Monday’s Forum
It's back where you started
Steven L. Taylor
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Monday, April 6, 2020
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100 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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US far right seeks ways to exploit coronavirus and cause social collapse
I know, absolutely shocking, right?
With all due respect to cops and Jews, this sounds like pretty weak sauce to me.
Radicalized individuals, they are always the real threat, and they are certainly capable of doing real damage (just ask OK City) but their fever dream of “the collapse of society, allowing them to build a white supremacist one in its place” will remain beyond their oh so limited grasp.
Watched Toy Story 4 with the family. It is now documented that I have now cried during all four Toy Story movies.
@OzarkHillbilly: Elements of the far right have always been with us. But it is political incorrect to point that out. Remember the firestorm when early in the Obama Administration, they released a report documenting far right extremists. It was true but the information had to be suppressed.
Tangentially, watched the first episode of World on Fire on Masterpiece last night. Once scene was of the British Blackshirts, a fascist organization and it also mentioned Action Francaise, the French version. Reminded me of how strong the fascist movement was in the US and how its history has been suppressed, especially the influence of wealthy Americans such as the Fords and DuPonts on it.
@Scott:
Ah yes, I well remember the wails of pain and the rending of garments by Republican Senators.
From Ousted US intelligence inspector general urges others to speak out and defend whistleblowers
Trump administration determined to exit treaty reducing risk of war
Saints’ record-breaking kicker Tom Dempsey dies after contracting Covid-19
ETA His famous kisk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrxTjgFYoU8&feature=emb_err_watch_on_yt
Boris is in the hospital.
Once again, remember this virus is non-partisan.
Any word on how Rand Paul is doing? He seems to have dropped off the news after the first reports that he’d been infected.
@Scott:
Oh. I dont know about that… Most folks, like me, that have a Honda Element I find are usually leftists.
@OzarkHillbilly:
What I find curious is how they plan to “spread the virus” to anyone without catching it themselves. I don’t suppose they have a lab, growth media, or the expertise to grow it themselves and spread it.
@Liberal Capitalist:
Groan.
@Kathy: if you have the infection you can shed the virus for many days and infect lots of people, even without showing symptoms.
First day working from home with the remote system. Lets’s see how well I do answering international calls from my home office with a cat on my lap. 🙂
@Liberal Capitalist: Decisions. Is that a Thumbs up or Thumbs down?
Austria plans to begin loosening its coronavirus lockdown
If it happens, it will be an interesting experiment to watch. Austria has been on the downside with new cases since March 26. If it loosens, will new cases start to climb again?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/austria/
@Kathy: My take is that they think fascists are asymptomatic carriers.
Still wondering if Trumpian politics had anything to do with Captain Crozier’s dismissal from command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Wonder no more. The acting Secretary of the Navy removed Crozier to preempt Trump removing him.
Over here, James Fallows collects some responses to Crozier’s dismissal.
via Nicholas Kristof @ the NYT:
What people aren’t getting about hydroxychloroquine and other proposed cures is that you can’t just take a medication. Everything that goes into your sytem affects it so considerations need to be made. Even if you aren’t sensitive to it (drug allergies are common and you tend to find out AFTER you’ve taken it) and it doesn’t have negative side-effects (who wants blindness or tardive dyskinesia?), most Americans already take drugs, legal and not. What prescriptions are you on, what drugs do you take (yes, caffeine is a drug) and what foods do you eat – all interact and can cause serious complications. You can’t eat grapefruit with statins. Zanaflex cannot be taken with caffeine as it causes a severe reaction. Milk and antibiotics, anyone?
Hydroxychloroquine in particular is not recommended for diabetics as it can lower blood sugar. How many diabetics in the country are going to take this and crash? Prior kidney and liver problem also discourage use, as well as certain eye and heart problems, psoriasis and even alcoholism. This means a vast swath of America should not be taking this drug and would need medical supervision to do so safely. Medical personal are kinda busy doing other things right now and won’t have time to save Jim Bob from blindly following Trump’s bone-headed advice.
