Filed under: Capitalism, China, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Free Markets, Freedom, Health Care, Heartwarming, Immigration, Politics, The United States | Tags: Americans Stepping Up, Coronavirus, science, Technology
Thursday March 26th: King County, Washington State, which includes Seattle, and an assortment of suburban communities. The population is 2.23 million. It is of particular interest because we got the first round of coronavirus or COVID-19. 31,712 people were tested, 92% negative, 2,530 or 7% were positive.
Washington state is the 13th largest state with a population of 7,797,095 (last Census). The total number of cases is 2,580 with 122 deaths. Here is the Public Health Report for Seattle and King County for March 26, Thursday.  Lots of interesting data there, and a map that shows how it is spread. The blue in the middle of the orange map is Lake Washington, the surrounding light blue is Puget Sound. While we started it out in the country with the Kirkland nursing home, and way too many deaths, New York, bigger and denser is rapidly catching up.
The United States currently has the most cases of any country in the world. New York is rapidly surpassing Seattle in active cases, which is understandable as the city is so dense. There is so much that we just don’t know yet. Can you get the disease more than once, or do you develop an immunity? Are young people immune? Apparently not, but that information comes from only a very few cases. We will learn all these things in time, but we want it now.
What is even more interesting and positive is the way Americans are stepping up to contribute. Dyson, a company that makes vacuum cleaners and that sort of stuff, has designed new ventilators and will produce 15,000. Apple is turning out 10 million masks. Bodman Industries does 3D computer printing. Their 60 printers will be printing 3,000 masks a day, and they are working with their suppliers to get others involved.
China announced this month of nearly a week of no new infections in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic originated, but nobody knows whether it can be believed or not. Chinese scientists have been transparent about what they have discovered so far, shared information on the genetics and sequences of the virus and details of autopsies, clinical care and outcomes and even shared fatality rates among different age groups. On the other hand, Chinese propaganda insists that the virus originated with the American military, which is absurd, but is filled with the Communist Party’s long history of propaganda and the necessity to bury the cover-up in a happy story of triumph over the virus. Communist governments do not like news that reflects badly on the Communist government. They included a photo of empty beds in a Wuhan hospital. A Taiwan network reported that one hospital as under pressure from the central government not to admit patients so it could report no new cases. So there you go.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, China, Coronavirus, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, Health Care, Immigration, National Security, Politics, Regulation, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: Coronavirus, Much We Don't Know, science, When Will it End?
The Democrats had a big idea. Big coronavirus crisis, Nation in a state of crisis, good time to get some of our ideas that we haven’t been able to get done passed. Republicans can’t turn us down because they need the coronavirus money. So they just stuffed all their ideas right into a modest 1,400 page bill. Headlines were not complimentary: “Politicians Standing in the Way of Emergency Relief”,”Cynical Power Play on Coronavirus Bill Shows Dems’ Far-Left Stripes,” “Tom Cotton Slams Democrats”, “Nancy Pelosi Coronavirus Bill Creates MultiBillion Slush Fund for Elite Liberal Causes.” “Pelosi Coronavirus Bill Creates Multibillion Slush Fund for Elite Liberal Causes,” Pelosi’s Bill Contains Return of Obama Phones”, “Pelosi’s Bill Imposes Nationwide Ballot Harvesting,”
The list goes on and on, Diversity forced on Corporate Boards, or just read Tom Cotton’ s MUST READÂ thread on what she has included in the bill. Wasn’t such a good idea, the outrage was prompt in arriving. Now and then the Democrats reveal just how far left they are, and the American people aren’t. The American people are justifiably frightened by this virus, we don’t know how deadly it will be. The reports from other countries like Iran and Italy are devastating, We don’t know how many Chinese have died from the Wuhan virus, nor do we know if what the Chinese claim can be trusted. Communist governments are not usually forthcoming with anything that reflects badly on them.
Even President Trump’s advisors don’t know how long the virus will last, how many people it is likely to infect, whether it will die off as warm weather comes on, it’s all guesswork. We have had corona viruses before, but each has its own schedule and invasive qualities. Many states have been only very lightly affected. People compare it to the national deaths from the flu, from traffic accidents, but that doesn’t mean much of anything. I’ll bet when the pharmacies start telling us next year to get our flu shots, more of us will pay attention.
