Comrades In People’s Republik Of California Keep Calling 911 To Report Other People’s Coughs

By William Teach March 19, 2020 – 4:47 pm

This is not the way to do this, folks

California residents keep calling 911 on coughing neighbors during coronavirus pandemic

California residents are calling the police on neighbors they hear coughing amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Riverside County police officers have seen their 15th instance of people reporting coughing neighbors to authorities, according to the Desert Sun. The Coachella Valley, Cathedral City, and Palm Springs departments have all been receiving calls from residents concerned their neighbors have the coronavirus because they heard them sneeze or cough.

Authorities are treating each call seriously and often send paramedics to the area if treatment is needed.

California Peace Officers Association President Neil Gallucci, however, warned that sending paramedics to a possibly infected patient’s house after a call from concerned neighbors raises the chances of first responders contracting the virus and spreading it to each other.

I would think the first concern would be dispatching law enforcement officers to check on coughs rather than deal with crime. But, this is California, ya know. Hey, perhaps the governor could ask people to stop doing crime, kinda like the mayor of Baltimore asked the low lifes to stop shooting each other, because they’re taking hospital beds. Hasn’t worked so far in that Democratic Party run den of rats.

Oh, then there’s Excitable Liz

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If All You See…

By William Teach March 19, 2020 – 1:00 pm

…is a horrible fossil fueled cruise ship which we’ll all be living on when the world floods, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Political Clown Parade, with a post on quarantine humor and toilet paper.

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‘Climate Change’ To Make Weather Even More Extreme Than Prognosticated Or Something

By William Teach March 19, 2020 – 10:30 am

The original prognostications for weather related Doom from a tiny increase in CO2 and a marginal increase in the Earth’s average temperature didn’t actually pan out. Seriously, nothing has changed. Weather happens. It hasn’t gotten worse. So, what to do? Predict even worse future doom

Stanford researcher reveals influence of global warming on extreme weather events has been frequently underestimated

A new Stanford study reveals that a common scientific approach of predicting the likelihood of future extreme weather events by analyzing how frequently they occurred in the past can lead to significant underestimates – with potentially significant consequences for people’s lives.

Stanford climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh found that predictions that relied only on historical observations underestimated by about half the actual number of extremely hot days in Europe and East Asia, and the number of extremely wet days in the U.S., Europe and East Asia.

The paper, published March 18 in Science Advances, illustrates how even small increases in global warming can cause large upticks in the probability of extreme weather events, particularly heat waves and heavy rainfall. The new results analyzing climate change connections to unprecedented weather events could help to make global risk management more effective.

“We are seeing year after year how the rising incidence of extreme events is causing significant impacts on people and ecosystems,” Diffenbaugh said. “One of the main challenges in becoming more resilient to these extremes is accurately predicting how the global warming that’s already happened has changed the odds of events that fall outside of our historical experience.”

Of course, in the past, we do not have complete data or even close to what we’ve had for, say, the past 50 years, because people weren’t living in lots of places and no one was really recording that rain storm, that tornado, that tropical system. You didn’t have satellites viewing it all and weather chasers and news/weather organizations.

Scientists trying to isolate the influence of human-caused climate change on the probability and/or severity of individual weather events have faced two major obstacles. There are relatively few such events in the historical record, making verification difficult, and global warming is changing the atmosphere and ocean in ways that may have already affected the odds of extreme weather conditions.

Considering that multiple previous Holocene warm periods were warmer than today, what made them warm, and was the weather worse?

In the new study, Diffenbaugh, the Kara J. Foundation professor at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, revisited previous extreme event papers he and his colleagues had published in recent years. Diffenbaugh wondered if he could use the frequency of record-setting weather events from 2006 to 2017 to evaluate the predictions his group had made using data from 1961 to 2005. He found in some cases the actual increase in extreme events was much larger than what had been predicted.

Interestingly, Diffenbaugh also found that climate models were able to more accurately predict the future occurrence of record-setting events. While acknowledging that climate models still contain important uncertainties, Diffenbaugh says the study identifies the potential for new techniques that incorporate both historical observations and climate models to create more accurate, robust risk management tools.

OK, use those models to tell us the weather for the rest of this year and next year. How many tornadoes, tropical systems, rain events, snow events, and what the temperature will do. Oh, right, they just predict way in the future by proclaiming that they were super right in the past.