Unless you are actively seriously ill or dying, it’s not worth it to risk until we have more proof. Most of the people who would want to try this will NOT be in the hospital but rather Average Joe at home, feeling sniffly and wanting something to take a la Nyquil. Can you imagine how many OD’s would happen, how many allergic reactions, how many fatal drug interactions because people rushed to take something they have zero idea about? Hospitals won’t be able to handle the influx and a stupid idea rapidly becomes a deadly one.
@Mu Yixiao:
Is your cat a Bombay? Mine is and she loves sitting in my lap while I’m writing one of my ebooks. So she gets the blame for some of the crazy typos I produce.
BTW I have a new ebook underway. Almost 40 pages and over 10,000 words written since starting Wednesday night.
@KM: Your post prompted me to do a drug interaction search.
Here’s mine about interaction with Lipitor, another pretty common drugs especially with us old folks:
Using hydroxychloroquine together with atorvastatin may increase the risk of nerve damage, which is a potential side effect of both medications. Talk to your doctor if you have any questions or concerns. Your doctor may be able to prescribe alternatives that do not interact, or you may need a dose adjustment or more frequent monitoring to safely use both medications. Let your doctor know if you develop weakness, numbness, pain, burning, or tingling in your hands, feet, or limbs. It is important to tell your doctor about all other medications you use, including vitamins and herbs. Do not stop using any medications without first talking to your doctor.
This weekend, wife and I hit a breaking point–two kids under 3 years old in our house, and the local parks so overcrowded with the first outbreak of warm weather, that even outdoors is no longer safe.
So our meals yesterday were Breakfast, Brunch, Brinner, and a late evening Brack. Yes, mimosas were had with each meal.
@KM:
That’s why medications are only prescribed for people who are ill. And why people on long-term prescriptions are supervised by a physician.
Also, medications might not prevent contagion. And even if they do, how do you know when to stop taking it? and even if one stops taking it when the lock down is lifted, how do you know it was what kept you from getting ill? perhaps you simply were never exposed, so it might get you in the second wave.
You’re right, this notion is all sorts of high-octane stupid.
Krugman posted a link to this 2012 article by Rick Pearlstein about the overall con game that is modern conservatism.
The Long Con
@KM: A few days ago, on another thread, I noted that in medicine, most things don’t work, and it got downvoted. I hope for the sake of the person who downvoted it is just general dislike of me and a desire to downvote everything I say, because the alternative is that they think that is a needlessly pessimistic statement. But it is the reality. The reason there was ever any interest in chloroquine at all is that it showed up as having effects on previous corona viruses in a lab culture. Not in mice, and most certainly not in humans. And, by the way, it was tried on those other corona viruses and it failed.
One of the first things tried for any new disease is a lab assay of existing drugs. Thousands and thousands of tests are made with different drugs resulting in dozens of candidates. And most of them don’t work out for any of a hundred reasons. Most common is that it is not a “Magic Bullet” the term coined in the pre-antibiotics era when scientists were searching for a magic bullet that, when fired, would only strike diseased cells and not healthy ones. A very large portion of failures is because the drug does not have enough discretion and by the time you get to a dose that can start to work in the human body, its side effects have killed the host.
It is possible that someday, someone will figure out a way to deploy chloroquine in a way that lets it act on coronaviruses but doesn’t allow it to do serious damage to other cells. There could be the right dose taken with the right cocktail of other drugs that prevent those side effects, or that prevent other substances present in the body from neutralizing whatever effect it has. But that could be years away and there may be much better candidates that are not worked on while futzing around with chlorine. Trump and Navarro don’t have the intellectual capacity to understand that and so are encouraging people to take it willy nilly.
@Scott:
People want an easy solution. They are used to the idea that you go to the cupboard and take an OTC or prescription, rendering many aliments down to “take this and forget it”. Have a headache? Take a painkiller. Have a cough or cold? Take some Dayquil. I mention drug interaction or contraindications and get blanks stares on a good day. How many people truly pay attention to the little piece of paper that comes with their prescription or listen to the doctor when they explain all the ways this can go wrong for you? Hell, COVID-19 is finally getting people to ask questions on the difference between ibuprofen, acetaminophen and aspirin realizing that they are not as interchangeable as people treat them.
