vdare--2020-04-29--Ann Coulter Q & A On The Wuhan Virus: We're Done Now—Except For An Immigration Moratorium!

As you can well imagine, my mailbox has been overflowing with questions about the coronavirus from precisely ZERO readers. So I decided to write my own questions. I know this is what you would be asking if you were not standing in line, outside, 6 feet apart, to purchase a quart of milk.
What do you think of the media’s coverage of the Wuhan virus?
It’s like a nonstop “War of the Worlds” broadcast, which in 1938 panicked more than a million Americans into believing Martians had landed in New Jersey, sending people fleeing to the mountains, loading their shotguns and barricading their homes. And that was a single radio broadcast!
Today we have nearly all of media—which I notice are doing fantastically well during the crisis—terrifying the public about an apparently indestructible, omnipresent virus.
You don’t think the China virus is as dangerous as they say?
Well, it is a virus capable of eliminating all human life, which would be bad, but not all bad because then you’d never have to see another TV commercial with some company saying they consider you “family.”
So you think it’s safe to start lifting the stay-at-home orders?
Of course. I ask again: What was the purpose of telling everyone to stay home? Aren’t we all Wuhan-free now? More than 90 percent of the country has been self-quarantining for more than a month. Either we had it and didn’t know it, or never had it at all. But in any event we don’t have it now.
Or was that whole stay-at-home mandate just for fun?
What about threats of a resurgence?
Luckily the hospitals are half-empty, waiting for the gusher of coronavirus patients.
So we do nothing?
No, not at all, but now that 90 percent of us are Wuhan-free, these are the only things we need to do:
1) A real immigration moratorium, like this country had from 1924 to 1965. (I’d also recommend that the other 49 states shut down flights from New York, but I’ll leave that up to them);
2) Concentrate all protections on the elderly/immunocompromised;
3) No more handshaking, and liberal use of surgical masks in confined spaces.
Other than that, WE’RE DONE NOW.
But we know virtually nothing about this virus: why it kills, what stops it, how it’s transmitted.
Actually, we know one very important thing: By total serendipity, the Wuhan virus mostly kills people over the age of 70. Nearly 80 percent of all coronavirus deaths in the U.S. are of people over 70 years old.
What about Italy?
About 80 percent of the dead were over 70.
That sounds a little callous.
Not at all. It’s a stroke of good luck! We’d be lucky if the virus targeted any specific group—the nearsighted, left-handers, golfers—because that would allow us to concentrate protections on that one group.
But it’s doubly good news because the Wuhan targets people who are mostly out of the workforce anyway. And we already have their names and addresses! How about the feds send a box of masks along with Social Security checks every month?
How will you get Democratic governors to go along with that?
Liberals can triple down on all their fascist stuff—as long as it’s limited to the vulnerable.
Over 65? You need a note from the governor to leave your home!
Fine! But let the rest of us get back to work.
Why haven’t they done this already?
Because that wouldn’t have the effect of wrecking the economy before the election.
Apart from the election, why would the media want to impoverish the nation?
1) Reporting on disasters is fun!
2) Their ratings are terrific—and, of course, they’re still being paid.
3) Liberals enjoy controlling people, especially with enragingly nonsensical rules.
I thought Trump was the authoritarian!
No, he’s the lazy, narcissistic blowhard. Liberals are the authoritarians.
The shutdown is airport security for the whole country. Nineteen Muslim immigrants flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and suddenly little old ladies from Oklahoma had to be goosed at airports. We have to be safe!
A horrible Chinese virus sweeps the planet, which is devastating to older people but virtually harmless to the young—and the entire country has to be shut down. We have to be safe!
What about polls showing a majority of Americans want to keep the restrictions in place?
The media have frightened gullible suburban woman into a state of hysteria. (Talk about whipping up your ignorant base!) Kids could basically mainline coronavirus and they’d be fine. But soccer moms don’t want their kids going back to school.
Whether it’s rational or not, people aren’t going to go out like they used to.
My entire life, liberals have said, “Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one.” “Don’t like pornography? Don’t look at it.” And so on.
I say: “Don’t want to leave your home? Don’t leave your home!”
So you recommend going out again?
Sure, what’s the worst that could happen? Sure, you could die, but you probably won’t.
COPYRIGHT 2020 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
Ann Coulter is the author of THIRTEEN New York Times bestsellers—collect them here.
Her book, ¡Adios America! The Left’s Plan To Turn Our Country Into A Third World Hell Hole, was released on June 1, 2015.
Her latest book, Resistance Is Futile!: How the Trump-Hating Left Lost Its Collective Mind, was released on August 21, 2018.


vdare--2020-04-29--In Italy, Practically Nobody Who Takes Hydroxychloroquine for Lupus or Rheumatoid Arthritis Got CV

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Hydroxychloroquine hasn’t worked well in studies for people on death’s doorstep from coronavirus, but most of the optimism about this old drug instead has always been about its potential in earlier phases. From Il Tempo via Google Translate:
Coronavirus, revealed how it works: that’s why hydroxychloroquine could work
by Peter D’Angelo
APRIL 28, 2020
… What this mechanism consists of is immediately said: the drug by binding permanently with ferriprotoporphyrin (of the Eme group of Hb) removes the substrate from viral proteins and also becomes an important means of prophylaxis. Although there are still no Italian publications on the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine as a “shield” from the virus, among the directors of the infectious disease wards, the specialists, Primaries and general practitioners contacted during this research, many admitted – under a whisper – to use the drug as a “prophylaxis”, that is, to prevent infection. Healthcare professionals who are in close contact with contagious patients take the drug in advance, precisely to decrease the probability of contracting the infection. For now, in support of this “prophylaxis” effect, there is a recent publication, involving 211 people. It was published on the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, the official body of the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. Of 211 people exposed to Covid positive 19 and undergoing hydroxychloroquine prophylaxis, none were infected.
Finally, further confirmation of this hypothesis is the data collected in the register of the SIR (Italian rheumatology society). To assess the possible correlations between chronic patients and Covid19, SIR interrogated 1,200 rheumatologists throughout Italy to collect statistics on infections. Out of an audience of 65,000 chronic patients (Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis), who systematically take Plaquenil / hydroxychloroquine, only 20 patients tested positive for the virus. Nobody died, nobody is in intensive care, according to the data collected so far.


vdare--2020-04-27--A PA Reader Asks If A "New Holland Man" Accused Of Child-Molesting Is An ILLEGAL Immigrant, We Insis

A PA Reader Asks If A "New Holland Man" Accused Of Child-Molesting Is An ILLEGAL Immigrant, We Insist It Doesn't Matter

Re: Yes, Virginia (DARE), There IS Hispanic “Ethnic Specialization” In Child Rape. The Totalitarian Left Just Doesn’t Want You To Know.
From: A Pennsylvania Reader [Email him]
When a man with a Hispanic-sounding name is reported as having committed and facilitated horrific crimes in Texas, Arkansas and now in a small farming community in Pennsylvania, I get suspicious of some sort of immigration violation. I have no evidence as yet to back up my suspicion. I will see if the local media sources open up about this at all, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
Accused of raping and sexually assaulting six young girls over a period of eight years, a New Holland man now faces 33 criminal charges, most of them felonies. Gustavo A. Rendon, 51, also is accused of parading unclothed girls in front of other adults and, on one occasion, letting other men rape one of the children, according to charging documents. According to a criminal complaint filed Friday by state police in Lancaster, the girls said Rendon abused them over a period of seven years from 2003 to 2010, during which they ranged in age from 2 to 14 years old. The abuse took place in Texas and Arkansas before Pennsylvania, where the girls were assaulted in Berks and Lancaster counties, the children told police. New Holland man raped, assaulted 6 children for years: police, by Sean Sauro, LancasterOnline, April 24, 2020
James Fulford writes: It's obvious that in addition to being a New Holland man, Mr. Rendon must also have been a Texas man and an an Arkansas man. When enquiring minds want to know is whether he was also a Guanajato man, a Guatemala City man, or a Bolivia man.
And the question of whether he was legal or illegal doesn't matter. It doesn't make the victims of a Mexican rapist feel any better to know that the rapist had a Green Card in his pocket.
When Donald Trump came down the escalator and said
"When Mexico sends its people, they are not sending their best. They are not sending you. They are sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs and they are bringing crime, and they’re rapists.”
he was talking mostly about illegals, but it's true of Mexican legal immigrants, too. (He knew this, by the way, because he'd read Ann Coulter's Adios America, Chapter 11, which asked the question at right.)


vdare--2020-04-26--Coronavirus Policy Clashes Yet Another Indication That U.S. States Are Too Big

