A Quick Run Around the Web (4/13/2020)

"Drawing from the holster against live assailant"--Tactical Rifleman (7 min.)

This is a good video to watch to show why you need to create distance if someone rushes you with a melee weapon (e.g., a knife) and you are relying on a handgun. The video's producer suggests that he is trying to demonstrate why the 21-foot rule is a myth, but he actually confirms the 21-foot rule--he just didn't really understand the rule. The 21-foot rule is the distance that an assailant could cover in the time that it takes for the officer to draw and fire one shot. It is not the distance that you would necessary be able to stop the threat. As you see in the video, the defender was just barely able to draw and get off two quick shots when the assailant started from 21-feet, but the assailant was easily able to stab the defender--something to consider since many people can still function even after receiving mortal wounds. Anyway, good video to watch.

• "Miami Beach Police Department to be Equipped with APC9K PRO SMG’s from B&T"--The Firearm Blog. Per the article:

      The Police Department will be acquiring the APC9Ks in a specific configuration. The lower will be compatible with the SIG Sauer P320 magazines. They will be the first law enforcement agency to adopt this style of lower for the APC9K platform.

      The APC9K PRO also comes equipped with the B&T three-lug QD mount so that suppressors can be easily mounted. The submachine guns will also come equipped with Aimpoint sighting systems.

It's a cool weapon, but I don't see any reason for law enforcement (federal, state or local) to have access to any weapons or accessories (e.g., silencers) not available to the general public. If the public has to pay taxes to purchase such weapons, so should the police. If the general public can't buy an automatic weapon made after 1987, neither should police.

• The Truth About Guns, Ammo Land, and USA Carry decided to collaborate on an article describing how to build a Glock clone from an 80% polymer frame. The article is split into three parts, with the parts posted separately to the respective sites. 

• Part One--The Truth About Guns.

• Part Two--USA Carry.

• Part Three--Ammo Land.

• Related: "80% Receiver Pistol Build-Can A Caveman Do It?"--Guns Save Life.

• "How I Organize My Chest Freezers"--Modern Survival Blog. The author notes that once per year, he empties his freezers in order to inventory what he has, defrost the freezer and inspect it, replace batteries in the temperature alarm, and just generally clean things. The key for organizing that he relates is to put foods into different colored tote bags corresponding to a color code: pink for port, brown for beef, green for vegetables, etc.
• "Cash in the BOB? Yes!"--Beans, Bullets, Bandages & You. Most every article I've seen has indicated that your emergency kits should contain emergency cash since, as FerFal likes to say, "cash is king," and, besides, the processing systems for debit cards or credit cards might be down. The author recommends that you have "at least enough to pay for a full tank of gas, a decent motel for a night or two, plus meals for a couple of days, maybe a little extra for a cushion." And, in line with what I've seen elsewhere, he recommends that you stick to small denomination bills of $20 or less face value. The author discusses the problems with trying to use precious metals (although if you have any, I would definitely take it with you). And you should still take debit cards or credit cards because, as the author notes, " if you have a card you that can use for as long as those systems are running, that can extend your money supply for a bit."
• "9 Fastest Growing Fruit Trees for Your Backyard"--Urban Survival Site. Where possible, I believe you should have a goal of being able to produce at least some of the produce you need through the year. Most people focus on gardening vegetables, but don't forget fruit trees. They are, however, somewhat of a long term prep because the generally won't product any fruit for a couple years, and not a sizable amount of fruit for a bit more. I had to take down an old plum tree last year, so this year, my wife and I planted a couple of apple trees and an apricot tree. In any event, this article discusses some of the faster growing trees that may be able to produce fruit the year following their planting, and discusses special issues as to certain trees (e.g., apple trees are only good for a location that is cold in the winter, and you need to have at least two trees for cross-pollination purposes).
• "How To Disinfect Your Groceries"--Urban Survival Site. The Wuhan virus can survive on surfaces for varying amounts of time, and so you could be exposed to the virus via your groceries. The author first discusses this aspect of the virus before moving on to methods to disinfect groceries, including wiping with disinfectant wipes or spraying with a disinfectant spray, and, of course, dispose of the grocery bags immediately. Because the virus dies more quickly on paper surfaces than on plastic surfaces, the author recommends that you ask for paper rather than plastic grocery bags. I would suggest an easier way, if you have a place to do so where someone can't steal the groceries, is place the items that don't require refrigeration or a freezer out in direct sun light for an hour or two to let the UV light kill the germs, making sure that you turn the items so there is full coverage.
• "How to Dehydrate Blueberries"--SHTF Preparedness. Notwithstanding the title, a significant portion of the article is about the health and nutrition benefits of blueberries, including something I did not know, but that they can be a significant source of calcium.
• "Muzzleloader Explodes Like Grenade, Takes Off Shooter’s Fingers"--Outdoor Hub. This 2014 article describes an incident where a person suffering from a lapse of judgment decided to substitute smokeless powder for black powder.
• The last couple of weeks were anniversaries of two of most significant shootouts in the past 50 years: the Newhall incident of April 6, 1970, which left four California Highway Patrol officers dead; and the April 11, 1986, Miami shootout between several FBI agents and a couple of bankrobbers that left two of the agents dead, and 5 other wounded (3 with serious injuries). The Newhall incident was significant because it caused law enforcement to seriously reconsider training and procedures, and led to many of the changes in gunfighting tactics and equipment in the 1970s and early 1980s. The Miami shootout was significant because it led directly to the FBI's examination of the effectiveness of pistol rounds and adoption of the FBI standards that have informed bullet design up to the present day. Revolver Guy has articles of the Newhall shootout and Miami shootout. I've also written about these before, including links to videos going over the shootings in detail: Newhall shootout; and Miami shootout (here, here, and hear). A couple of these links are to my "Quick Run Around the Web" compilations, so you may need to scroll down. A couple of articles you might want to check out are "The 1986 Miami Shootout – Takeaways and Lessons for Civilians" from Guns Save Life, and "KIRK COMMENTS ON THE 1986 MIAMI FBI SHOOTOUT" from Loose Rounds. 
• Basic gun safety from Blue Collar Prepping, including the four rules. It also discusses some resources for finding an instructor for the newbie.
• "Skill Set: Every Day Carry"--Tiger McKee at Tactical Wire. He currently is carrying revolvers:

