SPONSOR

Vaulted Invest in Gold

Visit this blog’s sponsor. Vaulted is an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold: Kunstler.com/vaulted


 

Support JHK on Patreon

 

If you’re interested in supporting this blog, check out the Patreon page.

 

Attention Movie Producers!
JHK’s screenplay in hard-copy edition

Click to order!

A Too-Big-To-Fail Bankster…
Three Teenagers who bring him down…
Gothic doings on a Connecticut Estate.
High velocity drama!


Now Live on Amazon

“Simply the best novel of the 1960s”


Now in Paperback !
Only Seven Bucks!
JHK’s Three-Act Play
A log mansion in the Adirondack Mountains…
A big family on the run…
A nation in peril…


Long Emergency Cafe Press ad 2

Get your Official JHK swag on Cafe Press


The fourth and final book of the World Made By Hand series.

Harrow_cover_final

Battenkill Books (autographed by the Author) |  Northshire Books Amazon


emb of Riches Thumbnail

JHK’s lost classic now reprinted as an e-book
Kindle edition only


 

Clusterfuck Nation
For your reading pleasure Mondays and Fridays

Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page


I never subscribed to the nostrums of Marxism, but old Karl sure had a point when he said, “All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.” Is that exactly where we’re at, or what?

The hologram of capital that was not really there dissolves before our eyes. That capital, you understand, was our notion of how wealthy we used to be, like, five minutes ago. And now the capital, the money, the mojo of modern life is going-going-gone. The hologram was projected by a fantastically hypercomplex hologram machine jerry-rigged with frauds, swindles, and false promises to pay tomorrow for that proverbial hamburger today. The people running it left the robots in charge and went off to frolic with the likes of Jeffrey Epstein, speaking of the profane. Then, the hologram machine broke and the iridescent image just plumb flickered out.

Now, under the shadow of the corona virus, everybody has been sent home to wait and see what happens next, hostages to the flat-screen, where the cable networks show little besides a non-stop real-time horror movie called The End of Your Future. It’s hard to keep morale up when you realize that all the usual conveyer belts of stuff you need to keep going are breaking down. It’s not hard to imagine fights, sure to come, over that dwindling stuff, which we will struggle heroically to allocate because we are really not all bad. Goodness abides, even in that America we managed to so deeply profane. Let’s hope there’s enough of it.

When these convulsions are over, we’ll have to reorganize those real conditions of life very differently in North America. There will still be considerable capital, but not the hocus-pocus Wall Street kind. There will be a lot of places with good-enough soil left ­­­­­– or at least soil that can be nursed back to health – to grow food. There are plenty of well-watered places. We have a marvelous system of navigable rivers, all outfitted with canals connecting them. (The Erie and Champlain Canals that connect the Hudson River estuary to the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence have been kept in immaculate condition, by some miracle of forethought.) Our ancestors moved most of their stuff that way, and so can we.

We have plenty of human capital: strong backs and agile minds. They just have to be reconditioned off their addictions to canned entertainments, drugs, and the Faustian raptures of techno-narcissism – in other words, we need to get real. Real means recognizing that we’ve crossed over into a new chapter of the human project and that it requires different behavior (the relations with our kind old Karl Marx spoke of.) Mostly that means readjusting our attention back to the people and the place around us, while expecting a whole lot less from distant institutions far away. Gawd knows there is enough to do, if we can get our minds right.

I doubt that the federal government as we know it can survive its own desperate measures to re-ignite the hologram of rehypothecated promises to pay back all the debt gone bad. Its adjunct, the Federal Reserve, is desperately trying to do just that this morning by promising to buy everything and anything that the markets are puking up before the open. If that seems to do the trick, the ecstatic rush may not last very long. I can say no more about that for the moment because I discovered about five minutes ago that the Internet is down here and I’m going to have to go looking for it now somewhere else nearby to put this blog up.

When I realized the web was down, and the phone wasn’t working, I turned on the TV to see if that was out too. It was. The real-time horror movie I mentioned above (the cable news) wasn’t even available, which rather darkened my outlook instantly. Did something blow up out there? I confess, I’ve had intimations lately that I am suddenly living in the prequel to my own World Made by Hand novels, which, for those unacquainted with them, are about the collapse of our economy and modern life with it. Believe me, it’s not especially comforting or satisfying, even to me, who anticipated the now-unfolding situation in great detail. As it happened, the cell phone was working, at least. I made some calls and learned that the world was still up-and-running. In the immortal words of Leon Spinks, the morning has been a bit “freaky-deaky.”

I have relocated to a friend’s house in another part of the village, so I can get this blog up a half hour late. I’ll add an addendum later today….

Update: The Internet came back on here around 2:00p.m. No storm or anything…though it’s snowing now.

By late afternoon, a middling crumble in the equities. Gold and silver are zooming back up. The congressional Democrats are trying to jam one deal-killer after another into the “relief” bill on purpose to make sure the picture gets worse so as to deep-six Mr. Trump. The net effect is more uncertainty and a greater loss of trust in our government’s competence per se. Chuck and Nancy just look like they’re trying out a new, subtler form of sedition. Tomorrow will no doubt bring on more congressional Chinese fire drills. I suppose everyone in the money world thought if there was going to be a rally, it would start today. Wrong, alas…. The beat goes on and the beat-down with it.


This blog is sponsored this week by McAlvany ICA. To learn more visit: //icagoldcompany.com/


Coming in March 2020

 

Attention Movie Producers!
JHK’s screenplay in hard-copy edition

Click to order!

A Too-Big-To-Fail Bankster
Three Teenagers who bring him down
Gothic doings on a Connecticut Estate.
High velocity drama!


Support this blog by visiting Jim’s Patreon Page


This blog is sponsored this week by Vaulted, an online mobile web app for investing in allocated and deliverable physical gold. To learn more visit:Kunstler.com/vaulted


GET EMAIL ALERTS WHEN NEW CONTENT IS PUBLISHED

1) Select the list you want to subscribe to and enter your email address

2) Click the toggle & follow any reCAPTCHA instructions

3) Click the Subscribe! button

4) Check your email for a confirmation link (more info below form)

Select list(s):

Manage Your Current Subscription | Privacy Policy

Having trouble with the reCAPTCHA? Read this: https://support.google.com/recaptcha

Important! After you submit your email address, you need to complete your subscription by clicking a verification link sent to the email address you provided. Check your "promotions" or spam folders if you don't see that message. AOL and Yahoo addresses may take a while to receive the verification message.

Still not receiving that email? Read this: https://kunstler.com/subscriber

After all the above, still having problems? Fill out a bug report: https://kunstler.com/report


New Paintings from the 2022 Season

Barrel Racers, Cambridge, NY


Just Out! The whole shootin’ match going back to 1987!

For autographed copies:

Battenkill Books, Cambridge, NY

Also at: Amazon, Barnes & Nobel


The Jeff Greenaway series of novellas. These rollicking, short books depict the misadventures of an eleven-year-old boy growing up in New York City in the early 1960s

About James Howard Kunstler

View all posts by James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler is the author of many books including (non-fiction) The Geography of Nowhere, The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, Home from Nowhere, The Long Emergency and the four-book series of World Made By Hand novels, set in a post economic crash American future. His most recent book is Living in the Long Emergency; Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing Us the Way Forward. Jim lives on a homestead in Washington County, New. York, where he tends his garden and communes with his chickens.

1,228 Responses to “Freaky-Deaky”

  1. FallenHero March 23, 2020 at 10:30 am #

    So with Great Depression 2.0 nearly upon us, can we get some ideas of jobs or skills you should start learning to actually have a job or money income coming in?

    I have been thinking repair, but a lot of people just would rather buy new Chinese trash.

    • peakfuture March 23, 2020 at 10:32 am #

      If you can’t buy Chinese goods, repairing is an option. Learning any skill now might be difficult, though, in quarantine. Maybe watching basic DIY videos to get you started.

      • peakfuture March 23, 2020 at 10:34 am #

        Also, getting a ham license might be useful. People will want to communicate, and if our hyper-connectedness goes, that will be important.

        • stelmosfire March 23, 2020 at 10:57 am #

          Radios, check. License, nope, who cares? FCC ? Just listening will tell ya what’s going on just don’t get caught transmitting.

          • yooper2017 March 23, 2020 at 3:02 pm #

            Not smart enough to pass the Technician’s license, I see.

          • stelmosfire March 23, 2020 at 5:01 pm #

            Golly, hain’t no way weez kin pass dat durn test.

          • stelmosfire March 23, 2020 at 5:08 pm #

            Huh?.. .—-. …- . / –. — – / .- / .-.. .. -.-. . -. … . / — — .-. — -. .-.-.- / .— ..- … – / … .- -.– .. -. –. / -.– — ..- / -.. — -. .—-. – / -. . . -.. / — -. . / – — / .-.. .. … – . -. !

          • Majella March 23, 2020 at 6:35 pm #

            Come on Elmo! Translate for us. (The Google machine can’t do it, as the ‘…’ are not midline, I’m guessing)

          • K-Dog March 25, 2020 at 6:47 pm #

            It needs spaces between the letters.

      • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 11:06 am #

        I attended a “repair cafe” at my local library last year.
        The libraries have been switching from keepers of knowledge to providers of social services and entertainment, but this affair was actually useful, it did pass along knowledge.
        The heroes of the event all appeared to be white men, but they are the ones who volunteered, so I guess an exception to PC was in order.
        I had an item I could have fixed myself, but lacked the proper tool.
        As it turns out, many of the volunteers owned the necessary tool, but hadn’t brought it with them.
        Not a problem, they showed me how to do it myself without it.
        I believe this was part of a nationwide or even international movement.

        • 4014HAMPHEDGE March 23, 2020 at 11:59 am #

          Some subjects of “Fix & Repair” have more leverage. The “Rails To Trail program has preserved thousands of miles of railway corridor, some of which runs through food production districts, or nearby manufacturing/warehousing. facilities. Nearly ALL US military bases past & present were served by rail spur to on-base warehousing & shop buildings.

          In one of the “Jurassic Park” sequels, taker a look at the rails in the pavement, in the shop building in which the expedition vehicles are being readied. These are still extant Mare Island Shipyard assets.

          Fix & Repair of most needed/essential railway corridor can be accomplished by re-commissioned US Army/Guard Railway Transportation Battalion units, as demonstrated in the Ft. Eustis VA template. Private individual & corporate funding will make these existential US railway lines viable & become Famine Hedge requisites as truck food distribution falters.

          Simple formula suggests public ownership of the track and right-of way; operators of the rolling stock and personnel are corporate entities. Individuals with foresight and financial ability (be light on your feet) should contact “American Short Line Regional Railroad Association” for information on partnerships and corridor appropriate for this new era rail construction.

          A larger view of railway corridor past and present may be obtained from the Mike Walker Publishing spv.co,uk Railway Atlas Map book series with all-time maps of North American Railway corridor. Determining rail corridor into food production districts may be difficult in places where corporate agriculture has obliterated original rights of way, making some lines simply not feasible on original footprint.

          First baby step to begin shift to larger rail share of food distribution is a strategic detail: disperse container handling tractors enroute rail mains, enabling container handling at smaller communities and places once having boxcar spurs. Assessing railway track manufacturing facilities like the Bethlehem rolling mill in Steelton PA, essential in the effort. China is not our friend, and we must make our own strategic parts, pieces, pharmaceuticals and photovoltaics. Deal with it.

          Christopher Swan in San Francisco has developed template for stand alone economic units, communities off-grid and using renewables to produce power for homes and business, with electricity available for transportation and potable water production. Kitchen Gardens included!

          • MiddlePeninsula March 23, 2020 at 12:22 pm #

            No, China is not our friend.
            Virginia short line railroads can apply for grants. I am not sure if the grants are for existing lines or new lines. Check out the Virginia Dept. of Rail and Public Transportation.

        • roccofire March 23, 2020 at 6:44 pm #

          ANY worthwhile videos on gardens, water management?
          ANY of the regular folks who comment can you do a bi weekly class on how to garden, etc? I work in the emergency dept and they tell me a wave is still coming by end of week. JHK was right, long supply lines, in my inner burb here in western NY we have many small family farm that were replaced, now empty mini malls.

      • Iananna March 26, 2020 at 6:48 am #

        As an inveterate repairer (even when it costs more than buying a replacement – stubborn, me!) of almost anything until chips became ubiquitous, I have noticed that the older an item, from cars & clocks to white goods & plumbing, the more fun is to be had.
        Needless to say, modern ‘stuff’ lasts only a fraction of the time almost anything manufactured pre80s which is good because the modern crap is rarely worth fixing.

    • PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 11:01 am #

      mending, canning, growing, fixing, cobbling, recycling, sewing, knitting, fishing, building, cutting, hunting,

      • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 11:10 am #

        I was getting to the point where I knew I was going to have to start sewing my own clothing, or at least altering them.
        I quickly realized that I’m going to have a hard time. I don’t see well enough for anything other than simple mending.

        • PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 11:23 am #

          I’m sorry! that makes it tough..
          that’s a great opportunity to trade what you can do with a neighbor or a friend, or with the community.. maybe you can mend things for them, while they sew things for you..

          • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 11:38 am #

            We get old.

        • MiddlePeninsula March 23, 2020 at 12:26 pm #

          Hi Beryl of Oyl,
          Could you have cataracts? Mine creeped up on me so gradually, I didn’t notice until I was running around like Mr. Magoo. After a double surgery, my eyes are fantastic. Even though I still need reading glasses, I can do anything I did forty years ago.

          • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 12:42 pm #

            Possibly, thanks. I think it’s just me being overdue for an eye appointment, and relying on old reading glasses.
            I was about to make an appointment. For weeks. Now my eye doctor isn’t taking appointments.

      • FallenHero March 23, 2020 at 11:33 am #

        How do you make money with this though?

        • PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 3:31 pm #

          time to get creative with the resources you have at hand..

          for me I have access to a private apple orchard, just one example.. so I could make & sell cider
          I was thinking about that today

          • PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 3:33 pm #

            or you could process venison into damn good venison sausage & steaks out there..

            another example

        • Robert White March 23, 2020 at 10:52 pm #

          Money is always made the same way throughout history. There are a few rules to make money.

          #1 Buy low & sell high.

          #2 Rentier Income stream. [see Hudson]

          #3 Never give a sucker an even break. [see W.C. Fields]

          #4 There is a sucker born every minute. [see P.T. Barnum]

          #5 Utilize Warren Buffett’s Used Cigar Stock Philosophy.

          [see Oracle of Omaha]

          RW

      • wpa_ccc March 23, 2020 at 1:34 pm #

        mending, canning, growing, fixing, cobbling, recycling, sewing, knitting, fishing, building, cutting, hunting

        weaving, fiddling

        • PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 3:32 pm #

          there ya go wpa

          I’ll start a bar selling cider and you can stop by and fiddle for everybody 🙂

        • aibohphobia March 24, 2020 at 1:43 am #

          brewing, distilling

          • Lawfish March 24, 2020 at 4:58 pm #

            Check. My entire basement is a brewery/distillery. When they shut down the liquor stores, I’ll be in very high demand.

      • Ishabaka March 24, 2020 at 10:25 am #

        Sharpening. Ever tried cutting with a dull handsaw, scissors, or knife?

    • Htruth March 23, 2020 at 12:01 pm #

      Nobody Listened: https://youtu.be/qY1N9o5LYjw

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 12:28 pm #

      Repair, yes. Where is that online course on how to be a quantum mechanic when I need it? Perhaps I can learn to draw.

      Most of the Chinese shit is built is such a way it can’t be repaired and has to be bought new. No China no stuff. Good agricultural land and plenty of it. Really? Without fertilizer American land won’t be able to feed all the American people but without fracking there is no fertilizer.

      As far as viruses go, COVID is too much of a wimp to change the game. A virus that is more serious about killing people is needed for a game changer. Bernie had a lot of the right stuff but likely not enough of it because Bernie thought we could do away with fracking and he is wrong about that. Biden and Trump have none of the right stuff at all. That leaves me to free the world from the orange scourge. KDFP.

      • Pat Ormsby March 24, 2020 at 3:04 am #

        COVID is a good excuse to put the fan a little closer to the flying dung. Those that control the crisis benefit best. I really think the panic has more to do with Russia sabotaging OPEC, throwing the world’s biggest spanner into the grandest Pnozi ever. Putin is said to have seen an incipient panic in a very unprepared America as a chance to screw us over with emphatic prejudice. Thus I am more inclined to think it was a natural occurrence rather than deliberate.

    • abbybwood March 23, 2020 at 2:07 pm #

      Plumbing. Everybody will need a plumber at some point whether for upkeep or a new housing start.

    • what is this March 24, 2020 at 11:29 am #

      Phyllis Schlafly and Lou Dobbs had a love child. It’s name is the queen James Howard Kunstler.

  2. peakfuture March 23, 2020 at 10:31 am #

    Get yourself a windup AM/FM/Weather radio, Jim. If the power went out, I’d check that first, to see if something really bad happened.

    I thought my local ‘net connection flaked out as well for a bit – that would have really put me in a bind.

    • Iananna March 26, 2020 at 6:59 am #

      I’d recommend the really early portables (with simple transistors & uncluttered circuit boards) which always had SW & MW.
      These can be run from a 6V bike battery without an adaptor.
      FM needs much more power to broadcast and has a much smaller range which might be OK for small communities with an excess of hydro power but SW/MW can reach across the continent or world, weather permitting.

  3. AttackSub March 23, 2020 at 10:37 am #

    You can kill me if you want, but that’s the only way you’ll pry my salad slicer and my cheese doodles from my cold, dead hands.

    • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 10:47 am #

      LOL are you just saying that to be funny? For some reason I seriously doubt you even own a salad slicer. And I bet you don’t eat cheese doodles either!

      • Father Jack March 23, 2020 at 4:14 pm #

        SoftStar, never mind developing skills, you desperately need to develop a sense of humour or your lockdown experience is going to be unbearable.

        • SoftStarLight March 24, 2020 at 9:38 am #

          Well I was trying to be funny in my own way but I guess it didn’t come across the way I had hoped. I’ll work on my skills and sense of humor Father.

  4. JustSaying March 23, 2020 at 10:39 am #

    Who knew the Long Emergency would be a virus and who knew we would all become socialists!

    Reality is a simulation and a mental construct and it is about to collapse! It’s just too strange to digest.

    • fugeguy March 23, 2020 at 11:08 am #

      mexican flu versus kung flu- Jim was pretty close.

    • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 11:45 am #

      Read World made by Hand. The Long Emergency in that book was started by a pandemic. Socialism never takes off at all, localization starts instead because the government really does not have the capability to take care of the situation.

      We cannot even produce enough PPE to protect our health care workers. The GD Congress cannot even produce a plan to re-energize the economy or even to support people out of work.

      The Deep State is hopefully dying. I hope they become the victim of the Fourth Turning Crisis going on now. The Crisis is not just the virus, it will continue in the form of a government that does not have a clue what to do. Millennials should be happy in the knowledge that their midlife power base will take over during the ensuing High where the world will be very different.

      I used to make a “joke” that Medicare and Social Security will never have the financial issues predicted because our pollution was going to wipe out the elders through cancer and other diseases.

      No one is laughing at that “joke” anymore, including me.

      • DrTomSchmidt March 23, 2020 at 12:35 pm #

        “The Deep State is hopefully dying. I hope they become the victim of the Fourth Turning Crisis going on now. ”

        There’s a fundamental unfairness in the arrangements we’ve made. Young, poorer, working people have been idled to save the lives of old, richer, non working people (in theory, if it actually works, that is; we do know we’ve tanked the economy) If you thought you heard OK, Boomer, a lot before, expect the defrauded young to get even more vicious, as the bonds we issue to save those older lives burden THEIR future and economy.

        In the meantime, there’s an even bigger crisis that isn’t generational. I work for two places that will keep paying me as I work from home, while the place-dependent file for unemployment. I expect to have those positions for at least a year. So this crisis is going to make me better off versus the poorer people who will be fired, just as it’s going to make all those useless bureaucrats at CDC and the Fed and larded throughout the government better off.

        There was an article in 2016 about “the protected and the unprotected.” The unprotected just took another blow. Expect trouble.

        • Ron Anselmo March 23, 2020 at 1:14 pm #

          Right on Doc, on the Boomers. Kids calling it the “Boomer Remover”. Who can blame them?

          They’re the ones that’ll have to pay for the party, and they know it. The Boomers timed it just such, that they’ll all be gone when the check comes.

          Kids are pissed, because they weren’t even invited – just told, “You have to work hard, sacrifice & pick yourself up by your bootstraps”.

          Isn’t the key determinant of being a sociopath, lack of empathy?

        • snarkmatic9000 March 23, 2020 at 2:16 pm #

          So are you a “real” doctor?

          • snarkmatic9000 March 23, 2020 at 2:41 pm #

            I assume not, or you’d be too busy and not sitting behind a keyboard right now.

          • DrTomSchmidt March 23, 2020 at 3:09 pm #

            Doctor of Science. We were fostering better conditions for humanity when medical doctors were doing things like bleeding George Washington to death.

            You might investigate whether medical doctors had any positive influence on patients health before the invention of antibiotics.

            That’s not to denigrate surgeons, of course. As Taleb points out, those guys’ interventions led to a situation: if you’d been a surgeon long enough, enough of your patients must have survived to keep you in business. Not so the regular medical doctors.

          • snarkmatic9000 March 23, 2020 at 3:41 pm #

            Well my wife is, in Family & Internal Medicine. She puts on her 3M-7500 mask with P100 filters every morning and hopes that she won’t get sick after seeing patients all day long, regardless of the extreme cautions she’s taking… it’s just a bit removed from leeches these days.

          • snarkmatic9000 March 23, 2020 at 3:43 pm #

            and I’d like to imaginethat she is having a positive influence on her patient’s health. At 71 she still does so every day.

          • snarkmatic9000 March 23, 2020 at 3:45 pm #

            What “Science” btw?

          • Ishabaka March 24, 2020 at 10:29 am #

            @Dr.TomSchmidt – yep, smallpox should still be among us. if not for those durn doctors of medicine:
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61V6mK5WwJg

          • DrTomSchmidt March 24, 2020 at 2:31 pm #

            Good for your wife. Properly armed with scientific knowledge, like that produced by men like Pasteur and Koch And Lister, doctors can do a lot to prevent bacterial contamination. State of the art is ever-evolving, of course.

            I have no doubt that if she is compassionate, caring, and truly believes she is helping patients, then she is actually helping patients, regardless of her treatments. The placebo effect is strong.

            Are you familiar with this NEJM story?
            https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa013259

            I wouldn’t have expected a placebo effect in surgery, but there it is.

        • sophia March 23, 2020 at 2:21 pm #

          I agree, but it isn’t the boomers who are responsible for this. It is government and other institutions who have made these draconian decisions. They, of course, are well protected.

          • Ron Anselmo March 23, 2020 at 3:09 pm #

            A good read – Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America, by Bruce Cannon Gibney

          • DrTomSchmidt March 23, 2020 at 3:15 pm #

            Um, what generation are people like Donald Trump and Bill Clinton? For 28 years we’ve had nominal
            Boomer Presidents. (Obama might be more of an Xer, but was born during the 46-64 Boom.)

            The over-60 crowd has made the call to sacrifice the economy and the freedoms of the young to try to save older lives; recent figures from NYC show the majority of deaths there are in the over-75 age group, while 45-74 comprises the rest. NO ONE under 45 has died from the disease in NYC.

            So, no, the boomers aren’t responsible. But the elite running this country, all of whom are late Silents and early Boomers (and old) ARE responsible. I hope they’re right about the course they’ve taken.

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 12:38 pm #

      Did you really think unregulated capitalism could be the law of the land all the way down? Capitalism as we know it is too inefficient to deal with the existential challenges before us. Capitalism is a jungle law and as it turns out, our rain forest is gone. We have no jungle any more and a more appropriate form of social organization is needed.

      Without national health care the social contracts necessary to make a world made by hand work don’t exist. Without social safety nets people can’t be expected to stay home or make any of the other many sacrifices that will be demanded of the American people in the future. Likely the near future.

      New reciprocal arrangements must be forged. KDFP.

      • Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 7:40 pm #

        Social Capitalist, eh? That means closes borders and mono-racial communities for the most part. It takes a People to raise a Village to raised a Child. And the Child is the Father to the Man – and to be a good one needs a Father.

        • Robert White March 23, 2020 at 11:00 pm #

          It takes a village to raise a village idiot too, Janos.

          RW

          • benr March 24, 2020 at 9:08 am #

            Naw the village idiot just shows up and starts insulting people that’s how it has always worked.

