Consequences

(cross-posted last week to Infidel Bloggers Alliance, where you might find some comments of there of interest)

This matter should concern all of us.  From The Federalist, dated April 23, 2020....

Instead Of ‘Flattening The Curve,’ We Flattened Hospitals, Doctors, And The U.S. Health Care System: Across the country, hospitals shut down 'non-essential' procedures in preparation for a surge of coronavirus patients that never appeared

When the lockdowns began last month, we were told that if we didn’t stay home our hospitals would be overwhelmed with coronavirus patients, intensive care wards would be overrun, there wouldn’t be enough ventilators, and some people would probably die in their homes for lack of care. To maintain capacity in the health-care system, we all had to go on lockdown—not just the big cities, but everywhere.

So we stayed home, businesses closed, and tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs. But with the exception of New York City, the overwhelming surge of coronavirus patients never really appeared—at least not in the predicted numbers, which have been off by hundreds of thousands.

[...]

[H]ospitals and health care systems nationwide have had to furlough or lay off thousands of employees. Why? Because the vast majority of most hospitals’ revenue comes from elective or “non-essential” procedures. We’re not talking about LASIK eye surgery but things like coronary angioplasty and stents, procedures that are necessary but maybe not emergencies—yet. If hospitals can’t perform these procedures because governors have banned them, then they can’t pay their bills, or their employees....

Read the rest HERE.

Additional reading...

1. Young and middle-aged people, barely sick with covid-19, are dying from strokes: Doctors sound alarm about patients in their 30s and 40s left debilitated or dead. Some didn’t even know they were infected

2. Coronavirus: China Continues to Flood the World with Defective Medical Supplies.

Get to Work, America

Silverfiddle Rant!

Colorado's lockdown is lifted today, although there are still limits. Montana, Minnesota and Tennessee are also relaxing restrictions.

All eyes will be on the "dangerous" and "irresponsible" states of Georgia and Florida:  Trump-haters are rubbing their little hands together and preparing their schadenfreude snark as they eagerly await rising infections and death counts.

Hysterical Democrats are calling those refusing to cower in their homes ignorant MAGA hicks and selfish a-holes for wanting to get out in the sunshine and get back to work, although there is no scientific connection between people basking in the sunshine and breathing fresh air in Florida and people dying in New York City. Indeed, there is scant statistical correlation between lockdowns and Conronavirus cases.

Politicians like the mayor of El Lay state it more politely:

"We can't let one weekend reverse a month of work that you have invested in."

That's a nice piece of Sunk Cost Fallacy that resonates with the human mind (as many fallacies do), and it only makes sense if we're holding out until the cavalry can come riding over the hill to save us, but that's not going to happen. A vaccine is problematic due to the nature of the virus, and in the best of circumstances will take years. There is no imminent fix for this. We are not eradicating Covid-19.  It will remain on this earth until it finds no more hosts to attach itself to.

My answer to the good mayor is...

We’re not saving lives—we’re deferring deaths  

The experts tell us we have "flattened the curve," but given the poor quality of data and the multiple revisions downward of morbidity and mortality rates, how do they know?  Sure, a little logic and reason tells us the number of infections and deaths would most likely have been higher if we had done nothing, but which actions worked to slow the rate of infection? Cowering in our homes?  Washing our hands? Quarantining the sick and the vulnerable? Masks?  Keeping our distance?

Edward Ziegler thinks we'll be fully reopened soon, and not because of successes in contact tracing* (which is an "impossible" pipe dream that could metastasize into one more massive federal jobs program), testing, and vaccines.  He says delays and failures in these touted saviors will give us no choice but to Keep Calm and  Press On.

What say you?

* - When you're a Silicon Valley robber baron, every solution looks like an app.

LINKS:

Good Tracking Resource: KFF State Data and Trends
Experts worry quarantine fatigue is starting
Andrew Sullivan:  We can't go on like this much longer
Many Failures combined to unleash death toll on Italy

Musical Interlude

Enjoy "Stayin' Inside" - Coronavirus Bee Gees Parody:

Takes me back to my disco dancing days. Yes, I got up and danced to this!

