The Logic Behind Not Using Hydroxychloroquine

"Doctor": I would not prescribe hydroxychloroquine to any of my patients suffering from symptoms of COVID-19.

Me: Why not?

"Doctor": Because hydroxychloroquine has side effects that could kill you.

Me: I see. Do you prescribe hydroxychloroquine to your Lupus patients.

"Doctor": Why yes.

Me: Why?

"Doctor": Because it helps them.

Me: What about the side effects you spoke of earlier?

'Doctor":*blank stare*

Dying; To Spite Trump?

So lemmie get this straight. Instead of doing journalism and looking into many reports of the efficacy of Plaquenil along with Zinc and an anti-viral (The Wuhan Pack), the media is spending it's time informing us about how much Trump may profit from the company that sells a version of the drug.

As if this is important.

So if I'm understanding this new epic level of conspiracy theory, Trump is promoting medicine that apparently works in the vast majority of cases so he can make a buck. Also, since there are side effects with long term use, he's trying to kill people by promoting the use of the drug. Also. He allowed the disease to spread so that he could make a buck off of the drugs.

This is what they're going with eh? Lemmie as you a question: You find out you have Wuhan virus. If you get sent to the ICU there's a large chance you're not going home alive. Doctor says: We have a drug regimen that works at least 80% of the time BUT Trump gets a few cents in stock appreciation if you use it. Do you say "No thanks" 'cause Trump owns what apparently amounts to $400 in stocks?

It's [Past] Time To Turn Off CNN

Folks. CNN will literally get you killed.

This is literally fake news. This headline isn't misleading. It is dead wrong. There is no excuse for this.

Right now there are doctors across the US and around the Globe using hydroxychloroquine along with other drugs (The Wuhan Packet) to treat patients. Is it 100% effective? No. It's so far between 70 and 90 percent effective. Do some people have side effects? Yes. No one who is rational and sane is disputing that. Are there consequences for long term use? Yes. That's why the treatment is NOT given long term.

Lastly, the drugs being tried are already FDA approved and doctors regularly prescribe medicines for off label use.

CNN has been off the rails for years now. I don't watch it. I have strongly encouraged people to turn it off due to it's disinformation but now CNN is literally trying to get people killed during a pandemic. If you don't realize what CNN is from this, I don't know what to tell you. [updated]

Graph from Science Direct

The green line represents 2 or 3 ingredients of my proposed "Wuhan Pack".

? CNN says "researchers say there is no evidence".

CNN is literally a propaganda outlet that will get you killed.

Rep. Thomas Massie Was Wrongly Maligned

His side of the story:

More Evidence For The Wuhan Packet Exit Strategy

From the NY Post

His patients were under long-term acute care and had comorbidities such as hypertension, coronary artery disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or congestive heart failure.

The FDA has warnings that azithromycin “can cause abnormal changes in the electrical activity of the heart that may lead to a potentially fatal irregular heart rhythm.”

So instead, Alam replaced azithromycin with another decades-old antibiotic that doesn’t pose any known risks to the heart.

“Doxycycline is an anti-inflammatory with properties similar to azithromycin but without the safety concerns and without cardiac toxicity,” he said...

“The majority had clinical improvement,” said Alam. “We had very good outcomes.” Alam said that 38 of 47 patients treated returned to their baseline and their symptoms resolved. Seven of the patients were transferred to a hospital and two died. [ my underlines]

That's an 80% recovery rate. With people with SERIOUS MEDICAL PROBLEMS!!!! Remember that my Wuhan Packet(tm) exit strategy had a conservative lower bound of 70% effectiveness. This is 30% better than my worst case and real control trials have not been done.

Lets stop chasing hands and focusing on where the ball was and look to where the ball is going!

Wuhan Packet now!

The Exit Strategy

If I were running things this is what would happen from now on.

Many years ago I was at a beach town with a young lady and her 2-3 y.o son. He had gone into the water with his pull up on and of course it absorbed a whole lot of water. We got back to the boardwalk where I suggested changing him so he didn't have to sit in that for the rest of the outing. She didn't want to do it because she thought that there were pedophiles in the hotels along with boardwalk who were either taking pictures of him or, presumably, "getting their jollies" on. The first time she said it, I thought she was joking. But no she was dead serious. This is the kind of mentality that is informing the large numbers of people suggesting extremely lengthy lock downs and whatnot. They have no sense of proportion and are shook to even consider making a decision that might result in someone dying (unless that person is dead from an illegal alien). It's time to be rational about this situation and get to the exits.

While it could be reasonable to say that the lock downs were a reasonable response to an unknown agent that we had no idea the lethality of (thanks China) and no idea what kinds of treatments would work, at this point in time (April 4) such thinking is untenable and not informed by the facts on the ground.

In the worst case scenario (which won't happen) if the unemployment numbers increase at the rate that it is, every adult American will be unemployed by late June. And there are people actually calling for shut downs through July! I say this won't happen because even the moderately insane in positions of govt authority knows not to go down that path. Also, I believe there would be mass rebellions by the public before it gets that bad. So lets get to the facts as we know them.

I'm going to do a lot of rounding here to make the math easier to digest so don't come at me with some "well the rate is actually xxx%".

So we know that about 90% of people who catch the Wuhan virus have mild symptoms. That is no pneumonia. No fluid in lungs. Perhaps a fever but nothing that requires hospitalization. This is not to say they won't have a few bad days.

We also know that among the people who get severe symptoms, regardless of age, they usually have serious medical problems that preceded their infection. That is they were already gifted a lifeline by modern medical science and the new infection is essentially the end of the [new] line for them. But even this can be changed because we now know that there is a regimen that shows great promise as in upwards of 90%$ of those treated do not end up in ICUs and are able to be taken of ventilators or no need to be on one if caught early enough. This is the key to unlock the exit door.

I operate under the assumption that all 330 million people in America will be infected. 90% of those people are not going to have severe symptoms. That's 297 million we essentially don't have to worry about. Of the 33 million that are expected to have severe cases, we need to have enough of what I'll call The Wuhan Packs to catch them early.

The governments at whatever level should create enough of the 5 day Wuhan Packs (because the treatment is allegedly 5 days of the three medicines) for at least 33 million people. Assuming a once a day dose of each that's 165 million of each treatments. These should be staged at hospitals and pharmacies. If the Abbot quick test machines pan out, they should be distributed to hospitals and pharmacies where people who think they may have the Wuhan virus can get quick tests and immediately get the Wuhan Pack for self treatment. But availability of those machines are not to impact the exit strategy timeline.

This treatment apparently reduces the percentage of people needing critical care by another 90%. Lets be conservative and say 70%. So that would be around 10 million at the high end and 3 million at the low end that would be not saved by the treatment. That's 66k per US State and 181 people a day. though clearly some states would have larger numbers than others. I know there are people out there who cannot stomach 3 million to 10 million dead. But that's how pandemics work. It's why they are called pandemics. And if you're mad about that, take it up with the people who called closing the borders racist. Take it up with the Chinese government and WHO who lied about it. Thus we should be moving away from a "don't let it spread" strategy to a "It will spread, let's get it done" strategy. All this focus on ventilators and protective gear is what in Wing Chun we call "chasing hands". Ventilators are not the solution. They are increasingly "end of life 'care'". Let me repeat here, masks and ventilators are not solutions to THE problem. Harping on them is not an effective long term strategy. As of this writing some of the countries with the highest levels of mask wearing in public are seeing an escalation in infections. My guess is because if the Wuhan virus is that resilient, it's just a waiting game.

