April 5, 2020

At the Photographer's Café...

364D1512-C903-4EE8-9746-D6AE95A83114_1_201_a

... don't miss your shot.

Lots of folks with cameras at the lakeside today. And one of them fell in the lake. The air temperature was 35°, and I don't know what the water temperature was, but he'd clambered out onto a rock, and he slipped and splashed all the way in. Don't worry. He got out. And he didn't even say, "I'm cold." It's Wisconsin! And the Wisconsin thing to say when you fall into an ice-cold lake is, I can report: "That rock was slippery."

108 comments:

stevew said...

Hmmm, they seem rather close together, per today's preferred standard.

Still love those colors. The "folks" look like silhouettes, might as well be cardboard cutouts.

JZ said...

Gird your loins, folks. I think we're in for a rough week.

Dave Begley said...

This week the cases and deaths will stop growing outside a few hot spots.

Trump starts to condition people into thinking about opening up again. We open up in two weeks. This is madness.

YoungHegelian said...

For a liturgically empty Palm Sunday. One of G. Gabrieli's best.

Sing along, kidz!

Seriously, I'm using Dropbox because YouTube has deleted all the good performances of this piece. The classical labels are such dicks about pulling their copyrighted stuff off of YouTube. It's free advertising, guys! I'm bought many CDs of classic rock from my misspent youth because of recordings I've found posted on YouTube.

walter said...

Those two in center are not social distancing!!!!!!

Mark said...

April 16 expected to be the U.S. peak at 2644 deaths per day.

https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

I spent over two hours at the sporting goods store today so I could buy my second shotgun. I purchased it online, stood in line for 75 minutes to enter the store -- they were controlling access and were only taking two gun customers at a time -- then waited another hour for paperwork and background check. It was a surreal experience. The store had a skeleton crew working, signs up everywhere about social distancing, and most of the people in the line with me had bandanas over their faces, some of them those creepy ones that look like skulls designed for motorcyclists. No handgun ammo was available, not that I was buying that, but everyone was asking for it. The other woman at the counter was buying a handgun for personal protection.

The kid who helped me said they were teetering on the edge of closing for good.

The grocery store is getting more and more stringent about people coming in, so I really don't want to be inside the store if I can help it (although I am not afraid of it) and the soonest available curbside/delivery/etc appt is this coming Saturday. I have stuff in the house so we can manage, but it's still weird and scary. Still having to line up 2 hours before opening to get paper goods.

Neighborhood FB and Nextdoor are full of spies and Gestapo. Nosy, bossy Nellies judging everyone instead of asking how they can help.

I'm not sure I want to rejoin this society anymore when this is all over. Which is kind of ironic. It took being forcibly separated to demonstrate to me that a large segment of the people in my community, I don't want to have anything to do with anyway.

rcocean said...

Wonderful photo. Another great press conference by the Trump and his team. The reporters get stupider and more obnoxious every day. One kept screeching at Trump "you're not a doctor, why do you keep bringing up Hydroxychloroquine!!!!" after Trump told him for the 126th time that he is trying to bring people hope and we'll lose nothing by trying it, another reporter asked the medical team if they agreed with Trump, again for the 127th time.

The idea is to present Trump as some c-r-a-z-y man who thinks he's a Doctor and is going against SCIENCE! What left-wing fools. 90% of the questions are either stupid, repeats of previous questions, or Gotcha questions designed to make trump look bad.

We need to get a new Press. This one stinks like shit, and is run by the DNC.

rcocean said...

everyone practicing social distancing here. Only problem I've noticed, and I've seen this 4 times in the last two days, is middle-aged women parking themselves on either side of a grocery aisle or a hiking trail or some other chokepoint, and chatting ACROSS the aisle or Trail -thereby forcing people to walk through their gauntlet of talk and possible virus spreading jabber. I doubt its malice, more like stupidity and thoughtlessness.

rcocean said...

Per the task force briefing 38 states are doing just fine, and the growth of hospitalizations is slowing down in NYC-NJ and New Orleans, deaths will continue to climb since its a lagging indicator. BTW, Someone asked Dr. Fauci why he wasn't wearing a mask, and he stated that he's been tested negative, so there's no reason to wear one. Trump said "Good answer". Again, another fucking "Gotcha" question of no value.

Bay Area Guy said...

@Pants,

"I'm not sure I want to rejoin this society anymore when this is all over."