See, earlier: Separating Illinois From Cook County Would Help Save The Historic American Nation
Bret Stephens, the New York Times’ faux WASP, faux conservative columnist, just got in a lot of trouble for suggesting that, in its response to Covid-19, America Shouldn’t Have to Play by New York Rules [April 24, 2020]. But he’s right. The U.S. is 33 times the size of Italy, the next worst-hit country, and One Size just doesn’t Fit All. Moreover, the pandemic is also providing yet another indication that many U.S. states are too big, too diverse yet too centralized—and that they need to split up.
I wrote recently about secession/subdivision movements in Illinois (which all by itself is almost half the size of Italy). Illinois is demographically dominated by Cook County, a majority-minority community that contains Chicago and voted for Hillary Clinton, while the rest of the state, which is whiter than the national average, favored Donald Trump. That means Chicago gets to impose its policy preferences on very different people and communities several hours and hundreds of miles away. This didn’t used to happen, but U.S. Supreme Court rulings like Reynolds v. Sims (1964) and Baker v. Carr (1962) destroyed internal federalism in American states by asserting a one man-one vote dogma and removing the check that less densely populated suburban and rural hinterlands exerted on their megalopolises through various constitutional arrangements, just as the U.S. Senate does at the federal level.
Michigan is a prime example of how coronavirus is exposing this disparity. Wayne County, which includes Detroit, has a coronavirus problem. As of April 22, there had been a 0.85 percent confirmed infection rate and 1396 deaths as a result [Infection2020.com, April 22, 2020]. Conversely, in the northern half of the state, including the upper Michigan peninsula, not one county had an infection rate exceeding 0.1 percent.
However, since Wayne County went overwhelmingly for Democrat Gretchen Whitmer in the 2018 gubernatorial election [Michigan Election Results 2018, Politico], people in the northern half of the state are now thrown out of work, cannot attend church or see family members, even though the disease is a minimal threat in their areas.
It also means they have a governor who extended their state’s stay-at-home order from May 4 to May 15—further bludgeoning their economy [Report: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to Extend Michigan Lockdown Until May 15, by Kyle Olson, Breitbart, April 23, 2020].
The same goes for other large states dominated by megalopolises. New York City, an internationalist city, has a 1.8 percent infection rate and at least 16,400 coronavirus deaths—about a third of the U.S. total. As Bret Stephens pointed out, New York City has more fatalities than 41 states combined.
But anyone who has driven through upstate New York knows how rural it can be. There are many farms alongside Interstate 90. It is also overwhelmingly white.
As of April 25, 2020, counties like Franklin, Lewis, Fulton, Schoharie and Seneca have zero reported deaths. Coincidentally, as of 2019, Seneca County was 88.8 percent non-Hispanic white and 0.8 percent Asian [Seneca County, New York, United States Census Bureau].
Although New York is one of the bluest states in the country, removing New York City and Westchester county would result in it leaning Republican. Trump would have won it in 2016 with 2,193,747 votes to Hillary Clinton’s 2,118,623 [2016 New York Presidential Election Results, Politico].
Yet Governor Andrew Cuomo restricts the daily lives of people in upstate New York essentially because the state’s largest urban areas are, in Bret Stephen’s words, “urban sardine cans” where a cosmopolitan population travels using public transportation.
And different cultures simply have different standards of hygiene. This helps explain why there are frequent E. coli outbreaks in lettuce originating on farms across the country.
There have been many calls over the years to split New York into multiple states. In 2009, state senate Republicans Joseph Robach, Dale Volker, and Michael Ranzenhofer proposed a referendum to divide the state in two with upstate New York becoming a separate state from the Hudson Valley, New York City, and Long Island [Split New York State? Robach Wants to Know What Counties Think, by Jill Terreri, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, November 28, 2009].
Stephen Hawley, a Republican member of the state assembly proposed such a referendum again in 2013 and 2015. In 2015, 15 towns in New York's Southern Tier also proposed seceding into Pennsylvania [15 New York Towns, Desperate to Frack, Ponder Secession, by Zoe Schlanger, Newsweek, February 22, 2015].
California is similarly dominated by the megalopolises of San Francisco and Los Angeles. But California is even bigger than Italy and there are still areas where coronavirus is not a factor.
There have been repeated proposals that California should subdivide (here, here, here, and here).
One initiative proposed six Californias:
‘Six Californias’ backers say it’s heading for the ballot, by Carla Marinucci, San Francisco Chronicle, July 14, 2014
In contrast, the situation in Georgia is the reverse of states like New York and Michigan.
In this Wikipedia-provided map, the part marked in black is Atlanta, which has a large urban population and public transport system.
Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp declared that some businesses like salons, gyms, and bowling alleys could reopen on April 24, and restaurants could resume dine-in service on April 27 [Trump approved of Georgia’s plan to reopen before bashing it, by Jonathan Lemire and Ben Nadler, The Associated Press, April 24, 2020]. Leftist government officials in Atlanta do not like the move and see it as a threat to their community’s public health. They have the authority to keep those businesses closed. But rural and suburban counties in Georgia still have enough votes that their preferences prevail.
Other states with a hinterland-megalopolis conflict like New York when it comes to coronavirus issues include Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Minnesota—and Washington State.
Unsurprisingly, a proposal in the Washington state legislature exists that would break the state in two [House Joint Memorial 4003]. It aims to create a state called Liberty using all counties east of Okanogan, Chelan, Kittitas, Yakima, and Klickitat, so that the border between the states would be the western boundaries of those counties:
The vitriol directed at Stephens may be because some New Yorkers are affronted by the idea that they are not America, or because many Democrats clearly want to keep the economy closed in the hope that it will flush out the Presidency of Donald J. Trump. Nevertheless, the logic behind the redrawing state boundaries grows inexorably stronger.
Hank Johnson [Email him] is a student of New England politics and popular culture.


vdare--2020-04-29--Hardest Hit: Americans Dying Of Coronavirus At Higher Rates Than Immigrants, White Deaths Highest In

Hardest Hit: Americans Dying Of Coronavirus At Higher Rates Than Immigrants, White Deaths Highest In Relation To Population

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Are Americans dying of Covid-19 at greater rates than immigrants? Current death certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control suggest that may be the case. [ Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): Data Updates by Select Demographic and Geographic Characteristics , April 28, 2020]
The Centers for Disease Control has updated the provisional data on Covid-19 deaths as of April 28. Non-Hispanic whites are still dying at the highest rate of any other race or ethnic group. Non-Hispanic black deaths are slightly higher than their share of population. New states have been added since the provisional report last week because the data includes states with 100 or more deaths and there are more deaths.
In Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Wisconsin and Michigan, non-Hispanic blacks are dying at a higher rate than their weighted distribution of population. In no states are Hispanics dying in greater numbers than their share of population. Only in California are Asian deaths higher than their share of weighted population and it is by a slim margin.
In Arizona, Native Americans make up 2.2 percent of the weighted distribution of population but a shocking 28.6 percent of the Covid-19 deaths. Overall, in the U.S., Native American deaths and population distribution are equal.
As non-Hispanic whites and blacks are dying of Covid-19 at disproportionately high rates and Asians and Hispanics are not, might one conclude that Americans are being hit harder by the virus than are immigrants?


vdare--2020-04-30--This Day In VDARE.com History, 2015: The New Online Challenge for Blacks—Stomp on the American Flag

Originally published here on VDARE.com on this day in 2015.
The predictable result of your tax dollars at work
One of the first trends of politics I noticed as a lad was those who receive the most from the government seem the most disloyal. Thus, the new trend among African-American college students, perhaps the most officially privileged group in one of the most wealthy nations in the entire world, is to film themselves stomping on the American flag.
A video of a woman dancing and jumping up and down atop the American flag is gaining online attention — and her actions appear to be part of a larger movement. “My name is Erica Walker, and I’m about to do the Eric Sheppard Challenge,” she said in the clip, holding up a handwritten sign. “Hands off EJ. F*** yo flag.” Dressed in a University of Michigan sweatshirt, Walker performed the “Running Man” dance on top of the stars and stripes for a few seconds — — and then furiously jumped up and down on it. ”F*** yo flag!” she yelled. ['F**K Yo Flag!': Video of Woman Dancing, Stomping on American Flag Appears to be Part of a Larger Movement, by Dave Urbanski, The Blaze, April 30, 2015]
Anyone else noticing that electing the first African-American President of the United States only led to more lectures about how racist and oppressive we all are?


vdare--2020-04-30--Her Name Is Angela Summers. White U.S. Postal Employee Murdered by Black Male (As She Tried to Deliv

Her Name Is Angela Summers. White U.S. Postal Employee Murdered by Black Male (As She Tried to Deliver Him His Trump Bucks/Coronavirus Stimulus Checks)

Previously by Paul Kersey: Indianapolis: Shooting By Black Teen Starts “Conversation” About NRA Convention, But Not Black Expo
Indianapolis. For long time readers of SBPDL, it’s a city providing a never-ending flurry of stories about racial realities in Black-Run America (BRA).
But we aren’t supposed to notice. In fact, it is all but state-mandated we turn a blind eye to what’s unfolding, because white people living in the present deserve it for the legacy of slavery (or some other newly invented term for blaming whites for all the failures of blacks).
But this story explains oh-so-much about life in 2020 America.
Her Name is Angela Summers.
Possible motive uncovered in shooting death of Indianapolis letter carrier, WTHR.com, April 29, 2020
There are new details about the death of an Indianapolis postal worker and a possible motive for the crime. According to union officials, mail to the home had been cut off because of a vicious dog. In that undelivered mail were two long-awaited federal stimulus checks. Federal postal inspectors were back at the crime scene Wednesday night, interviewing possible witnesses and looking for more evidence. Earlier in the day, postal inspectors, FBI agents and Indianapolis homicide detectives arrested Tony Cushingberry. They suspect the 21-year-old is connected to the murder of letter carrier Angela Summers. “We are very excited it was taken care of in an expeditious manner,” said Paul A. Toms, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers. Summers was shot to death Monday while delivering the mail. There was an ongoing dispute with a resident at a home on North Denny Street. According to Toms, the resident ignored two letters warning them to contain a vicious dog. “So a third letter went out, your mail will be curtailed until you correct it,” he explained. Summers, according to postal regulations, could not deliver mail to the house, but she did have to walk past it to deliver mail to other homes on her route. “She was not going to tell him, ‘I’m not going to deliver your mail,’” Toms said. “They came out and confronted her and that escalated to her death.” Toms said that in the undelivered mail were two federal stimulus checks.
Angela Summers was a white woman, employed by the U.S. Postal Service. She was merely trying to deliver mail to a black guy, who refused to control his violent dog. He murdered her as she was trying to deliver him his Trump Bucks (federal stimulus checks for the Coronavirus crisis).
Future-time orientation? Impulse control?
Just another dead white woman at the hand of violent black criminal few outside of Indianapolis will ever hear or read about.
Their Lives Matter Too.
[Comment at Unz.com]


vdare--2020-04-30--Patrick J. Buchanan: Will Depression II Dictate Trump's Fate?

