I penetrated the infection zone at 0900. For several miles I expected guards or maybe a traffic jam, but instead the road was clear with no signs of activity. In fact, I was not even sure I was in the infected zone until I started to see the abandoned cars. Some of the cars had been set on fire for some reason. It was more abandoned cars and then I started to see the bodies. At first it was a body slumped over in a car. Then it was a corpse in the road and then too many to count.
The road became impassable near what used to be an old roadside stop. A set of stores on one side and a gas station on the other. I stopped and got out of the car to look around. I spotted a big fellow, with blond hair sitting against a wall. He was shirtless and looked like he had been in a fight. He was holding a dove or pigeon. I’m not good with birds, but it was white and the size of a pigeon. Looking around, he appeared to be the only living thing, so I approached him and asked him what had happened.
He looked at me and asked if I liked fries with mayonnaise. It was a bizarre question, but I am familiar with the Dutch, so I understood his meaning straight away. In his final moments, he was thinking of futures past. After some back and forth, he said to me, “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”
Ah, what might have been. My trip to Old Blighty was scuttled by the Chinese plague, so instead of doing travelogues this weekend, it is an impromptu podcast. I did not have a lot of time to put it together, so it is a little ragged. I figured since I was not going to be on the road, I had no excuse for skipping this week. It’s weird, but it bugs me when I skip a week for some reason. I feel like I’m shirking my responsibilities. A man should stick to his commitments, no matter how trivial.
Along the same lines, I feel bad for having to cancel the trip. I was looking forward to seeing Mark and his folks. He is one of the better speakers and organizers on this side of the great divide. It’s always a pleasure to see him work. But, I think I made the right call by staying home. This virus is serious and we need to do what we can to limit our social interactions for the time being. Even if the alarmist are half right, we have a very serious public health crisis on our hands.
There’s also the fact that in stressful times, reasonable people need to be reasonable and level headed. I have people counting on me to do the right thing, so setting a good example is important. If everywhere we look the sober minded are taking precautions against infection, the less sober minded will be inclined to follow. If you always assume you are an example to at least one other person in this world, you are always reminded to set a good example.
There’s also the practical issues. It’s pretty clear that the UK government is less prepared for this than the US government. By Sunday Boris Johnson could be locking down the country. We are not only into uncharted territory in terms of the virus, but we have no idea what our ruling class idiots are going to do. All we know at this point is they don’t know what to do. I’m much more concerned about that than the plague, for the simple reason I trust the plague more than our rulers.
That really is the main issue at the moment. In good times, you can have idiots and girts in positions of authority. The last time we had a serious crisis, there were serious men in government, who knew what to do. Whatever you may think about the massive bailout of the banks during the mortgage crisis, it prevented a collapse. This time, I fear we don’t have serious men in the room. We may be about to learn why it is a bad idea to stock government with entertaining nitwits.
This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. I am now on Deezer, for our European haters and Stitcher for the weirdos. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.
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This Week’s Show
Contents
- 00:00: Opening
- 02:00: Cancelling Britain
- 12:00: Panic
- 22:00: The Reality Of The Virus
- 31:00: The Financial Impact
- 41:00: What Shall Be Revealed
- 51:00: Should We Be worried
- 57:00: Closing
Direct Download, The iTunes, Google Play, iHeart Radio, RSS Feed, Bitchute
Full Show On Spreaker
Full Show On YouTube
https://youtu.be/fXwkfL-0-2c
I’m in a place that is effectively 100% white. The closest urban enclave is more than an hour away. Everything here has always worked well and no one has any expectations that this will ever change. We periodically have 4 foot snow storms and things still work well. Hurricane season brings everyone together. We board up windows and stock up community centers to make sure we’re all well supplied should the worst happen. The young are watched over by not only family but by most adults in the area. Most of the elderly have plenty of family nearby to help… Read more »
Quebec?
In 1958 it could have been anywhere in Western Civilization excluding American cities which were beginning to be ethnically cleansed of whites. The type of crisis wouldn’t really matter. It is an example of what we’ve lost. The sort of social capital we once took for granted. If you went up to anyone then to discuss social capital they won’t even comprehend what we were babbling about. No one needed to define such a thing because it was simply the way things were. They had few if any examples of anything different. Did you hear the one about the two… Read more »
Social Capital, one of the first great concepts I gleaned from this blog. Once grasped, I see such dwindling almost everyday.
It’s like that in a lot of rural areas where people might move out, but not too many move in. I know all my neighbors, we help each other out, and there are numerous connections between people. Z needs to get to West Va quicker rather than later.
Some old advice, published by a guy named Graham. Working emergency services through several natural disasters, including Sandy, this shit is sometimes true. Agree this isn’t the Zombie Apocalypse–but the distribution of “fun” in these things is not even. I’m sitting 800m from the “containment”, we’ve got the National Guard camped on an island connected to the mainland by a drawbridge. Hopefully everyone just pops a squat for a couple weeks and tamps this thing down. But also being a neighbor to some places with a big “gibs” population–any interruption of that will not work well. 1. NOBODY IS COMING… Read more »
I wonder what the Z Man will talk about in today’s podcast. I couldn’t make out anything from the title. On an odd note, for some reason my supermarket was all out of toilet paper yesterday. Pro tip: I instead bought 10 boxes of dryer sheets, and I feel…extra fresh today…
You Sir, owe me one keyboard…..
