Yesterday I went for a motorcycle ride in the country. I came across a cow loose in the road, as occurs from time to time. I had a very strong impulse to stop, as I normally would, and help return the cow to her pasture. I generally feel a duty to do that sort of thing, and I wanted to do it. On any normal day I would have done it, but on this day I realized I had conflicting duties.
On this day, there was already a crowd of people standing around -- uselessly as far as I could tell -- and I could tell that it would be impossible to avoid interacting with them. They had clearly called for help, and were numerous enough that people would notice them and slow down (thus avoiding collision with the cow). Everything's easier to catch here than back in Georgia, where flatter land and wider rivers made it easy for livestock to get free and go a long ways. They probably managed the fairly easy task of herding one cow down into her pasture.
I rode on and left them to deal with it, with sad regret. It's likely enough we soon will have worse things to regret than the lost chance to help catch a loose cow, but I hated to go on without helping. I was one person there who really knew how to deal with the problem having dealt with that particular problem some several times before. I could have been a help, but this time I was no help at all.
Crisis envy
If we can shut down the world to stop a virus, how come the public won't accept plans to cripple the global economy in service of climate alarmism?
I'm just spitballing here, but it's possible a lot of people genuinely believe in the danger of a contagious, sometimes fatal disease, and aren't just virtue-signaling about a trendy hypothetical threat. Even in the case of the virus, there are those inconvenient people who insist on continually checking our assumptions against facts on the ground, kvetching about shoddy models, and thinking about cost-benefit trade-offs.
Why? Because We Love You
Headline: "Why has the media ignored sexual assault allegations against Biden?"
I think conservatives are less hypocritical here, because their real objection seems to be the same one she's raising: why the double standard? Why is a guy like Kavanaugh subjected to a life-altering examination in the public eye even given that he faced accusers who fielded no actual evidence, but Bill Clinton and Joe Biden are ushered past security with a wink and a nod? Well, we know why: religious duty with metaphysical force.
She does at least get to the point of questioning the duty:
The conservative position as I understand it is that not all of these accusations are equally believable, and we ought to insist on some level of proof before deploying the very harsh sanctions we (at least sometimes, haphazardly) levy against the guilty. Harvey Weinstein is in Rikers right now, stripped of fame and wealth and freedom, and he'll likely die there. Jeffery Epstein would have died in prison even if he hadn't been killed. The punishments do really fall, sometimes, and they are sometimes life-ending punishments. Conservatives argue that such punishments should not be deployed without proof, and certainly (as in the case of Kavanaugh) not without corroborating evidence. I don't get the sense that they don't believe the punishments shouldn't be deployed at all.
The liberal position seems to be that accusations should presumptively or even always be believed, and career-ending consequences deployed, if the accused is the wrong kind of person. If they're the right kind of person, even hard evidence -- endless pictures, blue dresses -- should not be allowed to interfere with their exercise of freedom and power.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding or misstating the positions; perhaps liberals simply can't believe (in spite of the obvious evidence) that a nice guy like Joltin' Joe Biden or Bill Clinton could engage in anything bad. Rascally, perhaps, but bad? Obviously they're not bad people, so they can't be guilty; and the evidence of our eyes must therefore be deceptive. (AVI's favorite, Slate Star Codex, calls that top-down processing.)
It does appear, though, the double standard is real. The accusations against Kavanaugh were unlikely, and some of them were implausible on their face. All the same, screaming hordes of liberal women came to try to force Congress to destroy him -- not just to refuse to promote him, but to impeach him, investigate and try him, find a way to send him to prison for the harm he allegedly caused the nice-seeming lady with the memories she recovered in therapy decades after the event almost certianly never happened. The accusations against Clinton and Biden are supported by physical evidence, which you can verify for yourself. No similar outcry is occurring. In fact, you can't even get the press to admit the story exists.
It is hugely frustrating to see conservatives, who couldn’t give a damn about the multiple sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump, weaponize the accusations against Biden. However, it’s also frustrating to see so many liberals turning a blind eye. The accusations against the former vice-president are serious; why aren’t they being taken seriously?Obviously because it's the only moral decision, since derailing his candidacy at this stage would ensure a Trump re-election, and that latter is literally the worst possible outcome. For humanity and the world, not just the country. It goes beyond patriotism, it's a religious duty with metaphysical force.
I think conservatives are less hypocritical here, because their real objection seems to be the same one she's raising: why the double standard? Why is a guy like Kavanaugh subjected to a life-altering examination in the public eye even given that he faced accusers who fielded no actual evidence, but Bill Clinton and Joe Biden are ushered past security with a wink and a nod? Well, we know why: religious duty with metaphysical force.
One obvious reason is that Reade’s accusations are very hard to prove.Yes, but Kavanaugh was accused of running a high-school rape ring that somehow preyed on college-aged women who gladly attended these high-school parties, while being a blackout drunk who somehow excelled in law school and rose to the high bench, and the star witness against him had no corroboration that the event she described had ever happened. Several of his accusers recanted, and the lawyer flogging the story is now in prison for defrauding his client. Mere difficulty of proof can't be the reason. Speaking of which:
You know who has talked publicly about the importance of taking women seriously? Biden. During the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, Biden stood up for Dr Christine Blasey Ford, noting: “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real.”It certainly would.
Does this presumption not apply when the guy being accused is a Democrat running for president? It would seem that way.
She does at least get to the point of questioning the duty:
[It is] hugely unlikely that Reade’s accusations will do any damage whatsoever to Biden’s ambitions. Allegations of sexual assault certainly haven’t posed any hindrance to Trump. The allegations against Kavanaugh didn’t stop him from becoming a supreme court justice. The allegations against Louis CK didn’t kill his career in comedy. And the multiple women who have accused Biden of touching them inappropriately in the past haven’t exactly derailed his career.In point of fact, there are endless photos of Biden touching women inappropriately. She's right, this hasn't done him any damage apparently.
The conservative position as I understand it is that not all of these accusations are equally believable, and we ought to insist on some level of proof before deploying the very harsh sanctions we (at least sometimes, haphazardly) levy against the guilty. Harvey Weinstein is in Rikers right now, stripped of fame and wealth and freedom, and he'll likely die there. Jeffery Epstein would have died in prison even if he hadn't been killed. The punishments do really fall, sometimes, and they are sometimes life-ending punishments. Conservatives argue that such punishments should not be deployed without proof, and certainly (as in the case of Kavanaugh) not without corroborating evidence. I don't get the sense that they don't believe the punishments shouldn't be deployed at all.
The liberal position seems to be that accusations should presumptively or even always be believed, and career-ending consequences deployed, if the accused is the wrong kind of person. If they're the right kind of person, even hard evidence -- endless pictures, blue dresses -- should not be allowed to interfere with their exercise of freedom and power.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding or misstating the positions; perhaps liberals simply can't believe (in spite of the obvious evidence) that a nice guy like Joltin' Joe Biden or Bill Clinton could engage in anything bad. Rascally, perhaps, but bad? Obviously they're not bad people, so they can't be guilty; and the evidence of our eyes must therefore be deceptive. (AVI's favorite, Slate Star Codex, calls that top-down processing.)
It does appear, though, the double standard is real. The accusations against Kavanaugh were unlikely, and some of them were implausible on their face. All the same, screaming hordes of liberal women came to try to force Congress to destroy him -- not just to refuse to promote him, but to impeach him, investigate and try him, find a way to send him to prison for the harm he allegedly caused the nice-seeming lady with the memories she recovered in therapy decades after the event almost certianly never happened. The accusations against Clinton and Biden are supported by physical evidence, which you can verify for yourself. No similar outcry is occurring. In fact, you can't even get the press to admit the story exists.
What's the hurry?
I've been hoping every day for some word on how the 70,000 doses of chloroquine and azithromycin were working out in New York, because I'd read that they were delivered on Tuesday, March 24, and Gov. Cuomo said he was eager to get trials started. I was even getting worried that the lack of good news might mean the drugs weren't having any effect after all.
Turns out they haven't started using them yet. They're still working out how the trials will be structured, and hope to get started next week.
The Inheritors
Here's a piece by two generations of the inheritors of Bob Wills' tradition.
Merle needs no introduction. Dwight probably doesn't either, but just in case, he's the guy singing when the Terminator walks into the biker/cowboy bar (called 'the Corral') in Terminator 2. The song is "Guitars, Cadillacs," which is probably his biggest hit.
The bike he steals is a Harley Davidson Fatboy. That was the first bike I ever knew I wanted, and it was surely this movie that made it so.
Merle needs no introduction. Dwight probably doesn't either, but just in case, he's the guy singing when the Terminator walks into the biker/cowboy bar (called 'the Corral') in Terminator 2. The song is "Guitars, Cadillacs," which is probably his biggest hit.
The bike he steals is a Harley Davidson Fatboy. That was the first bike I ever knew I wanted, and it was surely this movie that made it so.
What A Man Can Do, And What A Man Can't Do
I want to point out that this is a sophisticated philosophical point, dressed up in pirate costumes.
It's more or less the essence of Stoicism. What can you do, this week, to deal with this crisis? You could plant a victory garden. You can exercise to keep your immune system strong. You could get out and enjoy whatever part of the glorious spring weather is open to you. You can call your friends and loved ones, and keep their spirits up, because they need it too.
