Gilligans Kill Mary Ann; R.I.P. Dawn Wells

 

Dawn Wells, famous "Castaway" from iconic Gilligan's Island TV show, at age 82, of complications from COVID. (Those would be pneumonia, and not being able to breathe).

Relax, kids, this ain't a Kung Flu post, except incidentally, but I couldn't pass up the title.

Her passing leaves only Tina Louise (Ginger), aged 86, who hated the show while she was on it (when she found out that it wasn't a show focusing on a movie star stranded on a desert island, since the title apparently wasn't a big enough cluebat for her), and has done everything but change her name and move to Tasmania to avoid any association with it afterwards, as the only surviving cast member of the original series.

Unlike her character, Wells was a former Miss Nevada in the 1960 Miss America beauty pageant. Pretty much exactly like her character, Wells, who never did much of anything else except a slew of guest shots on other shows, was always friendly, gracious, and grateful to fans and the show for what a three-hour tour and a three-year run on network TV did for her. She concentrated on theater roles for most of the rest of her life.

Anyone can die at 82. 80+ is God's Waiting Room. That it was COVID that killed her just puts the proper piece of rotten fruit upon the dung heap of an annus horribilis that has been this one, thankfully ending at the end of today.

By mutual agreement, henceforth this will be The Year Which Shall Not Be Named, or TYWSNBN for short, exactly like Lord Voldemort, and for pretty much the exact same reasons. Dreadfully evil beyond description, backstabbingly treacherous and supremely irritating at every turn and opportunity, and unsuitable to speak of in decent company.

As for the answer to the eternal question of guys of not just a particular age, but of most any age: Mary Ann, guys. First, last, and always.

Zen Moment In The Circle of Life

 

Most of the comments to the last post are appropriate, and some quite insightful into the actual situation, both from those seeing something similar elsewhere, and from those seeing nothing of the kind. 

{Important Safety Tip, kids: Two things - or even...more! - can be true at the same time. It's a big country. Yes, this even includes Having A Big Pandemic That's Actually Killing Hundreds of Thousands Of People, and Evil Bastards Taking Advantage Of A Temporary Crisis To Crap On Your Freedoms And Screw You Over, For Their Own Ends. They aren't mutually exclusive, in any way. Who knew?! I mean, besides everybody, right?}

You might have noticed me in the comments, not arguing that the people describing being mostly or wholly unscathed by this somewhere else, so far, must be high, insane, lying, nor all three, but rather giving them sincere best wishes for their current fortunes. Crazy, I know.

The shocked surprise from some upon hearing factual and accurate reportage of the actual Kung Flu situation in a major metropolitan center is somewhat concerning, given the late date of this pandemic.

But the strident butthurt from a small number amuses the hell out of me*, and reminds me why every public high school has a Continuation School contiguously located, to serve those for whom a mere 12 years of attempted public education is clearly an inadequate amount of time, if not an entirely futile effort in the first place.

It's okay, though. You're certainly not going to hurt my feelings by turning up your nose at Reality, now or ever.

And after all, those aluminum cans and plastic bottles aren't going to recycle themselves. 

Best Wishes to anyone choosing ignorance as a life plan, and Rock On With Your Bad Selves.

But Prudence wasn't just the mayor's daughter in Support Your Local Sheriff.

Those who choose to profit from a modicum of free wisdom, and plan appropriately, will probably find a much more harmonious outcome, no matter what circumstances dish out.

Choose wisely.

*(Special treat: I've had to perma-ban a bare handful of strident trolls, going back to last spring's colossal butthurt over this pandemic, and the total failure of the VA 2A Buffalo Jump to accomplish anything useful in the long run except feelz, which seems like ages ago, but in fact was the last big kerfluffle before Kung Flu. Which is why comments are now moderated here, after over a decade of blogging. I ventured into the filter to do semi-annual maintenance, and found no less than 720 messages from the three biggest offenders. I'd never even seen them until yesterday, but apparently, despite them claiming to be "done" with me and my blog, they read here daily, - one commenting two-three times/week! - and bang out their little rants, totally to themselves, for the intervening months, because I never even see them. *Click.* Gone. Rent free in your heads, losers. Rent free. Thanks for the entertainment. And a special shout out to the guy who wrote the spam handling widget. Perfection. C'est magnifique! -A.)

Anecdotally: Keeping It Real, Yo

 

About that pandemic you might think we're not having:

Nameless SoCal Hospital is full, bottom to top, wall to wall.

Because elective surgeries are cancelled, those nurses normally doing anesthesia recovery are now caring for overflow patients.

Nurses on floors normally holding stable telemetry patients are caring instead for ICU patients, because the ICU is full, wall-to-wall, and has been for days, so when someone gets worse, they can't be moved to higher care, and the floors are stuck with them.

ER is holding ICU patients, now for multiple days. Entire ER is now set up for COVID isolation, which is running 75-90% of patients seen, 24/7. And those are only the ones too sick to send home.

Morgue overflow conex cold storage is now full of corpses. Who died from COVID, not just with COVID. We ran out of body bags day before yesterday, so until we got more, deceased patients had to stay in occupied rooms. Even with getting decedents out, new dead are piling up faster than we're getting old ones off to coroner or mortuaries.

In the only state out of 50 with mandatory safe nursing:patient staffing ratios, those ratios have been thrown out indefinitely because of the current emergency. Because apparently an international emergency means we can use magic to do what we can't do when we're not redlined, at 110% of capacity and ability. (Roll two D6 to cast Spell Of Magical Healing.) I haven't asked, but I'm pretty sure the Official Answer to overcrowded hospitals will be: Bunk beds! No, really.

