There’s a whole series of them.
You can hopefully see why I don’t trust anything we are told.
There’s a whole series of them.
You can hopefully see why I don’t trust anything we are told.
The Deuce and I did more work on the deck.
It is going to look nice.
Pictures soon.
Oh… I went to a bar again this afternoon. Things are starting to feel somewhat normal.
I mentioned in yesterday’s post my surprise at the variation of reactions and positions on this pandemic. In the discussion at the dinner table last night with the Sister-In-Law I was surprised that she seemed so accepting of the standard media lines about curve flattening, asymptomatic spread, contagion rates and fatality rates.
I don’t know what to say or do about my son’s fear of catching Winnie the Flu. I’m disappointed that a healthy 23 year old man has any concern about catching anything. He’s almost bulletproof at this point of his life.
I was asked last night if I was unconcerned about my parents. Of course I’m concerned about my parents. Everyone who has elderly parents is concerned about them. But… my parents are in their mid 80’s. In my family this is the end of the line. We don’t live much longer. None of my grandparents made it to 90.
I will quote from my March 15, 2020 post titled Day 2 of the Wuhan Apocalypse Addendum (bad grammar, I know):
This is becoming a non-falsifiable event. If nothing happens, the government did its job. If the death toll and severe illness numbers rise. If the hospitals become overwhelmed. If the health care system and the economy collapse, it will be because we, the citizens, didn’t do what we were told.
This from the government that gave us three years of Russia Russia Russia. They gave us an impeachment that was idiotic. They have been losing a war in Afghanistan for 19yrs. They set up the 2008 financial melt down. They monetize the budget deficit to the tune of, oh I really don’t know, but maybe $100 billion a day. This is a completely corrupt and incompetent government. The people involved are buffoons and criminals.
Yet… They want us to believe them this time.
And the media is cheer leading for them.
I know it will be years before someone that can be trusted, someone that is disinterested and has no axe to grind will be able to give a reasonable estimate of the additional deaths here in the U.S. do to the Wuhan Flu. Remember 7400 to 7500 people die each day already.
I think the virus is a real thing. I think catching the virus is really awful for some people (possibly me among them). What I don’t think is that anything that has been done to date by way of government activity has made a damn bit of difference. I especially don’t think any government activity has made anything better. The quarantining of healthy people is wrong, both from the standpoint of disease spread and for the long term good of the overall public health. I strongly believe that the damage done to the economy over the last three months will be paid for by more death than the unknown number of deaths caused by the virus.
I acknowledge that my last claim may never be known. There is the problem of “dying from COVID-19” / “dying with COVID-19” / “dying while suspected of having COVID-19” that will never be untangled.
That quote from my previous post left out a third alternative, the one that actually happened. Outside of a few spots in this country, this virus has really been nothing to get excited about. We were supposed to shelter at home to FLATTEN THE CURVE. Which has been done. In excellent fashion. But there are now two things happening. The first is that people forget that flattening the curve shelter in place was done to prevent the hospitals from being overwhelmed. That mission was accomplished and we should be back to normal. But then the second thing happened: THE GOALPOSTS WERE MOVED. We are now being told things can’t go back to normal until there is a cure or there is a vaccine.
That the people of this country are putting up with this is really, really disappointing.
But anybody that has been out the last few days can also see the typical American societal response to almost everything. You can’t listen to what they say, you have to watch what they do. I was in one hell of a traffic jam Thursday evening. The lockdown is over. I’ll have to come up with a new name/theme for my posts going forward. Something that is more positive and spends more time on people doing normal things again.
And in closing. I noticed a little bit of surprise last night of my claim of Mass Hysteria. The look I received was as though I was crazy to make such a claim. Oh yeah? Well… let me remind you of all the children that were kidnapped by clowns in 2016.