You, sir, can definitely state with confidence that your turds don’t stink.
If we get locked in for a very long time, my wife is going to be very glad I saved all my old car magazines. Foreign car pages first, save the Mopar pages for last…
Ha! Betcha my Range Magazine pages are sturdier than your car magazine pages, Dutch guy!
Z—glad you’re fine, staying home and inspiring your troops! We surely appreciate you.
The wife, all innocence:
“Your old stack of Playboys you thought you kept hidden? But honey, it was an emergency…”
I went to the grocery store last night to buy a bushel of rice and a little rat meat.
Everything was normal except there was no toilet paper, bottled water and, strangely, almost no eggs.
This last puzzled me. Anyone have an idea (other than JF Sebastian)?
Fresh food is the first to go. As I stood in a medium line in Cedar City, a shopping cart with some yummy meat, the woman next to me said she expects to continue to get her fresh produce. My brain smoldered in cognitive dissonance, flashed over, and I said in a controlled voice..don’t expect your fresh food to be there. Better get some canned green beans.
PS: About the rat meat, might try Hot Rats on a Stick….don’t forget to brine the little buggers! Then a marinade.
“R and R for Charlie was cold rice with a little rat meat”
Whatever you may think about the massive bailout of the banks during the mortgage crisis, it prevented a collapse. –“Delayed”, delayed the collapse. A more serious, talented crew would have seen the writing on the wall after the munged together bailout of Bear-Sterns and declared a bank holiday and reset the financial system, jailed some bankers, and re-implemented proper controls. Even today, 12 years on, the Fed is still taking in MBS trash in an effort to paper over the faults in the financial system. To your point though, they probably did the best they could with talents/criminal tendencies available… Read more »
On point. Had a neighbor that was an economist at the Fed–asked once about the strategy in acquiring and managing that portfolio plus who they brought on board to do it. And how they would unwind what they bought. He just laughed.
Everything coming out of the Fed and the other CBs indicates they are going to hit Ctrl-P as much as possible to keep asset prices inflated.
Jailing bankers has no effect on the culture of grifting. We did that back during the S&L crisis, thousands of men did real time.
The lesson learned? Lobby to change the law.
As Glen Frey once famously said, the lure of easy money has a very string appeal.
“bailout of Bear-Sterns”
SteArns. Please respect the former Mr Stern’s decision to adopt a more Anglo-sounding name. It is important to respect and support how a person chooses to self-identify. Bear-Stearns is one thing, Bear, Mayer, Stern would be (have been) another.
Personally, I dream of and fight for the day when each person can be openly proud of xir heritage and not have to prostrate xirself to the oppressive white power structure. Power to the Powerless!
The “serious men in the room’s” prevention of the last collapse stacked the wood higher and soaked it in more gasoline. All of a sudden people are blindsided when the wuhan virus lights a match. Can’t solve a debt crisis by piling on more debt. In ’08, the bankers who collapsed the system, lining their pockets while offloading downside risk, they all skated. The paid-whore ratings agencies, the loan underwriting departments, the financiers most steeped in the fraud were rewarded…almost all escaped consequences. No prosecutions…not even bank failures. No consequences means no lessons and no changes. This shit is going… Read more »
Schumpeter’s ‘creative destruction’, oddly, doesn’t apply to those who came up with the concept.
You were wise to cancel your trip to Britain. I heard there’s panic on the streets of London; panic on the streets of Birmingham. I wonder to myself – could life ever be sane again, on these side streets that you slip down?
I wonder to myself.
We were feeling a little panicked the other night. Went outside, flipped a few cars, set them on fire, then felt better and went back to Netflix.
Priuses and Smart cars flip and burn real easy. Just sayin…
Around here plenty of the former to choose from. Every virtue signaler has one of those or a Tesla.
In Utah we go cow-tipping. If we burn them, we eat them!
Underrated band even though not underrated.
This says nothing to me about my life.
Rubbish, there is not panic or any disturbance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMykYSQaG_c
Manchester, so much to answer for
If yer not a Mank, yer a wank
AYFKM? I get not liking Oasis, but you didn’t even like The Happy Mondays or Joy Division or New Order?
Joy Division.
Style Council.
Information Society.
Human League.
New Order.
Definitely had a theme going there.
“panic on the streets of London
panic on the streets of Birmingham”
General Public Limited, innit?
Upvote for 80s alt bands!
(80s and indie rule forever. Bite it, metalheads)
“I won-der to myself….”
The Boogaloo:
What I expected: Dying in battle on the field of honor in an attempt to secure the last of my rights.
What I got: Dying in battle in an aisle at Costco in an attempt to secure the last of the Charmin.
What many of us expected: community-building and grim perseverance through a hostile culture, ultimately leading to a space for Our People
What we may actually get: a Chinese virus ripping through the West which topples neoliberal institutions and rekindles nationalism-populism on a grand scale. Thanks, virus!
Old and broke: $US. New and woke: Toilet Roll. (How did we get here?)