What can't you do? Well, there's quite a lot. Learn to recognize it, and let go of it. You can't fix it. Focus on the things you can do, and accept the things you can't.
It's more or less the essence of Stoicism. What can you do, this week, to deal with this crisis? You could plant a victory garden. You can exercise to keep your immune system strong. You could get out and enjoy whatever part of the glorious spring weather is open to you. You can call your friends and loved ones, and keep their spirits up, because they need it too.
What can't you do? Well, there's quite a lot. Learn to recognize it, and let go of it. You can't fix it. Focus on the things you can do, and accept the things you can't.
Sometimes All Choices Are Wrong
Some folks are going hard against Dr. Brix, no introductions necessary, for suggesting that it's just possible that things won't be as bad as they seem. She could be wrong about that. Nobody really knows how bad it's going to be.
People are going to make mistakes during this time, even responsible people. Her mistakes are different than the ones you'd make, but if you were in her position you'd be making mistakes too -- mistakes that would cost lives, just as hers will. It's going to be important to understand.
This is true even for that most maligned of all people, Donald Trump. He's making mistakes every day, but they're not the same mistakes that the overarching governing class would make. That's useful, even if it's disruptive. He shut off travel from China; they all called him racist and said to be sure to attend the Chinese New Year parade in your local city. He was right about that; they made different mistakes. It's helpful to have the corrective on both sides, perhaps. Our disagreements may be our strength.
As far as she is concerned, she's thinking about the psychological strain and the economic one. Everybody's seeing an endless flood of doomsday stories, while they lose their jobs and the economy tanks. It's not out of order to point out that the data coming in suggests that it might not [see comments] be as bad as you've been hearing (day and night, if you follow these reports obsessively). People are seeing their lives ruined, things they've invested their hearts in destroyed. She's erring on the side of giving them hope. Maybe that's wrong; but maybe everything's wrong, in the sense that there's no free ride. Every choice imposes a cost in blood.
The strongest pillar of Christianity was always the fact that people knew they needed to be forgiven for the things they'd done, even if they did their best to do right. In harder hours than we've known but late, that was understood personally by nearly everyone alive. If God can't forgive us, who can? Can we forgive ourselves? Can we forgive each other?
We're going to need to do.
People are going to make mistakes during this time, even responsible people. Her mistakes are different than the ones you'd make, but if you were in her position you'd be making mistakes too -- mistakes that would cost lives, just as hers will. It's going to be important to understand.
This is true even for that most maligned of all people, Donald Trump. He's making mistakes every day, but they're not the same mistakes that the overarching governing class would make. That's useful, even if it's disruptive. He shut off travel from China; they all called him racist and said to be sure to attend the Chinese New Year parade in your local city. He was right about that; they made different mistakes. It's helpful to have the corrective on both sides, perhaps. Our disagreements may be our strength.
As far as she is concerned, she's thinking about the psychological strain and the economic one. Everybody's seeing an endless flood of doomsday stories, while they lose their jobs and the economy tanks. It's not out of order to point out that the data coming in suggests that it might not [see comments] be as bad as you've been hearing (day and night, if you follow these reports obsessively). People are seeing their lives ruined, things they've invested their hearts in destroyed. She's erring on the side of giving them hope. Maybe that's wrong; but maybe everything's wrong, in the sense that there's no free ride. Every choice imposes a cost in blood.
The strongest pillar of Christianity was always the fact that people knew they needed to be forgiven for the things they'd done, even if they did their best to do right. In harder hours than we've known but late, that was understood personally by nearly everyone alive. If God can't forgive us, who can? Can we forgive ourselves? Can we forgive each other?
We're going to need to do.
"I Do Love a Steel Guitar"
Well then Grim, I know a guy- this guy does one of my favorite versions of Wichita Lineman, and so I looked and found a good Texas Swing piece he does and with a fiddle too (of course!). Enjoy Greg Booth, with son Danny on Guitar and Bass and daughter-in-law Amanda on the fiddle , doing Boot Heel Drag (Bob Wills steel guitar man Herb Remington did it in 1950):
Sunlight
An unexpected effect of suddenly converting the nation's universities to online academies is that classes are being recorded and can be shared. There's a sudden panic over the suggestion by conservatives that students might want to share any egregious examples of progressive balderdash, because, you know, the public might not understand.
This was good: "The vast majority of academics are centrist liberals."
Yes, we'll have no virus
Russia has almost no coronavirus to speak of, but a strangely high incidence of pneumonia. Doctors are warning that it's time to get ready for the Italian scenario, but in the meantime as long as they don't call it coronavirus, it's all good. Call it a "banana."
We're going to get another horrible demonstration in how societies with different levels of trust and transparency deal with crises. I hope we draw the right lesson.
Interesting idea
Trump supposedly has told governors that he wants a massive sampling of the population to determine which counties have a low incidence, which might let us prioritize some counties for allowing more economic output and relegate others to tighter lockdowns. I can imagine something like this working, if we somehow avoided the stampede from more infected counties to less, which is a big "if." It would be nice to see goods produced by and shipped from "safe zones," even if the safe zones had to shift from location to location over time. But it's not like we have, or even want, county border guards.
Always With the Negative Waves
So there was a slight sword practice mishap tonight. Nothing serious, although I expect I’ll feel it tomorrow.
I told a female friend the story and she was like, "There's a scary pandemic that will probably sicken you if you go to the hospital, and you're fighting with swords on wet ground?"
And I'm like, "Yeah, after riding motorcycles all day."
I told a female friend the story and she was like, "There's a scary pandemic that will probably sicken you if you go to the hospital, and you're fighting with swords on wet ground?"
And I'm like, "Yeah, after riding motorcycles all day."
Statistics
It'd be nice if we had better evidence, writes a statistician.
Some worry that the 68 deaths from Covid-19 in the U.S. as of March 16 will increase exponentially to 680, 6,800, 68,000, 680,000 … along with similar catastrophic patterns around the globe. Is that a realistic scenario, or bad science fiction? How can we tell at what point such a curve might stop?
The most valuable piece of information for answering those questions would be to know the current prevalence of the infection in a random sample of a population and to repeat this exercise at regular time intervals to estimate the incidence of new infections. Sadly, that’s information we don’t have....
One of the bottom lines is that we don’t know how long social distancing measures and lockdowns can be maintained without major consequences to the economy, society, and mental health. Unpredictable evolutions may ensue, including financial crisis, unrest, civil strife, war, and a meltdown of the social fabric. At a minimum, we need unbiased prevalence and incidence data for the evolving infectious load to guide decision-making.
In the most pessimistic scenario, which I do not espouse, if the new coronavirus infects 60% of the global population and 1% of the infected people die, that will translate into more than 40 million deaths globally, matching the 1918 influenza pandemic.
The vast majority of this hecatomb would be people with limited life expectancies. That’s in contrast to 1918, when many young people died.
One can only hope that, much like in 1918, life will continue. Conversely, with lockdowns of months, if not years, life largely stops, short-term and long-term consequences are entirely unknown, and billions, not just millions, of lives may be eventually at stake.
Western Swing IV
Still more of the feel-good genre, with thanks to brother Gringo.
(This one I usually hear Willie Nelson do, but obviously he was following Wills' lead.)
(I do love a steel guitar.)
(This one I usually hear Willie Nelson do, but obviously he was following Wills' lead.)
(I do love a steel guitar.)
Did I mention bad regulation?
Nevada's governor has decided it's best if his state doesn't try chloroquine. No need to let doctors have any discretion.
Three guesses which party.
Adapt and overcome
I heard the President say the other day that, although he's activated the Defense Production Act, he hasn't had to use it. So far no manufacturer has said "no."
Ford steps up to help manufacture ventilators, using car parts.
Deregulation and safety
Bad regulations can kill people just as thoroughly as Wild-West unregulation.
The Last Most Hated President, and Merle Haggard
On the 17th of March, of whatever year that was. 1973 if the description is accurate.
Pelosi caves
As Powerline observes:
One can only imagine how bad the Democrats’ polling must have been to cause such a hasty retreat. The Democrats had no one behind them except their most extremist supporters, like the New York Times.
The Tide Pod President
The President said chloroquine was a promising enough treatment that, considering how widely used it had been for 70 years, was worth trying in hospitals by doctors. Its limited side effects have been studied for a long time, so we're not going to kill anyone with it, whereas it might help some people who otherwise look extremely likely to die.
Therefore if a couple in Arizona saw him on TV, noticed that their aquarium cleaner had a similar active ingredient, and ate from 10-20x the maximum recommended experimental dose (news articles have been talking about max 500mg, whereas they each swallowed a teaspoon, which is nearly 5 grams or 4000 mg), clearly President Trump killed them with false hope.
The product was clearly labeled not for human consumption. They chose a dose out of the clear blue sky. They weren't even sick. But the press is: very sick. This is a culture that will remove useful--even life-saving--products from the public sphere if unsupervised children of any age might hurt themselves by wildly misusing it.
Therefore if a couple in Arizona saw him on TV, noticed that their aquarium cleaner had a similar active ingredient, and ate from 10-20x the maximum recommended experimental dose (news articles have been talking about max 500mg, whereas they each swallowed a teaspoon, which is nearly 5 grams or 4000 mg), clearly President Trump killed them with false hope.
