

      • Q Continuum

        SOME MEN HAVE A CLITORIS PIE

        MY GENDER STUDIES PROF DUN TOLD ME

  65. Mojeaux

    The Kung Flu Shutdown has been good for me and my family collectively. That does NOT mean I would have wanted this to happen or would ever have thought, “This is right and proper”. My friends are being affected and I knew from the outset that this would devastate everyone and that our “good” fortune from it will wane. I do not enjoy this. I would rather we had suffered along as per usual than for this to happen. But there is one thing in particular that has been absolutely fabulous.

    People have noted that I talk about my kids a lot and most of the time not well.

    The best thing that has happened with the shutdown is that my kids are not in school and XY is largely forbidden the internet. He’s self-motivated, so virtual school is not a problem (except for art; he hates art; they put him in art because his other elective choices were taken; I don’t care about his art grade, just that he turns in his work). The positive change in XY from not being around the SJW drama at school and not being exposed to the SJW drama online is incalculable and unknowable. He doesn’t want to be homeschooled (and I don’t think I could do it anyway), but his not being around drama princes and princesses IRL and online has turned him around almost completely, and the habits he has that drive me nucking futs are things I hate most about myself. I cannot wait until he can legally get a job because that will work off some of his excess energy. In short, for XY, I dread fall.

    XX is working full time at Walmart and loving it. She doesn’t want for much in life and Walmart suits her personality. She has a self-awareness about her that I never had and that she has it this young is a blessing. I envy (yes, I’m evil) that and I’m happy for her. She doesn’t like not being in school because she needs the structure and I can’t provide that for her. She’s going to trade school this coming fall, in IT. She is not a drama princess and doesn’t like drama. The SJW bullshit in school annoys and disgusts her, so she’s not taken in and she doesn’t have time or room in her brain for the bullshit. She wants to continue to work full time and won’t be able to once school starts, because none of the SJW bullshit is not welcome in the workplace. It’s no-nonsense, the rules are short and simple, and she finds joy in labor. She is also very much in love with that Filthy Lucre fellow. If she didn’t have the trade school opportunity, though, I’d just have her graduate early and let her work and stretch her wings.

    Our house is fairly peaceful right now, but I still wish none of this had happened. I’d rather deal with the same-old-same-old than watch my friends’ lives devastated and, further, that the people who caused this try to continue it with either malice or stupidity.

    • PieInTheSky

      silver lining and all that

      • Mojeaux

        Or mercury. LOL

    • Q Continuum

      Just admit it: you’ve been getting laid a lot more too.

      • Mojeaux

        I told you that in confidence!

    • Tejicano

      “…not being exposed to the SJW drama online is incalculable and unknowable…”

      My guess, possibly Jordan Peterson has a clue about this?

      • Mojeaux

        Likely. I’ve listened to a lot of him.

      • Tejicano

        If either of my boys end up going to the US to study or for any other long term purpose I believe I will have to prepare them to withstand the mindset – and it seems Mr. Peterson will be a big part of that.

        I have been reading your comments about XY and seeing similar (in some ways) issues with my firstborn. He’s still 11 so I hope/believe there is still time. I have been praying for you – and him.

      • Mojeaux

        Thank you so much. It’s appreciated more than you know.

        He’s been medicated since he was 4 or 5. He does not like how he feels withOUT them, out of control of himself, scattered, frantic and frazzled.

        Our mistake was not getting him into counseling much sooner. I mistook his medicated calm self for a lack of other issues that required counseling.

        I would suggest getting him into see a counselor sooner than later, if they do that there.

      • R C Dean

        Has he noticed the change? Is he likely to start self-filtering the SJW crap out of his head?

      • Mojeaux

        I don’t know. He plays his cards close to his chest.

        He is also in therapy and we were lucky to get one that clicked right off the bat. DEFINITELY helping.

    • PieInTheSky

      only because it is evil for profit capitalist. If it was state owned there would be no cuts.

    • Q Continuum

      Feature not bug. It provides adequate justification for a government takeover.

