Apr 9, 2020

Why We Fight

I am not going to let myself slip into full Cult45-like behavior by advocating the wholesale slaughter of these Wall Street assholes.

Not now. Not yet. But don't think for one fuckin' second I can't be persuaded.

Go ahead and push me some more, motherfuckers.




Reuters:

Exclusive: Wall Street firm dangled up to 175% returns to investors using U.S. aid programs

A New York investment firm pitched wealthy investors in recent days on a way to make returns of 22% to 175% using U.S. government programs designed to help Americans keep their jobs and boost the coronavirus-stricken economy, according to a marketing document seen by Reuters.

Following questions posed by Reuters, Arcadia Investment Partners LLC, which has about $1 billion under management, said it had put its plans on hold.

The idea was in “formative stages” and the firm was not “presently moving forward with this strategy given reasons that include uncertainty surrounding the regulations,” Dahlia Loeb, managing director at Arcadia, told Reuters in an email on Wednesday. She did not elaborate further.

The firm had sent the pitch as recently as this weekend to “a limited number of sophisticated investors,” according to the marketing materials, which are dated April 4 and marked confidential. In an email sent Sunday, and seen by Reuters, Loeb wrote it was a “highly time sensitive opportunity” and had offered to discuss it with investors that day or early in the week.

Arcadia’s pitch offers a glimpse into how some private investors are looking to quickly take advantage of the unprecedented government intervention after the novel coronavirus brought economic activity to a screeching halt.


There are reasons 45* keeps going out of his way to get rid of all the oversight processes and all the Inspectors General.

Crooks need the cops to stick to the donut shops.

COVID-19 Update

Growth Rates
Cases:
1.03 - World
1.08 - USA

Dead:
1.08 - World
1.15 - USA



Optimism about flattening the curve, or slowing the acceleration (or whatever terminology applies) may be a little premature.

When I look back over the last several days, I can see that the date on which we can expect to hit 100,00 dead Americans is not receding very quickly - it is receding, but it's taking its own sweet time about it.

On April 3rd, the projected date for 100K dead was April 20th. 6 days later, today's calculation puts that date at April 23rd.

I don't know what that means - or even if it means anything.

Today's Tweet


Never-Trumper Rick Wilson, one of the pimpiest of the pimps, continues to get in some great shots.

Follow the thread.

Burying The Hoax

Drone video from Hart Island NYC. Mass burials as the bodies have to be quarantined - and the funeral homes can't keep up anyway.



The bodies will eventually be exhumed and the families will dispose of the remains "as usual".

Apr 8, 2020

New Motto

There's just two kinds of people in this world - and you should avoid them both.


Overheard

Fake News:
When the media reports what you said, shows video of you saying it, and asks you questions about it.

COVID-19 Update

Growth Rates
Cases:
1.07 - World
1.09 - USA

Dead:
1.11 - World
1.17 - USA
There was lots of hopeful punditry yesterday (including your favorite blogger here) about how the numbers may be indicating a slowdown and that maybe we're seeing the beginnings of the inflection point, where the curve starts to level off.

Except for the growth in number of cases in the USA, all the Growth Rates ticked up a little.




Today's Tweet




Today's Brian

When 45* blusters about how great all the COVID-19 testing is going, there's an element of truth to it - surprise!

But, as usual, the element of truth is at the surface, and you don't even have to drill down to get to a look at just how FUBAR this "response" is right now.

I'm sure they told President Stoopid that ya gotta get the testing in place so we can see where we are, and to map out how to get where we need to go.

And we've done well in ramping up the number of tests conducted. But there are glitches - because this is Cult45 and there are always fucking glitches.

First, get thru Brian's thing.

