Top people charged with responsibility to protect and defend the United States know with certainty two facts, which the American people can only guess.
Who knows what they might be?
Think long and hard.
Maybe destinies of powerful persons, their families and friends, collaborators and enablers, hang in the balance.
Does anyone know?
Lives and legacies might depend on what Team USA believes it knows for certain.
Are we in a bio-war or not? If so, with whom?
Did someone throw the 2016 election and install a Manchurian Imposter?
Well… ??
Who is destabilizing America? Are legions loyal to foreign oligarchs and who intend us harm infiltrating Parties, paramilitaries, social media, and talk radio?
What about television news shows?
Believe it or not, people exist who know with certainty the answers to these questions. They possess power to set things right. They work for Team USA.
America’s defenders know which answers are yes and which are no. They are able to distinguish between threats that are crazy-talk and those which are dead serious. They possess data bases filled with names, phone numbers, and addresses of people who plot mayhem.
If they choose, they can put stealth missiles through the bedroom windows of those who have the wherewithal and intent to start World War Three. No one believes it, but it’s true.
The United States rules Earth. It isn’t going to change—not ever.
Folks who aren’t American, some of them, don’t understand. The USA rules because it knows how to identify threats and neutralize them. A lot of wannabe dictators could testify in the affirmative but unfortunately for them they are dead.
Why does power concentrated for long in the hands of solitary sociopaths drive some insane? Power-trippers, most of them, learn too late that their inevitable screw-ups suck like quicksand to extinguish their ambitions. History is filled with such stories.
It might be better for some folks to have never been born. They suffer in this life and maybe the next. Their goal?—to make their subjects as miserable as they can. It’s not right.
My dad worked for the National Security Agency when he wasn’t flying jet-helicopters to defend our eastern borders from adversarial submarines. I met and knew his friends. In their world, right made might, not the other way around.
I can assure readers that those I knew who served to defend American freedom were the good-guys. The world has no hope of living free absent the United States.
Yes, some of our oligarchs are depraved and crazy. Americans will deal with them eventually, right? For now, we face another decision, which is whether to settle scores with oligarchs who live elsewhere who may have tried to hurt us.
No ordinary person who lacks security clearances can say which threats are real and which are conspiracy theories told to divert attention from terrors most folks are not well-trained to handle.
People today deny it, but truth is—80 years ago—the Japanese people, some of them, wanted to be conquered by America. They longed for freedom, prosperity, and most of all for our collective sense that right and wrong mattered.
It’s why they obeyed their emperor and attacked Hawaii. Some generals knew full-well defeat was sure to follow, because they were sophisticated and well-traveled. They understood America. Being undone by Americans meant those in their families who survived war would soon live free and proud. When annihilation finally came it would bring fresh wind; they and everyone left alive would be delivered from evil.
There was no other way.
I lived in Japan for two years following the Korean War. The Japanese people, many of them, worshipped the righteous ground we walked on. We were heroes.
Today, America is led by loving people (Joe Biden and Kamala Harris) who care about doing what is right and fair. Unfortunately for our adversaries, we might have scores to settle. I have no way to know for sure. What some adversaries don’t seem to understand is that whatever are the stakes, events which will shape the future are already well-planned and underway as I write.
Underestimating capabilities of the USA to protect its secrets and war-making technologies is a trap the foolhardy step into from time to time. Adversaries should know by now that the USA does not bluff. For the United States, freedom is not a chess match; it’s not a game of Pong or Checkers.
We don’t fuck around.
If it’s true that scores will soon be settled, then the lives of powerful people, their families and friends, their collaborators and enablers in lands faraway are at this moment in grave danger.
America goes for the jugular of those who fuck with us. We hit leaders first if we can, last if we must.
When conflict comes, the takedown of foreign oligarchs who have messed with our democracy will be ruthless and total.
Who disagrees?
When it’s over the world will be a better place.
Yes, a few bad people will end-up missing. The best part is no one will miss them because everyone they know will disappear. It’s how civilization advances against barbarism when options vanish.
My advice to people who have done wrong is to write notes of apology to America and its friends. Tell us what you did wrong and what you regret. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Americans love apologies and are eager to forgive with open hearts any who are contrite and filled with remorse.
Leaders of the World:
Bring freedom to your peoples by dividing your governments into co-equal branches where no one person or like-minded group can seize power; where consent of the governed determines the course of history.
NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: 19 August 2020. Billy Leeinforms us that tonight Kamala Harris gave best VP acceptance speech ever. He understands why Biden picked Harris for VP.
In spite of Billy Lee’s loss of skepticism, WE THE EDITORS insist his original essay stay in place to provide historical context for 2020 election.
People who read my blog know that I consider Trump a lunatic who is looting our country on behalf of his family and billionaires everywhere.
The irony of course is that his opponent just picked a VP who is married to one of the world’s wealthiest men — an attorney who may have made hundreds-of-millions representing billionaires in court. Kamala Harris claims they are worth together a mere $5.8 million.
I remember reading reports about her husband’s wealth being much more, but it was years ago, maybe it was fake news or the money has been moved, I don’t know. Anyhow, I cannot prove it today — mainly because much seems to have been rewritten on the internet about Kamala to make her palatable to voters.
That’s what it looks like from where I sit. In a few years everyone will know the truth, right? The truth always comes out, does it not?
Douglas Emhoff apparently made his money and powerful friends by helping certain oligarchs secure almost perpetual rights over intellectual property that they neither created nor are entitled to own overly long under the law; it is a battle about money and power that few regular folks know anything about.
Copyrights and patents expire for a reason — to prevent oligarchs from securing monopoly powers over the technologies and art that improve the lives of ordinary people.
Patents and copyrights expire to prevent the wealthy from securing for their families an infinite future of privilege they haven’t earned; to stop billionaires from becoming feudal lords in a country that prides itself on individual liberty and the innovation that comes from setting liberty free.
Copyrights and patents that are passed down from generation to generation — or sold to corporations to be held nearly forever — are un-American. Defending the unfair extension of such ownership in court is not an honorable way to make a living, at least to my way of thinking.
Today, oligarchs — the rich and powerful — are tightening their grip on countries around the world. People do not need a degree in political science to know that a 77-year-old man might not survive to see 20 January 2021, which is inauguration day. Joe Biden’s first major personnel decision has made it more likely that Kamala Harris will be president sooner rather than later.
Does Kamala Harris have the wisdom, maturity, pedigree, and experience to be president? These questions have to be asked, because it is possible Kamala Harris is going to be president soon.
By the time readers finish this post they will understand why I believe her ascent to power might not necessarily be too good for either the world or the United States. They will understand why I believe that Election 2020 is going to become a brawl between wealthy people who do not really care about us; the four candidates have almost nothing in common with ordinary people.
Media commentators on both left and right are parroting the same talking points. A black woman is running for VP. Isn’t that something?
The truth as I see it is far different. Kamala Harris is not a member of that group of suffering people in the United States whose great-grandparents were traumatized by slavery. She shares precious little experience with a people whose lives were torn apart by forced family separations, segregation, and Jim Crow.
Harriet Tubman. She knew all the players in the Underground Railroad. She was a spy for the Union during the Civil War. Bad things happened to her, but she never stopped fighting for what was right.
When Kamala claims she shared the black experience of racial discrimination because she took the bus to a school already integrated, she is misrepresenting her personal history by making it seem as though she suffered in some tragic way. Her story sounds phony. She comes across as inauthentic, at least to me.
Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was a cancer researcher from India. Shyamala passed, sadly, in 2009 from the disease she spent her life trying to understand. Kamala’s dad, Donald Harris, is a retired Jamaican economist who emigrated to the USA and worked at Stanford University in California where he holds the title of Professor Emeritus.
Kamala’s dad is the progeny of the prominent sugar baron and slave owner Hamilton Brown who was Irish. The heritage of Kamala’s dad is that of owner, not slave, plus he’s mostly white; indeed he’s Irish.
Kamala has many admirable qualities but a slave heritage is not one of them.
I think Biden might have picked Kamala because of their shared Irish ancestry. He says she and his son (who died) were close friends.
Kamala does not have the blood of American slavery running through her veins. Because of a sadistic repression, American slaves were unable to throw off their chains to free themselves like other slave populations in the Western Hemisphere. The cost was too high. The ancestors of some of my black friends had their bones broken, were castrated and boiled alive for trying.
Kamala does not share this history. My friends can speak for themselves. They don’t need me to tell their history. It doesn’t mean that they don’t take Kamala’s side against Trump, who is an existential threat to minorities because he is an unrepentant racist.
The feeling for me is that some will see little or no difference in the two tickets; the pundits will not be able to convince enough people to vote in 2020 to ensure that our current president relinquishes the power he seized against the popular will in the last election when minority voters, some of them, stood in line for six hours to cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton.
Trump lost the presidency by 11 million votes; 3 million of the margin went to Hillary Clinton; the rest to 3rd party candidates like Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders, and others.
Without a huge turnout of black voters, Joe Biden has no chance against Donald Trump. The president has already promised to challenge any election that doesn’t go his way. He has no plans to step down.
Shyamala and Donald Harris divorced when Kamala was 7; by age 12 Kamala moved to Canada with her mother. Kamala has more in common with Canadians than black Americans.
If Biden believes that Black Lives Matter, why did he not select the most qualified and prepared person he could find? Why not select Susan Rice whose dad Emmett J. Rice forged the original Tuskegee Airmen of World War Two?
Why did he not choose Val Demmings? — who Wikipedia says was ”one of seven children born to a poor family; her father worked as a janitor, while her mother was a maid.”
Ms. Demmings rose to become a Chief of Police in Orlando, Florida, of all places. She organized the impeachment hearings against President Trump. Who better to galvanize Democrats for Biden in the great state of Florida? — a state he is now likely to lose.
One thing that concerns me about Kamala Harris is the unfortunate circumstance of her not having birthed nor raised children of her own. Perhaps it wasn’t her choice. But it means that she lacks the wisdom common to women who birth and raise babies to adulthood. It gives them a dose of wisdom and experience that childless people including men don’t have.
It’s not something that can be easily minimized no matter how much we want it to not matter. I’m not trying to insult people who remain childless. But one reason to vote for a woman is to gather that wisdom common to mothers for the benefit of our country and its children. Kamala Harris doesn’t have it. We’re missing an important piece of the jigsaw that makes women good choices for leadership.
Another concern is the reports circulating on the internet that she is estranged from her father. I think it’s more likely that at age 82 he might not have his wits about him enough to manage a television interview. But he has criticized Kamala in the past for bragging about smoking high-quality Jamaican weed.
Professor Harris considered his daughter’s remark a self-aggrandizing slam against Jamaica’s reputation. She made it to garner support from pot-smokers, he said according to reports.
An inability to reconcile over disagreements about marijuana use seems far-fetched to me. I worry that hatred generated by some other issue might be at its root, and Americans should know what it is. It might be nothing at all. We need to know before we cast a vote that if it carries will change all our lives.
