http;//www.Californiacontrarian.com

I suppose that the obvious answer to this question depends on what one is measuring. If one is measuring the number of and the spread of the Wuhan virus infections, then I guess the answer has to be ‘yes.’ After all if people are locked down in their homes, and are not out living their usual lives in the community, then logic would dictate that these individuals are not exposed to others, then therefore there would be less chance of them becoming infected . . . at least for a while.

 Now for me, here is where the difficulty comes in. This difficulty involves a concept that I cannot diagram in a format such as this, but will try to explain. 

First, imagine a triangle with a relatively narrow base and a relatively high peak. Let the area within this triangle represent deaths from Covid. In New York City, for whatever reason, there was an extremely high peaked triangle over a relatively short period of time. Conceptually let’s call the large area contained within this New York triangle … ‘X.’
In other words, X people died in New York during a relatively short period of time. (a high peaked triangle with a relatively narrow base)

Next, let’s consider California. California locked down very early. On March 19 California became the first state to issue stay-at-home orders. At that time Governor Newsom stated that the goal was to “bend the curve”. For the most part, the sheep in California followed his diktat. Now going over five months California continues on some arbitrary partial lockdown strategy with a bunch of, as best I can tell, “made-up” criteria. (“Made-up” meaning that for which no actual data exists.) Going back to my geometric analogy, whereas New York was the high peaked triangle with the relatively narrow base, California is a rectangle that is not extremely tall, but with a long base. (Let’s call the area contained in this rectangle, ‘Y.’  In fact at this point no one knows for how long this rectangle will continue to expand.)

Now that I have made my geometric analogy as clear as I can, here is my postulate:

In the end, the area contained in the triangle (‘X’ or the number of deaths) will be just about the same as the area contained in the rectangle (‘Y’ or the number of deaths) minus those deaths that occurred during the lockdowns that were from other cause, e.g. cancer.

So my question is still the same: “Are lockdowns effective?”

If that question concerns the number of people that will eventually die from the coronavirus, the answer is “no,’ as over the long term the total number of deaths from the virus will be about the same if you have a either a triangle, ‘X’,  or a rectangle, ‘Y.’  In addition, I predict that this postulate will be proven over time, and it may take years to sort this out. (The caveat, however, is that if there is a vaccine next month, then the continued expansion of the rectangle will stop.)

Finally, let’s address and extrapolate this question in another way:

“Are lockdowns effective in destroying an economy and in the process destroying the lives of millions of people?”

Here the answer is, “Yes, without question!”

The culmination of the RNC on night #4 was the acceptance speech by President Trump. However, this was not a typical Trump speech, mainly because he stuck to what was on the teleprompter. There was very little of the expected Trump spontaneity. There was very little of his usual fire. He hit Joe Biden with effective flurries of punches … supposedly he mentioned Biden by name forty-one times. Trump’s speech was too long (70 minutes), and I blame the speech writers for that. On the other hand DJT did touch on a lot of his achievements over the last four years, and because he has accomplished so much, detailing his achievements took a lot of time. The media is going to rag on him for using the White House as a backdrop, the absolutely spectacular fireworks, and the lack of spatial distancing and masks in the crowd.

To sum it up, I would have preferred a rough and tumble, non-choreographed Trump campaign speech, but I suppose that it was appropriate for him to look presidential in front of a national audience.

In my opinion the night was carried again by the multiple short speeches given by non-politicians. Dana White, president of UFC, gave a feisty speech, but his feistiness and enthusiasm was one-uped by Rudi Giuliani, who at times was close to apoplectic. One of Rudi’s good lines was: “Don’t let the Democrats do to the U.S, what they have done to New York City.” Giuliani closed with: “… make America safe again.” Ben Carson, Alice Marie Johnson (freed from jail after 21 years by DJT), Pat Lynch (NYC Police union leaders), and Senator Tom Cotton(R,AK) all gave commendable speeches, but to me, there was a tie for the most effective speeches between the following two:

One by Ann Dorn, whose retired husband after forty years in law enforcement was murdered in cold blood by rioters in St. Louis while trying to protect a friend’s business, and one by Carl and Marsha Mueller whose daughter Kayla was captured, tortured, raped innumerable times, and eventually murdered by ISIS while Biden was Obama’s VP. This narrative by Kayla Mueller’s  father and mother threw a spear through the concept that Joe Biden has any feelings. It was brutal. Biden and Obama were portrayed as unfeeling and uncaring politicians. Their telling of the story almost made me cry, and if independent voters were watching night #4, this dual speech was poison for the concept of a “compassionate Joe Biden.”

