Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

The Coronavirus and the Liberty versus saving lives debate

Posted: March 19, 2020 by Jon Fournier in Uncategorized
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The Coronavirus pandemic has ignited online one of the most important debates, where do you draw line between saving lives and protecting freedom and liberty. This is also an internal debate I’ve been struggling with since this whole crisis began and I’ve switched back and forth as things have developed, often too rapidly to keep up with

When the voluntary mass cancellations of sporting events, the closings of schools, and the travel bans from overseas first occurred I believed all of this was an unnecessary overreaction on a major scale.  I maintained that belief for several days.  It wasn’t until I learned the goal behind all of this was to “flatten the curve” that I changed my mind.  Reading this article from The Federalist Papers article Coronavirus Control Measures Aren’t Pointless – Just Slowing Down The Pandemic Could Save Millions of Lives is what changed my mind about all of this

The goal is to “flatten the curve.” Rather than letting the virus quickly rampage through the population and burn itself out fast, the idea is to spread all those infections out over a longer period of time.

Flattening the curve is another way of saying buying more time. Yes, it would potentially prolong the epidemic. But in doing so, public health agencies and the health care infrastructure gain invaluable time to respond to the crisis.

Most importantly, “flattening the curve” provides an opportunity to significantly reduce deaths from COVID-19.

On the steep rise of the epidemic curve, especially when testing capacity is lacking, there is a tremendous burden on health care providers – many of whom will fall ill themselves and be forced to self-isolate, becoming unable to provide care for those in need. At the same time, there is immense pressure placed on health care facilities where demand for patient care will outpace capacity – things like the number of hospital beds, ventilators and so on – for a significant amount of time.

Now that I’m familiar with the topic of flattening the curve I can see that this disruption of normal life is necessary when a society is facing a dangerous contagious disease.  This health crisis introduced me to another new concept which can halt the spread of a communicable disease:

Social distancing requires changes in how people work, live and interact with each other. It may require canceling or avoiding big events, limiting nonessential travel and rescheduling conferences. Traditional classroom instruction may have to move to online delivery – already happening in some colleges and universities, though less easy to do for K-12 schools.

Unfortunately this current threat is a completely new strain of virus, one where no one has a natural immunity.  It is the unknown nature of the threat that convinced me that the closings and cancelings are necessary.

The complete clinical picture with regard to COVID-19 is not fully known. Reported illnesses have ranged from very mild (including some with no reported symptoms) to severe, including illness resulting in death. While information so far suggests that most COVID-19 illness is mild, a reportexternal icon out of China suggests serious illness occurs in 16% of cases. Older people and people of all ages with severe chronic medical conditions — like heart disease, lung disease and diabetes, for example — seem to be at higher risk of developing serious COVID-19 illness.

The CDC Website on COVID-19 contains a wealth of great information on this current threat.  It is the communicable nature of this disease that convinced me that these steps are necessary.

A pandemic is a global outbreak of disease. Pandemics happen when a new virus emerges to infect people and can spread between people sustainably. Because there is little to no pre-existing immunity against the new virus, it spreads worldwide.

The virus that causes COVID-19 is infecting people and spreading easily from person-to-person. Cases have been detected in most countries worldwide and community spread is being detected in a growing number of countries. On March 11, the COVID-19 outbreak was characterized as a pandemic by the WHO

This Newsweek article Newt Gingrich: I Am in Italy Amid the Coronavirus Crisis. America Must Act Now—And Act Big was the final piece of information that changed my mind and convinced me that all of this is necessary.

These steps are not an overreaction. The coronavirus is out of control of in Northern Italy. As of 6 p.m. local/1 p.m. EST on March 10, there were 15,113 total cases in Italy, with 12,839 active cases, 1,016 deaths and 1,258 recoveries. And there were 162 total cases here in Rome.

The hardest-hit region around Milan has had to improvise as its health system has been deeply stressed by the sheer number of patients. In Milan and Brescia, field hospitals have been set up in the fairgrounds as the local hospitals have been drowned in patients.

Because the demand for respirators and intensive care has been beyond any previous planning, doctors have been forced into the kind of triage thinking developed for intense battlefield casualty situations. There are reports that emergency room doctors are allotting respirators to those with higher life expectancy due to the limited equipment in the hardest hit areas of the province. If you are older or have other illnesses, you may simply not be eligible for treatment.

As Libertarian I am 100 percent against the government at any level, but especially the federal government, ordering the mandatory canceling of events, domestic travel bans, and closing private businesses.  A much better solution would be for the government to urge, suggest, and educate that all of this necessary, and it takes place.  A voluntary curtailing of social activity is the only way to preserve our freedom and rights while protecting our health.  The mandatory steps taken by Governor Charlie Baler and the rest are wrong because they are mandated by the government.

Unfortunately a lot of people do not listen to good advise and refuse to stop engaging in behavior that puts others at risk of catching this disease, which could cause the virus to spread uncontrollably.  What do we do about that?  UGH.  That is the question that I’m struggling with the most. Liberty is the freedom to do as you wish as long as you do not harm others.  Spreading the virus to others definitely harms them and could harm society as a whole.  

No 2nd Amendment No Return to Zimbabwe

Posted: March 17, 2020 by datechguy in Uncategorized

Apparently the nation of Zimbabwe twenty years after deciding all those horrible white farmers HAD to go has decided that the country needs white privilege again:

Two decades after President Robert Mugabe wrecked Zimbabwe’s economy by urging black subsistence farmers to violently force white commercial farmers and their workers off their land, his successor has thrown in the towel.

