Wuhan’s first?

by

by liberal japonicus

I’m back with an Abbott and Costello pun to start things off.

Obligatory exposition. I was an exchange professor in the city of Daejeon, an hour south of Seoul for one year. While there are lots of things that I hope I will write about, I thought that I would start with some discussion of the coronavirus and what I’ve seen in Korea and Japan. As I’m sure all of you are aware, the Chinese efforts to contain the virus have been pretty intensive/harsh/draconian (adjectives to adjust depending on your opinion of China and the danger of the virus). I’m not sure how much coverage you’ve gotten where you are, but here is an interesting story, and the twitter video can give all your Chinese learners some stuff to practice listening to. (不客气!) However, because I wasn’t in China and I wanted to talk about my personal experiences, I won’t talk anymore about that. I’ll also leave Ugh’s post up so folks can talk about what is happening elsewhere especially in the US. I realize that may be a bit chaotic, but I feel like the situation in Asia is quite different than the US, though reading the Guardian suggests that there are some similarities with the UK and Europe. Anyway, more below.

So, I was finishing up my year in Korea, where the universities start at the beginning of March and one of the early responses was that date was pushed back 2 weeks, with the February graduation ceremonies cancelled. I surmise that some big reasons for this were that there are a lot of Chinese exchange students in the Korean universities (more than Japan) and the Korean college student population is much less tied to a hometown, so you would have people travelling from all over the country. I also guess that this is why they didn’t ask elementary, secondary and hagwon (private cram schools) to close. There was a pretty impressive turnout of resources, hand sanitizer dispensers appeared everwhere, all the train stations had consultation tents and temperature cameras, airports have had them since SARS, but they were all fully staffed. Posters everywhere with explanations on handwashing and regular announcements on transport, in stations and other places, all multilingual. All staff with masks, required, a requirement that was extended to every work place shortly after.

I had gone back and forth to Japan a week earlier and when I reentered Korea for the last time (Feb 17), they were interviewing everyone entering with a Chinese passport, and foreigners with longterm visas were no longer permitted to go thru the automatic immigration barriers. The last one seemed more performative, in that Koreans were still allowed to use the automatic gates, but I suppose they wanted a check on all foreigners. However, I’m not sure how they would have told the Chinese from the Koreans for the automatic barriers, though it is possible that they could have flagged their passports, and they directed me because I was more obviously foreign.

This was before the cluster in Taegu, South Korea, which was the airport that I have been travelling thru the most this year. Here are two links about that cluster
from the Guardian and the BBC. This is a great set of graphics from Reuters detailing clusters and explaining why the Taegu cluster raised such red flags. The interaction between the church at the center of the Taegu cluster and Korean reaction is something I’ll try to take up in a later post when I discuss Christianity in Korea.

I also can’t find it, but when the first few people who test positive for the virus show up, both in Korea and Japan, they will publish a detailed itinerary of where they were. This Korean article is a rough example, and there is a post about information and information technology in the works.

As most of you realize, left/right mappings are always complicated by internal politics and history, so one country’s political ecosystem never neatly maps onto another country’s, but for shorthand, the current administration is left, the previous right leaning President, Park Geun-Hye having been impeached. but the current administration of Moon_Jae-in is assumed to be more sympathetic to China as well as dealing with North Korea (something that interacts with Trump’s call for SK paying a larger share of defense) All this is an interesting mix, so there is quite a bit of argy-bargy about how South Korea has not stopped all Chinese from entering the country as evidence of communist leanings. And there are people on the left who are quite disappointed with Moon’s tenure, and the virus is providing a locus for pent up anger, but I didn’t really get as deep an understanding of the currents to be able to confidently explain them.

As a side note, for me, the received wisdom was that Park Geun-Hye was a buffoonish character who was manipulated, but a good Korean friend said, when I wondered, after passing a group of people handing out leaflets in front of a banner with her face why this was still a thing, she said that she had met her in the context of her work and she was actually quite sharp and her impeachment was due to larger forces, which gave me pause and something to think about as the Democratic primaries kick into high gear. But back to the story.

When I departed from Korea out of Taegu for the last time, it was the last flight as the route was suspended the next day. As a point of contrast between Japan and Korea, I returned to announcements that all foreigners who had visited Taegu would be banned from entering Japan. Again, since all the flights from Taegu had been cancelled until further notice, the action was completely meaningless as there was no way to know if a foreigner had visited Taegu, except as a retroactive step, if someone had entered Japan, come down with corona and, in the course of investigating, was found to have visited Taegu, it immediately becomes the fault of the person rather than the system that failed to keep them out.

This raises one of the points I think distinguishes Korea and Japan. People often say that Korean has a ‘ppallippalli’ culture (link, link) and the response to corona is an example of that. Another friend suggested that Korean society was a lot like something that would be designed by a 16 year old genius: brilliant ideas, but not enough lived experience to avoid huge potholes. Still, the idea of not waiting, but doing something, seems to be baked into Korean culture.

On the other hand, Japan is a country that changes slowly, if at all. Outside of the Meiji revolution, (itself a rather protracted affair, but quite short compared to previous history), Japan is the opposite of ppallippalli. Karl van Wolferen, in The Enigma of Japanese Power, likened Japan to a hugh ship that can be turned only incrementally and currently (he was writing in the late 80’s) is without a rudder. The book is not often on lists of books to read, in part because it offended Japanese so much, but it seems to me that the current administration of Abe Shinzo is an exemplar of this. For example, the day before yesterday, Abe announced that elementary and secondary schools should close until the start of the spring break (Japan school year starts in April, so the last few weeks of classes, which include graduation are in March) However, there was apparently no consideration of families with 2 working parents, nor understanding that hospital nursing staff will be a particular problem. This seems like a studied ignorance of women and society (a post about differences and similarities between Korea and Japan is on the back burner as well) but it is likely that the announcement permits Abe’s government to claim they did what they could and schools will, in the absence of clear guidance, make various nods to the policy without actually doing it. Of course, with the Olympics coming to Tokyo, the concern is that it will impact that, and because Japan has become so dependent on tourism, there is a fine line to tread. I’ve got this open on my computer, which might be interesting if you want to see what’s happening in Japan. But I’m not too optimistic with the reports of the cruise ship quarantine being a fiasco, and reports that hospitals are refusing to test for corona.

I’ll finish up here, I’d be interested in seeing how much of this is familiar to all of you and what you are seeing where you are. Stay safe and wash your hands!!

[added]
Just as I hit post, I remembered that Hilzoy had posted a few times about dealing with flu, as well as getting a guest post, which I link here as they still have good information in them.
https://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2005/10/bird_flu_prepar.html
https://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/04/swine-flu-what-we-should-do-for-one-another.html
https://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2009/04/swine-flu.html
https://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2005/11/quarantine.html

572 thoughts on “Wuhan’s first?”

  1. China’s top-down authority and bottom-up responsibility approaches to dealing with crises aren’t working very well at the moment. A big loss of face for the central government. Plus a significant portion of the Chinese population hasn’t grasped the whole germ theory of disease thingy yet.

  2. China’s top-down authority and bottom-up responsibility approaches to dealing with crises aren’t working very well at the moment. A big loss of face for the central government. Plus a significant portion of the Chinese population hasn’t grasped the whole germ theory of disease thingy yet.

  3. Here at my university we have a huge population of Chinese internationals. So far it’s not affected much. I had about four people in each of my classes wearing masks and a bit more concern amongst my students about their usual winter illnesses. Absences are up a bit, but there are no real signs of panic or paranoia.
    As an adjunct who receives no sick time whatsoever, I do wonder what happens if the pandemic does spread. It seems that COVID-19 has little effect on the young, but I do worry for older lecturers who are themselves of have members of their households who are immunocompromised. I know a few, and they are facing some very serious and hard choices.
    And Spring break is just three weeks away. It will be quite interesting to see how many of our internationals opt to remain here rather than go home, and also how the first few weeks following break play out. And there are dozens of other colleges and universities across Southern California who will be facing the same circumstances.

  4. Here at my university we have a huge population of Chinese internationals. So far it’s not affected much. I had about four people in each of my classes wearing masks and a bit more concern amongst my students about their usual winter illnesses. Absences are up a bit, but there are no real signs of panic or paranoia.
    As an adjunct who receives no sick time whatsoever, I do wonder what happens if the pandemic does spread. It seems that COVID-19 has little effect on the young, but I do worry for older lecturers who are themselves of have members of their households who are immunocompromised. I know a few, and they are facing some very serious and hard choices.
    And Spring break is just three weeks away. It will be quite interesting to see how many of our internationals opt to remain here rather than go home, and also how the first few weeks following break play out. And there are dozens of other colleges and universities across Southern California who will be facing the same circumstances.

  5. Charles, we can debate your first two sentences, but I have to say, I find the third one rather racist.

  6. Charles, we can debate your first two sentences, but I have to say, I find the third one rather racist.

  7. Given that a lot of Kristian(TM) fundamentalists in the West (not just in the US) also oppose germ theory and try to spread this disbelief, I would not necessarily consider claims of educational backwardness as racist. As far as I can tell China is still a developing country at least as far as rural areas are concerned and if I compare it with the abysmal state of ecuation in e.g. rural Germany up to WW1 I would not be surprised at all, if traditional beliefs have not died out yet without taking any assumption about specifis ‘chineseness’ as a reason.
    Heck, even in industrialized countries a majority seems not to grasp the difference between viruses and bacteria and that antibiotics don’t work against the former.

  8. Given that a lot of Kristian(TM) fundamentalists in the West (not just in the US) also oppose germ theory and try to spread this disbelief, I would not necessarily consider claims of educational backwardness as racist. As far as I can tell China is still a developing country at least as far as rural areas are concerned and if I compare it with the abysmal state of ecuation in e.g. rural Germany up to WW1 I would not be surprised at all, if traditional beliefs have not died out yet without taking any assumption about specifis ‘chineseness’ as a reason.
    Heck, even in industrialized countries a majority seems not to grasp the difference between viruses and bacteria and that antibiotics don’t work against the former.

  9. Heck, even in industrialized countries a majority seems not to grasp the difference between viruses and bacteria and that antibiotics don’t work against the former.
    Hence, claiming that Chinese somehow have this mistaken belief more than others is racist. Which lays the ground work for things described in these links
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/02/18/how-covid-19-coronavirus-is-uncovering-anti-asian-racism/#295e17bf29a6
    https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/20/us/coronavirus-racist-attacks-against-asian-americans/index.html

  10. Heck, even in industrialized countries a majority seems not to grasp the difference between viruses and bacteria and that antibiotics don’t work against the former.
    Hence, claiming that Chinese somehow have this mistaken belief more than others is racist. Which lays the ground work for things described in these links
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2020/02/18/how-covid-19-coronavirus-is-uncovering-anti-asian-racism/#295e17bf29a6
    https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/20/us/coronavirus-racist-attacks-against-asian-americans/index.html

  11. Well, THAT is indeed something different.
    I also assume that it is just an excuse to voice the pre-existing prejudices now that there is ‘proof’. And to make hay of other people’s prejudices of course (like a high ranking Trump official speculating that it’ll help the US economy and serves the Chinese just right).

  12. Well, THAT is indeed something different.
    I also assume that it is just an excuse to voice the pre-existing prejudices now that there is ‘proof’. And to make hay of other people’s prejudices of course (like a high ranking Trump official speculating that it’ll help the US economy and serves the Chinese just right).

  13. Plus a significant portion of the Chinese population hasn’t grasped the whole germ theory of disease thingy yet…
    I just watched a video of Mike Pence, recently put in charge of responding to the virus threat, wiping his nose with his bare hand at the press conference…
    https://twitter.com/NewGopforUSA/status/1232891149737697280
    A significant proportion of the US population are in active denial of science. And the VP is one of them.

  14. Plus a significant portion of the Chinese population hasn’t grasped the whole germ theory of disease thingy yet…
    I just watched a video of Mike Pence, recently put in charge of responding to the virus threat, wiping his nose with his bare hand at the press conference…
    https://twitter.com/NewGopforUSA/status/1232891149737697280
    A significant proportion of the US population are in active denial of science. And the VP is one of them.

  15. Charles, we can debate your first two sentences, but I have to say, I find the third one rather racist.
    I was just underplaying what some Chinese citizens have said. They give the impression that they think the majority of the population is not much aware of the concept of germs. Or, at least, apply it to their everyday lives. Such as the restrooms in hospitals in first-tier cities not having soap to wash hands.

  16. Charles, we can debate your first two sentences, but I have to say, I find the third one rather racist.
    I was just underplaying what some Chinese citizens have said. They give the impression that they think the majority of the population is not much aware of the concept of germs. Or, at least, apply it to their everyday lives. Such as the restrooms in hospitals in first-tier cities not having soap to wash hands.

  17. I hope this isn’t the ‘but you call each other that on rap songs’ argument…
    And somehow, I think the lack of soap in hospital restrooms might be down to lack of resources and one shouldn’t presume that because of the lack of soap, Chinese haven’t “grasped the whole germ theory of disease thingy”. And not wishing this on anyone, but if the same situation occurred in the US, I would guess we’d see a lot more of things like this:
    https://cspinet.org/news/cspi-urges-fda-enforcement-action-televangelist-jim-bakkers-fake-coronavirus-cure-20200218

  18. I hope this isn’t the ‘but you call each other that on rap songs’ argument…
    And somehow, I think the lack of soap in hospital restrooms might be down to lack of resources and one shouldn’t presume that because of the lack of soap, Chinese haven’t “grasped the whole germ theory of disease thingy”. And not wishing this on anyone, but if the same situation occurred in the US, I would guess we’d see a lot more of things like this:
    https://cspinet.org/news/cspi-urges-fda-enforcement-action-televangelist-jim-bakkers-fake-coronavirus-cure-20200218

  19. “Such as the restrooms in hospitals in first-tier cities not having soap to wash hands.”
    I second lj’s point about the lack of resources in many hospitals around the globe.
    But observing that fact is not racist.
    Especially if we observe that it wasn’t too long ago (news cycles are conveniently short in amnesiac America) that American hospitals were under, and still are, deep criticism for failing to and refusing to observe rudimentary hygiene protocol as basic as personnel washing THEIR hands.
    THIS, in exceptional fucking America that has no excuse for lack of resources, except for that made up by hospitals MBA administrators, nearly all white and mostly male, who were trained by Friedmanesque business schools to purposefully hobble resources and training for the benefit of the shareholders of publicly owned corporations.
    Death from infections transmitted in American hospital environments are still beyond unacceptable.
    My sister, who was gravely ill from complications from a lifetime of diabetes died a horrible death in a very fine Pittsburgh hospital in 2006 from one of those common but preventable infections.
    Aside from the fact that her death was a blessing and respite from long suffering, nearly the entire hospital staff was white.
    Somebody fucked up, but good luck getting to the bottom of it.
    You wanna witness malignant racism in real time?
    Tune into subhuman vermin Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh and the cocksuckers in the Republican White House, as they ramp up the 2020 election campaign to destroy and thwart all of their hated globalism and this time they aren’t going to go after the (I’m talking republican lingo here) niggers and the fags and the kikes and the feminazis as they have in past cycles, that’s old hat (oh, they still hate those folks), no, the new thing is once again another round of the all-American fucking yellow peril.
    Expect to see Bannon-originated ads linking Bernie Sanders or whomever is the Democratic nominee to the Chinese woman eating a whole bat with chopsticks from a saucer of soup and other bullshit inaccuracies.
    The American Conservative has already mis-reported THAT. Dreher, to be precise. I requested a retraction or correction to no avail, the lie being useful to their ideology.
    You wanna see racist?
    If Republican and what they themselves call “conservative” is a racial designation, then I’m Lester Maddox with an ax handle keeping these filth out off my business premises and out of my fucking government.
    Wipe THEM off the face of the Earth.
    The election is already stolen.
    It’s too late to wash our hands of what is coming.

  20. “Such as the restrooms in hospitals in first-tier cities not having soap to wash hands.”
    I second lj’s point about the lack of resources in many hospitals around the globe.
    But observing that fact is not racist.
    Especially if we observe that it wasn’t too long ago (news cycles are conveniently short in amnesiac America) that American hospitals were under, and still are, deep criticism for failing to and refusing to observe rudimentary hygiene protocol as basic as personnel washing THEIR hands.
    THIS, in exceptional fucking America that has no excuse for lack of resources, except for that made up by hospitals MBA administrators, nearly all white and mostly male, who were trained by Friedmanesque business schools to purposefully hobble resources and training for the benefit of the shareholders of publicly owned corporations.
    Death from infections transmitted in American hospital environments are still beyond unacceptable.
    My sister, who was gravely ill from complications from a lifetime of diabetes died a horrible death in a very fine Pittsburgh hospital in 2006 from one of those common but preventable infections.
    Aside from the fact that her death was a blessing and respite from long suffering, nearly the entire hospital staff was white.
    Somebody fucked up, but good luck getting to the bottom of it.
    You wanna witness malignant racism in real time?
    Tune into subhuman vermin Tucker Carlson and Rush Limbaugh and the cocksuckers in the Republican White House, as they ramp up the 2020 election campaign to destroy and thwart all of their hated globalism and this time they aren’t going to go after the (I’m talking republican lingo here) niggers and the fags and the kikes and the feminazis as they have in past cycles, that’s old hat (oh, they still hate those folks), no, the new thing is once again another round of the all-American fucking yellow peril.
    Expect to see Bannon-originated ads linking Bernie Sanders or whomever is the Democratic nominee to the Chinese woman eating a whole bat with chopsticks from a saucer of soup and other bullshit inaccuracies.
    The American Conservative has already mis-reported THAT. Dreher, to be precise. I requested a retraction or correction to no avail, the lie being useful to their ideology.
    You wanna see racist?
    If Republican and what they themselves call “conservative” is a racial designation, then I’m Lester Maddox with an ax handle keeping these filth out off my business premises and out of my fucking government.
    Wipe THEM off the face of the Earth.
    The election is already stolen.
    It’s too late to wash our hands of what is coming.

  23. First-tier cities in China are the ones with the skyscrapers and the streets packed with expensive foreign cars. If there’s no handsoap in hospital restrooms, never mind other public restrooms, it’s not due to a lack of resources.

  24. First-tier cities in China are the ones with the skyscrapers and the streets packed with expensive foreign cars. If there’s no handsoap in hospital restrooms, never mind other public restrooms, it’s not due to a lack of resources.

  25. Really good article.
    This quote:
    “A particular bombshell was the Guo Meimei saga of 2011. A pretty young woman who claimed to be a Red Cross manager – her Weibo profile had a blue verification badge confirming it – was seen all over the internet flaunting her Maserati, Hermès bags and generally extravagant lifestyle. There was an uproar on social media: she was doxxed and trolled and called ‘China’s most despised woman’. Guo may not have had an official connection with the Red Cross – her actual association was murkier – but the episode drew attention to the organisation’s many shady commercial affiliates and the money being splashed around. Its reputation has never fully recovered.”
    There’s a Chinese Bannon and a Chinese Carlson tearing China a new one for running dog Americanizing to such an extent.
    I think my dentist at least looks at the Maserati and Hermes catalogs after I have a crown installed.
    Then he gets on his boat.

  26. Really good article.
    This quote:
    “A particular bombshell was the Guo Meimei saga of 2011. A pretty young woman who claimed to be a Red Cross manager – her Weibo profile had a blue verification badge confirming it – was seen all over the internet flaunting her Maserati, Hermès bags and generally extravagant lifestyle. There was an uproar on social media: she was doxxed and trolled and called ‘China’s most despised woman’. Guo may not have had an official connection with the Red Cross – her actual association was murkier – but the episode drew attention to the organisation’s many shady commercial affiliates and the money being splashed around. Its reputation has never fully recovered.”
    There’s a Chinese Bannon and a Chinese Carlson tearing China a new one for running dog Americanizing to such an extent.
    I think my dentist at least looks at the Maserati and Hermes catalogs after I have a crown installed.
    Then he gets on his boat.

  27. First-tier cities in China are the ones with the skyscrapers and the streets packed with expensive foreign cars. If there’s no handsoap in hospital restrooms, never mind other public restrooms, it’s not due to a lack of resources.
    So, I don’t know much about healthcare financing and hospital operations in China. But this seems like absurd reductionism. One might say that surely there are no slums in wealthy American cities, no one dying for want of insulin, and yet…there are.
    If you’ve got some evidence that proves that Chinese people reject the germ-theory of disease at higher rates than people in the US, that would be interesting. But you don’t, so the assumption that the dirty foreigners must be stupid and that explains their sickness is just racism.
    Besides, lots of people don’t believe in the germ theory of disease. Jordan Peterson has millions of followers who worship him and he eats a meat-only diet.

  28. First-tier cities in China are the ones with the skyscrapers and the streets packed with expensive foreign cars. If there’s no handsoap in hospital restrooms, never mind other public restrooms, it’s not due to a lack of resources.
    So, I don’t know much about healthcare financing and hospital operations in China. But this seems like absurd reductionism. One might say that surely there are no slums in wealthy American cities, no one dying for want of insulin, and yet…there are.
    If you’ve got some evidence that proves that Chinese people reject the germ-theory of disease at higher rates than people in the US, that would be interesting. But you don’t, so the assumption that the dirty foreigners must be stupid and that explains their sickness is just racism.
    Besides, lots of people don’t believe in the germ theory of disease. Jordan Peterson has millions of followers who worship him and he eats a meat-only diet.

  29. If you’ve got some evidence that proves that Chinese people reject the germ-theory of disease at higher rates than people in the US, that would be interesting.
    A video blog episode by a Chinese citizen describing the lack of sanitation in Chinese wet markets, supermarkets, and hospitals.
    Chinese Wet Market Tour and Important Warning
    Video blogs by two guys who have lived in China for over a decade. You won’t agree with everything they have to say. I don’t. And they can be wrong about some things. But they have seen a lot more of China than most Chinese citizens. So they speak from experience.
    ADVChina: Adventure Talk Show on 2 Wheels

    laowhy86
    serpentza: The Original China Vlogger

  30. If you’ve got some evidence that proves that Chinese people reject the germ-theory of disease at higher rates than people in the US, that would be interesting.
    A video blog episode by a Chinese citizen describing the lack of sanitation in Chinese wet markets, supermarkets, and hospitals.
    Chinese Wet Market Tour and Important Warning
    Video blogs by two guys who have lived in China for over a decade. You won’t agree with everything they have to say. I don’t. And they can be wrong about some things. But they have seen a lot more of China than most Chinese citizens. So they speak from experience.
    ADVChina: Adventure Talk Show on 2 Wheels

    laowhy86
    serpentza: The Original China Vlogger

  31. Charles, those are some lovely links. But they’re not, you know, responsive to my question. I didn’t ask “do there exist any people in China with poor sanitation practices?”. Your links would be responsive to that question. I asked for evidence showing that Chinese people reject the germ-theory of disease at higher rates than people in the US. Now, structurally, nothing you offer that involves only a bunch of dudes in China can address that question, because dudes making observations about stuff in China don’t tell us anything about the comparison to the US.
    What you might have done is dug up a study run by some reputable epidemiologists showing that 80% of people in China reject the germ theory of disease while only 20% of people in the US do. I don’t think any such study exists, but if it did, that would support your contention. But it doesn’t, so you just assumed that to be true because you think Chinese people are stupid. Which is, you know, a racist statement. Which is what LJ said hours ago.
    I don’t even think that most Americans believe in the germ theory of disease. If they did, then why do restaurant workers say that their bosses tell them to keep coming to work when sick? Why don’t kitchen line cooks get sick days off?

  32. Charles, those are some lovely links. But they’re not, you know, responsive to my question. I didn’t ask “do there exist any people in China with poor sanitation practices?”. Your links would be responsive to that question. I asked for evidence showing that Chinese people reject the germ-theory of disease at higher rates than people in the US. Now, structurally, nothing you offer that involves only a bunch of dudes in China can address that question, because dudes making observations about stuff in China don’t tell us anything about the comparison to the US.
    What you might have done is dug up a study run by some reputable epidemiologists showing that 80% of people in China reject the germ theory of disease while only 20% of people in the US do. I don’t think any such study exists, but if it did, that would support your contention. But it doesn’t, so you just assumed that to be true because you think Chinese people are stupid. Which is, you know, a racist statement. Which is what LJ said hours ago.
    I don’t even think that most Americans believe in the germ theory of disease. If they did, then why do restaurant workers say that their bosses tell them to keep coming to work when sick? Why don’t kitchen line cooks get sick days off?

  33. But it doesn’t, so you just assumed that to be true because you think Chinese people are stupid.
    I think nothing of the kind. After all, Chinese and other Asians are, on the whole, smarter than the rest of us. 🙂
    But China is very much a country in transition. It’s still recovering from the Cultural Devolution and the Great Leap Backwards. A few miles outside any first-tier city is a third world environment.
    And Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore are filled with Chinese people and don’t have many of the pathologies observable in China.
    People in first world countries have more leeway to be a little careless about personal hygiene, sanitation, and not believing in germs. These countries have cleaner environments and better medical care to fall back on.
    Decades ago, I read a science fiction novel wherein part of its premise was that advances in medicine had eliminated all infectious diseases. As a result, the characters in the novel had disgustingly bad hygiene and sanitation habits.

  34. But it doesn’t, so you just assumed that to be true because you think Chinese people are stupid.
    I think nothing of the kind. After all, Chinese and other Asians are, on the whole, smarter than the rest of us. 🙂
    But China is very much a country in transition. It’s still recovering from the Cultural Devolution and the Great Leap Backwards. A few miles outside any first-tier city is a third world environment.
    And Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore are filled with Chinese people and don’t have many of the pathologies observable in China.
    People in first world countries have more leeway to be a little careless about personal hygiene, sanitation, and not believing in germs. These countries have cleaner environments and better medical care to fall back on.
    Decades ago, I read a science fiction novel wherein part of its premise was that advances in medicine had eliminated all infectious diseases. As a result, the characters in the novel had disgustingly bad hygiene and sanitation habits.