As I have related I thought that the stars of RNC #1 and  RNC #2 were the little guys,and not the politicians who spoke. On night #3 my “best of the day” award goes to Jack Brewer, a life-long Democrat and ex pro football player, who supports President Trump. He initially related fighting with skinheads while growing up in his Texas hometown. “I know what racism looks like. I’ve seen it first hand. In America it has no resemblance to President Trump.” He then spoke about how the media refuses to acknowledge what Trump has done for the black community, and MSM is attempting to confuse the minds of our innocent children.

One of Mr. Brewer’s great lines was, “For the sake of our children, policies must take priority over personalities.”

He then referenced how both Biden and Harris have been directly responsible for locking up countless black men. In contradistinction, he praised Trump’s First Step Act.

He came down hard on BLM as being opposed to the nuclear family.

BTW: Did I forget to mention that Jack Brewer is a member of Black Voices for Trump.

Obviously the RNC is going out of its way to appeal to black voters, and Jack Brewer was a big step in the right direction.

Kentucky is famous for number of things, including the Kentucky Derby, Louisville basketball, Mammoth Cave National Park, and let’s not forget the Colonel and Kentucky Fried Chicken. However on 8/27 those who watched the Republican National Convention were treated to two future Kentucky stars, Daniel Cameron and Nick Sandmann. Both are young. One is black the other is white. One is a very good speaker, and  the other is fair. Both gave very good speeches during the RNC.

Daniel Cameron is the Attorney General of Kentucky. His main message to Mr. Biden was that blacks have minds of their own and he vehemently disagreed with Biden’s “if you don’t vote for me, you ain’t black.”

Nick Sandmann  is the Covington Catholic H.S. teenager who was vilified by the MSM, because he wore a MAGA hat and had attended an anti-abortion rally in Washington, D.C. (Mr. Sandmann is now considerably more affluent because of big time lawsuit settlements against CNN and WaPo.) He told his own story and warned against the dangers of “cancel culture” He concluded his remarks with, “While much more must be done, I look forward to the day that the media returns to providing balanced, responsible and accountable news coverage. I know President Trump hopes for that too.” 

Both of these speeches are short, and well worth watching on You-tube.

I have been watching the RNC on Fox for the last two nights. I anticipated a heavyweight fight, the DNC vs the RNC . . . but that’s not what I got. Yes, there were some big punches thrown, but, in my opinion, it will turn out to be the small but incessant jabs that won this fight. 

Pam Bondi, a former Florida Attorney General, landed multiple body punches to Joe Biden. She reviewed a lot of the skullduggery with Ukraine and China that benefited Biden’s family. It was a brutal attack that most assuredly will not be mentioned in the morning liberal newspapers or on CNN/MSNBC. 

A woman who used to be a big shot at Planned Parenthood described what actually happens at an abortion . . . gruesome. The granddaughter of Billy Graham describes the attacks on religious freedom that occurred under the Obama-Biden regime … point-scoring body blows.

However, I believe the National Convention fight, after only the second night of the RNC’s presentation has been decided by the multiple and for the most part, quite effective jabs from ordinary citizens who described the good stuff that had happened to them because of things done over the last four years by President Trump. This was indeed a masterful strategy . . . multiple jabs coming from all sides, including the lobster fisherman from Maine, the dairy farmer from northern Wisconsin, the Democratic Mayor of a small town in the iron-ore range of Minnesota, the worker at an automobile plant in Ohio . . . a plant that President Trump saved, a police officer in New Mexico who adopted the baby of a drug addict mother, a single mother whose son was able to go to a charter school, a child with muscular dystrophy who was able to receive an experimental drug thanks to the President, et cetera,et cetera.