Stay strong, Pants! This is a very tough test for everyone - even the well off. Lotta stress. Lotta confusion. Yes, some folks buckle and flunk the test or simply capitulate. But suggest you focus on the folks in your community who are standing tall, even if they can't quite grapple with the complexities of the issues. Think Gary Cooper in High Noon.

Cheers!

bagoh20 said...

Drained my pool this week, fixed a long-standing leak, and currently refilling it. It takes 48 hours with the garden hose wide open. The visiting ducks in my pond laid an egg today, and then ignored it. Not sure what that means, but they are supposed to lay another egg every day for about a week. We'll see.

Kyzer SoSay said...

He didn't slip. He momentarily succumbed to the WuhuFlu. Luckily the cold shock snapped him out of it. If this happened in Miami, he'd be a dead man.

Derve Swanson said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Kevin said...

but he'd clambered out onto a rock, and he slipped and splashed all the way in. Don't worry. He got out. And he didn't even say, "I'm cold." It's Wisconsin!

Falling in a cold lake without complaining.

Maybe that's one of those Wisconsiny things the Dems have planned if they make it to Milwaukee.

Big Mike said...

"That rock was slippery."

Duh! Until you said that, Captain Obvious, we assumed you jumped into an ice cold lake with air temperatures barely above freezing because it seemed like the smart thing to do.

Kyzer SoSay said...

"Neighborhood FB and Nextdoor are full of spies and Gestapo. Nosy, bossy Nellies judging everyone instead of asking how they can help."

Fortunately, not my neighborhood. I spent most of the day outside doing yardwork and some car maintenance. Talked with my neighbors on both sides and some from across the street that I rarely see (and can never recall their names). Seemed like the whole community was out on their porches and lawns, complete with kids chasing dogs around, a few sporadic firefights with Nerf guns, and the sound of cranking engines. One neighbor is a car guy like me, and just picked up a beater truck to use hauling firewood. Let's just say the truck needs some work.

One of my neighbors was talking to me over my fence, and I approached him and asked, "So are we doing this 'social distancing' bullshit?" He shook his head and said, "Hell no, this shit doesn't scare me." So I walked right up, shook his hand, and we caught up on stuff for awhile.

Got my lawnmower started for the first time this year. One pull with the deadman switch open to circulate some oil in the crankcase, and then two primer pumps and a second pull with the deadman switch engaged and she started right up. There is an art to keeping small engines running like new, and at least in my neck of the woods, that makes me Picasso. This mower is 15 years old and still runs like it was new. My F.I.L bought it used to give to my wife a year before I met her, and when I used it the first time it ran like shit. My wife shrugged and told me she wanted to buy a new one eventually. I shook my head and told her, "No need, watch and learn." I got done with the lawns, let it cool down, tore into the motor, and for the last 7 years the mower runs like a champion.

PS - if you have a gas-powered mower and you're NOT using Seafoam every few tanks to keep it clean, you need to start. One of my favorite tricks is to add some into the crankcase oil, run the mower for about 20 minutes, then change the oil. I do this every 2 seasons, and it works like a charm. All the bad sludge comes out with the old oil, and with a borescope camera you can see the inside of the engine looking almost factory clean.

Sebastian said...

From Gatewaypundit, linked by Bay Area Guy in the other thread:

The current government predictions reported by Covid Tracking (https://covidtracking.com/data/ ) for Apr 5th show:

– All beds needed: 179,267
– ICU beds needed: 33,176
– Invasive ventilators: 26,544

– Actual hospitalizations: 22,158
– In ICU: 5,207
– On ventilator: 656

- Overestimation of hospitalizations: 8 times
- Overestimation of of ICU beds needed: 6.4 times
- Overestimation of ventilators needed: 40.5 times

Big Mike said...

@walter, first of all the two people in the center are not facing each other so may not know they are too close. Second, depending on perspective and relative heights they might be six feet apart anyway.

narciso said...

one of these

Ken B said...

Sebastian
Click through to the sources and look at the hospitalization numbers. About half the states are listed as N/A. In other words, not available. Big states and infected states like Illinois, Louisiana, Ohio, Michigan are not in that 22,158. They are not being counted.

That number is bogus. Fake news.

walter said...

I was aware of both those points, Big Mike.
Twas a joke.

FullMoon said...


Blogger Kyzer SoSay said...

".........Seafoam"

....................
Ya gotta check this guy, Seafoam the engine, then disassemble to check results. Beware, his vido tests are addicting. Spent half an hour the other day watching him test drill bit sharpeners.