What Say You? (a Silverfiddle Rant)

Picture courtesy of our Semper Fi friend Mustang

Paging Lord Acton!

Times of crisis bring out the petty dictator in too many government types:

Under what imperious conception of governance does Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer believe it is within her power to unilaterally ban garden stores from selling fruit or vegetable plants and seeds?

What business is it of Vermont or Howard County, Ind., to dictate that Walmart, Costco, or Target stop selling “non-essential” items, such as electronics or clothing? Vermont has 628 cases of coronavirus as of this writing. Is that the magic number authorizing the governor to ban people from buying seeds for their gardens?

There is no reason to close “public” parks, where Americans can maintain social distance while getting some air or space for their mental and physical well-being — or maybe see a grandchild from afar. In California, surfers, who stay far away from each other, are banned from going in the water.

Elsewhere, hikers are banned from roaming the millions of acres in national parks. Millions of lower-income and urban-dwelling Americans don’t have the luxury of backyards, and there is absolutely no reason to inhibit their movement, either. (Coronavirus Authoritarianism is Getting out of Hand)

A better way going forward--instead of local tyrants picking winners and losers and putting people under house arrest--would be to allow any business to open that can operate within health and hygiene guidelines.  Restaurants could space tables further apart and clean tables and chairs with disinfectant before seating the next party.

And for heaven's sake, stop taking away people's God-given freedom to roam outside and enjoy fresh air and sunshine!

Data Does Not Support Extended Lockdowns

Scott W. Atlas, MD, former chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center presents five facts to counter the hysteria and panic being fomented by the Infotainment Media Complex and craven politicians:

Fact 1: The overwhelming majority of people do not have any significant risk of dying from COVID-19. The recent Stanford University antibody study now estimates that the fatality rate if infected is likely 0.1 to 0.2 percent, a risk far lower than previous World Health Organization estimates that were 20 to 30 times higher and that motivated isolation policies.

Fact 2: Protecting older, at-risk people eliminates hospital overcrowding. Even for people ages 65 to 74, only 1.7 percent were hospitalized.

Fact 3: Vital population immunity is prevented by total isolation policies, prolonging the problem.

Fact 4: People are dying because other medical care is not getting done due to hypothetical projections.

Fact 5: We have a clearly defined population at risk who can be protected with targeted measures.

See Also:  The Deadly Cost of Extended Shutdown Orders

Finally, some good news for those of us streaming movies...

Despite unprecedented internet usage, FCC’s Carr says Internet Speed Up 70% Since Repeal of Net Neutrality

Have a good weekend!

Herd Mentality Defeats Herd Immunity

Silverfiddle Rant!

In February, experts were hoping we could contain and eradicate Covid-19, just like we did with SARS in 2003, but even at that time, many were worrying that it was already too late, and that now appears to be the case.
The virus may never be “under control” until we reach herd immunity.



Beware Politicians with No Skin in The Game

Our erudite friend Farmer is fond of reminding us that having skin in the game affects decision-making. Denver's Maoist city council proves his point with their latest proclamation, where they demonstrate their compassion and generosity (with other people's money, of course).

“No Coloradan or small business who is unable to pay through no fault of their own should be required to pay rent during this health emergency, nor should they accumulate debt or interest for unpaid rent,” according to the proclamation

Once Again, Government is Caught Unprepared

I don't want witch hunts and guillotines, but our standing bureaucracies were caught unprepared, and made tragic mistakes launching wide-scale testing.  We need to learn the right lessons from this and restructure hierarchies and processes, and empower those good, smart people to move quickly and take risks.

But the problems go far broader and deeper than what a president does. Lack of planning and preparation contribute, but so too does bureaucratic inertia as well as fear among career officials of taking risks. Turnover in personnel robs government of historical knowledge and expertise. The process of policymaking-on-the-fly is less robust than it once was. Politics, too, gets in the way.  (Once Again, Government is Caught Unprepared)

Filter the Experts

We're getting a taste of what a world run by monomaniacal experts looks like

Experts can be guilty of being monomaniacs, interested only in the thing they are studying. That’s understandable, of course, because many of these things are hard to comprehend. And having put so much effort into their work, it’s also not unexpected, and very human, that most experts put a lot of weight on their conclusions and are convinced of their importance.