Nick Sandman was impressive. I am sure you remember the now 19 year old high-schooler from a Catholic high school in Kentucky, who was maligned by the liberal media because he was wearing a MAGA hat at an anti-abortion rally in Washington, D.C. 

To close, Melania Trump delivered a very good speech. There was no viciousness in either her tone or her words as she championed for children and those effected by drug addiction. Her speech came at the end on Tuesday night, and it was the final blow for Joe.

The winner by TKO . . . the RNC!

For those not attuned to the heart jargon, AMIs and STEMIs are types of heart attacks.

STEMIs around the world have decreased – in San Diego there has been a 30-40% decrease. In some cities, centers are reporting up to 50% decrease.

Different theories abound. For instance:

While the stress of COVID and unemployment is high there is this paradox and the population at large might have less stress ?

Whereas in San Diego there have been many patients who come in with a delayed presentation MI. Having symptoms for days and then come in with CHF or shock.

The following is from the Colorado Sun on 8 17/20:

Dr. Brian Stauffer, the head of cardiology at Denver Health, soon began to notice a different kind of pandemic mystery.

People, it seemed, had stopped having heart attacks.

Stauffer and his colleagues found that the number of people in Denver who died of cardiac arrests at home in the two weeks following the statewide stay-at-home order was greater than the total number of people who died of COVID-19 in the city during that time.

Colorado, like many other states, has seen a rise in deaths during the time of COVID-19 that is above and beyond what can be explained just by documented deaths due to the virus or by population growth. April, for instance, was likely the deadliest month in Colorado history. While coronavirus has killed more than 1,700 people in Colorado this year, deaths due to cancer, heart disease and drug overdose are also on the rise.

In many parts of the world doctors are pointing to a very real probability that lockdown orders are leading to people dying from other serious maladies as a result of avoiding hospitals. Heart attacks in particular are now looked at as a cause of death greater than the coronavirus itself.

From ‘tctMD/ the heart beat’( an international cardiac journal) in April, 2020:

“From Milan to Madrid to Massachusetts, everyone is asking: as the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, where have all the STEMIs gone.”

“In Milan, Italy, one hospital reports STEMI cases (heart attacks) plunged by 70 percent. In Spain, the drop has been 40 percent, with estimates in Madrid being as high as an 80 percent drop in cases. At one hospital in Madrid they are averaging three-to-four heart cases a week, when those are usually their daily admission rates. This regards only heart condition cases, with one doctor stating they are barely seeing any admissions for other serious conditions. A cardiologist in Boston detailed that he went a week without seeing a single heart case come in, something he has never experienced prior in 13 years of attending.”

Is this another example of another one of the “unforeseen consequences” of something that no one has had any experience with in the past. Here I am referring to lockdowns. “Let’s lockdown everybody and create a sense of general panic … oops, people aren’t coming to the hospital and are dying at home. Oh well!” 

 Ark you words: These heart issues are just the tip of the unforeseen-consequences-of-lockdowns iceberg. A rational society locks down those who are at risk, but  Dr. Fauci apparently thinks that  it is a good idea to lock down everybody so that the curve can be flattened. While I am sure that the esteemed Dr. Fauci is aware of the ancillary damage that his policies are causing, I have to hear him comment on this.

“Earth to Dr. Fauci . . . Come in, please!”

8/25/20

One of the interesting news stories of this past week came out of Topeka, Kansas. Personally, I was not aware that anything of interest could come out of Topeka, but how wrong I was. The story starts with a slide presentation at a Goodyear diversity training session. A particular slide was captured by an employee who shared with a local news station in Kansas. This slide showed a list of acceptable and unacceptable phrases under Goodyear’s “zero-tolerance policy. The slide listed “Black Lives Matter” and “LGBT” under acceptable phrases, while “Make America Great Again” and the pro-Police slogan, “Blue Lives Matter” we’re listed under unacceptable phrases.

Our president did not view this kindly and tweeted “Don’t buy Goodyear Tires.” He then further stated that if the Radical Left Democrats can play this game, so can we. 

