Like Cordwood

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The old lady in the iconic Wendy’s commercial used to screech Where’s the Beef?

Well, where are the bodies?

Of not-elderly/otherwise-healthy people stacking up like cordwood. I drove by my local hospital yesterday in downtown Roanoke (it’s a big regional trauma center, Roanoke Memorial) and did not see refrigerator trucks of corpses or any sign that anything was out of the ordinary.

This Black Death – as it’s been advertised – is supposed to be so remorselessly lethal that, by now, surely there’d be clear evidence (bodies) stacking up such that we’d all realize that acquiescing to virtual imprisonment, losing our jobs – and destroying the economy – is a price that has to be paid.

Well, that’s what we’ve been told. In the manner of the urgent necessity of attacking Iraq, in order to prevent “weapons of mass destruction” from resulting in “mushroom clouds” coming to America. Or communists – via the “dominoes” and Vietnam.

They came anyway, of course – but long before some 50,000 Americans and many times that number of Vietnamese were slaughtered for the sake of (here it comes again) “our freedoms.”

Which all of a sudden we no longer have anymore.

Not even the freedom to go for a walk in some parts of Hut! Hut! Hutted! America. We’re forbidden to work – or so stymied that working is effectively not possible. Yet we will be obliged to pay what are styled “our” taxes. A strange notion, that. Of a piece with “we” won the football game on TV the other night (when games were still allowed). But that’s another rant.

Oh, there are now hundreds of thousands of “cases” of Corona – the virus, not the beer. But there aren’t even tens of thousands of dead, which ought to be the only thing of interest to people, assuming they aren’t retarded people. The body count is the only way to determine whether Corona is generally lethal or just generally infectious.

This is a really important distinction that requires some critical thinking – which is a problem because it has been systematically purged from the minds of millions of Americans, chiefly via government schools, which of course is the purpose of government schools.

They are not charitable institutions.

They serve the interests of those who own and run them – which isn’t you or me or the parent of any child “educated” within. The children do learn things, though. Chiefly, the acceptance of arbitrary rules issued by arbitrary authority – so as to not recognize arbitrariness or object to it as obedient adults.

Look around. Look how obediently people – not all, but a despairingly large number of them – not only fail to question the “locking down” of their lives (and livelihoods) but demand it – and demand that the few critical thinkers who weren’t stunted by their “education” in government schools who question it be treated as criminals.

The uncritically thinking are unable, apparently, to make the distinction between people getting sick  and people getting dead. And are thus vulnerable to being convinced of their equivalence.

Despite the lack of evidence – bodies – of not-elderly,otherwise-healthy people who didn’t have some other serious problem when they died.

If it all sounds familiar – which it will, to people who can critically think – it is. Just a few weeks before Corona Fever became the crisis du jour, we were being fear-sold the climate “crisis.”

Which likewise depended on the absence of evidence.

Oh, we were fed projections – assumptions – scenarios. Dire stories about flooded coastlines and (here it comes) Millions Who Will Die . . . unless, of course, “action” (bold “action”) was taken immediately. No questions. How dare you!

But where’s the beef?

The flooded cloastlines? The Millions Dead? The evidence didn’t support the narrative.

Hence the need for the hard sell. And a new narrative.

Do as we say – but not as they do, which is another facet of this mess I’ve already written about. The various newly minted Reichsministers – we might as well use honest language – have declared carte blanche authority to tell us what to do but do not do the same things themselves. They are not “sheltering in place,” much less closing up shop. Their “business” – control, theft – not only proceeds, it booms.

Well, how about those bodies?

If they don’t start stacking up soon it’ll be obvious – one hopes – even to the uncritically not-thinking who are currently Corona Cringing and demanding everyone else do the same.

We shouldn’t.

We don’t dare.

Much more than getting sick is on the line. Even if this is the Black Death redux, the cure being pushed on us is far worse than the sickness. And if this not the Black Death, then there are some truly sick people behind all this.

If so there will – and should – be Hell to pay.

. . .

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143 COMMENTS

  1. Where’s the beef? It’s now Beyond Meat. Same with our country. The media has created the beyond hope scenario. We must trust government to see us through. Poppycock. At age 70, I don’t fear the stupid virus, I fear the idiotic new laws and restrictions that are going to confine us further. Think 9-11 times 10. If you want sanity during these times, check out Martin Armstrong’s web site. Yes, Roanoke…been there several times. Too bad the liberals are trying to wreck a wonderful state like Virginia. I always enjoyed my travels through it.

  2. Where’s the beef? It’s now Beyond Meet. Same with our country. The media has created the beyond hope scenario. We must trust government to see us through. Poppycock. At age 70, I don’t fear the stupid virus, I fear the idiotic new laws and restrictions that are going to confine us further. Think 9-11 times 10. If you want sanity during these times, check out Martin Armstrong’s web site. Yes, Roanoke…been there several times. Too bad the liberals are trying to wreck a wonderful state like Virginia. I always enjoyed my travels through it.

  3. I’m so glad to know a fellow Roanoker, with the same feelings as I have. This is rediciously getting out of hand. No church, no dining out, no exercising on the Greenway or Appalachian Trail!! My first grandchilds first birthday is coming up and there WILL be a party! And I’ve already been criticized for it!! Now we have to pray for good weather so we can have it outside! Good grief! There’s no shortage of sheeple.

    • Hi Lisa,

      Thanks – and amen!

      I am urging everyone in our area and everywhere else to resist. Not with violence. But to stand up to it – by going out on the Greenway, for instance. I plan to today. And in a little bit, I am going to go sit in the parking lot of the Sweet Donkey coffee shop and have a cup of coffee, damn it! We are still “allowed” to do that.

      If enough other people refuse to cower under their beds at home Because Corona, we can beat this thing. Not the bug – the fear of this bug.

      I will be there around 10 if you’d like to say hello! I will be be driving my little silver pick-up.

      • Have a great day and enjoy your coffee. I’m actually in Salem and will be settling for “online church” at that time. But I’m in agreement with you about standing up to the fear! I go to work everyday (for as long as our wacky governor will say its ok- “eyeroll”) and do my regular grocery shopping when I need to. Joining you in living life as normally as possible! We gotta stick together!

  4. My frustration is that public health authorities are not being honest about infection rates. It’s a one size fits all solution that has taken 1/3 of my 401k. This is so unnecessary. Here in Kommiefornia, we have a county on lock down for 12 cases. We have 15 counties on lock down with no cases at all. Are you efffing kidding me? Back in the day the CA DPH website would have had map, county by county, with case counts in each. My guess is they are afraid to show how few cases are causing this lock down. I am tracking the case count in 10 counties that feed the San Francisco Bay Area from the employee perspective and there are less than 2000 cases in a population of probably 10 million. Time to end the lock down.

    • Hi CV,

      The assertion being made is that “cases” (infections) will equal mass death. But so far, lots of “cases” – and about 2,000 deaths attributed to this bug. Even if all of them were due to the bug, the response is insanely disproportionate. But it’s even more so given the fact that probably half or more of the deaths were due primarily to old age and underlying conditions; the bug – and it could have been almost any bug – put their other foot in the grave.

      No one’s death is a pleasant thing. But to destroy the lives of literally hundreds of millions – not just economically, but eventually literally, when they begin to starve and freeze and kill each other out of desperation – because a couple thousand people died from a bad bug?

      If this stands (assuming we don’t fall) then I can see no reason why the driving of cars will be “allowed” going forward given the almost 40,000 people who die in them every year.

  5. Careful Eric or you’ll be labeled a “denier”. I keep seeing reports that so and so has the coronavirus, as though that were a big story. Not “died” mind you, but has been diagnosed with it. Can you imagine a few months ago a big story, so-and-so has a cold OMG.
    And while you can easily find the numbers in big large fonts on the numbers for covid, the cdc makes it rather difficult to find the totals for the flu. I’d quote the numbers I found there, but I can’t be sure of anything they’re saying about the flu, except they do admit it’s been a rather bad flu season.
    But I did find one place where they say the flu vaccine is about 45% effective, as though they actually have a way of knowing who had a flu shot and got a slight case anyway, so didn’t report it. And of course if it was a slight case, they’ll take the credit for that, as though they could possibly know. Yet they do admit that covid is 80% asymptomatic in most people – again, how can they really know that.
    When you delve deeper, you find that most of their numbers are estimates anyway with a whole page on why they make estimates.

    • “Yet they do admit that covid is 80% asymptomatic in most people – again, how can they really know that.”

      News coming out of Britain is that a surprising number of people who are being tested for one reason or another are showing much wider exposure to COVID than should be the case, indicating that they had already had mild or no symptoms back before the whole charade started. Couple that with the revelation from Italy that their reported number of people who died “from” COVID was mistranslated from the number of people who died “with” COVID (i.e., they died of any reason, but tested present for COVID), and it paints a picture of a virus that is way more widespread than previously thought, with a way lower death rate than previously thought.

      https://reason.com/2020/03/27/no-british-epidemiologist-neil-ferguson-has-not-drastically-downgraded-his-worst-case-projection-of-covid-19-deaths/

  6. To be sure, I haven’t “seen” bodies stacking up where I live. But then again, you and me, and people who think like us, are unlikely to reside in the sorts of indigo warrens where the cordwood piles are likely to show up first.