“The good news,” Diffenbaugh said, “is that these new results identify some real potential to help policymakers, engineers and others who manage risk to integrate the effects of global warming into their decisions.”

In other words, how Government can institute more taxes and citizen controls.

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Cult Of Climastrology: Don’t Let This World Wide Pandemic Stall ‘Climate Change’ Action

By William Teach March 19, 2020 – 8:30 am

The Earth could be experiencing the threat of a massive asteroid impact, a super volcano, alien invasion, etc, and the climate cultists would still yammer about their cult

Don’t let coronavirus stall climate action, warns architect of Paris deal

Governments must not let the coronavirus pandemic derail action on climate change, an architect of the landmark Paris agreement warned on Wednesday, saying the vulnerabilities laid bare by the virus could serve to spur a more concerted response.

Laurence Tubiana, a former French diplomat who was instrumental in brokering the 2015 accord aimed at averting catastrophic global warming, said the disruption caused by the coronavirus was a wake-up call.

“In a way, it’s a lesson: viruses don’t respect borders, climate change doesn’t respect borders,” Tubiana, who continues to closely track climate diplomacy, told an online briefing. “If we do not manage the climate crisis it will be the same.”

Tubiana was speaking amid mounting concerns that the economic disruption caused by the coronavirus could tempt governments to shy away from the massive effort to cut carbon emissions needed to stabilise the Earth’s climate system.

So, wait, is Tubiana admitting that it would cost a lot of money and massive economic disruption to implement the Paris Climate Agreement and other climate cult measures? Weren’t we told that we would feel little impact? Huh. Someone in the comments for the article writes “The law of unintended consequences…..the media overblows this virus,and the blowback is that it hurts their efforts on the redistribution of wealth scheme known as global warming/climate change/climate crisis….”

No matter the crisis, the CoC will do what it can to take advantage, as well as link itself in some fashion. This is the measure of a cult.

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Some Ask Whether America Is Over-reacting To Wuhan Virus

By William Teach March 19, 2020 – 8:12 am

It’s a rather taboo question, isn’t it? But, it’s not quite what you think

Some Ask a Taboo Question: Is America Overreacting to Coronavirus?

As an America desperate to stem the coronavirus outbreak put in place sweeping restrictions last week on every facet of public life, the University of Wyoming economist Linda Thunstrom asked what felt like a taboo question: “Are we overreacting?’’

It helped that Thunstrom was in her kitchen, drinking coffee with her husband, Jason Shogren, a fellow economist who studies how much Americans are willing to pay to reduce risk of threats like terrorism, food-borne illness and climate change.

Calculating the economic costs of curtailing social interaction compared with the lives saved, he agreed, might yield a useful metric for policymakers. The U.S. government routinely performs such analyses when assessing new regulations, with the “statistical value of life” currently pegged by one government agency at $9 million.

Still, Thunstrom asked, “Do we even want to look at that? Is it too callous?”

No one wants to be seen as prioritizing profit or, say, youth soccer over saving lives. But in recent days, a group of contrarian political leaders, ethicists and ordinary Americans have bridled at what they saw as a tendency to dismiss the complex trade-offs that the measures collectively known as “social distancing” entail.

Besides the financial ramifications of such policies, their concerns touch on how society’s most marginalized groups may fare and on the effect of government-enforced curfews on democratic ideals. Their questions about the current approach are distinct from those raised by some conservative activists who have suggested the virus is a politically inspired hoax, or no worse than the flu,

Let me tell you, it’s not just “conservative activists” who have suggested those, especially that it’s not worse than the flu. I’ve seen this stuff from Lefty websites and commenters on chat boards, some who say this is being ramped up so Trump can rescue the day for re-elected, or even “postpone” the November elections.

Regardless, are the monetary and social costs of all this worth it? That’s what these folks are considering.

Some college students who were abruptly ushered off campus last week complain that they are more likely to infect higher-risk older adults at home than they were at college. Among the throngs who have been ordered to self-quarantine, some people question the purpose of isolating themselves if the virus is already circulating widely in their communities. Certain parents balk at the pressure from friends to withdraw their children from schools that are still open, or at what they see as groupthink that has prompted the cancellation of events that are still weeks or months away.

And how do you weigh the risk of an unknown number of deaths against the possibility that several hundred thousand students who depend on free lunch at school will go hungry? Or against other lives that may be lost in an economic contraction born of social isolation?

