Updated chart of Texas Coronavirus Daily Deaths and Daily Hospitalizations AS OF 2020/12/20

 

Click on the chart to get get a better view of the details

Significant update to chart located here: https://californiaswansong.blogspot.com/2021/01/update-on-texas-coronavirus-statistics.html

I have not updated the chart itself yet.  I will, probably in the next week or so.  

Update 2020/12/27

What we need now is a daily number expressing the daily median average for time spent in the hospital.

Update 2020/12/25

Comments on chart: I switched early on to using hospitalizations instead of cases.  The reasons for having a test done vary, and needs for testing are variable and change over time.  Also, the godawful accuracy of the tests leave much to be desired.

However, the numbers for hospitalizations remain fixed once recorded.  Unlike the daily deaths, the hospital stays, once recorded never change.  Also, the use of hospitalizations tells us a story that is worth considering.

The complete tally of daily deaths, since posting these as coronavirus deaths is an administrative procedure, can take two to three weeks to completely update for a particular day.  In fact, the tally can take up to a couple of months - but the updates that far back are in the single digits.

So, what I do is look at the change from day-to-day.  Once the change is less than 10, then I consider the deaths for that day to be updated, for charting purposes. 

So, let's see what the chart is telling us:

- The rise in hospitalizations has dramatically slowed.  This means one of two things - or both.  1) the idea of herd immunity is taking hold.  2) We are better at treating this disease thus reducing the need for hospitalizations. The slow growth also gives doctors and nurses more time to assess the correct treatment - a feed back loop. 

- The daily deaths has leveled.  Again, this tells us one of two things: 1) The disease is less likely to kill people due to herd immunity.  2) We are better able to treat patients that leads to their recovery.

- The rise in daily deaths is pulling away from the rise in hospitalizations. This is very significant. As you can see from the initial exposure, daily deaths rose at the same rate as the hospitalizations. I've waited a couple of weeks before mentioning this.  But the numbers are there and cannot be disputed. The most important thing this is telling us is what may come next:  daily deaths dropping.

- Possible DROP in daily deaths - I don't think this is a sure thing, but this is what I am optimistically expecting. I think at the most one more month of data will tell us where this is heading.

- What the data is asking is: Do we really need a vaccine? I think this is a question worth asking. As the virus loses its virulence and as we have developed ways to treat this disease, it looks to me, there may not be a need for vaccination.  Mass use of the vaccine now will possibly coincide with an already forgone conclusion of the demise of this disease.  We would have a false impression that the vaccine was the cure, when in actuality it was not. 

Living the Life of Riley....or not

 When we lived in Germany the first time in 2005-2006, we had Canadians living below us.  The husband was being paid in US Dollars and apparently, his salary and perks were very nice.  I, on the other hand, was getting paid in British Pounds.  The money would be deposited in my American Chase Bank account and would be converted to US dollars.

Below is a chart of the dollar against the British Pound. You’ll notice the Pound strengthened against the dollar the whole time we were there. 

So, everytime I got paid, I essentially got a raise!  The amount of dollars deposited into my American bank account got bigger and bigger each month!  It was sweet!  It was good news! If  you look at the clip of the GBPUSD chart, the rectangular area was the time I was in Germany with a couple of months at the beginning I was in the UK.

British Pound vs US Dollar

But…the bad news was our downstairs Canadian neighbor who was being paid in US Dollars saw his pay check shrink and shrink….and shrink against the Euro .  They had originally rented the ENTIRE downstairs.  But it became unaffordable, so they got rid of one side and lived in only one apartment, like we were.  Granted, it was certainly big enough for us, so I’m certain it was more than big enough for them.

The Canadian approached his German employer several times imploring them to allow his salary to be paid in euros, but they wouldn’t do it.  Even though it was becoming cheaper and cheaper for them to keep him!  How stupid!  Eventually, with funds becoming exhausted, he quit and got a job back in Canada.

Tale of the shrinking salary

Now fast forward to 2014 when I went to Seoul to work on a project as a contractor.  But this time  I was being paid in Euros. And....this time I wasn’t getting a raise.  I was getting a pay cut!! This is what the Euro was doing against the dollar then:

FXE Euro Fund

So, I found myself in the same boat as my Canadian friend. What was I to do?  There were three answers: 1) quit, 2) renegotiate a new higher salary…3) or get really smart.  So, I decided the last route first to see what I could do.

I figured I could “hedge” my salary.  I put money in a leveraged inverse Euro fund. So, even as my salary decreased each month, the money I put in the inverse leveraged fund…WENT UP!

The name of the fund is EUO.  I put some money into the fund through my brokerage account in August of 2014 (it may have been July).  And this is what the fund did:

Euro Proshares UltraShort Fund

It went up almost 22% in those months.  It’s a leveraged fund so that for every 1% the Euro when down in value, the EUO fund went UP 2%!!  Sweet!!!

What made the difference?

It was really, really easy. The one thing I had that was critical were good Elliott Wave Charts to guide me to what the future was going to hold.  Without that, I was shooting in the dark.

I have found Elliott Wave Theory to make the difference between crawling around in the dark and seeing a light at the end of the tunnel (or…did I just die?  Should I follow the light?)

The real moral of the story:

This taught me an important lesson.  I no longer had fear.  I could work anywhere in the world, get paid in any currency and not fear losing money. Now, when I work overseas, I can work hard and afterward, hit the pub, grab a beer....and enjoy the rich culture of where ever I am!!

California to secede?

 - Secession will be bankrolled by China

- Millions of illegal aliens will be recruited in their army

California Is a Cautionary Tale for America

From Reason website:

The governor and his party always view the private sector as a threat and the government as a solution. Yet everything our government touches turns into disaster. The government controls road and freeway construction, yet our roads are clogged, as state officials impose "road diets" that eliminate traffic lanes and focus on bicycle paths. They continue to squander billions of dollars on the High Speed Rail line to nowhere. California's public-sector pay deals are eye popping. Localities continually cut services so they can pay higher fees to the California Public Employees' Retirement System.

California schools used to be tops, but—despite significant growth in their budgets—have stagnant test scores. The state's educational bright spot has been its charter schools, which provide needed competition to traditional monopoly schools. Yet after Gov. Jerry Brown, a charter supporter, left office, the new crowd has passed teachers'-union-backed laws that restrict their growth and force poor kids to stay in rotten districts.

California isn't the only state with problems, but most of them are the result of government inefficiency and malfeasance. California just happens to have the biggest state government—and it's run almost entirely by lawmakers and other officials who refuse to consider non-government approaches. Their solutions are the same as ever: Just raise taxes on the "rich." 

Nevertheless, California's leaders brag that our state is the fifth-largest economy and that other states should emulate its model—from banning internal-combustion vehicles to limiting companies' ability to use contractors as workers. I look at the state's failures and crises and have to agree that California is more of a cautionary tale than a model. It's certainly not Detroit, but don't forget that 60 years ago Detroit was one of the nation's great cities.

Coincidence? I think not.

So, I was trying to understand the huge increase in coronavirus hospitalizations in Texas. And thought I would try to set up a timeline.