Nearby hospitals have gotten so bad, some nurses have walked off the job. No small part of that is the ongoing insufficient supplies of PPE necessary to do the job without getting sick. We're not there yet here, but morale is low, and the troops are pissed. And if someone calls in and says "I have a fever", there's not much anyone can say. It's coming, in 3, 2,...

Between staff shortages and actual sick staff, we're starting the day with 50% staffing in some units, and it's virtually impossible to get hired guns to come in. Everyone is over this, and all they get by picking up registry work or extra shifts where they work, is more sh*t sandwich, every day, into infinity. And you can't spend bonuses if you're dead.

And in L.A. County, everything I just wrote? Worse. Squared.

Oh, and we're still weeks away from the peak of the current surge, which is simply the sum total of people who decided Halloween and Thanksgiving get-togethers were more important than silly COVID restrictions, with predictable results.

We're all dreading what happens when we get the Christmas/New Year's Stupidity Surge, 3-5 weeks from now, but it's definitely coming.

Things are spiffy where you are? Outstanding. Goody for you. No, really. Hope your luck holds.

Meanwhile, I'm hearing from nurses who blog in other states, e.g. Texas, that they're getting, now, what we had here in Apr-July, and hospital manglement (not a typo. -A.) there learned nothing from what happened in NYFS, NJ, Atlanta, Nawlins, or CA, and accordingly planned for no such thing.

No points for guessing how that's paying dividends for them now. (Two of the reasons I'm lifetime-banned from hospital administration is because I tested with an IQ over 80, and my parents were married, to each other.)

The next phase beyond this is when the healthcare system starts to collapse. That is already nibbling around the edges of things now. When we get to full collapse, we'll be Italy: we're going to have to start to decide who we see, and save, and who we move over to the "It was a good life, and best wishes" area for no further treatment. No one has broached the topic openly, so the docs haven't decided whether they'll sort out the oldest, the sickest, or just throw darts at the Big Board when they're forced to actually decide who lives, and who dies. Mainly, they're just hoping real hard we don't get to that phase, ever. If we do, the word "unprecedented" is hardly going to cover our New Normal.

Of course, all this is just like we've done in every seasonal flu season for the last 90 years. (/sarc) NOT.

Keep pushing horsesh*t theories and crackpot stayed-in-a-Holiday-Inn-Express-once medical mail-order diploma explanations of what's REALLY happening. We need the comedy relief.

Those of us holding the shitty end of the stick with gloved hands are too busy to give a wet fart for such prognostications, but to a person, everyone of them has expressed that the Internet jet-fuel geniuses who think this is a scam should STFU, and pull a shift here, any day of the week, with their eyes and ears open, and their pieholes shut.

Most of you would last about half an hour before you left skidmarks out the back door.

We don't want thanks, or Starbucks gift cards, or hazard pay raises (though we wouldn't turn any of those down). We knew the job was tough when we took it. We just wish the Gilligans driving this day in, day out, would stop being such overachieving jackholes, and use some common goddam sense, just for the novelty, if for no other reason. It stopped being cute to be blisteringly stupid about nine months ago.

And if you think there isn't going to be a reckoning down the road that grabs you by the short curlies for the jackassery we're seeing and dealing with now, once this is over with, I'm here to tell you, you've got another think coming.Think long and hard about that. TPTB in the medical field have memories like elephants, and you aren't going to like what you get, nor get what you like. And health insurers will once again be driving the No Sense Of Humor bus, regarding future lifestyle choices. Mark my words.

The brighter lights among you, which has thankfully been a majority, had best make plans accordingly.

You will see this material again, and probably sooner rather than later, but even if not, being prepared for anything even roughly similar means you don't have nearly as much to worry about, no matter what rolls down the pipe at you the next time Fate pulls the chain on the Flush Bowl of Life.

UPDATE: For those who aren't trolls or retards, and able to read and comprehend, here's a link to a yuuuuge amount of collected data on COVID 19 from L.A. County.

A couple of points to note from that pdf, (beyond the fact that hospital capacity for 10M people is going down the shitter at warp speed just now): 

Page 6: ethnicity of hospitalizations in the LA County public hospitals, 3/1/20-present: 

72% Hispanic. 2% white.

Go back and read that again. Yes, it said what you thought it said.

Pg 7: 

Age of hospitalized in county DHS hospitals. Highest percentage, every week since this started.

Generally 50% or more Age 18-49

Next highest Age 50-64.

65+ is almost always in third place, until very recently.

So if you think 18 is elderly, keep thinking this only kicks old peoples' @$$#$. 

Suture self.

Our profound apologies if facts and Reality have yet again left hoofprints on your ass.

Sunday Music: My Maria

B.W. Stevenson almost couldn't catch a break. He released Shambala in the spring of '73, only to have Three Dog Night drop their version a week later, which quickly buried his. So later that year, he wrote and released this song, and finally caught the wave, riding this one to the Top Ten of the Hot 100, and #1 on adult contemporary charts, his one big certified hit.  Proving it wasn't a fluke, Brooks and Dunn covered it in 1996, and took it to number 1 again, this time on the Country charts. But we always liked the original best.

Merry Christmas

 

Enjoy the holiday.

No, Actually, Not So Much

 

© Angus

Angus, who - regardless of what he may think of us, if he does at all - has been a diligent scribe of the ongoing COVIDiation in FL throughout this mess, has posted an infographic, above.

His post title is We're Doing OK. Hence the title of our post.

Well, maybe for some values of "OK", but nothing I would brag upon.

Here's a better infographic, if we do say so ourself:

© Aesop

We post our notes here, because while this is no slight on Angus (despite his previous belief that we were being rude, however much we might push the envelope), towards whom we mean no disrespect to him in any way, in general, nor in regard to this post, we doubt he'd have been inclined to give us the benefit of the doubt.