The reason is because anyone who can’t reconcile with their own family is not someone who should hold in their hands the briefcase of nuclear codes. It doesn’t matter who they are or who their family is. They can be the best person in the world. But it’s better that they be well-adjusted with a head unclouded by any desires for revenge; without any imagined scores to settle.
After all it’s the power of the United States that’s being entrusted. Every family has problems, but serious family problems are a red flag that voters are wise to consider. Voters have a duty to know as best they can the truth about a girl whose world was ripped apart by divorce at age 7 and again at age 12 when her mother moved her against her will to a cold, foreign land where she couldn’t speak the language (French).
Her only marriage was celebrated inside a courtroom during August 2016 to Douglas Emhoff, a single parent with two teenagers. It was a marriage that helped her career in politics, because it gave her access to a reservoir of money and the powerful friends of her husband.
Douglas Emhoff’s ex-wife is Kerstin Emhoff, the Hollywood and British film producer and co-founder of PRETTYBIRD and Ventureland. According to its website, ”PRETTYBIRD is one of the world’s most prestigious production companies in branded storytelling”. Apparently, Kerstin manages a stable of artists that number, I don’t know, in the hundreds, maybe?
Douglas, Kerstin, and Kamala behave like they are good friends both in public and on social media.
Maybe the court-approved union between Kamala and Douglas helped them avoid the awkwardness of a marriage ceremony normally held in temple or church when Kamala had no plans to convert to her husband’s religion nor he to hers. Neither did she intend to take on the mantle of his name — something as American as apple pie. Perhaps Kamala Emhoff didn’t ring the right tone in the ears of someone who was plotting strategies to grasp the golden ring of ultimate power.
Who doesn’t agree that the words Kamala Harris-Emhoff have a pleasant resonance? It’s like the smell of incense. It is. Who wouldn’t want the name if they had the opportunity to carry it?
Anyway, Kerstin Emhoff continues to carry her ex-husband’s name without any problems at all, apparently. Why do people make the decisions they do?
There is nothing wrong with a woman choosing to not carry her husband’s name. I personally wouldn’t marry a woman who made that choice, but it’s a personal decision that is none of my business unless it involves me personally. I don’t care one way or another when it comes to someone else’s marriage. What I’m worried about is that this “name thing” might be a way to camouflage a fortune in assets that Kamala doesn’t want the world to know about.
Or maybe her husband doesn’t want Kamala to know about his true worth. I wonder if the money is under the control of his ex-wife. Maybe there isn’t any money.
Who knows?
Not me.
But this power-couple is running for what is going to turn out to be the presidency. People kill for that kind of power. So I raise questions because someone has to. Hopefully the answers are innocent and nothing untoward or unseemly is going on behind the curtains.
If everything turns out to be on the up and up and folks are telling the truth, then we have nothing to worry about that can’t be fixed by experience and learning from one of the best — Joe Biden.
I don’t know Kamala, so I can’t ask her. Maybe someone close will ask about the circumstances of her marriage and her name when the subject comes up. Kamala is a major public figure now. Americans have a right and duty to know everything about her. It’s the price of power in a United States where leaders are expected to sacrificially serve ordinary people — not just the wealthy and the powerful like Trump so often seems to do.
Kamala doesn’t lay claim to a religion, but the Tamil region of India where her relatives live is primarily Hindu. Muslims, Christians, and Jains also live in the area. Her sister, MSNBC commentator Maya Harris, says that she and Kamala were raised in the Baptist and Hindu traditions.
Kamala Harris wrote in her book The Truths We Hold that she attended 23rd Avenue Church of God (a black Christian church) before moving to Canada. No problems there.
As for Trump, he also seems to have an unusual relationship with his spouse. It’s not because she was born two years after he graduated from college. No, it’s not that.
Apparently, Melania doesn’t live in the White House. For some reason no one has the courage to ask why. It’s not clear that Trump lives in the White House, either. He has a hotel across the street. I heard he has an entire floor to himself. No one ever asks him.
Maybe the same deference will be shown to the Harris-Emhoff family when Kamala becomes president in the next year or two. I don’t think it will, nor should it.
Who knows?
Not me.
I’m asking questions, nothing more, because this team of Biden and Harris doesn’t feel right to me. Something doesn’t add-up. Something isn’t making sense.
We know that Israel plans to annex the West Bank at its earliest opportunity. It’s what Haaretz and the Israeli press write about all the time. Perhaps Biden felt that Israel would be more acquiescent to his candidacy with Harris-Emhoff at his side. I just don’t know.
Annexation means possible war with powerful enemies. Is Kamala equipped to carry the fight? I don’t think she’s ready.
Editor’s Note:Within hours after we published this essay Israel announced an agreement with the United Arab Emirates. According to the New York Times, “…the two agreed to ”full normalization of relations” in exchange for Israel suspending annexation of occupied West Bank territory.” Palestinian authorities called the agreement a “sell-out” by the UAE.
Maybe someone will put their finger on why Demmings and Rice didn’t make the cut. Maybe cabinet appointments await them for which they are better suited. It’s speculation. It’s something to watch. Maybe Biden will tell us in the next few days.
Meanwhile, pig Trump snouts about for something nasty to engorge his advantage. Biden and Harris will have to become as meek as lambs and as smart as serpents. They might want to take an oath to keep their wits about them.
A significant portion of the voting public tends to be racist and misogynist — perhaps more now than ever, because of Trump. Kamala is a fighter who isn’t afraid to slash and burn when politics demands it. I wish a more righteous path could bring victory. I believe one exists, but I will never know for sure because my time on Earth is coming to an end.
Kamala made claim that both her parents were active in the American Civil Rights movement. As first-generation immigrant professionals, it’s difficult to understand why they would jeopardize their citizenship doing political acts that might prove disqualifying. In those days, Civil Rights leaders were labeled Communists by FBI Director Hoover. America blocked Communists from citizenship.
I hope Kamala is speaking truth. She might not know what the truth is. Maybe she romanticizes stories parents told. She wouldn’t be the first.
This contest is going to be cast by liberal media as a wrestling match between billionaire Trump and the little people represented by Biden and Harris. We’re in a carnival funhouse of mirrors, politically. Americans, many of them, always seem to feel that the next candidate, the next election will open a door that leads to their extrication from all the lunacy inflicted upon them by the wealthy and the power-hungry.
This election 2020 is not that election. The wealthy, well-connected, and powerful are here to stay into the foreseeable future. As Trump always says, It is the way it is.
Is it really true?
Some are advocating an election boycott — at the very least they plan to ignore the top of the ballot to send a message to the watching world that Americans are fed up by lousy choices and elites who refuse to defend and protect them.
I’m tired of throwing the dice to pick our leaders. We don’t know what we’re dealing with.
Or do we?
Trump is authentic but crazy. Kamala might be phony, but she’s smart as hell and in the prime of life. Which candidate will do the least harm to everything Americans believe in and defend?
I’m not sure anyone knows.
We don’t have much time to learn more about Kamala. We have to ask questions and move fast to understand her as best we can before putting her into a place where everything she says and does will affect our lives for good or ill.
I’ve watched elections come and go. One president in my lifetime was the poorest. He owned a peanut farm. He was the only president who never killed anyone or ordered anyone killed.
Everyone knows the name ”Jimmy” Carter, right?
I met him once. His righteous aura scared me almost to death.
The country spit him out like a bad seed.
Billy Lee
Postscript: 19 August 2020: Acceptance speech by Kamala Harris thrilled me. It was better than expected. I regret some portions of essay above, but my Editors have chosen to embarrass me by not allowing retractions or alterations.They have reasons.
Note from Editorial Board: Our policy is that everything Billy Lee writes be true. Opinions are fine, but fake facts are prohibited. When mistakes are discovered, it is policy that they be fixed ASAP. Meanwhile every issue raised in the essay is to be viewed not as statement of fact but as question begging answers. We agree it’s not enough to be anti-Trump. Hating Trump is not by itself qualifying. Caution advised.
How long will you judge unfairly and ignore the ways of the powerful? Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; free them from the grasp of the wicked. The wealthy understand nothing. They walk around in the dark and shake the earth. I said that you are gods; every one of you are sons of the MOST HIGH. But you will die like ordinary people; you will fall like all the other rulers.
Psalm 82
Folks who follow me on Quora know that I consider the coronavirus disease of 2019 an existential threat to all life on Earth. Unless and until evidence for immunity emerges, the threat to humans borders on an apocalypse of biblical proportions.
I suppose that soon after this essay is published a miraculous cure — a vaccine maybe — will pop out of the woodwork and everyone will be saved. When the miracle happens, I will look like the biggest fool in the blogosphere, right?
For anyone who has read the Bible story, they will know what it means to feel a little like Jonah who was swallowed by a really big fish after he tried to sail away from God in a boat. God ordered him to warn a city of bad people that their town was on the chopping block if they didn’t change their ways and worship the LORD.
Jonah figured the journey to Nineveh was pointless. The people would kill him for nothing, because nothing was going to change. He’d be dead before he got off the beach. Besides, he hated the people of Nineveh. Let God kill them all. The world would be a better place.
After the really big fish puked out Jonah, the man decided that dying was better than being swallowed so he did his duty. He went.
In the last scene of the story Jonah is angry because his half-digested appearance seems to have scared everyone in the city; people changed! The city purged itself of idols and worshipped GOD.
Okay… What’s the point?
The MOST HIGH has a different view apparently about the nature of people than do their leaders — even when their leaders claim to serve the LORD and do His will. God half-killed Jonah to save a city of people who on a good day wouldn’t give Him even a moment of their precious time.
Why?
Well, one has to read the Bible to learn the answer, but who has the time? It’s a big book with a lot of pages.
Not interested.
Pass.
Anyway, this essay is a kind of diary of the things I’ve written about Covid-19 on both Facebook and Quora.
My Facebook page is private — family and a few friends only. Readers will never find it. For this essay, the public gets to peek into a small part of it. Comments, time stamps, and self-identifying information are deleted.
Quora is public. Between the two spaces, tens-of-thousands have read my rants. I don’t know, it might be a lot more. It might be hundreds-of-thousands. Millions maybe? It’s a lot of people to play the fool before, so for my sake let’s hope it’s closer to a few dozen.
This essay is for those who want to learn more about the 2019 corona-style virus and the threat it poses to all life in the absence of any evidence of acquired immunity or the introduction of safe and effective vaccines. The essay will start with the first words I published about the subject and end with the last. Facebook rants are identified by “FB” and the date in bold text.
In the initial release of this essay, only Facebook content will be included. Over the next few months, content first published on Quora might be folded into places where it will possibly aid understanding about the nature of a pandemic that I for one believe threatens all life.
So, check back from time to time to learn more, or go to Quora and review my content.
The more that is learned about this virus the more pernicious it seems to become. At first, folks thought Covid-19 killed and damaged the old, the diseased, and the confined. It sickened meat workers and prisoners. It freed up beds in nursing homes.
Now folks are learning that it takes their children, grandchildren, even their babies. In the absence of immunity, it strikes again and again like an angry bee until its venom induces cytokine storms and PIMS (Pediatric Inflammatory Multi-Symptom Syndrome).
