For those about to fly we salute you. Why isn’t the mainstream media reporting on hopeful developments like this instead of disingenuous garbage like this and this?

Answer: (1) Because the mainstream media sucks, and (2) they would have to admit that Donald Trump wasn’t a loon and asking the right questions after all. As usual.

The answer to this question is yes. Let those who are willing to accept living like a bunch of sheep under states and/or cities poorly run and recklessly-managed cesspools of corruption under totalitarian, socialist tin-pot dictators go. Why should taxpayers under states effectively managed and capably run have to bail out such tomfoolery?

…and speaking of cesspools of corruption, Massachusetts is a joke. Any moron with half a brain would be able to devise a solution where golf courses could open safely through self-imposed social distancing – recommend the use of pull carts or limit riders to singles and advise caution in how they walk and play with each other. It’s really not that hard. But then again, it does require some ingenuity and – more importantly – a desire to open up the economy. Something Charlie Baker (a RINO Republican) seems afraid to do.

…in the end, the number of deaths due to the COVID-19 virus is going to have to in some way take into account those considered normal to a “normal” flu (for example, those who didn’t get a flu shot – recognizing, of course, the relative effectiveness of a flu shot any given year), and those considered “entirely preventable”. When all is said and done I’ll bet you the majority of the nursing home deaths in New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and California will be found to be the latter. And Andrew Cuomo, the so-called “hero” governor of New York, is going to look like shit. Here’s just another reason. Unconscionable. These assholes have blood on their hands, and I cannot wait for the civil lawsuits that will be forthcoming. You thought New York was bankrupt in the ’70s? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

At least in my healthcare IT company my bonus was announced before folks like me got laid off. But, yeah, the same outrage applies. And things haven’t gotten better since I was let go. Remember, in this day and age senior management always takes care of themselves and screws the little guy. Maybe it has always been that way. Unfortunately, you can only teach ethics, you can’t enforce them. It’s a part of capitalism I hate, but Elizabeth Warren-esque alternatives where the government advises how private corporations should be run is not acceptable either.

Let me go on record as saying I believe Tara Reade’s accusations, but I don’t want “Slo’ Joe” going anywhere. I want him at the top of the Democratic ticket with either Kamala Harris or Stacy Abrams as his running mate. Trust me, “Slo’ Joe” is going to be twisted and turned in a thousand ways between now and Election Day – every big-money donor with an agenda knows the guy is borderline senile and incapable of putting out a platform of his own. The activists will tear him and his campaign apart like wolves on a wounded sheep.

…as will the Trump campaign. They will be merciless.

After posting this article, CNN should not be allowed within range of the White House for any reason whatsoever. Given China’s known involvement and behavior with the COVID-19 pandemic, this is not only ill-advised but borderline treasonous because it gives comfort to the enemies of this country. Not that I would ever advise how Woodrow Wilson would have handled this kind of things, but… CNN should be ashamed of themselves, but they’re so friggin’ dumb that they don’t know how to even be ashamed.

This drivel from The Atlantic (a no-longer-relevant loony bin for failed journalists) gives you an idea of what those of us who see things both clearly and rationally are up against. The liberal left has gone completely off the deep end.

Note the latest increase in reported COVID-19 deaths are all from Democratic-led states (except for Massachusetts, which, run by RINO Charlie Baker might as well be run by a Democrat). Geez, given the above, I wonder why that is? The reason is Democratic governors (and Charlie Baker) have little concern for the lives of senior citizens. A certain Goodboy wants to blame it all on Donald Trump; I would argue that if you are a Democratic (or RINO) governor you’re greatest responsibility is to the most vulnerable in your state. You have failed.

Have we reached a point of no return where the Coronavirus hysteria and freak show perpetrated by the mainstream media and know-it-all scaredycats who put their unconditional trust in over-hyped models by so-called “experts” (who have never been right about anything, at any time) in the absence of honest data has reached it’s apex?

One would hope so. After all, states led by their governors are starting to open up, and we will all know soon enough whether COVID-19 turns out to be nothing more than an average flu season (or perhaps even less), now that it’s a virtual given that this Coronavirus has been in the general population far longer than originally thought and therefore much less deadly. Anecdotal evidence is already out there. And don’t give me that bullshit about not caring about the number of people who have died – of course, it has been been tragic, but as it will be seen, many of these deaths would have been entirely preventable were it not for reckless incompetence on the part of Democratic state governors like Andrew Cuomo who, through direct or indirect action, enabled the virus into nursing homes where it could run amok amongst the most vulnerable and most helpless. (This is all starting to come out, BTW, and “blue state” governors like Cuomo, California’s Gavin Newsom, and New Jersey’s Phil Murphy are going to have to account for their actions.)