I’m not against off-label use when it has a benefit. Being a placebo is not a benefit. If you’re in the hospital and want to take that chance, by all means – risk/reward is in your favor. However, if you’re just feeling sniffly and scared at home, this will do far more harm then good. It’s irresponsible of this Administration to get people’s hopes up and promote this to people who can’t – or won’t – understand that distinction.
@KM:
A good illustration of this magical thinking: cough suppressants. Millions and millions of doses are sold in the US each year. You know how many clinically proven cough suppressants there are on the market in the US? Zero.
@MarkedMan:
It’s funny – I noticed that too. It’s strange what gets the single downvote lately and what doesn’t. At first I thought the same; someone didn’t like what was said and got the thumbs-down. That’s fair. However it seems some posters are almost guaranteed a downvote, regardless of the phrasing or tone of the statement. Downvotes should be based on the content of that post, not that you see a poster’s name and react negatively. Even our resident trolls have had insightful and thought-provoking posts on occasion that deserved an upvote.
Yesterday James had a post about how much (or little) people were restricting travel. Mistermix at Balloon Juice has a link to data from Google’s location data, parenthetical his.
At the link you can find reports by country and in the US by states.
They have no data for China, which I assume is a function of the Great Firewall.
@MarkedMan: @KM: Some of us have stalkers.
@OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, I don’t usually look at my downvotes (although I am often curious about my upvotes – human nature, I guess) unless I happen to notice more than 1 or 2. There seem to be that number of people who downvote everything I say. FWIW, I’m fine with that use of the downvote. I assume it is their way of saying – “It is not worth listening to anything MarkedMan has to say”, and that’s a legitimate position to hold. I’m assuming they don’t even read my posts. I know there have been people whose posts I don’t bother to read because I feel that way about them. I don’t bother downvoting them, but that’s just personal preference.
Wisconsin Republicans Are Willing To Kill to Suppress the Vote:
@KM:
I’m seeing that Chloroquine trials were stopped in Sweden due to extreme side effects.
Why anyone would ever take medical advice from an Adderall addict with a bad spray tan, is beyond me.
Trump’s acting Sec of the Navy just released a four page whine about how misunderstood he is. This, the day after he went on national television and admitted to the world he short circuited due process because of Trump. This has turned into a classic he-said/she-said, except that one side of it is a known toadie, a slimy piece of shit who got his job because he was willing to reinstate a sociopathic killer. Plus he’s a typical Trump ass kisser. Why in the name of god would we believe his side of the story?
@Daryl and his brother Darryl: That’s Swedish chloroquine, though. Remember, we have the best chloroquine, some people say that, I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Sir, we have the best chloroquine, and I hear your uncle was an MIT genius!”
@MarkedMan: @MarkedMan: OMFG. Where to they find these clueless idiots? He flies out to Guam to dump on the fired commander in front of the sailors?
Regardless of whether he was justified, there is no reason to go on talk or radio shows kicking a person who can’t kick back. It is so Trumpian in that Modly is prime example of someone failing upward and uses his position to punch down.
This is not a good look and will add fuel to the fire.
@Kari Q:
The state and municipalities have been letting people know for about a month that they can get an absentee ballot. The deadline was Apr 2nd. They’ve also extended the “counting time” and aren’t releasing final counts until Apr 13th to allow for mail-in ballots that come late. Nobody is being forced to go out. They’ve had plenty of opportunity to vote by mail.
And despite what Mother Jones says, this election is not just about a Supreme Court seat. There are a lot of local elections going on. Just in my area there’s a mayor, 11 town/village board seats, 2 school board seats, and 4 county board seats being voted on. There’s also several judges up for election, and a referendum on amending the state constitution.
I think vote-by-mail should be automatic (it’s worked very well in Oregon, from everything I’ve heard). We already have online registration (I had to re-register because I was purged from the roles after not voting for several years (I was out of the country)). It’s quick and simple.
Following up on @MarkedMan’s post, here’s the transcript of the speech. It’s definitely something… https://imgur.com/gallery/wy107Ru
@Scott: I watched the “Aladdin” movie and was very surprised. It was a good remake and funny.
“Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” was not as good as the first, but not bad.
I am starting on my flux capacitor building project today. I should have most of the parts around here.
The NYTimes ran a map the other day showing the probability that the epidemic has reached your area. The thing that jumped out at me — because of some research I do — is the big arc of the Great Plains just left of the middle of the country. If you know where to look, you can see the epidemic spreading along the few rivers and major transportation routes that cross the Plains. The zombie epidemic simulations that you find online here and there that are based on epidemiological models eventually evolve exactly that pattern.
@Tyrell: What point in time do you want to visit. Past or future?
@Tyrell:
How did the Aladdin remake differ from the original to make it worth watching instead of just watching the first one?
I used to think that some of the downvotes were just expressions of disgust, not directed at the commenter, but at the subject (the latest Trumpian idiocy, most frequently). However, I’ve noticed in the last couple of days some downvotes that don’t follow that pattern necessarily. If someone is doing that to troll people, they’re not following up with comments of their own. So I don’t know what to conclude.
@Mu Yixiao:
You hear about how unsecure it must be, or other potential problems, from everywhere except the western states that have adopted it: OR, WA, CO, and this year HI and UT. AZ and CA might as well be vote-by-mail since very large majorities of the ballots cast in both states are vote-by-mail from the permanent no-excuse absentee ballot lists. In CO opinion polls on whether to retain the vote by mail system, >75% of voters from all parties are basically “You can have my mail-in ballot when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.” Apple pie doesn’t poll as well as vote-by-mail here.
@mattbernius: Bodly’s speech is jaw-dropping. I imagine he thinks that he’s being a straight shooter, but he should have realized that he’s shooting at a ridiculous target. Admonishing the crew because they love their former captain seems unwise, to say the least.
Task and Purpose has an audio recording of the speech being given, with crew commentary. You can find it at the end of this article.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/navy-secretary-blasts-fired-aircraft-carrier-captain
@Kingdaddy:
I think to some of the random downvoting is actually just fat finger syndrome.
That said, there’s at least one silent supporter of the president who stops in from time to time to apparently systematically downvote any post critical of the administration. You have to kinda admire that single mindedness.
While the USS Theodore Roosevelt debacle goes on:
Number of troops diagnosed with COVID-19 jumped nearly 50 percent over the weekend
@Stormy Dragon:
They went live action, tacked on some transparent bullshit empowering Jasmine, lost Iago and Jafar and traded Robin Williams for Will Smith. I did not find it enjoyable and stopped watching halfway through.
I was talking (ranting) to my wife about Trump and the election this morning and she cut me off with the “I don’t want to hear this again, how many ways can you tell me that he is a dangerous idiot” . Her take is this: the Democrats should run primarily on how incompetent Trump is, and when he faced his first crisis, he failed miserably and it cost tens of thousands of people their lives. Her feeling is that if the Democrats push that narrative effectively, and Trump wins, the country is pretty much done. I have trouble disagreeing with her.
@KM: “It’s strange what gets the single downvote lately”
I have to admit there has been the occasional instance where I have downvoted by accident — either in meaning to upvote, or more likely just inadvertent clicking… and it hasn’t seemed worth everyone’s time and attention to post a message attesting to this. I have no idea if this is the case here, it’s just a thought…
@mattbernius: Just read this. It is worse than first reported. Trumpist to the core.
Fake news!
Enemy of the People!
It is so unfair to me!
@MarkedMan: WHO is apparently fast-tracking studies into treatment options for Covid-19, studying not only chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, but also drugs that have been used to treat HIV and Ebola.
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/who-launches-global-megatrial-four-most-promising-coronavirus-treatments?fbclid=IwAR2i1QVGDBJNwZrkmFRZVQXXr_rIHA4mvGRqnkJZSsHMUlS2axQZi6VReWU#
I’ve noticed an interesting side-effect of the lockdown: 1-800 fraud seems to have increased. It used to be weird recordings, now it’s silence. I’ve gotten about 20 of them today.
I wonder if the criminals are upping the calls they’re making because they’re counting on automated phone systems staying on the line longer?