Some call it MIS-C for Multi-symptom Inflammatory Syndrome in Children.
What terrible syndromes will we learn about next? The disease is little more than 12 weeks old in the USA. Experts know almost nothing about it. Yet everyone and their brother is selling the government the promise of a cure.
In the absence of miracles, the heart of every survivor is going to break under the boot of this disease.
God help us all.
IN THE BEGINNING…
EDITORS NOTE:60 days ago on March 11, 2020 Americans dead from Covid-19 numbered 38. Total diagnosed cases stood at 1,267. Today (10 May 2020) the number of dead is 80,040. Diagnosed cases number 1,347,318. It is one-third of the world’s victims.
FB March 11, 2020
Everyone who wants to live, watch this… Corona virus.
FB March 12
Disneyland is closed!
FB March 12
I alone can fix it.
FB March 12
Sanjay Gupta told Chris Cuomo that 2 patients have contracted Covid-19 twice. It means that getting the virus might not confer immunity. If true, this nightmare won’t end until we have a vaccine.
FB March 13
Last week the president called CNN reporter Abby Phillip stupid; today he called award winning PBS journalist Yamiche Alcindor nasty…
Abby PhillipYamiche Alcindor
Trump can’t leave office soon enough. He’s a lunatic and a racist monster — plus he lies about everything.
Who wants to be lied to?
Not me.
He blames everything on Obama. I’m getting sick of this guy, and it’s not because he’s a pig. As it happens, I’m fond of pigs — especially little ones.
I listened to the former director of the pandemics group (set up under national security by Obama) say that DT disbanded the group in 2018 and reassigned its members. The former head said that deleting it was the reason this administration is two months late on testing.
Trump claimed he never heard of the group when Alcindor asked him; he said it was a nasty question. The director of the group contradicted him later on national television.
Who is the liar? I think it’s obvious to anyone who has any sense at all.
FB March 13
Experts are saying that early reports are showing that 40% of those who recover from Covid-19 have permanent lung damage.
FB March 13
Two weeks ago, the president said the coronavirus cases would go to zero; that the disease would end by itself; it would be like a miracle.
Today he calls a National Emergency that gives him the powers of a dictator.
In the meantime, he is shaking everyone’s hands and slapping himself on the back. His daughter is under quarantine and he has been knowingly exposed to the virus at Mara Lago.
He says he hasn’t been tested. I’d bet my house he’s lying.
FB March 13
As of 9PM tonight 7% of the Corona Virus victims worldwide who are over the disease have died from it.
FB March 14
I saw some encouraging graphical evidence tonight that shows that in China and South Korea the duration of the bell curve that tracks the daily rise and fall of infections was about 3 months.
The conclusion is that aggressive surveillance and quarantine can put out the initial fire; afterwards looking for hotspots and dousing them can keep disease rates down and enable folks to get back to normal living.
In the meantime, a Chinese billionaire has hired Dr. Ho—who developed the protocols to save HIV patients—to direct 4 different teams to conquer the Corona virus.
Dr. Ho said on Rachel Maddow that they already know a lot about the virus; he is hoping to have some testable therapies in 2 to 4 months. If so, they can get whatever drugs or vaccines they come up with to the general public sometime after.
What everyone has to do is trim their fingernails, wash their hands frequently, and don’t mingle too much until about this time next year when, with any luck at all, everyone will be safe again.
Right now, the strategy is to flatten the bell curve to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed. Northern Italy got overwhelmed, true, but we can avoid that because most Americans, many of them, don’t live on top of each other in extended family groups.
Most of the debilitated elderly live in nursing homes. They are in the gravest predicament so we have to do what we can to help them avoid the suffering that comes from getting a flu for which they have no defenses.
FB March 14
I grocery shopped today.
I’m stunned by what I saw and what a clerk told me.
She said I had to return some liquid soap, Tylenol, and Mucinex because they were on a list of two dozen items being rationed; you are permitted to buy three items on the list, she said.
The store looked like American propaganda photos of Soviet grocery stores from the 1950s.
The pharmacy couldn’t fill some of Bevy Mae’s prescriptions.
The store is going to be closing at 5PM from now on. It shares its database with ********, so apparently, I can’t go there to get what we want either.
FB March 14
Just when I thought nothing about this virus could any longer scare me, **** sent these pics from a book published in 1981 — almost 40 years ago:
EDITOR’S NOTE:Facebook fact checkers eventually judged the pics above to be fake.
Who believes it?
FB March 15
FB March 15
Quora, as far as I can tell, is deleting and collapsing any content that is critical of the president and his handling of the Corona virus. Opposition to Trump is being squelched by somebody. I don’t know who or why.
This is the kind of stuff that Putin did in Russia to solidify his lifetime grip on power.
Seeing empty shelves and blaming it on Obama is not a response that will save the country. I am asking every confederate hillbilly in America to rethink what they believe is right and true and make some changes.
Donald Trump is not your friend.
If the president lets us vote this fall, do your children a favor and vote him out. Pray his allies don’t flip your ballots.
FB March 15
For me Russell Brand is a genius with an interesting point of view.
FB March 15
Quora accepted my appeals about suppressed content on Quora concerning Trump’s handling of the virus situation. In the meantime, I lost a few thousand views; that part is demoralizing. Despite their process to suppress and ask questions later, I’ve won every appeal so far. My metrics are improving lately despite efforts by bots ands trolls to undermine my content.
FB March 15
8% of those who are over the Corona virus are dead. Two days ago it was 7%. The day this number starts dropping will be a better day.
FB March 15
As everyone knows who has been paying attention, the president has been rescinding Obama era protections to our financial system. He has gutted many government agencies.
Some shocks are going to occur in the coming weeks that may unsettle some people. We need to prepare ourselves to be shocked, so that we don’t come undone emotionally and start making mistakes that come from hysteria.
Starting Monday, we are going to see stock market exchanges close, some for extended periods. In the next few weeks, certain banks will either close or change their policies on withdrawals and bill paying services.
If the money that the president is pouring into weak companies proves ineffective, massive layoffs are inevitable. Worker hours are already being drastically cut. Store hours have already been reduced in many places.
If the United States goes into default, the financial system will have to be rebuilt. This is what happened in Communist Russia. Basically, intelligence services took control and the country turned to an oligarchy system that has persisted to the present time.
People are buying everything off store shelves right now because they don’t believe their money will be any good in coming days. If the money is no good, people can’t buy anything, even if they have millions tucked under a mattress somewhere.
When North Vietnam marched into Saigon, they changed the monetary system 3 times during the first year to wipe out any wealth accumulated by anyone who might oppose them.
The USA is already an oligarchy system, so at least that much won’t change. However, the people who seize political power during this emergency will be unable to be removed.
How to behave when freedom is lost? Keep your head down and don’t make waves. We lost our chance at freedom in 2016. What’s happening today is a natural result that any idiot could have predicted. In fact, many did.
A best-selling book was published a few years ago called “Everything Trump Touches Dies.” This book wasn’t a joke, because the country was already dead. The people who live in America haven’t understood yet what a dead country looks like.
Many people will remain optimistic during this unpleasant transition up to the very moment they lose everything. Others will acquire wealth and power beyond anything they thought possible before the world changed.
The chances that anyone in your circle of friends will know any of these lucky people are slim to none.
Pray that I’m wrong.
FB March 17
The latest count shows that the death rate for everyone who is over the disease is 9%. This is a 12% increase over the last few days when it was hovering around 8%.
FB March 18
As of the moment of this post, the death rate for people who are over the Corona virus stands at 9.5%—up from 9% yesterday. 8919 dead; 84,348 recovered.
Worse, recovered doesn’t mean symptom free. Don’t make me explain it.
FB March 18
The administration is putting into place a giveaway of 1,500 billion dollars to the 0.1 %; nothing to the 5%; and 1.5 billion to the 95%.
The wealthy hope that the $1,000 they pass out to every peasant will prevent a breakdown until they can escape to safe havens with their caravans of looted wealth.
We are watching Trump destroy America in real time to benefit his allies.
Everything he does is to soften up the United State for a follow-on military attack by an alliance that hopes to bury us.
Pray that I’m wrong.
FB March 18
Fill in the blanks:
We as a family can get through this crisis as long as we don’t lose our_________. I can get through this crisis as long as I don’t lose ________.
What did you write down? Take a look, because that’s what you are going to lose.
Everyone. Prepare to lose everything—including your country and even your faith in an Almighty God if that were possible.
God is just. This fact alone should scare every American. We are going to experience the same mercy we showed to others who challenged us.
FB March 19
The New York Times is reporting that a 7 member family in New Jersey is now a family of 4 thanks to Covid-19. They didn’t tell the mother that two of her children died before she did.
FB March 19
The world-wide death rate for people who are over Corona virus has risen to 10.3%. Yesterday, it was 9.5%. So, we’re moving in the wrong direction. This increase will continue for a while so hang on.
Worldometer worldwide stats 19 March 2020
FB March 20
During the past 13 hours the Corona Virus death rate for people who are over the virus remains steady. If it stays steady or goes down over the next 11 hours, it will be good news — 24 hours at no change could perhaps be an indicator of a turning point in our favor. Will let people know tonight when I do the next calculation.
If this virus was human-made in a bio-warfare lab of some kind, it might have a genetic timer that causes the virus to die after so many generations. It could explain why the president said the virus would go away quickly in what would seem to many to be a miraculous event.
China is not reporting new cases right now. Maybe the president gave up another national security secret in the kind of slip-up he makes from time to time.
We will know soon if this idea has merit or is simply wishful hoping.
One reason this “theory of the case” might have merit is due to its description in the 1991 best seller by Koontz. Koontz must have had a factual basis of some kind to be able to write a passage that describes perfectly the timing and details of an event that was to occur almost forty years after he wrote it.
Another reason is that a paper was published yesterday in Nature that says the virus could not be human made. The study is suspicious because it came to a decisive conclusion fast; it has the smell, at least to me, of convenient disinformation.
The simplest explanation is that this virus rose from a natural process and is going to give us fits until we get a treatment and a vaccine. Time will eventually tell us which explanations and theories are right and which are wrong.
Whatever the cause, the process of dealing with this virus is turning into a real bummer, isn’t it? The country is united by fear for the first time since 911.
Anyway, the stock market promises to go up today, and we will be hearing good news about all sorts of cures that are on the horizon.
Who knows what the truth is?
The truth is “out there” — somewhere. We’ll know soon enough.
FB March 20
Bad news. The Corona death rate for people who are now over the virus has risen from 10.3% yesterday to 11.1% today. This trend is ominous.
FB March 21
More bad news. The death rate for all people who are officially over the virus has grown to 12%. It was 11.1% yesterday. When I started tracking a week ago it was 7%. New cases worldwide doubled during that 7 day period.
When my number starts going down we will know that the disease has peaked and that we have started down the road to normalcy. Right now we can’t say that.
The death rate (as I’ve constructed it) is a leading “trend indicator”, not the death rate itself, which is lower, hopefully. More people are getting sick than are recovering, which adds more quickly to the pool of potential victims.