    If you buy the numbers, we’re only about four weeks into an exponential situation that isn’t going to achieve 0-60 for months. Should this be true, we’re going to start seeing big blue cities succumbing to Darwin, an interesting prospect indeed.

    Meanwhile, I’m sheltering in place because I’m lucky enough to be retired, and unlucky enough to be in the prime risk category of older people with chronic (but perfectly sustainable, ex-COVID) health impairments. Where I live every day is better suited than any other bugout location I can come up with. (Don’t hate me, but for some folks, social distancing is a natural lifestyle.) We don’t consider ourselves preppers, but we have always lived conservatively.

    So yeah, we’re laying low… because we consider it a good idea in a time of lies and uncertainty, and not because some hutter is “making” us. We’re willing to bunker up and see how the zombie apocalypse shakes itself out over the next few weeks, before we decide whether it’s all a sham and the quarantine police can kiss our asses. If instead we start seeing riot xxx (excuse me) “rebellion” activity becoming popular in hotspots of vibrant diversity, we’ll modify our plans accordingly. We have a pretty good stock of both ammo and popcorn.

    • Not even one case in my county…..but thanks to the media…..all the plebes here can be made to fell just as if they’re living in NYC or The Gay Area……

  7. Where are the bodies of the “not-elderly,otherwise-healthy people who didn’t have some other serious problem when they died”? Well, nowhere, of course. But have you noticed that the press has lately been trying to convince us otherwise? We are now seeing anecdotal story after anecdotal story of people asserted to be in that category. No evidence offered other than statements from “victims”, boyfriends, or family members. No direct statements from an M.D. attesting to the lack of preexisting conditions and risk factors. No official confirmation that any of these actually had coronavirus at all, much less that it was the cause of their illness. Just loads of “Woman found DEAD in home! Coronavirus not confirmed (but we all know it was, wink, wink, nudge, nudge)!”

    In one particular case — 49-year-old woman in New Orleans — the test she was waiting on came back negative after she was found dead. But you don’t see a lot of reporting on that. No autopsy results yet, but the coroner is said to have ordered a repeat of the test. Which, for some reason, will take 90 days! Seriously? Here was someone who had been waiting a few days for coronavirus test results and said to have felt mildly ill but who suddenly collapsed and died in her kitchen without even time to dial 911. Yet this case wasn’t considered sufficiently unusual and alarming to expedite the test results?!

    I’ve also noticed that these scary anecdotes are almost invariably about younger women. Don’t the stats at this point say that men are significantly more susceptible? But we keep hearing about 16-year-old girls, 21-year-old women, 49-year-old women, etc. I smell a distinct odor of propaganda in this.

    And speaking of the other bodies — the elderly with multiple conditions — I smell a bit of a rat here, too. As Dr. John Ioannidis has pointed out, there is a big difference between dying WITH the coronavirus and OF the coronavirus. How many of these “with” cases are going into the CoV death counts? And how many of the “of” cases would not have been deaths at all were it not for all the other conditions? They may be overlooking a bet for getting _really_ scary numbers: just test the bodies of anyone who dies from an auto accident, lightning strike, homicide, suicide, etc. and add them to the CoV death count.

  8. Figured there would be a lot of comments already. GREAT ARTICLE. I’ve been following online a thread saying deep state being given enough rope (letting this “threat” play out) to hang there own selves. Supposedly – under this cover – there are arrests going on. Well – that should be bigly apparent in a couple of weeks if so…

  9. Come one, come all. See the dancing bear!
    Come one, come all, see the fat lady sing all covered in hair!
    Come one come all, it’s like nothing you never seen.
    Come one come all, to the show that’s almost like a dream
    Peddled by the man on the LCD screen
    In a suit and a purple tie
    With a smile on his face he’ll tell you a lie
    Be afraid, he says, be very afraid
    Of the invisible man who’s here to stay
    Like a thief in the night your money or your life
    He might even take your wife
    Come one, come all, suspend belief and just pretend
    Come one, come all, It’s all good fun in the end
    Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends
    we’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside

  10. “Look around. Look how obediently people”… are. There are 3 kinds of people, and I’ll use WWII France to illustrate them. The 3 kinds are: the Vichy French, the obedient majority, the resistance. In France, after the German occupation, a new pro-German government took charge. This was the Vichy government. These were the collaborators. The next group was the silent majority who accepted their fate docilly because the new government gave them a stability they could cope with. The smallest group, by far, were the resistance. They fought, and died, at the hand of the Vichy collaborators, often betrayed by the silent majority… looking at America, looking at Britain, Canada etc today… one concludes that this is an inexorable human condition. A tiny minority of violent or powerful tyrants can herd the silent majority.

    • Unlike WWII France, we seem to have a fourth group here. Look at all the kids performing stupid stunts such as licking toilet bowls and all the kids flocking to the beaches for Spring Break festivities. These aren’t the principled critical thinkers that Eric mentions or equivalent to the French Resistance in any way. What they do is based on nihilistic impulses of one sort or another. They have no more ability to think critically than the majority of the product produced by gummint skools and their rebellion is nothing more than mindlessly flipping the bird to the universe and doing as they please. It’s more like the tantrum of a 12-year-old screaming “You can’t tell me what to do!” (Not that I entirely disapprove of this, since they at least exhibit some instinct for liberty, unlike the obedient types. Nevertheless, they are simply an aimless, somewhat self-destructive rabble.)

      • Well, yeah.

        & nah.

        Thinking critically – let alone creatively – is but a step or series before the first actual step in the road.

        Revolution & rebellion & resistance parties are all nihilistic masked balls o’ dope. H\opium.

        The bloody details vary, but the direction of the shot, & the target hit, & the herd what heard it ‘round the world – the din’ing dinner bell o’ dope — don’t.

        Hopium heads never learn, either, just repeat-repeat-repeat, in sing-song rhyme.

        Crazy & crazed, all of it.

        Addiction’s compulsion moves the compelled addicts…whose “free will” slaps a social security patent # on it, & charges “royalties” on visa/mastercards…& at the fedres “discount” window.

        French revelers have been colorful, gory, insane fake cake-eaters & lightheaded head-loppers, but not particularly so.

        “French,” like all the other maplines the mope queues scaffold themselves “up” with, are fake news.

        The address is earth. & it is an asylum. The crazy kind. Not the protection from crazy kind.

        Geffen, the gargoyle, called his label “Asylum.” Twas part of his way into the billionaire boys club. Takes a whole lotta addictive compulsion to get into asylum admin.

        Rabelais as rabble don’t:

        “Readers, friends, if you turn these pages
        Put your prejudice aside,
        For, really, there’s nothing here that’s outrageous,
        Nothing sick, or bad — or contagious.
        Not that I sit here glowing with pride
        For my book: all you’ll find is laughter:
        That’s all the glory my heart is after,
        Seeing how sorrow eats you, defeats you.
        I’d rather write about laughing than crying,
        For laughter makes men human, and courageous.”

        “a child is a fire to be lit, not a vase to be filled”

        “If you pay attention to the signs, but when will you pay attention to what they signify?”

        “High and mighty guzzlers, and you, O all you precious pox-ridden—while you have the leisure and I have nothing else more important to do, let me ask you a question: why does everybody say, as if it were proverbially true, that the world is no longer flat? Understand, please, that “flat” here means “without zest, unsalted, insipid, washed-out”: taking it metaphorically, it signifies “crazy, foolish, senseless, rot-brained.” Would you argue, as indeed one might logically infer, that if we say that the world has been flat, now we have to say that it’s become wise? What was it that made it flat? Why was it flat? Why should it be wise? What do you think ancient stupidity was? What do you think constitutes our present wisdom? What made it flat? What has made it wise? Are there more lovers of flatness or more lovers of wisdom? Just exactly when was it flat? Just exactly when was it wise? Who’s responsible for that earlier flatness? Who’s responsible for that later wisdom? Why did that ancient flatness end right now, and not at some other time? Why did our present wisdom begin right now, and not sooner? What harm did our earlier flatness do us? What good is this new wisdom? How did we get rid of our ancient flatness? How was our present wisdom brought about?”

        • Oyz, I look upon your posts and despair… ^^ I shall never be the master of lucid prose that you are. You approach the level of shear schiff posting mastery, as the legendary Sammy Finkelman himself. ^^ That has a ring of truth, but is it a line or merely a shift of perspective?

          • Or just a busted(flat)\stuck(in Baton Rouge) shift key?

            Pellucid is as Schiff’td did & Shafted does. Or can be.

            Precious rights (???) goes to them that precocious fights – if them.

            And even then, bud to bloom to compost’s a short cycle…whilst precocious wrongs hold all seasons.