  35. “I don’t even think that most Americans believe in the germ theory of disease.”
    No kidding. Well, not if it hinders billable hours and productivity.
    I’ve been in wet markets in lots of countries.
    Same most everywhere. I had the dysentery to prove it.
    Singapore is very regulated in that respect.
    Their outdoor markets are not libertarian, like some Chinese wet markets, and thus are pristine germ wise, as much as possible.
    It’s nearly Communist in its regulation of germs and hygiene.
    Lots of Chinese in Singapore, so the stereotypes don’t hold.
    I’ve sat in upscale restaurants years ago in major Indian cities and watched upscale Indians eat with their right hands, reserving the left hand for other matters. Yet three forks to the left of the plate, and two spoons and two knives to the right, untouched.
    It is what it is.
    Denying the germ theory.
    Hmm, sounds like global climate change denial. Sounds like the soon-to-be-dead Limbaugh (hallalujah!) and his epidemiological explanation of the current viral outbreak. Sounds like trump and his hoaxes. Sounds like late night American cable bullshit ads to me. Sounds like we’re going to be raptured by Mike Pompeo, that bag of dirt.
    Other cultures, sure, are ignorant to some extent of the science behind hygiene.
    And yet in America we have conservatives and religious shits denying basic science as hoaxes, some of it over fear that gummint might violate libertarian principles.
    I’ll take the dysentery over our home grown deliberate, willful, malignant, conservative Evil.
    We have Pence the shallow prosperity gospel no condom ignoramus heading up a scientific medical body.
    The nation’s chief epidemiologist was fired by Pence’s boss last year. The ones that are left are under gag orders by the White House.
    Who needs the Chinese, when we can be conservative paranoid racist authoritarian ignorant malign assholes all by ourselves.
    There will be violence and we will miss Antifa’s brand of amateur mayhem.

  36. “I don’t even think that most Americans believe in the germ theory of disease.”
    No kidding. Well, not if it hinders billable hours and productivity.
    I’ve been in wet markets in lots of countries.
    Same most everywhere. I had the dysentery to prove it.
    Singapore is very regulated in that respect.
    Their outdoor markets are not libertarian, like some Chinese wet markets, and thus are pristine germ wise, as much as possible.
    It’s nearly Communist in its regulation of germs and hygiene.
    Lots of Chinese in Singapore, so the stereotypes don’t hold.
    I’ve sat in upscale restaurants years ago in major Indian cities and watched upscale Indians eat with their right hands, reserving the left hand for other matters. Yet three forks to the left of the plate, and two spoons and two knives to the right, untouched.
    It is what it is.
    Denying the germ theory.
    Hmm, sounds like global climate change denial. Sounds like the soon-to-be-dead Limbaugh (hallalujah!) and his epidemiological explanation of the current viral outbreak. Sounds like trump and his hoaxes. Sounds like late night American cable bullshit ads to me. Sounds like we’re going to be raptured by Mike Pompeo, that bag of dirt.
    Other cultures, sure, are ignorant to some extent of the science behind hygiene.
    And yet in America we have conservatives and religious shits denying basic science as hoaxes, some of it over fear that gummint might violate libertarian principles.
    I’ll take the dysentery over our home grown deliberate, willful, malignant, conservative Evil.
    We have Pence the shallow prosperity gospel no condom ignoramus heading up a scientific medical body.
    The nation’s chief epidemiologist was fired by Pence’s boss last year. The ones that are left are under gag orders by the White House.
    Who needs the Chinese, when we can be conservative paranoid racist authoritarian ignorant malign assholes all by ourselves.
    There will be violence and we will miss Antifa’s brand of amateur mayhem.

  41. Maybe Pence will decide to do a photo-op at a facility for covid-19 victims. Just to show how under control everything is, of course. And obviously without masks, which would be bad for his facial recognition in the photos.
    If you want to get really enthused, you can picture him coughing on Trump in a subsequent Cabinet meetingpandering session. Just imagine the tweets after that!

  42. Maybe Pence will decide to do a photo-op at a facility for covid-19 victims. Just to show how under control everything is, of course. And obviously without masks, which would be bad for his facial recognition in the photos.
    If you want to get really enthused, you can picture him coughing on Trump in a subsequent Cabinet meetingpandering session. Just imagine the tweets after that!

  43. I just want to underline that I pointed out the statement is racist, which says nothing about what your thinking is.
    But I’d like to think that you’d realize your statement is problematic when you consider this article, which points out that women are more hygenic than men. Would you then claim that this means men must not have “grasped the whole germ theory of disease thingy”.
    On the other hand, this does provide a new angle on toxic masculinity…
    btw, a welcome back to Turbulence.

  44. I just want to underline that I pointed out the statement is racist, which says nothing about what your thinking is.
    But I’d like to think that you’d realize your statement is problematic when you consider this article, which points out that women are more hygenic than men. Would you then claim that this means men must not have “grasped the whole germ theory of disease thingy”.
    On the other hand, this does provide a new angle on toxic masculinity…
    btw, a welcome back to Turbulence.

  45. I just want to underline that I pointed out the statement is racist, which says nothing about what your thinking is.
    My thinking is that much of Mainland Chinese don’t have a tradition of thinking and worrying about germs and how to avoid them.
    After thoroughly washing your hands, how do you escape from the restroom without touching what everyone who doesn’t bother to wash their hands has touched? Especially if there are no paper towels. Those inwardly opening doors can be difficult to overcome.

  46. I just want to underline that I pointed out the statement is racist, which says nothing about what your thinking is.
    My thinking is that much of Mainland Chinese don’t have a tradition of thinking and worrying about germs and how to avoid them.
    After thoroughly washing your hands, how do you escape from the restroom without touching what everyone who doesn’t bother to wash their hands has touched? Especially if there are no paper towels. Those inwardly opening doors can be difficult to overcome.

  51. At times like this, I try to look below the surface of what the stock market crowd is claiming the problem to be … in this case, the coronavirus … and what is usually revealed is a money liquidity problem of one kind or another:
    https://www.mcoscillator.com/learning_center/weekly_chart/fed_pulling_back_from_repos_at_the_wrong_time/
    On the other hand, this particular guy, like most Americans, seems to know the right thing about what the government, or anyone else besides themselves, should do, but they refuse, being too good, I expect, from their high judgmental perch with no responsibility, to actually work for the government, and if they did, they would be wrong too, according to everyone else.
    It’s the full of shitness of the entire show that gets me.

  52. At times like this, I try to look below the surface of what the stock market crowd is claiming the problem to be … in this case, the coronavirus … and what is usually revealed is a money liquidity problem of one kind or another:
    https://www.mcoscillator.com/learning_center/weekly_chart/fed_pulling_back_from_repos_at_the_wrong_time/
    On the other hand, this particular guy, like most Americans, seems to know the right thing about what the government, or anyone else besides themselves, should do, but they refuse, being too good, I expect, from their high judgmental perch with no responsibility, to actually work for the government, and if they did, they would be wrong too, according to everyone else.
    It’s the full of shitness of the entire show that gets me.

  53. So, how long before Trump figures out it’s the Fed, and not covid-19, that he should be blaming?
    Put another way, how long until Federal efforts to respond to the virus get back-burnered? Because, if it’s not what is hitting the Market, Trump (with the highest quality government medical care for himself) doesn’t see any need to care.

  54. So, how long before Trump figures out it’s the Fed, and not covid-19, that he should be blaming?
    Put another way, how long until Federal efforts to respond to the virus get back-burnered? Because, if it’s not what is hitting the Market, Trump (with the highest quality government medical care for himself) doesn’t see any need to care.

  55. wj, you are not up-to-date. Trump has been blaming the Dems for several days now.
    Both for making the whole ‘carona’ virus thing up and for having primaries and candidates that cause panic at Wall Street because there is a tiny wee remote chance that one of them could become president.
    As we all know it’s a dogma that good economic news under Dem leadership are either fake or caused by the expectation that they will lose the next election while bad econmic news under GOPsters are fake AND caused by Dem sabotage AND by expectations that the Dems will steal the next election AND a carryover from the last Dem administration.

  56. wj, you are not up-to-date. Trump has been blaming the Dems for several days now.
    Both for making the whole ‘carona’ virus thing up and for having primaries and candidates that cause panic at Wall Street because there is a tiny wee remote chance that one of them could become president.
    As we all know it’s a dogma that good economic news under Dem leadership are either fake or caused by the expectation that they will lose the next election while bad econmic news under GOPsters are fake AND caused by Dem sabotage AND by expectations that the Dems will steal the next election AND a carryover from the last Dem administration.

  57. Hartmut, he was always going to blame the Democrats too. Just like he was always going to denounce the media for “fake news” about the virus.
    My point was about what the administration will actually put efforts into doing. Specifically, will they do anything useful about the virus? Or will the action be focused to redirecting (or reconstituting) the Fed to keep an overheated economy bubbling for a few more months?

  58. Hartmut, he was always going to blame the Democrats too. Just like he was always going to denounce the media for “fake news” about the virus.
    My point was about what the administration will actually put efforts into doing. Specifically, will they do anything useful about the virus? Or will the action be focused to redirecting (or reconstituting) the Fed to keep an overheated economy bubbling for a few more months?

  59. This could be an interesting test of what people really believe. Would he be willing to hold a MAGA rally in the middle of the pandemic? And would his believers happily pile in a stadium to prove his detractors wrong?

  60. This could be an interesting test of what people really believe. Would he be willing to hold a MAGA rally in the middle of the pandemic? And would his believers happily pile in a stadium to prove his detractors wrong?

  61. A few more interesting links
    via TPM
    smoking increases danger from Corona
    This is interesting because, from my experience, the number of smokers, especially younger smokers, was a lot greater than I expected in Korea. In Japan, it seems to be dropping and vaping/electronic cigarettes have not made the inroads that they seem to have in Korea. However, it didn’t seem as gendered as the link suggests it is in China.
    The fluwiki is no longer up, but is now a facebook group
    https://www.facebook.com/groups/93263609767/

  62. A few more interesting links
    via TPM
    smoking increases danger from Corona
    This is interesting because, from my experience, the number of smokers, especially younger smokers, was a lot greater than I expected in Korea. In Japan, it seems to be dropping and vaping/electronic cigarettes have not made the inroads that they seem to have in Korea. However, it didn’t seem as gendered as the link suggests it is in China.
    The fluwiki is no longer up, but is now a facebook group
    https://www.facebook.com/groups/93263609767/

  63. Some investigative journalists should take a look whether and to what degree Jabbabonk (sorry for using the actual name in my last post) tries to personally make money from the whole thing, Is he (or members of his mischpoke) involved in any quack cures or ’emergency supplies’ or ‘crisis investment opportunities’ etc.? would be completely out of character if he were not.

  64. Some investigative journalists should take a look whether and to what degree Jabbabonk (sorry for using the actual name in my last post) tries to personally make money from the whole thing, Is he (or members of his mischpoke) involved in any quack cures or ’emergency supplies’ or ‘crisis investment opportunities’ etc.? would be completely out of character if he were not.

  65. Would he be willing to hold a MAGA rally on a huge melting iceberg recently calved from Antarctica or Greenland and floating into warmer waters.
    The term “tipping point” would gain new currency.
    His Hefty Royal Loutness does believe in the germ theory, that’s for sure.
    Witness his banishing from the room of staff who dare to cough twice, though I suspect those coughs are similar to my mother’s at the dinner table when one of us was inappropriately not shutting our traps or otherwise acting out.
    What if Mick Mulvaney or KellyAnne Conway contracted the virus and cataarhed into their taco bowls at Mar-a-Lago, but … well, now we’re into wishful thinking.

  66. Would he be willing to hold a MAGA rally on a huge melting iceberg recently calved from Antarctica or Greenland and floating into warmer waters.
    The term “tipping point” would gain new currency.
    His Hefty Royal Loutness does believe in the germ theory, that’s for sure.
    Witness his banishing from the room of staff who dare to cough twice, though I suspect those coughs are similar to my mother’s at the dinner table when one of us was inappropriately not shutting our traps or otherwise acting out.
    What if Mick Mulvaney or KellyAnne Conway contracted the virus and cataarhed into their taco bowls at Mar-a-Lago, but … well, now we’re into wishful thinking.

  67. An interesting thought experiment.
    Invite your trump-loving relatives or acquaintances over for dinner and simulate flu symptoms at the table, coughing fits, mucus spilling sneezes, etc, and when they clasp their napkins over their mouths and recoil in horror, if they can in fact exhibit any semblance of empathy, and ask if you’ve seen a doctor, stand up and bring the real life Dr. Fauci out from behind a potted plant in the corner of the room, a la Woody Allen, except he will be handcuffed and his mouth gagged with duck tape.
    But seriously, for the real people, not nasty trump filth, suffering around the world with this disease, who have other things to fear than a draw down of their “portfolios”:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jrhPCtk144

  68. An interesting thought experiment.
    Invite your trump-loving relatives or acquaintances over for dinner and simulate flu symptoms at the table, coughing fits, mucus spilling sneezes, etc, and when they clasp their napkins over their mouths and recoil in horror, if they can in fact exhibit any semblance of empathy, and ask if you’ve seen a doctor, stand up and bring the real life Dr. Fauci out from behind a potted plant in the corner of the room, a la Woody Allen, except he will be handcuffed and his mouth gagged with duck tape.
    But seriously, for the real people, not nasty trump filth, suffering around the world with this disease, who have other things to fear than a draw down of their “portfolios”:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jrhPCtk144

  69. Jordan Peterson has millions of followers who worship him and he eats a meat-only diet.
    and is currently in rehab in Russia (?) for addiction to benzos.
    a couple of the smartest people I know think Peterson is the absolute bomb. the things that pass for knowledge, I can’t understand.
    Chinese and other Asians are, on the whole, smarter than the rest of us.
    Is it still racist if you say flattering things about entire ethnicities and/or places of geographic origin?
    A welcome back to Turbulence indeed.
    And he’s making trouble again.
    yay!

  70. Jordan Peterson has millions of followers who worship him and he eats a meat-only diet.
    and is currently in rehab in Russia (?) for addiction to benzos.
    a couple of the smartest people I know think Peterson is the absolute bomb. the things that pass for knowledge, I can’t understand.
    Chinese and other Asians are, on the whole, smarter than the rest of us.
    Is it still racist if you say flattering things about entire ethnicities and/or places of geographic origin?
    A welcome back to Turbulence indeed.
    And he’s making trouble again.
    yay!

  73. Either Russia has better healthcare than Canada and America, or all conservatives like Peterson will ultimately be called home to Mother Russia to reward their service in destabilizing the West.
    Is he staying in the Ayn Rand suite in the Lubyanka Building during his convalescence?
    Peterson no doubt blames his addiction to over-prescribed anxiety drugs on his emasculated manhood.
    When he returns, I may start on a course of the stuff myself.

  74. Either Russia has better healthcare than Canada and America, or all conservatives like Peterson will ultimately be called home to Mother Russia to reward their service in destabilizing the West.
    Is he staying in the Ayn Rand suite in the Lubyanka Building during his convalescence?
    Peterson no doubt blames his addiction to over-prescribed anxiety drugs on his emasculated manhood.
    When he returns, I may start on a course of the stuff myself.

  81. Forgot to put this link in. The jump of numbers in South Korea is probably due to their testing regime
    https://abcnews.go.com/International/massive-coronavirus-testing-program-south-korea-underscores-nimble/story?id=69226222&fbclid=IwAR0SvOvRBu1mh4pLxnTlj_RFAMFgghI2Xr6-NSX6YWWXUFGHsSMLce6ng_E
    There was a press conference by Abe, and I got the impression that they are being a lot less transparent about it, largely because of fears about the Olympics.

  82. Forgot to put this link in. The jump of numbers in South Korea is probably due to their testing regime
    https://abcnews.go.com/International/massive-coronavirus-testing-program-south-korea-underscores-nimble/story?id=69226222&fbclid=IwAR0SvOvRBu1mh4pLxnTlj_RFAMFgghI2Xr6-NSX6YWWXUFGHsSMLce6ng_E
    There was a press conference by Abe, and I got the impression that they are being a lot less transparent about it, largely because of fears about the Olympics.

  83. Either Russia has better healthcare than Canada and America
    Apparently he went to Russia because they offered some experimental therapy not available here. It involved putting him a medically induced coma, and also apparently it f***ed him the hell up. Like, neurologically damaged him.
    I feel badly for him, and wouldn’t wish any of that on anyone. I bring it up in Peterson’s case because he has made a career for himself out of arguing for self-discipline and the harmful and damaging social effects of coddling people in their “safe spaces”.
    He was experiencing anxiety because his wife was ill, his doctor recommended benzos, he had a hard time kicking them, and made some bad choices about how to handle that. Apparently.
    His self-discipline, 100% carnivorous diet, and embrace of his masculine essence all let him down. He somehow failed to set his own house in order before criticizing the world. Standing up straight with his shoulders back wasn’t sufficient to fix what ailed him, as it turns out.
    Karma is a freaking b*tch. That is why it’s pretty much never a good idea to go around telling people that they need to stop sniveling and straighten up and fly right.
    Hubris/nemesis. Sometimes I think the Greeks knew it all.
    I wish him a full and complete recovery, and a long and happy life. Maybe the experience will temper his point of view, maybe not. That’s up to him.

  84. Either Russia has better healthcare than Canada and America
    Apparently he went to Russia because they offered some experimental therapy not available here. It involved putting him a medically induced coma, and also apparently it f***ed him the hell up. Like, neurologically damaged him.
    I feel badly for him, and wouldn’t wish any of that on anyone. I bring it up in Peterson’s case because he has made a career for himself out of arguing for self-discipline and the harmful and damaging social effects of coddling people in their “safe spaces”.
    He was experiencing anxiety because his wife was ill, his doctor recommended benzos, he had a hard time kicking them, and made some bad choices about how to handle that. Apparently.
    His self-discipline, 100% carnivorous diet, and embrace of his masculine essence all let him down. He somehow failed to set his own house in order before criticizing the world. Standing up straight with his shoulders back wasn’t sufficient to fix what ailed him, as it turns out.
    Karma is a freaking b*tch. That is why it’s pretty much never a good idea to go around telling people that they need to stop sniveling and straighten up and fly right.
    Hubris/nemesis. Sometimes I think the Greeks knew it all.
    I wish him a full and complete recovery, and a long and happy life. Maybe the experience will temper his point of view, maybe not. That’s up to him.

  85. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-situation-in-china-is-even-worse-than-you-think-says-this-analyst-with-a-history-of-accurate-calls-2020-02-28?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
    They have their non-transparent commie authoritarians running the show and we have our non-transparent fascist authoritarians.
    None of them are named Sanders, Clinton, or Warren.
    And I don’t care for Sanders or Clinton, but they are bog standard, not expressly evil.
    Interesting that if Sanders doesn’t get the nomination, some sizable minority of his followers will vote for Trump in the general, as they did in 2016, some of them being asshole cousins with trump lovers.
    With ilk like them, who the hell needs conservatives who vote for what’saWuhancallmeGary Johnson to throw the government under the control of corrupt, malignant filth?

  86. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-situation-in-china-is-even-worse-than-you-think-says-this-analyst-with-a-history-of-accurate-calls-2020-02-28?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
    They have their non-transparent commie authoritarians running the show and we have our non-transparent fascist authoritarians.
    None of them are named Sanders, Clinton, or Warren.
    And I don’t care for Sanders or Clinton, but they are bog standard, not expressly evil.
    Interesting that if Sanders doesn’t get the nomination, some sizable minority of his followers will vote for Trump in the general, as they did in 2016, some of them being asshole cousins with trump lovers.
    With ilk like them, who the hell needs conservatives who vote for what’saWuhancallmeGary Johnson to throw the government under the control of corrupt, malignant filth?

  87. Or will the action be focused to redirecting (or reconstituting) the Fed to keep an overheated economy bubbling for a few more months?
    DOWist medicine

  88. Or will the action be focused to redirecting (or reconstituting) the Fed to keep an overheated economy bubbling for a few more months?
    DOWist medicine

  89. Is it still racist if you say flattering things about entire ethnicities and/or places of geographic origin?
    Of course it is. You may be slurring “everybody else but” only implicitly by the comparison. But it’s still a slur based on race.

  90. Is it still racist if you say flattering things about entire ethnicities and/or places of geographic origin?
    Of course it is. You may be slurring “everybody else but” only implicitly by the comparison. But it’s still a slur based on race.

  91. The coronavirus is a hoax.
    That is the final word.
    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/29/1922967/-Trump-calls-coronavirus-Democrat-s-new-hoax-as-he-repeats-lies-about-spread-within-the-U-S
    And get a load of the California Republican piece of dog shit tweeting in the article.
    Bill Gates financed the manufacture of the virus. Soros, blah blah blah.
    Gates should arm himself and if that woman comes near him, take her out.
    American is in grave danger.
    The calls are coming from inside the house.

  92. The coronavirus is a hoax.
    That is the final word.
    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/29/1922967/-Trump-calls-coronavirus-Democrat-s-new-hoax-as-he-repeats-lies-about-spread-within-the-U-S
    And get a load of the California Republican piece of dog shit tweeting in the article.
    Bill Gates financed the manufacture of the virus. Soros, blah blah blah.
    Gates should arm himself and if that woman comes near him, take her out.
    American is in grave danger.
    The calls are coming from inside the house.

  93. Re JDT at 8:43 AM
    I think Juanita Jean got it wrong. The language in the Constitution that gives the President pardon powers “except in cases of impeachment” doesn’t apply to criminal cases where the parties participated in something that the President got impeached for. Rather it is a limitation on granting a pardon to someone who was impeached, in order to short-circuit his removal from office or to allow him to hold Federal office again. Neither of which apply to Stone.
    I note that, when she speaks of the “plain meaning of the Constitution” on the subject, the article she links to is about whether Trump could pardon himself. (The article argues he cannot.) It says nothing about pardoning others and in what circumstances.

  94. Re JDT at 8:43 AM
    I think Juanita Jean got it wrong. The language in the Constitution that gives the President pardon powers “except in cases of impeachment” doesn’t apply to criminal cases where the parties participated in something that the President got impeached for. Rather it is a limitation on granting a pardon to someone who was impeached, in order to short-circuit his removal from office or to allow him to hold Federal office again. Neither of which apply to Stone.
    I note that, when she speaks of the “plain meaning of the Constitution” on the subject, the article she links to is about whether Trump could pardon himself. (The article argues he cannot.) It says nothing about pardoning others and in what circumstances.

  95. That’s for the correction, if you are correct.
    So, the Constitution is on Stone’s and Trump’s side in this matter.
    Or, as a strict constructionist might put it, worth less than spit.

  96. That’s for the correction, if you are correct.
    So, the Constitution is on Stone’s and Trump’s side in this matter.
    Or, as a strict constructionist might put it, worth less than spit.

  103. Someone?
    I think Winston Churchill said it first out loud and then made a career out of capitalizing on it.
    Machiavelli of course. Lenin. Lennon. The Lennon Sisters too, those opportunists, the three of them wrapping Lawrence Welk around their ring fingers.
    Interesting links:
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/air-pollution-vanishes-across-china-114801234.html
    Once we get industry up and running again I expect Kudlow and company to use spiking deaths from pollution-related respiratory diseases as a positive leading indicator of the robust health of his tax-cutting economic ideology.
    I have a bit of a cold at the moment, hopefully just a delayed relapse after vigorous Mardi Gras revelry and candle-burning from the middle out, so if my condition worsens from air pollution and I die from it do I get the Medal of Freedom posthumously in our valueless scumbag pig fucking republican world.
    On the other hand, if Rush Limbaugh contracts the Coronavirus and it complicates the morbidity of his lung cancer and puts him in his grave with the Medal of Freedom around his lynched neck, will the next Democratic President order exhumation and reclaiming the Medal for decent human beings who haven’t contributed to the ruination of the United States of America?
    Shit:
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/middle-eastern-stocks-plunge-oil-085657774.html

  104. Someone?
    I think Winston Churchill said it first out loud and then made a career out of capitalizing on it.
    Machiavelli of course. Lenin. Lennon. The Lennon Sisters too, those opportunists, the three of them wrapping Lawrence Welk around their ring fingers.
    Interesting links:
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/air-pollution-vanishes-across-china-114801234.html
    Once we get industry up and running again I expect Kudlow and company to use spiking deaths from pollution-related respiratory diseases as a positive leading indicator of the robust health of his tax-cutting economic ideology.
    I have a bit of a cold at the moment, hopefully just a delayed relapse after vigorous Mardi Gras revelry and candle-burning from the middle out, so if my condition worsens from air pollution and I die from it do I get the Medal of Freedom posthumously in our valueless scumbag pig fucking republican world.
    On the other hand, if Rush Limbaugh contracts the Coronavirus and it complicates the morbidity of his lung cancer and puts him in his grave with the Medal of Freedom around his lynched neck, will the next Democratic President order exhumation and reclaiming the Medal for decent human beings who haven’t contributed to the ruination of the United States of America?
    Shit:
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/middle-eastern-stocks-plunge-oil-085657774.html

  105. I have a suspicion that Charles was referencing Rahm Emanuel, probably because when he said it, he was also referring to potential pandemics, made all the more likely given his long training and expertise as an epidemiologist.

  106. I have a suspicion that Charles was referencing Rahm Emanuel, probably because when he said it, he was also referring to potential pandemics, made all the more likely given his long training and expertise as an epidemiologist.

  107. “Coronavirus Update 28 with pulmonologist Dr. Seheult of https://www.MedCram.com.
    Topics include what health care professionals and other citizens can do to prevent COVID-19 spread, coronavirus case fatality rate based on patient age, and further discussion on coronavirus test kits.”
    Coronavirus Epidemic Update 28: Practical Prevention Strategies, Patient Age vs. Case Fatality Rate (YouTube)

  108. “Coronavirus Update 28 with pulmonologist Dr. Seheult of https://www.MedCram.com.
    Topics include what health care professionals and other citizens can do to prevent COVID-19 spread, coronavirus case fatality rate based on patient age, and further discussion on coronavirus test kits.”
    Coronavirus Epidemic Update 28: Practical Prevention Strategies, Patient Age vs. Case Fatality Rate (YouTube)

  113. Reports of people preparing for trouble around here. Costco actually ran out of toilet paper! Similar reports from Target, etc. Paper towels and bottled water were running out. Also lots of people stocking up on things like flour and other raw material for bread. And, of course, face masks and gloves.
    In the short term, the economic stats will look good from all the spending. But then people will start using up their supplies. It’s not really panic yet. But it looks like sentiment is moving that way. Too bad we don’t have a trusted national leader to calm people down.

  114. Reports of people preparing for trouble around here. Costco actually ran out of toilet paper! Similar reports from Target, etc. Paper towels and bottled water were running out. Also lots of people stocking up on things like flour and other raw material for bread. And, of course, face masks and gloves.
    In the short term, the economic stats will look good from all the spending. But then people will start using up their supplies. It’s not really panic yet. But it looks like sentiment is moving that way. Too bad we don’t have a trusted national leader to calm people down.