This "lets get it done" strategy gets us to population immunity *assuming* we're not dealing with something like influenza where each year brings a new strain that can knock people down again. But we have a plan on that as well. This is opposed to the moderate probability that returns to normal without a Wuhan Pack strategy will simply lead to another huge wave as the still uninfected and therefore not immune come back into contact with the environment.

While implementing The Wuhan Packs, research into a vaccine should be given high priority. Personally I don't consider anything you need to get a shot for every year a vaccine. Vaccine to me implies a one and done for years thing. Unless the developed vaccine is a one and done thing, I would not make it mandatory for anyone. That's what The Wuhan Pack is for. Americans have a right to decide what risks they are willing to take. And if you are the type that wants the government to impose what it thinks is "safety" there are flights leaving multiple airports to places that do that. Find yourself on one of those flights.

Mind you I'm assuming a complete and total infection of the US population. Any reduction in the numbers or percent infected greatly reduces the downstream numbers. Similarly if The Wuhan Packs are more than 90% effective, then the downstream death numbers fall dramatically. This is not 1918. We are not living with 1918 sanitation. We are not living with 1918 medical technology. using 1918 models is extremely faulty and is being used by certain people to scare you into compliance. Think of the number of people who are now scared to death by someone breathing near them. So lets get these Wuhan Packs prepped and delivered, which I think can be done in 2 weeks if the proper resources are mobilized. Open up anyplace that is both sparsely populated and/or has low levels of public transit use which I believe is a large contributor to the spread in NYC.

RIP Bill Withers

Just yesterday I had Bill on my mind. This is one track that has gotten me through a lot of tough times and feelings of loneliness:

Thanks Bill.

States Are Confiscating Private Property And Nobody Is Bothered

[Updated 4-3-2020 10:PM] In this past week two incidents of blatant unconstitutional actions have occurred with nary a peep from the usual "civil liberties" crowd. In NY a person saw the pending pandemic and purchased a large quantity of medical items to resell. He was charging upwards of 700x markups on the products and eventually the state of NY came in and confiscated his goods and gave them to medical facilities.

[updated] I have discovered that the individual is being paid fair market price for the goods being confiscated.

Feldheim was released March 30 on $50,000 bond. Feldheim will be paid fair-market value for the supplies, according to the Department of Justice.

I'm pretty sure a lawyer got involved. [end update] While it may be entirely unethical and illegal to price gouge during an emergency the idea that the state could enter this person's private property, grab up his legally obtained goods without any compensation whatsoever under the guise of an "emergency" is not acceptable to me. Our rights and the state's limits do not simply, respectively, disappear and expand unchecked due to an emergency.

If Amazon can sell medical supplies then so can Joe citizen, if he has any. If 3M can sell medical supplies then so can Joe Citizen. Just because Joe Citizen doesn't have a staff of lawyers on hand and the pockets to pay them for extended litigation, does not give Amazon or 3M any more rights than Joe Citizen.

I have heard exactly zero reports of the state offering the NY guy fair, non-emergency, compensation for the goods he legally acquired. Even if the state wanted to charge him with price gouging it still cannot simply take his shit. Why? Because it was legally obtained and he is the rightful owner of all of it. The state can only dictate an upper ceiling for the sale of his property. Do not let the moral arguments against his behavior (which I would agree with) blind you to this blatant abuse of state power.

Across the Hudson, NJ gov Murphy signed an executive order empowering the state police to confiscate the property of private citizens if that property is deemed "essential" to the state. Again, there was absolutely no effort or discussion on compensation. How is that even legal? Under stand US Constitutional grounds does the state have to confiscate the private property of citizens?

At fucking gun point?

Personally if I was approached by the state for my medical goods, I'm inclined to donate. That's the kind of person I am. But I cannot and would not force any other citizen to do the same. Lets say that a citizen is in possession of 5 months worth of medical masks and possesses a ventilator. And argument could be made that this citizen foresaw getting sick and acquired property that could keep him from getting sick and if he got sick, could keep him alive. Now the state of NJ has empowered the state to override this citizen's right to look out for his own well being and force him to use his property to the benefit of other people rather than himself. And if that citizen resists the state's attempt to confiscate his life supporting property, the state may in fact kill him for it.

That should bother a lot of people.

Michigan Data Supports Ghost Hypothesis

Earlier I hypothesized that blacks in NYC (and any other urban area) would be hard hit with the Wuhan virus:

It stands to reason that the high rates of CVD and Diabetes in the black community of NYC will play into higher death rates among Black people who get infected.

I had noticed a similar pattern in Michigan with the highest numbers of cases in Detroit with cases dropping the further away from Detroit you got. To me, that was clear evidence of a racial pattern in caseload. But you know, can't say bad things about black people, even if it saves their lives. So now data is out from Michigan

Blacks make up 14% of the population in Michigan. So when you see 30% and 40% infections and deaths, you know there is a racial component at play. I suspect we will see similar things in New Orleans and Atlanta in short order. I will say that this rather large "unknown" category is really strange.

The Park Is Closed

Some of you read my other blog and know I've been training for a half-marathon since Sept. When my state did the "stay at home" thing I had (and still have) no intention of not going for my regular runs. The one thing that changed was that a lot more people were out running, jogging and walking. Many I presume were people who usually do treadmills and now couldn't. The parks have been packed though.

Now on the face of it that could be seen as a bad thing if you are the paranoid, believe what the media is telling you, type of person. But generally, people were around people they clearly knew or lived with and generally stayed out of each others way. However; now that America has devolved into a country where half the people are either communists, communist sympathizers, or just the panicky type that likes to impose themselves on other people, I had a feeling this park situation wouldn't last

Ta-daaaaa

Yesterday, road blocks and signs abound: Closed until further notice. Of course I ran right by the signs. Did my six and went home. Today there was a police officer driving around the park. Probably was there yesterday as well but today's my first sighting. He didn't say anything to me. I said nothing to him and we each went about our business. So long as it stays that way I don't have a problem with it. Well I do, but that's not really what I wanted to post about.

I see a lot of people talking about how things need to be shut down for months.

I see some people on that "I'm getting paid to stay home. *snicker*, *snicker*" thing. Some of these people work for the state and think that the state is somehow a bottomless pit of paychecks. Well I know better.

The states ability to pay its employees is dependent in large part on tax revenue. With businesses being closed that means no tax revenue for the state. No gas tax cause nobody is driving. No sales tax 'cause nobody is in the stores buying (except toilet paper). And when mass unemployment happens lower income taxes for those states that have it. Now I have been through previous state mandated furloughs caused by economic problems. 7 days off without pay. A LOT of my co-workers were, shall we say, fucked. Do you think that when that 2021 budget comes around with the big ZERO where March and April revenues were supposed to be, that layoffs won't happen? That pay cuts won't happen. Yeah, you keep snickering and chuckling about the "paid to stay home".