Project Farm Seafoam

Shouting Thomas said...

My life is very good at this moment.

Almost makes me feel guilty.

Narr said...

It has been warm enough the last few days to sit on the back patio and listen to music in the afternoon.

I played (CD) Handel's "Hark! 'tis the Linnet and the Thrush" yesterday and they loved it. Today's favorite was Franck's Sonata for Violin and Piano.

We'll work our way forward . . . eventually The Pines of Rome!

Narr
Nightingales, y'all

bagoh20 said...

It's currently 71 degrees here in Vegas. Very nice these days. Mildest time of year. Just walked the dogs around the neighborhood, and it's a summer breeze, makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my miiiiiind.

I have nice neighborhood. Good people, laissez faire attitudes (that's french for "cool") and no homeowners association, which is English for dickhead cult.

bagoh20 said...

"That number is bogus. Fake news."

But by those multiples? We'll see.

RK said...

My model strongly suggests we'll be back to work by May 1.

narciso said...

something completely different

Charlie Currie said...

Just saw on Instapundit that Italy has gone all Opra – you get hydroxychloroquine, you get hydroxychloroquine, you get hydroxychloroquine, you get hydroxychloroquine, everyone gets hydroxychloroquine!

Michael K said...

Nice day today in Tucson. 83 degrees and light traffic. We drove around for an hour. The Pima County air museum is closed. Too bad. It is out in the open air. I didn't check the shooting range but am sure it is closed. It would be a nice day to go there. Too bad the Governor caved to the leftist Mayors.

Ken B said...

Bagoh20
I don’t mean the multiples. I mean the alleged count for hospitalization, 22158. It leaves out half the country. It’s a bogus claim.
I did not check any others.

Michael K said...

Trump starts to condition people into thinking about opening up again. We open up in two weeks. This is madness.

He will be attacked by the usual insane suspects. I see Tucson Daily Star readers attacking even the idea of hydroxychloroquine.

They are all internet epidemiologists

bagoh20 said...

Nationwide, a nice drop in new deaths today, and a huge drop in cases. Palm Sunday.

walter said...

Charlie Currie,
"Trump Cultists" in Italy!
Only America First Trump could make a French discovery uncool.
Stupid Trump!

bagoh20 said...

Locally in the state of Nevada, after hitting a high of 10 deaths in one day earlier this week, we have had only 3 over the last three days, and none today. Pardon me, but I just love good news.

walter said...

(Keep Hope Denied, bien sur)

Susan in Seattle said...

Cold water swimming with a side of photography. Hope he had an OtterBox for his camera.

narciso said...

Hes sounding as insane as the description of cats or tiger king, which is just bonkrts

walter said...

I mean, Raoult looks like he might have gone to Burning Man.

Big Mike said...

@walter, oops

narciso said...

Yes he looks like a french brent spiner in independence day, but hes getting results.

mockturtle said...

That's a very good photo. The silhouettes of the people add interest and perspective.

Drago said...

Dave Begley: "This week the cases and deaths will stop growing outside a few hot spots.

Trump starts to condition people into thinking about opening up again. We open up in two weeks. This is madness."

Can you believe how many of these Trump critics now want to shut down restaurant deliveries AND grocery stores indefinitely?

I mean, I thought they were all too busy rewriting recent history to have the time to come up with even more insane ideas, but nope. They are somehow squeezing them in.

Mark said...

So this was posted by a commenter on a local site that is infested with progressives:

How do commenters feel about anti-gay groups such as Franklin Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse setting up hospitals to help with Covid 19? I am conflicted...it isn’t quite the same as boycotting Chik fil a or Hobby Lobby but still...Any port in a storm? Or not?. . . . would you really want to be treated by someone who wants you to burn in hell?

There ARE those who value their irrational hate and bigotry over saving lives and saving society.

MartyH said...

You can probably find data for your state by poking around.

Cali's data is here: https://data.chhs.ca.gov/

Louisiana's is here: http://ldh.la.gov/Coronavirus/

CA shows a slight uptick in Covid hospitalizations (+18) and ICU bed usage (+5) from the 3rd to the 4th.

Louisiana's page has graphics showing beds, ICU beds, and ventilators used as well as capacity for each.

narciso said...

Check for brain slugs, you cant fix that level of delusional rage.

bagoh20 said...

And they don't want you to burn in hell, but are you sure you don't want them to.

bagoh20 said...