  115. Regarding lj’s link to the BBC interview made joyous by children and their hilarious mother who re-enacts any number of Looney Tunes scripts, stick around for the Ellen Degeneres video de-briefing of the incident.
    After the children are “ushered” from the room, you can almost hear John Cleese in a bad female falsetto from the next room reading the kids the riot act and accosting them with any object at hand.
    Something similar happened to a North Korean commentator being interviewed on the same subject and HIS children and wife were invited to be the main attraction at an anti-aircraft gun exhibition in a stadium, which I guess also illustrates the difference to conservatives of the difference between a quasi-Sanders-like government-subsidized outfit like the BBC and the murderous gulag trump conservatives make NPR out to be.

  116. Regarding lj’s link to the BBC interview made joyous by children and their hilarious mother who re-enacts any number of Looney Tunes scripts, stick around for the Ellen Degeneres video de-briefing of the incident.
    After the children are “ushered” from the room, you can almost hear John Cleese in a bad female falsetto from the next room reading the kids the riot act and accosting them with any object at hand.
    Something similar happened to a North Korean commentator being interviewed on the same subject and HIS children and wife were invited to be the main attraction at an anti-aircraft gun exhibition in a stadium, which I guess also illustrates the difference to conservatives of the difference between a quasi-Sanders-like government-subsidized outfit like the BBC and the murderous gulag trump conservatives make NPR out to be.

  117. Someone said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
    to which our current POTUS adds, “…and if there isn’t one handy, create one!”

  118. Someone said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”
    to which our current POTUS adds, “…and if there isn’t one handy, create one!”

  121. Obviously, the American Christian entity who created the virus, as with the AIDS virus, has a formidable enemies list to target with viral warfare:
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-kills-top-iranian-official-state-media-reports?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition
    As always, there is blowback on the creators:
    https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/24/808914718/secretive-church-sect-at-the-center-of-south-koreas-coronavirus-outbreak
    One could hypothesize that the habit of praying for one’s enemies who one believes deserve God’s vengeance, as is long practice among republican conservative right wing Christians …. AIDS victims, tornado and hurricane victims, EBOLA victims …. is a vector worth exploring as the source of the spread of disease.
    Worry not, Rod Dreher conservatives are bracing for full martyrdom, because they are the victims regardless of what it is that is doing the victimizing.
    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/christian-scapegoats-coronavirus-trump/

  122. Obviously, the American Christian entity who created the virus, as with the AIDS virus, has a formidable enemies list to target with viral warfare:
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-kills-top-iranian-official-state-media-reports?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition
    As always, there is blowback on the creators:
    https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/24/808914718/secretive-church-sect-at-the-center-of-south-koreas-coronavirus-outbreak
    One could hypothesize that the habit of praying for one’s enemies who one believes deserve God’s vengeance, as is long practice among republican conservative right wing Christians …. AIDS victims, tornado and hurricane victims, EBOLA victims …. is a vector worth exploring as the source of the spread of disease.
    Worry not, Rod Dreher conservatives are bracing for full martyrdom, because they are the victims regardless of what it is that is doing the victimizing.
    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/christian-scapegoats-coronavirus-trump/

  123. Well, of course, when wooing as a royal swordsman, one mustn’t spare any prop or piece of furniture to achieve one’s amorous ends:
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/prince-andrews-go-to-seduction-move-is-to-let-women-sit-on-the-queens-throne?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning
    It’s all very well, but of course scandalous, for we peasants, like Tom Jones or Moll Flanders, to have a bit of a rolling lie down in a hayrick in pursuit of this earth’s meager pleasures, but the high born gentlemen and gentle ladies, our virtuous betters, deserve more luxurious support for their mutual comfort.
    One wonders if Falwell the younger and his one and lovely, along with whatever third party is invited along for the romp, use to support their thrustings toward the divine, even as they tut-tut birth control protection for we of the more careful classes who take our rare pleasure as it comes … without paying for it.

  124. Well, of course, when wooing as a royal swordsman, one mustn’t spare any prop or piece of furniture to achieve one’s amorous ends:
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/prince-andrews-go-to-seduction-move-is-to-let-women-sit-on-the-queens-throne?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning
    It’s all very well, but of course scandalous, for we peasants, like Tom Jones or Moll Flanders, to have a bit of a rolling lie down in a hayrick in pursuit of this earth’s meager pleasures, but the high born gentlemen and gentle ladies, our virtuous betters, deserve more luxurious support for their mutual comfort.
    One wonders if Falwell the younger and his one and lovely, along with whatever third party is invited along for the romp, use to support their thrustings toward the divine, even as they tut-tut birth control protection for we of the more careful classes who take our rare pleasure as it comes … without paying for it.

  125. Mystery question of the week: why water?
    It’s understandable that people who are worried about being quarantined, or just about going out for the next few weeks, would want to stock up on basics like food or TP. But there’s no reason why the virus outbreak, even in a worst case scenario, would hit water supplies. That’s a concern for something like an earthquake, or maybe a major power outage. But a virus?
    It’s like people (including the media) have only one disaster preparedness template. And they recycle it, regardless of the details of what the potential disaster is.

  126. Mystery question of the week: why water?
    It’s understandable that people who are worried about being quarantined, or just about going out for the next few weeks, would want to stock up on basics like food or TP. But there’s no reason why the virus outbreak, even in a worst case scenario, would hit water supplies. That’s a concern for something like an earthquake, or maybe a major power outage. But a virus?
    It’s like people (including the media) have only one disaster preparedness template. And they recycle it, regardless of the details of what the potential disaster is.

  129. “It’s like people (including the media) have only one disaster preparedness template.”
    A few snowflakes falling from the sky, and people have to stock up on their “snow bread” and “snow milk”.
    French toast while trapped indoors during a snowstorm is a tradition, I guess.

  130. “It’s like people (including the media) have only one disaster preparedness template.”
    A few snowflakes falling from the sky, and people have to stock up on their “snow bread” and “snow milk”.
    French toast while trapped indoors during a snowstorm is a tradition, I guess.

  131. Some people fill their gas tanks before a snow storm because they might not be able to drive to the gas station after the snow.

  132. Some people fill their gas tanks before a snow storm because they might not be able to drive to the gas station after the snow.

  133. Gesundheit!?
    https://digbysblog.net/2020/03/heckuva-job-pencie/
    In other news, Mike Pence, one of many conservatives who are major shareholders in Carnival Cruise Lines, the luxury ocean cruise liner company, announced that as vaccines to inoculate against the Coronavirus are developed and manufactured, most of the inventory will be stored on the company’s ships to be allocated to first class passengers who book early and often for the summer cruise season.
    Right-wing Christian ministries across the country are reported to be reserving blocks of cruise liner cabins in a program know as Operation Noah’s Ark. Australian Marsupials once again may not apply.
    God is my sneeze guard as I belly up to the buffet on the USS Prosperity Gospel.

  134. Gesundheit!?
    https://digbysblog.net/2020/03/heckuva-job-pencie/
    In other news, Mike Pence, one of many conservatives who are major shareholders in Carnival Cruise Lines, the luxury ocean cruise liner company, announced that as vaccines to inoculate against the Coronavirus are developed and manufactured, most of the inventory will be stored on the company’s ships to be allocated to first class passengers who book early and often for the summer cruise season.
    Right-wing Christian ministries across the country are reported to be reserving blocks of cruise liner cabins in a program know as Operation Noah’s Ark. Australian Marsupials once again may not apply.
    God is my sneeze guard as I belly up to the buffet on the USS Prosperity Gospel.

  135. milk sammiches!
    stocking up on water makes no sense. looks everybody is just copy/pasting that same list of things you should stock up for in case of a hurricane.

  136. milk sammiches!
    stocking up on water makes no sense. looks everybody is just copy/pasting that same list of things you should stock up for in case of a hurricane.

  137. Some people fill their gas tanks before a snow storm because they might not be able to drive to the gas station after the snow.
    here in hurricane land, people do that when a hurricane is coming because they don’t want to get stuck in case the gas station runs out and can’t get gas deliveries for a while.

  138. Some people fill their gas tanks before a snow storm because they might not be able to drive to the gas station after the snow.
    here in hurricane land, people do that when a hurricane is coming because they don’t want to get stuck in case the gas station runs out and can’t get gas deliveries for a while.

  139. *waves at folks*
    Hi friends! Sorry for commenting and running, but I am a very tired Turbulence who now has an extremely energetic 2-year old running about and a teenager living with us as well. Hope you are all well, or, as well as can be in the current nightmare.

  140. *waves at folks*
    Hi friends! Sorry for commenting and running, but I am a very tired Turbulence who now has an extremely energetic 2-year old running about and a teenager living with us as well. Hope you are all well, or, as well as can be in the current nightmare.

  141. I am a very tired Turbulence who now has an extremely energetic 2-year old running about
    From what I think I remember about one of the last times you dropped in, that is particularly good news! Congratulations!

  142. I am a very tired Turbulence who now has an extremely energetic 2-year old running about
    From what I think I remember about one of the last times you dropped in, that is particularly good news! Congratulations!

  145. Nigel, I suspect that all those “not yet reported” cases are simply people who haven’t gotten tested yet. Due to our massive lack of testing kits. Which is also unforgivable, but with a different focus.
    And yes, things are likely to get very unpleasant very soon over this. The only question is how unpleasant. That and whether Trump’s already-in-progress effort to shift the blame** is successful to some degree.
    ** I love that he’s now trying to blame Obama for the mess that he, Trump, created.

  146. Nigel, I suspect that all those “not yet reported” cases are simply people who haven’t gotten tested yet. Due to our massive lack of testing kits. Which is also unforgivable, but with a different focus.
    And yes, things are likely to get very unpleasant very soon over this. The only question is how unpleasant. That and whether Trump’s already-in-progress effort to shift the blame** is successful to some degree.
    ** I love that he’s now trying to blame Obama for the mess that he, Trump, created.

  147. There’s no “simply not getting tested”, though.
    Untested out in the community (or in hospital), and a significant proportion going. back to works because no sick pay….
    This thing is going to get beyond any feasible control pretty soon. If not already.

  148. There’s no “simply not getting tested”, though.
    Untested out in the community (or in hospital), and a significant proportion going. back to works because no sick pay….
    This thing is going to get beyond any feasible control pretty soon. If not already.

  153. Worry not, Rod Dreher conservatives are bracing for full martyrdom, because they are the victims regardless of what it is that is doing the victimizing.
    Has Dreher addressed the point that there are no women in the taskforce, despite the fact that the field is skewed towards women?
    http://blog.eoscu.com/blog/women-in-epidemiology

  154. Worry not, Rod Dreher conservatives are bracing for full martyrdom, because they are the victims regardless of what it is that is doing the victimizing.
    Has Dreher addressed the point that there are no women in the taskforce, despite the fact that the field is skewed towards women?
    http://blog.eoscu.com/blog/women-in-epidemiology

  155. First-tier cities in China are the ones with the skyscrapers and the streets packed with expensive foreign cars. If there’s no handsoap in hospital restrooms, never mind other public restrooms, it’s not due to a lack of resources.
    I was in Wuhan in September. There’s a lot of money being spent on premium goods in shopping malls. But when I walked through the city I saw a fair amount of what looked like slum housing for ordinary people to live in.

  156. First-tier cities in China are the ones with the skyscrapers and the streets packed with expensive foreign cars. If there’s no handsoap in hospital restrooms, never mind other public restrooms, it’s not due to a lack of resources.
    I was in Wuhan in September. There’s a lot of money being spent on premium goods in shopping malls. But when I walked through the city I saw a fair amount of what looked like slum housing for ordinary people to live in.

  157. Dreher is afraid that a female epidemiologist or two sneaky-peted on to the task force and might be presenting as male, having slipped past his dragnet of hysteria due to sex reassignment surgery.
    Dr. Fauci is obviously a beard.
    You can tell because he loses all of the arm wrestling contests when the task force goes out for beer and prayer after hours.

  158. Dreher is afraid that a female epidemiologist or two sneaky-peted on to the task force and might be presenting as male, having slipped past his dragnet of hysteria due to sex reassignment surgery.
    Dr. Fauci is obviously a beard.
    You can tell because he loses all of the arm wrestling contests when the task force goes out for beer and prayer after hours.

  159. Plus, during the germfest with Trump the other day, trump addressed Fauci more than once in this manner: “Look, Antonia, when I want a girl’s opinion, I’ll summon Ann Coulter in here with a strap-on and give it to you good and hard! One of you lackeys run down to the local beauty queen dressing room and find me someone loyal .. and flexible … who’ll tell me this virus will be gone by Friday.”
    “And, Mike, would you PLEASE stop picking your nose on camera? How many times do I have to mispronounce “OPTRICS!!!?”

  160. Plus, during the germfest with Trump the other day, trump addressed Fauci more than once in this manner: “Look, Antonia, when I want a girl’s opinion, I’ll summon Ann Coulter in here with a strap-on and give it to you good and hard! One of you lackeys run down to the local beauty queen dressing room and find me someone loyal .. and flexible … who’ll tell me this virus will be gone by Friday.”
    “And, Mike, would you PLEASE stop picking your nose on camera? How many times do I have to mispronounce “OPTRICS!!!?”

  161. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/president-trump-disputes-whos-coronavirus-fatality-rate-34-is-really-a-false-number-now-this-is-just-my-hunch-2020-03-05?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
    The WHO, the CDC, all surviving Beatles, and David Crosby, are recommending all Americans start wearing this mask in the interest of safety and to protect against postmodernist conservatism:
    https://www.ebay.com/p/719313182?iid=172253582343&chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=172253582343&targetid=883564623986&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9028772&poi=&campaignid=6469750549&mkgroupid=93041470030&rlsatarget=pla-883564623986&abcId=1141176&merchantid=114147024&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxLO4sMCD6AIVDdRkCh2rjA6REAYYASABEgKMnfD_BwE
    Let’s commit goddamned national arson, what say you?

  162. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/president-trump-disputes-whos-coronavirus-fatality-rate-34-is-really-a-false-number-now-this-is-just-my-hunch-2020-03-05?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
    The WHO, the CDC, all surviving Beatles, and David Crosby, are recommending all Americans start wearing this mask in the interest of safety and to protect against postmodernist conservatism:
    https://www.ebay.com/p/719313182?iid=172253582343&chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=172253582343&targetid=883564623986&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9028772&poi=&campaignid=6469750549&mkgroupid=93041470030&rlsatarget=pla-883564623986&abcId=1141176&merchantid=114147024&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxLO4sMCD6AIVDdRkCh2rjA6REAYYASABEgKMnfD_BwE
    Let’s commit goddamned national arson, what say you?

  163. Only one thing must happen before we kill, butcher, and slaughter the entire conservative movement.
    We must raise the inheritance tax rate to 100 percent and then have the fuck at it.
    I still find it hard to believe that Hillary Clinton purposefully lost the 2016 election and convinced Donald Trump to burn down and destroy the Republican Party directly from the Oval Office, but there is no other explanation, is there, conservatives and republicans?
    “It’s the role of a lifetime, Donald!!”

  164. Only one thing must happen before we kill, butcher, and slaughter the entire conservative movement.
    We must raise the inheritance tax rate to 100 percent and then have the fuck at it.
    I still find it hard to believe that Hillary Clinton purposefully lost the 2016 election and convinced Donald Trump to burn down and destroy the Republican Party directly from the Oval Office, but there is no other explanation, is there, conservatives and republicans?
    “It’s the role of a lifetime, Donald!!”

  165. Both sides do it.
    Both sides are on the same side. Trump’s.
    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-public-health-menace-coronavirus/
    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/coronavirus-the-latest-attempt-to-prove-trumps-a-chump/
    The rest of us are mere onlookers to America’s collapse at the hands of the Party of every bad and contradictory idea, pursued with utter absolutism.
    Elsewhere, Dreher is going on about Schumer’s harsh language toward the Supreme Court regarding abortion.
    Here’s a deal:
    The conservative movement works overtime for 45 years to destroy two American institutions per week in pursuit of their malign goals.
    The least liberals can do is up the ante and kill three institutions per week in response.
    Call me Uncle, motherfuckers!

  166. Both sides do it.
    Both sides are on the same side. Trump’s.
    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/trump-public-health-menace-coronavirus/
    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/coronavirus-the-latest-attempt-to-prove-trumps-a-chump/
    The rest of us are mere onlookers to America’s collapse at the hands of the Party of every bad and contradictory idea, pursued with utter absolutism.
    Elsewhere, Dreher is going on about Schumer’s harsh language toward the Supreme Court regarding abortion.
    Here’s a deal:
    The conservative movement works overtime for 45 years to destroy two American institutions per week in pursuit of their malign goals.
    The least liberals can do is up the ante and kill three institutions per week in response.
    Call me Uncle, motherfuckers!

  167. Other reasons Trump and Pence look askance at women on task forces is because the latter might nag them with their off-putting vaginal harsh talk (otherwise known as manly no-two-ways-about-it absolute certainty and now get out there and hup-to or we’ll fire your asses) about what must be done, like Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton do.
    Plus, the girls might have to visit the bathroom occasionally during the meetings, which the mere thought of Donald finds disgusting as he did Hillary’s pee-break (actually, according to in-the-know conservatives, she was undergoing a quick blood transfusion during the debate to fight off terminal something or other) during the 2016 debate.
    A real leader has a solid gold toilet and a wide stance and toilet paper dispenser sporting the likeness of Mike Pence on his knees.

  168. Other reasons Trump and Pence look askance at women on task forces is because the latter might nag them with their off-putting vaginal harsh talk (otherwise known as manly no-two-ways-about-it absolute certainty and now get out there and hup-to or we’ll fire your asses) about what must be done, like Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton do.
    Plus, the girls might have to visit the bathroom occasionally during the meetings, which the mere thought of Donald finds disgusting as he did Hillary’s pee-break (actually, according to in-the-know conservatives, she was undergoing a quick blood transfusion during the debate to fight off terminal something or other) during the 2016 debate.
    A real leader has a solid gold toilet and a wide stance and toilet paper dispenser sporting the likeness of Mike Pence on his knees.

  177. I wonder if a number of people with coronary disease will get quarantined by mistake given that a lot of people avoid Corona beer for fear of infection (no, I did not make that up).
    Next season: dentists get quarantined because people confuse plaque with plague.

  178. I wonder if a number of people with coronary disease will get quarantined by mistake given that a lot of people avoid Corona beer for fear of infection (no, I did not make that up).
    Next season: dentists get quarantined because people confuse plaque with plague.

  181. Hartmut, I believe that Corona beer rumour was debunked. Believable though.

  182. Hartmut, I believe that Corona beer rumour was debunked. Believable though.

  183. https://www.balloon-juice.com/2020/03/07/covid-19-update-domestic-edition-friday-saturday-march-6-7/
    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-have-been-tested-coronavirus/607597/
    Meanwhile:
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/02/how-stephen-miller-manipulates-donald-trump-to-further-his-immigration-obsession
    Meanwhile, social media and government agencies are being hamstrung and hacked by Trump’s foreign aces in the hole, with Bannon’s instigation, to sow disinformation and mayhem.
    We have a fascist authoritarian pig fucking vermin republican government that is utterly incompetent and purposefully useless (they are trying to prove their malignant thesis that government should be abolished) in wielding legitimate authority when human lives are in danger, and in fact,treats human beings like pieces of dog shit.
    Overthrow, kill, butcher, and slaughter.
    Overthrow, kill, butcher, and slaughter.
    How can Fauci stand there?
    Trust no stinking, fucking conservative or republican.
    If you stand next to them, you ARE them.

  184. https://www.balloon-juice.com/2020/03/07/covid-19-update-domestic-edition-friday-saturday-march-6-7/
    https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/03/how-many-americans-have-been-tested-coronavirus/607597/
    Meanwhile:
    https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/02/how-stephen-miller-manipulates-donald-trump-to-further-his-immigration-obsession
    Meanwhile, social media and government agencies are being hamstrung and hacked by Trump’s foreign aces in the hole, with Bannon’s instigation, to sow disinformation and mayhem.
    We have a fascist authoritarian pig fucking vermin republican government that is utterly incompetent and purposefully useless (they are trying to prove their malignant thesis that government should be abolished) in wielding legitimate authority when human lives are in danger, and in fact,treats human beings like pieces of dog shit.
    Overthrow, kill, butcher, and slaughter.
    Overthrow, kill, butcher, and slaughter.
    How can Fauci stand there?
    Trust no stinking, fucking conservative or republican.
    If you stand next to them, you ARE them.

  199. If the info is right, Israel now requires quarantine for New Yorkers and some other USians travelling to Israel. AIPAC attendees are excepted. And from the same news: There were corona cases at that very conference (and at CPAC). There are also rumors that there is a short unbroken chain of handshakes from one of the infected to Jabbabonk (and Pence) but no one dares to tell him. Shall we hope?

  200. If the info is right, Israel now requires quarantine for New Yorkers and some other USians travelling to Israel. AIPAC attendees are excepted. And from the same news: There were corona cases at that very conference (and at CPAC). There are also rumors that there is a short unbroken chain of handshakes from one of the infected to Jabbabonk (and Pence) but no one dares to tell him. Shall we hope?

  201. When you choose quarantine targets for political (rather than medical) reasons, you fail to get the medical benefits. And with Trump, there is no other criteria for selection than the political.
    I wonder how soon he will decide to try to quarantine the state of Washington. Won’t that be some fun court cases?!?

  202. When you choose quarantine targets for political (rather than medical) reasons, you fail to get the medical benefits. And with Trump, there is no other criteria for selection than the political.
    I wonder how soon he will decide to try to quarantine the state of Washington. Won’t that be some fun court cases?!?

  203. “There are also rumors that there is a short unbroken chain of handshakes from one of the infected to Jabbabonk (and Pence) but no one dares to tell him. Shall we hope?”
    Somehow, I don’t see old white conservatives starting to use an ‘elbow bump’ as greeting, so the Trump admin is a target-rich environment for the virus.

  204. “There are also rumors that there is a short unbroken chain of handshakes from one of the infected to Jabbabonk (and Pence) but no one dares to tell him. Shall we hope?”
    Somehow, I don’t see old white conservatives starting to use an ‘elbow bump’ as greeting, so the Trump admin is a target-rich environment for the virus.

  205. the Trump admin is a target-rich environment for the virus.
    Especially as some of them (and it doesn’t take a lot) see vaccinations as something to be avoided.

  206. the Trump admin is a target-rich environment for the virus.
    Especially as some of them (and it doesn’t take a lot) see vaccinations as something to be avoided.

  207. The only way anyone is getting off that cruise ship anchored off the west coast before the election on which dozens of passengers are infected with and carrying the Coronavirus is by pledging loyalty and fealty to Donald Trump and the malignant, murderous Republican Party.
    If you can’t prove you are registered to vote Republican, they’ll throw down some straw in steerage and you’ll be there for the duration.
    Republicans and conservatives on the ship infected with the virus will be escorted via RNC limousines, on the taxpayer tab, to polling places to vote and then be released into the general population to infect again with the conservative virus.
    Further, ICE vermin, under orders from Trump and Steve Miller are planning the forcible evacuation of prominent liberals in San Francisco to the cruise ship for “political quarantine”
    Protocols are being put in place by the corrupt conservative republican deep state at all levels of government across the country to stop and examine all registered Democrats before they enter polling places in November to test for fever and the virus, and most will be turned away from voting, because the republican operatives* screeners will also be questioning the basic humanity of anyone registered as a liberal along with all of the racial, sexual, and cultural traits vermin conservatives plan to weed out of the population.
    Registered Republicans will not be screened.
    Further, in red state jurisdictions across the country in which voting by mail is prevalent, postal inspectors and republican operatives chosen from among the fascist trump faithful* on voting commissions will destroy all “contaminated” ballots, which will be determined solely by racial, religious,, and cultural origins and one’s party registration on the voting rolls.
    Further, in states sporting majority fascist subhuman republican legislatures but legitimately elected Democratic Governors, the legislatures, as they have been doing in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and now, most recently in Kentucky, home of dead-man walking fuckers like McConnell and the zombie Paul family, will strip the Democratic Governors of powers and authority associated with maintaining fair and open voting in November.
    I also expect Texas’ Governor to declare the cities of Austin and parts of Houston hot zones to be quarantined for medical reasons (basically a prognosis that Democrats might have high turnout which must be stopped)
    Any court cases resulting from these measures will be delayed when possible by fascist republican-appointed judges, including the no- longer-supreme-Court majority, or decided against the diseased liberal and minority plaintives and in favor of conservative movement filth.
    I predict Rush Limbaugh will die (a possible ray of cleansing, sunshine amidst the darkening contagion of evil settling over America) painfully and expensively at commie gummint expense of his lung cancer in the weeks leading up to the November election but conservative movement operatives will prevent revealing the fact from the public and keep the body hidden as they run a campaign claiming the lying, venereal, hateful tyrant in indeed rallying after a bedside visit trump and pence and various crypto, Christian fakirs and their laying on of diseased hands to his emaciated, pneumonia-riddled (it’s just the common cold) wasted person and fake video will be released of him exhorting the re-election of trump and the total destruction of the U.S. Government and the Democratic Party and all persons considered unAmerican.
    That’as not the worst scenario. The worst is that he will live, the fucking ruinous piece of garbage.
    wj will now counsel, in reasonable intonations like a lifeboat steward trying to engineer an orderly departure from the upended Titanic, that things might be bad but only half as bad as I depict in my comment. %-)
    So carry on, but maybe grab what’s left of the laid-out buffet lunch on the luxury first-class deck as you cinch up your life preservers, just in case.
    We are in post-modernist deconstructed America by order of the trump conservative movement, so the faker the news, the more true it is, and vice versa as the normative compasses gyre and spin out of control into chaos and savage killing fury.
    *such as this piece of ignorant dog shit:
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8068137/Donald-Trump-supporter-rally-North-Carolina-says-doesnt-think-coronavirus-real.html
    There are millions of her.
    There won’t be once the fury is released.