Even now, you have Democratic governor-led states like California arresting people on the beach and threatening to hunt down persons reported by snitches – talk about your “Russia collusion”! Can we all finally agree that when it comes to personal freedoms Democratic governors are nothing but tin-pot dictators running their states like the socialists and totalitarians they’ve aspired to be for so long?

…And does anyone honestly believe anything the CDC says after their abysmal performance performance during this crisis? These people were incompetent when their expertise and competence were needed the most. But that’s the federal government for you.

I’ll tell you this – and I’m making the safe assumption (at least in my mind) that the private sector knows a helluva lot more about how best to open up their businesses safely and gradually, and that in less than two months’ time you’ll have outright war between “blue state” business owners looking at the freedom their “red state” cohorts have been given as a result of the competence and wisdom of their Republican governors. Then all hell will start breaking loose.

Of course, if and when this happens, President Trump and his administration will still get zero credit for their actions and responses during February, March, and April while the Democrats (primarily led by Nancy “Antoinette” Pelosi and her cohorts) will in retrospect look like the cowardly incompetents they have been. There ought to be a price paid here, both in the hysterics pushed by the mainstream media in the worst possible way while ignoring the courage and sacrifices made by the American people. You certainly won’t hear anything like that from the sniveling, cowering snowflakes at CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the mainstream news networks, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the increasingly-moronic Never-Trumpers, but average folks out there have a funny way of knowing what is bullshit and what isn’t – the reprehensible performance of the White House press corps during this crisis and social media have taken care of that.

There hasn’t been since the Civil War a nation so divided: one in which people live their lives in absolute, numbing fear of the loss of one life due to the taking of any risk of any kind – folks who have lost all sense of proportion; the other who sees the reality of where we are from where we’ve come and the bigger threat to their personal freedoms posed by government, big tech, and the national and local media – you know, the adults in the room. And by the time August and September come around, the group that has believed all the hype and hysteria pushed by the mainstream media and incompetent tin-pot Democratic dictators will have to make their minds up as to who was right and whose lives and livelihoods have been irreparably harmed over petty politics and the theory that you never let a good crisis go to waste. As Conrad Black writes in the American Spectator:

Despite all the unctuous asseverations that nothing will be the same again and that this is a human crisis that must unite the country, it is mainly political and rather tawdry politics at that. The anti-Trump media whipped up a state of frenzy and panic with no real evidence of the medical danger, initially to set the president up for responding inadequately. When he instead responded very effectively, they shifted course and without commending him on the lockdown, said that because he hadn’t developed testing capabilities quickly enough, the lockdown must be long enough to give the Democrats a chance of winning the election. (An economic depression on the scale of some plague from the Old Testament is all that could put Joe Biden into the White House.)

In fact, testing only establishes whether a person has, or has had, the coronavirus up to the time of testing. It is no magic bullet, but it has enabled extensive research that permits us to estimate the scale of this problem. Extensive recent testing indicates that in the “hot spot” of New York, more than 20 percent of New Yorkers have had the coronavirus, but fewer than half of those realized it.

There will always be those who will not allow anything done or said by President Trump to be given any credit, but I have a feeling that there are a lot of others who will come to see that the President and his administration were dealt a bad hand by Communist China and through no fault of his own, but did the best they could in response to it. One thing’s for sure: the American people aren’t going to forget what the Chinese, the WHO, Big Tech, and their accomplices in both the Democratic Party and the mainstream media have done to their lives. Nothing will ever be the same.

To that end, This is a must-watch video. It got taken down by YouTube, but if you want to know the thoughts of real doctors who have been on the front lines of this pandemic. For reasons unknown YouTube took it down (hmmm…I wonder what their agenda is?) so I encourage you to share it with your friends. You’ll be doing them a huge favor in helping to tamp down all the hysteria being shoved down your throats by our collective throats by the mainstream media, whose only interest is to extend this madness and keep the economy closed enough in time for November’s presidential election.

Hat tip to Instapundit and Powerline blog for a number of these links!

…to quote this deep track from The Beach Boys’ Friends album from 1968.

Jimmy Buffett’s “I Have Found Me A Home”, with it’s opening lines “The days drift by, they don’t have names…” pretty much describes this transitional period for someone who was over-employed and someone now not employed. While the days haven’t yet fallen into any kind of predetermined rhythm things are starting to take shape.

So much of life here in the Valley of the Sun is dictated by our two seasons. During the “not” season, all bets are off – you can come and go as you please and do whatever you feel like doing. Now that we’re in the “hot” season, the range of outdoor activities becomes far limited since, by the time noon arrives the sun is already starting to beat down on everything with a merciless pity, and you have to watch your exposure. One of these days the gyms will open back up and I’ll be able to get back to doing some of the things I used to do (and not having a job will certainly make the gym experience far more enjoyable since I’ll be able to go off-hours!), but for now I’ll simply be content to try and get out early enough for a bike ride or to work on my golf game.

But that would mean not being able to sleep in.