@Michael Reynolds:
That was pretty much my impression. I’m not opposed to remakes (e.g. I think the Coen Brothers True Grit remake was far superior to the John Wayne version), but the people making the remake have to have a reason for making it beyond “X made money once, so why not do it again to make more money now?”. There has to be something they think was missing from the original or some fundamentally different angle on the story they want to take to make the remake worthwhile.
@wr: I rarely downvote anyone, but the other day someone had posted that a musician had died and I downvoted that before thinking it through. What I meant was “That’s sad so I can’t put a thumbs up there, so thumbs down”, but it could easily have been taken that I have something against the musician. In any case, I’m back to not using the thumbs down.
@Stormy Dragon: I enjoyed the remake of Aladdin, too. Two charming leads, Will Smith not quite as good as Robin Williams as the genie, but still, Will Smith, and Bollywood-style dance numbers made it a fun movie to watch. Also, fewer Arab stereotypes.
NY has had two days of “flat numbers” indicating that they “might be” on the left side of the apex.
That could potentially be good news, and proof that the lock down is helping.
Red States that haven’t taken this as seriously…good luck.
“Preparedness is a choice.”
Check out the above link. A truly stunning 6 minute video from a man who literally helped write ‘The Pandemic Playbook’ – a 69 page step-by-step guide on how to prevent the exact carnage the now envelopes our nation. A Pandemic Playbook that was literally handed to Dotard upon being sworn into office.
A Playbook entirely ignored.
None of this had to happen.
NONE!
Michael Bloomberg should drop $100 Million in the purchase of T.V. time, on every network, to simply roll this concise, yet breathtaking little video.
Donald F-ng Trump should be behind bars for the needless death of 10’s of thousand of Americans, the suffering of hundreds of thousands more and the destruction of our economy. The bankruptcies and business failures that will crush millions of American families.
The spineless, self-serving, wholly complicit Republican party should be pariahs for a generation.
@MarkedMan:
FWIW, I think that was on my comment and that was the way I had interpreted it. Its why “like” is such an inadequate concept.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
Cuomo just extended the lock down a couple of weeks hoping to secure this.
Pussy Galore has died.
Honor Blackman, who also played Cathy Gale in The Avengers, was 94.
RIP
@Sleeping Dog:
April 29. CT has already extended to 4/20. I’m willing to bet it get’s extended again.
I’m not a Cuomo fan…neither him nor his brother…but I have a ton more faith in his leadership than in Trumps.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
That’s a pretty low bar.
So it looks like at least Washington Times editor has officially run out of eff’s to give:
Coronavirus and the decline of the conservative sensibility:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/5/coronavirus-and-decline-conservative-sensibility/
The backlash against Modly is pretty overwhelming. When do you think Trump gives him the shiv?
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
For reference…NYC has close to the same number of deaths/million people as Italy and Spain.
NYC = 243
Italy = 263
Spain = 282
Nationwide the number is 29 deaths per million…but a lack of testing put’s that number in doubt.
@CSK:
Gavin Newsom has done a hell of a job, as well. Better than Cuomo, I think.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
https://twitter.com/EdConwaySky/status/1246801369459195904
ETA: Tested it, may need to click on the graphic to see the whole thing.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
Exactly, if they are not testing all suspected fatalities, then there is no way of knowing for sure.
This is absolutely stunning. Incomprehensible. Just makes you want to vomit.
https://twitter.com/Stonekettle/status/1247220127814344705?s=20
In case you were wondering: Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy are “essential jobs”.
Boris Johnson has been moved to intensive care.
@Michael Reynolds: I’m so furious about that whole situation. It’s unreal that he went to the carrier ship and spoke to the sailors like that. What a piece of trash.
Wisconsin polls closed.
This is going to be a shit-storm.
@mattbernius:
Wow…he took aim at his own team (Candace Owens, and others) instead of saying well, sure it seems like Conservatives are not acting very well, Conservative but let me tell you why the Liberal mindset during this crisis is worse (or something like that).
