Well, I'm back in the stores--at least on a once-per-week maximum basis. My last trip to pick up groceries didn't work as well as I'd have liked. The pickup time was a week after my online order. I had to wait an hour and a half once my time slot arrived. And a third of what I wanted was unavailable with no substitutions made. And a few important items for my mom weren't available. Not that I blame them, really. It's a nice service put under tremendous strain. So I masked up and returned to the grocery store on Monday. At least it was early in the week before we reach peak Wuhan Flu in Detroit. But I'm making up for it by not getting take out food from a restaurant once per week to keep them going as I started to do.
So China claims a glorious success against the Wuhan Flu? I assume that China is lying about how many people have died there from the Wuhan Flu. But I don't put much value in reports of funeral urn shipments to Chinese funeral facilities. I mean, on a good non pandemic day, lots of Chinese simply die of natural causes. So unless the urn numbers can be given before and after the epidemic, I don't think the number of what is going in now tells us anything.
Afghan forces arrested the head of ISIL in Afghanistan. I generally prefer just killing them. But if he is interrogated for actionable intelligence I'll forgive the act. But I'll always worry that corruption will result in his escape. I wonder if the Taliban turned him in as part of the peace talks?
Military recruiting is naturally suffering during the Wuhan Flu. Although at some point you'd think some young people will see a military job as better than no military job. But basic training is a group project with little in the way of social distancing possible. So even if recruiting was fine, how do you bring the new people in and turn them into troops? I wonder if stop-loss will be used in the short run to maintain numbers. Or maybe troops will be persuaded to stay in a bit longer to make up for lower intake because of the lack of job opportunities in the civilian economy. And the morning after I wrote this I see that the Army has stopped moving recruits to basic training. This is just for two weeks to put policies in place. Perhaps every recruit is isolated for two weeks before basic training. Even if this works, there is going to be a recruit shortfall. Let's see if stop-loss action is next. A lot of troops may be shocked that their contract with their last years of service in the reserve component gives the Army the option of making that active duty service. If memory serves me. The Air Force has shortened and adjusted their basic training in response to the Wuhan Flu.
Europe's armed forces are being "squeezed" by the Wuhan Flu. Already small, maintaining deployments and helping cope at home with the epidemic on top of dealing with sick troops (and preventing the epidemic from spreading in the ranks as much as possible) is straining them. America is affected more, I think. Because reduced training kills the major advantage we enjoy. Although Britain and elite portions of other European militaries would be similarly affected.
Democrats suddenly learn the value of due process in the face of even an accusation by a woman--who would never lie about such a thing as sexual assault or harassment.
No matter how little I like Trump's verbal behavior, the media and his Democratic opponents behave so much worse so relentlessly dialed up to 11--and here's just one I read this morning--that they compel me to side with Trump. Surely political science grad students will mine this the-enemy-of-my-enemy example for years eventually. Which is one reason I don't worry about Trump "ruining" the Republican Party brand. People move on quickly. I mean, Obama went from a god to a non-entity to be cited but not heeded in the Democratic Party within a couple years of leaving office.
If Biden--or whatever non-Zombie the Democrats field in November--wins the election, I look forward to the media frenzy over Chinese interference that oddly aided the Democrat and lengthy investigations over collusion in our election process. If Democracy dies in darkness, the darkness started in Peking.
Well of course Hillary Clinton used her private server for private email messages in defiance of government communications security rules in order to evade FOIA (and record retention) requirements. If something comes out following this case about Benghazi on September 11, 2012, my main objective is to find out why our troops in Europe didn't "march to the sound of the guns." And this is an example of how having money and friends in high places can run out the clock on justice--or even just shining a light on unpleasant actions by government actions. It's almost as if democracy dies in darkness, or something. Or maybe the Clintons who don't rake in the money they once did are just no longer useful, and can be thrown under the bus by former friends in high places.
During lockdown we'd do better to watch Groundhog Day rather than epidemic movies.