The kids would rather be at spring break using all that student loans money which they want The Government to forgive to party and twerk.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the recent plunge in value to their stock portfolios, some Silicon Valley figures have taken to social media to underscore the economic impact of social distancing.

“The fear is far worse than the virus,” tweeted Tim Draper, a venture capitalist, using the hashtags #corona #dustbowl, #food, #clothing and #shelter. “The governments have it wrong. Stay open for business.” (snip)

“We need to give the response to the virus our full attention,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “But we’re following every rabbit that pops out of its hole, as opposed to trying to prioritize responses that have the most impact.’’

The fear may be the worst thing. My favorite Chinese takeout place was closed yesterday afternoon, with no sign up at all. The martial arts place next door was closed, as was the Italian restaurant in same complex. It had a sign, didn’t read it. Bojangles had someone with gloves on showing where to stand while waiting and ordering. I had to stand 6 feet away and yell my order, then came right up to pay. No eating in the store. And the drive thru had way less than normal. The Lowes Foods was business as usual. The place I get my haircut was slow enough that I walked in and didn’t have to wait. Costco looked slammed as I drove by, as did Aldi and Food Lion. So, some stay open, others aren’t, and others are barely hanging on. The Washington Post is running an opinion piece by a small business owner who says the CDC order is a death center for her business.

And then there’s this

An Italian study revealed that most of the patients who have died from the coronavirus previously had some type of illness or pre-existing condition.

But while these people are dying, the majority of coronavirus patients in hospitals are younger, healthier people — and they’re being prioritized by hospital staff.

The average age of those who have died from the Chinese virus in Italy is 79.5, according to a study by Italian health authorities, who have been examining the medical records involving the nation’s surging coronavirus death toll.

The study adds that more than 99 percent of Italy’s coronavirus deaths have been people who were previously ill or had some type of pre-existing medical condition, such as high blood pressure or diabetes.

Among those who have died from the Wuhan virus in Italy, more than 76 percent of them had high blood pressure, more than 35 percent had diabetes, 33 percent had heart disease, and more than 24 percent had atrial fibrillation, or “AFib,” according to Italy’s national health authority.

Wuhan is putting some young people in the hospital, just like the regular versions of the flu do. So, the question is, how much is too much? Do we want to crater the world economy?

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NY Times: Wuhan Virus Is Worse Than 9/11 Or Something

By William Teach March 18, 2020 – 3:06 pm

There once was a time when the people in charge of media outlets would sit back and say “is this really a good idea?” Sure, they weren’t always perfect, but, in these days, reading the Credentialed Media is more like reading the Democratic Underground, Daily Kos, or Media Matters. Here we have Unhinged Frank Bruni

Why the Coronavirus Is So Much Worse Than Sept. 11

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we were exhorted to defiance. I remember it well.

Don’t let the terrorists win, we were told. Don’t let them steal your joys or disrupt your routines — at least not too much. Be wary, yes, and be patient with extra-long security lines where they didn’t previously exist. If you see something, say something. But otherwise, resume normal life. Venture out. Revel.

“Get down to Disneyworld,” President George W. Bush said.

Disneyworld is now closed.

The specter of the coronavirus is utterly different from prior moments of national panic or devastation. I keep hearing comparisons to Sept. 11 in particular, and I understand why: The terror now is similar to the terror then, a wicked weave of vulnerability, helplessness and the inability to guess what’s next.

Frank gives it a whirl, discussing social distancing, shuttered businesses, etc and so on, but, last time I check, we didn’t lose 2,996 people in the space of a few hours, and be concerned with a real threat of violence from Islamic jihadis (though we weren’t allowed to call them Islamic). Coronavirus is not 9/11: this is disrespectful to those who were murdered and all those who pitched in.

But jokes don’t fly right now. And in my eerily languid, palpably tense Manhattan neighborhood, it has been a few days since I heard the music of human laughter.

His piece is a joke, and monumentally overestimates the threat of Wuhan, which most in the media have done, because, I hate to say it, the media wants to use this to take down Trump, along with the fact that they love fear-mongering. It’s seemingly part of their job. “If it bleeds it leads.”

From that article

During the swine flu pandemic, were there mass cancellations of events including conferences, concerts, sporting events, and entire professional sports leagues? Did colleges cancel classes, finishing the remainder of their semesters online? Were travel restrictions imposed between America and Europe? Were panicked Americans hoarding everything from toilet paper to pasta?