We know when and about how many people were involved in the George Floyd protests in Texas.  In Houston it was about 60,000 . If you included all the other cities, we're looking at maybe 65,000-70,000 total protesters along with thousands of police and sheriffs across the state.  Wikipedia did the yeoman's work of cataloging the numbers with dates.

There are a couple of things we can say about all of this from looking at the photos of the protesters: 1) not all were practicing safe distances and 2) not all were wearing masks.  So, you have a veritable viral minestrone soup mix with the coronavirus the chicken broth.  

Under normal situations, I wouldn't have thought twice about the consequences of such actions. And I'm sure many people who attended didn't really care.  It was the moment.  You had to live in the moment.  I completely understand.  But regardless of our feelings, the coronavirus doesn't give a rat's rear end. 

Viruses will do...what viruses will do.

So, to set up the timeline, this is what we know:

Statewide demonstrations started on or around June 2.  We use this date since this was the date of the gigantic protest in Houston.  There were others a few days earlier, some later. But Houston was Ground Zero.

Now we set up the timeline for the development of the coronavirus once infected:

a. June 2. Infections begin on day 0

b. June 6 Symptoms begin on day 4

c. June 12. Person with severe symptoms is hospitalized on day 10. 

The progress looks to be fairly rapid.

The data I am using is directly from the Texas government website that is tracking the spread of the virus. They conveniently have an updated spreadsheet that anyone can access and do their own analysis.

But here are the results.  And it is plain for everyone to see. The dates match up fairly closely to the inflection point of when the disease spread really started to take off in Texas.

 

Many protests started as early as May 30.  But it wasn't my objective to track all protests.  Just the major one here in Houston. 

I won't go into the other issues that this brings up.  My only objective is to show you that the protests were most assuredly the cause of the gigantic surge (dare I say wave?) of hospitalizations in Texas.

If there is one saving grace in this, it is that the protesting has most likely accelerated herd immunity in the state.

A New Discrimination Route: The COVID Hoax

 Extremely well written essay.

California, breaking through 10,000 COVID deaths, recently reported its first death of a “young person” with the passing of a 17-year-old male. Like most, he suffered from a preexisting health condition. Approaching six hundred thousand cases, yet only one confirmed school-age death, disingenuous teacher’s union’s and politicians miraculously deflect “safety of children” as one justification to keep schools shuttered.

....

Back in California, with cameras rolling, Dr. Rais Vohra, Fresno County’s interim public health officer, tearfully recounted the 17-year old’s death. “It’s a huge trauma for everyone…., including the hospital workers who are still coping on this case. I am speechless when it comes to anything that I could say to the family……It just brings home the reality that this is not sparing even the youngest members of our community.” 

Really. One dead of over 8.5 million California kids 17 or younger. While nothing can equal the catastrophe of losing a child, the doctor’s tone sounds as if COVID confers exponentially more tragedy than death by mundane seasonal flu, cancer, or getting hit by a city bus.

Would a cancer death have warranted an equally hyperbolic and apocalyptic press briefing highlighted with sensationalized melodrama? A politicized COVID end translates to being victimized by the willful malfeasance of wicked Donald Trump. Liberals narrate that without the White House bungling, all of this cataclysm and economic destruction would have been avoided. Yet when Trump announced the very early January 30 China travel ban, Joe Biden and ilk were swift with stale cries of “xenophobia and fear-mongering.”

Dying by coronavirus becomes a symbol, a logo of martyrdom to rid our country of the real virus, Trump. Hence, leftists and media collaborators promote ideas of “second waves,” tacitly cheer rising fatality counts, and demand ever more economic lockdowns.

Sweden's battle with Cornoavirus? IT'S OVER. SWEDEN WON!

 What I wrote should be the world wide headlines everywhere.  Sweden beat the CCP virus.  No shutdowns.  No arresting people for wearing masks. No "Karens" running around yelling "I HOPE YOU DIE!!!!" at people not wearing masks.

From Dr. Sebastion Rushworth's website:

Covid hit Stockholm like a storm in mid-March. One day I was seeing people with appendicitis and kidney stones, the usual things you see in the emergency room. The next day all those patients were gone and the only thing coming in to the hospital was covid. Practically everyone who was tested had covid, regardless of what the presenting symtom was. People came in with a nose bleed and they had covid. They came in with stomach pain and they had covid.

Then, after a few months, all the covid patients disappeared. It is now four months since the start of the pandemic, and I haven’t seen a single covid patient in over a month.

 He doesn't mean there are no CCP virus patients in Sweden.  But at the hospital he works at, the patients diagnosed with the virus has virtually stopped.

I am not denying that covid is awful for the people who do get really sick or for the families of the people who die, just as it is awful for the families of people who die of cancer, or influenza, or an opioid overdose. But the size of the response in most of the world (not including Sweden) has been totally disproportionate to the size of the threat.

Sweden ripped the metaphorical band-aid off quickly and got the epidemic over and done with in a short amount of time, while the rest of the world has chosen to try to peel the band-aid off slowly. At present that means Sweden has one of the highest total death rates in the world. But covid is over in Sweden. People have gone back to their normal lives and barely anyone is getting infected any more. I am willing to bet that the countries that have shut down completely will see rates spike when they open up. If that is the case, then there won’t have been any point in shutting down in the first place, because all those countries are going to end up with the same number of dead at the end of the day anyway. Shutting down completely in order to decrease the total number of deaths only makes sense if you are willing to stay shut down until a vaccine is available. That could take years. No country is willing to wait that long.

....except the USA....

 The rest of the article is for sure worth reading.   

It's time to open up.  Let's stop the insanity.

‘The Biggest Monster’ Is Spreading. And It’s Not the Coronavirus.

 We are the masters of our own destruction.

From the New York Times:

It begins with a mild fever and malaise, followed by a painful cough and shortness of breath. The infection prospers in crowds, spreading to people in close reach. Containing an outbreak requires contact tracing, as well as isolation and treatment of the sick for weeks or months.

This insidious disease has touched every part of the globe. It is tuberculosis, the biggest infectious-disease killer worldwide, claiming 1.5 million lives each year.

Until this year, TB and its deadly allies, H.I.V. and malaria, were on the run. The toll from each disease over the previous decade was at its nadir in 2018, the last year for which data are available.

Yet now, as the coronavirus pandemic spreads around the world, consuming global health resources, these perennially neglected adversaries are making a comeback.

FEAR,  They call it FEAR.  This is what we have succumbed to.  Not to the disease.  I have never in my life understood FDR's famous phrase until this year.  It is the FEAR we must fear.  Not the disease.

“Covid-19 risks derailing all our efforts and taking us back to where we were 20 years ago,” said Dr. Pedro L. Alonso, the director of the World Health Organization’s global malaria program.

It’s not just that the coronavirus has diverted scientific attention from TB, H.I.V. and malaria. The lockdowns, particularly across parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America, have raised insurmountable barriers to patients who must travel to obtain diagnoses or drugs, according to interviews with more than two dozen public health officials, doctors and patients worldwide.