Wikipedia seems to have an entry for every state. Some are better than others. For example the one for Nevada is under "2020 coronavirus pandemic in Nevada".

narciso said...

Check what they edited out in the talk sections, la county is way ahead of the state about 6/1 over everywhere else

Lewis Wetzel said...

I don't understand the gun buying thing. At least not after the first one. I have two handguns, a .22 Ruger mk V, and a Philipines-made 1911. I have 100 rounds of match for the Ruger & 50 rounds of range .45 ACP for the 1911. It is difficult to imagine the circumstances under which having another fifty or hundred rounds of either would save my life.
It would be revealing (but sad) if a lot people used their $1200 stimulus checks to buy guns and ammo.

wildswan said...

Attended Palm Sunday Mass at my actual Wisconsin church online though I'm still in New Hampshire. It was a powerful experience, strange but not strange. I've heard that Mass at least sixty times and notice different aspects at different times. Thus time I really understood that someone laid down his life for all of us. It was clear and new because there's people around me taking that risk. We'll never really be able to thank those who kept on working, especially in hospitals but also grocery stores. Also the President. Dr. Birx who is having her life threatened. Dr Fauci.

bagoh20 said...

We are being told by the experts that the next two weeks will be bad. I would naturally expect that too, except the experts have had such a bad record over my lifetime that their warning makes me very optimistic that we are at or past the peak. Seriously, think about all the warnings and advice of experts you have read or heard in your lifetime. Do you think they were usually right or usually wrong?

mockturtle said...

One good thing about the coronavirus is that it has kept ANTIFA off the streets.

Ken B said...

“ There ARE those who value their irrational hate and bigotry over saving lives and saving society.”

We saw that with the hate-on for the Salvation Army.

Francisco D said...

One good thing about the coronavirus is that it has kept ANTIFA off the streets.

Are they jealous of other people's masks?

Envy is such a negative emotion.

Jimmy said...

@bagoh20- agree that the so called experts are not just occasionally wrong, but almost always wrong. Pick a topic, peak oil, climate change, politics, and this virus.
Hopefully people will begin to realize that the government and the MSM is comprised of experts who don't know what the hell they are talking about.
the sooner we stop listening to the alphabet agencies, and start demanding that they be gutted, the better off we will be.

traditionalguy said...

The President sure seems confident. Wonder what he has planned next. The big ships are docked and ready to receive whatever is sent to them. The military “ medics “are ready to handle it. The Navy are sailing warships around in the Gulf. And the whole country is safe sheltering in place.

stephen cooper said...

wildswan - I am a member of the VFW. Nobody cares, trust me.

Trust me, nobody ever goes out of their way to thank me for the small efforts and sacrifices I made all those years ago. Well, maybe once every couple of years. If I am lucky. I don't mind, the way I look at it ---

you get married and raise kids with kindness in your heart, there is no way the kids will ever thank you enough.

or if you treat your parents well when they are old, there is no way your parents will ever thank you enough.

look, if any health care worker reading this wants to quit today, I am fine with that, not that you should care if I am fine with it or not.

Anyone who lives a half-way decent life should not expect thanks from other people. That is not what people are about.

The way I look at it, if i am walking down the street and I see a few people, I Figure every one of them who looks like a decent person to me has been a hero to someone at some point.

Well that is easy for me, I have known lots of very bad people, and sometimes I kid myself that if someone were a bad person, I could see it in their face, that I could see they are not a decent person.

Well of course I can't, the gift of reading hearts is a rare gift and not a gift I Have or even a gift I have ever asked for.

But let me say this,

... if any health care worker is reading this tonight and thinks they want to quit tonight, well, God bless you, go ahead and quit.

Trust me, if you don't quit, years from now you are not going to have people stopping you on the street and thanking you for not quitting.

no matter what you did when you were young.

And if you do quit there will be plenty of other opportunities to be important to other people.

Mark said...

Do we still have people insisting that everyone will get it?

Mark said...

With the implication that everyone will get it this year/season?

(and not over a period of several years)

Mark said...

According to worldometers, there have been 15.5 million deaths in the world so far this year. About 70,000 are attributed to coronavirus.

PluralThumb said...

A person passed me and stuck their whole arm out to signal social distancing. Not sure if knuckles were implied, so I refrained from giving a fist bump.

mockturtle said...

