Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Thoughts When it Ends Under the Fedora

Posted: April 2, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized

One of the biggest questions in everyone’s minds is what will be happening once the official “social distancing” business is gone.

Will people still be too afraid to go to bars and restaurants? Will they be willing to go to sporting events? How spooked will people remain?

That will be a real consideration.

How about buffet restaurants like Golden Coral or even the lunch Buffet at Happy Jacks or the Chinese buffet at Chopsticks? Will people be willing to go? Will there be an insurance liability? Will it be worth it?

If there is one thing that might return it’s the Drive ins. You have social distancing and with cell phone these days you can call the snack bar and have things delivered to your car. There is one in Milford NH and I suspect it will be packed once it opens this year.

There is also the alternative, that once people figure out that it’s safe to go back in the water so to speak, and the reality is that it’s actually fairly safe now in the sense that the vast majority of people who get this virus will have moderate flu like symptoms at worst that people can’t wait to pack bars and restaurants and other places, where they are dying for human contact. I think this will really be big.

The biggest change of course will be in terms of trade. The reality is that virus’ have a limited life on various surfaces so if you have a cargo that has come via ship, there is almost no chance of any transmission but already we have people worried about unloading ships. The effects on China deserve a full post on it’s own but given the situation in Italy and other countries the effects on Trade will not be confined to them.

A different World

Posted: April 1, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Today is April fools day.

This means that when we read the MSM we can pretend that they are just joking around instead of being the asses that they are.

But I’ll leave you all with this thought:

Me to my son just now:

“The day Potus was putting together his Coronavirus task force Speaker Pelosi was giving out #Impeachment pens”

My son to me: “I forget he was impeached”

Boy is the world different or what?

Report from Louisiana: Unfocused

Posted: March 30, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – We are now three weeks into this quarantine business, so how’s it going for you? I thought I would be so productive and get some projects done, make some progress on my book, do some inspired writing…nah. Not happening. My creativity is dry as a bone. Gone.

I did a little blog post about that on SIGIS, and got a lot of unexpected feedback with people feeling the same way, which was reassuring in a way. It’s not just me.

It feels a little like the days and weeks following 9/11, to me. An overwhelming powerlessness and anxiety. Turns out there are a lot of people feeling this same way.

I’m incredibly frustrated with the inability of people to follow simple directions and stay home. Once again, this church in Central, Louisiana held services yesterday with 500 people in attendance this week, which thankfully is about half of what he had last week.

Pastor Tony Spell of the Life Tabernacle Church says, “The virus, we believe, is politically motivated, …We hold our religious rights dear, and we are going to assemble no matter what someone says.”

He’s not alone in his commitment to disregard the stay at home order issued by Governor Edwards. In New Orleans, a growing epicenter of COVID-19, authorities had to break up a large gathering this weekend where people gathered for a Second Line event. Video on social media shows revelers in the neighborhood drinking, dancing, and playing music. Now, warrants have been issued.

In an attempt to slow down the spread of COVID-19 in Texas, Governor Greg Abbot has put a travel ban of sorts in place. If you travel to Texas from Louisiana, you have to fill out paperwork indicating where you will self-quarantine for the next fourteen days. This does not apply to commercial traffic and the like, obviously.

The grocery stores are beginning to level out however there is still no toilet paper, Clorox wipes, or hand sanitizer anywhere and there has not been for three weeks. My grocery store, apparently depressed by the long empty shelf, now is stocking laundry baskets on that aisle.

The big-box stores in our area, Sam’s Club, sometimes gets those items in; Saturday morning the line to get into Sam’s wrapped around the building as they let in twenty-five people at a time. Hundreds of people in line, much closer to each other than six feet, mind you, and VERY close to each other the closer to the front of the line they got. Insanity.

I’ve mad a couple of quick grocery store runs and have found that some people are keeping their distance but there are others who completely disregard your personal space. I was looking at the eggs yesterday when a man leaned right in front of me and grabbed a carton.

I’m looking at grocery delivery services now or curbside pickup; the turnaround on curbside pickup is days out however. If you need something quickly, too bad.

At any rate, this is our new normal. With Trump’s federal distancing extended to the end of April, I expect that our school year is effectively done, which saddens me somewhat.

Now, if I could just get my creative spark back.

Pat Austin blogs at And So it Goes in Shreveport and is the author of Cane River Bohemia: Cammie Henry and her Circle at Melrose Plantation. Follow her on Instagram @patbecker25 and Twitter @paustin110.

The Corona Holding Action a World War 2 Analogy

Posted: March 30, 2020 by datechguy in News/opinion, Uncategorized
Tags: , ,

There seem to be a lot of folks on the left taking delight in the economic crash brought by the Corona / Wuhan virus and who seem to live for the number of infected and dead to rise in the hopes that it will lead to the defeat of Donald Trump (See my post CNN’s Letter to Sean Davis)

So for the sake of those reading that drivel and those who making who are saying it from ignorance rather than with purpose let me explain something.

Given the normal freedom to travel and the interaction of people you aren’t going to stop this virus from spreading across the nation, people are going to be exposed, 1st and at once in bigger cities where travel is more common but eventually elsewhere. That’s the nature of a virus.

The real idea is to slow down the spread for two reasons.

  1. To keep the level of infection low enough for hospitals to cope on a national level
  2. To give time to the best and brightest to come up with ways of treating this virus so when it does spread we can arrest it.

Both of these goals are frankly within reach and the measures already taken are contributing highly to that goal. Think of it like World War 2 when the plan was to hold in the pacific and push supplies to England in the Atlantic until we were ready to land in North Africa.

When there is a treatment that can prevent death available then we are half way there

But there are also long term goals that are also targets

  1. Give enough time to retool manufacturers to produce the items necessary in this situation
  2. Give enough time to move pharmaceutical production to the states
  3. Develop a Vaccine
  4. Create a strategic reserve of these various products for when and if this type of thing happens again.

Once these things are done then we can move aggressively knowing that no matter how much of a punch this has we can parry it and counter. This is the Invasion of Europe and the push in the pacific.

Oh and one more thing. Some metropolitan centers such as NYC New Orleans, Chicago , New Jersey and LA might have a tougher time . They will likely be under quarantine and restriction longer than others, this is Akin to the Island hoping strategy of the US forces in the Pacific Once the other easier area are secure full attention can be given to these problem sites.

This is what the president and his team are doing and those who are trying to make it something other than it is are just looking for advantage and should be treated accordingly

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