"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

Thoroughly depressed.

Never thought it would come to this, not, at least, here in the USA.

Almost the whole country's, nay, the world's economy on lock-down because of a not particularly deadly virus? In the West a long tradition of human rights and freedom thrown out the window? Hunkered. Bunkered, Blinkered. All this because of a virus imported from the lying ChiComs?

We see the best U.S. President in our lifetimes stampeded by twisted, incomplete data, by floundering "experts," and by a twisted, completely worthless mass media and political class: the triumph of Pennsylvania Avenue politico-technocratic madness over Main Street commonsense.

Never forget, there is science and there are those who call themselves scientists. Not the same thing.

Disgusting.

The President gave up on his hope that we could begin restarting the economy by Easter. The "lockdown" continues in our Quixotic quest against a not very particularly deadly virus; a quest headed by people wrong before about previous "existential" threats. Remember North Korea? SARS? MERS? HIV/AIDS? Ebola? Recurrent flu epidemics/pandemics? The last Rebel Wilson movie?

We survived them all without causing incalculable damage to our economy, life-styles, and basic freedoms. In the US, we have thrown out our Bill of Rights, in particular, the First Amendment. Yes, yes, before somebody chimes in, I realize that this legal opinion is probably accurate (h/t Instapundit): "the simple reality is this: federal courts will not enjoin temporary measures that are facially calculated to save lives." Doesn't mean that this is Right in the real sense, or that damage has not been done to the Constitution, and, of course, "temporary" is in the eye of the promoter, i.e., the bureaucracy and its multi-trillion dollar "rescue" packages using our money. If these "temporary" measures and "rescues" continue, soon we will not need to scrounge for toilet paper, we will use worthless $100 bills.

I do, nevertheless, understand the President's predicament. He will get blamed by the howling lefty mob for each and every infection and death, no matter what he does.

All you have to do is hear how Pelosi and Company are lying and distorting his previous words to know that politically he is in a bind. The fact, remains, however, that the data upon which we allegedly rely to drive our decision-making is horribly flawed. Do you really believe there are no new ChiCom virus cases in China? If so, do like the Dutch and the Spaniards have done, i.e., get testing kits and PPE from China . . . and then find they are worthless.

Per the data of the WHO, if the Communist Chinese have, in fact, stopped the virus dead, how'd they do it? What secret formula have they uncovered to stem the number of cases? I will tell you what it is: LIES. Simple, no? They lie, and the horribly compromised WHO and the media repeat that lie.

Even if we accept the data from more reliable countries, we find that the mortality rate appears heading south, down to flu-levels or below. This seems so even when you consider that just about anybody dying who has the virus gets listed as having died from the virus--something patently false.

Anyhow, keep washing your hands.

Hoppes 9 is a great cleaner . . .

ChiCom Virus and the Left's Glee: Carter Energy Crisis Redux?

Looks like the Congress is going to pass that massive, $2.2 trillion (what does that sum even mean?) economic "rescue" package. We already see some Dems warning us that this is only the beginning and that more will have to come from the Feds to avert DISASTER.

Really? Last night I was mildly encouraged that the "rescue" thing would not pass, and would get hung up--as our Founders intended--in a complex game of checks-and-balances, with countervailing interests and demands nuking each other. But, alas! The Senate passed the monster kidney stone, and now it goes to the House of Reps for likely passage there.

Sigh . . . We don't need massive "rescue" packages from the Feds.

We need the Feds and the Staties and the Munis to get out of the way, re-open the economy, and stop suppressing our rights and freedoms. We are not in some horrid war wherein our homeland has suffered invasion. We do not face an existential threat from a virus. We face a virus, another one in a long line of viruses, apparently not more fatal than any other in the recent past; we can deal with this disease without destroying our society, without turning us into docile wards of the all-powerful and beneficent State, obeying the dictates transmitted to us by the so-called news media. By the way, if there is any existential threat, it comes from the draconian actions called for to "defeat" a ChiCom virus.

All nonsense in the pursuit of permanent damage to the USA and the West.