Oh and for those who were working a second job to stay afloat or get ahead, Well, I hope it's a business the state decided was essential.

*Where Are The Recoveries?*

Now I've previously posted that recoveries are a [way] trailing indicator. Still is. I'm getting concerned that it's still trailing because it's been nearly 4 weeks. At this point we should be getting reports either way. We're getting the "x amount of new cases" and "y numbers of deaths" but not "z numbers recovered". This is bothering me. I've been reading a number of articles, which I won't link to because the claims can't be verified, where large numbers of people have been treated with the anti-malarial drugs and yet there is NO comment whatsoever about how many recovered. Why not? Why is this information being withheld? Other reports, from other countries have made claims to the extent of 99% recoveries with a combination of zinc, and anti-viral and the malaria drug. I have seen none of these reports on so called mainstream media. But, as I said, I see x new cases and y new deaths.

Is there a [good] reason for why recoveries are not being reported to the public?

Part of the reason I ask about this is because some people are talking about lock downs being in place until a vaccine in found?

Hell no.

Vaccines take a long time to develop. Unless you have something on the level of Ebola, you don't shut down society until a vaccine is found. We as a species have lived with viruses and bacteria to which we had and have no vaccines for since we have been on the planet. We have always gone about our business when these things happen. This is not "new". Lets assume that the current apparent treatment is in fact effective (I think it is and I think that some of the silence around recoveries is to protect the supply). If that is the case then these lock downs need to end. Those found to be infected should be given a regimen and not hospitalized (assuming no need for a ventilator). Some people aren't going to make it. That's a part of life. Deal with it. Hell it may be me. I accept that risk.

*Survival of The Fittest*

Reports are showing that cardio vascular disease and diabetes has surpassed hypertension as the leading pre-existing condition leading to severe Wuhan virus symptoms. I was wondering why CVD would be up top. Well it turns out that since this virus attacks the lungs pretty aggressively making the patient essentially suffocate, those with high aerobic capacities would be better positioned to survive. This would also explain why there is a relatively large cohort of non-elderly who get severe symptoms (but usually don't die). I started doing MAF training in December. MAF training is a way to increase one's aerobic capacity for endurance events. That is, the faster I can run at a heart rate that is at my maximum aerobic capacity, then the faster I can run without burning limited sugar stores. In essence, I can do more with less oxygen use. I was shocked to find out that I wasn't as aerobically fit as I thought I was. Now I'm much more fit and even my regular walks require less cardio-vascular effort than it used to. This means that if I suffer an illness that reduces my oxygen intake, I have more wiggle room before I require external help.

Most Americans are obese. As I wrote earlier, a very large proportion of African-Americans are obese and are very aerobically unfit. This includes a large proportion of young people who are winded by going up a single flight of stairs. If you can't currently go up a flight of stairs without heavy breathing you may want to seriously consider wearing a mask in public. Just saying.

Will Wuhan Virus Wreak Havok on Black NYC Residents

Lately cities and states with relatively large black populations have seen a spike in "19" cases. I do NOT have a racial breakdown of the cases so I am *hypothesizing* as to what *could* happen. As mentioned in an earlier post having co-morbidities greatly increases ones chance of dying from or with the virus. Those leading issues are :

Cardiovascular disease
Hypertensions
Diabetes

What racial group has the highest incidents of these diseases? Blacks. The video below discusses what these diseases all have in common

So since we know that having metabolic syndrome greatly increases your chances of having severe reactions to "19", lets look at some data from NYC.

We can see that Black New Yorkers have the highest rates of heart disease deaths. Also in line with "19" statistics, black men are more likely to die of heart disease than black women.

Lets look at diabetes (using Brooklyn data):

As we can see again, blacks way out rate whites in diagnosis, hospitalizations and deaths.

It stands to reason that the high rates of CVD and Diabetes in the black community of NYC will play into higher death rates among Black people who get infected.

Get Your Vit C On

This isn't new to me but wanted to share with the readership as something they can do prior to getting sick. From the NYPost (but again, known for a while now):

Dr. Andrew G. Weber, a pulmonologist and critical-care specialist affiliated with two Northwell Health facilities on Long Island, said his intensive-care patients with the coronavirus immediately receive 1,500 milligrams of intravenous vitamin C.

Identical amounts of the powerful antioxidant are then readministered three or four times a day, he said.

I'm not going to mention the product name because those in the know have already emptied the shelves of it around these parts, but there is a product on the market that has close to the 1500mg mentioned in the article. Should you not be able to procure the product there are other things you can do. Oranges, Limes, Lemons and Cranberry juice all have high levels of vitamin C. You can take these items on a regular basis as a way to make it harder for an infection to take hold. This is not just for the current pandemic.

The "funny" thing about it is that a lot of the foods that provide this "medicine" are well stocked, even in the most mass hysteria panic buying emptied stores.

And just to make sure I'm being responsible about this info. Mayo Clinic says:

For adults, the recommended daily amount for vitamin C is 65 to 90 milligrams (mg) a day, and the upper limit is 2,000 mg a day. Although too much dietary vitamin C is unlikely to be harmful, megadoses of vitamin C supplements might cause: Diarrhea
Nausea
Vomiting
Heartburn
Abdominal cramps
Headache
Insomnia

Oil Of Oregano

No. No math today. Just want to share one of the things I do when I go places where I expect to run into sick people, or where sick people are likely to run into me, Oil or Oregano.

One of the things with the recent outbreak but is not limited to the recent outbreak is that some of these viruses and bacteria are airborne and so enter via the mouth or nose regardless of whether you put your hands in either location. Think about when you are walking down the street and someone with bad breath has passed and you go "damn". Now that person is long gone but there's that funk.

Right.

So oil of oregano is a known anti-viral :

The researchers noted that this action is likely due to carvacrol, one of the main compounds in oregano oil. While carvacrol was more effective against certain viruses on its own, oregano oil was more effective against respiratory viruses, such as flu viruses.

Referenced paper here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3768712/

I'm not saying it's effective against THIS particular virus. I don't know. I do know is when I go out, I put some in my mouth. When I travel, I put some in my mouth.

I also consciously remember to nose breath rather than mouth breath because:

Filtering prevents airborne bacteria, viruses, other potentially disease-causing substances from entering the lungs, where they may cause infection. Filtering also eliminates smog and dust particles, which may clog the narrow air passages in the smallest bronchioles.

Just a warning though. Oil of Oregano is STRONG. You only need 3 drops max. You will feeeeeel it.

Recoveries As A Lagging Indicator?

So there is a website, worldmeters, that is keeping up to date info on Wuhan cases. First I noticed this:

So many cases, so few recoveries.

Then there is this:

So many "mild condition" cases but only 592 closed cases. I would think that you would have a far higher number of closed cases where "mild conditions" are either recovered or dead? No? Why not?