       ... I’m a big fan of the modern defensive ammo in .38 Special and .357 Magnum. They do a great job of stopping danger. Revolvers are easy to use with right or left hand. For close quarters, where most defensive situations occur, revolvers have fewer malfunctions than semi autos. The revolver can be jammed against the threat’s body and still fire. Plus, wheel guns are not recoil operated so “limp-wristing” isn’t a problem.

      I normally carry two. One on the strong side hip, and another either on the support side or in an ankle holster. Extra ammo, which will fit both revolvers is usually carried in a 3x2 pouch on the front of my support side where I can get to it with either hand.

He also recommends carrying a flashlight (he carries a  Streamlight Pro Tac 2L or Streamlight Stylus), pocket knife (he carries a Spyderco Delica), and a cell phone. He keeps a carbine in his truck.

• "Fresno Police Swap 40 S&W for New 9mm Duty Weapons"--The Firearm Blog.  Switching from the Beretta PX4 in .40 S&W the the Glock 45 in 9mm. I'm wondering if I should pick up a .40 S&W just because there are so many on the market at good prices, particularly police trade ins. 
• You can't stop the signal: Plastikov 3D-Printable AKM Receiver from DefCad. 
• "WINNING: ATF Says U.S. Gun Retailers Can Offer Curbside Service During Quarantine"--PJ Media. 
• For my female readers: "Concealed Carry Leggings Comparison and Review" by McKenzie Hanson at Target Barn. She has evaluated three different brands of leggings with a holster in the waistband: (1) Undertech Undercover – Concealed Carry Zip Pocket Leggings; (2) Dene Adams – Classic Concealed Carry Tactical Leggings; and (3) Alexo Athletica – The Signature Pant. She has rated them on trigger protection, retention, draw and reholster, and comfort and concealment. The Dene Adams product was the best overall, but the Undertech product did pretty good, and scored best for comfort and concealment.
• "Ammo shortage? Sneak past with a Lee Classic Loader reloading kit"--Guns Save Life. The Lee Classic Loader kits are true table top kits for hand loading without needing a press or powder measure. The author writes:

      You will need some bullets, some powder, a mallet and some primers. That’s it. Instructions tell you how to use the pieces in the kit, and a two sided card shows you the lengths of your cartridge, what type of primer to use (large or small) and lists a bunch of powders you can use for each listed bullet weight. It is all shown and described to you at the Teach Yourself Simple level.

      My favorite part, is a yellow plastic dipper included in the kit. You make one scoop with the dipper of any of the powders listed on the card, and pour it in to your prepared case. That is so damn easy! This may horrify serious competition reloaders who often weigh each individual powder charge, but this one scoop thing works. It has been working for 60 years on the market, and in fact, ammo loaded via Lee Classic Loaders held world records for accuracy for seven years.

