Anne Applebaum.

Border closures, without careful planning, can slow down movement of equipment and expertise or create clusters of infectious people at airports and other checkpoints. Closures also give the illusion of resolute action without changing the reality on the ground. Back in January, President Donald Trump’s decision to stop flights from China gave him and his administration the false sense that they had stopped COVID-19. They had not.

Those who embrace government planning in all things ought to reflect on the incompetence demonstrated by all levels of government in their reactions to the coronavirus outbreak. In no case was there any serious forethought given to the consequences of the various panic shutdowns of normal activity.

‘Shut down all public transportation!’

‘Uh, how will people get from their homes to hospitals to treat the virus victime?’

‘Oh….’

‘Make everybody Shelter In Place!’

‘Uh, how are people going to get food?’

‘Oh….’

Read it.

Recently, the so-called Swedish model — that is, the Swedish economic system with high taxes and a big welfare state — has been celebrated again in the press.

The alleged recent success of the Swedish economy has allowed welfare statists both inside and outside of Sweden to argue that high taxes and an extensive welfare state are good for the economy. To fully understand this fallacy, we should review Sweden’s economic history.

Read it.

While Americans these days may be having a hard time finding toilet paper or hand sanitizer, there’s one thing we’re definitely not running out of: news stories about the coronavirus pandemic that originated in China late last year. But amid the hours upon hours of coverage, one thing that’s rarely heard: any criticism of how the communist government in Beijing handled the outbreak.

Gee, I wonder why?

Read it.

Mice put human runners to shame. Despite taking puny strides, the rodents can log 10 kilometers or more per night on an exercise wheel. But the mice that muscle biologist Eric Olson of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and colleagues unveiled in 2015 stood out. On a treadmill, the mice could scurry up a steep 10% grade for about 90 minutes before faltering, 31% longer than other rodents. Those iron mice differed from counterparts in just one small way—the researchers had genetically altered the animals to lack one muscle protein. That was enough to unleash superior muscle performance. “It’s like you’ve taken the brakes off,” Olson says.

Just as startling was the nature of the crucial protein. Muscles house some gargantuan proteins. Dystrophin, a structural protein whose gene can carry mutations that cause muscular dystrophy, has more than 3600 amino acids. Titin, which acts like a spring to give muscles elasticity, is the biggest known protein, with more than 34,000 amino acids. The protein disabled in the mice has a paltry 46. Although researchers have probed how muscles work for more than 150 years, they had completely missed the huge impact this tiny protein, called myoregulin, has on muscle function.

Proteins are endlessly fascinating, the Legos of the biological world.

Check it out.

For those who like Real Bread.

If we could figure out how to make bread from the coronavirus we’d be in great shape.

Or maybe not.

Watch: Michael Shellenberger on how climate change alarmists see hope in coronavirus

We’re Not a Toxin Upon the Planet

An Ancient Magma Flood Offers Clues About Global Warming

Read it.

If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

Read it.

If you use social media, you know that if your name is Karen, you are royally screwed because the name itself has become a meme. The Karen meme describes the quintessential white woman who rocks an edgy, highlighted bob and demands to speak to the manager. She’s entitled and rude to service staff, and always wants a good deal—particularly if she’s in possession of an expired coupon. In fact, Karen is stoked to have an expired coupon because that just means she gets to spend more of her day talking to the manager.

Karen is often an ex-wife who took custody of the kids, and is not averse to a French tip acrylic manicure.

ZMan explores the situation.

That will be one of the side effects of the great lock down. All of sudden, women are home and taking over their domain again. The kids are home, so they have reason to reassert their control over that part of their life. Many of these women will no doubt hate it and perform poorly, but most will be reminded that being home and running the household full-time was always their bets career option. Men will learn that having the wife home beats having a second income.

…

She told me that she and the other moms are now talking about putting together their own community home schooling operation. I almost laughed out loud a few times as she explained how she and the other moms got a look at what their kids are being taught and how they can do much better. She was bit angry, for example, about the errors they found in the science books the school is using. There will be a lot of this type of stuff happening around the country because of the lock-down.

Read it.

This year in the USA we’ve had around 35 million cases of influenza with around 35,000 deaths, for a fatality rate of 0.1%. That’s a pretty typical year, although a couple of years ago we lost 80,000 people one flu season. That was considered to be a bad year, but it barely made the papers. After all, it’s influenza. It happens.

Meanwhile, we’ve had a grand total of 282 deaths from COVID-19 so far and not only has this made the papers, we’ve essentially shut down our society and our economy. This has struck me as odd from the beginning. I’ve had the feeling that I simply must be missing something. So I’ve spent the last few weeks reading all the data I could find on this topic from the World Health Organization, the CDC, and various other data sources. Today I read an outstanding article from Aaron Ginn. I know a lot more about COVID-19 now, but I’m still confused.

Me, too.

IEEE: “It’s Too Late to Undo Climate Change”  But will they shut up about it? No, of course not.

Read it.

Now that chloroquine is in the news everywhere, I thought it might be interesting to have a closer look at the compound. The first part of this post will be chemistry-heavy, further down we’ll get into the pharmacology and medical uses.

Steve Sailer peeks behind the curtain.

The U.S. media are trained when reporting on epidemics to be on the alert for any hint of the dreaded Stigmatization of the Marginalized. For example, the AIDS epidemic was largely spread by needle junkies and addicts devoted to anonymous sodomy, but practically nobody knows that anymore due to massive retconning.

Thus, back in winter the opinion pages started running cookie cutter opeds by young Asian women writers on the make about how they were being racistly stereotyped over the Wuhan virus.

Similarly, there seems to be some kind of embargo on data about race and ethnicity of people with the coronavirus. It’s easy to learn the sex and age of patients, but not race, whereas with most other topics (other than crime), race is widely trumpeted in the press. My guess is that decisions were made long ago to downplay race and nationality in collecting and publicizing epidemic numbers to avoid stereotyping the marginalized

Read it.

Audacious Epigone looks at the numbers.

Six days later, with the c onfirmed nationwide caseload approaching 20,000, the respective correlations have increased from .40 to .58 and from .09 to .16.

Correlation does not necessarily mean causation, of course. When increasing the sample size also increases the strength of the correlation, though, it suggests we’re onto something real.

It’s a schizophrenic world we live in, isn’t it? When members of a minority group are disproportionately the victims of crime or of poverty or of various negative health outcomes, America is indicted for not noticing the discrepancy. Yet for other negative health outcomes, like this one, the indictment comes on account of noticing the discrepancy rather than on account of not noticing it.

Babylon Bee.

NOW you can panic.

Babylon Bee.

What would we do without celebrities?

Sea Levels Rising Faster than Expected  That’s why everyone is fleeing inland from the coast.

Climate Alarmist Naomi Klein Uses Pandemic to Whine Over ‘Coronavirus Capitalism’

The Conversation: “Coronavirus response proves the world can act on climate change”

Fact or Fiction: Addressing the Talking Points of Climate Activists

Polar bears prowling Newfoundland come on top of coronavirus fears  Guess they didn’t get the memo that they’re supposed to be dying out.

Read it.

I don’t know of any Republican who has died from coronavirus — do you?

Read it.

When the crisis unleashed by the Corona 19 China virus ends, America and the rest of the world must never forget who is responsible for it. I’m not of course talking about God or nature or the people of good will of China, but of course the Chinese communist party.

The Other McCain.

In the world of fashion, the “Made in Italy” tag has a distinct value associated with luxury and status. Merchants can charge higher prices for clothing, shoes, handbags, and other fashion goods manufactured in Italy, and that value was coveted by certain Chinese entrepreneurs. During the past three decades, more and more Chinese investors bought into textile and leather-good factories in northern Italy, and they brought over Chinese laborers to work in those factories. By 2010, there were reportedly 60,000 Chinese in Prato, an industrial suburb of Florence. To accommodate Italy’s new foreign labor force, nonstop flights were established between China and Rome.

This reinforces my speculation that the Wuhan virus is especially nasty for Han Chinese.

But, of course, that would be waaaaaaacist.

Read it.

The long-anticipated appearance of South American “narco-subs” (drug smuggling submersible vessels) in Europe has finally been confirmed with the seizure of one off the Spanish coast in November 2019. This boat was having engine and ventilation problems made worse by rough seas. The three man crew was discovered by police as they were abandoning the sinking boat close to shore. Two of crew, both from Ecuador, were arrested while the third man got away but was captured a few days later and found to be Spanish, and the pilot of the sub. The sub was soon brought to the surface and taken to a port. The 21 meter (67 foot) submersible was carrying three tons of cocaine and had apparently made several voyages so far. This one had travelled farther than usual, to northwest Spain, near the border between Portugal and Galicia (Spain) to avoid more intense offshore patrols off the southwest Spanish coast. The use of these submersibles off the Spanish coast had been rumored since 2016. It was also known that some only went as far as Cape Verde Islands (570 kilometers off the northwest coast of Africa), the Canary Islands further north (100 kilometers off the Moroccan coast) or much farther north to the Azores (1,500 kilometers west of Portugal). Once near these island the subs offload their cargo to fishing or speedboats, take on fuel and return to their South American base to pick up another load. As the use of submersibles and subs in South America became more common it was suggested that these difficult to detect boats be used to move the cocaine to Spain.

Read it.

American military intelligence agencies are trying to figure out what is behind the recent arrest of ten Chinese who were caught brazenly entering restricted areas to take photographs of secret installations and operations. There may have been others who got in and out and were not caught. Most of those involved appear to be taking advantage of U.S. law, since anyone caught illegally entering a base and taking photos or videos can spend as little as a year in jail if they plead guilty, which a ten year sentence is more likely if they go to trial. The first such incident resulted in a one year sentence but the other eight are facing more scrutiny, even though four of these had diplomatic immunity and were expelled.

The first such Chinese student caught doing this, in late 2018, pled guilty and spent a year in jail for it. He finished that sentence in November 2019. That guilty plea was obtained by dropping several more serious charges. After this there were three more incidents of Chinese students doing the same thing at the same Key West naval base. Meanwhile two Chinese diplomats and their wives were caught after driving boldly though the security gate of a Virginia base. They and their wives had had diplomatic immunity and could only be expelled from the country. In March a Chinese woman was caught after illegally entering a Mar-a-Lago Florida resort owned by the American president and sometimes used for presidential meetings. In September another Chinese woman was caught trying the same thing. One of the Chinese woman was found to have connections with Chinese intelligence.

Greenland lost a near-record 600 billion tons of ice last summer, raising sea levels  Washington Post. That’s why everyone is fleeing the coast into the interior. Oh, wait….

LA Times: California is Not Doing Enough about Climate Change  ’cause that’s the most important thing we’ve got to worry about right now.

Increasingly mobile sea ice risks polluting Arctic neighbors

Tone Deaf CBS Finds Environmental ‘Silver Lining’ to Pandemic Killing Thousands

Trump Calmly Explains to Accusing Reporter Why He Calls a Virus From China – a Virus From China

NBC & CBS Lecture ‘Racist’ Trump About ‘Chinese Virus’

An open letter to @GretaThunberg and other assorted climate wackadoodles

Babylon Bee.

American ingenuity at its finest.

Read it.

“Like previous White House briefings, this one suffered from conflicting messages from the president and his advisers,” Bloomberg News reported today. “Trump, for example, said the malaria drug chloroquine had been approved and could be given to coronavirus patients with a prescription. But an FDA spokesperson clarified mid-press conference that the drug had not been approved for use with Covid-19 patients and FDA chief Stephen Hahn added it was only for use in trials at the moment.”

This is what we’re up against. Bureaucrats are putting people’s lives at risk.

If it’s an approved drug, that means it’s safe to use. If they’re getting good results, which is why we’re even hearing about it at all, then it ought to be put in operation wherever the need is greatest.

Stephen Han ought to be locked up where he can’t do any more damage, and to serve as an example to others that we don’t want any Deep State foot-dragging around here.

We’re the little one way over on the right, although you wouldn’t know it by the way people are panicking.

Read it.

Density–bunching up–makes us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. It makes us more vulnerable to novel diseases. It also makes us more vulnerable to crime, invasions of privacy, and traffic accidents. It makes us waste more time in congestion. Contrary to planners’ claims, people living in dense areas also pay higher taxes.

Densities and transit-dependence also makes us more vulnerable to natural disasters. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, 1,200 people died, mostly because New Orleans had the second-lowest rate of auto ownership (next to New York) of any major city in the country. At the time, some urban planners had the gall to say that fewer people would have died if auto ownership rates had been even lower. In fact, a few weeks later, Hurricane Rita hit Houston, which has much higher auto ownership rates. Four million people successfully evacuated, nearly all by car, and fatalities were only a tenth of Katrina’s.

CNN Touts the Climate Benefits of Chinese Coronavirus

CRUZ MISSILE: Ted Cruz Blasts MSNBC’s Chris Hayes’ Ignorant Green New Deal Tweet

John Kerry and His Climate Clown-Science

ZMan ponders the situation.

More than a few people have noted that the vibe in certain parts of the country has the same feel as the days after 9/11. Then and now, the northeast was most affected by the aftermath of the event. New Jersey shutdown after 9/11, but North Carolina carried on pretty much without interruption. We see a similar pattern now. The mad scramble by the rulers is also similar. Even the propaganda organs have been disrupted, having to depart from their normal barrage of hatred for the rest of us.

…

This month-long lock-down, and that is what they are planning, by the way, will bring with it a massive re-ordering of society. Think about what is happening. The government is willy-nilly telling businesses to shut down. People are being locked into their homes on the orders of local officials. In the fullness of time, what we see happening will make Julius Caesar’s crossing the Rubicon river in January 49 BC look tentative. In a decade, the world of just a few weeks ago will be a foreign country to us.

…

Barring a collapse or revolution, no one reading this will see an unwinding of the changes that resulted from the panic of 9/11. This panic is orders of magnitude worse than what followed 9/11. The one-week shutdown of the economy gave us a nice recession that required lots of government intervention. A month long shut down of the economy will change the world forever. Just look at what is planned after a few days of this panic. The Republicans are now devotees of Andrew Yang.

Steve Sailer.

At present, this seems to be a disease that spreads first among the affluent, energetic, and popular. Normally, it’s nice to go through life jetting around to places where everybody wants to shake your hand. But not at the moment.

Climate change: The rich are to blame, international study finds BBC.

There’s an unlikely beneficiary of coronavirus: The planet  CNN.

GreenBiz: “climate change could make the coronavirus seem like the good old days”

ZMan feels about the same way I do.

First, I want to thank my family for being with me through all of this. I could not get through this without them. This has been a trying time for all of us. I’m here today to announce that I have tested positive for the coronavirus. I’m coming forward in the hope that I will continue to inspire people suffering from this horrible burden to keep bravely fighting and dreaming. I also hope this will help break the stigma white men have attached to this condition and the sufferers of it…

That is a little taste of what will no doubt be a feature of our lives in the coming week, as famous people take turns staring in their own corona drama. It has already started a bit, with people like Tom Hanks and others announcing they have tested COV-positive, but the flood gates will surely open once we run out of hoarding stories. You can be sure that musical performers are plotting some sort of corona-aid performance, perhaps done on-line, to draw attention to themselves.

‘Social Media’ has made this a world stuffed full of narcissists, with a corresponding rise of Nosy Parkers who seem to think that they have a natural right to peer into every dark corner of other people’s lives — and tell them what to do.