That’s exactly why, when scientists call for their findings to be implemented by government, we need politicians and civil servants to moderate their enthusiasm, examine contrary views and express appropriate scepticism. And, in short, judiciously weigh all the other factors that come to bear on any given set of conclusions. 
(Where is the vigorous debate?)

Supermodels

WHO initially suggested a case fatality rate (CFR) of 3.4 per cent ... A paper from Imperial on 10 February suggested CFR of 0.9 per cent, a more recent one on 30 March 0.66 per cent... Recent data from a German town suggest a CFR of 0.37 per cent, having found an actual infection rate in the town of about 15 per cent. (Where is the vigorous debate?)

US models are faring no better...

A widely followed model for projecting Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. is producing results that have been bouncing up and down like an unpredictable fever, and now epidemiologists are criticizing it as flawed and misleading for both the public and policy makers.

“That the IHME model keeps changing is evidence of its lack of reliability as a predictive tool,” said epidemiologist Ruth Etzioni of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, who has served on a search committee for IHME. “That it is being used for policy decisions and its results interpreted wrongly is a travesty unfolding before our eyes.”  (Stat News)

See also:

Good article on modeling: Disease modelers gaze into their computers to see the future of Covid-19, and it isn’t good

Covid-19 Tracker

America's Press

By Sam Huntington

The American news media began in 1729 with an entertaining press written and produced by Ben Franklin. Its focus was satire and matters of interest (he thought) to the public. A few years later, William Cosby, governor of New York, hauled John Zinger into court accusing him of seditious libel. His attorney successfully argued that newspapers should be free to criticize government so long as the accusations were true. It was this case that led the founders to consider “freedom of the press.”

Back then, it was supposed that the people had an inalienable right to know what government was up to. Of course, in explaining what the government was up to there was considerable license for the writer’s point of view, which we may assume was a viewpoint shared by the publisher.

Public assassination in the press began early in our history. Politicians soon learned how to manipulate the press for their own purposes. If we think the Steele Dossier is a disgrace, read how Thomas Jefferson anonymously conspired to hatchet his boss, President George Washington. Jefferson’s cabal made scurrilous claims, none of which were true. The dye was cast, however. News media became politicized and it has been that way ever since.

Is this problem getting worse? Considering the continual effort to mislead readers and listeners, I’d have to answer in the affirmative. The news is not only too often “fake,” lies and distortions frequently end up re-transmitted on such social platforms as Twitter, Face Book, a plethora of truly bizarre blogs, and YouTube. This would not be a problem if Americans were capable of sifting through bull feces to discover the facts. Critical thinking, however, is not one of the American public’s strong suits.

Independent research takes time; no one has time for it. The consequences of this are serious. Public apathy is an automatic win for politicians, who we might observe are inveterate liars. People who accept lies as truth become easily led sheep, easy marks for political wolves. People who become rabid enablers of dishonest press and their political masters harm themselves, their loved ones, their communities, and the nation.

How much faith or confidence can one have in a loved one who is a prolific liar? Now substitute the words “loved one” with “member of the press.” There you go, America. Here’s your sign.

Morality Plays

Silverfiddle Rant!

We’ve now witnessed local and state governments issue decrees about what people can and cannot buy in stores, arrest parents playing with their children in public parks, yank people off public buses at random, remove basketball rims along with private property, ticket churchgoers, and in one case try—and fail—to chase down a lone runner on an empty beach. All of this, we’re told, is for our own good. (John Davidson, The Federalist)

The Infotainment Media Complex fans the flames of hysteria with headlines like this:

South Dakota’s governor resisted ordering people to stay home!!!
Now it has one of the nation’s largest coronavirus hot spots!!!

After ordering all of us to cower in our homes, they add insult to injury by subjecting us to cheap morality tales:

Backward rightwing governor of a state full of backward rightwing Trump voters ignored Science and refused to order everyone under house arrest, and look what happened! South Dakota is a Hot Spot!