Ahhh…sleeping in. One of the true joys of the unemployed and/or early retired. Increasingly I’m finding it hard to believe I did what I did as a normal routine for so long: the 6:20 AM alarm to get the coffee going and the morning bathroom break before hitting the ground running – and I do mean running – with the 7 AM call that more often than not follow right up to my noon. It wasn’t so bad when the days got long on both ends and there was light, but during October-March those early calls were all done while it was still dark outside. But I had trained myself to be able to flip the switch on and off like some electrical appliance, so that what’s I did as a norm.

These days? Well, it’s all so …different.

The alarm now goes off every day at 7:30 AM so I can get up and feed Peach the rabbit his morning snack (dried pineapple chunks, nibble rings, pinch of oatmeal). On weekdays I’ll turn the coffee on for Tracey, check what the morning looks like out the pack patio door, and prepare Peach his breakfast (romaine leaf, few sprigs of parsley or Italian parsley, slice of banana), then wish Tracey a good workday and head back to bed to sleep as long as my body wants.

Some days I’m awake at 9:30, others, like today, could be as late as 10:30. After my bathroom break, it’s out to the kitchen where I’ll grab my watering can and, looking like Ray Liotta in that scene at the end of “Goodfellas” where he walks out the front door in bathrobe and bare feet to grab his morning paper like (in his words, “a schnook”), I stroll out front in shorts and t-shirt to replenish the water in the bird bath and water anything else that might warrant a splash.

Then it’s over to the coffee maker where I pour myself a cup, then over to the home office (not my old work office – that’s been cleaned out and turned into a spare room) where, over a couple of cups of coffee with Peach right by his side of the fence behind me, I’ll check the morning news and various Twitter feeds I subscribe to, give him a scratch or two from time to time.

That gets me to lunch time, where I’ll have a bowl of cereal or a sandwich while considering what to do with the rest of my day.

Right now I’m trying to help my sister-in-law Tammy find a new apartment (she has to vacate her existing living space by the end of October), so I might start checking out housing options, or I might peruse my LinkedIn job notifications. I don’t take these too seriously – it would have to be the absolute friggin’ best opportunity that would allow me to work from home in order for me to even consider it. I’d always said during my prior gig that, when it was all over I would never work in a real business office setting ever again, and unless things were to drastically change in ways I can’t even begin to imagine, there will be no going back. Could I work in IT again? Possible, but it’s not something I’d even begin to consider unless I could work from home most days, and even then, it would have to be a really sweet deal.

As Tracey has told me any number of times, I’ve paid my dues; it’s now time to unplug.

But so much easier said than done. I still feel a bit like (to quote the late, great George Harrison), “not so much of a man than a fish on the sand”. It will come – I have to believe it will change at some time – but right now I feel like I should be doing more than just getting astronomic (at least for me) severance pay every two weeks for doing absolutely nothing. Instead, after lunch I’ll pick out a chore, or chores, to do for a couple of hours.

By, say, three o’clock, I might lay down for a half hour or so. Then, a return to the computer to start looking at legitimately thinkable opportunities for work – part-time, no more than 24 hours a week. If I find something, I’ll draft a cover letter and submit my resume through their website. Right now this just involves stores like Leslie’s (pools), Total Wine and More, and the UPS Store. Nothing I appear to be qualified for, mind you: I find most job descriptions – even the most basic form of retail – require applicants to have 1-2 years of “applicable” real-world experience, as if they’re hiring for nuclear physicists or personal injury law firms. Gimme a friggin’ break.

…I’m sure they do it to keep the dorks and the losers out (I know that because I’ve written job descriptions in my former life), but there’s nothing in these jobs that a seasoned veteran like yours truly couldn’t pick up in day’s worth of time. I’m no dope and prefer not to be treated like one, but that’s the way it is these days. No “real life experience”, completely unemployable. Someone on the outside of employment fence looking in. Just like a Ray Liotta-esque kind of schnook. But that’s OK – I’m in no hurry to do anything right now. As Tracey says, I’ll know it when I feel the itch to get back into the game, get back to work. I trust she’s right.

But I digress.

At five o’clock the computer gets a break. I give Peach his afternoon snack (a few strips of dried apple, a few more nibble rings) then go in to watch Tucker Carlson. I like Tucker – sometimes he’s a little bit over the top but that’s OK, so am I. If it’s not Monday or Tuesday (my alcohol-free days) I’ll make myself a cocktail or pour myself a glass of wine and watch Tucker rail about the social and political ills of the day while making supper in preparation for Tracey’s return. We’ll have supper together, then, with the heat of the day receding I’ll go out for a brisk walk around the neighborhood. Dusk is my favorite time of the day, so while Tracey watches TV I might go out on the back patio with a glass of wine and listen to the birds while watching the evening come in. It’s my favorite time of the day.

