August 1, 2020

At the Saturday Night Café...

... you can write about whatever you want, but I wanted to show you these 3 pictures of this morning's sunrise, taken at 5:45, 5:48, and 5:51. The actual sunrise time was 5:48.

IMG_8611

IMG_8621

IMG_8640

116 comments:

JZ said...

I don’t have a favorite of those. Do you, Ann?

Ann Althouse said...

My favorite is the middle one. Meade chose the first one. The third one is there because you can see the sun and there’s the look of 3 suns, which I wanted to show.

MadTownGuy said...

Yahoo (can't be serious) News now says Trump must tell 13 states to lock down NOW. Harvard said so.

These 13 states need to lock down now, according to Harvard coronavirus experts

"The White House task force and the Harvard researchers are relying on the same data. They’re using similar color-coded risk charts. They even share a goal: to provide clear metrics that will “help communities determine the severity of the outbreak they are responding to,” as the Harvard initiative puts it, then offer “broad guidance on the intensity of control efforts needed based on these COVID risk levels.”

Yet Harvard and the Trump task force arrive at very different conclusions about how communities should be responding.

This difference underscores the ongoing inconsistency of America’s efforts to combat COVID-19. It also raises the question of whether Americans will look back on unheeded recommendations such as Harvard’s with regret this fall, when colder weather, increased indoor activity and, in many places, a return to in-person schooling compound the risk of a second wave of infection — especially if dozens of states remain in the so-called red zone.

“The public needs clear and consistent information about COVID risk levels in different jurisdictions for personal decision-making, and policy-makers need clear and consistent visibility that permits differentiating policy across jurisdictions,” said Danielle Allen, director of Harvard’s Safra Center. “We also collectively need to keep focused on what should be our main target: a path to near zero case incidence.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Was going to take my husband and two youngest, who are 2 and 4, along to Arizona to move our
oldest into her college apartment, but evidently now the mask fanatics have had their way with air travel. Children two and over have to wear a mask the entire flight, plus in every part of airport property, etc. Give me a MFing break. What part of small children do not transmit the virus and by the way it is effing barbarous to over a toddler’s face with fabric is complicated?

gilbar said...

Rep. Karen Bass, D-Caif., a contender for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, is scrambling to explain past comments praising Fidel Castro and the Church of Scientology.

Bass traveled to Cuba in 1973 with an organization called the Venceremos Brigade

In 2016, when Castro died, she referred to him as "commandante en jefe" (commander in chief), and said his passing was a “great loss to the people of Cuba.”


serious question
why are democrats So Stupid?
are they Born that way? Or, do they go to special Stupidity Schools for a number of years?

gilbar said...

“We also collectively need to keep focused on what should be our main target: a path to near zero case incidence.”

no one will be permitted to leave their houses; until ALL Sickness, All Disease, and All Oppression are eliminated

gilbar said...

pants asked What part of small children do not transmit the virus and by the way it is effing barbarous to over a toddler’s face with fabric is complicated?

well,
what part of "We will use this panicdemic, to remove As Much Civil Liberty as we can" is complicated?
of course, You KNOW that

Gospace said...

I’ve watched the video from the NJ Staples store several times. The old lady with the cane initiated a verbal confrontation. The black lady took offense and escalated. No one should be surprised at that- but it’s not unlawful. The old lady lifted up her cane and appeared to poke the other lady. That’s assault, that’s a crime. The more fit younger lady grabbed the cane, then old lady didn’t let go and got thrown to the ground. Self defense, reasonable force. Once the threat was down- she walked away. The old lady lucked out with that- a kicking and stomping didn’t follow.

A prosecutor might be able to concoct some charge against the younger black lady- but a jury randomly assembled in that area isn’t going to convict. Doesn’t matter what witnesses testify- the video is pretty clear.

Inga said...

Young kids could spread COVID-19 as much as older children and adults, study suggests
Findings important to nationwide conversations on reopening schools and daycare
Date:
July 30, 2020
Source:
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
Summary:
Researchers have discovered that children younger than 5 years with mild to moderate COVID-19 have much higher levels of genetic material for the virus in the nose compared to older children and adults. The findings point to the possibility that the youngest children transmit the virus as much as other age groups.

Inga said...

The most striking of sunrises are the ones with the remnants of dark clouds above.

rightguy said...

The bride and I are having a good time today : NHL playoffs go on all day today and so far our parlays are holding up. However, before the current game (Pittsburg/Montreal) we had a pregame,pre national anthems, 5 minute multimedia BLM propaganda segment with the hockey players having to stand throughout. Thank God, no kneelers- as there was before the earlier Islander/Panther game. But yeah, we had five minutes of pro-BLM/democrat political crap (presumably mandated by NBC) and and the players (largely Canadian) were props, looking every bit the hostages they were.

Drago said...

Inga: "Young kids could spread COVID-19 as much as older children and adults, study suggests"

"could" "suggests"

Lets completely shut down our nation and lock everyone in their homes until no more disease is present anywhere in the US or until a democrat is elected to the Presidency.

Whichever comes first.....

I'm Full of Soup said...

What Gilbar said at 7:50pm.

bagoh20 said...

"The most striking of sunrises are the ones with the remnants of dark clouds above."

Obviously that's a central theme of your outlook on all things.

I'm Full of Soup said...

If all 4 major pro sports leagues get underway for even 30 days til they get shut down by Tim’s from Vermont and not one player dies from Wuhan flu within a year, will that prove the economy shutdowns were gross over- reaction?

Joe Smith said...

Middle...bueno.

Narr said...

Open mike! Great.

Signs of the times: On NPR, one of their lousy topical quiz shows, clues are set such as, "Winner of two Grammies and an Emmy; but not a Gemini." Seriously. The Gen WTF contestants sounded like Transgender Studies and Lesbian Gymnastics majors, especially the one with the deep voice. (I'll stay tuned as long as the local affiliate broadcasts real music, but when that's off I switch off.)

On the BBC World News on cable, a story from Cuba about the loosening of restrictions on small-shop USD stores, and how that is creating tensions between those who can use them and those who can't. Imagine! Inequality in Castrostan! The ignorant Brit reporter made the obligatory reference to the US blockade (big signs in Berlin last November used the same word)--and how tourism is down due to COVID fears.

His first sentence was a classic: "Cuba has a problem."

Narr
OOOHH! OOOHH! Does it start with a 'C'?