Note the phrasing here. This was apparently a war on white privilege and from that phraseology good and right have lost

Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government has proposed settling all outstanding claims against it by farmers by offering them land.

“The object of the regulations is to provide for the disposal of land to persons entitled to compensation,” Land Minister Perence Shiri said in regulations published in the Government Gazette Friday.

Or to rephrase we will now give white farmers who worked hard to produce the country’s food supply for generations the right to do so again.

The seizures that began in 2000 were ratified by the government, which said they were needed to redress colonial imbalances. A vibrant agricultural industry that exported tobacco and roses and grew most of the food the nation needed collapsed. Periodic food shortages ensued, inflation became the world’s highest and the manufacturing industry was decimated. What was one of Africa’s richest countries became one of its poorest.

Or as Don Suber who linked this story alluded to, despite Mike Bloomberg’s opinion to the contrary there is a lot more to farming than digging a hole and dropping in a seed.

Now while this is the right move on the part of the government if I was a white farmer I’d think long and hard before I returned.

I know the prospect of returning to one’s family farm and the useful life one enjoyed in the past is tempting the question must be asked: What’s to stop the next demagogue who comes along from doing the very same thing again in 2 years, five years and ten years?

Furthermore what’s to stop local people who had been indicted to violence in the past against you from repeating this process on their own, particularly where in western universities the idea that being white is the worst sin a person can commit?

It it was me I’d not subject my family and myself to that risk until and unless a robust 2nd Amendment was passed to the country constitution and powerful stand your ground laws allowing people to defend themselves and their land without fear of government retaliation were in place and even then I’d still think twice.

cue Mr. Scott

Report from Louisiana: COVID-19 and online teaching

Posted: March 16, 2020 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By: Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – What a difference a day makes.  Wednesday, last week, I was cutting across the Atchafalaya Basin on an airboat enjoying Spring Break, and within twenty-four hours of that Governor John Bel Edwards closed down K-12 schools, universities were shuttered, and everyone is practicing social distancing. Well, except New Orleans; they do their own thing there.

As an educator, I can tell you that my students are full of anxiety. Fortunately, I’m in a better position than a lot of people in that my kids have already been using Google Classroom. I immediately posted a sort of “check-in” assignment and on Sunday, still technically on Spring Break, most of my kids responded. Since then, most have filled in.

By Friday, my husband and I had returned to Shreveport and decided we needed a few groceries after being out of town for a week.

Big mistake.

The store was chaos.

You’ve seen images from all over the country, or seen it yourself, I’m sure. Even today, days later, there are zero paper products in the stores. Zero dried beans, no rice, canned goods are sparse. Things are restocking, but good grief – what chaos.

In Louisiana, our schools are closed until mid-April; I’ve got friends in other states who have said they won’t return to school at all this year. So far there are no directives from the Louisiana State Department of Education on graduation or testing, which has filled my students with anxiety.

As of today, all casinos in Louisiana are closed for two weeks, except those on Indian reservation. The economic loss to the state is estimated at $22 million.

With bars and restaurants closing, people staying home from work, schools closed…I don’t even want to think about the long-term economic effects of this.  It’s mind blowing, to me.

So, meanwhile, I’m teaching school from home, trying to reassure my students and still be sure they are learning. We are staying in as much as possible. Louisiana currently has 114 positive cases and two deaths. Most are in the Orleans parish area – no surprise given that Mardi Gras just happened.

Stay safe where you are. Be smart. Don’t panic or overreact.

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.

Phase 0 planning

Posted: March 14, 2020 by ng36b in Uncategorized
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No toilet paper! From Inquirer.net

When something shuts down Disney World, its a big deal. Between the NBA, international travel and large gatherings, COVID-19 seems to be shutting down the world. In this backdrop, its a good time to review why planning is so critical.

In my home, hurricanes are a thing, and every year we get threatened with a hurricane of some kind. In typical hurricane fashion, everyone runs to the store and buys every bottle of water and roll of toilet paper. Then the panic subsides and we move on. After getting stung one year, I did some research and found that on average, a hurricane knocks out power for about 3 days. I then logged over a week how much of different items my family used, including toilet paper (yes, my wife thought I was weird). I then bought 4 days worth of toilet paper, water, plasticware, garbage bags and non-perishable food, and stuffed it at the top of my pantry.

Next hurricane, everyone freaked out, lost power for one day, we were fine. I still have the same amount of supplies sitting in my pantry, and I occasionally dig into them during a non-crisis to replenish them.

COVID-19 is no different. In many ways, its less taxing, because its not blocking roads or turning off power. The human panic response is typical, and no matter how often we wish people would not panic, they do. We can fight the lines, or we can plan. In the military, we call it “Phase 0” planning when we make plans while in peace time. The process of making the plan forces us to think about what we need and to advocate for it early, before a crisis starts, so that we enter crisis with a good chance of winning.

So as the COVID-19 crisis rages on, take notes. Look at what you really need during the next week to live. How much toilet paper do you use? How much water? How much food? How much entertainment? If that last one seems weird, just ask any parent of a bored kid how important entertainment is, and you’ll soon ensure you have board games and books in reserve.

Come out of this crisis ready for the next, and while it won’t stop the panic buying of toilet paper, it will mean you won’t be standing in line at the grocery store.

This post represents the views of the author and not those of the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, or any other government agency. Well, maybe FEMA would encourage you to do what I did.

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