  5. teddyboy46 March 23, 2020 at 10:41 am #

    Of all the Disasters that could have changed the vector of American life this has to be the easiest one. While I would never say JHK is wrong. His ideas about the weakness of Americas long supply chains. In regards to food supply lines they have proven to be quite strong . here in western New York we have been inconvinced but nothing major. I believe JHK is right about the long supply chains from China. I hope we will start making more of our consumer items here in America like we used to.

    • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 10:48 am #

      But we are only really at the beginning of this episode you know. In other words, you haven’t seen anything yet.

      • malthuss March 23, 2020 at 11:03 am #

        The crowds are not yet mobs.

      • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 11:11 am #

        Exactly, SSL, we are just beginning. Tell me in 6 weeks or 6 months if your store shelves are full, Teddyboy.

        I’m in a lock down state. Before long it may be the whole country. Essential workers are allowed out of their homes to go to work. People who work in hospitals, law enforcement, power plants. Maybe they’ll eat and sleep at work to avoid bringing the virus home to the family. But does this include all the food processing plants and slaughterhouses?

        Pharmacies are open. Does that mean they will continue to have all the medicines people need?. I would guess not.

        Grocery stores are open, but will they be well stocked? Will the inventory be covered with viruses someone inadvertently spread?

        When will it be safe to lift home quarantine? Will issuing limitless new money really fill store shelves or just drive up prices?

        Many questions yet to be resolved.

        • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 11:37 am #

          Yes, we have a stay at home order here as well. My friend’s husband works for one of the plants here as a planner and they have asked him to basically live at the plant for now until further notice!

        • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 11:41 am #

          If the virus was as virulent as they would have us believe, the supermarket workers in my city would be home sick by now.

          • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 11:54 am #

            Give it some time. And in the meanwhile disinfect all of the packages you bring into your home.

      • EvelynV March 23, 2020 at 2:35 pm #

        Kind of like the nervous and frightened Donner party before they started eating each other.

        Of course they tried to eat their two Indian guides first who were wily enough to escape.

        • Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 7:43 pm #

          Probably just their projection since the Indians WERE cannibals. The Donner Party did eat their dead though. Maybe that’s what you’re thinking of.

          • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 8:42 pm #

            They say Rugby players eat their dead. Less waste that way.

    • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 10:55 am #

      Our biggest problem right now, I think, is governments overstepping their authority and their areas of expertise.
      For instance, someone in Pennsylvania, I think it was, decided it would be a good idea to shut down all the truck stops, at the same time truckers were working harder than ever to keep everyone in groceries and other necessities.
      Then there is that Cuomo doofus, who by the way intends to be the Democrat’s nominee, who didn’t just ban plastic bags, he put a tax on paper bags, forcing people to bring possibly dirty bags into the supermarket, where the workers are already worried about staying healthy.
      I heard New Jersey suspended their bag ban.

      • malthuss March 23, 2020 at 11:04 am #

        Yes, charge people for paper bags. Trees being a renewable resource…but make people use cloth bags.

        • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 11:15 am #

          And the charge goes into state coffers.

          • malthuss March 23, 2020 at 12:18 pm #

            Beryl, in my city, it is an illegal or unnamed tax. If it had been on the ballot, as a tax, it would not have passed.

      • Anon1970 March 23, 2020 at 11:24 am #

        If you are using multi-use bags, don’t forget to wash them.

      • EvelynV March 23, 2020 at 2:38 pm #

        What do you Beryl wrap you stinking crotch in plastic before you go into stores?

        Change your panties first if you are wearing a dress or pants. I’ve never seen a bag yet dirtier than what covers up most people’s naughty bits.

        You are a fucking airhead.

        • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 6:40 pm #

          You lost me. How did we get from grocery bags to Beryl’s naughty parts?

        • shotho March 23, 2020 at 8:27 pm #

          Whoa! Panty-diving, are we?

        • benr March 24, 2020 at 9:15 am #

          Actually Evelyn the cloth bags get dirty really fast and most people don’t think to wash them.
          The move from paper to plastic bags was dumb and the move from plastic to you got to bring them was even more dumb.
          Instead we should go back to paper bags a renewable resource loved as book covers by school kids the world over.
          Plastic as we know it has also changed there are edible types of biodegrading plastic now but instead the progressive idiots put no thought into anything. At least in California that outright ban morphed into an even sturdier 10 cent option that I now see everywhere blowing down the street and wrapping homeless peoples poop in the downtown areas.
          Yep they crap in the bag and just leave it where it falls.
          The law of unintended consequences is never thought about when Liberal and progressive weenies start pushing their agenda on the rest of us.

    • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 11:54 am #

      National security risks have been sent out for thirty years about offshoring our ability to produce goods. I remember all the idiots saying that we are passing the manufacturing stage and moving on to a service economy.

      The “not loyal to the US” corporations are largely responsible for the empty shelves. Here in Arizona, we have empty shelves. Also responsible are the climate change environmentalists who wanted to move “dirty” industries somewhere else. Well folks, you got what is happening coming.

      The most complex living organism is being humbled by the simplest form of pseudo-life. All the attributes that “make us human” are blowing up in our face.

      • bluedog March 23, 2020 at 3:50 pm #

        What did you expect was going to happen when Reagan started the off-shore scam,come to Washington he brayed let us show you how to move your jobs out of the country and fatten your bottom line, we even changed the tax laws just for you, now park your ill-gotten gains into off-shore accounts and by-pass the tax man.And thus we end up with 74% of GDP coming from the service sector.!!!

        • benr March 24, 2020 at 9:18 am #

          Love to see the actual poroof that STARTED under Ronnie.
          I suspect you are are off by a factor of Japanese made trinkets just after World War 2.
          Yep that ship started in the 50’s and ramped up in the 60’s.
          Nice try blaming the gipper.

      • GreenAlba March 24, 2020 at 3:00 pm #

        JohnAZ

        “Also responsible are the climate change environmentalists who wanted to move “dirty” industries somewhere else. ”

        You made this accusation already, and I responded to it. I’d rather you’d given reasons why my response wasn’t satisfactory than just blithely repeat the accusation.

        So…

        (1) Please give dates when these climate change environmentalists started this action.

        (2) Please explain the mechanism whereby moving a polluting manufacturing plant from a higher-regulation developed economy to a low-regulation, ‘dirtier’ economy lowers CO2 emissions globally.

        (3) Please cite as many ‘climate change environmentalists’ as you can explaining that industrial plants need to be transferred to ‘dirty’ economies in order to lower global CO2 emissions.

        I’m not saying there are no people who are entirely that dumb, but it would be good to see those citations.

        If there aren’t any, I have to say I’m surprised at your rather ‘dirty’ attack on ‘climate change environmentalists’, JohnAZ. There are other more honest criticisms you might wish to level at them.

    • DrTomSchmidt March 23, 2020 at 12:38 pm #

      We destroyed the know-how in adaptive supply chains. During WW2, 10% of US gdp was manufactured in NYC alone. That complex, innovative, interconnected ecosystem was destroyed; the rail yards paved over to put up Trump Place.

      It’s doubtful we will rebuild that culture soon. I hope we can.

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 12:45 pm #

      It is always dangerous to pull shit out of your ass and come here pretending you have a brain. There might be a dog about who will see through your bull. And Teddyboy you are pretending.

      Initially the supply chains are strong but after a week things rapidly go to shit. In some places in the country that week is just starting and in other places weakness will not yet show. It has not yet been long enough.

      How do I know. Because I read the whole thing.

      Catastrophic Shocks Through Complex Socio-Economic Systems: A Pandemic Perspective – David Korowicz ( <– pdf )

  6. Zoltar March 23, 2020 at 10:52 am #

    Thanks for being there as long as possible, Jim. After that connection is lost, I’ll still have your books.

    • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 10:55 am #

      I was relieved to see that he wasn’t laid up with the virus.

  7. SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 10:57 am #

    https://www.nola.com/news/coronavirus/article_bdc4e802-6b90-11ea-a747-832e94bc7f56.html

    How many weeks were we told that really this was only a concern basically for the elderly and those with “underlying conditions”? And why were we told that?

    • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 11:19 am #

      The article says they don’t know why she died yet.

      We were told that because that’s what the statistics showed at the time, but those in charge were also recommending procedures that assumed everyone, young and old, could catch the virus.

      • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 11:28 am #

        That’s true, but it is hard to imagine that she didn’t die from the infection. Especially considering that she was considered to be in good health. They should have told people that really anyone is susceptible to the virus. But they focused so much on telling people that it was mainly an elderly concern and that 80% of cases are mild that I think people still are not really taking it seriously.

        • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 11:44 am #

          I’m taking it about as seriously as I take the flu.
          We see younger people thought to be in good health drop dead every day, it just usually doesn’t make national headlines.

          • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 11:53 am #

            Normalcy bias and normie thinking ok. This isn’t the flu.

          • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 12:25 pm #

            This isn’t the flu. All the more reason to quit comparing it to the Spanish Influenza.

          • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 1:34 pm #

            I agree!

          • EvelynV March 23, 2020 at 2:42 pm #

            SSL – it is the people who don’t take it seriously who will ultimately be the reason it is serious.

            Don’t be so quick to jump on that bandwagon.

        • lilykline March 23, 2020 at 12:28 pm #

          SSL, I agree with you, they did focus on the elderly. A lot of people aren’t taking it seriously unfortunately. I live in California and the beach traffic on Saturday was the worst I have ever seen. And you are right, it’s definitely not the flu:(

        • Tate March 23, 2020 at 12:57 pm #

          She worked at a health clinic. It’s likely she got a greater dose (inoculum) of the stuff. A large inoculum can overcome even a healthy young person’s immune system.

          • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 1:36 pm #

            This could be the case. I actually heard that as well somewhere but I don’t recall the source at this point.

    • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 11:28 am #

      Better question: how do we know that any of the postmortems alleging death by CV are actually true or not? Or the statistics they allegedly get rolled up into?

      • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 11:31 am #

        Well from that perspective we really don’t know much at all. I mean when you are trusting others for information. But I guess that is all we have to go on until it either hits really close to home or fails to. If it fails to materialize for most people then we will have an answer. And if it hits real close to home then we will have an answer. Its kinda scary because it seems like that is living literally by trial and error!

        • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 11:51 am #

          HIPPA is helpful to those wishing to obfuscate. They can invoke rules of “patient privacy” for purposes of scaring people to death.
          Why is patient privacy, which is just a regulation, sacrosanct, while our Constitutional freedoms can be revoked at the whim of a local government official?

          I find it interesting, we heard in the MSM about a “health care worker” with the Kung Flu, who returned to NYC, but no worries, this anonymous woman “knows how to self-quarantine”.
          But then we hear, by NAME, of some poor guy in Westchester who is extremely sick with the virus, and that is used to lock down everybody and everything within a certain radius.
          The woman returning from Iran has disappeared from the media.

          • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 1:39 pm #

            I think it is because they wanted to keep the borders open and business going for as long as possible. That is why we are in the position we are in now, or at least it is a big reason.

        • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 12:03 pm #

          Trust others for information?

          That is why everyone in this country hates everyone else. The coverage of this virus shows what a bunch of conniving aholes the MSM really is. Our political situation, where the government does not even function anymore, is a direct result of all the news sources.

          • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 12:49 pm #

            That is a very good observation.

          • Cargill March 23, 2020 at 1:56 pm #

            The government doesn’t function because it is run by Republican fools whose only goal is re-election. And because they are beholden to the billionaire class and Wall Street. You have the best government that money can buy.

            Democrats are better, but not by much – this is bipartisan corruption and incompetence.

            I think you rather overstate the power and influence of the media – government is totally mucking up its coronavirus response despite the glare of media attention – not because of it. And with whom are they conniving?

          • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 4:26 pm #

            Maybe we shouldn’t have elections, just a Soviet, who would appoint the head of the Party as Supreme Leader. Comrade.

            Brh

          • benr March 24, 2020 at 9:34 am #

            @cargill

            Here we go again with your gross opinion parading as fact.
            You don’t have a clue how American government works.
            Yet here you are yet again spewing partisan rhetoric as fact.
            GTFO
            Even worse you attempt to say the media is not as bad as it is. Clearly stumping for one side or the other and worse the far more inept and corrupt side known as the Democrat party (at least for now) is doing everything they can to ram through pork, green new deal bullshit and things that don’t matter.
            Everything is about politics and optics with right now there top candidate being super corrupt, bumbling and demented.
            Do yourself a favor and quit proving what most on here already know your an idiot when it comes to American politics.

          • Cargill March 24, 2020 at 12:30 pm #

            Oooh … I see my favourite pet troll is back, and he’s so cute when he’s angry, isn’t he?

            But he really should have learnt by now that all the abuse in the world is just water of this old duck’s back, and it just makes him look kinda childish.

          • benr March 25, 2020 at 8:42 am #

            @cardill

            And yet nothing but more nonsense in response.
            Whoops who is the troll and more to the point who looks like a fool?
            Why of course you do and you know it.
            Stop with the chirping BS already.
            Your operation sock puppet nonsense is so see through so tell me is the pay check cut directly from OSF?
            How many other names do you use and how many other sites do you put false crap on?

        • sophia March 23, 2020 at 12:22 pm #

          SSL,

          Reading through comments, your state of fear seems over the top to me.
          There are some very good and more balanced articles to read.
          I think the state of lockdown is unsustainable and a society-wrecking level event. Worse therefore than the virus.

          Very good reports on vitamin C (liposomal and very high and frequent dosing) and melatonin to prevent the cytokine storm.

          • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 1:41 pm #

            I could very well be over the top with this issue. But I prefer to air on the side of paranoid when there is a potential pathogen tearing through the populace. The lockdown toll vs the virus toll remains to be seen. I imagine both or devastating. In Italy right now despite the lock down the new cases and deaths just keep rising.

          • AttackSub March 23, 2020 at 1:57 pm #

            I’ve said the same thing to her for the past three weeks, Sophia

          • Cargill March 23, 2020 at 2:05 pm #

            Very good reports on vitamin C (liposomal and very high and frequent dosing) and melatonin to prevent the cytokine storm.

            I think you should cite sources when you say such things – unmediated and unsupported “medical” stories need careful handling.

            And yes – the economic destruction seems way too disproportionate perhaps, but it is still early days … and any level of mayhem is possible with a brand new coronavirus for which we have no immunity, treatment, or vaccine yet.

            A 3% mortality rate for half the population gets you a body count of five million.

          • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 3:51 pm #

            IOW, oranges and sunshine

            Just like our friend Akfomo said at the outstart.

          • elysianfield March 23, 2020 at 4:36 pm #

            “Just like our friend Akfomo said at the outstart.”

            BRH,
            Well, Mofo would also have you keep Kosher…no more shrimp for you!

            Last night made a shrimp chow mein with pan fried noodles…Oh Mother!

    • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 11:58 am #

      Is there such a thing as an expert?

      Listen to folks that do not talk through their egos! That eliminates just about every “journalist” in the MSM.

      • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 1:42 pm #

        I listen to a lot of non mainstream sources. Like Mr. K right here for instance.

        • sophia March 23, 2020 at 2:32 pm #

          Cargill,

          At the time I read the articles, I wasn’t knowing I would need them for this blog. It’s a good point, though. But seeing the fear, I thought I would give people a couple of ideas that they can look into for themselves. In China, they are giving IV vitamin C with reportedly good results, and it sure does make sense. Liposomal C is much better absorbed. I know of one woman, not in the best of health, who managed her corona with oral liposomal C but took quite a lot. The article on melatonin I read was quite thorough, but I’d have to really think where I found it. OK, here it is:

          https://www.evolutamente.it/covid-19-pneumonia-inflammasomes-the-melatonin-connection/

          • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 2:48 pm #

            The NYTs? Really?

          • benr March 24, 2020 at 9:37 am #

            @…

            Some people don’t understamd the times are hyper partisan and part of the faux news problem.
            As long as the written word is not political it might be worth reading.

          • Cargill March 24, 2020 at 12:41 pm #

            I don’t find the NYT to be excessively partisan (I’m an online subscriber) – but I do find it rather conservative, particularly in the way it bends over backwards to be balanced (so to speak).

            I particularly dislike the way it supports Trump – or if not directly supporting him, paints over all the cracks of his lunatic reign … giving him a legitimacy he hasn’t earned and doesn’t deserve.

            And they’re pretty quick ti highlight any missteps by the Democrats.

          • benr March 26, 2020 at 9:05 am #

            @cartroll

            Its all a matter of perspective and your simple response proves your perspective is very flowed.
            You appear to be left of Karl Marx.

      • Majella March 23, 2020 at 8:52 pm #

        I recall a crusty old businessman I worked for in the weekends & vacations while in high school.

        His view of experts was this:

        “Ha! ‘X’ is the unknown quantity and a ‘spurt’ is just a drip under pressure.”

  8. PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 10:57 am #

    Watching Land O’ Lakes Beth Ford
    https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2020/03/19/land-o-lakes-ceo-beth-ford-coronavirus-food-supply.cnn-business/video/playlists/business-coronavirus/

    Food supply is good, food distribution is challenging right now. Labor is another issue, as immigrant labor is slowing down. So, will the people becoming unemployed now, become ag workers? We will see.

  9. Walter B March 23, 2020 at 10:59 am #

    As the mayor of a small West New Jersey municipality I find myself interacting on almost constant basis either on the phone, by email or Facebook and sometimes even in person with our county and state government staff. I have not found one of us who are running the shows out here that does not believe firmly that this entire facade has not been put in place to provide cover for the inevitable financial/economic collapse. In every community there are people that can take charge and get things done. Right now and for the foreseeable future pretty much all of those people are going to be handcuffed by the procedures that we are all forced to adhere to and by direct interference of our daily operations that those over us have placed upon us.

    It is my personal opinion and that of many others that this is all a manufactured cover for the inevitable collapse so that those who are responsible for the destruction of it all can divert the blame to a virus that does not have to worry about being re-elected. Good luck everybody.

    Oh and by the way I am hearing more and more about that pesky, dirty “cash” being a problem and taxpayers not being able to make their quarterly tax payments. How do you think these issuees will be resolved? Yup I can’t wait.

    • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 11:26 am #

      Yep. This is the ideal time to push for a totally cashless society. I’d pretty much bank on it. Provided our bank accounts are left standing, of course. I’d say the odds for that are no better than 50/50 at this point.

    • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 11:30 am #

      I hear much the same.
      Yes, there is a virus. We have seen other disease scares come and go, depending on the whims of the politicians pushing them.
      Ebola was going to kill us all. We saw a major theatrical production of a doctor afflicted with the illness, returning to the US for treatment, wearing a moon suit. My God, this was serious!
      Then a couple of overreactive governors decided that maybe, in light of the seriousness of the situation, and the fact that a returning health worker infected with Ebola traipsed all over NYC at his own discretion, some kind of quarantine might be in order.
      They detained one nurse at the airport, trying to decide what to do with her.
      Boy was she enraged. Cuomo and Christie got smacked down over that one. All of a sudden Ebola became no big deal, Americans were ignorant hysterics for thinking so.

      This is in my opinion, coup #3 against the president who threatens the very lucrative rackets of a great number of our now elderly racketeering politicians.

      • Nightowl March 23, 2020 at 11:42 am #

        Yep. And when you look at most of the organizations involved, they are global in nature. Same set of Open Society fraudsters making a 3rd attempt.

        • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 12:09 pm #

          Yup! I hope and wish that some one out there is already starting an investigation on who really started all of this and who is going to benefit from it. If it is a conspiracy, the guilty parties should by lined up and shot!

          • Ron Anselmo March 23, 2020 at 2:03 pm #

            Yes, cui bono?

        • sophia March 23, 2020 at 2:37 pm #

          Nightowl,

          Which would mean, if you’re right, that the entire set of global govt goons are in on it. Could it be?

          • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 2:47 pm #

            Oh it be!

      • AttackSub March 23, 2020 at 1:58 pm #

        Don’t forget that other disease of the apocalypse, MadCow disease, Beryl

    • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 11:37 am #

      We may eventually get to JHK’s bucolic world made by hand.

      But meanwhile, I think the Powers That Be are trying to institute a new authoritarian system along the lines of one world government with one world currency, involving a government-corporate merger.

      The private owners of the Federal Reserve and all other private central banks around the world are now creating unlimited money on their computers to buy the world.

      How clever of them to crash the system using virus. It provides a way to make paper notes unwanted due to perceived contamination. They can introduce an international digital currency, easily tracked, totally controlled. Gold and silver may be confiscated and outlawed in private hands with a death penalty for hiding any.

      These evil bastards always have plausible reasons for instituting tyrannical solutions which accord with their agenda. It’s a pity so many otherwise intelligent people believe their propaganda and go along like brain dead zombies. Witness 9-11

      • Walter B March 23, 2020 at 11:43 am #

        And the Boston Marathon bombing !

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A5vfyFyptQ

        • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 12:57 pm #

          That attempt to make Americans hate Islam did not go as planned. An unconscious realization that it was a false flag must have caused disinterest from the consequent cognitive dissonance.

          The friend being murdered in cold blood by the FBI was more than a hint but by then I already knew for sure. But unlike the Boston Bombing COVID is no false flag. It is the real thing and too bad things can’t go better with it. KDFP

          • Walter B March 23, 2020 at 1:09 pm #

            The medical people I have talked to and watched online have zero concerns about the mortality rates from this event. We have an elderly couple that returned from Italy on pretty much the last plane in and are quarantined at home. From their first hand experience in that country I was told that yes the schools were closed down, but everyone followed with party time and large social events and that was how the spread got so bad. Italy also has a much greater percentage of older people than we do with far less medical facilities. The steps America has quickly taken will probably minimize the spread. The economic impact? It will be devastating at home right now.

          • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 1:12 pm #

            Not either/or. It can be a real virus having real – albeit totally overblown – effects and still be a government sponsored bio-terror false flag event. We’ll see in time.

          • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 1:15 pm #

            There are 2 kinds of false flag. 1) Nobody died, the whole thing was a “hollywood production”. 2) People died, the damage was real, but the wrong people were blamed

            Both kinds can be used to further an agenda. I think COVID-19 is #2, very real and deadly. 9-11 and the Boston marathon bombing were also #2 type false flags. Something can be “the real thing” , i.e. deadly; and at the same time a false flag (misdirected blame).

          • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 2:46 pm #

            hmuller,

            Welcome to the club! It’s always nice to meet fellow members!

          • Cargill March 23, 2020 at 6:15 pm #

            I think COVID-19 is #2, very real and deadly. 9-11 and the Boston marathon bombing were also #2 type false flags. Something can be “the real thing” , i.e. deadly; and at the same time a false flag (misdirected blame).

            So three questions naturally arise:

            1. Who or what is the cause of COVID-19?

            2. Who or what caused 9/11?

            3. Who or what caused the Boston Bombing?

            I know the answers to these questions … I’m just very interested in how you have diverted from the known universe.

          • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 6:55 pm #

            Cargill, since I’m living in the looney tunes universe, there is nothing I can say to you which will make a bit of difference. Cheers.

          • Nightowl March 24, 2020 at 4:13 am #

            Cargill “knows the answers to those questions.”

            Hahahahahahaha!

    • sophia March 23, 2020 at 12:25 pm #

      Please answer such people that card swipe machines are not clean either.

      • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 1:09 pm #

        What is the statistical probability of catching the crud from an infected keypad? There are some modes of transmission which would not be effective enough to really worry about I’ll say. Keypads are one of them, in general I’ll say. In general because someone will invent a scenario to show my statement to be totally unreasonable or try to. They could succeed because I know I would be able to do it.

        But if I drive into an empty gas station in the middle of the night to buy gas and I swipe a card at the gas pump I am not going to worry about the pump being infected. I’m going to take reasonable precautions and live my life. I am not going obsessive-compulsive and let fear turn me into a crazy germophobe. KDFP

        • sophia March 23, 2020 at 2:42 pm #

          Totally disagree. Anything in public with frequent touching would be a prime cause of spread. Doorknobs, handles, railings, drinking fountains. From the keypad one touches one’s face and other things. A gas pump swipe is actually different than what I am envisioning. I am envisioning the usual keypad at which millions of people buy their coffee and pay for groceries every day. You punch in your pin. You touch everything around. And this type o f touch transmission is by far the most common way to transmit it, not people face to face. It is not truly airborne, but droplet.

          • Cargill March 23, 2020 at 6:44 pm #

            In Australia almost all cards are contactless (pay-wave), and a PIN is not required for amounts below the store limit. I can’t remember the last time I had to use my PIN in a public place. We are quite close to being cashless, and using less cards too, with smartphones.

          • Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 7:53 pm #

            Soon the chip will be implanted on the back of your hand. Rejoice Carguile, your Master is near, nay at the very door!

          • elysianfield March 26, 2020 at 12:03 am #

            “with smartphones”

            Cargill,
            Can the smartphones be used to squash those pesky funnel spiders?

    • DrTomSchmidt March 23, 2020 at 12:46 pm #

      Thanks for checking in, Walt.

      The MTA in NYC is going to collapse with no riders but continuing expenses. 20-30% of people will not have the cash to pay property taxes, assuming unemployment goes that high.

      Debt jubilee is coming. All those debts were created against reasonable cash flows, now destroyed by TPTB. Try to enforce a mortgage against a house bought 2 months ago, before the 30% asset write down of the last month. That house is now underwater. Either jungle mail as the banks eat the loss, or massive inflation to destroy the value of existing debts. Probably the latter.

      • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 12:59 pm #

        Dr, You are assuming the goal here is to help ordinary people – as opposed to creating a world where the bankers own everything. Debt slavery for the masses has always been a prime component of the agenda.

        But even if somehow all debt were forgiven, tomorrow the bankers would be busy creating more debt under the new currency.

        • Walter B March 23, 2020 at 1:02 pm #

          Absolutely, a reset includes a “haircut” along with heavier chains of increased debt.

        • DrTomSchmidt March 23, 2020 at 3:20 pm #

          I’ve read through reviews of the bailout. The airlines, which spent 46bln buying back stock over he last 10 years, will get much more. They’re trying the same thing as 2008. It might work, for a while.

          Eventually, people walk away, or emigrate. In the Byzantine Empire, when usurious debt became oppressive, Islam happened to come along in all the lands of North Africa. People could free themselves from debt by adhering to the new religion, and a whole region, Christian for hundreds of years, was lost forever.

          • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 7:01 pm #

            So where do we go that’s beyond the reach of globalist vampires?

            The latest proposed bail-outs are money printing to infinity and can only crash the entire system like Zimbabwe or Venezuela.

        • Cargill March 23, 2020 at 7:01 pm #

          Dr, You are assuming the goal here is to help ordinary people – as opposed to creating a world where the bankers own everything.

          Banks don’t want to own anything … they can’t make any money from a quiet building, a fallow farm, a neglected house, or a stalled car. Such assets are liabilities. They make money by lending money – not be foreclosure.

          Debt slavery for the masses has always been a prime component of the agenda.

          They are businesses – they have a business model suited to the industry they operate within … not sure that is an “agenda”

          In any case, everything that has made you you was based on hard work and debt … by your father, grandfather, and so on. The capacity to access affordable and reliable credit has taken us from the Stone Age to wealthy civilisations.

          But some people jump at shadows out of habit.

          • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 7:06 pm #

            I must admit Cargill, I didn’t think that a left-winger like yourself loved the banking industry so much. But since you are so well informed and i am such a lunatic, I’ll just excuse myself.

          • Cargill March 24, 2020 at 1:39 pm #

            I don’t love banks – they’re a business like many others – and I dispute the fact that they want to own everything, for the reasons I outlined.

            They want a factory humming with a successful business, with the owners paying for a line of credit. They don’t want the building.

          • hmuller March 25, 2020 at 11:48 am #

            Who legally owns a business is not my key point. Imagine a restaurant owner who is barely scraping by because he borrowed money from the Soprano’s and the interest payments to them is eating up all his profits. Tony is perfectly happy to let the man’s name sit on the title or deed to the property, so long as he gets to scim off the profits. Banks work much the same way.

            Along a similar line, in America the bottom 20% of the population have no net worth. In fact, they are per capita $6,000 in debt. How did they get in debt? Buying farms, businesses, apartment houses, and other income producing assets? Of course not. They were enticed into credit card debt buying consumer products. They spend their lives paying the banks 20% interest per annum and never manage to pay off the debt. This is by design. Yes they are weak and foolish. But banks want debt slaves for life. They can’t own people legally, and they certainly don’t want to take legal possession of poor people’s threadbare crap. They want a never ending income stream.

            Poor people pay twice over for every material thing they have. So don’t tell me the banks are the hero’s who enabled them to have stuff and lifted them from the stone age.

            And don’t presume to tell me about my family history! I’m 65 and have never taken out a loan or had a credit card. I only keep a debit card to buy stuff online. My immigrant parents and extended family had nothing to begin with and so had to borrow money for mortgages and cars. We are beyond that now. Once you’ve accumulated enough capital, you can become your own bank.

            And by the way this is not the time to keep your wealth in fiat money in the bank. The wise will know what I’m saying. I’ve spent the last few years laying up supplies for hard times. And accordingly, I’ve been mocked as a nut case. I’m getting less mockery now, by people who may need a meal one day.

            So go ahead, mock away, Cargill. I have accumulated what I need to better weather the storm. And it’s not about keeping myself alive; I’ve lived my life. It’s about helping the young people of my extended family survive what comes.

          • Cargill March 26, 2020 at 1:36 am #

            They spend their lives paying the banks 20% interest per annum and never manage to pay off the debt. This is by design. Yes they are weak and foolish. But banks want debt slaves for life.

            We pay off all our credit cards in full every month – we pay no interest at all, and no annual fees. A friend of mine who works for a big national bank says customers like us are referred to as “scabs”. Charming, eh.

          • Majella March 27, 2020 at 3:44 am #

            Hmuller and many others in your tribe – you people use ‘love’ & ‘hate’ way too much and way too easily when you’re denigrating a dissenting POV. It just takes the power out of the words when you want to use them for REAL emotions.

          • hmuller March 27, 2020 at 9:18 am #

            Maj, it’s just a Manichean kind of world to me.

      • Ron Anselmo March 23, 2020 at 2:15 pm #

        Doc, “jungle” mail, probably a typo, but also may have been a Freudian slip. There will be plenty of events worthy of jungle as an adjective. Just wait and see…

        • DrTomSchmidt March 23, 2020 at 3:24 pm #

          Nah, autocorrect. But it could be unintentionally prescient.

          Black unemployment was actually getting very low, providing some sort of living. Now? I haven’t even considered the racial aspect of this shut down, but blacks and Hispanics are a younger population than the older whites we’ve shut down the economy to save.

          That’s unsavory.

      • Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 7:56 pm #

        We have another Dr Tom Dooley on our hands.

    • BuckP March 23, 2020 at 1:04 pm #

      Interseting tweet from Catherine Austin Fitts @TheSolariReport on 3/22/20

      “Slave trade was outlawed because the London banks were losing money – no ability to track and claim collateral. However, if you chip humans, you can return to global slave trade. Collateralize digital currency with humans – keep the gold for yourself” https://home.solari.com/book-review-the-half-has-never-been-told/

      • malthuss March 23, 2020 at 2:38 pm #

        I like her, she even will mention chemtrails.
        BUT with robotics, workers are not needed by the billionaires.
        Her thinking isnt far reaching enough, its 20 year ago mode.

        • BuckP March 23, 2020 at 6:18 pm #

          You’re probalby right! With accelerating advances in automation and AI, a paradigm shift is assuredly underway. The economic and government systems that served as the backbone of the Industrial Age and the so-calledInformation Age are on life-support. In the near future, besides blue collar jobs, many high paying white collar jobs will be eliminated as well. For instance, AI can read MRI’s expotentially faster and with more accuracy than a radiologist. Pop some specs into a program andAI designs a building thereby eliminating the need for an engineer. Heck, AI might become so masterful and powerful that it will deem humans as being no longer necessay including vulgarian billionaires! Is it too late to go back to the good ol’ days?

        • Robert White March 23, 2020 at 7:12 pm #

          Mechanical Engineering Technicians & Robotics Technicians are no longer required, eh

          • BuckP March 23, 2020 at 9:06 pm #

            Take it up with the masters bringing us AI! In the end AI will probably build and maintain their own robots w/o input from humans! Silicon-based AI can think, reason and learn just like their carbon based brethern! They can also go insane!

          • Farmer McGregor March 23, 2020 at 10:03 pm #

            Oh Bucky, I hope you’re being facetious.

            My son, an EE, works deep in the bowels of the beast designing the processor chips for the AI in autonomous vehicles, etc. He says that these machines are simply super-duper data processors; that there is nothing even remotely approaching “thinking” in the human sense, self-reasoning, or ‘sentience’ in even the most powerful systems.

            He says that notions like you’ve expressed are fantasy nonsense cooked up by ignorant techno-utopian types that know nothing of what “AI Technology” really amounts to. Self-replicating? Seriously?

          • BuckP March 23, 2020 at 10:41 pm #

            Well Farmer Mac we will just have to wait and see, won’t we? When I was using a payphone back in the 60’s to call my girlie becasue I didn’t want to be within earshot of Ma and Pa, I never imagined a small hand-held device w/o a cord that could make a call from anywhere, order a pizza, pay for coffee, find directions with a street grid and my posiion on Earth geotagged and keep track of my daily steps. All I knowis that silcon-based ntelligence can’t be any crazier than carbon-based humans.

            In the interim, let’s all borrow some money and buy something we don’t need that satiates our ego to keep the world’s economy going. Tomorrow will always look like yesterday!

    • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 1:18 pm #

      Walter, you’re Mayor now? Last we knew you were a mere councilman. Congratulations. Well, that explain you not being too active on this blog of late; you must be busy as all getout.

      Brh

      • Walter B March 23, 2020 at 1:47 pm #

        Especially since the two left for us to remove are utilizing the national politic game book to disrupt and divert the attention of the mob. We have a new attorney and a new auditor and it will not be much longer that they can fight the new administration.

        • DrTomSchmidt March 23, 2020 at 3:25 pm #

          Wonderful to read some good news, Walter.

        • Robert White March 24, 2020 at 9:34 pm #

          Be the first Jersey Mayor to legalize marijuana, Walt.

          Do it for the taxation & municipal coffers plus small business health.

          Just say yes to marijuana legalization, Walt.

          You will thank me when everyone in NYC thinks you are a great mayor for doing it.

          P.S. I ran for mayor twice and lost twice too.

          RW

    • Cargill March 23, 2020 at 2:20 pm #

      I have not found one of us who are running the shows out here that does not believe firmly that this entire facade has not been put in place to provide cover for the inevitable financial/economic collapse.

      Beware of sentences with “not” in them three times! Are you sawing that all the worker bees out there in West New Jersey believe the virus lock-down is a cover for the collapse of the economic system?

      If so – wow – that’s a lot of paranoia | conspiracy in one neat package. Firstly – explain to me why an economy in trouble would wish to worsen it? And if you don’t adhere to the virus protocols, then a lot of people (more than there need be) are going to die.

      • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 2:43 pm #

        Societal and financial reset minus a few million useless eaters. (The over-heated economy was about to tank either way.) New all digital currency with bank accounts adjusted (downward!) accordingly. Draconian “safety and security measures” added in just for fun. Really now, this is not that hard. This is 9-11 Part Deux, “The Whole Fucking Shooting Match.” When it comes to paranoia, you can never possibly be paranoid enough! Can’t do it!

        • Cargill March 23, 2020 at 8:10 pm #

          What’s the weather like at the Idaho compound?

          Really – you’re way over-thinking it, and sinking into a morass.

          The puppets in the government, and even in your version of the “deep state”, are so incompetent, disunited, and suspicious that they cannot manage a piss-up in a brewery, let alone orchestrate a “societal and financial reset minus a few million useless eaters.”

          Even the Goldman Sachs and the captains of Corporate America ain’t that smart … they’re only there because nearly all of them were born on third base. I(n fact the whole country was – you really should have done a lot better, you know.

          Wash your hands regularly, keep your social distance and we’ll get through. We’re all in this together.

          • hmuller March 25, 2020 at 12:03 pm #

            Congratulations, Cargill. You have been successfully programmed by the globalist world media to believe “the party line” on apparently every topic out there. It used to be that left-wingers were suspicious of the establishment. Now you are the establishment, even though you pretend so hard not to be.

            Be rebellious, question authority – all authority, not just the scary orange man (who actually has almost no authority).

      • DrTomSchmidt March 23, 2020 at 3:28 pm #

        It was SUCH a bubble. There didn’t seem to be any way to back down out of it. Then, an excuse appears that no one can blame on the Fed, who might even look like heroes in their attempt to print us out of this.

        It’s no conspiracy when they boast “never let a crisis go to waste.” I think the virus is overblown, but it’s not a figment of my imagination and it has caused deaths. The economic destruction covers the deflation of the bubble.

      • Walter B March 23, 2020 at 3:41 pm #

        Sorry Cargill but we all ARE following the precautionary measures prescribed even though they are far less restrictive than they would be for a simple influenza pandemic. The reaction is grossly overblown by all accounts. Take for example the travel restriction put in place by Trenton which call for “Statewide Stay at Home Order, Closure of All Non-Essential Retail Businesses”, yet the exceptions allow for everyone to do pretty much everything anyway.

        Yes gyms, tattoo and nail parlors as well as large scale entertainment and sporting events are banned, but travel into urban areas and back is totally ok. It is all very strange indeed.

    • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 12:15 am #

      Walter,
      May I be the first online to address you as; Hizzoner?

      • Majella March 25, 2020 at 3:54 pm #

        Shouldn’t that be “Uronner”?

        • elysianfield March 25, 2020 at 11:58 pm #

          Majella,
          He is a mayor, not a judge. He WILL, of course, be judged….

          Perhaps harshly.

          Perhaps not.

  10. Pucker March 23, 2020 at 10:59 am #

    Correction: I reconfirmed with the teenagers at the dinner table last night. They are taught in their high school prep school that there are 59 different genders, not 57. I apologize for the confusion. Thank you.

    • malthuss March 23, 2020 at 11:01 am #

      This is no time for making me laugh. 69 genders.

      • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 2:37 pm #

        Has a nice ring to it, don’t ya think?

    • Pucker March 23, 2020 at 11:02 am #

      Freaky-Deaky….

    • fugeguy March 23, 2020 at 11:13 am #

      LOL.

      We are so simple- 2 genders and easy visual identification. There is a third involving a genetic defect but @ less than 1% meh.

      • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 11:32 am #

        The ones with the defects eventually know what they are without anybody telling them, too.

      • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 12:12 pm #

        I wonder-

        How much of the gender confusion stems from a society of children and their adults who are so strung out on drugs, they cannot tell the difference many more.

    • Q. Shtik March 23, 2020 at 1:23 pm #

      They are taught in their high school prep school that there are 59 different genders, not 57. – Puck

      ============

      There is a disconnect somewhere. I got a letter from the Census folks a few days ago. It gave me a code to use at a web site to fill out the info for any persons living at my address. There is only the wife and me so it’s pretty simple. After filling in names the first actual question is to identify your ‘Gender.’ To my great surprise there are only two choices, Male and Female.

      • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 2:07 pm #

        There must be some kind of mistake on the forms. Or maybe the Census dept didn’t get the message there are 59 genders now. At any rate Liz Warren is busy in the Senate rectifying the situation, and new census forms will be mailed promptly.

        Brh

      • malthuss March 23, 2020 at 2:42 pm #

        And the You tube ads for Census celebrate Muslims, non Whites, etc etc….Whites not needed.

      • elysianfield March 23, 2020 at 4:49 pm #

        Q.
        Could it have asked…”gender assigned at birth”?

        • Q. Shtik March 23, 2020 at 5:43 pm #

          No, I don’t think so.

  11. malthuss March 23, 2020 at 11:01 am #

    This woman has a Make UP!! channel on You Tube.
    She is in Graduate school with 120k in debt.
    And she wants an expensive wedding.

    YOUNG PEOPLE TODAY!!!! WAKE UP!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y00kGzx7scQ&t=432s

    • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 11:24 am #

      I’d be focusing on the burgeoning weight problem, if I was her. She’s too young to be that pudgy. No wedding cake for her!

      • PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 11:26 am #

        ha ha LOL!

        zucchini chocolate cake for you!

      • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 11:37 am #

        I really think the cause of a lot of that is some of the ingredients they put in processed foods today.
        Doctor Atkins was right about he role of the low fat diet in obesity, but IMO it goes beyond that.
        I think high fructose corn syrup plays a major role. I also think that’s why we have been seeing diatribes against “sugar” in the media, while omitting the fact that these “sweetened beverages” they are trying to force consumers to stop consuming, don’t contain what we call sugar at all.

        • SW March 23, 2020 at 12:17 pm #

          There’s a documentary called King Corn by two men who got interested in the corn agribusiness after hearing someone had analyzed our food consumption patterns are said 70% of what we ate was corn-based. They thought this was crazy and set about to prove it wrong and ended up with evidence it was true. From corn syrup in everything to all the corn that’s fed to cows, hogs and chickens, our primary food was corn.

          • PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 3:25 pm #

            ya that’s right

    • PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 11:26 am #

      safe to say I seriously doubt she’ll ever be able to pay off that 120K in debt now.. or most anybody else for that matter..

      • SW March 23, 2020 at 12:25 pm #

        Since the wide spread use of plastic for everything (and the added bonus of air miles, cash back, etc.) money has an unreal aspect to it. A couple of months I went cash only except for utilities and spent a lot less. Credit card use exploded in the US in the eighties and nineties and guess where most of those amazing offers came from? Delaware — home of Senator Biden, Friend to Credit Card Companies.

        All these kids racking up debt live in LaLa land about the realities of credit cards and student loan debt peonage.

        • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 12:53 pm #

          Biden played a major role in the student loan debt carve-out to the bankruptcy reforms.
          If you had enough income to qualify for a high credit card limit, you could charge tuition on a credit card, and then wipe that debt out through bankruptcy if you later became insolvent through financial reversals due to one of the government created crashes.
          Bu if you took out loans, you could lose everything, but still owe that debt.
          Doesn’t sound right to me.

        • malthuss March 23, 2020 at 2:43 pm #

          There have been studies about how people spend and does having cash or cash in large or small bills effect spending.

      • malthuss March 23, 2020 at 2:44 pm #

        BUT SHE WANTS A LAVISH WEDDING.
        She has 100s? of make up tutorials…maybe she should have gone to Beauty School.

        • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 3:59 pm #

          She still has a ways to go to challenge Triggly Puff, out in Amherst. Remember her?

  12. fugeguy March 23, 2020 at 11:05 am #

    “It’s hard to keep morale up when you realize that all the usual conveyer belts of stuff you need to keep going are breaking down. It’s not hard to imagine fights, sure to come, over that dwindling stuff, which we will struggle heroically to allocate because we are really not all bad. Goodness abides, even in that America we managed to so deeply profane. Let’s hope there’s enough of it.”

    I must admit on a local level people are well behaved in this rural area.

    So far everyone is being helpful and no issues.

    I fear now that days are starting to run into weeks, what will happen when it becomes months?

    Only time will tell as there is no doubt a tension in the air building.

    Very glad to be on my remote farm in in Ohio and not the suburbs of Chicago. Talking with my peeps there the tension is heavier and building faster…

    • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 12:08 pm #

      Face guy

      Isn’t the tension in and around Chi always heavy, so far in 2020 nearly 500 people shot, 85 dead. I mean, how much worse can it get? You would think, day after day, week after week of carnage, anybody who could be shot, has been shot. But no, new candidates keep stepping up.

      Brh

      • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 12:14 pm #

        Any one notice that Chicago does not need the virus to have a lethal epidemic.

        • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 12:32 pm #

          In Baltimore the National Guard has been deployed to tamp down the gunplay, free up at least a few beds for Covid-19 sufferers … this after last week 8 people got shot in one night.

          Brh

          • Billy Hill March 23, 2020 at 1:52 pm #

            They’re deployed all over the state, awaiting nationalization.

            Continuity of Government bunkers.

            It won’t sit well with the hoi polloi when the White House, cabinet secretaries, Joint Chiefs, Chuck, Nancy, and Mitch suddenly disappear from TV screens.

      • fugeguy March 23, 2020 at 12:51 pm #

        Probably starting from a higher baseline of crazy does not help.

  13. trolleybill March 23, 2020 at 11:13 am #

    I see this as a reset as we were going off a societal norm cliff. The cause of course was the PC kumbaya theme from our fellow Americans pushing socialism . They have been projecting this over the past 50 years until it reached a crescendo levels. Hey! so it makes them feel good but the results affect the rest of us badly. I think your right Jim about many things. Your right on with the 1,500 mile Caser salad, trains that can go 80 mph and run on time and the suburbanization that turned into exurbs destroying country life and where small farming once thrived. Be happy to see people realize how fragile life can be. We all need to be more self sufficient on all levels from the home, town, city and the nation

    • Farmer McGregor March 23, 2020 at 10:18 pm #

      Gotta pull a Q here: it’s “you’re right” contracted from “you are right”, not “your right” as in “the right belongs to you”.

      Also, it’s the ‘3500 mile Caesar Salad’ shipped overnight air from the central valley of California to the east coast every day.

      Otherwise a bunch of good observations, especially the last sentence.

  14. Mountain gal March 23, 2020 at 11:18 am #

    People are just mostly waiting for it to all return to “normal”. Except that some are panicking and it’s hard to know what they will be after. The TP, masks, wipes and hand sanitizers I figured they’d be after. But freezers? I just moved into a new(to me) house and wanted to buy a freezer. Forget it. They are gone nationally and out here there are insane numbers waiting on them all as they are backlogged. I had no idea this would be such a hot item but evidently people want to be able to buy frozen meals, pizza etc. and stash them away. Me, I was looking for a way to freeze the garden produce. Guess I’ll be canning and drying……

    It sure does feel like the prequel to your “World Made By Hand” books though Jim. and we haven’t even had a EMP or pole shift yet. Or grand solar minimum. Stay tuned……… more “fun” to come.

    • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 11:53 am #

      It’s hard to find an appliance made in America. I would guess those freezers coming from overseas (especially China) have stopped coming. So I imagine the freezer situation will not get better anytime soon.

      Of course, in a few months we may not have the electricity to run them or the surplus groceries to stock them. My sister uses an old, broken freezer as a secure food pantry which bugs and mice can’t get into. So there’s always that use.

    • fugeguy March 23, 2020 at 12:56 pm #

      Gets interesting if there is not a return to normal in a few months. Maybe or maybe not at this point. But if we get into August heat with things still being FUBAR social unrest will commence…

      • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 1:18 pm #

        It isn’t interesting enough for you all ready? How people are reacting is fascinating and things will not being going back to normal, ever. A new equilibrium will for a while be reached. But normal as you knew it will never be.

        Slowly then all at once. Don’t be so impatient.

        • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 7:12 pm #

          On some occasions we see eye to eye, K-Dog. I also believe there is no going back. A new world will emerge. I doubt very much it will be a better one.

          Even if the COVID-19 virus were a giant farce (and I don’t think it’s a farce), the measures taken in reaction to it are enough to usher in a New World Order with tyranny and injustice for all.

          • K-Dog March 24, 2020 at 7:02 pm #

            yup

    • thirdcoastlegend March 23, 2020 at 10:12 pm #

      Since the gyms are closed I discovered that PowerBlock adjustable dumbbells are all sold out.

      Somehow, that makes sense. Good for them I say, because they make a very high-value, space-saving product that helps millions stay fit.

      Their adjustable dumbbells are perfect for a home gym unless you are the type of person that absolutely has to work to failure and drop them or intentionally slam them on the ground.

    • Farmer McGregor March 23, 2020 at 10:34 pm #

      Hey Mountain Gal,
      Canning and dehydrating are great choices since they are ‘energy-free storage’ once completed. Think root cellar as well and very important: lacto-fermentation. Warm season power outages can quickly ruin whole freezer loads of food — our freezers are in an unheated building so winter outages are not much of a threat. And the longer you store in a freezer, the more costly the food becomes.

      Check out: The Art Of Fermentation

      And: href=”https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Dehydrator-Cookbook-Including-Just-Add-Water/dp/0811713385/ref=sr_1_3?crid=6WCYFLP9SAEG&dchild=1&keywords=the+ultimate+dehydrator+cookbook&qid=1585017058&sprefix=the+ultimate+dehy%2Caps%2C263&sr=8-3″>The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook and others like it.

  15. doggersize March 23, 2020 at 11:19 am #

    This has been an outsized response to a conventional pandemic. Whether this response is intentional for some grand purpose, or our people and leadership continuing to just keep doing stupid shit is anyone’s guess.

    • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 11:58 am #

      I think half of it is just the desire by so many people to have their turn at feeling important. A low IQ and a desire the be the narc are a dangerous combination.

      • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 1:20 pm #

        I think half of it is just the desire by so many people to pass the buck because they like the POTHUS don’t have mental horsepower to understand what is going on. KDFP

        • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 7:15 pm #

          POTHUS? President of the Honky United States?