            Gather them rosebuds whilst ye may, LINOoleum’s always on its way…to tiling over the planet…most roads lead to rome, most tiles to hostiles…which can still be a triple word score, sometimes.

      • I laugh everytime I hear some clueless pundit describe millennials and Gen Z-ers as the “anti-sheeple,” or some similar adjective to imply that they’re more independent minded and think more critically than their forebears. What planet do such people live on?

    • You should read Pierre Laval’s personal diary to understand Vichy France better. It isn’t what the victors described it as. The resistance was filled with marxists.

      • Yep- just like the Yeller Vests….

        Worldwide, very few desire liberty, because liberty demands responsibility. They instead just want a brand of tyranny that works to their own advantage. The “poor” want the rich tyrannized; the incapable want the capable tyrannized; The have-nots want to have…not liberty, but the material benefits of the “haves”, without doing the things which produce those benefits (“Just take ’em from the ‘haves’!”) -Of course, they fail to realize or care that by demanding that others be tyrannized, they are demanding that they themselves and their children be tyrannized.

        They decry slavery, verbally- but they demand that things be free or at limited cost…at the expense of others…which IS slavery….. It’s never about liberty- it’s always about one group getting an advantage over another.

        Kindly old, child-loving Mr. (Fred) Rogers testified before Congress in support of his neighbors (“Hi, Neighbor! You’re special!”) being forced to fund the TV network that carried his program, because the children! (You may be “special”, but not special enough to dictate how the fruit of your own labor is disposed of!).

  11. My thinking on the corona scare and a dozen other’ frightful dangers’ is that life has become so safe in modern times and so absent of real danger that we force ourselves to invent things to be frightened by. Sh*t, take up hang gliding!

    • Life has become so safe in modern times and so absent of real danger that we force ourselves to invent things to be frightened by.

      THIS, to the power of 1000.

  12. There won’t be hell to pay because regardless of how bad it gets or doesn’t get, when it’s over they will say, “It would have been so much worse if we hadn’t acted,” and the news talkers will repeat it until it becomes fact.

  13. Few quick points: Eric hit the nail on the head, with government forced shut down of the foundation of the private sector economy, all income and property taxes need to be, not owed. Not suspended for a period of time, an extension to a future date, but wiped clean, removed completely.
    Two major points that the media, Fake News won’t touch with a ten foot pole which proves the whole CONJOB-19 is pure Horse Sh. Restaurants are forced to close, with restaurants being one of the backbones of employment for Single Moms. Crickets on this topic of a hardship forced on Single Moms and their kids. The next one that blows the whole CONJOB-19 out of the water. Of all the many, many tens of thousands of homeless on the west coast, OR, WA and CA, no Black Death is sweeping through the homeless population. Many Homeless people have very poor health issues with some of these issues, drug addiction, alcoholism, smokers, poor nutrition, pitiful living conditions with lots of stress. Yet they seem to be no more worse off than they have been in the past.
    And last, something to get Eric going with!! Essential Businesses: Government Tax-Feeders who very likely never had a job in the Private Sector in their entire lives, who have never experienced getting dirt under their fingernails doing honest and productive private sector work. Being the people who make the call on what is an, Essential Business. Textbook example of: Oxymoron.

    • Spot on, EGADS I’m afraid your brain is actually working, and you have more than 2 brain cells left. But don’t worry, just get the latest vaccine and it will cure all of that.

      Also, they’re testing a sicker population — OLD ppl that are gonna die any minute anyway, and ppl that are already sick from something ELSE. And I heard a doctor say that the virus death rate is actually still the same as the normal global death rate… so globally, the same amount of ppl are dying as they usually do.

    • A cure?
      You can’t make any money in the pharmaceutical business curing people of disease. We must keep the population perpetually sick and on life-long drug maintenance so profits will soar for our benevolent shareholders. It’s the American way, by golly!

    • Clearly the country is suffering more from this than any military invasion we’ve seen since the civil war. Yet what’s the chances that they would even consider using part of that $trillion defense dept budget to fight this virus. No, our warriors must remain funded against other perceived threats, real or imaginary.

      When someone dies from a virus infection, it is always from an immune system over-reaction. They call those cytokine storms. Well, we are seeing a non-micro-sized cytokine storm of government, and we’re much more likely to die of that rather than any virus.

  14. I am English but there are a few of us here who read LRC.

    There are two camps. Well there is a third but I won’t go there yet.

    1 the world’s governments’ response are proportional and necessary.
    2 the reactions of the media and government are stupid beyond belief

    I am in the second camp. We tend to call the first camp, “the OMG we are all going to die!” Camp.

    Two UK journalists have put their heads above the parapet
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8138675/PETER-HITCHENS-shutting-Britain-REALLY-right-answer.html

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/03/26/lockdown-wests-berlin-wall-moment-elite-managerialism-collapses/

    This was an interesting development
    https://www.gov.uk/guidance/high-consequence-infectious-diseases-hcid
    So Covid 19 was downgraded four days before the UK was put on lockdown. It is no more deadly than flu. Flu is, of course, deadly to the old and those with underlying health issues.

    In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that so far this flu season (Oct 01, 2019 to March 14, 2020) 38-54 million Americans have caught the flu, 390-710 thousand have been hospitalized and 23- 59 thousand have died (link). For the 2018/19 the figures are 35.5 million people getting sick with flu, 490,600 hospitalisations and 34,200 deaths (link). So let’s say 6 million a winter month and 6000 deaths is about normal or a fatality rate of 0.1%

    The up to date US figures for the coronavirus are 85,356 cases and 1,246 deaths (link), a fatality rate of 1.5% so ostensibly COVID 19 is more dangerous by a factor of over 10 but does it justify shutting the country down.

    The UK prime minister, health secretary and heir to the throne have all tested positive but this does not support camp 1, I am betting they each experience no more than mild symptoms. They have been tested because they are VIPs, no one else is being tested. Tom Hanks and his wife both tested positive, she is ok and he has had no symptoms at all. Were we all to be tested here in the UK, and the US hundreds of thousands, possibly millions would test positive but no we are not all going to die, only about 0.1% of us at most, those over 80 or those with existing health problems.

    Any death is sad but way over 1,000 people die in the UK every day, Covid 19 deaths to date 759.

    • I’m in the third camp:
      3. There ain’t no damn coronavirus pandemic.

      I’m bout ready to slap a whistlin fart out of the next retard who says I can’t do somethin because coronavirus. I drove my trash down to the greenbox site and Blake, the lazy turd who guards the site was sittin out in front of his little guardhouse on a foldin chair.

      I said, “How you, Blake?”
      Blake snivelled, “I’m tryin to stay healthy.”
      I said, “That’s easy, just lay off the crack”.
      Blake said, ” Ha! I didn’t think of that”.

      I unloaded the trash and threw the bags in the dumpster. Blake was still sittin there not makin a move to help me, so I decided to get him stirred up. “Blake”, I said, “There ain’t no such a damned thing as no damn coronavirus. You oughta know that.”

      Blake looked at me with his mouth open like he had never saw anything like me before. He said, ” Hell yeah, there is. I seen it on TV. They said there’s an ol boy right down the road there on 38 who is eat up with the corona”

      I just shook my head at him and got in the truck. I said, “You seen Gary?”

      Blake said, “Yeah, he was here last week and said him and the old lady was takin the camper up to Saltville to camp out and hide from the pandemic. I should went with him.”

      “Yeah, I spect you should of. Next thing you know, you’ll probly be ate up with the damn coronavirus yourself. It’s been good knowin you, Blake”, I told him, and then drove on off. There’s just so much bullshit a man can listen to.

      • Amen, Anon –

        My plan today is to go sit in the parking lot of the coffee shop where I used to go inside to drink coffee and write. The owner says it’s ok if I do that.

        • Eric, you’ll have to do what John Swartzwelder (A writer of many great classic Simpsons episodes) did when the state of Chlorifornia out-lawed smoking in all businesses: He bought the booth that he used to sit at while writing (and smoking) at his favorite coffee shop, and had it installed in his house!

    • Actually the numbers you quoted are just another example of how the coronavirus is being over-hyped (lied about). The CDC compared the number of deaths from the coronavirus to the CONFIRMED number of infections, while with the flu they used ESTIMATED numbers of infections. When you use the confirmed number of flu infections, the rate of death is 10%.

    • In Houston, if you test positive at a drive through malarkey for the virus, they will only tell you to go home and get some rest… This was broadcast on all of our local news stations….

  15. I think that people have been rendered emotionally incapable of putting things into perspective. Supposedly “reasonable” people are “putting lives first” – whose lives? Oldsters and sick people? Over EVERYONE ELSE’S that are being destroyed by this social cytokine storm??

    The analogy with the “climate crisis” BS is very apt. There we also had a case of mass inability to count the cost. The focus was all on signaling virtue – in that case “saving the planet”, now “saving people” – and surely some smart people somewhere would make sure that the price was manageable.

