March 21, 2020

Which Is Worse, The Virus Or The Responses To It?

March 21, 2020/ Francis Menton

As of this writing (approximately 4 PM on March 21) the Worldometer site has recorded 24,142 confirmed cases of the COVID-19 virus in the U.S., and 288 deaths. That would make for a death rate of 1.19% among confirmed cases.
Over the 10 years from 2010 to 2019, they estimate something in the range of 400,000 total deaths from the regular annual flu. Yes, they try to provide a vaccine (which varies in effectiveness by year), but mainly we go on about our normal business while this all these deaths are occurring.
When the COVID-19 thing started ramping up a few weeks ago, the essence of the message coming out of the government was a series of common sense public health measures.
But now in this last week, there has been a big change. The government response has gone over s tipping point from realistic concern to something approaching hysteria. At this point, there is very serious risk of permanent damage to the economy, not from the disease, but from the government over-reaction.. . .

March 17, 2020

Neither Biden Nor Sanders Remotely Has The Basic Competence To Be President

March 17, 2020/ Francis Menton

Just a couple of days ago, in the run-up to the latest round of Democratic presidential primaries, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders faced off in a one-on-one debate. Mano-a-mano, as they say.

I’ve lately adopted a strategy of not watching these debates (it’s too painful), but rather getting a transcript after the fact. I have copied below at the end of this post the portion of the March 15 debate that focused on my favorite topic, climate change. This portion covered about 11 minutes of the two hour debate, from 13:37 to 24:32 in the second hour.

March 15, 2020

March 15, 2020/ Francis Menton

It looks like the whole country is going to be “hunkering down” for at least a few weeks, and maybe even longer. As for myself, I’ve been exiled to a remote undisclosed rural location devoid of all human contact to wait out the coronavirus pandemic.
So what now? Undoubtedly you have heard or read many tips from health professionals and government officials for keeping yourself healthy. Avoid large gatherings. Keep your “social distance.” Wash your hands. But those things are all old hat by now. What might you be missing that could really make a difference?
The more you read about this, the more you realize that the key to true success against the virus is to embrace environmental incorrectness. Many of the environmental fads of the last few years turn out to be exactly what you should not be doing. Like it or not, you are now going to have to use more plastics and increase your “carbon footprint.” . . .

March 13, 2020

March 13, 2020/ Francis Menton

The fundamental nature of the “green energy” game is that politicians make ridiculous and impossible promises without any idea how the promises will be fulfilled. Since the promises are ridiculous and impossible, sooner or later the crunch will hit — but how?
Maybe the promised goals will be missed by wide margins; or maybe the price of energy to the people will multiply by some huge factor like 10 or 20; or maybe the people will be denied needed energy altogether; or it could be some combination of all three. But sooner or later, it will happen.
Here’s what we don’t know: When will the crunch hit? And where will it hit first?
You can’t go too far wrong betting on New York as the first place for the crunch to hit. . . .

March 11, 2020

March 11, 2020/ Francis Menton

Back in October, after looking some into the Hunter Biden/Burisma situation, and watching a few clips of Joe Biden on the campaign trail, I offered the following insightful prognostication:
I’m sorry to say that I don’t think Joe Biden is going to last much longer in this presidential contest.
That shows you what I know about these things.
The particular context there was a couple of posts I had just researched and written on the Ukraine affair, titled “The Bidens: Stone Cold Crooked” and “The Bidens: Stone Cold Crooked (2).” My conclusion in the two posts was that there was a lay-down case of corruption against Joe Biden in the Burisma situation, and I couldn’t even see what his defense would be. Yes, Joe could try saying “Sure I got my son $3 million in Ukraine by leveraging foreign aid money put up by U.S. taxpayers, but my motives were pure because I was also getting a corrupt prosecutor fired.” But why would or should anyone buy that line, when Joe could have told his son to get off the board before getting the prosecutor fired? . . .

March 08, 2020

March 08, 2020/ Francis Menton

You could find yourself asking that question about the pile of newsprint that resembles the New York Times more or less any day; but the rag with the New York Times banner on top that got delivered to me yesterday really leaves me scratching my head.
Is this real, or did someone swipe the actual paper out of my mail slot early in the morning and substitute the parody edition? Judging from the physical item before me, I would go with parody.
But then I discover that all of the dubious articles can be found on the nytimes.com website. Could the devious parodists have hacked the website as well?
Let’s consider first the section of the paper headed “New York.”