The product was clearly labeled not for human consumption. They chose a dose out of the clear blue sky. They weren't even sick. But the press is: very sick. This is a culture that will remove useful--even life-saving--products from the public sphere if unsupervised children of any age might hurt themselves by wildly misusing it.
Western Swing I
Some recommendations from Gringo. I'll put up Tom's in another post later.
Keep the recommendations coming and we'll do a series.
Keep the recommendations coming and we'll do a series.
Oxford: No Need to Panic
A new study from Oxford puts the hospitalization rate at about one in a thousand.
Repression
The French are doing it again.
France went into lockdown on March 17. The administrative state immediately generated an array of bureaucratic forms: a certificate to leave your house to walk the dog or go shopping; a certificate justifying your attendance at work rather than working from home. These certificates are to be carried on your person at all times and produced on demand by the authorities. As of this morning ‘confinement’ is being notched up again. Village and municipal food markets are to shut; leaving your house for shopping or exercise is limited to one hour and can take place no more than one kilometer from your home. The time of departure from your house is to be indicated on a certificate. Any infringement is to be punished by a minimum fine of €135 ($145), which rises to €1,500 ($1,615) for repeat offenders.Our own experience is mostly that the right response to this business is to eliminate layers of government rather than adding them. Bureaucracy isn't helping, and it isn't helpful.
Leverage
I'm trying to figure out whether Majority Whip Clyburn (D.-S.C.) really told participants in a conference call: "This is a tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.” It's widely reported on right-ish sites, but attributed only to an anonymous participant in the call. The fact-checking sites and CNN have never heard of it at all, not mentioning it in any way, even to dispute it. This makes my antenna creep up: wouldn't Snopes normally have issued either a flat denial, or at least a weak attempt to "put it in context"? Why doesn't Clyburn deny it? Are the press afraid even to ask him about it?
There continue to be sporadic reports that the senators are "close to a deal." Pelosi is pounding the airwaves with the idea that Republicans are poisoning the stimulus package with pills. The rest of the country is howling about holding up relief checks for collective bargaining concessions, airline carbon emission limits, wind and solar subsidies, and corporate board gender quotas. The Pelosi poison-pill argument, when it's explained at all, has to do with insufficient "oversight" of bailouts to employers. That's an argument that could get some traction, unless "oversight" means things like corporate board gender quotas. President Trump strongly signaled that he'd like to see restrictions on using helicopter money to do stock buy-backs. Okay.
I'm in about the position I was in when we were rushing through the 2008 "stimulus." I hoped at the time it would help and not hurt too much. To this day I don't really know. If Pelosi kills this one, I guess we'll see what it's like not to print money for a change, but there's going to have to be some serious relief for people holed up at home needing groceries and lacking paychecks or savings. Maybe not for a few weeks, but certainly if this goes on for months.
When You Can, Buy Ammo
A friend who has until now not been a gun owner bought a shotgun. It's a 2/3" chambered Mossberg. There's no ammunition for it, not nationwide.
Lay the stuff in when you can, again. It gets short fast.
Lay the stuff in when you can, again. It gets short fast.
The World Loves a Working Man
It is somewhat humbling, or ought to be, to realize that the world would be just fine if you stayed home for a month... or forever.
For Gringo
Et al.
We should do some Western Swing for a while. Hit the comments with recommendations.
We should do some Western Swing for a while. Hit the comments with recommendations.
National Puppy Day
Normally I would not countenance foolishness like ‘national days’ (months, etc) of any kind, but just now I’m inclined to an exception in a good cause.
Niche angst
A/k/a, per a commenter, the "exhausting theatre of pretending to be tortured by minor, everyday events." An exquisitely woke rumination from the Guardian: this is apparently what happens to people who don't want to do work they find distasteful and don't want to hire anyone else to do it, either.
As another commenter said, "I'm beginning to think that our feminists don't really understand how labor markets work." But then again, who does?
Manhattan Project, part II
We may not be able to "flatten the curve" fast enough, but we still have time to get serious about expanding the number of beds.
Kill all the lawyers
Okay, we can be nicer about it, let's just eliminate some of their ability to wreak havoc and gum up the works. Part of Congress's emergency legislation eliminates tort liability for N95 masks provided to healthcare workers, thus freeing up manufacturers like 3M to start flooding the market with them.
There are some approaches to an emergency that don't have out-of-pocket costs. Later we can argue over whether the fear of tort liability might have prevented a manufacturer from cutting corners. Right now I just want to see the masks, and without the inevitable explanation that it will require months to grind through to the regulatory approval process. It's time to mow some of these guys down, and that goes equally for the people looking to hit the jackpot if they wore a mask and it wasn't 100% effective in protecting them from every conceivable risk in life.
We're going to need the same approach to vaccines and other treatments.
There are some approaches to an emergency that don't have out-of-pocket costs. Later we can argue over whether the fear of tort liability might have prevented a manufacturer from cutting corners. Right now I just want to see the masks, and without the inevitable explanation that it will require months to grind through to the regulatory approval process. It's time to mow some of these guys down, and that goes equally for the people looking to hit the jackpot if they wore a mask and it wasn't 100% effective in protecting them from every conceivable risk in life.
We're going to need the same approach to vaccines and other treatments.
Astra and dis-astra
Socialized medicine: free, universal, and rationed
I continue to hope our unusual President will slash enough red tape to balloon supplies of things like ventilators in time to do some good. In the meantime, we're getting a crash course in rationing by "triage officers" and in budget trade-offs.
I keep reading that the U.S. has fewer hospital beds per capita than many EU countries, even Italy. The more important metric, however, may be ICU beds, where we're not doing so badly: 3 times as many as Italy, 5 times as many as the UK. Nevertheless, New York is in for a rough ride, though I'm encouraged to see that they're whole-heartedly trying chloroquine and other promising antivirals, supplies of which so far appear to be holding up.
I keep reading that the U.S. has fewer hospital beds per capita than many EU countries, even Italy. The more important metric, however, may be ICU beds, where we're not doing so badly: 3 times as many as Italy, 5 times as many as the UK. Nevertheless, New York is in for a rough ride, though I'm encouraged to see that they're whole-heartedly trying chloroquine and other promising antivirals, supplies of which so far appear to be holding up.
Evidence-based decision-making
This fellow seems to have his head screwed on straight. He advocates concentrating on isolating on those at the highest risk of COVID complications, while letting everyone else go back to school and work. He gets there by looking carefully at what measures have been tried in different countries, and what effect they had on both general spread and, more important, contributing to a crushing load on hospitals. There's also some welcome attention to scary theories about air-borne transmission and likelihood of infection from casual contact, which bears on how effective careful hand-washing and surface-sanitizing can be even if we end the lockdown before we destroy the economy. He also argues that the biggest danger to the economy is fear, not of the virus, but of what the government may do next.
Derangement
My neighborhood Facebook feed is not much nuttier than usual. People are jumpy about groceries, but not too much. There's some of the argument we're seeing nationwide over whether we're over- or under-reacting. Less D-vs.-R quarreling than usual, I'd say.
It's a different story at the sole Project Gutenberg forum devoted to politics, which are ruthlessly repressed elsewhere on the site. It turns out that PG devotees are about 95% hair-on-fire socialists with a terminal case of TDS. For a few weeks I've been conducting an experiment to see whether civil discourse is possible, which wasn't going well even before the virus panic started. In the last few days I've been posting the occasional semi-good-news story about potentially encouraging approaches to treatment regimens or re-tooling production to focus on medical shortages. The response is a nearly unanimous blast of close-minded hostility.
An interesting aspect is the level of proof demanded, depending on the story. The initial reaction to reports that chloroquine studies were surprisingly hopeful was to attack the "right wing" sources. A moderately sane member was kind enough to find palatable French-media sources confirming the essential story, but the dominant message then became that Fake News was a horrifying scourge to be avoided at all costs, and we won't know a single thing about treatments until every bureaucrat on the planet has had time to commission lengthy studies. To say otherwise is to be a science-denier who jumps to ignorant conclusions, like you-know-who.
When news hit about the senators who dumped their stocks before the DOW collapsed, however, a different standard of truth came out. Suddenly suspicion was as good as proof. Even odder, when I posted a link to a Reuter's report about Novartis donating 130MM doses of chloroquine, the responses ranged from an assumption (definitely no proof needed) that Trump had bought stock in the company, which was cynically trying to buy good PR by giving the drug away, to a worried concern about all those poor people who already depended on chloroquine to treat their rheumatoid arthritis, and were immunocompromised so were at greater risk of contracting the virus.
I could point out that all those poor RA patients may find that they've inadvertently been taking an effective virus prophylactic, but why bother? It's clear to me now that this PG crowd are among the people I've recently come to understand as being more wedded to their problems than to their solutions. It's what Eric Fromme used to call the "yes, but" conversation. I decided a couple of years ago that you can only help so many people, and the first ones that need to be triaged to a quiet, dark corner of the ER are the ones who don't really want an improvement, only a subjective validation of their own rage and disappointment.
It's a different story at the sole Project Gutenberg forum devoted to politics, which are ruthlessly repressed elsewhere on the site. It turns out that PG devotees are about 95% hair-on-fire socialists with a terminal case of TDS. For a few weeks I've been conducting an experiment to see whether civil discourse is possible, which wasn't going well even before the virus panic started. In the last few days I've been posting the occasional semi-good-news story about potentially encouraging approaches to treatment regimens or re-tooling production to focus on medical shortages. The response is a nearly unanimous blast of close-minded hostility.