Depending on the infection and death rates we could see some impressive demographic shifts. Older population is heavily white, and if they take a hit the country will suddenly take a step closer to majority minority status. If guys like Steve sailer croak their audience will be on the lookout for a new home somewhere. Ten years from now someone like Patrick Casey could be the big ‘right wing’ thing. Not that I hope Steve sailer goes anywhere, the man is a national treasure but the point stands that any significant change to the boomer population will likely herald further… Read more »
It would also bring it into sharp relief. The slow dying off of the older generation makes the embrownening seem natural. If suddenly the pie graph broke, normie will be shocked awake.
Ideally. It would certainly render the Republican party unelectable until they either went under, or appealed more explicitly to white and working class interests.
Wise old white guys who run, maintain, and fix things being replaced by younger, inexperienced affirmative action hires. A rebirth, a second renaissance, peace and harmony, a world that only true diversity can bring about!
Gonna miss you old fellers a lot when you’re gone. RIP.
“Older population is heavily white, and if they take a hit the country will suddenly take a step closer to majority minority status”
Fair enough, but prevalence of obesity, diabetes (type 2), and hypertension is high in Hispanic and Black populations in the US. This excess burden of risk factors associated with COVID19 severity may even things out to some degree. (If so, it will be trumpeted as a “public health DISPARITY” and claimed to be due to institutional racism.)
Damn white people and their…
COVID-19 response
“majority minority” is imaginary concept that assume white people will have decent life when they have no leverage at all
concept that fabricated by same group that promoting Anti-racist open society, open border, open market etc
America already half brown country where whitish culture wipe out and erased
Right Now, system arresting white men who complained on the internet with BS charged
“Majority Minority”? Ask White South African that do they really feel backed from State
I wonder if this will the the event that finally popularizes bidets in the US.
install a retractable style kitchen faucet in your bathroom. Not as convenient as a bidet but it should work fine. You first.
Shh! Now, attach that retractable hose to the feed line running up to the tank. Hose and copper fittings cheap at Home Depot.
Ahhhh. Nothing better. A wonder of the modern world. And use flushable Cottonelle wipes, fer goshsakes.
You’ll be spoiled. South Asians, who use water, not paper, swear the dry American way is uncomfortable and dirty. Got that right.
Easier: sports bottles, oh yeah
I met a guy that did that for cloth diapers for their new baby. I wonder how long that lasted (the cloth diapers).
Seriously. Anyone who’s been to Japan and used one of their TOTO toilets upon returning to America feels like a barbarian just smashing fecal matter into their arse by comparison.
I thought they were silly until I used one. Simply amazing.
Ha! A lot of people swear by them. I live in Japan and have those on all the house thrones. Never used them. TBO, after a couple of decades of using Toto “ecology” toilets, I miss the American round bowl.
We had limited options when forced to replace our toilets (tiny rooms) and bought Toto. We were prepared for the “double-flush.” Nope. Uses a fraction of the water. You don’t have to yell at the fam to “jiggle the handle” to spare the water bill. Recommended. My only quibble is the tank lid isn’t flat, limiting that as a place to put stuff.
Just get a shower head with a six-foot hose and wash your ass with it.
I enjoy sportspuck and will miss the NHL. Zman is not married so this may not occur to him, but turning on the game is one way to get your wife to leave you alone. I’m happily married but a man needs time alone. Now my wife will want me to watch her shows on TV most of the time. Sigh.
No shit Mike. I bet Hallmark and Lifetime won’t be going away. Hell, they’ll probably see a huge increase in viewers.
I will surely miss hockey.
Way back I remember answering a phone survey about t.v. viewing habits. They kept asking about channels like Lifetime and didn’t believe me when I said I had never heard of it. I truly do not watch any t.v. myself, although I will admit I glanced in at a few scenes of “The New Pope” the other night when hubby was watching. Hubby and I used to watch movies together sent over from the US when we lived abroad – it was a taste of home, particularly since Bulgarian t.v. didn’t appeal. Otherwise, not my idea of ‘together’ time.
The Young Pope was really good. Haven’t seen the new season.
See it, but be prepared for a disappointment.
Worse, you get the see H>V. Just about all remodeling shows. They are mesmerized by them—and take notes. You must watch and then listen to their remodel plans for your (really their) own home. My problem is, the old lady has more money than me. She books no objections. 😉
HGTV, aka “White People Renovating Houses”
I come from a family of extreme introverts. This is our time. 😉
One of the college refugees just arrived back. I suggested a nice family dinner and ordering up “The Shining” on cable. Didn’t go over well.
My brother and his wife just bugged out of their home on the outskirts of one of our East Coast diversitopias to wait out this thing with me back home in the backcountry. He brought all his guns, and more importantly, himself. I don’t have to worry about trusting him and my cousins. There’s still country boys who can handle shit.
Last week I went into indefinite “home quarantine”. Now I just lay on the bed all day in a fetal position and listen to the radio. Wife no longer talks to me. Ah, the life…… 😉
I have my radios batteried up. It would suck if I had a power outage, but I least I have the radio. AM can travel a really long ways at night. I can pick up Tennessee, Boston, NYC, Chicago, the Carolinas, Kentucky and some random other places from Philly.
Bad News: It’s the end of the world.