That was 2009

Reported deaths had occurred in people ranging in age from 22 months old to 57 years old. Also, only 13% of hospitalizations had occurred in people 50 years and older, and there were few cases and no deaths in people older than 65 years, which was unusual when compared with seasonal flu. (snip)

Swine flu caused 60.8 million illnesses, 273,304 hospitalizations, and 12,469 deaths in the U.S.

Worldwide, swine flu may have killed up to 203,000 people, more than the number thus far infected with Coronavirus, and the vast majority of those infected recovering uneventfully.

Cases are leveling off in China. There, Italy, the UK, here in the U.S., etc, most people had minor to moderate symptoms, and lots don’t even know they have it. We certainly do not need to under-estimate or minimize it, but, we shouldn’t be over-estimating nor maximizing it, and that’s what has happened, to the point people are hoarding toilet paper, tampons, sanitary pads, pudding, and more.

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If All You See…

By William Teach March 18, 2020 – 1:00 pm

…is horrible heat snow from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Moonbattery, with a post on intolerance being tolerance.

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In Deep Blue Ventura County, Climate Tax Dies A Hard Death

By William Teach March 18, 2020 – 10:30 am

Ventura County, California, is just north of the Los Angeles area, with the two biggest cities being Ventura and Oxnard, right on the Pacific Ocean. They have been yammering about Future Doom from ‘climate change’ for decades. This is a county that went for Hillary Clinton 61.6% to Trump’s 32.8%, and always votes Democrats. So, a climate tax would be something they’d want, forcing themselves to pay for their own carbon footprints, right?

Climate change tax proposal dies after poll shows limited support

A proposal to raise the sales tax rate in Ventura County to address climate change, fire protection and other concerns died Tuesday after county supervisors concluded the voters were unlikely to pass it.

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors decided against proceeding with the November ballot measure after polling showed 63% of likely voters supported a quarter percent increase in the sales tax to fund the programs. The sales tax totals 7.25% in most areas of the county.

The 63% approval number was less than the major show of support Supervisors Linda Parks and Steve Bennett were seeking for the measure that would need a two-thirds vote to pass in the election. The tax would have raised an estimated $35.8 million annually until ended by the voters.

Wow, a quarter percent increase! And could only get 63% to agree to it? Why not go big? How about a 1% sales tax increase? Why are these Warmists so afraid to spend their own money? Oh, right, because while most people agree with Doing Something in theory, in practice most do not want to spend more than $10 a month on Hotcoldwetdry stuff.

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Cult of Climastrology: Coronavirus Is A Great Opportunity To Implement ‘Climate Change’ Policy

By William Teach March 18, 2020 – 8:27 am

See, people are getting sick (not many), people are scared (a lot), so, hey, it’s time for the doomsday cult to do their thing

Blog: Humanity must unite to beat coronavirus and climate change

The Coronavirus pandemic will have a huge global impact in 2020, not only on health and well-being, but also on our societies, economies and politics.

It is worth thinking through what the impact of the pandemic may be on climate change and climate actions – in terms of emissions, global and national politics, and social change. (snip)

If handled badly, the pandemic could suck the energy out of public action and public policy as prosperity declines. Governments will need to provide stimulus to economies that suffer from the impact of the coronavirus.

One way could be to fund elements of the green transition, thereby creating jobs. Helping economies and societies that suffer to recover and start the shift to a low emissions future is a way to meet both short and long-term social needs.

Governments need to respond effectively and fast to the coronavirus. That could distract attention and divert resources away from focusing on the climate crisis in the short term. (snip)

Perhaps the pandemic will produce changes that make societies more willing to act on the climate crisis in the long run. Strengthening recognition of our interdependence – that everyone’s health is everyone else’s business – could strengthen the understanding that compassion and empathy are functional traits for humanity.

This is not some random small blog like mine: this is from the Red Cross Red Crescent’s climate center website, which seems to be hoping for Doom in order to push ‘climate change’ policy, which is a push for a massive government dominated and controlled society.

Then there’s this at Climate Home News

Governments have ‘historic opportunity’ to accelerate clean energy transition, IEA says

Political and financial leaders have “a historic opportunity” to usher in a new era for global climate action with economic stimulus packages to confront the coronavirus pandemic, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said.

In an interview with Climate Home News on Tuesday, Fatih Birol said stimulus packages to prop up economic recovery marked a critical moment for governments to “shape policies” in line with climate action.

“I am talking with several governments and international financial institutions leaders because they are all busy designing stimulus programmes for the economy – the plans they will put together will be extremely important,” he said.

