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Contrary to what almost everyone has said during the last three months – from media talking heads to presidents and epidemiologists and your neighbor – the growth of pandemics is not exponential. The number of people infected and number of dead don’t follow “exponential” curves. They follow S-shaped curves.

An S-shaped curve is initially like an exponential curve, before it stagnates and levels off. What we’re arguing over is when exactly this exponential phase will end, and what we might be able to do to bring that fortuitous event closer.

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We have posted several contributions by our friend Brian Sullivan. Brian is a serial entrepreneur who founded and now runs a cutting-edge cancer research company. He is an exceptionally able man in several respects; among other things, he understands mathematics. Unlike, apparently, every journalist in the United States. Brian has been analyzing international data on COVID-19 and has come to some striking conclusions.

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Everything related to the coronavirus shutdown of the country is guided, in large part, by projected deaths and hospitalizations. But what if the computer models are wrong, way wrong? We look at what one of the most prominent models said would be the number of hospital beds and ICU units needed at this point and compare it to what the actual number for both of those are and speculate as to why there is such a huge discrepancy between the two.

Sarah Silverman ‘Hates’ Trump Supporters! ‘Hatred Is What I Feel’ For ‘These People’  Reciprocated.

MSNBC Talks Over Birx to Bash ‘Incoherent,’ ‘Rambling’ Trump ‘Mentally…Unraveling’

Trump’s War on Solar  Rolling Stone.

Brian Stelter Oozes Press Is ‘So Essential,’ and Trump Is ‘Very Dangerous’ With His ‘BS’

Shannon Sharpe, Deadspin Trash Kushner, Trump Over Comments On COVID-19

ABC Claims Trump Is Treating Crisis Briefings Like a ‘Reality TV Show’

J.B. Pritzker Still Blaming Trump For GOP Governors Slow To Enact Stay-At-Home Orders

ABC Asks Biden to Blame Virus Deaths on Trump, Ignores Sexual Assault Claim  Bias? What bias?

HBO’s Bill Maher Argues Trump Virus Response More Impeachable Than Russia/Ukraine Matters

CNN’s Tapper Beclowns Himself With Rant Suggesting Trump Doing Nothing

The Guardian: Can we Rescue the Great Barrier Reef?

Here’s Why Californians Are Getting Reamed At The Gas Pump Despite Rock-Bottom Oil Prices  Prices are always higher in a People’s Republic.

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Believe it or not, the word “sunscreen” appears dozens times in the CARES Act, and it’s thanks to the Treatment of Sunscreen Innovation Act being placed into the bill.

The attitude of our elected representatives, when dealing with any emergency, seems to be As Long As We’re Spending Money How About We….

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There’s no proof the coronavirus accidentally escaped from a laboratory, but we can’t take the Chinese government’s denials at face value.

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Richard Blumenthal has been attacking internet services he doesn’t understand since before he was even a US Senator. It has carried over into his job as a Senator, and was abundantly obvious in his role as a co-sponsor for FOSTA. His hatred of the internet was on clear display during a hearing over FOSTA in which he flat out said that if smaller internet companies couldn’t put in place the kind of infrastructure required to comply with FOSTA, that they should go out of business. Blumenthal’s latest ridiculous bit of legislation lose your Section 230 protections. And while Blumenthal likes to pretend that the EARN IT Act doesn’t target encryption, he also lied about FOSTA and insisted it had no impact on CDA 230 (which it directly amended).

But Blumenthal has now taken his ridiculousness up a notch. Following the (legitimately concerning) reports that the suddenly incredibly popular videoconferencing software Zoom was not actually providing end-to-end encrypted video chats (despite its marketing claims), Blumenthal decided to step in and play the hero sending an angry letter to the company, while linking to the Intercept’s original story about Zoom’s misleading claims about encryption….

There’s no pleasing some people.