  208. The only way anyone is getting off that cruise ship anchored off the west coast before the election on which dozens of passengers are infected with and carrying the Coronavirus is by pledging loyalty and fealty to Donald Trump and the malignant, murderous Republican Party.
    If you can’t prove you are registered to vote Republican, they’ll throw down some straw in steerage and you’ll be there for the duration.
    Republicans and conservatives on the ship infected with the virus will be escorted via RNC limousines, on the taxpayer tab, to polling places to vote and then be released into the general population to infect again with the conservative virus.
    Further, ICE vermin, under orders from Trump and Steve Miller are planning the forcible evacuation of prominent liberals in San Francisco to the cruise ship for “political quarantine”
    Protocols are being put in place by the corrupt conservative republican deep state at all levels of government across the country to stop and examine all registered Democrats before they enter polling places in November to test for fever and the virus, and most will be turned away from voting, because the republican operatives* screeners will also be questioning the basic humanity of anyone registered as a liberal along with all of the racial, sexual, and cultural traits vermin conservatives plan to weed out of the population.
    Registered Republicans will not be screened.
    Further, in red state jurisdictions across the country in which voting by mail is prevalent, postal inspectors and republican operatives chosen from among the fascist trump faithful* on voting commissions will destroy all “contaminated” ballots, which will be determined solely by racial, religious,, and cultural origins and one’s party registration on the voting rolls.
    Further, in states sporting majority fascist subhuman republican legislatures but legitimately elected Democratic Governors, the legislatures, as they have been doing in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and now, most recently in Kentucky, home of dead-man walking fuckers like McConnell and the zombie Paul family, will strip the Democratic Governors of powers and authority associated with maintaining fair and open voting in November.
    I also expect Texas’ Governor to declare the cities of Austin and parts of Houston hot zones to be quarantined for medical reasons (basically a prognosis that Democrats might have high turnout which must be stopped)
    Any court cases resulting from these measures will be delayed when possible by fascist republican-appointed judges, including the no- longer-supreme-Court majority, or decided against the diseased liberal and minority plaintives and in favor of conservative movement filth.
    I predict Rush Limbaugh will die (a possible ray of cleansing, sunshine amidst the darkening contagion of evil settling over America) painfully and expensively at commie gummint expense of his lung cancer in the weeks leading up to the November election but conservative movement operatives will prevent revealing the fact from the public and keep the body hidden as they run a campaign claiming the lying, venereal, hateful tyrant in indeed rallying after a bedside visit trump and pence and various crypto, Christian fakirs and their laying on of diseased hands to his emaciated, pneumonia-riddled (it’s just the common cold) wasted person and fake video will be released of him exhorting the re-election of trump and the total destruction of the U.S. Government and the Democratic Party and all persons considered unAmerican.
    That’as not the worst scenario. The worst is that he will live, the fucking ruinous piece of garbage.
    wj will now counsel, in reasonable intonations like a lifeboat steward trying to engineer an orderly departure from the upended Titanic, that things might be bad but only half as bad as I depict in my comment. %-)
    So carry on, but maybe grab what’s left of the laid-out buffet lunch on the luxury first-class deck as you cinch up your life preservers, just in case.
    We are in post-modernist deconstructed America by order of the trump conservative movement, so the faker the news, the more true it is, and vice versa as the normative compasses gyre and spin out of control into chaos and savage killing fury.
    *such as this piece of ignorant dog shit:
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8068137/Donald-Trump-supporter-rally-North-Carolina-says-doesnt-think-coronavirus-real.html
    There are millions of her.
    There won’t be once the fury is released.

  209. Holy crap!:
    https://seekingalpha.com/news/3549568-oil-set-to-plunge-another-10-on-open
    The socialist, commie conservative movement, using my hard-earned tax dollars, led by fucking scum Trump will bail out the dozens of over-leveraged fracking oil companies which will cascade into bankruptcy, causing catastrophic stress in the high yield bond market and sending the economy and markets into yet another conservative republican deregulated, low tax, cataclysm al a 1929, 1987, 2000-1, 2008-1910.
    Obliterate the republican party.
    Never let it govern us again. Kill it.
    Everything they touch turns to shit.

  210. Holy crap!:
    https://seekingalpha.com/news/3549568-oil-set-to-plunge-another-10-on-open
    The socialist, commie conservative movement, using my hard-earned tax dollars, led by fucking scum Trump will bail out the dozens of over-leveraged fracking oil companies which will cascade into bankruptcy, causing catastrophic stress in the high yield bond market and sending the economy and markets into yet another conservative republican deregulated, low tax, cataclysm al a 1929, 1987, 2000-1, 2008-1910.
    Obliterate the republican party.
    Never let it govern us again. Kill it.
    Everything they touch turns to shit.

  213. These are not wishes.
    They are predictions.
    They are recognition of the horrible justified fate that comes to horrible people who have caused, via THEIR wishes, misery for the human race.
    If I was wishing for the ultimate demise of this country’s internal enemies, I would indeed have sunk as low as trump conservatives and republicans.
    The bombing of Dresden was not a wish.
    It was the logical answer and punishment to evil.
    I don’t wish to be worse than them.
    I wish, I strive to be more ruthless than them, because we must be to see our way forward to a better day and a better way.

  214. These are not wishes.
    They are predictions.
    They are recognition of the horrible justified fate that comes to horrible people who have caused, via THEIR wishes, misery for the human race.
    If I was wishing for the ultimate demise of this country’s internal enemies, I would indeed have sunk as low as trump conservatives and republicans.
    The bombing of Dresden was not a wish.
    It was the logical answer and punishment to evil.
    I don’t wish to be worse than them.
    I wish, I strive to be more ruthless than them, because we must be to see our way forward to a better day and a better way.

  215. A great headline summarizing a postmodern deconstructionist America full of shitheads who talk out their ass:
    https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/americans-say-they-wont-drink-corona-because-of-coronavirus-but-sales-are-up-5-51583610529?itm_source=parsely-api&mod=morebar_bomw
    The Founders would re-pledge loyalty to the British Crown, load up the Mayflower with fresh fruit and sail back to England if they got a load of the rot from these filth.
    I don’t believe Cruz and Gosar, noted conservative self-dramatizing liars and cheats, shook hands with anyone:
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/08/sen-ted-cruz-coronavirus-patient-self-quarantining/4996904002/
    I wouldn’t give them a vaccine concocted from raw sewage if their chromosomes were on fire.
    Believe nothing Republicans say.
    Believe nothing their governments pronounce.
    They are not here to help anyone but themselves.
    Open fire and ask questions later.
    Kill their governments.

  216. A great headline summarizing a postmodern deconstructionist America full of shitheads who talk out their ass:
    https://www.marketwatch.com/articles/americans-say-they-wont-drink-corona-because-of-coronavirus-but-sales-are-up-5-51583610529?itm_source=parsely-api&mod=morebar_bomw
    The Founders would re-pledge loyalty to the British Crown, load up the Mayflower with fresh fruit and sail back to England if they got a load of the rot from these filth.
    I don’t believe Cruz and Gosar, noted conservative self-dramatizing liars and cheats, shook hands with anyone:
    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/03/08/sen-ted-cruz-coronavirus-patient-self-quarantining/4996904002/
    I wouldn’t give them a vaccine concocted from raw sewage if their chromosomes were on fire.
    Believe nothing Republicans say.
    Believe nothing their governments pronounce.
    They are not here to help anyone but themselves.
    Open fire and ask questions later.
    Kill their governments.

  223. In Germany we currently have the strange phenomenon of thrifty panic buying certain supplies. Mash, flour, toilet paper, tomato puree, cooking oil are sold out everywhere but only the ‘no name’ brands, the more expensive ‘named’ brands right next to them remain mostly untouched.
    And someone stole the whole supply of disinfectant from the Berlin police academy.

  224. In Germany we currently have the strange phenomenon of thrifty panic buying certain supplies. Mash, flour, toilet paper, tomato puree, cooking oil are sold out everywhere but only the ‘no name’ brands, the more expensive ‘named’ brands right next to them remain mostly untouched.
    And someone stole the whole supply of disinfectant from the Berlin police academy.

  225. I have a plan for what to do if I come down with Coronavirus:
    1. collect infected bio samples
    2. add colored water, a bit of perfume
    3. package in small handy spray bottles
    4. sell for $1 each at Trump rallies.
    It’s the GOP way!

  226. I have a plan for what to do if I come down with Coronavirus:
    1. collect infected bio samples
    2. add colored water, a bit of perfume
    3. package in small handy spray bottles
    4. sell for $1 each at Trump rallies.
    It’s the GOP way!

  227. ETA:
    4. Sell for $1 each as HAND SANITIZER at Trump rallies.
    Fake sanitizer for a ‘fake’ virus. Yet pure karma.

  228. ETA:
    4. Sell for $1 each as HAND SANITIZER at Trump rallies.
    Fake sanitizer for a ‘fake’ virus. Yet pure karma.

  229. Above, Thullen noted that he Cruz self quarantined. This suggests that he’s smart enough to know he’s scamming everyone. I would expect that if Cotton were in the same position, they’d probably ignore it and if it were Gohmert, he’d probably try to test positive to prove it was all a liberal plot.

  230. Above, Thullen noted that he Cruz self quarantined. This suggests that he’s smart enough to know he’s scamming everyone. I would expect that if Cotton were in the same position, they’d probably ignore it and if it were Gohmert, he’d probably try to test positive to prove it was all a liberal plot.

  231. At the behest of his new Chief of Staff, tax cheat Mark Meadows, Trump will hold a press conference today in which the inanely and sweetly grinning hater Kellyanne Conway will serve our esteemed President a tureen of soup with a live bat flopping around in the broth.
    He will take the struggling, squeaking bat in his unwashed hands and bite the head off the creature, a la Ozzie Osborne, and chew and then spitfeed the bolus of bat chew directly from his mouth into the upturned baby bird gob of Larry Kudlow, who will swallow it, smack his lips, and exclaim “Yummy! It’s what’s for dinner!”
    Kudlow will then turn to the camera and declare:
    “We’ve got this thing under control. I’d buy stocks if I were you with both unwashed hands.”
    Then he will whoop and hoot like a sailor on shore leave seeking out every STD to be had in the scurviest, shit hole port of call in the world.
    Mike Pence, standing to the side like a third-rate poorly crafted wax replica of a human being rejected from Madame Tussaud’s exhibit, will throw up a little inside his Hazmat helmet, and with his crypto-Christian fingers crossed in devote insincerity behind his back, rip the helmet from his head, and plunge his face into the leftover tureen of broth and then, after kissing his wife, and only his wife, full on the mouth, projectile vomit the contents into the faces of the CNN, Washington Post, and New York Times reporters looking on in the front row and then, for good measure, sue the reporters for stealing food off his plate.
    It’s cleek’s law meets Night of the Living Deconstructed Vermin Conservative Dead, in which Doris get her oats.
    You know what to do. O, K, B, and S.

  232. At the behest of his new Chief of Staff, tax cheat Mark Meadows, Trump will hold a press conference today in which the inanely and sweetly grinning hater Kellyanne Conway will serve our esteemed President a tureen of soup with a live bat flopping around in the broth.
    He will take the struggling, squeaking bat in his unwashed hands and bite the head off the creature, a la Ozzie Osborne, and chew and then spitfeed the bolus of bat chew directly from his mouth into the upturned baby bird gob of Larry Kudlow, who will swallow it, smack his lips, and exclaim “Yummy! It’s what’s for dinner!”
    Kudlow will then turn to the camera and declare:
    “We’ve got this thing under control. I’d buy stocks if I were you with both unwashed hands.”
    Then he will whoop and hoot like a sailor on shore leave seeking out every STD to be had in the scurviest, shit hole port of call in the world.
    Mike Pence, standing to the side like a third-rate poorly crafted wax replica of a human being rejected from Madame Tussaud’s exhibit, will throw up a little inside his Hazmat helmet, and with his crypto-Christian fingers crossed in devote insincerity behind his back, rip the helmet from his head, and plunge his face into the leftover tureen of broth and then, after kissing his wife, and only his wife, full on the mouth, projectile vomit the contents into the faces of the CNN, Washington Post, and New York Times reporters looking on in the front row and then, for good measure, sue the reporters for stealing food off his plate.
    It’s cleek’s law meets Night of the Living Deconstructed Vermin Conservative Dead, in which Doris get her oats.
    You know what to do. O, K, B, and S.

  233. Cruz is scamming.
    This is quintessentially his opportunist evil fucking self on display seeking the main chance.
    He will emerge from his “quarantine”, in which he spends two weeks gorging on Cheetos with one hand and frantically masturbating his baby Jesus voodoo doll with the other, to enter the republican primary as trump is violently deposed.
    His first act as President will be to remove all funding from every health agency in the government and replace them with free vouchers to attend the Church of the Living Government-Hating Conservative Assholes.
    Are we to believe that my tax dollars were spent to use an otherwise rationed, for the rest of the prole American citizenry, diagnostic test on him to detect the Covid-19, which sounds like the name of a death planet in a dystopic interplanetary alien space movie?
    I can’t think of any better example of crony Communism.
    Destroy them now.

  234. Cruz is scamming.
    This is quintessentially his opportunist evil fucking self on display seeking the main chance.
    He will emerge from his “quarantine”, in which he spends two weeks gorging on Cheetos with one hand and frantically masturbating his baby Jesus voodoo doll with the other, to enter the republican primary as trump is violently deposed.
    His first act as President will be to remove all funding from every health agency in the government and replace them with free vouchers to attend the Church of the Living Government-Hating Conservative Assholes.
    Are we to believe that my tax dollars were spent to use an otherwise rationed, for the rest of the prole American citizenry, diagnostic test on him to detect the Covid-19, which sounds like the name of a death planet in a dystopic interplanetary alien space movie?
    I can’t think of any better example of crony Communism.
    Destroy them now.

  243. I repeated that link on purpose.
    Read deep into it to see how savage cataclysmic fury is mounting.

  244. I repeated that link on purpose.
    Read deep into it to see how savage cataclysmic fury is mounting.

  245. No. Conservative filth like Shapiro and Scaramucci will not be permitted to get out from under what they have created, and I’m certainly not politically correct enough to let them.
    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-the-presidential-tweet-that-caused-one-notable-conservative-commentator-to-urge-trump-to-stop-2020-03-09?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
    They will be separated from the decent population, along with killers who interview them, such as Hannity, that fucking c*nt, and scheduled for quick execution along with the ringleaders.
    It’s going to take a long time to finish that job.

  246. No. Conservative filth like Shapiro and Scaramucci will not be permitted to get out from under what they have created, and I’m certainly not politically correct enough to let them.
    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-the-presidential-tweet-that-caused-one-notable-conservative-commentator-to-urge-trump-to-stop-2020-03-09?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
    They will be separated from the decent population, along with killers who interview them, such as Hannity, that fucking c*nt, and scheduled for quick execution along with the ringleaders.
    It’s going to take a long time to finish that job.

  249. Went from store to store yesterday looking for hand wipes.
    Nada.
    Same as Hartmut says, all flu and cold medicines gone. Shelves empty.
    Didn’t check the toilet paper aisle because I already knew.
    Marshmallows, deodorant, and boxer shorts, for example, were in good supply, however, but they never seem to be in demand during apocalypses.
    If good extra terrestrial aliens show up eons after Earth’s demise and the human race is extinguished, they will note on account of their superior wisdom and knowledge that, indeed, marshmallows, deodorant, and boxer shorts, when cobbled together algorithmically somehow, work fine as defense against asteroids, famine, genocide, and all manner of worldwide pestilence and plagues, but they’ll shrug their shoulders in wonderment that the human race believed time after time that toilet paper and guns might be the answer to all lifes problems.
    I stood back and observed women, probably mothers, approach the medicine shelves at Target, Walgreens, and WalMart and stand there with their mouths open, stunned. They might look around as if someone might point to a cache of what they need, but no such luck.
    But things were eerily calm.
    I washed my hands in a store bathroom, not drying them, and washed them again when I arrived home.
    Purell is gone on Amazon.
    The CDC says today to stockpile food. I’m in good shape there, but might go out today and have a look see.
    I might visit a gun store to learn if bullets can cure what ails us. And maybe they carry military hand wipes. Ya think?
    The night before last, after dark, a male pedestrian was hit by a car and killed instantly right outside my apartment building. I happened to look out the window a few minutes after tragedy. The driver, thank goodness, did not flee the scene.
    I could see his body for the next two hours lying in a pool of blood in the street as the cops cordoned the area off, and investigators showed up with their tape measures and possible witnesses were interviewed.
    At one point, I walked around the area without entering the cordoned off section of the street.
    Again, it was all very weirdly quiet and calm. No one spoke. They just looked at me and then looked away.
    He may have been this guy, perhaps trying to warn people (he may have been headed to the VA hospital up the block where aliens are known to have insinuated themselves into high management positions) and he was outwardly showing empathy and emotion and then he was gotten to by the fascist aliens running the country.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2XWa1XuKSI
    It might be wise, as a precaution, when in public, to try to blend in with the ruling right wing conservative Zeitgeist. Any show of empathy for the sick, the downtrodden, the poor, blacks, immigrants, gays, the elderly, orphans, the mothers of stillborn fetuses, is a marker for the alien infestation in America to target and attack and destroy any trace or hint of what they term “political correctness”.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP_SdjD5ms
    They are constantly running workshops on right wing radio and TV and on the internet to teach their operatives who are everywhere, what to watch for.
    It’s the conservative movement’s disciplined program of social distancing, I think, started by Newt Gingrich decades ago, as they ready themselves for their ultimate goal of social cleansing.
    The only visible emotion on their faces is a grotesque leering smirk and perhaps a guttural half-laugh as they explain how to ruin a liberal’s day.
    They swarm when empathy is detected. One of their tells when they about to swarm is that their faces arrange themselves in that odd expression that Tucker Carlson assumes when a certifiably insane psychopathic guest he is interviewing tells him which groups of humans that Americans must hate and treat like dog shit.
    Most of that story is factual.
    All of it is true.

  250. Went from store to store yesterday looking for hand wipes.
    Nada.
    Same as Hartmut says, all flu and cold medicines gone. Shelves empty.
    Didn’t check the toilet paper aisle because I already knew.
    Marshmallows, deodorant, and boxer shorts, for example, were in good supply, however, but they never seem to be in demand during apocalypses.
    If good extra terrestrial aliens show up eons after Earth’s demise and the human race is extinguished, they will note on account of their superior wisdom and knowledge that, indeed, marshmallows, deodorant, and boxer shorts, when cobbled together algorithmically somehow, work fine as defense against asteroids, famine, genocide, and all manner of worldwide pestilence and plagues, but they’ll shrug their shoulders in wonderment that the human race believed time after time that toilet paper and guns might be the answer to all lifes problems.
    I stood back and observed women, probably mothers, approach the medicine shelves at Target, Walgreens, and WalMart and stand there with their mouths open, stunned. They might look around as if someone might point to a cache of what they need, but no such luck.
    But things were eerily calm.
    I washed my hands in a store bathroom, not drying them, and washed them again when I arrived home.
    Purell is gone on Amazon.
    The CDC says today to stockpile food. I’m in good shape there, but might go out today and have a look see.
    I might visit a gun store to learn if bullets can cure what ails us. And maybe they carry military hand wipes. Ya think?
    The night before last, after dark, a male pedestrian was hit by a car and killed instantly right outside my apartment building. I happened to look out the window a few minutes after tragedy. The driver, thank goodness, did not flee the scene.
    I could see his body for the next two hours lying in a pool of blood in the street as the cops cordoned the area off, and investigators showed up with their tape measures and possible witnesses were interviewed.
    At one point, I walked around the area without entering the cordoned off section of the street.
    Again, it was all very weirdly quiet and calm. No one spoke. They just looked at me and then looked away.
    He may have been this guy, perhaps trying to warn people (he may have been headed to the VA hospital up the block where aliens are known to have insinuated themselves into high management positions) and he was outwardly showing empathy and emotion and then he was gotten to by the fascist aliens running the country.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2XWa1XuKSI
    It might be wise, as a precaution, when in public, to try to blend in with the ruling right wing conservative Zeitgeist. Any show of empathy for the sick, the downtrodden, the poor, blacks, immigrants, gays, the elderly, orphans, the mothers of stillborn fetuses, is a marker for the alien infestation in America to target and attack and destroy any trace or hint of what they term “political correctness”.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP_SdjD5ms
    They are constantly running workshops on right wing radio and TV and on the internet to teach their operatives who are everywhere, what to watch for.
    It’s the conservative movement’s disciplined program of social distancing, I think, started by Newt Gingrich decades ago, as they ready themselves for their ultimate goal of social cleansing.
    The only visible emotion on their faces is a grotesque leering smirk and perhaps a guttural half-laugh as they explain how to ruin a liberal’s day.
    They swarm when empathy is detected. One of their tells when they about to swarm is that their faces arrange themselves in that odd expression that Tucker Carlson assumes when a certifiably insane psychopathic guest he is interviewing tells him which groups of humans that Americans must hate and treat like dog shit.
    Most of that story is factual.
    All of it is true.

  251. What business does the gummint have meddling in free market buyer-seller transactions:
    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ftc-and-fda-order-companies-to-stop-selling-scam-products-to-treat-or-prevent-coronavirus-2020-03-09?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
    Why, if Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, or Fidel Castro ordered such an interference in human freedom, right wing militias, at the behest of right wing think tanks would hunt them down.
    We can’t have this sort of thing going on right under our runny noses.

  252. What business does the gummint have meddling in free market buyer-seller transactions:
    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ftc-and-fda-order-companies-to-stop-selling-scam-products-to-treat-or-prevent-coronavirus-2020-03-09?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
    Why, if Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, or Fidel Castro ordered such an interference in human freedom, right wing militias, at the behest of right wing think tanks would hunt them down.
    We can’t have this sort of thing going on right under our runny noses.

  257. The term I have seen most is “cratering”. But rather than “roaring” (which feels like charging upwards) I would incline to “howling” (as in pain).
    What Trump’s frantic response is remains to be seen. But at least, when the markets persist in tanking, he will be more inclined to move beyond denial and actually let his people do something. Now it’s just a matter of those being actual, you know, experts . . . in something other than PR.

  258. The term I have seen most is “cratering”. But rather than “roaring” (which feels like charging upwards) I would incline to “howling” (as in pain).
    What Trump’s frantic response is remains to be seen. But at least, when the markets persist in tanking, he will be more inclined to move beyond denial and actually let his people do something. Now it’s just a matter of those being actual, you know, experts . . . in something other than PR.

  259. ” … he will be more inclined to move beyond denial and actually let his people do something.”
    What possibly in our observation of this lout’s entire dreadful existence could lead you to that conclusion?
    There was a guy who early in his life decided to eat an entire automobile, piece by piece, bolt by bolt, as a piece of performance art.
    He was still eating it when he croaked, and his death certificate didn’t mention indigestion.
    He just ran out of time. I think they could drive the car away, but who wants a partially eaten car?
    His Surgeon General, formerly an associate in AIDS denial with His Holeintheheadness Mike Pence, says Trump is healthier than he is.
    That’s like finding out from the exterminators that termites have eaten through all of the load-bearing support walls in your house, so you’d better move.
    The only for it is to shorten Trump’s time.

  260. ” … he will be more inclined to move beyond denial and actually let his people do something.”
    What possibly in our observation of this lout’s entire dreadful existence could lead you to that conclusion?
    There was a guy who early in his life decided to eat an entire automobile, piece by piece, bolt by bolt, as a piece of performance art.
    He was still eating it when he croaked, and his death certificate didn’t mention indigestion.
    He just ran out of time. I think they could drive the car away, but who wants a partially eaten car?
    His Surgeon General, formerly an associate in AIDS denial with His Holeintheheadness Mike Pence, says Trump is healthier than he is.
    That’s like finding out from the exterminators that termites have eaten through all of the load-bearing support walls in your house, so you’d better move.
    The only for it is to shorten Trump’s time.

  261. A runny nose is not a symptom of this Coronavirus. It sometimes creates a stuffy nose but not runny.
    So,
    “We can’t have this sort of thing going on right under our STUFFY noses.”

  262. A runny nose is not a symptom of this Coronavirus. It sometimes creates a stuffy nose but not runny.
    So,
    “We can’t have this sort of thing going on right under our STUFFY noses.”

  265. As in the ridiculous use of the word “volatility” in the markets, “roaring” is also absurd.
    Why can’t a stock market “roar” (Russell was being ironic) when it’s “plunging” as well it’s when it is “soaring”.
    Both bulls and bears can roar.
    You could hear the roar of the World Trade Center Towers as they vaporized and millions tons of steel and glass went to rubble at zero elevation in minutes.
    They didn’t roar when they were putting the things up.

  266. As in the ridiculous use of the word “volatility” in the markets, “roaring” is also absurd.
    Why can’t a stock market “roar” (Russell was being ironic) when it’s “plunging” as well it’s when it is “soaring”.
    Both bulls and bears can roar.
    You could hear the roar of the World Trade Center Towers as they vaporized and millions tons of steel and glass went to rubble at zero elevation in minutes.
    They didn’t roar when they were putting the things up.

  271. The officaldumb of America First Policies should be hunted down and shot in their fucking heads as a warning that any stealing of the 2020 election will result in America-ending violence.
    Didn’t trump appoint an election commission to stop this stuff bwa-ha-ha-ahhaha.
    https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a31285759/florida-first-voter-registration-republican-america-first-policies/
    It may be true that doing nothing is better than doing harm, but in the case of vote tampering, I’m all for doing something horrible and making everything worse and harming the perpetrators to the max.

  272. The officaldumb of America First Policies should be hunted down and shot in their fucking heads as a warning that any stealing of the 2020 election will result in America-ending violence.
    Didn’t trump appoint an election commission to stop this stuff bwa-ha-ha-ahhaha.
    https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a31285759/florida-first-voter-registration-republican-america-first-policies/
    It may be true that doing nothing is better than doing harm, but in the case of vote tampering, I’m all for doing something horrible and making everything worse and harming the perpetrators to the max.