Folks, wash your hands; don't cough on people; avoid large crowds as much as possible; don't shake hands willy-nilly, but go back to work! This ChiCom virus will pass. Create! Produce! Invest! That's what this country does so well. We are not a nation meant for sealed bunkers, bunkers to which we have ceded the keys to the bureaucrats and the "experts."

We are not Eloi! There are no Morlocks--unless we allow them to take up residence here.

You and I, the ones with the gray hairs, have lived through this insanity before.

Remember the Great Energy Crises of the 1970s? We had then some calamitous leadership--Republican and Democrat--which bought the line that we were running out of energy; oil was finished; industry was dead; the "experts" and their media echo chamber told us that we had to ration, and, above all, to lower our standard of living. In particular, that uber disaster known as Jimmy Carter lectured us on our "national malaise," told us to wear an extra sweater, to turn off the lights, not to drive our cars, etc. I remember the barely concealed glee of the lefties of that era, as they predicted the end of capitalism, called for more and more power for the Feds, more programs, always shouting about THE IMMINENT END OF THE WORLD. It was all hogwash, political agenda driven hogwash. No insult meant to hogs.

It is happening again.

The media, the lefties, and the "experts" clearly want to keep the economy shuttered. They want widespread misery as some sort of comeuppance for our Gaia-defying greed and prosperity. They want to make the "workers," you and me, dependent on the State. Soon will come the calls to nationalize this or that industry, to prevent some businesses from ever opening. They will claim it's global climate change, that it's hunting, that it's gun ownership in Georgia, that it is Trump--of course--to blame. They will produce and distort whatever data needed to keep us in a constant state of anxiety and crisis. They will cite science, although they don't really believe in it--check their positions on the number of "genders" and whether the unborn are human--and accuse those of us who are skeptical of being anti-science, of being flat-earthers, etc. Well I say, let the insults commence, and let them roll off our backs like water on a duck . . . we will be wealthy and happy.

The "experts" and the bureaucrats made this mess, and now they pass huge budget-busting "rescue" packages to "save" us from the mess they made. The ChiCom virus did not shut down the economy, just as a real shortage of oil did not during the Great Energy Crises of the 1970s. It was the "experts" whatdoneit in both cases.

Mr. President, re-open the economy.  We will wash our hands. Promise.

The ChiCom Virus: A Glimmer of Hope?

President Trump's press conference today gave me a bit of hope, just a bit as I am an old pessimist, that we might be moving on from the current almost total economic shutdown to something more tolerable. The conference also confirmed for me--yet again--that most of the "journalists" covering the White House are either infantile or evil, slithering vipers.

The President made clear what many of us have been saying for some time, to wit, that we cannot let the "treatment" for the ChiCom virus prove worse than the effect of the virus itself.

He also stressed, to the obvious chagrin of the aforementioned "journalists," that he cannot and will not listen to only one advisor or one set of advisors. The "journos" kept hammering him on whether Dr. Fauci or some other medical personnel had concurred with a possible reopening of the economy in a week or so. Their game is brutally obvious. They want to portray Trump as having declared victory over the ChiCom virus, despite expert advice, and then, of course, play up continued infections and even deaths after the economy has restarted. They seemed not to understand--yeah, right--the President's point that as President he has to balance a number of factors and advice.

I would also note that there is no perfect decision, one free of all negative or unintended consequences.

The public health dimension is an important factor but it is not the only one, particularly, as we have discussed before, in light of the falling mortality rate for the ChiCom virus, a rate that seems headed for levels of the flu or less. DR. FAUCI IS NOT THE PRESIDENT, any more than any of the other public health "experts" of our enormous bureaucracy; they have a view which should be heard and considered, but it is not policy unless the President says it is.

A leader of the United States must factor into his decisions the national security, the overall economic health of the country, the future of that economy, and the impact on society of keeping the country idle. He also must ward off the destructive "rescue" efforts launched by the DemoCommunists who seek to take advantage of this crisis to inflict great portions of their insane social, economic, political, and environmental agenda.

I hope and pray that President Trump makes the right decision in the coming days, and puts an end to the ongoing destruction of our economy and society.

China Virus: Know Means No?

Stir crazy. Horrible shock to the system.