Former UN Climate Action Leader on Covid-19: “Moments of crisis are always moments of opportunity”

Donald Trump fires intelligence watchdog who sparked impeachment process  The Guardian. So of course the story is full of pull-quotes from the Usual Suspects criticizing the move.

‘It’s a sh– sandwich’: Republicans rage as Florida becomes a nightmare for Trump  Politico.

NY Times Front Page Actually Attacks Fox News for Blaming China for the Coronavirus

Hollywood’s ‘Trump Is Hitler’ Argument Even More Pathetic Now

Future, Not Fact! AP Fact Checkers Trash Trump for PREDICTING Suicide Increase

Trump: Too Easy an Excuse and Target

Spanish Nets’ Willful Suppression Of WH Coronavirus Briefing Enables Fake News

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A coronavirus infection usually plays out one of two ways: as an infection in the lungs that includes some cases of what people would call the common cold, or as an infection in the gut that causes diarrhea. COVID-19 starts out in the lungs like the common cold coronaviruses, but then causes havoc with the immune system that can lead to long-term lung damage or death.

Check it out.

A phone app to tell you what’s actually in stock in local stores. No idea how well it works, but it’s a clever idea.

Mencius Moldbug weighs in.

The terrible truth the virus has revealed is that the US and UK — as opposed to post-Communist Asia and post-Napoleonic Europe — are not even countries. They are free-trade zones. Our governments are not governments. They are bureaucratic anarchies with ceremonial elected monarchs. Pitting them against this ruthlessly objective virus is sending Don Quixote to Vietnam.

…

Anyone repeating lines like “the Trump administration has failed” is spreading an Orwellian lie. There is no “Trump administration.” There is an elected showman and his cronies, fronting for an unaccountable permanent government. The celebrities are neither in charge of the bureaucrats, nor deserve to be. Anyone can be excused for thinking either team is worse than the other. No one can be excused for confusing the two.

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“The patients treated at our hospital were all young to middle-aged. Their symptoms were generally mild and included flu-like symptoms like cough, fever and a loss of taste and smell,” explains the other lead author, Prof. Dr. Clemens Wendtner, Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at München Klinik Schwabing, a teaching hospital of LMU Munich. “In terms of scientific significance, our study benefited from the fact that all of the cases were linked to an index case, meaning they were not simply studied based on the presence of certain symptoms. In addition to getting a good picture of how this virus behaves, this also enabled us to gain other important insights, including on viral transmission.”

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NPR, so I’d check another source, if not two.

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Earlier this week Tucker Carlson did a segment on the origin of the coronavirus. Carlson, who has been pretty aggressive in his coverage of the virus, pointed out a Chinese research paper (since pulled by the author) which claimed the virus could not have arisen at the Wuhan wet market because the horseshoe bats where the virus arose were not for sale at the market. In fact, the bats are not naturally found anywhere within 900 miles of the market. However, bats were being studied for viruses they carried in two labs including one just a few hundred meters from the market.

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Racism! Is there anything it can’t do?

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Escaping the coronavirus only to be snuffed by Hammer tech.

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The U.N. has gone beyond being useless to serving as an positive force for evil in the world.

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No surprise. California LOVES people who break the law to come here. (California Providing Millions Of Dollars For Illegal Alien Business Owners Not Covered By Coronavirus Stimulus)

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The opportunity cost of flattening the pandemic curve has come at a tremendous economic cost, resulting in a downturn and high unemployment. Bloomberg notes that Finland has the best welfare system in the world, which is now starting to crack as the surge in unemployment applications is overwhelming the system.

And just like that, in a matter of weeks, 300,000 Finns lost their jobs because of quarantines. The tradeoff is preserving the nation in the long run while dealing with short term economic pain.

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Unbelievable.

COP26 Delay: Climate Activists Hopeful They’ll Have New President in the White House

OOPS! MarketWatch Falls Prey to Climate Change April Fools’ Day Prank

NYT’s Friedman Spews Trump Climate Change Response Could Be ‘More Destructive’ than Virus Response

ABC Claims Trump Blocking Insurance Enrollment During Crisis, Own Report Proves They LIE

PBS Anchor Nawaz Frets Trump Is Stoking Racism with ‘Chinese Virus’  If you hear the dog-whistle, then you’re the dog.

Reporters Rage: Trump Has ‘Blood’ On His Hands

Mika Makes Case for Obama Aide’s Demand That Trump Should Resign Over the Virus

No Good Deed: As Patriots Jet Brings Mask Shipment, Jemele Hill Dismisses Owner as ‘Friend’ of Trump

Coronavirus: CNN’s Cillizza Avoids History to Claim Trump Rewrites History

Wow: Gavin Newsom Rejects Nasty ‘View’ Attempts to Bash Trump, Praises POTUS Instead

Democrats Have No Interest In Impeaching Trump For The First Time Since 2016

Biden Campaign Unsuccessfully Lobbies Twitter to Remove Trump Video

After Mocking Trump For Suggesting Hydroxychloroquine Might Be Effective Against Coronavirus, Media Starts To Admit That Maybe It Is

Google Flip-Flops on Ad Policy After Dems Complain It May Help Trump

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Apparently they’re willing to try anything.

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Let’s hope.

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Coronavirus! Is there anything it can’t do?

The Ikhwan in Luxembourg

Liberal anti-Semitism enabled Erdogan’s Turkish autocracy

Saudis suspected of phone spying campaign in US

Saudis Claim US Patriot Missiles Activated In Major Yemeni Houthi Attack On Riyadh

German Ricin Bomb Plot Conviction Highlights Non-Conventional Terror Threats

The Ikhwan in Italy

Man, 72, Dies of Injuries 3 Months After Hanukkah Stabbings

Twitter ‘Mistakenly’ Suspends, Then Reinstates Iran’s Supreme Leader

Iran Blames “Terrorists” For Pipeline Explosion On Turkish Border, Gas Exports Halted

Islamists are frustrating Pakistan’s fight against coronavirus

How Middle Eastern Extremist Groups Use Europe as Their Battleground

Foiled Jihadist Pleads Guilty For Plotting To Blow Up White House With Anti-Tank Weapon

Pakistani Court Overturns Conviction in Daniel Pearl Killing

Nigeria launches ‘massive’ joint operation against jihadists

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Today, instead of reusing the free single-use bags to line their trash cans and dispose of their cat litter, Californians now pay 10 cents every time they exercise that privilege. And how does this help the environment, when reusable plastic bags have 11 to 14 times the mass of disposable plastic bags, and hardly anyone reuses them that many times?

Further evidence of the absurdity of laws banning single-use plastic bags is found in a study commissioned by the United Kingdom’s Environmental Agency, which estimated reusable grocery bags made of cotton fabric to have 131 times greater “global warming potential” than conventional disposable plastic bags.

CNN.

WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! Women and minorities hardest hit. This … is CNN.

Climate Research Universities Unite to Accelerate Action

San Francisco Reverses Ban On Single-Use Plastic Bags, Prohibits Reusable Totes

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Dirigible airships are like flying cars in their populatiry in science fiction. It will be interesting to see whether they can get these things to work.

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A Venezuelan navy ship fired shots at a German-owned cruise ship on March 30 and rammed into the passenger vessel, leading to the sinking of the warship in the Caribbean.

The Iranian regime-allied Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused the captain of the RCGS RESOLUTE cruise ship of “terrorism and piracy” and sought to force the ship into a new direction on the high seas. The cruise ship, which had no passengers on board and was flying under a Portuguese flag, has a reinforced hull that enables it to sail through ice water.

Oops.

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How very white of her.

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If you’re a “white evangelical Christian,” you might want to check your back for a bullseye — or maybe just a “Kick Me!” sign. Everybody’s looking for someone or something to blame for our current crisis, and for the progressives of The New York Times, The Washington Post and other elite newsrooms, you’re it. (Shhh, don’t mention the Chinese government, you racist!)