To be honest, I thought Lee had ceased production of these kits long ago, but going to Lee's website, I see that they still produce them for popular handgun and rifle calibers. I thought that Lee used to make them for shotgun shells as well, but I couldn't find anything on the website indicating that they still did so. At an MSRP of $41 for each kit (which is less that a set of reloading dies would be for a press), this would certainly make reloading economical for the person only wanting to reload in small volumes for a handful of calibers. 

        I've been doing a lot of reloading over the last several months. I always have too much spent brass and, last fall, got the feeling that I needed to be doing more to reload that brass and, overall, just start building up my small stockpile of ammunition. With that in mind, I had ordered bullets in bulk from RMR to load 5.56 and 9 mm, bought bullets for other calibers from local sources, stocked up on primers, and ordered ammunition for the shotgun and a rifle that I don't normally load for. I also bought more brass from Starline for .300 Blackout. Fortunately this was before the coronavirus panic set in. RMR has their own 124 Gr. jacketed hollow point bullets that they make for the 9 mm which appear that they would be useful for self-defense if pressed into that role. 

         My estimates of what I needed in the way of primers wasn't quite enough, and I've been back out over the last couple of weeks getting some extra powder and more primers, which has not been easy since the run on ammunition has, to a lesser extent, led to a run on reloading supplies. 

"True History of Assault Rifles"--Liberty Doll (9 min.)

A brief history of the development of select fire weapons for standard infantry use, and how politicians have lied and exaggerated to try to create panic and fear about semi-automatic weapons.

• "Endgame: At Some Point? This has to stop."--Wilder, Wealthy and Wise. 

       The United States labor force in February 2020 was 164.6 million.  In the last three weeks, respectively, 3.0 million, 6.9 million, and 6.6 million people filed for unemployment, bringing that total to 16.5 million newly unemployed.  For those of you without a calculator or fingers, that’s just over 10%.  And as bad as the rest of the news is, I had to search for it, rather than it being front page.

     Think of it, the second worst unemployment numbers in the history of the United States not being above-the-fold page one news.  Instead?  “Could have been worse.  At least the sky isn’t dripping blood and lava.”

     Employment in the United States has been literally decimated in the last two weeks.  ...

• Related: "One Flu Over the Cuckoos' Guess & Xi Said, so He Said"--The Diplomad. He writes:

       All over the Western world, we have shut-down the economy, and damaged and perhaps destroyed irrevocably many of our fundamental rights and freedoms, all because of ChiCom lies and incompetence, and well-financed Western "modelers" and "experts" passing off guesses and political agendas as some sort of "science." Our elected officials have ceded their powers to these so-called "scientists" and technocrats. We, the people, suffer for it.

      As I have said many times before, "science" and "scientists" ain't the same thing. A fast and easy definition of "science" is, "a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe." Is that what we have in dealing with the ChiCom virus? Hardly. We have in many respects the same sort of pseudo-science that exists in the Global Climate Change scam: a bunch of models that predict nothing, based, at best, on erroneous assumptions, i.e., guesses, and data changed to suit the winds not of nature but of politics and funding. As with the Global Climate Change nonsense, the "theories" or "models" in the ChiCom virus pandemic are not falsifiable, in other words, they do not make "testable explanations and predictions."

• You probably have noticed that the Left is lately doing what they do best: playing the hypocrite. Of course with 20/20 hindsight, they are blaming President Trump for not doing enough early on to slow the spread of the Wuhan virus, although they were all calling Trump a racist and xenophobe when he shut down air travel from China. The most egregious example I've seen is Dr. Anthony Fauci's assertion this on Sunday that he advised a national shut-down back in February, but that there was push back from the Administration and his recommendation was not followed, and has been calling for travel bans to be extended longer than the President is currently considering. This is completely inconsistent with his earlier statements. For instance, back on March 15, 2020, President Trump was flouting the idea of a domestic travel ban. The New York Post reported, however, that "Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, said he doesn’t see the need 'in the immediate future' for the US to implement travel restrictions domestically because of the outbreak." Earlier, on February 29, 2020, Fauci stated in an interview on the Today program that there was no need for Americans to change what they were doing on a day-to-day basis (video here). Going back earlier to February 26, 2020, CNBC reported that Dr. Fauci was telling the public that travel restrictions were "irrelevant" to controlling the pandemic:

     Stringent travel restrictions imposed on inbound flights from China to contain the coronavirus outbreak become “irrelevant” in a potential pandemic because “you can’t keep out the entire world,” a top U.S. health official said a day after the Trump administration braced the public for its eventual spread here.