As of April 30, the coronavirus pandemic has killed 61,500 Americans in two months and induced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.
And if history is our guide, the economic crisis, which has produced 30 million unemployed Americans in six weeks, may prove more enduring, ruinous and historic than the still-rising and tragic death toll.
The Spanish flu of 1918-1919, the deadliest pandemic in modern history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide, a third of the planet's population, and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including 675,000 Americans.
"Adjusting for the difference in the size of the American population then and now," writes Chronicles columnist Roger McGrath, "that number will be equivalent to two million deaths today."
Yet, the Spanish flu did not shut America down.
As the Spanish flu hit and spread in 1918, the U.S. raised, trained and equipped an army of 4 million men, sent 2 million soldiers to France, broke Gen. Erich Ludendorff's army, and turned the tide in favor of the Allies.
By December 1918, Doughboys were arriving in New York harbor—having sailed home from Europe's battlefields on flu-infested transports.
As the scourge continued to take its toll, Woodrow Wilson sailed to Europe, participated for months in the Paris Peace Conference, returned, went on a national train tour to sell his Paris treaty and League of Nations, and suffered a stroke.
In September 1919, Gen. Pershing led his victorious troops in victory parades in New York City and Washington. This writer's father, a teenager then, was in the D.C. crowd.
In the history books of the 1950s, World War I, Wilson and the Senate battle over the treaty he brought home and U.S. membership in the League of Nations loomed far larger than the Spanish flu that had killed as many U.S. soldiers as the Kaiser's armies.
But the Great Depression, to which our current crash is now being compared, did not last for just a year like the Spanish flu. The Depression lasted from the stock market crash in October 1929 to the eve of World War II.
Economically, it was devastating. Unemployment during the 1930s never fell below 14%. In 1937, it was back up to 17%.
At the bottom of the Depression, the stock market had lost 90% of its value, and the GDP had fallen 50%. Not until the end of FDR's second term, in 1940, when the U.S. began to gear up for the war, did America really begin to pull out of it.
FDR's New Deal, however, while it did not cure the Depression, was a historic political triumph for both the president and his party.
From 1930 through 1946, Democrats controlled both houses of the Congress every year, elected and reelected FDR four times and gave him a 46-state landslide in 1936, losing only Maine and Vermont.
What this suggests is that the economic devastation we have brought upon ourselves to battle the pandemic may prove more lasting and historic in its impact than the terrible losses of human life to COVID-19.
Politically, the Depression worked for the Democratic Party like no other event in history. After the Crash of 1929 under Herbert Hoover, the GOP held the House and Senate for only four of the next 50 years.
From 1932 to 1968, the GOP lost the presidency in seven of nine elections. Only Dwight Eisenhower's two terms in the 1950s interrupted a 36-year reign of the Democratic Party in the White House.
Richard Nixon broke the Democratic dominance and took back the White House for the Republicans in 1968. But it would still take another dozen years before the GOP won control of either house of Congress.
President Trump predicts a V-shaped recovery, the greatest boom in U.S. history. But it is well to recall what happened to the GOP when it failed to deliver in the last Depression.
Just as the Civil War was the defining event of the 19th century, giving us 13 Republican presidents from Lincoln to Hoover and only two Democrats—Grover Cleveland and Wilson—how and when we emerge from this new Depression may tell us which party not only wins 2020 but also dominates the new era.
And as one sees the growing divisions along political lines, with conservatives and populists calling for the country to be opened up, and liberals and Democrats calling for continued sheltering in place, both seem to realize the stakes.
Democrats may proclaim that they are eager to see the pandemic come to a swift and early end and the economy to return quickly to the robust state it was in last February.
But the cold political interests of the Democratic Party today are what they were in Hoover's time, to pray that the president fails, and fails badly, so that they inherit the estate.
COPYRIGHT 2020 CREATORS.COM
Patrick J. Buchanan needs no introduction to VDARE.COM readers; his books State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America, and Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? are available from Amazon.com. Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of “The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.
His latest book, published May, 2018, is “Nixon’s White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.”
See Peter Brimelow’s review: “Wheel And Fight”—Pat Buchanan’s Nixon Book Provides Road Map For Trump.


vdare--2020-04-30--Gov. Newsom to Shut All California Beaches?

During last weekend’s heatwave when Southern Californians would normally have flocked to the breezy beaches (temperatures are often 25 degrees cooler at the beach because the Pacific Ocean off California is quite cool), Los Angeles County beaches were policed shut. But beaches in suburban Orange and Ventura Counties had opened back up. This caused a tizzy for partisan reasons. As I explained in my new Taki’s column:
You might think that Blue America, with its abundant coastline, would be more liberal about beach-going than mostly inland Red America. But back in March, most of the beaches that were warm enough for fun in the sun were in states with Republican governors, such as Florida, so Democrats have since become obsessed with their prejudice that citizens frolicking on beaches would be the doom of us all (when, in reality, mass transit, especially the New York subway, appears instead to have been the worst vector). The scientific evidence, such as it is, vaguely suggests that ocean breezes and vitamin D are not bad in the current crisis. But who cares about science when Science can be trusted to tell us our partisan foes are Bad and we are Good?
Here’s a photo of OC’s supposedly overcrowded Newport Beach on Saturday, taken from above and from a more perpendicular angle to the shoreline, while most of the scare photos are taken with a telephoto lens parallel to the water’s edge and from a moderate elevation, such as a lifeguard’s tower, to make it look like bodies are practically piled on top of each other.
Normally, beachgoers tend to put their towels down in a crowded line just above the wet sand. That’s the ideal place because you have a nice view looking down at the waves and have a short walk to the water or to the wet sand for taking a long walk. On Saturday, though, it looks like people were spacing out on the normally little-used wide expanse of dry sand further inland.
And here’s another photo of Newport Beach from the L.A. Times that appeared directly under the headline:
There appear to be three sizable groups in the lower right corner of the picture, but mostly they are pretty spread out, although now that I look at it, the two photos appear to be of mostly the same place at nearly the same time: note the blue umbrella in both photos.
But now …
BREAKING: A source has provided me with this bulletin that will be sent out to all California police chiefs notifying them that tomorrow, Governor Newsom will announce the closure of ALL beaches and state parks effective May 1st in response to recent beach crowds in OC . @FOXLA pic.twitter.com/RG53HhmySf — Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) April 30, 2020
By the way, Southern California beaches at night are currently exceptionally beautiful due to a bioluminescence phenomenon in plankton causing crashing waves to light up neon blue.
Torrance photographer Patrick Coyne recently shot this video of dolphins off Orange County:
[Comment at Unz.com]


vdare--2020-04-30--Cheap Heartburn Medicine As Coronavirus Treatment?

From the New York Post:
New York clinical trial testing heartburn medication as coronavirus treatment
By Carl Campanile and Tamar Lapin April 26, 2020 | 8:34pm | Updated A clinical trial is under way at major New York hospitals to test the efficacy of heartburn medications such as Pepcid, in combination with the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, on coronavirus patients, The Post has learned. … Researchers are trying to find out whether famotidine — the active compound in the over-the-counter heartburn drug Pepcid — acts as an inhibitor of COVID-19, similar to the way certain drugs block the replication of HIV/AIDS. …
This idea came out of data-mining in China where it was noticed that poor peasants who had their heartburn treated with non-prescription Pepcid-like pills died only half as much as rich folk with heartburn who had a prescription for the state-of-the-art pharmaceutical.
The researchers initially wanted to test famotidine on its own, but with so many patients now being treated with hydroxychloroquine, they wouldn’t have had enough test subjects, they told Science Magazine, which first reported the study.
Exactly how much is hydroxychloroquine being used anyway? …
Hydroxychloroquine has been touted as a promising treatment by President Trump and some doctors and patients, though the preliminary results of some local studies found no benefit.
And why does the rate of hydroxychloroquine use seem to be a secret? Granted, the death rate in NY hospitals is not encouraging.
[Comment at Unz.com]


vdare--2020-04-30--National Health Service: Now Race Does Exist, Nonwhites to be Prioritized for PPE

From the Daily Mail:
BAME is supposed to mean “black, Asian and minority ethnic.”
Figures have shown 63 per cent of all health and social care workers who have died from coronavirus are from ethnic minority backgrounds, despite only making up 16 per cent of the workforce. …
New guidance sent from NHS England to hospitals nationwide asks that BAME staff are ‘risk-assessed’ on a ‘precautionary basis’.
Black, Asian and Minority ethnic NHS staff could be taken off the front-line over concerns they are more vulnerable to coronavirus.
63 per cent of NHS workers who have died of COVID-19 have been BAME
Or perhaps the virus is more common in urban areas where a higher proportion of BAMEs live than in, say, rural Cornwall? Here’s a new map from the Guardian:
Back to the Daily Mail:
Hospitals received a letter from NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens and its chief operating officer Amanda Pritchard, according to the Telegraph.
The letter reads: ‘Emerging UK and international data suggests that people from BAME backgrounds are also being disproportionately affected by Covid-19.
‘Public Health England have been asked by the Department of Health and Social Care to investigate this. In advance of their report and guidance, on a precautionary basis, we commend employers should risk-assess staff at potentially greater risk and make appropriate arrangements accordingly.’
This could mean that BAME doctors, nurses and other hospital staff are given lower risk or remote jobs away from coronavirus wards.
Earlier this week the Somerset Foundation Trust became the first in the country to prioritise BAME staff for access to facemasks.
… The NHS trust is treating all its black, Asian and minority ethnic employees as ‘vulnerable and at risk’ of coronavirus.
The trust has now included all its BAME workers in the vulnerable and at risk group, and is asking managers to have conversations with them and discuss concerns.
In a letter to staff, the trust’s chief executive Peter Lewis said: ‘While we don’t yet have any conclusive research or national guidance, we feel that is the right approach to take. …
The letter said BAME staff and their families will be able to access testing within the first five days of developing any symptoms, and any who require an FFP3 mask – which offers greater protection than a normal surgical mask – will be supported to be fit-tested as soon as possible. …
Yvonne Coghill, director of NHS England’s workforce race equality standard unit, tweeted ‘many should follow the lead of Somerset FT,’ describing the trust as ‘compassionate’ with strong leadership.
The Government has launched an inquiry into the ‘devastating disparity’ which means BAME patients are at disproportionately high risk of becoming critically ill with coronavirus.
Scientists say the disparity may be because they are more likely to suffer from conditions including diabetes and high blood pressure.
Social and demographic factors also play a role, as BAME people are more likely to live in densely populated areas which may make social distancing harder.
The British Medical Association (BMA) also suggested that BAME doctors may feel less able to raise concerns about inadequate personal protective equipment (PPE), as they report higher levels of bullying and harassment in the workplace.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, BMA chairman, said a survey showed doctors from ethnic minorities were three times more likely to feel pressured to treat patients without adequate PPE.
He said: ‘These figures are staggering. They are worrying and disturbing. In fact these doctors have come from other parts of the world to provide vital care and save other people’s lives in our health service and now they have sadly paid the ultimate sacrifice.’
The first ten doctors in the UK to die from coronavirus were all of BAME background, with many born overseas.
Dr Habib Naqvi, the NHS director for workforce race and equality, said: ‘The fact that a high number of black and minority ethnic staff are dying from this pandemic is a worry for us.’
Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, said: ‘It’s critical that we find out which groups are most at risk so we can help to protect them.’


vdare--2020-04-30--Do Children Ever Transmit the Virus?