After the President’s tweet, shares of Goodyear fell 2.4%. A bad day for Goodyear.

Backtrack . . . backtrack! Very quickly the CEO of Goodyear, Rich Kramer, was on Twitter to “clarify Goodyear’s position,” and quite a tap dance it was.

What Goodyear’s Chairman was trying to sell everyone was that this was a local Topeka thing only . . . blah, blah, blah. Hmmm. Today, I read that LeBron James came out and said something positive about Akron based Goodyear. Yawn . . . zzzzzz.

Anyway for me I will not be buying any Goodyear tires in the near future … just like I will never buy Nike again. BTW, today my wife went to the store and bought eight cans of Goya beans. As some of you may recall the chairman of Goya was at the White House a few months back, and in some sort of ceremony praised the President. The left didn’t like that, and do they advocated a boycott of Goya products. That boycott didn’t work. Goya sales increased, and the eight cans purchased today are going to keep the Goya surge going.

You were right if you said that it began with a ‘B.’

Without going into detail, B-O-R-I-N-G would be an apt description of the Democratic Convention Without going in to great detail, the TV ratings were bad, and did not improve..

On Wednesday a.m. the news was:

The ratings for the first two nights of the DNC are in and they aren’t very good. Compared to four years ago, total viewership among the broadcast networks is down 42%. Even among the hardcore audience of the cable news networks, the Democrats are running at a 16% deficit compared to 2016

On Thursday:

According to fresh polling from Rasmussen Reports, President Trump’s approval has gone up by four points in 24 hours, indicating a DNC convention bump for his candidacy. The increase in approval rating comes after Democrat Vice Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris gave her keynote address at the convention Wednesday night. 

Furthermore on Wednesday night when California Sen. Kamala Harris accepted the nomination for vice president, the Democrats struggle to find 30 people to fill that virtual audience board. So, they copy and pasted duplicates to fill it up!

On Thursday, during Biden’s speech, instead of copy and pasting duplicates onto the virtual audience board, they left six of the sixteen spaces blank. Either they could not find any individuals fill these empty spots or no one knew how to technologically remedy the problem. I am not sure which is worse. Keep in mind that this is the same DNC that wants to run our government!

There has been praise for Biden’s acceptance speech. I guess when the bar is set low, it is easy to rise above expectations. I will admit that he did a good job of reading short sentences off a teleprompter.( I tested my four year old granddaughter, and . . . she, also, could read these sentences. She did not read them as fast as Basement Joe did, but she had not been practicing for weeks, and we do not have a basement!

In an interesting show of hands, CNN stated that the Republicans should adopt the DNC method for its convention (meaning “please do not give Donald Trump a chance to fire up an audience.”), and then the Chairman of the DNC said that “he hoped that his Republican friends would go the same route” that the Democrats did in their convention…all in the name of safety of course. (meaning “our convention was a flop, so please follow in our footsteps so that yours will also be a flop!”).

Whether any of this is indicative of low enthusiasm going into November for the Democrats is an open question. We’ll need to see the RNC and how it performs to get something to compare it to. If the RNC does beat out the DNC, it would be another piece of evidence that polls aren’t always what they seem. It’ll also be interesting to see if all these “news” networks give the same amount of airtime to the RNC.

Regardless, there’s no doubt Joe Biden’s campaign is lacking excitement and draw. It’s really only a matter of whether anti-Trump sentiment carries enough people to polls to push him over the top, because Biden himself isn’t going to get them there.

“How do you spell BORING?    . . .  B-I-D-E-N.

8/23/20

I feel I must correct a few of the inaccuracies in my previous note about Jet Blue and the horrific crime that a two year old committed by not wearing a mask.

First of all, I was not on that plane and as a consequence I misstated some of the facts. I stated that it was a mother and a father with four kids. Actually it was a mother with six kids.

From Townhall:

The airline best known for its vast travel destinations and low airfare made headlines on Thursday after they booted a mother and her six children from a flight. 