Here's a sample of the per state data

Again, where are the recoveries? It would seem to me that the mild cases are taking a while to clear up OR they aren't being reported. Assuming the former and not the latter, we should see either an enormous spike in deaths within the next week or an enormous spike in recovered outcomes. If we have the former then Wuhan would have a higher mortality than Ebola (40%). Of course it could matter who gets infected and dies, If the bell tolls for the elderly with other conditions rather than the population at large, then the Ebola comparison would be entirely incorrect.

In either case, I think we should keep an eye out for the recovery numbers. "mild conditions" shouldn't become "dead" without passing through "severe" unless onset of severe symptoms is extremely rapid.

Updated Wuhan Virus Math

New chart

Mean: 1427.4
Standard Deviation:1655.7
Variance: 2,741,416.7

Compared to Friday:

1) The Mean is: 1116 deaths.
The Standard Deviation is: 1262
The Margin of Error is: 420.5
Variance: 1,592,094

Variance has gone up 500k. SD has increased by 400 and mean by 300. These increases are within the margin of error.

Most of the increases in deaths have come from Italy,Spain and Iran, with ~800,700 and 250 respectively.

Medium: Evidence over hysteria — COVID-19

[Updated 3-22-2020 8 AM] Medium has an excellent piece out. You'll see some of the data I have presented here in it. One of the closing messages:

Local governments and politicians are inflicting massive harm and disruption with little evidence to support their draconian edicts. Every local government is in a mimetic race to one-up each other in authoritarian city ordinances to show us who has more “abundance of caution”. Politicians are competing, not on more evidence or more COVID-19 cures but more caution. As unemployment rises and families feel unbearably burdened already, they feel pressure to “fix” the situation they created with even more radical and “creative” policy solutions. This only creates more problems and an even larger snowball effect. The first place to start is to stop killing the patient and focus on what works.

Yes sir. The responses have been "virtue signaling" writ large. [update] I wake up this morning to the article being pulled by Medium. Allegedly there are serious errors in the paper. I can't check because I didn't download the original (which goes back to my criticism of media changing and removing items from the internet). But I wanted to draw the reader's attention to one of the critiques:

Do you see the problem with the critique? No? Yes?

Alrighty then, the author stated in a headline:

1% of cases will be severe

Followed by:

~1% of percent of everyone who is tested for COVID-19 with the US will have a severe case [my underlines]

The accompanying chart is headlined:

Coronavirus [COVID1-19]: The Severity of diagnosed cases in China

Since we cannot go back to the original article to get how the author got his 1% we don't know if that claim is supported by later data or extrapolation from current available data. However; as it stands, this particular critique is unfounded. Right on it's face.

In my post about the math I gave the mean, sd, me and variance for the numbers as on that day. I showed that mathematically, China and Italy were/are statistical outliers. We should pay attention to them, but it is unlikely they will be the example of what to expect world wide. I put the variance on there so that the reader can know how bad it *could* get. Those numbers were for deaths rather than "severe cases" which is in dispute here.

Per my "math" post, the US death rate is 1.5%. Not the 2.3% seen in China. Could it go up? variance says yes. Will it go up? Nobody knows. But here's the rub as I've pointed out earlier. If there are far more undiagnosed cases of Wuhan than we known (the known unknowns) then the actual case numbers skyrockets and the percentage of those with severe cases shrinks dramatically.

Anyway it's too bad that the piece is unavailable. Now you can't read it. Now you can't follow the links in it to primary sources and you can't engage in the open debate. The gatekeepers have decided for you. For your own benefit of course.

End Of Week Muhan Math

The Telegraph posted an article on the ranges in infections and deaths for different countries. It contained the following chart (which of course will change after this posting):

I did some math against these numbers and found the following:

1) The Mean is: 1116 deaths.
The Standard Deviation is: 1262
The Margin of Error is: 420.5
Variance: 1,592,094

As you can see only China and Italy has deaths above the mean and 2 Standard Deviations from the mean. Mathematically we would consider these two cases to be outlier data that is to be considered suspect. Similarly Germany and South Korea would be considered outliers even though they are well within 1SD of the mean. The math suggests that Spain, France and Iran may be the most likely outcome. Realize with a variance as high as 1.6 million we could still see "large" numbers of deaths. I put large in quotes because next to the world population of 7.8 billion, 1.6 million is not all that much. That may sound cold but that's the numbers.

Other things of note in that article:

But there are other factors that may have contributed to Italy’s fatality rates, experts say. This includes a high rate of smoking and pollution - the majority of deaths have been in the northern region Lombardy region, which is notorious for poor air quality.

Also

But Prof Ricciardi added that Italy’s death rate may also appear high because of how doctors record fatalities. “The way in which we code deaths in our country is very generous in the sense that all the people who die in hospitals with the coronavirus are deemed to be dying of the coronavirus.

“On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88 per cent of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many had two or three,” he says.

Flu Comparisons Are Not Proper They Said

Then this:

Oh.

The rest

“It has a high degree of safety and is clearly effective in treatment,” Zhang told reporters on Tuesday.

Patients who were given the medicine in Shenzhen turned negative for the virus after a median of four days after becoming positive, compared with a median of 11 days for those who were not treated with the drug, public broadcaster NHK said.

In addition, X-rays confirmed improvements in lung condition in about 91% of the patients who were treated with favipiravir, compared to 62% or those without the drug.

Fujifilm Toyama Chemical, which developed the drug – also known as Avigan – in 2014, has declined to comment on the claims.

Hypertension is COVID-19 Top ICU Comorbidity

From JAMA

As you can see 58% of those in the ICU with "Wuhan" had hypertension AKA High blood pressure. African-Americans tend to have HBP so those persons may want to evaluate their risks.

Next up was cardio vascular disease, I assume to be things like emphysema, and diabetes. This would indicate that smokers would be at a higher risk.

Also note white blood cell counts:

and Lymphocyte count:

Seems to me that an early crash in lymphocyte count is a significant indicator of pending death. Perhaps early screenings for lymphocytes could be used to determine who should get early aggressive treatments rather than waiting (if they are waiting).

Lastly, the blood urea and creatnine counts at late stages probably indicates onset of kidney failure.

COVID Like HPV? Was The Ghost Right?

A few posts ago, I asserted that:

The other thing is that I have thought that this virus, if it has been in circulation AND is as infectious as it seems to be, that it may be like HPV. Human Papiloma Virus is carried by at least half the population in the US. Most people are asymptomatic but do pass it on. A few people get cancers like cervical cancer and oral cancer relatively late in life due to this virus.

Now news out of Italy:

ROME - "The vast majority of people infected with Covid-19, between 50 and 75%, are completely asymptomatic but represent a formidable source of contagion". The Professor of Clinical Immunology of the University of Florence Sergio Romagnani writes this at the top of the Tuscany Region, in anticipation of a strong increase in cases also in the Region, on the basis of the study on the inhabitants of Vo 'Euganeo where the 3000 inhabitants of the country are been subjected to swab. The immunologist explains that the data provided by the study carried out on all the inhabitants of Vo 'Euganeo highlight two very important information: "the percentage of infected people, even if asymptomatic, in the population is very high and represents the majority of cases above all, but not only that, among young people; and the isolation of asymptomatics is essential to be able to control the spread of the virus and the severity of the disease ".

