Is there nothing this virus can't do?
Deerfield Testicle Festival On Hold
~Brexit meets Covid-19: Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator with the UK and a key obstructionist when it comes to Britain's attempts to "socially distance" itself from Brussels, has been stricken with coronavirus. So too has the pretender to the thrones of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Karl von Habsburg - as reported by the aptly named Kronen Zeitung. Like M Barnier, Herr von Habsburg is a "pan-European" but has the mitigating excuse of being the rightful Holy Roman Emperor.
~Comparisons of "numbers of cases" are almost as wall-to-wall bollocks as the Deerfield Testicle Festival. That's because those reporting the statistics are either liars (China, Iran) or too incompetent to test sufficient numbers of persons (the money-no-object wankers at America's wretched CDC). Michael Levitt, "an American-British-Israeli biophysicist who won the 2013 Nobel Prize for chemistry", adds a further caution:
Stressing that it is almost impossible to make comparisons country to country, because each government is taking a different approach to how they record cases, he said that, "South Korean tests are 10 times more sensitive than in Italy. If Italy measured cases like Korea, there would have been 10 times more cases."
Instead, the best way to evaluate the figures was through the number of deaths reported, he said.
I agree. As you know, at SteynOnline we've been tracking the daily death count reported by Italy every evening at 6pm Central European Time. When we started, Italy was Number Three on the Covid Hit Parade, but the top two were the "official" numbers as released by the Beijing Politburo and the Tehran ayatollahs, so we plumped for Rome as the first reasonably honest reporters on the chart. Since then, Italy has overtaken Iran to hit Number Two. Today it will pass China's official number and reach the top spot to make, as Paul Simon almost put it, Romie the Queen of Corona. That's to say (and ignoring the fact that Beijing's figure is a lie), Italy, a nation of sixty million people, will have had as many Covid-19 deaths as China, a nation of a billion-and-a-half - all thanks to an evil regime and its vile propaganda.
In recent days I have tried to explain on TV and radio that, proportionately, Italy has suffered the equivalent of two, three, four 9/11s. But apparently listeners and viewers find it hard to grasp the concept of deaths per capita. So the good news is they no longer need to. Italy, with a fifth of America's population, has suffered as great a calamity:
United States, 9/11 - 2,977
Italy, Coronavirus - 2,978
For a few days, there was some modest hope that the death curve might be flattening, albeit at the grim toll of 350 or so per diem. That hope was ended yesterday when the death count resumed its climb upwards:
March 1st - 5
March 4th - 28
March 7th - 36
March 10th - 168
March 13th - 250
March 16th - 349
March 18th - 475
We will bring you today's toll right here when it is released shortly after 1pm North American Eastern Time/5pm GMT.
UPDATE: Today the total of Italy's deaths (3,405) from Politburovirus surpassed China's official number (3,245):
March 19th - 427
A national tragedy is unfolding in Italy. Meanwhile, China has no new domestic infections and has re-opened Wuhan. Having successfully exported it to every other country, they're now the only nation without it. Hmm, that couldn't have gone any better had they planned it...
~America's sports arenas, theatres, multiplexes, shopping malls, bars and restaurants might be closed, but at one business it's business as usual:
SPLC Releases Fear-Mongering 'Hate Map' Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
You'd think, given their #MeToo problems, they'd just hunker down and grope the interns for the duration.
~In support of some of the livelier Internet rumors, actor Idris Elba, heavily favored to be "the first black Bond", now says he got the virus from Justin Trudeau's missus.
~The who-got-it-from-whom shtick always reminds me of this syphilitic round from Candide, music by Leonard Bernstein, words by John LaTouche, sung by Pangloss:
Oh my darling Paquette
She is haunting me yet
With a dear souvenir
I shall never forget:
'Twas a gift that she got
From a sea-faring Scot
He received, he believed
In a shallot
In a shallot from his dame
Who was certain it came
With a kiss from a Swiss
She'd forgotten his name
But he told her that he
Had been given it free
From a sweet little cheat in Paree
Then a man from Japan
Then a moor from Iran
Though the moor isn't sure
Where the whole thing began
But the gift you can see
Had a long pedigree
When at last it was passed
On to me!
