Hunker Down Diary – 26mar20 (updated 27mar20)

George Rebane

When there’s a problem, government is guilty until proven innocent.

Today is HD19 for the Rebanes.  We started hunkering down on 8 March 2020, and finally risked it all this morning by showing up at our local Safeway at 7am, the advertised ‘old folks shopping time’.  Apparently the younger people had not gotten the word, and the store was full with a lot of couples like Jo Ann and me pushing two carts.  Most of us wore gloves, a few had on masks, and all of us social distanced as much as possible.  But what we saw was dismal; something you’d experience in a socialist second or third world country – ‘miles’ of empty shelves of the stuff that everyone really wanted to buy.  Still, we all filled our baskets with what there was and substituted a lot of PlanB items.

What surprised me was that today the younger generation of managers have no knowledge, let alone experience, of the buying patterns during times of emergency and need.  With all signs of the coming hunker down time apparent more than a month ago, no one, starting with FEMA, advised the supply system to put the pedal to the metal on obvious staples and sanitary items.  There was no anticipative ‘push’ in the pipeline.  Everything appeared to have continued on with the JIT (just in time) scheme that works so well during happy days.  The makers and distributers are making do with the JIT schema in spite of the enormous consumer ‘pull’ of empty shelves.

Yes, you can’t flip a switch and triple your output and distribution of hand sanitizers overnight, but you can do it over several weeks if there were any foresight in the system – which there isn’t.  Today we are still in some kind of supply paralysis, which hopefully is being remedied across a country that once had Americans who could literally repurpose overnight everything from small manufactories, machine shops, and big factories to output gazillions of cans of spam, bread flour, paper goods, and a B-24 every 64 minutes.  Not today, at our merchants JIT has turned into TAT – ‘try again tomorrow’.

Elsewhere in these pages we document and discuss what our corps of clowns, idiots, and scumbags are doing in the highest levels of governments to impose policies that do everything from misconstruing risk, ignoring existential realities, to stuffing needed enabling legislation with their long-term pork and ideological agenda shopping list that has nothing to do with helping us come out of the Covid19 pandemic.  There are too many candidates for Exhibit A that support this assessment.  A particularly good one is how our feds, led by the now revealed incompetent CDC and NIH, had two decades to prepare stores of emergency pandemic supplies, medicines, and medical equipments, and did nothing.  And all this after we had several bouts of contagious disease epidemics (SARS, MERS, Ebola, H1N1, …) since 2000. (example here and here)

Ten years ago during the H1N1 scare, I was on our county’s Large Scale Emergency planning committee sponsored by our Office of Emergency Services.  We were able to lay out the public reaction scenarios, required government agencies’ responses, identify obvious existing shortcomings, etc.  And through state emergency coordinating bodies we heard of other counties doing similar assessments and planning.  The result? – a statewide communications and control exercise (in the military known as COMEX) to sort out who talks to whom when the time comes.  After doing a bunch of telecons, text messages, faxes, and emails everybody declared victory, patted each other on the back, and went back to their daily same ol’ same ol’.  No one thought to stockpile any of the obvious things for a pandemic that everyone in the emergency response business knew was coming. (here is a current example)

Alright, let me offer an Exhibit A – chloroquine.  We discovered 20 years ago that this common and classic (since the mid-1940s) anti-malarial drug was effective against corona viruses.  Our response – nothing.  Now we have to hear from other countries about its benefits and have re-epiphanies that President Trump puts out against the strong opposition of the anti-American media and leftwing politicians whose game plan requires the country’s economic collapse for their political success.  But this kind of medicine, in combination with others, has been known by the pharmacological industry for years.  And we do understand why big pharma has not stepped up and manufactured a large national stash of the stuff, because there is little profit to be gained.  (more here with a H/T to reader).

But this is where a properly functioning government steps in and commissions private industry to do what is perceived as an obvious preparation for the common good.  If government fails in such fundamental functions, then truly we all can and should ask, ‘what good is government?’ – where were the CDC and NIH when we needed them?  It turns out that we know how the corporatists, progressives, and embedded bureaucratic socialists have repurposed government agencies ranging from NASA to the mentioned health security mavens.  Their main missions are now being hobbled and/or redirected, not by need and merit, but by ‘woke’ objectives such as diversity, identity politics, and social/racial justice.

Coming full circle, perhaps we will soon see full shelves after we put the country back in gear again, albeit a more prudent one that recognizes that Covid19 is still among us.  My hope is that the administration is not swayed by today’s short-sighted paeans to risk aversion put forth by politicians and talking heads who depend on or are ignorant of the real long term damage and suffering in store for us if we destroy America’s spirit, and our country’s ability to carry on in its noble quest with its unique ability to generate wealth, the distribution of which makes all other things possible, and without which we will have unimagined destitution and death.