An article in The Korea Times reports that research in Australia shows the anti-parasitic Ivermectin can kill COVID-19, at least in the lab.
Link

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Thanks, BAG. It was just depressing - tonight hubs, who serves on our church's board of directors, had a Zoom meeting to discuss moving money around to cover staff paychecks because offerings are basically zero with no services (we mailed ours in but most are not). One of the other board members lives in our neighborhood and went off on a rant about how people shouldn't even be out walking and shouldn't leave their houses and she's going to start yelling at them out her window when she sees them walking by. How can I continue to be friends with someone so aggressively stupid and evil with such horrible judgement? I didn't really care for her before to be honest but this crisis has revealed that she's actually a hideous person.

I mean, who cares, really--our CV motto has been 'shit's fucked up, yo, but we can still choose our attitude and we still choose to define our reality'--and most people honestly are NPCs, even people we go to church with. But it was easy to pretend otherwise, before, I guess.

narciso said...

this cant exist in nature cam it

stephen cooper said...

Many of the saints were deeply flawed human beings.

Remember, the 12 apostles at the Last Supper all had such a low opinion of each other that not a single one of them guessed that only Judas had been successfully tempted.

This plague is toughest on childless women, and God forgives them for getting hysterical.

john in east van, help! said...

Maybe Mike K can take a look at this post on Small Dead Animals (Kate McMillan).
No idea about the medical proprieties but hope springs eternal.

/Users/johnhawthorne/Documents/Wuhan Flu: “This is a completely new disease” – Small Dead Animals.pdf

Thanks for your very interesting site,

John

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

This plague is toughest on childless women, and God forgives them for getting hysterical.

Not sure if this is directed at me, but my hystericus has earned its keep. I have delivered five healthy babies and adopted one.

stephen cooper said...

No not directed at you at all , directed at that crazy woman on the parish council you were talking about who was ranting about social distancing and her belief that she had any right to tell people that they could not walk a daily walk on God's good earth

Not directed at you at all, and God bless you for taking care of those six children.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

God is definitely teaching me that if I don't want to displease him by intensely disliking his other children, I need to wish them well but engage with them less. Having expectations that others will behave in ways that make sense to me is only going to lead to disappointment. People are mysterious creatures and I think I will be happier if I can cultivate an amused detachment rather than an incredulous annoyance. I feel a bit guilty about that I think because ladies, especially church ladies with houses full of children, are generally socialized to be, well, social, but maybe it's ok to let that go.

narciso said...

Its not that particular, old men with compromised immune systems, african americans with hypertension, young men with no symptoms, dr. House would go in a vicodin coma trying to figure this out.

stephen cooper said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
stephen cooper said...

IMHO, I hope you Don't feel guilty about it, IHMMP

narciso did Dr House have a security clearance? did I miss that episode

narciso said...

There was one episode where he had to diagnose a company operative.

But this thing reminds me of one of those episodes they try different tests different treatment protocols.

Mark said...

That's an interesting study in Nature that suggests that it is most contagious when it is still in the nose/sinus/throat the first week and that that is the optimum time and place to combat it.

Jon Ericson said...

Many people can't think for themselves.
They have the Tee Vee to direct them,
and Facebook friends applying pressure.
Some organization is coordinating it.
Think Network.

Yancey Ward said...

"Click through to the sources and look at the hospitalization numbers. About half the states are listed as N/A. In other words, not available. Big states and infected states like Illinois, Louisiana, Ohio, Michigan are not in that 22,158. They are not being counted.

That number is bogus. Fake news.
"

We can estimate the total, though, by just looking at New York, Massachusetts, Florida, Pennsylvania, and California, which collectively make up half the active cases as of 4 p.m. Sunday, can't we, Ken? I get 23,000 hospitalizations (it is less than that presently, actually, since I used cumulative for FL, MA, and PA). So, hospitalizations are certainly under 46,000 as of 4 p.m. Sunday since New York is such an outlier for hospitalizations to start with. As for ICU patients, few states report it, but we do have New York and California, and so we can estimate based on their 5400 total that the entire country is under 14,000 ICU patients as of 4 p.m.

So, the article is a little misleading, but the fact is the extimates for April 5th are way off. So, it isn't really bogus, is it?

MartyH said...

I'm thinking like Mark-it is going to spread more slowly than predicted and may hardly touch some areas. It's a tsunami in New York but will be a ripple in Wyoming. It's concentrated in eight states plus DC-forty two states have a death rate/million below the national average.