     “When it was focused only on China, we had a period of time, temporary, that we could do a travel restriction that prevented cases from coming into the U.S.,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” “When you have multiple countries involved, it’s very difficult to do; in fact, it’s almost impossible.”

Jumping back farther to February 11, 2020, although Dr. Fauci seemed on board with the travel restrictions on people coming from China, Ron Klain, who directed the Obama Adminstration's response to ebola in 2014-2015, was critical of the restrictions. From a MedPage article from that date quoting Klain:

"When you look at the travel restrictions put in place, it's really hard to see what the scientific basis is. There's not a lot of science behind the color of your passport [allowing] entry into the United States," he said, referring to the decision to restrict the entry of certain Chinese nationals as part of the U.S. public health emergency.

Putative Democratic presidential nominee Biden was also critical of Trump's travel bans. As one article notes, "[o]n the same day the travel ban was announced by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar two months ago, Biden told a crowd at a campaign rally in Iowa, 'This is no time for Donald Trump's record of hysteria and xenophobia, hysterical xenophobia, and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science'." Biden also Tweeted on February 1: "We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency." 

       This article--"After attacking Trump's coronavirus-related China travel ban as xenophobic, Dems and media have changed tune"--goes into more details on the Left's hypocrisy. Also:

• "No, the United States Does Not Lead the World in Coronavirus Cases or Deaths"--PJ Media. First, the author notes, the Chinese are lying about severe the infection was in China. Second, the appropriate way to compare statistics concerning infections and deaths are on a per-capita basis, which shows that the United States is doing much better than other Western nations.
• More news for those whose prepping plans include bugging out:

• "Villagers Turn Away Relatives as Virus Scare Grips Rural India"--Bloomberg. From the article:

       In the villages of India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, even some family members returning home from the cities aren’t allowed in.

      State officials have told village councils to keep returning laborers from entering the town or meeting people due to fears they may be infected with the coronavirus. Instead, they’re forced to stay in schools or farms outside the village, where local authorities and doctors make regular visits and police make sure lockdown orders are followed.

• "In Mexico, beach towns block themselves off because of virus"--AP.  From the article:

       In Mexico, beach towns have begun blocking off roads — in some cases, constructing barricades of rubble across roadways — to seal themselves off from the outside world in a bid to stop the new coronavirus from entering.

       The Gulf of California beach town of Puerto Peñasco announced Friday that two of three highways leading into the town would be closed, and anyone entering would be subject to an enforced 12-day quarantine. The only people who can enter are residents of the seaside town also known as Rocky Point.

     “Nobody who is not a resident of Peñasco will be allowed to enter; relatives, friends, tourists and people from outside will be prohibited from entering, in order to avoid possible contagion,” said Puerto Peñasco Mayor Kiko Munro.

      Oscar Castro, the town’s health director, acknowledged that residents cannot, by law, be banned from leaving, or returning; but if they decide to return, they’ll be quarantined.

• The suicide of expertise: "Herd Immunity vs. Herd Mentality"--Roger Kimball at American Greatness. Discussing the herd mentality and fear driven by our so-called experts. An excerpt:

         One thing you would never know from the blaring static that surrounds this epidemic is the thought-provoking observation that more people over 100 have died of the coronavirus than people under 30, more over 90 than under 50. Once upon a time, in a country far, far away, pneumonia was said to be the old person’s friend. We’re beyond all such wisdom now.

        Anyway, there have been a lot of numbers flooding in. London’s Imperial College sent a thrill down the spine of every fan of The Andromeda Strain when it suggested that there might be 2.2 million deaths in the United States this year from the virus. And that was with “full mitigation.”

       Another model maker in Oxford took issue with that number, and for a while we were contemplating “100,000 to 240,000” fatalities. Then we had the so-called “Murray model,” named after Dr. Christopher Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle. According to his model, this new plague was poised to sweep the country like the grim reaper. He focused less on the final death tally than a sort of medical Cloward–Piven strategy in which the entire healthcare system would be overwhelmed and we’d see patients stacked like cordwood in hospital corridors and lean-to clinics.

      But that hasn’t happened. Even in New York City, where hospitals have had to scramble to keep up with the cataract of patients, there is no crisis. Told that there would be, the president had Manhattan’s Javits Center converted into a 1,000-bed hospital and brought the Navy medical ship Comfort with its 500 beds to dock in Manhattan. As I write, Comfort has a total of 60-odd cases, while the Javits Center’s impromptu hospital has only 225 patients. Both are “mostly empty.” How long will it be before both follow the lead of the Army field hospital in Seattle? It was hastily erected to deal with the predicted surge in COVID-19 patients. But the surge never came. Over the course of nine days, it never saw a patient. Now it is leaving.