The outbreak happened at a meat packing plant, not a rogue roadside tavern in an unincorporated part of the state, and the outbreak is attributed to insufficient Personal Protective Equipment at a job site where people work cheek by jowl. No Stay at Home order would have prevented that. New York put in place a very stringent Stay at Home order, but NYC is a glowing red hot spot.

Related to this is the disturbing trend of people snitching on neighbors taking a walk outdoors, and screaming about how people not quarantining in place in rural Nebraska are going kill us all. People in the hinterlands of Trump Country taking walks outside are not endangering the nation. Businesses like packing plants that don't check workers' temperatures and provide PPE and other precautions will cause a hot spot, and that needs to be addressed, harshly.

The same people accusing Donald Trump of being a dictator are enraged that he has not dictated a uniform nationwide house arrest. They see different rules enforced in different ways around the nation and they scream like toddlers in a daycare center because another group of kids got cookies and they didn’t.

Check out where South Dakota is on the Coronavirus - US dashboard.

Humor For These Times — And Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

One of my Facebook finds:

Not the case for those accustomed to homeschooling.

For example, a few weeks in my homeschool literature class online, we read aloud from and discussed Chapters 1-2 of Charles Dickens's novel Hard Times and Robert Frost's poem "Death of the Hired Man." We also went over some writing assignments, those completed and those due in a few weeks.

In other words, class as usual!

Yes, I prefer in-person teaching.  But I am adjusting to using Google Hangouts, FaceTime, Skype, and Zoom — even though I find using these platforms for 1-2 hours quite exhausting, probably because I can't move around much. Nevertheless, I see that I will have to use these platforms well into the future, possibly until there is a vaccine for the Ripley (COVID-19).

Now, for some weekend relaxation....

Claude Debussy's Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun:

[about the above piece, which is a tone poem]

Bonus video, the goals of which are to evoke tranquility and meditation:

Piano music of Claude Debussy for relaxation, reading and studying, with impressionist paintings of Monet, Manet, Van Gogh... 

 List of compositions:
 0:00-4:50, Arabesque No_. 1
4:53-10:16, Clair de Lune
10:21-13:40, Footprints in the Snow
13:43-16:05, Maid With The Flaxen Hair
16:09-20:33, Reverie 
 20:38- 24:53 La soiree dans Grenade

Recommended Reading

See How Epidemics of the Past Changed the Way Americans Lived: Past public health crises inspired innovations in infrastructure, education, fundraising and civic debate, dated April 1, 2020 and published at Smithsonian Magazine.


Remember...

"Never Let a Crisis Go To Waste"

Silverfiddle Rant!

Big Government has ordered everyone to stay in their homes and has promulgated a gargantuan $2 trillion emergency spending bill.  These ukases have snapped the frayed ties that had moored us to reality and time-tested principles. We are in dangerous waters, and politicians, tastemakers and thought leaders of all stripes are preaching nostrums that just months ago would have gotten them laughed off the mainstream public stage. Doctrinaire leftists are also roaring back, eager to see if their unbalanced old ideas can gain traction in this new unbalanced environment.

Politico has assembled mini-essays from “more than 30 smart, macro thinkers” on what the outcomes from our corona virus experience will look like. This vapid, illogical quote sums up the entire project:

“It’s clear that in a crisis, the rules don’t apply—which makes you wonder why they are rules in the first place.”

Many of the missives are innocuous, giddy pie-in-the-sky platitudes heard in late-night college sophomore dorm discussions, but the underlying themes throughout include enforced solidarity and uniformity, obeisance to a leviathan government of infallible experts who will replace our fallible personal judgements, and an enforced end to those horrible old fashioned cultural practices that are not just stupid and un-scientific, but endanger us all.

There is also a common thread--squirming worm-like throughout--that names enemies of the Brave New Project: Donald Trump, petroleum industry, automobiles, eating meat, capitalism, privatized health care, personal liberty and autonomy, limited federal government.

A Brave New World

The authors envision a post-corona Brave New Future where government provides free college, free money, free health care and free child care, but for me their writings conjured scenes from a dystopian hellscape, everyone cossetted in their own sterile bubbles, peering out at fellow humans through plastic lenses and internet cameras while government instructions blare from social media outlets.