[27mar20 update] Dead and dying on the streets of Wuhan.  Here is a leaked video from Wuhan of how the Covid19 virus takes you down when you don't hunker down, ignore symptoms, and continue with your daily round.  These are pretty gruesome smartphone videos taken by Wuhan residents of their fellow citizens dead on the streets, shopping malls, stores, transportation hubs, … .  The disturbing part starts at about 35:00 minutes.  It’s worthy to note that the CCP has permitted no mention of such wholesale death in the public forum, and our politically correct YouTube (aka Google) removed this video from its catalog because it had “offensive content”.   With out managed and fake news we truly are isheeple, the sheeple of the so-called information age.  In addition to these gruesome street deaths, there is also wide scale rioting in the most affected areas as the government prevents people from leaving.  We have no idea as to the extent of all this.  That our political leadership does not publicly recognize these happenings is disturbing.  Given all this, how are we to interpret the Wuhan virus pandemic data from China?  As a betting man I would put down a passel of quatloos that today China's known infected number more than 5 million, and their body count is well north of a million.  (H/T to reader)

Here are the relevant Twitter URLs which don't link through TypePad, so just copy and paste them into your browsers.  It's very likely they will soon be removed by our politically correct betters.

https://twitter.com/fiteray/status/1243457907976364033

https://twitter.com/i/status/1243457907976364033

pic.twitter.com/zHy5icA5pV

pic.twitter.com/Rcj8lRiaCn

Comments

[Bill Tozer]

A nagging question in my mind that may soon be answered: Immunity to COVID. What triggered the question was all us kids had chicken pox and the German measles. Now they say I am immune.

New Oxford study suggests millions of people may have already built up coronavirus immunity

https://news.yahoo.com/oxford-study-suggests-millions-people-221100162.html

[The Estonian Fox]

Part of the reply to my email (3/25) to Michael Lockshin, MD, a rheumatologist at the Hospital for Special Surgery in NYC.

"Indeed, there are a number of people, including those at our institution and at the American College of Rheumatology, the Lupus Research Alliance, American Autoimmune and Related Diseases Association, and others who are trying to coordinate efforts to understand not only lupus and rheumatoid arthritis but also hydroxychloroquine (-C) and coronavirus. You probably have heard that New York State has just initiated controlled clinical trials for treatment of COVID-19 to see whether hydroxychloroquine does or does not work (available data are not sufficient to say that it does)."

This in response to the well-known use of -C for treating rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and Lupus, both auto-immune diseases, with over 2M diagnosed with those diseases. Even if there is only a 1% prescription rate for them, that makes 20,000+ patients who have been taking -C for over 3 months, or years. Some RA patients have been on the chloros for over 20 years (personal info from my daughter, a PharmD). They are now potential subjects for an on-going experiment that they never even knew they were a part of just 6 months ago.

So with our all-intrusive NSA-snooping, you would think that finding out all those patients who have been taking -C for a long time, we would know if they contract the Wuhan Virus (WV) at all, or have fewer symptoms, or have no difference from someone who has never been on -C. So a simple 8th grade Hypothesis = "If -C is effective, 1- expect fewer RA/Lupus patients to get WV, or 2- the effects of WV are lessened from 10?? days to 5?? days, or 3- no effect, it was a stupid hypothesis." if anyone has reduced susceptibility to WV, it should be these RA patients.

Dr. Lockshin (on the hss.edu website) has said that the -C takes up to 3 months before the body is 'full-up' to fight Lupus.

So -C seems to have a half-life of a few weeks to a month, both going up, as well as discontinuing -C. So if any benefit is found in short-term relief (say 2 weeks of dosing in trials just started) for the WV, then this response should be blindingly evident in the fact that RA/Lupus patients don't contract the WV at all, or the same, as those not on -C. These RA patients would have their immune systems 'full-up' with -C.

It seems that this should be low-hanging fruit, even with HIPAA rules. But I haven't found anyone examining the 20,000+ already on -C and whether they are more or less susceptible to WV. All the studies seem to have been started within the last couple weeks. Where is the NIH on this?

[George Rebane]

EstF 141pm - Good pick-up; excellent points. Let's see if any of the feds respond.

[scenes]

Not sure where to put this, but a cheery little article.

https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/while-venice-beach-residents-under-lockdown-homeless-and-encampments-grow-and-thrive/

Any more grocery store action reports would be appreciated. I'll have to make a foray out of the Scenes from the Apocalypse Bunker at some point for produce. It's been a while.

It's probably a good time since there's some chance it'll get a lot worse in the next two weeks. It might be my last lettuce for a bit even though I've got good gear, it'll give me a chance to practice good decontamination procedures while it's still not super sketchy.

[Bill Tozer]

Hows the HD going?

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2905025026211048&id=100001107384469

[Gregory]

There's a 1st person anecdote of taking the first dose of -C at death's door not expecting through the night and waking up like nothing was wrong.

[Bill Tozer]

re: The Great Hunkering Down

Dr. Rebane.
Thank you for posting your HD-19 diary. Very informative and useful. I have been relying on The Scenes Reports as my eyes on the ground and he is relying on your report. :)
I have yet to venture out to “town” and the local Safeway or Grocery Outlet. Since driving to town to stock up on groceries has always been like pulling teeth for me and laced with procrastination in normal times, I can wait another week or three.

