New Evidence the CCP lied about the Wuhan Lab

Senator Tom Cotton reports that the Wuhan lab was sealed off in October.  The writeup at Gateway Pundit includes "Cell phone data suggests the roads around the Wuhan Lab were shut down for a number of days in October.  This was around the time of the expected viral release."  (Interview with Maria Bartiromo at the link.)

This kind of granular data is increasingly probative. It predates the Wuhan wet market misdirection.  The Communist Party of China knew there was trouble and dissimulated from the start, shaping the narrative.

Donald Duck flips to Donald Trump gif

Pictures lie. Social distance manipulated in telephoto and wide-angle shots

Check the clothing.  The people crowded in one picture and widely spaced in the other picture are dressed the same.  They are the same people.  The photographer's choice decided what you got to see.  See rest of the story at Powerlineblog.  In this example, the intent of the cameraman was to educate, not to push a "progressive" agenda.

When Thrift Stores Re-Open They Will Be Swamped

During lockdown, thrift stores closed.  People at home have been finding things they no longer need and nowhere to take them.  They have also had more time to do spring cleaning than usual.  When thrift stores re-open they will be swamped with donations.  This is an opportunity for shoppers and a burden to the volunteers that run the stores.

1619 Fabulaton at NYT. Is that Pulitzer Prize or Pullet Surprise?

Pulitzer Prize or Pullet Surprise.
Humor found at Ace of Spades commenting on NYT's effort to skew the narrative.

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"Fauci Follies". Field Hospital Data at Gateway Pundit

Gateway's headline says it plainly:

Fauci’s Follies: US Coronavirus Field Hospitals Shut Down – Most Without Treating a Single Patient — Because Garbage Models Used by US ‘Experts’

An estimated $660 million was spent on field hospitals across the US and 

outside of New York City only 82 patients used them.   Institutions captured budget money and increased in power.

"Don't Bet The Farm On One Model". Bat Flu fails have a message for "Sky Is Falling" climate people"

As Richard Fernandez says, don't bet the farm on one model.

It will be interesting to see whether the demonstrated fallibility of Corona pandemic models will modify the unconditional belief some feel for Climate Change models that deal with even far more complex phenomena over far longer periods. Both recommend incredibly expensive economic solutions to disasters predicted by their respective models. But as we have seen, models while of some use, can be wrong or very inaccurate. It's not always wise to bet the farm on them. Experience suggests that one should always leave room to change course or go into reverse in case the model doesn't pan out.

Without fire, snow pack declined

When fires are suppressed, people pretend to be forest fires.
Their forest management changes snow pack.  Who knew?

Picture is from a Japanese study and gives
an idea what "thinning" might be like.

Absent fires, tree density climbs in managed forests. (I believe this is not true of a climax forest but we don't have them)    With tighter canopy,less snow reaches the ground and the sheltered ground by the trees is slightly warmer.  University of Nevada researchers tried thinning strategies on the shores of Lake Tahoe and learned that removing mid-size leafy trees had the most impact.  (The linked article doesn't give numbers for the reader to judge).

Five Lessons From History Fit The VIrus Crisis Like A Glove

Here are the best parts of Housel's insight, found at "Frontline Thoughts" by Mauldin.

Lesson #1: People suffering from sudden, unexpected hardship are likely to adopt views they previously thought unthinkable.
Lesson #2: Reversion to the mean occurs because people persuasive enough to make something grow don’t have the kind of personalities that allow them to stop before pushing too far.
Lesson #3: Unsustainable things can last longer than you anticipate.
Lesson #4: Progress happens too slowly for people to notice; setbacks happen too fast for people to ignore.
Lesson #5: Wounds heal, scars last.

It's a good read.  Continue here.
There is a link to Mauldin's free newsletter.

Critical comment:  Lesson #2 is phrased poorly in my view.   The people and policies needed to sustain something are different from the ones needed to grow something.

Good joke on the lockdown beach cop patrol

Alphabet Sex Is Surplus Sex. LGBPTTQQIIAA+

Alphabet sex is surplus sex and so are weird personal pronouns.  They point to sex being surplus, not needed to survive today and influence tomorrow.  The employment of twats and thingies is optional. 