“This is the reason I am telling them that we can use the current situation to step up our ambition to tackle climate change.”

Taking advantage of people being in fear to institute their Modern Socialist agenda.

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Washington Post Suddenly Discovers This Thing Called Federalism In Differing Wuhan Virus Responses

By William Teach March 18, 2020 – 8:05 am

Why, yes, this is the way it is supposed to work. Different areas require different responses. Heck, different parts of different states require different responses. What’s needed for small parts of New York, such as NYC, Long Island, Buffalo, Albany, are quite different than the rest of mildly suburban/rural NY.

Across U.S., a vast disparity in responses

Mark Estee spent his Tuesday laying off 100 cooks, waiters and dishwashers, having been forced by city decree in Reno, Nev., to close two restaurants that had been thriving just days ago.

Less than an hour down the road, in Nevada’s Carson Valley, the threat of coronavirus had inspired no such restrictions. Estee’s three other restaurants were preparing to serve dinner, a hearty mix of pasta, burgers and beer.

Such is the state of America’s patchwork response to the pandemic sweeping the globe. In some places, governors, mayors and county leaders have instituted aggressive action that is changing the fabric of life: shelter-in-place orders, business bans and school closures. In other spots, authorities have been far more lax, allowing routines to carry on more or less as normal.

The divide in responses showed some signs of narrowing Tuesday: Nevada’s governor was reported by multiple news outlets to be preparing to announce the shutdown of restaurants and bars late Tuesday evening. The governor of West Virginia did the same, and he appeared chastened as he announced that his state had become the 50th to record a coronavirus case.

I wonder what the other eight states will do?

In states that had already taken tough measures, the response only escalated: North Carolina’s Outer Banks announced it was setting up checkpoints to keep nonresidents out of the popular barrier islands. New York’s mayor said he was considering ordering the city’s nearly 9 million people to stay at home, as San Francisco did a day earlier.

But in other states, another day passed without the sort of robust action that public health officials say is needed to stem the virus’s spread.

The disparities across the country set the U.S. response apart from that of nations that have moved in a unified way to try to tamp down outbreaks. The gaps are increasingly drawing the ire of state and local officials who have acted decisively to halt the spread, but worry their efforts will be for naught if their neighbors don’t follow suit — and if Washington doesn’t act more proactively to set the tone.

This is federalism. It should work this way. The federal government can provide guidance, but, it’s much better of governments closer to actual people to look towards policy. Los Federales have limited knowledge of what’s going on here in Raleigh, nor in the more light suburban/almost rural area to the east. Even the state of North Carolina may not know as much. What is necessary for Raleigh could differ from, say, Zebulon and Wendell. Dare County, which is a big part of the Outer Banks, has stated no one but residents, despite there being zero known cases. In fact, only a handful of NC counties have any cases, and it is Wake County, where the capital city, Raleigh, is located (and an international airport) and Mecklenburg, home of Charlotte and another international airport, have a bunch of cases.

There have only been 100 deaths so far. Compare that to the 20-40 thousand the CDC estimates from the regular flu this year. Regardless, states also have different Constitutions and statutes laying out their authority, for which the federal government really does not have said authority. You’d think they would, but, no, theirs is extremely limited, and that was done on purpose. Most states make it tough for the government to crack down, also on purpose. You can figure out why. Here in NC, the Lt. Governor is questioning the restaurant bans

Lt. Gov. Dan Forest questioned the validity of Gov. Roy Cooper’s order Tuesday afternoon to shut down in-house seating at North Carolina bars and restaurants, saying the governor doesn’t have the authority to do it.

Forest said the governor didn’t get concurrence from other Council of State members before announcing his decision Tuesday morning, failing to satisfy a requirement in the section of state law that lays out his emergency powers.

“Thus, he does not have the authority to issue this part of his executive order,” Forest said in a statement posted to Twitter about 4 p.m.

It’s not that Dan doesn’t agree: he does, heard him say it on the radio. But, there are laws in place.

“It’s one thing to disagree, it’s another to create a chaotic situation in the middle of a pandemic,” Weiner said in a statement. “The governor is taking action to protect the health and safety of North Carolinians and does not need concurrence. The governor and the secretary of (the Department of Health and Human Services) have the authority to do this under state public health and emergency powers law.”

It’s dangerous applying power in this manner: where does it stop?

Anyhow, federalism.

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