Good News: Before we all die, we get one more Zman podcast.
Thanks Z. Great podcast. Enjoy listening to you on my sudden ” unpaid vacation ” .
Wonder how much of this hyperbole is being generated by women in positions of authority ? Read once, ” Every old man dies in a foreign country ”
Day after day heading out into to this suffocating wave of the nanny state me thinks , what have we become ?
Good luck to all my fellow dissidents and remain vigilant.
Let’s hope this virus has a seasonal cycle, otherwise the situation might get way worse, western leaders are trash.
Funny that it hasn’t started tearing through Africa. Makes he hope that is doesn’t like heat and humidity as we head into Spring.
That would be in line with other viruses like flu. Stay hopeful.
We’re not getting reliable data from the first world. The likelihood of getting reliable data from Africa is about the same as those infinite number of monkeys typing “Hamlet.”
Its active in at least eleven countries but given African mortality rates assuming the 5% even 10% mortality and high infectiousness, its just a line item. Chin and the West OTOH have very low fertility so in essence our casualties are not replaceable. The only salve to this is that it mostly kills post reproduction aged people at least in the West so while it reduces the population , it doesn’t take out future reproduction. Its also hugely slowing the movements of peoples which is a good thing. Of course truth is there won’t be a baby recovery till the… Read more »
The “leaders” are just the front-facing paid operatives of the Davos crowd: the Banksters, the Military Industrial Complex, and the Global Corporations. That’s why nothing ever changes except the names on the ballot.
“Former coronavirus patient Jerri Jorgensen said Friday that the hysteria surrounding the coronavirus has “gotten out of control,” recalling when she was barred from a gym after undergoing quarantine.” https://www.foxnews.com/media/woman-coronavirus-hysteria-out-of-control OK then. Woman has test and it says she had coronavirus. She had a very mild temperature and “felt a little bit off for about two to three hours.” She is 65. Barred from her Gym even though she is now negative and her immune system now gives her lifetime immunity. She is truly the safest person in her state. I don’t think young people know how the immune system… Read more »
Mark….Jerri lives 50 miles from me in Utah. Got word she and her husband are getting death threats. Irrational crazy people scare me much more than the Wuhan virus.
Wow. That is just sad. Death threats for having a very mild case. Unbelievable.
Z – One piece of advice I have to disagree with you on. If you or a loved one has flu symptoms but is not gravely ill, do NOT go to the hospital. Most hospital labs are just for basic stuff and do not run that kind of sophisticated test (Mayo affiliated hospitals are the exception). The media reports it all wrong when they bitch about “kits” and make it sound like a home pregnancy test. Go to your doctor or clinic, request that they do a respiratory swap and send it to Quest Diagnostics or LabCorp. The turn-around-time is… Read more »
Don’t know about that. My lab in NW Montana does lots of molecular testing. The testing has gotten so that even small, rural hospitals have limited on-site molecular. Mostly flu, RSV, SGA. If what i hear is true, especially now that Roche has gotten into it, I expect to see PCR tests using existing tech hit the hospital labs quite soon. Probably also with expedited validation procedures as well.
An aside, I searched “Joe Biden has dementia” on Google; all I got were jeremiads on the mendaciousness of conservatives and how it’s all a far-right fib.
Duckduckgo, a relatively neutral search engine, had factual assessments of Biden’s behavior.
It’s not our internet anymore.
https://pjmedia.com/trending/forbes-magazine-disappears-an-article-suggesting-biden-take-a-cognitive-assessment/
To buy so much of what they are selling us, you must be either deaf, dumb and blind, or there must be something in it for one to look the other way and pretend. Given that most people aren’t deaf, dumb and blind, the sales job on all this has sure been a good one.
This piece on Taki is well worth a read.
https://www.takimag.com/article/bernie-sanders-player-hater/
The bit about Black anxiousness to loot the Whites while they can before the browns and yellows render their issues moot is worth pondering.
Which other group might be left holding “worthless IOU’s” I wonder?
I’m a girl and I get to change my mind. Yesterday what I wrote sounded like the Charge of the Light Brigade….into the valley of death rode the 600. Was inflating my courage. Can’t outrun reality. Reality is staring me in the eyes, deflating my bravado like my old girl triceps. Am sitting tight and canceling plans to visit friends in Laughlin, stay in a large casino and dine out. Damn and blast! Will visit neighbors unless they go into freak-out mode. The good news is we are all prepped up and won’t run out of TP or most things… Read more »
“I’m a girl and I get to change my mind.”
Hahaha! Luv u!
Back at you squared!
We are in an unprecedented 3rd bubble in a row! Bubbles only happened maybe once in living memory in the past. People got wiped out during bubbles and people remembered and became very risk averse. We had the stock market tech bubble in the late 90s, the housing bubble in the naughts and now we have a stock market and bond bubble. The risks of this giant bubble deflating are enormous. A big part of the stock market rise of the last decade was companies taking on debt in the bond market to buy their own stocks. Now they have… Read more »
Not sure I agree, but am no expert. What I’ve heard for a long time now is that companies have been taking on debt because the interest rates are basically zero. They can use their cash reserves more efficiently in investing. Certainly, big companies like Apple are awash in cash.