 Where the authors see an opportunity to force us all to eat soylent green (for our own good, of course) I see a totalitarian dystopia, sterilized of personal agency and genuine human love. I execrate almost all of the proposals in this article, except for improvements in medical care coverage and giving workers more resources to take care of themselves and their families, and I believe these goals can be accomplished without more government bureaucracy. Unfortunately, Republicans are not up to the herculean task of crafting intellectual and practical arguments against more big government.

Lost in all this is the fact that markets and freedom did not fail us—Big Government did

Please read the article and tell us what you think. Below I list a few of the best essays, the worst, and which ones I think are most likely to happen.

The Best

* The rise of telemedicine. Ezekiel J. Emanuel
* Regulatory barriers to online tools will fall. Katherine Mangu-Ward
* Congress can finally go virtual. Ethan Zuckerman
* Stronger domestic supply chains. Todd N. Tucker, Dambisa Moyo

Most Frightening

* Government becomes Big Pharma. Steph Sterling

The "brilliant thought leader" fails to realize that the private sector is not charged with planning for and fighting pandemics, government are, and they have largely failed. South Korea is an example of how a free market democratic nation successfully fights a pandemic.

Most Likely to Happen

* Expect a political uprising. Cathy O’Neil

But like any revolution, it will play out in wild and unpredictable ways, not how she predicts
* Stronger domestic supply chains. Todd N. Tucker, Dambisa Moyo
* A hunger for diversion. Mary Frances Berry

What say you?

Resurrection Day 2020

Christ the Lord Is Risen Today:

Lyrics (Charles Wesley, 1739):

Christ the Lord is ris’n today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heav’ns, and earth, reply, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once He died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!

Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids His rise, Alleluia!
Christ hath opened paradise, Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ hath led, Alleluia!
Foll’wing our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

Hail the Lord of earth and heaven, Alleluia!
Praise to Thee by both be given, Alleluia!
Thee we greet triumphant now, Alleluia!
Hail the Resurrection, thou, Alleluia!

King of glory, Soul of bliss, Alleluia!
Everlasting life is this, Alleluia!
Thee to know, Thy pow’r to prove, Alleluia!
Thus to sing, and thus to love, Alleluia!

Be blest.

Good Friday 2020

El Greco's Christ Carrying the Cross

From John Chapter 19 (KJV):

Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged Him.  And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it on His head, and they put on Him a purple robe...

...Pilate saith unto them, "Take ye Him, and crucify Him."...

...And they took Jesus, and led Him away. And He bearing His cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: where they crucified Him, and two other with Him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.

And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin.  Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, "Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews."  Pilate answered, "What I have written I have written."

Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also His coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.  They said therefore among themselves, "Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be": that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, "They parted My raiment among them, and for My vesture they did cast lots." These things therefore the soldiers did.

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.  When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple standing by, whom He loved, He saith unto His mother, "Woman, behold thy son!"  Then saith He to the disciple, "Behold thy mother!" And from that hour that disciple took her unto His own home.

After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, "I thirst. " Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a sponge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth.  When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, "It is finished": and He bowed His head, and gave up the ghost....

...Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.  There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews’ preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.

From Handel's Messiah (Isaiah 53:4-5, KJV)

What Government Health Care Looks Like

Silverfiddle Rant!

Headlines:

Obama Admin didn't Replenish N95 Mask Stockpile

Trump Admin Wasted Months



We have government agencies that--regardless of president or party--are charged with carrying out plans and policies crafted by congress and signed by the president. Clearly, our government was caught flat-footed by the Wuhan Virus, first and foremost thanks to the the lying Chinese Communist Party, abetted in their face-saving lies by the World Health Organization.

Still, that excuse only goes so far. Our government is supposed to have plans and stockpiles for such events.  Like most catastrophes, the after-action reporting on this debacle will have many factors that played out in a horrible comedy of errors.

Please read this:

Inside the coronavirus testing failure: Alarm and dismay among the scientists who sought to help

Here are the lowlights from this tale of frustration, told by scientists and doctors at clinics, labs and hospitals attempting to navigate the US government's Soviet-era style bureaucracy:

"We have the skills and resources as a community but we are collectively paralyzed by a bloated bureaucratic/administrative process," Marc Couturier, medical director at academic laboratory ARUP in Utah, wrote to other microbiologists on Feb. 27 after weeks of mounting frustration.