The one thing I got wrong was I assumed that after the initial panic buying for TP and combat shopping, the shelves would be restocked by Tuesday and back to normal. Figured I would just wait a couple days and then leisurely walk up and down aisles, do the price comparisons, and all would be well. I thunk wrong. Never assume.

Thank goodness the good Mexican roach coach is still open and parked in the PV Hardware parking lot. I order 3-4 of their biggest burritos at a time and am good for a couple days or three. That is my idea of stocking up. Since I am well versed in eating rice and beans (to avoid going to the store) for years, I don’t care that I am out of rice and beans and plan to keep it that way. I had enough....thank you very much. . So, when I hear stores are out of bags of rice and beans, I say “good!” I can drive from the boonies into the Dollar General in PV and grab a couple frozen pizza or cans of Corned Beef Hash if hungry...or hit the roach coach if needed.

The one think I have noticed is that when the Great Hunkering Down of 2020 started, people at the checkout lines were kinda of crowding each other. Last time I went to the DG, people were literally standing 6 to 10 feet back of each other. If I was in an aisle, others would stop, turn around , and go up an empty aisle to come around to the end of the aisle I was at to grab something. Nobody, including me, were passing people down the aisle. So, folks are practicing safe distances. Heck, the schools told the kids to stay a broom stick length away from strangers and now the adults are staying two broomstick handles away from each other.

Saw a meme that had a pic of a dog on top of the kitchen cabinet (like a cat) saying to the human, “Leave me alone! We have already been on 20 walks today.”

The worrisome news is that foreign ports are now closing the harbors to cargo vessels and the like, not just luxury liners like Carnival Cruises, per reports from the maritime folks. These cargo ships are not loading nothing and are anchored out of harbor. Thus, our supply chain is distributed and goods will not arrive at our shelves at the snap of one’s fingers. That is the real story behind empty shelves in the future. Maritime is being closed down, taking a big hit.

[scenes]

Scenes Report: Towns are dead with the exception of a handful of the most egregious homeless people and shop keepers getting spring cleaning done.

Grocery Outlet is pretty well stocked although I didn't look at paper goods being a TP millionaire and all. Less variety but full shelves. Still no dry goods. Their primary value to me is for produce right now and there was a lot. Proper procedure was followed including wiping down store purchases once at home. I can guarantee that some of those clerks will show symptoms within a week. No gloves or masks on employees that I noticed. Liquor purchased: 1 case.

HH denizens appear to be burning something. Perhaps it's part of a spring festival.

I did run into some internetspeak about egg shortage, but that's not a problem. I did find a source of higher quality dried eggs just in case, but that's not needed so far. I'll keep an eye on that matter.

If a Trumpcheck gets cut to everyone, I was considering how to spend it. A new rifle sounds like just the thing.

[Teine Rebane Kenney]

Beijing censors photo of crowds lining up at funeral home during CCP virus outbreak | China in Focus (GREAT CHANNEL for news)
Start at 5:26 if you want to see the relatives lining up to pick up ashes of loved ones in Wuhan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCzPMGaMnEY&t=278s

[scenes]

BillT "Thus, our supply chain is distributed and goods will not arrive at our shelves at the snap of one’s fingers. "

I guess the lamb will have to shake it's tail for some time.

Truth is, if you don't give a tinker's dam about the velocity of money, we could all probably stand to not buy anything for a year. Aside from victuals (I was going to say comestible, or consumptive or something, not a good choice), a lot of folks likely have a lifetime supply, especially of the Hecho en China variety. Bummer that they make most of the masks and prescription drugs. Oopsie.

I was just thinking about how few useful things people actually do and was wondering about Bernie's Vision of America. Would a CPUSA pay people to sit in coffee shops and do internet marketing consulting? At least the ones who weren't forced to work in the mines.

[fish]

Posted by: scenes | 27 March 2020 at 10:00 AM

If a Trumpcheck gets cut to everyone, I was considering how to spend it.

New tires for the daughters car….but I would prefer to go your route!

[scenes]

Thoughts of the morning:

. re: looking at the people who already take chloroquine as a test cohort. One problem is that they may well be immunocompromised. Hard to correct for.

. re: simple testing that might be interesting. Train a dog to indicate on presymptomatic humans by smell. I wonder how accurate that would be.

. re: prepper forums question of the day "what should you have bought more of". For a lot of people, the answer might be 'sweatpants'.

[George Rebane]

scenes 1125am - Sweatpants indeed; that has been part of my uniform-of-the-day since HD1, I am wearing them now. ;-)

[scenes]

link o' the day.

https://twitter.com/TectonixGEO/status/1242628347034767361

[Bill Tozer]

Guess I will put this here.....under update.

‘Dissent in a time of COVID’
“The witch-hunting of those who criticise the response to coronavirus is chilling – and dangerous.”