Screencap in case it disappears:

So there's two ways of looking at this:

The case numbers are far higher than the officials realize (and The Ghost said it was) and therefore the sick and death rate as reported are WAYYY over reported and therefore the shutdowns are a severe overreaction (in terms of actual public risk of serious illness or death).

OR

You hope you can find 50% of the population (that's 170 odd million people in the US) that are possibly infected and isolate them, in order to protect those who will, in short order, be dead from something else. And I don't say that to be crass or flip about the lives of the elderly and sick, just stating the cold hard facts.

It seems that the UK may be looking at this the same way. Either way it appears The Ghost was correct in his hypothesis Update 5:36PM: From

Did Gov. Murphy Just Kill Atlantic City?

So the state of NJ shut down a lot of things, including all casinos. I've previously written that casinos are a good place for any airborne and contact surface transmitted disease to be because of the sheer number of people in close proximity at machines and table games as well as the common touching areas. Also for inexplicable reasons, people actually go to casinos when they are sick. And from the play I have observed, they don't even have a positive expectation game. Anyway, for places where casinos are more entertainment than a serious source of tax revenue, the closing of a casino is not a big deal. In Atlantic City, that is not the case.

Atlantic City has had many state interventions as revenue from closing casinos as well as competition from surrounding states ate into their players and players available bankrolls. But even then the casinos were open and generating some revenue. With this closing Atlantic City essentially has no revenue at all. Below is chart of AC revenue since the 1970

As you can see 2016 Casino revenue is less than half the peak revenue.

2020 Atlantic County budget is:

NORTHFIELD — Atlantic County’s budget is estimated to increase slightly to $216.7 million in 2020, with the amount to be raised by taxes going up less than 1% to $151.6 million, County Executive Dennis Levinson said Tuesday.

The June 2019 Budget presentation below,

If I'm reading it correctly shows Casino money at $70 million or 33% of total revenues. Now it's not peak AC season so we don't know how much revenue will be lost to the city but the revenue is ~$6 million per month.

Here's the operation budget from the same presentation:

If Casinos go down for 2 months, the entire administrative budget line is gone. Health and Human services could be unfunded. Utilities (whatever that encompasses) could also go unfunded. There is a "reserve for uncollected taxes" but again, one month shut down kills that reserve.

I'm sure people smarter and more informed than I are aware of this possibility and are working on how they'll address that. I'm sure....

NSAIDS and Corona

So since I keep seeing people pointing out that there has been a spike of "young" people with serious COVID complications. It is worth noting the following:

For the moment, the information is only based on observations made with patients admitted to intensive care. Doctors report “massive doses of NSAIDs” taken especially by young people without comorbidity, suffering from severe forms of the disease.

in the list of common NSAIDS:

- ibuprofen (Advil, Antarene, Brufen, Hemagen, Ibupradoll, Intralgis, Nurofen, Nureflex, Spedifen, Spifen, Upfen)

So you may want to ease up on the Advil if you use it regularly for reasons other than doctor's orders. If you're on doctors orders, you may want to have a little convo with them.

Philosophy Saturday

Was supposed to go up yesterday. Sue me. :-D

Anyway, the who Wuhan virus thing reminds me that people don't understand statistics and this thing called variance. I too was in that boat so I'm not going to gloat or act all high and mighty as I've seen far too many [smart] people do in the past two weeks. Anyway, here is a lesson I've learned from gambling that has impacted how I think about these things:

There are things that are very unlikely to happen that do happen. There are things that are supposed to happen frequently that don't.

Most of the time you'll be somewhere in the middle. Don't let either phenomena distract you from the average.

By The Time You're Tested

So in keeping with "keeping it real" about COVID-19, I have hypothesized that the virus is far more widespread than we think because a lot of people probably got it and toughed it out. Now a paper subject to review provides some evidence of this: I'm going to screencap the text because of the recent discovery of papers and reports being changed after the fact with no notice on the replacement pages.

People who contract the novel coronavirus emit high amounts of virus very early on in their infection, according to a new study from Germany that helps to explain the rapid and efficient way in which the virus has spread around the world.

Importantly:

The researchers found very high levels of virus emitted from the throat of patients from the earliest point in their illness —when people are generally still going about their daily routines. Viral shedding dropped after day 5 in all but two of the patients, who had more serious illness. The two, who developed early signs of pneumonia, continued to shed high levels of virus from the throat until about day 10 or 11.

Osterholm said the data in the paper confirm what the spread of the disease has been signaling — “early and potentially highly efficient transmission of the virus occurs before clinical symptoms or in conjunction with the very first mild symptoms.”

I'm not clear as to what "earliest point" is. Is that a cough that makes you go "hmmmm" but not enough to get you alarmed? Is it a runny nose but no other symptoms? Is it a scratchy throat but nothing else? These are symptoms that many people will go to work (and whatever) while having. If that is the case, before they even get to a point of getting tested for anything they would be highly contagious. It would also mean that if we're depending on "have symptoms, let me get tested" as a means of tracking cases, that's not going to "work". By "work" I mean contain the spread. I'm already on record as saying that the data shows that "infection", "dead" and "hospitalization" should not be automatically linked unless talking about the elderly.

Corona Virus Reports Being Manipulated?

Yesterday I read a Washington Post article about the cases in China in which I saw the following quote:

The WHO report and the Chinese study found that those who died were older and had preexisting conditions such as cardiovascular disease, uncontrolled diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic respiratory diseases and cancer."

This sentence no longer appears in the linked text. Why was it removed?

Not only that but the original headline was "ICY Patients with corona virus and pneumonia treated in Wuhan China-The Washington Post." It now reads: "How doctors treat the sickest coronavirus patients". See below:

This is purposeful removal of information. Why? This is unacceptable.

Interestibng Corona "Recovery" Cases

So amid the information about infections, I've been most interested in cases in populations least at risk for death and/or serious symptoms. There was an earlier account of a man in China who had gotten re-infected but I found no details on that case. Now there is one out of Hong Kong. While many reports and commentary obfuscate the important details the details, The Ghost doesn't deal in sensationalism. Here's a key point about that woman:

Authorities earlier said a 31-year-old evacuee from the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship was first infected on February 18 while aboard, but later appeared to recover in a hospital in Japan

She tested negative on March 4 and 6 in the country, before returning to Hong Kong on All Nippon Airways flight NH811 on March 7.

On Monday, she was found to be still infected at Queen Mary Hospital in Pok Fu Lam.

At a regular press conference, Dr Chuang Shuk-kwan, head of the communicable diseases branch under the Centre for Health Protection, said the woman had a chronic illness with a weak immune system, and could have been carrying the virus for a prolonged period.

So two important things stand out to me about this case:

1) Generally, the people most in danger are those who are already sick and the very elderly. Not that you want to get it, but most people who get it will recover. We'll get back to that.

2) The idea that she was a carrier for quite some time. I have had a long standing (relatively speaking) idea that the virus has been in circulation in the US, particularly major coastal cities with large international populations and points of entry. I believe that it's been in the US since at least December. This based on other readings out of China. I believe a large number of people have been infected, got sick, toughed it out and got better. In their incubation periods they infected other people and, if the above report is to believed, infected people even after they thought they got better.