A motor that's revved out of gear can wind up to crazy rpm.  And the sexually viable who don't engage their drive to have babies wind up somewhere weirdly new.  This is normal.   Instead of seeing righteous revolution or vilest sin, take note that evolution is at work and the niches that prosperity have opened up are being populated by experiments.  Some will fail.  Some will propagate. Or the niches disappear along with prosperity, as would happen if the time of coronavirus prolongs.





Lewis Carroll has a prescient comment on pronouns:

He would answer to "Hi!" or to any loud cry,

Such as "Fry me!" or "Fritter my wig!"

To "What-you-may-call-um!" or "What-was-his-name!"

But especially "Thing-um-a-jig!"

While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,

He had different names from these:

His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends,"

And his enemies "Toasted-cheese."

Fear of Corona is on the decline. (Laugh warning)

From Snopes a picture of real dead murder hornets.

They say real socialism has never been tried. LOL

"Think of socialism like a fancy baked good"

"The Science Is Settled" is Unscientific. Think global lockdown and climate change.

My hero, physicist Richard Feynman, said:  "All questions must be doubted and discussed".
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts".

"It is imperative in science to doubt; it is absolutely necessary, for progress in science, to have uncertainty as a fundamental part of your inner nature. To make progress in understanding, we must remain modest and allow that we do not know. Nothing is certain or proved beyond all doubt."

"The communist views are the antithesis of the scientific, in the sense that in communism the answers are given to all the questions — political questions as well as moral ones — without discussion and without doubt. The scientific viewpoint is the exact opposite of this; that is, all questions must be doubted and discussed; we must argue everything out."

And this:
"Our freedom to doubt was born out of a struggle with authority".

Climate change and Bat Flu Lockdowns are populated with experts who turn nasty when questioned.

RINCE BOUCHE ADDED: Isaac Asimov quote, “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny...’”

Lockdown fix: Protect Nursing Homes. Free The Economy

Horowitz at Conservative Review documents that the horrifying preponderance of Coronavirus deaths are in nursing homes.  Everywhere else is now in a normal range. This is a no-brainer.  Customize the response.  Free people to do their work and pursue their happiness.  Make the major focus support for nursing home care with people and money.

"As I reported yesterday, not only do deaths in nursing homes now compose more than 50% (and in some states as high as 80%) of total deaths from the beginning of the entire epidemic, that percentage is sharply increasing in every state day by day. This means that nearly all the new deaths, depending on the state, are occurring in nursing homes. Every state has a recorded death count that you can track by date, but the recording of the subcategory of nursing home deaths is pretty new in most states."

This information wasn't being published separately nor was it collected in a timely manner.  Horowitz goes on to document new numbers from fifteen states.

CDC Seems To Be Tweaking The Lockdown To Help Democrats Win The 2020 Election

Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. Quoting from American Greatness "Is the CDC Meddling with the 2020 election"  And WTF is this about the CDC pushing mail-in voting for the Democrats' agenda?

"The Coronavirus crisis is reaping big political benefits for Democrats. President Trump’s signature achievement—a booming economy with record low unemployment, rising middle-class wages, and a sky-high stock market—lies in tatters. President Trump has been denied access to his only stimulant—energetic political rallies where he connects directly with supporters across the country.  Instead, the president has been stuck in Washington, D.C., listening to the advice of “experts” who used fraudulent models to convince him in late March to “shut down” the country.  Trump’s rival, Joe Biden, has been safely shuttered away in his home studio where he struggles to read teleprompter scripts or offer articulate responses to softball questions from late-night hosts. The Democratic National Convention has been canceled so the American electorate won’t be able to assess Biden’s frailty and incoherence on a national stage a few months before Election Day.
The Centers for Disease Control is looking more and more like the 2020 version of James Comey’s FBI. The agency that foisted the disastrous experiment of “social distancing” on 330 million unwitting American lab rats continues to inveigh on matters far beyond its purview or expertise.   The CDC has prepared yet another outlandish plan to prolong the nation’s misery. ...
As one would expect, the guidance is a labyrinth of costly, unconstitutional, and draconian recommendations that would result in a permanent paranoid police state for the foreseeable future...
This latest guidance, however, isn’t the only politically-motivated stunt coming from the CDC. The agency has published a series of voting recommendations that fulfill long-sought goals of the Democratic Party. This includes mail-in ballots and early voting."