       Elsewhere at American Greatness, Julie Kelly provides a useful timeline of the evolution of the chief COVID models and the advice dispensed by Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx. They, along with Surgeon General Jerome Adams, have been the shiny expert faces of the president’s coronavirus task force. As Kelly notes, “Fauci, Birx, and Adams have sent too many mixed messages from the start. While at first diminishing the threat of COVID-19, they now are sowing fear and panic across the country.”

       Indeed. And the fruits of that fear and panic, fed by a series of speculative models whose predictions have had consistently to be adjusted downwards, “led to the swiftest and most destructive economic decline in U.S. history with no relief in sight.”

• Related: "The CDC was Fighting Racism and Obesity Instead of Stopping Epidemics"--Front Page Magazine. 

• Related: "The Monumental Failure of the CDC"--American Institute for Economic Research. 

• Related: "Not listening to experts saved lives"--Don Surber. If Trump had listened to Dr. Anthony Fauci back in January, we would not have had the Chinese travel ban in place, and would be in a much worse place.

• Related: "The Best Decision For A Doctor Might Not Be Yours"--William M. Briggs. He explains:

       Why do doctors like Emanuel and Fauci sound as clueless as they do? Because doctors don’t think like ordinary people: their goals are largely different. Here’s a brief explanation why.

       Most medical tests are imperfect. (Some tests are great. Doctors usually nail it when they say “That guy’s dead.”) The expected error means you can’t trust at face value the results of the tests. Because a test says you have a disease doesn’t mean you have it with certainty, and vice versa. You can formalize this, which we did for coronavirus. The always surprising result is that for most diseases, coronavirus included, you still do not have a large chance of having the disease even when you test positive.

      Still, just because the chance of having a disease isn’t high, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take some action regarding it. And vice versa: just because the test says you don’t have it don’t necessarily mean you wouldn’t act.

      How to act depends on how you view the costs and losses associated with the possible outcomes.

      Tests usually come in batteries, from simple error-prone first tests to complex, expensive, and accurate secondary tests. Suppose a first cheap test comes back positive. You might opt to go in for a more expensive test “to be sure”. Or you might notice that even thought the cheap test gives a positive, you still only have a small chance of actually having the disease. Anyway, you’d rather not take your chances in a hospital for the second test, which are full of sick people. And even if you do have the disease, you’re not too worried about overcoming it. You blow the second test off.

       On the other hand, the cheap test might come back negative, implying you’re disease free. Most would celebrate and get on with things. But a few are so nervous about the possible consequences of a dread disease, that they still go for more tests.

      Whatever the case is, you make your decision by weighing the probabilities and the costs and loses relevant to you. All this can be formalized, and your decisions made optimal—for you. I’ve done so in a series of papers (gory details here).

      Doctors are different the ordinary people. They do not have the same cost-loss values you do. The decisions they make—decisions optimal to them—are therefore almost always different than decisions optimal for you.

      You might like most people be satisfied with a negative test on a cheap metric, say a drive-in nose swab. The disease wasn’t too likely in the first place (according to background rates). And even if you get it, you likely won’t suffer much. Odds of dying from it, given your (we assume) good physical condition are tiny. A negative on a cheap test is good enough.

       But a doctor might order more tests. He’d do so for all kind of reasons: he’s not paying for them, ordering second tests are mandatory protocol, he suffers no angst waiting for the tests to come in, finding something wrong with people is his job, and not finding something wrong when it really is scares the Hell out of him. He suffers professionally, his insurance rates rise. Doctors are much more concerned with quantity of life over quality of living.

      And so on. You have the idea.

• Can't stump the Trump:

• "Neurologist describes his own ‘horrifying battle’ with Coronavirus — until he began taking HCQ…"--Citizen Free Press. Excerpt:

      The next three nights I did not sleep more than 30 seconds. Any attempt at sleep would result in overwhelming rigor. This was likely due to “cytokine storm” (Reference #3). I was also beginning to realize that my primitive respiratory center was starting to fail me. If I did not consciously focus on breathing then I would stop and die.

* * *

       Four days later, I was ready to give up entirely. I voluntarily stopped breathing and lost consciousness. I was ready to embrace death with open arms. The nurse who was monitoring my vitals at the desk rushed in and woke me up and connected me to oxygen. But death will not come that easily.