    “Normal” people have become effeminated on every level. Signaling virtue and fitting in are more important than putting one’s foot down for truth and right. “Saving lives” is more important than preserving freedom and doing business. Care and nurture and sociability have their (important) place, but it’s gotten way, WAY out of hand.

    Damn it all to Hell. Maybe I’m just a stubborn anachronism, but there’s no way I’m letting these mediocrity mongers get in my head. Thank goodness for you all who do the same, esp. Eric.

  16. Eric,

    Please edit your article. It was a Wendy’s commercial for Where’s the Beef. Please keep up the great commentaries.

    Sincerely,

    Michael

  17. At this rate this should be over shortly and the government shouldn’t have any credibility left whatsoever.

    Eric, I hope you’re right that there will be hell to pay. And while I’m not a big Trump fan, or fan of any politician for that matter, the truckload of STFU to all those politically motivated to attempt to fear monger us all into “Quarantine Macht Frei” will be quite satisfying. I don’t follow Twitter but I will have to peek in on Trump’s tweets after this.

    Well, here’s some good news. It won’t sit well with the people that insist that this is over-the-top serious, but it should sit well with an interest in getting back to making money.

    https://www.conservativereview.com/news/horowitz-man-spooked-world-coronavirus-model-walks-back-prediction/

    • Danial Horowitz is one of those who want us to believe that this scam is “over-the-top serious”. That article reads like a limited hangout piece.

      • LOLOL thank you. Anything from the idiot box nowadays is 100% fake news.

        Oh, BTW, for all the people that are into wearing masks — the purpose of masks is to prevent healthcare workers (like surgeons) from sneezing on you when you are on an operating table and your skin is cut open so you are vulnerable to some bacteria. The masks do not stop any bacteria (or “viruses” [fake boogiemen]) from getting through the mask and into your lungs. OMG the level of ignorance nowadays is FUBAR.

  18. I’d like to pose a question to the floor.

    What do suppose might happen if this were Las Vegas in 1975 — where most casinos were run by the mob — and the then governor of Nevada proclaimed as a result of a new flu bug irruption that all casinos must shut down operations immediately? Hmmmmmm. I leave it to your imagination — personally (and it’s just my opinion), I think he would have been Jimmy Hoffa’d the next day.

    The point being is, can you imagine the backlash the gov. would have gotten from almost the entire city population back in those days? And justly so. But today, not so much. Are people really that different?…indeed.

    • Hey Bagwan,

      Great question! I think the answer is that no such governor could have been elected when the mafia ran things.

      Cheers,
      Jeremy

      • Good point Jeremy. Thats one of the first rules of “democracy”. I don’t care who votes, as along as I pick the candidates. The second rule being, Those who cast the votes determine nothing. Those who count the votes determine everything. Between those two, you can control any election system for generations. So elections (other wise known as popularity contests) do determine the Will Of The People. They just don’t tell you which people…

    • Please be assured that when (ala the 1995 Martin Scorsese film, “Casino”) that when Sam Rothstein ran the Tangiers with a tight fist, and his old pal (from “back home” somewhere east of Vegas) Nicky Santoro was running amok in the Vegas underworld, that the hole intended for the Governor, should he open his mouth not as the “Boys” intended, was ALREADY dug and ready to go…else, if you had the corpses of he and his wife in the trunk, and you were digging the hole, someone ELSE might come along, and you’d have to dig ANOTHER hole, and so on…you could be there all fucking night!

      Then again, the casinos had standards as to WHOM got in, Vegas wasn’t the “multi-cultural” bag of shit it’s become these days. And IF indeed, there was an epidemic that would threaten the mob’s bottom line, they already would have the best doctors and hygienists on it, they were greedy, but the ones that managed to climb to the top of the heap and run the casinos weren’t STUPID.

  19. Eric,
    First, great article and thinking (as always). However, you close with “If so there will – and should – be Hell to pay.”. You are correct that there should; but there won’t be.
    We’ll go through this, and in the end it will be another example of a bad flu. However, the positioning will be that a disaster was averted by the (very necessary) actions taken by gummint, and the herd will buy it. Yeah, I’m cynical. We always get these opportunities to learn a lesson, and the outcome is always the same. You should bear in mind that I’m the guy who’s motto is “No matter how cynical I get, it never seems to be enough”.

    Sort of, but not quite, off topic, what’s making this virus look different is that it can manifest as two separate things in some people. It’s possible to have dormant bacteria in the lungs that are activated by this virus. When the bacteria are activated, then the patient has TB, which has to be treated with antibiotics. TB is very scary; bleeding from the lungs, a lot of pain, but treatable. I don’t think the medical community understood this, and may not yet everywhere. I saw articles from doctors asking “What is this thing? If it’s a virus, why does it respond to antibiotics?”.

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wake-up-and-die-activatin/

    • Dr. Bill Sardi was making the TB connection weeks ago, if anyone cares. Also, he’s the first one that I heard mention the malaria drug treatment.

      You can find his articles on LRC.

      • Bill Sardi isn’t a doctor but, yes, he was passing on what Jon Rappaport was writing about the TB epidemic in Italy being renamed the “novel corona pandemic”. That was a slick move over there.

  20. Ladies and gentleman, we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming of 24/7 coverage of the Climate Change Hoax to bring you this Special Report about The End Of The World As We Know It.

  21. Meanwhile in Japan, life is pretty much going on as usual. Death and infection rates are far below what they are in most other countries, despite having one of the oldest populations on Earth.

    Funny how every American who’s visited the land of the rising Sun remarks about the cleanliness of the country and the infection rate. But we cannot mention that because it might lead to profiling and public shaming for “cultural differences.” And that’s far worse than any deadly virus.

  22. What people need to do is to wear a mask any time they are out in public. This is a respiratory disease, they spread by breathing them in.

    • No, it is primarily transmitted by touching contaminated surfaces. The only way you inhale the virus is if you happen to breathe aerosols emitted from someone’s sneeze.

      • Nonsense Tom. If you are using the proper mask, and using it properly it helps to cut down the air borne vector a LOT. Even a N95 is better than the scrap of fabric some people are using. Let alone a N99 or P100. But you also have to keep in mind the surface vector. One trick to check the seal, is to breath in through your mouth. If you detect some slight resistance, you have a good seal.

        • BillSardi has somewhat to say on that matter, and he’s got stuff to back up his claims. HE says the “aerosols” that we exhale, that can contein the virus, dry out to small enough particles they eaily penetrate the n 95 masks, thus offering little protection to the wearer from getting comtainated. Here masks DO helpo is when they are worn, PROPERLY, by those who are synpotmatic.. that is, coughting, sneezing, etc. That close in, the droplets expelled are large, and wet, enogh to be captured in large percentage by the N 95 mask. Thus they DO help contain the spread of the disease when a carrier wears them. And that is why medical folks in hospitals wear them,, not so THEY dont catch anything, but so they don’t rranamit to the patient.

          Anyone lese remember how the kinyun mde light with about sven millioni N 95 masks back when, I think it was when ebola was coming to kill us all in a month… with a peldge to replace them in the warehouse.. which never happened.

          Theere ARE huge stashes of the n 95 maskes in warehouses.. but they are “expired”. I have NO idea what factor cound :expire” in tose things to render then useless. Some stupid gummit regulation, I suppose. Further, several companies, 3M included, are ready and willing to crank them out by the millions, but are not “licensed “to do that. 4M produce them for INDUSTRIAL use, not MEICAL. Hey, are they not the same stupid thing? Sort of like the pharmsceutircal maufacturers produce a d=certain antibiotic, whcih has both hum and veterinary use.. the stuff goes in the huge hopper on the packaging machine, the guy runs the two thousandpackets for medical use, stops the machine, removed the roll stock for the medcal use product, the bags are carted off, new roll stock is put on the packaging machinek the same stuff from the same hopper continues to flow through the machine, but now into the veterinary use acletds.. same stuff exactly, same batch Yet the medical use stuff costs ten times what the stuff for goats and dogs costs, despite its being ie=dentical in very respect except for the printing on the package it flows into
          I am aware of th eabove scenario because a friend of mine worked at a plant that packaged the stuff, and tolkd me this is how it is done. SHE is the one who ran the machine, day after day.
          No wonder our “medical system” is a mess.

          • Thanks Tionico, I was aware of that. It has to do with the size relationship. As for the masks expiring, that has to do with how some of the material in them is fabricated. It depends on the technology thats used. Some use coatings, others have inherent properties. If one is really paranoid there is always the P100 system. But even the gear used by the BSL4’s isn’t absolute. It has to be fitted and maintained properly.

          • Thanx Tionico, I just posted about what masks are really for (surgeons etc), before I read your post.

            But hey, we all know it doesn’t matter if the masks work or not… it’s the IMAGERY of it that matters! IMAGE IS EVERYTHING. Everything is an illusion.

    • Maga,

      You assert “what people need to do.” Says who? Who made you Decider? This Deciderness is grating. Why don’t you decide for yourself and leave others to decide for themselves?

      PS: The wearing of masks is just theater, a kind of kabuki theater of sickness – just as TSA is security theater.

      • Eric, why do you say that? The proper mask, worn properly cuts down on the air borne vector a great deal. Granted, unless you are in a full BSL4 hazmat suit, there is still some risk, but thats to be expected.
        https://www.envirosafetyproducts.com/resources/dust-masks-whats-the-difference.html
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIOSH_air_filtration_rating

        On the other, I totally agree. everyone should make their own risk determination.
        As for the Thousands Standing Around, they typically fail tiger team pent tests 85% plus of the time. But they do have some use. They train the general population to submit to their nonsense.

      • Eric, what I find odd about the mask thing is that early on they were telling us a mask only helps when worn by an infected person to keep the virus in. Silly mundanes: if you’re not infected, a mask won’t keep the virus out!
        So if they don’t prevent people from getting the virus, why do doctors and nurses desperately need them, as we’re now being told?
        Job One in big-time political journalism is to parrot the official line – never mind that it is the opposite of yesterday’s – and ridicule anybody who questions it.
        Poor Thomas Massie. All he was asking for was a recorded vote on spending $2.2 trillion, but to hear the MSM sneers you would think he wanted to steal children’s puppies.

    • Wear masks? I spend 8 hours a day in a double walled metal shack on the edge of a 1.5 square mile parking lot that surrounds a half mile long warehouse. Plenty of fresh air and I almost never get closer than 3 feet to one of the dozen people I actually talk to on a busy day. What the hell do I need a mask for?
      New York City is NOT America. NYC has a population density of 28,000 people per square mile. Where I live, its maybe 2,000. Where I work its maybe 30, and that’s if you count the people driving by on the highway I can barely see from where I sit.
      Take your “One size fits all” manure and shove it, Clover.

      • Amen, GT!

        These Clovers – Corona Cows – want to “bell” everyone; why can’t they be content to “bell” themselves? If they’re worried about getting sick, let them stay home.

        • Eric, can you direct me to where I stated that *everyone* should wear masks? If you scroll up, I seem to remember stating that everyone has to make their own risk determination. While I realize that everyone has their hot buttons, friendly fire is hardly what we need at this juncture. I was simply providing information so that others could make their own determination. Far be it from me, to take any ones choice away from them. Thats what the State in all its “glory” is for.

      • In “New Yawk”, which is the crossroads of the world, there was also a myriad of folks from EVERYWHERE, bring “Gawd” knows what with them, and packed in as they were, no wonder an infectious disease could rapidly spread.

        Another issue is that Di Blasio forgot the lessons learned under Giuliani of “proactive” policing. While this might have been used a LOT as an excuse to not rein in abuses of the NYPD (As the fictional Det. James Darrell Edwards, later “Agent J” of the MIB, put it, “kNock Your Punk ass Down”! is what it stood for), truly, SOMETHING had to be done to keep the city from being utterly taken over by the dregs of society. Di Blasio and his “compassionate” Dummycrats were in search of votes, even those they couldn’t get the dead to render, and so let the bums and winos pee and shat in the streets again.

        It’s also no wonder, for the same reason, that San Francisco is a hotbed of COVID-19. Basic sanitation…and if we need “Gubmint” to impose basic standards of human decency, then that’s a culture not worth saving, IMO.

      • GT, that wasn’t even a 2/10 attempt at provocation, next time try harder… ^^ If you look up to my remark above yours, I seem to have stated that everyone should make their own risk determination… How does that translate into a one sizes fits all? If you can’t determine the difference between providing information, and taking peoples choices away, your IFF needs to go back to the shop for calibration… ^^

        • magadorn said “everyone needs to wear a mask”. No. Masks should be reserved for the people who actually need them, like doctors, nurses and paramedics who work in urban shitholes like NYC or San Angeles, and I sure as hell DON’T. I’ve been smoking a pack a day for nearly 40 years. If this crap is as bad as they claim, I’ll drop like a dino-killing asteroid if I get a dose of this stuff.

          • A pack of cigarettes a day? Oooo! OOooooo!!!! UMmmmmm!~!!!

            Don’t you know what the Surgeon ‘General’ says?! (He’s a general in the WAR on tobacco!)

            Hey, my aunt smoked half a pack a day for 70 years….and you know what happened to her? Well! When she died at the age of 95, she was showing some signs of having a touch of [read in tones of awe] “COPD”!!!!!

            So if you want to die at the tender age of 95…….just to enjoy a little relaxation and stress-relief for the better part of a century……

            🙂

  23. You do realize this is real life and not a pandemic movie, right? People don’t instantly die once they become infected. It is taking at least 2 weeks to several months for people to die from this disease. You claim people are not thinking critically, yet you ignore this simple fact in your reasoning. The number of deaths in the US is still increasing exponentially. The thing about exponential growth is that it is slow until it is not. That is why it has been said that the biggest failure of humans is the ability to understand the exponential function. I really hope you are right, that this was all just overblown, that many people are not going to die. But, we will not know that for sure in at least 2 weeks to a month.

      • Yes Tom, in general thats correct. But even a blind chip monk finds a nut from time to time. ^^ The trick is to examine whats being presented by everyone, and make ones own determination.

    • Maybe. But having confidence in one’s own experiential function has a much higher failure rate.

      No matter how many times the liars lie, the lie-to-me’s throw previous experience overboard cuz “this time it’s different.”

      It’s no wonder at all the liars have zero respect for the lie-to-me’s…& run ‘em like cattle.

    • Maga,
      Do you realize that for decades now, 700-1000 people on average die every week in the US from what ever flu is present at any given time?

      Do you realize that at any given time, MILLIONS of Americans are infected with the common flu (from which 700-1000 people a week die from all of the time) and go to work and skool and restaurants, etc. and spread that flu?

      So now, why is it that you believe that this Corona virus will be so much worse? Because the TV said so?

      Hey, Saddam is probably “hiding those WMDs” too, so watch out!!! Oh, and yes….some Towel-heads who took a few lessons in a Cessna can really expertly maneuver a 747 in a way that would impress life-long jet piulots…

      Uh…it could happen…..

    • Maga,

      Well, people have been sick here for weeks and even months – and most have not died, which throws a wrench in your pandemic predictions. Getting sick is not (necessarily) getting dead.

      Speaking of fiction: Let’s stick with the facts, not hyperbole and speculation. How many deaths so far, worldwide? It’s not even close to the number of flu deaths in the US alone last year. You assert it is going to get “exponentially” worse. On what basis? On assumptions that are proving to be wrong. For example, the assumption that the “cases” reported are equivalent to the actual number of people who’ve been infected, who’ve had it or have it but show few or mild symptoms – which is apparently exponentially larger.

      Add those people in and the “exponential” death rate isn’t.

      Do you burn a house down to get rid of a spider?

        • Thank you Eric M. I was hoping someone would counter the flu figures Nunzio put up – he’s an excellent contributor but I’m afraid he’s a bit naive here believing govt numbers regarding flu fatalities, or anything the govt spouts.

          The reasons why they’re bogus are many, but one of the main ones is they (the govt insider club) simply go ape over any unsold flu vaccinations left on the shelf at the end of the season. So just like the peanut & Cracker Jack hawkers at the ballpark, all season long you’ll hear a steady stream of, “Hey everybody, come one come all, get your flu shot here. After all you dont want to kick the bucket do you?” Pathetic.

          But somebody’s got to look after those poor drug manufacturers you know…wink wink.

          • Bagwan
            I don’t necessarily believe ANY statistics from the gooberment or any of their official henchmen- In quoting their common flu deaths, I was merely trying to make the point that if Corona deaths are fewer than those caused by the common flu, even by their own “evidence”, than what is the possible justification for their draconian measures to supposedly try and curb it?

            Of course their numbers are skewed- as Eric Morris pointed out above, they have to include those with pneumonia, because otherwise healthy people do not die from the flu. Take away those with pneumonia or COPD, etc. and no one dies from the flu- so there goes their propaganda campaign to vaccinate everyone “especially children and the elderly” every year.

            And no one seems to notice things like: Just a few months ago, they had closed schools here for a couple of weeks because they were ravaged by the flu…despite nearly 100% vaccination compliance…..

            Believe me, I of all people do not believe ANY of the BS which emanates from the dick-receptacle orifices of the elected gods of the nation.

            But I fully understand why you might think I do in light of my comment above.

            tl;dr: Just using their own BS to debunk the current BS.

      • There is growing evidence that there are two different strains, the L and S. The L strain (think “lethal”) is the one that is far more aggressive and harmful. If you survive the L strain you’ll likely have permanent lung damage. The S (think “safe”) strain is similar to seasonal flu or a little worse, but in a few days you’re fine.

        Unfortunately the only sources I can find are crackpot engineered bio-weapon sites so I won’t add any links here.

    • The trouble is, the parties that in times past we could trust, our own Government and media, have utterly abused it, and rightly we American folk don’t know whom to believe.

      This illustrates that preparedness is a personal and familial decision and must be implemented in the good times, as the ability to respond becomes greatly compromised once the “Fit hits the Shan”. Although overall I did well, I still noted “chinks in the armor”, pun intended. As I work from home and otherwise ‘shelter in place”, as I can’t go to my usual haunts nor even reliably travel (I can get to my kids within Northern California, but those in Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, I’d have to drive to, and right now, my agency needs me to keep things running so I can’t just take some leave, which I did do to take in some Spring Training ball in AZ the last couple days of Feb and first week of March, before all this came crashing down, nor can I fly, even a trip, with tickets already cheaply purchased on “South by Southwest” to Vegas on Memorial Day is in doubt), so I’m taking care of some long-neglected chores and also doing an assessment of how better to prepare…because I don’t want to get “Fooled” again!

    • magadoom, do do realize, don’t you that there ain’t no such thing as a damn coronavirus pandemic? If you don’t then you need to shut off the damn TV and shut up trying to make people panic. Who ever admins this site should slap you down with his ban hammer, you fearmonger.

      • Hi Anon,

        I agree with you that Maga is wrong but as long as he doesn’t become incoherent, mindlessly repetitive or merely insulting he’s free to post his point of view.

        I am not a suppressor of speech I disagree with.

        • Even those of us that are faux Clovers?… ^^ The more I hear from you Eric, the more I respect your position. FAR too many LINOs (libertarians in name only) use the same damn tactics as the Progs and Neocons. Freedom of speech is one of our most precious rights. Bad ideas, need to be dragged into the glaring light of reason and logic. That is the only real way to ensure that they don’t fester and rot in the darkness of ignorance, and then explode unexpectedly in our faces.

          • Thanks, BJ – and, amen!

            PS: I very much appreciate your many well-thought-out and well-written posts; it’s a pleasure discussing things intelligently and civilly!

      • Comes to a libertarian site, wants those with different opinions be banned for expressing them.

        SMH.

        You should sign in as ‘Arrogant Brownshirt Anonymous’

    • “They also said that artificial sweeteners were safe, WMDs were in Iraq and Anna Nicole married for love.” Levon Helm as Mr. Rate in shooter

    • I found this video a few days ago and posted it far and wide … all I got was ridicule and scorn !

      Even good friends that I trusted and thought were of like mind thought I had put on a tin foil hat and gone off the deep end …

      I won’t be doing THAT again, but I do think I’ll be more selective in finding new friends …

    • Thank you for the kind words – and support! Both are equally appreciated. I’m trying in every way I know how to hold the line and am encouraging everyone I know to do the same. We haven’t lost yet. So let’s not surrender!

      • You’re most welcome. You’re one of only a very few voices for liberty during this manufactured crises. I’m quite disturbed by longtime friends that have become immediately obedient to the state (with visible fright on their faces) and very hostile to any pushback that I’ve suggested.

        It would be unbearably lonely right now without your site. Thanks again

  24. At the risk of coming off like some kind of rose-colored glasses Pollyanna, I see some good things coming out of this mishegoss:

    1. We have learned that while “Made In China” means lower prices for manufactured goods, it means high costs to America; namely, too much economic dependence on China for even critical goods like medical supplies and drugs, lost capacity to manufacture critical goods in our own, and the risk of the spread of contagious diseases. We finally broke free of dependence on the Middle East for energy: We need to do the same for China for manufacturing, even if it’s only for certain critical goods.

    2. We have learned the importance of securing our borders and controlling immigration. We used to do this at Ellis Island with health checks and quarantines; we need to start doing it again, even something as simple as asking people coming into the country if they have been sick or around sick people, and examining, quarantining, or sending back anyone who’s obviously sick.

    3. We have learned just how absurd, arbitrary, capricious, and just plain stupid a lot of rules, regulations, and policies really are. What’s more, we were told that many of these were difficult or impossible to change. But suddenly they were changed. We also have learned that many of the said rules, regulations, and policies are in place to punish people, make life easier for a few while making it miserable for everyone else, or simply keep money flowing upward and crap rolling downhill. Take, for example, jailing nonviolent offenders, data caps on Internet service, or the TSA now allowing you to carry larger containers of hand sanitizer.

    4. Telecommuting actually can work. The argument that telecommuting doesn’t work for “collaboration” has been shot down harder than Snoopy shot down the Red Baron. The real reason organizations weren’t crazy about telecommuting is that they can’t micromanage their employees as much, and that people can’t look busy without getting much done.

    5. A lot of life is really, well, BS. For one thing, the people who drive delivery trucks, stock store shelves, work in stores and warehouses, clean buildings, maintain infrastructure, and work in hospitals are far more important to us being able to survive, or just live decent lives, than bureaucrats, politicians, or professional athletes. I also thing that with a lot less bread and circuses to distract us, that people will start thinking some very inconvenient thoughts…and asking some very inconvenient questions.

    • Aside from the fact that the red baron always ends up getting Snoopy, you nailed it. This is a tremendous opportunity to educate and breed contempt for bureaucracy and power usurping government.

      • The only ones who make such rational observations are the ones like us who have been doing so all along. The majority, as usual, just continue to drink the Kool-aid, and gladly defer to “the authorities”.

        To them, WE are the problem, because we oppose their filthy vaccines; we oppose the biggest debt and redistribution of wealth scheme ever incurred in one fell swoop, known as “the stimulus”, because they’re too stupid to realize that it is yet more servitude and destruction, and instead think it is “free money” that will “fix the country” (Of course, if they weren’t passing out $1200 to everyone with a pulse, they would see it for what it is…).

        Do you guys not see these maroons walking around with masks and gloves?

        My mother informed me when I called her this morning, that a friend in NYC had called her, and that “It’s so bad there, that they’re being told to wear rubber gloves when they go shopping, because the virus might be on the things they buy”. I said “What about when they get home, and have the products in their house, and have to touch and use them?”. -Oh…then the silliness of the idea comes to light….but people can’t think of that on their own…not one in a million.

        And instead of such inconsistencies and absurdities being a glaring wake-up call to them, even after they are pointed-out, they just write it off as the incompetence of bureaucracy.

        The only thing the majority will “learn” from this, is to further obey and to give up any shards of liberty and autonomy that remain….and to call for the burning of us at the stake, because we don’t cooperate, and will therefore be seen as a terrible threat and cause of any problems, just as the Christians were blamed for the Fire Of Rome, or the Jews for the Reichstag fire……or as is becoming quite popular: To blame us anti-vaxxers for increases of third-world diseases which have been long dead in the first world, but which are now making a resurgence- but they don’t see the problem being caused by hordes of third-world invaders flooding the country….

        You guys are operating under the presumption that people are still sane and rational and able to think for themselves, and that they are guided by reason and logic based upon sober observation of reality, as opposed to being children who are emotionally manipulated by the greatest propaganda-machine that has ever existed in human history.

        “They” are not like us; if they were…we would never have gotten to this point.

        • Just 2 points, N.
          1. Be as wise as serpents, and as gentle as doves- what I’ve been trying to tell people is don’t buck the crazy herd, you’ll get trampled and they will come to their senses at some point. Let them run it off. Make a mask like mine- a grinning chimp. This is poking non threatening fun at a deliberately panic inducing event. Lighten it up.
          2. The repo market has been performing erratically since late last year. The best descriptions I’ve seen as a “black hole” opened. We all know that the whole market has been a Potemkin village for a very long time. There are enough trillions of paper promises made that we’re probably approaching quadrillions. It was obvious that they were going to stage something to paper it over. You and I are NOT in position to stop it, but perhaps we can make the best of it by clear headed actions, including strategic investing. I am suggesting finding a way to make money off what they’re doing since we cannot stop them. They’re killing themselves anyway, perhaps we can be in position to pick up a nice “only used once” revolver.

          • I’m with ya, Ernie!

            While it can be frustrating, I actually am glad to be living in such a time as this. There can be no sitting on a fence- one is forced to choose a definite course- and we are seeing prophecies being fulfilled before our eyes!

            Like a bad accident……it’s just something you have to watch! Would be better if we could watch from afar….but, thankfully, many of us have had the foresight to establish ourselves in some of the best locales that can still be had here.

            My thinking was also the same as yours, re: upcoming bargains- but I’m wondering if this gigantic “stimulus” thing will put the kibosh on that and start the hyperinflation rolling before we’ve even had a deflationary period? I think it’s definitely going to have that effect in the immediate future….but if we’re lucky, may not last long, as usually tends to be the case with their “fixes”.

            But it sounds like something “they’d” do….punish those of us who lived within/below our means and who eschewed debt and luxuries, and who saved, only to reward those who did the opposite, while devaluing our money.

    • Hi Bryce,

      When this is over, the useful idiots terrified of this wildly exaggerated threat, and the power elite pushing the hysteria, will have learned something, just not what you suggest.

      When the hysteria shows itself to be entirely unwarranted, the power elite will not admit they were wrong, they will declare victory and claim, “without our bold and decisive action, things would have been much worse”. They will have “learned” that every crisis, real or imagined, can be easily exploited. The useful idiots will not see the cynical lies for what they are, nor will they “have learned just how absurd, arbitrary, capricious, and just plain stupid a lot of rules, regulations, and policies really are. They will have “learned”, once again, that allowing the government to exercise “emergency” powers is necessary to “protect” us, and those who disagree, and raise phantom concerns of lost liberties, are dangerous and must be silenced.

      “Our main problem is that no one will ever get in trouble for measures that are too draconian. They will only get in trouble if they do too little. So, our politicians and those working with public health do much more than they should do.

      No such draconian measures were applied during the 2009 influenza pandemic, and they obviously cannot be applied every winter, which is all year round, as it is always winter somewhere. We cannot close down the whole world permanently.

      Should it turn out that the epidemic wanes before long, there will be a queue of people wanting to take credit for this. And we can be damned sure draconian measures will be applied again next time. But remember the joke about tigers. “Why do you blow the horn?” “To keep the tigers away.” “But there are no tigers here.” “There you see!”

      – “Corona: an epidemic of mass panic”, blog post on Deadly Medicines 21st March 2020, Dr Peter Goetzsche.

      • Amen, Jeremy!
        That the psycho-emperors have the “right”- nay, obligation to impose undeclared virtual martial law as response to any threat, real or imagined, any time that such a threat can be staged, will be quickly accepted by the masses as perfectly normal and acceptable from here on out. And it will also act as convenient cover any time that humongous New Deal-esque legislation needs to be quickly enacted. No time for debate or facts….”the bodies are stacking up, ya know!”.

        There is no cure for the levels of stupidity and subservience we see all around us, other than to just wait for these things to take their natural course and cause the burn-out of such a society- which would not be a bad thing if it weren’t for the fact that there will be lots of suffering and death imposed on the innocent along the way by the very ones who are responsible for the problems.

        • Hiya Nunz, isn’t it conveeeeeeeniet (church lady voice) that any governor/mayor/county officials can single handedly declare an “emergency” because they say it is and thus become der fuehrer, casting down orders which we’re supposed to obey. We’re currently ”advised” to stay in our house, it truly sickens me how many pussies are calling for the governor to “order” a total lockdown- i.e. house arrest; I’m sort of hoping he does so I can go out and defy it, just like I’ve been out every day anyway. I asked a (probably now former) friend why doesn’t he just go ahead and do that, why the need to be “ordered” ….crickets. Definitely need to revise the national anthem and eliminate “land of the free and home for the brave”.
          This whole pandemic charade is a cover for the fleecing of the serfs by the Wall Street banksters; this time they’re even willing to toss us a few hundred dollars of crumbs while the 1% walk away with trillions of dollars and the whole cake.

          • Hey Mike!

            Amen to all of that, buddy! Funny too, how all of the governors, mayors, presidents, etc. here and virtually all over the world are suddenly all in lockstep agreement, and all doing the same things at once! When has THAT ever happened before?

            So, “poof!”? A particular virus just magically showed up everywhere, all of a sudden?

            The only thing making me sick, is that stinkulus …I mean stimulus bill! Bailing out Boeing, the maker of defective aeroplanes that was on the verge of bankruptcy before anyone got the flu? Giving hundreds of millions so some fairies can leap around in leotards at Lincoln Center? Not that there should even be a stimulus….but if there’s going to be, wouldn’t it make sense to instead devote such massive resources to the re-establishment of our businesses and industries here so that “we” could be more independent of the “Global economy” that we created?

            It’s all just so absurd. Doling out a few hunnert bucks to everyone was a stroke of evil genius. Now, no one can criticize the stimulus, or they’re branded as hater of the people. Thank goodness I never had kids, ’cause I’d hate to think that this mess is what they will inherit- not that it can go on much longer thios way though.

            • It is bizarre how all levels of government are on the same page with each other. Not one state or local politician is fighting this.

              Also, the nationwide closing of the public indoctrination camps has never happened before. You would think they’d keep those national treasures open! NY Governor Homo even admitted keeping kids home would harm those old people they’re so desperately trying to protect (sarcasm). So why close the schools?

              • There was one Congressman. Massie, who wanted a recorded, rather than voice, vote on the bailout to get people on the record. He was roundly excoriated, including by the Orange Man.

    • Your statement re: “Bread and Circuses” is DEAD ON. Sports were, at one time, a pleasant diversion on a Saturday afternoon, where a pickup game of baseball was organized, and folks PARTICIPATED. The whole “kneeling” thing with the NFL disgusted me enough to shake it off as a Sunday Autumn habit, why, I even started going back to CHURCH! As much as I THOUGH I’d miss baseball, I really don’t, and as far as I’m concerned, the one upside of this COVID-19 thing is that it scuppered “March Madness” and the NBA season, as if we perish for want of Ghetto-Ball.

  25. Rep Thomas Massie (R-KY) has brought up a point about the $2 trillion emergency bill that was troubling me — namely, the Article 1 Sec 7 origination clause that revenue bills must originate in the House. His explanation:

    “The Senate did some voodoo just like with Obamacare. Took a House bill (HR 748) dealing with taxes, stripped every word, and put their bill in it. The House is just as responsible for killing the origination clause as the Senate. It’s the House’s job to reject the process.” — from a tweet on Mar 26

    If Massie’s assertion is correct that the Senate “stripped every word” of HR 748, then it seems to be a case of complying with a technicality (keeping the empty HR 748 shell) while flouting the constitutional substance.

    Unfortunately in a declared emergency, there will be plenty of examples of “rough justice.”

    The president, who has little interest in constitutional niceties, already has launched nuclear tweet missiles at Massie, calling him a third-rater. How dare he cite the “constitution,” insolent little twerp?

    After all, it’s just a g.d. piece of paper, as the celebrated public intellectual Shrub Bush discerned years ago with his own unaided ratiocinative powers.

  26. Mornin’ Eric!

    Man, you are a writing maaaaachine these last few weeks! And thank goodness! We all need this oasis of reason amidst this worldwide mass brainwashing!- Even the alternative “news” sites are all caught up in the madness.

    For us, this old Ed Koren New Yorker cartoon seems very appropriate:
    https://cbsnews2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/r/2014/03/21/6c443ca4-b988-4575-a34e-31bcce6be009/resize/620×465/d9a823bc9db9b5bd89b9c6c643358df5/tcb-43854.jpg

    • And now that we’re getting closer to the age of those dear old ladies, including what Mrs Peller was then (1984), we STILL wonder if there’s anyone “back there”!

  27. This morning I look at Drudge, Zerohedge and they’re still pushing the narrative. I’m beginning to think news sites like this are being paid.
    There’s a new name for questioning CV19. Covidiots. The gov school systems worked pretty well.

    I guess the CDC will start lowering the numbers soon then say all of this worked. Gov officials will slap themselves on the back saying their tough stance against the virus worked. People that never got the mystery disease will kiss the shoes of government officials and consider this bs normal for every bug passing through.

    Remember the story about a morgue being set up outside Bellevue Hospital in NYC. Here is a video of NYC. At the 25 minute mark Goodman is looking for the tents but alas,,, they don’t exist. No ambulances, No sirens, No hectic moments of people running in and out. Just quiet…..

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzCN-3dioOA&feature=youtu.be

    • Hi Ken,

      How about Corona Cattle… ?

      I spoke with someone just now whom I otherwise like and respect.She was defending the destruction of her business . . . because her parents are elderly and we can’t be too saaaaaaaaafe.

      Harrison Bergeron is a thing now.

        • Hi Handler,

          It is. I suspect I am going to lose several over this – people who are affronted that I am “not taking this seriously” and being a good little Clover, doin’ the Corona Cringe.

          I no longer care about such friendships. What was it Washington said? ‘Tis better to be alone than in poor company.

          • Solitude’s generative. Multiple’s sclerosis.

            ((I’ll take flecks of glint from anywhere they come, too.

            But…this lather-rinse-repeater in chief rode hard & put away wet – with multiples sclerotic – the whiskey rebels…

            …Which time machine Eric’d be print-lambastin’ same as you’re doin’ with plywood-toothed “governors” right now.

            Fook him.

            Cuz the point larger re these posterboy salts is the facing it: the murika pie-faced Fargo woodchipper farrrrrrr goes back: the rot’s a fundamental feature, not a bug. Testify, Bullock!:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-lCeL8JUG4

            Just say no to good old daze & confusedness re the humanimal sitrep…or just say yes to co-conspiracy…cuz the myths are part of the consent manufactory…& regurgitation puts ya’ on that payroll…the one where you pay to be rolled….))

    • ZH is pushing it because they want the financial system to crash. However, in Austrian Business Cycle Theory, money growth needs to slow; in this case, it is speeding up. 20% in two weeks.

      Drudge, because it is good copy.

        • I’m also extremely pissed at ZH for going all in on this business. Seems that fear porn is more highly valued than questioning the narrative over there.

          It’s gotten to the point where ZH and the MSM hacks are saying the same things… except one makes cynical comments about the government’s inability to “deal” with the “crisis”, and the other exhorts everyone to be a good citizen and obey.