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/03/23/dissent-in-a-time-of-covid/

[scenes]

link o' the afternoon

https://medium.com/descarteslabs-team/covid-19-the-road-to-economic-and-social-recovery-6638866e3e4c

[Scott O]

Hunker down Idaho style - day whatever: Last Sat about 30 of us met at a park outside of Nampa and went on a motorcycle ride. There were kids at the park playing basketball and frisbee and families out enjoying some nice weather. This Sat the cops will probably discourage that sort of thing. There's yard work to do as the weeds seem immune. Ran out of glyphosate and needed some boxwood shrubs to plant in the planter I put in last fall. While we were out we found a new place selling trees and some shrubs. Made an excellent buy on the boxwoods. Later in the afternoon, there's a fire going at the neighbors across the street in the firepit so I head over with some Jimmy B and we catch up on what's been happening. He's a fireman/EMT so I get an earful of his tales of the latest news re CV19 and all the fun he's had dealing with panicked calls that all turn out to be false alarms. More neighbors come over and we all keep our distances especially since one of the families has been experiencing stomach flu.
We have been putting all purchases and received mail/packages in quarantine for days before we handle them again and wash our hands after initially handling them.
So far we have been able to get what we need at the grocery store although sometimes it takes going to 2 stores instead of one.
TP and most all paper products are still N/A.
Glad we stocked up at the beginning of March.
One person in our county has died from CV and he was elderly and had an 'underlying condition'.
Have no idea how bad it will get here or when we'll be back to 'normal'.
Whatever that is.
Everyday is the new normal.

[Bill Tozer]

Hi Scott. Glad you are alive and kicking.

https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/03/Screen-Shot-2020-03-23-at-1.33.04-PM.png?w=828&ssl=1

https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/03/89775158_3081391988590167_4831722462926340096_n.jpg?w=720&ssl=1

[scenes]

ScottO: "Everyday is the new normal."

Hah. I'm going to totally steal that.

Seems like a decent place to weather the storm. The only minus I could think of might be fewer medical facilities, then I ran into this...

Check out California about a page down.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/185666

Thanks goodness we spend money on so many good deeds here.

[scenes]

a thing I haven't run into that I bet is happening.

Institutional hoarding.

The same philosophy that gets people to buy 100 rolls of toilet paper is probably happening at hospitals, etc. right now. There's a storage room at some of them with thousands of N95 masks, others with none.

It always cracks me up when people think that organizations are necessarily saner than individuals.

[Don Bessee]

A bright spot in the new normal -

The US's coronavirus death rate is currently 1.6% — one of the lowest of any hard-hit country.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/uss-coronavirus-death-rate-currently-000000677.html

;-)

[Don Bessee]

The chi coms worst fears are coming true -

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/03/27/massive-protest-breaks-out-in-chinas-hubei-province-ground-zero-for-the-coronavirus/

;-)

[scenes]

Thought o' the evening and probably a naive one.

I'm not sure what the percentage of disease transmission is by the sick person outputting viruses via touch vs. breathing/sneezing, but I wonder what difference it would make to simply put a mask on everybody for a couple of months.

So, get the N95 thing going by beating on 3M until they produced 30 billion or so of the things, somehow convince people to wear them at all times when they are out of the house. Don't wear one? Big trouble for you. The main idea is to keep the pre-symptom folks from spreading their voodoo.

If it worked well you could restart the economy immediately.

[Walt]

Look who wants their handout.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/27/coronavirus-illegal-aliens-demand-1-2k-each-in-taxpayer-funded-checks/
"Illegal aliens are demanding they too receive $1,200 in federal checks from the government as part of a Chinese coronavirus crisis relief package.

Open borders organizations like the George Soros-funded United We Dream, the National Immigrant Justice Center, and the National Immigration Law Center — all of which represent the roughly 11 to 22 million illegal aliens living in the United States — are pleading with the federal government to cut federal checks to illegal aliens who have Individual Tax Identification Number (ITINs)."

Soros can send them money out of HIS pocket.

[Bill Tozer]

@8:26 pm

And look who is really really pissed off.

Ocasio-Cortez is outraged that coronavirus bill doesn't help illegal aliens

https://www.theblaze.com/news/aoc-is-upset-coronavirus-bill-illegal-aliens

[scenes]

re: Ocasio-Cortez, America's gal.

I have to respect her to some extent, she's just looking after her people. There's some sort of loose confederation of Spanish-speaking humanity that are more important to her than American citizens. It just strikes me as a natural inclination in humans.

You could see this coming a mile away:
"Rhode Island police began stopping cars with New York plates Friday. On Saturday, the National Guard will help them conduct house-to-house searches to find people who traveled from New York and demand 14 days of self-quarantine"
https://news.yahoo.com/rhode-island-police-hunt-down-211405349.html

Nothin' personal, it's just a variant of the vacation house problem. It's probably too late to close down 49 and 20.

Given that people are forward thinking enough (as opposed to say, a dog) to flee an area with an epidemic, I wonder if human-viruses have evolved to exhibit symptoms that favor this behavior.

Part of the Scenes Report that I forgot is that I haven't seen a single police car for a week. Odd. Perhaps it's just that there's no speeding tickets to hand out. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigarette.

I've been taking the temperature of The People on reddit. It's interesting how radically some folks defend the Chinese, who obviously produced Captain Trips and hid it for a bit. Generally, bureaucracies are always slow to respond of course. The popular theorizing is that 1)The Chinese did just the right thing and are Good 2)Trump forced the US to not respond and to not produce masks and ventilators and is Bad 3)The Italians got hit because they are old not because of their Chinese population and the aforementioned bureaucracy. A simple story and worth sticking to.