      “SEE LIBERTARDS THE FREE MARKET FAILED AND OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IS IN SHAMBLES! ONLY UNCLE SAM CAN FIX IT!”

      • PieInTheSky

        thats what i said

      • Q Continuum

        The correct joke is “That’s what *she* said”.

      • PieInTheSky

        AOC?

      • Q Continuum

        Gesundheit.

    • AlexinCT

      Feature if you want government controlled healthcare so we can then have a system where people perish at the same rate they do in the nations with socialized healthcare…

    • RAHeinlein

      This story has it wrong – Mayo wasn’t planning to furlough anyone until Pence showed-up without a mask.

    • R C Dean

      As I have started to say “The governor is burning the healthcare system in order to save it.”

  66. Donation Not Taxation

    Where are the time traveling activists protesting ‘No Taxation Without Representation’?

    • Shirley Knott

      They couldn’t afford time machines because of the debt load.

      • Donation Not Taxation

        *golf clap* + LOL

      • PieInTheSky

        Lol

      • RAHeinlein

        This is why there is no hope for race relations – white people don’t grok POC names.

      • Scruffy Nerfherder

        Ok Chadwick

    • Chipwooder

      Hey, it could happen. Andy Beshear, being the cunt that he is, got himself in some hot water by bitching that people are sending in bogus unemployment applications and specifically citing an application bearing the name Tupac Shakur……only there is actually a guy named Tupac Shakur who lives in Kentucky, is out of work, and was none too pleased to be mocked by the governor.

      • Chipwooder

        Well, shit, I guess I should refresh the page more often.

    • Agent Cooper

      I’ll allow it.

  67. Donation Not Taxation

    ‘You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.’ — Rahm Emanuel

    How can CCP flu lead to a libertarian candidate for the Libertarian Party?

      • Donation Not Taxation

        Used Rahm Emanuel version because wanted include second part. The part used by ‘dreamy’ not original to Rahm Emanuel.
        ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste.’ — Winston Churchill

  68. KSuellington

    |Amash launches exploratory committee for Libertarian presidential run.

    The LP has been around for what, about half a century now? And they still haven’t gotten one fucking person elected to Congress? I’m too lazy to look it up, but have they even gotten more than 1 or 2 into state legislatures? I don’t think so. I was a registered L for 8 years or so, but after the GayJo/Weld fiasco I switched to independent. What a useless fucking organization.

    • PieInTheSky

      The problem is that not every libertarian in the US moved to new Hampshire to take over the place.

      • KSuellington

        Heh, too cold and too East Coast.

      • Q Continuum

        Pretty much this. I always thought Wyoming would have been a better choice for the FSP anyway. More naturally receptive, more space and prettier (IMO).

        I might have participated if it were there.

      • KSuellington

        Yeah, a couple hundred libertarians there would be about half the population. It’s on my list of places to consider when we flee Caliunicornia. I’ve never visited yet, but it does seem to have the “mind your own damn business” mentality going for it.

      • Tundra

        I love it, but the plains can be kind of aggressive, weather-wise.

      • Mojeaux

        Only *certain parts* of Wyoming are prettier: The Yellowstone part.

        Nothing along I-80 is pretty.

      • Q Continuum

        Green River is an unbleached butthole, but I like Laramie and Cheyenne…

      • Mojeaux

        Generally, it’s a little too stark for my tastes. Also, winters. Not a fan of snow on the 4th of July.

      • Donation Not Taxation

        Speaking of Green River, Washington State Supreme Court came close (5 against, 4 for) voting allow Green River killer (71 known victims, possible additional) out because Chop Flu-ie in prison. H/T RC Dean

      • Tejicano

        “Not a fan of snow on the 4th of July.”

        I guess I have enough northern blood that this only intrigues me. Personally, I could deal with it.

        The down side is that I know I’d be lucky if my wife left a card informing me when she left. She would have an easier time dealing with the poisonous vermin/reptiles/bugs of Australia than to live anywhere that snow could accumulate for more than a week.