President Trump said in his press conference today that he hopes they can relax the control of groups and meetings by Easter so people can go to church on Easter Sunday, but we don’t know. The media, of course, wanted to excoriate him for even suggesting that it would be over by Easter, but if he hadn’t they would be excoriating him for not, or for something else. The Democrat Media has exhibited an irresponsibility that is rather startling in its extent. They don’t like President Trump, and make that clear at every opportunity. No wonder he calls them Fake News.
Since we in the Seattle Area were the first ones hit in this country, perhaps our results will be the first to show when and if it is tapering off. We’ll see. In the meantime, try being a good neighbor. Help out if you can. Give blood. Try not to “stock up” to such a extent that you are leaving your neighbors without. And take care of yourselves.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, China, Communism, Democrat Corruption, Economy, Freedom, Health Care, Iran, Media Bias, National Security, Politics, The United States | Tags: COVID-19, Health, Journalism, science
Looking at the news, listening to the radio. We are sequestered at home, avoiding going out in King County, Washington, ground zero for COVID-19. Confirmed cases have increased to 793 — 131 new cases today. That suggests that more testing of those who have flu symptoms is catching more people in the early stages. This is a good thing. If you have no symptoms, you probably won’t get tested yet. You have been told over and over what precautions you should take. Do it.
There are people broadcasting who are anxiously demanding that “We need answers.” Well, there aren’t any. At this late date, pharmacists are still warning people to get their flu shots. Do you know how many people died from the flu this year? I don’t either, but it is apparently a significant number. We haven’t ever experienced anything like the current virus. It is related to previous corona viruses, which is why this is called COVID-19. There were, I assume, a previous 18. There are shortages of masks, gloves, ventilators, and whatever supplies the hospital staffs require. Companies are gearing up to produce larger quantities. Some auto companies are reported to be gearing up to produce ventilators. Americans and American industry try to respond to the nation’s needs.
There is apparently plenty of toilet paper, and the stores are getting stocked up again, but there are complications. Truckers are finding closed rest stops, closed restaurants. Someone here had their car broken into to steal the toilet paper left in the back seat. Toilet paper companies are hard at work producing more.
President Trump has been aware that bad regulations can cause bigger problems, and is trying to lift those regulations that are not helpful in the current environment. Governors are not experts in contagious viruses and what is needed. A lot of businesses are being put out of business—dine in restaurants are hard hit. Those suddenly unemployed will find other industries hiring. Amazon is hiring large numbers, and there is a clear need for more delivery services for those sequestered at home, but needing food and medicine.
So if you are confined to your home, what do you do? Read those unread books on the shelf, learn a new language online. Do all those little jobs around the house that you have been putting off. Do some research online and learn a new skill. It’s amazing what you can learn online if you try. Start writing that family history, or start researching it. Where did you come from and when, and what do you know about your family?
CNN staffers have admitted that their obsessive Anti-Trump coverage will not stop until Trump dies. Do read that link! Revealing! Just what we thought.
Hot Air reports that Red and Blue America aren’t experiencing the same pandemic. Democrats are expressing more concerns. States with Republican governors have been slower or less likely to impose restrictions on their residents. So far, the greater clusters of the disease, and the most aggressive responses to it have been centered in a few large, Democrat-leaning metropolitan areas, including Seattle, New York, San Francisco and Boston.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper stated flatly that if China was more transparent, we could have contained the corona virus in China. It is common to communist countries that they are always frightened of overthrow, or allowing their subjects to doubt. Had they notified the world that they had a problem when they discovered they had a problem, they could have gotten help and the virus might have been contained in China. Instead, Italy, Iran, Spain and other countries are fighting off the disease. Iran A lot of death could have been avoided.
Seattle is showing some signs of slowing down, but it is too early to be sure. Other Good News: The tax deadline has been extended to July 15.
Filed under: Canada, China, Domestic Policy, Economy, Foreign Polidy, Health Care, Immigration, Italy, Law, National Security, Politics, Science/Technology, South Korea, The United States | Tags: COVID-19, Medicine, Progress, science, TTechnology
Today, Wednesday 18th, Presidential Press Conference. Long, but very informative. Worth your time. Here’s what they are doing, why, and how, and what they expect to result from their actions. Democrat talking point that calling it the “Chinese virus” is somehow “racist” appears. Embarrassing. Everybody in the entire world knows it originated in Wuhan, China. It is customary to call viruses by the name of the locale where it first appeared to specify exactly which virus it is. You may have heard of the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. That’s not racist either.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, China, Europe, Health Care, Immigration, Italy, National Security, Politics, Regulation, The United States, United Kingdom | Tags: CDC, COVID-19, Health, Politics, science, Technology
The virus has been named “SARS-CoV-2” and the disease it causes has been named “CoronaVirus Disease 2019” (abbreviated “COVID-19”).