      • EvelynV March 23, 2020 at 2:58 pm #

        Beryl of oink

        You’ve certainly been the exemplar of what drivel flows as the result of low IQ

    • Majella March 25, 2020 at 4:01 pm #

      “Conventional pandemic”??? What IS the appropriate response to a “conventional pandemic”, pray tell?

  16. ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 11:20 am #

    Excellent post, per usual, Mr. K, especially considering your local conditions up there this morning. Yes indeed, the tendency to interpret such events as portents of even greater disasters to come is now well inculcated in us as individuals, as well as the larger herd in general.

    Things are mostly still fairly routine out west here. I’m now on a work from home schedule that allows me the freedom to come into the office as I see fit for my more arduous tasks, a freedom I’m taking advantage of this morning. Best of both worlds so far for me. The grocery store mobs have thinned out again and the gas pumps still work too. Not to mention the bank cards. Local hospital seems to be doing just fine too. And that’s pretty much the limit to my day to day human interactions, even in the best of times, so I can’t find much to complain about just yet.

    Some general observations I’m noticing already that have me scratching my head a little bit:

    The continued rolling out of celebrities to advise us that they or someone they know has the dreaded CV, but they’re doing just fine, thanks for asking. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson reported this morning that they are recovering just fine, but that we should all be taking this VERY seriously. Likewise, Big Ben Rothlesberger – resplendent in his mountain man birds nest beard and Dumb and Dumberer scraggly haircut – felt free to share similar sentiments, coming shortly on the heels of last weeks announcement by Sean Payton that he too had the virus, but of course was much too tough to be seriously laid low by it. There seems to be a trend emerging there. I’ve seen no reported cases yet where celebrities were seriously inconvenienced by CV at all. But perhaps they’re just special in that area too.

    Likewise, I’ve seen to tragic personal interest stories out there at all yet about individuals and/or families and even communities devastated by the virus. I know it’s still early yet, but where is our normally hyperactive press in reporting all this. Even assuming this is all a giant psyop to take the markets down and crash the economy and/or the dollar, wouldn’t stories like that greatly increase the public’s already overblown fears and aid the cause? That one seems a bit queer to me. But perhaps the press is just all in lockdown too.

    And finally, all of this hysteria remains somewhat oddly out of step with observed conditions on the ground here in the Land of Enchantment. Yes, we’re just a poor western state who’s normally weeks or even months out of step with national trends, but everything remains just fine here so far. Even so, the rather large local concern I work for has well above normal foreign and domestic travel levels among a rather large employee base (~10K) made up of contractors, regular employees, vendors, etc. If anyone in our fair state should have seen a major CV outbreak by now, it would be us. Not happenin’ so far. But perhaps it’s coming.

    On the other hand, financial hysteria abounds, and I’ll take it on faith that the ongoing market meltdown we’re seeing is indeed real, or as least as real as such things can be in the minds of the “wealth holders,” anyway. That too seems oddly out of step with the actual toll the virus may or may not be actually taking.

    But anyway, I’m old now, stubborn and bitchy as hell, and not inclined to believe much of anything I’m told by anyone anymore, so there’s that too. What are you gonna do? Probably die within the next 10 years or so, in my case. Maybe even sooner. Certainly won’t be a tragedy, no matter what the cause.

    • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 11:48 am #

      It sounds like you are suffering from normalcy bias. Which is very normal. I freaked out last week about too many people who are going through the normalcy bias. But then I realized it is just human nature.

      • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 12:56 pm #

        I might have normalcy bias, but I’m certainly not suffering from it. But I’m beginning to suspect that just the opposite is true. I think we’re going to find out in another month or so that all of this is being seriously overblown. It goes without saying that there will be an agenda behind that effort. I’ll leave it at that for now.

        • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 1:31 pm #

          How can you say that when US deaths in the last 24 hours have gone up by 100. 25% in one day. Every COVID death is a tragedy and in the last day America has has 100 separate tragedies. In the infection derby America is in third place having beat out Spain. We had been neck and neck. In 10 days America will be #1 when we smoke past Italy because we have a POTHUS who does not know what to do.

          Many don’t worry be happy comments are becoming exponentially meaningless here. KDFP

          • AttackSub March 23, 2020 at 2:16 pm #

            Let me ask you something K-Dog.According to the CDC,the 2018-2019 flu season lasted 21 weeks. This information was found on Google :
            CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018–2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza (Table 1). The number of influenza-associated illnesses that occurred last season was similar to the estimated number of influenza-associated illnesses during the 2012–2013 influenza season when an estimated 34 million people had symptomatic influenza illness
            35.5 million infections over 21 weeks In round numbers that’s 1.7 million infections per week. 16.5 million people going to health care providers over 21 weeks in round numbers In round numbers, that’s 790,000 per week. 496,000 were hospitalized. In round numbers, that’s 24,000 per week. 34,200 people died in 21 weeks In round numbers that’s 1650 people at week. Aren’t you being bit over dramatic with your rhetoric?

          • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 2:32 pm #

            By all means, worry. Just not about the virus, which is hardly a “tragedy.” The concerning action is elsewhere. By the way, this is MUCH bigger than our Clown POTUS. FOCUS DOG, don’t be distracted by all the sticks being thrown about!

          • snarkmatic9000 March 23, 2020 at 3:02 pm #

            K, no one here seems to have a clue about SARS CoV2, which is the correct medical name for the virus. I’m a retired Biologist. The problem is very serious and real and it’s chiefly due to the characteristics of this virus’s “serial interval”… yes, go ahead people, look it up and actually learn something about virology, also the complete lack of latent immunity in the population (hence the term “novel”), and this virus’s extremely potent infectiousness. So many ignorant comments and idiot conspiracy theories here, but they ignore the real facts at their (and other’s) peril.

          • doggersize March 23, 2020 at 3:53 pm #

            the gist of it is, there is not much you can do. There are supposed to be pandemics every few decades.

          • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 4:02 pm #

            Snark

            Will its potency fade after awhile?

          • snarkmatic9000 March 23, 2020 at 4:15 pm #

            BRH: at a point somewhere “herd immunity” will eventually begin to develop, and by that time a great deal of damage will have been done. Take this seriously. The need for isolation is critical, the economic effect will just have to be swallowed and dealt with later… that part is not my baliwick! But to think this is some sort of conspiracy or needless fear mongering is just plain crazy!! And it can make me crazy when I read some comments here. All we can do is get through it, try to minimize the damage, which could be life-altering, and help each other out however we can.

          • Majella March 23, 2020 at 10:55 pm #

            Leadership!!!!!!!!!

            If only it would be broadcast by the mainstream media…

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7eVF7NgMQs

          • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 12:18 am #

            “Will its potency fade after awhile?”

            BRH,
            …mine did….

    • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 12:21 pm #

      Ellipsis

      You are obviously a neighbor. I think we, being in relatively lower population density areas are not as affected by shortages, yet.

      Found a six pack of TP today! Things are looking up!

      • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 12:39 pm #

        I’m thinking the TP shortage might have been engineered to scare the populace.
        There was plenty around here, we started hearing reports of empty shelves in random locations, and then people ran out and bought extra.

        • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 12:57 pm #

          Yep, add the run on TP to one of my decidedly curious observations above.

        • benr March 23, 2020 at 2:50 pm #

          No San Diego is out of TP you have to get lucky to hit a store right after a delivery or its hit or miss.
          We got lucky twice in a period of two weeks so are stocked up for at least two weeks but after that its shower and then clean the shower time.

        • EvelynV March 23, 2020 at 3:01 pm #

          Beryl of oink

          the things you think are worth about a pound of shit.

          Anyone following you around needs lots of TP

          As always I mean this in a nice way.

          • snarkmatic9000 March 23, 2020 at 3:04 pm #

            she clearly is a complete ignoramus, like so many here.

          • Ricechex March 23, 2020 at 6:27 pm #

            What is your problem?? Why do you keep making such nasty comments? Fully unprovoked. You should be banned from this board.

          • Ricechex March 23, 2020 at 6:27 pm #

            That last comment was to Evelyn.

          • snarkmatic9000 March 23, 2020 at 7:49 pm #

            No it wasn’t. I don’t suffer fools gladly. Before going into the “halls of academia” I worked in Public and Environmental Health for Baltimore/ State of MD Dept of Health in Epidemiology and Pathology for 8 years. I’m far more qualified to comment on this subject than anyone here, and I will not tolerate spreading of dis-information or the kind of speculative lunacy being spread around here, no apologies from me. Deal with it.
            False information at this time can lead to morbidity, and I will do my best to contradict it.

          • snarkmatic9000 March 23, 2020 at 7:55 pm #

            To make it perfectly clear: my comments were directed to the conspiratorial and completely evidence-free statements being promulgated by B of O.
            To paraphrase BG: “extremism in the defense of truth is no vice”.

        • Nightowl March 24, 2020 at 4:33 am #

          There are a few videos floating around where media outlets were caught emptying shelves here in Europen grocery stores in order to produce more fear porn.

          The TP narrative was obviously media engineered, and is one of my favorites to date. Up there with Trump getting “two scoops of ice cream while his guests get one.”

          If there is one thing I have learned over these past 3.5 years, it is that the masses are far less intelligent than I could have ever imagined.

          • snarkmatic9000 March 24, 2020 at 10:11 am #

            “The TP narrative was obviously media engineered”

            And your data base of evidence for that statement is?

            “the masses are far less intelligent than I could ever have imagined.”

            And clearly you are one of them.

          • Nightowl March 24, 2020 at 10:16 am #

            Because no one would panic about toilet paper were it not for the media inducing said panic.

            It is probably the last thing one would need in a true emergency.

            Try harder, Mr. Scientist.

  17. akmofo March 23, 2020 at 11:24 am #

    Nope, sorry James, your timing is still way off. This is all still scripted staged and coordinated. We’ll be making all time highs in the markets by the end of this year and at least for a decade beyond.

    • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 2:28 pm #

      By the end of the year, possibly. In ten years? Depends on what the denomination will be. It certainly won’t be the US dollar as we know it today.

      • akmofo March 23, 2020 at 11:20 pm #

        Well, I expect US markets will be trading in US dollars. I also expect the US dollar to continue to be the strongest currency on the globe. And so the best returns will always be had in the US.

    • Majella March 23, 2020 at 10:59 pm #

      This sort of rhetoric proves you’re completely deluded.

  18. SW March 23, 2020 at 11:36 am #

    And Wall Street may have more plans for us too. This is from the WSJ and the remarks in parentheses are a writer named Mike Whitney. The Fed wants the keys to the safe to pick who does or does not get bailed out.

    “The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and banking regulators deserve congratulations for their bold, necessary actions to provide liquidity to the U.S. financial system amid the coronavirus crisis. But more remains to be done. We thus recommend: (1) immediate congressional action …. to authorize the Treasury to use the Exchange Stabilization Fund to guarantee prime money-market funds, (2) regulatory action to effect temporary reductions in bank capital and liquidity requirements… (NOTE–So now the banks don’t need to hold capital against their loans?) .. additional Fed lending to banks and nonbanks….(Note -by “nonbanks”, does the author mean underwater hedge funds?)…

    We recommend that the Fed take further actions as lender of last resort. First, it should re-establish the Term Auction Facility, used in the 2008 crisis, allowing depository institutions to borrow against a broad range of collateral at an auction price (Note–They want to drop the requirement for good Triple A collateral.) … Second, it should consider further exercising its Section 13(3) authority to provide additional liquidity to nonbanks, potentially including purchases of corporate debt through a special-purpose vehicle” (“Do More to Avert a Liquidity Crisis”, Wall Street Journal )

    This hysteria does “seem oddly out of step with observed conditions” where I live too. Here’s a Nobel laureate’s take on the virus:

    “Levitt] blames the media for causing unnecessary panic by focusing on the relentless increase in the cumulative number of cases and spotlighting celebrities who contract the virus. By contrast, the flu has sickened 36 million Americans since September and killed an estimated 22,000, according to the CDC, but those deaths are largely unreported.

    He fears the public health measures that have shut down large swaths of the economy could cause their own health catastrophe, as lost jobs lead to poverty and hopelessness. Time and again, researchers have seen that suicide rates go up when the economy spirals down. “The real situation is not as nearly as terrible as they make it out to be,” he said…”

    Here’s the article from LA Times:

    https://news.yahoo.com/why-nobel-laureate-predicts-quicker-210318391.html

    • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 12:01 pm #

      Thanks, SW. Good information.

      • snarkmatic9000 March 23, 2020 at 3:12 pm #

        “That doesn’t mean complacency is acceptable. Levitt said the social-distancing mandates are critical — particularly the ban on large gatherings — because the virus is so new that the population has no immunity to it and a vaccine is still many months away.”
        Michael Levitt

    • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 12:59 pm #

      2008 all over again, albeit on steroids this time. At least now we know how it’s going to play out. Although, collapse later remains an option, of course.

      • Ricechex March 25, 2020 at 1:38 am #

        Ellipsis, I thought so too, except in fast forward. The run up to 2008 was about a year of housing prices going up, up, up! Every day new median prices were reported, creating panic and anxiety. The average house price is 400,000! The next day, the average house price is 450,00!

        Then, BLAM, market crash uncovering all kinds of nefarious and rotten practices. Then the bailouts….which most Americans said NO too, but that did not matter.

        Now it feels the same, but intensified. I am guessing the public would not buy it a second time, there are many of us that remember the first time, so they had to come up with a new crisis in which to enact stimulus bills, and create money out of nothing. The hype around numbers, seem the same strategy used in 2008. 100 New COVID-19 Cases! COVID-19 cases doubled overnight in NYC! 20,000 cases in the US!

        It feels the same.

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 1:33 pm #

      This place is filled with black hearts who for a kibble will ignore the exponential function. KDFP

      • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 2:26 pm #

        Rest assured, it will not ignore us.

      • AttackSub March 23, 2020 at 3:38 pm #

        It looks like the Corona infection has ignored the exponential function lately. By your fear mongering the mainland China should be a charnel house by now

  19. newworld March 23, 2020 at 11:37 am #

    I have my money on April 5th when the D’s roll out a new narrative about ending the draconian Potemkin lockdowns and that Marshall Trump’s martial law is grounds for a new impeachment, I’m not joking.

    Have you seen what constitutes the D-party’s voting base? Half have zero impulse control and the other half have mental illnesses which frankly will cause an epic meltdown under stress. Can the D-party mob bosses control that crowd with lockdown narrative forever? Not a chance.

  20. Cavepainter March 23, 2020 at 11:39 am #

    The familiar expression, “Circle the wagons!” We-l-l-l-l, essentially, doesn’t that imply that an “inside” demographic must be protected from the external? OK, so where goes that bland sentiment proclaimed on yard signs “No human is illegal”? So to push the point I’ll post again what I posted as comment to Jim’s Friday blog statement.

    Considering that the US medical delivery system is already overwhelmed by the Covid-19 plague, and with predictions only of a worsening state, here’s my proposal for the DNC and all of its army of virtue signally “wokesters” (open borders crowd) demanding that ICE’s detention centers free into our society all held illegal aliens on basis that the crowded conditions within those centers add to the detainees’ chance of contagion: SIGN A DOCUMENT expressing that in event of medical emergency due to Covid-19 infection, you decline medical intervention for self and family members so that the medical system will be that much relieved of the additional burden of entitling illegal aliens for treatment.

    • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 12:08 pm #

      That reminds me. there was a case of a “polio-like” illness afflicting children a while back, which just happened to coincide with one of those border assaults, where people coming in were allowed to move around the country.
      Polio is communicable, but there was no national crackdown at that time. We had a different president.
      I was very surprised at that time, to find out there was a little boy in a local hospital afflicted with what his parent called polio. Nothing at all in the news, I only happened to hear about it on social media. At first I thought maybe the person claiming to have a sick child was making it up. Then I saw people, real, verifiable residents, who said they knew the family.
      So, the MSM and the government will elevate or deep-six public health concerns based on political value, in my experience.

      • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 1:04 pm #

        That was largely covered up Beryl, for obvious political reasons. To even mention it was to invite charges of racism and xenophobia. I know Lowell, Mass. was hit pretty hard, and very young children in NJ and Colorado died from it. (Basically anywhere unaccompanied immigrant children from Central America were sent and placed in public schools) It was an unnamed disease, but its effects were similar to polio and meningitis. The media acted just the opposite as to how they are responding to covid 19.

        Brh

        • malthuss March 23, 2020 at 3:36 pm #

          Leprosy, TB, ad nauseum.

  21. newworld March 23, 2020 at 11:39 am #

    On a positive note, great to hear about the canals being kept up. In Illinois the upkeep of D-voter dependonistas was found to be too expensive and shoveling money to road contractors too lucrative. Our canals look like mosquito breeding pools.

    • DurangoKid March 23, 2020 at 12:44 pm #

      But wait, there’s more. There were more than a few canal companies operating in New York State. Until the coming of the railroads there were several canals in operation or under construction in the Finger Lakes region and elsewhere on the Southern Tier. For example there was the canal that followed the Keuka Lake Outlet between Penn Yan and Dresden on the Seneca Lake. In the early 19th century the farms near the Finger Lakes were faced with the problem of agricultural surplus with no markets. If you could get your produce to one of the nearby large bodies of water, you could get it to the Erie canal or even south to the Susquehanna River via the Chemung. Had the railroads come later or agriculture started earlier, Upstate New York would be laced with canals. With some strong backs and agile minds some of these canals could be resurrected if need be.

      • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 1:06 pm #

        Isn’t the Erie Canal still open, and used (on a limited basis)?

        • DurangoKid March 23, 2020 at 1:15 pm #

          Yes, a lot of it is still operational. It’s an attraction for pleasure boaters. And there is still some limited commercial traffic.

          • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 1:31 pm #

            That’s amazing, 200 or so years old and still operating. Dug with picks and shovels, laid out by surveyors with transoms, designed by civil engineers with pencils and notepads. At one time we really knew how to build things IMHO.

          • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 1:38 pm #

            Irish slaves built the Erie Canal. Funny the canal should come up.


            llness was a constant concern for the contractors and the laborers. Swampy stagnant waters brought with it malaria infested mosquitoes. Poor hygiene habits would contribute to the spread of cholera throughout the canal project and the surrounding populated areas. An observer to the canal construction in 1839 wrote: “Laboring from day to day in low lands and stagnant water, human life has proved to be very short. Out of 1500 laboring men employed on the canal, 1000 died during this past year of over-exertion and the diseases incident to the climate, fever and ague and bilious weather.

            KDFP

          • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 3:36 pm #

            The Panama Canal was almost stopped with Yellow Fever. Walter Reed saved that effort.

          • Cavepainter March 23, 2020 at 3:36 pm #

            Thanks K-dog for pointing that out, highlighting the fact that in the industrializing north before the civil war so much of the workforce was — except for not actually being chattel — held in the equivalent of a bondage by fear of family starving if income ended. If history hadn’t been made a political prisoner — even back then — of partisan narrative more common would be knowledge that the north before the civil war was constantly being racked with violent protest against the abolitionist because the influx of escaped slaves (brought in via the “underground railroad”) were means of employers undercutting wage floor while, like the coastal elitist of today, got to virtue signal their opposition to slavery.

            That’s why many men simply abandoned family to become frontiersmen. As much as Harriett Beecher Stowe generalized southern plantation owners as evil (Simon Legree) on average their disposition toward labor was hardly different than that of northern employers.

          • Nightowl March 24, 2020 at 4:51 am #

            Yep. Used to take trips family trips there as a kid. As a kid, I was amazed by the lock system and the fact that you could watch it in action there.

  22. Opie March 23, 2020 at 11:50 am #

    James,that second paragraph perfectly summarizes the whole shebang,well done. Meantime I’ve had a good laugh watching my wifes facebook feed exploding with whether it’s raaaaaysisssss to call it the Chinese flu ! I so wanted to point out the civilized way those wet markets work, you know like torturing the animals prior to killing them ’cause they taste better or something. That includes dogs and cats. These same people would likely turn you in if you let your mutt ride in the back of your pickup.

    • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 11:57 am #

      Well and first off who the hell wants to eat soup with a literal full fledged bat sitting in it? And you are literally supposed to eat the bat like chicken. And from what I saw it is left with the fur still on it!

      • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 12:10 pm #

        Oh, how nasty! Gordon Ramsay of Hell’s Kitchen wouldn’t touch that with a ten foot spatula.

        • SoftStarLight March 23, 2020 at 1:26 pm #

          Lol! And can you imagine how many f bombs he would drop in a minute seeing such a sight!?

          • hmuller March 25, 2020 at 12:08 pm #

            And with all this mandated “social distancing” couples may soon need 10 ft spatula’s for foreplay.

    • benr March 23, 2020 at 3:04 pm #

      Every hunter I know trys to kill their prey as quickly as possible because the adrenalin surge throws the flavor of the meat off.

      https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-scared-animals-taste-worse

      Poor lil guys.

  23. Soloview March 23, 2020 at 12:19 pm #

    “I doubt that the federal government as we know it can survive its own desperate measures to re-ignite the hologram of rehypothecated promises to pay back all the debt gone bad.”

    Very good, Jim, very good. You are starting to get to me, tho’ I am still not convinced we will roll all the way back to Jacksonian America. For one thing, the insanity of this here ape that is us, is way, way beyond self-repair. I reckon we will be regulated – or eliminated, if need be – by good auntie Gaia. It’s just simply that the addiction to modern life is little more complex than, say, the one to crack cocaine; it has to do with who we are and where we came from, which almost no-one pays any attention these days. People will always dream of a better future, that which comes after blood, toil, sweat and tears have been expended. The woke nuttiness of the Left comes from a sense of entitlement entirely divorced from effort, from getting attention by simply acting ignorant and anti-social. The obscene misanthropy, pathological self-promotion and hoarding on the Right perfectly complements it. Neither can even imagine a liveable future that the other side would consent to. Hell, Laura Ingraham’s two guests on Fox News late last week advocated that Trump halve capital gains tax as an emergency measure to get the economy going again. I kid you not. And yet, it is what it is, and neither COVID-19 nor bubonic plague will not change the psycho-social methods of selecting leaders and elites among us. A revolution can replace the Girondin by the Jacobins, and the Directoire by Napoleon, but eventually the Bourbons would return. It’s in our genes. We are hierarchical animals even where the Zeitgeist dictates that the top dogs talk like passionate egalitarians and pretend they care what happens to the hoi polloi.

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 1:41 pm #

      Soloview for VP. KDFP

      • malthuss March 23, 2020 at 3:39 pm #

        Out of 1500 laboring men employed on the canal, 1000 died during this past year of over-exertion and the diseases incident to the climate, fever and ague and bilious weather.”

        2 of 3 died that year..indentured ‘servants?’

    • Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 8:47 pm #

      Well said. The Law of the Conservation of Evil. Only the values of the variables change, not the variables themselves. Thus we still have niggers, but now they’re White Men.

      Personally it matter quite a lot to me and should to other White Men. Certainly this Law does not imply that all men are actually equal or deserve to be treated the same. Superficially it may seem so, but the ideas have no connection to each other.

  24. Loneranger March 23, 2020 at 12:24 pm #

    I live just a mile and a quarter from a large airport, with the landing pattern directly over my condo, and I haven seen ANY planes for two days.

    • Beryl of Oyl March 23, 2020 at 1:03 pm #

      Did you see the story about the Chinese woman working for Biogen, but who didn’t attend a conference whose attendees later spread the Wuhan Flu all ver the place, got on a plane despite being sick, and returned to China despite facing prison for doing so?
      There were contradictory claims made that she was refused testing.

      Doesn’t it seem like this story should get more media attention than whether some dipshit in the entertainment field got tested but is asymptomatic?
      Especially when there is some basis for thinking that perhaps this virus was deliberately inflicted.

      Why would someone with no symptoms get tested, anyway?

      • snarkmatic9000 March 23, 2020 at 3:25 pm #

        “some basis for thinking that perhaps this virus was deliberately inflicted.”

        There you go again…thinking?…evidently a process with which you, malthuss, and most here, actually, are entirely unfamiliar.

        “Why would someone with no symptoms get tested, anyway?”

        Jesus, do the conspiracies here ever end??
        Ever heard of asymptomatic transmission of disease???
        A number of healthcare workers have been so infected with SARS CoV2 (the real name for this virus) so far.

        • Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 8:51 pm #

          Calm down Snark. Conspiracy is real. Not all theories are equally good, but some are simple FACT – like the “Theory of Gravity.” The disease is real, but someone may have released it on purpose. Can you disprove this? There is evidence, even if not conclusive.

        • Nightowl March 24, 2020 at 5:01 am #

          Look out, here comes the big brain.