[Ed. note: Starting, oh, around next weekend or shortly after that, with the pool in swimmable form, I expect any of the activities mentioned either above or below to be punctuated with a swim; a luxury that will be available right up until the beginning of October. I’m looking forward to that.]

After that I’ll head back into the office to check the same websites and Twitter feeds I did earlier in the day. I might do a blog post or do some reading (presently, Laurence Shames “Florida Straits”), take a soak in the tub, or go out on the back patio for a nitecap. I’ll clean Peach’s cage area and give him his late-night snack (small piece of kale or a few sprigs of cilantro) and call it a day. No going into the old office to check e-mails and load up for the next day as I used to do for years – those days are over. If Tracey goes to bed early I might stay up and do some late-night reading with the back patio door open, the night air and it’s sounds filling the living room. It’s best when there’s a soft breeze with the sound of wind chimes tinkling.

And then it’s off to bed.

I’m waiting for myself to start getting restless, but that time is not now. Right now, I’m pretty content to refill my coffee cup and give Peach another scratch.

You know, busy doin’ nothing.

Joe Dan Gorman’s “Intellectual Froglegs” is everything you need to watch today.

Screw the models – the data sucks.

Screw the experts – they’ve never been right, and they have never been held accountable.

We’ve all been hoodwinked, we’re a bunch of pussies led by the nose by a bunch of scaredy-cat “experts”.

The media sucks. As Joe Dan so accurately says, “The virus is the media, and the media is the virus.”

Screw the media. Grab your life, it belongs to you.

Love life.

On Monday it will be a month since I was told I was being laid off. One month. Today, it seems like it was like three months ago, to the point where I’m having difficulty remembering what I was doing for a living less than a month ago. It almost seems like a dream. Every day that goes by I’m feeling less and less inclined to hop back on board the full-time employment train. Oh, I’m still planting seeds out there (I’m actually going to apply for a full-time project manager job on Monday), but it’s primarily so I can get my formal, “professional IT” cover letter in a good state for future opportunities if I were to ever truly decide to go back to the meat grinder.

There’s actually been a lot to do this past week – I’ve been helping my sister-in-law Tammy find a new apartment, and the Tiki Bar deck looks really nice now that it has been re-stained and resealed. We’ve officially entered the door into summer where we’ll be in the triple digits pretty much every day now until October, so there will be a halt on further outdoor projects, but there’s enough to keep me busy with indoor chores.

And, of course, there will be job-hunting, although I’m being pretty picky right now as far as part-time work goes. There are elderly care-giver services I’m still looking into as well as the UPS Store, Lowe’s and Total Wine and More (imagine working around alcohol for 2-3 days a week!). These are all good excuses for working on cover letters and seeing what’s out there, but right now I think I’ll be using May as a transitional month and a month for getting back into shape. I have several 3-mile walking courses mapped out, and I’ll be planning on doing my Eades diet sometime during the month. I’ve thought about working on my golf game, but I have to admit that from the way things are currently looking back in Massachusetts – most especially my plans to stay in the guesthouse at my dad’s retirement community during Goodboys week (the third week in July) go – I’m leaning heavily towards backing out of this year’s festivities. It’s just not worth the hassle.

The one thing I have been doing is watching the President’s daily Coronavirus task force press conferences, and I’m absolutely horrified at the ignorance and the reprehensible performance of the White House press corp. For the life of me, I don’t know why the President even bothers with these folks. You see his Task Force members putting their best efforts forward, and all these so-called “journalists” want to do is ask “gotcha” questions of the President and act as if we’re all going to die. Any reasonable person (and by that I mean anyone who doesn’t get their information from the major news networks or the clowns at CNN and MSNBC) can see the Task Force has a good handle on what’s going on out there, but the media clowns are fully invested in trying to drag the hysteria as long as they can as a way to damage the President’s re-election chances in November. They truly are the enemy of the people.

As various states begin to open up expect to see more stories like this. This whole Coronavirus has been hyped from the very beginning. Look, people have died, and most of them because of pre-existent, reckless actions on the part of Democratic-run states whose public health organizations were completely unprepared. But as more testing is done and it is found that not only has the Coronavirus been around in the USA longer than we previously thought, but it is also far less deadly than originally thought. The models were not just wrong, but hideously wrong – to the point where we have closed down our entire economy for something no more deadly than a bad flu season. And who among the so-called “experts” is going to take responsibility for that? Time to stop the bullshit and allow this country to do what it does best.

Me? I’m just waiting for the final show to drop on “Slo’ Joe” Biden. Up to now, it’s just been the dude’s obvious lack of mental acuity, but the Tara Reade accusation is now starting to gain momentum to the point where you’re starting to see more Twitter posts like this. The Democrats know they’re in deep shit with Biden – they have to know Trump will absolutely have him for lunch were they ever to debate – so expect more and more calls for Biden to step aside for someone younger and mentally more with it.

OK, I’ll admit it – I’m going nuts. I’m less than three weeks into my imposed “early retirement” and I’m ready to climb the walls. I mean, how much can one actually do in their spare time when spare time is all you have?

I wanted to clear out my old work office and move Peach the rabbit to his new digs in our “home office”. Done.

I wanted to rearrange the laundry room cabinet. That took all of 1 1/2 hours.

I wanted to clean out my bathroom vanity and create a real First Aid kit for the house. Another 1 1/2 hours.

I’ve been wanting to re-stain the Tiki Bar deck – that will be completed by Thursday noon.

I need to get started on the taxes and will do so starting next week. But that’s hardly what I would call a chore.

In between all that, I’ve been putting out feelers for jobs without really knowing what – if anything – I want to do at this point. I’ve still got another four months of severance checks coming in that I’ve already figured are the equivalent of me being paid normally through early November. Which is great – I’m one of the lucky ones. But I can’t just sit around the house. I don’t watch TV (although, I’ll admit, the idea of binge-watching “Magnum P.I.” or “Monk” has begun to cross my mind!)

You see the problem here is, I’m a doer. I’m not really one to sit on the sidelines and watch the world go round. But there’s also something inside me that says I need to have a hard, honest look at my situation and decompress before honestly assessing what I want to do from here. Sure, I created my LinkedIn profile and created a consulting LLC in case I want to get back into Healthcare IT, but just the thought of it creates an internal recoil that advises me against it.

…actually, everything I think about doing right now in terms of work and finding a job creates a recoil. It’s almost as if my internal psyche is advising that I need to decompress. But what if decompressing is something I don’t know how to do or am not very good at?

Normally around this time of year I think about listening to surf music and working on my golf game in anticipation of Goodboys weekend in July. But there’s no desire on either count this year – I don’t feel like listening to surf music, and there’s little interest in gearing up for this year’s installment (it would be my last one, anyways).

I don’t want this to make it sound like I’m feeling sorry for myself – I certainly am not, and I know there are a lot of folks out there in far worse shape than I am. There are folks losing their lives and their livelihoods (and living in fear of doing so) because of the economic downturn resulting from all these Coronavirus lockdowns. All I’m admitting, I guess, is that, even though my life was being run through the meat-grinder for the last three years, there was an adrenaline rush to it, a feeling of being engaged and being a part of the game. That has suddenly been taken away from me and I’m having a hard time adjusting to it. One can only do so many walks and find chores to do to occupy one’s day!

I’ll get over it, I have no doubt. It’s just that I need to use this interim period between “what was” and “what is” in a more “island time” fashion.

As yesterday’s post title went, we won’t get flu’d again.

Ed. note: If you don’t like salty language, best y’all find another post because I’ve had it up to here. The so-called “health experts” have never gotten anything right, so why should we believe them now?

It’s the last of the Coronavirus Crackdown” weekend for us. Before I continue, I’m linking to yet another post from Powerline blog’s John Hinderaker, who has been looking at the “real numbers” and thus has a sense as to where we are as far as this crisis stands. Here is the gist of his post:

…there is growing evidence that many more Americans have had COVID-19 than has generally been thought. Reuters reports that of the sailors on board the COVID-stricken aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, 60% of those who tested positive for the virus were asymptomatic. This is a higher percentage than was previously estimated by Dr. Fauci, 25%-50%. The Reuters reporter doesn’t seem to understand that this is good news, for two reasons.

First, it means that the fatality rate for COVID-19 is lower than most have believed. I think the balance of evidence so far is that the Wuhan virus is somewhat more lethal than the usual seasonal flu, but of the same order of magnitude. It is possible, however, that it may prove to be no worse, statistically, than the average flu.

…Next, IHME updated its model today. The new projection is more optimistic, with 60,308 U.S. COVID deaths. That is a positive, although I don’t think the IHME model is any more reliable than any of the others. More good news for those who (like me) live in Minnesota: IHME has lowered its fatality projection for our state from 656 to 195. How’s that for progress? Given that the prior projection was all of four days old, this kind of radical revision obviously does not create confidence in the model. But the new prediction is undoubtedly more accurate than the old one.

…Currently, global COVID deaths are just under 30% of the average for a seasonal flu bug, per the WHO. Those numbers are likely wrong, because China and Iran have almost certainly underreported their fatalities. If we assume that China’s true fatality number is ten times what it tells the WHO, and Iran’s is three times, then total global fatalities from COVID-19 would be 41% of an average flu season, so far.

For the U.S., according to CDC, the COVID-19 deaths to date equal 53% of the deaths from seasonal flu two yeas ago.

COVID-19 is a disease, and there nothing good to be said about diseases. But today’s news is generally positive.

Keep in mind, this is why we have chosen to destroy our entire economy and the livelihoods of millions of people over.