      That evening I started steroids, hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin and slept 1 hour and the next morning woke up and 99% of my Neurologic symptoms had resolved. Two days later my sense of smell and taste returned.

• "Coronavirus Update: 102-Year-Old Woman Defies Odds To Beat COVID-19, Doctor Calls Recovery ‘Miraculous'"--CBS New York (via MSN). Down in the middle of the article: "'Her course in the beginning, it was a little bit rough. For a while there, she required some oxygen, then we started her on the combination of the hydroxychloroquine and the azithromycin,' Mirza said."

• "Professor Didier Raoult Releases the Results of a New Hydroxychloroquine Treatment Study on 1061 Patients"--Covexit.com. The study showed that "[a] good clinical outcome and virological cure was obtained in 973 patients within 10 days (91.7%)."

• "McConnell Rejects Dem Attempt to Jam Pet Projects into Coronavirus Small Business Relief Bill"--PJ Media. Breitbart described earlier what the Left wanted, which included "Abortion Funding, Surveillance, Mail-in Voting: Progressives Unveil Wish List for Next Coronavirus Stimulus Bill." But that is not all, no, that is not all: A Leftist academic, Sophie Lewis writes that "The coronavirus crisis shows it's time to abolish the family." Her argument is that, she alleges, "Queer and feminized people" are not safe in the nuclear family environment. Front Page Magazine has more about the article and Ms. Lewis. But you know what was deadly? Not shutting down Winter Party Festival in Miami Beach sponsored by the National LGBTQ Task Force. 38 that attended are sick with the CCP virus, while 2 more have died. And who knows how many they infected after they returned home.

• Related: "The Green New Nose Under the Tent"--Sarah Hoyt at PJ Media. She writes:

       The draconian measures put in place [are] completely out of proportion to the threat they purport to combat. Please, please, please, note that the general death rate fell before any “social distancing” measures were put in place and the Imperial College model was revised after three days of lockdown, well before it could have had any impact on infection and lethality rates, both of which are fudged anyway. We neither have enough tests to test the entire population nor are the death certificates that list COVID-19 as the cause entirely truthful.

      Some of these draconian measures also have nothing to do with combating the threat. All of them have to do with totalitarian fever dreams and with the illusion that humans are killing the Earth and must be stopped.

       Locking everyone in their houses for months on end may destroy as many lives as it saves. Even without taking into account the economic devastation that will result, humans are social apes, and people cope very, very badly with being put under house arrest with no end in sight.

       That’s not taking into account the fact that hospitals have been emptied, left deserted, and are now closing. Because hospitals and most human enterprises are not things you can turn on and off like the lights. They require maintenance and they require staffing, which requires training. Equipment needs to be maintained. Facilities have to be cleaned.

       The longer the shutdown goes on, the higher the likelihood that many hospitals won’t come back. That in turn will reduce the availability of health care, and cause increased deaths.

       But wait, there’s more! These hospitals are all economic endeavors. The longer they stay closed, the more broke they will be, thereby increasing the likelihood of a government takeover of health systems.

      Which, of course, will also increase the death rate.

       At some point you have to wonder: is the increased death rate the goal? ...

Read the whole thing.

• Xenophilia: "Chicago Mayor Extends Coronavirus Benefits to Illegal Aliens"--The Western Journal. From the article:

       Lightfoot’s executive order Tuesday includes access to new programs specifically designed for COVID-19 economic relief such as housing assistance, online education resources for public school students, and small business loans, regardless of whether the person is in the country legally.

       “This order is more than just an official decree, it is a statement of our values as a city and as Americans,” Lightfoot said in a statement. “Since COVID-19 first reached our city’s doorstep, we have been working around the clock to ensure all our residents are secure and supported, including our immigrant and refugee communities, who are among the most vulnerable to the impact of this pandemic.”

• A call to stop immigration to deal with the huge unemployment numbers: "Mass Unemployment in U.S. Once Eased by Immigration Pause"--Breitbart. The critical time period he discusses was during the Great Depression.
• "China is heading for 'worst financial crash in 60 years' with its economy tanking 10% due to coronavirus"--The Daily Mail. In other words, instead of seeing its GDP expand by 6 to 7% as normal, it will see its GDP shrink by 10%. That may be enough to set off protests against the government.

• Related: Jennifer Zeng Tweeted on April 11: "Over 1000 Africans in Guangzhou tested positive with #CCPVirus #COVID2019 at Kuangquan Street, Yuexiu District in Sanyuanli, #Guangzhou, #China." She then quoted from an announcement from a chemical company in Guangzhou: "...tested positive are being put under quarantine and that many have already escaped, and anyone who spots an African person should report to the authorities." 