95% of CDC staff donations in 2016 were to the Democrats.  You have probably seen Dr. Fauci's fawning letter to Hillary Clinton:  "Please tell Hillary I love her more than ever"  This is way out of line for a guy given the chance to control all the democrats and republicans in America.

The Lockdown Has Been Effective to Capture Budget Increases and Inflate Power

See Parkinson's law and this from "Wretchard the Cat":

It seems that many coronavirus deaths were caused because political taboos, bureaucratic fiefdoms and virtue-signaling mandates stood in the way of common sense action. The system was paralyzed by its own rhetoric. To a great extent the bureaucratic empires performed as designed. They used the crises to capture budget increases and inflate their power while carefully avoiding anything politically incorrect. A winning strategy in normal times, a disaster in the present. Even though the press coverage is designed to make one side look stupid it has had the unintended effect of making everyone look imbecilic, including the press itself. Nothing about the people on TV inspires confidence. Nothing.

Parkinson's analysis fits here:
Work expands to fill the time available for its completion
and two later corollaries:
An official wants to multiply work for subordinates, not rivals.
Officials make work for each other.

New York City: Heads Should Roll for Coronavirus Hell

New York City is in a Coronavirus hell of its own, world class. Some heads should roll.
There are caveats but see the two lists.  If New York City is counted as a country, it is the most infected country on earth and it is the country that has the most deaths per million.
And NYC was the chief engine that sent the virus around the US.  Summarized from PJ Media Article   Some caveats noted below.

Infections:  The amount of testing isn't normalized between the 10 sources.  More tests will tend to have more "cases".  Some argue persuasively that essentially everyone will pick up the infection over time, thereby making antibodies.  In that case, a high rate of infection just means that infections were brought forward in time.

Deaths:  Policy placed sick people into homes full of vulnerable seniors.  Other reasons, click here.
A high rate of deaths cannot be defended.

Update:

Don't trust the Imperial virus model. Don't trust the people who do.

"There would have been no harm if politicians had understood that models were educated guesses.
But a technically naive political and media class approached it with superstitious awe and
beguiled by the trappings
fell prostrate at it's feet"   Richard Fernandez  a.k.a.  wrechardthecat .

Such will keep happening.
The naive political and media class are beguiled by what advances their agenda.
That agenda is for our people tell other people what to do, for their own good. Profit thereby.

He continues:

"Undocumented equations, no bounds checking, side effects of ad hoc code unknown among other possible problems. They didn't fully understand what their own model was modeling. If true this is a far more serious problem than Ferguson having an affair, tantamount to relying on a ouija board to guide important decisions. It sounds like they had a poorly understood problem with state, reentrants and maybe race conditions. Basically the accusation is that Imperial's model is legacy code based on assumptions nobody understands and gives different results for the same inputs."

UK Voters Smarter Than Government. Millions were cutting virus spread BEFORE lockdown.

Your government likes to get out in front of a parade, to preen with power and trumpet virtue. Data from Great Britain show voters were smarter than the government.  Without fines or force, they had cut 80% of their travel on shared public transport and 25% of their private car travel.  This makes sense, more sense than blanket rules.  Telling everyone to stay home does not.  The free market of ideas works.

This is not aberrant, not a data meteor from outer space.  Did you know that literacy was rising rapidly BEFORE it became government policy.  I used to think we owed it to our government.

From: "The Cultural Origins of Popular Literacy in England"

"In the absence of externally provided schools, indigenously supported settings were responsible for the creation and transmission of popular literacy.  Thus, over several centuries, the literate popular culture of England largely made itself."  

And this detail from the same passage: