COVID-19 Update

Posted on | October 19, 2020 | 1 Comment

For the past few months, I’ve been ignoring the news about COVID-19 because who cares? Once we got over the original lockdown hysteria — first two weeks to “slow the spread,” then another month to “flatten the curve” — the pandemic ceased to be newsworthy. Medical science developed effective therapeutic regimes that substantially lowered the death rate, and death rates are the only statistic that really counts.

The number of COVID-19 deaths reported daily in the U.S. peaked six months ago, on April 21, at 2,742 daily. There was a belated summer uptick, which peaked at 1,851 deaths on July 30, and since then the toll has gradually but steadily declined. During the week of Sept. 14-20, the average daily death total was 782; during the most recent week, Oct. 12-18, the average was 725 deaths daily, a 7.3% decline in about a month, and about 30% lower than in the first week of August.

This is unmistakably good news, but the media keeps fear-mongering about “surges” and “outbreaks” based on the number of reported new cases. But they’re counting every positive test as a “case,” without regard for whether the person testing positive has any symptoms at all, much less whether they require hospitalization. If someone tests positive for the coronavirus, yet has only mild symptoms that don’t even require a doctor’s visit, why are such “cases” presented as evidence of an impending crisis? Yet that’s what the media is doing.

‘Hunker down’: The fall Covid-19 surge is here
— CNN, Oct. 13

The Third Coronavirus Surge Has Arrived
— The Atlantic, Oct. 15

Rural Midwest hospitals struggling
to handle coronavirus surge: “It just exploded”
— CBS News, Oct. 19

You see the theme here. Just in time for the home stretch of the presidential election campaign, the dreaded surge has arrived. And while there has, indeed, been a remarkable increase in the number of new cases reported, this has not been reflected in an upward trend in the number of coronavirus deaths — as I say, the past week’s death numbers were 7.3. percent down from a month ago, and nearly a third lower than in August. What is likely being reported as a “surge” is a pattern of outbreaks among school-age children, but since anyone under 60 has a 99.9% survival rate from COVID-19, this “surge” likely won’t result in any substantial increase in deaths. A nationwide crisis, it ain’t.

You know who is having a COVID-19 crisis? Belgium:

Belgium could soon be overwhelmed by new coronavirus infections, the health minister has warned, amid soaring case numbers across the country.
Frank Vandenbroucke said new cases were close to a “tsunami” where authorities “no longer control what is happening”.
New measures to try to halt the spread came into force on Monday. All bars and restaurants are closed for four weeks.
Infection numbers are climbing throughout Europe, prompting new restrictions across the continent. . . .
Belgium was one of the worst-hit countries during Europe’s first wave of coronavirus earlier this year.
Overall it has the third-highest number of Covid-related deaths per 100,000 people globally, behind only Peru and San Marino, according to Johns Hopkins University data. . . .
According to the Belgian health institute Sciensano, Belgium has recorded an average of 7,876 new daily infections over the last seven days, a 79% rise on the previous week. Last Tuesday the country reported 12,051 cases in 24 hours, its highest daily figure since the pandemic began.
Hospitalisations have also risen, with 2,485 people in hospital with Covid-19 on Monday. Officials warn that if cases continue to rise at the same rate, Belgium will fill its capacity of 2,000 intensive care beds by mid-November.
“The situation is serious,” Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told RTL. “It is worse than on March 18 when the lockdown was decided.”

Compare Belgium to Florida. Remember when Gov. Ron DeSantis ended the lockdowns and everybody thought Florida was headed for disaster?

Nope. Didn’t happen. Still not happening.

While Belgium (population 11.5 million) was reporting nearly 8,000 new cases daily last week, Florida (population 21.5 million) was reporting a little over 2,900 cases daily for the week of Oct. 12-18. With a population nearly twice as large as Belgium’s, in other words, Florida’s average daily new case number was about 63% lower. The state’s daily death totals have decreased more than 50% during the past two months.

Category: Science

CNN Chief Legal Analyst Masturbates During Video Chat With Colleagues

Posted on | October 19, 2020 | 1 Comment

Harvard Law alumnus Jeffrey Toobin:

The New Yorker has suspended reporter Jeffrey Toobin for masturbating on a Zoom video chat between members of the New Yorker and WNYC radio last week. Toobin says he did not realize his video was on.
“I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off-camera. I apologize to my wife, family, friends and co-workers,” Toobin told Motherboard.
“I believed I was not visible on Zoom. I thought no one on the Zoom call could see me. I thought I had muted the Zoom video,” he added. . . .
[Two witnesses who were in the Zoom session] both said that they saw Toobin jerking off. The two sources described a juncture in the election simulation when there was a strategy session, and the Democrats and Republicans went into their respective break out rooms for about 10 minutes. At this point, they said, it seemed like Toobin was on a second video call. The sources said that when the groups returned from their break out rooms, Toobin lowered the camera. The people on the call said they could see Toobin touching his penis. Toobin then left the call. Moments later, he called back in, seemingly unaware of what his colleagues had been able to see, and the simulation continued.

Notice that Toobin does not apologize for masturbating during what was supposed to be a work session; rather, he apologizes that he accidentally forgot that his video camera was still connected. Everybody knows that Toobin is a disgusting pervert. He impregnated his “friend” Jeff Greenfield’s daughter, tried to force her into an abortion, and then denied paternity until a court-ordered DNA test proved it. Now get this:

A spokesperson for CNN said “Jeff Toobin has asked for some time off while he deals with a personal issue, which we have granted.”

Oh, he “asked for some time off.” Seems like he’s had too much time on his hands lately. And that ain’t all he’s got on his hands . . .

Category: CNN, Scandal

Can Joe Biden Really Win This Way?

Posted on | October 19, 2020 | 3 Comments

As campaign strategy, does this even make sense?

Joe Biden is still refusing to discuss an exposé by the New York Post alleging the former vice president’s youngest son, Hunter, leveraged his ties to the Obama administration for the benefit of a Ukrainian natural gas conglomerate.
The Democrat nominee, who has long struggled to explain his son’s overseas business deals, was asked about the story during a campaign swing through North Carolina on Sunday. Biden, in particular, was asked by a reporter if he had any comment about revelations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had seized Hunter’s laptop last year via subpoena.
Video of Biden’s encounter, which was shared on social media by President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, shows that the Democrat nominee refused to even listen to the reporter’s question, opting to walk away as soon as the reporter mentions the word “FBI.”

Never in my life have I witnessed anything quite like this. The Biden campaign announced that Biden would be in seclusion until Thursday, when he is scheduled for the next debate with President Trump. So they’re taking the candidate off the campaign trail for four full days. Meanwhile, Trump is doing multiple rallies every day — with massive crowds of thousands — and yet, we’re told, Biden is ahead in every poll:

If you believe the media, Joe Biden is heading toward a landslide of such historic proportions that even Texas may tip into the Democrat’s column. Of course, no intelligent person actually believes this, but the propaganda organs of our national media are so devoted to Team Joe that the possibility of turning Texas “blue” continues to be the subject of allegedly serious reporting.
A well-informed source in Texas tells me GOP internal polls show a tighter-than-usual contest there, and Democrats are bombarding young Texans with get-out-the-vote text messages, but this is a state Trump won with a comfortable margin of more than 800,000 votes in 2016. Nevertheless, the media are dreaming the impossible dream. The Washington Post’s Dan Balz, for example, expended some 1,500 words exploring the scenario of a “Biden upset” in Texas driven by “a huge Democratic surge” in a state that no Democrat has won since 1976. . . .

Read the rest of my latest column at The American Spectator.

Category: Joe Biden, Media Bias, Polls

Rule 5 Sunday: Dawn Wells

Posted on | October 19, 2020 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Happy birthday to Dawn Wells, former Miss Nevada and TV actress, best known for her role as Mary Ann Summers on Gilligan’s Island. She also appeared in a lot of other roles in various TV shows, eventually winding up with a career that lasted over 50 years. Here she is in a still from Gilligan’s Island.

Definitely more attractive than Ginger.

Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1140, Morning Mistress, & Girls With Guns.

Animal Magnetism: Rule 5 Campaign Speech Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: La Fille du Regiment, Lucia di Lammermoor, Destiny Leaves The Democrats, Leah Baldacci, Anna Bolena, Le Elisir d’Amore, Maria Stuarda, The Nodding Woman, Roberto Devereux, #WalkingAway Gothix, and Don Pasquale.

A View From The Beach: Melanie Griffith, A Perennial Post, Fish Pic Friday – Mallory Hendrix, RIP: Golden Girl, MD Striped Bass Suffer Another Setback – Bad YOY Index, Some Wednesday Wetness, Gone Fishin’, Tuesday Tanlines, Your Monday Morning Stimulant, Palm Sunday, Fluffy, Come! and Georgia Takes the Red Pill

Proof Positive: Ingrid Pitt

Red Pilled Jew: Women & Cars

Bleach Cocktail: Monday Motivator, Tuesday Titillation, Wednesday Whoopee, Thursday Thunder, and Friday Fire.

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious linkagery!

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Category: Rule 5

Ralph Z. Hallow, R.I.P.

Posted on | October 18, 2020 | Comments Off on Ralph Z. Hallow, R.I.P.

Having worked with many colorful figures over the years, I can confidently say none was more colorful than Ralph Z. Hallow, the veteran political correspondent who died Saturday at age 82.

In his youth, Ralph was a member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and could tell all kinds of stories about Sixties radicals, but by the time I met him — when I joined the staff of The Washington Times in 1997 — he was already a legend in the D.C. press corps. George H.W. Bush famously called Ralph a “horrible fellow,” basically because Ralph wouldn’t let Bush off the hook on his broken promises.

Ralph always dressed colorfully — his ties, his shirts, his pocket squares — in the old-school style that was also preferred by our late editor Wes Pruden, and he and his wife, longtime NRA executive Millie Hallow, threw legendary Christmas parties at their home. You’d see all kinds of famous people from politics and journalism at these parties, and once we had a gigantic singalong with Ralph’s stepson Ian Walters on piano, me on guitar, and talk-radio host Blanquita Cullum leading the whole crowd to the tune of “La Bamba.” But I digress . . .

Ralph had sources like no journalist in the world ever had sources. He was on a first-name basis with every influential conservative you’d care to name, and he could dial up Newt Gingrich or Grover Norquist as casually as you might call your own brother. After a couple of years at the Times, I became Ralph’s more-or-less permanent editor, which could be a challenging task because Ralph would sometimes “file his notes,” as we used to say, and it was my job to translate this into English.

How it usually went was this way: After the noon editorial meeting, managing editor Fran Coombs would call me into his office and tell me that Ralph’s proposed story had a chance at Page One if the story matched what Ralph had promised in his “tout” (the one-paragraph thumbnail summary that reporters sent in for the noon meeting). This meant that by the 4 p.m. meeting, the story needed to be close enough to a finished product that the editors could greenlight it for A1. Fran would give me notes saying to “make sure he gets” such-and-so an element into the story to “back up the lead.” The challenge was often to get an on-the-record quote from a named source saying what Ralph knew to be true, but which nobody wanted to put their name on. You’d hear him on the phone arguing with a source — an RNC member, a congressman, a former cabinet secretary — about the exact wording of a quote that the source was willing to have attributed to him.

Oh, they don’t make ’em like Ralph anymore. It was a pleasure to know him and work with him, and he will be missed. R.I.P., sir.

Category: Journalism

FMJRA 2.0: Bring Me My Sword Of Burning Gold

Posted on | October 18, 2020 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Bring Me My Sword Of Burning Gold

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Rule 5 Sunday: Phoebe Kline
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Trump Has Utterly Broken Their Minds
The Pirate’s Cove
Battleswarm Blog
Bacon Time
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Cherokee Lane
A View From The Beach
EBL

Denver: ‘Mostly Peaceful’ Protest Until Gunman Murdered a Trump Supporter
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Annual Admiral Of The Ocean Sea Appreciation Post
EBL

‘Well, We Just Have to Win Then’
Dark Brightness
Bacon Time
EBL

In The Mailbox: 10.13.20 (Afternoon Edition)
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 10.13.20 (Evening Edition)
EBL
Proof Positive

Philadelphia: Murder City, U.S.A.
First Street Journal
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 10.14.20
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Big Tech Desperate to Suppress Bombshell News in Hunter Biden Ukraine Scandal
A View From The Beach
EBL

BREAKING: Steve Scully ‘Indefinitely Suspended’ by C-SPAN Over ‘Hacking’ Lie
357 Magnum
EBL

Twitter Getting Its Hunter Biden On
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 10.15.20
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

A Blue-Collar Philosopher
First Street Journal
EBL

Can Savannah Guthrie Prove Democrats Are NOT a Satanic Pedophile Ring?
EBL

In The Mailbox: 10.16.20
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending October 16:

EBL (17)
(tied) A View From The Beach and Proof Positive (7)
357 Magnum (6)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

‘Allahu Akbar’: Muslim Immigrant Decapitates French Teacher

Posted on | October 17, 2020 | 1 Comment

The Religion of Peace™ strikes again:

A history teacher who had shown caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammed in class was on Friday decapitated and his assailant shot dead by French police as they tried to arrest him, police and prosecutors said.
The attacker shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he was confronted by police, a police source said. The Muslim phrase, meaning “God is Great,” has often been heard in jihadist attacks.
The suspect’s identity was not made public. French media reported that the suspect was an 18-year-old Chechen, born in Moscow. That information could not be immediately confirmed.
French President Emmanuel Macron called the beheading an “Islamist terrorist attack.” . . .
French anti-terror prosecutors said they were investigating the assault which happened on the outskirts of Paris at around 5 p.m. (1500 GMT) near a school in Conflans Saint-Honorine, a western suburb of the French capital.

(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

A high school teacher was decapitated for blasphemy in France—the most secular of nations—and the @nytimes frames it like this pic.twitter.com/xnxJKGNfiE

— Claire Lehmann (@clairlemon) October 17, 2020

As did the Guardian pic.twitter.com/WctaReYyms

— davem (@davemac00) October 17, 2020

Notice that when “right-wing” or “white supremacist” violence occurs, the motive becomes the most important thing about the story, and every politician is expected to denounce the motive, per se. By contrast, when violence is perpetrated by left-wing extremists, by Muslims, or by any protected minority group, the media will never generalize these crimes as representing the collective sentiment of a group, nor is there any political pressure to denounce the attacker’s motive.

In fact, the media will often times bend over backward to humanize terrorists who fit a favored political or ethnic profile, with the suggestion that their motives are legitimate grievances. The media feels compelled to depict certain terrorists (e.g., Dzhokhar Tsarnaev) as sympathetic figures because, they fear, an unsympathetic portrayal of such figures might inspire “backlash” against whatever group the attacker represents. Obversely, when the accused terrorist is white and can plausibly be shown to have a “right-wing” motive, not only is the perpetrator (e.g., Dylann Roof) depicted without sympathy, but the media employ broad-brush smear tactics to imply that similarly hateful sentiments are widespread among white people, and that every vaguely “right-wing” public figure is somehow complicit in the atrocity. The rationale of news coverage in such cases is to inspire prejudice against conservatives, and particularly to incite fear that further “right-wing” violence is likely, requiring renewed efforts to “educate” the ignorant masses.