The other thing is that I have thought that this virus, if it has been in circulation AND is as infectious as it seems to be, that it may be like HPV. Human Papiloma Virus is carried by at least half the population in the US. Most people are asymptomatic but do pass it on. A few people get cancers like cervical cancer and oral cancer relatively late in life due to this virus. I saw someone comment that "experts" say that 70 million people in Italy may get infected. That would be half the population and in line with my hypothesis. We shall see. If it IS like HPV in that people walk around with it without any impact on their health then that could be a good thing and will make claims on "x number infected" far less "scary".

Now going back to my first point I present a chart from the bottom of the linked article as of this writing:

55% of those infected have recovered. 3% of the infected have died. So if you get infected you have a 97% chance of NOT dying. Some 42% of the odds being "in recovery" or "in treatment". Those are very good odds. Also since a patient cannot be in recovery or treatment indefinitely one of two things has to happen. Either the recovered percentage goes up or the deaths go up

What does that mean for the general US population? Well there are approximately 330million people so at a 3% mortality rate you have a chance of 9 million dead. That's a lot of people indeed. Normal US deaths are 2,813,503 so you're talking ~4x more registered deaths than normal if the math holds up. Of course that number won't be 4x because that 2.8 million includes deaths from all causes.

Philosophy Friday

You can have your cake. You can eat your cake. You can eat your cake while you have your cake. Eventually you'll run out of cake to eat while eating your cake, and then there is no cake and no eating.

Not A Serious Country

Recently the Supreme Court ruled that:

The US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday in Kansas v. Garcia that federal immigration law does not preempt a state prosecution for identity theft.

I had to pause when reading that because:

First: Why would a federal law prevent the prosecution of the crime of identity theft?

Second: Why is this a split decision?

Ramiro Garcia, Donaldo Morales and Guadalupe Ochoa-Lara were all found to have used someone else’s social security number to qualify employment and/or housing. The state of Kansas utilized the I-9 form to charge the three with the state crime of identity theft.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) requires that employers verify that new employees are not unauthorized aliens. This process is accomplished through the completion of the federal work-authorization form (I-9). The forms require the employee to provide certain information, such as the employee’s email address, telephone number, birth date and social security number.

All three respondents in these cases argued that IRCA preempted their prosecutions. The argument was based on 8 USC §1324a(b)(5), which states that “I–9 forms and ‘any information contained in or appended to such form[s] may not be used for purposes other than for enforcement of’ the INA or other listed federal statutes.”

So what does that section say?

(5) Limitation on use of attestation form A form designated or established by the Attorney General under this subsection and any information contained in or appended to such form, may not be used for purposes other than for enforcement of this chapter and sections 1001, 1028, 1546, and 1621 of title 18.

And what do the sections in title 18 say?

Head of section 1001:Part I. CRIMES Chapter 47. FRAUD AND FALSE STATEMENTS

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—
(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;
(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or
(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;

Head of section 1028:18 U.S. Code § 1028. Fraud and related activity in connection with identification documents, authentication features, and information

(a) Whoever, in a circumstance described in subsection (c) of this section— (1) knowingly and without lawful authority produces an identification document, authentication feature, or a false identification document;
(2) knowingly transfers an identification document, authentication feature, or a false identification document knowing that such document or feature was stolen or produced without lawful authority;
(3) knowingly possesses with intent to use unlawfully or transfer unlawfully five or more identification documents (other than those issued lawfully for the use of the possessor), authentication features, or false identification documents;
(4) knowingly possesses an identification document (other than one issued lawfully for the use of the possessor), authentication feature, or a false identification document, with the intent such document or feature be used to defraud the United States;
(5) knowingly produces, transfers, or possesses a document-making implement or authentication feature with the intent such document-making implement or authentication feature will be used in the production of a false identification document or another document-making implement or authentication feature which will be so used;
(6) knowingly possesses an identification document or authentication feature that is or appears to be an identification document or authentication feature of the United States or a sponsoring entity of an event designated as a special event of national significance which is stolen or produced without lawful authority knowing that such document or feature was stolen or produced without such authority;
(7) knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person with the intent to commit, or to aid or abet, or in connection with, any unlawful activity that constitutes a violation of Federal law, or that constitutes a felony under any applicable State or local law; or
(8) knowingly traffics in false or actual authentication features for use in false identification documents, document-making implements, or means of identification;

Head of Section 1546:18 U.S. Code § 1546. Fraud and misuse of visas, permits, and other documents

(a) Whoever knowingly forges, counterfeits, alters, or falsely makes any immigrant or nonimmigrant visa, permit, border crossing card, alien registration receipt card, or other document prescribed by statute or regulation for entry into or as evidence of authorized stay or employment in the United States, or utters, uses, attempts to use, possesses, obtains, accepts, or receives any such visa, permit, border crossing card, alien registration receipt card, or other document prescribed by statute or regulation for entry into or as evidence of authorized stay or employment in the United States, knowing it to be forged, counterfeited, altered, or falsely made, or to have been procured by means of any false claim or statement, or to have been otherwise procured by fraud or unlawfully obtained; or

Head of section 1621: 18 U.S. Code § 1621. Perjury generally

Whoever— (1) having taken an oath before a competent tribunal, officer, or person, in any case in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered, that he will testify, declare, depose, or certify truly, or that any written testimony, declaration, deposition, or certificate by him subscribed, is true, willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true; or...

So Ramiro Garcia, Donaldo Morales and Guadalupe Ochoa-Lara are essentially admitting to the crime, under which they have run afoul of the above listed codes and their argument is that the state didn't have the right to prosecute them? Hmmm...OK then, why weren't they charged by the feds as soon as the fraud was discovered? If they want to play that game, INS should have arrested them on the spot.

That said let's look at the dissent in the decision:

Our precedent demonstrates that IRCA impliedly preempts state laws that trench on Congress’ detailed and delicate design. In Arizona, we invalidated a state law that made it a crime for an unauthorized alien to work. 567 U. S., at 403. In reaching that conclusion, we acknowledged that the Act’s employer-related sections contain an express preemption provision, while the employee-related provi- sions do not. Id., at 406. Even so, the Act’s employee- related provisions retained, through implication, preemp- tive force. Id., at 406–407.

Congress, we explained, “made a deliberate choice not to impose criminal penalties on aliens who” merely “seek, or engage in, unauthorized employment.” Id., at 405. The Act puts combating the employment of unauthorized aliens at the forefront of federal immigration policy. Id., at 404. But it also reflects “a considered judgment” not to pursue that goal at all costs. Id., at 405. “Unauthorized workers trying to support their families” usually “pose less danger than al- ien smugglers or aliens who commit a serious crime.” Id., at 396. And they may have “children born in the United States, long ties to the community,” or other attributes that could counsel in favor of prosecutorial restraint. Ibid. We ultimately held in Arizona that the States thus may not make criminal what Congress did not, for any such state law “would interfere with the careful balance struck by Congress with respect to unauthorized employment of aliens.” Id., at 406. Given that “obstacle to the regulatory system Congress chose,” we concluded that the state law at issue conflicted with the federal Act and was therefore preempted. Id., at 406–407. [my underlines]

Note that these judges admit that the congress passed laws to purposely keep states from enforcing employment AND immigration law because of the threat those laws imposed on those in the country illegally. These same people lecture us about the "rule of law" and "nobody above the law" who then create "sanctuary states" where they can pre-empt federal enforcement of immigration and employment law at will.

