In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

On Tuesday, Texas Gov Abbott and Mississippi Gov Reeves eliminated all state-mandated COVID restrictions within their states. President Biden promptly called them Neanderthals . His earlier message was: "When do I think things will get back to normal? I've been cautioned not to give an answer to that because we don't know for sure. But my hope is, by this time next year, we're going to be back to normal," Biden told reporters at the White House. Dr Fauci disagreed. “I don’t think we’re going to be completely normal a year from now,” Fauci said. “But I hope we’re well on the way to normality so that we can ultimately get the world protected at the same time as we get economic recovery so that all the unintended consequences of shutting down begin to normalize, including other health issues that have arisen because of the shutdown.” Both Fauci and Biden are sorta-kinda in any case, leaving themselves plenty of room to move the ...

The chart above gives the daily average of new COVID cases reported to the US CDC as of this week. The level now is basically what it was last summer, before new restrictions were imposed by various state authorities in the fall. From Monday's LA County health department press release: The County is steadily making progress in reducing the average number of daily new cases of COVID-19. The seven-day average number of cases by episode date has now decreased to less than 1,000 per day. There are 1,578 people with COVID-19 currently hospitalized and 31% of these people are in the ICU. Testing results are available for nearly 5,840,000 individuals with 19% of people testing positive. Today's daily test positivity rate is 2.5%. Public Health has not yet seen any increases due to gatherings that may have happened during the Super Bowl and Presidents Day weekend. This trend hasn't had much media coverage. In particular, as the LA County press release notes, the p...

In today's headliness: NY AG to launch Cuomo ‘harass’ probe, admin lawyers up on nursing home scandal Lower Down: Covid-19: The U.S. Is Edging Toward Normal, Alarming Some Officials Do you see a connection? I do. Let's back up. As Limbaugh used to say, politics is Hollywood for ugly people. Translation: an ugly guy can get a lot more action in elective office than out of it. There's nothing unique about Andrew Cuomo. In fact, the lizard people who run the planet like it that way, just as the ancient emperors in Rome and Persia did: if a procurator was corrupt, they'd tolerate it until it was convenient to remove him for corruption. Next, I don't think the current US political leadership is runnng anything directly. Speaker Pelosi and President Biden are both generally assumed to be working under seriously impaired judgment. They're surrounded and cosseted by handlers, with a few hovering in the background who are clued in to what's happening, much...

A New York state judge issued a preliminary injunction Saturday night preventing the state from enforcing its COVID curfew against a group of bars and restaurants who are suing Gov Cuomo, demanding that he allow them access to the scientific data supporting such a curfew. When the state dithered, the judge issued the injunction. But the details are less important than what we're beginning to see, that what I've predicted will be a long legal and political battle to get back to ordinary life is gaining traction, and it appears that it's having more success in rhw US than in many other parts of the world. That the New York skirmish should be over a curfew is, I think, significant. Commentators have been asking snce they became popular late last year why curfews do anything to prevent the spread of COVID, and they have a point. Actually, I don't think COVID is the reason for these curfews. I've been saying all along that curfews amount to a de facto ban on fo...

Yesterday I noted that I'd been searching -- at least as of late last year -- for any news about a promised independent investigation of the violent takedown last May of a teenager dressed as a Star Wars trooper by Lethbridge, AB police. A Canadian visitor sent me a link to this story in the Calgary Herald dated December 21, 2020, seven months after the episode: No criminal charges will be laid following an external investigation into the Lethbridge Police Service takedown of a teenager dressed as a Star Wars character in May. Well, criminal charges are beside the point and would hve been unlikely. In the US, there's a charge for assault under color of authority, which is usually applied to race-related incidents. The Lethbridge cops, and their supervisors, were just really dumb, not criminal, and the question is whether they should be dealing with any issues requiring good judgment, which is what police jobs often require. So the external investigation skipped over the r...

David Freiheit of the Viva Frei YouTube channel is generally uneven, and even when he makes good points, you have to suffer through his vamping and mugging to get them. In the video above, the constant personal references or the whiny kids in the back seat are at least at a low enough level that you can sit through them to get the meat. One thing that's puzzled me in general about the current phase of the COVID panic is that the late 2020 surge has largely abated worldwide, while the vaccine is being widely distributed everywhere. The chart for Canada at right reflects this. Even in California, Gov Newsom has relaxed the extra measures he imposed in December, and the Los Angeles County health department has gone even farther, allowing schools to begin reopening and allowing outdoor sports. The attitude in the US, justified or not, is optimistic, especially given the vaccine, and in fact I think it will be very difficult for the authorities not to continue relaxing COVID measur...

The piece at the UK Open Democracy website that I linked yesterday suggests that somewhere, there's a cohesive expression of an ultra-leftist agenda that includes abolition of the traditional family, abolition of private property, transsexualism, radical environmentalism, and probably much more, into which the current blue program of extended lockdowns dovetails. I've got to figure that somewhare there's a book, at least, that lays this out. Some of it clearly comes from late 19th century free-love leftism that was popular in the UK for a few decades, while other parts are just recycled, romanticized Marxism-Stalinism. But radical environmentalism and outright transsexualim (as opposed to ordinary tolerance of homosexuality) are new. If anyone knows whether there's an influential published playbook that outlines the whole current program, I'd like to know about it. What's plain, though, is that the current US Congress, with very slim majorities, is intent ...