~If the above jollity is too mordant for you, there are more straightforward musical pleasures to be had in this week's live-performance video edition of our Song of the Week: "Avalon", a hundred-year-old song from the bizarre combination of Al Jolson and Giacomo Puccini (with a tip of the hat to Vladimir Putin) and given a vigorous workout by two of my favorite guests, singer/pianist Carol Welsman and guitarist Russell Malone, with the Steyn Show band.
When she was on our Christmas show, Carol was talking backstage with another of my Yuletide guests, Randy Bachman of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, and Randy happened to mention a song of his he thought would be just right for Carol. I'm delighted to say it will now be a track on her forthcoming CD. For the first time, Carol is launching the album through Kickstarter, and there are still a few opportunities left to attend the recording sessions in Toronto and Los Angeles (once the quarantine is lifted and the US/Canadian border reopens), or get an autographed CD and other goodies. For more information, please click here.
~Members of The Mark Steyn Club are welcome to weigh in with their comments on any of the above. I'll be back here to take your questions tomorrow afternoon, Friday, on our latest Clubland Q&A, and on Saturday we'll be commencing a brand new Tale for Our Time.
Comment on this item (members only)
Submission of reader comments is restricted to Mark Steyn Club members only. If you are not yet a member, please click here to join. If you are already a member, please log in here:
Member Login
76 Member Comments
Am i the only one interested in the comment that Idris Alba 'caught' the Wuflu from Sophie Trudeau...? sources (RCMP) tell me she has not been living with Trudeau since Christmas, been in Vancouver, maybe the rumours of the paid off school girl, that cost him his teaching job, finally got to her or maybe he really did 'marry his mom'...and so now we have an incompetent PM also dealing with (allegedly) a failed marriage....thngs that make you go mmmmmm.....
My darling Paquette has nothing on Tom Lehrer's Agnes!
Mark won't be doing Byron's Don Juan for a Sunday poem, but the Candide quote reminded me of the "lifeboat cannibalism" scene, where Juan and crew are settling on who shall make their desperate meal --
And next they thought upon the master's mate,
As fattest; but he saved himself, because,
Besides being much averse from such a fate,
There were some other reasons: the first was,
He had been rather indisposed of late;
And that which chiefly proved his saving clause
Was a small present made to him at Cadiz,
By general subscription of the ladies.
Mark replies:
Thank you, Joseph. Always loved that bit: Byron at his best.
John P.A. Ioannidis, a professor of medicine, epidemiology and population health at Stanford (and a true statistician) has written a superb piece. Title: 'A fiasco in the making? As the coronavirus pandemic takes hold, we are making decisions without reliable data.' Publication date, March 17, 2020, online in Stat.news
But this is death by substitution. The other columns, heart disease, cancer, lung disease, Alzheimer's, which all wildly outnumber this novel strain will be reduced by a similar amount. There may be a compression in the rate for a period of time but likely little change in the average statistical death rate over a multi year timespan. The overwhelming vast majority of death will occur amongst, to put it clinically coldly, older sicker people who would otherwise succumb to one or another existing morbidities. Their time was close at hand if not this year then next. Heartless, yes. But it's rather odd that the decision to shutter the economy, throw millions in the US out of work, ratchet up debt and separate loved ones from each other has been made without debate, without acknowledgement about the trade off and without explicit consent of the governing body (the people.)
Thank you for the clear statement of how a virus operates -- i.e. at the population level. Its 'goal' (in biological, evolutionary terms) is to reproduce and spread. (The description of the sometimes dire outcome is not heartless; it is factual.) Those of us who get infected mount a defense and more often than not it works to a great degree (even if we fall ill, we don't die). But some always die from viruses, and those with the least vigorous immune systems (includes those of us who are oldest) have the most difficult time mounting a response, especially to a new virus. To put the numbers from Italy (or anywhere) in context, we must know the age distribution and co-morbidity factors (if any) of those who die. (Go to the Social Security Administration website and consult the actuarial table it offers. Look at the probability of death in any given year based on age.) As Zack points out there is compression in Italy, but the compression is for a vary narrow span of time left to be lived. When the virus passes, there will be an extended period in Italy with very few death notices for the demographic (old, sick) dying now.//We must reopen businesses and schools. Half of us are probably already infected and many are silent carriers or in incubation period. Of course, stay home if ill. But otherwise we must get out there and reopen society.//The toll being taken by the extraordinary measures are economic and psychological. Moreover, the lack of movement and exercise among those 'sheltering' will in no way help them maintain their vigor.//We need to reopen society. Now.
Not heartless.
I've been wondering about the best overall metric for measuring this, and you make a great point about the virus's effect on the overall death rate. Going straight to that view from 30,000 feet so to speak may be a bit to cold, but it's nevertheless apt. And in truth this virus may ultimately move the needle on that metric as well.
A humble suggestion, Mr. S. It would be good to show Total Deaths each day in Italy as well as those deaths ascribed to the Media Panic Virus.
It looks like the average daily number of deaths in Italy last year was about 1,750. If today's 427 Virus deaths takes the total deaths to 2,180 for the day -- then, Houston, We Have A Problem. However, if it turns out that the total Italy deaths today are still running about 1,750 per day or slightly more, then what we are seeing is that old & sick people on the point of death are highly susceptible to picking up the virus.
This approach may seem cold, but as you point out, we need to understand what we are dealing with. Breathless panic media reports about growing "cases" do not help with that understanding.
Not cold.
This is a great point. New York appears to be sufficiently infected for this measurement to be meaningful as well. If not now, then soon.
I've been having a debate with a neighbour, a psychologist, about whether the world is over-reacting to the Wuhan pandemic by basically shutting down. I think yes and she thinks no. I say I'm seeing a lot of panic and she says it's not panic just anxiety which can be healthy if not too severe. She uses the analogy of students taking exams who supposedly are helped if they are just the right amount of anxious. But how can you tell what is just the right amount of anxious? Using this analogy I guess if you do well on the exam you have been just the right amount of anxious but if you do poorly you can attribute it to having been too anxious.
The mantra I keep hearing from her and people like her is that we need "err on the side of caution" as if such erring is cost-less or at least the cost is reasonable. I'm not so sure of that. Today I re-watched a marvelous video on Youtube of a speech by Michael Crichton called "States of Fear: Science or Politics." I highly recommend it if you haven't checked it out. He unpacks this conundrum brilliantly. When I think of the enormous waste of resources that climate alarmism has cost and the terrific harm it has done to the mental health of the younger genereration...but don't get me started on that...
Today I got an email from a gym friend (who of course I no longer see at the gym) attaching a notice from the British Ministry of Fisheries, Agriculture and Whatnot saying they have found a dog that tests a "weak positive" for the virus, whatever that means, I guess it's like being "a little pregnant" or something. Anyhow, they conclude that dogs aren't contagious but wash your hands before and after, etc. The esteemed WHO also says that dogs aren't contagious so why is my gym friend sending me this notice? Who knows. Something to do I guess. In any case I want to assure any of my dog park friends who may be reading this that tomorrow I and my puppy Banjo will be showing up for the usual frolicking, chasing, racing, tussling and just plain having fun.
The mental health of the YG is already shot by the climate HDU-1 "how dare you!" virus.
Breaking news: California governor Newsom has issued an order to "stay at home." Does that mean he is going to send illegal aliens back to their home countries? Is he going to tell the homeless people camping out in fron of City Hall in Dan Francisco to go back where they came from? If he doesn't do those things, why should the working citizens of California have to do them? Are illegal aliens and homeless campers above the law? If those unrooted populations are not placed under control, none of the other quarantine measures will accomplish anything. California's "sanctuary cities" are protecting the "right" of infected rootless people to transmit this pandemic to older, taxpaying Americans like me.
When he "reluctantly" starts billeting his Army of illegals and vagrants with the law-abiding, America will be back in 1772.
Hello Again, Mark!
Your daily Italy death stats have been interesting, though sad indeed. However, the stats that I would ultimately want to see are those from all the countries with government-run healthcare systems versus the USA's free market, fee for service system. If nationalized healthcare does a better job at saving lives and curing the ill, I will give the Democrats their due. If instead, our healthcare delivery system triumphs, then let's bury the fantasy of government-run, Medicare for all, etc. for once and for all times!!
North Korea, China, Cuba are oases of health in a decadent world.
The UK's NHS lets the side down, of course - more employees than the Soviet Red Army, and more victims too.
I wonder how Barry Obama is. Perhaps he will be flown to Havana for treatment, should he catch the Chinese Virus.
The major news suppliers believe that THEY are the oligarchy truly ruling the nation. All persons in government are answerable to them, rather than to voters, and voters are supposed to do what the news suppliers tell them to do. When the voters turned against their "thought leaders" in the 2016 election, the news masters were dumbfounded that their manipulation of information supplied to the masses did not produce the intended result. They have been whipping on their loyal government henchmen ever since, to override the election and produce the result that the news tycoons ordered.
In the midst of all the Left wing's demands for government control over the money spent by corporations and organizations to buy election ads, the large corporations that own the news masters have made sure that they are exempt from spending limits for all the propaganda they inject into the daily news about political candidates. Some of largest corporations in the world own their own news factories, and are unrestricted in their propaganda for and against candidates.
The contempt of the news barons for the common American citizen is boundless. The Americans are detested for clinging to their guns and bibles, as Obama described them, and cannot be trusted with voting power. The news lords' animosity toward the Electoral College grows from the realization that the EC shields common Americans from the popular vote rule by the indoctrinated masses who are obedient to their news aristocrats.
In the crucible of the coronavirus, all the indoctrination the news moguls have been feeding the people about the need to have open borders that allow every infected person from anywhere in the world to enter our cities, is revealed as a cruel lie. The Chinese virus is an analogy to all the social ills that illegal immigration brings, including death and injury, and loss of jobs. The virus demonstrates the idocy of allowing homeless people to camp in city parks and defecate on the sidewalks and leave used hypodermic needles on the grass. Outlawing plastic drinking straws when unprecedented numbers of patients will be crowding our hospitals is insane. But the importance of this insanity to the news masters is that it demonstrates their power over governments and voters.
If a super villain wanted to reduce the "surplus population", like in the last two Avengers movies, he would let loose a virus on the world and command that America follow the irrational, suicidal policies of the Democrat news oligarchs.
Good comment, Raymond. The puppet masters of the masses are busy at work. Their policies and methods are designed to create chaos. Where there is chaos and when the masses feel they're losing control over their lives they're more likely to submit to more controls. People don't like confusion and chaos. They operate with most efficiency when there is structure and order. People don't like watching things fall apart.
There is no logic to any of the Left's arguments, and they really don't even waste their time arguing anymore, just demagogue, punch back and punish. Even the least advantaged in the populations must realize that something is wrong with this picture when people are living on the street. This crisis is the perfect time to address this deplorable situation while a pandemic is raging. Two can play this "never let a crisis go to waste" game.
China's greatest dividend from gifting their virus to the western world won't become evident until later this year. The following will seem irrelevant to most in the new age of contagion. When the dust finally settles by mid summer (hopefully) all of our western allies are going to wonder why their currency has tumbled - tied to the dollar as they are. All except one western country that is. In just one month the bottom has dropped out of both the Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso and the euro has began to fall as well and we're just getting started. This one lucky country will have increased it's total revenue by no less than 44% by year's end simply by investing in bonds and will emerge with it's currency stronger than ever. Is anyone even the least bit curious as to how this magic actually works? How does the fed create $1.5 trillion by buying bonds? When you buy a $100 dollar savings bond you are loaning the $100 to the federal government - now everyone knows this of course - so is it a stupid question to ask just who is issuing these bonds so the fed can turn around and inject this $1.5 trillion directly into the American economy? In a country where virtually everyone believes that the S.S.Trust fund contains $2.9 trillion dollars nothing can truly surprise me anymore. By the way the answer to the question I posed should be obvious.
I found the comparison of the deaths produced by the new oriental 'flu with those of the "9/11" attack to be telling. Al-Quaeda's masterminds would never have dared to hope for the economic damage (self-inflicted and not) which this damned virus is bringing about.
Let's hope none of the "masterminds" are getting some new ideas about how to further the jihad.
Yes, indeed, S.: and that our political "masterminds" are getting their heads around containing the economic damage. Mischief is what Al-Quaeda's "masterminds" are good at. Limiting economic damage is not what our "masterminds" are good at. On the contrary...
They've warned their operatives to avoid countries with outbreaks.
The most dangerous epidemic today is the DO SOMETHING disease. The economic restrictions on employment are too tight and the spending response for "the economy" and handing out $500 Billion in cash are just making the consequences of the economic crash worse. At this rate we will suffer more than the 4750 "excess suicide deaths" that Forbes Magazine claimed happened as a result of the 2008 recession. We should rely on the prudent steps that most people are taking and watch the local health data. Remain calm and keep your thrifty principles intact.
'A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money.'
Heartily agree, W. Actually, couldn't agree more.
The 'flu, sadly, will have casualties. Politicians are hard at work amplifying them. That's not sad: it's infuriating. The price of political capital which honest people must pay rises exponentially.
Well Wm. P. - For America only we're not talking about real money - the issue is borrowed money that we will simply add to the national debt without any real consequences beyond a soon to be a $26 trillion amount of debt that we have no intention or conceivable ability to ever retire. As the holder of the planets reserve currency we'll pay our annual debt as always by rolling it over daisy chain style which no other western country can do without destroying the value of their currency. By the way the Fed has already committed $1.5 trillion (of borrowed money) but the actual figure needed to prevent societal collapse will easily exceed 2 trillion and that's very conservative. Add in the annual deficit of about $1.3 trillion and we'll roll over another $3.3 trillion by the end of fiscal 2020 on Sep.30. Financially speaking America is on the other side of the looking glass where our debts never are retired - just rolled over for all eternity. This is the providence of the owner of the world's reserve currency and no one else.
In our early teens when we could start to earn a little money, parents would say, "save your money for a rainy day." We can all acknowledge one thing, that that rainy day is here and has hit us like falling rocks off the mountainside even though we could see the warning signs.
It may take a catastrophe, a global catastrophe no less, to take stock of what matters most in life, strategize for the future and adjust to waiting to acquire the next greatest hi-tech gizmo or whatever you think you can't live without. I think the people are in the process of waking up. I believe the world is going to come out of this pandemic smarter and stronger.
I doubt things will ever revert to normal relations with China. They can't be trusted anymore. The government is getting meaner and meaner by the day. It will feel good to let go, too, once we accept it. We'll feel much less vulnerable.
I'm slowing down in my personal life. I can see it a little each day and alongside my husband can't help but notice the little changes in each of us, "for better or worse," is really sinking in. For both of us, everyday tasks take a little longer. I guess it's really the beginning of the aging process. But, it feels good to let go of things that we thought we couldn't manage without. Life is getting more enjoyable as we start to figure what's important and separate it out from what's no longer essential. We're laughing more at each other and ourselves, but in a healthy way.
Young people out there, guard your time, your health and your money wisely. Old age comes sooner than you can believe and health and money is only as good if you have it when you really need it and believe me, you need it when you get up there. I do think this is how we inherited a conservative mindset from our ancestors. They had much less to work with, shorter lives, even, yet taught us so much. It is not wise to squander it away.
I agree with every part of your comment, Fran.
I am fortunate in having a job I can do largely from home. For a break this afternoon I'll be making meatloaves -- one special one for a seven-and-a-half year old grandson who enjoys it -- gorgonzola cheese, diced olives, and all. He woke up with a 104° temperature yesterday. He is the first child I can remember who would eat slices of bell pepper with enjoyment. What a guy.
Happened to find a YouTube vid last night summarizing "Why the U.S. is not Italy" on OAN News. Hit the same high notes about the demographics there that earlier MSC members observed earlier. "Never waste a crisis," he said.
You've spoken the final words on the topic, F.
Something tells me there's much more coming from the "boss," as you call Mark!! I do feel optimistic strangely, but it's of a longer view. I just now saw the Queen's message, part of it, and it sounds like deep down the people in the UK are tough and will fight through this.
"I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; For now hath time made me his numbering clock: My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, Whereto my finger, like a dial's point, Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears."
Just read through it, John. Thanks! I need to read more economic pieces. Very interesting to see the comparisons between the two countries. The underlying mechanisms that create a churning economy are the same everywhere, it's just how strong the leaders can be to make the hard but necessary adjustments. Small incremental changes are better than clobbering people over the head with drastic moves.
Life is nothing more than a series of adjustments, my very wise Irish mother-in-law would tell me when she saw the economic ups and downs her son (not so much me) had to navigate with a small business to run since the seventies. People do bounce back but it doesn't happen without the government easing up on the regulations and making the corrected policy changes to pave the way for smooth recoveries. Italy has a tough road ahead if they don't start now. We can all learn something from this.
I like that! I can memorize that today!
Well Fran, youth is wasted on the young, as they say. I say that the difference between the young and the old is that old people know what it's like to be young, but young people don't know what it's like to be old.
From one of the best songs ever on the subject:
"You run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking. Racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older. Shorter of breath and one day closer to death."
Very true, Steven. I spoke with an elderly friend, a year and twelve days from turning ninety. She's outside Baltimore in a nursing home. I may just put my name on the list. She likes a cold beer as much as I do. I just now realized that my best friends average twenty to twenty-five years older than me and I'm the one falling apart! But we talked about how she's taking it being confined in her apartment at her very fine senior center. She said one of her parents lost a sibling and their son, a would-be teenaged brother who she never met, to the Spanish Flu. She said she'll take the quarantine any day if it means she'll be coming out alive when it's over. She has her little cat and she's happy as can be getting three meals a day delivered. I had an idea that I'll read her some poems the next time we talk as she's now legally blind and can't read anymore. I may sing her some songs, too. She'll like that. Maybe the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and for a song, hmm, something from Annie. I think she's an optimist at heart like me. Take care of yourself. Spring should be busting out about any day now back there in West Virginia.
There seems to be a time lag of about three weeks from infection to death/recovery.
Hence, the daily death toll in Italy will continue rising until some three weeks after the lockdown was put in place - another 10 days or so.
I don't live very far from Deerfield and the Testicle Festival is always a topic of lively conversation in local drinking establishments. The festival's posters are usually prominently displayed. Sad to say those venues are now closed for at least two weeks so business at local liquor stores (and we have an unusual number of those in SE Michigan) is brisk.
I suppose that since syphilis has been around nearly as long as love then there has to be song catalogue devoted to the former. Hopefully they are all breezy and upbeat tunes designed to relieve the anxieties of. The patient.
We are fed a steady diet of death totals in Italy. Fine. But could the learned Italians muster the scientific mojo to report the age groups thus being swept away? We think it's geezers, but just what fraction of the total are lesser age groups? THAT would worth knowing.
As of a couple days ago the youngest Italian fatality was 39.
The latest ChiCom Flu treatment is chloriquine phosphate, the anti-malarial drug. I took it 45 years ago when I was working on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. It was a giant, pink horse pill that you took once a week. On Wiki it says that it costs $0.04 in the "developing world" and I looked up the price here, which is $2.50 per pill. Now that we know that the two pills are made in the same factory in China we can see how Big Pharma is looking out for us.
If I were an Emergency Medical Technician I would start complaining about mosquitoes.
Too bad about the Deerfield festival, but that's the way (and I've waited years for this moment) the Ball bounces.
Congrats!
Thank you, and good night!
Love the "Candide" song. Could it be the inspiration for Tom Lehrer's "I Got It From Agnes?"
Mark replies:
There is quite an extensive syphilis songbook, Kevin - including two from Candide alone. I feel an audio special coming on.
"Gee, Officer Krupke,
We're down on our knees,
'Cause no one wants a fellow with a social disease.,,"
West Side Story revival probably is all about Climate Change in the Bronx in the 1950s. And rest assured, we are NOT confusing the two Brians, even though their initials are identical --- I could not resist passing this along. Subject: NYT / MSM betrayal of America:
"Brian Williams said that after ISIS beheaded him, he couldn't eat for nearly a week." (Credit "Zeke" at Town Hall 03-19-20)
One of my favourite Monty Python bits is 'The Oscar Wilde Sketch', which contains the wonderful insult to the Prince of Wales:
Shaw: (to Prince) Your Majesty is like a dose of clap.
Prince: What?!?
Shaw: Before you arrive is pleasure, but after is a pain in the dong.
"I Got It From Agnes" was written in 1952 so, perhaps, it was the other way around.
A bit more recent than Lehrer or Bernstein, there's Procol Harum's "A Souvenir of London".
One of the first coronavirus symptoms -- get treatment now!
In this hour of national emergency, to solve the localized shortage of bog roll and tinned food, we should nationalize Amazon.
Pay Bezos based on the profits of the retail business and leave him with AWS. As Amazon's predatory pricing model means it makes no profit, I figure he can pay the US Taxpayer $10 billion to take it off his hands. Direct deposit into every Amazon account will be fine, Jeff.
I would be in favor of that simply for the reason that some nameless Indian bureaucrat working for Amazon decided that my book reviews violated their "guidelines" (which are whatever they want them to be at any given moment), and erased all 717 of them, wiping out the word of seven years of reading (fortunately, copies had been kept in an organized manner).
Also note that Amazon just spent $1 billion on the old Lord and Taylor building on 5th Avenue for their new and Second HQ (which automatic demotes the Seattle HQ into a non-HQ).
Seems like an awfully expensive way to be able to write off your favorite helicopter pilot's expenses incurred during an evening going to the theatre on Broadway.
I'm am looking forward to watching them try to get back at least 33% of this investment, as the revival of the 1970s New York City economics ensues.
I wrote a criticism of Margaret Atwoods "The Handmaid's Tale" and was told if I wrote anymore I would be banned from writing. I called to ask what was wrong with what I wrote and was told it was spiteful. Tell the truth and it's spiteful.
Between Amazon and Walmart, Main Street America has been destroyed. Shipping in crap from China they have driven Americans out of work whilst sucking the life of towns and cities in every state.
Which is exactly what has happened. I am looking forward to the bottom of the inning with America at bat and China trying to deliver the same old pitches.
They do need their safe spaces, Lowell.
Indeed Don. I think we still need to flush out some of our pols who are on the Yuan.
Feinstein and two others just got nailed for insider trading. Too bad Barry didn't get around to making that legal before he got his Yuan-inspired "book contract."
Feinstein looks like she's the deer in the headlights, based on my computer runs for the next thee weeks. And if true, her behavior is perfectly obscene, for she had umpteen millions to begin with.
Just like Martha Stewart, telling her stockbroker to sell when, if she hadn't, the loss would have been peanuts, compared to what she'd have left afterwards in her bank accounts. I hope that we see the same fate transpire with Feinstein (indictment), who is nothing but the Rodeo Drive upgrade of the commoner, Nancy Pelosi.
If anyone happens to have a beer in his hand, raise a toast to the Leona Helmsleys. They always, in the end, get caught, and ruined.
One of my favourite songs. Always used to cry when I heard it on Showboat or when my mother played it:
AFTER THE BALL
A little maiden climbed an old man's knees—
Begged for a story: "Do uncle, please!
Why are you single, why live alone?
Have you no babies, have you no home?"
"I had a sweetheart, years, years ago,
Where she is now, pet, you will soon know;
List to the story, I'll tell it all:
I believed her faithless after the ball."
"Bright lights were flashing in the grand ballroom,
Softly the music playing sweet tunes.
There came my sweetheart, my love, my own,
'I wish some water; leave me alone.'
When I returned, dear, there stood a man
Kissing my sweetheart as lovers can.
Down fell the glass, pet, broken, that's all—
Just as my heart was after the ball."
"Long years have passed, child, I have never wed,
True to my lost love though she is dead.
She tried to tell me, tried to explain—
I would not listen, pleadings were vain.
One day a letter came from that man;
He was her brother, the letter ran.
That's why I'm lonely, no home at all—
I broke her heart, pet, after the ball."
Chorus:
After the ball is over, after the break of morn,
After the dancers' leaving, after the stars are gone,
Many a heart is aching, if you could read them all—
Many the hopes that have vanished after the ball.
