Tracker

Because swords are flashy. It has always stumped me that adversaries in sci-fi choose to use bladed weapons to fight when they could stand meters away and kill their opponents. But then, in firefights, everyone can be 10 meters away from each other and miss repeatedly. Plus, the number one bad guy must always be killed or captured by the number one good guy. And in horror movies, when someone (usually a scantily-clad young lady) is alone in a dark place and hears a scary noise, she is compelled to walk slowly towards it.

And they have the veneer of credibility. Never underestimate the will of some to promote an irresponsible point of view for personal gain.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said on Wednesday that it will “suspend” efforts to close gun shops even after designating them as “nonessential businesses” that need to be shut down amid California’s statewide lockdown, the Los Angeles Times reported. Sheriff Alex Villanueva announced on Twitter that the “efforts to close nonessential businesses have been suspended,” adding, “CA Gov. Gavin Newsom to determine what qualifies as a non-essential business.” Villanueva also linked to a Fox 11 News clip in which reporter Bill Melugin quotes him as saying: “the county’s top lawyer put out a legal opinion that she believes gun stores are essential businesses and should remain open.”

Because having a degree of academic credentials does not guarantee competence or unbiased attitude. As an example, a psychiatrist friend of Gwyneth Paltrow has stated that not only is the COVID19 furor completely unwarranted, she doesn't believe that bacteria cause illness. When a great majority of experts in a field pronounce a verdict, they are not always right, but they almost always are. If it is assumed that this does not have the potential to kill hundreds of thousands and nothing is done, we will have a lot of bodies to burn if this is wrong.

A pox on both their houses.

Ambrose Bierce in his book, "The Devil's Dictionary" described a friend as someone you know well enough to borrow from but not well enough to lend to.

Before we stampede off a cliff following sketchy reports, let us consider that when tobacco was being exposed as both carcinogenic and addictive, the tobacco industry trotted out their sophists to claim that it was all harmless, even beneficial. The same has been true for opiods, diazepam, and global climate change. I choose to believe that because the vast majority of bodies and people charged with overseeing our welfare has seen fit to deem the COVID19 pandemic as potentially catastrophic, the overwhelming consensus is accurate. After all, one US (GOP) politician brought a snowball into the Congress and said it was proof that there is no global warming.

Since the American senate has set a precedent that the president is above the law, nothing that comes out of the legislative system applies to him. And as he said, the Second Amendment empowers him to do whatever he wants.

Damn. Not unexpected but scary nonetheless- particularly about the 10 year old.

As healthcare providers across the U.S. desperately attempt to treat a rapidly growing number of patients with the coronavirus, a pharmaceutical company with ties to the Trump administration has been granted exclusive status for a drug it is developing to treat the illness—a potential windfall for the company that could put the medication out of reach for many Americans. As The Intercept reported Monday, the Food and Drug Administration granted Gilead Sciences “orphan” drug status for remdesivir, one of several drugs being tested as potential treatments for the coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19. The designation is generally reserved for drugs that treat rare illnesses affecting fewer than 200,000 Americans—but companies can be eligible if the designation, as in this case of a rapidly spreading virus, is made before a disease spreads beyond that limit.

Does a guy named Homer work there?

It has been speculated that there are at least two strains extant now and possibly as many as 5.

Or, someone from there could log on here...

That, and voter suppression.

Today in his Fox interview Trump outright lied twice, once horribly. First he denied ever saying that he said that the testing was "perfect" (he was recorded saying exactly that). Then when confronted with his lack of action in ordering more ventilators, he regurgitated a scurrilous website posting that New York state chose to use money to establish death panels and a lottery instead of buying ventilators.

These stats can be easily manipulated- if you test in small amounts or in low-risk areas, then your stats will improve. Then there is the issue of how you define the cause of death- in Viet Nam and again in Iraq/Afghanistan, the medics were/are instructed to keep the wounded physically/technically alive until they were out of the battlefield and pronounce them only when they were transported. Johnson's reaction to the pandemic was not prevention but to let it run its course in the UK and treat only the critically ill.

This would be perfect for fans of Infowars and OANN.

Apparently doctors and pharmacists are stockpiling this stuff for themselves. Lemings.

The source is not very credible.

Considering Boris Johnson's cavalier attitude towards the pandemic, I am not sure how much I trust this. Johnson is a slightly smarter version of Trump.

FYI: Canadian Blood Services is running short of blood and its components. You are invited to join me on William Avenue Thursday afternoon.

We already have. Trump the president has conducted himself in exactly the same way as Trump the husband and businessman. QED.

"What's past is prologue"