An interesting aspect is the level of proof demanded, depending on the story. The initial reaction to reports that chloroquine studies were surprisingly hopeful was to attack the "right wing" sources. A moderately sane member was kind enough to find palatable French-media sources confirming the essential story, but the dominant message then became that Fake News was a horrifying scourge to be avoided at all costs, and we won't know a single thing about treatments until every bureaucrat on the planet has had time to commission lengthy studies. To say otherwise is to be a science-denier who jumps to ignorant conclusions, like you-know-who.
When news hit about the senators who dumped their stocks before the DOW collapsed, however, a different standard of truth came out. Suddenly suspicion was as good as proof. Even odder, when I posted a link to a Reuter's report about Novartis donating 130MM doses of chloroquine, the responses ranged from an assumption (definitely no proof needed) that Trump had bought stock in the company, which was cynically trying to buy good PR by giving the drug away, to a worried concern about all those poor people who already depended on chloroquine to treat their rheumatoid arthritis, and were immunocompromised so were at greater risk of contracting the virus.
I could point out that all those poor RA patients may find that they've inadvertently been taking an effective virus prophylactic, but why bother? It's clear to me now that this PG crowd are among the people I've recently come to understand as being more wedded to their problems than to their solutions. It's what Eric Fromme used to call the "yes, but" conversation. I decided a couple of years ago that you can only help so many people, and the first ones that need to be triaged to a quiet, dark corner of the ER are the ones who don't really want an improvement, only a subjective validation of their own rage and disappointment.
The Crannogs
H/t Instapundit for this article on Scotland's ancient crannogs.
Artificial islands commonly known as crannogs dot hundreds of Scottish and Irish lakes and waterways. Until now, researchers thought most were built when people in the Iron Age (800-43 B.C.) created stone causeways and dwellings in the middle of bodies of water. But a new paper published today in the journal Antiquity suggests that at least some of Scotland’s nearly 600 crannogs are much, much older—nearly three thousand years older—putting them firmly in the Neolithic era. What’s more, the artifacts that help push back the date of the crannogs into the far deeper past may also point to a kind of behavior not previously suspected in this prehistoric period....
But why were Neolithic people tossing their “good china” off of artificial islets? Without direct accounts from the time period, archaeologists can only speculate as to why the crannogs were built, how they were used, and why they became places for pottery disposal. Garrow and his colleagues surmise they were used for feasting, another unknown set of religious or social rituals, or both.
The Gambler
Rest in peace, Kenny Rogers.
He was one of the fixtures of my youth, which coincided with the height of his career in the place where he was most popular.
UPDATE: I did not realize that he had a career in psychedelic rock, but this famous song was apparently an early hit of his. Some of you 'old rockers' may like it.
He was one of the fixtures of my youth, which coincided with the height of his career in the place where he was most popular.
UPDATE: I did not realize that he had a career in psychedelic rock, but this famous song was apparently an early hit of his. Some of you 'old rockers' may like it.
The Media Has Gone Mad
It turns out that medicines can kill you if you overdose, which I think everyone in the world knew. Tylenol can destroy your liver, but it's for sale over the counter in every drug store, gas station, and grocery store in America.
Manhattan Project-style
A few days ago, the President "invoked" the Defense Production Act, leaving some question in the press whether he has actually "used" it yet. The New York Post is reporting, however, that President Trump took a call from Senator Schumer formally requesting DPA action to spur the manufacture of ventilators and personal protective equipment, and was heard to agree and to instruct a subordinate to make it so.
More good news: Novartis plans to donate up to 130 million doses of chloroquine worldwide by the end of May. A little slow, but a scale that's starting to approximate what we'll need.
PS, I'd hope we could "embrace the power of and" concerning this constant rhetorical battle over whether we should be optimistic about the reports of useful treatments, or focus on obtaining solid data from double-blind tests. I'd like proof as much as the next guy, but we can do more than one thing at a time. It would be unbearably stupid to put off large-scale use of chloroquine while we conduct leisurely double-blind studies and write them up for the journals. We can already be reasonably sure we're not doing violence to the balance of benefit and harm by giving hospitalized SARS sufferers chloroquine, because the risk of suffocation is already known to be extremely high, while the risk of the drug is already known to be extremely low. Neither is 100%, but that's not the point.
More good news: Novartis plans to donate up to 130 million doses of chloroquine worldwide by the end of May. A little slow, but a scale that's starting to approximate what we'll need.
PS, I'd hope we could "embrace the power of and" concerning this constant rhetorical battle over whether we should be optimistic about the reports of useful treatments, or focus on obtaining solid data from double-blind tests. I'd like proof as much as the next guy, but we can do more than one thing at a time. It would be unbearably stupid to put off large-scale use of chloroquine while we conduct leisurely double-blind studies and write them up for the journals. We can already be reasonably sure we're not doing violence to the balance of benefit and harm by giving hospitalized SARS sufferers chloroquine, because the risk of suffocation is already known to be extremely high, while the risk of the drug is already known to be extremely low. Neither is 100%, but that's not the point.
Good stat source
"Watts Up With That" now posts this daily worldwide virus summary. Two things to note: the scales are logarithmic, so a hopeful sign is a curve under 45%, but of course any convex curve beats a concave one. Also, this is deaths per million of population, not the case fatality rate. I prefer the former, because we still have no real grasp of the total number of cases, but we can get a pretty good handle (except in countries we suspect of straight-up lying to us) about both the total deaths and the total population. That rate will of course confound two variables: the cases per population (spread), and the death rate for cases (severity/efficacy of medical system/health of population), but that's the breaks.
From the same source, here is a far more informative than usual recap of the prospects for treatment with chloroquine and remdesivir. I believe there are interesting things happening with convalescent serum, too, though those are hard to scale. Most of these treatments have problems with either evolved resistance, cost, or scalability that mean they will be most helpful in buying time while we work on an effective vaccine. Still, my biggest concern at the moment is finding an approach that relieves our fear of crashing the medical system enough to let most of us go back to work supporting the prosperity that enables us to have a first-class medical system in the first place. If we have to give up on the medical system, we might as well let the virus rip, accept the losses, and remember what it was like to live a century ago, because you can't stop producing essential goods for fear of every contagion out there.
From the same source, here is a far more informative than usual recap of the prospects for treatment with chloroquine and remdesivir. I believe there are interesting things happening with convalescent serum, too, though those are hard to scale. Most of these treatments have problems with either evolved resistance, cost, or scalability that mean they will be most helpful in buying time while we work on an effective vaccine. Still, my biggest concern at the moment is finding an approach that relieves our fear of crashing the medical system enough to let most of us go back to work supporting the prosperity that enables us to have a first-class medical system in the first place. If we have to give up on the medical system, we might as well let the virus rip, accept the losses, and remember what it was like to live a century ago, because you can't stop producing essential goods for fear of every contagion out there.
Old Norse Handwashing
Dr. Crawford offers a couple of stanzas from the Havamal that will take about twenty seconds to recite, if you care to learn a bit of the language.
The dog that hasn't barked
This is puzzling. An L.A. writers makes the reasonable case that the city's homeless population is a coronavirus explosion waiting to happen. The question is, why hasn't it exploded already? Is it really taking that long for the disease to spread to L.A.?
If it weren't for Italy's experience, I'd be more skeptical than I am that this thing is spreading as fast as we feared. Washington looked like a special case. New York is disquieting, though.
If it weren't for Italy's experience, I'd be more skeptical than I am that this thing is spreading as fast as we feared. Washington looked like a special case. New York is disquieting, though.
Knock It Off, Lady
Headline: "The Coronovirus is a Disaster for Feminism."
Thesis: Yes, men die at much higher rates from this disease, but the real tragedy is that more women will have to care for their own children instead of pursuing paid employment or great works.
That may not be universal, but it's certainly on the menu. If you've actually got a great work in you, and not that many people do, you can work it out. If you don't, you know, you'll probably appreciate the time you spent with your kids more than the time you spent at work. When you finally get to a place where you can reflect on what really mattered about your life, you'll be glad of that time.
Thesis: Yes, men die at much higher rates from this disease, but the real tragedy is that more women will have to care for their own children instead of pursuing paid employment or great works.
When people try to be cheerful about social distancing and working from home, noting that William Shakespeare and Isaac Newton did some of their best work while England was ravaged by the plague, there is an obvious response: Neither of them had child-care responsibilities.My sister's husband -- a great guy, this guy, who appears to have majored in college in 'being cool' and then built a life around it -- is the one watching their child all day every day. They won't even let my mother do it, though she's just down the street, out of a desire to keep her quarantined.
That may not be universal, but it's certainly on the menu. If you've actually got a great work in you, and not that many people do, you can work it out. If you don't, you know, you'll probably appreciate the time you spent with your kids more than the time you spent at work. When you finally get to a place where you can reflect on what really mattered about your life, you'll be glad of that time.
"Survival Necessities"
An email from Cold Steel.
I suppose I might need a 1917 Naval cutlass. If things get bad enough, piracy is always an option.
I suppose I might need a 1917 Naval cutlass. If things get bad enough, piracy is always an option.
Goodbye, Senator
One of my new Senators -- new to me since I moved here, I mean, he's been in office entirely too long -- is Richard Burr.
(a) The replacement must be of the same party, and,
(b) Must be chosen from a list of three people selected by that party's leadership.