Brian Tyler Cohen


Now then, focusing in on the continuing testing fuckup:
  1. We weren't adequately supplied with testing kits. And this is NOT an Obama problem. Obama knew there were problems, and he talked about it, and he asked Republicans every year for more money for CDC and FEMA and DOD so they could get us ready for this kind of threat, but somehow, Congress just couldn't see their way clear to ease up on any of the stoopid "sequestration" constraints.
  2. WHO offered us kits and we turned 'em down. I think that's because somebody closely connected to this White House felt they deserved to get a paycheck out of it.
  3. Testing finally starts to get ramped up, but this fuckin' moron 45* thinks that sticking a swab up somebody's nose is all there is to it. The reason he can brag about how great the testing is going while we still don't know what the fuck is going on, is that we have a shitload of tests sitting in boxes waiting to be processed.
So yes, we're #1 in test volume,


 ...but like I said, that's the number of tests performed - the number of samples collected - but we have yet to figure out how to boost the processing throughput so those tests can actually tell us something useful.

And, BTW, one of the numbers that really matters is the Tests/Million Population, and we're #44 on that list.

Apr 7, 2020

Overheard

Him: I'm exhausted - I went out for a walk, and it's usually a good way to relax and enjoy some time to myself and not have to worry about much of anything. But now - with all this COVID-19 thing - I have to watch every step, and make sure nobody gets too close, and I have to practically live in fear of every stranger. It's pretty awful just walking down the street.

Her: And now you know how almost every woman feels almost every day of her life.

 

Today's Pix

click
⬇︎ 👁 ⬇︎























 

COVID-19 Update

Growth Rates
Cases:
1.05 - World
1.09 - USA

Dead:
1.06 - World
1.14 USA
The increase in cases is slowing here in the US - doubling in 8 days instead of every 3-5. Unfortunately, since the growth in number of cases is a leading indicator, it can mean the increase in deaths could accelerate for a while, because that's a trailing indicator.

It makes some sense that they've been warning us over the last couple of days that this week could be pretty grim.




Trying to look ahead, the main problem I see is that President Stoopid will again start pressing for "re-opening the country" before it should, which could make recovery more difficult, and set the stage for another outbreak in the fall and winter, which could be made worse than it has to be because we jumped back in too soon.

The kicker there is that the longer we wait, the more likely it is that lots and lots of jobs won't be there when it's time to go back to work.

But then again, risking your life for someone else's business has to be worth quite a bit more than 10 bucks an hour.

Apr 6, 2020

Today's GIF

Fake News Update

John Oliver - on the fakest of the fake - OANN

If You Can't Say Something Real



...you can just shut the fuck up and get the fuck out.

Honor The Warriors

Someone finally got around to it.

There will be a goodly number of memorial-worthy people before we're done, but none have shown their strength of commitment - and honor - more than the people who step up, risking their own lives to help strangers, when they could just as easily follow the example of a fucked up "leader" and try to duck their responsibilities.

MedScape:

Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center.

As front-line healthcare workers care for patients with COVID-19, they commit themselves to difficult, draining work and also put themselves at risk of infection. Hundreds throughout the world have died. Medscape wants to make sure they are not forgotten, and we will update this list as — sadly — needed.

Medscape needs your help to ensure this list is complete. Please submit names with an age, profession or specialty, and location through this form.


A
Isaac Abadi, MD, 90, Founder, Professor of Internal Medicine and Rheumatology, Escuela de Medicina Luis Razetti, Hospital Universitario de Caracas, Miami, Florida

Musa Fath Abadi, age unknown, Emergency Medicine Specialist, Tehran, Iran

Abdullah Abbasi, age unknown, Infectious Disease Specialist, Gorgan, Iran

Luigi Ablondi, 66, Epidemiologist, Former General Manager of the Crema Hospital, Cremona, Italy

Tahmineh Adibi, age unknown, Nurse, Bandar-e Anzali, Iran

Abdel Sattar Airoud, 74, General Practitioner, Piacenza, Italy

Vincenza Amato, 65, Medical Director Responsible UOS Hygiene Public Health of the Department of Hygiene and Health Prevention, Bergamo, Italy

Afshar Amiri, age unknown, Psychiatrist, Tehran, Iran

Abdulshakur Hazhir Amiri, age unknown, Pharmacist, Rasht, Iran

Larrice Anderson, 46, Nurse, New Orleans East Hospital, New Orleans, Louisiana

Hassan Arbab, age unknown, Hospital Staff, Mashhad, Iran

Malik Ashtar, 50, Nursing Staff, Gilgit, Pakistan

Gaetano Autore, 68, General Practitioner, Naples, Italy

Madhvi Aya, 61, Physician Assistant, Emergency Medicine, Woodhull Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York