A scientist named Greninger describes trying to submit his test for government approval:

Greninger channeled his energy into the paperwork problem, spending more than 100 hours filling out forms and collecting information needed for the application, he told The Post. But when he finally submitted the material, an FDA official told him the agency could not accept it - because he had emailed it.

"We received your email and attachments regarding the UW 2019-nCoV assay pre-EUA," an FDA official wrote on Feb. 20. "However, we have not received the official submission through DCC."

"What is the DCC?" Greninger wrote back.

"The Document Control Center," came the reply.

"What is the Document Control Center?"

Greninger then learned about another requirement. Under FDA rules, he was supposed to digitally copy the electronic documents he had emailed to the FDA, burn the copies onto a disk and mail the hard disk to an office in suburban District of Columbia.

Greninger shared his exasperation in a Feb. 20 email to a colleague: "repeat after me, emergency."

Please read the article and give us your thoughts.

Mull This Over....(With Addendum)

[source]

The video at THIS LINK with the title "‘We Should Never Let Someone Like That Run This Country’: Tucker Carlson Says Dr. Fauci’s Advice Could Lead To ‘National Suicide.’"

I couldn't embed the video, so you must go to the link to watch it.

Additional material, by Midnight Rider of Infidel Bloggers Alliance, dated April 4, 2020: A MESSAGE FROM THE BUNKER: 274,000 Americans infected with Covid Out of 330,000,000 Americans total = .08% --- Not .08 or 8% but 8 one hundredths of one percent.

You might find the comments to the above interesting, too. In those comments, I expressed my own concerns about the definition of the term "recovery":

Mr. AOW is "recovered" from his stroke of 2009. His recovery looks like this: basically paralyzed on his left side (he was left handed), hospital bed in the living room, bedside potty in the living room, needs help with just about every ADL you can think of, totally disabled.

Would you call the above a real recovery?

Addendum below the fold: inside intensive care unit at University College Hospital in London (8 minute video):

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down)

"Great Is Thy Faithfulness," an American Christian hymn dating from 1923, has a special place in my heart, in part because it was the hymn requested by my paternal Uncle John to be used as the congregational hymn at his memorial service, held years ago when he perished from Alzheimer's Disease:


More hymns performed by Blue Rock Mennonite Youth HERE.

A Break For Beauty

(For politics, please scroll down. New post published on April 2)

Rainbow here in Northern Virginia on April 1. Photo courtesy of NextDoor Online Neighborhood:

Neo-Flagellants

Silverfiddle Rant!

There is something profoundly ugly in this. Monbiot and other greens seem to view Covid-19 as a disaster that will have an upside: it might roll back the Enlightenment-era belief that humankind can exercise dominion over nature and remind us that actually we are at nature’s mercy. They hope this disaster will restore nature’s power over the humanised world.  - Brendan O'Neill, Spiked On-line

"This is positively Biblical. Gaia is God in this scenario, coming to punish us for our sins."

Brendan O'Neill nails the Greens who are screaming like a pack of 19th Century Millenarians that the end is nigh. It disturbs me to see the tastemakers and thought leaders express a nostalgia for the bad old days and craving a need for sacrifice.

"This is a new moment,” said Jon Meacham, a historian and author of The Soul of America. “Prolonged sacrifice isn’t something we’ve been asked to do, really, since World War II,” Meacham said.”

Here's another example:

“We used to tax in times of crisis. Now we don’t,” Zelizer said. “We asked people to ration in times of crisis. Now we don’t. We asked people to serve in times of crisis. Now we don’t. So this is a sea change. The thing is, Americans might not have a choice.”

The Infotainment Media Complex collective has been displaying signs of repressed guilt for a long time. Purges, cleanses, public shaming, struggle sessions, and virtue signalling...

Their consciences must be filthy, and all the ambien in the world cannot silence the rusty chains rattling in the dark night of their blinkered souls.

Marginally Related:  Virus causes surge in WW II references, but is it merited?