So there's really nothing to lose in pushing him out. It's all upside.
By the way, the other Senator who chose personal profit over warning the public about the dangers was the one that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp appointed instead of Doug Collins. Kemp's a skunk too, as we were just discussing, and here's evidence that skunks run in packs. Fortunately there is an actual election in Georgia,and the Republican primary is right around the corner. If you're a Republican voter and citizen of Georgia, you should definitely pick Collins to run in the general in November. [Correction: the Senate Special Election will not have a primary, but will feature all candidates from all parties on 3 November. --Grim]
Also, get rid of Kemp when you can. That's my advice.
UPDATE: In researching the Senate Special Election, I discovered that one of the candidates is a man I know personally, Richard Dien Winfield. Don't vote for him. He's a nice guy, but the kind of political philosopher who thinks that the Wise should rule over all of you, and assign guaranteed employement jobs that befit your talents as assessed by them, etc. He should continue teaching Hegel, which he is as good at as anyone in the world, and not move to D.C.
UPDATE: Ah. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the Senator appointed by Kemp, is married to -- wait for it -- the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. That explains why it seemed plausible to Kemp to appoint a non-native Georgian to a Senate seat. Everybody explained that in terms of 'trying to appeal to the white suburban female demographic' or 'trying to appeal to the large transplant population in Atlanta,' but it still seemed amazing that a recent transplant with no longstanding ties to the state who had never held any other political office would be appointed to the Senate. Now it makes perfect sense.
Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., dumped stock holdings worth millions ahead of the market plunge that began in February after they received briefings on the coronavirus, according to published reports Thursday.If you're worried about the state of the Senate should he resign, you need not be. Under NC law, if there is a vacancy in the Senate unexpectedly the governor does appoint his replacement, but...
Burr, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, sold the stocks on Feb. 13, ProPublica reported, citing disclosure filings.
Loeffler began dumping shares Jan. 24, after a private briefing for senators from administration officials, including the CDC director and Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institutes of Health, the Daily Beast reported.
Shares of the companies whose stocks she sold are down an average of 33%, since then, according to the report. Loeffler's sales totaled between $1,275,000 and $3,100,000, according to the report.
On Feb. 7, Burr wrote in an op-ed co-authored with Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., that “the United States today is better prepared than ever before to face emerging public health threats, like the coronavirus, in large part due to the work of the Senate Health Committee, Congress, and the Trump Administration.”
Earlier Thursday, NPR reported that Burr offered a far more dire forecast in comments in late February to a private luncheon organized by the Tar Heel Circle.
He warned that travel restrictions, school closures and military involvement could all come to pass, as indeed they have.
(a) The replacement must be of the same party, and,
(b) Must be chosen from a list of three people selected by that party's leadership.
So there's really nothing to lose in pushing him out. It's all upside.
By the way, the other Senator who chose personal profit over warning the public about the dangers was the one that Georgia Governor Brian Kemp appointed instead of Doug Collins. Kemp's a skunk too, as we were just discussing, and here's evidence that skunks run in packs. Fortunately there is an actual election in Georgia,
Also, get rid of Kemp when you can. That's my advice.
UPDATE: In researching the Senate Special Election, I discovered that one of the candidates is a man I know personally, Richard Dien Winfield. Don't vote for him. He's a nice guy, but the kind of political philosopher who thinks that the Wise should rule over all of you, and assign guaranteed employement jobs that befit your talents as assessed by them, etc. He should continue teaching Hegel, which he is as good at as anyone in the world, and not move to D.C.
UPDATE: Ah. Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the Senator appointed by Kemp, is married to -- wait for it -- the Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. That explains why it seemed plausible to Kemp to appoint a non-native Georgian to a Senate seat. Everybody explained that in terms of 'trying to appeal to the white suburban female demographic' or 'trying to appeal to the large transplant population in Atlanta,' but it still seemed amazing that a recent transplant with no longstanding ties to the state who had never held any other political office would be appointed to the Senate. Now it makes perfect sense.
Even more like this
Not only does the old malaria drug chloroquine work surprisingly well against novel coronavirus, but it's generic, cheap, and widely available. The FDA still isn't willing to go out on a limb saying it's a treatment whose benefits clearly outweigh its risks, but President Trump is leaning hard on them not to get in the way. Sure, we need some traditional, slow double-blind studies. In the meantime, doctors are free to prescribe existing approved drugs for off-label uses in their own discretion. This one's results in Asia were so promising that people in influential positions, including NY Gov. Cuomo, are clamoring for it, and manufacturers already have taken the hint.
We should be able to see a pattern where identifiable populations are taking prophylactic malaria treatments.
We should be able to see a pattern where identifiable populations are taking prophylactic malaria treatments.
Equinox
Surprisingly, the spring equinox is earlier this year than it's been in a long time. Today does in fact feel like the first day of spring, too: whereas it's been hinting at spring for a while, today is genuinely warm.
We are burning gathered brush and deadwood today to create a kind of natural charcoal fertilizer for a garden patch. In the next few days we will turn over the earth, and begin planting as the weather indicates.
A Place Called Papa Joe's
If you didn't happen to know Billy Joe Shaver, well, you probably should. He is one of the great songwriters of the Outlaw Country era. He almost single-handedly wrote Waylon Jenning's best album, "Honky Tonk Heroes." Now this fellow once got into a little trouble in a place called Papa Joe's. This place:
You should probably think twice about messing with anybody when you're in a place like that, but not everybody does. Billy Joe was an old man by then -- heading to his third divorce with the same woman -- and a younger man decided he could bull the old guy. Well, sometimes that works.
Not every time.
Dale Watson wrote a song about it.
Whitey Morgan's version has easier to understand lyrics, although I don't like the instrumentation as well:
Here's Billy Joe explaining what happened, except that nobody but him thinks the other guy had a gun -- all the evidence presented in court had the other guy with a knife. A knife is of course quite as dangerous as a gun in the right hands; at the right range, more dangerous.
Then, once he won the court case, Billy Joe wrote a song about it too. Willie Nelson pitched in.
If you're really seated in the tradition you'll know that Willie's "don't cross him/ don't boss him" language comes from his own best album, 1975's "Red Headed Stranger" about a preacher who killed his wife and her lover in the year of 1901. It's quite a compliment, in its way. In another way, perhaps less so.
You should probably think twice about messing with anybody when you're in a place like that, but not everybody does. Billy Joe was an old man by then -- heading to his third divorce with the same woman -- and a younger man decided he could bull the old guy. Well, sometimes that works.
Not every time.
Dale Watson wrote a song about it.
Whitey Morgan's version has easier to understand lyrics, although I don't like the instrumentation as well:
Here's Billy Joe explaining what happened, except that nobody but him thinks the other guy had a gun -- all the evidence presented in court had the other guy with a knife. A knife is of course quite as dangerous as a gun in the right hands; at the right range, more dangerous.
Then, once he won the court case, Billy Joe wrote a song about it too. Willie Nelson pitched in.
If you're really seated in the tradition you'll know that Willie's "don't cross him/ don't boss him" language comes from his own best album, 1975's "Red Headed Stranger" about a preacher who killed his wife and her lover in the year of 1901. It's quite a compliment, in its way. In another way, perhaps less so.
Per Hypothesis
Scientists claim they have proven Darwin's theory of natural selection. They are still wrestling with a problem that bothered Darwin himself.
If we really applied the same rules, we would cash out our non-scientific notions of 'different races' in terms of subspecies. Then you would have one human species that can interbreed freely amongst itself; but different subspecies whose different traits arose in different ranges (and often just because of Darwinian natural selection, which favored darker skin or eyes in this environment and lighter skin or eyes in that one).
But of course that cannot be done now for the reverse reason that it could not be done then. Now we have a social imperative to pretend that there are no differences at all instead of the social imperative to pretend that the differences were essential and insurmountable. This is called "progress," but in terms of intellectually accepting the consequences of Darwinian theory it leaves us in exactly the same place.
A species is a group of animals that can interbreed freely amongst themselves.Darwin got as far as declaring that the different races were not different species; but he definitely engaged the idea that there were such things as races, and that they must have some sort of biological origin. Just because he was eliminating distinctions between humanity and the rest of the animal kingdom, it only makes sense within his theory to apply the same rules.
Some species contain subspecies – populations within a species that differ from each other with different physical traits and their own breeding ranges.
Northern giraffes have three subspecies that usually live in different locations to each other, while red foxes have the most subspecies – 45 known varieties – spread all over the world.
Humans have no subspecies.
If we really applied the same rules, we would cash out our non-scientific notions of 'different races' in terms of subspecies. Then you would have one human species that can interbreed freely amongst itself; but different subspecies whose different traits arose in different ranges (and often just because of Darwinian natural selection, which favored darker skin or eyes in this environment and lighter skin or eyes in that one).
But of course that cannot be done now for the reverse reason that it could not be done then. Now we have a social imperative to pretend that there are no differences at all instead of the social imperative to pretend that the differences were essential and insurmountable. This is called "progress," but in terms of intellectually accepting the consequences of Darwinian theory it leaves us in exactly the same place.
This is what I like to see
More like this, as Instapundit says: factories shift production to emergency items in short supply.
Anatomy of a Love Song
This is Homer & Jethro, if you don't know them. They were a big influence on Billy Joe Shaver, whom you ought to know.