          His first salvo? Label everything conspiracy and promote narratives spoon fed to him by the McMedia.

          Lay it out for us, Snarkster!

  25. capt spaulding March 23, 2020 at 12:26 pm #

    I think that the bailout money should go mainly to the wage earners in this country. The government says that consumer spending is 70% of the economy, that should show you where most of the money needs to go. Businesses like Goldman Sachs, who just gave their president a 23 million payout, are standing right in line for their handouts. This after buying back their stock in order to increase the payouts to their investors, instead of salting some away for a rainy day, like I do.

    It looks to me like they are expecting a repeat of 2008, when the govt. bailed out all of those losers when their businesses tanked. I remember that at the time they were getting bailed out, they kept on handing out bonuses to their top executives. There’s no embarrassing these people. Remember, the goal is to privatize the profits, and socialize the losses. In other words: let John Q Public foot the bill for bailing out these whales yet again. I’ve stopped eating bat sandwiches. Just doing what I can to help out.

    • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 12:42 pm #

      As unfair as it seems, not bailing out the TBTF entities just multiplies the problems. Give the working class all the money does nothing except put off the inevitable running out of microeconomic capital. Imagine the shutting down of all those bad old corporations, and the millions of jobs that will go down with them. Then we will have the progressives dream, all the folks dependent on the government for their income. Big problem, the government has no source for all that money if the TBTF folks are not paying taxes and thus neither are the working folks.

      The greatest magical act is how to give money to all those working folks when there is no source for governmental revenue.

      • capt spaulding March 23, 2020 at 1:06 pm #

        I imagine you would give the money to Joe Lunchbox being the same as when you give it out to the TBTF boys. Private citizens pay taxes too. Sounds like what you are saying is: Give bailout money to the corporations, and they’ll use some of it (but not all of it) to pay back the govt in taxes. What’s the difference between the folks being dependent on the government for their income, and the corporations being dependent on the government for their income?

        Don’t forget, Trickle Down Economics is called Horse and Sparrow Economics. The theory being that if you feed enough oats to the horse, some will pass through for the sparrows. Need I say that we are the sparrows?

        • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 3:34 pm #

          No I said that every level needs the bailouts. Isolation to one level will accomplish nothing.

      • DurangoKid March 23, 2020 at 1:13 pm #

        TBTF entities are not the only means to generate wealth. When they keel over, the demand for goods and services will remain. The big question is what will replace them in a world made by hand. Or perhaps the more pressing question is how do we get there from here? If we take a Marxian* approach to the problem we see that the crux is the siphoning of surplus value into the capital stream. Those who generate wealth by their labor are deprived of capital by expropriation of surplus value. The effect is to keep the working class poor while capital accumulates among the few capitalists at the top. You’ll notice the working class does not build Walmarts, but is forced to shop at them because of stagnant wages. While we’re on the topic of Walmart, remember the wages of its workers are subsidized by public welfare benefits. When Walmart enters a market, local retailers struggle or go out of business. When globalism fails and the Walmarts go away, what then? The wealth that could have capitalized local business has been lost. There are ways around this problem, but most Unitedstatesians have been indoctrinated to find them distasteful.

        *Marxian – a more pragmatic, bread and butter Marxist versus a doctrinaire approach to Marx’s analysis of capitalism.

        • snarkmatic9000 March 23, 2020 at 3:29 pm #

          More people need to pay attention to Economists Richard Wolff and Michael Hudson, but they won’t.

          • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 7:35 pm #

            The problems come about during the transition phase. Won’t be an easy turnover at all.

      • Majella March 24, 2020 at 6:44 pm #

        JohnAZ

        It’s not the corporations, many of them huge conglomerates of smaller businesses that have been hoovered up by Big Brands and who do all the employing that is the problem being referred to here – it’s the fecking banksters. Breaking up those huge hedge-fund/casino enterprises would be a positive thing for the entire planet.

    • Tate March 23, 2020 at 1:33 pm #

      Any corporation that needs bailout money should have to accept government control of its operations. The most direct way to accomplish that is to have the government own a voting majority of the shares, or at least a controlling interest. A quid pro quo. No more loans from the government. No corporation has to accept that deal. They’re free to go into reorganization in bankruptcy court if that’s what they choose & let the creditors get stiffed. But if they choose to come hat in hand to the government for bailout money, they have to cede control to the government in their day to day operations & their board of directors. If the executives & board of a corporation can’t act responsibly in the public interest, if they burden the corporation with debt for the sole purpose of stock buybacks, they don’t deserve bonuses & other perks when they get in trouble & can’t repay the debt.

      • David Webb March 23, 2020 at 1:48 pm #

        I’ve heard some speculation that this round of bailouts will be the first step towards nationalization.

        • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 2:19 pm #

          Nationalization? Just the opposite, me thinks.

          • David Webb March 23, 2020 at 3:54 pm #

            Yes, so far all they’ve nationalized is their losses. This speculation also comes from NWO fear mongers, so take it with a grain of salt.

          • Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 8:57 pm #

            The Corporations are the Government. Plutocracy. Watch the old version of “Rollerball”. But even they bow before the International Bankers or nascent World Government. They know who controls “money” and who creates it out of nothing in imitation of God. Indeed, have you noticed the hush in the Great Banks? They are Temples to this God.

      • Tate March 24, 2020 at 1:47 pm #

        This is what I’ talking about right here:

        Can you believe these ungrateful SOBs! I hope the government calls the bluff of this MF’er.

      • Majella March 24, 2020 at 6:48 pm #

        Ah. In other words, Nationalise the bastards. Gee…isn’t that a little bit like Communism?

        • Tate March 24, 2020 at 7:13 pm #

          Call it what you want. “ism’s” get in the way of practical solutions. And we’re not talking about complete ownership. [face-palm]

  26. James Kuehl March 23, 2020 at 12:28 pm #

    Wish I still had my Royal manual typewriter. Got so nobody knew how to fix them. Replacement ribbons were scarce. One of those babies and a Heidelberg Platen Press converted to water-driven power source and you could be the future’s William Randolph Hearst.

  27. sanspeur March 23, 2020 at 1:29 pm #

    Time to be adults

    https://youtu.be/-6CKWa3hBWs

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 1:49 pm #

      I think I used to buy weed from this guy.

      • PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 3:20 pm #

        NO more almond guys….

        🙂

        • PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 3:20 pm #

          almond milk lol

          • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 5:53 pm #

            Don’t laugh, that’s what my daughter and her female army of yoga fanatics drink. I tried to choke some down once. No go. You can’t use it in coffee either.

          • PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 7:08 pm #

            I’ve made chocolate “milk” out of it.. it wasn’t bad
            nutty flavor

    • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 1:50 pm #

      Wow. Sobering.

    • Majella March 24, 2020 at 7:26 pm #

      Thank you for that.

  28. David Webb March 23, 2020 at 1:45 pm #

    I have a friend who runs a small local high speed internet service which provides connections for the city and county offices. He received a letter from DHS informing him that because his business supports critical infrastructure, he will be exempt from any curfews or fuel rationing. That raises the question, when do I get my ration book? Or maybe I should see if he’ll hire me so I don’t need one.

  29. AttackSub March 23, 2020 at 1:52 pm #

    Is this the way to fight a pandemic in a Western Democracy?

    pahttps://www.msn.com/en-us/news/newsus/the-virus-can-be-stopped-but-only-with-harsh-steps-experts-say/ar-BB11yi2a?ocid=spartannt

    • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 3:31 pm #

      Think what would have happened if the PTB in the Middle Ages had forced everyone to kill all the rats and cultivate the cats.

      They operated with little knowledge and winged their responses according to the “smarts” of the day, the church. The people eventually rejected the church as omnipotent and the Middle Ages ended.

      Exactly what scares the hell out of the Ayatollahs in Iran. When the folks no longer fear the power of their religious sect, their reign will end along with the power of Shia fanaticism.

      • malthuss March 23, 2020 at 3:42 pm #

        Think what would have happened if the PTB in the Middle Ages had forced everyone to kill all the rats and cultivate the cats.

        And the human population might have bloomed, 8-50 billion, then the die off.
        Plagues and wars cull the herd, so to speak. Hence the human race is still here.

        • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 4:14 pm #

          It wasn’t known what caused Bubonic plague until 1897. After the Black Death period apparently the plague never really went away but recurred decade after decade, at times on a large scale, killing tens of thousands in short periods, like in London in 1515, and 1666.

          Brh

  30. Greg March 23, 2020 at 2:02 pm #

    I recommend checking out Gail Tverberg’s latest post, where she analyzes the COVID situation with the same analytic depth and common sense that the brings to energy issues.

    My tentative take is that it appears COVID has a death rate around 1% of those infected if–a big if–severe cases can be properly treated. Otherwise, add an additional 2 to 4%. Because COVID is so infectious, and the cat’s already out of the bag in spite of belated measures to isolate individuals and groups, it’s likely 50% of Americans will be infected. At that point, the population begins to develop herd immunity.

    I think the U.S. has around 360 million people. 50% of that is 180 million. 3% of untreated severe cases can lead to an additional 5.4 million deaths, beyond the 1.8 million.

    Even though widespread infection is inevitable, can our isolation measures at least slow it down enough that our hospitals have a fighting chance of handling the case load? A study back in early March (forget where, sorry) estimated that you’d need a 10-year lockdown to achieve this, assuming you could somehow keep mask production, etc. going.

    Never mind 10 years. The modern economy would shatter within 6 months or less. Along with crippling our ability to treat the severe COVID cases, a wrecked economy will result in huge casualties for all the reasons that readers of this blog are well aware.

    Absent a miracle cure, most of the severe cases will not have the benefit of ventilators, etc, whether or not the economy can get started again. (They may have a somewhat better chance if more people are allowed to start making things again.) So if we want to minimize total deaths, we need to relax the stay-in-place. There’s a big difference between fooling around with jiggering the claims to wealth, and actually making wealth (or growing it).

    On caveat: We don’t know how mutable this virus is, or whether it may come to attack our children. Keeping them away from school may continue to be a good idea. And maybe the young set can use these next few months to gain wisdom and skills not normally imparted by the schools. Maybe mom and dad can take the time to sit them down and explain how they got into their careers, what day-to-day life was actually like for them at the workplace, and what skills turned out to be crucial to their success, and how much or little their schooling had to do with that.

    Maybe it’s an opportunity for jus to experiment with caloric restriction and intermittent fasting, while increasing the nutritive content of what we do eat. (Speaking just for myself, I found that when doing aerobics first thing in the morning , my body was happy to burn the fat around my waist rather than urging me to ingest carbs. Fat can be asubstantial money belt, though not a particularly health one.) Maybe it’s an opportunity to see if meditation and focus can increase our tolerance for heat and cold. (That sure helped when I was in Michigan.)

    To our college age readers: Just because many colleges disappear doesn’t mean that there aren’t better, cheaper ways for you to leave the basement, move elsewhere and have fun with your peers. What about co-ed “lodges” where like-minded people study a craft, combining on-line learning with practical experience. What about “makers’ lodges” where you have simple living arrangements combined with cool workshops? Just a thought.

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 2:46 pm #

      Gail is ignorant about this. Sam Mitchell interviewed Gail and several other experts. Only Gail said the virus should run it’s course. That is an ignorant point of view. It show a bare bones understanding of epidemiology but that is all.

      1). Slowing the infection prevents the health care system from being overloaded giving infected people a better chance of survival.

      2). Slowing the infection allows time for a virus to be developed and for treatment to be refined.

      See Sam’s series here. I have watched them all and Derrick Jenson will be the last interview which should get posted today.

      • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 2:47 pm #

        KDFP

        • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 2:57 pm #

          But pretty much we all agree the infection is good for the planet. But if it happens to you it sucks.

      • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 3:02 pm #

        There is no should. The virus will run its course no matter what we think the best option is. Attempting to significantly slow it will collapse the entire economic system – the plan from the start – and make everything else – including dealing with the virus itself – worse. A classic dilemma. The fact that Gail often disagrees with the so-called “experts” is her strongest trait.

        • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 3:21 pm #

          You are right. If the plague lasts a short time then flattening the curve will help health care. If it does not abate or hits multiple times, nothing will help. I think Trump believes this is the case and does not want to sacrifice the economy to do little to fight the disease.

          A real contest developing inside the administration.

          • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 5:05 pm #

            OI think Trump’s probably right in that sense, although it remains to be seen whether the economy can be saved at all at this point.

          • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 5:50 pm #

            Refuse people treatment?

            There’ll be an army of personal injury lawyers in the lobby, taking names and signing people up.

            Lawsuits will be coming thick and fast.

        • Tate March 23, 2020 at 3:49 pm #

          “Flattening the curve” may not be the best approach. More people will suffer if the economy collapses. It’s a matter of costs vs. benefits. One thing is certain: a doubling of cases every 4 days will mean tens of millions by the middle of April. The healthcare system can practice triage so as not to become overwhelmed. Yes, many will not receive care, but them’s the breaks. (This will likely require martial law to put the nation on a war footing.) Under this scenario, herd immunity will come much sooner than dragging this thing out. Critical supplies such as masks, nitrile gloves, hand sanitizers & wipes must be prioritized in this war effort.

          • Tate March 23, 2020 at 4:24 pm #

            So to summarize:

            Activate the Defense Production Act,

            Get the nation open for business immediately. Remove the lockdown orders, let people go to work, gatherings, events & lift the stay-at-home advisories. More people will come down with the illness quicker, but those who have to practice greater caution will have the means to do so. People over 60 should be refused treatment at clinics & hospitals for cold & flu symptoms.

      • Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 9:05 pm #

        Did you mean allow time for a vaccine to be developed in number 2?

  31. EvelynV March 23, 2020 at 3:04 pm #

    I’m leaving this forum for a while. No longer interested in the braying that is going on.

    The general tone today is one of a whole lot of people whistling past the graveyard.

    You better be ready for what’s on the way.

    • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 3:24 pm #

      Don’t! You are hearing the results of impossible decision making, decision making without data to back it up. AKA, shooting from the hip.

      An old movie line is

      I did it because I had a hunch. We are in that realm today!

      We disagree a lot, but I take in your viewpoint which has good points at times.

    • malthuss March 23, 2020 at 3:44 pm #

      where will you go?

    • elysianfield March 23, 2020 at 5:11 pm #

      Ev,
      A break might do you good…your posts have become a bit…strident. Take care. Stay safe.

      Enjoy the spectacle.

      • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 5:47 pm #

        Who’s going to insult us now, and tell us to “shut your yap!”

        • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 7:32 pm #

          Seems like an easy enough role to fill. Tell me, would the preferred candidate have to wear a wig if natural growing hair was an issue?

    • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 7:42 pm #

      It would be a good idea to take some moments of introspection to get past all the bitterness and hate I’ve seen from you today. It’s coming from somewhere, and it’s really not about Beryl.

  32. amb March 23, 2020 at 3:05 pm #

    This is just a reset. Long overdue. The strong and intelligent will survive, the weak and stupid… not so much. Just another blip on our historical time-track of civilization. Life will continue to go on (until something actually exterminates the human race, such as: meteor, ice age, sun burns out, etc.).

  33. JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 3:14 pm #

    K dog

    How much of the destruction of the world economy can happen before someone says, it is causing more damage than the virus itself? Do you have an answer for this. If so, please let the idiots in DC know, because they do not have a clue.

    Reports this morning say that China is restarting their economy in spite of a slight uptick in cases due to immigrants coming home there. Apple restarting was mentioned.

    If the economy is allowed to fail, many more deaths are going to happen from shortages, fights, disease than from the virus itself.

    So where is the breaking point?

    Trump’s quote: We cannot allow the cure to be worse than the disease.

    The Senate is at its partisan best today. The Dems are trying to stick their agenda items onto the relief bill, political blackmail. Why not? It has always worked in the past. McConnell called them out on it this morning and Schumer did not deny it. Dems are playing with fire!

    Just a comment. There has to be a certain percentage of the population that when they have gotten the virus and their immune systems block out re-infection, that the number of available hosts just dries up. Same effect as social distancing. Maybe that is what stops flus and other epidemics. We can’t even get a straight answer on whether this bug activates the immune response sufficiently to prevent re-infection. My guess, from the China and S. Korean experiences, that the immune starvation scenario may be correct. Hope so.

    Could be that flattening curve exercise is a waste of time, that China totally socially isolating itself fairly quickly is what stopped it there.

    Flattening the curve Voluntarily may actually be counterproductive when a significant part of the population ignores the threat. I have noticed Cuomo getting more pissed off at the youngsters everyday.

    The only real answer may be to let it burn itself out.

    Noticed a lot of folks starting to question whether someone is creating this situation. .???

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 5:02 pm #

      The answer is to have a proactive attitude instead of the reactive attitude which has characterized American political action so far. A staged plan on bringing the economy down and back up should be worked out know because science gives us the knowledge of how this thing will progress. The decision to deliberately turn things off and bring them back on line in a staged matter is a lot different than what is happening now which is nothing more than random reactionary chaos.

      Get essential services operating so food is in the stores and get a testing program in place so our economy can come back on line. When people get tested positive they go home with pay till they become noninfectious.

      This shit is not rocket science. People are making it out to be way too hard.

      Phone surveillance can identify lists of people to test based on contacts with other known exposed people. Make the deep state do something good.

      • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 5:11 pm #

        should be worked out now

        • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 6:36 pm #

          Are you ready for this?

          I agree with you 100%. The problem as you said it is trying to get the Deep State to do anything. The biggest con job in human history. My hope for Trump is that he would be able to “drain the swamp”. He does not seem to have the wherewithal to get the job even started. His worst enemies though have been in his own party. Mission impossible?

          • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 7:29 pm #

            Well, especially since they were almost certainly behind this in the first place. Although, a good cover up after the fact always plays well in the plausible deniability PR department. Trump might mean well, but his “Drain the Swamp” line was always just meaningless campaign drivel. The Swamp swallows little minnows like Trump whole all the time with nary a burp. He paid his money and he’s getting his ride. And then some!

          • Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 9:29 pm #

            If he really tried to do anything, he’d be found with a pillow on his face, sleeping forever like poor Nino Scalia.

          • hmuller March 25, 2020 at 12:13 pm #

            Better to die a hero than live as a servant to evil bastards.

      • Majella March 25, 2020 at 4:24 pm #

        Right K-Dog … planning & organisation is crucial, and so far the US looks like a total shit-show. Cuomo is getting lots of air-time and ‘looking presidential’ and Bernie Sanders has real & specific policy indicative, just not enough airtime. Biden is a zombie and Himself is exactly what I’d expected him to be – useless, venal & downright dangerous.

        The NZ govt has put the whole country in a 4 week lock down, with essential services only running, including supermarkets, and significant cash made available to employers (4.2% of GDP so far) to allow people to still be paid).

        True, it’s a small place – population about the size of Minnesota and GDP about equal to New Mexico – so not so hard to accomplish. Fortunately, it doesn’t rely on imported food and manufactures all its own TP from scratch!) but from what I can see, the government is managing the expectations of the populace extremely well, AND is letting the scientists run the medical side, without constantly contradicting or undermining the expert advice.

  34. PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 3:27 pm #

    so the US national debt is what… 24-25 Trillion USD..

    Gov’t arguing to spend 1-2 Trillion USD..

    so… at this point it’s all monopoly money, right?

    who gives a fuck.. one trillion, two trillion, 5 trillion?

    its nuts…

    • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 3:39 pm #

      You are right! The meaning of money is – who knows? The three traditional reasons for money are going away.

      • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 5:26 pm #

        As I pointed out last week, it’s always good as butt wipe in a pinch, as long as you remember not to flush it.

      • cbeard March 25, 2020 at 8:59 am #

        Money is a means of control over the population.

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 5:05 pm #

      Somebody else with a brain?

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 5:09 pm #

      I hope Michael Levitt gets it and croaks.

      • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 5:10 pm #

        But since it is no big deal he won’t mind me saying that.

      • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 5:24 pm #

        Dog, Dog! You’re being a real problem barker today. Do we have to go back to your old friend the shock collar again?

  35. WayfaringStranger March 23, 2020 at 3:40 pm #

    Karl Marx was an asshole.
    I don’t say that because I heard it from some pundit. I took socialist perspective courses at a very left-leaning University way back in the late 70s. We read Engels, cover to cover and discussed it all in great depth. My first serious boyfriend was an avowed Marxist. Probably still is.

    As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. That will mean everyone, even those you may detest, whether Trump or Marx, is capable of making insightful and deeply valid points. So Marx and Engels were right about “the conditions of the working class”. Mostly right in some observations regarding runaway “capitalism” though their “mistake” was in getting near the truth, but then veering away, because the full truth was not good for their brand. The real problem is not “capitalism”, it’s greed. One of the Seven Deadlies. Same as it always has been. it’s a supreme understatement to say this is not News. Just a restatement of the obvious, the same hard-wired human condition that has always been, but this time stopping with humanity, not taking that leap to god. (fuck you Kierkegaard)

    Humanity becomes its own god. This, IMO, is the real enduring appeal of Marx. We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden. Not God, god is the problem, man is the solution. Spirit, Hegelian or otherwise, so freeing, so fun. But what is the so-nebulous spirit? just a feeling, an opinion. But One will never suffice, and so the Mob is born of necessity. So sayeth the king of all bitter, preachy, self-aggrandizing current and former journalists and pundits Karl Marx. A guy whose father worried about his son, not getting a “real job” but basically sitting in his basement writing about how the world should be reorganized. And, the world unsurprisingly should be reorganized around…(wait for it)…guys like Karl Marx. Does this scenario sound at all familiar.

    Bottom line: fuck God, fuck the Hero’s Journey, fuck all of culture that came before me, I’m not dealing with any of it. Clean slate, me at the top. (same old same old – human succumbs to urge to play god)
    I understand what JHK was doing here, but personally, I don’t think that in today’s environment people are well-served in seeing any nod to Marx, of any type, or in any context. Put in colorful terms, you can’t twist the devil’s words so that he serves the Lord. For those yearning to lose their shit, I do not mean that literally, I am not saying Marx = Satan. Though Marx’ pronouncements do serve satanic worldviews in that God is removed from the equation, as is free will, and humans themselves are put in God’s place (as ultimate authority). And then maintain that place with brute force and oppression. Imagine.

    And as always, thanks to JHK for being one of the few intelligent people on the Internet.

    • Tate March 23, 2020 at 3:59 pm #

      Yes, when the West lost God, it lost its way.

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 5:08 pm #

      In the midst of a global pandemic I’m curious why you came here to have a Karl Marx rant?

      • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 5:21 pm #

        Shelter in place anxiety?

    • Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 9:36 pm #

      If a Corporations does not maximize profit and the quest for profit, namely greed, it can be sued by its shareholders.

      The Deadly Sin is built into the very fabric of Capitalism. You got close but then “veered” so as to miss the mark, also known as sin.

      Google “Third Way”, the apex that reconciles individualism and collectivism into a higher third. Socialism per se, is just an uneasy midpoint in a tug of war.

      Note: The Far East always understood this. Outwardly they made themselves over in our image, but they always knew the public and private spheres could not be absolutely separated, that one must lead in the dance and that the Man must be the Government.

      • Robert White March 23, 2020 at 10:39 pm #

        British law followed the man on the Clapham omnibus as he was the best measure of opinion for the era given he was a man about town taking public transportation due to his reasonableness as a person in society. British law did not follow the wealthy man taking private transportation as he was not a good arbiter of what the public thought.

        British rule with a gold backed financial system was the best that could be achieved IMHO.

        RW

  36. ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 5:19 pm #

    Uh oh… More shit again! Make sure to close the lid before flushing and/or bag it securely if it comes to that!

    “Prolonged presence of SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA in faecal samples” [The Lancet]. “Our data suggest the possibility of extended duration of viral shedding in faeces, for nearly 5 weeks after the patients’ respiratory samples tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 RNA. Although knowledge about the viability of SARS-CoV-2 is limited,1 the virus could remain viable in the environment for days, which could lead to faecal–oral transmission, as seen with severe acute respiratory virus CoV and Middle East respiratory syndrome CoV.2 Therefore, routine stool sample testing with real-time RT-PCR is highly recommended after the clearance of viral RNA in a patient’s respiratory samples. Strict precautions to prevent transmission should be taken for patients who are in hospital or self-quarantined if their faecal samples test positive.”

    • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 6:45 pm #

      You know it could be that as the virus mutates in situ it might make copies that attach to gut cells ( nausea) or muscle cells ( aches and pains) or even nerve cells (headaches). I have heard some of the people that recovered say that the gut related stuff was the last to go.