Do Children Ever Transmit the Virus?

Susceptibility varies greatly by age, but what about transmissibility? From The Age of Australia:
Experts fail to find a single case of children passing virus to adults
By Hayley Dixon
April 30, 2020 — 7.57am
London: No child has been found to have passed coronavirus to an adult, a review of the evidence in partnership with the Royal College of Paediatrics has found.
Major studies into the impact of COVID-19 on young children suggest they “do not play a significant role” in spreading the virus and are less likely to become infected than adults.
While experts insist that more evidence is needed, they note there has not been a single case of a child under 10 transmitting the virus, even in contact tracing carried out by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Public health officials in Switzerland have announced that under-10s can hug their grandparents again because they pose them no risk.
Now a review in partnership with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) has found the evidence “consistently demonstrates reduced infection and infectivity of children in the transmission chain”.
Led by Dr Alasdair Munro, a clinical research fellow in paediatric infectious diseases, the research concluded: “COVID-19 appears to affect children less often, and with less severity, including frequent asymptomatic or subclinical infection. There is evidence of critical illness, but it is rare.
“The role of children in transmission is unclear, but it seems likely they do not play a significant role.”
The review by the Don’t Forget the Bubbles paediatric research project added: “Notably, the China/WHO joint commission could not recall episodes during contact tracing where transmission occurred from a child to an adult.”
Among the evidence is a study of a nine-year-old British boy who contracted coronavirus in the French Alps but did not pass it on, despite having contact with more than 170 people at three schools.


vdare--2020-04-27--Social Distancing  With  Peter Brimelow And Colin Flaherty Today  At 3 p.m. EST

Join us HERE (from a safe digital distance) for our happy hour with Peter Brimelow and Colin Flaherty this Wednesday at 3 p.m. EST! We’ll be streaming LIVE on our YouTube channel!
Watch the latest video at bitchute.com
Be sure to click here to subscribe to our channel and reserve your seat for the premier!
Colin Flaherty is an award-winning writer whose work has been published in more than 1000 places around the globe, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, Washington Post, Bloomberg Business Week, Time magazine, and others.
He is the author of the Amazon #1 Best Seller: 'White Girl Bleed a Lot': The Return of Racial Violence and How the Media Ignore It. And Don't Make the Black Kids Angry': The Hoax of Black Victimization and Those Who Enable It. Unfortunately, the latter book was banned by Amazon by Tech Totalitarians, and five separate channels on YouTube Mr. Flaherty created were also deleted. It could be argued Mr. Flaherty was one of the first targets of digital deletion by our tech totalitarians.
As Flaherty wrote at American Thinker at the time of his final ban:
“As with all my videos, there is no racism, no rancor, no apologies. Neither is there obscenity or vulgarity of any kind. No matter: that video came down. And, once again, YouTube dropped me like a pile of hot rocks. Over the last few years, my videos have become "a thing," garnering more than 100 million views, mostly from people who are as skeptical as you and me. No one has time to watch videos that are not true. And if they are not true, it should be the easiest thing in the world to show. Instead, the dominant reaction from the trolls is 1) that is not happening; 2) white people do it, too; 3) white people deserve it; and 4) let's hammer YouTube until Colin is removed.”
Thomas Sowell praised Flaherty, as he said, "Reading Colin Flaherty's book made painfully clear to me that the magnitude of this problem is greater than I had discovered from my own research. He documents both the race riots and the media and political evasions in dozens of cities."
Watch our past episodes of “Social Distancing with Peter Brimelow”:
Michelle Malkin
Diana West


vdare--2020-04-29--Blacks Still Having Massive Chicago House Parties, While Claiming Disparate Coronavirus Impact Is Ca

Blacks Still Having Massive Chicago House Parties, While Claiming Disparate Coronavirus Impact Is Caused By "Racism"

Why are blacks in Chicago more than six times more likely than whites to die from Coronavirus?
Shot.
Community leaders demand end to ‘racist’ police tactics, want other protections for those ‘most vulnerable’ during pandemic: Their list also includes: end state ban on rent control; fill 2,000 CHA vacant units; increase paid sick leave; open a South Side coronavirus testing site; waive water fees for six months; end “racist” police tactics, such as checkpoints., Chicago Sun Times, April 9, 2020
Black community leaders on Thursday unveiled a sweeping “right to recovery” plan to prevent the coronavirus pandemic from killing even more African Americans — both medically and economically.
Among their demands:
• Lift the ban on rent control and authorize a statewide moratorium on utility shut-offs for six months after the crisis ends.
• Fill 2,000 vacant Chicago Housing Authority units with laid off Chicagoans struggling to pay their rent.
• Dramatically increase paid sick leave, award “hazard pay” to front-line workers, open a coronavirus testing site on the South Side and give guaranteed treatment to those who test positive.
• Waive city water fees for six months.
• End all cash bonds at a Cook County Jail that has seen the nation’s largest known outbreak of the coronavirus and immediately release all inmates over the age of 50.
• And above all, stop using the pandemic as an “excuse to double-down on racist policing” — like checkpoints, curfews and demands for identification — that they say have no place at any time, even if the goal is to flatten the curve by enforcing the statewide stay-at-home order.
“In black neighborhoods on both the South and West Sides of Chicago, people are being told that there is a 5 o’clock curfew … and being pushed off the streets. Also being ticketed, held with cuffs and otherwise detained. There are basically like checkpoint signs in places on the West Side suggesting that folks have to show IDs to be able to travel back and forth,” said Amika Tendaji of Black Lives Matter.
“These are the kinds of terrible behaviors that we saw out of some of the police during Hurricane Katrina. This is a time for police to rebuild trust … lost with the black community and restore faith to show the greatest humanity — not double down on the kind of racist policing practices we’ve seen for far too long.”
Jawanza Malone, executive director of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organizations said black Chicago is experiencing a “relentless assault.”
“Double-digit unemployment is the norm in our communities. And even in the midst of a health crisis where black people bear the brunt of the deaths related to the coronavirus, we have four hospitals in the black community planned for closure. And Mayor Lightfoot’s response is to increase policing and traffic stops in black neighborhoods,” Malone said.
“This response is beyond unacceptable. She should be using her power to marshal massive resources and develop concrete proposals to protect the most vulnerable, which includes pushing the governor to lift the ban on rent control.”
Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th) noted that 86,000 people applied for 2,000 city rental assistance grants. She urged the mayor to “do right by the homeless” — by opening up 2,000 vacant units the CHA has been “sitting on.”
“Opening up hotels and YMCA’s — that’s great. But that’s putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound,” Taylor said.
Lightfoot campaigned on a promise to end to water shut-offs, calling water a “basic human right.” But that’s not good enough for Taylor.
“The majority of my calls have been, `I’m not paying my rent. I’m not gonna pay my light and gas because I need to feed my children.’ … Why won’t the city not charge for water bills? For the next six months, what the city can do is to make sure that people don’t have to pay water,” Taylor said.
Lightfoot has responded to the pandemic by shutting down the lakefront and the 606 Trail, cutting off citywide liquor sales at 9 p.m. and by personally breaking up crowds of people.
She has created a $100 million small business resiliency fund and doled out $2 million in rental assistance grants.
Earlier this week, the mayor outlined her own sweeping plan to bridge a racial divide tied to the coronavirus pandemic that mirrors the life expectancy gap between black and white Chicagoans: 72 percent of city residents who died from the virus are African-Americans.
The mayor’s plan includes increased surveillance of groceries and corner stores; relocating articulated buses to South and West Side neighborhoods; and a so-called “racial equity rapid-response team” led by West Side United.


vdare--2020-04-29--Radio Derb Transcript Up For April 24: Moratorium Fiasco, Glimmers Of Light, Lifeboat Ethics, And Ju

Radio Derb Transcript Up For April 24: Moratorium Fiasco, Glimmers Of Light, Lifeboat Ethics, And Judicial Diversity, Etc

The Radio Derb transcript is up for April 24. Go here to read or listen.
Playlist:
03m43s The moratorium fiasco. (Trump pulls the old bait'n'switch.)
11m45s Did Trump just lose re-election? (For shafting your base, there's a price.)
15m34s Glimmers of light in the darkness. (The word "moratorium" is now in play.)
19m17s Lifeboat ethics. (A recipe for disaster.)
26m21s Commie ethics. (Whopping lies.)
29m10s Congratulations, Spectator. (Happy 10,000th!)
30m05s Chinese demand less freedom of speech. (An authoritarian's dream.)
32m46s Judicial diversity in Washington State. (Heart of wokeness.)
35m14s Anarcho-tyranny watch. (Pubs closed, borders open.)
36m33s Signoff. (With the Petersens.)


vdare--2020-04-29--WaPo: Calling White Women "Karen" or "Becky" Isn't a Racist Slur Because Emmett Till