Xi Hu, Hangzhou
I have climbed the pagoda in this photograph, many years ago when we lived in China. The photo is from Xi Hu, literally "West Lake," near the town of Hangzhou, once capital of the Southern Song Dynasty.
Another Book Recommendation
Mike got me thinking about stretching out and exploring even more chili recipes, so I dug out an old cookbook somebody bought me as a gift some years ago. It's a very good one. I have only minor quibbles with it, and I think I might have gotten my "Deviled Beef" chili from it originally (although the version in the book is quite different from mine as it has evolved, and as I wrote it up here a few days ago).
The book is The Chili Cookbook by Robb Walsh. It contains the oldest surviving chili recipe (a lobster chili encountered by Spanish explorers on the coast of what would come to be known as Latin America). It contains Native American recipes, New Mexican recipes, Texan recipes, and then a whole lot of regional American variations.
I made one last night that I'm just trying today, now that the flavors have melded overnight. It's a classic Texas "Bowl of Red" style recipe, with no peppers in it stronger than ancho, and otherwise just paprika. It was still spicy enough to cause the wife to load it down with sour cream though, because it uses a whole two ounces of ancho in the pot. Of course you can always add more of whatever you want, as I always say when talking about recipes.
The book is The Chili Cookbook by Robb Walsh. It contains the oldest surviving chili recipe (a lobster chili encountered by Spanish explorers on the coast of what would come to be known as Latin America). It contains Native American recipes, New Mexican recipes, Texan recipes, and then a whole lot of regional American variations.
I made one last night that I'm just trying today, now that the flavors have melded overnight. It's a classic Texas "Bowl of Red" style recipe, with no peppers in it stronger than ancho, and otherwise just paprika. It was still spicy enough to cause the wife to load it down with sour cream though, because it uses a whole two ounces of ancho in the pot. Of course you can always add more of whatever you want, as I always say when talking about recipes.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
In honor of the day, and since many of us are looking for new reading material, how about an introduction to an Irish hero of Robert E. Howard’s? For those of you who prefer Vikings, he sails with a crew of Danish pirates. For those who prefer Arthurian stories, the timeframe is supposed to be during the reign of Arthur.
It’s not Howard’s greatest work all the same; it’s more like the drive-in movie Sword & Sorcery films than like the great ones. It will definitely bother you insofar as you are a stickler for historical accuracy. But they’re fun tales if you have read all the Conan stories and want something Irish for the day.
UPDATE: The Dropkick Murphys are doing a free online concert tonight in place of their annual St. Patrick's Day show. If you're interested, it starts at 1900 Romeo, i.e., 7 PM Boston time.
It’s not Howard’s greatest work all the same; it’s more like the drive-in movie Sword & Sorcery films than like the great ones. It will definitely bother you insofar as you are a stickler for historical accuracy. But they’re fun tales if you have read all the Conan stories and want something Irish for the day.
UPDATE: The Dropkick Murphys are doing a free online concert tonight in place of their annual St. Patrick's Day show. If you're interested, it starts at 1900 Romeo, i.e., 7 PM Boston time.
The End of the Russian Part of the Russian Saga
Prosecutors abandon trying to prove that the Mueller-indicted Russians were guilty of the alleged crimes. The Russians were eager to contest the charges and demanded their day in court rapidly. The US government delayed and delayed, and now has decided to drop the prosecution.
The US has already abandoned the claim in open court that the Russian government had anything to do with the indicted Russians.
The US has already abandoned the claim in open court that the Russian government had anything to do with the indicted Russians.
Universal Basic Income
In the end, it wasn't Andrew Yang or Bernie Sanders, but Mitt Romney who seems most likely to bring UBI to America.
Trial by Jury
Another traditional liberty that is under immediate threat is the right to a speedy trial by jury. A friend in New Orleans sent this order from the courts suspending all jury trials, effective immediately:
Presumably if you're not interested in a jury trial you can ask for a bench trial; otherwise, you're just to sit in jail indefinitely, at increased risk of infection since you can't get away from anyone who might be sick.
In Athens, Georgia, the local sheriff's office is getting calls that follow this script:
Presumably if you're not interested in a jury trial you can ask for a bench trial; otherwise, you're just to sit in jail indefinitely, at increased risk of infection since you can't get away from anyone who might be sick.
In Athens, Georgia, the local sheriff's office is getting calls that follow this script:
"Hi, My name is _____ may I speak to either the Sheriff or Deputy Sheriff? Thank you, I am calling to express my concerns about the jail as a local liability putting us all at increased risk if we do not take necessary precautions in the wake of COVID-19. Please begin the immediate release of all bondable pre-trial inmates and all inmates with less than 60 days remaining in their sentence. Additionally, cease new bookings in order to eliminate the risk of someone carrying the virus from exposing the jail population and your staff to the virus. Lastly, please publicize the jail's COVID-19 Response Plan When can the community plan to see this critical information? Thank you in advance for your swift response during these dangerous times."Indefinite suspension of trial by jury does seem like a clear violation of the 6th Amendment. If I were a lawyer with clients in that jail, I would be protesting that the courts ought to dismiss charges against my clients rather than engage in a systemic violation of basic rights. But again, the courts are likely to try to find a way to read this as constitutional.
Libertarians in foxholes
We're amassing enough data to fuel a decade's worth of research on what kinds of government intervention helps and what kind hurts. It's almost as if we needed to figure out the proper role of government before we decide how big it needs to be in each context.
The incomparable Richard Fernandez
Did you know there was a debate last night? Jonah Goldberg wishes they'd let the two B's carry on while feeding pigeons from park benches.
Even in fabled Atlantis, the night the ocean engulfed itThe last commenter on the thread notes that capitalism in a crisis functions about as well as socialism on a random Tuesday.
The drowning still cried out for their gender quotas.
Outlaw Country
Uh-oh. Headline: "Nashville Business Owners Defy Mayor and Remain Open! – Say Order to Close Bars and Restaurants on Broadway Is UNCONSTITUTIONAL."
It probably would have been better to avoid this stress test. The courts are likely to try to find some way to declare it constitutional, given that public health is so neatly concerned with it. But it's done now. Is it constitutional for the US government to deny what are usually ordinary basic liberties, given the presence of a pandemic that is also epidemic? How far do emergency powers go in voiding constitutional liberties?
That's going to be an interesting set of questions. It'll be an interesting set of answers, too.
It probably would have been better to avoid this stress test. The courts are likely to try to find some way to declare it constitutional, given that public health is so neatly concerned with it. But it's done now. Is it constitutional for the US government to deny what are usually ordinary basic liberties, given the presence of a pandemic that is also epidemic? How far do emergency powers go in voiding constitutional liberties?
That's going to be an interesting set of questions. It'll be an interesting set of answers, too.
Crisis Can Cut Through the Propaganda, Sometimes
So we all know people have been stocking up on, of all things, toilet paper in many areas. Of course also many other things, first among them dry goods, OTC meds, and of course soap and cleaning products (including Everclear). Some people, seeing the lack of preparedness among their neighbors, and how easily they are spooked into panic, have suddenly come to see the wisdom of perhaps owning a firearm- just in case.
He's going to be a bit disappointed to discover that there is a 10-day waiting period in California. I suspect gun rights support is going to grow as a result of all this, even here in deep blue Los Angeles. At least, one hopes.
Guns were also a popular item among panic-driven shoppers on Saturday.At Martin B. Retting Gun Shop in Culver City, a line of prospective customers stretched outside the door. Inside, they were shoulder to shoulder, waiting up to five hours for service. A fast-food truck was taking orders at the curb.The managers of the store declined to comment. It was a rare windfall of business for the store, but some people got tired of waiting and left empty handed.Among them was a medical doctor who would give only his first name, Ray. He said he’d come to buy his first gun.“I want to buy a handgun, I think they call it a Glock, but I’m not sure,” he said. “I have a house and a family, and they’ll need protection if things get worse.”“The fear,” he added, “is that civil services will break down.”
He's going to be a bit disappointed to discover that there is a 10-day waiting period in California. I suspect gun rights support is going to grow as a result of all this, even here in deep blue Los Angeles. At least, one hopes.
A Propos Odes and Totalitarianism
Ian Miles Cheong tweeted this tidbit a few hours ago:
Chinese authorities are finally opening the sealed apartments. There are countless dead.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1239100397597253633
The video is a bit...serious.
Cheong got his stuff from Jennifer Zeng, a New York blogger who seems to be an emigre from the Republic of China.
If this is even remotely typical of those sealed apartments, Zeng's characterization of the CPC as Evil is a gross understatement.
Eric Hines
Chinese authorities are finally opening the sealed apartments. There are countless dead.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1239100397597253633
The video is a bit...serious.
Cheong got his stuff from Jennifer Zeng, a New York blogger who seems to be an emigre from the Republic of China.
If this is even remotely typical of those sealed apartments, Zeng's characterization of the CPC as Evil is a gross understatement.
Eric Hines
Pandemics and the Vikings
Why not tie two of our current interests together? Here is a brief historic survey of Viking encounters (and near misses) with grand-scale historic disease.
Ode to Totalitarianism
An associate professor of music wants you to know how much safer he felt in China.
In fact the United States has managed, without a central authority -- in spite of the failures of our central government's ossified bureaucracies -- to lock itself down nearly as effectively as China. Schools and universities are canceling classes or shifting to online models for a while; sports leagues are forgoing millions in revenue to shut down their games. Nobody's making us do it, but we've done it anyway.