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The problem appears to be that our economy is much more complicated than you had imagined.

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Contrary to what you may have heard from the ‘news media’.

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We can hope.

UPDATE: Infectious Disease Expert Says Anti-Malaria Drug Marks ‘Beginning Of The End’ Of Pandemic

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There are many surreal aspects to this pandemic but Eduardo Moreno is still something of a stand out. The California engineer attempted to ram his locomotive into the USNS Mercy because he was suspicious of its real purpose in Los Angeles.

His effort took the train off the rails and across a remarkable distance before stopping short of the ship. The family has started a GoFundMe page that cryptically says “Eddie is not hurt physically but isn’t with us at this time.”

Sounds as if he left us a while ago.

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Yeah, it was SO RACIST when the slaves were freed under Lincoln. What was he thinking?

Alex aubarrok, a Real Economist, is dumbfounded.

The KN95 mask is China’s version of the N95 mask. 3M, America’s largest manufacturer of N95 masks, said in January that the masks are equivalent. But the FDA is not allowing KN95s into the country.

…

Many hospitals are refusing to accept them, even as free donations, because they fear legal liability should a health care worker get ill while using a nonpermitted device…Although some hospitals flat-out reject KN95 masks at any price on advice of their lawyers, people rounding up masks to give to hospitals have found that individual doctors or nurses will often accept the donations, given the dire need.

Researchers investigate how forests are changing in response to global warming

Carbon-free hydrogen production needs multi-billion dollar subsidies to make it cost effective: research

A Greener Google

Solar Power Is Sustainable for the Economy, Too  Wired ‘Science’.

Concrete Is Awful for the Planet. Clever Chemistry Can Help  Wired ‘Science’.

Geoengineering Is an Option. Just Read the Fine Print  Wired ‘Science’.

The Battle Against Global Warming Is the New Cold War  Wired ‘Science’.

The secret to curbing farm emissions is buried in the Stone Age  Sometimes the old ways are best.

An environmental stimulus bill could help us bounce back from COVID-19  More political partisanship from Wired ‘Science’.

‘This Is Evil’: MyPillow’s Mike Lindell Punches Back At Jim Acosta, Other Media Critics Of White House Appearance

MSNBC’s Melber Sets Up Rep. Ted Lieu to Trash Fox for Endangering Lives with Fake Virus News

Senior Adviser To Anti-Trump Super PAC The Lincoln Project Calls Trump ‘Retarded’

Yale epidemiology professor accuses NY Times of ‘journalistic malpractice’ over report on Trump’s virus-testing claim

The state of the conservative intelligentsia is weird  At least the Washington Post thinks so.

MSNBC Says Coronavirus Response Proves Trump Has Difficulty With ‘Strong Women Leaders’

Don Lemon Lies: Blame Trump Because He Called the Virus, a ‘Hoax’

Chuck Todd Offers Obnoxious Disclaimer Before Coronavirus Briefing

Biden Says Trump Needs ‘Someone Else In Charge With Him’ To Manage Coronavirus Crisis

It took 27 days for CNN to say what they previously accused Trump of lying about

Howard Stern on Trump’s Virus Response: He ‘Doesn’t Give One S**t About Public Service’  And of course Howard Stern is the expert on public service.

ABC’s Jon Karl: ‘Legitimate Debate’ Over Covering Trump’s Corona Briefings Live

Daily Caller: CNN Bashed Trump for Saying What They’re Now Reporting on Death Rates

NY Times Boosts Biden’s Sad Social Media Presence Against Trump ‘Disinformation’

Williams Asks Biden About Trump’s ‘Culpability’ for Virus Deaths

‘IMPEACH HIM AGAIN’: Cusack Calls for 2nd Impeachment to Prevent Virus Deaths

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The package also included millions in funding for the arts and several other peculiar, even potentially suspicious areas.

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The Left Coast continues its transition to People’s Republic status.