• Related: "Africans in Guangzhou are on edge, after many are left homeless amid rising xenophobia as China fights a second wave of coronavirus"--CNN. From the article:

       A report on April 4 alleged that a Nigerian national with Covid-19 had attacked a Chinese nurse who tried to stop him leaving an isolation ward at a Guangzhou hospital​. The report was shared widely on social media, and local Africans CNN spoke to say a racist backlash against the African community ​followed.

       Then on April 7, Guangzhou authorities said five Nigerians had tested positive for Covid-19.

       Fearing a cluster among the African community, Guangzhou authorities upgraded the risk level of Yuexiu and Baiyun, the areas home to the city's two African enclaves, from low to medium, state-owned Global Times reported.

• Related: "Wuhan Rent Protest Shows Unrest Brewing in China After Lockdown"--Bloomberg. 

• "Horowitz: It’s time to end the great American COVID-19 police state"--Conservative Review. He writes:

        Remember, if we don’t rise up now, these tyrants are just getting started. If you are wondering what is in store for us in the coming days, just look at what some other countries that were less free than we to begin with have been doing. Panama now requires men and women to go out for essential services only on alternating, days and nobody is allowed out on Sunday. Some eastern European countries are clamping down on freedom of speech.

       If you think this won’t happen in America, just step back and take stock of how much power has been seized in just three weeks.

      It’s one thing to declare a lockdown for 24 hours based on concern of an existential threat. But we are into the fourth week of this, and all the models that guided leaders were proven wrong from day one. Are we going to remain like frogs in boiling water?

• Related: "New Whitmer order bans 'travel between residences,' with a few exceptions"--Detroit Free Press. The Michigan governor has gone mad with power. 

• Related: "Fauci: Coronavirus immunity cards for Americans are ‘being discussed’"--Politico. Show me your papers. 

• Related: "Church members get $500 tickets for sitting in their vehicles with windows closed during radio service in church parking lot"--The Blaze. 

• Related: "Walmart, Costco, Target are banned from selling 'non-essential' items such as clothing and electronics in parts of the US"--Markets Insider. "Some local governments have issued executive orders that require chains to either empty areas of the store with non-essential items such as clothing and electronics or rope off these items from customers." So what is your essential worker supposed to do when he rips his pants? Or does this mean that clothing is now optional?

• "More good news about the Chinese virus, and the Easter Funny"--Watts Up About That. "The good news keeps coming. In the United States and Canada, the weekly-averaged daily compound growth rates of confirmed cases of infection are now about 8%, down from the benchmark values of 23% and 17% respectively that obtained in the three weeks to March 14, when Mr Trump declared the pandemic to be a national emergency."

• Related: "German study shows coronavirus mortality rate of 0.37%, five times lower than widely reported numbers"--The Blaze. 

• "Many insurers won't cover small businesses and their losses caused by coronavirus pandemic"--KTVB. The local (to me) article is sympathetic to business owners seeking to recover lost income under their property insurance policy and complaining that the insurance companies are not providing coverage. Of course, what the article doesn't explain is that the policies in question are not "lost income" or "business interruption" policies, but property/fire insurance policies to cover instances when your business burns down or similar, and happen to also provide compensation for lost business income while your burned down structure is being rebuilt or the time necessary to relocate. I haven't seen any buildings destroyed by the coronavirus.
• The Ada County Sheriff is tired of people narking on neighbors or businesses that they think are violating the state's isolation order:

      "We'd like to gently ask people to weigh whether any behavior they see is actually creating an immediate or significant danger," the Ada County Sheriff's Office wrote in a release. "If not, then it probably isn't worth worrying about too much about or deserving of a call to law enforcement."

      The complaints have included reports of groups of teens playing soccer or basketball outside, businesses like bars or gyms having people inside; house parties; people who do not appear to be six feet apart; and businesses that callers do not believe should be considered essential.

     Most of the businesses that people complained about were closed when deputies went by. Some of them had people inside performing maintenance or cleaning, but were not open to the public.

The Idaho isolation order specifically allows people to engage in outdoor activities, including making use of public parks, and the Governor specifically had encouraged outdoor activities in the press conference announcing the order.

• "Wisconsin is discovering problems with absentee ballots, including hundreds that were never delivered"--Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "'I learned today that the (Wisconsin Elections Commission) received a call from a postal service worker informing them 3 large tubs of absentee ballots from Oshkosh and Appleton, were just located,' Republican Sen. Dan Feyen of Fond du Lac said on Twitter."
• "Billions of Locusts Invade in New, Larger Wave as Second Swarm Threatens Africa: 'Extremely Alarming'"--CBN News. 