      This virus concerns me mostly because it may lead into the next, then the next with each one being more deadly. That is why, at whatever cost, mankind needs to find away to kill virus cells in situ. Not a vaccine. Vaccines are too hit or miss.

    • Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 9:38 pm #

      Homosexuals and Kinky Straights, Achtung!

    • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 12:06 am #

      ” faecal–oral transmission…”

      UPI reports that Andy Cohen has tested positive for CV…test for AIDS not mentioned.

      Go figure….

  37. K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 5:28 pm #

    How are things in China. If you want to go here you go.

    https://youtu.be/MR-m2vnpEmM

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 5:28 pm #

      How are things in China. If you want to know here you go.

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 5:32 pm #

      Mandatory 14 day quarantine and if you go to China and they put you up at $1500 a night. You pay.

      • hmuller March 25, 2020 at 12:16 pm #

        And if you can’t pay, they harvest your body part? LOL

    • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 7:22 pm #

      Some pretty nice Chinese legs on display there in the background. Me likey. Didn’t note a whole lot of panic going on, either.

  38. tucsonspur March 23, 2020 at 6:00 pm #

    DOUBLE WHAMMY MEETS FREAKY DEAKY

    You wouldn’t have thought so, but two momentous, earth shaking events have taken place within just the last four years, events linked by laxative, you might say.

    First was the election of Donald Trump, with the first ‘draft of Dulcolax glugged by the Gods’, or so thought the Dems, but not near as potent as the second. Like Muhammed Ali, Trump shook up the world, upset the global order of things. It seemed that his re-election was almost a certainty with the economy humming along and his poll numbers rising. In spite of their never ending coup attempt, the Dems couldn’t take him down, and the world shake up would continue, but in ways no one could imagine.

    Second was the Corona virus. As Jim has so colorfully, or maybe so colorectally stated, the now second draft of Dulcolax taken by the Gods is showering the world with shit so mercilessly that we are witnessing an extremely rare event, Diarrhea of the Deities.

    So now it looks like Trump may finally be gone. A double dose of Dulcolax, years apart. It put Trump into office, and now it just might shit him out.

    p.s. Spinks beat Ali in the first fight, lost the second.

    • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 6:47 pm #

      What scares me is the dogma as well as the persons that will potentially take his place.

    • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 7:19 pm #

      Nope. I think Trump will likely come out of this just fine. As fine as any politician can in the current environment anyway. He’s currently tacking well to the left of the Dems on populist issues, so at this point there’s no reason for them to even bother to show up. It remains to be seen if there will be a government left for him to be elected president of, however. They might have to hold a big yard sale and then finally just let the Chinese, Russians, and whoever else shows up have everything that’s left after that. Might be some good bargains to be had, provided you’re lucky enough to be holding any still functioning currency!

      • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 8:22 pm #

        Trump is fucked.

        Waiting to see what will happen in two weeks is already known to be the action of a fool and that can’t be changed. It already came out of the Orange Piehole.

        Trump is a walking zombie.

        If Trump got it and in his recovery aquired empathy that would be very good.

        • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 8:22 pm #

          acquired

        • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 8:32 pm #

          He’s not f#kked. Was Lincoln f#kkd after the Union lost the Battle of Fredrickburg? Yes, but he recovered.

          Brh

          • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 10:29 pm #

            No, the level of Trump incompetence has gotten too extreme. There is no recovery from this. People are going to die in larger numbers every day now. For years oligarchic excess was tolerated. Bellies were full and health was good. Now things have changed and the orange parasite will be expelled.

  39. Majella March 23, 2020 at 6:44 pm #

    JHK:

    “The congressional Democrats are trying to jam one deal-killer after another into the “relief” bill on purpose to make sure the picture gets worse so as to deep-six Mr. Trump. The net effect is more uncertainty and a greater loss of trust in our government’s competence per se.”

    Are you KIDDING? The GOP is all about supporting the Banks, Wall St, and all the ‘deep state’ cronies to fund stock buy-backs and bonuses. While the Dems are hardly being ‘cornucopious’ towards the middle & working classes, they are NOT so stupid as to support the hilarious ‘bailout’ bill put up by the Senate.

    • JohnAZ March 23, 2020 at 6:49 pm #

      So we do nothing instead. Good move! I am sure the public will appreciate a government that is incapable of governing.

    • David Webb March 23, 2020 at 7:24 pm #

      I’m scanning through the Dem’s 1119 page “Take Responsibility for Workers and Families Act”, 100 pages in and so far I’ve only seen additional funding for government agencies, including the “New Markets Venture Capital Program”. If there’s anything in there for struggling citizens, it’s starting to look like an afterthought.

  40. ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 7:09 pm #

    Some welcome perspective…

    No, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Covid-19 is the deadliest global pandemic humankind has ever faced, and that we have no choice but to cancel everything, confine everyone inside their home, wreck the entire global economy, force working class people even further into debt, pour trillions into the investment banks, cancel elections, censor the Internet, and otherwise implement a global police state.

    But what if it wasn’t? Just hypothetically. What if this wasn’t the deadliest global pandemic humankind has ever faced? (I’m just posing the question as a thought experiment, so please don’t report me to the WHO, or the CDC, or FEMA, or whoever.) What if this new coronavirus was just another coronavirus like all the other coronaviruses that people die from (or with) all the time? What if the fact that this one is “new” didn’t really mean all that much, or possibly anything at all, because coronaviruses are always mutating, and every year there are a lot of new variants?

    Relax, OK? I know this one is different, and totally unlike anything ever encountered by virologists in the history of virology. Remember, this is just a thought experiment. These are just hypothetical questions.

    Here’s another hypothetical question. What if all the scary statistics we’ve been seeing (e.g., the death rates, the explosion of “cases,” etc.) weren’t unquestionable scientific facts, but rather, were, like other statistics, based on things like sample groups, and dependent on a host of factors and variables, which you kind of need to know to make sense of anything?

    Say, for example, you tested everyone that died of acute respiratory failure on a given day in your Italian hospital, and you discovered that, let’s say, five of those patients had been infected with Covid-19. So you feed that number to the WHO, and they add it to the “total deaths” count, regardless of whether the folks who died had terminal cancer, or heart disease, or had also been infected with the common flu, or some other type of coronavirus. That would probably skew your “death” count, wouldn’t it?

    Or, say you wanted to test for the virus to keep track of all the “active cases” and generate an infection rate, but you can’t test hundreds of millions of people, because no one has that many tests So, you test everyone who turns up sick, or thinks they’re sick and demands to be tested, or who touched someone sick who you already tested (though you’re not even sure that your test is accurate) and you come up with, let’s say, ten positive results. So you feed that number to the WHO, and they add it to the “active cases” count, regardless of the fact that everyone knows the real number is likely twenty times higher.

    OK, so now you take your “active cases” number and your “total deaths” number and you do the math (keeping in mind that your “total deaths” include those cancer and heart failure people), and you end up grossly underestimating your “infection rate” and “active cases,” and grossly overestimating your “death rate” and the number of “total deaths.”

    Just hypothetically, you understand. I am not suggesting this is actually happening. I certainly don’t want to get censored by Facebook (or accidentally censored by some totally innocuous technical glitch) for posting “Covid misinformation,” or tempt the Wikipedia “editors” to rush back to my Wikipedia page and label me a dangerous “conspiracy theorist” … or, you know, get myself preventatively quarantined.

    It probably won’t come to that anyway, i.e., rounding up “infected persons,” “possibly infected persons,” and “disruptive” and “uncooperative persons,” and quarantining us in, like, “camps,” or wherever. All this state of emergency stuff, the suspension of our civil rights, the manipulation of facts and figures, the muzzling of dissent, the illegal surveillance, governments legislating by decree, the soldiers, the quarantines, and all the rest of it … all these measures are temporary, and are being taken for our own good, and purely out of an “abundance of caution.”

    I mean, it’s not like the global capitalist empire was right in the middle of a War on Populism (a war that it has been losing up to now) and wanted to take this opportunity to crank up some disaster capitalism, terrorize the global public into a frenzy of selfish and irrational panic, and just flex its muscles to remind everybody what could happen if we all keep screwing around by voting for “populists,” tearing up Paris, leaving the European Union, and otherwise interfering with the forward march of global capitalism.

    No, it certainly isn’t like that. It is an actual plague that is probably going to kill you and your entire family if you don’t do exactly what you’re told. So, forget this little thought experiment, and prepare yourself for global lockdown. It probably won’t be so bad … unless they decide they need to run the part of exercise where it goes on too long, and people get squirrelly, and start rebelling, and looting, and otherwise not cooperating, and the military is eventually forced to deploy those Urban Unrest Suppression Vehicles, and those Anti-Domestic-Terror Forces, and …

    OK, I’m getting all worked up again. I’d better take my pills and get back to Facebook. Oh, and … I should probably check up on Idris! And see if Berlin has gone to “Level 3,” in which case I’ll need to find whatever online application I need to fill out in order to leave my house.

    https://consentfactory.org/2020/03/18/covid-19-global-lockdown/

  41. PeteAtomic March 23, 2020 at 7:26 pm #

    The pro-Chinese fascist agitprop officers at CNN & MSNBC have been feverish this last week with anti-Trump, racist identarian/SJW fanaticism..read an article recently on MSNBC about how “white supremacists” have been plotting using coronavirus.. and how “racist” it is to call this the Wuhan Virus, or Chinese Virus.. at CNN there is an article on how maybe “Sinophobia” will lead to US downfall..
    https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/22/opinions/sinophobia-coronavirus-response-liu/index.html

    You can’t make this shit up… you guys don’t understand.. the Kungflu ain’t from China, and if you believe that you are a racist.. it was probably all angry white people who cooked it up in Trump’s America..

    • ellipsis March 23, 2020 at 7:42 pm #

      Don’t know about any of the racist hysteria. I try to tune that out altogether. But the virus almost certainly did come out Ft. Detrick, MD, before it traveled to China via Canada. Trump likely had nothing to do with any of it whatsoever, this being a straight up deep state operation like 9-11. Precise goals yet unknown, but the broad strokes are not hard to figure out.

  42. BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 8:23 pm #

    Don’t know what the significance of this is, but out of the 11 Asoka Virus deaths so far in Ct, 1 over 90 years old, 8 over 80, 1 at 79, and one man 50 years old who also had cancer. Draw your own conclusions.

    Brh

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 9:57 pm #

      Significance and conclusion, hmmmm.

      How many deaths were there last week?

      • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 10:39 pm #

        That’s 11 total as of tonight.

  43. K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 8:43 pm #

    If anybody needs TP Trump does. Trump is full of shit. I am listening to the Trump Chump show now. His daily news conference. The ignorance he has shown is sufficient to have a 7th grader repeat a grade.

    This republican government needs to go. They don’t understand this pandemic and the problem for them is A FUCK OF A LOT OF PEOPLE DO KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON. Time for Trumptopia to end.

    K-Dog for president.

    • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 8:58 pm #

      K-Dog

      What’s your platform?

      It will have to differ from Sanders or Warren’s platform, because they both were recently put up for scrutiny, and found wanting. Even Dems rejected their progressive agenda; in a general election they would have been trounced.

      Brh

      • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 9:41 pm #

        Universal health care and a commitment to full employment. $15.00 an hour minimum wage. End the military industrial control of government and close overseas bases but not all of them. Nationalize fracking and create a new department of energy that will force transition to fossil fuel alternatives. Close the borders to anyone who whats to just ‘show up’. Force localization of industry and restructure the globalist experiment so it represents the needs of people and not oligarchs. Put people and families first while encouraging small families via tax benefits. So as to avoid the necessity of stopping all pesticide use an aggressive curtailment of unnecessary use combined with pesticide free zones to preserve the biosphere while pesticide free agricultural practices are adopted to get the nation through the transition. Establish a department of sustainability. Put an end to student loans.

        Bernie will be an advisor. I don’t care where Liz goes but she won’t be working for me. She can’t be trusted.

        • Q. Shtik March 23, 2020 at 10:44 pm #

          Dog’s platform

          ===========

          The problem is, you believe human nature is different than it is.

    • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 9:07 pm #

      Whom will you chose for VP? Elrond is Canadian, Cargill is Australian, Majella is a New Zealander, Green Alba a Scottish lass, and Evelyn has all those court ordered anger management classes to attend.

      • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 9:43 pm #

        Cornell West

        • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 9:44 pm #

          Cornel West. I had one to many l’s.

          • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 9:47 pm #

            He was in at least one of the Matrix movies. Smart guy, terrible teeth, be sure to work on that.

          • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 9:51 pm #

            National dental care is part of universal heath care. Your money ain’t worth nothing and your grills is for free.

          • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 9:57 pm #

            So sad he’s been too poor all these years to get dental work.

          • Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 10:24 pm #

            A person should be able to smile. It’s part of being human.

          • Q. Shtik March 23, 2020 at 10:53 pm #

            So sad he’s been too poor all these years to get dental work. – hmuller

            ============

            The big gap is his trade mark, his brand.

  44. hmuller March 23, 2020 at 8:56 pm #

    Here’s an odd headline from ZeroHedge;

    David Tepper: “My Balls Are In My Jockstrap,” As Stocks Could Drop Another 15%

    For those who don’t quite know how to interpret that, the article provides a helpful explanation.

    “A fan of colorful language, during the decade-plus post-crisis bull market that ended only recently, Tepper developed a catchphrase: going ‘balls to the wall’ when betting on record market gains.

    Now, he says, his “balls” are resting in his jockstrap.

    “Sometimes you hear me say “Balls To The Wall….Well, now, they are in my jockstrap,” Tepper said.”

    Presumably, Mr Tepper will inform the public if the day arrives when his balls are once more outside their proper restraints and swinging at the walls.

    • Vinnie the Vintner March 23, 2020 at 11:04 pm #

      He already made that announcement when he bought the Panthers and a soccer team. Like Cramer, he is playing with the house’s money. Ackman cried on CNBC too day ago, now he’s buy,buy,buy. A huge bear market rally is possible, and soon ,so they will be praised.

      Reality getting ready to set in. A friend said he had three orders cancellled today. Another potential buyer cancelled today. His friend had his family’s salon shut down today. Six more unemployed. Brother-in-law sent employees home today and having orders cancelled.

      Hope in one hand, and shi”……..(no, the story changes this time. Finding enough food to make you take a shit will be a luxuary.) Govt. cheese, please.

      Seriously, There are probably 20 million out of work today. Government mules will pull the cart. Stay out of debt. Crickets……….

      • hmuller March 23, 2020 at 11:31 pm #

        Speaking of bear market rallies. People remember that in the fall of 1929 the US stock market crashed. But few remember that it recouped half those losses DEC 1929 thru APR 1930. With benefit of hindsight they call that a bull trap. The downward trend then resumed resulting in an 89% decline peak to trough (summer 1932).

        Of course, back then they didn’t have a pandemic shutting down business, so now is arguably a worse time. We are nowhere near a bottom in stocks. Proven guru Charles Nenner is predicting DOW 5000 by the end of 2021 (and years of dreary low levels thereafter). There’s no V shaped recovery this time.

  45. wm5135 March 23, 2020 at 9:30 pm #

    Has the viral infection reached your neighborhood? Two doors down and across the street, mid sixties, semi-retired, guitarist part time. Local man known in the community. Our local beaches were open until yesterday. Thousands of spring breakers have moved through our community during the exposure and incubation period.

    all who have the “we must save the money” seem to have missed two foundational points

    The poor will always be with us
    You cannot serve two masters

    ask not for whom the bells toll

    “Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that.” 17th Century

    My prayer tonight is that we may all be stricken with a severe case of empathy, a strain of which is incurable.

    • Laundromat Blues March 23, 2020 at 9:41 pm #

      Well there it is. It’s not real until it crawls up your ass. Oh there will be many who rue the day they downplayed this virus. The nurses at that nursing home said they were all stunned by its lethality. 24 hours it took you out. Trump was spewing more happy talk today. Said we’re causing more harm with the economy shut down. People are going to start killing themselves. Boy he wants the good ole days back. Stock market at records. Ancient history. Now it’s just the V word. New York has 500 ventilators and they need 30,000. Oh this is going to get ugly.

      • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 9:49 pm #

        It is going to get very ugly. Trump does not know what he is supposed to do at the end of two weeks. This means the two weeks will be wasted but the economy will still be wrecked. Wrecked for nothing. Yet America still will not think to pick up a pitchfork. KDFP

    • Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 9:56 pm #

      That chicken smells delicious. Oh, it’s my own hand that’s cooking. It’s no longer attached to my body. The cannibals must have given me something for the pain. Or else I’m in shock. It’s gonna really start hurting any minute now…..

    • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 12:00 am #

      “My prayer tonight is that we may all be stricken with a severe case of empathy, a strain of which is incurable.”

      Wm,
      I’m sorry to say that empathy can be cured…it can be beaten out of you.

      Again, I’m sorry.

      • Janos Skorenzy March 24, 2020 at 1:11 am #

        Remember poor Winston’s, “Do it to Julia”. What horror. Ultimately the only way to be completely moral is to become a Saint.

        Nicholas Owen, “Little John”, was a tiny man but a gifted craftsman. He built hideaways for Priests hiding from the English authorities when Catholicism was outlawed. He was betrayed and entered into his passion. Tortured for two days, he never gave up the whereabouts of any of his hidden chambers or any priests who might be within them. Finally tiring of their fruitless sport, they put him to death.

        Saint Martyr Nicholas Owen, pray for us.

  46. RocketDoc March 23, 2020 at 9:49 pm #

    Strangely I am feeling a little lighter, almost happier, as Reality starts to intrude. I seem to get the flu every 10 years or so and I’m due. I’ve never worried about the flu killing me and I’m not looking forward to that first dry cough and feeling a little hot… but I am appreciating more “solidarity?” with my fellow humans. I’ve been feeling I was in a Sixth Sense movie…..

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 9:53 pm #

      I may feel it too, but Trump still can’t be my daddy.

      • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 9:53 pm #

        I would not even want him as a funny uncle.

  47. Robert White March 23, 2020 at 10:15 pm #

    This point in time marks a juncture in terms of your writing, Jim. Not many writers ever attain vindication in their lifetime, but I, for one, think that this COVID-19 Zombie Social Distancing Apocalypse is most certain to cause the proverbial straw to break Wall Street’s proverbial back.

    Trump is claiming that this will not render main street business dead and that the economy will come back again much as Fuld thought he could hold out another trading day.

    I grasp your thesis vis-à-vis a world made by hand to the extent of nomadic survivalist themed living, but I can’t envision a return to Edwardian agriculture due to the obvious fallout that will manifest from the new world disorder of nomadic living which will be protracted chaos IMHO.

    I love how you are actually a real visionary futurist like Alvin Toffler, Huxley, et cetera. And I fully relate to you when you mention the fearful realization of the future your have perceived coming true as this VOIVID-19 writes the future on the wall of Western civilization before our eyes.

    Existentially, I think we are really in for a long drawn out protracted really messy decoupling that will foster reactionary Hobbesian Brute fascistic era of mayhem. Much of the world will be destroyed via thermonuclear hot conflagration which will render possible futures moot due to nuclear winter.

    I can’t envision a world made by hand without the nuclear winter. You still have that hope thingy, eh. The obverse of capitalistic growth on orders of magnitudes of monetary heroin asset inflation has a corollary of deflation and a greater depression than the Great Depression which translates into nihilism without the irrational exuberance, or credit facilities brought about by organized capital.

    Capital will, and must be, confiscated & aggregated for the greater good of the whole in a raging anarchistic environ. Order arranged via nationalism is being bandied about by Paul Craig Roberts & Stockman right now.

    Communism is the only way to go when honest arbiter capitalism morphs into ruined casino capitalism rife with frauds on top of frauds piled to precariousness.

    You are kind of like a Shaman like myself, Jim. I can understand the weight of the stress behind the vision of a likely future, or failure to find one in the midst of deflation of USD and Fractional Reserve Banking empire.

    Keep well & stay isolated. Listen to Marc Lipsitch at Harvard for protocol & forward guidance. He is the top USA professor IMHO.

    Cheers, Robert

    • BackRowHeckler March 23, 2020 at 10:57 pm #

      Sure, there wasn’t any fraud in the Soviet Union, and in Cuba, China and Venezuela everything is on the level. No ‘fraud upon fraud’ in those communist utopias.

      I know, l know, this time it will be different. This time around it will be tenured Marxist bullshitters and true believers from Harvard and Princeton setting up the gulags, not some ignorant former peasants from Kiev.

  48. K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 10:22 pm #

    Trump made clear Monday his preference to open the country back up for business regardless of what doctors say.

  49. Janos Skorenzy March 23, 2020 at 10:23 pm #

    Peter Hitchens, the good brother, agrees with Tate: Let Nature and Nature’s God sort it out. Let them die. Otherwise, the proposed Cure will be the End of us as a Civilization.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8138675/PETER-HITCHENS-shutting-Britain-REALLY-right-answer.html

    SSL on the other hand, wants to cherish human life. Is this not Woman’s Glory? And is not God in love with His creations, Eternity with the productions of time (Blake)?

    Both are valid. What is the Higher Third here? I’m afraid I cannot see it, at least not yet. They seem mutually exclusive. I’m not used to not knowing, but to honor the question until you do is the Path to Knowledge.

    • Majella March 24, 2020 at 3:09 am #

      What utter tripe.

      • SoftStarLight March 24, 2020 at 9:35 am #

        No it isn’t! It is a vexing problem that is tearing our society apart if you would spend the time to consider it. We have to continue to work so that we may eat. But then we must protect the ones we love from the invisible menace as well. Finding balance between the two is what we must do unless as Janos says there is some third and better way. Do you not have a more coherent thought on the matter?

        • Janos Skorenzy March 24, 2020 at 1:04 pm #

          She’s such a destructive person, but because there’s so many like here, she thinks she’s normal.

          Put Maj and I in a room with a traditional Maori: He and I would be agreeing on all the basics in no time – talking over her head. She would be utterly amazed. She’d have nothing to add because we wouldn’t share her premises or her, ours.

          Traditional people simply don’t see the world the way vicious Liberals do. That Liberals worship the non-Whites ones doesn’t change this. They worship them but don’t listen to them.

          • hmuller March 25, 2020 at 5:20 pm #

            Majella is one of those faux Maori, she probably doesn’t even have any of the traditional tattoos applied in the traditional manner, i.e. with excruciating pain.

          • Majella March 25, 2020 at 7:34 pm #

            More utter tripe.

  50. dolph9 March 23, 2020 at 10:50 pm #

    Listen to me gentlemen. I do not support Trump, but he is going to win.

    You liberals understand everything but human psychology. I know, because I’m one of you.

    In times of turmoil, you need a strong leader. Trump still projects the aura of strong leadership, and none of the Democratic candidates do. Therefore, Trump will win.

    You liberals are too much in the modern world. You believe in the perfectibility, the progress of things. I don’t. We humans are basically the same old walking chimps banding together and hurling spears at each other.

    • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 11:38 pm #

      I don’t buy it. Trump is pulling the biggest public boner in human history and you who claim to be an opponent is saying he is still going to win. Get real. It is possible Trump may win. People really might be that stupid. But the thing is, we crossed 100 extra dead a day yesterday. Every day the number dead a day will grow.

      This ain’t no disco. This isn’t fooling around. This is not life on a Reality TV show. People are going to die and their loved ones are going to figure out Trump was only ever playing them.

      Trump is a sociopath who would let a million die rather than declare martial law for a few months because declaring martial law won’t get him reelected. It would only defeat the virus. Trump is killing people for a strong economy that will re-elect him. To get re-elected the golden narcissist will let a million extra die.

      I wish I was making this up. I’m not.

      • K-Dog March 23, 2020 at 11:39 pm #

        KDFP

      • benr March 25, 2020 at 8:53 am #

        But have you been paying attention to the DNC front runner?
        Biden is a mess and barely knows where he is now.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0xy5uJKrjo

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-GoeFGyIc

        Time to put this old guy in a home.

      • cbeard March 25, 2020 at 1:38 pm #

        Here are some numbers for you. 36 million flue cases with 22,000 deaths VS 40,000 Covid 19 cases with 500 deaths to date, Give or take with the latest figures. Duh

  51. Vinnie the Vintner March 23, 2020 at 11:22 pm #

    Long pawnshops and brothels. Massive unemployment. You just got your last paycheck. Watch Craigslist. People getting ready to unload everything. A farm equipment auction last week had $80,000 tractors selling for $29,000. Watch the price of used Harley Davidsons, too. Another great indicator.

    Ride on.

    • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 12:27 am #

      “Long pawnshops and brothels”

      Vinnie,
      I’ve owned a pawnshop, but not a brothel. I heard that the brothel is a better business;

      “…You got it…you sell it, and you STILL got it! Such a deal!”