Fear of the coronavirus and the shuttering of clinics have kept away many patients struggling with H.I.V., TB and malaria, while restrictions on air and sea travel have severely limited delivery of medications to the hardest-hit regions.

About 80 percent of tuberculosis, H.I.V. and malaria programs worldwide have reported disruptions in services, and one in four people living with H.I.V. have reported problems with gaining access to medications, according to U.N. AIDS. Interruptions or delays in treatment may lead to drug resistance, already a formidable problem in many countries.

In India, home to about 27 percent of the world’s TB cases, diagnoses have dropped by nearly 75 percent since the pandemic began. In Russia, H.I.V. clinics have been repurposed for coronavirus testing.

Malaria season has begun in Africa, which has 90 percent of malaria deaths in the world, but the normal strategies for prevention — distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets and spraying with pesticides — have been curtailed because of lockdowns.

According to one estimate, a three-month lockdown across different parts of the world and a gradual return to normal over 10 months could result in an additional 6.3 million cases of tuberculosis and 1.4 million deaths from it.

A six-month disruption of antiretroviral therapy may lead to more than 500,000 additional deaths from illnesses related to H.I.V., according to the W.H.O. Another model by the W.H.O. predicted that in the worst-case scenario, deaths from malaria could double to 770,000 per year.

Texas Deaths and Cases of Corona Virus. Time to get rid of the masks. Who are more important?

It's time to stop the stupid mask wearing.  We're past the point of them helping....if they ever did.  Two countries in Europe have gotten rid of the mask requirement: Sweden and The Netherlands.  It's time we did the same.

With the horrid "soft shutdown" we are killing people (suicide) and driving more people to alcohol and drug abuse.  

So here is a chart from the latest numbers  (August 3rd, 2020) from the Texas Health Department.  They are now listing the deaths on the correct day.  Apparently, that wasn't a thing a couple weeks ago, if you can believe it!

I used a 5 day moving average to smooth out the jig/jags.  The deaths numbers are being revised as time marches on.  But most of the revisions occur mainly at fresh data.  

To be honest, I'm not even sure you can trust the cases.  From what I've read the false positives are very high.  The chart for Cases is on the uptick, but so what?  The deaths have plummeted to almost zero.  Also, by the time people start freaking out about a FAKE "Second Wave" they'll stop, look at eachother and say: "oh....it's now the flu season".

And then....they get to freak out all over again until July of next year!!

To me, the use of masks always seemed completely pointless.  And now I am vindicated.

The total number of deaths are 7,016.  So if we doubled it, we'd have a "bad flu season".  Yep.  That's it.  All the terrible running around like our hair was on fire for an effing bad flu season.  

In the 2017/18 flu season more people in Texas died than have died so far from the CCP Virus.  Did you know that?  Did you read about it?  Oh you didn't?  Then let me fill that blank spot in your brain:

In what was considered the worst season in years, the flu and related complications killed nearly 10,000 Texans in 2017-2018, according to state health officials.

Yeah, that's a lot of people to die of the flu.  And you didn't notice?  Were you that uncaring? Of course, you aren't that uncaring.  So why the hell is it so important now?

For the CCP Virus, to understand the breakdown of deaths by age: The age group from 60- 80+ account for 80% of the deaths.  80+ yeas alone make up 34.3% of the deaths.

Yep. And again early on I suggested to friends and family (who all thought I was stupid, ignorant and uncaring) that we should concentrate on making things safe for the elderly.

Also, early on I recognized that the deaths from the CCP virus were probably overstated by 30%.  Dr. Debra Birx a couple of weeks later confronted the CDC accusing them of overstating the deaths and positive cases by 25% 

Yeah.  It's time.  And unless people are dropping like flies from whatever new Apocalyptic Pandemic heads our way, don't EVER do this again.

The one important question I ask is this:  Who are more important:  The Americans of Today?  Or the Americans of Tomorrow?

In every thing we as Americans have done we have always answered this to be "the Americans of Tomorrow".  From our Founding Fathers, and the signers of the Declaration of Independence who risked their lives, honors and fortunes along with hundreds of  thousands of soldiers walking with bloody barefeet in the frigid snowy scenes, to the bloody body-strewn fields of the Civil War to rid our country of the Curse of Slavery, the Americans of Tomorrow were most certainly more important. From the blood soaked trenches of battle during World War One and then the horrid Bataan Death March of American Soldiers and the American lives slain on European battlefields, it was always the Americans of Tomorrow that were more important.  

It was President Kennedy who threw down the gauntlet to have us send a man to the moon.  Why?  Because it was easy?  Because...it was hard.  

And we as American are called to do the same today.  We want.....the Americans of Tomorrow to live and thrive.  And we do this not because it is easy but especially because it is hard.  

If we don't do this for them now.....

...there will be no Americans of Tomorrow.  

....and little is asked of us.  Stop the fear,  Take the mask off.  Get to work.

What Happens When A City Goes Bankrupt?

Good interview with Laurie Davies, the Mayor of Laguna Niguel in California. She was asked what are the signs of a city getting close to bankruptcy. She then spends time discussing the process the city will go through when paring back spending.

So, the question becomes: What have you noticed your city doing?

It Takes 3 Weeks to Escape Illinois. That's how long it takes to get a U-Haul

So, the Great Escape has begun.  

Why 3 weeks? That's how long it takes to reserve a one-way U-Haul outbound.

"Everyone is leaving. No one is coming," a U-Haul agent told us a few weeks ago.

 As if it wasn't bad enough in Chicago.  But we all know why Illinois is doing this.

PENSIONS.  They CAN NOT pay for the pensions.  They need to makes things so bad, so unbearable, they can finally declare bankruptcy after their tax base (aka residences of Ill) do what this family are doing: LEAVE.

I am pleased to report we loaded our U-Haul rental yesterday and I am on the road driving to our new home in Utah. 

Right now we are just a few hours  into the trip, but we have crossed the state line and are now in Iowa.

Goodbye Illinois

On February 12, Wirepoints noted If the wealthy flee, ordinary Illinoisans will be left holding the progressive tax bag. 

Yep, and we have had enough. 

We were paying about $15,000 a year in property taxes on a home now worth about $380,000 or so. We have a beautiful 1 acre lot, surrounded by 30 white or and burr oak trees 100-200 years old. 

But property values are sinking. We will sell the house for a lot less than we paid for it 20 years ago.

Property taxes are a killer and taxes in general are going to rise in Illinois. 

 

GET READY FOR CIVIL WAR: CALIFORNIA

I've been trying to figure out where the coming Fake Civil War was going to come from.  And I determined it would be California.

I say Fake because it won't be a true uprising from US Citizens.  It will be from entrenched illegal immigrants.  It will be more of a takeover, led by the CA governor himself.

Who is the Enemy? Who REALLY is the Enemy? I

I recall the story a friend told me.  It was about his father.  His father was a General Manager of a General Motors assembly plant located in Cuba.  He was well thought of by the assembly line workers.

And then Fidel Castro took over.  

A squad of soldiers walked into the plant and confronted the manager.  The manager was told that they now worked for the State.  

The manager said...."No.  I will not work for the State."