But facts, as we noted by our infographic, are stubborn things.

If Florida had maintained no increase in hospitalizations, they'd be "doing okay". If they'd decreased the rate until they had none at all, that would've been spectacular. What Angus' graph indicates is that Florida is merely being less stupid than such egregious Blue Hive-governed hellhole examples as NYFS, ILlin' Noise, Joizy, or our own homeland of Califrutopia. In short, they're just doing better only to the extent that they're not even going to qualify for the Bronze Medal in the Fickle Finger Of Fate Kung Flu Sweepstakes (What's fifth, after Brass? Aluminum? Tin? IDK.)

And while they only have the third highest population out of 50 possible there in FL, with an inordinate number of elderly - such that the nickname for the state is already "God's Waiting Room" - I must, FTR, point out that they underperformed so, absent the handicaps of 

a) some 18M extra souls compared to Califrutopia, (one can only shudder at the thought of adding NY's entire pop. to Florida, and the ensuing results in any estimation, but we're pretty sure trumpets sound in the clouds at that point, and Four Horsemen arrive...)

b) including at least 5M+ illegal aliens, so far,

c) a homeless population comprised, overwhelmingly, of exactly the tens of thousands of toothless, banjo-playing kinfolk y'all have shipped here by the busload (I've seen their Greyhound and Amtrak vouchers, and their Social Security numbers, so I know to a metaphysical certainty where they actually came from), which I point out repeatedly despite the cries of butthurt from people who think this last fact is some slur on Appalachia, rather than on your actual kinfolk, and

d) probably the actual stupidest chief executive in any state capitol in the country, were an IQ test-off to be administered.

So yes, compared to the herculean stupidity going on elsewhere, FL, far from doing "OK", is actually pretty screwed, just not quite as screwed.

But the rate is "per million", so despite all those old folks in FL, Califrutopia has managed to surpass all bare statistical expectations, tell all the other states "Hold my beer!", and surge to new heights even Killer Coumo (D-Five Families) couldn't reach back in April and May. Atta Boy, Gabbin' Nuisance! Here's your prize!

And he won it fair and square, no cheating!

It would be even more interesting (to me, anyway) to post the bottom 5 states on that graph as well, but like as not it'll be states like AK, WY, Montana, and the Dakotas, all blessed with more livestock than residents (thus having more actual horses in each than they have two-legged horses' asses), and probably largely unscathed by the virus in general, outside a few hotspots.

So that makes Angus' assessment rather like Arkansas bragging on their literacy scores, when compared to such intellectual powerhouse states as Mississippi and Alabama, and rings similarly hollow.

Sorry if that stings a little, Florida, but there it is. Keep trying though. I wouldn't wish this plague on anyone, and I hope you, and we, can all turn it around soon. Personally, I was over this last April.

Consequences To Consequences To Consequences

 

Commander Zero has some thoughts on the inter-COVIDian crisis, and things to come. Food for thought.

RTWT.

Here are some of my own notes:

All the COVIDication of the workforce has done is

a) ring the dinner bell to outsource everything (and everyone) outsourceable.

(Commercial real estate, long-term: deader than canned tuna.)

b) People in Bangladesh cannot cook your burger, do chest compressions during your heart attack, nor change your oil or transmission.

c) If you have a job, you are employed at will.

d) If you own a business, you are employed at whim.

e) Find ways to make money that have other people making the money and delivering it to you. Diversity is asinine. Diversification is king.

f) long-term, having a large class of unemployed, under-employed, and broke, hungry, shiftless lumpenproletariat is how revolutions start. Middle classes do not revolt. This year has seen the biggest targeted wipeout of the middle class, worldwide, and shifting them to the lower class, than anything since the Great Depression. And we're still in the early innings of it, as COVID2.0 now appears to be clearing its throat.

g) That's before the blatant disenfranchising of a third of the adults in this country by the most ham-fistedly blatant electoral fraud (outside of every election in Central America, ever) in living memory.

h) make plans accordingly, for a long, cold, brutal, and quite probably bloody  decade-plus of economic winter. Possibly with a bonus helping of "heads on pikes".

Good times Are Here Again will not be played anytime soon.

And remember: Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics isn't just a snappy put-down; it's How the World Works at ground level.

And for Common Core grads, you should know that 1776 was planned and funded by the richest bunch of Establishment movers and shakers (not to mention smugglers and pirates) in the New World. You could look it up.

Coincidence, my @$$. Learn a lesson from history.

1776.2 better be too, or it's not going to go the way you hope.

And Another Thing:

The official governing body in 1776 was called Parliament.

In 2020, the Congress and Courts and the rest of the Deep State are still The King's Parliament and His Majesty's Court. And President Trump isn't their king, as they've told you for four long years.

Why is anyone surprised at this, or how things are playing out?

The Continental Congress was an unauthorized, unsanctioned, unlawful, treasonous, and seditious assembly, and every man-jack of them were eventually targeted for arrest and hanging. If you're expecting GOVERNMENT as it is presently constituted to plan or carry out anything like a revolt, you don't understand things very well.

You're going to have to find and BE the leaders you're waiting to have appear, or there ain't gonna be none of those.

Let that sink in until it fills your marrow.

That is all.

Sunday Music: Holiday Cheer

I'm not much of a fan of most modern Christmas music, with some few exceptions (like last week). Hymns and carols are traditional for a reason: we don't want performers jazzing it up (or worse, tarting it up) to say "me, Me, ME!" But evidently modern celebs (not "stars") can rarely seem to grasp, despite the holiday being titled "Christmas", there's a star of the piece all right, but it AIN'T them. We want them sung the way we remember, and maybe better than. But the spotlight is elsewhere.