The nurse stories on reddit can be rather sad. Ridiculous administrations (NO! YOU CAN'T BRING THAT N95 MASK FROM HOME! IT'S NOT APPROVED!). Senior staff sending out juniors to deal with plague victims. Overwhelmed frontline care providers lacking equipment and (I expect) being viewed as somewhat expendable, one of those lessons that tooth to tail ratios give a handful of draftees. People walking off wards. High drama in New York.

[Bill Tozer]

@8:36 am

“It's interesting how radically some folks defend the Chinese, who obviously produced Captain Trips and hid it for a bit. Generally, bureaucracies are always slow to respond of course.”

The BIG Lie: “If you are not at your job today, it is because Donald Trump did not do his job (to fight #coronavirus) in January and February.” —Biden adviser Ronald Klain

Braying jackass: “The Road to Coronavirus Hell Was Paved by Evangelicals.” —Katherine Stewart in The New York Times (“Global pandemic arose in a communist country that persecutes all religious believers, and even puts them in camps. And here’s the NYT on the crisis. Beyond parody.” —Mark Hemingway)

And last… “The Chernobyl nuclear disaster transpired at the tail end of the Soviet Union’s lifespan. In the years ahead, America must do its best to ensure the ChiComs suffer the same fate as the Soviets.” —Josh Hammer
———————
OBSERVATIONS ON THE GREAT HUNKERING (6)

“Wolves have been seen in downtown Cleveland, like Rome during the black plague.”
—Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins

“COYOTES ARE BEING SEEN ON THE EMPTY STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO.”
—San Francisco Chronicle, March 26, 2020

“.......let us revel in the fact that all of the virtue-signaling nostrums of the left are going by the wayside now that something serious is underway. Reusable grocery bags and and personal coffee mugs have been banned, and plastic bags are making a comeback. Even the New York Times admits that high-density urban form and mass transit, which environmentalists have been trying to cram down our throats for the last 25 years, are detrimental to controlling a pandemic:”

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/observations-on-the-great-hunkering-6.php
——————————

https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/03/cnn-ratings-collapse-as-coronavirus-empty-american-airports.jpg?w=480&ssl=1

https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/03/90801024_3095070030555696_8209149483095687168_n.jpg?w=540&ssl=1

https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/03/90880746_3086388754757157_5849410479767683072_n.jpg?w=615&ssl=1

https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/03/IMG_2751.jpg?w=960&ssl=1

https://i2.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/03/Screen-Shot-2020-03-22-at-7.56.12-AM.png?w=1082&ssl=1
————-
As far as my diary, I burned dead stuff yesterday....me is sore. Virus come and go, but fire season comes every year. Hunkering down and being “fire safe(r) is killing two birds with one stone. Only 3 more big burn areas to go!
Confession is good for the soul: I have made not one, but two trips to the store in my pajama bottoms and it felt rather nice. Very nice indeed. Nicer than the common sweatpants I see people in. :)

And finally.........racists!!!

https://i1.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/03/IMG_2733.jpg?w=1078&ssl=1

[scenes]

The important thing to remember is to be extra special nicey nice to the Chinese. Like the Chinese .gov sez, via their newspaper:

"If China retaliates against the United States at this time, in addition to announcing a travel ban on the United States, it will also announce strategic control over medical products and ban exports to the United States. Then the United States will be caught in the ocean of new crown viruses."

relevant new york times article:

https://archive.is/6HdUi

It's time to disengage.

[scenes]

sorry for the paywall. Hopefully somebody can post a copy.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-27/coronavirus-california-mobile-hospitals-ventilators

[Gregory]

Scenes 1033am

Most browsers have a 'reader view', and that paywall allows it. No pictures but you get the text.

For firefox, the view is selected by a button that looks like a page of text.

[Don Bessee]

Check this out -

“Santilli says he was slowly drowning and was convinced he ‘would not live until midnight.’ That’s when doctors made a decision he says changed everything,” Gruber said.

The survivor said the drug combination began to work “within a few hours.”
Santilli credited Trump for his survival.

“Donald Trump recommending that medication combination saved my life and a lot of other people’s lives,” he told Gruber.

Santilli criticized Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) for her recent threat against doctors and pharmacists, and believed it is a “terrible decision,” adding, “She is sentencing people to death.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/03/28/michigan-man-credits-president-trump-for-surviving-coronavirus-says-gov-whitmer-sentencing-people-to-death/

;-)

[fish]

I don't know if any of you had any plans to sing to your neighbors....

New Yorker Tries to Recreate 'Italy Magic' By Singing Out Window, Told to 'Shut The F**k Up'...

Perhaps the Nevada City area is more genteel the the Big Apple?

https://www.theamericanmirror.com/2020/03/video-quarantined-new-yorker-tries-to-recreate-italy-magic-by-singing-out-window-but-is-told-to-shut-the-fk-up/

[scenes]

Apropos of nothing, I ran into this guy in one of my dives into the interwebz to get the pulse of The People.

https://medium.com/@michaelfeuerstein

I mean, seriously. I've never used the phrase 'douche canoe', but that there is your definition.