Well, word got out and the assembly line workers found out.  If Mr. Alvares wasn't going to work, we won't either, they said.  They dropped their tools and quit.

The leader of the Communist soldiers tried to convince Mr. Alvares about how good Castro was.  That Castro was for the people.  He begged Mr. Alvares to please tell the workers to go back to work.

Mr. Alvares refused.

I don't recall how it was all resolved.  But that is beside the point.

The point is that there was an enemy.  And Mr. Alvares was not him.  

Batista was not the enemy.  But for many in Cuba, there was no other enemy, except for Batista.

The epilogue to the story is that the Leader of the squadron of devout Communist soldiers, who pleaded with Mr. Alvares to tell the workers to get back to work, later became disillusioned with Castro.  

He was later arrested and executed.

He discovered who the real enemy was.

But that is very very difficult to see when there are not many choices.  In fact, there is only a binary choice: 

1) Live under Batista

2) Live under Castro

Is this really a choice?

Here are 140 reasons why I’m against the COVID-19 lockdowns

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog posted a great list of why he was against the lock down.  

Here is the intro to the list.  Go to his website and read his list.  It's pretty good.

So instead of it being about “lives vs money,” it’s really about “fewer people dying vs more people dying.”

And yet, when I bring this up, lockdown supporters either ignore it, or they accuse me of not caring about people’s lives, or they say, “better safe than sorry.”

Before I get to my main list, here are some general facts about the lockdowns:

The COVIID-19 lockdowns will end up killing far more people than they save, in the form of increased suicides, increased drug and alcohol overdoses, and canceled and postponed medical procedures. For young and middle aged people who have healthy immune systems, being and poor and unemployed is more dangerous than having COVID-19.

The lockdowns are totalitarian.

The lockdowns are based on bogus computer models.

The real fatality rate of COVID-19 is far, far lower than the bogus, overinflated rate that was used to justify the lockdowns.

The alleged purpose of the lockdowns was to flatten the curve, and prevent the hospitals from being overwhelmed. But the hospitals were never even close to being overwhelmed. On the contrary, the U.S. health care system actually laid off more than a million health care workers during the lockdowns. And yet the lockdowns continue. This is proof that the lockdowns are a scam.

States with the toughest lockdowns forced nursing homes to admit patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. This is mass murder.

Many politicians and other high ranking government officials violated their own lockdowns.

Lockdown supporters want to destroy other people’s jobs, but not their own.

Previous pandemics did not destroy the economy, because there were no lockdowns.

Fresh air, sunshine, and exercise are good for your immune system, and actually reduce your chance of dying from COVID-19.

The government is falsely overstating the number of COVID-19 deaths by including people whose deaths were not actually caused by COVID-19.

We must count the deaths from shutdowns as well as from coronavirus

I can not determine, in the short run, which is worse, the deaths caused from the shutdown or deaths from people just living their lives as normal. So, we look at what is being said in the media regarding what we are seeing or will see.

Job losses cause extreme suffering. Every 1 percent hike in the unemployment rate will likely produce a 3.3 percent increase in drug-overdose deaths and a 0.99 percent increase in suicides, according to data from the National Bureau of Economic Research and the medical journal Lancet.

These are facts based on past experience, not models. If unemployment hits 32 percent, some 77,000 Americans are likely to die from suicide and drug overdoses as a result of layoffs. Deaths of despair.

Then add the predictable deaths from alcohol abuse caused by ­unemployment. Health economist Michael French from the University of Miami found a “significant association between job loss” and binge drinking and alcoholism.

The impact of layoffs goes ­beyond suicide, drug overdosing and drinking, however. Overall, the death rate for an unemployed person is 63 percent higher than for someone with a job, according to findings in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

Now do the math: Layoff-related deaths could far outnumber the 60,400 coronavirus deaths predicted by University of Washington researchers. This comparison isn’t meant to understate the horror of the coronavirus for those who get it and their families.

But heavy-handed state edicts to close all “nonessential businesses” need to be reassessed in light of the predictable harm to the lives, livelihoods and health of the uninfected.

Nomad Capitalist: Never Start a Business in California

This is a youtuber who renounced his US citizenship and now discusses doing business in other countries.

This is a call to action:  That the western world is expensive, taxes are high, there are a lot of risks and if you're either starting a business or investing in businesses or looking for a place to go where you're treated best, this is a reminder of what's happening in the Western World today with Ike's Sandwich Shop and many others like it.

This reminds me of Carl's Junior and the issues they had with CA a number of years ago.

The Worldwide Lockdown May Be the Greatest Mistake in History

This is by far the best essay written on the subject.

The idea that the worldwide lockdown of virtually every country other than Sweden may have been an enormous mistake strikes many — including world leaders; most scientists, especially health officials, doctors and epidemiologists; those who work in major news media; opinion writers in those media; and the hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people who put their faith in these people — as so preposterous as to be immoral. Timothy Egan of The New York Times described Republicans who wish to enable their states to open up as "the party of death."

That's the way it is today on planet Earth, where deceit, cowardice and immaturity now dominate almost all societies because the elites are deceitful, cowardly and immature.

But for those open to reading thoughts they may differ with, here is the case for why the worldwide lockdown is not only a mistake but also, possibly, the worst mistake the world has ever made. And for those intellectually challenged by the English language and/or logic, "mistake" and "evil" are not synonyms. The lockdown is a mistake; the Holocaust, slavery, communism, fascism, etc., were evils. Massive mistakes are made by arrogant fools; massive evils are committed by evil people.

The forcible prevention of Americans from doing anything except what politicians deem "essential" has led to the worst economy in American history since the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is panic and hysteria, not the coronavirus, that created this catastrophe. And the consequences in much of the world will be more horrible than in America.

I have known for quite some time that poverty and life expectancy were highly correlated.  After a three or four weeks of this shutdown stories started coming out of people not being able to pay their rent.  Stores closing probably never to open again.  The extraordinary long lines at the food banks. All this led me to extrapolate that the impact to life expectancy here in the greatest of all nations could take a substantial hit. So, in essence, in a futile effort to save lives, we may have condemned probably hundreds of thousands to an early grave. God help other less developed nations.

The United Nations World Food Programme, or the WFP, states that by the end of the year, more than 260 million people will face starvation — double last year's figures. According to WFP director David Beasley on April 21: "We could be looking at famine in about three dozen countries. ... There is also a real danger that more people could potentially die from the economic impact of COVID-19 than from the virus itself" (italics added).

That would be enough to characterize the worldwide lockdown as a deathly error. But there is much more. If global GDP declines by 5%, another 147 million people could be plunged into extreme poverty, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Foreign Policy magazine reports that, according to the International Monetary Fund, the global economy will shrink by 3% in 2020, marking the biggest downturn since the Great Depression, and the U.S., the eurozone and Japan will contract by 5.9%, 7.5% and 5.2%, respectively. Meanwhile, across South Asia, as of a month ago, tens of millions were already "struggling to put food on the table." Again, all because of the lockdowns, not the virus.