I was skeptical from the start for my typical reasons. First, I don’t believe a damn thing anyone in the media says. Not because they are liars, but because they are always wrong and the business model dictates that they be wrong to survive. The second biggest reason is Culture. Other reasons include genetics, politics, demographics, etc. Things that our media can’t/won’t talk about.
The U.S. is not China. We don’t shit in the streets here (at least we don’t outside of San Francisco). We also have a tradition of liberty that the Chinese don’t have. We don’t weld the doors shut locking people in their homes. Trapping people in their apartment buildings likely made things worse. The people trapped in those buildings were all breathing the same air as their neighbors.
The makeup of our households is different here than in Italy. We don’t have three and four generations under one roof. We don’t hug and kiss like the Italians. We also aren’t as old as the Italians.
If this virus was actually as bad as made out in popular media why are we not hearing of really horrible disasters in countries that are crowded and poor? Why aren’t we seeing pictures of bodies stacked like cordwood in cities such as Lagos, Calcutta, and, Dhaka?
I fear the permanent damage done to our liberty from this event. People are talking about contact tracing as though that should be completely acceptable. Anyone with half a brain knows that this data will be abused. It is a certainty.
Government Announces Lockdown Of All Fast-Food Restaurants To Prevent Heart Disease
I also worked on the fermentorium.
While things are getting a little better here in Texas, I am very concerned about the politicians and their Test and Trace programs.
Check out this craziness: Drs. Fauci & Birx: Here’s A Way To Contain Covid-19 And Reopen The Economy In As Little As One Month.
That is insanity. I will not participate.
Check this article out for a wonderful example of unintended consequences: Surrogate-Born Babies Wait In Ukraine Amid Coronavirus Travel Restrictions.
I also find it surprising that there is an industry for surrogate mothers in the Ukraine. Weird.
Another very reasonable guy with a minority opinion that was deleted from Youtube. What is up with that company? What is up with Google? Censorship of minority but still reasonable opinion is a very bad direction to head.
I am very afraid that Sports won’t start on time in the fall. It all sort of makes my heart race when I think about it. So much of the White Rock household is tied to entertainment that we will be screwed if sportsball isn’t allowed to resume.
I think I’ve been clear over this whole bullshit crisis that the numbers are crap. I think there are lots of people that have died that have been counted as died from coronavirus should have more accurately counted as died with coronavirus. Since I feel that way already, this one made me laugh out loud:
It tickled me because I’ve long thought Shepard Smith’s typical delivery was over the top. Plus there is the whole Florida man thing.
On my way to the redneck riviera tomorrow!
I’m not sure if I’ll take the laptop. Posting to the blog from the phone might be a little tough. Mostly ’cause I’m old.
We celebrated Mother’s Day this evening. I made some filet with a shrimp garlic sauce, asparagus, and salad. It was delicious.
I’m getting really bored. I drove around some. I worked on the house some. I watched some Netflix shit.
I went to Home Depot this morning. More and more people are not wearing masks. I may join them on my next trip. I will have my buff around my neck per usual, but will not pull it up over my mouth and nose unless someone makes a stink.
The lady in front of me in the line to check out at HD had her own sanitizing wipes in her purse. She wiped down the checkout station before using it. She wiped down her CC before putting it back in her purse. She then wiped down the checkout stand before leaving. We are going to have problems as the range of concern goes from that lady to me. Lots of room for disagreement on what should be done.
From my reading today:
Arnold Kling. Check out all of the links. The twitter thread by Muge Cevik is interesting. Arnold is a very smart and thoughtful person.
Hugh Hewitt. I don’t read Hugh very often, but the Instapundit linked to this one and I liked it. I probably don’t need to link to anything Insty links to as my 1 1/2 readers probably read Instapundit too.
I went to HD earlier today. More peeps are showing up without masks. This is good.
I did some work on the pool. It should be full about now. While the water will be cool it is ready to swim in. The repairs went quickly.
Also did some more work on the fermentorium.
Can’t wait to go to the bars!