It's puzzling why everyone based their modeling on Italy in the first place. Italy has had higher than average deaths from the flu for nearly a decade, largely attributed to their geriatric population. It should be expected that they'd be harder hit than most, and that's before you even get to the Chinese workers in their garment/leather factories, "Hug Chinese Tourist Day", and ties to Wuhan that made a disproportionate impact even likelier. If Levitt is correct, even with Italy suffering a catastrophic number of deaths, the virus is less lethal than reported because far more people have it than is recorded. This means all modeling based off their numbers overstates the risk. The fact no one stopped to ask why Italy was such an outlier when it was obviously the case makes me question if the UK study all of the doomsday predictions are coming from wasn't a deliberate attempt to stoke more panic.
Italy's predicament is appalling. China must be punished.
Quite a gallery of celebs and elites are also infected: Soros knows a lot of these people, doesn't he?
Your Candide extract reminded me of that vile actor who also goes by the name of Jose Lopez and Arthur King.
On a lighter note, apparently the private jetsters are now unable to fly to safer havens, because the travel bans even apply to them. This is almost as heart-breaking as the news of Barnier's affliction.
And - I repeat myself, I hope not - the obscenely wealthy, obnoxious professional athletes are, as of today, about as useful / relevant as a dry cleaners in a nudist colony. (Good!)
Reflecting on Mark's expertise in demographics we also know that Italy has Europe's oldest population—one that also has a high incidence of smoking and respiratory conditions. We can add this to the reasons why country to country comparisons are somewhat useless. If we look at death rate per capita the US is still doing the best.
There is no other country out there that is a good comparison. Most of those with cultures more like ours have compromised their health care systems by nationalizing them. Italy spends about 9.2% of their GDP on their system which is largely nationalized and we spend 17.8% of our GDP. Quantity has a quality of its own.
Squeamish Steyn readers should not be put off by the town's name: the Deerfield testicles come from bulls (now steers), not bucks. And we are reliably informed (in a news story from a couple of years ago) that, deep fried, they do indeed "taste like chicken". Or calamari. Whatever. This year's pickings will remain in the deep freeze until the ChiCom contagion (aka the Thanks a Lot China Virus) is contained. In the meantime, you can support the festival by buying a t-shirt. It features two steers (were bulls) sitting over beers with bandages over their surgical wounds. The slogan changes every year, but my favorite goes something like "Now I know where they get beer nuts."
Josh you persist in trying to (and succeeding in) lightening up my life - thank you. Do you have access to how and where to buy said t-shirt? Would love to have one.
Back in the early 1980s after a hot summer day of non-air conditioned driving across Kansas, we and our three young children were dining splendidly in the restaurant of a Dodge City hotel on unlimited "Calf Fries" and beer (milk for the kids) for something like $8.95.
My wife decided to ask the waitress the ingredients of those tasty calf fries, a dish neither of us had heard of. The embarrassed waitress elected to whisper the answer in her ear rather than blurt it out in front of the children. In this unwitting game of Chinese Telephone, my dear wife thought the waitress heard "calf testicles" as "cat testicles" mid-bite, and further hilarity ensued.
Commonwealth readers may know that game as Chinese Whispers, similar to that time a whole lot of people said "Wuhan," somebody along the line eventually changed it to "COVID-19," and then everybody screamed "Raaacist" at the first person. Of course, in real life it's been actual Chinese actually whispering demands to change the name, and the calf fries weren't obtained at a wet market, so it's an imperfect analogy and I hereby withdraw it.
Regionally, they are called Rocky Mountain Oysters. They remain a regular delicacy at Bruce's Bar in Severance, Colorado.
When Bruce's is open.
We already knew about Rocky Mountain Oysters and Canada's Prairie Oysters, but Calf Fries were new to us. Wikipedia offers up a few other descriptors (my favorite is "swinging beef").
"Severance" is such an appropriately named town for a joint that I see advertises, "Come to Bruce's and have a ball." Thanks for the laugh!
I do not mean to represent myself as a suppository—sorry, repository—for all matters testicular, but the only shirts I can find online are used on eBay. Maybe not the best time to swap duds. The Deerfield ballorama has a FB page, but it hasn't been updated since 2015. Not much to my surprise, there are several other festivals devoted to the annual pruning of the berries from the twig. Look online for one near you. I even saw a hoe-down of some sort for turkey "nuggets". For those on a low cholesterol diet, I guess.
But that's it—I'm done! Any more about animal genitals and you all will start to wonder about me. (Start?)
Lucky old cows.
Udder confusion...
:D