In one particularly incomprehensible act, the government of India, a poor country of 1.3 billion people, locked down its people. As Quartz India reported on April 22, "Coronavirus has killed only around 700 Indians ... a small number still compared to the 450,000 TB and 10,000-odd malaria deaths recorded every year."

One of the thousands of unpaid garment workers protesting the lockdown in Bangladesh understands the situation better than almost any health official in the world: "We are starving. If we don't have food in our stomach, what's the use of observing this lockdown?" But concern for that Bangladeshi worker among the world's elites seems nonexistent

I hope to God we never make this mistake again.

Elon Musk says 'arrest ME' after he defies coronavirus lockdown restrictions and reopens Tesla plant in California after suing local officials for ordering it to remain shut until June

Draconian edicts by the "Nation State" King/Governor and the county have crossed a line.

Elon Musk confirmed Monday that Tesla has resumed operations at its main California plant in defiance of the state's coronavirus lockdown restrictions - daring authorities to arrest him for the violation if they wish.

The plant in Fremont, south of San Francisco, had been closed since March 23 in an effort to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

But early Monday evening Musk tweeted that Tesla is 'restarting production today against Alameda County rules'.

'I will be on the line with everyone else,' the CEO continued. 'If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.'

The controversial move comes as the latest salvo in an ongoing war between Musk and Alameda County, after Tesla filed a lawsuit against local officials on Saturday for ordering the the Fremont facility to shutter until June.

My money is on Elon Musk. 

....Fauci Shrugged...

She felt exhausted at the end of a day she had started at her desk, in her office, at seven A.M.; a day she had broken off, uncompleted, to rush home and dress, because she had promised Jim to speak at the dinner of the New York Business Council

"They want us to give them a talk about Hydroxychloroquine," he had said. "You can do it so much better than I. It's very important that we present a good case. There's such a controversy about HCQ."

Sitting beside him in his car, she regretted that she had agreed. She looked at the streets of New York and thought of the race between the coronavirus and time, between the streets of Manhattan and the passing days. She felt as if her nerves were being pulled tight by the stillness of the car, by the guilt of wasting an evening when she could not afford to waste an hour.

"With all those attacks on Trump that one hears everywhere, " Jim said, "he might need a few friends."

She glanced at him incredulously. "You mean you want to stand by Trump?"

He did not answer at once; he asked, his voice bleak, "That report of the special committee of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — what do you think of it?"

"You know what I think of it."

"They said hydroxychloroquine is a threat to public safety. They said its chemical composition is unsound, it's brittle, it's decomposing molecularly, and it will crack suddenly, without warning . . ."

He stopped, as if begging for an answer. She did not answer. He asked anxiously, "You haven't changed your mind about it, have you?"

"About what?"

"About that drug - "

"No, Jim, I have not changed my mind."

"They're experts, though . . . the men on that committee. . . . Top experts . . . Chief biologists and biochemists for the biggest corporations, with a string of degrees from universities all over the country . . . ."  He said it unhappily, as if he were begging her to make him doubt these men and their verdict.

She watched him, puzzled; this was not like him.

The car jerked forward. It moved slowly through a gap in a plank barrier, past the hole of a broken water main by new construction. She saw the new manufacturing facility by the excavation; the sign bore a trademark: Stockton Pharmaceuticals, Colorado. She looked away; she wished she were not reminded of Colorado.

"I can't understand it . . ." said Jim miserably. "The top experts of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. . ."

"Who's the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Jim? Anthony Fauci, isn't it?"

Jim did not turn to her, but his jaw snapped open. "If that slob thinks he can—" he started, but stopped and did not finish.

She looked up at a street lamp on the corner. It was a globe of glass filled with light. It hung, secure from storm, lighting boarded windows and cracked sidewalks, as their only guardian. At the end of the street, across the river, against the glow of a factory, she saw the thin tracing of a power station. A truck went by, hiding her view. It was the kind of truck that fed the power station— a tank truck, its bright new paint impervious to sleet, green with white letters.

"Dana, have you heard about that discussion at the Chemical and Pharmaceutical Union Workers meeting in Detroit?"

"No. What discussion?"

"It was in all the newspapers. They debated whether their members should or should not be permitted to work with the production of HCQ in this country using a toll manufacturer.

They didn't reach a decision, but that was enough for the contractor who was going to take a chance on HCQ. He cancelled his order, but fast! . . . What if . . . what if everybody decides against it?"

“Let them."

Gavin Newsom says entire state will be asked to vote by mail in November

Two words:  Corrupt.  Evil.

Due to fears over continued spread of the novel coronavirus, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced Friday the entire state will be asked to vote by mail in November.

The governor signed an executive order that will ensure every registered vote in the state is sent an absentee ballot prior to election day, and those who choose to vote in person will have to comply with strict physical distancing measures at polling sites.

“There’s a lot of excitement around this November’s election in terms of making sure that you can conduct yourself in a safe way, and make sure your health is protected,” he said.

California is the first state in the country to enact a widespread vote-by-mail plan for November, a time top health experts fear a resurgence of the virus.

How convenient. All of CA is a huge steaming cesspool of corruption.

We have entered the era STASI..

One day in September 1987, the phone rang at the headquarters of the Volkspolizei, East Germany's police force, in the town of Döbeln, not far from Dresden. On the other end of the line was the voice of an unknown man.

"Good evening. I have some information for you. Grab a pen!"

"I'm listening."

"Ms. Marianne Schneider is traveling on Wednesday, Sept. 14, to West Berlin for a visit. She doesn't intend to return." 

"And who are you?"

Silence.

"You would like to remain anonymous?"

"Yes."

"What is the basis for your information?"

"She said so, to her closest friends."

Then, the mysterious caller hung up. And Marianne Schneider* had a problem. Officials immediately revoked her travel permit and began monitoring her phone and mail in addition to questioning her neighbors and friends.

This is a quote from Spiegel  International.  A nation, Communist-ruled East Germany,  surveilled by the Stasi Police and their lackey informers where multiple tens thousands well over 150,000 of them watched neighbors and snitched on the stupidest and inane stuff.  And all this information was written down and meticulously tracked, building dossiers on normal individuals.

I recall following the slow exposure of all of this.  The archives are available to anyone that wants to go back and see who snitched on you.  We all thought it was absolutely appalling.  We all shook our heads with disapproval.  We all said "this is what happens in a Totalitarian State."

 And we looked at each other nodding in agreement saying "yes!  That's right! This is what happens."

Hedwig Richter, a professor at the University of Greifswald, speaks of a "stunning reporting machinery." Wide swaths of society were a part of it, she says. "There were institutionalized structures outside of the Stasi that produced daily and weekly reports." Whether in city hall, at the steel factory or inside the local farming collective: "Everyone who had a position with some measure of responsibility filed reports" for the state, Richter says.

Since the 1989 collapse of the communist regime, thousands of these documents have been gathering dust in the archives of Eastern German states, in the former headquarters of former East German political parties and in the basements of universities and agencies. Now, though, they are being systematically analyzed by historians and have thus far revealed the degree to which permanent surveillance was a significant part of everyday life in East Germany. Eavesdropping and informing on neighbors and colleagues was completely normal for many -- even without pressure from the Stasi and its notorious leader Erich Mielke

We bowed our heads and gently whispered a prayer thanking God we lived in a nation where this sort of thing would never happen.  And we hoped the perpetrators of this horrendous crossing of the liberties of people either had a deep change of heart or are burning in the fires of Hell.