Ken B said...

Shorter Pants: “Others can die for my convenience.”

How's your vaccine trial going Pants?

m stone said...

There is a research study somewhere at any point in time that is available to reinforce any predispositions you have. Guaranteed. Research is a cottage industry.

m

Ken B said...

Over 1100 covid deaths yesterday.

stevew said...

"We also collectively need to keep focused on what should be our main target: a path to near zero case incidence."

A fool's errand.

As we have learned over the past 5 months: focusing on the number of cases is a waste of time as it is a meaningless number. Start doing randomized testing and we will learn something useful about this virus.

Mrs. stevew, upon seeing a yard sign (in a predominantly white neighborhood), asked what do people mean by "Black Lives Matter". I tried to explain. She asked, don't all lives matter, white, black, yellow, etc.? I suggested she not say that out loud to anyone but me; that is not an appropriate response and question.

In other news, went kayaking in the local tidal river. Spectacular day. Then walked around and visited some local shops. Ended the day over dinner with our son and his family. Perfect day. Twenty to thirty miles on the bicycle planned for tomorrow, then a couple hours at the beach. Covid ain't keeping us down. Numbers in this state are very low and virtually unchanged since the reopening of the past month.

I'm Not Sure said...

"Lets completely shut down our nation and lock everyone in their homes until no more disease is present anywhere in the US"

Sign on the door of a local store: "Help keep our store germ-free."

Some people are not clear on what germs actually are, I'd think.

Fernandinande said...

The old lady lifted up her cane and appeared to poke the other lady.

Video shows the old white woman, who recently had a liver transplant, minding her own business when the young BLACK woman walks up from behind and taps her on the shoulder, they both back away from each other and the old white lady holds her cane out as if to keep the aggressor six feet away, without touching her, then the BLACK woman knocks the cane down and grabs the white woman by the hands and yanks her hard enough to knock her to the floor and break her leg.

The more fit younger lady grabbed the cane, then old lady didn’t let go and got thrown to the ground.

The BLACK woman didn't grab the cane, she grabbed the old white lady by the hands.

BLACK is capitalized here because violence toward people who can't defend themselves conveys an essential and shared sense of history, identity and community among people who identify as BLACK, including those in the African diaspora and within Africa.

Birkel said...

Imagine the surprise of some:
https://mobile.twitter.com/pwyowell/status/1289199855093420032

My surprise is limited.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

since Obama brought it up, it’s worth noting that the only person in modern American politics to have repeatedly praised Wallace and other segregationists is Joe Biden.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/speaking-of-george-wallace/

Huma cracks a funny w/Killary: those "peaceful" protests you started (from wikileaks)

and "demon sperm"-- wonder what the victims of Bubba and Epstien takes
are on that.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

The silly white woman with the cane apparently thought ChiCom flu was a greater threat to her health than a feral. I bet she has since changed her mind.

Michael K said...

Inga and Ken B seem to have hysterics about the virus.

For crissakes just take your HCQ and shut up.

Big Mike said...

Shorter Ken B., people can see their businesses collapse, the firms that employ them go bankrupt, people can die of diseases that should have been, would have been, caught in routine doctor visits, except that people can’t see their doctors unless they have COVID-19 symptoms, all so little Kenny can piss his pants every time someone says “coronavirus.”

Trying to tell me where I can go and what I can do just so you can stop pissing your pants just isn’t going to happen. Huddle in a corner of your basement if you want. The rest of us have to get on with our lives.

narciso said...



Good riddance
https://babalublog.com/2020/08/01/cubas-havana-historian-eusesbio-leal-the-death-of-a-useful-tool/

Narr said...

Speaking of ancient wonders --

Luciano Canfora, of the U of Bari, wrote a book called "The Vanished Library: A Wonder of the Ancient World." Written in 1987 and Englished in 1990, it's a fascinating attempt to figure out exactly what and where the Great Library was in Alexandria, and what happened to it, by taking a fresh look at the sources.

I'm not enough of a classicist to pick the book apart, but I'm enough of a historian to appreciate the author's approach and accomplishment.

Narr
if it wasn't for revisionism, historians would be out of work, and nobody wants that!



narciso said...


Oh noes

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/iran-soleimani-fading-memory/

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Shorter Ken:

Torturing toddlers for literally no actual gain means I'm a GooD gUY who's SaViNG lIvEs!!1!11

One of these days you might realize that you are on the wrong side.

Mark said...

Can you ever not be an asshole, Canadian?

narciso said...


Interesting

https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1289675266877460480?

wild chicken said...

Welp, went to the wedding party with about 14 other households, half assed show of mask wearing, and no distancing. The two RNs there dgaf.

Covid's all a big fucking joke I guess.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Left-wing activists bring a stack of Bibles to burn in front of the federal courthouse in Portland

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Vote Biden. Brain power.

bagoh20 said...

Imagine a person you know is infected with Covid-19. They will run into you in 5 minutes, and you will say "hi" and have a short conversation face to face. 60 seconds before you meet they sneeze.

1) If they were not wearing a mask they would naturally sneeze infected material into a corner, step outside, or into a tissue, or their sleeve, or even just into the air, but they wouldn't sneeze into someone's face. Nobody did that before and especially not now.

OR

2) They would be wearing a mask and would just sneeze into it. The same thing they did all day.

Now your 5 minutes is up, and you meet and talk face to face.

Even the best masks have a pore size that can pass 50 virus particles through each of thousands of pores with every breath and that mask is now full of a day (or more) of sneezes, coughs, spit, and breath, and millions of viral particles aimed right at your face. All kept warm and moist waiting to meet you with your mask on that also can pass in 50 particles through each pore.

You are just one of many people that person encountered today, talked to, shared an elevator with, or an office, or stood next to in a large crowd of similar mask wearers screaming anti-police chants like a devil-designed infection machine.

So, tell me again how sure you are that masks are a good idea. They certainly make people feel safe, so they they can sneeze, and get close, move around, coughing and breathing, and talking at people in complete safety.

hawkeyedjb said...

gilbar said...
"Rep. Karen Bass, D-Caif., a contender for presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s running mate, is scrambling to explain past comments praising Fidel Castro and the Church of Scientology.

Bass traveled to Cuba in 1973 with an organization called the Venceremos Brigade

In 2016, when Castro died, she referred to him as "commandante en jefe" (commander in chief), and said his passing was a “great loss to the people of Cuba.”

serious question
why are democrats So Stupid?"

