Virus update
The world is transfixed by "a nucleic acid molecule in a protein coat" (I looked it up), which somehow sounds almost friendly. Of course, this one leaves a trail of corpses and maimed survivors and has consistently kicked our asses. Nevertheless, there is hope.
AstraZeneca, partnered with Oxford University, expects to know by July if it has an effective vaccine, while Pfizer is starting human tests next week. There's nothing like the impending collapse of the global economy to build a fire under Science. Imagine how many lives could have been saved if HIV had inspired this kind of urgency.
China is the big unfriendly giant that nobody trusts, nor should they. It's a secretive dictatorship that no longer practices Marxism but keeps the populace on a tight leash and doesn't know the meaning of transparency. Its treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority may be the worst outrage since the gulag, and it's a little disturbing that we don't even hear about Tibet anymore. Pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong were on the verge of going full Tienanmen Square when the pandemic shut everything down -- I'll be surprised if that isn't part of some elaborate conspiracy theory.
Secretiveness breeds conspiracy theories -- ask the Freemasons -- so China only has itself to blame. Information about the virus was slow to come out of Wuhan and may be seriously untrustworthy even now. But American intelligence agencies are about to come in for rage-tweeting because they have been unable to find evidence that coronavirus is a laboratory product designed to prevent Trump's re-election (and incidentally kill a lot of people). That would get Trump and his spectacularly incompetent response off the hook, apparently; among other badly thought out responses, he'd like to cancel all debt to China, presumably including his own. It's good to be the king, but it's a terrible idea to annoy the country that makes practically everything we wear, sit on, drive, and use to type our blogs.
Still stung by the stories about his indolence, Trump has been getting up early (before noon) and calling governors in for "meetings." He has also invoked the National Emergencies Act to order meat processing plants to stay open without mandating changes that might safeguard the workers or the meat. What's important is protecting the owners from lawsuits when people get sick and die, as many already have. Also a steady supply of hamberders.
(I'm no scientist, I don't even play one on TV, but is there any proof that cooking kills this damn virus? If it originated in bats, presumably they were not consumed raw. We know it crosses species barriers, we know it thrives inside the human body with an average temperature of 98F. I'm not enthusiastic about eating chicken that's been coughed on by someone with inadequate protective equipment and few chances to wash hands. Maybe I have already. Which leads to the perpetually touchy subject of...)
Testing. At Governor Cuomo's "Help Is On the Way" conference this morning, former Mayor Bloomberg outlined an elaborate, labor-intensive program for contact testing developed with Johns Hopkins University. If it works, that's New York sorted, forty-nine states to go. Actually fewer, since some of the Reds never bothered with preventive measures to begin with, and some have decided to pretend that All Is Fine. (MIT has some projections for how many additional Georgians will die so this guy could get his hair cut.) Meanwhile Mike Pence has been on a tour of the front lines, wearing a mask at GM but refusing to put one on at the Mayo Clinic. According to Karen "Mother" Pence, he was unaware of the hospital's policy and thought they were dressed for Halloween or something.
As we are often reminded, the tree of liberty feeds off the blood of tyrants (perhaps the inspiration for Little Shop of Horrors?). A liberty-loving Wisconsinite named Jerry Smith went to a rally in Madison demanding that the shackles of Governor Evers's stay-at-home-and-don't-die order be thrown off. When he reported for work Monday at his "essential" job, he was given a two-week furlough to make sure he had not been infected. And now he wants a lawyer to represent him and his civil right to spread disease -- free. Looks like a job for Alan Dershowitz.
Every time Brian Kemp closes in on "Dumbest Governor In the Country," Ron DeSantis passes him at the finish line. If you don't count the dead, they don't count. Wait till Trump hears about this!
This just in: Barack Obama played golf yesterday, and he liked it. The man's a monster.
AstraZeneca, partnered with Oxford University, expects to know by July if it has an effective vaccine, while Pfizer is starting human tests next week. There's nothing like the impending collapse of the global economy to build a fire under Science. Imagine how many lives could have been saved if HIV had inspired this kind of urgency.