And yet, here we are.  And it is happening.  People marching in Goose Step and swinging their right hand out high and pledging their fielty to The State.

They keep a look out for violators of the 6 foot rule.

Not wearing a mask?

You went outside and visited a neighbor?

YOU MUST BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

So you pick up the phone, requesting anonymity and you rat on your neighbor.  But one day, you will be exposed for the Totalitarian Government sycophants you are.

You are not the friend of free society.  You are the enemy.  Just like the Patriotic Communist Germans who called the Secret Police to rat on their closest friends.

I think what alarms me is how easy it was for people to become Emotionally Invested in this and think they are on the Side of Right, filled with zeal and righteousness.  Or...are there maybe some who are being paid to rat on their friends and neighbors?  If not here in the USA, possibly other places?

And that would be a hearty....YES!!

If your disposable income is a little lacking then there's one way to boost your earnings by £1,000. By becoming an anonymous informant for the police you will be handsomely rewarded - but only if it turns out to be correct, and leads to an arrest, charge or a conviction.

It's perfectly safe to do, as the identity of the person who puts the call in is kept safe by Crimestoppers, who then pass the information on to the police independently.

According to The Coventry Telegraph the process allows people to fight crime without being exposed to any danger or possible retaliation.

The rewards can even be picked up at banks without showing any personal ID.

But back to exposing these traitors....the exposure has already started:

A spree of social media posts this week warn that St. Louis County released the information it got from people who reported businesses in violation of the stay-at-home order.

The document, released in response to a Sunshine Law request, included names and contact information of the people making the reports. In their messages, some asked for anonymity.

Posts and comments in response to the document invited retaliation against the people who utilized the county’s inbox for tips about non-essential businesses that stayed open.

The I-Team’s PJ Randhawa talked with a woman whose tip was among those released. Patricia asked that we not use her last name, because she fears what someone might do with the information in the document.

We have entered the era STASI.....and no one seems to care.

Darkness to Light.

Prepare for the Great Stock Market Crash of 2026

And just when you thought it was safe.  Sorry.

The 18 year real estate cycle that's been known to exist for over a 100 years and TO THIS DAY it trips everyone up.  We never seem to learn.

Nobody paid attention during the 1990s when those familiar with the real estate cycle predicted the Depression of 2008 (including myself, in 1997). Almost all economists, financial analysts, journalists, pundits, bloggers, and armchair cynics will also scoff at this prediction of a severe recession and depression in 2026. They will say there is no way to accurately predict such an event so far in advance. But the cycle exists precisely because people don’t believe it.

There has been one fundamental cause of the boom and bust cycle: massive subsidies to land values. Since these subsidies are a governmental intervention into the market, the cause of the cycle is not “business,” hence the term "business cycle" is misleading. It is a cycle of economic distortions caused by government policies.

The monetary subsidy to real estate consists of cheap credit. In the US, the Federal Reserve manipulates interest rates by expanding the money supply. An injection of money increases the money reserves of the banks, which then lower their interest rates to loan out the extra money. Cheap credit fueled the real estate bubble that peaked in 2006, and super-low interest rates today are sowing the seeds of the next bubble. Similar money creation occurs by other central banks.

The legendary stock trader WD Gann used the 18.6 year average cycle in his famous financial table of 1901 and used it to time the market.  That is how predictable it is.

But over and over and over again, we fall for it.

Some social distancing may be needed into 2022 to keep coronavirus in check, new study says

So the number-crunchers are all sitting around a table, eating peanuts and cashews.

"So..." crunch crunch "we ran the numbers" crunch crunch - "and" - crunch - "looks like we need to keep up this social distancing until 2022".  crunch crunch crunch.

...crunch...

Silence...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!HAHAHAHAH!!!!!

So, if the intent was to show how really stupid we all are, I think they miserably failed.

The research, published Tuesday in the journal Science, looked at a range of scenarios for how the SARS-CoV-2 virus will spread over the next five years. Those scenarios included variables like whether people who are infected develop short-term immunity — less than a year — or longer-term protection. But, overall, the research concludes it is unlikely that life will return any time soon to the way it was before the virus’ emergence.

The article goes on to make the point that our ability to build immunity only lasts a year or two. So, our propensity to be reinfected is quite high.

But....what did they forget?  Truly astonishing, in my opinion.

The Chinese Virus is easily dispensed with.

The hydroxychoroquinone or HCQ stops the deadly disease in its tracks!

What else helps?  A diet or supplements high in zinc, vitamin C and D.  These can help harden your immune system.

So, I ask:  WHAT'S THE BIG DEAL???

What could I compare it to?  I would say David and Goliath with Goliath as the deadly and ravaging disease.  And David with his two stones at the ready, slaying what everyone thought was a MONSTER.

I think this is the sentence that told me these guys THINK they have us over a barrel:

"But, overall, the research concludes it is unlikely that life will return any time soon to the way it was before the virus’ emergence."

You see, the human race has had to fight all kinds of diseases over the past millennia.  It is wasn't smallpox, it was bubonic plague.  If it wasn't cholera, it was tuberculosis. If it wasn't polio it was whooping cough.  The list goes on and on and on.

From what I can tell, "normal life" is that small sliver of time between the final lapse of one calamity to the raging onslaught of a new disease.  Normal life free of a calamity is not the normal.  All the other times are the normal.  And guess what?  We're still here! 

Fuck Social Distancing.

Hungary and the Evolution of Dictatorships

My brother texted me he had just learned that Hungary was now a dictatorship.

Apparently, this is how it goes.  I found a website that has a nice synopsis of Plato's Republic.

So, the order is:

- Monarchy/Aristocracy (a government based on wisdom)

- Timocracy (a government based on honor and merit; like a military)

- Oligarchy (a government based on wealth; a capitalist state)

- Democracy/Anarchy (a government based on liberty and equality)

A Mixed Republic is the most stable allowing "sub systems" of Democracy and others to thrive.

So, I wonder if those countries that have preserved their Aristocracy in some form (becoming a subsystem of a Republic) may be stable-forming influence. Just a guess.

Countries like Hungary have been whipsawed from one form of government to another. Reading just a little bit of their history in Wikipedia new governments were a way of life!

I'm hoping America's mix of representative Republic and State Government will be good.

Walters: California — specifically, Jerry Brown — also failed to prepare

I never got the impression that Arnold was a very good governor.  But there was one thing he did that was undone.  That decision has now come back to haunt CA.

The most disturbing revelation is that Brown essentially abolished predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s effort to prepare California for a pandemic.

In 2006, Schwarzenegger created the Emergency Medical Services Authority and invested tens of millions of dollars to stockpile supplies and equipment, including three mobile hospitals.

“In light of the pandemic flu risk, it is absolutely a critical investment,” Schwarzenegger said at the time. “I’m not willing to gamble with the people’s safety.”