When we get a handle on this disease, my ratio (because of how it’s constructed) will be the first to go down. That’s why it’s a useful number. It will tell us first that the situation is improving. So far, we haven’t seen that signal in the data.
Also this ratio is based on world statistics. USA stats are too new to tell us anything useful about mortality trends here. In a month or so that situation will change. In the northern hemisphere the Corona virus should die under the UV light of summer.
Maybe we’ll get lucky.
By end of summer, maybe we will have some effective treatments.
FB March 22
Like all Randy Rainbow videos, his most recent contains a few bad words, the worst being the f-bomb toward the end. If the f word offends you, don’t watch the video. I believe the new video may have some value for some people so I posted it.
FB March 22
The death rate for all people who have recovered from the Corona virus now stands at 13%. It was 11% on Friday.
FB March 22
I posted this tweet on Twitter. Please don’t repost.
FB March 23
This story by Reuters shows that electing monsters who work for the other side has consequences. It’s akin, sometimes, to mass murder.
REUTERS/Thomas Peter – RC2JRE950YUT/File Photo cropped. Click this link to article.
FB March 23
As of this moment the percentage of people who are over the virus and are dead is 13.9%. This rate is not the death rate, because no one can know what that rate will end up to be, but we can say that when this rate starts to fall it will mark the beginning of the end of this pandemic. It is a turning point that will show first in this ratio I’m tracking.
FB March 24
The percentage of people who have fully recovered from the Corona virus and died from it now stands at 14.6%. It was 13.9% yesterday. The doo-doo is getting deeper, but more slowly perhaps. We’ll have to see what happens in the next few days.
FB March 25
The worldwide percentage of people who are over the Coronavirus by dying from it has risen to 15.4%. It was 14.6% yesterday.
FB March 26
The worldwide percentage of people who have recovered by dying is now 16.1%.
The number of recovered inside the USA is minuscule at this stage of the pandemic, so stats related to USA continue to be meaningless. When or if the number of recovered reaches a high number, I’ll start tracking USA stats.
FB March 27
The percentage of people who are over the virus due to dying is now 16.9%. It was 16.1% yesterday. When these increases become decreases, then we will know that we have turned the corner.
FB March 28
The percentage of people who have recovered by dying now stands at 17.7%, which is an increase over yesterday.
FB March 29
The death rate of people who are over the Corona Virus rose to 18.3% today.
FB March 30
I learned important things from this video I didn’t know. Please watch. We are going to be living and dying with this new virus for years to come. A vaccine for the general public could be 10 years away.
It is very important to wear a surgical mask and glasses when in public and to maintain strict social distancing. Wash hands frequently.
Don’t bring anything inside your house unless you can place it in a safe room for at least a couple of days to give the virus time to degrade. The death rate for people in their 70s is about 1 in 14.
Young people can spread this disease and kill a lot of people without ever knowing it. Because of the shortage of masks, the public is being told to stay inside their homes. Walking into any enclosed public space where people are not wearing masks is like playing Russian Roulette.
In Korea, everyone wears masks in public. For some reason, our leaders didn’t think we would ever need them. Now we need several hundred million, and we need them yesterday.
FB March 30
Important things to do to stay safe:
1- Wear a face mask and glasses in public
2 – Wash face and hands after going outside.
3 – Don’t let anyone into your house who doesn’t live in it.
4 – Isolate anything brought into your home for three days before handling.
5 – Don’t believe anything the president says, especially the things he says that seem like they might be true.
FB March 30
People who are young don’t remember the Vietnam War coverage by media.
Not a day went by for many years that the news didn’t report that we were winning the war for the South Vietnamese. We even signed a peace treaty and declared victory.
Trump’s stupid attempt to take credit for winning an unwinnable war is not new. Worse, he knows it will work. People will elect him again like they did Nixon.
History is a broken record that keeps skipping. Most young people won’t understand the analogy, but I’m using it anyway.
This time the stakes are higher. The country will have to be reorganized after our institutions collapse. It would be nice if progressives could help with the reorganizing, but the oligarchs who are going to do the work are already in place waiting for the right moment.
FB March 30
It seems I goofed when I read the latest stats on the Corona virus. Somehow, the site is functioning normally at this time.
The stat for today is 18.6%. Yesterday is was 18.3%. This increase is the smallest since I started reporting it on March 13 when it was 7%.
FB March 31
Looking at stats from only the USA, 36.6% of those who are over the virus are dead. Today is my first day tracking the USA because we haven’t had enough cases to make a meaningful statistic until now.
It’s important to understand that the percentage isn’t important, but the trend up or down is very important. Starting tomorrow I will be providing daily stats so folks can track the trend with me. What we want to see is this number track down to 20% to match the world-line and then drop like a stone over the summer months.
If that doesn’t happen our country will get messed-up.
We might want to consider asking Cuba to send doctors and nurses to New York City, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New Orleans to give our exhausted first responders some relief. Cubans have the best equipment and the most experience when it comes to helping other countries with medical catastrophes. Medical help is what they do.
We could use the help right now according to reports I’m seeing on-line and on television by people on the front lines.
FB April 1
I watched again part of the president’s news conference from Tuesday. I felt deeply sorry for him. It’s been obvious to me for a long time that he desperately wants to be both liked and loved.
But then I thought: that was me for most of my life. The president has ruined almost everything he’s ever touched including himself.
After he’s gone from office, he will need people to nurture him to health. A man who loses his power can sometimes find himself abandoned.
It’s easier for most folks to love people who say they are sorry and truly mean it. Does anyone know if he’s capable of apologies? He seemed to understand at least for today that he is managing a crisis that he can’t put right without divine intervention.
I would like to think that maybe the president is praying for a miracle.
Who knows?
I hope for his sake and ours that the miracle is forthcoming. He has a friend who is in a coma right now from this virus. Trump must be feeling something akin to empathy even if he isn’t necessarily built for it.
NOTE FROM THE EDITORIAL BOARD: Trump friend and real estate developer Stanley Chera died April 11 in Manhattan after a month long battle with Coronavirus.
FB April 1
Today in the USA, 34.8% of all who have had the disease (but no longer do) are dead. This is down from yesterday. We should expect the rate to drop to 20% as more people recover and our stats fall in line with world stats.
80% of those who go on respirators die.
Wear face masks when shopping and don’t let visitors walk inside your house.
FB April 1
The world-wide death rate for people who once had the virus but no longer do is now 19.4%. 2 days ago it was 18.3%. The trend line continues to indicate that the virus is not yet contained.
FB April 2
A MESSAGE OF HOPE:
I heard Dr. Robert Gallo of HIV fame say on Brian William’s 11th Hour that a CDC virologist has come up with a non-specific vaccine that might be a game changer on this Corona virus.
If he turns out to be right, press-releases will start to happen within a few weeks, possibly.
Worldwide: 20.5% of recovered are dead.
USA: 36.8% of recovered are dead.
Michigan: 479 deaths; no info on live recoveries.
These stats are up from yesterday, so the situation remains out of control.
FB April 4
Over 2/3 of the cases of USA Covid are in 8 states: New York, New Jersey, Michigan, California, Louisiana, Florida, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.
Only Spain and Italy have more deaths than the USA. The percentage of people who die is running 10 to 20 times higher than initial estimates by the Trump administration.
The bad news is that for most of America, the disease is just getting started.
The good news is that summer is coming. With some viruses in the past, time of season plays a role in dampening the spread.
The bad news is that we have no evidence about seasonal variation with this virus.
In the absence of data the best course is to:
1 – Stay home to stay alive.
2 – Stay home to avoid harming other people.
3 – People who must go out should wear face-covering to block themselves from spreading droplets filled with virus to others.
Masks offer the wearer almost no protection from contamination by others. Viruses are unbelievably small. The openings in masks are like little open windows to flies.
A bucket of water with dead flies cannot squeeze through little windows. The flies themselves have no problem.
Exhaled droplets containing virus can be blocked for the most part. Once the droplets travel beyond the mask the droplets dry up and the bare virus can for a short time infect others—even those who are wearing masks.
4- Those who contract the virus will be able to spread it for several days at minimum before they have symptoms.
One thing in our favor: This virus, like all viruses, is already dead. Viruses are machines, not life forms. They work like a poison with a half-life of minutes to hours when not inside a living body. Potency falls to zero in minutes to days depending on what is going on around it and where it rests.
After grocery shopping, don’t touch the groceries for 3 hours before putting them away. Perishables put in the fridge right away, because bacteria growth can be even more dangerous; the viruses will become ineffective after a few days.
You cannot contract any corona virus through your skin. It comes in through eyes, nose, and mouth. Virus on your hands is harmless until you touch your face, basically. Wash hands after every exposure to avoid contaminating the openings on your face.
The virus does not enter through ears, so don’t worry about those orifices. However, it is unwise to let anyone whisper in your ears, because you might touch your ears and spread the virus to your face.
FB April 4
TODAY’S CORONA STATS:
Worldwide: 20.8% of recovered are dead.
USA: 36.4% of recovered are dead.
Michigan: 540 deaths; no useful info on live recoveries.
These stats show the situation remains out of control.
FB April 5
TODAY’S CORONA STATS:
Worldwide: 21.0% of recovered are dead.
USA: 35.7% of recovered are dead.
Michigan: 617 deaths; no useful info on live recoveries.
These stats show the situation remains out of control. We won’t be at world rates until the USA rate drops to 20%.
Spain and Italy continue to lead the world in absolute numbers of deaths.
Pray that seasonal warming doesn’t increase lethality rates.
FB April 6
People who are putting money into the stock market right now are delusional.
Don’t do it.
The four hardest hit countries are Spain, Italy France, and the USA. These countries probably have the most reliable statistics.
Here’s what you need to know:
1/3 of the people who have fully recovered in those four countries are dead.
FB April 6
TODAY’S UPDATED CORONA STATS:
Worldwide: 21.1% of recovered are dead.
USA: 35.6% of recovered are dead.
Michigan: 727 total deaths; no useful info on live recoveries.
New York: 599 deaths today only.
These stats show the situation remains out of control. We won’t be at world rates until the USA rate drops to 20%.
Spain and Italy continue to lead the world in absolute numbers of deaths. It is likely that they will continue to lead in absolute numbers for another 2 weeks or so after which it’s possible, not certain, that the USA might overtake them.
Pray that seasonal warming doesn’t increase lethality rates.
My estimate for total USA deaths by May 1 is 85,000 with a plus or minus range of 40,000. My statistical prediction is a USA death count somewhere between 45K and 125K.
This estimate is based on no unforeseen developments, good or bad.
FB April 7
Today, the president confirmed what I posted yesterday that deaths in the USA will be dramatically lower than the CDC estimates. I swear he reads my stuff on the internet.
FB April 7
TODAY’S UPDATED CORONA STATS:
Worldwide: 21.4% of recovered are dead.
USA: 37.1% of recovered are dead.
Michigan: 845 total deaths; no useful info on live recoveries.
New York: 731 deaths today only.
These increases show that the situation remains out of control.
FB April 8
TODAY’S UPDATED CORONA STATS:
Worldwide: 21.6% of recovered are dead.