If I were King, I would sentence people to a few years of useful manual labor now and again.

[Bill Tozer]

re: The China Syndrome

Hunkering down, I am stuck on immunity spinning around in my noggin. Reports (NYT) say news from China or someplace are those who have had the Wuhan Virus, recovered, have caught the virus again.

If true, we have a virus that is unlike any virus we have seen in the history of humanoids. All the previous bad jujus have one thing in common; humans devolved immunity to the virus.

Furthermore, if true, I will open my mind to the idea that this Coronavirus has been created, aka, manmade. The location of the Chinese “warfare” lab is ten miles from the heart of the outbreak. Whether the secret virus escaped from the lab through human error (sloppy handling in transport), I do not know, but suspect. Time will tell. Putting it out there now to stay ahead of the curve....or look like a conspiracy theorist.

If true, China has unleashed a weapon on the world. An act of political and economic war, if you prefer. That is a BIG game hanger.

Right now we are in the start of the two week spike. We were warned, thus hunkering down seems like a great idea, especially for us (me) who are high risk. I do have an ailment that puts me in that category, plus the age factor.

After a couple weeks of testing and collecting data, we should have a clearer picture when groups of folks can return to work, assuming proper precautions are taken and adhered to. Until then, it’s wait and see.
————————-
Have a new broker. Chosen for his expertise in tax evasion/ deferment. Had him lock up some mula for a couple years in a private equity Commercial property management to avoid cap gains and taxes on a piece of commercial property (store) down south that just sold. Roll over. 4% guaranteed for two years is a heck of a lot better than paying the outrageous CA State taxes on it. 2% covers inflation and 2% covers some income. Anyway, he called about some paperwork and I asked if him IF folks were burning up his phone crying bloody murder and freaking out the CRASH. He say he had a few of those, put most folks have been burning up his phone wanting to invest more in the downturn. Buying while there is blood in streets is a good strategy for most, but I am doing the ole Will Rogers thang right now. “The return of my investment is more important than the return on my investment, plus inflation. I am retired so no longer shooting for growth, shooting for income, and asset protection ....including throwing away hard earned profits on taxes. :).
——————————
Since Trump has extended the tax filing deadline to July or so, has anyone considered how that will affect State budgets and ‘revenue.’ Many States rely on the Feds sending a portion of income taxes back to the states. Some states do not have the resources on hand to self-fund themselves for three or five months. Don’t got the cash on hand. Things are going to get interesting at the State level
——————-
Good news for us procrastinators!! The deadline to get the new drivers licenses so you can fly on a big ole jet liner has been pushed out for another year. What was the CA old ID deadline? APRIL or something. Don’t matter to me. I have no desire to sit in a enclosed space on SW Airlines, take a cruise liner to exotic foreign destination, or take the Mississippi Queen riverboat from St. Louis down to New Orleans. :).

[scenes]

A good idea.

https://www.aerosolblock.org/

By the time the FDA is done with it, it'll be the Year of Our Lord 2028 and cost $10k.

[scenes]

BillT: "The location of the Chinese “warfare” lab is ten miles from the heart of the outbreak. Whether the secret virus escaped from the lab through human error (sloppy handling in transport), I do not know, but suspect. "

or by selling bat out the back door. The local Arby's has a bushmeat slicer that works overtime.

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with a chiropteran.

[scenes]

moi: "I'm not sure what the percentage of disease transmission is by the sick person outputting viruses via touch vs. breathing/sneezing, but I wonder what difference it would make to simply put a mask on everybody for a couple of months."

https://twitter.com/DrMattMcCarthy/status/1243891663162019841

You just watch. Over time.

[Don Bessee]

Had to go make some pick ups, everywhere they had marks, boxes on the floor as well as signs telling people to keep separated yet I had to tell people at two places to get outta my space and get in theirs. Not a good sign of cooperation with the program.

;-)

[Bill Tozer]

OBSERVATIONS ON THE GREAT HUNKERING (7)

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/observations-on-the-great-hunkering-7.php

[Bill Tozer]

Don B @ 4:23 pm

That’s not social distancing. That’s anti-social distancing.

[Bertie]

In the "it's not all bad news" category: A new study found that counties where trump won are far less likely to shelter in place that those that did not. It seems that blindly taking health advice from a serial liar whose only concern is making a buck could be hazardous to one's health. One would think that thinning the ranks of a minority party that is mostly old white people in the face of a pandemic that tends to kill said constituency is not that good planning for the long term success of the party. The Darwin Awards come to mind.

[Walt]

Sure Babs,, you mean like those in N.Y? It's open season on them.
https://dailycaller.com/2020/03/28/national-guard-rhode-island-coronavirus/
"The National Guard in Rhode Island will begin going door-to-door on Saturday to enforce an executive order requiring visitors from New York to go into self-quarantine for 14 days to limit the spread of coronavirus.