“On January 30, 2020, the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concern” (PHEIC). On January 31, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex M. Azar II declared a Public Health Emergency (PHE) for the United States to aid the nation’s healthcare community in responding to COVID-19. This declaration freed up funding and regulations to aid in efforts until Congress had a chance to act. President Trump also halted all travel from China, other affected areas, and put Americans returning from China into quarantine. On March 11, WHO publicly characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic. On March 13, the President of the United States declared the COVID-19 outbreak. a National Emergency
That’s the official language and dates from the CDC. Washington State and New York State each have 501 to 1,000 cases. King County has reported today, March 16, that they have 420 confirmed cases and one more death. Snohomish County, reports 176 confirmed cases and 4 deaths, Pierce County 29 confirmed cases and Island County had 6. Which indicates that a lot more testing has been done. Scientists here in King County have produced a vaccine, which has just begun human testing.
I am currently re-reading John McPhee’s Table of Contents. In an essay about scientists at Princeton, he quotes Freeman Dyson as saying: “The first rule of technology is that no one can tell in advance whether a piece of technology is any good. It will hang on things that are unforeseeable. In groping around, one wants to try out things that are quick and cheap and find out what doesn’t work.” which applies to our current situation rather nicely.
ADDENDUM: Late day, checking in with King County virus updates: Confirmed cases have reached 488. This demonstrates that testing is increasing, and identifying those who have been infected. This is a good thing. As testing increases, you should expect numbers to rise–not because infections are increasing necessarily, but because existing infections are being identified. Sadly, 43 deaths in total, most from the nursing home in Kirkland.
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Health Care, Immigration, Politics, Regulation, Science/Technology, The United States | Tags: COVID-19 Seattle WA, Infection Spread, science
•Update for March 11, Wednesday:
•Confirmed cases 234, 26 deaths. Social gatherings ban on large gatherings of over 250 people. The additional deaths are all among previously reported cases of people in Life Care Center or Redmond Care and Rehab, hospitalized at Evergreen Hospital.
King County in Washington State remains the hot spot in the country, though California and New York are catching up with the Corona virus. Confirmed cases in King County: 190 –that’s people who have been tested and have the disease. In the state there are 267 cases, and 22 deaths. The largest number attributed to the nursing home in Kirkland.
California has 135 cases, New York — 142. President Trump is doing an excellent job, Democrat Governors have praised the prompt response to requests, needed testing supplies and information readily available. Physicians have noted that he is doing exactly the right things — closing the border, parking cruise ships offshore until passengers can be tested, quarantining those who are arriving from areas where the virus is rampant. The Democrat media is trying desperately to make the whole thing somehow Trump’s fault, but it just won’t work. Vice President Pence is doing an excellent job as are the federal agencies and manufacturers who are ramping up production of test kits and supplies. There are 36 jurisdictions (including the District of Columbia) which are reporting cases. The CDC website has a dandy map that shows the prevalence of the COVID-19, but suggest that data reported by the states will be the most up to date.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus is a betacoronavirus, like MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV. Â All three of these viruses have their origins in bats. The sequences from U.S. patients are similar to the one that China initially posted, suggesting a likely single, recent emergence of this virus from an animal reservoir.
Early on, many of the patients at the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China had some link to a large seafood and live animal market, suggesting animal-to-person spread. Later, a growing number of patients reportedly did not have exposure to animal markets, indicating person-to-person spread. Person-to-person spread was subsequently reported outside Hubei and in countries outside China, including in the United States. Some international destinations now have apparent community spread with the virus that causes COVID-19, as do some parts of the United States. Community spread means some people have been infected and it is not known how or where they became exposed. Learn what is known about the spread of this newly emerged coronaviruses. They’re not formally calling this a “pandemic” as yet, but may, depending on how it goes.