USA: 39.5% of recovered are dead.
Michigan: 959 total deaths; no useful info on live recoveries.
New York: 779 deaths today only.
Increases in every statistic show that the situation remains out of control.
The numbers in the USA seem to be similar to the Italian experience where almost 45% of recovered died during the recent peak. As of today in Italy, 40% of recovered have died.
Tomorrow the USA will move past Spain from 3rd to 2nd place in total deaths behind 1st place Italy.
FB April 9
TODAY’S UPDATED CORONA STATS:
Worldwide: 21.2% of recovered are dead.
USA: 39.2% of recovered are dead.
Michigan: 1,076 total deaths; no useful info on live recoveries.
New York: 799 deaths today only.
Statistics show that the situation has most likely stabilized. 3 more days of similar stats will confirm.
Death ranking is Italy, USA, and Spain in that order. Together these 3 countries are reporting 50,000 deaths.
My math continues to support a USA death toll by May 1 of between 45,000 to 125,000. If today marks the end of the surge, USA deaths could number as few as 40,000.
FB April 10
TODAY’S UPDATED CORONA STATS:
Worldwide: 21.4% of recovered are dead.
USA: 40.7% of recovered are dead.
Michigan: 1,281 total deaths; no useful info on live recoveries.
New York: 777 deaths today only.
Statistics are moving in the wrong direction. The situation continues to remain out of control. The USA profile continues to match Italy. Within the next 12 hours the USA will have the most fatalities of any country.
My math continues to support a USA death toll by May 1 of between 45,000 to 125,000. Deaths continue to surge based on today’s stats.
It’s too early to be optimistic.
FB April 10
PAST WEEK COMPARISON:
During the past 7 days worldwide Covid-19 cases have increased by 55%. Worldwide deaths have increased by 74%.
If these numbers don’t come down, in six months everyone on Earth will have had the virus; 2 billion will be dead, which is roughly one out of four people.
Over two years this virus will become a species extinguishing event. Every human on Earth will be dead.
No evidence has been presented that having this virus confers immunity. In fact, the opposite is the case
FB April 11
TODAY’S UPDATED CORONA STATS:
Worldwide: 21.3% of recovered are dead.
USA: 41.0% of recovered are dead.
Michigan: 1,392 total deaths; no useful info on live recoveries.
New York: 783 deaths today only.
Statistics continue to move in the wrong direction. The situation continues to remain out of control. The USA now leads the world in the total number of deaths.
Optimism is not an appropriate attitude at this stage of the pandemic.
FB April 11
Just when we thought it couldn’t get worse…
Covid-19-associated acute necrotizing hemorrhagic encephalopathy… I don’t know what it is; I don’t want to know; it sounds bad, and I can’t deal with this kind of terror right now.
FB April 12
This video might save your life. I highly recommend that everyone watch it.
FB April 13
TODAY’S UPDATED CORONA STATS:
Worldwide: 21.2% of recovered are dead.
USA: 39.4% of recovered are dead.
Michigan: 1,602 total deaths; no useful info on live recoveries.
New York: 671 deaths today only.
Statistics are moving in the right direction. The situation remains out of control, but the outlook is hopeful. USA leads the world in the total number of deaths with 23,555.
A wait and see attitude is the appropriate emotional response.
We should expect a dramatic decrease in daily deaths in the USA during the next 3 weeks if social distancing is effective.
FB April 14
During the past 14 days the number of people worldwide who have contracted the Corona virus has increased by 244%. If this rate continues, 5 million people could have the virus by May 1.
By June 1, 30 million people could be infected.
By July 4, over 100 million people might be infected worldwide.
By August 1, the number could be as high as 600 million.
On Sept 1, over one billion people could be infected.
The number of people with brain and lung damage could be in the hundreds-of-millions. 30 million could be dead.
By Christmas—well… you don’t want to know.
Everyone expects miracles to change the course of this pandemic. Maybe miracles are forthcoming. In the meantime social distancing and soap are the only things that are stopping a species-extinguishing catastrophe from ending human civilization over the next few years.
This virus is real.
Minus immunity and vaccine, we can’t win.
FB April 14
Trump is the only one who can save us. Let that sink in, because it’s true.
FB April 14
I’m no longer going to provide daily reports on the virus, because the pandemic forest fire is burning out of control and we don’t have enough fire fighters.
If it starts raining or some other miracle reverses this catastrophe, I’ll let folks know when the reversal starts. Consider that no news from me is bad news.
FB April 15
If everyone who has Corona Virus right now is somehow able to survive—if no one else dies—the death rate for this virus will stand at 6.3%. People who tell you that the fatality rate is 1% are lying or ignorant or both.
Of course, more people will die. When I study the stats, the worldwide fatality rate looks like it will stabilize somewhere between 8 and 15 percent.
About 1/3 of the survivors are reporting various degrees of damage to their brains and/or lungs.
People who want to “open up the country” to this level of suffering are going to reap a whirlwind on themselves, their families, and their friends.
Stay home and use soap. Pray for vaccine.
If it turns out that recovered people don’t develop immunity; if it turns out that summer weather doesn’t tamp down the virus then by fall humans will find themselves trapped in a nightmare with no immediate way out.
The USA has a higher percentage of survivors than almost anywhere on Earth. If we don’t overwhelm our healthcare system, we can keep it that way.
Until we have herd immunity or vaccine, our lives are not going to return to what they once were. We are going to live in a virtual world where we interact with each other through apps like Zoom.
Somehow, we will make the best of it. We will find a way to love each other and have fun.
FB April 15
2,443 people died from Corona virus in the USA today. If deaths don’t increase, in 2021 on April 15 the USA will have 922,000 dead people. Millions more will suffer permanent lung and brain damage.
The people tying up traffic in their cars around the State Capitol need to go home and shower with soap.
After we get a treatment or a vaccine or herd immunity we can argue about freedom.
If we do what these protestors seem to want, millions will die.
FB April 15
Sonny Perdue, the Agricultural Secretary, just said on national TV that disruptions in the food supply and empty grocery shelves are the result of people not eating in restaurants and buying their food instead in grocery stores.
The packaging of food to restaurants is different than to the individual consumer, he said. Once the packaging issues get resolved, food scarcity will end.
Buy non-perishable foods and stock them now.
FB April 16
According to NHK World News (Japanese station) the USA CDC reported that more than 9,000 US health care workers are infected with the Corona Virus as of April 9.
It makes the action by some of the demonstrators near the hospital even more despicable, if that were possible.
FB April 17
50 days ago, total worldwide virus cases were 82,794;
deaths, 2,817;
recovered, 33,370.
Today total cases are 2,183,581;
deaths are 146,855;
recovered are 552,735.
50 days from now is June 5. If rates accelerate, God forbid, we will have nearly 60 million cases and 8 million deaths.
50 days later is July 25. If rates continue to accelerate we will have 1.5 billion cases and 416 million deaths.
48 days later is 911. By September 11, 2020 everyone in the world will have been infected and died.
End of story.
We can’t just flatten the curve and expect to survive. We have to crush it out of existence. People do not seem to be able to face the reality that an accelerating pandemic means that humanity is facing a species extinction event.
We are on the Titanic. The problem is we have no lifeboats.
We have social distancing, yes, but all it does is stop the acceleration of the pandemic. The velocity is likely to continue. Over a decade or so of constant velocity without acceleration, everything we cherish about civilization might be lost.
Magical thinkers need to get real, get onboard, and hunker down.
We need a miracle.
FB April 18
Non-Covid admissions to hospitals have plummeted. Since people stopped eating fast food, the overall good health of Americans has skyrocketed off the charts.
It’s a miracle.
FB April 18
36.4% of USA patients who are over this virus are dead. The pandemic continues to spread predictably, which means the pandemic is out of control both in the USA and worldwide.
Pray that summer knocks down transmission rates as it does with most viruses. I remember polio before vaccines. It got worse during summers and struck children with crippling side effects.
The next 50 days will teach us better what we are actually dealing with and help everyone think more realistically about risks.
My intention is to give Saturday evening (weekly) updates and assessments until this catastrophe ends one way or the other. Daily updates are too much work.
FB April 19
A number of people are becoming concerned about civil liberties as governments like South Korea try to track infected individuals through phones, primarily.
Our phones are ankle-bracelets that enable authorities to know whether we are sheltering in place as compelled by directives.
If we survive this pandemic it will be after several waves of shelter-in-place and years of social distancing—unless we develop immunities and vaccines, which at the moment seem out of reach.
This video is for people who are worried about what comes after.
FB April 20
The 7 states with the highest % of infected folks in order of severity are:
New York
New Jersey
Massachusetts
Louisiana
Connecticut
Rhode Island
Washington DC
DC is technically not a state, but it’s important because it is the seat of the federal government.
FB April 20
Corona Virus stats are being tracked for 212 countries and territories in the world. As of today, the USA is ranked 42nd in the % of its population tested for Corona Virus.
In order of the biggest testing percentage to least, here are the top 42 places. A lot of rich people, by the way, have citizenship in the top 25
1 – Iceland
Faeroe Islands
Falkland Islands
United Arab Republic
Gibraltar
Malta
Luxembourg
Bahrain
San Marino
Estonia
Isle of Man
Cyprus
Israel
Brunei
15 – Norway
Switzerland
Lithuania
Liechtenstein
Portugal
Italy
Qatar
Andorra
Germany
Austria
25 –Slovenia
Spain
Latvia
Channel Islands
New Zealand
Greenland
Ireland
Hong Kong
Australia
Denmark
35 – Singapore
Czechia
Canada
Russia
Belgium
Aruba
Venezuela
42 – USA
.
.
.
.
212 – Yemen
FB April 21
Trump’s Dr. Birx said today that the United States has one of the lowest death rates in the world.
Out of 212 countries and territories being tracked, the USA has the 14th highest death rate by percentage of population. It has the highest absolute number of deaths by far–no one else comes close. 198 countries and territories have a lower death rate.
35.3% of those in the USA who are over this virus have died.
Trump has his own experts lying to the American public. The countries with the highest rates of death on April 21, 2020 are the following:
1- San Marino
2- Belgium
3- Andorra
4- Spain
5- Italy
6- France
7- UK
8- Saint Maarten
9- Netherlands
10- Sweden
11- Switzerland
12- Ireland
13- Channel Islands
14- USA
FB April 21
The top 10 countries and territories (out of 212 tracked) ranked in order of most new cases of Corona Virus to the least are:
1 – USA
Russia
Turkey
United Kingdom
Spain
Italy
France
Brazil
Canada
10 – India
True on April 21, 2020.
FB April 23
Homeland Security said today that the “half-life” of the Corona Virus is 1.5 minutes under ultra-violet light, which is a component of sunlight.
Moms sending their kids out on a bright day should understand that it takes at least 20 half-lives to take a 300 trillion dose of virus in a typical sneeze down to less than the 10,000-count necessary to infect most exposed people.
This number of half-lives amounts to a half-hour. It’s a long time. So it’s good news that sunlight can disinfect a surface, but surfaces don’t become safe right away. It takes a half-hour in direct sunlight for a single sneeze.
