Understanding Humanity

It's all fairly simple really, hormonal based and baked in at birth:

Estrogen makes you crazy,

and Testosterone makes you stupid.

Your job is to decide how much of either of those you're willing to tolerate when added to whatever redeeming virtues the other person may have, and don't complain about your choice.

Wuhan Flu - Data From Italy

Found at Gateway Pundit:

James Todaro, MD@JamesTodaroMD

The Italian Society for Rheumatology studied 65,000 patients on longterm hydroxychloroquine for RA and Lupus.

Only 20 patients tested positive for COVID-19. No ICU, no deaths.

This is a 90% reduction in infection rate compared to the rest of Italy.https://www.iltempo.it/salute/2020/04/28/news/coronavirus-farmaci-efficaci-news-danni-cura-annalisa-chiusolo-artrite-terapia-idrossiclorochina-sars-cov2-1321227/ …

Mama Mia! Dat'sa no bad, eh? .038% infection rate, 0% death rate.

Making Things - Wuhan Flu, Etc

In time of the plague, people confined to quarters become quite creative. In Atlanta someone has been making plaques and gluing them to walls:

This is genuine art of the collectible sort. I first saw this in an article in the Atlanta paper where the author mentioned that the artist was being denounced as a racist for producing it. Apparently unaware that Winnie The Pooh is a very common stand-in for Emperor Xi Jin Ping to the point that Winnie has been banned in China in any form, and using the image will get you a visit from the police. I wrote her and asked to be informed if the artist is ever identified as I would like to purchase one of the medallions and maybe a t-shirt.

On a lighter note there's this:

Full marks for creativity here although the doggie's feet don't seem to be particularly well attached to the legs.

My own efforts at making a Plague Doctors mask are having limited success as the tip of the beak, being the apex of some 5 seams, wants to assume a spiral shape all out of keeping with the pointed beak of a crow. It's something to work on while it's raining.

Global Warming? 2

In conclusion, eventually, Mr Moore points out that all the Green groups have pretty much sold out to money grubbing capitalists who are using them as front groups to get government subsidy money for unsustainable projects like biomass which is a very green way of saying wood burning. If we were to cut down every tree in the country it would provide enough energy to run the country for less than a month. Then there would be the 10-15 year wait for the next harvest.

Conspicuously missing is the dreaded N-word, nuclear. The best idea offered is that we humans reduce our demand for energy, apparently back to the level of  burning cow chips, and figure out how to heat our homes with that, or else reduce our numbers to an equivalent demand, which with no actual numbers having been suggested, looks like about 10% of current world population. They recognize that their solutions won't work. They do not yet have a viable alternative.

For the Greenies, we will need a better virus.

Worth watching? Yes. Overpriced in terms of time spent? Yes.

Global Warming?

And other existential issues facing mankind. Here

is Michael Moore's latest offering. Scott Adams is promoting it since he is quite impressed with Mr. Moores ability to seemingly change his mind when confronted with problematic facts. Bottom line: the green movement is a bunch of bunk. I'm about halfway through it (100 minute run time) and so far I'm not seeing anything I haven't known about for years.

First off let me say that in the first 50 minutes, Mr. Moore has not made an appearance. So far they're describing the shortcomings of all the stuff college students find so attractive; wind, solar, biomass, and the like. So far, nuclear hasn't come up. I guess I need to listen to the whole thing to find out, but I'm not optimistic that this topic will come up even though it's been the source of all the significant advances in energy production in the last 20 years or so.

The movie plods. Moore should have hired some stunt men and blown some stuff up from time to time. Still it's refreshing to see avowed greenies come to the conclusion that they're wrong and admit it.

Happy Birthday

This blog is 12 years old today. Right now I have nothing to add.

UPDATE: Unrelated, but the Dow has now regained 50% of it's losses. Horay!

Also I fired up the lawn mower for the first time this year. Blah!

Kung Flu - L.A. Times Contributes To The Fog

In this article featured on the Drudge top bar, The L.a.Times announces that neither Chloroquine nor Hydroxychloroquine seem to be contributing much in the fight against the Kung Flu virus. This seemed to be at odds with the many reports that came out early of impressive success using these drugs. The Times cites 3 studies and to their credit, even included links.

Study #1 here, is from France. Here's the summary:

No evidence of clinical efficacy of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalised for COVID-19 infection and requiring oxygen: results of a study using routinely collected data to emulate a target trial

Here's the takeaway: The patients in this study were all in advanced stages of the disease and required immediate hospitalization and oxygen to survive.

Study #2 is from China.  Some 20+ doctors were involved from as many different organizations. The testing, again, involved patients requiring hospitalization and what was referred to as Standard Of Care. The daily dosages administered went as high as 1200 mg to start and 800mg sustaining. It was noted that while the virus itself was not killed off, symptoms involving blood problems were mitigated. They also noted that there were side effects in some of the patients, most notably diarrhea. As the most common dosage used in the more successful tests is 2 days of 400mg follower by 4 days of 200mg, this seems a bit excessive but heart attacks were not mentioned.