From the Washington Post opinion page:
The ‘Karen’ memes and jokes aren’t sexist or racist. Let a Karen explain. By Karen Attiah
APRIL 28, 2020 My name is Karen. I would like to register a complaint. My name has been everywhere on the Internet in recent weeks, with #Karen trending on Twitter, flooding TikTok and becoming the subject of social media memes. #AndThenKarenSnapped also became a viral trend, describing white women losing their tempers. In the past several years, “Karen” has come to represent a certain archetype of middle-aged white female privilege — or the new n-word, depending on who you ask. Yup, “Karen” is the new black. A young Karen likely would have been the class snitch, tattling on her classmates to the teacher to get them in trouble. Middle-aged Karen is the one asking to see your manager. And a Karen at the peak of her powers will call the police on someone for a mild inconvenience. The most recent Karen fires came from across the Atlantic, fanned by white British women claiming that “Karen” is — wait for it — an oppressive slur. “Does anyone else think the ‘Karen’ slur is woman-hating and based on class prejudice?” tweeted Julie Bindel, a British feminist writer, whose credentials in oppression include being known for espousing anti-trans rhetoric. Nonetheless, the conversation
Prepositions shift periodically: lately everything is “around” something.
around Bindel’s tweet included white women who did feel Karen memes were offensive. Hadley Freeman wrote in the Guardian that the Karen memes were sexist. Another viral tweet went so far as to call “Karen” the equivalent of the n-word. As a millennial black Karen, and a child of immigrants, I
have more Intersectional Pokemon Points than you do
find the brouhaha hilarious and twisted. “Karen” is not and will never be an oppressive slur.
It’s a racist slur on white women, so that’s not oppressive, that’s good.
Anyone who disagrees can take it up with my manag … — I mean, with history.
These days, history is constantly invoked to explain why the pundit deserves to be privileged.
In her piece for the Guardian, Freeman’s basis for labeling the Karen meme sexist was that white men are using the word to make fun of white women. But Freeman seems to believe “Karen” originated with white men, when these notions about the name and white privilege have been circulating in the black community for a long time. … Freeman largely ignores race in her piece, save for one throwaway line: “People of color should describe their experiences of racism in whatever language works for them.” Well, many of us decided that Karen, or, say, Becky, works for us. Black American expression, including hip-hop, rap and remix culture, drives global social media culture and shapes language. Take Becky, for example: It was rapper Sir Mix-a-Lot’s 1992 song “Baby Got Back,” in which a white girl, disgusted by the shape of a black woman’s body, talks behind the black woman’s back to her friend Becky. Over the years, and partially thanks to Beyoncé, “Becky” was popularized in the black community to refer to a white girl, especially one with backstabbing tendencies. … In America, white women are often believed and protected at all costs, even at the expense of black lives. In 1955, it was a white woman who falsely accused 14-year-old Emmett Till of whistling at her in Mississippi, which led to him being brutally beaten and killed.
Really? That happened merely 65 years ago? Why have I never been informed about this Emmett Till person?
Fast-forward to recent years and we still learn about black people being arrested or assaulted because a white woman called the police unnecessarily. Becky and Karen memes and jokes should be understood in this context, part of a long tradition to use humor to try to cope with the realities of white privilege and anti-blackness. Dehumanizing slurs don’t gain their cruel power overnight. They are part and parcel of generations of violence, erasure and discrimination. Calling the Karen meme the new n-word or asserting that it is a sexist slur only trivializes actual violence and discrimination that destroy lives and communities. And to invent oppression when none is happening to you? Well, as a Karen, I just have to say — that is peak Karen behavior.
[Comment at Unz.com]


vdare--2020-04-29--Sailer In TakiMag: Needed To Defeat Coronavirus—Freedom Of Speech!

From my new column in Taki’s Magazine:
Science Says
Steve Sailer
April 29, 2020
When faced with a new conundrum with no certain answer, the single most valuable political principle is precisely what many people simply can’t abide at this moment: freedom of speech.
During the novel coronavirus crisis, when nobody has proved infallible, we need, more than ever, an open marketplace of ideas in which opposing strategies are fiercely debated. …
Unfortunately, censorship is growing, along with elite enthusiasm for making emergency rules permanent. …
But, precisely because in this unprecedented situation nobody knows for sure what to do, many Americans find dissent distressing, much like Germans in 1933 found the Führerprinzip an appealing alternative to all that arguing in the Reichstag.
Many now wish everybody who disagrees with them could be forced to shut up and do as they are told. After all, they have, whatever their views, Science on their side and their enemies have not.


vdare--2020-04-29--Michelle Malkin: Notes on the Coming Meat Shortage

Earlier, by Brenda Walker: Burmese Refugees Flood Iowa Town to Fill Tyson Jobs
The Great Toilet Paper Scare of 2020 has come to end, but don't breathe a sigh of relief just yet. The Spring Meat Stampede is here.
At my local Costco in Colorado Springs on Monday, fresh chicken breast was nowhere to be found. Nationwide, bacon prices doubled. Wholesale pork prices for ham, ribs and loins rose between 12% and 32% over the last seven days. COVID-19 outbreaks among the nation's major meat processing plants have shut down nearly 20% of the country's fresh pork production. Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods has shuttered five facilities so far because of sick and no-show workers; Tyson Foods warns "the food supply is breaking" and "millions of pounds of meat will disappear" by May 1 after the mega-corporation idled its largest pork plant in Iowa, a beef plant in Washington state and another meatpacking facility in Indiana.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to compel the nation's biggest meat processors to stay open and stave off shortages. How exactly the feds will "address liability issues" (which Tyson Foods execs complained about to Trump) and force union leaders to comply remains unclear. Whether the order actually heads off mass hysteria is also iffy. As we saw with the toilet paper rush, Chicken Little-ism is contagious. Warnings about shortages induce shortages. Admonitions of "Don't hoard the Charmin" failed in the face of mob behavior. Same with "Don't hoard the hocks."
With meat prices rising, the economic landscape looks bleak. While gas is less than $2 a gallon, much of the nation is still locked down and off the streets, out of the cars and in no hurry to get on planes or trains. The latest Consumer Price Index summary reveals rising rent prices and costs of medical care services on top of spiking meat prices. With nearly 26 million Americans now out of work, signs of impending stagflation loom. That "V-shaped recovery" is more like a "P.D." recovery: Pipe Dream.
More candor from all the Beltway "experts" about what we face would be helpful to our suffering citizenry. While we're at it, this nation must confront the dangers of dependency on the globalized, homogenized methods of producing meat and other key products in our food supply, which is concentrated in the hands of a quarter of giant multinational corporations who press for unlimited alien workers in exchange for low food prices. An estimated 30% of America's meat production employees are foreign-born. As usual, "Open Borders Inc." reaps all the benefits while we're left holding an empty grocery bag.
Let's remember: Tyson Foods was embroiled in an illegal immigrant smuggling racket two decades ago. The company has paid Swamp lobbyists like Republican Ed Gillespie millions of dollars to push for illegal immigrant amnesty. And Big Meat coordinates with refugee resettlement racketeers to import tens of thousands of cheap laborers from Asia, Africa and Latin America into the heartland.
Just one example: Tyson fundamentally transformed Waterloo, Iowa, by working with faith-based government contractors to ship in thousands of low-wage Burmese refugees to fill jobs at the meat plant now at the center of a coronavirus outbreak. Since 2002, 9,143 refugees from 37 countries have resettled in Iowa (which doesn't include so-called secondary migration, or friends and relatives moving to Iowa from their primary settlement location). Taxpayer-subsidized Catholic Charities, Lutheran Services and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants have reaped millions dumping them across Central Iowa—and abandoning them in cultural, linguistic and economic ghettos at the mercy of exploitative employers.
As Refugee Resettlement Watch founder and investigator Ann Corcoran reports, "The dark underbelly of the giant globalist meatpacking industry in the US is being exposed as large numbers of slaughterhouse workers are creating US hotspots for the spread of the Chinese virus."
A decentralized system of meat and poultry production would enhance food security, national security and public health. Demographic conquest fueled by big business' insatiable appetite for cheap labor, by contrast, is making us sick to our stomachs in more ways than one.
COPYRIGHT 2020 CREATORS.COM
Michelle Malkin [Email her] is the author of Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s review. Click here for Michelle Malkin's website. Michelle Malkin is also the author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies, ,Who Built That: Awe-Inspiring Stories of American Tinkerpreneurs, and Sold Out: How High-Tech Billionaires & Bipartisan Beltway Crapweasels Are Screwing America's Best & Brightest Workers.
Malkin is author of the book, "Open Borders, Inc.: Who's Funding America's Destruction," available directly from VDARE.com in hardcover. To find out more about Michelle Malkin and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2019 CREATORS.COM


vdare--2020-04-28--Raj Chetty and David  Brooks Are Confused by Compton

David Brooks writes in the NYT:
I chose to go to Compton and Watts for a specific reason, which offers a way forward. Harvard economist Raj Chetty recently led a study that showed that though these two neighborhoods are demographically similar and only 2.3 miles apart, 44 percent of the black men who grew up in Watts were incarcerated on April 1, 2010, compared with only 6.2 percent of the black men who grew up in families with similar incomes in Central Compton. Similarly, social mobility was much lower in Watts than in Compton.
Why are some neighborhoods, including some in Compton, able to give their kids better chances in life despite so many disadvantages? Chetty points to several factors: better schools, more fathers present in the neighborhoods and more cohesive community organizations.
I found all those things in my reporting in Compton — and something else. Watts is part of Los Angeles. Compton is its own city with its own mayor. I met a lot of great people in Watts, but Compton has more civic infrastructure — community groups and locally controlled government agencies. Compton has a lot of homegrown civic reformers, like Rafer Owens, who is a deputy Los Angeles County sheriff and pastor at a Baptist church. There’s also a mentality: We have faith in our ability to take care of ourselves; only people in the neighborhood really know what’s going on.
Some people who talk about inequality focus on the top 1 percent, and if you want to go after the hedge fund billionaires feel free. But as inequality is actually lived out, it’s the 20/80 gap that is most glaring and most unjust.
But we can reduce the opportunity gap if we follow the lessons of Compton: First, the neighborhood is the unit of change. Social mobility rises village by village. Second, the people in the community have to be in charge. They need resources from outside, but only local control does the trick.