Are you kidding? Democrats loved Castro. There is not a Democrat living who would criticize el jefe grande. They certainly admired him more than they admired any Republican president. Democrats have patterned their Woke Cancel culture after Castro's Block Minders.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

I come here each day trying to think of something to say and each day all I've got is, 'It's a dumpster fire, let's hope it ends soon'. We just trudge through this nightmare of a presidency. He has fulfilled every disastrous prophecy even the most extreme liberals made and then some. A human being completely unsuited for political leadership.

wildswan said...

"what should be our main target: a path to near zero case incidence.”

Now see public health isn't authorized to shut down businesses and schools because in the case of covid they want "a path to near zero case incidence." That isn't their goal with the flu. No one asked them to treat covid in an entirely different way from all previous viruses once it was understood that it was no worse than other viruses. Why is public health ready to damage children by closing schools and causing their parents to lose their jobs. Moreover, hunger is becoming a public health crisis in some areas because food is more expensive and people are out of work. Public health regulations are required to show need, necessary, use reasonable means, be proportional, and avoid harm. Banning New York and Michigan and several other states from sending infected patients into nursing homes would be a reasonable way of diminishing the death rate, more reasonable than closing schools. Many states and many areas within states have no very few covid cases yet public health treats all areas alike. This a disproportionate response. Masks harm people with respiratory difficulties and harm businesses such as restaurants. There's no proof that there is a benefit particularly when masks are made universal regardless of the area and its history of covid infections. I believe Wisconsin's state-wide regulation is an unconstitutional abuse of the power to regulate public health - particularly in that it harms children by closing schools, businesses by closing businesses, and areas affected by covid because the areas around them are not economically robust and able to help.
USPHS is quite capable of abusing power - after all, it was the USPHS which ran the Tuskegee syphilis study 1934-1972. And in 2020 both the USPHS nor public health officials in the states have said nothing whatsoever about older people with covid being pushed into old people's homes which had an inadequate ability to isolate them. This was done on orders from Democratic governors without protest by public health officers. And apparently this was done to disproportionate numbers of members of the black community since that is who is dying disproportionately. BLM? Not to public heath officials.

Josephbleau said...

The CDC and Fauci are supposed to be medical scientists who give the government advice, but I can’t find a plan in their media jabber. What is the strategy?

1. Keep hospitals from overloading until we reach herd immunity?
2. Keep closing schools and businesses until there are no more new cases?
3. Keep everything closed until we have the unicorn vaccine?
4. Isolate the most vulnerable and let the rest unlock more.

If we are going to feed clothe and house ourselves, much less educate our kids, 2 and 3 seem to be out. The US has a porous southern border so 1 is doubtful. Now Harvard wants to close more down, recreation and tourism feeds a lot of people. Is it really possible for the government to be the source of income for a vast quantity of citizens who can’t work? 4 sounds good to me.

Consider unintended consequences of suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, and idleness that all see increasing. Have we killed more than we are saving.

Is anyone performing real science or are we going to stay at the “some studies show” stage forever?

Medical science seems impotent. Chickens without heads territory. I am a statistician, I assist with designed experiments and longitudinal studies professionally, we almost always get good results because failure and sloppiness costs money, why the confusion?

When is the CDC going to have a consistent rational plan?

Josephbleau said...

The CDC and Fauci are supposed to be medical scientists who give the government advice, but I can’t find a plan in their media jabber. What is the strategy?

1. Keep hospitals from overloading until we reach herd immunity?
2. Keep closing schools and businesses until there are no more new cases?
3. Keep everything closed until we have the unicorn vaccine?
4. Isolate the most vulnerable and let the rest unlock more.

If we are going to feed clothe and house ourselves, much less educate our kids, 2 and 3 seem to be out. The US has a porous southern border so 1 is doubtful. Now Harvard wants to close more down, recreation and tourism feeds a lot of people. Is it really possible for the government to be the source of income for a vast quantity of citizens who can’t work? 4 sounds good to me.

Consider unintended consequences of suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, and idleness that all see increasing. Have we killed more than we are saving.

Is anyone performing real science or are we going to stay at the “some studies show” stage forever?

Medical science seems impotent. Chickens without heads territory. I am a statistician, I assist with designed experiments and longitudinal studies professionally, we almost always get good results because failure and sloppiness costs money, why the confusion?

When is the CDC going to have a consistent rational plan?

BUMBLE BEE said...

So today it's my three suns?

heyboom said...

‘Bought and PAID FOR’: Tweep who didn’t believe the WHO was a propaganda arm tweets DAMNING thread on what changed their mind

This really is a must read, receipt filled thread on how the US has completely botched our response to the whole pandemic. And how Sweden did it exactly the right way.

Lawrence Person said...

Eric Weinstein and Bret Easton Ellis Discuss Why Trump Keeps Beating The Left.

Narayanan said...

blogworthy? please report results

roast chicken

alanc709 said...

Shorter Ken B: Go live in a nursing home.

Howard said...

Pants' theory of covid is working so well in Texas, she wants to spread the Good News to fellow travelers. I would have thought her evil spawn would have been over it already after the all the kid Corona partying you people touted.

In Boston/Cambridge, parents of infants and toddlers are duct taping masks to their kids faces. Every one here is dedicated to obeying Karen.

rightguy said...

Nice 5-1 hit today : 50$ winning hockey parlay with Carolina/Calgary/Montreal-under. Still pissed about the BLM/democrat propaganda preceding all the games. Video of Matthew Dumba sermonizing and kneeling prior to the New York Islanders game was replayed during intermission of other games and NHL Tonight. Disgusting. But hey, everything is politics to these people, even whacking a puck with a stick while skating.

Just asking questions (Jaq) said...

You are full of soup putting words in my mouth. My position hasn’t changed from the beginning, I said that we needed to shut down when this began to buy time to learn to treat it and to understand better how it spread, and then we would need to slowly re-open, even though it would cost lives.