Study #3 from Brazil also involved high doses.

 We found three non-randomized studies with limited sample sizes in which (1) HCQ use led to a decrease in SARS-Cov-2 detected in respiratory secretions five days after treatment, together with azithromycin (France, 36 patients); (2) HCQ use shortened time to clinical recovery (China, 62 patients); and (3) CQ was superior to control treatment in inhibiting the exacerbation of pneumonia, improving lung imaging findings, and promoting virus-negative conversion and shortening the disease course (China, 100 patients). We found no published studies comparing different dosages of CQ/HCQ and their thorough safety assessment.

So the HCQ and CQ both helped shorten hospital stays and improved lung function in the studies that this study covered, but this study had some heart problems show up.

The preliminary findings from CloroCovid-19 trial suggest that the higher dosage of CQ (12 g total dose over 10 days) in COVID-19 should not be recommended because of safety concerns regarding QTc prolongation and increased lethality, in the Brazilian population, and more often in older patients in use of drugs such as azithromycin and oseltamivir, which also prolong QTc interval.

 12g/10 days translates to 1200mg/day or 3-6 times the usual dose. Nasty side effects? Certainly. Also, note that the patients in the test were also in an advanced stage of the disease and required hospitalization.

My Conclusion: If you begin the Q drugs, at standard dosages of 2-400 mg/dy, either one of them, along with an antibiotic, at the earliest stages of the disease, seems to work quire well and will have you back on your feet in about 5-6 days. Some people recommend Zinc. Note that 1-A-Day contains 15mg of zinc. At least the ones I get do.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor. I'm just an engineer who read the papers, both the scholarly ones and the LATimes. Feel free to follow the links and tell me what I missed.

Lockdown Food Thread

Shamelessly stolen from Sal Mayweather, this poke at Libertarians seems to be made up of what I would call Minnesota Mexican food:

I mean, like what's not to like: Taco shell, hot dog, ketchup, cheese (probably American process), lettuce, and a dollop of sour cream. Cultural assimilation at it's best! Or maybe worst. Or maybe wurst. Needs Jalapenos.

Weapons Grade Weed Produced In Iran

I thought we had some impressively potent stuff here in Colorado, but it looks like we're now playing second fiddle to whatever they're producing in Iran.

Iran’s General Salami Unveils Magnetic ‘Bipolar Coronavirus Remote Detector’

 Unveils isn't the right word here as no actual demonstration of any such device was performed. Still, consider the talent stack seemingly necessary to become a two-star general in Iran.

Back To Work

Why am I not the least bit surprised at the latest shenanigans regarding a possible end to the National House Arrest? First howls of protest at the shutdowns at the presidents request but fairly enthusiastically pushed by the nations governors. All resulting deaths will be trumps fault. Next a hail of recriminations claiming that it should have been done sooner and the heightened death toll is Trumps fault. Now we are being told that it's time to get back to work.

But what's the best time to end the lockdown?  It's when the additional deaths resulting from people working in groups exactly balance out the decline resulting from staying locked up. Sort of a reverse flattening of the curve. A leveling, if you will. The absolute minimum death rate would come from a complete lockdown until such time as a good vaccine is available, tested, and approved by the FDA, and universally administered. This I expect will happen some time between never and the heat death of the universe.

Plan B is to pull out the old crystal balls and tell us when we may as well go back to work, taking as much precaution as is practicable, and think optimistically that the next victim at work will be the deadwood standing between you and that promotion you've been after. Plan A being impractical, Plan B it is and don't worry, president Trump will be blamed for the resultant deaths regardless of their numbers.

In case you want to know how the dates and all are calculated, go here, where Mr Weinersmith has summed it up nicely in a 503 panel comic.

All this brings me to something I've been contemplating for a while: Let's consider the Kung Flu as a weapon. In this case a weapon that escaped the lab. Normally (?) if a country were developing a sickness, like anthrax or whatever, they would make it easily spreadable, rapidly effective, highly lethal, and with a vaccine to protect your own people. In some cases, lethality is not a requirement. If you can shoot a few shells of bugs over to the other side, then 2 days later simply take a leisurely walk over to where your enemies are convulsed on the ground unable to do anything else, than you have a good weapon. If the stuff spreads too quickly, it can affect people you wouldn't normally be fighting which may induce them to take more extreme measures against you. The Kung Flu seems to be a pretty good weapon, being able to quickly dispose of a large part of any nations economy in fairly short order whether the populace gets it or not. In our case it has effectively sunk one of our big aircraft carriers, keeping it out of the Taiwan straits just in time for some PRC saber rattling.

No word on any other military units it may have affected, but I have a hard time believing that it hasn't. Here, the Chinese are waging war with the weapons they have the most of, which is to say, people. Just as Reagan brought down the Soviet Union using our best weapon: Money. Star Wars forced the Russkies to Keep Up With The Jonses, which cost more than they could afford and they went broke. If the virus might kill 20% of everyones population, who does that leave as the winner? China.