The exception (like last week) is songs that aren't traditional, but pay proper homage to the season and/or holiday, in a new way, rather than trying to shoehorn themselves into the spotlight on an old favorite.

In that vein, I can listen to Karen Carpenter sing everything and anything (including bathroom breaks, which they actually did on one album) because of That Incredible Voice. I'm pretty sure I had a crush on her from about the age of 8 just from hearing her sing on a bank commercial, which turned into their first hit. Which makes the following relatively modern song (although it's 50 years old now) one of the few Christmas songs I hear that can never be overplayed, at least for me.

The other one is the one piece of music without which, it is not Christmas for me. A traditional Ukrainian refrain, with English words added much later, it captures perfectly the twin peaks of melancholy and joy of a season it takes someone from the Pодина to feel deep in their bones, just like the Siberian winds that bring it forth.

It's been covered in solos, instrumentals, orchestras, and everything in between, including classical guitar, nothing but strings, actual handbell choirs, and probably even steel drum bands. And I love them all, dearly. But to my mind, no one had done more justice to the Carol Of the Bells than John Williams did in Home Alone. Or so I thought, until I found his extended version. If I had Bill Gates/George Soros stupid-rich money, I'd hire a fleet of blimps to fly over cities on Christmas Eve blasting this from just out of sight in the clouds, at volumes that would penetrate bomb shelter concrete, yet clearly enough to crack Scrooge's heart, until he rushed outside to buy that goose for Bob Cratchit. Turn it up and let it wash over you. Worse things could happen to you than to feel the spirit of the season.

A Merry Christmas to you all, and may you and yours all enjoy the blessings of this holiday season.

Keep The Change, Ya Filthy Animals

We love this guy. This is the third year he's glitter-bombed porch pirates, and he product improves every year. He totally qualifies for the term "Evil Genius", except he's actually a Good Genius.

Important safety tip for criminals: never piss off a former JPL engineer with money and time on his hands. You'll become internet-famous, but not in a good way, and it won't go well for you.

The only way to make this any better would be if law enforcement was waiting outside after the package was discarded, with a warrant and handcuffs. With a "gotcha" cam TV news crew right behind the cops, as the perp is frog-marched into custody, and actually criminally charged.

Maybe they can work on the TV show syndication proposal for v4.0, next year.

I'd call the producers of COPS, if I were this guy's agent.

Nut Up, Or Shut Up

Like the sailor in They Were Expendable, wistfully imagining the battleship USS Arizona would soon be sailing into Manila Bay to throw the Japs out of the Philippines in late 1941, some of us would like to imagine that President Trump will swoop in and prevent Gropey Dopey and Sen. Kneepads from being sworn in on January 20th next.

I put it to you cogently and strenuously, that no matter how much you would wish it otherwise, you will be far better served, both here and hereafter, by coming to grips firmly with the reality that he probably won't do any such thing.

It's nice to dream (by which I mean it's free, pleasant, and makes one feel happy), but you aren't going to dream your way out of what's coming.

You can't dream your way out of socialism.

And history demonstrates, over and over, that you cannot vote your way out of it either.

So unless you're 10 years old, and planning on outliving it, eventually, when you're 95, the only way out of socialism is either to flee it (to where?), or to fight it.

Bummer, huh?

That's the cold, hard truth that some are doing anything but facing.

Unless you're planning on embracing your new communist overlords, in which case, you deserve everything that's coming, in spades. BTW, you'll get the spades too. When socialism shovels dirt on your face.

So if you, right now, and in every spare minute, aren't planning for anything and everything you can do to deal with, and in fact bring, the coming war on America that His Fraudulency, Sen. Kneepads, Alzheimer Nancy, and Any Obvious Communist have in store for you, you're wasting effort, and more importantly, time.

Neither of which we, and more importantly, you, have to spare.

What you should be working on:

Abilities.

More PT. Anything is better than nothing.

Picking up, or buffing up, any skillset you don't have, while you can do so.

We already covered moving.

So that leaves Shooting.

Communicating.

Medically treating.

Building and repairing.

And everything else.

You're going to be the next generation of renaissance man (and woman) jack-of-all-trades/master of none. Or you won't be coming out the other side of things. Suture self.

Commodities.

Food.

Money.

Weapons.

Money.

Ammunition.

Money.

Munitions.

Money.

Supplies.

Money.

Equipment.

Money.

Trade and barter items.

And oh, did we mention, money?

As an experienced propmaster in Hollywood told me once, 

"This job is easy, you just have to have everything."

So, for Spicy Times, hard times, and all other times, what you need is simple.

Two more abilities you'd better have:

Flexability.

Those who've spent time in the dotMil get that things change. 

Plans. Missions. The Word. Everything.

When inspections were coming in Uncle Sam's Misguided Children, back when shelter halves were a thing, they had a green (rainy, winter) side, and a brown (dry, summer) side. And invariably, which side was to be displayed changed 27 times, even the day of the inspection.

Which spawned this universal ditty, across five continents and four fleets:

Green Side Out!

Brown Side Out!

Run In Circles!

Scream And Shout!

Which was dead-on balls accurate, but unbeknownst to most of the minons at the little end of life, it served a very valuable purpose, and saved lives.

Because during "the fog of war", things aren't going to go like the London Symphony's 400th rehearsal of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. They're going to go pear-shaped. Sideways. 

Shit Show. Shit Circus. Even Shit Mardi Gras. 

And the sooner you get used to dealing with that amount of flux and fecal material, instead of being flustered and stunned into senseless inaction (and then getting killed) by it, and instead learn to "embrace the suck", 

the sooner you'll be able to deal with things, function, thrive, and prevail. Which is kind of important now, too.