You are right, he has just decided to go all in on chiding Conservatives and I was just about to praise the publisher of the Washington Times for publishing this Editorial Editor’s piece but my praise was short lived (kind of like our Presidents stint at being Presidential, I will be here all afternoon folks) when I then clicked on a recommended story: “Why Trump’s hydroxychloroquine fixation drives White House lynch corps nuts.”
This story of course goes on to blame the press and say well, all the dumb and wrong things our President has said being put aside, yeah…treat the President’s words as those of a doctor and take your medicine and all will be well. Ughh…another person who wants people to die so he can enter the lobby of a Starbucks and buy his coffee instead of adjusting to drive thru/pick-up/delivered orders like most Americans have.
Jeebus, if folks start listening to our President and acting on his “medical” advice people will literally die. This is nuts…and I have to wonder where the f__ck is Bob Barr to tell President Trump to knock that shit off. Our President is practically personally tipping the cup of kool-aid into his followers mouths and Barr thinks this is wise of President Trump to do this? Seriously?!?
@OzarkHillbilly:
What’s the saying? Millions for tribute but not one cent for defense? Something like that.
Yeah, what the hey? If somebody wants to act like a “teenaged mean girl” that’s their right. For my ownself, if I don’t want to read someone, and they have to be true idiots to get me to that point, I just skip them. I have stated before I don’t down vote. I only upvote and then only if somebody brings new facts into a discussion or makes me think in a way I hadn’t before, but that’s just me.
shrug
ETA
That they can be ignored because they choose not to partake in the conversation.
@Stormy Dragon:
Upvoted that.
@Jen: Genius doesn’t understand Sailors or service members in general if he thought that was the correct next move. The Dear Leader must have reflected on his military experience and thought this was good idea and said go call him stupid head
@Mu Yixiao: Whew! I was worried. I pulled a tooth out this morning and was afraid I wouldn’t get my quarter for it.
@charon: I find Kevin Drum’s daily chart very useful. He tracks C19 deaths per million people, so that factors out populaton differences. And he uses “Day 1” as the first day over 5 deaths. Then he compares it to Italy, the first country we have decent information for.
@mattbernius: This is what happens when amateurs have to perform under pressure. Brett Crozier is and always will be a hero to the crew. No John Wayne speech from a stuffed shirt flying in from DC is going to change that. Ever.
If anything, he should have visited the sick soldiers and reassured the crew that they have a plan to manage this and the old/new Capt had a direct line to SECNAV should anyone slow roll execution. Instead he flies all the way to Guam to shit himself in front of national microscope… astonishing
@Jim Brown 32:
I’m not sure I could put it any better than this.
What made it an incredibly galaxy brain move is that either he (a) knew that the remarks would leak and he thought he’d come off smelling like a rose, or (b) completely missed that he was going to broadcast said shitting on an easily leaked medium and forgot that he just fired a guy for leaking a document that people — rightly or wrongly — believe saved people’s lives.
My bet is he’s gone by the end of the week and most likely within the next 48 hours.
@Jim Brown 32:
There are people who are good in a crisis and quite often suck at daily life. There are people who crumble under pressure but sail through daily life. And then there’s this piece of shit.
@MarkedMan:
Not a big fan of linear charts. I like the log charts here, you can pick deaths. active cases, new cases etc.
http://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/
NYT has good charts too:
(various links this page): https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/coronavirus
@inhumans99:
Bob is in the Dotard Tank.
Fully submersed.
In the tank, wearing a handcrafted- made in Ukraine – tin foil beanie with a little propeller affixed to the top. He’s sporting a pom-pom in each chubby little hand – one to cheer on Jeebus and the other to giddily cheer on Trump.
@mattbernius: I’d bet he didn’t realize the communication team could record off ship’s intercom system. Or better, he didn’t think they would be recording HIM. I’d like to think he’d be gone but I’m not hopeful. Make no mistake, I know Navy military leadership and the CNO wants him gone— but it would be a bad look for Trump so it won’t happen soon. Perhaps when the dust settles and the headlines move on Trump will Tweet fire him
@KM: A story from my misspent youth:
One night, I had gone out after work with some of my coworkers to close down a bar–not that hard of a task considering that we got off work after midnight and the bar was about half an hour away and closed at midnight. Still, it was long enough for me to have had 3 or 4 schooners worth. I’d been feeling a little so so all night–I thought I might be catching a cold, but as an asthma patient, I didn’t catch colds all that often. Still, I decided to take Nyquil before I went to bed.