OK, I need to get my haircut, so we’re going to Tracey’s hairdresser who is now working out of her house. And I’ll make sure she gets a damned big fat tip for doing so. I’ve had enough, and it’s clear that all around this country folks have had enough. We’ve been hood-winked by “the experts”; like after the curtain drawn away from the Wizard; as a people we now know the power is in our hands.

…even the most stupid and moronic governors can see the current is against them.

Of course, EVERY new INFECTION and EVERY new death will now be blamed on President Trump. You know the media is thirsting for it, can’t wait to highlight every death they can find. They’re all a bunch of vile, reprehensible ghouls. F**k them.

…you listen to the local news broadcasts around here and they’re all in a froth about “the surge of new cases” and how the number of death in Arizona has reached (gasp!) 169. Look, I’m not belittling the number – every one of those victims had family and friends who mourn their passing. But Arizona has more than 7.2 MILLION residents. Like they say, DO THE MATH.

So we’re finally starting to get some real numbers associated with real testing, and guess what? We appear at this point to have shut down an economy and dpity estroyed people’s lives and livelihoods out of something that may (may, of course, being the operative word) be no more deadly than a bad flu season.

This is how a true leader leads. F**k the globalists. Put your power and your money in the hands of those who can do the work better and for less money. From now on things will never be the same.

I think this Twitter thread by Larry Schweikart is spot on as far as his view of the way events are taking over. You know, they say a good way to judge the true measure of people is how they act in the face of adversity. And throughout this crisis you can tell the difference between those governors who who whine, moan, and complain (you know who they are because they’re typically making headlines by whining and complaining), and those who know how to run their states with a steady hand. You can also tell the states that have been competently run (Texas, Florida, and Arizona are three that come to mind), and those that have not, like New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and Michigan.

So what to the four states mentioned above have in common? 1) They’re heavily Democratic states run by Democratic governors, and 2) they’re heavily unionized states and cesspools of corruption. The third thing these states have in common is that each of these governors have run their states during this crisis like tin-pot dictators and/or have run them into the ground financially. Sure, you can say each of these states feature dense populations (or at least pockets of dense populations), but in my mind that would be all the more reason to have your state’s public health officials prepared for anything that comes along rather than wield executive power for the purposes of politics and patronage.

…the same holds true for New York City’s corrupt and incompetent mayor. Hey DeBlasio, take your little socialist, totalitarian, crackpot brain and GO SCREW!

Here’s another way to judge how folks are acting in times of crisis: 1) Gather around you a team of experts and rely on their help and expertise in making decisions for the ultimate good of the country, or 2) treat things as business as as usual or seek to exploit the crisis as a means to further one’s political agenda. I always thought “San Fran Nan” Pelosi had sharp political instincts, but what’s she’s doing here shows she lost her fastball a long time ago.

President Trump is 100% correct on this – there is zero reason why Congress shouldn’t be in session and working around the clock with the Senate and the administration to help the American people out. The fact she’s spending this time showing off how tone-deaf she is (freezers of boutique ice cream while folks can’t get their PPP checks?) and resisting bringing Congresss back into session is an act of political cowardice and incompetence beyond the pale.

…look, even if you’re a die-hard Democrat you have to admit the optics on this are horrible. I honestly don’t know what she’s trying to do here; anyone with the bare minimum of political instincts would be imploring her to get the Congress to get back to work instead of arm-chair quarterbacking the President.

One final note, and most critical. Per Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse:

Rebellion against unilateral and authoritarian power is America. Rebellion or push-back against non-representative government is the thread that connects the varying patchwork of our constitutional republic. Protest is so critical to our nation that it is protected within the very first amendment to our constitution.

Let the rebellion begin. Enough is enough.

…but enough of this friggin’ Corovirus. Play this loud (wait for it).

…oh screw that, play this even louder. The Beatles as you’ve never heard them before, and live.

You’re laughing, right? But I’m not kidding. This is why the whole reporting of deaths from the Coronavirus is such a scam and a disgrace for a country – and an industry – that ought to pride itself on getting data and not kow-tow to outright, illogical hysteria.

…the more I read about things the more I’m convinced that this is probably right. Why the media and Drs. Fauci and Birx don’t appear interested in seeking better data from November and December is beyond me, but maybe this might explain it. Personally, I’ve been much more interested in what Dr. Oz and others have had to say. They’re obviously not afraid to think outside the box throughout this crisis.

…because when all is said and done I don’t trust the numbers coming from anyone affiliated with U.S. government agencies. There should be outside verification of anything the CDC is telling us because no one is going to admit they screwed up, and badly.

