Prickly City by Scott Stantis for May 13, 2020

Why, Carmen? Just because we have no leadership?

I’m excited about the states getting together in mutual aid alliances.It’s great for the blue states, but the red ones won’t be able to do it, and so, are on their own.

Nice and quiet. No whining. No pre-emptive insults. Yet!

Be careful, the pterodactyl service might cost you an arm and a leg, or as they like to call it, lunch.

Just as Fauci tells us, Covid-19 deaths are undercounter, not overcounted, I was reading today how, in Nebraska, meat packing companies no longer report on infections in their plants.

Along with states not permitting unemployment insurance for employees in unsafe work environments.

Even my beloved Germany where, after a slow start, they really hammered the virus – and had the lowest death rate from the virus – now that they’re loosening things up a bit – Covid-19 is up by quite a bit.

To be fair, Germany’s low death rate came from an abundance of testing, hence their apparent infection rate was much higher than other countries where testing was far more limited. (Sound familiar?)

But clearly, this thing is not going away, nor will it any time soon.

We have got to get more testing, figure out who really needs to be quarantined, either to protect others or to protect themselves.

No one – not even Michigan’s Whitmer – wants to stay inside – or keep others inside. But the answer is not militias showing up to deter police presence from enforcing cease and desist orders.

Don’t these people have anything better to do with their time?

Oh. I forgot. Right now, none of us have anything better to do with our time.

Back to my Spanish lessons and reading my German Bible.

Somehow it just wouldn’t surprise me if JB actually did have a Jurassic Park project in the works.

But why pterodactyls? Did I miss something?

Normal?

Trump does not grasp the concept of public health. The idea of public health administration, like the CDC, is even more incomprehensible.

Trump does not only not comprehend what to do about a pandemic, he does not even know that something should be done.

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Thus, he pushes everything onto the states. He doesn’t know what else to do.

But then, the economy crashes, MAKING HIM LOOK BAD.

So now, he sabotages everything governors are doing, sabotages all the advice from the CDC and other health admin professionals because he does not even understand that there IS a problem —

Other than that the economy crash dims his reelection chances. So it is CRITICAL that the economy get better.

Citizens? People? Even His Disciples know he does not give a whit about anyone else. They admire him for that.

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He has never grasped the concept of how testing should be used, except on an individual basis, and now that the virus is invading the White House, he is in a little bit of a panic.

He ‘knows more about the virus than anyone’, yet he does not know what to do.

“We have prevailed.”

“We do more testing than anybody. Our testing is perfect.”

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Imagine if there were a real war.

Day 20 of the Georgia Economic Recovery.

Jurassic Park is frightning in the dark

All the dinosaurs are running wild

Someone shut the fence off in the rain

I admit it’s kinda eerie

But this proves my chaos theory

And I don’t think I’ll be coming back again

On no

Trump has been fighting with Jeff Bezos. He thinks that if he can get rid of the US Postal Service, he can destroy Amazon and with it Bezos…. and of course the Postal Service that forgot his fire engine last Christmas… BTW, Trump holds a grudge

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/vote-by-mail-under-existential-threat-as-top-us-postal-service-official-forced-out-report/

Mr. Trump and the “liberate” protesters portray a choice between opening and staying locked down, but that is false.

Everyone understands the urgency of returning to work, schools, leisure and worship, but it must be done in a way that does not ignite a second wave.

Until a vaccine or effective therapy arrives, that means segmenting the population by testing, and isolating and treating those who are sick as much as possible. The virus is dynamic, relentless and opportunistic. It will spread as long as people give it the means.

We have the technology but not the scale needed to test the whole population.

If ever there were a job for the federal government, the singularly most powerful actor we can rely upon, this was it.

Instead, we are now suffering with piecemeal efforts at diagnostic testing, while more than 20,000 new infections and about 2,000 deaths occur every day.

What would it have taken for Mr. Trump to put testing kits in every workplace and school? We will never know, because he didn’t try.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-trumps-greatest-failure-of-the-pandemic/2020/05/11/29f22f7c-93ae-11ea-82b4-c8db161ff6e5_story.html

Another Pogo cameo in Thatababy…

I found a way to get the blue states to reopen their economies immediately: close all of the liquor stores until the economy reopens. From today’s WSJ:

There is no panacea for the anxiety and depression the pandemic and its effects have caused, but alcohol and marijuana tend to make them worse rather than better and in some cases will lead to addiction that will outlast the virus. States ought to curtail the sale of these substances during this stressful time. Instead, almost all have classified liquor stores as “essential,” and some have done the same with marijuana dispensaries. Some officials have argued that keeping liquor stores open keeps alcoholics from ending up at emergency rooms with withdrawal symptoms. But the added risks of alcohol use are far greater.

Pennsylvania closed its state liquor stores when it went into lockdown. Other states should follow its lead.

Trump is absolutely the guy who sits on the tree limb, on the wrong side of where he’s sawing it off, and he. just. doesn’t. get. it.

Technology on goComics is pretty embarrassingly bad. Having to enter html code is asinine. Sticking posts under the wrong thread is unforgivable in my world. We do test their app pretty well for them… Was there a 90 post thread here the other day? Y’all must really love heated exchanges…

May I repeat what librarian4hire said yesterday:

Capitalism, in its original Enlightenment form, may have meant freedom to choose. Remember, even Adam Smith wanted government regulation of capitalism.

Capitalism without a safety net led to workhouses, debtors’ prisons, child labor, and the abandonment of the elderly to whatever help their relatives could give. (God help the childless couple!)

Things got better with the New Deal and the rise of unions.

What we have now is not capitalism. What we have now is corporatism, cronyism, and oligarchy. It’s not healthy and it’s not sustainable!

I like markets. Markets are not inherently evil. I like being surrounded by choices. But the mess we’re in now (even setting aside the pandemic) needs correction, and it won’t be solved by claiming anyone who doesn’t agree with you is a “statist” or “collectivist.”

Storks usually deliver babies… what do Pterodactyls deliver? Body bags?

Greetings, all!

This has been floating around the Intertubes for a while, but in case you haven’t seen it: The Risks – Know Them – Avoid Them

https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them

Written by a Comparative Immunologist and Professor of Biology (specializing in Immunology) at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. It’s worth a read, whether your locality is in shelter-in-place, partially open, or “devil take the hindmost.”

Stay safe — Social distance, wear a mask, wash your hands!

Someday!