As of today, I'm hearing stories that China, Russia, and Iran are all much closer to regime change than most people think.

Anti-Virus Protection - Humor

The panic with which some people are taking the Kung Flu is creating both great hardship and at times great amusement. Here's some amusement.
Made from stuff I had lying around, starting with a space helmet made from an old Coors Party Ball with an air hose attached to the pump attachment. Anybody remember the Party Ball? I bought this one solely for the ball  itself. Took forever to drink about 2/3 of the beer, even with help from my friends. Eventually the last of the beer went flat and got tossed. The air hose was a necessity. Inside that helmet, the air gets stuffy fairly quickly.

 The small black square is a foam air filter from a small gas motor. Never used. At the bottom of the hose, there's a muffin fan from a computer to drive the air into the helmet

 The switch is to turn the fan on and off. I'm using 2 7.2V battery packs from RC toys to power the fan. Not very powerful, but good enough to keep the air in the helmet fresh.

Wouldn't be complete without the NASA worm on it. In this case that would stand for National Association of Squash Artillery. Yes, we've built pumpkin launching cannons as well.

Behind that imposing Imperial logo, are some holes to allow speaking in a threatening, echo-y tone.

A rig like this is becoming de rigeur at Wall Mart these days.

Is it for real? Well the helmet will keep my sneezes off of you, and the filter and long convoluted path will keep your cooties off of me so I guess it works.

One other thing: Don't wear hearing aids with this rig. The helmet induces really wretched feedback.

Thought For The Day

Found at Sal The Agorist:

Why indeed?

Fun With Headlines - What Price Trump?

From the WaPo today:

Giuliani, a familiar voice in Trump’s ear, promotes coronavirus treatments whose effectiveness has not yet been proved In one-on-one phone calls with President Trump, former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has been touting the use of an anti-malarial drug cocktail that has shown some early promise in treating covid-19, but whose effectiveness has not yet been proved effective in valid clinical trials. ------------------------------------------ The Post is advocating for no treatments at all until the traditional FDA double-blind large format study can be completed and no doubt peer reviewed. This normally takes about 2 years and if the treatment in question works, leaves about as many participants dead (control group with placebo) as might be cured. Of course the death toll from such a fiasco would be laid at Trumps feed, hopefully swaying the election results The Post article is behind a paywall so no the headline link likely won't get you the whole story, but what there is here should pretty well sum it up. You have to wonder, if there were some disaster that the Donks could unleash on the country that would result in some significant number of deaths, but would arguably sway the election, how many dead would be an acceptable cost. I'm sure they would call the dead "martyrs" to the great and grand cause of saving the country.

More Music

I don't care if Monday's blue
Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too
Thursday I don't care about you
It's Friday I'm indoors

Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
Thursday doesn't even start
It's Friday I'm indoors

Saturday wait
And Sunday always comes too late
But Friday never hesitate...

I don't care if Monday's black
Tuesday, Wednesday heart attack
Thursday never looking back
It's Friday I'm indoors

Originally done, appropriately enough, by The Cure

NICS Checks - Now That's A Record!

We all knew there was a panic buying binge on guns, exacerbated by the government trying to use the virus as an excuse to shut down gun stores, and here's the result. I expect that any given month will be a bit higher than the same month the previous year, if only to account for population increases, but this really stands out:

I think this surpasses the Clinton panic of 2016.Don't know if the projection for the year will hold up or not, I suspect not, but it ought to cause the gun grabbers to fill their Depends at a similar rate, don't you think?

Easter Eggs Found In Relief Bill

Congressional staffers tasked with reading the relief bill recently signed by President trump have found 2 line items that seemingly got by everyone while the bill was being passed from the House to the Senate.

The first item, found about 2/3 of the way through the 1000+ page bill, is a presidential order firing VP Pence and replacing him with Hillary Clinton.

The second item, about 20 line items further down, is the presidents official notice of resignation.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

First off our Paper Of Record posts a story about how the school systems are agitating for an early return to school for the kids who, they are afraid, are not getting sufficient indoctrination via home schooling.

2 days or so later, today the Wall St Journal (paywall) has a story up noting that the educrats in Oregon, having shut down their public school system, are also trying to shut down a big online charter school as too many former public school children are trying to transfer into it. Unsurprisingly, their governor agrees.

Like Natalie and Lincoln, some 300 students successfully transferred in mid-March to Oregon Connections Academy alone, and the teacher’s unions were alarmed by this mass exodus from the public schools.Under pressure from the unions, the Oregon Department of Education stopped allowing transfers on March 27. At Oregon Connections Academy, this means some 1,600 students who had sought to transfer won’t be able to, says Jeff Kropf, the school’s founder and president of the board of directors.It could be worse. The state Department of Education originally contemplated closing down virtual public charters along with the brick-and-mortar schools, according to a March 24 PowerPoint presentation reviewed by the newspaper Willamette Week. Even during a national crisis, unions would rather deprive students of an education than see their charter-school competitors succeed.