It doesn't just work in the military. I've had some damned shitty days in the ED this year, and when it gets really bad, that's when I dig in and say "Throw more at me", 

and miraculously (or not so) the day (night, in my case) gets better, and I CRUSH it. I've seen me do it, and I still can't explain it, except to note that you can always do more than your mind thinks it can. Learn to deal with adversity.

Availability.

If you don't do this, it isn't going to get done. Period.

No one is coming to save you. Not even President Trump.

So don't be one of 100,000 people in years to come, pissing and moaning in the camps, and echoing Solzhenitsyn's Lament.

In this, male or female doesn't matter. Half the WWII Resistance in France (a paltry 2-3% of the country) was women. Some of the best spies were too. Old and young doesn't matter. The less you look like a military-aged male, the less of a threat you appear to be.

You're going to have to do whatever you can, where you are, with what you've got.

But it isn't kicking off in five minutes. (I know that because I started typing this five minutes ago.) Probably not in five hours either. But five days? Or five months? Good luck calling that one. Make as big a pile of "what you've got" now as you possibly can. Next Year You will thank Today You, a year from now.

Work on those things, every day. You're goal is improvement, not perfection. But it only works if you start. The sooner you stop daydreaming, the sooner you can begin making actual progress.

Unbe-f***ing-lievable, Yet True

h/t: some caller to Rush's show yesterday

Ten Mouseclicks

I like the internet, overall. It provides a plethora of information. Some of it better than anything the MSM comes up with. One way I find it, is by multiple visits daily to Irish's blog, The Feral Irishman. Not so much for the content, as for the blogroll over on the right. It's a Who's Who and What's What of what's going on, updated several times daily, apparently whenever Irish feels like hitting "Refresh". One of the sites there, and a fairly frequent (though probably not daily) visit is Brock Townsend's blogshop over at Free North Carolina. (I confess I can't tell if he's reporting NC's current status, or demanding it. But I digress.) Because he has far-ranging sense of history, particularly local, unique and interesting insights, and a facility for expressing same.

Today, however, I noticed the following post header there:

In Colorado, They're Counting Gun Shot Fatalities as COVID Deaths

So I clicked on over.

You can too, if you like.

TL;DR: Well, no, actually, they're not doing any such thing.

It turns out the county coroner in Podunk, er, Grand County, is all kerfluffled because two people who died of terminal lead poisoning from personal weaponry, also turned out to test positive for the Kung Flu virus.

Which she reported to the CDC, who classified them as a "death with COVID-19" (which they both were), but not as a "death from COVID-19". This got her to hyperventilating, because besides being factually true, exactly as she admits in the very TV news report linked, She's worried that putting two additional people reported as dead with COVID (which, we repeat, they undeniably were) in that county might put tourists off visiting, or somesuch. (Apparently folks out thataway are fine with two homicides from gunshots, but a coronavirus infection that had no impact on their demise whatsoever would scare the hell out of folks all over the Rockies. We confess we did not know Colorodans to be so wussified, but we defer to her expertise as a 40-year resident of the area.)

Nonetheless, we performed a wee few additional mouseclicks, to obtain that curious thing that the late great Paul Harvey used to call "The rest of the story".

We repeat also that we love the internet, because Mirable dictu! it was no harder to find than our post's title might have foreshadowed, ever so subtlely.

We shared our findings with the bloghost.

FWIW:

1) COVID is being listed as present at death, not cause of death, in the named cases. There's nothing suspicious about that, since County Coroner Brenda Bock admits that to be factually true, in the TV news interview.

2) There is zero evidence that the CDC is adding the cases to the list of overall COVID deaths, anywhere. (Contrary to the OP title, not to put too fine a point on it.) If they were doing that, there would be no need whatsoever for the separate categories, would there?

3) Brenda Bock has no M.D. appended after her title, which set my spidey sense atingle. And lo and behold, Brenda Bock isn't a pathologist. In fact, she isn't even a physician of any type. There is no listing of her holding any sort of professional license of any type from the State of Colorado's online database. (Have I mentioned that I love the internet?)

CO Professional License Lookup

4) In fact, from the bio before her last election run, her only medical qualification in any medical capacity was as an EMT (a whole 110 hours of training at the 13th grade level, i.e. only slightly higher than that given in Red Cross Advanced First Aid) in which capacity she last functioned in prior to 1995, a mere 25 years ago. She's mainly been a county volunteer, then part-time, later full time, deputy coroner. Before getting a mail order certificate for a job she'd been on for 7 years, and which she received 18 years ago. In a county with a tad more than 14,000 residents, total. (In Texas, they call 14,000 a middle school crowd for a football game. On a school night. In NYFC, they call 14,000 people 1 city block.) In short, she's a well-meaning amateur, whose medical expertise barely crests above "stayed in a Holiday Inn Express once". If there's a veterinarian in that town, that person outranks her in terms of medical training. In fact, if there's even a retired paramedic in that town, that person has 20 times the medical training that Bock, the county coroner, has.

In summation, it was a slow news day at the BFColorado branch of SeeBS Snooze, so they decided to throw an M-80 in the outhouse, just to watch the feces fly.

So consider the source of the story, then Google up Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect.

The entire story is a non-event, from a non-entity, who's grossly under-qualified for even the job she holds, and speaking about things far beyond her ken.

She reminds me of nothing so much as doddering Aunt Clara from Bewitched, except Bock isn't acting.

What credence one should therefore place in her concerns is probably something too small to be measured with existing instrumentation. Any geezer at the general store who's had a sick cat is probably better informed, medically, than that county coroner.