Filed under: Junk Science, Politics, Science/Technology | Tags: debate, Evidence, Free Expression, science
Victor Davis Hanson, writing in the Corner at National Review Online Monday said:
Once upon a time, scientists, unlike prophets, were inductive. They sought to interpret evidence in empirical fashion, rather than twist it to “prove” preexisting suppositions. The Enlightenment taught them to welcome transparency and free expression, not (as in the Medieval Age) to form cabals to hound out heretics. Public intellectuals and grassroots activists were devoted to promoting proven ideas, rather than making fortunes through the shrill advocacy of unproven ideas. In the age of cynicism, penances were sold to sinners to allow them without guilt to satisfy appetites that conflicted with their doctrine; by contrast, the lives of moralists reflected the simple creed they advocated for others. Governments acted on scientific consensus, not theories that were the most favored or trafficked in popular culture. Debates, not propaganda cinema or cheap invective, adjudicated honest disagreement; people of the lab and library, not Hollywood celebrities and rock stars and their wannabes on campus, informed the public about scientific dispute.
How strange: This was to be our new age of science; instead, we are getting alchemy, the inquisition, and the reign of the superstitious.
Filed under: Environment, Global Warming, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear | Tags: Antarctic Ice Cores, Centuries of Records, science
Omniclimate reports today on some important conclusions revealed at the Epica 2008 “Quaternary Climate scientific conference in Venice Italy, Nov. 10-13. The data came from a two-mile deep ice core taken at Concordia Base in Antarctica. This is the deepest ice core ever extracted.
Epica 2008 organizer Professor Carlo Barbante of University of Venice and Italian National Research Council’s Environmental Process Dynamics Institute said that the ice core was taken from “an area where snow accumulates…25 millimeters per year.”
According to the data, Earth has gone through 8 ice ages and 8 warm ages during the past 800,000 years.
- “We are now in one of the warm phases. It started 10,000 years ago and, comparing it to what there’s been [in the past] it can be seen that it’s anomalous, because it has been lasting a long time and temperatures have been very stable.”
Between 120,000 and 100,000 years ago, temperatures have been up to 5C warmer than today’s, at the upper end that is, of the IPCC’s more catastrophic scenarios (or predictions). And just 20,000 years ago, the Earth was up to 10C colder.
- “The cyclical nature [of temperatures] provides us with the right perspective concerning the climatic changes observed at the moment; if we don’t make the effort towards reaching a better understanding of the natural mechanisms [of climate change], it will be useless to keep trying to patch up predictions on what will happen in a century or two.”
There is more, including a graph (in Italian) for those who want their data in that form. What this all tells us is that the climate alarmists who pay homage only to their computer models have been leading us astray for years. And of course the media has shown no interest whatsoever.
And even more, if as we have been saying, warming and cooling of the Earth are a natural process that has been going on for hundreds of thousands of years, why are we trying to rearrange our whole economy and spend billions to prevent that natural warming? Do you suppose someone profits?
Filed under: Environment, News of the Weird, Science/Technology | Tags: Geology, Natural Mysteries, Nature, science
This is a fascinating puzzle, and completely new to me — the moving rocks of Racetrack Playa in the Panamint Mountains in Death Valley National Park, California. The moving rocks, also called sailing stones or sliding rocks, slide across the surface of the playa leaving long tracks behind them. A playa is a seasonally dry lake bed. No one has ever seen the stones move, but the trails indicate that they do. Nor are these all little rocks, many are as big as a man, and some are as large as 750 lbs. For more pictures and possible explanation, follow the link above.
Filed under: Environment, News, Science/Technology | Tags: Al Gore, Environment Green Politics, Environmentalism, Global Hour, Liberal lies, Naive Urban People, NASA, science
Last night at the appointed hour (8:00 pm local time, “Global Hour” — see “The NUPs Strike Again!” below) I turned on all the lights and looked out the window. I was appalled. The neighbors just below had their porch lights on, but across the valley it was a sea of darkness. Surely I couldn’t be living in such a sea of greenies. Then I realized that I wasn’t. It was snowing, and I couldn’t see across the valley.
The NUPs (naive urban people) had thought to make some important environmental point by turning off the world’s lights for one hour. I am unsure of what the point was. World Jump Day‘s purpose was a little clearer –if everyone in the world jumped at the same time, it would alter the orbit of the earth slightly and improve something or other. I’m not much on candlelight vigils or marches with big puppets either. I suspect that the time involved could be better spent reading up on the problem that is of such concern.
The problem is that if the concern is “global warming” or “global cooling” or even the revised formulation “climate change”, the implication is that there is some right temperature from which variation is a worrisome thing. Which is clearly nonsense. I’m personally in favor of something ranging from 70° to 78°, but I have skiers in the family.