What you are apparently reading into my well supported belief that there should be mask mandates would be comically ironic if it weren’t so widespread. You are upset about the slowdowns in economic activity and yet you seem to resent the one low cost thing that we could do towards getting back to a more normal situation, which is to wear a mask, which has been shown to work when it is tried. Why don’t you read about it?

https://www.wired.com/story/how-masks-went-from-dont-wear-to-must-have/

Oh, sorry. It’s too long and loaded with factual references and you just wanted to jerk your knee.

tl;dr:
It’s been proven thoughtcontact tracing that asymptomatic people spread the disease.
Experiments show that simple masks filter coronavirus, even when they don’t filter flu viruses for example.
Wherever mask mandates have been introduced in the US, the infection rate has gone down, controlling for other factors.

A bonus tidbit is that herd immunity will never be reached short of a vaccine.

I am not that worried about millionaire athletes and billionaire owners, it’s true. Was that comment supposed to be cutting? Other than that, if you are going to set up a straw man to knock down, put somebody elses name on it.

Just asking questions (Jaq) said...

"And how Sweden did it exactly the right way.”

Sweden is number 5 on the deaths per million hit parade, when none of her similar neighbors even made the charts. You can give me reasons all day long that 2+2 doesn’t equal 4, but at the end of the day, when the counting is done, and it turns out that it does, I am going to think that you missed some important factor.

Just asking questions (Jaq) said...

Maybe you could lay out some reason you find particularly convincing that Sweden “did it exactly right” and we can figure out where you went wrong. Don’t argue like R/V or ARM, presenting a link you don’t really understand, and then skedaddling.

Just asking questions (Jaq) said...

bagoh, maybe instead of doing thought experiments, you should look at the results of mask wearing where it has been tried. Even if what you are saying is true, on the whole, that would be just one incident out of many others each having it’s own weight. And when they are all summed up, it works out to less spread of the disease when masks are mandated. Besides, sneezing isn’t one of the symptoms.

So, tell me again how sure you are that masks are a good idea

I know it takes a longer attention span than you likely can muster, but you should read the link I provided as it will answer many of your questions.

My personal opinion is that people are emotionally against masks because masks serve as a reminder that this problem is real, so the focus goes from anger at the fact of the virus to anger at the masks, because you can’t see the virus, I guess.

Kevin said...

I come here each day trying to think of something to say and each day all I've got is, 'It's a dumpster fire, let's hope it ends soon'. We just trudge through this nightmare of a presidency. He has fulfilled every disastrous prophecy even the most extreme liberals made and then some. A human being completely unsuited for political leadership.

Drago could have posted this in 2010.

buwaya said...

Every European country has had a substantial increase in detected cases related to the relaxation of lockdowns. Spain has had a very substantial increase through June and July. Quite similar to the US in fact, allowing for the vagaries of the testing rate.

Anyway, going by Worldometer and etc., it seems that in spite of a now-vast scale of testing both the rate and daily absolute number of positives is declining, especially in Arizona, Florida, Texas, and California. There are only a couple of states where the rate is still increasing.

So also is the overall utilization of medical facilities for Covid cases.

The death count is a lagging number in this.

gadfly said...

I see that Karen Bass, the leader of the House Black Caucus and the hottest candidate to be Biden' VP has chosen to lie to us. When her past favorable comments given at a Scientology gathering in 2010 were exposed, the California lawmaker said in a statement she was trying to find an “area of agreement” with the church, which has faced allegations from former members of abuse, human trafficking and intimidation.

“Back in 2010, I attended the event knowing I was going to address a group of people with beliefs very different than my own, and spoke briefly about things I think most of us agree with, and on those things — respect for different views, equality, and fighting oppression — my views have not changed,” Bass tweeted. Since then, published first-hand accounts in books, interviews and documentaries have exposed this group.”

The lede sentence in Wiki regarding the Church of Scientology refutes the Bass dodge: "Since its inception in 1954, the Church of Scientology has been involved in a number of controversies, including its stance on psychiatry, Scientology's legitimacy as a religion, the Church's aggressive attitude in dealing with its perceived enemies and critics, allegations of mistreatment of members, and predatory financial practices, for example the high cost of religious training and perceived exploitative practices. When mainstream media outlets have reported alleged abuses, representatives of the church have tended to deny such allegations."

"In 1978, a number of Scientologists, including L. Ron Hubbard's wife Mary Sue Hubbard (who was second in command in the organization at the time), were convicted of perpetrating what was at the time the largest incident of domestic espionage in the history of the United States, called "Operation Snow White". This involved infiltrating, wiretapping, and stealing documents from the offices of Federal attorneys and the Internal Revenue Service."

Sounds to me that the Biden vetting team is sound asleep - especially since Karen Bass in her early adulthood, went to Cuba to spend some time with the Commies there.

Josephbleau said...

“Someone said:
It’s been proven thoughtcontact tracing that asymptomatic people spread the disease.
Experiments show that simple masks filter coronavirus, even when they don’t filter flu viruses for example.
Wherever mask mandates have been introduced in the US, the infection rate has gone down, controlling for other factors.“

Those are very strong statements, I have not seen those studies yet, can you give a cite, they should be in the news by now?

“ My personal opinion is that people are emotionally against masks because masks serve as a reminder that this problem is real, so the focus goes from anger at the fact of the virus to anger at the masks, because you can’t see the virus, I guess.”

Another opinion could be that masks are all the government knows to tell us to do and like the TSA at airports, and seem to be theater of the do this and go away variety. I don’t have a problem with masks but any study must:

1. have a hypothesis for why it protects the masked person and why it protects the public.
2. if you need a mask outdoors or if you are 6 feet away.
3. What unintended consequences can occur if you wear a mask for a long time, rebreathing and such.
4. All the above done in a statistically valid randomized trial, not just survey type observational stuff.

Surely they could do monkey studies with masks with similar viruses. And yes it would be practical to do a monkey study.

buwaya said...

There is still not enough known about this virus to be useful for planning of any sort.

Relative death rates are not going to be conclusive for another year at least.

What Sweden did right was to get it over with quickly. Now they can move on.

Just asking questions (Jaq) said...

Were I an elite athlete whose living depended on my physical condition, I would be extremely reluctant to risk a disease that leaves people who suffered even mild cases, or asymptomatic cases, with what looks like permanent lung damage.

One thing we didn’t anticipate was that the virus seems to accelerate a great deal of scarring in the lungs. And if lung tissue is replaced with scar tissue, it is no longer functional as regular pulmonary tissue, which translates to poor gas exchange. What we really fear is long-term shortness of breath that could extend anywhere from being very mild to severely limiting. There is also a disturbing report looking at computerized tomography (CT) scans of asymptomatic people that found they were left with some scar tissue. So, this could even be happening on a subclinical level.

https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/07/08/from-lung-scarring-to-heart-damage-covid-19-may-leave-lingering-marks/

Maybe baseball players and golfers can perform with a permanently compromised respiratory system, but I wouldn’t want to try to play in the NBA with lung damage.