I have no doubt that at some, or perhaps even many, times and places, people have pooch-screwed the COVID statistics, accidentally and/or deliberately. With 300,000 such examples, such is nigh inevitable.

This incident however, is manifestly not one of those times. And theoretically, Bock, as the County Coroner, the person who actually fills in the cause of death on the death certificates, should have known that from about the first second before she opened her mouth.

"These aren't the droids you're looking for. Move along."

Maybe they didn't cover that in mail order death investigator school, or else she may have been sick that day. There's no way of knowing.

UPDATE:

The stupidity above has taken on a life of its own: here and here. And now here.

"A Lie gets halfway around the world before the Truth has gotten its boots on." - Winston Churchill

Gabbin' Nuisance Is An Idiot: Example #3,062

h/t Gateway Pundit

(SAN DIEGO) A California judge said Thursday that all restaurants in San Diego County can resume on-site dining with safety protocols, marking a setback to the governor’s stay-at-home order to slow the spread of the coronavirus

 Judge Wohlfeil said in Wednesday's ruling that the state had failed to show restaurants and strip clubs contributed to virus' spread or shortage of hospital beds. He said "San Diego County businesses with restaurant services,” including the strip clubs, are exempt from shutdowns and “any related orders” that bar live adult entertainment and go beyond protocols “that are no greater than essential” to controlling the spread of COVID-19.

And Gabbin' Nuisance wept, for there were no more laws to conquer.

Life's tough when you not only overstep, but also firmly plant your track cleats on your jangly bits. Even if that's a very small target.

And it couldn't have happened to a more deserving buffoon.

There are things you can, and should, do during a pandemic.

And other things which you cannot, and should not, do.

Now Gabbin's starting to catch that hint.

Get Busy

We would love to be wrong. Doubt such will be the case. 

You'd better start sorting things out on your own, and figuring out what to do and where things go, right where you are.

Or else start getting packed for the train ride to the camps. Dealer's choice.

They stole an entire election, in your face. They want control of the country, by any means necessary.

What are you going to do about that? 

Send a sternly-worded letter of protest?

Vote at them??

That's risible. And ridiculous.

Ain't gonna be no "regrouping for the next election". That was settled for all time, last week. Anybody expounding on that idea is virtue-signaling their total oblivious clueless dumbassery.

Silly marching, rallying, holding your breath until you turn blue, or resolving to taste bad when thrown to the lions isn't gong to get anything done, except you. Following delusional people in their psychotic plans is rarely a winning move.

Pay attention: The America you were born in is over. Gone. DEAD.

As Concerned American has told you at WRSA about a thousand times:

"This is where you are. Imagine where you'll be."

Any future voting will be done from rooftops and behind barricades. Etc.

Best be about it then, if you ever want your freedoms back.

Nothing less will suffice, and the other side won't stop until you bloody their noses, ideally at 3200fps or so.

We'd love to be wrong about that too. But wishing will not make it so.

For Liberal Arts Majors and Vocational Ed Students: This Is Science

From 4 years ago, before COVIDiots fornicated 

anything on the topic all to Hell and gone.

Here's your mission:

Perform (or find someone else who has already) the following actual scientific study.

a) Get 400 petri dishes the size of a human face, filled with any standard bacterial and viral test growth medium. Mount them at a center height of 5'6", flatly facing the test subjects.

b) Have 100 different people sneeze at a plate apiece from 30' away, indoors, in still air.

c) Have 100 people cough on a plate apiece from 10' away, indoors, in still air.

d) Repeat b and c exactly 200 more times, except put a face mask (or even 2-4 different masks) on the persons sneezing/coughing first.

e) Culture all 400 of the petri dishes according to standard protocols.

f) Money shot: demonstrate that bacterial growth on d is exactly the same as b and c.

g) Show all work.

h) Bonus Round: Do it with 100 people with active, symptomatic Kung Flu.

Do that, and it's over. The science is settled, and masks don't work.

Knock yourselves out.

You should note that to date, no one has done that, AFAIK, because they know it won't show what they want it to. You won't either, to a metaphysical certainty, because you already know the idea is recockulous.

If it would work that easily, anyone could do it with half their brain tied behind their back.

But that's what science looks like, because it can be repeated, endlessly, just like the assertion that at sea level, at 1 atmosphere of normal air pressure, at 50% humidity, plain water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. No one argues that, because it's repeatable, until (you should pardon the phrase) Hell freezes over. 

Evidentiary repeatability = science.

Can't do that?

Can't find anyone who already did?

Can't find the scores of hospitals that ban surgical masks in surgery, "because they don't work"?

And no actual 10-year study showing no increase in post-op infections?

Hmm. That's quite the poser.

Science is.

It has no politics. (Ask Galileo.)

And one "study", or 200, are generally so much horsesh*t.

Because the rate of reproducibility for actual published and allegedly peer-reviewed studies has been crashing towards 0%, year after year, (and everyone but the MSM knows this), proving that they aren't science, but rather advocacy, or grant money rent-seeking, without anything like repeatable evidence to back them up.

Q.E.D.

This Is Why You Have A Pandemic

I was bored today, and not really looking hard for blog fodder, and yet it just washes up right onto my virtual doorstep, whether I want it or not. It's also why I hate to post any more knowledge or information on Kung Flu, because the bright people already get it, while for the monkeys, it just gives them another excuse to fling their poo. 

Anyone who reads or comments here has de facto access to most of the collected actual knowledge of humanity, literally keystrokes or mouseclicks away from their beady little eyes, on the entire worldwide web of Everything.

Given that standard of knowledge availability, I apologize in advance to anyone who accuses me of kicking retarded kids, just because they write in to tell us what flavor the windows are on the short bus.