I’m no expert either. I’ve just been hearing this stuff in the last week or 2. Let us hope they are wrong.
Corporate debt is at an all time high. Ditto money printing and QE (don’t call it that!) Maybe what’s happening is positive in the long, long, run.
CEO’s started to be graded and paid based on the stock price, to “align them with share-holder interests”. Not being stupid the first thing CEO’s did was borrow money and buy back stock. Given the laws of supply and demand, the less Stock, the higher the price.
See how easy that was?
Beats the shit out of, say, developing new and better products, such as planes that don’t fall out of the sky.
https://www.investors.com/news/top-performing-dow-stock-boeing-unloads-billions-more-on-investors/
It worked fine in 2017, right up to the point where it didn’t. But hey, what’s a few dead dago’s?
I have no more idea how this thing will work out in N. America China and Italy may be good guides, we’ll see. However there are a few things that will happen:
– more panic behaviour, some of it violent in diverse neighbourhoods
– a proliferation of home remedies for the disease and plenty of snake oil salesmen selling them
– politicians will be more concerned with their positions than the public welfare
– plenty of black humour, social media is already full of it
– someone will point out that Nostradamus predicted it
– fake Nostradamus quotes
“And it shall come to pass that the flame of the dragon will engulf the world, with prophets and kings bowing before it. And the cleansing of the bowels will be sought after by the masses.”
During my last few shopping trips I’ve done some extra stocking up on canned goods. During the lower-middle-class phase of my childhood, we often had canned ham (which I thought was delicious). I didn’t know it was sold any other way until I was older. I hadn’t remembered or thought about that in decades. But now I a have a few canned hams on a shelf in the garage along with other canned stuff just in case. They don’t expire until 2024.
I thought spam was gross until I tried fried spam and eggs for breakfast. Love the stuff now but still rarely buy it.
I got Dak Hams like we used to have when is was a kid. It’s actual ham, not pork roll or whatever Spam is.
https://www.cvs.com/shop/dak-premium-ham-water-added-prodid-171595
My old man used to get an appetite for fried spam sandwiches and make them for us a couple times a year–they used to eat it a lot in the old Navy when refrigerated space was limited and they’d been at sea for long stretches. It horrified my mother. I make it with eggs once in while just to turn over the just-in-case supply in the basement larder.
Do you still need a “key” to open the can?
These have a pull-tab. But I remember those.
Spam on every menu in every restaurant in Hawaii. Crazy about the stuff. I even got it at a family Christmas dinner there.
They should go back to cannibalism. Really.
I’d be laughing at this situation if it wasn’t so annoying.
So now it’s a national emergency? I get the feeling there’s more going on than an epidemic. Or I’m telling myself that to contain my disgust.
Believe it people big daddy government is going to give you what you want, and then some.
National emergency is not a comment directly on the disease, but rather needed to assume more control behaviorally and financially. Flood gates open for swag to be given to any and all who come knocking. But that’s just my cynical interpretation. I’m certain the average normie will continue to confuse “looting the treasury” for fighting the disease. As was mentioned in today’s commentary, such power ceded to “leadership” as it exists today may simply be pouring money down a rat hole. However, to keep this posting somewhat upbeat, there may be some benefit as in if you throw enough money… Read more »
Absolutely. It’s the assuming more control I don’t like.
I heard that some entrepreneurs are knocking on doors, pretending to be from the CDC amd offering $99 coronavirus tests.
The regulators and bureaucrats- union Dems all- were holding up necessary measures. For instance, the Seattle doctors had to resort to taking swab samples “illegally” because they didn’t ask bureau permission- they had, and had already been turned down. They decided to try to track the contagion themselves. The Congressionals and bureau heads were holding out for more money. Pelosi demanded millions more for Planned Parenthood- gotta keep that money laundry washing back more taxpayer cash to the Democrat Party. So Trump called together the suppliers, the CEOs, said “get ‘er done”, and declared national emergency powers so he could… Read more »
That line from Rutger Hauer was fantastic. Apparently he took liberties in parsing it down from the planned script. Always loved that movie; it did the novel justice.
There are a few books like that. I think, “The Hunt for Red October,” did a good job honoring the original novel.
There are a few films that are better than the original novel. “The Edge of Tomorrow, ” and, “Layer Cake,” are two examples that I think are far better than the original texts. Mainly because the screenplays are much more tightly written and the choices they made improved on just about everything in the text.
Hauser ad-libbed. The entire crew stood and applauded at cut. The camera men were openly crying, in tears- they had witnessed a perfect scene.
Hauer really was a talent that should have had a larger footprint. He was able to elevate and make schlock like, “Blind Fury,” and, “Surviving the Game,” rewatchable.
Yah think the UK policy might be influenced by the fact that Darwin was English?
More like a result of single payer health care. Those schemes require rationing by definition – so treating current tax-payers, then future tax-payers are the #1 and #2 priorities. Letting pensioners die is a feature.
I think the virus already made that decision for them. And what’s wrong with treating taxpayers first? First you guys bitch about immigrants not paying taxes and using services, now you call prioritizing taxpayers “socialism”.