In other words, the curve was already flat for the non urban half of the country. It's a pandemic in NYC but not Albany, just a few hours away. No deaths on the western side of Puget Sound, opposite Seattle. I think that ~3/4 of states will have fewer deaths than currently predicted.

Jimmy said...

Stanford is testing 3000 people for antibodies in santa clara county. results back in a week.
https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/04/04/stanford-researchers-test-3200-people-for-covid-19-antibodies/

Gospace said...

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Neighborhood FB and Nextdoor are full of spies and Gestapo. Nosy, bossy Nellies judging everyone instead of asking how they can help.


Make a list so when the boogaloo starts you know who to take out immediately.

narciso said...
this cant exist in nature cam it


My takeaway from your link was- Practice nasal irrigation- every day. Twice a day if you detect any cold or flu like symptoms. Sheds viral load.

I use a Waterpik like device called H2ofloss, inexpensive from Amazon. Something new I heard on the radio the other day that looks interesting from a company that has the website navagedotcom. Also available at Amazon. I haven't suffered flu or cold symptoms since I started doing it over 15 years ago. I've had colds, maybe flue- but I haven't suffered the symptoms. I increase use frequency. Usually to twice a day, and if needed 3X.

1 tsp plain salt, 1/2 tsp baking soda, and 1 tsp xylitol (which has antibacterial and antiviral properties) per 16-24 oz lukewarm water.

Ralph L said...

Worldometers has cases and deaths per million for each state now.

narciso said...

can yoi believe this

madAsHell said...

I spent over two hours at the sporting goods store today so I could buy my second shotgun.

I bought a Remington 870 pump action thinking it was some kind of universal shotgun.

Sweet Jesus!!! I've never been so wrong in my life. That weapon is a P.I.G.

narciso said...

Its something slo jo would recommend

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

I bought a Remington 870 pump action thinking it was some kind of universal shotgun.

Sweet Jesus!!! I've never been so wrong in my life. That weapon is a P.I.G.


haha, that's what I bought. What have I done?!

narciso said...

dont be this stupid

walter said...

Did the world at least gain a world record for the Wuhan potluck?

Sara D said...

Something funny happened to me last night.Earlier I had bought a big beautiful golden easter egg, filled with smaller chocolate eggs ,for my niece and her family. My problem ,how to deliver it without breaking social distantcing laws.Then the doorbell rang, it was my niece's husband. He didn't come in, just stretched out his gloved hand that held the exact same egg I had bought, we couldn't hug just laugh out loud when I handed him ,with my latax gloved hand, the golden egg I had for them. He had two more eggs to deliver, to his mother and mother-in- law . I am the old aunt on their list. Later we talked on skype, there was more laughter and good feelings. Happy Easter from Norway, were we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel,I see the same is happening in the USA, where I lived for many years. I have also followed Ann Althouse for a long time,but rarely comment, just felt like sharing this little, to me, feel good story

walter said...

Hi Sara,
I have a buddy whose sister moved to Oslo. I've been wonder how Norwegians view or directly know the Swede's approach?

chickelit said...

That's very meta, Althouse. You got your shot of them missing their shot.

Bruce Hayden said...

“I don't understand the gun buying thing. At least not after the first one. I have two handguns, a .22 Ruger mk V, and a Philipines-made 1911. I have 100 rounds of match for the Ruger & 50 rounds of range .45 ACP for the 1911. It is difficult to imagine the circumstances under which having another fifty or hundred rounds of either would save my life.”
“It would be revealing (but sad) if a lot people used their $1200 stimulus checks to buy guns and ammo.”

One reason is that the cops can’t, and probably won’t, protect you in situations like this. Last week over 10% of the NYPD was calling in sick every day, likely SARS-2 positive. The rest were facing mandatory overtime, and specialists, like SWAT, were being transferred to patrol. Their mayor, along with his health director, were still selling the annual Chinese New Year celebration in China Town (apparently one of the more densely populated sections of NYC, at least at street level), while the rest of the country was buying up the PPE available. So they, along with fire, paramedics, etc, were going out and dealing with infected people with no protection, and official word, from the mayor’s office, that there was nothing to worry about. Social distancing and aggressive police work are mutually exclusive, even with the PPE that the NYPD lacked due to woke political correction by their bosses. So, after an initial lull, crime has rebounded, at least apparently in NYC and Chicago, and then increased above pre-pandemic levels. Number one rule of police work is to come back home safe, and that likely won’t happen if they mix it up with very many SARS-2 positive miscreants. Waking up one day in the midst of a pandemic realizing that the police are incapable and unwilling to do the protecting of your lives that was promised by the politicians, is enough to cause those with their eyes more open to realize that their best protection is with a gun, and not in calling 911 for the police. Completely rational, and indeed, in my view, the only rational response.