BTW, none of the stuff buwaya is talking about htat Europe is experiencing now gets reported in the US news media because, let’s be honest, how does it help get Biden elected to show that even St Merkel is having problems? The narrative here is that it’s uniquely Trump’s leadership that is causing all of our problems. You can bet if Hillary were president, news that it was the same everywhere whould be front and center on US broadcasts.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Kevin said...
Drago could have posted this in 2010.


And it would have been nonsense. Eight years of relative peace and prosperity after another train wreck of a presidency.

Jersey Fled said...

ARM said:

He has fulfilled every disastrous prophecy even the most extreme liberals made and then some.

You mean like the one where he would start a nuclear war with North Korea (circa 2017)

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

tim in vermont said...
presenting a link you don’t really understand, and then skedaddling.


This, from a hysteric who disappears for prolonged periods and hides behind pseudonyms.

R C Belaire said...

I found this to be an interesting and somewhat disturbing read :

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/sweden-one-chart-matters

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

buwaya said...
Spain has had a very substantial increase through June and July. Quite similar to the US in fact, allowing for the vagaries of the testing rate.


This is anumeric nonsense. Cases in Spain are currently a little more than a quarter of the initial peak. Not good but nothing like the US. Cases in the US are currently double the initial peak and we never got cases anywhere close to zero as they did in Spain.

Rusty said...

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...
"I come here each day trying to think of something to say and each day all I've got is, 'It's a dumpster fire, let's hope it ends soon'. We just trudge through this nightmare of a presidency. He has fulfilled every disastrous prophecy even the most extreme liberals made and then some. A human being completely unsuited for political leadership"

It's dumpster fire for you because you are a recipient of the graft that has driven politics in this country for the last 50 years. Those of us who actually produce something are liking the leveling of the playing field. Arbitrary faceless bureaucrats are no longer interfering in the marketplace. Your public sector role is about control. You no longer have it. That makes you scared and angry.
Now we're looking at education. The long march through those institutions is nearly over.
On a side note. The funny thing about socialism is that , in order to make it work, you need capitalism and the immutable rules of the marketplace.

MayBee said...

Consider unintended consequences of suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, and idleness that all see increasing. Have we killed more than we are saving.

I am concerned about Freshman going off to college, being put in rooms with no roommates, and having mostly online classes. I know when my sons lived in the dorms, kids were being sent to the emergency room for over drinking every single weekend. Imagine nobody to check on you, and no reason to leave your room.
Plus, we've already seen that the young people are going to congregate. We need to just let them, and come up with a plan for the fact that they do. So far....not a lot has come from younger people congregating, right? Whether its protesters or beachgoers.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Ken B... Not a news flash... Covid-19 gonna be here long time, maybe forever. It is gonna kill who it is gonna kill. Wear a mask forever? You're germ phobic there is a therapy for that. Remember this... you are always seconds from death.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Jersey... How about the one circulating around here? He's gonna build camps and put the LGBT people in 'em. Funny stuff. Secular left often live in fear, one panic to the next. Been going on since early 20th century. One after another.

BUMBLE BEE said...

AZ, NM, TX, and FL, legal border crossings from Mexico. Florida has lots of labor oriented legal immigration.

Just asking questions (Jaq) said...

"This, from a hysteric who disappears for prolonged periods and hides behind pseudonyms.”

Why don’t you go back to picking on weak sisters like Drago? You are not worth the time.

Just asking questions (Jaq) said...

"What Sweden did right was to get it over with quickly. Now they can move on.”

Thanks for your report from the future, next time you go there with your time machine, will you report back the winning lottery numbers? Studies of other coronaviruses, that seem to be born out by antibody testing on this one, is that immunity is short lived. In other words, those people died for nothing.

Birkel said...

Eventually tim in vermont will get around to the realization that humans cannot stop a virus.

But we can surely impoverish people.

Just asking questions (Jaq) said...

Those are very strong statements, I have not seen those studies yet, can you give a cite, they should be in the news by now?


They were included in my link I had summarized. Sorry it was too long for you to read. For example contact tracing in Germany showed that an asymptomatic person who had arrived from China spread it to about eight other people. In fact it was one of the earliest outbreaks there.

The other stuff is all documented there too. If you think that the news is going to report on anything regarding this virus that is not designed specifically to get Joe Biden elected, maybe this stuff is too hard for you.

AllenS said...

Ken B said...
Over 1100 covid deaths yesterday.

Could you add anything to that statistic? Because, in Minnesota, on July 31, they had six new deaths. Two of the new decedents were in their 90’s, two in their 80’s, one in his 70’s, and one in his 20’s (“with significant underlying conditions”).

It doesn't matter how many people test positive for the Chinese Flu Rot, how many are sick enough to need hospitalization?

Hat tip to Powerline.com

Just asking questions (Jaq) said...

Conversation with somebody in Bizarro World:

“Sweden did it exactly right!”
“Well, Sweden wiped out a generation of grandmas and grandpas leaving Sweden's children without them.”
“Don’t you dare say I want to kill grandpa!”

Just asking questions (Jaq) said...

That’s what I mean by weak sister when I talk about Birkel. How is wearing masks going to impoverish people? I don’t know, you will have to ask him. How is facing reality going to impoverish people? I don’t know, you will have to ask Birkel.

Just asking questions (Jaq) said...

"Wear a mask forever? You're germ phobic there is a therapy for that."

If it scars your lungs a little each time you get it, how many times will you catch it before you are walking around with an oxygen tank permanently?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

tim in vermont said...
Why don’t you go back to picking on weak sisters like Drago?


I will just leave this here.

Kai Akker said...

----Bass traveled to Cuba in 1973 with an organization called the Venceremos Brigade

I have only heard Bass's name recently. But I do remember the Venceremos Brigade and who went on it. I'm sure some others here do, too. Only really hard-core ultra leftists joined that, which was a status symbol for their clique and a badge to differentiate one from American society. It was illegal to go to Cuba then, IIRC, but the pictures of swinging a machete in the fields and helping Fidel's wonderful communism to vencer the world were highly seductive to that kind of mind. So the illegality was an added attraction.