      • AKlein March 24, 2020 at 6:51 am #

        That’s the way a usufruct works. Now there’s a word one might expect to read in a JHK essay!

        • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 11:42 am #

          Al,
          Well, usufruct requires no destruction…there must be SOME wear and tear…maybe IRS would allow a depletion allowance?

      • BackRowHeckler March 24, 2020 at 2:12 pm #

        You have an interesting background, E.

        You appear to be what used to be known as a ‘racontuer’.

        • swazimoto March 26, 2020 at 9:18 pm #

          C’est proche mon brave mais tu l’as raté, il s’ecrit <>

          Close brh, but the word is spelled ‘raconteur’.

      • malthuss March 24, 2020 at 6:47 pm #

        How is the Pawn business?

        • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 10:06 pm #

          Malthuss,
          When I carried the license, the State allowed you to make a decent living, albeit a heavily regulated one. We were audited every year by the State Division of Banks. Interest allowed equated to 3% simple interest per month. Loans were for a 6 month period, with an automatic extension, if the customer paid the accrued interest before default. No customer could be loaned an aggregate of more than $5000. Loans of over $100 required a registered letter sent before default.

          All reasonable laws. After I sold the business, the State rescinded usury laws, and many shops became predatory. Glad I’m no longer involved.

          There were only 12 shops in the state when I was in operation…me and two others in the whole of Southern Oregon.

    • malthuss March 24, 2020 at 6:47 pm #

      Harley as a company has been in a long down slide.

      otherwise
      check what Health Official posted,

      https://www.teaparty247.org/ny-health-officials-told-residents-to-gather-for-chinese-new-year-in-defiance-of-coronavirus-that-ended-well/

  52. elysianfield March 23, 2020 at 11:54 pm #

    Journal of the Plague Year. 23 Mar 2020

    One trip to the Cancer Center on Friday. New policy does not allow ANY visitors or caregivers in the building…only patients. Dropped wife off an then on to Wally World (I know I was to avoid the place, but habits die hard). Interesting observation…eggs, paper products, mostly gone. The meat section, however, had empty bins in their center coolers filled with…cucumbers and pineapples…heard later that some meat packing companies are closed, hence empty shelves.

    On, then to Cash and Carry, the wholesale provider to restaurants in the area. 50 lb bags of flour mostly absent. ZERO beans, of any type, same for rice. Buddy there told me that trucks are arriving daily for re-supply, but items ordered are not necessarily delivered…they get what they get…the distributors are running thin in certain areas.

    Hospital visit on Monday…this AM. Was advised that hospital was closed and to enter at the Emergency Room for the appointment. Wrong information, hospital open for business and no masks being worn. Wound nurse stated that the cases of the CV in Coos County remain at zero…agreed that lack of testing probably is driving THAT statistic.
    Heard from a truck driver that Washington State has removed downtime hours from the truckers who supply food to the supermarkets…drive as many hours as able, and I understood that the weight limits of the trucks are being overlooked. Both seem reasonable, under the circumstances.

    Phone instructions for the hospital visit tomorrow, the large regional hospital in Coos Bay. Advised that, from this date, only patients are to be allowed in the facility…no relatives, caregivers, visitors of any stripe remain in the parking lot…again, makes sense.

    Will rain here for the next week…peaches are blooming, and the bees will not fly in the rain…. Peas have been planted, asparagus is coming up and being eaten…tomato seeds planted in their flats. We are in full compliance with self-quarantine protocol…very easy to do as long as hospital visits are not mandated.

    Fox news reports that there are increasing incidents of people failing to observe basic CV guidelines. Police in New York becoming more…proactive towards scoff-laws and the socially irresponsible. Police being sent to small home gatherings where parties and social gatherings are evident. Warnings issued…for now. Washington State and Florida and New York were mentioned.

  53. tonnyken March 24, 2020 at 12:25 am #

    A very meaningful event, I hope everything will go well happy wheels

  54. K-Dog March 24, 2020 at 12:35 am #

    How does the virus spread?

    Truckers.

    18 wheelers

    How do I know? I just went to look at the map.

    Click here to see the map.

    You can see the little red dots from new cases are following interstates. The dots line up. In time the above pattern will be lost as cases spread evenly across the land but right now there is a very clear pattern. First COVID flew in landing at multiple locations. Once in it found its way into interstate trucking and spread across the land. The cross contamination between the airline and trucking industries likely happened at airports.

    Somebody tell Trump (LOL).

    KDFP

    • Janos Skorenzy March 24, 2020 at 1:52 am #

      Yes, starve people to death. That will stop the plague. KDFP

      • ellipsis March 24, 2020 at 7:44 am #

        Those fucking people! They’re THE WORST!

    • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 11:47 am #

      “Truckers.

      18 wheelers”

      Dog,
      Movement of personal vehicles along the big slabs will also contribute to the spread. What is seemingly indigenous to the trucking industry is the transport of dead hookers….

    • cbeard March 25, 2020 at 1:51 pm #

      Truckers aren’t flying in and out of airports. That would mostly be tourists, business men, sales reps, etc. When they land, they would most likely travel by interstate routes. Somebody tell K-Dog. (LOL)

  55. Cargill March 24, 2020 at 1:59 am #

    By late afternoon, a middling crumble in the equities. Gold and silver are zooming back up. The congressional Democrats are trying to jam one deal-killer after another into the “relief” bill on purpose to make sure the picture gets worse so as to deep-six Mr. Trump.

    I think it’s the Republicans that are playing politics.

    This is supposed to be a relief package for working families – not a corporate bailout to save the wealth of fat-cat CEOs and wealthy stockholders.

    In the Global Financial Crisis, most of the bailout welfare went to save banks and their stockholders – it most definitely did NOT go to assist the homeowners who faced foreclosure and mammoth financial disaster.

    Not one fraudulent GFC banker lost their bonus – let alone went to jail. Hopefully the Democrats have learnt from the errors of 2008-09 – and at last they are playing hard-ball for once.

    The money must go to where it’s needed most – to the unemployed and the under-employed, and to a million SMALL businesses – not to the already wealthy of Wall Street – just because they donate to Republican lawmakers.

    • ellipsis March 24, 2020 at 7:34 am #

      Here’s a hint. Stop thinking in terms of left and right. This exists several levels above all that petty partisan nonsense. You’re doing their dirty work for them!

      • Cargill March 24, 2020 at 12:23 pm #

        What conspiracy mumbo-jumbo are you shill for this time?

        Are we going down the Deep State path, or is it Wall Street … or maybe you’re thinking about good old George Soros, and all them “International Globalists”? Or are we jumping all the usual suspects and heading straight to the Illuminati?

        • hmuller March 25, 2020 at 5:27 pm #

          All the mockery you spew out won’t change the fact that you are an ignorant, rude, horse’s ass, Cargill!

          • Majella March 25, 2020 at 7:46 pm #

            Speak of rude, ignorant horse’s arses:

            hmuller
            March 25, 2020 at 5:20 pm #
            Majella is one of those faux Maori, she probably doesn’t even have any of the traditional tattoos applied in the traditional manner, i.e. with excruciating pain.

            I’m not a Maori, hmuller. I have no ‘tau moko’ but a good friend – a Mari – of mine does. It was, according to him, not excruciatingly painful.

  56. Majella March 24, 2020 at 2:32 am #

    Janis (and your small cohort of White ‘Separatists’) – it appears the NZ Government ( not dysfunctional!) has heard about how ‘diversity’ pisses you off. It has published this PAA especially for your annoyance. Please count how many Maori appear?

    https://youtu.be/HhWSouRJF14

    • Majella March 24, 2020 at 2:34 am #

      Extra credit to anyone who can name the last guy (who advises against TP scoring…

      • Cargill March 24, 2020 at 2:54 am #

        It’s extremely quiet around here Maj – too quiet – where have all the Seppos gone – have they succumbed to the Chinese thing?

        • Majella March 24, 2020 at 3:15 am #

          Lol@ ‘seppos’ my Australian uncle explained that one to me. I wonder who’ll be first to ask what it means???

        • Majella March 24, 2020 at 3:21 am #

          Where have all the Seppos gone,
          Long time passing….
          Where have all the Seppos gone,
          Long time ago…
          Where have all the Seppos gone,
          Trump’s Corona’s picked them every one
          When will they ever learn?
          When will they ever learn…?

          • BackRowHeckler March 24, 2020 at 8:49 am #

            Why are you here? Why not return to NZ, where they have a ‘functional government’?

          • Majella March 25, 2020 at 7:47 pm #

            BRH:

            Seppo….

        • benr March 26, 2020 at 9:18 am #

          Well we all know Aussie love sticking a long straw in the Seppo and sucking out all the decomposing clingers before the honey wagon comes along and takes all your treats.
          The sewage holders ain’t Americans per say just the far left leaning scum be they American or other.

  57. toktomi March 24, 2020 at 3:00 am #

    @etal

    “There still will be”…

    Oh, for fuck sake, James, there will be NOTHING unless you’re in the top rated tens of thousands or in the selected hundreds of thousands of servants. Thermodynamics.

    I am impressed.

    An entire industrialized human society being lowered on silk.

    All this way so far

    And hardly a whimper.

    I cannot begin to grasp all the complexities,

    so amazingly orchestrated.

    Fucking Awesome

    But not a single heartbeat among them all.

    I get tickled to imagine what black swans may await her royal highness when the poles shift.

    ~toktomi~

    • toktomi March 26, 2020 at 3:18 am #

      I always imagined a static plan – ah don know wy.

      This thing is dynamic, probably in multiple dimensions but for sure in time. Note the adjustment in the timing of the passage of the relief bill by Congress – brought to you by a faux partisan disagreement on details.

      That had me stumped with my static old brain. Couldn’t figure out the crazy script. 🙂 It ain’t a script; it’s an algorithm.

      Amazing, this thing

      And sad for an old Neanderthal.

      ~toktomi~

  58. Majella March 24, 2020 at 3:28 am #

    No takers? Taika Waititi…the guy who saved that Star Trek series shitshow.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taika_Waititi

    • Majella March 24, 2020 at 3:29 am #

      Oops. Not Star Trek…that Star Wars spin-off.

      • Majella March 24, 2020 at 3:31 am #

        The Mandylorian…

    • Janos Skorenzy March 24, 2020 at 1:08 pm #

      A seppo is a Maori Fag?

      • Majella March 25, 2020 at 7:48 pm #

        Australian ‘rhyming slang’ Seppo is short for Septic Tank = Yank

  59. tucsonspur March 24, 2020 at 4:08 am #

    Here’s Ann Coulter on the Chinee and globalism:

    https://www.havasunews.com/opinion/ann-coulter-what-globalism-got-us-cheap-tvs-expensive-flu/article_12e580ae-6ccb-11ea-b2a0-ebabdea1f134.html

    Help, I’m tangled up with these Chinee rats and I can’t get free!

    • ellipsis March 24, 2020 at 7:38 am #

      Who off shored all the shit in the first place? Ask not for whom the globalist bell tolls, it tolls for our asses. Thanks globalists, can we have another? Globalists: Why, thanks for asking. YES. YOU. CAN!

      • Cargill March 24, 2020 at 1:48 pm #

        Who off shored all the shit in the first place?

        Why it was us … we all wanted cheap TVs, cheap shoes, cheap everything. Can’t blame Obama for that one … look in a mirror.

        • cbeard March 25, 2020 at 1:58 pm #

          Bull shit. When prices went down due to globalization, so did wages. Not to mention the disappearing job market. Bring manufacturing back to the USA.

  60. tucsonspur March 24, 2020 at 4:11 am #

    IMPEACH TRUMP NOW!

    For not using the DPA. If he opens things up, other remedies are available.

    • JohnAZ March 24, 2020 at 10:46 am #

      Sure wish you folks would make up your mind.

      Six months ago Trump was a fascist and was going to become a dictator after he took over the US.

      Now, you berate him for not wanting to give ultimate power to the government.

      • K-Dog March 24, 2020 at 11:10 am #

        No, he keeps the power to himself when he should be spending it on the public good. He is using the tragedy for his own purposes.

        Trump needs to go. TNTG

  61. Pucker March 24, 2020 at 5:50 am #

    I think that 80% of the population has to get infected to build up herd immunity, which is about 250 million people. The hospitalization rate for the virus is 20%, so that’s about 50 million. There are only about 1 million hospital beds in the US. Maybe keep everyone locked down for 18 months to give the virus time to weaken naturally? But it may actually strengthen in the next wave in the Fall, like the Spanish Flu. There are many parallels to the Spanish Flu of 1918.

    This experience will reveal the true nature of people and society.

    • ellipsis March 24, 2020 at 7:42 am #

      Or, it might not. Either way, the lockdown is paranoia gone viral. The internet fueled, MSM moderated, speculation and hysteria is the real problem here.

    • JohnAZ March 24, 2020 at 10:48 am #

      Herd immunity means you starve the virus for more hosts. Painful, but with the lack of intelligence apparent now, it may be the pandemic ender.

    • K-Dog March 24, 2020 at 11:24 am #

      Pucker, you come up with some funny stuff but could you please refrain from ignorant speculations. Your speculations are more contagious than COVID and could give people wrong ideas. Please remember that relative to you most people are mentally challenged.

      I think sufficient herd immunity exists at 60%, not 80% but how about we find out. I did:

      “Experts estimate between 40% to 70% of the population will need to be immune to halt its rapid spread.”

      Trump is talking about herd immunity because he is a turd. Turd immunity.

      Turd immunity will be achieved when sufficient inaction by Trump to game the crisis to his own advantage infects the populous to a sufficient level to stop the spread of the virus.

    • Robert White March 24, 2020 at 1:51 pm #

      Wall Street defined the ethos, Puck. It’s kill, or be killed, last I checked, man.

      RW

  62. Pucker March 24, 2020 at 7:23 am #

    Do you remember the one-holer toilet in the Men’s restroom in the passenger waiting room of the Guangzhou train station that had to accommodate thousands of daily passengers? The one-holer toilet was so overwhelmed that there was shit everywhere and the train station management just threw-in-the-towel and let the water overflow onto the floor in a desperate hope that the shit and piss would get carried away down the auxiliary sewage system.

    This may be analogous to the US hospital system confronting a tidal wave of Covid 19 virus patients because of the obtuse, nincumpoop Americans who won’t change their thinking and behavior in order to slow down the spread of the virus?

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tXgBj-UWSx8

    • ellipsis March 24, 2020 at 7:40 am #

      A nice shit story first thing in the morning is always nice. Thanks, Puck!

  63. ellipsis March 24, 2020 at 7:32 am #

    The battle lines are drawn and the sides are beginning to dig in:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/24/trumps-push-to-shorten-the-coronavirus-shutdown-proves-the-captain-is-flying-blind

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_hD9ddeGhE

    Lockdown fever is appearing more and more to be the whole point in all this CV hysteria. Crash the economy in yet another transparently thin ploy to smear Trump and elect real life Walking Dead Zombie Creepy Joe Biden. Of course there’s considerable other benefits as well…

    Of course there’s the still emerging Chinese hysteria as well. Strangely, no mention of Deep State involvement in this mess at all. Wonder why that is? Guess I’ll just have to read better news sources, as per my usual.

    https://www.foxnews.com/world/what-are-the-wet-markets-coronavirus

    I’ll be waiting for that shoe to drop as soon as the lockdown fever subsides. So many boogeymen under so many beds these days! Oh fucking my, what WILL we do? We need a HERO! Who will be our HERO?

    You all have fun, now, hear? I’m going out and live a perfectly normal day today, albeit with the added pleasure of working from home. Thanks, hysterics!

    • stelmosfire March 24, 2020 at 11:11 am #

      Ellipsis, I looked at your links. That link from Fox news if you look at the third picture the vendor has an apron on with the picture of a dog named Keith on it. Very strange. I think it is her menu. K-Dog better stay in his dog house!

      • K-Dog March 24, 2020 at 11:32 am #

        Sequestered in place. I am not going anywhere. Thanks for the heads up.

        • Janos Skorenzy March 24, 2020 at 1:16 pm #

          Yeah, looks like it was added on. Why would a Chinee have a picture of a dog on his vest, much less a dog named Keith? A shot across your bow if ever there were.

  64. ellipsis March 24, 2020 at 7:53 am #

    Good news everyone. Tom and Rita are doing just fine, thank you very much. From Tom:

    “Hey folks. Good News: One week after testing Positive, in self-isolation, the symptoms are much the same. No fever but the blahs,” Hanks wrote on both Twitter and Instagram at the time. “Folding the laundry and doing the dishes leads to a nap on the couch. Bad news: My wife @ritawilson has won 6 straight hands of Gin Rummy and leads by 201 points.”

    https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tom-hanks-gives-2-weeks-124320373.html

    You may all return to your regularly schedule panicking now. And by all means, watch out for them blahs!

    • malthuss March 24, 2020 at 2:27 pm #

      201..the number of the Bill Gates-John Hopkins ‘run thru’—he is hiding in plain sight. Pizza Tom.

  65. AttackSub March 24, 2020 at 8:13 am #

    According to Time Magazine:

    https://time.com/5610878/2018-2019-flu-season/

    2018-2019 Flu Deaths: 42.9 million infected. 61,200 deaths Death %= 1.4%
    Johns Hopkins ConVid-19 figures ; 7:41 AM EDT 3/24/2020:
    46,450 reported cases 593 deaths Death % 1.3%

    Attack Sub will be regularly posting this

    • BackRowHeckler March 24, 2020 at 8:38 am #

      Good sleuthing, AS

      It puts things in perspective.

      • AttackSub March 24, 2020 at 9:16 am #

        Anybody who reads pirate books from The BookBarn is aces in my books, BRH

    • Daffodil March 24, 2020 at 11:26 am #

      You’ve got a decimal point in the wrong place: 61,200 deaths out of 42.9M infected is 0.14%.

      Though I also agree with you that COVID ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

    • stelmosfire March 24, 2020 at 11:50 am #

      Hey Attack Sub, your cipherin’ needs work. 42.9 million infected with 61,200 mortality is actually .14%. One tenth of the mortality of the Asoka flu.

  66. BackRowHeckler March 24, 2020 at 8:33 am #

    The Trump ‘Hate-O-Meter’ is overheating under the strain of K’Dog’s barrage of over the top, apocalyptic posts. Rivits are popping out … blue smoke appears … scoured bearings screeching … watchout, its gonna blow!!!

    10! 10! 10! Hate-O-Meter spits out a stream of old style computer punch cards, all with the score of 10, 10, 10 … its breaking down, overwhelmed by hate … can’t take anymore, it’ll have to be shut down for now, and sent out for repair.

    Brh

    • PeteAtomic March 24, 2020 at 9:45 am #

      that’s good!

    • benr March 24, 2020 at 10:11 am #

      Funny got a chuckle out of me.

    • K-Dog March 24, 2020 at 12:23 pm #

      It got a chuckle out of me. I’ll not rest on my laurels. The murderous idiot needs to go.

    • Robert White March 24, 2020 at 1:59 pm #

      Pull the plug out of the wall outlet and then stick it back in to see if it reboots, BRH.

      RW

  67. Pucker March 24, 2020 at 8:35 am #

    China is still basically Locked Down. Compare the quarantine measures in China to those now in place in the US.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lb-zyqacN0

    • BackRowHeckler March 24, 2020 at 8:40 am #

      In Ct, the Governor shut down businesses that are not ‘Essential Services’. The problem is, everything except barbershop, nail salons and bars, has been designated as an essential service.

      Brh

      • SoftStarLight March 24, 2020 at 10:10 am #

        Yep! I heard that they are finally going to lift the lockdown order on Wuhan on April 8. After four days of no new cases, there was a new case reported in Wuhan yesterday, according to the CCP.

      • Ricechex March 25, 2020 at 2:28 am #

        That is EXACTLY what the government has done. After the 2013 fiasco (furlough due to budget) magically, everyone has become essential! Therefore, during a shut down, basically all that shuts down is the National Parks which is quite sad indeed. The government is certainly the sickest, most corrupt and manipulative of all.

    • JohnAZ March 24, 2020 at 10:50 am #

      The failure of Western Civ?

  68. AttackSub March 24, 2020 at 9:15 am #

    So, assuming you’re running after you’re nominated and serving after you win, KDOG, I have the following questions:

    1) What sacred book will you place your right hand on when you’re sworn in?

    2) How thick will the bulletproof lectern that you’ll be behind be?

    3) Who will do the estimating of your inaugural crowd size?

    4) When do you anticipate your first “pot summit”

    5) Got any plans to make a global wide American Apology tour?

    6) Got a first Lady, Man, Partner, Hand?

    7) Assassinated or Impeached?

    • SoftStarLight March 24, 2020 at 10:04 am #

      When do you anticipate your first pot summit? 🙂

      That is definitely a critically important question.

    • K-Dog March 24, 2020 at 11:48 am #

      1) The Bible. I’ll respect tradition and I’m fine with JC.

      2) 6 inch bank vault steel.

      3) The doom crowd is about 30K strong in the whole country. That is far less than 1% and only half of them will come to my inauguration. The rest of the nation prefers bread and games so I’ll have inaugurations crowds made up using deep fakes before the election.

      4) The swearing-in ceremony.

      5) My country right or wrong. That part does not change. What kind of pussy would make an apology tour? Not me. I’ll apologize for stuff I did but not for what I did not approve of doing in the first place. I’ll make dickweeds grovel an apologize to me.

      6) Mrs. Dog loves me very much when she is not pissed at me and thinking about divorce. She has been thinking about divorce for 40 years. I suspect that nonsense will stop when she gets to work re-decorating the White House. You will like the changes.

      7) Likely blown up. Here one minute gone the next. I hope I can do some good before I am gone. The thought of blinking out is strange.

  69. Pucker March 24, 2020 at 9:39 am #

    There was a Prepper who made a YouTube video about all of the practical uses of storing whiskey and other grain alcohols. All of the practical uses involved drinking it. His only caveat was that it may not be a good idea to store grain alcohol if you’re an alcoholic. What could go wrong?

    • SoftStarLight March 24, 2020 at 10:01 am #

      🙂

  70. Pucker March 24, 2020 at 9:54 am #

    It seems that some of you CFNers may enjoy my previous Guangzhou train station shit story. So here’s another one….

    What was the biggest pile of shit that you’ve ever seen, apart from trips to the Zoo and the RussiaGate and the Meuller Investigation?

    The biggest pile of shit that I’ve ever seen was that huge pile of crap the size of a bowling ball placed on the floor right next to the squat toilet in the Hong Hom Train Station in Hong Kong. It had the apparent consistency of black tar or Tootsie Roll and emitted a horrible, dull, stultifying, choking smell that literally gagged me and forced me to promptly egress the Men’s restroom.

    • SoftStarLight March 24, 2020 at 9:59 am #

      LOL what the hell!!?? Did an elephant get into that train station lol?? You and your experiences!!

    • PeteAtomic March 24, 2020 at 10:08 am #

      let’s not…..

  71. PeteAtomic March 24, 2020 at 10:07 am #

    There is a lot of credible reporting that China isn’t over the Kungflu yet. There are advantages being a power elite in a fascist country, like kicking out foreign journalists, and restricting the freedom of speech.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/life-after-lockdown-has-china-really-beaten-coronavirus

    The pro-fascist CNN takes what the Chinese gov’t reports on face value:

    https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/24/asia/coronavirus-wuhan-lockdown-lifted-intl-hnk/index.html

    the last line seals the deal:
    “As a Wuhan resident, I feel the risk is still high. What if there is an imported case? We’ll have to stay home again,” he said.

    LOL.. they don’t need any imported cases, as the Kungflu is still alive and well in Wuhan

    • SoftStarLight March 24, 2020 at 10:17 am #

      I agree. China reported 78 new cases yesterday. I don’t believe those numbers anyhow but it is marked increase from their usual 30 or 40 or so cases they have been throwing up there for the last two weeks. They also say that most of the cases are from foreigners. But I would have to disagree that CNN is pro-fascist. They support and work for global government. That is Communism.

      • PeteAtomic March 24, 2020 at 10:55 am #

        The story behind the story is pretty interesting.. the Chinese gov’t kicked out WashPo, NYT, and the WSJ after the WSJ published a piece about “racially discriminatory” policies in China (LOL!).. is the CIA using wokesterism as a tool to create division inside China? hmmm.. idk. It sure has worked in this country though..

        https://www.wsj.com/articles/news-publishers-urge-china-to-allow-reporters-to-remain-during-coronavirus-pandemic-11585052541?mod=hp_lead_pos3

      • K-Dog March 24, 2020 at 12:05 pm #

        KDFP

        True fact in the banter SSL.