“Each hospital would be the size of a football field, with a surgery ward, intensive care unit and X-ray equipment,” a weekend article by the Center for Investigative Reporting and the Los Angeles Times said. “Medical response teams would also have access to a massive stockpile of emergency supplies: 50 million N95 respirators, 2,400 portable ventilators and kits to set up 21,000 additional patient beds wherever they were needed.”

However, five years later, Brown, having inherited huge budget deficits from Schwarzenegger that were accumulated during the Great Recession, cut off funding for the program. Most of the equipment was donated to local hospitals and other medical agencies without money to maintain it and much of it was allowed to expire.

“There was a time there that Arnold Schwarzenegger had a bold vision and a responsible one,” Jack Lewin, former CEO of the California Medical Association, told the Sacramento Bee, which broke the story about the rise and fall of Schwarzenegger’s prescient act. “But I think that got diluted over the course of time. People get complacent, and money goes elsewhere.”

 What a shame.  CA gambled with people's safety...and lost.

Editorial: Other states have emergency financial reserves to help combat the coronavirus. Not Illinois.

So, the chickens are coming home to roost.  What a shame. These are the things that unmake countries...and states.

In dealing with the needs of people hurt by the coronavirus crisis, the state of Indiana has a notable advantage: a rainy day fund that holds more than $2 billion. State budget director Cris Johnston says some of the reserve will be used to cover unexpected expenses, such as buying personal protective equipment for health care workers. It’s a welcome buffer, which the state had wisely built up from $831 million a decade earlier.

Too bad Illinois was not so farsighted. Its Budget Stabilization Fund has only $58,655. That’s enough to cover the state government’s normal expenses for about 30 seconds. Indiana’s is enough to cover more than a month.

The state has a backlog of $7.5 billion in unpaid bills.  Why would anyone want to do business with a deadbeat state?

Gov. Baker prohibits reusable shopping bags during coronavirus emergency

I have been wondering when the campaign to eradicate single use plastics was going to run head on into a situation where they are desperately needed, And here we are.

I just hope people will temper their zeal.  Reusable bags have been known for a while to contaminate easily with meats, spreading disease.  No surprise here.

Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday announced a new public health order related to grocery stores and pharmacies in Massachusetts, which includes a temporary ban on reusable bags.

"From now on, reusable bags are prohibited and all regulations on plastic bag bans are lifted," he said.

The order also prohibits stores from charging for paper and plastic bags while the order is in place.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh had previously announced the same measures in the city.

The Benefits Of Air Pollution Control: Where’s The Beef?

This is an interesting article.  The author looks at the data and shows that cleaning up the air really hasn't moved the needle on deaths as we would have hoped it would.  Cleaning up air emissions that cause smog was supposed to improve our quality of life.  But did it really?

I certainly can't say I prefer a world covered in smog with little light from the sun shining through.  The author brings up the fact that the only people affected by coal burning in the UK in the 1950s were those who were already suffering from respiratory - cardio illnesses.

But wasn't that the intent on controlling emissions?  To improve our quality of life as we age over time?  For sure, the young will always have the ability and resilience to overcome wide ranges of pollutions.

I don't think there is anyone that thinks it's a good idea to completely wipe out existing pollution control regulations.  But maybe, we past the point of diminishing returns and can ease up a little and take the Heavy Boot off the neck of industry and replace it with a soft slipper.

It’s been 50 years since cleaning up the air in the United States began in earnest. Skies are much clearer now than in the mid-20th century. Leaded gasoline is gone, power plants have been abandoning coal and sulfur dioxide has dropped by 91%. Despite these growing improvements, why have epidemiologists been unable to show the demonstrable public health benefits that their computer models predict?

NY and CA spend billions more in taxes than TX and FL — and get worse results

This is the preamble to a blog I posted regarding the astronomic cost of installing handicap accessibility to existing subway stations in NY compared to other cities in other countries.

America’s four largest states — California, Texas, Florida and New York — have a lot in common. They are iconic, dynamic and diverse. Each could be formidable countries themselves.

And, yet, they are also very different in their politics and governance. California and New York are dominated by Democrats who have implemented the nation’s highest and sixth-highest marginal income tax rates, respectively, to help finance large social programs and bureaucracies. (New York’s rate rises to second-highest if New York City income tax is included.)

Texas and Florida, meanwhile, have been governed mostly by conservative Republicans for decades; they are among the few states that levy no income tax on workers, while maintaining leaner social programs.

Our big four states provide a good test case for two very different visions: Do higher taxes and bigger government actually deliver better outcomes, particularly in terms of education, poverty alleviation, and infrastructure? Or can simpler governments and lower taxes actually raise the fortunes of their citizens?

Here, the facts tell the story.

Worth reading.  The author shows graphs and statistics, wondering why NY and CA can't seem to get more bang for their buck.

Swiss Air Drops Christian Chocolate Supplier Following Protests

And the Far Left is cheering and high-fiving.  They have learned that by making complete asses of themselves and breaking things, they can get their way.  And why not?  It seems to keep working.  And who the hell are those Far Right Crackpot Christians anyway, other than...well, Far Right Crackpot Christians??

We are going down a deep and dark path that will only lead to one thing:  The destruction of civilization as we know it.  We are headed into a time of despotic rule.  The Bright Light of Truth is dimming at an ever increasing rate.

Get ready, we have to live in this world.

Despite Swiss Air’s ten-year affiliation with Läderach, the airline dropped the chocolatier after protests and extensive vandalism by left-wing activists, homosexuals, and young socialists, according to a report by LifeSite News.

Jürg Läderach, who owns the high-end chocolate company, is also the president of “Christianity for Today” (CFT), a Swiss evangelical organization that sponsors Switzerland’s March for Life and emphasizes the importance of the family based on a marriage between a man and a woman.

According to the Swiss news magazine Beobachter, negative press surrounding Läderach for its pro-life and pro-family positions was “clearly too much for the airline, which has many gay crew members.”

Swiss Air spokeswoman Meike Fuhlrott confirmed that there had been negative feedback from customers and employees due to the media reports.

Last fall, activists attacked a Läderach store in Basel, Switzerland, using Butyric acid, forcing the store to close for two days. This assault was just one instance of vandalism against the chocolatier, which reportedly took place at seven different stores.

California Freelancers Sue To Stop Law That's Destroying Their Jobs. Pol Says Those 'Were Never Good Jobs' Anyway.

To be honest, if you are still in CA...you are *STUPID*. The mountainous stack of laws and rules and regulations is appalling.  Hopefully, these brave souls will win.  We can only hope.

The bill's pending implementation has wreaked havoc on publications that rely heavily on California freelancers. Just last week, Vox Media announced it will not be renewing the contracts of around 200 journalists who write for the sports website SB Nation. Instead, the company will replace many of those contractors with 20 part-time and full-time employees. Rev, which provides transcription services, and Scripted, which connects freelance copywriters with people who need their services, also notified their California contractors that they would no longer give them work.

"Companies can simply blacklist California writers and work with writers in other states, and that's exactly what's happening," Alisha Grauso, an entertainment journalist and the co-leader of California Freelance Writers United (CAFWU), tells Reason. "I don't blame them."