PJ Media’s Claudia Rossett has a blistering expose on the World Health Organization that is a must-read. China and their Ethiopian toadie at the WHO’s helm needs to be held fully accountable for their mishandling of the COVID-19 world outbreak. It’s just like anything else the United Nations gets involved with – they f**k everything up. She writes:

In China’s viral deceit, the WHO under the leadership of Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has been an enthusiastic accomplice. Wielding the WHO logo, Tedros and his team ran cover for Beijing’s lies, denials and propaganda. They praised China as a model of transparency and paragon of disease management, and continued to do so even as horrific stories emerged of the Chinese government’s deceptions and brutal treatment of its own people. Apparently, Tedros considers it a matter of grave concern to the WHO if America restricts China travel. But if China itself threatens, arrests or disappears its own outspoken doctors and bloggers, or locks sick people into their homes to die, that’s not within the WHO’s purview.

Though, such twisted standards at the WHO should come as no surprise. China began colonizing the WHO at least 13 years ago, when China’s candidate, a former Hong Kong director of health, Margaret Chan, became WHO director-general, serving for 10 years before Tedros took charge. Chan was already controversial in Hong Kong for her slow and bungling early response to the 2003 SARS outbreak that spread from China to Hong Kong. Under her leadership, the WHO’s response in 2014 to the Ebola crisis in West Africa was a debacle — leaving the U.S. and a number of private medical charities to ride to the rescue. Commenting on this at the time, a Nov. 4, 2014, Wall Street Journal editorial noted that “since the 1990s the WHO has devoted ever more of it resources to political activism instead of its core disease-fighting mission — a loss of function that helps explain why the WHO failed to contain Ebola when it was less rampant.” Sound familiar?

Defund it now and work directly with countries that request our financial assistance. Evaluate whether to assist on a case-by-case basis. Enough of playing the saps for the rest of the world. Somehow I think that is already President Trump’s opinion.

…but if you think this means the end of the globalists and neocons, think again.

But we won’t have to worry about all this once “Slo’ Joe” becomes president; we’ll have far greater things to worry about.

Abortion is “life sustaining”? Honest to God, you can’t make up things Democrats will say in order to protect a woman’s right to choose.

Look, I know it’s Thursday – I’m just channeling “Slo’ Joe” Biden with the title of this post, of course.

Hate to say I told you so, but, well, I told you so. But no one listens to The Great White Shank. As I’ve mentioned previously, once this Coronavirus crisis is over I think this country has to take a hard look at the horrible impact Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” programs have had on the African-American community in general. The government has destroyed African-American culture by encouraging babies born out of wedlock, sanctioned the killing of disproportionate number of African-American babies though Planned Parenthood, and undermined in every way through welfare, food stamps, and other kinds of assistance programs the health and well-being of the African-American population in general. All designed, BTW, to keep them on the plantation and keep voting Democrat every four years. It is despicable.

Seems to me this doctor should be getting as much attention as all the other quacks who are deemed to be “experts”. If this is the case (at least he’s dealing with numbers) come August, COVID-19 will be nothing more than a bad dream perpetrated on the world by China.

…personally, I can’t wait for the sh*tstorm Trump is about to unleash on the Chinese Communists. I really think they thought they were dealing with some political bumpkin like the past four presidents we’ve had. They truly have zero idea who they are dealing with.

…it’s not time yet, but expect after he is re-elected President Trump to recognize Taiwan as a sovereign nation and tell Communist China to go pound sand.

Again, if you haven’t had the chance to view this video, please make time to do it now. I watched it last week and thought it was incredible. And the evidence keeps piling up.

One of my favorite Internet stops Styxenhammer666 has endorsed Donald Trump for re-election. The guy has never been a fan of Donald Trump personally (like, I think, a lot of folks), but when it comes time to pull the lever in November, well, most especially after the Trump re-election campaign gets done with him – he’s going to vote like a lot of other independents and libertarians.

I happen to agree with Dan Bongino on this. These tin-pot Democratic governors and mayors think they’re going to intimidate American citizens with edicts that go beyond reasonable measures? They’ve got another thing coming.And yes, if there is going to be civil war on this expect yours truly to be at the barricades. Our inherent freedoms that derive from our Creator have far greater weight than some dim-witted, raidy-cat pol.

…and yes, I am going to question the actual number of deaths resulting from the Coronavirus – this has been a crock and folks are now just starting to see that. If the powers that be (and yes, I’m including President Trump on this) had backed up their actions with real numbers, that would be one thing, but the friggin’ models are nothing but bullshit, as Powerline blog’s John Hinderaker writes:

…On April 13, IHME again revised all of its U.S. projections. For some reason, its Upper Midwestern predictions changed radically. IHME now projects these fatality totals:

Minnesota: 656
Wisconsin: 338
Iowa: 618
South Dakota: 181
North Dakota: 32

I would love to see the alleged mathematical model that, in the space of three days, caused the South Dakota projection to decline by 49% and the North Dakota projection by a whopping 91%. None of these numbers have anything to do with experience, as North Dakota and South Dakota have so far reported (per IHME) 6 deaths apiece.