Why stock up on ammunition? Because, as we are seeing right now, ammunition disappears from the stores faster than guns and TP do. During this pandemic, you are probably correct that you won’t need more than the one box of .45 ACP. BUT the ammunition you need is not range ammunition, which is typically FMJ (Full Metal Jacket) that doesn’t expand very much upon impact, but rather defensive ammunition, often JHP (Jacketed Hollow Point), that is designed to mushroom upon impact, creating significantly larger wound channels. You, of course, never want to ever have to shoot someone (unless maybe you are in the military). But if you have to, you want to stop and neutralize them. JHP is typically much better at that than FMJ, which is just as likely to cause through and through wounds on humans. The larger wound channels cause your target to bleed out faster, and the mushroomed round is more likely to hit something vital, just cause of its larger diameter. Why more than one box of ammunition? Because if things get bad, you may need your gun more than once.

My preference would be to confront potential threats with the .45, over the .22 any day. .22LR is not considered a very good self defense round. It’s wound channels are typically not large enough to cause significant blood loss. You are left hoping to hit something vital, but with a bullet with a very narrow cross section. A .45 bullet is more likely to hit something vital, just by its much larger cross section - esp if it has mushroomed, in the case of modern self defense ammunition..

My suggestion is for you to buy a box or two of good .45 ACP self defense ammunition, when prices come down and it is again easily available. And leave your primary magazine loaded with that, and use your range ammunition where it was designed to be shot - at the range.

Do I ever expect to need to use one of my guns for self defense? No. But I don’t expect to be in a position where I am infected with COVID-19, but still take precautions.

Etienne said...

Lewis Wetzel said..."I have two handguns, a .22 Ruger mk V..."

Interesting my favorite plinker is my Ruger Mark II Target. Last week I tore it down and oiled it up, as I haven't shot it since last summer. I used it mostly for copperhead snakes and burrowing turtles. I don't have that much ammunition left though, probably just two boxes.

My other pistol is a SW 357 magnum that I bought in the 70's. It's mostly used with .38 cal. I'm down to one box of that, and haven't had magnums in years. There's probably some in my garage tool box if I went and dug around.

I've never had an use for a rifle, and poo-poo'd the AR-15 forever. I could have bought one in the 70's, but if anything I enjoyed wood stocked carbines. But recently I got interested in milling my own AR-15 lower. It's basically a techy thing. I mean, who would mill aluminum if they didn't have to. The other thing is, there's no paperwork, no registration, no waiting. When you're done, you're done.

sam said...

great work dear keep it up corona virus death

Daniel Jackson said...

"don't miss your shot"

Is that a reference to the earlier blog post?

stevew said...

"Seriously, think about all the warnings and advice of experts you have read or heard in your lifetime. Do you think they were usually right or usually wrong?"

Usually wrong in my experience. My antipathy for government is based on this experience. I'm 62.

Here's a thought: Trump and the team have recently seen numbers that indicate positive progression in fighting the spread and severity of the virus infection. They believe that this trend can continue so long as people stay on course with the social distancing regime. They worry that sharing the positive news and perspective will lead to people relaxing their guard. Thus the assertion that the next two weeks will be our "Pearl Harbor".

Seems plausible.

Sara D said...

Blogger walter said...
Hi Sara,
"I have a buddy whose sister moved to Oslo. I've been wonder how Norwegians view or directly know the Swede's approach?"

In Sweden they have no social distancing, restaurants,bars, fitness centers are open. In Norway they are closed. In Sweden busses are full, Norway keep your distance. Sweden has a higher death rate 4.0 pr. 100k than Norway 1.4, USA 2.0, BUT Sweden has fewer infections than both Norway and USA. (Info from our local paper.) I guess we have to wait and see who is using the right method.

Kevin said...

Why people hate the media:

As Trump administration debated travel restrictions, thousands streamed in from China

(Reuters) - In defending his strategy against the deadly coronavirus, President Donald Trump repeatedly has said he slowed its spread into the United States by acting decisively to bar travelers from China on Jan. 31.

...