Rationing health care by prioritizing the “benefit to the state” of keeping some tax payers alive/treated as vs others. That’s socialized medicine at it essence. In the case of emergency, like triage in war, it’s understandable as engagements are not necessarily planned for. But in this situation, prioritizing scarce resources as benefits the State and not the individual seems suboptimal on a personal level, which is why I won’t vote for such a plan.
Hell, if that’s the case, we might as well go full “Logan’s Run” and kill everyone over a certain age. Some retirement plan….
Isn’t the NHS quite openly Darwinian?
They make no secret of the fact that available treatment is based on factors including age, contributing habits, other health conditions etc.
There’s no pretense that “The best available care” will be provided to all.
And that’s the way it should/will be when you establish “free” health care. The way NHS is funded, is like we fund the military. NHS asks for the moon, the government says here all you get for this fiscal year, use it wisely. Something around 500B Pounds last year IIRC.
So what’s an organization to do, spend 100K giving an old fart another 6 months, or spend 100K on neonatal care? Single payer—and it’s free—want more, sorry—but it’s free—if you can get it!
The solution for old Brits with money – hop on a plane to the U.S. and pay for real doctors – may not be available this time around if travel is restricted and the health system is swamped.
It’s a solution for Canadian MDs as well. I’ve had more than one Canuck MD drive to my hospital and pay cash (okay, a cheque) out of pocket to get a heart catheterization now rather than wait months at home. And these are folks WITHIN the Great White Northern miracle health system who know all the key words and symptoms to complain of to get to the head of the line. For the ordinary Joe? Waaal ….
Many Brits have private medical insurance and they avail themselves of private healthcare options in the UK.
Thank God for the escape valve. Note that many/most of the proposals in the US health-care-for-all plans outlawed private insurance. The first such one was the fiasco under Hillary Clinton in the early 90’s.
Now I don’t imagine for a moment that any such plan mandating we all submit to State run health care will affect the elites. They will always go to wherever they need to obtain the best care their money can buy. I’d just like a fair chance to do the same.
NHS is stretched at the best of times, as well as being staffed with many of Britain’s vibrants. I can see that health system collapsing and some real conflict over who gets treated and who doesn’t. But if having their daughters get raped didn’t wake up the English, I guess having Granny die in the street probably won’t matter either,
https://www.linkedin.com/content-guest/article/notes-from-ucsf-expert-panel-march-10-dr-jordan-shlain-m-d-/?fbclid=IwAR3VZfoZbQuW7VqpHXgdb3CHk-1jOMTZgayc8bqiqmsmuCb4yX2-1VVqNE8
Very well done summary.
Yawn. Swine flu did more damage but we never got to such a point— no criticism of President Zero, no alarm over death tolls , but a hell of a jumping off point for Obamacare and now economic contraction.
Hmm. What do you call Little Ben Bernanke, lender of last resort, who whined that he didn’t have the legal authority to bail out Lehman Brothers?
In those first few paragraphs, I figured you must have decided to visit downtown L.A. for some stupid reason…
Hey, the Farmers Market is nice. I bought some medicinal greens last time I was down there, very expensive but very aromatic. Pretty sure the plastic bag wasn’t reusable, though.
150,000,000 Americans could get infected. Drudge headline. Buchanan is echoing the figure. Totally sensationalized. Based on a model. Same type of model that showed Ebola would infect more than 1,000,000. it infected 30,000. Worst case scenario this is history this time next year and the dems are pushing Biden out of office for his glorious VP.
You know, R nought should decrease precipitously as we move into the warmer months. Cv19 is really just a glorified cold virus and will recede during the spring and summer, like ordinary flus and colds. The virus will fall back into nursing homes and hospitals and it should be quarantined during that time.
Maybe, but it is now turning up in warm places. It also means it comes roaring back in the fall. The Spanish Flu struck in waves.
And the second was more vicious than the first. More chances at replication, more chances of an “interesting” variant showing up. On the “gibs” note–they started food distribution via the National Guard this morning–not just the shut-ins up the road–but everyone.
The Spanish Flu is a useful example in a lot of ways. If it a different virus and has different characteristics, but it is a great example of our ignorance. We really don’t know why the virus suddenly stopped killing people. For that matter, we don’t really understand how it killed people.
viruses don’t like to kill their hosts. The annoying side effect of themselves also dying. Mutating to a more benign form is a likely scenario.
In horribly overcrowded living conditions such as were common in WW1, flu viruses mutate toward greater virilence. Killing the host is not a handicap when fresh hosts are inches away.
This is a rather good point and it kind of puts an end to the ultra natalists idea of MOAR BABEES !
No sane person with any options wants to live in a slum. The low fertility rates in the developed world, so long as immigration is very low, are good.
Our economic systems though are controlled by crazy people and money junkies with the morals of metastatic cancer thus immigration and outsourcing.
AB, some might want an Amish world, but the Muslims will get there first.
The Muslims are practically there now and once the oil revenue is gone, they’ll swarm Europe and/or die in droves. And note Europe will not pay for them, they haven’t the resources. The developed world though can have civilization if we are willing to pay for it. Its counter intuitive to think especially for people who grew up during the overcrowding/Soylent Green era but technology actually suppresses fertility. Civilization requires that men have well remunerated work purpose and stable families. Women have to be reigned in a pressured into being wives and mothers first. On top of that social Leftism… Read more »
One could hope, but Cochran doesn’t buy it. Also, then why would there be any such diseases that don’t morf into some sort of parasitic arrangement with the host? Seems the best route is to infect everyone, but kill/debilitate no one.