It does require more of us as citizens. I spent a lot of last week contacting government officials to urge appropriate action. And you can't just call the Federal elected officials: the real decisions are being made at the local and state level right now. Our local school board fought tooth and nail to avoid closing, as did the state department of education. As of yesterday afternoon they reaffirmed their intent to resume classes Monday morning, though the admitted that no one would be required to come given that the governor has declared a state of emergency. Finally, today, they gave in and canceled classes for the rest of the month.
Now we've got other problems, and we'll have to each do our part to get through it. But we are getting through it, and we are doing it ourselves, like free men and women.
Before you decide that a totalitarian central government is the way to make you feel safe, too, you should reflect on what they're doing to the people they don't like.
Maybe you're safer being free, too. Although I suppose an associate professor of music who was willing to speak well of the regime might have a high social credit score, you never can be sure what your masters will decide to dislike. The Cultural Revolution came for all sorts of intellectuals, just as it is now the Muslim minority that is being sent to the chopping block.
In China, the obligation to isolate felt shared and the public changed their habits almost immediately. Sterilization, cleanliness and social distancing were prioritized by everyone at all times. Rightly or wrongly, the Chinese state’s heavy-handed approach seemed to work.What's with the scare quotes around "rights"? Was the intention to suggest that many things we think of as rights aren't really, like the 'right' to go out to eat at a restaurant? Or was the intent to suggest that freedom of movement, independence, protections from having the government seize your property, these sorts of things aren't really rights? The piece is ambiguous.
In contrast, individual liberty is the engine that drives American exceptionalism. There are certainly valid questions about how much of it to sacrifice in the name of the public good, but our laissez-faire attitude, prioritization of personal freedom and utter lack of government leadership have left Americans confused and exposed.
Particularly troubling has been the extent to which it has felt like high-risk residents such as ourselves have had to shoulder the burden for stopping the spread of the disease by being the only ones to go into isolation. There are lessons to be learned from the Chinese people if not its leadership, including that everybody must accept their own responsibility, vulnerability and complicity — sacrificing “rights” for the collective good — or many of us will die.
In fact the United States has managed, without a central authority -- in spite of the failures of our central government's ossified bureaucracies -- to lock itself down nearly as effectively as China. Schools and universities are canceling classes or shifting to online models for a while; sports leagues are forgoing millions in revenue to shut down their games. Nobody's making us do it, but we've done it anyway.
It does require more of us as citizens. I spent a lot of last week contacting government officials to urge appropriate action. And you can't just call the Federal elected officials: the real decisions are being made at the local and state level right now. Our local school board fought tooth and nail to avoid closing, as did the state department of education. As of yesterday afternoon they reaffirmed their intent to resume classes Monday morning, though the admitted that no one would be required to come given that the governor has declared a state of emergency. Finally, today, they gave in and canceled classes for the rest of the month.
Now we've got other problems, and we'll have to each do our part to get through it. But we are getting through it, and we are doing it ourselves, like free men and women.
Before you decide that a totalitarian central government is the way to make you feel safe, too, you should reflect on what they're doing to the people they don't like.
Maybe you're safer being free, too. Although I suppose an associate professor of music who was willing to speak well of the regime might have a high social credit score, you never can be sure what your masters will decide to dislike. The Cultural Revolution came for all sorts of intellectuals, just as it is now the Muslim minority that is being sent to the chopping block.
What was their job again?
As we sort through the simultaneous complaints that the President is an autocratic tyrant who's failing to take personal control of enough important American institutions, I turn again to Doc Zero (a/k/a John Hayward):
I also wouldn't fault Trump too much for being surprised to learn the system actually has roadblocks that make quick and effective epidemic response difficult. Would you think, upon succeeding the president in charge during the H1N1 epidemic, that would be the case?
The fascinating thing about the Democrats' "Trump cut CDC funding" lie is that none of them bothered to actually READ the unimplemented White House budget proposal in question. It talked about CDC getting distracted from its core mission by excessive staff and bureaucratic creep.
Everything I've seen so far buttresses that analysis. There really is no excuse for a gigantic government swimming in money, bursting with personnel, and top-heavy with management to be paralyzed unless the chief executive comes in and micro-manages every agency.
Red Flags in Maryland
A police shooting.
A Maryland man who was shot and killed by a police officer was asleep in his bedroom when police opened fire from outside his house, an attorney for the 21-year-old man’s family said Friday. The man's girlfriend was also wounded....
The warrant that police obtained to search the Potomac home Lemp shared with his parents and 19-year-old brother doesn’t mention any “imminent threat” to law enforcement or the public, Lemp’s relatives said in a statement released Friday by their lawyers. Nobody in the house that morning had a criminal record, the statement adds.
"Exiled for the good of the realm"
I don't know about you guys, but I haven't had that much success getting useful diagnoses out of doctors, other than in really obscure cases requiring specialized tests. No matter how many doctors roll their eyes at "Dr. Google," most diagnoses occur at home. This flow-chart may be helpful:
It might be better to organize it differently, though. The main thing is whether there's fever or not, but evidently fever tends to appear with a suite of other symptoms: cough, fatigue, and prostration (but apparently not sneezing or a runny nose). If you're in this suite, the big difference between novel coronavirus and ordinary flu is said to be a distinct shortness of breath. Presumably this means the subjective feeling that accompanies a low pulse-ox, something I've experienced only once but won't soon forget.
If there's no fever, but you're sneezing and your nose is running, you probably have either allergies (especially if your eyes itch but your chest is OK) or a cold (especially if your chest is "uncomfortable" but your eyes don't itch).
I remain uncertain whether I've ever had the true flu. What do you call it when there's a little fever but not a lot, some weakness but not a huge amount, and a stuffy nose that turns into a moderate cough that goes on for a week or more? Is that what they mean by "mild chest discomfort"? Maybe all I've ever had were common colds. Maybe I don't need to know, since there's no useful way to treat either them or the flu, and my immune system is going to do its thing regardless of the state of my conscious knowledge. You treat the symptoms if possible, rest, and wait it out. This is the first time I can remember particularly needing to care, since putting what may be an ordinary seasonal cold or flu into the "coronavirus" category would mean a lot more urgency about either quarantine or--nightmare scenario--pushing the panic button and heading to an ER or ICU for respiratory support.
We're self-quarantining anyway, or at least socially isolating. It's the only useful way I know to do my part to keep the spread down, either to "flatten curve" in order to lessen the acute strain on medical facilities, or if possible to bring R0 under 1.0 so as to contain the spread completely.
My husband has just brought my attention to a much-needed distinction made by someone called "Ciaran's Artisanal ****posting": self-isolation is boring and clinical, suggesting that you're following the orders of a government, and a sure way for no one to notice your effort. Being "exiled for the good of the realm," however, is mysterious and sexy and will lead everyone to wonder what you did to deserve it.
It might be better to organize it differently, though. The main thing is whether there's fever or not, but evidently fever tends to appear with a suite of other symptoms: cough, fatigue, and prostration (but apparently not sneezing or a runny nose). If you're in this suite, the big difference between novel coronavirus and ordinary flu is said to be a distinct shortness of breath. Presumably this means the subjective feeling that accompanies a low pulse-ox, something I've experienced only once but won't soon forget.
If there's no fever, but you're sneezing and your nose is running, you probably have either allergies (especially if your eyes itch but your chest is OK) or a cold (especially if your chest is "uncomfortable" but your eyes don't itch).
I remain uncertain whether I've ever had the true flu. What do you call it when there's a little fever but not a lot, some weakness but not a huge amount, and a stuffy nose that turns into a moderate cough that goes on for a week or more? Is that what they mean by "mild chest discomfort"? Maybe all I've ever had were common colds. Maybe I don't need to know, since there's no useful way to treat either them or the flu, and my immune system is going to do its thing regardless of the state of my conscious knowledge. You treat the symptoms if possible, rest, and wait it out. This is the first time I can remember particularly needing to care, since putting what may be an ordinary seasonal cold or flu into the "coronavirus" category would mean a lot more urgency about either quarantine or--nightmare scenario--pushing the panic button and heading to an ER or ICU for respiratory support.
We're self-quarantining anyway, or at least socially isolating. It's the only useful way I know to do my part to keep the spread down, either to "flatten curve" in order to lessen the acute strain on medical facilities, or if possible to bring R0 under 1.0 so as to contain the spread completely.
My husband has just brought my attention to a much-needed distinction made by someone called "Ciaran's Artisanal ****posting": self-isolation is boring and clinical, suggesting that you're following the orders of a government, and a sure way for no one to notice your effort. Being "exiled for the good of the realm," however, is mysterious and sexy and will lead everyone to wonder what you did to deserve it.
Isolation Diary 2
So far I'm only doing these on the days when I break isolation. Today I went down to town for what I think will be the last time for a very long time. I've managed to arrange for everyone else on the property to stop having reasons to leave, but for one more trip, until the state of emergency is lifted or we run out of food. We have lots of food. Tomorrow I'll bottle up a few gallons of mead and get another batch started, so alcohol won't be a problem for a long time either.
In principle we could ride out two months here. In practice, I'll probably ride out when the weather is nice. One can hardly get sick on a motorcycle, as long as riding in the clean air is all one does. If we run short of anything I can make limited stops to pick up what we need and put it in the saddlebags, washing my hands immediately after leaving any stores with soap and bottled water.