That is not a mindset that would moderate much, IMO, although I would imagine it might in exceptionally rare (and fortunate) cases flip 180 degrees to an equally fanatical belief in freedom. I never personally knew of any such exceptions, though. (David Horowitz notwithstanding.) If a Venceremos alumna is now a Congresswoman, I would strongly suspect she still holds almost all the same opinions, and her ultimate objective today is roughly the same as it was then. They can carry an amazing amount of mental concealment paraphernalia through their daily lives and go on doing so as long as it takes for them to vencer, I'm afraid. They are like walking cancer cells.

Bruce Hayden said...

“The death count is a lagging number in this.”

Maybe. Maybe not.

Everyone seems to assume that the recent significant increases in infections detected is because infections by the virus took off after the country started to open back up. But that does not appear to be completely accurate. Rather it appears that a large chunk of the increase In detected infections is a direct result of massively increased testing. We have hit roughly 15% or so tested here in MT, with a bunch of new cases, but very few deaths yet to match. Likely comparable to a lot of states. Infections now seem to be leveling off at least in part, because fewer and fewer people likely infected are being tested, as testing moves from the more probably infected, to the less probably infected. This is part of why it is important to have accurate positive and negative testing rates.

Also, note that another reason that the death toll hasn’t been climbing nearly as quickly is that the low hanging fruit has mostly been picked. The people walking in the door with obvious COVID-19 symptoms have typically already been tested and counted. Now, more and more asymptotic COVID-19 patients are being detected.

Bruce Hayden said...

“How is wearing masks going to impoverish people?”

It mostly isn’t the mask wearing, but everything else. Business closed as nonessential. Businesses that have to limit the number of customers. Restaurants that are limited to takeout, or have had to remove half their tables I order to socially distance. Etc.

alan markus said...

Ken B said...
Over 1100 covid deaths yesterday.


So is that good news or what?

In the context that there were 2750 covid deaths registered on 4/21/00?




alan markus said...

Dang delayed comment moderation - I might have said 2750 deaths on 4/21/00. Should have been 4/21/20

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Wherever mask mandates have been introduced in the US, the infection rate has gone down, controlling for other factors.“

Those are very strong statements, I have not seen those studies yet, can you give a cite, they should be in the news by now?


Right? The dim bulbs here at Althouse think they've scored some big gotcha by talking about Texas numbers. We've had a statewide mask mandate for a month. Clearly it's super effective!

Francisco D said...

Little Kenny. B and Inga need to take a much bigger role in banning cars. Did you know that 40-60 thousand people die from preventable car accidents each year.

Of course, people who die in car crashes and have COVID get listed as COVID deaths, not auto deaths.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

"a generation of grandmas"

Grandmas have a way habit of dying. It's sort of a condition of being a person, one way or another. See Allen's comment at 7:58. Even so: Sweden has had 5,567 total covid deaths in a population of over ten million. What's your numerical definition of "wiping out a generation?"


MadTownGuy said...


BUMBLE BEE said...
"AZ, NM, TX, and FL, legal border crossings from Mexico. Florida has lots of labor oriented legal immigration."

Imperial County, CA is a hot spot right now. Legal guest workers and shoppers cross to and from Mexico daily.

"Benchmarks to watch
Over the past two weeks, Imperial County has recorded 878 new cases, failing the standard for disease transmission.

The number of hospitalizations has been steady. There are now 50 patients with a confirmed or suspected case.

18% of ICU beds are open, which falls below state standards. The county has enough available ventilators to satisfy official guidelines.

Josephbleau said...

I hate to argue but since you insulted me, do you really think that the “wired” article you posted has references to peer reviewed studies that plain masks are effective at significantly reducing COVID transmission?

“That change comes on the cusp of being too late. The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has roared back to life across the country. Only three states neither require nor recommend masks. Public health experts now agree (the CDC came around in April, the WHO much later) that even though scientific uncertainties remain, masks are a key ingredient in the mix of practices and policies necessary to slow the spread of the disease. They’re the only way to keep the embers of the economy warm as shutdowns and shelter-in-place orders return, and as more people get sick and die from a disease with few treatments, no vaccine, and no cure.“

I don’t care what experts agree on, appropriate studies are required, otherwise close the FDA and let experts tell us what new drugs really work.

Big Mike said...

@tim, from the state that gave us Bernie Sanders and Pat Leahy for senators, unless you’re wearing an N95 (and not a KN95) the masks are just for show. People can’t afford to go through two dozen masks per day and anything else means that the masks are pretty much worthless. Or so I have read in the scientific literature. For myself, I do mask up when I go out, but it’s mostly for the same reason I took off my shoes going through the TSA line at airports — less hassle to participate in the theater.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

I don't know if Sweden's people wear masks, but they didn't cripple their economy with a drastic shut down.

Perhaps when Fauci was telling us NOT to wear masks, you know - the EXPERT! guesser.
Fauci was wrong.
I wore a mask to the grocery store early on, and got all the strange looks and a lecture from my leftwing gal pal about how I should NOT wear a mask. oops.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Tim :

I'll try and make it simple for you.

If 2,000 healthy professional athletes spend 30 days playing pro sports and essentially NOT social distancing and, within a year, none of them die from Covid, would that be evidence that the economy shutdown was a huge, costly mistake since Covid apparently does not endanger most of the population.

Got it?

Bruce Hayden said...

Excitement on the SpyGate front, as the coup attempt continues to unravel.

CNN: EXCLUSIVE: Fearing Trump interference, FBI agents hid copies of Russia investigation docs

Not surprising - CNN fails to ask the obvious question - why would that be legal or moral? Not only was Trump their boss, but the entirety of their power was derived from him, as the duly elected President of the United States. They swore to protect the Constitution when taking office, but then went on to violate that oath by hiding their interference in his executing his duties as President.

Andrew McCarthy: New Disclosures Confirm: Trump Himself Was the Target of Obama Administration’s Russia Probe

We have long suspected that. But they were always good at hiding it. We had the FBI, based on fabricated opposition research (much apparently vodka fueled at bars by Steele’s primary source, Igor Danchenko, an alcoholic Ukrainian former Brookings Institute (run by Clinton Administration Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott) protege of Fiona Hill (star witness against Trump at his impeachment)), funded by his opponent (Crooked Hillary and the DNC), investigating the Republican nominee, and ultimately President, for alleged Russian collusion, which they had no hard evidence of, EVER. It was fabricated from day one, and they knew it almost from the first. This was why they hid the identity of Steele’s primary source for so long, as well as his admission that it was mostly bar talk, around vodka bottles, here in the US. None of this was ever disclosed to the FISC, even after the FBI interviewed Danchenko (and he admitted that it was mostly tall tales told around a series of vodka bottles).