      • Drake

        The Delaware Water Gap is nice.

      • Nephilium

        The Cuyahoga Valley National Park would like a word.

      • Certified Public Asshat

        And no one wants Darryl Perry.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      His employer is the one to blame. They implicitly condone his rhetoric by keeping him on the faculty.

    • Chipwooder

      He really should just go the extra mile and start wearing the nose and the floppy red shoes.

    • SDF-7

      Wow… those comments are a cess pool…

    • leon

      Whiteness is a shared conglomeration of fabricated meanings and ideas about biologically insignificant human differences. Whiteness only exists in relation or opposition to blackness and other fictitious racial categories created by whiteness adherents for the purpose of cementing a higher status and material advantage over other people that are excluded from being white.

      By his own comments this guys sounds like a whiteness adherent…

  69. The Late P Brooks

    Oh, those daffy yokels

    Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem had an impromptu parade thrown in her honor on Tuesday in the capitol city of Pierre. A local construction company organized the parade to show appreciation for her handling of the coronavirus epidemic.

    Noem, the state’s first female governor, was one of a handful of governors not to issue an order shuttering non-essential businesses during the ongoing epidemic.

    The parade, organized by John Morris of Morris Inc. construction company, featured “literally hundreds of cars,” fire trucks and other vehicles honking their horns and sirens while Noem watched, apparently surprised, from a local park.

    Governor Noem shared video of the event on her Twitter account along with the words, “I am so blessed to serve the people of the great State of South Dakota. You folks made my day!”

    So crazy. She’s literally murdering them by not aping those great scientists and statesmen Andy Cuomo and Gavin Newsom, and they thank her. Sad.

    • wdalasio

      For added benefit, she’s not exactly hard on the eyes.

    • R C Dean

      Trump should shake up his ticket by making her the VP. Make Pence the SecState or something.

      If he did that, I might vote for him with a little enthusiasm.

      • Q Continuum

        I wonder if he asked Tulsi if she’d say yes…

      • R C Dean

        That would make me less likely to vote for him, since I disagree with her on just about everything short of the water’s edge.

      • robc

        Although I would be amused if Biden picked Tulsi.

      • KSuellington

        Absolutely a good idea for him. If he did it a few weeks before Biden announced his Female VP pick it would really take the sails out from Team Blue. He could have endless Twitter material of how the Dems were finally catching up to the modern era.

  70. Q Continuum

    If there’s one good think that could come out of this it would be the shuttering of small colleges that contribute nothing except SJW ideology.

    https://campusreform.org/?ID=14792

    Let’s hope they don’t get bailed out.

    • leon

      “It’s incredibly ironic that this is really the first class that’s been affected by that change,” Gregory Eichorn, the University of New Haven Vice President for Enrollment and Student Success said of the rule changes.

      I fail to see the irony.

      • SUPREME OVERLORD trshmnstr

        I’m guessing the irony is that the colleges are taking advantage of the newly removed restrictions. Irony is a stretch

    • wdalasio

      What does he know. He was only the department head of the Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design department at The Rockefeller University for 20 years. Is he nurse? Has his video gone viral on Tik-Tok? I didn’t think so.

    • Tundra

      I think people in the United States and maybe other countries as well are more docile than they should be. People should talk with their politicians, question them, ask them to explain, because if people don’t stand up to their rights, their rights will be forgotten. I’m Knut Wittkowski. I was at the Rockefeller University, I have been an epidemiologist for 35 years, and I have been modeling epidemics for 35 years. It’s a pleasure to have the ability to help people to understand, but it’s a struggle to get heard.

      We suck.

    • R C Dean

      Social distancing or “lockdowns” can be effective during the month following the peak incidence in infections, when the exponential increase of cases ends. Earlier containment of low-risk people merely prolongs the time the virus needs to circulate until the incidence is high enough to initiate “herd immunity”. Later containment is not helpful, unless to prevent a rebound if containment started too early.