The next day, I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription and the pharmacist noted that I seemed to be better rested than normal for me–working swing shift and other factors made my sleep patterns irregular at the time. As I related the story about having gone out drinking and then taking Nyquil, the pharmacist stopped me and asked me to not ever take Nyquil after having gone drinking. When I asked, he suggested that one of the reasons that I had slept so soundly was because it was possible that I had been in a coma for part of the night and that it was possible for a person to follow alcohol with Nyquil and not wake up at all, and hadn’t I read the label? (Well of course not, I’d used Nyquil–and things a lot stronger–lots of times.)
@Stormy Dragon: I liked the effects and imagery. A lot of the dialogue was the same, and of course, the music.
I have ridden the Aladdin Magic Carpet ride at WDW a few times. A fun ride. The other month the wait times were near an hour. I never waited over twenty minutes.
I’ve figured out how it all ends.
The narcissistic psychopath gets the virus and nukes China in retaliation for making him sick.
WW3.
For anybody who thinks this is bragging, it is not, I take no pride in whatever is going on with my immune system, as I did no work to achieve it.
That said, is it weird that in the last 20 years I have literally never once experienced having a cold or the flu? I did basic many years ago and later worked in hospital labs and was exposed to a lot of things, but I honestly do not remember being sick, once, since I was like a little kid. I wonder if that is weird.
I’ve told friends that it’s just some kind of karma, and next week I’ll be diagnosed with Super Cancer. Like, “Doc, how long do i have to live?” “I don’t know, what time is it?” Cancer.
Did basic training and lab work in three states immunize me from everything, or am I just a weirdo?
Two notable people have passed away but not from the Corona virus
Lifetime Detroit Tiger baseball hall of famer Al Kaline
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/sports/baseball/al-kaline-tigers-perennial-all-around-all-star-is-dead-at-85.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Obituaries
And the actress who uttered the famous movie line ‘My name is Pussy Galore‘ Honor Blackman
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/movies/honor-blackman-dead.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage§ion=Obituaries
I’ve probably watched Goldfinger about 10 times. It is the only movie I ever watched at a drive-in
As a player of baseball strat- o-matic replays from 1955 to 1969, I’m more than familiar with Mr. Kaline’s baseball stats. RIP AL and Pussy
@Teve: I used to know a woman who once bragged to me that she had never broken a bone. I told her, “Now you’ve done it, you’ve just cursed yourself.”
“How?”
“Now that you’ve said that, you will break a bone with in a week.”
I was just giving her shit, talking down her hubris. 2 days later she slipped on some icy steps and broke her arm.
She never did forgive me.
@charon:
I think they both have their uses. The log charts made it easy to see when growth was still unrestrained, and when it started to bend down. The linear charts make it much easier to see when you pass the inflection point from accelerating growth to decelerating growth.
@Mu Yixiao:
Which is why the election should have been postponed, as the Democratic governor wanted and the Republican legislature refused to consider. Because the more people who can be prevented from voting, the more likely their candidate is to win.
Kevin Drum wasn’t saying that the Supreme Court was the only thing on the ballot. He meant that the Supreme Court judge position was their motivation for refusing to change the election.
@DrDaveT:
The site at my first link does offer the option to switch the display to linear, I just never do.
What is also neat is you can hover on the individual data points to see the ratios to earlier data.
Wisconsin Supreme Court overturns governor, orders Tuesday elections to proceed
The traditional “votes from the cemetery” that have haunted Chicago has been reversed by Wisconsin Republicans.
First you cast a ballot. Then you go to your grave…
@inhumans99: If people are stupid enough to get their health advice from Donald Trump….
…..let them experience the consequences. Up to and including death if their local hospital has no ICU or it’s already being used by someone else. At some point it’s just a waste of time continually rescuing people from their own idiocy.
Just check out the daily stats at