McCarthy pointed out that both the Defensive Briefing in June 2016, attended by Trump, Flynn, and Chris Christie, as well as a meeting between Trump and Comey, we’re both structured, within the FBI, as FBI interviews, complete with FD 302s to record the FBI personnel’s remembrance of the meetings. In neither case did the FBI tell Trump that he was under investigation, or anything close to that. In short, they lied by omission. They pretended to have the meetings for other reasons, but the paperwork, we are finally seeing, shows that their primary purpose was catching Trump colluding with the Russians. Comey went so far as to tell his boss (and Constitutional and moral source of his power as FBI Director) that he wasn’t a target of investigation by the FBI. HE LIED THROUGH HIS TEETH.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I was practicing foul shots on Thursday. Made 35 out of 50 shots. Practiced again yesterday and made 70 out of 100. I must be getting better!

Bruce Hayden said...

The other piece that is falling into place is the role of the Brookings Institute. As noted above, it is run by Strobe Talbott, State Department #2 under Bill Clinton. He is the brother in law of Cody Shearer, who is the long term business partner of Sidney Blumenthal, who has long been a top (esp Crooked Hillary) Clinton fixer and bagman. When Obama refused to let Blumenthal (and Shearer) work for his Administration, Crooked Hillary hired them through her Clinton Foundation. They apparently routinely shared highly classified information with her, utilizing her illegal private email server, when she was Sec of State. And a lot of the instability in Libya at the time seems to have been the result of Blumenthal and Shearer profiteering.

I noted above that Danchenko worked for Fiona Hill when she was a Fellow at Brookings. But the other big Brookings tie is through its Lawfare Group. Benjamin Weiss, it’s managing editor, working closely with Andrew Weissman, apparently developed the radical Obstruction of Justice misinterpretation that was used for better than two years to prevent Congressional oversight of the Crossfire Hurricane Russian Collusion and Mueller SC investigations. They were instrumental in forcing AG Sessions to recuse himself (allowing DAG Rosenstein to appoint and oversee Mueller as Special Counsel). Weiss was also close to Comey. Moreover, Lawfare Group acted as a revolving door between different parts of the government. Most of the Mueller prosecutors had Lawfare ties, and a number of attorneys who left the DOJ and FBI in the wake of the initial unraveling of the SpyGate coup attempt ended up working for Lawfare, or being associated with it. Some of them then went onto working with HOSCI Chair Schifty in his “impeachment” investigation. Where they used former Brookings Fellow, Fiona Hill, as their star witness.

The Brookings Institute (along with its LawFare Group) have their finger prints all over the attempted coup, and with their close ties to the Clintons, it is obvious now that at least Crooked Hillary if not her husband, have been involved since the beginning. They orchestrated it, and kept it going all the way through the impeachment.

The Crack Emcee said...

I've actually added a Country/Western tune for all of y'all into that sort of thing.



Just asking questions (Jaq) said...

ARM took my advice. That’s pretty funny.

mandrewa said...

Tim said, "Sweden is number 5 on the deaths per million hit parade, when none of her similar
neighbors even made the charts. You can give me reasons all day long that 2+2 doesn’t equal 4,
but at the end of the day, when the counting is done, and it turns out that it does, I am going
to think that you missed some important factor."


Ok, it's time for another reality check. Is this true? And what is going on?

First I'll go to WorldOMeter. WorldOMeter has Sweden at number 8 in coronavirus deaths per million,
but two of the countries listed above Sweden are really small so I think it's reasonable to not
include them. So that puts Sweden at number 6 in the ranks of deaths per million:

Belgium 849
UK 680
Spain 608
Peru 588
Italy 581
Sweden 568
Chile 498
USA 477

Next I go to John Hopkins to see if they say the same thing. Well John Hopkins didn't make
such a convenient chart as WorldOMeter. I could check the numbers with a calculator, but
something that jumped out at me as I was looking at absolute death numbers is the implausibility
of some of them.

China 4,667 deaths (total)

Now what sane and numerate person would believe that? So we are not doing a global comparison;
too many countries are reporting implausible things.

Or for another example take Vietnam. Is it believeable that they've had only five deaths?

They may be doing many things right, but that seems unbelievably low.

Or take Germany at 9,154. Now I know part of the reason that German numbers are low is that somehow
they resisted the temptation to deliberately send people infected with Covid-19 to nursing
homes. But beyond that I also happen to know that Germany has adopted a much more stringent
definition of coronavirus deaths than for instance the UK or the United States, so that probably
those 9,154 reported deaths really are due to the coronavirus or at least where the coronavirus
played a significant role.

The same cannot be said for the US numbers and the UK numbers.

And that's a big problem with this comparison. How much does this ranking reflect reality,
and how much is really just differences in definition and the protocols for reporting
coronavirus deaths?

Another issue is what percent of the population has been exposed to the virus? New York
doesn't have much an epidemic going right now. Is that because New York suddenly got its act
together or is it because a great many people in New York got the virus and survived and
now they have herd immunity.

Sweden's epidemic has basically stopped. Their deaths per day are awfully close to zero.

Is that because they have their act together or is it because they now have herd immunity?

Officially the UK has been impacted pretty hard and yet if you compare deaths per million
from all causes, the UK is having fewer deaths this year than last year for the last two
months, or something like that. How do we make sense of that?

Joe Smith said...

@I'm Full of Soup

You'd better cut that pizza in four slices, I'm not hungry enough to eat eight...

heyboom said...

@Tim in Vermont:

Posting a link I don't understand and skedaddling? Not sure why you would presume I don't understand it, but I don't skedaddle. It's actually a byproduct of both moderation and living on the West Coast. If I post, it's usually in the evening here and I have to wait for Ann to wake up and approve it. I will usually not post on a thread the next day because it is already dead by the time I get to it again.

There is nothing I can say about the link that will change your mind, but it is clear to me that the Sweden model will result in a far lower body count than we will have and that all of the lockdowns, social distancing and masks were ineffective and unnecessary.