The world's greatest hot bar located at the Harris-Teeter supermarket in New Hanover Square in Wilmington closed today "until further notice."

This is war. I've had it.

It's one thing to shut down airlines, cruise liners, shops, restaurants, dog parks, government offices, and factories, it's quite another to cut me off from my salmon and prime rib.

This reaction to the China virus has gone totally insane.

The more you learn, the more you know, and, hence, the more you have to say "No" to what we are doing to the global economy and society. The mortality rates on this virus thing are falling as we get more and more data. The initial horrendous mortality hype was based on a relatively small "N," just like a bad political poll that seeks to tell you national trends by polling 325 people on the phone in Manhattan--ask Hillary.

As the testing expands, and the number of "infected" people grows dramatically, the overall mortality rate falls. Surprise! Not. The denominator gets bigger and the size of the fraction goes south . . . It seems as though the mortality rate will prove about that of any flu or other epidemics/pandemics we have had in recent years.

Perhaps, I am right? The horror of that thought . . .

We have shut down the economy all over the world in a fit of mass hysteria. More people will die from that, than from the Chinese disease. It appears (that word) Trump's initial skeptical stance seems to have proven right. Unfortunately, in my view, he got stampeded by the "experts" and the media's low rent Jeremiahs into freezing the economy.

The further we go down this rat hole, the harder to crawl our way back.

But . . . there is a growing realization that the Chinese Communist Party is responsible for fomenting this hysteria by lying and trying to cover up the existence of the virus; as we all know, the cover up is often worse than the crime. So, if there is a bright spot to all this, we will re-evaluate our relationship with China and the insane policies that made China the center of the world's manufacturing. Delink from China: that should be our motto for years to come, yes, delink.

Back to cleaning my guns. Haven't fired my new Ruger 57 or my new STI Staccato. The suffering I have endured . . .

And the Next Time? More of this Nonsense?

Hunkered. Bunkered. Shuttered. Furious.

OK. Everything is shut down because of the new flu. We have tanked the economy and all over the world we are seeing massive increases in government power and control. This to "fight" a virus.

Just a quick thought before I sneak outside to walk the dogs.

What about the next time?

Are we going to keep doing this every time there is some "virus"? And there will be another one and another one and another one.

Waiting for Gov Dough

"Dear Diary,

It is Day 97 (approx) of the Great China Virus Apocalypse. The Diplowife and I are hunkered in our Wilmington bunker, the monotony of confinement shattered only by lunch-time trips to the hot bar at the local Harris-Teeter supermarket. We are limited to huge helpings of fresh salmon, pulled pork, shredded beef, prime rib, roasted turkey, chicken breast and wings, and tilapia in tomato sauce, not to mention fried okra, roasted vegetables, mac-n-cheese, mashed potatoes, roasted red potatoes, broccoli with bacon, cauliflower, and a range of Asian foods, ironic given the origins of our current viral crisis. Has humanity no pity for our suffering? How much more of this can we take? President Trump, hear our cries! Mail us $1000! Send us more government! We can't take care of ourselves!

Signed for what posterity might follow, if any,

The Diplomad"

I have revealed to you the most private of my writings: the first page of my Viral Diary.

As you have guessed, I remain greatly troubled by the China Virus--and, yes, it is the China Virus as much we have had the German Measles, the Spanish Flu, the West Nile Virus, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), the Lyme (Connecticut) Disease, a new Rebel Wilson Movie, etc.

The actual effect of the virus--I suspect--will be nothing more than another in a long line of flu epidemics/pandemics. The mortality rate numbers appear way off (see here for a good common sense look at those) and exaggerated either deliberately or through ignorance--you decide. The whole crisis, all over the world, is being used to increase dramatically the power and reach of government; the control by government over our daily lives is rising exponentially in "response" to the "crisis." Panic is being engendered by the mass media, government spokesmen, and, of course, the internet in all its manifestations. It is very difficult to get the truth of what is happening, so I fall back on my default setting of cynical disbelief. Whenever the media and government grab hold of a complex scientific issue and make an issue of it, beware. Something is afoot. I have worked overseas with the CDC, for example, and while there are some fine and dedicated people there, it is, as I have noted before (here and here, for example) a den of politically correct bureaucrats and Deep Staters as much as any other public entity. The CDC has spent a lot of time on nonsense having nothing to do with infectious diseases and has pursued the tax dollar with studies on gun violence, homosexuality, domestic abuse, etc., instead of being prepared for real diseases. The much quoted Dr. Fauci (NIAID director), whom I don't know, was dead wrong on HIV/AIDS, and his predictions on that disease were way off (look'em up; you'll see). Take what he says on the China Virus with a grain of highly sterilized salt. He hasn't met a camera he doesn't like.