      • Most likely. He has never been strongly anti-war or anything like that. At least he doesn’t pretend to not be unbiased.

        • Matt Drudge is a “Peter Puffer” and therefore by his sordid nature can’t be trusted, regardless of his intentions. It’s like taking strategic advice from the guy that THINKS he’s “Napoleon”, not that it worked out so hot for Napoleon himself.

          • Hi Doug,

            Drudge is a weird thing; like Facebook, his “report” seemed to just appear – big – ex nihilo. I think I have visited his site once. It seemed unintelligible to me, so I never went back.

            • eric, what I’ve seen of Drudge, very little, but still, it didn’t take long for him to contradict himself.

              Now a company in Texas has sent out a legal form to its employees. If you sign it, they get your govt. payment, ostensibly $1,000 per “who knows what time frame”. They also get half your kids money.

              That’s really looking ahead……for yourself only.

              Since Texas is a right to work state, if you don’t sign it they’ll probably just fire you and be done with it.

              Yesterday a cat came in, snakebit, so we got us a good day not open emergency care bill. Whoopee. So I go to store and get a few things we needed like eggs, jalos and ice cream, you know essentials plus some DP and Gatorade.

              Seeing several people I know including the owner, I ask(nobody, not a single person wearing any sort of protective gear)everyone if they knew anyone with the bullshit virus. Not a taker in the store. Nobody had even heard a rumor.

              It’s hot as hell here with the sun shining bright and if you don’t have enough sense to get out in the sun, I have no pity for you. I’ve been outside all week wearing a pair of shorts and boots. Be out there again here in a bit.

              I’ve been thinking about Jade Helms and how I was paranoid of collecting one of the paratroopers(supposedly, that’s how they were getting here but it’s probably more bullshit too). Then I thought about Antonin Scalia just dying in best in a hunting resort in the Texas desert about 40 miles from Marfa.

              They took polls from people around Big Spring, a great place to find out nothing since it’s mainly Hispanic and Hispanics live in their own world. You can tell them anything and if it ain’t on tv, they won’t be aware of it. But there was a bit of kickback from some people out that way.

              I watched the railroad going west carrying trainloads of military vehicles for a couple weeks. So, what do you do with a tank? Tear up the highways and byways?

              But during the entire shitty, I knew it was setting us up to see how much kickback there was to troops on the streets(I never saw any, weird that)

              One thing I did say though, was that it was time in the near future to see how easily the public would roll over since I knew the Fed would eventually fold and they have even admitted it.

              The “pandemic” bs didn’t surprise me a bit. How many things can you think of to shut down the country and keep the sheeple in their pens? It doesn’t take long to get to the “P’s”.

              So when they want to test me, if it’s anything other than observing me they’re going to get an old man knocking some heads. When they want to force me to take a Bill Gates vaccination(slow death you can count on). Bill Gates should be bright red with a forked tail and horns and probably is if he wasn’t disguised so well.

              But I intend to go where I want and do what I want. If anyone ever gets off the gouging on ammo, I’ll order some more .243 since I have enough 5.56 to melt my barrel or close to it.

              Well, it is what it is. There’s not a lot we can do except all get together and go en masse to DC, heavily armed. Refuse to pay taxes and it works right into their plan. Don’t pay your electric bill and sit in the dark and pull buckets of water from the well.

              And now, they’ve instituted this policy which really pisses off the doctors that anyone taking an opioid must take a drug test before getting them. I’m not surprised since the states that have legalized pot have had opioid use fall off like a rock off a steep roof.

              Baaa baaa baaa and moo moo moo and bang bang bang is you cut my fence. Just as well go out with a little fight.

              Oh, and about the opioid thing, for years now people who die of cancer and other such as autoimmune diseases and have been prescribed an opioid for pain, and whether they took them or not, the cause of death is officially recorded as “complications from opioid use”. I’ve seen this twice, both with people who didn’t even take the drug or took very little of it.

              And some try to make you believe this country is something other than a corporotocracy. After Trump brags about signing a spending bill for $6.2 T, is there really any difference between a Republocrat and a Demoplican? Jacob Hornberger is running on the libertarian ticket. I’ll vote for him or write in Ron Paul. To the entire govt. in any situation, you can KMA.

              • Oh, hell, I forgot to tie in the rumors coming from Italy that people who die of anything have the recorded cause of coronovirus.

                • Pasta e fageoli!

                  I wonder how many cases (Here or in Dagoland, or anywhere) of the common flu are now reported as “COVID-19” (Oooo-ahhhhh!).

                  Some have said that the CDC’s test kits give a “positive” reading 90% of the time, regardless of what a person has.

                  All this wouldn’t surprise me a bit- and who’d know or could prove any different?

  28. They’re already spinning the narrative by use of sensationalized headlines including terms such as “grim” “spike” “overwhelm” “death toll” “morgue.” See, they don’t need to show the bodies, just gaslight people into believing they are there, and that is sufficient for most of the cringers.

    There will be no consequences to the perpetrators of this fear pandemic. Assuming this ever ends, things will go back to the way they were (minus some more freedoms), the same politicians will be re-elected, the bureaucrats will go back to toiling on oppressive regulations, and, for most people, the memory of this will fade into oblivion. Better safe than sorry, they will say. And we shall be forever branded as the covidiots.

  29. Eric,

    You wrote, “Which likewise depended on the absence of evidence.”

    Remember what Donald “The Riddler” Rumsfeld said during the run-up to the Iraq invasion. When pressed on presenting evidence of WMD in Saddam’s country he replied, “The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” And the masses applauded like a gaggle of trained seals.

    We are seeing The Fourth Turning (Strauss & Howe) playing out before our very eyes and so few seem to be able to see it. Ironic the year is 2020, the description of perfect vision.

    There are none so blind as those who will not see.
    And no one so shackled as a slave that thinks he’s free.

    • Exactly this ^^^. This C-virus hysteria is the climax of our 4th turning. It didn’t matter what the “spark” was that set society ablaze. It could have been something else. A suitcase nuke. A Chinese-US naval battle in the S. China Sea. The virus was the spark in this case (and note the prevalence of conspiracy theories that this was actually a Chinese bioweapon; Trump encourages these associations by calling it the “Chinese Virus”).

      The attack on Pearl Harbor was the spark in the last 4th turning, and the shots on Ft. Sumter were the spark before that. In each case, the “spark” prompted a massive (but inevitable) overreaction and nationwide mobilization for war. Note how the tone and wording of political language now uses the phrases of war and militarism. “We will win against an invisible enemy”, “defense production act”, “Whole of America approach”, etc… Strauss and Howe predicted this entirely in their book, that the nation would engage in a battle where the fate of the country was felt to hang in the balance (even if it doesn’t really, in a rational analysis).

      And so, we have our 4th turning climax which is certainly much less valorous or exciting than the WW2 climax. Instead of the “Greatest Generation” fighting on the beaches of Normandy and making daring raids over Japan, the Millies are fighting for bandwidth to “netflix and chill.” It’s kind of lame, but it has to play out in order for society to coalesce around a 1st turning regeneration.

      And there is always the potential for things to take a turn for the worse. Not with the virus, but with other nations using our distraction to attack us, for example. We could yet end up in a shooting war with China, they might feel emboldened to make a move while the nation is busy committing economic suicide. Or there could be civil unrest in locked down parts of the country as people realize that this huge power grab threatens our liberties and livelihoods. I’m thinking of Chicago where the Mayor just banned *bike rides* and *jogs* placing millions under house arrest under color of law.

      • While I do seen China as a threat, thats more mid to long term. Right now, all its going to take here, is some hot heads going off half cocked, and giving the monsters who rule us the excuse they need for their next total crack down. What we are seeing right now is just an extension of what we saw in Boston (after the bombing). I suspect its an experiment to see just how far this crisis can be pushed. What is really dangerous, is how much the corporate mass media has been able to panic the general population. A few more weeks of this, and most would cheer the use of the military to “save” us.

        • Hi BJ,

          The press has been Geraldo-icized. Remember “shocking” and skinheads vs. the audience, chairs hurled and a bloodied Geraldo “covering” it all? This sort of trash TV is now TV generally. And everything else. Print, online. If it bleeds it leads – even if it isn’t actually bleeding. Hystericize everything. Death is imminent!

          • The press is less entertainment-constrained than it was back in the federalist papers days.

            It’s got more room to wild & wacky the good cop/bad cop routine…but that routine has always mostly resolved the prisoners dilemma in favor of the prison.

            Getting war prosecutions going is often previewed, coming attractions style, via presstitution.

            This, “now,” is the current war games episode. Yer in the army now. (There was never a day you weren’t.)

            The power of pressed words it only seems.

            It’s really nothing more than the powerlessness of “readers” spinning that wheel…of…fortune. “Time is a flat circle,” alright.

            …where’s the beef? It’s in the pattsy press pattsy press, which is in the pocket of the banker man. How ya’ want your burger, Bilderberger?

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