I’d guess that many of the bacteria that co-habitate with us evolved from infectious to parasitic to symbiotic since the last is the most favorable outcome from an evolutionary standpoint. But you’d have to ask Brett Weinstein that question. Not my field.
Symbiotic is favorable, but it can also be a great starting point for weaponizing the thing and making it more lethal.
Seen discussions that indicated Covid19 has done just that with two distinct “sub-clades” (believe that is the term of art) Some theory that the less virulent form is the one in widest circulation. Certainly not killing the younger portion of the population is a very advantageous trait–if you are a virus. Asymptomatic transmission is another.
Yes, type “S” and type “L”. “L” being most virulent and “S” being most common. A report that at least one patient being infected with both types, and a possible explanation as to why there are reports of repeated infection in an individual. But I’ve seen no report as to whether L preceded S or the opposite, which is the point of interest here. Also of interest is whether one provides immunity to the other—should you survive. 🙁
Never looked too deep into the spanish flu but I’d be interested to know how trench life, returning soldiers, and bad sanitation affected its spread/lethality.
We grew up with antibiotics and forgot how scary ‘pandemic’ sounded to those experiencing the very first round of fast global travel.
1918 was still quite fresh on German minds, those stories are what they were raised with.
That would be interesting. I note here that people travelled by boat. Did they not show symptoms of being sick before they arrived from Europe? Could they have recovered even before docking. Or did the virus jump serially from one soldier to another, so there was always a carrier to bring it ashore.
Many who die from “flu” actually die from secondary infections due to immune collapse. Many of those are bacterial. Sort of like AIDS.
German shepherd can do more damage than a toy poodle but it’s still a dog.
Not a perfect analogy, but the old Metcalfe’s Law of network connectivity is a handy tool to understand social connectivity. Simple formula n(n-1)/2 –where “n” is number of nodes–will generate the number of unique node to node connections in a network and show how utility scales. And distancing can scale it the other way.
Excellent. What science discipline is Metcalfe’s Law from?
And which ‘tards would downvote such a reveal? Tossers.
It’s just a formula that calculates the information exchange value of networks. But I use it in presentations as an easy way to understand exponentials. Hey, you never know whose cornflakes got pissed in this morning and now have a hard on for the rest of world.
The problem is that diseases ‘new case’ numbers don’t follow an exponential at all. They’re logarithmic – as both human and environmental factors slow things down once it gets going.
Yes, but explaining that to someone not familiar is a non-starter. Made the mistake a few times years ago putting log scaling into presentation charts designed for non-quant audiences. The simple formula helps them grasp how quickly you can descale exposure by limiting social contact.
And now for something completely different….
Z…you referenced Germany’s AfD party in a recent podcast. This is how Germany is responding to AfD election win.
“Germany puts far-right AfD’s “Wing” group under surveillance”
Germany will put a far-right faction of the Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, under surveillance on the grounds of being an extremist organization. The faction represents up to 40 percent of AfD members in Germany’s east.–Geopolitical Futures
Oh shoot New Rochelle- that’s Pelham.
Our good Bologna Tester or the Babe are there, aren’t they? Bless you and keep you, friends. Everybody on the East Coast.
Locked and loaded, headed for the zombie wasteland of Elizabeth. Hope I survive one more day. Running low on Charmin.
“Nitwits”? No argument but “entertaining”? Sez who?
Z-man, since you’re staying home, and many of us are doing the same; Could we have a “hunkering down” post? Books, movies, podcasts, etc.,?
On chat with the younglings …who are admittedly soldiers…
They’re not too impressed with the virus: “Boomer Doomer”
“Boomer Remover” …
I’m glad I’m not a Boomer.
They really don’t like you, you know..
I knew it. T’was a Millenial who developed the Cov-Sars-2 strain, eh?
If we Boomer bulls won’t move, you’re gonna make us move. It’s your turn on top o’ the hill.
No hand sanitizer on the East coast.
3%+ Hydrogen Peroxide
or, isopropyl alcohol
A 99c airline bottle or spritzer, or just refill one of those 99c pocket sanitizer spritzers, even better.
PS- if you rinse your hands in peroxide, you can wipe down that face you just touched too.
(A bit of Neosporin around the nostrils also helps)
Brown cotton gloves are 99c.
Wash your hands, then go touch the same door 166 other people have gone thru in the last hour?
Something that I don’t think necessarily came through is that the death rate depends on how the community reacts. Even if it becomes endemic and no vaccine ever appears (meaning everyone will eventually have to be exposed), there can be a big difference in the number that die. The main issue is avoiding overloading the medical system. Buying time means that the incidence rate is reduced and the medical system has time to ramp up to deal with it. This is a long but very illustrative post that shows that one probably can reduce the death rate at least a… Read more »
You can also reduce the death rate by 5, If you have 5 x’s the equipment and capacity in the health care system. We do, even adjusting for population.