My gym is closed, the restaurants are closed . . . I haven't tried the gun range, yet.

Anyhow, here I sit, wondering if we are going to go nuts like this every time something unexpected happens.

I will await my government check.

At the Local COSTCO: No Zombies Grabbing Toilet Paper

Sigh.

I hate shopping. Al Gore, of course, invented the internet so that I never would have to enter a store. But, alas! We were low on dog food, and the three beasts only eat Kirkland Salmon meal kibble, available only at the local Costco. Off we went, expecting to confront rampaging mobs of Zombies doing battle over rolls of toilet paper . . . but, no. I had no need of my new Arizona-made Ruger 57 (review coming) or my new Texas-made STI Staccato 9 (review coming). The zombies must have known I was on my way, and stayed away. That's gotta be the explanation . . ..

The Costco here in Wilmington was not particularly crowded; the shelves seemed full to me of all kinds of stuff, admittedly, the sort of stuff I rarely buy. People were quite nice and civilized; no fighting over pasta or beans; no insults; no grappling over a solitary case of water bottles.

We got our 35lb sack of dog food, and a few other odds and ends, e.g., pimento cheese, kosher hot dogs, some hamburger meat, beef jerky (of course), ice tea, unsaltead nuts, and went to the register. Everybody in line, as well as the cashier, proved friendly, no panic, no rudeness, no comments about "hoarding," or the END. We took advantage of the trip to gas up the ol' Silverado ($1.88/gallon!)--no lines, no fighting over gasoline, etc. The apocalypse seemed quite distant on a sunny Carolina day.

Maybe, just maybe, folks in North Carolina haven't gotten the memo about the impending collapse of the universe, but at the Costco, the dog park, the local bbq establishment, they all seemed quite relaxed, a few even making jokes about the hysterical nonsense over the Chinese flu. My kind of people.

North Carolina. A good place to be when the zombies come around . . . I hear that the Ruger 57 is particularly effective at stopping zombies. I will let you know.

Elite Arrogance of "Work from Home"

Just a quick one while I continue to move into the new house.

As I have written before, I think this China virus business is vastly overdone. This is hardly the most dangerous infection of our time! It is being hyped as a political weapon, at least here in the USA, against Trump. Period.

One particularly irritating theme constantly being repeated is the advice to "work from home."

That's fine if you're a retired, old fart blogger or in the elite industries of IT and other such white collar labors. How does a cop or a fireman work from home? How about our military? Or a blue collar worker in a factory? Yes, make those automobiles in your living room . . . right. How about a hamburger flipper or a waiter? A farmer? A butcher? A mechanic? Like with so much else about this virus it's a bunch of elite nonsense designed to create panic and sink the economy and, btw, the Trump presidency.

Back to my boxes "at home" . . .

The Madness is Afoot!

Sorry. I might be way off but, . . . . well, before I start, let me state that I am not a medical doctor, public health expert, or anything remotely useful to society, and neither do I play such in real life or even on the internet.  In sum, I give out my views for free, and they are almost worth every penny you pay.

OK. That all said, the lawyers placated, I have to say I think that this Wuhan virus "crisis" is VASTLY over-hyped.

This is not the black plague; not the Spanish flu; not  Ebola or Swine Flu, the anthrax threat, or any of the other "epidemics," or "pandemics" that were supposed to kill us all. Remember, of course, that not too many years ago, the professional screamers told us that all of civilization would turn into a howling wilderness thanks to HIV/AIDS--ahem, Duesberg was right and it didn't happen. The HIV/AIDS predictions were not even close.