  273. More on wj’s:
    “… he will be more inclined to move beyond denial and actually let his people do something.”
    “Vanity Fair’s Gabe Sherman reports, by way of someone “close to the administration,” that the still-alleged president of the United States is tipping into new conspiracy theories now, and is “afraid journalists will try to purposefully contract coronavirus to give it to him on Air Force One.”
    Oh dear.
    He also has instructed his Secret Service to “set up a screening program and bar anyone who has a cough from the White House grounds.”
    Oh dear.”
    You can see where this is going. In the same direction at a faster pace as it has been going since November 2016.
    Every hour, every tweet will lead America closer to mortal danger and a violent authoritarian crack down on trump’s enemies.
    What are the Secret Service and the military up to?
    They are armed.
    Why haven’t they acted to protect the American people from this insane, malignant tyrant?
    He’s not leaving the White House even if the Democrats overcome massive election fraud by the Republican Party and somehow win the Electoral College.
    He’s not leaving. I’m telling you.
    This guy has told you, and he ain’t no liberal:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/opinion/trump-leave-white-house.html

  274. More on wj’s:
    “… he will be more inclined to move beyond denial and actually let his people do something.”
    “Vanity Fair’s Gabe Sherman reports, by way of someone “close to the administration,” that the still-alleged president of the United States is tipping into new conspiracy theories now, and is “afraid journalists will try to purposefully contract coronavirus to give it to him on Air Force One.”
    Oh dear.
    He also has instructed his Secret Service to “set up a screening program and bar anyone who has a cough from the White House grounds.”
    Oh dear.”
    You can see where this is going. In the same direction at a faster pace as it has been going since November 2016.
    Every hour, every tweet will lead America closer to mortal danger and a violent authoritarian crack down on trump’s enemies.
    What are the Secret Service and the military up to?
    They are armed.
    Why haven’t they acted to protect the American people from this insane, malignant tyrant?
    He’s not leaving the White House even if the Democrats overcome massive election fraud by the Republican Party and somehow win the Electoral College.
    He’s not leaving. I’m telling you.
    This guy has told you, and he ain’t no liberal:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/02/opinion/trump-leave-white-house.html

  275. This is like my third or fourth time around with world historical (or hysterical) OMG THE SKY IS FALLING market panic selling. We’ll all get through it one way or another, or most of us will anyway – one way or another – but I’m always amazed at what chickensh*ts the “professional investors” are.
    These guys aren’t investing, they’re gambling. And they’re f*cking it up for people who actually are interested in *investing* over time scales longer than a day.

  276. This is like my third or fourth time around with world historical (or hysterical) OMG THE SKY IS FALLING market panic selling. We’ll all get through it one way or another, or most of us will anyway – one way or another – but I’m always amazed at what chickensh*ts the “professional investors” are.
    These guys aren’t investing, they’re gambling. And they’re f*cking it up for people who actually are interested in *investing* over time scales longer than a day.

  277. Now Nunes has allegedly “quarantined” himself because of a handshake.
    Interesting bunch of rabid trump supporters suddenly disappearing from the scene, no?
    What do you suppose they are up, in such secrecy?
    Are they meeting with right wing military vermin and militia filth to help trump plan his authoritarian, violent crackdown on their mutual enemies, while using the coronavirus outbreak as deep state cover for their machinations?
    Will they emerge after the troubles start as trump’s junta, sporting MAGA epaulettes and dark glasses to assume positions at newly created internal security “ministries” and flicking riding crops across their Banana Republic jodhpurs.
    I don’t believe Limbaugh’s claim of a cancer diagnosis either, though it’s superlative news if true.
    Something smells there and it’s not my feet.
    Or, are they simply faking exposure to the virus, only to emerge fakely free of symptoms in a few weeks, and thus supporting trump’s ravings that we’re dealing with nothing more than the common cold.
    Interesting too that now Congress is contemplating shutting down to “reportedly” shield its older members from the virus contagion.
    That certainly gets a major leg of government, plus the fourth estate, except of course for the Murdoch Ministry of Truth, out of the way and out of Washington D.C. as the junta begins its dirty work of imposing martial law or worse.
    Fascinating too the very subhuman vermin who hate our government and seek to destroy it at every turn and who minutes ago were claiming we having nothing to fear from the virus, are now claiming to be vectors for the spread of a disease that could infect large numbers of their hated government civil service employees and send them into quarantine as well, thus achieve the very destruction of government that has been their goal since Ronald Reagan, the left wing union organizer, stepped down off his spavined Hollywood B-movie nag after being recruited by Moscow to become a fake Republican and destabilize and destroy the US government from within.

  278. Now Nunes has allegedly “quarantined” himself because of a handshake.
    Interesting bunch of rabid trump supporters suddenly disappearing from the scene, no?
    What do you suppose they are up, in such secrecy?
    Are they meeting with right wing military vermin and militia filth to help trump plan his authoritarian, violent crackdown on their mutual enemies, while using the coronavirus outbreak as deep state cover for their machinations?
    Will they emerge after the troubles start as trump’s junta, sporting MAGA epaulettes and dark glasses to assume positions at newly created internal security “ministries” and flicking riding crops across their Banana Republic jodhpurs.
    I don’t believe Limbaugh’s claim of a cancer diagnosis either, though it’s superlative news if true.
    Something smells there and it’s not my feet.
    Or, are they simply faking exposure to the virus, only to emerge fakely free of symptoms in a few weeks, and thus supporting trump’s ravings that we’re dealing with nothing more than the common cold.
    Interesting too that now Congress is contemplating shutting down to “reportedly” shield its older members from the virus contagion.
    That certainly gets a major leg of government, plus the fourth estate, except of course for the Murdoch Ministry of Truth, out of the way and out of Washington D.C. as the junta begins its dirty work of imposing martial law or worse.
    Fascinating too the very subhuman vermin who hate our government and seek to destroy it at every turn and who minutes ago were claiming we having nothing to fear from the virus, are now claiming to be vectors for the spread of a disease that could infect large numbers of their hated government civil service employees and send them into quarantine as well, thus achieve the very destruction of government that has been their goal since Ronald Reagan, the left wing union organizer, stepped down off his spavined Hollywood B-movie nag after being recruited by Moscow to become a fake Republican and destabilize and destroy the US government from within.

  279. This is like my third or fourth time around with world historical (or hysterical) OMG THE SKY IS FALLING market panic selling.
    Unless you’re saving it for your heirs, at some point you’re going to need it. Sometimes people need it (maybe a chunk of it, for whatever reason) during a downturn. I agree that if you’re not in that position, it’s something to ride out and ignore. Some of us are in a position of relying on our retirement money (because of an unforeseen event, or maybe just bad planning).
    I’m glad you’re fine, and your advice to most people who are fine is fine. It’s not fine for everyone. I am a bit perplexed as to why enlightened people who happen to be fine are saying “Relax! It’s fine!”

  280. This is like my third or fourth time around with world historical (or hysterical) OMG THE SKY IS FALLING market panic selling.
    Unless you’re saving it for your heirs, at some point you’re going to need it. Sometimes people need it (maybe a chunk of it, for whatever reason) during a downturn. I agree that if you’re not in that position, it’s something to ride out and ignore. Some of us are in a position of relying on our retirement money (because of an unforeseen event, or maybe just bad planning).
    I’m glad you’re fine, and your advice to most people who are fine is fine. It’s not fine for everyone. I am a bit perplexed as to why enlightened people who happen to be fine are saying “Relax! It’s fine!”

  281. I’m always amazed at what chickensh*ts the “professional investors” are.
    These guys aren’t investing, they’re gambling.
    What amazes me is the folks who aren’t “professional investors”. But when the market goes down, they start calling in hysterically to their financial adviser/broker. It’s like they’ve been drinking the kool-aid, even though they aren’t actually involved in the gambling.

  282. I’m always amazed at what chickensh*ts the “professional investors” are.
    These guys aren’t investing, they’re gambling.
    What amazes me is the folks who aren’t “professional investors”. But when the market goes down, they start calling in hysterically to their financial adviser/broker. It’s like they’ve been drinking the kool-aid, even though they aren’t actually involved in the gambling.

  283. wj, your portfolio must be quite healthy, and perhaps you’re not even drawing on it. Great to ignore the bad news and ridicule those who can’t!

  284. wj, your portfolio must be quite healthy, and perhaps you’re not even drawing on it. Great to ignore the bad news and ridicule those who can’t!

  287. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-larrykudlow-stocks-americas-worst-financial-advisor-215108082.html
    Most elite Wall Street sell side liars are like this fucking proved catastrophically wrong multiple times fool.
    You don’t need them goosing you like a whoopy cushion when the market trend is up and you absolutely don’t WANT him goosing you while faking holding your hand when the market goes into the shitter.
    He MIGHT qualify professionally as a circle jerk leader in a 12-step program, but like everyone the trump republican party elevates to a position far above their meager talents and in contradiction to every rule of meritocracy, he is dangerous playing with matches.
    This is my fifth major bear market.
    I have less time to recover this time.
    Obama was much more profitable for my “portfolio”.

  288. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-larrykudlow-stocks-americas-worst-financial-advisor-215108082.html
    Most elite Wall Street sell side liars are like this fucking proved catastrophically wrong multiple times fool.
    You don’t need them goosing you like a whoopy cushion when the market trend is up and you absolutely don’t WANT him goosing you while faking holding your hand when the market goes into the shitter.
    He MIGHT qualify professionally as a circle jerk leader in a 12-step program, but like everyone the trump republican party elevates to a position far above their meager talents and in contradiction to every rule of meritocracy, he is dangerous playing with matches.
    This is my fifth major bear market.
    I have less time to recover this time.
    Obama was much more profitable for my “portfolio”.

  289. Yes, and sapient correct. It is the wage earners, especially the low-wage earners who are going to suffer with losing their jobs.
    But, once again, as every fucking time around, conservatives and republicans will blame the victims as layabout takers who ought to go find a job and we’d better cut unemployment benefits and the rest of the safety net as well because it disincents work, when really the only fucking thing that disincents work is being forced to NOT work by being laid off and fired and made redundant and let go, and whatever the fuck they like to call it.
    You watch. Conservatives will demonize and shame the unemployed. All they will do is call for tax cuts on themselves and the money will once again disappear into the stock buyback sinkhole and the offshore accounts.
    But this time around will be different.
    Americans have fucking had it with these entitled scum.
    This time around, a white collar republican rolls down his car window and tells an unemployed guy on the corner to “Get a Job!”, a crowd is going to gather, pull that fucker out of his car, beat the shit out of him, and burn his car to the ground.
    People have fucking had it.

  290. Yes, and sapient correct. It is the wage earners, especially the low-wage earners who are going to suffer with losing their jobs.
    But, once again, as every fucking time around, conservatives and republicans will blame the victims as layabout takers who ought to go find a job and we’d better cut unemployment benefits and the rest of the safety net as well because it disincents work, when really the only fucking thing that disincents work is being forced to NOT work by being laid off and fired and made redundant and let go, and whatever the fuck they like to call it.
    You watch. Conservatives will demonize and shame the unemployed. All they will do is call for tax cuts on themselves and the money will once again disappear into the stock buyback sinkhole and the offshore accounts.
    But this time around will be different.
    Americans have fucking had it with these entitled scum.
    This time around, a white collar republican rolls down his car window and tells an unemployed guy on the corner to “Get a Job!”, a crowd is going to gather, pull that fucker out of his car, beat the shit out of him, and burn his car to the ground.
    People have fucking had it.

  291. Sapient, I think you are missing the point of why a lot of people here are discussing the stock market in the terms we are. It’s not because we are so comfortable, it’s that everyone wants to just point out that the chickens are coming home to roost…

  292. Sapient, I think you are missing the point of why a lot of people here are discussing the stock market in the terms we are. It’s not because we are so comfortable, it’s that everyone wants to just point out that the chickens are coming home to roost…

  293. This from a sustainable investment advisor that I went to college with back in the day:
    https://horizonssfs.com/politics-pandemic-and-petroleum/
    “What else can we do? Maybe there are things we can do to reduce the three sources of stress on the markets: contact our elected representatives, and vote in upcoming elections; prepare for the arrival of coronavirus in our area, in order to slow its spread, prevent contracting it, and care for those who do get sick; and work to “Decarbonize America and the World”, so that oil shocks won’t throw our global economy into disarray again.”

  294. This from a sustainable investment advisor that I went to college with back in the day:
    https://horizonssfs.com/politics-pandemic-and-petroleum/
    “What else can we do? Maybe there are things we can do to reduce the three sources of stress on the markets: contact our elected representatives, and vote in upcoming elections; prepare for the arrival of coronavirus in our area, in order to slow its spread, prevent contracting it, and care for those who do get sick; and work to “Decarbonize America and the World”, so that oil shocks won’t throw our global economy into disarray again.”

  295. wj, your portfolio must be quite healthy, and perhaps you’re not even drawing on it. Great to ignore the bad news and ridicule those who can’t!
    sapient, actually I’m just aware that there really isn’t anything constructive I can do regarding my portfolio. Except refrain from panic selling; which isn’t the same as selling to meet actual expenses.
    No ridicule intended to those who are really hurt. Just for those who only sell when the market tanks . . . even though they don’t need the money for expenses.

  296. wj, your portfolio must be quite healthy, and perhaps you’re not even drawing on it. Great to ignore the bad news and ridicule those who can’t!
    sapient, actually I’m just aware that there really isn’t anything constructive I can do regarding my portfolio. Except refrain from panic selling; which isn’t the same as selling to meet actual expenses.
    No ridicule intended to those who are really hurt. Just for those who only sell when the market tanks . . . even though they don’t need the money for expenses.

  297. There are a whole lot of industries that are going to lay people off, and their lives are going to suck. It’s fine though!
    But those layoffs, like the plunging stock prices, are symptoms. The cause is the disease — exacerbated by the inept handling of it.

  298. There are a whole lot of industries that are going to lay people off, and their lives are going to suck. It’s fine though!
    But those layoffs, like the plunging stock prices, are symptoms. The cause is the disease — exacerbated by the inept handling of it.

  299. From nous’ link:

    WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
    We need to think carefully before we consider doing anything; and even then, we should probably do nothing.

  300. From nous’ link:

    WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
    We need to think carefully before we consider doing anything; and even then, we should probably do nothing.

  301. I think you are missing the point of why a lot of people here are discussing the stock market in the terms we are.
    I also am a “we,” sort of. And I get it that some people can ride the tide, and that the crisis here is long overdue, and that “we” are laughing at the traders whose panic is funny because they make tons of money, and some of them bet wrong, and that the stock market shouldn’t be about betting. And that Trump’s financial disaster was expected (and, honestly, I expected it, and made a dangerous and, maybe in the end, saluatory move to avert the current horror – but maybe with some undesirable side effects). So, no, I’m not missing the point.
    I’m not missing the point, because I remember relentlessly trying to post numbers about the economy under Obama and Clinton, and yet, in 2016 people here (yes, right here) were constantly grieving about the sad 3% or whatever of people who were “economically anxious”.
    Yeah. Stop it. We’re now much more economically anxious, as we were under Bush II. And it’s not going to be okay for a hell of a lot of people.

  302. I think you are missing the point of why a lot of people here are discussing the stock market in the terms we are.
    I also am a “we,” sort of. And I get it that some people can ride the tide, and that the crisis here is long overdue, and that “we” are laughing at the traders whose panic is funny because they make tons of money, and some of them bet wrong, and that the stock market shouldn’t be about betting. And that Trump’s financial disaster was expected (and, honestly, I expected it, and made a dangerous and, maybe in the end, saluatory move to avert the current horror – but maybe with some undesirable side effects). So, no, I’m not missing the point.
    I’m not missing the point, because I remember relentlessly trying to post numbers about the economy under Obama and Clinton, and yet, in 2016 people here (yes, right here) were constantly grieving about the sad 3% or whatever of people who were “economically anxious”.
    Yeah. Stop it. We’re now much more economically anxious, as we were under Bush II. And it’s not going to be okay for a hell of a lot of people.

  303. “Investors evidently, for the moment, think that the novel coronavirus outbreak is going to hurt the global economy. The S&P 500 stock index is down about 19 percent from its highs a month ago. Only time will tell if those fears are justified, but a couple of economists at the Australian National University use econometric modeling to trace out scenarios to help the public and policymakers better understand how the COVID-19 epidemic could play out over the coming year. Keep firmly in mind that these are scenarios, not predictions.
    …
    Although the coronavirus is continuing its spread across the globe, the fact that China has reported 3,120 deaths and the rate of infection is dropping suggests that even the Australians’ best-case scenario may prove to be too pessimistic. Let’s hope so.”    [Take any numbers coming out of China with a pound of salt.]
    How Badly Could the Novel Coronavirus Epidemic Whack the U.S. Economy?: Looking at better and worse projections.

  304. “Investors evidently, for the moment, think that the novel coronavirus outbreak is going to hurt the global economy. The S&P 500 stock index is down about 19 percent from its highs a month ago. Only time will tell if those fears are justified, but a couple of economists at the Australian National University use econometric modeling to trace out scenarios to help the public and policymakers better understand how the COVID-19 epidemic could play out over the coming year. Keep firmly in mind that these are scenarios, not predictions.
    …
    Although the coronavirus is continuing its spread across the globe, the fact that China has reported 3,120 deaths and the rate of infection is dropping suggests that even the Australians’ best-case scenario may prove to be too pessimistic. Let’s hope so.”    [Take any numbers coming out of China with a pound of salt.]
    How Badly Could the Novel Coronavirus Epidemic Whack the U.S. Economy?: Looking at better and worse projections.

  305. It’s not fine for everyone.
    My wife is retired and her income is basically from what she saved over the years. I’m still working but I’m three years out from full retirement, and I’d actually like to retire then.
    We’re basically fine in the sense that we’re not facing financial ruin. We are, however, losing lots of money. Which is having and will continue to have an impact on our lives at some level.
    We’re unlikely to lose the house or starve. So we are in fact very lucky, and I’m grateful for that.
    If I suggest that people not freak out, it’s because freaking out pretty much never makes anything better. I am by no means minimizing the impact that this crap is having on people’s lives.

  306. It’s not fine for everyone.
    My wife is retired and her income is basically from what she saved over the years. I’m still working but I’m three years out from full retirement, and I’d actually like to retire then.
    We’re basically fine in the sense that we’re not facing financial ruin. We are, however, losing lots of money. Which is having and will continue to have an impact on our lives at some level.
    We’re unlikely to lose the house or starve. So we are in fact very lucky, and I’m grateful for that.
    If I suggest that people not freak out, it’s because freaking out pretty much never makes anything better. I am by no means minimizing the impact that this crap is having on people’s lives.

  307. We’re unlikely to lose the house or starve. So we are in fact very lucky, and I’m grateful for that.
    If I suggest that people not freak out, it’s because freaking out pretty much never makes anything better.
    I may, in fact, lose my house. Maybe not, and I planned for that, and will not be homeless. Some people may not be so lucky.
    Nobody wants to freak out. Some people will, because their future looks very bleak, or their plans weren’t enough. Freaking out is not a choice.

  308. We’re unlikely to lose the house or starve. So we are in fact very lucky, and I’m grateful for that.
    If I suggest that people not freak out, it’s because freaking out pretty much never makes anything better.
    I may, in fact, lose my house. Maybe not, and I planned for that, and will not be homeless. Some people may not be so lucky.
    Nobody wants to freak out. Some people will, because their future looks very bleak, or their plans weren’t enough. Freaking out is not a choice.

  309. Freaking out is not a choice.
    You are correct, quite often it is not. Apologies for minimizing the impact this is going to have on a lot of people.

  310. Freaking out is not a choice.
    You are correct, quite often it is not. Apologies for minimizing the impact this is going to have on a lot of people.

  313. When the market crashed under GW Bush the stupid, I was kicking myself because I had no cash and wanted to BUY, BUY, BUY. Because I started late, I stayed 100% in aggressive cap growth funds 2001- 2017.
    Since GOP administrations typically find a way to tank the market, I figured the idiot Trump was a shoo-in for a clusterfuck, so I mostly got out and missed a big gain.
    But hey, I’m 71 now, so win some, lose some. However, I would note that today’s GOP is possibly running true to form on this matter.
    How they time their electoral wins to imminent market decline is a mystery. You’d think they would learn from their mistakes.

  314. When the market crashed under GW Bush the stupid, I was kicking myself because I had no cash and wanted to BUY, BUY, BUY. Because I started late, I stayed 100% in aggressive cap growth funds 2001- 2017.
    Since GOP administrations typically find a way to tank the market, I figured the idiot Trump was a shoo-in for a clusterfuck, so I mostly got out and missed a big gain.
    But hey, I’m 71 now, so win some, lose some. However, I would note that today’s GOP is possibly running true to form on this matter.
    How they time their electoral wins to imminent market decline is a mystery. You’d think they would learn from their mistakes.

  317. I’m not missing the point, because I remember relentlessly trying to post numbers about the economy under Obama and Clinton, and yet, in 2016 people here (yes, right here) were constantly grieving about the sad 3% or whatever of people who were “economically anxious”.
    If the people you are calling out are the same as the 2016 people you refer to, sure, but I don’t think that is the case. I think everyone talking here is well aware how this will impact on people who are low on the economic scale.

  318. I’m not missing the point, because I remember relentlessly trying to post numbers about the economy under Obama and Clinton, and yet, in 2016 people here (yes, right here) were constantly grieving about the sad 3% or whatever of people who were “economically anxious”.
    If the people you are calling out are the same as the 2016 people you refer to, sure, but I don’t think that is the case. I think everyone talking here is well aware how this will impact on people who are low on the economic scale.

  321. If the people you are calling out are the same as the 2016 people you refer to, sure, but I don’t think that is the case. I think everyone talking here is well aware how this will impact on people who are low on the economic scale.
    Let me just say that I adore russell and bobbyp (for two), and actually you, lj, despite our arguments.
    But in 2016, bobbyp and russell most definitely kept bringing up the enclaves of people who were poorly served by Obama’s economy (and, yes, I know that they both supported Democrats in the end, and I don’t want to pick those bones with them too hard, because I know that they are on my side). But my discussion with russell here was constructive. It’s not just people “low on the economic scale”. It’s recent retirees, or people who have counted on their IRA’s in the short term (by the way, IRA’s can’t be taken out without a huge tax hit – that was my mistake), or people who have some issue, whether because of a mistake or an emergency.
    It’s a lot of people. Let me be clear: it could be any of us, if we have family members who contributed to the family income but unexpectedly became dependents, or some other thing that we didn’t really plan for.

  322. If the people you are calling out are the same as the 2016 people you refer to, sure, but I don’t think that is the case. I think everyone talking here is well aware how this will impact on people who are low on the economic scale.
    Let me just say that I adore russell and bobbyp (for two), and actually you, lj, despite our arguments.
    But in 2016, bobbyp and russell most definitely kept bringing up the enclaves of people who were poorly served by Obama’s economy (and, yes, I know that they both supported Democrats in the end, and I don’t want to pick those bones with them too hard, because I know that they are on my side). But my discussion with russell here was constructive. It’s not just people “low on the economic scale”. It’s recent retirees, or people who have counted on their IRA’s in the short term (by the way, IRA’s can’t be taken out without a huge tax hit – that was my mistake), or people who have some issue, whether because of a mistake or an emergency.
    It’s a lot of people. Let me be clear: it could be any of us, if we have family members who contributed to the family income but unexpectedly became dependents, or some other thing that we didn’t really plan for.

  323. Nobody wants to freak out. Some people will, because their future looks very bleak, or their plans weren’t enough. Freaking out is not a choice.
    My point, obviously very poorly made, was precisely that these folks I was talking about are people for whom it IS a choice. They aren’t going to see real harm. But they are freaking out anyway.
    Those who are going to see real harm are a different story. (And typically aren’t worked up over the stock market per se.)

  324. Nobody wants to freak out. Some people will, because their future looks very bleak, or their plans weren’t enough. Freaking out is not a choice.
    My point, obviously very poorly made, was precisely that these folks I was talking about are people for whom it IS a choice. They aren’t going to see real harm. But they are freaking out anyway.
    Those who are going to see real harm are a different story. (And typically aren’t worked up over the stock market per se.)

  325. And typically aren’t worked up over the stock market per se.
    And you know this how? A hunch, perhaps?

  326. And typically aren’t worked up over the stock market per se.
    And you know this how? A hunch, perhaps?

  327. And you know this how? A hunch, perhaps?
    As it happens, I know some people who aren’t wealthy enough to be owning stock. Admittedly, it’s a small sample. (Comes of being an introvert. The sum total of my acquaintances isn’t a very big sample.) But it’s a few steps upwards from a “hunch” — even a non-Trump hunch.

  328. And you know this how? A hunch, perhaps?
    As it happens, I know some people who aren’t wealthy enough to be owning stock. Admittedly, it’s a small sample. (Comes of being an introvert. The sum total of my acquaintances isn’t a very big sample.) But it’s a few steps upwards from a “hunch” — even a non-Trump hunch.

  329. Again, this is one of those tone arguments, but I don’t feel that
    Glad y’all are so freaking comfortable.
    really is what is optimal or constructive to say.
    I tend to stay out of stock market discussions, it is difficult to get the requisite knowledge to discuss without having to wade thru tons and tons of writing has biases that aren’t immediately apparent. It’s would be like me discussing the finer details of a sport whose rules I don’t know. Not that stops people, but I just prefer not to.
    At any rate, as you probably realize, I don’t like demanding bona fides (as in so, “do you know anyone who doesn’t have a portfolio?”) not because it is not something to consider, but it seems more a way to shut down conversation than to keep it going. ymmv
    There are a few other things I’d like to say, but this is my first day after the end of self quarantine, so I have to get outside. Play nice please.

  330. Again, this is one of those tone arguments, but I don’t feel that
    Glad y’all are so freaking comfortable.
    really is what is optimal or constructive to say.
    I tend to stay out of stock market discussions, it is difficult to get the requisite knowledge to discuss without having to wade thru tons and tons of writing has biases that aren’t immediately apparent. It’s would be like me discussing the finer details of a sport whose rules I don’t know. Not that stops people, but I just prefer not to.
    At any rate, as you probably realize, I don’t like demanding bona fides (as in so, “do you know anyone who doesn’t have a portfolio?”) not because it is not something to consider, but it seems more a way to shut down conversation than to keep it going. ymmv
    There are a few other things I’d like to say, but this is my first day after the end of self quarantine, so I have to get outside. Play nice please.

  331. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/qanon-satanic-cabal-obsession-donald-trump-dan-scavino-nothing-can-stop-whats-coming
    Who is Dan Scavino and where are the patriotic armed republicans in this country who are not shooting him in his head?
    When will patriotic armed conservatives for the country instead of fighting taxes, or healthcare coverage for thu uninsured or despoiling our public lands with resource extraction?
    Step up and do something with the guns the Supreme Court mistakenly gave you.

  332. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/qanon-satanic-cabal-obsession-donald-trump-dan-scavino-nothing-can-stop-whats-coming
    Who is Dan Scavino and where are the patriotic armed republicans in this country who are not shooting him in his head?
    When will patriotic armed conservatives for the country instead of fighting taxes, or healthcare coverage for thu uninsured or despoiling our public lands with resource extraction?
    Step up and do something with the guns the Supreme Court mistakenly gave you.