Saeid Azizi, age unknown, Ophthalmologist, Zabol, Iran

Ramin Azizifar, age unknown, Nurse, Tehran, Iran

B
Samad Babazadeh, age unknown, General Practitioner, Babol, Iran

Israel Bactol, 34, Cardiologist, Philippine Heart Center, Metro Manila, Philippines

Domenico Bardelli, 75, Dentist, Lodi, Italy

Manuel Barragan, 63, General Practitioner, Cordoba, Spain

Kamran Bayat, age unknown, Surgical Technician, Tehran, Iran

Nilufar Esmail Beigi, age unknown, General Practitioner, Tehran, Iran

Anusheh Beikian, age unknown, Obstetrician, Rasht, Iran

Diego Bianco, 47, Paramedic, Lombardy, Italy

Jean-Marie Boegle, 66, OB-GYN, Mulhouse, France

Massimo Borghese, 63, Specialist in Otolaryngology and Phoniatrics, Naples, Italy

Giuseppe Borghi, 64, General Practitioner, Lodi, Italy

Araceli Buendia Ilagan, 63, ICU Nurse, Jackson Memorial Hospital, Miami, Florida

Antonio Buonomo, 65, Medical Examiner, Naples, Italy

Antonino Buttafuoco, 66, General Practitioner, Bergamo, Italy

It goes on for 5 pages.

COVID-19 Update

The growth rates for the US came down a little the last 36 hours or so.

The feeling is that the shutdown and distancing and the overall public information efforts are starting to take hold, but some dire-sounding warnings are coming from the people who know about such things:

WaPo:

Americans are being advised to steel themselves for one of the most agonizing weeks in living memory, as President Trump and his advisers predicted parts of the country were nearing a peak of cases of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

The president at Sunday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing hailed numbers from New York showing a one-day decline in deaths while warning of New York and New Jersey, “they’ve really become a very hot zone.”

Still, Trump, along with Vice President Pence, projected confidence not matched by the White House’s medical advisers.

“We’re starting to see light at the end of the tunnel,” Trump said Sunday, even as Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-diseases expert, hedged earlier in the day, saying, “I will not say we have it under control. . . . We are struggling to get it under control.”



note: NYT and WaPo have lifted their pay walls on COVID-19 stories.

And the really shitty kicker is that because of this ridiculous slap-dash bullshit "response", there's no cohesion in the approach to this thing, and so we have the usual Cult45 clusterfuck, but on meth-infused steroids.

NYT:

WASHINGTON — A coroner in Indiana wanted to know if the coronavirus had killed a man in early March, but said that her health department denied a test. Paramedics in New York City say that many patients who died at home were never tested for the coronavirus, even if they showed telltale signs of infection.

In Virginia, a funeral director prepared the remains of three people after health workers cautioned her that they each had tested positive for the coronavirus. But only one of the three had the virus noted on the death certificate.

Across the United States, even as coronavirus deaths are being recorded in terrifying numbers — many hundreds each day — the true death toll is likely much higher.

More than 9,400 people with the coronavirus have been reported to have died in this country as of this weekend, but hospital officials, doctors, public health experts and medical examiners say that official counts have failed to capture the true number of Americans dying in this pandemic. The undercount is a result of inconsistent protocols, limited resources and a patchwork of decision making from one state or county to the next.


Growth Rates
Cases:
1.06 - World
1.08 - USA

Dead:
1.07 - World
1.14 - USA

 


Apr 5, 2020

COVID-19 Update

Growth Rates
Cases:
1.07 - World
1.01 - USA

Dead:
1.09 - World
1.19 - USA


Straight-line Projection
 USA:


Apr 4, 2020

It Was Them

It was god looking in the mirror...

Today's Tweet



I wonder how many "conservatives" watch DumFux News just to jack off to their platoon of blond bombers.

Seems pretty obvious they aren't tuning in to be well-informed.