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), the architect of AB5, has heard these stories. "I'm sure some legit freelancers lost substantial income," she tweeted in the wake of Vox's announcement, "and I empathize with that especially this time of year. But Vox is a vulture."

And Gonzalez is calling Vox a vulture. I am no fan of Vox, but surely, even the LEFT has got to be waking up to the absolute chaos that is building.

Get the hell out. 

NOW.

Ocean Islands Are Not Sinking, New research shows the islands are growing, not receding

We already know the Maldives are not sinking.  Now there is more evidence that the Marshall Islands aren't sinking either among other islands.  

Using historic aerial photographs and high-resolution satellite imagery, Auckland University scientists Murray Ford and Paul Kench recently analyzed shoreline changes on six atolls and two mid-ocean reef islands in the Marshall Islands. Their peer-reviewed study revealed that since the middle of the 20th century the total land area of the islands has actually grown.2

This is due to accretion, where coral broken up by the waves washes up on these low-lying islands as sand, counteracting the reduction in land mass. Research shows that this process is overpowering the erosion from sea-level rise, leading to a net land area gain.

This is not only true for the Marshall Islands. The researchers write that within the recently emerging body of shoreline change studies on atoll islands there is little evidence of widespread reef island erosion. To the contrary, several studies have documented noteworthy shoreline progradation (growth) and positional changes of islands since the mid-20th century, resulting in a net increase in island area. The most famous of these studies showed that of 27 Pacific Islands, 14% lost area, yet 43% gained area, with the rest remaining stable.

Representatives from the Marshall Islands have been vocal about the need for strong global action on climate. President Hilda Heine has told reporters that longtime residents are leaving the Marshall Islands because climate change is threatening the nation’s existence. It’s true that approximately one-third of the population has relocated to the US, but for reasons other than climate change. 1

The following the statement from one of the world's most knowledgeable sea level expert in the world. If you can't believe him, then you are hopelessly duped and brainwashed:

One of the foremost sea level experts in the world, Swedish scientist Nils-Axel Morner says this, “As someone with some expertise in the field, I can assure the low-lying countries that this is a false alarm. The sea is not rising precipitously. I have studied many of the low-lying regions in my 45 year career recording and interpreting sea level data. I have conducted six field trips to the Maldives. I have been to Bangladesh, whose environment minister was claiming that flooding due to climate change threatened to create 20 million ‘ecological refugees’ in her country. I have carefully examined the data of ‘drowning’ Tuvalu and I can report that, while such regions do have problems, they need not fear rising sea levels. Our research is what the climate lobby might call an ‘inconvenient truth,’ it shows that sea levels have been oscillating close to the present level for the last three centuries. This is not due to melting glaciers: sea levels are affected by a great many factors. They rose in the order of 10 to 11 cm between 1850 and 1940, stopped rising or maybe even fell a little until 1970, and have remained flat every since.” 7

The New Age of Slavery is fast approaching

I have no doubt in my mind that we are headed into a New Age of Slavery.  But....I wonder what it will be called?  Surely, the word "slavery" will not go over well.

Possibly "Institutional Embarkment".  Something that not even gets close to what slavery is.

But as the UK accepts the fact that, well, child rape and child marriage is really ok and we need to just bend over and get fucked and enjoy it. 

What we are watching is the waterfall devolution of an entire culture.  The very culture that cried out and dismantled the institution of slavery is now engendering that same heinous institution.

If you live in the UK, you need to get out.  You think it's bad now.  Just wait a few more years.

The nameless Constable B tells us the true scope of the problem. Manchester cops like him know that this is habitual and that it’s taking place on a level vastly beyond the scope of Operation Augusta. It’s not 57 girls or 97 suspects. It’s thousands. “We can’t enforce our way out of the problem,” he said.

That’s what you say about vast social issues that involve entire communities and a way of life.

Muslim sex grooming gangs, like drugs or prostitution, are too widespread to be enforced out of existence because, like college students and pot, the culture doesn’t accept that they are wrong.

The police did nothing because these were not isolated crimes by criminals, but clashes of morals and values between two communities, one of which does not believe that child rape is wrong because its sacred texts tell it that Mohammed married Aisha and consummated his marriage when she was 9.

Nice roundup on new CA laws.




Immoral and disgusting.

New California Water Law Restricts How Much Water People Can Use

The worst law to ever be written.  Once this law takes effect, watch the people leave CA like rats leaving a sinking ship.

So, the near term limit before draconian penaties take place, starts in 2022.  At that point, the threshold is 55 gallons per person per day.

There will soon be more focus on flushes and scrutiny over showers with a new law signed in by the governor.

California is now the first state in the nation to enact tough new water-efficiency standards. The controversial rules are targeted at water districts to cut per capita water usage, but in order to meet the goals, those cuts will trickle down to the customers they serve.

“So that everyone in California is at least integrating efficiency into our preparations for climate change,” said Felicia Marcus, Chair of the State Water Resources Control Board.

So, what are the new rules?

In 2022, the new indoor water standard will be 55 gallons per person, per day. by 2030, it will fall to 50 gallons.

For a family of three, this calculates out to 4950 gallons per month. The problem is, there is no distinguishing between indoor and outside.

The usage inside is an easy check.  There are a number of websites that go over this.  Here is a study that compared several different households.   Household one had three family members and weekly average usage was 531 gallons per week or 2,124 gallons per month (4 weeks)

I estimated my usage per month.  I went around and calibrated the flow of water through the shower head and the faucet.  And looking on line at usage of water by various appliances, I came up with 5,475 gallons per month.

So, it appears I would get slammed with smothering fines.

And inadvertant situations happen.  You go on vacation and while you're away, your toilet doesn't stop running.  It's bad enough under normal circumstances that your water bill would be way higher than normal.  Now you have to contend with an unbending bureaucracy nailing you with a huge water bill PLUS a giant penalty.

GET OUT!!!  GET OUT NOW!!

California losing the most residents of any state in the blue state tax exodus?

Pretty amazing!  Color me surprised.

OPINION: With Business Fleeing, California Doesn’t Look So Golden

What is CA going to do to get more money?  Start more wildfires and run screaming to the Federal Government for more emergency funding?

Why can't CA get it right anymore?

The exhaustive report — 623 pages, and nearly 3,500 endnotes — is appropriately entitled “It’s Time for Companies to Leave California’s Toxic Business Climate.” Findings are based on public records showing there were 2,183 “California disinvestment events” from 2008 to 2016. But it’s really worse than that. Because “experts in site selection generally agree that at least five events fail to become public knowledge for every one that does,” it’s more likely about 13,000 have fled.

Rather than slowing or at least leveling out, the pace has picked up. The most recent data show there were 1,500 disinvestment events in 2016, the greatest number on record, and the fourth straight year the total increased.

This Great California Escape has not happened in secret. Vranich, who not long ago moved his own company, Spectrum Location Solutions, from Irvine to more business-friendly Pennsylvania, said that for roughly “40 years California has been viewed as a state in which it is difficult to do business.”