I only know what I read, but apparently the US is way down in the hospital beds per capita ratings: https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1235113060198543361. I assume those are “ward” beds and not ICU or CCU. On the other hand we have more interpersonal distance outside of the urban areas. The next few weeks will be interesting, to say the least.
I’m worried about respirators, myself. Those and the drugs/personnel to intensely monitor such therapy. We shall see. But we have a lot more resources to be pulled into any such emergency situation than most others. Just consider our armed forces and the myriad of facilities they have at hand which we are using even now. Most hospitals are designed to get a person, treated and stabilized and then out to other, less expensive facilities. The bed count of the good Dr Ding would seem to indicate we are the most healthy population in the world, when compared to others. What… Read more »
Hey Z, there is a typo in your second-last paragraph — “Sticther” instead of “Stitcher”.
Nature is once again asserting that the fitnest among us should be persisting rather than the latest popular dysfunctional fad imbued in hive-minded parasitic sycophants. Choose wisely.
In “A Connecticut Yankee in King Authors Court”, the first thing the protagonist thinks when he goes back in time, “My god, there’s no soap!”
I suppose he could make some out of fireplace ashes and animal tallow, but when people are living at the edge of starvation, a person who rubs precious fat and oil all over himself every day might as well be killing babies and drinking their blood.
Which is very silly. Soap certainly existed in the Viking Era if not earlier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j30HOdWJ5gE
Victorians were smart people with a good grasp of human nature and common sense but were pig ignorant in some areas and suffered from that oh so human assumption that people in the past were morons.
Even without soap you can clean yourself with ashes and water though its hard on skin
The media are showing their power to shut down the economy.
And their reach. Their connectedness.
They got gay marriage and tranny awareness through, and made global warming a common watchword, eh?
Meme power.
The Chinese didn’t know what they were dealing with.
But… why aren’t the homeless dropping like flies?
Last year, Bloomberg attended a Gates Institute event. It was a world pandemic scenario; the script was a near perfect copy of the response we’re seeing today.
Trump, not there, looks like he knows nothing.
Are we seeing the 1968 Democratic convention, updated?
An American Singh in Jersey just solved the riddle.
Why the attack on China?
The Chinese petrodollar.
China, now risen, was pulling back, and cultivating Third World oil/energy producers who chafed under the Anglo-Arab OPEC yoke.
Russia, continuously weakened, couldn’t.
The East has been building alternatives in settlement, energy, security, trade-
China’s economy gave the Orient a chance to break away. Can’t let that happen, or the West chokes under its own debt.
Bin Salmen, Erdogan, Dr. Lieber, the media, the Fed: this is a multipronged campaign. An attack in concert.
Oops, forgot to add the Wuhan bozo who sold infected animals out the back door to the wet market. He got paid a million bucks. Bet a nickel he’s a patsy of Xi’s political enemies, the faction that wanted Xi to lose face and his office.
Soros brought down the Asian Tigers in 1997 shorting the Thai baht, remember? The Pacific Shield is financial as well as military. Ours.
(The PS is the string of connected China Sea nations that blockade China- Philipines, Thailand, Korea, Japan, etc.)
Nuts, you say.
But Trump wouldn’t go all Iraq or Libya/Syria- and the mil planners remember Korea.
Is anyone watching the press conference?
Listening. What else does a quarantine have to do? 😉
Forgot to add the link!
https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca
Why do you say the UK government is less prepared than the US? I would have said the UK was better prepared, having done more testing, clear daily briefings with the numbers and some consistency of message.
Their system of medicine is called NHS and they love it, however they have limited/restricted ability to handle most normal needs, much less a pandemic. Equipment such as MRI/CAT scan devices are few and far between and are often booked long in advance. Hell, try to schedule a colonoscopy if you don’t have secondary problematic indications. YouTube is full of videos by angry Britons who tell their horror stories of trying to get past their primary doc’s to get a colonoscopy scheduled. Some tried for months, and after the colonoscopy, found out they were in stage 4 cancer. Screw that.… Read more »
“Their system of medicine is called NHS…” That’s not actually correct. The National Health Service is the state health care provider but there is a huge private health care sector in the UK too. Many Brits have private health insurance.
The NHS is funded by means of a specific tax called National Insurance which all Brits have to pay regardless of whether they use the NHS or not. So Brits who have private health care insurance are, in effect, paying twice.
Yes, but NHS is colloquial for the free one. Of course free is a misnomer. One way or another, folks pay. Here we pay for everything spent as well, but often the costs are (purposefully) hidden and if one brings up the deficit, that is paid either through retiring those bonds, or eventually inflation. We pay twice for certain things, like private schooling as well. And btw, Medicare is *not* free (taxes on wages), and I should say also not inclusive. For hospitalization, I pay the mandatory $144 per month. For everything over (Medicare pays 80%, you pay the rest)… Read more »
I can so relate to that story. Brits have a very weird attitude to the USA that I find impossible to explain. On the one hand, there is a degree of unspoken admiration but, on the other hand, a resentment at what they regard as American crassness, arrogance and their purported indifference to the rest of humanity.
When I was a child, one my aunts explained to me that America was “highly mechanised but not quite civilised”. That sort of sums up the British view of the USA. Very odd.