vdare--2020-04-30--WuFlu Racial Impact Suggests Third World Immigration May Be Bad—For Them

Earlier: National Health Service: Now Race Does Exist, Nonwhites to be Prioritized for PPE
I have been writing since February 1 that there are likely to be differences in racial incidence of Covid-19, partly because races are breeding populations that vary in average gene frequencies due to adaptation to different ecologies, and that this data should not be suppressed. Recently, the Main Stream Media has suddenly acknowledged that there are indeed race differences, blatantly because non-white people appear to be much worse affected and therefore it thinks it can guilt whites. Let’s see when the MSM will take the next step: This disease is showing that non-white emigration to the northern hemisphere may have bad health consequences—for them.
One hospital trust in Somerset, in the West of England, has actually declared that it will prioritize non-white staff in the distribution of facemasks (of which there is a shortage) precisely because they appear to be so much more likely to die of Corona. Minorities make up 10% of Somerset's National Health Service (NHS) staff, but 63% of NHS workers who have died in Somerset are non-white [Somerset NHS Trust becomes first in the country to prioritise black and ethnic minority staff for facemasks after figures showed 63 per cent of healthcare deaths are BAME, by Jack Newman, MailOnline, April 27, 2020]. And NHS bosses are discussing whether minority medical staff should be put on administrative duties only “over fears they are genetically more at risk from the disease” [NHS memo says BAME hospital staff could be taken off the front-line fight against coronavirus over fears they are genetically more at risk from the disease, by Laura Keay & Jack Newman, Mail Online, April 30, 2020].
But why are non-white people in European countries so much more susceptible to Covid-19 than the native population? Could it be due to the nature of race itself?
Recent research, based on twin studies, has found that there is definitely a very significant genetic component behind why Covid-19 is more problematic for some people than others. As much as 50% of variance in how people react to Covid-19 is due to genes [Study of twins reveals genetic effect on Covid-19 symptoms, by Nicola Davis, The Guardian, April 27, 2020]. In that races are distinct genetic clusters, it thus starts to become extremely probable that race differences in reaction to Covid-19 are partly genetic. And senior medics and hospital managers in the UK are clearly now discussing this.
But what could be going on, in genetic terms, for non-whites? One likely possibility: They are not absorbing enough Vitamin D.
Non-whites in the Northern hemisphere are living in an environment to which they are not genetically adapted and in which, in particular, they are less able to absorb Vitamin D through their skin. This makes them less healthy and it renders pandemics all the more devastating for them. This explanation is now being discussed, though not quite as explicitly, in the journal of the British Medical Association. But it is still being ignored by the Main Stream Media.
After all, the reason for the race disparity in Covid-19 can’t simply be factors such as non-whites, in general, being poorer—and so more likely to do service jobs, live in crowded areas and use public transport—because the difference is found even if you effectively control for income. Non-white doctors and nurses in Britain have proved more likely to become seriously ill with and die of Covid-19 than are white doctors and nurses. This is why the Somerset NHS Trust is giving non-white medical staff first refusal when it comes to face masks.
According to evolutionary scientists Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, in their 2009 book The 10,000 Year Exposition, nobody in Europe had white skin 10,000 years ago. It began to evolve once Europeans adopted agriculture. This meant that while a given amount of land could now support a much larger population, that population had, on average, less access to a healthy diet. Its diet became more focused on staple crops, meaning less meat, less vegetables, less fruit and fewer nuts. All of this meant people consumed less Vitamin D and had worse health, in part because, living in Europe, they were absorbing relatively little Vitamin D during the long dark winters.
White skin evolved as means of allowing these European farmers to absorb the maximum possible amount of Vitamin D from the sun and skin evolved to get lighter and lighter the further north agriculture was practiced, because, the further you moved north, the longer and darker the winters became.
So, if you live in a country that has long dark winters and have light skin then, all else being equal, you are going to be healthier than a person who lives in such a country and has dark skin. With your light skin, you will be able to absorb much more Vitamin D. A great deal of research confirms this, such as a major study in Archives of Dermatology [Racial Pigmentation and the Cutaneous Synthesis of Vitamin D, by Lois Matsuoka et al., Archives of Dermatology, April 1991].
Vitamin D is vital to many aspects of healthy body functioning. But it is particularly important in regard to respiratory conditions such as Covid-19. One study has identified mean Vitamin D levels in 20 European populations and found that they strongly negatively associated with the Covid-19 mortality rates [The role of Vitamin D in the prevention of Coronavirus Disease 2019 infection and mortality, by Petrie Ilie et al., Research Square, April 8, 2020]. Another study has shown that low levels of Vitamin D—which becomes a big problem in winter—is a significant factor behind the increased prevalence of all viruses, including flu, in the winter [Evidence that Vitamin D Supplementation Could Reduce Risk of Influenza and COVID-19 Infections and Deaths, by W. B. Grant et al., Nutrients, April 2, 2020].
On this basis, we would expect Covid-19 to be a particular problem for non-whites in cold countries because, for genetic reasons (their skin color), they would be absorbing less Vitamin D. And it should especially problematic for black people, because their skin is so dark.
So, we certainly shouldn’t be surprised by the impact that Covid-19 is having on Somali “refugees” in Scandinavian countries, where winter is very long and very dark. According to British Medical Journal [Inhabitants of Swedish-Somali origin are at great risk for covid-19, by Susanne Bejerot & Mats Humble, British Medical Journal, 2020], in the Stockholm region of Sweden, 40% of the COVID-19-related deaths reported by March were Somalis even though they make up 0.84% of the population.
And why is this? According to the authors:
A risk factor [for Covid-19] we want to highlight, however, is the low vitamin D levels found in the Swedish-Somali population. Vitamin D status is strongly related to low sun exposure and dark skin. In two different studies, the great majority of Swedish women of Somali origin had very low levels of S-25(OH)-D (< 25 nmol/l). In Finland, Somali women required more than twice the amount of vitamin D in order to maintain recommended vitamin D status. In addition, vitamin D deficiency was twice as common, regardless of gender, in immigrants from Africa compared with those from the Middle East.
What this means (all together now): “RACE” IS A BIOLOGICAL, NOT MERELY A SOCIAL, CONSTRUCT!
And if you go and live in an area to which your race has not genetically evolved, then it can have very serious health consequences for you—including, it now materializes, a strongly elevated risk of dying of Covid-19.
It seems that this is exactly what has happened to minority staff working for Britain’s health service.
Those who would stop us having a rational, scientific discussion of race—activists such as Adam Rutherford, Jess Wade, and Angela Saini—should have these people’s deaths on their consciences.
To repeat my now-traditional moral drawn at the end of my WuFlu coverage:


vdare--2020-04-30--THE ATLANTIC: China Is Right About Free Speech

Here’s that article in The Atlantic I mentioned in my new Taki’s column on how free speech is most valuable when dealing with a novel problem:
In the debate over freedom versus control of the global network, China was largely correct, and the U.S. was wrong.
Here’s Goldsmith’s recent book about how it’s totally not true that his stepfather murdered Jimmy Hoffa.
and Andrew Keane Woods, Professor of Law at the University of Arizona College of Law
Covid-19 has emboldened American tech platforms to emerge from their defensive crouch. Before the pandemic, they were targets of public outrage over life under their dominion. Today, the platforms are proudly collaborating with one another, and following government guidance, to censor harmful information related to the coronavirus. And they are using their prodigious data-collection capacities, in coordination with federal and state governments, to improve contact tracing, quarantine enforcement, and other health measures. …
But the “extraordinary” measures we are seeing are not all that extraordinary. … As surprising as it may sound, digital surveillance and speech control in the United States already show many similarities to what one finds in authoritarian states such as China. Constitutional and cultural differences mean that the private sector, rather than the federal and state governments, currently takes the lead in these practices, which further values and address threats different from those in China. But the trend toward greater surveillance and speech control here, and toward the growing involvement of government, is undeniable and likely inexorable.
In the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong. Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values.
Beginning in the 1990s, the U.S. government and powerful young tech firms began promoting nonregulation and American-style freedom of speech as essential features of the internet. …
China quickly became worried about unregulated digital speech—both as a threat to the Communist Party’s control and to the domestic social order more generally. It began building ever more powerful mechanisms of surveillance and control to meet these threats. …
In these and so many other ways, the public internet in its first two decades seemed good for open societies and bad for closed ones. But this conventional wisdom turned out to be mostly backwards. China and other authoritarian states became adept at reverse engineering internet architecture to enhance official control over digital networks in their countries and thus over their populations. And in recent years, the American public has grown fearful of ubiquitous digital monitoring and has been reeling from the disruptive social effects of digital networks.
Two events were wake-up calls. The first was Edward Snowden’s revelations in 2013 about the astonishing extent of secret U.S. government monitoring of digital networks at home and abroad. The U.S. government’s domestic surveillance is legally constrained, especially compared with what authoritarian states do. But this is much less true of private actors. Snowden’s documents gave us a glimpse of the scale of surveillance of our lives by U.S. tech platforms, and made plain how the government accessed privately collected data to serve its national-security needs.
The second wake-up call was Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. As Barack Obama noted, the most consequential misinformation campaign in modern history was “not particularly sophisticated—this was not some elaborate, complicated espionage scheme.” Russia used a simple phishing attack and a blunt and relatively limited social-media strategy to disrupt the legitimacy of the 2016 election and wreak still-ongoing havoc on the American political system. The episode showed how easily a foreign adversary could exploit the United States’ deep reliance on relatively unregulated digital networks. It also highlighted how legal limitations grounded in the First Amendment (freedom of speech and press) and the Fourth Amendment (privacy) make it hard for the U.S. government to identify, prevent, and respond to malicious cyber operations from abroad.
These constitutional limits help explain why, since the Russian electoral interference, digital platforms have taken the lead in combatting all manner of unwanted speech on their networks—and, if anything, have increased their surveillance of our lives. But the government has been in the shadows of these developments, nudging them along and exploiting them when it can.


vdare--2020-05-01--Strong Borders, Clean Hands! $15 A Month Gets A Free Hand Sanitizer Spray!