        Cases of ‘foreigners’ bringing COVID back to China turn out to be Chinese citizens returning to China. They are reported as foreigners but their names are all Chinese. Chinese media pushes people to think COVID is a conspiracy by western powers to rid the world of the yellow peril. ‘Foreigners’ are just part of the toolbox.

        Where would they get the idea that COVID is a western plot?

        Practically China has arrested the infection but eliminating it completely may be impossible and a state of permanent vigilance is necessary. The reason is this virus is not a bioweapon and it is naturally zoonotic. A zoonotic virus is more dangerous than a bioweapon as far as elimination of it goes. A good bioweapon (oxymoron )would be targeted against people and could not jump into an animal and hide out to return later.

  72. Pucker March 24, 2020 at 10:08 am #

    Here’s another one…

    Jiang Zemin had this bizarre fascination with public toilets. Whenever he visited Western countries, he always paid particular attention to ascertaining the latest, and most advanced, Western shitter technology. I read in the book about Stalin that Molotov had a similar fixation with Western bathrooms.

  73. Pucker March 24, 2020 at 10:38 am #

    They don’t seem to know what they’re dealing with? The US may become like Italy? During the 1918 Spanish Flu, the US media tried to bury the story of the Spanish Flu and to play down the severity of the pandemic. The public lost confidence in the media and the government because of the huge gulf between what the US media was saying about the pandemic and what the people were seeing with their own eyes.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pIPhMioPaeY

    • JohnAZ March 24, 2020 at 10:51 am #

      History needs to repeat!

    • K-Dog March 24, 2020 at 12:30 pm #

      KDFP

      Thank you for this Pucker. It is nice to see someone else who sees the immorality and stupidly of Trump as clearly as I do. Trump is a sociopath as evil as a serial killer incapable of anything but penury considerations. Trump Needs To Go.

      TNTG

      • Robert White March 24, 2020 at 2:13 pm #

        K-Dog for president!

        RW

  74. Pucker March 24, 2020 at 10:58 am #

    Trump has decided that he’s not going to listen to what the doctors say re: grappling with the Covid 19 virus. He’ll instead follow the advice of Wall Street. What could go wrong?

    • K-Dog March 24, 2020 at 12:12 pm #

      Nothing can go wrong. Trump is covered. Trump is planning to convene a summit of Televangelists to cast the demon out if the Wall Street fix does not work. Cash Luna will not be invited to the summit of course. Only American Preachers can cast the demon out. We need a great thing so it has to be them.

  75. AttackSub March 24, 2020 at 11:20 am #

    You want cases of countries lying about their CONVID-19 Cases:

    As of 10 AM EDT according to Johns Hopkins:
    !

    Australia: 2,044 cases 8 deaths. ROFLMFAO

    New Zealand: 155 cases 0 Deaths OMFG!

    Canada: 2,088 cases : 25 deaths. Whiskey Tango Foxtrott!

    • Cargill March 24, 2020 at 12:58 pm #

      And what do those three countries have in common (apart from being members of the Commonwealth)? They are rich Western nations that care for their citizens, and have a national single-desk health scheme.

      The low death rates are impressive.

      • AttackSub March 24, 2020 at 1:17 pm #

        Lies all lies made up statistics

        • Cargill March 24, 2020 at 1:56 pm #

          Lies all lies made up statistics

          Evidence for this?

      • AttackSub March 24, 2020 at 1:22 pm #

        The stats from those three countries are about as believable as the lies coming from China. You’re fortunate in Australian,comrade. You have plenty of barren, burned out space provided by the arsonist loons in your country to bury your dead.

      • JohnAZ March 24, 2020 at 1:58 pm #

        You old cherry picker you.

        You forgot Europe, the home of socialized medicine that thanks to the insufficiency of their systems never stood a chance.

        I, for one, want an answer to why Italy and Iran and now NY State have become epicenters for the spread.

        My guess, airline hubs from Everywhere. Airports, trains and ships are the Petri dishes.

    • Majella March 24, 2020 at 5:58 pm #

      Attacksub

      These three countries are also amongst the lowest on the ‘corruption index’. (NZ – No.1, Australia & Canada,12th=)

      Just because you don’t like a FACT, that’s no excuse to go full-blown MAGA on said FACT.

      And then double-down on it later in the thread! How old are you? Why do you only believe what your Misleader-in-Chief tells you?

      • benr March 25, 2020 at 9:00 am #

        Why do you believe anything you post?
        Most of what you post and appear to believe defies common sense,

        • Majella March 25, 2020 at 8:01 pm #

          Poor old benr, struggling with reality & punctuation.

          • benr March 26, 2020 at 9:19 am #

            None of the above how ever you do suffer from comprehension deficit.

  76. elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 12:03 pm #

    A note to BRH,

    You mentioned the model 19 S&W as a possible choice. This is not the weapon for you. The Model 19 is a mid-sized frame .357 of about the same weight and configuration of the model15, but with a bit heavier barrel.

    Bad choice.

    A man of your sensibilities and taste, a man who probably owns or at least fantasizes about Dodge Big Block 300+ HP fire breathing monsters…this type of man requires nothing less than the BIG IRON…an N frame model. A “Highway Patrolman” model, or perhaps upgrade to the well polished model 27…. 44 ounces of blue steel. The man who owns one is a man to be reckoned with…and admired by men and women alike. The “weak sisters” who carry the model 19 are know to defer to strong women, and squat when they pee.

    Get the “hog leg”…you will not be disappointed.

    • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 12:05 pm #

      And…the link;

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_%26_Wesson_Model_28

      • BackRowHeckler March 24, 2020 at 1:53 pm #

        LoL

        Good advice E., but that’s a little more gun than I’m looking for right now.

        I’m assuming you carried something similar as a young police officer in Oakland.

        I have a Silverado right now, which I don’t drive much, just on fishing trips, and buy a new Chevy sedan every few years. You’d probably be surprised to learn that more often than not I drive my wife’s Volvo to work 3 nights a week. This is Connecticut, after all.

        Brh

    • stelmosfire March 24, 2020 at 3:50 pm #

      El, I checked your link for the 28. Nice iron. Made about 10 miles from me. I see “The Highway Patrolman” was issued to a number of state police departments. When I was a kid I believe the state cops had a height requirement. 6 feet? Now, not so much. I met a Mass trooper on the Pike. She was maybe 5′ 2″ . A liability in a Berkshire bar brawl. Handle a “Hog leg” , yea right.

      • stelmosfire March 24, 2020 at 3:52 pm #

        Only six shots? Who cares, pistol whip the sonbitch’

        • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 4:39 pm #

          Saint,
          Back then, six seemed enough…still does, in my dotage. We rarely shot anyone in Oakland in the late 60’s…the weapon was usually used as a negative incentive…occasionally a club.

          Yes, I carried a (rare) 5″ Highway Patrolman on duty. When hired on, you could only find model 19’s available (Vietnam War), traded a model 24 for the Highway Patrolman, and never looked back.

          Wish I had the model 24 back, however.

          • BackRowHeckler March 24, 2020 at 5:28 pm #

            That’s the thing. How many guns have we sold or traded away, and spend the test of our lives kicking ourselves in the ass over it.

            As a pawn shop owner you must have seen some nice pieces come thru your store.

            Brh

          • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 9:50 pm #

            “As a pawn shop owner you must have seen some nice pieces come thru your store.”

            BRH,
            …you got no idea…. When I sold the business and retired in…1985, I had 1000 used guns on the shelves for sale. In pawn, there were several hundred more. Grants Pass, Oregon, in the late 70’s evinced a large gun culture…hunting and collecting.

  77. ellipsis March 24, 2020 at 12:13 pm #

    Oh shit! Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse.

    *** FNN EXCLUSIVE ***

    In Wake of Corona Virus Lethal Blahs Epidemic Emerges

    Epidemiologists are now reporting a new and even more frightening threat to western civilization emerging from the shadows of the Covid19 pandemic. In what is being referred to as a “human buzz saw,” a lethal Blahs pandemic is now ravaging assisted living care facilities, hospitals, and locked down upscale homes throughout the west, in what is already being termed a much deeper threat to the western lifestyle than the Covid19 virus itself.

    Noted WHO epidemiologist Summ Dumm Phuc weighed in emerging pandemic in his somewhat broken English: “This bad! Reery, reery bad! Why you stand there! Run for rives, foows!” Through a translator he later added: “We don’t have a complete handle on this yet, but our preliminary estimates are several million – perhaps tens of millions – undiagnosed world-wide dead and dying already, with exponentially increasing figures from there. It’s one thing to die from a virus that merely takes you out physically, but a threat that takes away your willingness to stay home and watch shitty reruns on TV and join in internet hysteria? That’s some truly existential shit now, and threatens everything our civilization holds near and dear. It’s not unfair to say that the living will truly envy the dead if this really takes hold!”

    [Warning: Tear-jerking story of tragic human loss follows] The residents of the Geezers-R-Us assisted living care facility in Swampwater FL are still in mourning, after the recent tragic loss of 112 year old resident Charlie Stenchfield. After shrugging off the Covid19 virus with nary a peep earlier in the month, the cagey supercentenarian – largely blind and deaf with an advanced case of Alzheimers and completely confined to a motorized wheelchair – slipped into an advanced case of Ennui after the recent Covid19 lockdown, before rapidly succumbing altogether from a rapid onset case of the Blahs following a marathon binge watching session of I Love Lucy and The Golden Girls. “Old Charlie was the most vital and engaging 112 year old largely blind and deaf advanced Alzheimer’s patient who was completely confined to a motorized wheel chair I’ve ever met,” said recent caretaker Agnes Funkhouser. “He laughingly referred to Covid19 as ‘Old Pussies’ Disease’, which always got a laugh from the facility crowd, even as they saw their ranks thinned by several dozen due to the pandemic.”

    Long-time 96 year old friend and fellow resident Hubert McGillicuddy reminisced about his old friend: “Charlie was a man’s man! I remember when Charlie first moved 35 years ago like it was yesterday. He had recently bought the entire Geezers-R-Us chain after a long and tremendously successful entrepreneurial career in geezer supplies. Walkers, oxygen supplies, heart monitors, wheelchairs, table games, CPAP – he was pushing CPAP a full twenty years before the mainstream medical community caught on to it – the whole nine yards. A real visionary! There was talk that he was mobbed up, but the Charlie I knew was much too tough to settle for sharing his spoils with any pretty boy mobsters. The first thing he did was raise the rates on all the old birds and toss the losers out on their asses. Personally, in many cases! Then he moved all the 60 and 70 year old hotties he could find – and he really had an eye for Geezer flesh! – to liven things up! Which he did until the day he died. I have to say, he was the most vibrant 65 pound, 112 year old, who was largely blind and deaf with advanced Alzheimer’s and completely confined to a motorized wheelchair that I’ve ever met. A real tiger to the very end!”

    Charlie leaves behind (living or dead) a total of 8-10 wives (many undocumented), countless girlfriends, approximately 15-25 children, untold number of grand, great grand, and great, great grandchildren. He will definitely be missed.

    • beantownbill. March 24, 2020 at 1:03 pm #

      Jeez, you must be really bored staying at home.

      • ellipsis March 24, 2020 at 3:34 pm #

        Yes, but no Blahs in sight, yet.

    • Janos Skorenzy March 24, 2020 at 1:20 pm #

      I knew a woman once who said that boredom is dangerous – that you could die from it. It’s similar to the Korean belief that if you go to sleep in a room with a fan on, you might not wake up. The fan suck the air out somehow.

  78. AttackSub March 24, 2020 at 12:33 pm #

    As of 12;07 PM According to John Hopkins:

    46,805 cases. 593 deaths : 1.3% death rate

    • Majella March 24, 2020 at 6:02 pm #

      I thought all these statistics were lies, Attacksub. So, are they UNDERexaggeraitng or OVERexaggerating?

      • AttackSub March 25, 2020 at 11:27 am #

        No, the only under exaggerations are from Canada New Zealand and Australia

        • Majella March 25, 2020 at 8:02 pm #

          What an utter dipshit you are.

          • benr March 26, 2020 at 9:21 am #

            Did you post that while gazing in a mirror at your old wizened shrinking image?

  79. Cargill March 24, 2020 at 12:52 pm #

    Cargill, since I’m living in the looney tunes universe, there is nothing I can say to you which will make a bit of difference. Cheers.

    Repeating unsupported (and unsupportable) conspiracy theory gossip and scuttlebut seems to be the house style around here.

    Have we had anything on Chemtrails or Fluoridation this week?

    • ellipsis March 24, 2020 at 3:36 pm #

      As opposed the MSM agitprop you’re lapping up uncritically? Give it a rest.

      • Cargill March 24, 2020 at 5:39 pm #

        I lap up nothing uncritically comrade … I’ve been a media critic all my adult life – and in fact lectured in the subject at university (yes one of those pampered academics).

        I find the NYT pretty staid and conservative, and it gives the Golden Globe much more slack than the clown warrants. The Washington Post has a bit more mongrel about it, but it is still fairly reserved.

        CNN I watch a lot – but not uncritically, never. Fox is unwatchable – it’s just dreadful.

        • hmuller March 26, 2020 at 5:28 pm #

          Cargill. You certainly display an academic’s incapacity to think outside the “Overton Window”. But in contrast to yourself, American scholars craft plausible, albeit specious, arguments to further their views. You simply fling insults scooped up from the gutter. Perhaps your connection to academia is more in line with emptying the trash cans, wiping the boards, and mopping the floors at night.

    • BackRowHeckler March 24, 2020 at 5:23 pm #

      Nobody ever talks seriously about chemtrails or fluoridation on this board.

      Is anybody else here a little suspicious of commenters who purport to be from Australia and New Zeeland, but are so heavily invested in American partisan politics?

      • Majella March 24, 2020 at 6:04 pm #

        “Purport” ? Give it rest, Marlin.

        • stelmosfire March 24, 2020 at 6:38 pm #

          Come on Majella you drongo. I you know your a piker, leave the seppos alone. …–..– /…– ..- — —… /– –.. —–.–.–/.–.–.- – / — Dumb bunny

  80. K-Dog March 24, 2020 at 12:56 pm #

    A doctor ruins his career.

    https://youtu.be/LT8Ssj_wuns

    Fauci attended Regis High School in New York City where he graduated in 1958. He then enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross where he received a BS in classics in 1962. Fauci then went on to attend Cornell University Medical College where he graduated first in his class with an M.D. in 1966. He then completed an internship and residency at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Fauci ruined his career in 2020 when he violated the Hippocratic Oath by defending Donald Trump’s genocidal removal of American citizenry to preserve tax cuts for the rich.

  81. K-Dog March 24, 2020 at 1:05 pm #

    Trump says opposite things in the same breath and his beguiled supporters don’t notice. People who have spent entire lifetimes studying disease are ignored. Their objections Trumped by the bullshit of a buffon. The mettle of men is tested and much is found wanting.

    • Majella March 24, 2020 at 6:05 pm #

      “Beguiled”?? Befuddled, more like, K-Dog

  82. Elrond Hubbard March 24, 2020 at 1:29 pm #

    Just throwing this out here for funsies. Not trying to start anything, honest.

    The Ontario government has ordered all non-essential businesses to shut down as of midnight tonight. Naturally, they had to provide a list of what’s considered an essential business.

    Fun fact: Cannabis stores and cannabis producers are considered essential businesses (along with beer, wine and liquor stores).

    https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.news.ontario.ca/opo/en/2020/03/list-of-essential-workplaces-2.html

    Not a joke, it’s item #4 on the list. Take care of yourselves, y’all.

    • Janos Skorenzy March 24, 2020 at 2:13 pm #

      As Huxley said, Reality is something that most people can only take in small quantities. You should know that Elrond….

      • K-Dog March 24, 2020 at 3:02 pm #

        No joke Elron is right. I just got a text saying Uncle Ike’s in White Center is open and that they are an essential business. And proud of it I am sure.

        Get INDICA something that will give you good couch-lock so you won’t want to, or be capable of, going anywhere. You won’t catch the crud or pass it on that way. Avoid a SATIVA unless you want to clean your house.

        Canada and WA must be following the same experts.

    • hmuller March 26, 2020 at 5:33 pm #

      I’ll bet Justin Trudeau couldn’t pas a piss test. Just a vibe I get.

  83. Janos Skorenzy March 24, 2020 at 1:47 pm #

    https://cis.org/Rush/Refugees-Are-Being-Resettled-Despite-Outbreak

    Nothing is more important. Like after the Fort Hood shooting by a Muslim, the General said, At least we still have the Diversity. Indeed General, indeed.

    The Spice (the vibrancy!) must flow.

  84. Janos Skorenzy March 24, 2020 at 1:59 pm #

    https://freewestmedia.com/2020/03/22/germany-still-welcomes-asylum-seekers-despite-covid-19/

    All travel banned except for these disease vectors. They can go wherever they want. It’s almost like they’re the Citizens and Europeans are simply “mensch material” or human in name only.

    • malthuss March 25, 2020 at 12:19 am #

      OMG

  85. Janos Skorenzy March 24, 2020 at 2:04 pm #

    627 nuovi deceduti con coronavirus, non per coronavirus.”
    627 new deaths with coronavirus, not from coronavirus.

    THAT’S one hell of a precision. Why was it edited out almost immediately? Oh, I think we ALL know why.

    Numbers are being cooked so that anyone who dies is tested, and if coronavirus is present, the person is counted as a CORONAVIRUS DEATH, even if they died from cancer, or a head injury, or… seasonal H1N1 flu. Remember, in the U.S., in an average flu season year, 150 people die EVERY DAY from seasonal flu. But that’s different. That’s a different sort of dead – the sort that doesn’t matter.

    Here is an Italian pundit pointing this up – of the 627 that died that day, the Italian I.S.S. (Instituto Superiore di Sanità) freely admitted that only TWELVE – 12 – a dozen – died FROM coronavirus. The other 615 all died from something else.

    “The media are reporting that today 627 people died from coronavirus. The I.S.S. has explained that only 12 people had no other pathologies. To attribute all the deaths to the virus is not only false and unscientific. It’s more than that. It is psychological terrorism.”

    Ann Barnhardt. How many will die as a result of the wrecked economy? And the increasing crackdown by the New World Order?

    • Janos Skorenzy March 24, 2020 at 2:06 pm #

      The last paragraph was by me. The rest is from Anne. Anne’s site is Barnhardt Biz.

    • JohnAZ March 24, 2020 at 2:20 pm #

      Janos

      Boy, if this is true, what a condemnation of whoever is behind this travesty. If total deaths are being all counted as Coronavirus deaths, what are the real mortality rates? If Corona is comparable to the flu in reality, that knowledge would be really detrimental to the folks trying to shut the world down.

    • SoftStarLight March 24, 2020 at 2:49 pm #

      Honestly, I was suspicious of Ann’s take before. I honestly am not sure what to think at this point. But the other two articles you posted above regarding the fact that we are still resettling refugees in the midst of the pandemic just goes to show that nothing at all and whatsoever stops the Globalists from doing what the Globalists want to do. So it is within the realm of possibility that the Globalists could be intentionally attempting to sink the world’s national economies. What a better way of attempting to forge a world order once the dust settles?

      • malthuss March 24, 2020 at 6:51 pm #

        Ann loves the RCChurch but mocks Chemtrails.

        She isnt the best. No wonder she was cleaning homes to make money.

    • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 4:33 pm #

      Janos,
      BBC reports a priest ill with the CV gave his respirator over to a younger patient…the priest died. The story is humbling…almost brought tears to my eyes. I know Sainthood is out of the question, but he should be honored by the church in some way.

      Humanity at it’s finest.

      https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52015969

    • Tate March 24, 2020 at 6:25 pm #

      If someone has cancer & contracts CV, & dies, what killed that patient?

      If someone has HIV & contracts CV, & dies, what killed that patient?

      If someone has COPD & contracts CV, & dies, what killed that patient?

      The virus may be the final nail in the coffin, but it will be only one of the nails.

      It’s dishonest to panic the populace by implying that CV by itself killed these patients. It certainly seems as though there’s an agenda afoot for panicking the public to accept measures of government control that it wouldn’t have accepted otherwise, such as are found in the democratic emergency spending bill.

      • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 9:46 pm #

        Tate,
        If your dog gets run over by a Buick, did the accident kill him or did he die of exsanguination?

        • Tate March 25, 2020 at 1:07 am #

          I’ll have to consult my nephew the exsanguinist.

  86. JohnAZ March 24, 2020 at 2:14 pm #

    The battle lines are being drawn. How far are we going to isolate before we destroy the economy or drive everyone, especially the youngsters, crazy? The divisions in the task team are obvious. Who is right?

    China is currently opening up , and a slight uptick in cases has occurred, which they blame on incoming Chinese folks returning home.

    One very important point, let’s say we destroy the economy by isolating for 3 plus months. We save from death a very small part of the country by isolating. Is the surviving world worth the cost? Like living in a post-apocalyptic world.

    One idea being bandied about is to protect the folks in danger by continuing isolation for them. Let the “kids” get back to living life normally and opening up the economy. For them, it is less than the flu.

    What the heck, they have been ignoring the 15 day plan anyway, put them to work.

    • JohnAZ March 24, 2020 at 2:21 pm #

      If Janos’ info above is correct, the fear factor will disappear overnight.

    • SoftStarLight March 24, 2020 at 2:57 pm #

      According to reports, if you can believe them, there are plenty of 20-40 year olds that need ventilators and ICU with this. It sounds like you already wrote that out of the equation so already I’m not sure you have an accurate picture of the situation, if any of us do. China is also not really opening up. Hundreds of millions are actually still in quarantine, including Wuhan, where supposedly a new case was reported today after five days of no new testing. Dr. Martenson at Peak Prosperity says that China’s numbers have always been totally bogus and based on anecdotal evidence leaking out of China, it appears China still has problems. Why can’t we be more like South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore where everyone is wearing a mask and so people feel safer getting out and about? I think our society is too selfish to adopt simple adaptive behaviors that would allow us to be around each other but not infect each other until we know what we need to know about this SARS virus.

    • Nightowl March 25, 2020 at 9:57 am #

      Don’t you know yet? The virus loses its powers once the 2020 election has passed.

      Until then, it’s maximum economic damage, baby!

  87. Pucker March 24, 2020 at 2:27 pm #

    10 million to 20 million dead if no quarantine and hospitals are overwhelmed…. I don’t know? Nursing homes wiped out…. Maybe no one would notice except for the hospital and nursing home staff and the garbage pickup? Blokes collapse in the bar from “Cytokine Storm” and people just keep on drinking and partying? It’s possible, I guess… Weird society….

  88. malthuss March 24, 2020 at 2:31 pm #

    Gold is up about $120. today, in USA.
    All time highs in other countries.

    Does anyone know the gold market and where it shall go?

  89. JohnAZ March 24, 2020 at 2:38 pm #

    Heard Cuomo’s very frustrated presser this AM

    He wants 30000 more ventilators as the epidemic runs away in NY State. He is going to get 4000 from current stores including 2000 in federal stock piles. He can bitch at DC all he wants, you cannot send what does not exist. He of course blames DC for killing 26000 people. Typical!

    He also said the doubling time is three days now. Why? All the mitigation schemes are failing. Why? What is the real percentage of people self-isolating? How many virus parties are going on here? What is the infection path that is defeating the plans? Why did China have success but Italy, Iran and now NY are failing? These are questions I do not hear anyone addressing.

    Why NY and NYC? I understand the frustration but the current level of equipment in the country will not help much if the infection rate continues.

    • malthuss March 24, 2020 at 2:42 pm #

      I do not believe the numbers from China…show me aerial photos of China, smoke from factories not crematories and biz as usual.

    • SoftStarLight March 24, 2020 at 3:03 pm #

      I dunno, I kinda like Gov. Cuomo now. He seems to really care about his people. He appears to have a take charge attitude. I began to wonder last night if New York State could annex Louisiana. If we had never moved our manufacturing overseas I bet we could make all the ventilators we need.

      • tucsonspur March 24, 2020 at 4:55 pm #

        I agree, SSL. Cuomo is taking charge, being honest, leading, empathetic, and acting PRESIDENTIAL.

        JAZ, forming that start up yet to compete making masks and ventilators? It’s capitalism, I know you can do it. Just think of the demand, the profits!

        • malthuss March 24, 2020 at 6:31 pm #

          leaving babies to be harvested and get adrenochrome from is evil.

          period, baby.

          • Majella March 28, 2020 at 5:15 pm #

            CT bullshit.

    • elysianfield March 24, 2020 at 9:34 pm #