Which brings us to this gem, in commentary to our post yesterday, from someone who probably thought we'd never post it:

"https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/24/map-where-are-the-intensive-care-beds-in-california-the-u-s/ This article indicates approximately 7500 ICU beds in California. https://covid19.ca.gov/state-dashboard/ This article indicates there are about 3200 ICU patients suspected of having Covid. "The number of hospitalizations due to confirmed and suspected COVID-19 cases in California reached a total of 15,198, an increase of 620 from the prior day total. The number of ICU patients due to confirmed and suspected COVID-19 cases in California reached a total of 3,193, an increase of 115 from the prior day total." In the entire state of California. 3200 ICU patients. This is not a pandemic."

Au contraire: As our drill instructor informed us once, "There are no stupid comments, only stupid people." Welcome to a Teaching Moment.

If you wish, you can read the comment and match it with the owner, but for ease today, we'll make the author He Who Shall Not Be Named, abbreviated HWSNBN, which we will use before the fisking (and flogging) begins.

1) Actually, CA has about 7800 ICU beds. This has nothing to do with anything, except as a bare fact.

2) What percentage of ICU patients have COVID is irrelevant to anything either. If you think otherwise, you're trying to fly an airplane in clouds, in the mountains, using a thermometer.

3) The salient point about ICU beds was, as stated, the point that they're almost all full hereabouts. That means if you get shot, stabbed, have a heart attack, or a stroke, or a serious automobile accident, or simply a raging ordinary infection, or need any form of 300 types of intensive care, which cannot be competently handled by lesser-trained nurses, with lesser facilities, you're going to die. Brighter lights among the readership and commentariat will recognize that people dying of things we normally could keep alive is a bad thing. And those people aren't imaginary: they're going to happen, they aren't going to get ICU beds, and they're going to die. I personally bagged and tagged one just the other night.

4) As we warned those same brighter lights months and months ago ad infinitum, hospitals in general, and the ICU in particular, are like airline flights: if they aren't at 90% or better occupancy, 24/7/365, they're losing money. So we run - every goddam day since ever - at 95% of capacity or better. In short, the lifeboat is already damned near full, before we even add the stormy seas of a raging pandemic.

5) For Common Core grads, 3200 ICU patients, statewide, because of COVID, isn't the other 5% of ICU capacity. In a state with 7800 ICU beds, that's 41%. So what HWSNBN has just Gilligan-logicked into oblivion is that he thinks hospital ICUs (usually chronically short-handed at the best of times) can handle running at 136% of design capacity, in a system where 25% of staff or more are already MIA, because they're stressed out, under investigation for COVID infection, actually sick, or just DGAF about picking up the extra shifts and staffing openings we have, at any price.

6) Merriam-Webster cleverly defines pandemic, for the ignorant, and/or illiterate:

"Occuring over a wide geographic area (such as multiple countries or continents) and typically affecting a significant proportion of the population."

According to the Johns-Hopkins Kung Flu infographic map, COVID cases have been reported in every country on the planet, and damn near every BFEgypt inhabited island on every speck of the map. 73.8M cases, and 1.6M deaths, to date, and over 305K US deaths, which is only 4 times worse - so far - than the worst annual flu season that ever was. (And this dance ain't over yet by a damned sight. Not even close to it.)

That's a PANDEMIC, fucktard.

Kids, this is what happens to society when you give high school diplomas to dipshits who can't tie their own shoes.

And worse, why you have a pandemic that won't quit, because you were depending on kids who should have been flunked out of 7th grade eight or nine years running, because they couldn't pass a science class that was any harder than watching a PBS episode of Sesame Street, and yet still expect them to do something as complicated as remembering to wash their hands regularly, and wearing a sneeze guard mask, for longer than the lifespan of a fruit fly.

The one inarguable silver lining amidst the Kung Flu coal-black cloudbank that's washing its storm over the country, is its infallible utility in churning the Gilligan chunks right to the top of the foam in the septic tank of civilization, so they can be seen. The crushing pity, conversely, is that it doesn't kill them deader than canned tuna for their failings, but instead leaves the younger, healthier ones free to kill older and usually wiser heads, like the No-So-Smart Bombs they are.

We close with the sage advice of Will Rogers to those who don't know what they're talking about:

Just Keeping Y'All In The Loop

In Califrutopia, Los Angeles County has over 10M residents; Orange County has more than 3M residents.

They are, respectively, the 1st and 6th most populous counties in the entire United States, comprising 1 person in 25 of every person who lives in the U.S. 

Combined, they have over 120 different hospitals, which is one third of all the hospitals in the whole state.

As of 6AM this morning, Los Angeles County had only 50 ICU beds still available. 

Orange County had zero. {Update:Same story for Imperial County. Fresno County. San Bernardino County. Santa Cruz County. And on and on. As of four days ago, it was reported there are no ICU beds at all in the entire San Joaquin Valley, which runs the length of the center of the state.}

I've only been doing this for 30+ years, and it's never happened before, not even once, nor even come close at any time in my career. Nor, frankly, in my entire lifetime, or yours.*

Keep telling yourself this is a "scamdemic".

Meanwhile, the secret magic to avoid it is so hard, it's only been common knowledge since the late 1800s:

Wash yer gorram hands!

Wear a mask to cut down on germ spread.

Wipe down commonly used surfaces and objects with a disinfectant.

That's all we're doing in the hospitals, and it works just like it did in the Crimea, or the Civil War, and every time since.

People keep asking me about vaccines, particularly: "Are you gonna get it when it comes out?"

1) I may very well not have a choice in the matter, unless I aspire to live under my shopping cart henceforth, with all my wordly goods and chattels contained therein, as I travel from dumpster to dumpster seeking sustenance.