Support VDARE and keep the virus du jour at bay!
Two years ago, VDARE.com’s PayPal account—the account we used for all of our online donations—was suspended with no warning, and no explanation.
This happens every day, to patriots all over the county. At the time of our suspension, readers like you were giving more than $10,000 per month in recurring online donations. All of that revenue was wiped out, and we have never successfully rebuilt it.
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vdare--2020-05-01--Scandal-Plagued SPLC's Net Worth Still Grew $52 Million to $545 Million

As you may recall, the Southern Poverty Law Center, America’s most lucrative hate group, had a tumultuous 2019, what with it firing its living legend co-founder Morris Dees, its CEO Richard Cohen, and several other top staffers over hazily specified allegations of racism and sexism.
The SPLC announced in March 2019 that it was hiring woke freelance fixer Tina Tchen, the former Michelle Obama chief of staff who made the phone call to Chicago DA Kim Foxx that apparently got Jussie Smollett off the hook, to investigate what is really going on and issue a public report.
Thirteen months later, I haven’t been able to find a peep from Tchen.
So, how did all these scandals affect the SPLC financially?
It just got richer.
Granted its pile of lucre didn’t grow as fast in fiscal year 2019, ending October 31, 2019, as during the previous Trump Derangement Syndrome years of 2017-2018, but, according to its new financial statement, it still piled up another $52 million more than it spent last year, with Net Assets growing from $493 million to $545 million.
There are many theories about why the SPLC keeps accumulating, in onshore and offshore accounts, such an immense amount of money rather than spend it heroically battling the Ku Klux Klan.
My best guess is only modestly scandalous: The SPLC can’t spend vast amounts of money annually grappling with the Ku Klux Klan because the KKK can barely be said to exist anymore and it definitely doesn’t have deep pockets. But Morris is a junk mail genius who loves fundraising, so the SPLC juggernaut keeps rolling along doing what it does best — fear-mongering and fundraising — despite the near total lack of need for its services.
[Comment at Unz.com]


vdare--2020-05-01--His Name Is Daniel Musterman: White Texan Murdered by Three Black Teens (He Tried to Stop Them from

His Name Is Daniel Musterman: White Texan Murdered by Three Black Teens (He Tried to Stop Them from Breaking Into His Car)

If you have car insurance and three black males are breaking into your car, just go ahead and let them finish the job.
You can always replace your stolen car. You can’t replace your life.
This is what Daniel Musterman would tell you today, were he alive to do it. Unfortunately, he interjected as they tried to break into his car, and he was attacked.
Left on life support for more than two weeks, Mr. Musterman passed away on April 26. He was a 53-year-old white male.
Even in the Houston area, you’d be hard-pressed to read about or hear his name in the local press.
3 teens charged in death of 53-year-old Houston man, ABC13.com, April 29, 2020 Houston police have arrested three suspects in connection with the death of a man, investigators say. On April 9, officers responded to a reported robbery in the 9500 block of South Post Oak Road. When officers arrived, they learned that 53-year-old Daniel Musterman had confronted the suspects who had broken into his car. During the confrontation, police say the suspects, Kevin White, Judah Hill and Jeremiah King, all 18 years old, attacked Musterman and left with his wallet. After the attack, Musterman was taken to a hospital. Musterman was on life support until April 26, when he was pronounced dead. All three suspects have been charged with murder.
We know the rate of interracial crime in America—despite what scripted Hollywood/Law and Order shows might depict—is grotesquely black on white. Consider, “Blacks committed 537,204 of those interracial felonies, or 90 percent, and whites committed 56,394 of them, or less than 10 percent.”
A Platform of Urban Decline: Democratic presidential candidates believe America is racist, yet they ignore the evidence on crime and ensure that racial disparities persist, by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal, September 23, 2019 Just this month, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released its 2018 survey of criminal victimization. According to the study, there were 593,598 interracial violent victimizations (excluding homicide) between blacks and whites last year, including white-on-black and black-on-white attacks. Blacks committed 537,204 of those interracial felonies, or 90 percent, and whites committed 56,394 of them, or less than 10 percent. That ratio is becoming more skewed, despite the Democratic claim of Trump-inspired white violence. In 2012-13, blacks committed 85 percent of all interracial victimizations between blacks and whites; whites committed 15 percent. From 2015 to 2018, the total number of white victims and the incidence of white victimization have grown as well. Blacks are also overrepresented among perpetrators of hate crimes—by 50 percent—according to the most recent Justice Department data from 2017; whites are underrepresented by 24 percent. This is particularly true for anti-gay and anti-Semitic hate crimes.
Whatever white privilege Daniel Musterman had evaporated quickly on April 9th in Houston, Texas, when he confronted three black males breaking into his car. His story is worth sharing, his life is worth sharing. What happened to him is worth remembering.
His name is Daniel Musterman.
Their Lives Matter Too.
[Comment at Unz.com]


vdare--2020-05-01--This Day In VDARE.com History, 2015: Baltimore’s Black City Attorney Doubles Down, Charges 6 Cops in

This Day In VDARE.com History, 2015: Baltimore’s Black City Attorney Doubles Down, Charges 6 Cops in Death of Freddie Gray, from Murder 2 on Down (UPDATE: All Were Acquitted)

Originally published here on VDARE.com on this day in 2015. All the officers being charged (three white and three black officers) were acquitted by juries that found Gray's death accidental. The Federal Government could have tried a double-jeopardy attack on the officers, but it was announced in 2017—under Attorney General Jeff Sessions—that they wouldn't. See Freddie Gray Case, A Key Event in Late Obama Age Collapse, Fizzles Out Ignominously, by Steve Sailer, September 16, 2017.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (right) vows to gut the Baltimore Police Department
As I write these words, black criminals, SJW media operatives, and black supremacist politicians, including Al Sharpton-style preachers and State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby, are all celebrating in the streets of that paradise for felons, Baltimore.
On CNN, its nominally African-American analyst former prosecutor Sunny Hostin (right) is talking like a prosecutor, and its analyst Mark O’Mara is talking like … a prosecutor.
And the only cautionary theme on CNN is an interview with the mother of would-be murderer Trayvon Martin, Sybrina Fulton, as if she were the mother of a crime victim, instead of a criminal, warning that an indictment does not equate to a conviction.
Let’s rewind the tape. The whole world was initially told that Freddie Gray’s spine was severed. The story was then changed to that 80% of his spine was severed.
How so? The supporting story was also that the police gave Gray “a rough ride” in the police van, in which they didn’t put him in a seatbelt.
The mainstream media (MSM) acted as if this “rough ride” could have snapped Gray’s spine. Impossible.
Where did the story come from? Gray’s family’s lawyer, who was putting together a lawsuit seeking tens of millions of dollars. It was a self-interested statement lacking in credibility, yet the MSM shouted it credulously through their megaphones.
That narrative collapsed with statements of the other black prisoner in the van, according to which Gray was throwing himself around in the van, trying to harm himself.
The Baltimore PD then leaked to the media, much to some of the MSM’s chagrin, the claim that Gray’s head was injured, and that said injury matched a bolt in the van.
Black State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby (right) also learned that at some point, police allegedly put Gray on his belly in the back of the van. But it would be impossible for Gray to have hurt his spine or his head from such a position. And yet, Mosby and her MSM lackeys repeat such information with sinister intonation (Mosby: “placing him on his stomach, head-first”), as if it were a sign of some sort of evil police action, the same way they intone the charge that police left Gray unbelted on the bench on the van. Whatever Mosby and the MSM say, they give it the same sinister intonation.
Instead of looking at the incident in the light of the new information (not a spine injury, Gray injuring himself), Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby just combined it with the original narrative, and charged and overcharged six cops to the hilt.
As for Mosby personally, who is married to black Councilman Nick Mosby (pictured right—email him), who supported the rioters, all of the aspects that were used against St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch as disqualifying factors in his running the grand jury in the death of would-be cop-killer Mike Brown (his father, Officer Paul McCulloch, having been murdered by a black man), are used grounds for praising and recommending Mosby: That she comes from a family of five generations of policemen, and that a cousin of hers was murdered. Black supremacist former congressman and NAACP boss Kweisi Mfume falsely spoke of Mosby as a “victim,” as if that were a recommendation. (She wasn’t a victim, but if she had been, that could be grounds for exclusion from a jury in a trial, not grounds for inclusion.)
Mosby declared in her speech announcing the charges that she had heard the calls for “No justice, no peace,” and was responding to them with the indictments.
Finally, unlike with whites, contrary to the MSM line on her, Mosby’s family background in law enforcement does not mean that she appreciates the dangers and sacrifices lawmen face. Most black cops are counter-policemen, who do not put service to the law first. Indeed, she brags that her grandfather was the founder of a black counter-police organization.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, [Email her] who initially declared that she would permit the racist black thugs to riot, who then spoke of “thugs,” but then backtracked and denied that there are any thugs in Baltimore City, today vowed to gut the Police Department:
“I will continue to be relentless in changing the culture of the police department. As mayor, I have said from the beginning that no one is above the law in our city. I was sickened and heartbroken by the statement of charges that we heard today, because no one in our city is above the law. Justice must apply to all of us, equally. With today’s official indictment, I have ordered Police Commissioner Batts to utilize the full extent of his legal authority, and immediately suspend all officers facing felony charges. In fact, warrants have been executed, and five officers are in custody. We know that the vast majority of the men and the women in the Baltimore City Police Department serve our city with pride, with courage, with honor, and with distinction. But to those of you who wish to engage in brutality, misconduct, racism, and corruption, let me be clear, there is no place in the Baltimore City Police Department for you. Today’s indictments are the next step in the legal process that is running its course. And as mayor, I will continue to be relentless in changing the culture of the police department to ensure that every one in our city is treated equally under the law. There will be justice for Mr. Gray, there will be justice for his family, and there will be justice for the people of Baltimore. Thank you.” [“Baltimore Mayor: ‘I Will Continue to be Relentless’ To Change Police ‘Culture’,” by Ian Hanchett, Breitbart, 1 May 2015.]
Baltimore’s police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, led by Gene Ryan, is so far standing by their officers, protesting their innocence, and demanding that Mosby be replaced with a special prosecutor. FOP attorney Michael Davey complained that he had “never seen such a rush” to file charges against cops, and believes that the charges, in a case where the investigation was not completed, were politically motivated, due to the “publicity” (i.e., the media).
The 28 Charges Against the Six Officers
From WTVR:


vdare--2020-05-01--NYT Falls for Its Own Telephoto "Images of Packed Shores"