We live in an age in which everything is a performance. Not just any performance, of course, but a morality tale. The “famous person making the dramatic announcement to the public” version is pretty common. Twenty years ago, famous homosexuals would have dramatic coming out ceremonies. Some would make a drama of announcing they got the AIDS. The point of the performance is for the actor to get both sympathy and admiration for being a heroic victim, bravely fighting on.

My attitude toward victims is that they ought to go ahead and just die already. From the days of ‘ghetto blasters’, where every punk in the Hood thought his squalid life deserved a sound track, to today’s social-media snowflakes, who are convinced that theirs is a unique tragic existence deserving of documentation, it’s just one boring intrusion after another. (This is why I avoid Twitter and Facebook. There are enough boring aspects of my life already, I don’t need to borrow from other people.)

Having a very buff GPA never got me a girlfriend.

Read it.

OK, here are my questions. We had a perfect petri-dish coronavirus disease (COVID-19) experiment with the cruise ship “Diamond Princess”. That’s the cruise ship that ended up in quarantine for a number of weeks after a number of people tested positive for the coronavirus. I got to wondering what the outcome of the experiment was.

…

As you might imagine, before they knew it was a problem, the epidemic raged on the ship, with infected crew members cooking and cleaning for the guests, people all eating together, close living quarters, lots of social interaction, and a generally older population. Seems like a perfect situation for an overwhelming majority of the passengers to become infected.

And despite that, some 83% (82.7% – 83.9%) of the passengers never got the disease at all … why?

Perhaps because it’s not as virulent as the hair-on-fire crowd want you to think it is? Just maybe?

Extinction Rebellion Considering Public Suicide Events to Raise Climate Awareness

WHAT?! MIT Tech Magazine Touts Coronavirus Will ‘Cut Greenhouse-Gas Emissions This Year’  Fimbulwinter does that.

Greta Thunberg Condemns Coronavirus For Causing Apocalypse 10 Years Early  Babylon Bee.

Greta preaches many of the first Earth Day’s failed predictions

What’s it like being Andrew Yang these days? During the latest Democrat debate, he found out:

1. He can’t be the Democrat Vice-Presidential pick because he has a penis and he’s not black.
2. He won’t be nominated to the Supreme Court by a Democrat President because he has a penis and he’s not black.

How’s being a Democrat working out for you, Andrew? (You can always renounce the Dark Side….)

ZMan lays out the options.

That familiar, but fictional, scenario is useful in thinking about what our rulers should be doing in the current crisis. The coronavirus epidemic has created a scenario for the rulers that has no right answer. There’s no heroic 30-something women in a lab about to formulate a vaccine for the Chinese Flu. There’s no handsome germ detective hunting down the mad scientist that created it. The choice is either bring civilization to a halt for as long as it takes or let the virus run its course.

Read it.

When our minds are free to wander, we shift into a diffuse mode of thinking. This is sometimes referred to as our natural mode of thinking, or the daydream mode; it’s when we form connections and subconsciously mull over problems. Although diffuse thinking comes in the guise of a break from focus, our minds are still working. Often, it’s only after we switch away from this mode that we realize our brains were indeed working for us. Moving into diffuse mode can be a very brief phenomenon, such as when we briefly stare into the distance before returning to work.

The Guardian: Patriotic “New Nationalism” is Required to Drive Solidarity and Acceptance of Climate Action

The ‘Climate Emergency’ -Running with the crowds?

The Arctic might be a methane time bomb—or not

America thrived by choking its rivers with dams. Now it’s time to undo the damage.  Wired ‘Science’.

Climate Change Obsessed Britain to Outlaw the “Throwaway Society”

This small island chain is leading the way on hydrogen power

The Conversation: There is no evidence that ‘global warming’ was rebranded as ‘climate change’

The 11 gaslighting characteristics of the climate debate

Rhode Island Official Admits State’s Climate Lawsuit Is Meant To Wring Money Out Of Big Oil: Court Docs

Read it.

Every cloud has a silver lining.