A serious country would not only allow the federal government (or national government) to enforce it's immigration and employment laws, it would not prevent it's states, counties, districts, boroughs or whatever from doing the same. And the lawmakers would definitely not purposely try to "not impose criminal penalties" on those who have trespassed AND committed ID theft which no citizen would be able to get away with.

Addressing Bernie Sanders' Lie About Billionaires

One of Bernie Sanders attack lines is that somehow it is the fault of greedy billionaires that there are homeless people in America. A lot of people walk around with this "America is so rich so there shouldn't be homeless" idea. This idea is an outgrowth of the idea that in order for someone to be/get rich they must have appropriated the wealth of someone else OR prevented a class of people from becoming wealthy (or at least self-sufficient). This may have been the case during the rise of early industrialists, some of whom did some very shady (and downright criminal) things to workers in the process of making their money. However; this really isn't the case anymore; particularly in the US. Much of the wealth generated today is in the form of appreciating assets. Those assets are largely but not exclusively in the financial sector. In other words, money making money. Other forms are you, the reader, using "free" platforms in exchange for being monetized by the companies providing you with these "free" services. Remember, when it comes to the internet either you pay for the product or you ARE the product.

Generally the extremely wealthy got so by offering some good or service that a large number of people found useful and were willing to pay for. Generally. They didn't make their money by making people homeless. Generally. We'll get back to this. It's important to understand what the homeless look like before getting further into the topic.

In a 2008 survey performed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, 25 cities were asked for the three largest causes of homelessness in their communities. Mental illness was the third largest cause of homelessness for single adults (mentioned by 48% of cities). For homeless families, mental illness was mentioned by 12% of cities as one of the top 3 causes of homelessness... In addition, half of the mentally ill homeless population in the United States also suffers from substance abuse and dependence (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration). Minorities, especially African Americans, are over-represented in this group. Some mentally ill people self-medicate using street drugs, which can lead not only to addictions, but also to disease transmission from injection drug use. This combination of mental illness, substance abuse, and poor physical health makes it very difficult for people to obtain employment and residential stability.

Mental illness being the third largest cause. I recall watching a Youtube channel where various homeless people were interviewed. A large number of the people had fell into addiction that cost them their jobs and families. This is not the fault of "billionaires". It is why as a rule I don't give money to homeless. I give food or clothes.

Another point on addiction and homelessness:

The 100,000 Homes Campaign, a movement of communities working to find permanent homes for 100,000 homeless individuals, conducted a survey of more than 30,100 homeless people across the country. Close to 60 percent of participants had a substance abuse problem. Nearly 14 percent engaged in drugs intravenously, and roughly 20 percent had a drug problem without knowing or admitting it.

Alcohol is more common among older generations, whereas drug abuse is more prevalent with young adults. Polydrug use — using two or more drugs in combination — has become more popular among all adults.

So we can clearly see that a rather large percentage of the homeless are homeless for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with "billionaires". It is either due to their own behavior (substance abuse) or mental illness they developed or were born with.

The next class of people who are homeless are those done in by circumstances beyond their control. For example due to the explosive growth of IT businesses in California, housing costs have skyrocketed and the population of working homeless has ballooned. We're talking teachers and other professionals who in any other area of the country would probably not be homeless. Who drove up the housing prices? Not [usually] billionaires but the millionaires that own the property.

Next we have the unexpected medical event. I think this is where Sanders' argument is and will be most potent. I read that a person went to get tested for COVID-19 and received a 3k bill. Should have never happened. The extremely high costs of medical care in the US has to be addressed. Simply throwing more taxpayer money at it is not going to help. I completely understand that it takes a large sum of money to discover new treatments. I understand that medical professionals are often highly paid and that the equipment in use is specialized and "expensive" but these kinds of bills simply shouldn't be possible. These, IMO abusive billing practices are going to get Socialism in the door a lot faster than people think because all of us are going to need medical care in our lifetimes.

One of the possible reasons I see for these inflated bills is the health insurance industry. Similar to how it may be the case that guaranteed government student loads are inflating college costs, I think that these hospitals and other entities, knowing that some insurance company is going to pay for the service, regardless of whether the patient can actually pay, drives up costs. What incentives are there to get these bills down to a reasonable amount is there, when the vast majority of patients pay a $50 "fee" and the $3000 comes from AETNA? Who in turn has been guaranteed by the government to have employees pay in x-amount of their wages to their company?

How many patients with a 104 degree temp is going to be all: "Well doc, can I get an estimate? Can I get competing quotes from nearby hospitals? Naw, I don't think I want to pay for this pill right here, you just take the blood sample and I'll go get my own Advil."

So a lot of Bernie supporters are going to need to be real about the causes of homelessness. It's not a simple billionaires are to blame.

Some COVID-19 Thoughts

So over the weekend I saw reports of the increasing numbers of cases in Italy South Korea and the US coasts. Not entirely surprised at the locations of the first cases in the US. They are all on US coasts (Except the IL. case) where there are busy international arrival airports and high immigrant populations. With a virus that has a relatively long incubation period, there could be many undiagnosed cases, particularly among younger and healthier populations that are going to get a lot of people infected. But thats' not really what's on my mind this AM. The thing I keep seeing is about the lack of hospital beds. I think that we may be thinking to 20th century.

If most cases are relatively mild (meaning ER case is unnecessary) then the needs for beds drops. There are a lot of people who go to ERs in a panic for what are not really ER situations. Corona may lead to a lot more of that. I believe that one thing that could be done here is to leverage "visiting nurse" businesses. They could be used for both initial diagnosis as well as regular check ins without taking up hospital resources. For all I know this is already in action so if I'm late on this forgive me.

I think this could even be used for more serious cases as well. Since there is no "cure" and all that a hospital is going to do, as far as I know, is proscribe fever reducers, fluids and sleep, these things can be done a person's residence. The main thing a hospital has is the eye of a health care professional. Which brings me to my next suggestion: Leverage technology.

A great portion of the population has smart phones that are capable of real time video conferencing. Therefore it is possible for a nurse or other qualified person to "check in" on a patient who is very remote. Indeed such things are done in rural Africa all the time with what I understand is great effect. Those in isolation in their residences should be checked in on remotely via these apps from a central location which may be a hospital but not necessarily so. Also we have smart watches now that can read heart rates and notify emergency contacts if there are heart issues and/or falls. I think that government agencies should consider batch purchases of these devices for those who do not have these devices and who are considered higher risk. In this way when these patients are between check-ins, we can know that they are not dead or have had a fall that may be related to them moving around while sick. If these monitors do go off, then the appropriate ambulatory services can be activated.