From the New York Times news section:
Frustrated by Crowds, Coastal States Weigh What to Do About Beaches Images of packed shores have prompted a furor against officials in coastal states like California and Florida, who have resisted statewide beach closure orders. By Patricia Mazzei, Shawn Hubler and Thomas Fuller
April 30, 2020
Updated 8:02 p.m. ET MIAMI — The salty breeze and ocean waves have beckoned stir-crazy residents of the coast back to their beloved beaches, social distancing norms be damned. But how to prevent beach blankets and lawn chairs from becoming new founts of coronavirus infection has become a flash point for governors in Florida, California and other coastal states, who must balance demands from constituents for relief from the escalating spring heat against the horrified reaction of the general public to photos of sweaty, swimsuit-clad bodies packed towel to towel. Gov. Gavin Newsom of California stepped in on Thursday to shut down the beaches in Orange County, rolling back earlier attempts at giving people there a chance to stroll along the shore while staying a safe distance away from one another. Broad swaths of sand were packed over the weekend with crowds, with many people flocking from neighboring Los Angeles and San Diego Counties, where the beaches had been off-limits.
And here’s the NYT’s photo of Huntington Beach to prove how packed the shores were in Orange County:
“People flocked to Huntington Beach, Calif., last weekend despite advice that they keep their distance from one another to limit the spread of the coronavirus.” Credit…Apu Gomes/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Fortunately, this photo includes numbered lifeguard towers, so we can match it up against a map.
The photographer appears to be standing on Huntington Pier and shooting with a distance-compressing telephoto lens. How far is it in reality between, say, Lifeguard Tower 3 and Lifeguard Tower 5, the two closest in the picture? Google Maps’ aerial photo (taken on some other day) suggests it’s about 600 feet from the pier to Tower 3, then around 400 feet between Tower 3 and Tower 5, so Tower 11, the fifth tower, would be about 2200 feet away. At a 2 mph stroll, it would take about 14 minutes to walk from under the pier to Tower 11.
Here’s another photo with less of a telephoto effect. I presume the pink-roofed tower would be Tower 1, which isn’t included in the NYT photo:
Shouldn’t somebody at the New York Times be familiar with the oldest trick in articles about crowded beaches: using a telephoto lens?
One concern is that if the Governor announced, “Oh, darn, I was misled by sneaky telephoto pictures, the Orange County beaches weren’t as crowded as I had assumed, so I hereby declare them open!” But then really huge crowds might head to the beach on Saturday, starting another cycle of stupidity.
So, here’s a simple way to ease back in: On May 1, the beach parking lots are only open to cars with license plates ending in a 1, on May 2, only open to plates ending in a 2, etc. Then from May 11 to May 20 or beyond, then odd-even license plates.
But that would be too reasonable.
Meanwhile in Orange County:
Several rapists and pedophiles were just released into Orange County, California.https://t.co/liHoGqITWT — Cernovich (@Cernovich) April 30, 2020
And from the Babylon Bee:
California Prisons Release Thousands Of Felons To Make Room For Skaters, Surfers, People Who Go Outside https://t.co/u4PoTDUVvY via @TheBabylonBee — Steve Sailer (@Steve_Sailer) May 1, 2020
[Comment at Unz.com]


vdare--2020-05-01--Famous Colleges Over Time: Harvard #1 For Over 200 Years

Harvard has been the most famous American college for the last two hundred years, according to Google’s nGram of books up through 2007.
From 1800 to 1820, the word Dartmouth appeared in books more often than the word Harvard. There was a foundational Supreme Court case in 1819 called Dartmouth College v. Woodward that was won by lawyer Daniel Webster.
Of course, one problem is that these references refer to more than just the college. I left out Columbia, which would be #1, because it comes up in District of Columbia, Columbia River, etc.
Berkeley was a popular word even before the U. of California, Berkeley was founded. The philosopher Bishop Berkeley was often written about as well as numerous other members of that aristocratic family in the British Isles.
Princeton is a town as well as a university, but it is striking how Princeton has outrun Yale since WWII.
Oxford and Cambridge dominate American colleges, with Oxford until the lead until the 1970s and Cambridge since then. Of course, Cambridge, MA is also home to two famous U.S. universities.
[Comment at Unz.com]


vdare--2020-04-30--The Unfairness of It All: Covid Strikes The Virtuous

Let’s say you are an ear, nose & throat specialist doctor. After years of paying your dues, in early 2020 you made the big leap: You quit your well-paid job, took out a big loan, signed a lengthy lease, hired a half dozen employees, and on February 1, you opened your own practice. Sure, times might be a little tough for the first few years as you build a reputation, but you are living the American Dream.
Now three months later you are wondering if you will go bankrupt because most patients would rather not see an ENT doc if they can avoid it. Meanwhile, your brother-in-law, who owns a proctology clinic, is getting by and figures he’ll be doing well again by the end of summer. Patients keep calling him up for appointments. They don’t seem too worried. He just asked if he could offer a job to your best nurse because, clearly, you won’t be needing her for a while.
Maybe you should kick yourself for your moral failing in choosing to specialize in ENT instead of in proctology, as your brother-in-law keeps implying, but … how were you supposed to know?
The extreme randomness of this disaster is striking. It’s not like AIDS where the main victims were needle junkies and bathhouse patrons. This one tends to strike hardest at warm Italian families in which children visit their parents and grandparents, at people who sing enthusiastically in church, at Germans who like doing their people’s traditional dances, at vigorous skiers, and so forth.
Nor are the economic effects like 2008 where people with a higher risk-reward preference tended to get burned worse. This one just seems random. Almost nobody had a plan ahead of time for what to do if everybody stays home for a few months. It’s reassuring to think that some nefarious set of insiders must have had an evil master plan, but in truth nobody seems to have had a clue. For example, here is the 2016 National Security Council’s Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents.
I haven’t read the whole thing, but I don’t see much in the way of thinking about the economic aspects. If I search for terms like “shut” or “close” or “jobs” or “rent,” I don’t find much.
Nor have I even heard of many science fiction tales relevant to our current predicament. There are some memorable depictions of an apocalyptic pandemic like Andromeda Strain and Twelve Monkeys, but I’ve never heard of a sci-fi story or movie about an only moderately disastrous pandemic like this one, where it’s unclear whether the disease or the economic cure will be worse.
A few organizations prudently planned ahead. For example, the All England Lawn Tennis Club has been paying $2 million per year to insure against their Wimbledon tournament being canceled due to a pandemic. They expect to collect $141 million (assuming their insurance companies survive). But the vast majority of organizations and individuals did not to do this, so they have turned to their governments for help.
The various gigantic bailouts passed abruptly by Congress with little deliberation will benefit some people and organizations, especially those who had particularly persuasive and fast-moving lobbyists, and fail to help others. Some survivor firms will happen to have the resources to buy up roadkill enterprises at fire sale prices and emerge even richer.
One thing we can predict is that the eventual distribution of wealth that shakes out of these sudden events will strike many as lacking in legitimacy. After all, who goes broke and who gets rich out of 2020 doesn’t seem to have much to do with moral behavior. This does not bode well for future political stability.
[Comment at Unz.com]


vdare--2020-04-30--Citizens on Lockdown, Aliens Released? $5 A Month To Support ICE

Our nation has been on lockdown for weeks now, and yet even as law-abiding Americans are stuck in their homes, out of work and without options, Open Borders activists are agitating for the release of illegal immigrants from their holding facilities along the border.
Globalism brought quarantine to the historic American nation, yet the Treason Lobby wants freedom for illegal aliens.
Help us stand up in support of ICE, in support of the rule of law, and in support of keeping America American!
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We must act now to counter this growing threat. Americans would be left completely defenseless without ICE, and that’s why they want it gone.
There is much to do beyond building the wall: E-Verify. An end to chain migration. No more birthright citizenship. English as the official language. Moratorium.
VDARE.com supporters know that ICE is a vital part of the defense of our nation. As immigration patriots, we stand for the dignity of the historic American nation and the right of the American people to decide what our country is and isn’t, against the globalist agenda.
And that why we’re fighting to support ICE. Join us!


vdare--2020-04-29--How Many Handshake Links from Napoleon to a Living Celebrity?

iSteve commeter jimmyriddle came up with a nifty set of minimal handshake links from Napoleon Bonaparte, who lived from 1769-1821, to a living celebrity:
On Elba in 1814, the exiled Emperor had a 90 minute meeting with the future British prime minister John Russell (1792-1878). In the mid-1870s, the ex-Prime Minister helped raise his toddler grandson Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). In the mid-1960s, Bertrand Russell convinced Paul McCartney (1942 – ) to oppose the Vietnam War at Russell’s house in Chelsea in London.
Bertrand Russell would be my guess for the man who shook hands with more interesting people across a longer expanse of time than anybody else in history. Even as a nonagenarian, he was a major figure in the celebrity culture of Swinging Sixties London, when it was the coolest city in the world. But 50 years before meeting McCartney, Russell met Ramanujan and Wittgenstein.