       Parts of the continent already experienced the biggest locust outbreak in 70 years, just weeks before the coronavirus hit. Now a second wave is on its way, with some locust swarms 20 times the size of the first.

      Billions of young desert locusts are coming, threatening plants and crops. This second invasion includes more developed locusts known as “young adults,” which are especially voracious eaters.  

• "While you were focused on the pandemic, it was revealed the FBI knew the Steele Dossier contained Russian disinformation"--Legal Insurrection. Short take:

       In one of the least surprising, yet most important, developments in the years-long Russia-collusion hoax, a recently declassified portion of the DOJ Inspector General’s Report on the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign has revealed that Trump was the target of a Russian disinformation campaign. And the FBI knew it.

      So rather than colluding with the Russians, which the Mueller Report conclusively rejected, Trump was the victim of a Russian disinformation campaign exploited and promoted by Democrats, the media, and the FBI.

• Did Eric Holder just suggest that the President be assassinated? "The enormity of what Obama’s people did to Trump makes this conspiracy theory . . . reasonable?"--Bookworm Room. In a March 12, 2020, tweet, Eric Holder stated: "Is there the leadership, the capacity, the creativity within this Administration to actually handle both the virus and financial issues we-as a nation-must now confront? Is there the will in the Senate to act in a timely manner and help the people of this country?  I fear not." The tweet was accompanied by a photograph of John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy. The focus is on Holder's use of the phrase "as a nation" and its phonetic similarity to "assassination" in juxtaposition to a photograph of two public figures that were both assassinated.
• "Doubts about basic assumption for the universe"--University of Bonn. Basically, studying the data from observations of galaxy clusters, the researchers discovered that expansion of the universe is not uniform. Basically, the amount of light (in this case, x-rays) is believed to vary consistently with distance. However, they found some clusters that were dimmer than they should have been, and others that were brighter, suggesting that they were either farther or closer, respectively, than they should be. The article continues:

      “There are only three possible explanations for this,” states Migkas, who is doing his doctorate in the research group of Prof. Dr. Thomas Reiprich at the Argelander Institute. “Firstly, it is possible that the X-ray radiation, whose intensity we have measured, is attenuated on its way from the galaxy clusters to Earth. This could be due to as yet undiscovered gas or dust clouds inside or outside the Milky Way. In preliminary tests, however, we find this discrepancy between measurement and theory not only in X-rays but also at other wavelengths. It is extremely unlikely that any kind of matter nebula absorbs completely different types of radiation in the same way. But we won't know for sure for several months.”

      A second possibility are so-called “bulk flows”. These are groups of neighboring galaxy clusters that move continuously in a certain direction – for example, due to some structures in space that generate strong gravitational forces. These would therefore attract the galaxy clusters to themselves and thus change their speed (and thus also their derived distance). “This effect would also mean that many calculations on the properties of the local universe would be imprecise and would have to be repeated,” explains Migkas.

      The third possibility is the most serious: What if the universe is not isotropic at all? What if – metaphorically speaking – the yeast in the galactic raisin roll is so unevenly distributed that it quickly bulges in some places while it hardly grows at all in other regions? Such an anisotropy could, for example, result from the properties of the mysterious “dark energy”, which acts as an additional driving force for the expansion of the universe. However, a theory is still missing that would make the behavior of the Dark Energy consistent with the observations. “If we succeed in developing such a theory, it could greatly accelerate the search for the exact nature of this form of energy,” Migkas is certain.

      The current study is based on data from more than 800 galaxy clusters, 300 of which were analysed by the authors. The remaining clusters come from previously published studies.

• A reminder that we live in the 21st Century: "Trump Makes It Official: The U.S. Will Mine the Moon"--Popular Mechanics. 

       President Donald Trump has signed an executive order allowing for the mining of resources from the moon and asteroids, continuing a decades-long U.S. interest in doing so. With the imminent return of U.S. astronauts to the moon scheduled for 2024, this issue is more real than it has been for several decades.

      But the U.S. isn’t alone. The European Space Agency (ESA) also wants to mine the moon, and the world’s spacefaring nations have all notably stayed out of a 1979 treaty that says nations will refrain from mining in space. The 1967 (deep breath) Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies outlines the way the world agrees to behave in space. We must be peaceful, consider ourselves ambassadors for Earth, and resist colonizing or claiming areas of space.