  333. Delurking only because this is incredibly disgusting if true. I don’t know if it is true. Just read it on a tweet. I sent it to the NYT reader center in hopes that they look into it.
    https://twitter.com/colinkalmbacher/status/1237186040676454400
    The claim is that some government agency is telling immigration judges to take down posters telling people how to prevent the spread of the virus.
    I can’t think of a good motive ( even a good evil one so to speak) for this, so maybe it is not true. But you might want to look into it if you know how to do so or pass it on to some news source who could.

  334. Delurking only because this is incredibly disgusting if true. I don’t know if it is true. Just read it on a tweet. I sent it to the NYT reader center in hopes that they look into it.
    https://twitter.com/colinkalmbacher/status/1237186040676454400
    The claim is that some government agency is telling immigration judges to take down posters telling people how to prevent the spread of the virus.
    I can’t think of a good motive ( even a good evil one so to speak) for this, so maybe it is not true. But you might want to look into it if you know how to do so or pass it on to some news source who could.

  339. There was a tweet further down, quoting the DoJ. It said basically that the posters should not have been removed, and the matter was being “rectified.” Sounds more like one of Steven Miller’s fan boys taking some initiative, than an actual immigration policy. No less evil, but perhaps more localized.

  340. There was a tweet further down, quoting the DoJ. It said basically that the posters should not have been removed, and the matter was being “rectified.” Sounds more like one of Steven Miller’s fan boys taking some initiative, than an actual immigration policy. No less evil, but perhaps more localized.

  345. in 2016, bobbyp and russell most definitely kept bringing up the enclaves of people who were poorly served by Obama’s economy
    the horror…

  346. in 2016, bobbyp and russell most definitely kept bringing up the enclaves of people who were poorly served by Obama’s economy
    the horror…

  349. It may be a little different this time. Even a great president–counterfactual, yes, I know–would have a hard time managing coronavirus coupled with the Saudi/Russian pissing match. WJ is right, as well. It’s the inexperienced investors whose instincts lead them to the worst kinds of market timing (that would be me historically, so I’m speaking from experience); however, this time is different. BTW, “different” will be getting a lot of use in the next few weeks and months. A lot of people who should know what they are doing seem to be dumping as well.
    The open question is what kind of rebound will there be when things bottom out assuming they do. The carnage in the mean time will hit pretty much everyone, particularly those who are close to retirement and who depend on their savings as a major component thereof.

  350. It may be a little different this time. Even a great president–counterfactual, yes, I know–would have a hard time managing coronavirus coupled with the Saudi/Russian pissing match. WJ is right, as well. It’s the inexperienced investors whose instincts lead them to the worst kinds of market timing (that would be me historically, so I’m speaking from experience); however, this time is different. BTW, “different” will be getting a lot of use in the next few weeks and months. A lot of people who should know what they are doing seem to be dumping as well.
    The open question is what kind of rebound will there be when things bottom out assuming they do. The carnage in the mean time will hit pretty much everyone, particularly those who are close to retirement and who depend on their savings as a major component thereof.

  351. “As you know, the coronavirus is arguably the most pressing issue happening not only in Asia, but throughout the world. Currently, China and South Korea have the most confirmed cases of coronavirus. But in nearby Japan, the number of confirmed cases remains curiously low. Have you wondered why this is the case? As it turns out, the Japanese government has received a lot of criticism for its limited testing and only recently started picking it up due to international pressure, boosting its testing capacity to 7,000 a day. So how do Japanese citizens feel about the government’s response to the coronavirus? Are they even fearful of the coronavirus in the first place? We hit the streets of Tokyo to find out.”
    Asian Boss: How The Japanese Are Dealing With the Coronavirus (YouTube)

  352. “As you know, the coronavirus is arguably the most pressing issue happening not only in Asia, but throughout the world. Currently, China and South Korea have the most confirmed cases of coronavirus. But in nearby Japan, the number of confirmed cases remains curiously low. Have you wondered why this is the case? As it turns out, the Japanese government has received a lot of criticism for its limited testing and only recently started picking it up due to international pressure, boosting its testing capacity to 7,000 a day. So how do Japanese citizens feel about the government’s response to the coronavirus? Are they even fearful of the coronavirus in the first place? We hit the streets of Tokyo to find out.”
    Asian Boss: How The Japanese Are Dealing With the Coronavirus (YouTube)

  353. the Japanese government .. . only recently started picking [its testing capacity] up . . . , boosting its testing capacity to 7,000 a day.
    Meanwhile, the total number of cases which have been tested in the whole US is . . . less than that. Yeah, us! Keeping Trump’s numbers low.

  354. the Japanese government .. . only recently started picking [its testing capacity] up . . . , boosting its testing capacity to 7,000 a day.
    Meanwhile, the total number of cases which have been tested in the whole US is . . . less than that. Yeah, us! Keeping Trump’s numbers low.

  359. Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Rice, Stanford, Berkeley, and the University of Washington (to name just a few) have all announced a shift to online courses for the spring. There’s noise here that we may be doing something similar following the quarter break in two weeks.
    As an adjunct, I look at this and see a lot of unpaid labor going toward a less effective pedagogy and I foresee university administrations trying to figure out how they can do this on a more permanent basis to try to reduce overhead.
    College is already much reduced as a transformative experience by ubiquitous computing. If this takes root the way that the Patriot Act bullshit did to become the new normal, I see that trend continuing. We will be left with a largely hollowed out higher ed system.
    So mad right now.

  360. Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Rice, Stanford, Berkeley, and the University of Washington (to name just a few) have all announced a shift to online courses for the spring. There’s noise here that we may be doing something similar following the quarter break in two weeks.
    As an adjunct, I look at this and see a lot of unpaid labor going toward a less effective pedagogy and I foresee university administrations trying to figure out how they can do this on a more permanent basis to try to reduce overhead.
    College is already much reduced as a transformative experience by ubiquitous computing. If this takes root the way that the Patriot Act bullshit did to become the new normal, I see that trend continuing. We will be left with a largely hollowed out higher ed system.
    So mad right now.

  363. Aaaand it’s official.
    All classes for Spring which are not hands-on lab courses are moving to online courses and students who can access remotely from off-campus are encouraged not to come back from break to stay in the residence halls.
    One possible case of COVID-19 on campus.
    Every winter for the past 15 years I’ve at least three students go down with the flu and the university has gone on its merry way.
    I do not even begin to understand this particular cascading rush.

  364. Aaaand it’s official.
    All classes for Spring which are not hands-on lab courses are moving to online courses and students who can access remotely from off-campus are encouraged not to come back from break to stay in the residence halls.
    One possible case of COVID-19 on campus.
    Every winter for the past 15 years I’ve at least three students go down with the flu and the university has gone on its merry way.
    I do not even begin to understand this particular cascading rush.

  365. Every winter for the past 15 years I’ve at least three students go down with the flu and the university has gone on its merry way.
    3 out of how many? An article in Lancet
    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30567-5/fulltext#%20
    suggests that, absent adequate efforts to curtail transmission, something like 60% of the population** will catch covid-19. Perhaps those taking extraordinary steps to cut down people in groups actually are on to something.
    ** If you believe the data from Korea and Japan, children seem much more resilient than adults. Which means an even bigger fraction of the adult population down sick.

  366. Every winter for the past 15 years I’ve at least three students go down with the flu and the university has gone on its merry way.
    3 out of how many? An article in Lancet
    https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30567-5/fulltext#%20
    suggests that, absent adequate efforts to curtail transmission, something like 60% of the population** will catch covid-19. Perhaps those taking extraordinary steps to cut down people in groups actually are on to something.
    ** If you believe the data from Korea and Japan, children seem much more resilient than adults. Which means an even bigger fraction of the adult population down sick.

  367. I do not even begin to understand this particular cascading rush.
    COVID19 is at least an order of magnitude more lethal than seasonal flu.

  368. I do not even begin to understand this particular cascading rush.
    COVID19 is at least an order of magnitude more lethal than seasonal flu.

  369. COVID19 is at least an order of magnitude more lethal than seasonal flu.
    Yup. But most don’t have the vaguest clue about what “order of magnitude” means. I blame private schools.

  370. COVID19 is at least an order of magnitude more lethal than seasonal flu.
    Yup. But most don’t have the vaguest clue about what “order of magnitude” means. I blame private schools.

  371. nous: I do not even begin to understand this particular cascading rush.
    Maybe this will help.
    If you’re questioning whether specific measures will help flatten the curve, that’s one thing. But if you think we don’t even need to try, then I’m curious why. With some people I would assume it was Fox News, but with you … not so much.

  372. nous: I do not even begin to understand this particular cascading rush.
    Maybe this will help.
    If you’re questioning whether specific measures will help flatten the curve, that’s one thing. But if you think we don’t even need to try, then I’m curious why. With some people I would assume it was Fox News, but with you … not so much.

  373. nous, here in Japan, it looks like the school start will be pushed back to April. Some schools calculate the part timers pay and pay them equal installments each month, but other schools (like mine) pay by the class. Nothing has been cancelled yet (and our faculty meetings are very short, so there is hasn’t been any opportunity for discussion), but it will be interesting when I point this out, and I’ve raised it on facebook in some groups I’m in that have tenured foreign faculty.
    Unfortunately, I think it will be similar to the recent Harvard decision to kick the students out of the dorms with 5 days notice. This article has some of the tweets pointing out some of the stupidities of this
    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/10/harvard-gives-students-5-days-to-evacuate-dorms-over-coronavirus-fears.html
    However, I think COVID is different from flu because of the chart in this pdf
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/
    Over 80 gets hammered. The nursing home in Kirkland said
    “Since Feb. 19, Killian noted that 11 patients have died within the facility on top of the 15 at hospitals. He clarified that the center typically sees three to seven deaths monthly, and that there have not yet been any reports post-mortem whether those in-facility patients tested positive for coronavirus.”
    That’s 26 out of 120 or so. It was more a hospice, so some of those weren’t COVID related, but I wonder if some died before the virus was identified.
    https://www.bellevuereporter.com/news/life-care-center-of-kirkland-breaks-silence-at-saturday-press-conference/
    This is just me speculating, but given the US propensity to avoid thinking about age, this virus hits a real blindspot. I feel like the big push in Korea is due to it being an aging society, though Japan’s laissez faire attitude is a bit perplexing, though, as I’ve said, I think the Olympics is the first ten points and the demographics is way down the list.
    I’ll also toss this out, if you (or any other regular) would like to write a front page post about what is happening where you are, please send it in. Reading the news doesn’t really give an on the ground impression, and we have people in different places, so I would be very interested to hear about it. Thx.
    Also a small bleg, nous, are you in the UC system and is this a UC system decision or based on the individual unis? My daughter is at UCSB and they have just told them next term will all be online. She’s fortunate, if she gets kicked out of the dorm, she could stay with my brother, but I’m wondering if things keep getting bad, if she’ll be turned out of her dorm.

  374. nous, here in Japan, it looks like the school start will be pushed back to April. Some schools calculate the part timers pay and pay them equal installments each month, but other schools (like mine) pay by the class. Nothing has been cancelled yet (and our faculty meetings are very short, so there is hasn’t been any opportunity for discussion), but it will be interesting when I point this out, and I’ve raised it on facebook in some groups I’m in that have tenured foreign faculty.
    Unfortunately, I think it will be similar to the recent Harvard decision to kick the students out of the dorms with 5 days notice. This article has some of the tweets pointing out some of the stupidities of this
    https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/10/harvard-gives-students-5-days-to-evacuate-dorms-over-coronavirus-fears.html
    However, I think COVID is different from flu because of the chart in this pdf
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/
    Over 80 gets hammered. The nursing home in Kirkland said
    “Since Feb. 19, Killian noted that 11 patients have died within the facility on top of the 15 at hospitals. He clarified that the center typically sees three to seven deaths monthly, and that there have not yet been any reports post-mortem whether those in-facility patients tested positive for coronavirus.”
    That’s 26 out of 120 or so. It was more a hospice, so some of those weren’t COVID related, but I wonder if some died before the virus was identified.
    https://www.bellevuereporter.com/news/life-care-center-of-kirkland-breaks-silence-at-saturday-press-conference/
    This is just me speculating, but given the US propensity to avoid thinking about age, this virus hits a real blindspot. I feel like the big push in Korea is due to it being an aging society, though Japan’s laissez faire attitude is a bit perplexing, though, as I’ve said, I think the Olympics is the first ten points and the demographics is way down the list.
    I’ll also toss this out, if you (or any other regular) would like to write a front page post about what is happening where you are, please send it in. Reading the news doesn’t really give an on the ground impression, and we have people in different places, so I would be very interested to hear about it. Thx.
    Also a small bleg, nous, are you in the UC system and is this a UC system decision or based on the individual unis? My daughter is at UCSB and they have just told them next term will all be online. She’s fortunate, if she gets kicked out of the dorm, she could stay with my brother, but I’m wondering if things keep getting bad, if she’ll be turned out of her dorm.

  377. More.
    But I’ll just summarize by saying: Anne Laurie at BJ is doing daily compilations of information from various sources.

  378. More.
    But I’ll just summarize by saying: Anne Laurie at BJ is doing daily compilations of information from various sources.

  379. The National Guard just shut down the tony town of New Rochelle, New York.
    Which would be amusing if Rob, Laura, and Richie Petrie were still living in that petri dish.
    Ohh, Robbbb!
    It is claimed that Trump has been in bodily contact with the chain of handshakes (what does a handshake between predatory reptiles man exactly?) exchanged among the monster vermin at the CPAC.
    Trump refuses to be tested.
    Again, are we to believe that the most extreme of Trump’s butt kissers … Cruz, Gaetz, Nunes, Collins, Schlapp, or Schapp, or Flap or whatever his name is, are the ones who shook hands with the anonymous (they refuse to identify that guy) muck-a-muck at CPAC contaminated by the virus.
    I smell kabuki. Deadly kabuki.
    They are congenital liars. They aren’t exposed. It’s just a lying ploy to convince us that this disease is a hoax.
    We are living in their alternative reality, just as we do in their global climate change alternative reality.
    I’m going to kill their reality and their governments, which they run and ruin in such a way to prove that government sucks and should be abolished.
    Believe nothing these ilk say.
    They are the hoax.
    They are the vector of a malignity but more deadly that this virus, bad as the latter going to get, and on that score, while China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea seem to be, if the reporting is accurate, with a reduced number of new cases, in other words, maybe, if we are lucky, those countries are experiencing the back end of the J curve of this disease.
    But they have governments.
    We don’t. We have filth who hate government and who believe pig fucker Reagan’s most terrifying words.
    Like Italy, it seems we are just beginning the ascent of the J, hockey stick curve.
    Wait until you read my upcoming rant on the commie, pinko, socialist crony conservative movement under trump threatening to subsidize, nationalize, and own the means of production in the fracking and luxury cruise industries.
    What, don;t we have enough fat black, cadillac-driving welfare queen parasites sucking on my tits?
    Hanh, assholes?
    Have conservatives ever considered just shutting their fucking mouths?
    Hell, Sanders the capitalist would let the industries just fail, the losers, and work it out in bankruptcy court.
    Well, there’s the rant, so I don’t need to go into it again.
    Destroy all conservative movement republican government.
    Harold Hamm, thy name is Clement Atlee. Sove yer fake cowboy boots up your ass.
    Just fucking kill it.

  380. The National Guard just shut down the tony town of New Rochelle, New York.
    Which would be amusing if Rob, Laura, and Richie Petrie were still living in that petri dish.
    Ohh, Robbbb!
    It is claimed that Trump has been in bodily contact with the chain of handshakes (what does a handshake between predatory reptiles man exactly?) exchanged among the monster vermin at the CPAC.
    Trump refuses to be tested.
    Again, are we to believe that the most extreme of Trump’s butt kissers … Cruz, Gaetz, Nunes, Collins, Schlapp, or Schapp, or Flap or whatever his name is, are the ones who shook hands with the anonymous (they refuse to identify that guy) muck-a-muck at CPAC contaminated by the virus.
    I smell kabuki. Deadly kabuki.
    They are congenital liars. They aren’t exposed. It’s just a lying ploy to convince us that this disease is a hoax.
    We are living in their alternative reality, just as we do in their global climate change alternative reality.
    I’m going to kill their reality and their governments, which they run and ruin in such a way to prove that government sucks and should be abolished.
    Believe nothing these ilk say.
    They are the hoax.
    They are the vector of a malignity but more deadly that this virus, bad as the latter going to get, and on that score, while China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea seem to be, if the reporting is accurate, with a reduced number of new cases, in other words, maybe, if we are lucky, those countries are experiencing the back end of the J curve of this disease.
    But they have governments.
    We don’t. We have filth who hate government and who believe pig fucker Reagan’s most terrifying words.
    Like Italy, it seems we are just beginning the ascent of the J, hockey stick curve.
    Wait until you read my upcoming rant on the commie, pinko, socialist crony conservative movement under trump threatening to subsidize, nationalize, and own the means of production in the fracking and luxury cruise industries.
    What, don;t we have enough fat black, cadillac-driving welfare queen parasites sucking on my tits?
    Hanh, assholes?
    Have conservatives ever considered just shutting their fucking mouths?
    Hell, Sanders the capitalist would let the industries just fail, the losers, and work it out in bankruptcy court.
    Well, there’s the rant, so I don’t need to go into it again.
    Destroy all conservative movement republican government.
    Harold Hamm, thy name is Clement Atlee. Sove yer fake cowboy boots up your ass.
    Just fucking kill it.

  381. I do not even begin to understand this particular cascading rush.
    if CV explodes across the US (as many suspect it will), we’re going to see a lot of the dreaded ‘rationing’ of health care, as hospitals find themselves unable to handle the load.
    China locked their country down, and built that giant pre-fab treatment facility to cope with the numbers. but i doubt we’re going to be able to do that. we’ve failed to contain the spread to one area – it’s going to be everywhere at the same time.
    and the reason experts are worried is not that they think everyone is going to get it and die – most will get it, feel bad and then feel better. but a decent fraction won’t. and a decent fraction of a very large number is a large number. and the number of people who will need serious treatment is going to be greater than what we can handle.

  382. I do not even begin to understand this particular cascading rush.
    if CV explodes across the US (as many suspect it will), we’re going to see a lot of the dreaded ‘rationing’ of health care, as hospitals find themselves unable to handle the load.
    China locked their country down, and built that giant pre-fab treatment facility to cope with the numbers. but i doubt we’re going to be able to do that. we’ve failed to contain the spread to one area – it’s going to be everywhere at the same time.
    and the reason experts are worried is not that they think everyone is going to get it and die – most will get it, feel bad and then feel better. but a decent fraction won’t. and a decent fraction of a very large number is a large number. and the number of people who will need serious treatment is going to be greater than what we can handle.

  383. as with all rants, spittle fills in for missing words, misspelled words, and the tyranny of the feral semicolon.
    Figure it out for yourselves.

  384. as with all rants, spittle fills in for missing words, misspelled words, and the tyranny of the feral semicolon.
    Figure it out for yourselves.

  385. My kid is at University of Michigan as a postdoc in the Chemistry Department.
    He lives alone in an apartment.
    I sent him an email this morning saying to be careful.
    He is.
    Plus, he’ll go all sciencecy on me, which is fine because he’s not vermin republican anti-science government.

  386. My kid is at University of Michigan as a postdoc in the Chemistry Department.
    He lives alone in an apartment.
    I sent him an email this morning saying to be careful.
    He is.
    Plus, he’ll go all sciencecy on me, which is fine because he’s not vermin republican anti-science government.

  387. From JanieM’s 10:12 AM link:

    When the influenza epidemic of 1918 infected a quarter of the U.S. population, killing tens of millions of people, seemingly small choices made the difference between life and death.
    As the disease was spreading, Wilmer Krusen, Philadelphia’s health commissioner, allowed a huge parade to take place on September 28; some 200,000 people marched. In the following days and weeks, the bodies piled up in the city’s morgues. By the end of the season, 12,000 residents had died.
    In St. Louis, a public-health commissioner named Max Starkloff decided to shut the city down. Ignoring the objections of influential businessmen, he closed the city’s schools, bars, cinemas, and sporting events. Thanks to his bold and unpopular actions, the per capita fatality rate in St. Louis was half that of Philadelphia. (In total, roughly 1,700 people died from influenza in St Louis.)
    In the coming days, thousands of people across the country will face the choice between becoming a Wilmer Krusen or a Max Starkloff.

    A couple weekends ago, I was at The Mütter Museum at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The special exhibition was Going Viral: Infection Through the Ages.
    http://muttermuseum.org/exhibitions/going-viral-infection-through-the-ages/
    It’s been the special exhibit since last November, so it was coincidental that we’d be dealing with a global contagion while it was on display. Anywho, the museum being in Philadelphia, the 1918 flu and the ill-advised parade that spread it so rapidly in Philadelphia was heavily featured.
    (Incidentally, my great grandparents and their newborn baby died of the flu in 1918, leaving my grandmother and her other 4 siblings orphaned, though in Youngstown, Ohio, not Philadelphia.)

  388. From JanieM’s 10:12 AM link:

    When the influenza epidemic of 1918 infected a quarter of the U.S. population, killing tens of millions of people, seemingly small choices made the difference between life and death.
    As the disease was spreading, Wilmer Krusen, Philadelphia’s health commissioner, allowed a huge parade to take place on September 28; some 200,000 people marched. In the following days and weeks, the bodies piled up in the city’s morgues. By the end of the season, 12,000 residents had died.
    In St. Louis, a public-health commissioner named Max Starkloff decided to shut the city down. Ignoring the objections of influential businessmen, he closed the city’s schools, bars, cinemas, and sporting events. Thanks to his bold and unpopular actions, the per capita fatality rate in St. Louis was half that of Philadelphia. (In total, roughly 1,700 people died from influenza in St Louis.)
    In the coming days, thousands of people across the country will face the choice between becoming a Wilmer Krusen or a Max Starkloff.

    A couple weekends ago, I was at The Mütter Museum at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. The special exhibition was Going Viral: Infection Through the Ages.
    http://muttermuseum.org/exhibitions/going-viral-infection-through-the-ages/
    It’s been the special exhibit since last November, so it was coincidental that we’d be dealing with a global contagion while it was on display. Anywho, the museum being in Philadelphia, the 1918 flu and the ill-advised parade that spread it so rapidly in Philadelphia was heavily featured.
    (Incidentally, my great grandparents and their newborn baby died of the flu in 1918, leaving my grandmother and her other 4 siblings orphaned, though in Youngstown, Ohio, not Philadelphia.)

  389. LJ – the campuses in the UC are making this decision. It was not a system wide decision. They are not turning people out of the dorms – can’t charge room and board if they shut those down – they are just asking people to stay home if they can.
    I get that we are trying to flatten the curve. I get that universities are cancelling non-essential travel and closing sporting events. But given the young population (faculty excepted) and the residential nature of colleges, I’d think that they would be relatively less affected.
    The real worry would be among adjunct faculty, and since we are currently bargaining over a new contract I can report with some certainty that the UC does not give a shit about our health and wellbeing.
    Granted, I could be just too angry about the decision process to respond reasonably. A lot has just been dumped on a very contingent and precarious group of teachers and it does not seem these decisions have been thought through for their long-term implications.

  390. LJ – the campuses in the UC are making this decision. It was not a system wide decision. They are not turning people out of the dorms – can’t charge room and board if they shut those down – they are just asking people to stay home if they can.
    I get that we are trying to flatten the curve. I get that universities are cancelling non-essential travel and closing sporting events. But given the young population (faculty excepted) and the residential nature of colleges, I’d think that they would be relatively less affected.
    The real worry would be among adjunct faculty, and since we are currently bargaining over a new contract I can report with some certainty that the UC does not give a shit about our health and wellbeing.
    Granted, I could be just too angry about the decision process to respond reasonably. A lot has just been dumped on a very contingent and precarious group of teachers and it does not seem these decisions have been thought through for their long-term implications.

  391. I’d think that they would be relatively less affected.
    No man is an island, especially in terms of the spread of disease. Those relatively less affected can still carry the illness to those relatively more affected. The fact that younger people won’t get as sick doesn’t mean they won’t contribute to the steepness of the curve.
    I get your anger about the decision-making process and the treatment of adjuncts. (I have been an adjunct myself, if only briefly.) But there are better and worse ways to address that problem.
    As a related example, we just had a vote in Maine — a people’s veto effort to overturn a newly passed law that says that abolishes “religious and philosophical” exemptions for getting your kids vaccinated if you want them to go to school. Someone I know was hesitating about how to vote, on the theory that if the law was left in place, the pharma companies would start (?) price-gouging. In fact, the entire repeal campaign was based on attacking “Big Pharma” — signs were everywhere saying “Stop Big Pharma.”
    What I said to my friend was: price-gouging on the part of pharmaceutical companies is a problem that we have to solve, no doubt about it, but we do not have to solve it — we most definitely SHOULD NOT solve it — by opening up our populations to the loss of herd immunity for diseases like measles and polio, which I remember the effects of from my own childhood.

  392. I’d think that they would be relatively less affected.
    No man is an island, especially in terms of the spread of disease. Those relatively less affected can still carry the illness to those relatively more affected. The fact that younger people won’t get as sick doesn’t mean they won’t contribute to the steepness of the curve.
    I get your anger about the decision-making process and the treatment of adjuncts. (I have been an adjunct myself, if only briefly.) But there are better and worse ways to address that problem.
    As a related example, we just had a vote in Maine — a people’s veto effort to overturn a newly passed law that says that abolishes “religious and philosophical” exemptions for getting your kids vaccinated if you want them to go to school. Someone I know was hesitating about how to vote, on the theory that if the law was left in place, the pharma companies would start (?) price-gouging. In fact, the entire repeal campaign was based on attacking “Big Pharma” — signs were everywhere saying “Stop Big Pharma.”
    What I said to my friend was: price-gouging on the part of pharmaceutical companies is a problem that we have to solve, no doubt about it, but we do not have to solve it — we most definitely SHOULD NOT solve it — by opening up our populations to the loss of herd immunity for diseases like measles and polio, which I remember the effects of from my own childhood.

  393. I wonder how much of the opposition to vaccination stems from people just being too young to have vivid personal memories of what live with measles, polio, etc. was actually like. Hard to believe that anyone who actually lived thru it would want to subject their own children to it. But if it’s just dry and dusty history, I suppose it’s easier to just assume that it couldn’t have been all that bad.