As said earlier, unless you're wearing an N95 mask that has been properly fitted, a mask is completely useless for anything other than giving the wearers a false sense of security. My nurse wife comes home from shift with marks on her face from having worn her N95 for 12 hours. They are fitted and tested for leakage. On top of that, they wear goggles and face shields. To think that any other type of mask material is going to stop the virus is naive.

Ken B said...

It’s amusing reading the insults the covidiots throw at me, and the most interesting is that some commenters say covid is over, and others say it will never be over. Which proves my point: you covidiots act like you know the truth, but no-one does. We are facing uncertainty, and you insist on certainty. That's what makes you idiots. (Other things make most of you moral failures as well).

mandrewa said...

And another important point that many people are missing.

Lockdowns kill. They kill for many reasons but the main reason is probably that the hospitals weren't treating people for other illness during the lockdowns. And that's an approximate statement because many hospitals were treating some people for other things. It is just that it is nothing like the normal number of people that would have been treated for cancer for instance.

And that means that more people are going to die from cancer in the coming months than normal.

I haven't looked into the details but I saw a recent estimate that 25,000 or so people are going to, or have, died in the UK because of the lockdown.

That compares to 46,286 that have allegedly died from the coronavirus.

That's huge. It changes everything. Sweden isn't really #5 or #6 in deaths per million in the West. In fact they aren't anywhere near that.

buwaya said...

"a large chunk of the increase In detected infections is a direct result of massively increased testing."

Of course it is.
With such a scale of testing the case (or really test positivity) counts are now, finally, beginning to be meaningful. We have no idea what the comparable numbers were when the New York MMA (for instance, or Madrid, etc) was having its outbreak.

And in the US the case counts are turning down sharply in the states with the remaining major metropolitan areas. Covid is "penetrating new markets" still, in smaller cities in smaller states. But IMHO you are definitely seeing the end of this thing.

You have a huge and well-dispersed country with a large number of conurbations. This Covid plague was always going to proceed relatively slowly through all that.

buwaya said...

You arent going to see proper comparable deaths numbers until everyone figures out the civil-records based excess mortality for this year.

Its very likely that this is both "over", or very soon will be, as well as that it will become chronic at a relatively low level.

Rory said...

"Also, note that another reason that the death toll hasn’t been climbing nearly as quickly is that the low hanging fruit has mostly been picked."

Allegheny County (Pittsburgh), with 1.2 million people, has been averaging 6 deaths per week since the June 5 reopening. Perhaps tellingly, the county's daily report has stopped including the median age of virus-attributed deaths. It's been consistently about four years older than the median age for all deaths.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Joe Smith:

Thanks a lot- I'm working on my beach body and you go and mention Pizza!

I'm Full of Soup said...

Good news is Sweden's death per million is lower than these states:

NJ 1,780 DEM
NY 1,680 DEM
CT 1,243 DEM
MA 1,235 REPUB
RI 951 DEM
LA 844 DEM
DC 827 No governor; Mayor is DEM
MI 645 DEM
IL 605 DEM
DE 597 DEM

buwaya said...

Poverty kills.
There are good reasons why third-world countries still have life expectancies 10-15 years below the first world, besides infant mortality. And infant mortality also is largely driven by poverty.

What very few are noting, so far, is that the collapse in world trade and consumption has crushed economies worldwide, both in places that can, relatively speaking, shrug it off in terms of nutrition and hardship, and those where it takes vast numbers closer to the edge. When Americans and Europeans live life to the fullest they are feeding the world by giving employment, livelihoods, to the rest, as well as opportunities to accumulate capital, improve productivity and increase their own consumption.

The supply based idea of human welfare is retarded - that Americans consume x% of world production is bad. Rather, Americans are providing a market from which the rest benefit. When Americans and Europeans go into a shell it hurts everyone.

Its likely going to take years to work out the global impact of this thing.

Kai Akker said...

---As said earlier, unless you're wearing an N95 mask that has been properly fitted, a mask is completely useless for anything other than giving the wearers a false sense of security. [heyboom]

I have read in numerous places that that is NOT so. That the degree of viral load matters a great deal in the infection process, and that even partial protection limits the degree of load from an actual exposure.

Michael K said...

ruce Hayden said...
Excitement on the SpyGate front, as the coup attempt continues to unravel.

CNN: EXCLUSIVE: Fearing Trump interference, FBI agents hid copies of Russia investigation docs


I think the FBI needs major restructuring, if not burning to the ground. If they cannot pull down Trump in November, I suspect the rats will be hading for the exits November 4.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Watch mask wearers fidgeting with their masks... cloth "face coverings required", hankies, pantyhose? IEEEEEE! Climate change IEEEEE! Depleted Aquifers IEEEEEE! Acid rain IEEEEEE! Heterosexual AIDS IEEEEE! The end is always near... until it isn't

bagoh20 said...

"That the degree of viral load matters a great deal in the infection process, and that even partial protection limits the degree of load from an actual exposure."

If you are infected and wearing a mask, you are constantly reinfecting your lungs sinuses while the mask also causes other issues of infection, inflammation, and respiratory irritation. All this makes the wearer more likely to develop the actual disease and comorbidities at the same time.

If the cost/benefit was clearly positive, I'd support masks myself, but it is just as likely to be near zero or negative as it's practiced in real life by most of us. There is no doubt that masks are preventing some infections and causing others. The question is which way does it favor and by how much? Nobody knows, yet they act like they do with extreme prejudice.

Big Mike said...

I think the FBI needs major restructuring, if not burning to the ground.

@Michael K., does Kate understand why a supermajority of the citizens of the Inited States agree.

Big Mike said...

@Ken B., let me know when you’re ready to match deaths due to COVID-19 versus deaths that can be imputed to the lockdown itself.

Michael K said...

Big Mike said...
I think the FBI needs major restructuring, if not burning to the ground.

@Michael K., does Kate understand why a supermajority of the citizens of the Inited States agree.


I doubt it. Most agents at her level do local police work and have no idea of the shenanigans in DC. She is a lefty, lime almost all government employees, but we don't talk politics much.

Birkel said...

Also scars the lungs: bronchitis and walking pneumonia.

The question is always "compared to?"

Those answers are never forthcoming.

tim in vermont recommended shutting down the economy until we get a vaccine.
Also, he wonders how such decisions could impoverish people.

Motivated and stupid reasoning.