2) How it should be administered is 

a) extremely strongly suggested for anyone 65 and over, strongly suggested to everyone over 55, and everyone over 35 with any number of co-morbidities that predispose you to dying from it, if they want to get it.

b) all first responders (EMS, firefighters, cops, doctors, nurses, etc.) who want to get it

c) anyone else that wants it.

In that order of priorities.

3) After that, it should be like a pneumonia shot: when you hit 55 or so, it should be recommended.

Unless you have strong reasons for getting it (a,b,c, above), they should tell anyone under 40 and healthy to stay the hell away from it.

4) My rationale is, just as with all new vaccines, we have no idea what the long-term effects will be.  People over 65, frankly, have lived a life, and they're the meat on the table for who this kills most. If it succeeds wildly, you wipe out the death rate, and it's less of a problem than deaths from rabid chickens and being trampled by wildebeests, as an annual cause of death likelihood. And at that point, the excuse for all the unconstitutional horsesh*t we've endured ceases, overnight.

If there are side affects, you're better off finding out with those in their 70s and 80s than if you gave it to all your cops, firemen, doctors, nurses, etc., and after it's too late to suck it out of their arms. Because it takes another 20 years to make more of them. People with little chance of serious illness nor death from this - i.e. almost everyone under 40 - should probably stay the hell away unless they have either a high-rish occupation, or a high-risk health profile.

5) If you decline the shot, and subsequently get infected, and then pass it on to others, especially those susceptible to serious illness or dying, however, you should be dick-punched for forty days non-stop, and then flogged around the fleet a couple of times, before being allowed to mingle in society again just like every other @$$bag f**ktard who brings their crud to work, or sends their kids to school, when they're sick, and they know it.

In lieu of flogging, if a suitable whipmaster is unavailable, I would accept staking the miscreant out naked between fire ant hills, slathered with fresh honey every other day, for not less than a week.

6) That said, even if it's not mandatory for my job, I'd probably still get the vaccine (I like the Moderna non-GMO one more than the Pfizer sub-zero version), because while I'm not in the critical zone, I'm near enough, and for ten months now, I'm working with actual ragingly infected Kung Flu patients daily at bad breath distance, and the opportunity to block getting sick or dying, and cancelling out stupid people's dumbass lifestyle choices, with a couple of shots, looks like a pretty good tradeoff. Once I'm immune, all y'all can be the biggest dumbasses on the planet once it doesn't affect me, and at that point, IDGAF. Which is a pretty good reason for anyone who wants the vaccine to get it, once they have the opportunity.

But now you hopefully can see what I was talking about with Ebola five years ago.

If this outbreak had been Ebola (60-90% CFR), or any number of diseases far more deadly than Kung Flu (3% CFR, worst day), the death toll would have been into 8 or 9 figures. (Common Core grads, that's 10M-100M dead). And just like I told you (and @$$clown Idiot-In-Chief-Fauci lied about):

1) We aren't prepared for major communicable disease outbreaks. Seriously, look around.

2) They will get here. Every damned last time.

3) We can't handle them.

4) We don't have a plan.

An Inconvenient Truth

5) First World healthcare doesn't matter with a population of low-80-IQ Gilligans and Turd World scientific illiterates driving the bus, every stinking time.

Just read some of the comments, even here, if you want to see the level of intelligence you'll be dealing with from some of your neighbors.

So if you're serious about preparedness, you'd better make provision for the next time something like this gets loose. There will be a next time. And another.  And another.

And that doesn't just mean having a 10-year supply of Charmin sh*t tickets pre-hoarded.

Get your pandemic preps in order. You will see this material again.

[Update: I should have added this the minute CA linked this post on WRSA, but I include it now as part of the public service, for the special ed. snowflakes who want someone to spoon feed them sugarplum fairytales:

FTR, I spend $0/mo for this blog since ever, and receive ten times that amount in pay from readers and subscribers. (Common Core grads, that would also be $0.) I don't run ads, or pimp any products that enrich me so much as a red cent. I'm happy to point you to those that do, who give value for the money. I post what I know, and what I think, and I tell you why I think what I do. If you've got better information, feel free to share. But if all you can conjure up, when reality rocks your world or truth with the bark still on it rubs you the wrong way in your gentler bits, is butthurt and whinging retorts, rub a dab of the above emollient onto the affected area, and click your whiny ass back to whatever short bus you stumbled off of, and spare us the waste of bandwidth. Better yet, get your own blog (they're actually free on Blogger) and feel free to peddle your version of reality, and/or sniff your own farts. I promise, I won't miss them here. Really. You're entitled to your own opinion. You do not, however, get to make up your own facts.]

* In fairness, there are three categories of hospital arrivals.

ALS, which is Advanced Life Support. Those are people the paramedics bring in.

BLS, which is Basic Life Support. Those are people brought in by EMTs, and also family or friends, for less serious medical problems.

BS is the last category, which stands for exactly what you think it stands for.

I have no hard data nor even SWAG on what the ratio is of ALS/BLS calls, but 50% of all ER visits, 24/7/365/forever are BS runs.

0% of the people in ICU are there from BS runs.

Take a hint: We're in a mother-effing horrible pandemic in much of the country. If you're not dying faster than the rest of us, either go to Urgent Care or your doctor, or stay your @$$ home, and learn how to cope with life with a box of bandaids, Neosporin, some gauze, and some tape. If whatever you've got could have been treated by your momma with that, Pepto Bismol, Tums, Benadryl, or breathing into a paper bag, do yourself, the hospital staff, and every sick person in Creation a favor by not being the dumbass who comes to the hospital when all the ICU beds are full, for a bump on your toe the Urgent Care could deal with for $40 cash. Or we'll kick you out so fast you'll get vertigo.