Maybe someone at IHME read my post and decided to adjust predictions that were obviously unfounded, if not ridiculous. Or maybe the model was tweaked in some way to give radically different results. There is also no apparent reason why IHME increased Minnesota’s death total by 48%. As Scott has pointed out, Minnesota currently has 79 deaths (70 as of April 13, when IHME issued its new numbers) with more than two-thirds occurring in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

One way or another, public officials should not be basing major policy decisions, affecting millions of people, on the IHME model, or any other model. A model is not evidence, it is a hypothesis. The hypothesis is tested by experience. To my knowledge, no one has come up with a COVID-19 model that has been verified by experience. This is typical of past epidemic modeling, too.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “garbage in, garbage out”, and the IHME numbers being used simply don’t hold up. In the end, this is going to end up being nothing more than a very – very – bad flu season, and I refuse to buy into the hysteria.

…that being said, there’s no way in hell the Goodboys are going to get me to travel to Canada this year for GB30. They can go if they want to, but count me O-U-T out.

Keep in mind this was the very same woman encouraging folks to come down to Chinatown and party on February 24 – February 24! Nancy Pelsoi is a vile, reprehensible b**ch who has no place as Speaker of the House. I hope Donald Trump takes the unprecedented action of adjourning Congress so the adults can get to work.

Just letting y’all know Thao Ngygen is going to be my go-to-gal for all things poll-related working up to November. She knows her numbers, and unlike the polls you’ll hear quoted ad nauseum up until Election Day showing Joe Biden – Joe Biden?? – with a sizable lead, she actually has a vast database of research she’s working from.

“Out here on the perimeter there are no stars. Out here we is stoned – immaculate.” — The Doors, “The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)”

I haven’t been on a job interview for 16 1/2 years. Or, for that matter, on a job interview for something I didn’t really need at the time.

I am amazed at the time that has passed. I wonder if I have used it wisely. I realize the stupidity of the question because the fact is, few – if any – people use the time allotted to them wisely. All any of us can do is live in the moment and try not to make the kind of really bad decisions you can go a lifetime and never get over.

I’m interviewing for a part-time gig at Visiting Angels, something I’ve thought for a long time I might want to explore once I retired and had nothing better to do – the idea being, after so many years of taking as a result of the corporate grind, find a way to give something back.

It’s hard to believe I’m actually at that point. I never thought I would get here – there were always calls to do, deadlines to meet, assignments to assign out and make sure they got done right and on time. The forest was always too thick to even consider the idea there might be a clearing at the end of it.

But here it is. On the perimeter where there are no stars.

I’m trying to remember the last job interview I did. I was trying to get a job at (then) Eclipsys, and I was selling health insurance for a company called Western Pacific Benefits. Tracey and I had come out here to pursue the last gasp of my dreams at being ordained an Episcopal (or Anglican) priest. The circumstances are a little hazy now after all these years, but there was a seminary where I could pursue a Masters of Divinity degree with the hope of being ordained by one of the denominations that sat outside the Anglican Communion that the Episcopal Church was a part of. The seminary folded shop a couple of months after we arrived, leaving me completely out of sorts, needing something in the healthcare IT world since I certainly wasn’t cut out to sell insurance.

I had interviewed by phone with a couple of guys while Tracey and I were still living in Massachusetts, and the final in-person interview was with a gal I only remember having the name of Kim. I’d never interviewed for a job before that I felt I absolutely had to have – there was nothing else going on at the time. We had bought the house we currently live in, and there was no going back to Massachusetts. I don’t remember a whole lot about the interview itself; I tried not to show the extent to how much I needed this job – I tried my best to play it cool. I don’t think Kim was that impressed by me, although I do remember her saying at the end of the interview that I had passion, and that passion was something that was sorely needed around the office. (I never knew what that meant.) It took a few very stressful weeks before the decision came to hire me, and I remember thinking I would never allow myself to be put in that position again.

Fortunately it has never come to that.

So today I had that first job interview in 16 1/2 years, at Visiting Angels. Nice company, very together in terms of the services they sell and how they do it. I felt very comfortable there. It was all very cool, very laid back. I wore khakis and a Hawaiian shirt. Decided then and there I would never again interview for anyone in anything else but. Had my coffee travel mug in hand. Completed a questionnaire followed by a nice, laid-back conversation with the HR lady. Unlike the folks at the company I recently worked at, she seemed both a human and a resource. Talked about what I was looking for and what they offered. No pressure. They added me to their list of potential employees as requests come in. Don’t call us, we’ll call you. But I think we both liked each other and I do expect to hear from them.

Today I also applied for a Poolwerx sales associate position. I think I’m beginning to like this idea of no pressure kind of employment. Sure, the money will never be that great, but I’m starting to come around to the idea that the life I was living was actually no life at all. And I can do without the HR and senior management dickheads that are nothing but cancer in today’s professional industries.