It is worth noting that true believers, such as Al Gore, will not tolerate disagreement. In a preview clip from his coming appearance on 60Minutes this week, he refers to climate skeptics as “few” and “flat-earth people”. And this is typical. Just mention NASA’s Aqua satellite and note the blank stares or rude language that ensues. Bjorn Lomborg, author of the splendid The Skeptical Environmentalist, has been the recipient of attacks almost as violent as those visited upon the publication of the Danish cartoons. Lomborg, a professor of statistics, merely took official government statistics and explained clearly what they indicated.
It is very worth following up on the previous link, and reading the whole thing. This paragraph is especially worth remembering:
Well-meaning intellectual movements, from communism to post-structuralism, have a poor history of absorbing inconvenient fact or challenges to fundamental precepts. We should not ignore or suppress good indicators on the environment, though they have become extremely rare now. It is tempting to the layman to embrace with enthusiasm the latest bleak scenario because it fits the darkness of our soul, the prevailing cultural pessimism. The imagination, as Wallace Stevens once said, is always at the end of an era. But we should be asking, or expecting others to ask, for the provenance of the data, the assumptions fed into the computer model, the response of the peer review community, and so on. Pessimism is intellectually delicious, even thrilling, but the matter before us is too serious for mere self-pleasuring.
Filed under: Blogging, Pop Culture, Science/Technology | Tags: Cool Site of the Day, Fun, Legos, Retro, science, Toys
They’re not your father’s Lego’s. (Be sure to scroll down and watch the video at the bottom)
Filed under: Domestic Policy, Economy, Environment, Foreign Policy, News, Politics, Pop Culture, Science/Technology | Tags: Al Gore, Big Oil, Biofuel, Energy Bill, Environment, Ethanol, Famine, Global Warming, Junk Science, Politics, science
Al Gore has a lot to answer for. He didn’t really understand the science that he rushed to popularize with fear-mongering about rising sea levels and a dying earth. Bureaucrats, with little understanding of the science, rushed to legislate to prevent “global catastrophe”.
When the buzz among the cognoscenti reaches a certain level, the pressure to do something becomes difficult to resist. And buzz often comes in forms of preconceived notions and oft-repeated slogans such as “big oil” or “addiction to oil”,”renewable energy”and above all “biofuels“.
A liberal Congress quickly fell victim to the common liberal delusion, as David Horowitz once said, that good intentions, earnestly expressed, are good policy. “Big oil” is obviously evil (gas prices are too high and they are making too much money). Forgotten in the haste to do something is the realization that nothing moves in this country that is not powered by petroleum. So of course they provided vast subsidies for ethanol, made for the most part in this country from corn.
But there are consequences. The U.N. World Food Program is preparing to ration food aid for the world’s hungriest poor. The richest countries are burning food in their automobile gas tanks. The mandates for biofuels by the wealthiest countries have doubled and tripled world food prices in less than three years. WFP costs are rising by millions of dollars each week, but donations aren’t keeping pace. The Program is trying to feed 70 million people, but can’t afford to meet their commitments.
Three years ago, the price of corn was $1.86 a bushel, now it is over $5.00. You have probably noticed rising prices in your grocery. Corn is not only in most cereals, but as cornstarch, as a sweetener, a thickener is found on most shelves. At the meat counter corn is in most animal feed. In paste form, it is in the drywall.
Pakistan says it will reimpose food rationing. China’s food inflation rate is 18.2%. In Yemen prices of staples have nearly doubled and at least a dozen people have been killed in food riots. The poor in much of the Third World spend over 60% of their income on food. It is expected that American farmers will plant 30% more corn this year than last, directed to the higher prices they receive for subsidized biofuel.
But ethanol delivers less energy per gallon than gasoline. Studies suggest that it pollutes more, and can only be used in engines specially designed for ethanol. Demand for better food is growing as millions of Indians and Chinese enter the middle class.
The EU is committed to provide 10% of its transportation fuel from biofuels, grown both in Europe and in Indonesia and Thailand; and they are unwilling to consider that burning food crops in our gas tanks has anything to do with high food prices.
The most extreme environmentalists hope to eliminate — from a good portion of the human life on this planet — to all of it. They have told us so often enough. So there is a little more to their refusal to allow drilling in proven oil fields in Alaska and in coastal waters than many people realize.
American Elephants 