The other thing is food. One thing we don't want is for sick people to go to the stores and infect other people. Hence organizations who do food deliveries such as meals on wheels should be considered by the relevant authorities to do food deliveries to isolated persons. For those able to pay for such services, they should do so, particularly since we are in a cash optional society now.

Other than that, wash yo' hands and keep them away from your face. And for casino frequenters, clean those buttons and tables before you play. And if you're sick, please, please, please lose your money another day when you're not sick.

What's Behind The Trump Pardon Spree?

So Trump went on a pardon spree. For a while I couldn't figure out why. I was particularly baffled by Blagojevich's pardon. After all he's a Democrat...who's not black. Yes, there's the whole Apprentice thing but I think it goes deeper than that. People in the press are saying that Trump is pardoning people with connections to him. I'm actually sure that's a part of it but I think it to be a small part of it. I think we can find the reasoning in commentary that Trump has made recently regarding the Roger Stone. So here's Trump talking about Stone

So you see Trump is highly upset about the way the "justice department" has been handling cases. To underscore this point, look at this Washington Examiner piece:

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred Comey for possible criminal prosecution after an investigation into the former FBI chief's handling of his memos, after which the agency quickly determined there was little on which to build a case.

Upon hearing the news, Trump spiraled into frequent tirades, raising his voice and swearing in the Oval Office, according to the Washington Post. "Can you [expletive] believe they didn’t charge him?” Trump said the night of the decision...

Comey has become a vocal Trump critic since being fired in May 2017, appears to be the subject of another leak investigation into a dubious Russian intelligence document that factored into how he handled the FBI investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's email server.

Trump also has complained about FBI Director Christopher Wray in recent months and believes it was unacceptable that Comey's former deputy, Andrew McCabe, has not been charged with a crime.

So I believe what Trump is doing is a "two can play this game" thing. The way I see it, Trump is showing that if the people in the "Justice Department" want to go easy on their friends and colleagues while going on hard on people they don't care for or who are not in their circle, then He's going to use his pardon power to reverse their decisions. I'm sure Bill Barr is not happy about it as it does, in fact, make the department look bad. However; this is a problem made by the department itself. Personally, I don't see how anyone involved with presenting false information to the FISA court has not been arrested and charged with perjury at a bare minimum. And I'm not talking about that one guy who falsified that one report. The reason it hasn't happened is because it goes all the way up the chain. And I mean ALL THE WAY UP. Like Dan Bogino says:

They all know each other.

Interview With A Grooming Gang Survivor

While the media give you Mr and Mrs Markle, here's an interview of one of the thousands of British nationals raped by gangs of foreign nationals while the police and social services agents did nothing.

Understand that the Left in the US would gladly bring this to the US.

White Ex-Democrat

Tim Pool talks with Jack Murphy about how he stopped being a Democrat. If you "can't understand" why there are [many] people who support Trump then you need to understand this interview.

Of particular interest to me was the discussion of signs in store windows in Berkley and the store owner (small business) saying that the anti-Trump signs were in the window to prevent the glass from being smashed by Antifa types (who are supported by Democrats and the media, I repeat myself). That's some mafia type stuff right there.

About The Electoral College

For a long time, including at the beginning of this blog, I have been very down on the EC. It was, of course, for selfish reasons. I thought, as most people now clamoring for it to be abolished that the popular vote should decide things. I didn't consider that the population of the US was dense in some places and sparse in others. Really, I didn't. Because of this, I really didn't understand why the system had been set up the way it had been. Today's people saying that there should be a popular vote don't really care about those areas of the country that would essentially be shut out of presidential voting. For all the talk of voter disenfranchisement, the popular vote would essentially discard of all votes not in states with populous cities. And so I ask the question: What reason would those states (and indeed the people in them) have for remaining in the United States? Anyway, for those reading this over the extended weekend, here's a video on the subject:

I do want to address one thing mentioned in the video. Tara Ross says that the founders didn't foresee an uneducated (or uninformed) public and this is a part of the problem. I disagree. As we know, elections, and therefore real political power was meant to be in the hands of land owning [white] freemen. The very class of people likely to be "educated" and have "something to lose" by bad decisions made by government. Indeed it is the expansion of "voting rights" that has caused a lot of changes. There are a number of electoral maps out there that show how elections would likely turn out based on one particular group voting (white males, White females, blacks, etc). By the maps I saw, Trump sweeps the entire country if the only people able to vote were those allowed in the beginning of the republic. So the question can be made whether it is really about 'education" or the different interests of various groups currently inhabiting the US.

Bloomberg: Right About The Stats. Wrong About The Solution

So folks are finding out that Bloomberg has said some true things about crime, particularly violent crime in NYC. They are SHOCKED. SHOCKED I tell you that Bloomberg,who got to see the data the head of the city of NY, stated that "minorities" were the "usual suspects" as well as victims of violence with guns ( I hate the term "gun violence" since guns are inanimate objects). Below is a clip from ABL where he, unfortunately defends the practice of Stop and Frisk:

Now I'm not going to dispute Bloomberg's commentary on the stats. I've written on the subject and any honest person who has seen the stats knows the deal. So this leads me to my major problem with Bloomberg: He's a tyrant.

Bloomberg is one of those white men who has a God complex. He thinks it's his job to "take care" of people whether they like it or not. He's the typical paternalistic liberal with a huge bank account. So for Mike, the ends justifies the means. If you have rights that get in the way of "getting it done", then to hell with your rights.

There is absolutely no doubt that Stop and Frisk is and was effective. I am not disputing that. The problem is that Stop And Frisk grossly violated the 4th Amendment rights of the citizens of NYC. This is what ABL apparently doesn't get or doesn't particularly care about. Simply being in a "high crime area" is not grounds for a warrant-less search. Yes, the police used the bullshit of "furtive movements" to justify these stops on paper, but what exactly is a furtive movement? Is going for your phone a "furtive movement"? Ask Diallo about that one.

Being black in a black high crime area doesn't rise to reasonable suspicion either. The fact of the matter is that even though black crime rates are many multiples of white crime rates, the vast majority of black people are law abiding. And given the high use of public transport in NYC and it's infamous nightlife, being out and about in the wee hours of the morning is also not a good reason to suspect someone of criminal intent.

Bloomberg knew this would come out hence his "I'm sorry" media blitz right before he announced his run.

We see you.

The other reason I am bothered by ABLs acceptance of Stop and Frisk is that by accepting it, he undermines his own support of the 2nd Amendment. After all, if your 4th Amendment rights are negotiable based on public safety then it is reasonable to say that your 2nd Amendment rights are as well. I accept neither argument. And this is also why Bloomberg is dangerous. He has no care for the 4th and he has no qualms about nuking the 2nd. See Virginia for what comes soon after a Bloomberg inauguration.

A man who is convinced of his own righteousness and that of his causes, who would steamroll any group standing in the way of his vision is a dangerous person. Back in the day when climate scientists were so convinced that we were all going to freeze to death that they seriously considered melting the ice caps, Nixon (I believe) told them to take a hike. A man like Bloomberg might likely do something that stupid 'cause he believes in what is currently passing as climate science.