China is the big unfriendly giant that nobody trusts, nor should they. It's a secretive dictatorship that no longer practices Marxism but keeps the populace on a tight leash and doesn't know the meaning of transparency. Its treatment of its Muslim Uighur minority may be the worst outrage since the gulag, and it's a little disturbing that we don't even hear about Tibet anymore. Pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong were on the verge of going full Tienanmen Square when the pandemic shut everything down -- I'll be surprised if that isn't part of some elaborate conspiracy theory.
Secretiveness breeds conspiracy theories -- ask the Freemasons -- so China only has itself to blame. Information about the virus was slow to come out of Wuhan and may be seriously untrustworthy even now. But American intelligence agencies are about to come in for rage-tweeting because they have been unable to find evidence that coronavirus is a laboratory product designed to prevent Trump's re-election (and incidentally kill a lot of people). That would get Trump and his spectacularly incompetent response off the hook, apparently; among other badly thought out responses, he'd like to cancel all debt to China, presumably including his own. It's good to be the king, but it's a terrible idea to annoy the country that makes practically everything we wear, sit on, drive, and use to type our blogs.
Still stung by the stories about his indolence, Trump has been getting up early (before noon) and calling governors in for "meetings." He has also invoked the National Emergencies Act to order meat processing plants to stay open without mandating changes that might safeguard the workers or the meat. What's important is protecting the owners from lawsuits when people get sick and die, as many already have. Also a steady supply of hamberders.
(I'm no scientist, I don't even play one on TV, but is there any proof that cooking kills this damn virus? If it originated in bats, presumably they were not consumed raw. We know it crosses species barriers, we know it thrives inside the human body with an average temperature of 98F. I'm not enthusiastic about eating chicken that's been coughed on by someone with inadequate protective equipment and few chances to wash hands. Maybe I have already. Which leads to the perpetually touchy subject of...)
Testing. At Governor Cuomo's "Help Is On the Way" conference this morning, former Mayor Bloomberg outlined an elaborate, labor-intensive program for contact testing developed with Johns Hopkins University. If it works, that's New York sorted, forty-nine states to go. Actually fewer, since some of the Reds never bothered with preventive measures to begin with, and some have decided to pretend that All Is Fine. (MIT has some projections for how many additional Georgians will die so this guy could get his hair cut.) Meanwhile Mike Pence has been on a tour of the front lines, wearing a mask at GM but refusing to put one on at the Mayo Clinic. According to Karen "Mother" Pence, he was unaware of the hospital's policy and thought they were dressed for Halloween or something.
As we are often reminded, the tree of liberty feeds off the blood of tyrants (perhaps the inspiration for Little Shop of Horrors?). A liberty-loving Wisconsinite named Jerry Smith went to a rally in Madison demanding that the shackles of Governor Evers's stay-at-home-and-don't-die order be thrown off. When he reported for work Monday at his "essential" job, he was given a two-week furlough to make sure he had not been infected. And now he wants a lawyer to represent him and his civil right to spread disease -- free. Looks like a job for Alan Dershowitz.
Every time Brian Kemp closes in on "Dumbest Governor In the Country," Ron DeSantis passes him at the finish line. If you don't count the dead, they don't count. Wait till Trump hears about this!
This just in: Barack Obama played golf yesterday, and he liked it. The man's a monster.
posted by Buttermilk Sky at 2:20 PM
1 Comments:
I don't blame Mike Pence for not wearing a mask at the Mayo Clinic.Well, not entirely . I blame the Mayo Clinic. If the director there had half a spine, he would have told Pence to wear a mask or get the hell out. If anybody dies of COVID-19 at the Mayo Clinic in the next three weeks, Pence and he director both ought to be tried for murder. Not a chance in hell it'll happen — the trial I mean. But I'm just sayin.'
Yours very crankily,
The New York Crank
Post a Comment
<< Home