The other piece of good news is that isopropyl alcohol is effective against this virus. You apply it to a surface. 100 minutes later (20 5-minute half-lives later) the surface is probably safe. The time is less than 2 hours, right? You don’t have to wipe it up. The rubbing alcohol evaporates.
Chlorine bleach destroys all biomolecules almost on contact. I would use household bleach except on surfaces that might discolor or degrade (like rubber seals, colored fabrics, and certain plastics). Avoid breathing vapors. They can mess up your lungs worse than the virus.
The other good news is that during summer — during hot humid nights over 10 hours or so long — the outdoors will likely purge itself of viable Corona Virus according to this government lab. That news is good for most people who live in heat and humidity during the summer.
FB April 23
People should remember that viruses aren’t living organisms. They are machines that “rust” under certain conditions; this “rusting” takes time (measured in “half-lives”) to reduce large numbers of viruses to a number unlikely to infect someone.
The number of half-lives determines the amount of time it takes to render a surface probably safe. Multiply half-lives by 20 to get an approximate time and add a safety factor to be safe.
FB April 24
Trump is fun. I’m going to miss him someday.
FB April 24
Wonderful advice to shut-ins coming from Trump himself: squirt Lysol up your ***. It will make the entire house smell better.
FB April 24
I know someone who will prescribe this important medication for anyone who needs it.
FB April 25
Trump’s screw-ups yesterday tell me he is terrified. It’s no joke.
FB April 25
A week ago, the USA was in 42nd place on % of population tested. Today it is in 41st place.
FB April 25
Apes in Corona studies are developing 100% immunity rates after recovering from the disease. Effective vaccines are already developed to give them lifetime immunities.
Not so for people.
In a few years Earth might become a Planet of the Apes like Hollywood predicted decades ago.
It’s almost impossible to develop vaccines for diseases that people don’t already develop natural immunities for. Hopefully the word “almost” is the operative concept.
If we don’t see natural immunity emerging then my advice is stay home, use soap, and prepare psychologically to lose television, the internet, and good foods over the next 7 months or so.
FB April 26
FB April 27
Frank Schaeffer is the son of the celebrity Christian writer Francis Schaeffer of yesteryear. Here is his recent FB post.
As news spread that Whitmer was likely to extend the lockdown period until May 15, armed protesters gathered outside of her home on Thursday for a ”demonstration” dubbed ‘operation Queen’s castle.’ To have armed thugs try to intimidate a US governor is a Trump’s/America crime. Expect these Trump clone jerks to kill people on election day 2020 to try and shut the polls if it looks like Trump will lose. Frank Schaeffer
FB April 27
I hear a lot of crazy talk on all the networks. Here are the facts:
1- If antigens are not stimulating the production of antibodies that confer robust immunity, it is unlikely that we will ever have a vaccine for this virus.
2- If antigens are stimulating the production of antibodies that confer limited immunity, an effective vaccine could take 10-15 year to come on-line.
3- If human antigens are stimulating the production of antibodies that confer permanent immunity, it might be possible to produce effective vaccines in 2-3 years. In the meantime, people are likely to develop herd immunity. The virus is likely to kill less than 1 in 35 people, which is a death rate that most folks can tolerate for a short period of time. Survivors won’t like it, though.
4- Barring a miracle between now and the election, a million Americans could be getting sick each day. No one believes the virus will become this pervasive, but the numbers say that it could happen.
If everyone who has the disease right now fully recovers and no one else gets sick, the death rate will stand at 7%. A rate of death this high means that if 1 out of 3 Americans get sick enough to be diagnosed, 7 million people are going to die over some period of time. Without immunity or vaccines, the disease will cause a worldwide collapse in populations over a period of time determined by the virus.
Recently people stood outside the Governor’s house with military style automatic weapons. The threat to the Governor is pretty clear. People who are supporting these lunatics will share the blame if the Governor gets hurt.
If you are one of those people, consider yourself a killer. Innocent people who get sick through no fault of their own are going to die if gun-toting lunatics get their way and the state opens too soon.
FB April 27
The USA has less than 5% of the world’s population. It has 33% of the Corona cases.
63% of those who have gotten the disease worldwide are still infected. 19% of those who have recovered have recovered by dying.
7% of everyone who has contracted the virus has died whether or not they recovered or remain actively infected.
Why is the USA so messed up by this virus when other countries are not?
A strong case can be made that the president is working aggressively to disable the folks who are charged with saving the country. He fired the doctor in charge of organizing the search for vaccines. He made the world-renowned Dr. Fauci disappear.
When was the last time anyone saw the Surgeon General or the director of the CDC?
Who knows their names?
Anyone?
Why is the president working against the United States?
A search for clues might begin by reexamining the Mueller report. Read the impeachment transcripts. Observe his relationships with North Korea, China, and Russia. Go to his prison and ask Paul Manafort, the president’s former campaign manager.
I’ve heard some evangelicals tell a lot of stories about why they love Trump. He’s held power for over 3 years. What has he done about abortion and gay marriage? It’s the two issues evangelicals claim to care about.
What have moron evangelicals gotten for their Faustian bargain?
So far, the answer is NOTHING except misery for all on a grand scale.
What does anyone have to lose by closing their eyes and covering their ears?
The answer is, THE COUNTRY.
FB April 28
I hate to be the bearer of distressing news. Most people probably already know this: evidence has emerged that people can transmit the new virus to their pets, both dogs and cats. No evidence yet of reverse transmission.
FB April 29
The top 10 countries and territories (out of 212 tracked) ranked in order of most new cases of Corona Virus to the least are:
1 – USA
Russia
Brazil
United Kingdom
Spain
France
Peru
Turkey
Italy
10 – India
True on April 28, 2020.
FB April 29
The news about Remdesivir is that it might be able to shorten the suffering of infected patients if administered early. It’s an Ebola viral treatment that has undergone trials in several countries where the trials were discontinued for various reasons.
The drug is important, because if it works it will be the first tool available to reduce suffering. Dying from Covid-19 is about the worse way to die there is, right?
It’s like being burned at the stake except that it starts inside the body and the process lasts longer. For those in hospital, they can be sedated.
Shortening stays will reduce stress on hospitals.
Unfortunately, the drug doesn’t address the fundamental problem, which is that this virus is looking more and more like the fabled “zombie” virus that every epidemiologist fears most. There’s never been one in the history of human health, but they are possible in principle.
A zombie virus is a virus that infects 100% of the population because it has a high transmission number and no who carries it develops immunity. Victims continue to infect others and to be “re-infected” until their organs fail.
The following Tedx video was produced in 2018 before anyone had heard about Covid-19.
FB April 29
If you are in a restaurant and a patron 6 feet away expels a large volume of gas, will you lose your appetite? 10 feet?
It’s a question eerily similar to a question you might ask about sitting near someone with virus who sneezes.
FB April 29
Corona cases have surged during the past three days in the United States and the world.
Don’t drink the Kool-Aid. Do whatever you can to isolate your families and stock up. This thing is going to get bad very fast.
Be prepared for bank and currency failures. In a sad way, there is no way to safeguard against these catastrophes when they finally come.
We are going to be tested beyond measure.
Prepare psychologically for the worst possible outcome and pray for miracles.
FB April 30
Today the court’s ruled in favor of Gretchen Whitmer. Here is an excerpt from an article The Hill reported this morning:
A group of five Michigan residents filed a lawsuit against the governor and other state officials claiming that the quarantine measures infringed on their constitutional rights to procedural and substantive due process. They also alleged that the state’s Emergency Management Act was unconstitutional.
The Michigan Court of Claims rejected both allegations, ruling that an injunction against Whitmer’s order would not serve the public interest, “despite the temporary harm to plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”
“Although the Court is painfully aware of the difficulties of living under the restrictions of these executive orders, those difficulties are temporary, while to those who contract the virus and cannot recover (and to their family members and friends), it is all too permanent,” Court of Claims Judge Christopher M. Murray wrote.
FB April 30
A couple of things about the economy:
The unemployment rate is unnatural — unlike the Great Depression when it was due to an economic collapse.
There is no scarcity of goods or money — unlike during the Great Depression. We have an induced reduction in consumption. Money is everywhere, though I’ve heard reports that people are not yet getting their unemployment and stimulus checks on time.
A situation like the one we’re in is unprecedented. No one knows for sure how it will play out. It could end in catastrophe. On the other hand, it might result only in high inflation, which can be managed under good leadership.
Donald Trump is president, not Franklin Roosevelt.
It looks like the virus is going to be managed by a plethora of anti-viral anti-inflammatory drugs much like AIDS is managed. It means that social distancing and sheltering in place for the vulnerable are going to be the new normal for a couple of years — or until the treatment cocktail of drugs is figured out to eliminate mortality, whichever comes first.
People who require hospitalization are going to have faster better outcomes soon which is good news for those who get really sick and for their caregivers.
In the meantime, should an effective vaccine be released everything will go back to the way it was.
Hopefully we will get that miracle someday sooner rather than later.
I read the abstract of the Chinese study, which is being reported on NHK.
The Chinese reported 66% adverse side-effects in patients treated with Remdesivir. 12% had to discontinue treatment due to side-effects.
The course of the disease was shortened in those administered Remdesivir, but mortality did not differ from placebo.
I’ve looked into the company that is pushing Remdesivir. I see some red flags, some serious. Nevertheless, testing is being ramped up. In a month or so, we should have a better analysis.
People who are making claims on television can not know if the improvements in some patients are due to Remdesivir, because the tests are double-blind, which means that no one is supposed to know who is on placebo.
Although the drug might be a good one, skepticism when money and power are at stake is always prudent.
Nevertheless, I’m going to remain skeptically optimistic until evidence emerges that we are being taken for a ride by charlatans. It wouldn’t be the first time.
There’s no harm in hoping that doctors in full uniform are telling the truth when they are obviously making claims to the public that they can only make if the tests are being administered in a way that violates protocols.
FB May 1
The USA just passed the 65,000 mark for Corona deaths. By June 1 the death toll is likely to be 100,000, but only if the number of deaths per day is cut by half.
Based on what I’m seeing, such a drop can happen only if Covid is seasonal — something there is no evidence for at this time.
Without a summertime drop in cases, the death toll could reach 125,000 people by June 1. By July 4, it could be 200,000.
These are numbers that can be suppressed by social distancing and shelter-in-place. Amelioration can also be abetted by concentrating on prison populations and nursing homes.
FB May 1
Today the daily number of new cases of C virus worldwide and in the USA was the second highest of the past two weeks.
FB May 2
A Canadian survivor of Covid-19, including three weeks on a ventilator. He’s a beautiful human being. It’s good that he made it; he survived.
FB May 4
35% of all Corona virus disease in the United States developed during the past two weeks (14 days). 33% of all C disease in the world developed during the same period.
417,828 cases developed in the USA;
1,158,615 developed during same period worldwide.
The average number of new cases per day in the USA during the past two weeks was 29,844; worldwide, it was 82,758.