JetBlue employees found themselves in a verbal standoff with the mother, Chaya Bruck, who was traveling alone with her six children this week when her two-year-old refused to wear a mask. On the flight from Orlando back to the family’s home in Brooklyn, Bruck told a flight attendant her toddler child would absolutely not wear the mask. 

I also misstated that the airline attendant was a stewardess, when it appears that it was a steward, whose name was not publicized . . .i am assuming that it was Ken.

“He said, ‘No, she has to cover her nose and her mouth,’ and I said I could try but then she was pulling it off,” Bruck said of the JetBlue employee. Her other five children were all wearing masks. 

The flight attendant, however, insisted that the child wear a mask or they would all have to leave the aircraft. With tempers flaring and patience thinning, the mother said they would not get off the plane and that JetBlue’s own policy, which she was familiar with, said that small children who would not wear a mask were exempt from the rule. 

“They were horribly nasty, my kids were crying. Really traumatizing,” said Bruck. “I asked them, ‘Should I tie her hands and feet? What do you want me to do?’ They just wanted me off the plane.”

The result of Ken making sure that everyone knew that he had “the power,” was that all of the passengers were forced to deplane!

What’s even more incredible is that the mother was right and Ken was wrong, as the employee said that only children UNDER two were exempt from the mask mandate. The policy as stated on JetBlue’s own website says that the mother was 100 percent correct. 

“Small children who are not able to maintain a face covering are exempt from this requirement,” the policy stated prior to Wednesday, as reported by YeshivaWorld and shared in their Instagram post. 

Hopefully Ken will be fired.

I wrote a letter to Southwest yesterday, but I have no vested interest inJet Blue. However I would encourage everyone to voice a complaint to the Jet Blue management. 

As I was just settling into my seat on the airline, I heard the following announcement, “Is there a Karen onboard?” Now granted, I had not flown in a while but I thought that it was pretty bizarre that the airlines was referring to passengers by their first names. Although I cannot state for sure whether one or more Karens responded, the next thing I knew the stewardess came marching down the aisle to address those who were sitting in the row behind me – this one family had taken all three seats on either side of the aisle – two adults and four young children. 

“No exceptions. Company policy! She must get off!” The stewardess then pointed to the two year old little girl in the middle seat who was sitting between her mommy and daddy.

Wow I thought, something very egregious must have happened. Even though my hearing is not the best, the stewardess’s harsh tone and increased volume made the gist of the problem pretty clear. The two year old in the middle seat would not keep her face mask on! I surmised that it was apparently important for all the Karens on board to hear what the stewardess was saying, and thus the loudness and harsh tone!

Personally, I didn’t care if the kid wore a mask or not, but I thought I could hear the Karens murmuring, “the nerve of that little brat.” 

Anyway the stewardess then escorted the family of six off the plane. At one point I wondered whether or not armed airline marshalls would be needed! But not so, as the family was more than cooperative. While the father was trying to corral three of the children down the aisle, the mother calmly said, “She is only two, and an independent two at that.” 

At that point I thought back to when my kids were young . . . No way in hell would a certain one of them have worn a mask at age two. Even today I have an independent-minded two year old granddaughter, who I could easily see saying,”no” to wearing a face mask.

I later learned that each individual airline carrier has their own set of rules addressing mask compliance. The FAA has apparently not stepped forward on this, so each individual airline now has its own set of arbitrary rules. I can see not allowing an adult to fly without wearing a mask, but a two year old!? Are you kidding me?

Another ludicrous airline-mask tale involved a three year old autistic child who would not let anything or anybody touch his face. This child had a doctor’s note, that explained the unfortunate child’s situation . . . but to no avail. “Strong work airline, punish an autistic child and his mother! Kick them off the flight!”

FYI: According to the local “ newspaper,” the two airlines involved in the above child-mask stories were Jet Blue and Southwest! Perhaps we could write each of those airlines and tell them to apply for a name change . . . “Karen Airline” might be apropos!

I did just write a letter to the Customer Relations Dept. at SWA asking whether kicking a three year old autistic child off a plane traveling from Midland to Houston for not wearing a mask was an example of their new kind of LUV!