      I would have thought the lockdowns would be more effective before peak incidence. Once the circulation of the virus has peaked, I’m not sure what a lockdown is supposed to accomplish. Caveat: only read the abstract, will try to get to the body later if time permits.

      • R C Dean

        Reading the body of the interview, he says:

        So, both in China and in South Korea, social distancing started only long after the number of infections had already started to decline, and therefore had very little impact on the epidemic. That means they had already reached herd immunity or were about to reach herd immunity. They were very close. But by installing the social distancing, they prevented it to actually getting to the final point, and this is why we are still seeing new cases in South Korea, several weeks after the peak.

        Which seems inconsistent with the abstract, unless i am missing something.

  71. The Late P Brooks

    Nothing along I-80 is pretty.

    It’s like driving through an immense dirty ashtray.

    • leon

      Huh… That sounds like I-40 in New Mexico.

      • mrfamous

        I agree on I-40, but what’s interesting to me is that the scenery on I-25 is actually quite interesting if not conventionally ‘pretty.’ In any event, going from Phoenix to Albuquerque/Santa Fe, you can avoid the interstates altogether until Grants, and it only costs you about 50 minutes of travel time. And it’s a great option if you like to do ‘scenic routes.’

    • LJW

      If you’re going through Iowa and Nebraska I agree. Never driven I-80 but I have driven I-29 and it’s my least favorite drive

    • Agent Cooper

      Pennsylvania mountains aren’t awful.

  72. Donation Not Taxation

    ‘And what a beautiful morning it is as 25% of New York City residents now have Coronavirus antibodies.’

    Hypothetically, assume 328 000 000 population United States. Assume 25 percent antibodies no vaccine. 82 000 000. Assume fatality rate hypothetical virus 9.5% of 1% . Feel free debate if comparable standard flu strains. Deaths 77 900.

    Deaths Wuhan flu 58 365 United States according 28 April Johns Hopkins

    • R C Dean

      Flu case fatality rate is typically around 1 in 1,000 (0.1%), although this is an estimate since many (the majority?) of flu cases are never tested or even result in an encounter with the health care system.

      At a 20% infection rate (I think NY probably has a higher infection rate) to date, a 0.1% case fatality rate would mean 65,600 deaths to date.

      Which is very close to what the Oxford Institute of Evidence Based Medicine predicted way back in, I think, early March.

      So, I still don’t think its more of a killer than the flu. That said, a new virus in a population with little pre-existing immunity (and its still an open issue, I believe, whether immunity to run-of-the-mill coronaviruses might help with this one) is going to be worse than the flu, because there’s a fair amount of pre-existing immunity, and even the flu vaccines help (our ID doc tells me the flu vaccine probably won’t keep many people from catching the flu, but it helps keep people from dying of the flu). So, some precautions were in order (travel bans, safeguarding of vulnerable populations).

      • Donation Not Taxation

        Different assumptions -> different outcomes. 0.1% = 10% of 1%. 9.5% of 1% close.

      • Agent Cooper

        My March prediction was 62,500. We will eclipse that but we must remember that the death statistics may be padded.

  73. The Late P Brooks

    Staunch

    Former Republican Sen. Jeff Flake says a “sound defeat” of President Donald Trump in November’s election would be better long term for the Republican Party, adding that he would be comfortable voting for a Democrat instead of his own party’s standard bearer.
    Flake, a longtime Trump critic who has before argued that the Republican Party should not support Trump in the 2020 election, was asked about the future of the GOP in an interview with The Washington Post.

    He’s like a libertarian, isn’t he? Such principled.

    • Q Continuum

      Flake was a fucking joke from the beginning.

      I really don’t understand what the problem is with Arizona’s senators.

      • leon

        Arizona? i thought he was Colorado.

    • R C Dean

      he would be comfortable voting for a Democrat instead of his own party’s standard bearer

      Surprising exactly no one.

    • leon

      The GOP deserves to be relegated to the absolute obscurity of history. My solace is that in 500 years they will be a historical footnote, known only to eggheads who find the political squabbles of Americana of interest.