But Reuters has found that the administration took a month from the time it learned of the outbreak in late December to impose the initial travel restrictions amid furious infighting.

During that time, the National Security Council staff, the state department and other federal agencies argued about everything from how best to screen for sick travelers to the economic impact of any restrictions, according to two government officials familiar with the deliberations.

The NSC staff ultimately proposed aggressive travel restrictions to high-level administration officials - but it took at least a week more for the president to adopt them, one of the government officials said.

stlcdr said...

Sebastian said...
From Gatewaypundit, linked by Bay Area Guy in the other thread:

The current government predictions reported by Covid Tracking (https://covidtracking.com/data/ ) for Apr 5th show:

– All beds needed: 179,267
– ICU beds needed: 33,176
– Invasive ventilators: 26,544

– Actual hospitalizations: 22,158
– In ICU: 5,207
– On ventilator: 656

- Overestimation of hospitalizations: 8 times
- Overestimation of of ICU beds needed: 6.4 times
- Overestimation of ventilators needed: 40.5 times

4/5/20, 9:37 PM


Even if those numbers are wrong, it’s hard to see that there would be multiples wrong. I’ve asked the question multiple times and searched: ‘which hospitals are out of beds, and so on, and overwhelmed with people such that they are in the corridors or being turned away?’ There doesn’t seem to be an answer.

Sure, they are scrabbling for Ppe. That’s unsurprising. The panic over bed shortages was/is based on speculative numbers of hospitalizations, and not the actual numbers which are significantly less.

stlcdr said...

Etienne said...

...But recently I got interested in milling my own AR-15 lower. It's basically a techy thing. I mean, who would mill aluminum if they didn't have to. The other thing is, there's no paperwork, no registration, no waiting. When you're done, you're done.

4/6/20, 2:53 AM

I used a drill press. It works, but is quite slow going, and you don’t end up with the prettiest of milled pockets. From an engineering, tech standpoint, it’s quite fun. Took about a day, but wasn’t in a hurry.

Rory said...

"Seriously, think about all the warnings and advice of experts you have read or heard in your lifetime. Do you think they were usually right or usually wrong?"

It's not really, are experts usually right? It's, in instances where a lot of people are initially skeptical of expert pronouncements, who usually turns out to be right?

It's similar to faked crimes. Crimes of all sorts happen, but every time the newsman reads a report and I get a quizzical look on my face, in the end it turns out to have been a fake.

rhhardin said...

I have a package going back and forth between two post offices. It's probably a bar code mistake at one end and reading the written address on the other. Will it become a flying dutchman package or will somebody break the cycle.

Lurker21 said...


Lots of folks with cameras at the lakeside today. And one of them fell in the lake. The air temperature was 35°, and I don't know what the water temperature was, but he'd clambered out onto a rock, and he slipped and splashed all the way in. Don't worry. He got out. And he didn't even say, "I'm cold." It's Wisconsin!

It's alcohol!

Churchy LaFemme: said...

I have a package going back and forth between two post offices. It's probably a bar code mistake at one end and reading the written address on the other. Will it become a flying dutchman package or will somebody break the cycle.

Well, did it ever return?
No it never returned and its fate is still unlearned (what a pity)

Original Mike said...

Charlie: "Why doesn't she hand me a nickel rather than this stupid sandwich?"

mockturtle said...

Unknown--after all these years I remember all the words to that one.

Michael K said...

John, I think I found that post here.

I don't know what to make of that theory. I doubt it. CO poisoning results from irreversible binding of CO to hemoglobin. The "free iron" thing is something I have not thought about and my learning the details of oxyhemoglobin metabolism was over 50 years ago.

One thing, malaria parasites are not "bacteria." There are a few errors like that which make me wonder what else is goofy.

Marc in Eugene said...

Am going out on the bus later on, an unavoidable errand and to Walmart. I wonder how different from last week it'll be out there. Or perhaps it will seem more or less the same.

The local church of the SSPX, St Thomas Beckett, has remained open because they are observing strict rules: every other pew, only one household per pew, no standing about after or before, every other parking spot, no more than 23 parishioners at most Masses (plus priest and server) etc. (The pastor consulted with the local police in setting up this regime.) Will sign up and go out there one of the days during the octave. I remain 'rhetorically disgruntled' that the Archdiocese doesn't adopt similar arrangements-- by which I mean that it's something I'd argue about if the archbishop consulted me: he won't, and am not sacrificing my equanimity and such little charity as I possess over the matter.