We see it also with the global climate change nonsense wherein predictions of catastrophe have repeatedly failed to materialize, and the only thing the changers can predict is, well, change. That's useful, right?

Wuhan, aka Corona, aka COVID-19 virus, so far, at least, does not appear to be a mass killer. It seems lots of people catch it and don't even know it. The vast majority of those who do have symptoms, apparently, will survive just fine. Sure elementary precautions are useful, and anything that encourages greater cleanliness can't be all bad. I, however, see little good reason, or any, for that matter, for the socio-economic-political destruction underway as mass hysteria grips the world.

Stop it!

At least here in the USA, we have a perfect storm. We have a hostile and incredibly arrogant and malicious mass media, running 24 hrs/day, pushing the "we're all gonna die" scenario in a political year, a year in which the target is Trump. The lefties have been calling openly for a recession, an economic collapse, as a way to get rid of Trump, to promote their crazy globalist memes, and to get us cowering in fear and praying for more government intervention in our lives. The Chinese virus is the silver bullet! Or so they think. The same people who opposed tightening our borders and who have turned our major cities into petri dishes for infection and social dysfunction are now critical of Trump's moves on the Wuhan virus.

This will pass. Pharma will develop a vaccine or a cure or the virus will just fade away.

By the way, the Diplowife and I have, in our many years abroad, come down with TB, dengue, hepatitis, broken bones, and various horrid stomach and skin ailments. We survived. Ain't afraid of no Wuhan virus. In fact, I am going out to have a lunch of fried bat wings. Well, I might be exaggerating for effect there . . .

In the meanwhile, I hope we proceed to decouple our Western economies from China's, and to relocate our supply chains back in the West.

Karl vs Groucho: The Democrat Marxists at Play (II)

OK. I am not right too often, but when I get one, I get it dead on.

Not long ago (February 4), I noted that the Democrat Party had split between two types of Marxists: those who follow Karl Marx, and those who follow the much wiser Groucho Marx. Karl's prime follower has taken a hit in the ol' shorts these last few days. Bernie "Honeymoon in the USSR" Sanders had a less than stellar run on Super Thurs--er--Tuesday. He lost his front-runner status to a tottering, doddering ol' corruptocrat, Joe Biden, around whom the Dem establishment has rallied, employing the tactics of the Spanish Christian warriors against the Moors: myth has it they propped up their dead Chief, El Cid, on a horse and scared the Moors away. Joe as the dead El Cid? I like it.

The absurd candidacy of Mayor Mike came to a crashing halt in a thunder cloud of hilarity and shredded 100 dollar bills; he never could emulate Groucho, and ended at best as Gummo, Zeppo, or, maybe, Florence Foster Jenkins. You decide.

As I began to write this little piece, Elizabeth Warren announced that she, too, calls it quits. The rampant sexism, agism, and white supremacist bias of Dem voters proved too much for a poor, aged, underprivileged, pregnant Cherokee woman with children in public schools on a reservation in Oklahoma -- or something along those lines. Warren had aspired to play thee part of Rosa Luxemburg, but ended up as Margaret Dumont, i.e., foil for the wrong Marx.

So, now, the party long famous for having the votes of the dead, seeks to run, at best, a barely living candidate for President: Joe Biden, a vacuous old crook, perhaps the most dishonest major Dem politician but for Hillary Clinton--she's hard to match. Biden has had a long political career of no notable achievements or thoughts, one marked by unrestrained ambition, corruption, plagiarism, and invented tales of derring-do. Whether confronting a vicious armed gang member at a public swimming pool, or standing up to armed Boers, Joe has "done" it all--well, in his mind, at least. Baron Munchausen has nothing on him. He believes in nothing discernible except getting rich thanks to his office, and sharing access to that wealth with his family.

Joe will become and do whatever his handlers decide he will become and do; those handlers have chosen to go with the comfortable, maleable, old shoe corruption of adled millionaire (Groucho) Marxist Joe Biden, rather than take a chance with the delusional power madness of ailing millionaire (Karl) Marxist Bernie Sanders.

Trump 2020.