Gov. Gina Raimondo, who signed the order Thursday, also authorized police to make traffic stops of vehicles with license plates from the Empire State"

[fish]

Posted by: Bertie | 29 March 2020 at 10:51 AM

Ooohhh.....that's "Denny Wilson" stupid..... never go full "Denny Wilson" stupid!

I'd be far more concerned about the highly packed Blue Mob™ strongholds......you might see 1/2 you constituency laid low Bertie!

"Old White People"....you do know where you live don't you Roberta?

[Scott O]

Bertie-Poo 10:51 - Thanks for stopping by, Bertie.
"It seems that blindly taking health advice from a serial liar whose only concern is making a buck could be hazardous to one's health."
We notice there was no citation or link to this 'study' nor any indication the above quote was from that study.
Nice to see the left is once again quite upfront about their lack of reasoning skills.
C'mon back when you have some more humor to share.

[Bertie]

Scotto the scholar who needs a citation but gets his info from Faux News, Breitbart, and facebook. LOL.. If you were more widely read perhaps you would have run across information like this before. However, another study has found that many important stories go unreported on Faux News in particular.. especially if they cast trumpler in a bad light. So in reality, you folks really don't have a clue as to what is going on in the world beyond your self-imposed mental exile from reality.

fishy.. you need to hunker down in your abandoned Cold War bunker buried in your back yard. there you can roe your boat in peace.. but don't forget to wash your hands afterward. The Brits refer to people like you as 'wankers.'

[fish]

Posted by: Bertie | 29 March 2020 at 11:47 AM

....like I said...."Denny Wilson" stupid.

[Scott O]

More humor from Bertran!
"Scotto the scholar who needs a citation but gets his info from Faux News, Breitbart, and facebook."
I get 'info' from Facebook concerning what my relatives post about the latest in family news.
I don't even look at Fox news and I think I last checked BB because some one posted a link.
Bertie gets his 'info' from his fevered imagination.
Now Bertie - get out your crayons and draw us a nice picture of what else you've thought of.

[fish]

Posted by: Scott O | 29 March 2020 at 12:10 PM

Poor Bertie operates under the assumption that three semesters of "Feminist Dance Therapy" constitutes an "education".

[scenes]

bretie: "In the "it's not all bad news" category: A new study found that counties where trump won are far less likely to shelter in place that those that did not. It seems that blindly taking health advice from a serial liar whose only concern is making a buck could be hazardous to one's health. One would think that thinning the ranks of a minority party that is mostly old white people in the face of a pandemic that tends to kill said constituency is not that good planning for the long term success of the party. The Darwin Awards come to mind."

lol. Oh, you're so mean.

As an aside, there's bound to be a bunch of red v. blue comparisons at the end of The Year of the Plague just because of the urban v. suburban/rural split. So much for the value of dense living situations and (for Italy and maybe Seattle,Bay Area,LA) large Chinese populations. Goodbye nice restaurants, layabouts in coffee shops, nightclubs. Goodbye mass transit, we hardly knew ye.

The Amish will inherit the Earth.

[fish]

Posted by: scenes | 29 March 2020 at 12:31 PM

The Amish will inherit the Earth.

Shorter Bertie: "NNNNOooooo......they believe in traditional values......!"

[scenes]

re: fish@12:42PM

With a bit of an intellectual upgrade, it (Amishness) doesn't sound like a bad lifestyle.

Work in the machine shop, do some farm chores, wives hang out together and bake, read the Bible at night. If you just added in a big pile of books to the nighttime gig and a bit of hooch at night, it would be A-OK. A mathematician could thrive in that world.

[The Estonian Fox]

Scenes @ 12:31 PM
This is all so confusing. Year of the Plague, Year of the Bat, Year of the Pangolin, Year of the Rat...Those are OK in the vernacular. But what might the CDC or NIH call it in non-racist or medical-speak?

[scenes]

"But what might the CDC or NIH call it in non-racist or medical-speak?"

Given the bureaucratic makeup, perhaps The Trump Plague. or Definitely-Not-The-Chinese Flu.

sorry for the additional ZeroHedge, but this made me laugh due to my lack of surprise.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/after-receiving-25-million-bailout-jfk-center-stops-paying-musicians

It's similar to the way that 'Green' companies are all about the green, 'Non-profits' are all about the profits.

[fish]

Posted by: The Estonian Fox | 29 March 2020 at 01:05 PM

But what might the CDC or NIH call it in non-racist or medical-speak?

IIRC ....”Kung Flu” won the day when the question last asked!

“ChiCom Lung” wouldn’t upset me....no racial aspects at all!

[Don Bessee]

LA LA land looks like they are creating a petri dish for spreading the chi com sars to every neighborhood -

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti is moving hundreds of homeless people into recreation centers in residential areas — a policy that is receiving increasing scrutiny and criticism from residents and the media.

https://www.breitbart.com/health/2020/03/29/cdc-japanese-data-show-coronavirus-transmission-18-7-times-more-likely-eric-garcetti-indoors/

;-)

[Don Bessee]

With Florida keeping out Louisiana cars and RI searching for NY plates we may be seeing more of this-

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8165415/Armed-vigilantes-cut-tree-use-roadblock-quarantine-workers-New-Jersey.html

;-)

[Bill Tozer]

The world has gone tribal.