In the USA new cases averaged 4% lower during the second week than during the first week, which is a downward trend. This trend will accelerate if the virus is seasonal. If the disease is seasonal, it will be a good thing.
As social distancing breaks down or is ended by states, it will be interesting to see how new cases trend. We will see those trends show up in about 4 weeks, because social distancing isn’t going to end abruptly due to fear in the population.
Which will be the stronger trend — more cases due to loss of distancing, or fewer cases due to seasonal decline? We are going to know by the end of summer.
FB May 4
The United States and Great Britain will lead the world in 1st and 2nd place in number of C cases by middle of week.
Seems odd.
Too early to say that C is going to be seasonal, but signals in the data are showing up for anyone who wants to zero in on them to make the argument.
If C turns out to be seasonal, it will be huge for safety, at least during summer. No evidence exists right now one way or the other that anyone can trust.
The immunity question remains to be answered. If the answer turns out to be yes, it will mean that vaccines are possible. With vaccines everything will go back to the way it was more quickly.
Otherwise, the ride is going to be bumpy and long.
FB May 4
Top ten countries in new C Virus cases today…
1- USA
Russia
Brazil
UK
India
Ecuador
Saudi Arabia
Turkey
Peru
10- Mexico
Congratulations everyone!
FB May 5
People who want to better understand the biology of and research into Covid-19 should watch this video by a lung specialist.
FB May 5
The USA and UK now have the highest daily death counts and overall number of deaths. Their leaders are doing exactly what anyone else would do to destroy their countries.
Kudos to both Boris and Donny — Putin’s orange puppets.
Thanks to Americans and Brits for standing by their BMs (boastful morons).
We had a chance to hold on to democracy, but not enough people saw the danger. After we lost our country, not enough people had the courage to take a stand for what is right.
Our billionaires are too afraid to stand up to mobsters with foreign accents. They are cowards. We no longer need them, because they are useless.
We are on our own — reduced to scrounging empty shelves for steak and toilet paper. Pathetic is too weak a word.
FB May 5
Based on the way research is being conducted, it seems clear to me that we will never have a safe vaccine for this virus. It’s possible our leaders also know it.
They would never open the country if they had a cure on the horizon. Why kill people unnecessarily unless they feel they have no alternative?
FB May 5
Top 15 USA states with new C virus cases today:
1- New York
2- California
3- New Jersey
4- Illinois
5- Massachusetts
6- Texas
7- Pennsylvania
8- Virginia
9- Maryland
10- Minnesota
11- Kentucky
12- Florida
13- Indiana
14- North Carolina
15- Ohio
We owe Gretchen Whitmer big time for guiding her state from 3rd to 19th in two weeks. Social distancing and stay-at-home worked for us and saved hundreds of lives.
Put your guns away and breathe safer air. We will worry about tomorrow when it comes.
FB May 5
Safest places to live in the USA as measured by fewest deaths by Corona virus. Safest first.
1- Wyoming
2- Alaska
3- Montana
4- Hawaii
5- South Dakota
6- North Dakota
7- West Virginia
8- Vermont
9- Utah
10- Maine
11- Idaho
12- Arkansas
13- Nebraska
14- New Hampshire
15- Oregon
16- Kansas
17- New Mexico
18- Delaware
19- Iowa
20- Tennessee
Only 1,724 people have died in these 20 safest states. The other 32 states account for 70,547 deaths. So, the gulf between safest and most dangerous is a big one.
FB May 6
An alarming uptick in coronavirus cases worldwide has occurred during the past 4 days. Same in the USA.
Quora has threatened to remove me from its site if my answers aren’t more respectful to the president. I’m not lying.
Their “be kind and respectful” policy applies to everyone, including the president. Criticizing the president in a derisive, non-deferential manner can get you banned.
Anyone who thinks they have free speech in America isn’t blogging and posting “controversial” opinions on social media.
A space administrator upvoted my content and then apologized to me personally for removing my content from his space, because it was too political. The content was my criticism of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Anyone who doesn’t believe censorship is real might want to ask a controversial person if they feel able to write freely about what’s on their mind.
I have to self-censor because if too many Trumperlogytes flag my answers, I get put on a list and my status is literally threatened by a note sent to me by a nameless person I will never meet.
FB May 6
Now we have another warning sign of Covid infection: COVID TOES. Look it up. Ask for images. Someone said they knew about this disorder two weeks ago. Who can be up-to-speed on everything all the time? Not me.
FB May 7
Here’s the top ten list by country for percentage of population that has gotten infected since this pandemic began:
1- Belgium
2- Spain
3- Italy
4- UK
5- France
6- Netherlands
7- Sweden
8- Ireland
9- USA
10- Switzerland
Ninth place isn’t bad. We are doing good compared to Belgium where NATO headquarters is located.
FB May 7
Every day, people should learn at least one new Coronavirus word or term to maintain their ability to talk about Coronavirus intelligently. Today, I want to get everyone started with 4 terms:
C virus thrives in bio-slime. Bio-slime thrives in drainage overflow that can sometimes contaminate ground water. C virus can remain viable in feces for 47 days. Vapor distilled water with added electrolytes might be safe to drink. Check this to be sure.
As I post this message, the term “acquired immunity” is not a “thing”. There is NO evidence that getting Covid-19 protects anyone from another infection or spreading it to others.
Lack of cases in places like Wuhan seem to be the result of lockdowns. No one knows anything for sure except that the virus is super weird.
FB May 7
Two home remedies for coronavirus that a few internet doctors have said might diminish symptoms are blood-pressure Ace inhibitors like lisinopril and other blood-pressure medicines in the same class as losartan.
Micro-clots in the lungs might be suppressed with certain blood thinners like Plavix.
Who knows?
I’ve used all three of these drugs. I had the side-effect of debilitating dizziness with Losartan and had to discontinue it.
No one knows for sure, but people grasp at every straw when they don’t have science to guide them. In theory, ace inhibitors and blood thinners seem to be logical choices to fight against the legendary cytokine storms that kill many patients. Blood pressure meds seem to be a sensible pick to prevent strokes and harmful pressure spikes.
In the end, when people have given up hope for vaccines and acquired immunity, this virus is going to be managed by a plethora of drugs similar to the cocktails of medications that are used to suppress the symptoms of AIDS.
Unless evidence for acquired immunity emerges, humans are likely in for a rough ride.
No one should ever use a medicine that has not been prescribed by a doctor, by the way.
FB May 7
A lot of politicians are repeating nonsense about C disease to justify opening their states. One is that surgical masks are effective against catching the virus.
Surgical masks are used in hospitals to help prevent the surgeons and other health care workers from contaminating the patient, not the other way around.
Face shields, gloves, and special clothing protect health care workers from catching something from their patients. This specialized PPE is remarkably effective but not available to ordinary people to use during trips to the grocery.
FB May 8
Does anyone remember this best seller from 2015? It did well and helped get our current Knight in Shining Armor elected.
Billy Lee
EDITORS NOTE: On May 9, the number of dead Americans from Covid-19 broke 80,000. Over 4.1 million people worldwide are infected. 60 days ago, dead Americans numbered 38. Infected Americans numbered 1,267.
60 days later, the number of sickened Americans stands at 1,347,309.
With no vaccines nor evidence of acquired immunity, how high will the numbers climb during the next 175 days before the November election?
Will we get the miracle everyone is hoping for?
Keep praying is what Billy Lee mumbles to himself when he thinks no one is watching.
From the Editorial Board: Billy Lee wrote a poem that resonates with how most of us feel about the public’s responsibility during a pandemic that is turning out to be bigger than all of us. We asked his permission to publish, and he agreed.
THE END
Who can blame anyone for sleeping On a day when everyone is weeping? Dinosaurs flailed in their last hours Fighting for lives against the powers. They did not, could not, would not understand How to shield babies from God’s ruthless plan.
Who can blame anyone for crying On a day when everyone is dying? Pompeiians gasped for one last breath Fighting for lives against hot death. They did not, could not, would not understand How to shield babies from God’s ruthless plan.
Who can blame anyone for playing On a day when everyone is praying? Teenagers dancing on sun bleached sand Betting our lives to enjoy what they can. They did not, could not, will never understand How to shield babies from God’s ruthless plan.
Billy Lee
Added 4 July 2020:Evidence for immunity against the coronavirus has emerged in infected Chinese monkeys. China announced a vaccine on June 25 and is inoculating members of their military.
Added 10 July 2021:Effective vaccines are now available in the United States. Evidence for immunity against the coronavirus has emerged in people who have recovered.
As of today, 35 million Americans have been infected. 623 thousand are dead. Nearly 5 million Americans are currently sick. Covid-19 has killed one out of 534 citizens.
Found first in India, the Delta variant (B.1.617.2) is now the predominant strain of coronavirus in the USA. Pfizer is reporting that their vaccine is less effective against the Delta variant. General protection from the Pfizer vaccine degrades after 6 months, the company says. Booster vaccinations are planned.
Worldwide, 187 million have been infected; 4 million are dead; 12 million are currently sick.
Added 19 September 2021:10 million Americans are currently infected inside the USA (3% of the population). About 2,000 citizens are dying each day. Last week 250,000 children were diagnosed with Covid-19.
My fully-vaccinated son and a few of his fully-vaccinated friends caught Covid three weeks ago and stayed sick for more than a week. One unvaccinated friend was hospitalized and put on oxygen. He recovered.
Schools are open; people are partying in college towns everywhere.; sports and concerts are back. Effectiveness of shots has waned but this week experts, some of them, recommended boosters only for the immuno-compromised and those over 65.
We’ve come a long way since 11 March 2020 when Americans dead from Covid-19 numbered 38. No one really knows how many worldwide have been infected nor how many died during two years of pandemic. The countries of the world started lying about the numbers and lost track. The truth is most folks no longer seem to care.
No expert I know has stepped forward to tell anyone what the future holds. Few folks trust the experts anyway so I guess it doesn’t matter.
Nevertheless, who thought vaccines, once available, would fail? Who thought new variants would break through natural immunities?
Feeling helpless before a future that might take everything? No? What might be left a year from now? A few months from now?
The lonely writhe,
Cry and die… The deaf and blind, They dine.
Neither do they whine nor pine
While flags of resistance Beat in the distance
Bellowing viral churn Making Dark Suns burn
and Hell’s knells chime.
I’ve been writing everyday lately, but not on my blog. What can I write when civilization is crumbling all around?
If I sugar-coat, people will gag. If I go negative and things get better, some will blame me for helping liberals put the country through hell.
It’s amazing to read what people write on Twitter, Facebook, and Quora during the slow unfolding of a disaster that will soon dwarf 911.
The majority of people who post seem optimistic and cheerful. Most folks I know who don’t post seem paralyzed by anxiety; some are in various stages of denial.
It reminds me of passages from a book written by a survivor of the disaster at Tenerife airport in Spain’s Canary Islands. I’m talking about the first disaster in 1977, not the second in 1980.
The book described how it happened that in 1977 a fully loaded passenger jet collided on takeoff with a fully loaded jet that was parked on the airport runway. Almost 600 people perished, but there were survivors. One of the passengers was able to write a book of memories about what it felt like to live through an event of almost unimaginable terror.