The novel I'm editing is better than I remembered. It's really pretty good. I am removing a lot of commas, and smoothing some dialogue -- it wasn't bad before, but it sounded like the Medieval sources rather than like anything anyone would know how to hear today. Still, I'm pretty happy with it. I'll never write anything this good again; academic training has killed the instinct for beauty that I once possessed.
Ah, well. Perhaps 'killed' is too strong. There will be a lot of time for meditation in the coming weeks. Maybe I can recover something of what I once had.
In principle we could ride out two months here. In practice, I'll probably ride out when the weather is nice. One can hardly get sick on a motorcycle, as long as riding in the clean air is all one does. If we run short of anything I can make limited stops to pick up what we need and put it in the saddlebags, washing my hands immediately after leaving any stores with soap and bottled water.
The novel I'm editing is better than I remembered. It's really pretty good. I am removing a lot of commas, and smoothing some dialogue -- it wasn't bad before, but it sounded like the Medieval sources rather than like anything anyone would know how to hear today. Still, I'm pretty happy with it. I'll never write anything this good again; academic training has killed the instinct for beauty that I once possessed.
Ah, well. Perhaps 'killed' is too strong. There will be a lot of time for meditation in the coming weeks. Maybe I can recover something of what I once had.
A Series of Implausible Arguments
Robert Fisk is still around, it turns out.
"The Saudi royal family appear unaware of the dangers of settling scores among themselves."
I would guess there are no better experts in the world on the subject than the Saudi royal family, but carry on dude.
"The Saudi royal family appear unaware of the dangers of settling scores among themselves."
I would guess there are no better experts in the world on the subject than the Saudi royal family, but carry on dude.
Daytona Bike Week Canceled
Really everything is likely to be canceled that can be, but you know it's serious when Daytona cancels.
Some appropriate music.
Some appropriate music.
Killing An Admiral From Time to Time
Apropos of the last post, and because it happens to be the anniversary, a sea story.
ON MARCH 14, 1757, Royal Navy Vice Admiral John Byng boarded his flagship HMS Monarch for what would be the last time.We live in a softer age, for now.
As the 52-year-old officer waited on the quarterdeck in the company of nine marine guards, instructions were passed to all the men-of-war at anchor nearby in Spithead to dispatch their officers to the 74-gun ship of the line to witness the spectacle that had been planned.
As the clock struck twelve, a captain by the name of John Montagu stepped forward from the small crowd that had assembled on the Monarch to inform Byng that it was time — the admiral’s execution was at hand....
Upon learning of the execution, the French writer, philosopher and playwright Voltaire satirically wrote that the British needed to occasionally execute an admiral from time to time, “in order to encourage the others.”
Although his comments were written as a form of mockery, surprisingly, the observation was entirely accurate. Byng’s role in the Minorca fiasco led to what was darkly termed in the Royal Navy the “Byng Principle,” which meant that “nothing is to be undertaken where there is risk or danger.”
This sardonic term served as a cautionary reminder to naval officers of the sort of conduct that should be avoided in battle. And just or not, Byng’s death was to instill in them an aggressive fighting spirit that would succeed in turning the war in favour of Britain.
When This Is Over, We Hang the Bureaucrats
After problems arose with the C.D.C.’s test, officials could have switched to using successful tests that other countries were already using. But the officials refused to do so, essentially because it would have required changing bureaucratic procedures.So what can we replace the CDC with that is not a bureaucracy, or at least not a government bureaucracy?
The federal government could also have eased regulations on American hospitals and laboratories, to allow them to create and manufacture their own tests, as Melissa Miller of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine told The Washington Post. But federal officials did not do so for weeks. The Times’s Sheri Fink and Mike Baker reported this week about a Seattle lab with a promising test that was blocked by “existing regulations and red tape” while “other countries ramped up much earlier and faster.”
Virus Threat? Ban Guns!
You can tell when people aren’t taking a crisis seriously when they try to shoehorn irrelevant policy preferences into their so-called “disaster” planning. I hear Pelosi tried to slip abortion funding into the Federal plan, and this mayor has decided to assume executive authority to void the Second Amendment.
UPDATE: California governor to "commandeer property" to fight the virus.
UPDATE: NYC mayor says this is the time to nationalize factories and industries.
UPDATE: California governor to "commandeer property" to fight the virus.
UPDATE: NYC mayor says this is the time to nationalize factories and industries.
Texans don't get it
The "NewNeo" blog continues to amuse, particularly the comments section. Commenter OldTexan weighs in on the host's thoughts about the loss of meaning of terms like exponential and existential:
My feeling about the existential stuff can best be summed up with [an] experience I had in the Army when about the only General I ever saw was touring our top secret facility in Germany where we did electronic eavesdropping on the various Commie Countries to the East. He stopped to talk to once of our men working a multiple radio intercept position inside a room tucked into the back of a building, free standing inside and old Luftwaffe hanger. He said, "Son, where are you from?" and the reply was, "Texas, Sir!" and then the General said, "Anything I can do to help you?" At that time the Texan took off his headset, we did not have to come to attention because we were supposed to keep working, the Texan stood up and said very clearly and kind of loud, "Sir, Existentialism, Sir I just don’t get it!"
Fix it so I can go back to sleep
John Hayward nails the irritable irrationality of someone woken from a sound sleep to a threat demanding immediate inconvenient action:
Focused intently on the suddenly urgent, all-consuming crisis thrust before our bleary eyes, we lose our senses of time and proportion. We want an immediate solution to the danger that jolted us awake. We eagerly signal to each other that we're fully awake and engaged now.
But we suspect maybe OTHERS are still asleep, still numb to the real danger, foolishly taking risks and making mistakes that could jeopardize everyone else. Our instinct to raise the general alarm level makes us amplify bad news and get angry at anyone who isn't at Defcon 1.
Few want to discuss proportionality during the fearful days after we are jolted awake. We want to spread the alarm and focus on this new terrible thing to the exclusion of all else. We want it to be over fast. We want to go back to sleep.
* * *
We should learn not to sleep so deeply between red-alert crises. We should demand more focus and less mission creep from the agencies that are supposed to be prepared for them. We should begin reacting judiciously to threats before they cross the horizon.
Most of all, we should learn there are costs and benefits to every action, and to inaction. Rationally balancing them against each other is difficult both in times of apathy and white-hot panic. If we learn to do it better when we're not panicking, we'll panic less often.
The Return of Legends
As the stable world seems less stable, remember that it has happened before.
We should be startled if we were quietly reading a prosaic modern novel, and somewhere in the middle it turned without warning into a fairy tale. We should be surprised if one of the spinsters in Cranford, after tidily sweeping the room with a broom, were to fly away on a broomstick. Our attention would be arrested if one of Jane Austen's young ladies who had just met a dragoon were to walk a little further and meet a dragon.According to the legends, those were the great times.
Yet something very like this extraordinary transition takes place in British history at the end of the purely Roman period. We have to do with rational and almost mechanical accounts of encampment and engineering, of a busy bureaucracy and occasional frontier wars, quite modern in their efficiency and inefficiency; and then all of a sudden we are reading of wandering bells and wizard lances, of wars against men as tall as trees or as short as toadstools. The soldier of civilization is no longer fighting with Goths but with goblins; the land becomes a labyrinth of faerie towns unknown to history; and scholars can suggest but cannot explain how a Roman ruler or a Welsh chieftain towers up in the twilight as the awful and unbegotten Arthur.
The Liberation of Sarah Palin
If I were to guess, I'd say that Ms. Palin was always a Sir Mixalot fan but long felt she had to keep that aspect of her personality private. Now that her political career is over, well, she's free at last.
That looks like a completely ridiculous TV show, but I have gotten the impression that such things are common now.
That looks like a completely ridiculous TV show, but I have gotten the impression that such things are common now.
Grand Bargains
In general I'm opposed to involving the Federal government in anything, or for Congress legislating outside of its very clear Article I Section 8 duties. That said, a global pandemic is the best argument for a coherent approach across many normally divergent sectors. Since you go to war with the government you have, and ours is hyper-partisan and nearly nonfunctional, a bargain may be the only way to obtain the goods we need.
Strong high borders, closed schools, ways to keep people from losing their homes or places of living during times when we ask everyone to stay home; lots is going to have to happen quickly, and for a month at least (though likely not forever). We can get this under control, but time is of the essence.
Strong high borders, closed schools, ways to keep people from losing their homes or places of living during times when we ask everyone to stay home; lots is going to have to happen quickly, and for a month at least (though likely not forever). We can get this under control, but time is of the essence.
Free Spirits
Part one and two of a study urging free market reforms for North Carolina's hard liquor industry. North Carolina has one of the most vibrant microbrewery and winery markets going, but hard liquor here is still controlled by "Alcoholic Beverage Control" councils operated not by the state but by 140 local governments. As you might expect, that leads to non-optimal results.
Did you know that North Carolina used to be the nation’s leader in locally owned and operated distilleries? It’s true. In 1904 the state had 745 registered distilleries, 540 of which were operating. And they were all outlawed, an entire industry destroyed, by a series of laws culminating in voters passing the first statewide prohibition in the South in 1908.It won't be the last industry destroyed in the name of "progress," if certain people get their way.
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