RICH EUROPEANS FLEE CITIES, NEW YORK TIMES DISAPPROVES

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/03/rich-europeans-flee-cities-new-york-times-disapproves.php

[L]

A passing note: one of the earliest 'best sellers' known was Giovanni Boccaccio's 'Il Decameron,' a collection of bawdy tales told by a group of 10 young Florentines who fled the city for the country during the plague of 1348. Nothing really new under the Sun.

[scenes]

re: BillT@7:50PM

I guess that next time around, the survivalists will have learned the lesson of *don't live anywhere that's nice*.

[fish]

Perspective indeed.......

CHANGE: As shoppers stock up for a potential Armageddon, an Oregon gun store has sold out of ARs and .308 rifles, many of which went to first-time liberal buyers. A friend on Facebook comments: “Two months ago, these same people thought using the wrong pronoun was a genuine emergency. Real crises bring some perspective.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/06/choose-your-weapon

[scenes]

"Real crises bring some perspective."

I really try to give our local Blue Mob a tiny bit of a pass for their attitudes. It comes from too much leisure time, an easy-scrabble existence, and non-serious work.

I would pay good money to watch them try to explain their attitudes to folks of my parents' age back in the day. Preferably a small farmer, mechanic or something. There'd be some small headway in the public health area, especially when the modern cost was taken into account, but the rest of it? They'd either think you were kidding or just kick your ass out of the sitting room.

[Bill Tozer]

Fish

Is it just me......or has anyone else noticed the absence of discussion concerning plastic straws? Asking for a friend.
——————
Hunkering Down Diary:

Dear Diary. I went out and grabbed some frozen pizzas. Had a couple in the freezer, but it was Slim Pickins at the store. Limited choices in a store that already has limited a small food selection. I came home hungry and ready to eat those things that taste like cardboard. To my dismay, the oven part of the stove gave up the ghost. Learning to microwave frozen pizzas is a culinary challenge which through trial and error and scientific inquiry, I have overcome. Note to self: Our forefathers got by without frozen pizzas.

Note to self: Next time hit the bread aisle before buying luncheon meats. Our ancestors ate meat without bread.

I love 💕 you, Dear Diary.

[Bill Tozer]

Scenes @ 11:04 pm

“guess that next time around, the survivalists will have learned the lesson of *don't live anywhere that's nice*.

Perhaps I was wrong. Maybe it’s not getting tribal out there. Maybe it’s just good of fashioned Class Warfare. Commie bastards are everywhere!

Is it just me....or has anyone else noticed that the derision of preppers as tin foil hat wearing gun toting wack jobs prepared for The Apocalypse has suddenly stopped? In fact, bunkers are the new status symbols. Odd.

[scenes]

BillT: "In fact, bunkers are the new status symbols. "

I was thinking about that while reading an article about luxury bunkers built out of (what looked like to me) old ammunition storage facilities. Complete with fences around the development + armed guards.

Too funny. In a truly dicey situation, how long until the guards and their families are moving into your digs? Ten minutes?

Probably the only way to build a really bitchin' setup is to get it constructed and then kill off the workers and jobsite management. The hardcore of the world, like the Nazis and Bill Gates, know all about this.

[Walt]

Liberals buying guns? Most barley know which end the bullet comes out of.

[Walt]

What will it be Emery?,,, Dougy? ,,, Cross Bob?,,,"Mary"??
It's that socialized medicine you have been wanting.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/03/30/dutch-doctors-ask-eldery-to-choose-ventilation-or-let-virus-run-its-course/
"Family doctors in the Netherlands are asking all citizens who have passed a certain age to put in writing whether they’d like to be put on a ventilator or not if they become infected, according to a report by Il Giornale — which characterised the latter option as a form of “euthanasia”. "

[Bill Tozer]

@ 9:24 AM

Sounds more like the Dutch doctors are asking the seasoned citizens to sign their last will and testament.
——————————
Paul Emery Productions has been declared “non-essential” by Governor Newsome. A broken clock is right twice a day. :)
—————————
Went to convience store. Then it hit me like a ton of brinks. The clerk is essential and I told her, “You are essential. You are not non-essential, you are ESSENTIAL and thank you!” Made her smile from ear to ear. Then to the hardware store, just because. I told the nice cashier and the young helper next to her that ”You are ESSENTIAL people and thank you! You are essential.” Big smiles, made their dull days. Then off to the feed store.....you are essential. Thank you for being essential.

Yo Walt, YOU ARE ESSENTIAL and thank you!!

Don’t know what state it is, but the Gov declared pet supplies as “emergency services”.....which is a nice grade above essential. Gotta feed our furry friends and buy those treats.

PE Presents is non-essential. That must be a big blow to the ego. Humiliation does not come in a soft package.

Whoever came up with ‘Go Back To Berkeley You Stinky-Butts” was ahead of the curve. :)

[scenes]

infographic o' the day.

https://i.redd.it/g3uevp61eqp41.jpg