  394. I wonder how much of the opposition to vaccination stems from people just being too young to have vivid personal memories of what live with measles, polio, etc. was actually like. Hard to believe that anyone who actually lived thru it would want to subject their own children to it. But if it’s just dry and dusty history, I suppose it’s easier to just assume that it couldn’t have been all that bad.

  395. In Berlin, Germany, all* state-run theatres, opera and concert houses have as of yesterday closed until the end of Easter holidays (mid-April). A general ban (in all of Germany) of events > 1000 people is considered but for the moment postponed.
    About half (26) of all currently known cases in Berlin can be traced back to a single club/disco.
    In Brandenburg a single case at a school has led to quarantining 4-5000 people. Unfortunately, it was a boarding school combined with several other schools in a single complex, so the group affected includes the faculty of all those schools, the kids and the relatives living with them, thus the great number despite the provincial setting.
    I do not register any overt panic around here. But the RW AfD party tries to make hay off the crisis by targeting foreigners. But they are not as blatant as their cousins in spirit in Austria (the FPÖ), who loudly drum for closing the borders (ideally permanently) and blame the whole crisis on illegal immigrants.
    *currently only those with a capacity of 500 or more but that is the vast majority.

  396. In Berlin, Germany, all* state-run theatres, opera and concert houses have as of yesterday closed until the end of Easter holidays (mid-April). A general ban (in all of Germany) of events > 1000 people is considered but for the moment postponed.
    About half (26) of all currently known cases in Berlin can be traced back to a single club/disco.
    In Brandenburg a single case at a school has led to quarantining 4-5000 people. Unfortunately, it was a boarding school combined with several other schools in a single complex, so the group affected includes the faculty of all those schools, the kids and the relatives living with them, thus the great number despite the provincial setting.
    I do not register any overt panic around here. But the RW AfD party tries to make hay off the crisis by targeting foreigners. But they are not as blatant as their cousins in spirit in Austria (the FPÖ), who loudly drum for closing the borders (ideally permanently) and blame the whole crisis on illegal immigrants.
    *currently only those with a capacity of 500 or more but that is the vast majority.

  397. It’s not just that the young are less affected, they also don’t go much of anywhere while they are on campus. Campuses are fairly closed communities. I would expect that, with sports and conferences closed, your average campus would spread things to the outside population more slowly than would having those same students all off-campus and interacting more widely.
    Unless they are just thinking about the dispersion and not about the breadth of contact.

  398. It’s not just that the young are less affected, they also don’t go much of anywhere while they are on campus. Campuses are fairly closed communities. I would expect that, with sports and conferences closed, your average campus would spread things to the outside population more slowly than would having those same students all off-campus and interacting more widely.
    Unless they are just thinking about the dispersion and not about the breadth of contact.

  399. Doesn’t the vaccine scepticism date back to Ford’s misguided swine flu vaccine program, which probably;y put the nail in his re-election prospects ?

  400. Doesn’t the vaccine scepticism date back to Ford’s misguided swine flu vaccine program, which probably;y put the nail in his re-election prospects ?

  403. I always took vaccination as a natural part of life and was quite surprised when I learned (as an adult) that there is* fundamental opposition to it from some groups (and not all of them religious lunatics or ideologues). And I have no first hand experience of major lethal outbreaks around here.
    *historical opposition had at least some merit since the original smallpox vaccination carried a significant risk that would not be deemed acceptable for a modern treatment.

  404. I always took vaccination as a natural part of life and was quite surprised when I learned (as an adult) that there is* fundamental opposition to it from some groups (and not all of them religious lunatics or ideologues). And I have no first hand experience of major lethal outbreaks around here.
    *historical opposition had at least some merit since the original smallpox vaccination carried a significant risk that would not be deemed acceptable for a modern treatment.

  405. A friend of mine who is irredeemably anti-vax posted a meme reading something like “You want me to vaccinate my kid to protect your kid who’s already been vaccinated. How does that make any sense?”
    Of course, no – I want you to vaccinate your kid to protect all the people who can’t be vaccinated, like infants(!) for example. I guess the idea that there could be anything but a selfish motivation is beyond some people.

  406. A friend of mine who is irredeemably anti-vax posted a meme reading something like “You want me to vaccinate my kid to protect your kid who’s already been vaccinated. How does that make any sense?”
    Of course, no – I want you to vaccinate your kid to protect all the people who can’t be vaccinated, like infants(!) for example. I guess the idea that there could be anything but a selfish motivation is beyond some people.

  407. The one that got me was a friend who tried to tell me that those childhood diseases were dying out anyway, and the vaccination programs had nothing to do with it. And this guy is well educated and in the health care field! Amazing.

  408. The one that got me was a friend who tried to tell me that those childhood diseases were dying out anyway, and the vaccination programs had nothing to do with it. And this guy is well educated and in the health care field! Amazing.

  409. The entire conservative movement is Wilmer Krusen heading up the malignant parade of Republican misgovernance.
    With any number of jackbooted nationalist hater Gautleiters right behind.

  410. The entire conservative movement is Wilmer Krusen heading up the malignant parade of Republican misgovernance.
    With any number of jackbooted nationalist hater Gautleiters right behind.

  411. I have family members who are vaccine paranoid. One is quite politically involved on the local level with the GOP, where it spills over. They are also homeschoolers and creationists and into homeopathy and quite pro-life. There’s a whole ecology of alternative facts and truths beyond argument going on there.
    They read the VAERS database as if there is a cause-and-effect relationship between a data entry and a death and not just a correlation.
    They talk to and believe parents who claim that their child’s death happened as a result of vaccines and believe that the companies producing those vaccines are covering up known risks.
    They think that vaccine producers are bypassing important safety studies (like double blind tests with a placebo), not processing how such a test would be medically unethical and morally inexcusable.
    They read peer reviewed articles about non-specific reactions to vaccines given in batches and see this as a sign of failure on the part of the pharmaceutical companies, rather than as a sign of a solid system of review.
    Their latest version of vaccine paranoia is that we give too many vaccines too soon and that the pace of it wrecks young immune systems. This then turns into a parental rights argument and a bodily autonomy argument on which they are adamant. It doesn’t matter if another’s life is at risk; a parent should be able to choose what is best for their child.
    Which, ironically, is the exact same argument that they reject when it comes to abortion as a female health issue.
    [throws up hands]

  412. I have family members who are vaccine paranoid. One is quite politically involved on the local level with the GOP, where it spills over. They are also homeschoolers and creationists and into homeopathy and quite pro-life. There’s a whole ecology of alternative facts and truths beyond argument going on there.
    They read the VAERS database as if there is a cause-and-effect relationship between a data entry and a death and not just a correlation.
    They talk to and believe parents who claim that their child’s death happened as a result of vaccines and believe that the companies producing those vaccines are covering up known risks.
    They think that vaccine producers are bypassing important safety studies (like double blind tests with a placebo), not processing how such a test would be medically unethical and morally inexcusable.
    They read peer reviewed articles about non-specific reactions to vaccines given in batches and see this as a sign of failure on the part of the pharmaceutical companies, rather than as a sign of a solid system of review.
    Their latest version of vaccine paranoia is that we give too many vaccines too soon and that the pace of it wrecks young immune systems. This then turns into a parental rights argument and a bodily autonomy argument on which they are adamant. It doesn’t matter if another’s life is at risk; a parent should be able to choose what is best for their child.
    Which, ironically, is the exact same argument that they reject when it comes to abortion as a female health issue.
    [throws up hands]

  413. FWIW, the news from here:
    Church services cancelled for the next two weeks.
    Work is work from home until further notice, probably similar length of time or maybe a bit shorter.
    Feels weird, nobody I know is ill. But best to keep it that way.

  414. FWIW, the news from here:
    Church services cancelled for the next two weeks.
    Work is work from home until further notice, probably similar length of time or maybe a bit shorter.
    Feels weird, nobody I know is ill. But best to keep it that way.

  415. Russell, you know Tom Hanks…
    Don’t worry, if you know anyone from Europe, you won’t be seeing them. Unless they are from the UK, presumably speaking English affords some protection against the virus…

  416. Russell, you know Tom Hanks…
    Don’t worry, if you know anyone from Europe, you won’t be seeing them. Unless they are from the UK, presumably speaking English affords some protection against the virus…

  417. Counties here are urging (although not, yet, requiring) postponing or cancelling public events. Neighboring Alameda County (Oakland and Berkeley) defines that as 1,000 people. But here in Contra Costa County, a “public event” is one with 50 (five zero) attendees. Not clear of they mean that to include workplaces….

  418. Counties here are urging (although not, yet, requiring) postponing or cancelling public events. Neighboring Alameda County (Oakland and Berkeley) defines that as 1,000 people. But here in Contra Costa County, a “public event” is one with 50 (five zero) attendees. Not clear of they mean that to include workplaces….

  421. I had to laugh out loud when I heard in the news that Trump has declared a travel ban for all Europeans to the US because we have mismanaged Corona on this side of the big pond.
    Berlin universities have postponed the start of the next semester by a week yesterday and plan to do as many courses online as feasible.
    Well, I hope the worst is over in a month. I’d be quite unhappy to cancel my short trip to Malta at the end of April.

  422. I had to laugh out loud when I heard in the news that Trump has declared a travel ban for all Europeans to the US because we have mismanaged Corona on this side of the big pond.
    Berlin universities have postponed the start of the next semester by a week yesterday and plan to do as many courses online as feasible.
    Well, I hope the worst is over in a month. I’d be quite unhappy to cancel my short trip to Malta at the end of April.

  423. QAnon, at the urging of White House murderer Steve Miller is claiming Tom Hanks and his wife picked up the Coronavirus in the basement of the Comet Ping Pong Pizzaria after borrowing Hillary Clinton’s butt plug during a session of find the anal albino hamster with a bevy of kidnapped republican kindergartners trafficked by Vince Foster.
    Truth is solely in the believing.

  424. QAnon, at the urging of White House murderer Steve Miller is claiming Tom Hanks and his wife picked up the Coronavirus in the basement of the Comet Ping Pong Pizzaria after borrowing Hillary Clinton’s butt plug during a session of find the anal albino hamster with a bevy of kidnapped republican kindergartners trafficked by Vince Foster.
    Truth is solely in the believing.

  425. All European countries, along with Canada, Mexico, North Korea, and China must immediately close their borders to all Americans, who are about to be the leading carriers and vectors of the virus in the world.
    Americans identified as Democrats will merely be turned back, but those identified as republican subhuman vermin should be executed immediately as they disembark with single bullets to the head.
    Roust out all American diplomats in the American Embassies and consulates, deporting the harmless deep state apparatchiks who are merely guilty of typing, filing, and long lunch breaks, but hold the Trump appointees for interrogation and torture, kill them, and ship their virus-ridden bodies to Russia for proper burial in their Homeland.
    Burn the contaminated embassies and consulates to the ground and keep all in-country nationals staffing the joints under tight surveillance for the interim for signs of American influence and brainwashing, including symptoms of right wing republican dyspepsia, and sneering, leering attitudes toward their countrymen who are different than they are, and who they hate for exhibiting Jewishness and over-melanined tendencies, and proclivities for empathy and politically correct banter, such as admiration for Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the essays of James Baldwin, and the pleas of refugees.
    As for Boris-loving Brits who are exempt from the travel ban, flood the Chunnel from the French side.
    Let’s get a good vigorous nasty economy-ruining trade war going across the globe, stoke xenophobia to the max against diseased Americans which brings America to its exceptional knees and foments a viciously violent and savage genocidal backlash against all things republican, conservative, and trumpian in this country which should have happened a long fucking time ago.
    As Tucker Carlson pointed out, the disavowal of racist hate speech against white conservative republicans is preventing us from defeating this dreadful, deadly qvirus.
    As for the other virus in the news, the Coronavirus, wash your hands and the deep state, the good one, will fashion a vaccine soon.
    In closing, if my son or another loved one contracts the Coronavirus and possibly dies from it, I personally will attend to making sure that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, all republican trump politicians and their staffs, and rightwing “news” “personalities” are not afforded the luxury of dying by natural causes.
    Stephen Miller’s last living image on his corneas will be of me.

  426. All European countries, along with Canada, Mexico, North Korea, and China must immediately close their borders to all Americans, who are about to be the leading carriers and vectors of the virus in the world.
    Americans identified as Democrats will merely be turned back, but those identified as republican subhuman vermin should be executed immediately as they disembark with single bullets to the head.
    Roust out all American diplomats in the American Embassies and consulates, deporting the harmless deep state apparatchiks who are merely guilty of typing, filing, and long lunch breaks, but hold the Trump appointees for interrogation and torture, kill them, and ship their virus-ridden bodies to Russia for proper burial in their Homeland.
    Burn the contaminated embassies and consulates to the ground and keep all in-country nationals staffing the joints under tight surveillance for the interim for signs of American influence and brainwashing, including symptoms of right wing republican dyspepsia, and sneering, leering attitudes toward their countrymen who are different than they are, and who they hate for exhibiting Jewishness and over-melanined tendencies, and proclivities for empathy and politically correct banter, such as admiration for Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the essays of James Baldwin, and the pleas of refugees.
    As for Boris-loving Brits who are exempt from the travel ban, flood the Chunnel from the French side.
    Let’s get a good vigorous nasty economy-ruining trade war going across the globe, stoke xenophobia to the max against diseased Americans which brings America to its exceptional knees and foments a viciously violent and savage genocidal backlash against all things republican, conservative, and trumpian in this country which should have happened a long fucking time ago.
    As Tucker Carlson pointed out, the disavowal of racist hate speech against white conservative republicans is preventing us from defeating this dreadful, deadly qvirus.
    As for the other virus in the news, the Coronavirus, wash your hands and the deep state, the good one, will fashion a vaccine soon.
    In closing, if my son or another loved one contracts the Coronavirus and possibly dies from it, I personally will attend to making sure that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, all republican trump politicians and their staffs, and rightwing “news” “personalities” are not afforded the luxury of dying by natural causes.
    Stephen Miller’s last living image on his corneas will be of me.

  427. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/norwegian-cruise-line-managers-urged-salespeople-to-spread-falsehoods-about-coronavirus/ar-BB115f3c
    Find those managers and salespeople and kill them.
    Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and all conservative right wing subhuman vermin who are repeatedly pushing fucking lies about the virus outbreak must be arrested and charged with treason and endangering national security.
    When found guilty, fucking kill them.
    And then we start in on all republican politicians with absolute genocidal ferocity.
    Declare martial law and butcher all internal enemies of America.

  428. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/norwegian-cruise-line-managers-urged-salespeople-to-spread-falsehoods-about-coronavirus/ar-BB115f3c
    Find those managers and salespeople and kill them.
    Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and all conservative right wing subhuman vermin who are repeatedly pushing fucking lies about the virus outbreak must be arrested and charged with treason and endangering national security.
    When found guilty, fucking kill them.
    And then we start in on all republican politicians with absolute genocidal ferocity.
    Declare martial law and butcher all internal enemies of America.

  429. Right wing filth in my eight fantasy baseball leagues want to declare a halt to all leagues because Donald Trump called the Coronavirus a fantasy.

  430. Right wing filth in my eight fantasy baseball leagues want to declare a halt to all leagues because Donald Trump called the Coronavirus a fantasy.

  433. JPMorgan, after pounding the table on buying Boeing stock with both hands at $450/share and all the way throws in the towel as it reaches their target price of $181.
    Now, they want you to watch it. If it rises, watch it some more. When it reaches $450/share again, put all your savings into it and stop watching it.
    They’ll watch for you, from afar on their yachts in offshore marinas where your money has mysterious ended up.
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jp-morgan-abandons-boeing-buy-091422237.html
    The same oddsmakers are taking office pool bets on Jaime Dimon’s prognosis after his heart surgery.
    So much killing to be done. So little time.

  434. JPMorgan, after pounding the table on buying Boeing stock with both hands at $450/share and all the way throws in the towel as it reaches their target price of $181.
    Now, they want you to watch it. If it rises, watch it some more. When it reaches $450/share again, put all your savings into it and stop watching it.
    They’ll watch for you, from afar on their yachts in offshore marinas where your money has mysterious ended up.
    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jp-morgan-abandons-boeing-buy-091422237.html
    The same oddsmakers are taking office pool bets on Jaime Dimon’s prognosis after his heart surgery.
    So much killing to be done. So little time.

  435. So much killing to be done. So little time.
    I don’t know what’s going on with you but enough of this already.
    Knock it off, man.
    Thank you.

  436. So much killing to be done. So little time.
    I don’t know what’s going on with you but enough of this already.
    Knock it off, man.
    Thank you.

  441. I, for one, look forward to Karmavirus spreading like wildfire through Trump rally attendees.
    At last, the spittle-flecked crazed invective will do some good.

  442. I, for one, look forward to Karmavirus spreading like wildfire through Trump rally attendees.
    At last, the spittle-flecked crazed invective will do some good.

  443. my manager just told us to “prepare ourselves to work from home”. yes indeed. i am ready. gimme the word.

  444. my manager just told us to “prepare ourselves to work from home”. yes indeed. i am ready. gimme the word.

  445. Trump actually takes action in the public good . . . for the European public — restricting them from traveling to the local disease hotbed which is the United States.
    Well, baby steps, I suppose.

  446. Trump actually takes action in the public good . . . for the European public — restricting them from traveling to the local disease hotbed which is the United States.
    Well, baby steps, I suppose.

  447. I, for one, look forward to Karmavirus spreading like wildfire through Trump rally attendees.
    It does seem like a pretty safe bet. Followed by denunciations of the “deep state” for seeding the events with the virus. Because personal responsibility is only applicable to others.

  448. I, for one, look forward to Karmavirus spreading like wildfire through Trump rally attendees.
    It does seem like a pretty safe bet. Followed by denunciations of the “deep state” for seeding the events with the virus. Because personal responsibility is only applicable to others.

  457. It’ll be an incandescent light bulb of very low wattage designed to increase the darkness.
    But then how will it keep the chickens warm?

  458. It’ll be an incandescent light bulb of very low wattage designed to increase the darkness.
    But then how will it keep the chickens warm?

  459. Muzzle Jim Cramer:
    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jim-cramers-epic-rant-the-government-should-suspend-tax-collection-2020-03-12
    He claims he is ALWAYS right and the government is always wrong in the article.
    Here’s Mr. Always Right two days ago:
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/videos/cramer-im-more-comfortable-buying-stocks-now/vi-BB1100k3
    We have a surfeit of loud-mouthed, know-nothing, grifting assholes in America.
    They must be made to go quiet forever.
    That scum aside, here’s a warning to our conservative overlords:
    If you suspend all taxes, the conservative movement dream, you’d better NEVER fucking resume them, especially on me.
    You will have to kill me if you do that, conservatives.
    You will have to kill me, I repeat.
    I have everything to lose besides all I’ve lost in the past three weeks.
    Besides my stock market investments, I have a Federal Civil Service pension, which barely pays the bills.
    Don’t fucking tax me.
    I don’t care what I lose, but the conservative movement will lose more if they tax me one fucking cent.
    America is going to live under radical conservative standards and suck the big swinging conservative cock and swallow.
    And you will like it. You’ll say thank you and ask for more.
    What’s going on with me?
    Like tens of millions of real American human beings, I’ve fucking had it.
    There is no way forward except into the pit with EVIL.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44kBN340vd4
    I don’t give shit if I survive.

  460. Muzzle Jim Cramer:
    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jim-cramers-epic-rant-the-government-should-suspend-tax-collection-2020-03-12
    He claims he is ALWAYS right and the government is always wrong in the article.
    Here’s Mr. Always Right two days ago:
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/videos/cramer-im-more-comfortable-buying-stocks-now/vi-BB1100k3
    We have a surfeit of loud-mouthed, know-nothing, grifting assholes in America.
    They must be made to go quiet forever.
    That scum aside, here’s a warning to our conservative overlords:
    If you suspend all taxes, the conservative movement dream, you’d better NEVER fucking resume them, especially on me.
    You will have to kill me if you do that, conservatives.
    You will have to kill me, I repeat.
    I have everything to lose besides all I’ve lost in the past three weeks.
    Besides my stock market investments, I have a Federal Civil Service pension, which barely pays the bills.
    Don’t fucking tax me.
    I don’t care what I lose, but the conservative movement will lose more if they tax me one fucking cent.
    America is going to live under radical conservative standards and suck the big swinging conservative cock and swallow.
    And you will like it. You’ll say thank you and ask for more.
    What’s going on with me?
    Like tens of millions of real American human beings, I’ve fucking had it.
    There is no way forward except into the pit with EVIL.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44kBN340vd4
    I don’t give shit if I survive.

  463. JDT, Dare we hope that Cramer did put lots of money into stocks on Wednesday? It would be enough to engender a belief in karma.

  464. JDT, Dare we hope that Cramer did put lots of money into stocks on Wednesday? It would be enough to engender a belief in karma.

  471. nous, delighted to hear that the deep state is sneaking one over on Miller et al. After all, it’s the right thing to do . . . which is why it requires deep state action during this administration.

  472. nous, delighted to hear that the deep state is sneaking one over on Miller et al. After all, it’s the right thing to do . . . which is why it requires deep state action during this administration.

  473. Tom Cotton said “we” are going to hold accountable those who inflicted the Coronavirus upon us.
    Anything I say here is NOTHING compared to what comes out of these Republican dog shit mouths.
    Who is he planning on killing? I hope the Chinese government is listening closely and is manufacturing and stockpiling as many thermonuclear weapons and their transport apparatus as possible.
    We and our country and the peoples of the world are in grave, mortal danger from the most dangerous, murderous terrorist group on the face of the planet: the Republican Party.
    I want to hear from Joe Biden what he will do in his first day on office to begin using the full national security apparatus of this country to put the entire conservative movement and its tens of millions of fellow travelers out of commission, just as Joseph McCarthy fought to wipe the Communist Party in America off the face of the Earth and Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill used the full power of America’s and Britain’s blood and treasure to destroy the Nazi Party and the Japanese armed forces.

  474. Tom Cotton said “we” are going to hold accountable those who inflicted the Coronavirus upon us.
    Anything I say here is NOTHING compared to what comes out of these Republican dog shit mouths.
    Who is he planning on killing? I hope the Chinese government is listening closely and is manufacturing and stockpiling as many thermonuclear weapons and their transport apparatus as possible.
    We and our country and the peoples of the world are in grave, mortal danger from the most dangerous, murderous terrorist group on the face of the planet: the Republican Party.
    I want to hear from Joe Biden what he will do in his first day on office to begin using the full national security apparatus of this country to put the entire conservative movement and its tens of millions of fellow travelers out of commission, just as Joseph McCarthy fought to wipe the Communist Party in America off the face of the Earth and Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill used the full power of America’s and Britain’s blood and treasure to destroy the Nazi Party and the Japanese armed forces.

  475. Looks like, unless you live under a rock in Montana, you’re going to be exposed to COVID-19 eventually. A possible exception, if you can avoid getting it long enough, you’ll be protected by the herd immunity of everyone who did get it. 🙁

  476. Looks like, unless you live under a rock in Montana, you’re going to be exposed to COVID-19 eventually. A possible exception, if you can avoid getting it long enough, you’ll be protected by the herd immunity of everyone who did get it. 🙁

  477. Tom Cotton said “we” are going to hold accountable those who inflicted the Coronavirus upon us.
    The simple, accurate, answer is that the Trump administration, thru their delays, denial, and general incompetence, are the ones most accountable. But will Cotton see it? Nah, probably not.

  478. Tom Cotton said “we” are going to hold accountable those who inflicted the Coronavirus upon us.
    The simple, accurate, answer is that the Trump administration, thru their delays, denial, and general incompetence, are the ones most accountable. But will Cotton see it? Nah, probably not.

  479. Looks like, unless you live under a rock in Montana, you’re going to be exposed to COVID-19 eventually.
    and everyone’s goal should be to delay that as long as possible, for everyone, so we don’t overload our health care system.

  480. Looks like, unless you live under a rock in Montana, you’re going to be exposed to COVID-19 eventually.
    and everyone’s goal should be to delay that as long as possible, for everyone, so we don’t overload our health care system.

  483. Perhaps one might admire McConnell’s consistency.
    But there is the question of whether he is viewing the world thru his navel. Or has he succeeded in looking out his own mouth by now?

  484. Perhaps one might admire McConnell’s consistency.
    But there is the question of whether he is viewing the world thru his navel. Or has he succeeded in looking out his own mouth by now?

  487. I’ve had a lingering cold and cough for two weeks. Since I had the flu three years ago, these things tend to hang on.
    I never got sick before that.
    No fever. I’m 90% sure it’s not Coronavirus, but I don’t want both overlapping.
    I’m quarantining myself except for forays into the fresh air by myself.
    If I must shop for food, I’ll find a 24-hour grocery and go in the middle of the night.
    Unfortunately, the friend “temporarily” living with me works as a chef at Whole Foods, the largest downtown store in Denver, it’s packed with upscale traveling people; the younger generations are big time casual huggers and kissers and the young men shake hands at the drop of a hat …. so …. I’m feeling a little like the germaphobe Jack Nicholsen character in “As Good As It Gets”, dodging everyone, which I hate.
    In Italy, everyone views everyone else around them with absolute terror and fear, not as a fellow human, but as a disease vector.
    Plenty of folks around me are not even noticing what is going on virus-wise. They are not really affected by the stock market directly because they have little at stake. Mostly, some of them are pissed off because their sporting events have been canceled.
    I look at my cellphone like it’s part sewer trap and part laboratory petri dish in a bio-weapons lab.
    I sprayed it with bathroom cleaner today.
    An epidemiologist the other day said that the TV remotes in motels and hotels are the filthiest objects on the face of the Earth, and are rarely if ever cleaned.
    Worse than the dish of communal peanuts at a dive bar in a tuberculosis sanatorium.
    The markets are slaughtered. These corporate geniuses, having spent their cash hoards on juking their shares with buybacks, are now diving onto their credit lines.
    Finance Capitalists are the rope Lenin knotted to hang capitalism itself.
    Trump will end up declaring martial law and canceling the election.
    Take care of your families.
    You have no government to fall back on. The poor are fucked, as conservatives wish them to be, the better to humiliate them when things go south completely.
    Think of the immigrant folks in their fucking hellhole border prisons and the children stolen, kidnapped from their parents. Think of the prison population.
    When they start to resist quarantine crackdowns and their trapped circumstances, conservative fascists will slaughter and butcher them.
    We need to smuggle weapons to these human beings.
    Trump will renege on the national debt.
    He will close the borders completely to the rest of the world.
    It’s the conservative nationalist right wing nightmare come true. It’s the wet dream of every xenophobe, racist, nationalist, John Birch, KKK, militia gun loving hater in American history and Trump and his killers are giving it all to them.
    All they have dreamed of has been given to them by a virus.
    Jesus Christ, I hope Tom Hanks, the human being and the symbol, is OK. If something should happen to him, it would be for morale like losing Jimmy Stewart on a bombing mission during World War II.
    People would say, well, if he’s not immune, then fuck me …?
    Stop them. They must be stopped. Please stop them.
    wj: “Perhaps one might admire McConnell’s consistency.”
    I’m going down to the graveyard tonight. Wanna come along and whistle as we walk past because my whistler is broken. I’m trying to set a tone here, and you are queering the mood music with your sprightly little jingles. Though, that’s creepy too.
    What will the jingle be to advertise the destroyed, dystopic America?
    I expected this to be a slower process, like the vegetation sprouting in the cracks in the pavement in Walker Percy’s “Love In The Ruins”, with maybe time to enjoy three winsome women as things slowly crumble and molder away.
    No one expects the Spanish Flu.