He wrote that he was surprised to see people sitting white-faced as he scrambled toward an exit where he escaped. The folks he left behind burned black in the fire — beyond recognition. Rescuers found charred bodies wrapped in locked belts. Passengers didn’t bother, many of them, to unfasten their straps.
One problem at Tenerife was the inability of those in the plane on the ground to process the reality of what was occurring all around. Folks on both planes planned to enjoy vacations, most of them, in one of the most beautiful spaces on Earth. Nothing prepared anyone to face a reality that would descend on them from above.
On one of the most exciting days of their lives, vacationers in the jet on the tarmac were struck by another jet they didn’t see coming; they burned alive while parked peacefully in the heart of paradise.
The survivor self-published his account. He wasn’t networked with the right people. He didn’t have the look and voice of celebrity that media moguls preferred to place onto the public airwaves.
Besides, it must have seemed reasonable to certain players that his story might harm the fortunes of airlines whose well-connected owners were always trying to convince the public that flying was safe. Book sellers suppressed his story by ignoring it.
The survivor, like a traveling salesman, pushed his books in churches. I attended a service where he gave a talk and sold his story. The book mesmerized me with its authenticity and lack of deference to the powerful.
Decades later, I lost my one and only copy during a move. I can no longer remember the book’s title or the name of its author.
The survivor’s tale was compelling — I remember that much. He wrote that his life was spared by a miracle performed by God. It’s another reason why he sought churches to tell his story. He said that he was grateful to Jesus for a second chance at life.
He suffered trauma from horror, yes, but he learned somehow to lean on Christ to comfort him; to calm his mind when his body shook during flights he later made to promote his saga of physical and spiritual rescue.
Today, America has a lunatic in the White House who parked the plane of state on the tarmac of the greatest civilization. His advisors in the control tower warned him repeatedly to move the plane, but he was too preoccupied with his luxury businesses and the internet to listen.
Instead, the president fired his advisors one by one and hired sycophants to reassure him that the plane of state was safe and that he, the president, was the perfect pilot.
Trump spent his time slandering the little people; he lashed out on Twitter against anyone who challenged him — in the name of Jesus presumably who he claimed to serve. Evangelicals surrounded him like angels to protect him from the demons of liberal-media bias and progressive writers like myself who threatened to undo him with fake news and contemptible stupidity.
America’s fall was ignited by the hatred of this president for the person who preceded him. The Trump crime-family hated on the Obamas like the evil step-sisters hated on Cinderella in the children’s fairy tale.
Trump spent three-and-a-half years undoing everything Obama built to protect innocents from financial and health catastrophes exactly like the two that engulfed and destroyed a country — ours — which every American fondly remembers and once loved.
Trump’s base of fellow-travelers jumped on board his band wagon of hate. They joined forces with evangelicals to form a tidal wave of racism that intended to wipe away the memory of the first “black-Muslim” president from the face of the earth.
Wolves masqueraded as sheep until their growth in sheer numbers overwhelmed anyone who dared challenge them. Some were white supremacist’s and self-denying racists. Some were descendants of the same people who attacked the USA in 1860 to start the Civil War. All were liars in bed with a man who couldn’t tell the truth.
Deaths of Americans in all its wars don’t add to the deaths of the unfortunates who ripped each other to shreds during battles started by entitled southern “gentlemen” to defend the right of thugs to own and abuse Negroes — who they believed God created to live lower than their animals.
Think about it. How evil is America? The president and his legions answer that question everyday.
His cult shrouds itself in the flag of the United States. Followers carry Bibles in one pocket and kill-sticks in the other. They defend everything the crazy-clown says; they slander, lie, cheat, and steal to make sure he always wins.
Trump is Jefferson Davis incarnate. He leads the new confederacy, which is in alliance with foreign oligarchs; they intend to break everything American.
Why?
Who knows?
When everything is broken, maybe old-man Trump plans to build from the ashes a new country in his own glorious image.
Who is able to understand why a lunatic does the terrible things they do?
I don’t understand. I can’t make sense out of any of it.
Is anyone left who still believes this monster ever really intended to “make America great again”?
Billy Lee
EDITOR’S NOTE: When civilizations collapse, conspiracy histories begin because people want to know why. Sometimes the answers are complicated.
Evangelical seers have insisted for almost one-hundred years that Bible prophets can be trusted to reveal the future. Seers claim to have the gift of discernment to enable them to decode the symbolism and hidden truths that bring financial reward. They write books and sell them for lots of money. Everyone wins, right?
These seers, some of them, describe the Biblical eagle as America; the lion is Israel; the bear is Russia; the leopard is China; the iron-toothed machine is Germany, NATO, Japan, or whatever country is most ominous at the time; and the dragon is of course the devil who brings forth a beast — it’s an alliance of the leopard with the bear — that speaks with the lips of whatever the lion becomes after its eagle’s wings are ripped away.
Billy Lee argued against including any references to the Bible in his essay because it feeds ignorant people’s delusions about the ‘’end times”, he claimed.
THE EDITORS overruled Billy Lee because we are scared about what’s coming next. Readers are demanding answers that no one seems to have. Why not look to the prophecies of the ancients who wrote their words of wisdom more than two-thousand years ago?
Here are two of the most famous:
FROM THE BOOK OF DANIEL, CHAPTER 7
The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. I watched until its wings were torn off and it was lifted from the ground so that it stood on two feet like a human being, and the mind of a human was given to it.
And there before me was a second beast, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. It was told, ‘Get up and eat your fill of flesh!’
After that, I looked, and there before me was another beast, one that looked like a leopard. And on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads, and it was given authority to rule.
After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast — terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns.
While I was thinking about the horns, there before me was another horn, a little one, which came up among them; and three of the first horns were uprooted before it.
This horn had eyes like the eyes of a human being and a mouth that spoke boastfully.
FROM THE BOOK OF REVELATION, CHAPTER 13
The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.
The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority.
EDITORS NOTE: Many Trump-adoring evangelicals believe that the ”horns” in the passages above are better translated ”trumpets”. Trump-ets, get it?
This essay is one of the shortest on the website, but it might be the most timely during this moment of impeachment inquiries. Questions like the following are being asked on forums around the internet and the world:
Would you rather have Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren run against President Trump? September 2019 on Quora.com
The problems that President Trump creates are the most serious to face Americans in my lifetime. Three exceptions might be the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, and 911.
As a people, we are at this moment completely dependent on our elected representatives. Nothing any civilian does can make any difference; we are helpless in the face of an alleged sociopath who holds the most power of any human on Earth.
Tony Schwarz wrote Trump’s Art of the Deal and split the profits 50-50. He has said that Trump is a sociopath capable of initiating a nuclear conflagration.
The following is an answer to the Quora question, which I hope people who matter carefully consider. And yes, the answer is somewhat oblique. I don’t think whoever runs against Trump will make much difference in the events that will come after.
Does anyone believe that Trump is the kind of man who relinquishes power?
The surest way to remove Trump is through impeachment, but it’s not clear that he will step down if he is convicted by the Senate. Waiting for clarity is not a valid reason for caution. Inaction will bring catastrophe. Too much is at stake.
I know it’s difficult for many Americans to remember, but Trump insisted that the 2016 election was rigged by Hillary Clinton; many believed he planned not only to challenge the election in the courts but to lead an insurrection or even a revolution if the result turned against him.
Trump is allied with the NRA—an armed, insurrectionary group of lunatics dedicated to revolution should they fail to get their way. The NRA has been swarmed by Russian intelligence. The Russian objective is to destabilize the United States by fanning the flames of paranoia in a politically influential organization known to be susceptible to manipulation by conspiracy theorists.
Southern evangelical Christians are the backbone of the new Confederacy, which Trump leads; he is their modern day Jefferson Davis who plans first to reestablish legalized segregation under the guise of, I don’t know, “right to choose”, maybe.
Other atrocities will follow. The suppression of non-whites (like immigrants) is in full-swing, which white-supremacists, among others, support.
White evangelicals don’t preach against the ethnic-cleansing of America; they endorse it. Jerry Falwell Jr. of Liberty University has encouraged his students for years to train in the use of firearms so that they will be able to kill Muslims if given the opportunity. For years he has advocated for violence against those he hates by inciting unaccountable, non-state actors — like the students who attend his so-called “university”.
NOTE BY EDITORIAL BOARD: On August 25, 2020 Jerry Falwell accepted a $10.5 million severance package from Liberty University to step down. Like Adam in the Garden of Eden, he blamed his wife for the sex scandals that followed him pretty much everywhere during his tenure.
I think most reasonable folks are at a point where they can figure-out that the coming election might amount to no more than a simple diversion — a shiny object to pull people’s attention away from what might turn out to be the only course of action with any chance at all to remove the president — an impeachment in the House of Representatives followed by conviction in the Senate.
Many people are in denial; people withdraw their attention from events that disturb them. Seizure of American institutions has already taken place by people working for the other side. Some people seem to have unrealistic expectations that a media owned by oligarchs like Trump will warn them.
Very few are able to face head-on a reality that includes loss-of-country. People sleep better at night if they pull their heads inside their shells and pretend everything is OK when it isn’t.
Some resort to a version of the Stockholm Syndrome to help them cope with the sickness that tears at their stomachs when they remember that Trump grabbed them by their electoral colleges; they embrace the tormentor to maintain their sanity.
Stockholm Syndrome is at the core of Trump’s power. Trump is right that he can kill, and his supporters will stand with him. He has nothing to fear from so-called “church-goers” who love him because he is bad.
Trump has put into place policies that seem designed to terrorize sick children; ICE puts them in cages where they risk death from neglect and illness; the president’s policies strike fear in families who are running from gangs to search for safety north of the southern-border.
Everyone wants to believe that a shining-city-on-a-hill exists somewhere in the world that they can crawl to during hard times. It’s a myth, unfortunately. Trump has shredded people’s dreams for a better future. Impoverished freedom-seekers are neither welcome nor safe in Trump’s America.
A bad election result is the easiest thing for a thug who already holds power to cast aside. An election can be rigged; it can be ignored; it can be challenged in stacked courts; it can be won in the electoral college.
Trump ought to know; he lost the popular count in 2016 by a record 11 million votes; 3M from Hillary; 8M from third-parties. No president has lost the popular vote by a larger margin. The president knows he will lose the popular vote in 2020; it didn’t stop him in 2016; it won’t stop him next year, either.
Losing the popular vote by a wide margin is not going to be a problem for President Trump. Who doesn’t agree that it’s true?
If Americans wait for the 2020 election to make the change that everyone with sense knows we must make, then our country could be lost for a long time, perhaps forever, at least for us, the little people who depend on it to breathe free.
Billy Lee
Note from the Editorial Board: We recommend that readers view each video in Billy Lee’s essay. The short videos are historical in nature. Current confirming videos can be found on YouTube and other websites. Billy Lee included the older videos to remind people about where they’ve been. He wants to encourage folks to reflect about what they imagined was going on when first they saw them.