  488. I’ve had a lingering cold and cough for two weeks. Since I had the flu three years ago, these things tend to hang on.
    I never got sick before that.
    No fever. I’m 90% sure it’s not Coronavirus, but I don’t want both overlapping.
    I’m quarantining myself except for forays into the fresh air by myself.
    If I must shop for food, I’ll find a 24-hour grocery and go in the middle of the night.
    Unfortunately, the friend “temporarily” living with me works as a chef at Whole Foods, the largest downtown store in Denver, it’s packed with upscale traveling people; the younger generations are big time casual huggers and kissers and the young men shake hands at the drop of a hat …. so …. I’m feeling a little like the germaphobe Jack Nicholsen character in “As Good As It Gets”, dodging everyone, which I hate.
    In Italy, everyone views everyone else around them with absolute terror and fear, not as a fellow human, but as a disease vector.
    Plenty of folks around me are not even noticing what is going on virus-wise. They are not really affected by the stock market directly because they have little at stake. Mostly, some of them are pissed off because their sporting events have been canceled.
    I look at my cellphone like it’s part sewer trap and part laboratory petri dish in a bio-weapons lab.
    I sprayed it with bathroom cleaner today.
    An epidemiologist the other day said that the TV remotes in motels and hotels are the filthiest objects on the face of the Earth, and are rarely if ever cleaned.
    Worse than the dish of communal peanuts at a dive bar in a tuberculosis sanatorium.
    The markets are slaughtered. These corporate geniuses, having spent their cash hoards on juking their shares with buybacks, are now diving onto their credit lines.
    Finance Capitalists are the rope Lenin knotted to hang capitalism itself.
    Trump will end up declaring martial law and canceling the election.
    Take care of your families.
    You have no government to fall back on. The poor are fucked, as conservatives wish them to be, the better to humiliate them when things go south completely.
    Think of the immigrant folks in their fucking hellhole border prisons and the children stolen, kidnapped from their parents. Think of the prison population.
    When they start to resist quarantine crackdowns and their trapped circumstances, conservative fascists will slaughter and butcher them.
    We need to smuggle weapons to these human beings.
    Trump will renege on the national debt.
    He will close the borders completely to the rest of the world.
    It’s the conservative nationalist right wing nightmare come true. It’s the wet dream of every xenophobe, racist, nationalist, John Birch, KKK, militia gun loving hater in American history and Trump and his killers are giving it all to them.
    All they have dreamed of has been given to them by a virus.
    Jesus Christ, I hope Tom Hanks, the human being and the symbol, is OK. If something should happen to him, it would be for morale like losing Jimmy Stewart on a bombing mission during World War II.
    People would say, well, if he’s not immune, then fuck me …?
    Stop them. They must be stopped. Please stop them.
    wj: “Perhaps one might admire McConnell’s consistency.”
    I’m going down to the graveyard tonight. Wanna come along and whistle as we walk past because my whistler is broken. I’m trying to set a tone here, and you are queering the mood music with your sprightly little jingles. Though, that’s creepy too.
    What will the jingle be to advertise the destroyed, dystopic America?
    I expected this to be a slower process, like the vegetation sprouting in the cracks in the pavement in Walker Percy’s “Love In The Ruins”, with maybe time to enjoy three winsome women as things slowly crumble and molder away.
    No one expects the Spanish Flu.

  491. Tom Cotton said “we” are going to hold accountable those who inflicted the Coronavirus upon us.
    We’re looking at you, pangolins!!

  492. Tom Cotton said “we” are going to hold accountable those who inflicted the Coronavirus upon us.
    We’re looking at you, pangolins!!

  495. An epidemiologist the other day said that the TV remotes in motels and hotels are the filthiest objects on the face of the Earth, and are rarely if ever cleaned.
    When traveling, my wife carries a special plastic bag, just to use when handling the remote. Has for years. Seems to work for her.

  496. An epidemiologist the other day said that the TV remotes in motels and hotels are the filthiest objects on the face of the Earth, and are rarely if ever cleaned.
    When traveling, my wife carries a special plastic bag, just to use when handling the remote. Has for years. Seems to work for her.

  497. Just bought a bottle of wine at Trader Joe’s down the street.
    I’ve never experienced anything like it, except during monsoons in the Philippines.
    On a late Thursday afternoon, a good half of the shelves were cleaned out. Unlike most days when folks are purchasing a few things, the grocery carts were overflowing. Lines long at every checkout.
    Things were calm, but this wasn’t desultory shopping; it was business. People moved with their heads down, distancing as they filled their carts.
    The White House has panicked the entire world.
    The calls are coming from inside the house.
    I’m a liberal, pretty much. The military is not my favorite institution, but since no one is in charge except the Evil, I want a military coup.
    I would accept James Mattis as the leader of the action.
    Clean out the White House. Move the inhabitants to an ICE prison for later execution and release the harmless immigrants to make room.
    Grab Mitch McConnell by the nose and drag him into a cage. Arrest his corrupt wife to keep him company.
    No negotiation. No deals. Fuck them hard.
    Let whatever pointless succession deemed by the Constitution happen.
    Military leaders and members who resist the coup will be neutralized, but I tell you, many hate this fucker.
    I was talking to my brother yesterday, he of the stepson who waltzed around with the semiautomatic weapon mock shooting it at the TV several years ago,, he now the graduating Navy Seal, and I asked my brother if he had spoken with the kid about the murdering Seal Trump pardoned or whatever bullshit he pulled, and the answer was “yes, and he told me the unanimous opinion was that if that guy came anywhere near serving Navy Seals, they would scrag him.”
    All norms, all codes of conduct have been violated. The field is open to violating all norms and codes to destroy the malignancy inflicting this country.
    The issues are not the issue.
    When the Republican Party rises up with whatever pop guns they have in their possession, do what needs to be done.
    Place the Strategic Air Command and NATO troops on full alert to warn trump’s foreign sponsers that shit will not be tolerated.
    I’m crazy.
    There is no other way to be if you want to take down this oddly incompetent but truly malignant Evil.
    .

  498. Just bought a bottle of wine at Trader Joe’s down the street.
    I’ve never experienced anything like it, except during monsoons in the Philippines.
    On a late Thursday afternoon, a good half of the shelves were cleaned out. Unlike most days when folks are purchasing a few things, the grocery carts were overflowing. Lines long at every checkout.
    Things were calm, but this wasn’t desultory shopping; it was business. People moved with their heads down, distancing as they filled their carts.
    The White House has panicked the entire world.
    The calls are coming from inside the house.
    I’m a liberal, pretty much. The military is not my favorite institution, but since no one is in charge except the Evil, I want a military coup.
    I would accept James Mattis as the leader of the action.
    Clean out the White House. Move the inhabitants to an ICE prison for later execution and release the harmless immigrants to make room.
    Grab Mitch McConnell by the nose and drag him into a cage. Arrest his corrupt wife to keep him company.
    No negotiation. No deals. Fuck them hard.
    Let whatever pointless succession deemed by the Constitution happen.
    Military leaders and members who resist the coup will be neutralized, but I tell you, many hate this fucker.
    I was talking to my brother yesterday, he of the stepson who waltzed around with the semiautomatic weapon mock shooting it at the TV several years ago,, he now the graduating Navy Seal, and I asked my brother if he had spoken with the kid about the murdering Seal Trump pardoned or whatever bullshit he pulled, and the answer was “yes, and he told me the unanimous opinion was that if that guy came anywhere near serving Navy Seals, they would scrag him.”
    All norms, all codes of conduct have been violated. The field is open to violating all norms and codes to destroy the malignancy inflicting this country.
    The issues are not the issue.
    When the Republican Party rises up with whatever pop guns they have in their possession, do what needs to be done.
    Place the Strategic Air Command and NATO troops on full alert to warn trump’s foreign sponsers that shit will not be tolerated.
    I’m crazy.
    There is no other way to be if you want to take down this oddly incompetent but truly malignant Evil.
    .

  503. Jesus Christ, I hope Tom Hanks, the human being and the symbol, is OK. If something should happen to him, it would be for morale like losing Jimmy Stewart on a bombing mission during World War II.
    Hanks and his lady had the good fortune to be in Australia when they came down sick. So there were test kits readily available. And treatment protocols in place when they tested positive. Guess it’s a good thing they weren’t here at home.

  504. Jesus Christ, I hope Tom Hanks, the human being and the symbol, is OK. If something should happen to him, it would be for morale like losing Jimmy Stewart on a bombing mission during World War II.
    Hanks and his lady had the good fortune to be in Australia when they came down sick. So there were test kits readily available. And treatment protocols in place when they tested positive. Guess it’s a good thing they weren’t here at home.

  505. Sleepy Joe Biden on the corona virus. He starts talking around 35:00.
    Sanity, common sense, and complete sentences. So f**king simple and refreshing.
    Kick his ass Joe, early and often.

  506. Sleepy Joe Biden on the corona virus. He starts talking around 35:00.
    Sanity, common sense, and complete sentences. So f**king simple and refreshing.
    Kick his ass Joe, early and often.

  511. if we not only contracted the virus, but shed our human carapaces and transformed into those things.
    who says we won’t? it’s still early days.
    never mind deep state plots, maybe it’s nature’s way of restoring the world pangolin population.
    all natural systems seek balance.
    as an aside, a FB friend has been sharing posts about wild and semi-wild animals of all sorts re-taking public spaces normally dominated by humans, now left vacant by people in self- or government-imposed quarantine. wild pigs romp in Italian piazzas. gangs of monkeys swarm public squares in Asia.
    the critters are having a good old time. no doubt they have lots more viruses where COVID-19 came from, ready to share with us. hope they don’t put 2 and 2 together.

  512. if we not only contracted the virus, but shed our human carapaces and transformed into those things.
    who says we won’t? it’s still early days.
    never mind deep state plots, maybe it’s nature’s way of restoring the world pangolin population.
    all natural systems seek balance.
    as an aside, a FB friend has been sharing posts about wild and semi-wild animals of all sorts re-taking public spaces normally dominated by humans, now left vacant by people in self- or government-imposed quarantine. wild pigs romp in Italian piazzas. gangs of monkeys swarm public squares in Asia.
    the critters are having a good old time. no doubt they have lots more viruses where COVID-19 came from, ready to share with us. hope they don’t put 2 and 2 together.

  513. Hey, they owe us, considering all we’ve given them.
    It would be like Native Americans plying us with alcohol and then depantsing us at the pow wow and ending up with our house titles.

  514. Hey, they owe us, considering all we’ve given them.
    It would be like Native Americans plying us with alcohol and then depantsing us at the pow wow and ending up with our house titles.

  519. He still won’t get tested, or sez he hasn’t been:
    https://juanitajean.com/I-am-not-happy-about-this-at-all-not-happy-at-all-nope-not-okay-okay-maybe-just-a-little/
    It’s like he has a homing device in his pants to tell the virus where he is.
    Melania hasn’t touched the big tub of pork fat in years so I expect she might still be safe.
    I think this proves that he has been vaccinated and knew his operatives were releasing the virus in Wuhan with the goal of worldwide spread to achieve conservative goals of closing all borders and suspending all taxation, firing all federal employees, suspending all government operations outside of Secret Service use of golf carts on his courses, and handing most federal lands into a trust fund for his kids.
    Oh, what part of this might not be true, conservatives?
    Prove it, given the evidence.

  520. He still won’t get tested, or sez he hasn’t been:
    https://juanitajean.com/I-am-not-happy-about-this-at-all-not-happy-at-all-nope-not-okay-okay-maybe-just-a-little/
    It’s like he has a homing device in his pants to tell the virus where he is.
    Melania hasn’t touched the big tub of pork fat in years so I expect she might still be safe.
    I think this proves that he has been vaccinated and knew his operatives were releasing the virus in Wuhan with the goal of worldwide spread to achieve conservative goals of closing all borders and suspending all taxation, firing all federal employees, suspending all government operations outside of Secret Service use of golf carts on his courses, and handing most federal lands into a trust fund for his kids.
    Oh, what part of this might not be true, conservatives?
    Prove it, given the evidence.

  523. The rule of law is dead.
    No needs for courts to adjudicate a dead thing.
    Kill all of the courts.

  524. The rule of law is dead.
    No needs for courts to adjudicate a dead thing.
    Kill all of the courts.

  527. “Hope they don’t put two and two together”
    The alternative reality mandated by the conservative movement for us to live in uses alternative math and alternative facts, so their answer would be “5”, plus tax cuts, and three mulligans on every hole.

  528. “Hope they don’t put two and two together”
    The alternative reality mandated by the conservative movement for us to live in uses alternative math and alternative facts, so their answer would be “5”, plus tax cuts, and three mulligans on every hole.

  529. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/european-stocks-rise-after-us-fed-vows-to-pump-trillions-into-markets-085917198.html
    We’ll see if this rally holds today as the free capitalist financial markets push aside the poor little piglets, take their cigars out of their mouths, and plunge in to suck on the gummint titty.
    Wonder if they’ll shore up Bitcoin, too?
    No doubt libertarians will throw in the towel on that financial tomfoolery and come up with some new grift and call it “freedom”.
    It will be, what shall we call it …. educational? … to hear Leon Cooperman and Paul Tudor Jones mumble into their caviar dockside regarding their bailout, after telling us just weeks ago that the markets would not open if Warren was elected and if Sanders was elected they’d be cooling their heels awaiting the train trip to Siberia.
    What say conservatives shut their fuckng mouths. I mean the First Amendment says you don’t have to, but it would seem gallantry would mandate at least a pause in the bullshit fucking lectures we get year round.
    My reading of the Second Amendment and it’s free floating ever ambiguous commas that conservatives hold as denoting absolute certainty, says differently, that conservative mouths and my trigger finger have a symbiotic action/reaction relationship and everything goes.
    I predict within a month Larry Kudlow, as reward for his repeated cataclysmic brand of non-prescience and his single undergraduate degree in college alcohol and blow will be named Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the next conservative thrust into institutional ruination.

  530. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/european-stocks-rise-after-us-fed-vows-to-pump-trillions-into-markets-085917198.html
    We’ll see if this rally holds today as the free capitalist financial markets push aside the poor little piglets, take their cigars out of their mouths, and plunge in to suck on the gummint titty.
    Wonder if they’ll shore up Bitcoin, too?
    No doubt libertarians will throw in the towel on that financial tomfoolery and come up with some new grift and call it “freedom”.
    It will be, what shall we call it …. educational? … to hear Leon Cooperman and Paul Tudor Jones mumble into their caviar dockside regarding their bailout, after telling us just weeks ago that the markets would not open if Warren was elected and if Sanders was elected they’d be cooling their heels awaiting the train trip to Siberia.
    What say conservatives shut their fuckng mouths. I mean the First Amendment says you don’t have to, but it would seem gallantry would mandate at least a pause in the bullshit fucking lectures we get year round.
    My reading of the Second Amendment and it’s free floating ever ambiguous commas that conservatives hold as denoting absolute certainty, says differently, that conservative mouths and my trigger finger have a symbiotic action/reaction relationship and everything goes.
    I predict within a month Larry Kudlow, as reward for his repeated cataclysmic brand of non-prescience and his single undergraduate degree in college alcohol and blow will be named Chairman of the Federal Reserve in the next conservative thrust into institutional ruination.

  531. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=svkda6Y19uM
    Refresh our memories.
    The horse, as reward for kicking the shit out of the operating theaters, has elevated himself to Chief Administrator of Hospital Operations.
    As well, he has brought in a nag called Prince of Pence, who once finished sixth at Pimlico only to be proved to have been doped to improve his performance, and named him Chief Anesthesiologist to administer a long somnolent dose to keep the patient under long enough to let all the other jackasses steal the patient’s watch and wallet.
    See, the quandary the conservative movement finds themselves in is how do they prove that government cannot be depended on while at the same time using government to burnish their corrupt horses’ reputations as our saviors during this crisis.
    They want trump to emerge from this dressed in a tacky unicorn costume, surrounded by a heroic halo of fake lighting, while continuing to kick the crap out of government and chew their way out of their stalls to stampede America into fascism.

  532. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=svkda6Y19uM
    Refresh our memories.
    The horse, as reward for kicking the shit out of the operating theaters, has elevated himself to Chief Administrator of Hospital Operations.
    As well, he has brought in a nag called Prince of Pence, who once finished sixth at Pimlico only to be proved to have been doped to improve his performance, and named him Chief Anesthesiologist to administer a long somnolent dose to keep the patient under long enough to let all the other jackasses steal the patient’s watch and wallet.
    See, the quandary the conservative movement finds themselves in is how do they prove that government cannot be depended on while at the same time using government to burnish their corrupt horses’ reputations as our saviors during this crisis.
    They want trump to emerge from this dressed in a tacky unicorn costume, surrounded by a heroic halo of fake lighting, while continuing to kick the crap out of government and chew their way out of their stalls to stampede America into fascism.

  533. https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/03/denying-reality-is-finally-biting-republicans-in-the-ass/
    Drum is right and he is wrong.
    Reality does bite them in the ass but these assholes have had their asses completely chewed off and will continue on their ruinous rampage assless.
    Even assless, the horseshit will continue to cloud all satellite photos of America until someone shoots horses, don’t they.
    My mission today is to drive east of Denver to a small town and see if there is one bottle of cough medicine on the shelf.

  534. https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/03/denying-reality-is-finally-biting-republicans-in-the-ass/
    Drum is right and he is wrong.
    Reality does bite them in the ass but these assholes have had their asses completely chewed off and will continue on their ruinous rampage assless.
    Even assless, the horseshit will continue to cloud all satellite photos of America until someone shoots horses, don’t they.
    My mission today is to drive east of Denver to a small town and see if there is one bottle of cough medicine on the shelf.

  535. Back to report that I decided to stop at a local grocery store and found what I needed though supplies, as they say, were limited, so not sojourning east on to the Plains to seek out Comanche witch doctors.
    This is very unlike me. I’ve exposed myself to all sorts of dangers in my life with hardly a second thought, and the Ebola and SARS episodes didn’t even register on my radar,
    I wasn’t paying attention, but now, as the comedian said above, there is a horse … loose … in the hospital!

  536. Back to report that I decided to stop at a local grocery store and found what I needed though supplies, as they say, were limited, so not sojourning east on to the Plains to seek out Comanche witch doctors.
    This is very unlike me. I’ve exposed myself to all sorts of dangers in my life with hardly a second thought, and the Ebola and SARS episodes didn’t even register on my radar,
    I wasn’t paying attention, but now, as the comedian said above, there is a horse … loose … in the hospital!

  537. Two Finnish metal bands that I listen to had their North American tour cancelled after just one show. That’s a lot of money laid out that will not be made back and both bands are trying to figure out how to survive the financial loss.
    Think I’ll have to buy a t-shirt from both Insomnium and Omnium Gatherum to help them out.
    http://www.insomnium.net/
    https://www.omniumgatherum.org/

  538. Two Finnish metal bands that I listen to had their North American tour cancelled after just one show. That’s a lot of money laid out that will not be made back and both bands are trying to figure out how to survive the financial loss.
    Think I’ll have to buy a t-shirt from both Insomnium and Omnium Gatherum to help them out.
    http://www.insomnium.net/
    https://www.omniumgatherum.org/

  539. A conservative, once you get him away from the bat soup memes, looks at what science sez:
    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-coming-coronavirus-storm/
    Meanwhile, referring to hairshirt’s quote way up thread regarding the Spanish Flu and fatal differences in leadership in American cities, looks like we have a candidate for republican conservative murderer of the week.
    Sue him personally, take everything his family owns, and sue the South Carolina government and bankrupt it and close it down.
    Fuck these filth hard.

  540. A conservative, once you get him away from the bat soup memes, looks at what science sez:
    https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-coming-coronavirus-storm/
    Meanwhile, referring to hairshirt’s quote way up thread regarding the Spanish Flu and fatal differences in leadership in American cities, looks like we have a candidate for republican conservative murderer of the week.
    Sue him personally, take everything his family owns, and sue the South Carolina government and bankrupt it and close it down.
    Fuck these filth hard.

  543. A friend, who happens to own the watering hole I frequent just left for Switzerland because his Dad, a longtime drummer for the Beach Boys during their tours after Denny died, and who has a pretty good Beach Boys tribute band his own self, had a gig over there.
    The day before he left, the gig was canceled because of current events and his Dad isn’t traveling but my friend and his girlfriend went anyway, cough.
    She kisses me on the lips when I see her.
    When she gets back, I don’t think so.

  544. A friend, who happens to own the watering hole I frequent just left for Switzerland because his Dad, a longtime drummer for the Beach Boys during their tours after Denny died, and who has a pretty good Beach Boys tribute band his own self, had a gig over there.
    The day before he left, the gig was canceled because of current events and his Dad isn’t traveling but my friend and his girlfriend went anyway, cough.
    She kisses me on the lips when I see her.
    When she gets back, I don’t think so.

  549. I’m corrected now that my friend and his girlfriend also canceled their trip to Switzerland.
    Good.
    A victory for kissing, but still I think I’ll keep that moratorium intact for the time being.

  550. I’m corrected now that my friend and his girlfriend also canceled their trip to Switzerland.
    Good.
    A victory for kissing, but still I think I’ll keep that moratorium intact for the time being.

  551. Brazil’s President Bolsonaro has contracted the virus.
    Another savings on bullets for the budget conscious.

  552. Brazil’s President Bolsonaro has contracted the virus.
    Another savings on bullets for the budget conscious.

  555. I’m taking a break from the watering hole anyway, for obvious reasons.
    Saturday night, I went from a crowded restaurant to a crowded bar while celebrating a friend’s birthday. Tuesday night I went to a not-crowded-but-not-empty bar for happy hour to see off a friend moving to Texas. I had second thoughts about both at the time, but these few days later, I wouldn’t do either. I’m just not going out for anything optional, at least not anywhere where I’d be in anything approaching close quarters with other people. A walk in the woods would be okay, I suppose.
    I always took it seriously, but this got weird fast.

  556. I’m taking a break from the watering hole anyway, for obvious reasons.
    Saturday night, I went from a crowded restaurant to a crowded bar while celebrating a friend’s birthday. Tuesday night I went to a not-crowded-but-not-empty bar for happy hour to see off a friend moving to Texas. I had second thoughts about both at the time, but these few days later, I wouldn’t do either. I’m just not going out for anything optional, at least not anywhere where I’d be in anything approaching close quarters with other people. A walk in the woods would be okay, I suppose.
    I always took it seriously, but this got weird fast.

  561. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/13/1927097/-Trump-administration-won-t-let-states-use-Medicaid-to-ramp-up-the-fight-against-coronavirus
    The republican party is a genocidal murder syndicate.
    Conservatives (I speak now generally), your guns are silent.
    Why?
    If you are not using your guns at this particular moment in history, after threatening to do so at every turn while the nigger was President and the lesbian cancer sufferer was running for President, then you are proving the weapons are useless.
    So, when we get through this, we are going to take them from you.
    They are just junk. You won’t miss them.

  562. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/13/1927097/-Trump-administration-won-t-let-states-use-Medicaid-to-ramp-up-the-fight-against-coronavirus
    The republican party is a genocidal murder syndicate.
    Conservatives (I speak now generally), your guns are silent.
    Why?
    If you are not using your guns at this particular moment in history, after threatening to do so at every turn while the nigger was President and the lesbian cancer sufferer was running for President, then you are proving the weapons are useless.
    So, when we get through this, we are going to take them from you.
    They are just junk. You won’t miss them.

  565. Well of course the Trump administration won’t grant the usual disaster waivers for Medicaid! The initial applications came from California and Washington. If it had been Florida or Alabama (or anywhere with a Trump resort), that would have been a whole different story.

  566. Well of course the Trump administration won’t grant the usual disaster waivers for Medicaid! The initial applications came from California and Washington. If it had been Florida or Alabama (or anywhere with a Trump resort), that would have been a whole different story.

  569. friends suggest:
    buy gift certificates from bars, restaurants, and public performance venues so they have some cash flow.
    reach out to folks you might know who participate in AA, NA, or similar, and who will be going without meetings for a while.
    keep in touch with vulnerable people in your neighborhood to make sure they have food, medicine, and other necessaries, and also just to let them know somebody’s looking out for them.
    feel free to add your own suggestions for helpful, constructive things to do.

  570. friends suggest:
    buy gift certificates from bars, restaurants, and public performance venues so they have some cash flow.
    reach out to folks you might know who participate in AA, NA, or similar, and who will be going without meetings for a while.
    keep in touch with vulnerable people in your neighborhood to make sure they have food, medicine, and other necessaries, and also just to let them know somebody’s looking out for them.
    feel free to add your own suggestions for helpful, constructive things to do.

  571. In breaking news:

    A second person who visited President Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago estate last weekend has tested positive for coronavirus, according to emails from Republican party officials to other guests who were present. The president has been near two people in two days who have since been diagnosed as infected.

    But he still won’t get tested. You knew ignorance was bliss. But this blissful?
    Anyone started gaming out this election year if we suddenly got a President Pence not via impeachment? May be time for a little contingency planning.

  572. In breaking news:

    A second person who visited President Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago estate last weekend has tested positive for coronavirus, according to emails from Republican party officials to other guests who were present. The president has been near two people in two days who have since been diagnosed as infected.

    But he still won’t get tested. You knew ignorance was bliss. But this blissful?
    Anyone started gaming out this election year if we suddenly got a President Pence not via impeachment? May be time for a little contingency planning.

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