Oh, and Bernie Sanders said he is no longer going to compete for delegates on the way to the Democratic convention. This simply reflects that Bernie was never really trying to win the nomination. He never went after Biden in order to win. Which will benefit Trump in the election because Biden didn't get to practice rebutting attacks from a fellow Democrat. And it confirms my bias that Bernie never wanted to become president. His reported ejection from a commune because he couldn't shut up about issues long enough to work tells me that Bernie only wants to lead a "movement" that lets him speechify rather than do the hard work of governing. Being a senator with a nationwide movement behind him is pretty much Sanders' dream job.
This is hilarious. It only gets better if the governor recommends full body shielding to fight the Wuhan Flu and suggests using any old sheet you have at home if you don't have personal protection clothing made for that purpose. If Northam had an (R) after his name he'd have been hounded out of office long ago.
The Wuhan Flu may do more damage than we thought. This is not just a flu.
I don't know if Trump could shoot a man in the middle of 5th Avenue and have his supporters ignore it. But I'm pretty sure Trump could personally cure the Wuhan Flu and his opponents would find a way to blame him.
Should America lift sanctions on Iran to help Iran fight the Wuhan Flu? No. I agree. Iran just wants more resources to cause mayhem.
Sweden will be an interesting case of an advanced democracy coping with the Wuhan Flu without a lockdown of the healthy. Is it failing or is Sweden unique enough for their approach to work?
The Wuhan Flu has suppressed protests and jihadis in Algeria. I have no doubt the latter will resume. Will the former? Or will the government get some legitimacy from the epidemic response? I doubt that, but who knows?
Jamming and hacking satellites, which is a Space Force mission.
The idea that pulling out of the horrible Iran nuclear deal and putting "maximum" pressure on mullah-run Iran is an abandonment of the Carter Doctrine to defend the Persian Gulf oil supplies of the West and actually provoked Iran to be such a threat is utter and complete nonsense. Iran under the mullahs is the major threat to that oil flow and stopping Iran is job one to keep the oil moving. Strengthening Iran and helping Iran's mullahs get nukes is no way to protect the West. I will grant that it is correct that just because we don't import oil from the Persian Gulf doesn't mean it isn't still in our interest to protect the flow. Our allies and trading partners need that oil and we need healthy allies and trading partners. But appeasing Iran under the mullahs is no way to protect the oil supplies.
The Erdogan-Putin relationship status: it's complicated.
Juat a reminder that Trump's early 2020 "travel ban" from China to battle the Wuhan Flu was just a reduction and not a total ban. I suppose much like the 2017 so-called "Moslem ban" wasn't actually a ban on very many people who were Moslem from coming to America. Perhaps we all need to brush up on what the word "ban" means. That doesn't make media and Democratic cries that both "bans" were racist any less ridiculous and politically motivated.
An interesting article on the political aspects of Putin's response to the Wuhan Flu.
The European Union science chief resigned in extreme disappointment over the EU response to the Wuhan Flu. The former chief was confused. The EU proto-imperial state has little interest in doing anything but gradually erasing the prefix. The only way the EU would have gone hammer and tongs after the Wuhan Flu was if the virus was a member of the EU trying to exit the bloc.
China continues its subliminal war by sinking its claws into the South China Sea--while literally sinking a Vietnamese fishing vessel. China's claims are illegal but that doesn't stop China. America protested. And the Philippines-which China is heavily targeting for subliminal conquests at sea--is backing Vietnam. In other news, an American destroyer traversed the Taiwan Strait, annoying China which was carrying out military exercises in the area.
Iraq will try a third time to get a new prime minister. Already, Iran's Iraqi lap dogs don't like him. While it is nerve wracking to see whether we can blunt Iranian influence in this process, it is a little refreshing that political maneuvering is how the impasse is being resolved rather than with armed men, shooting, and arrests. Sometimes progress is right there in front of you. Here's more on the latest candidate, Kadhimi.
If the "Wuhan Flu" ceasefire in Yemen even holds, don't forget that it is not peace and one side will gain an advantage by preparing better for the end of the ceasefire.
Putin is facing the Wuhan Flu, a dispute with Saudi Arabia that has resulted in a sharp drop in oil export income, Turkey, Ukraine, and Syria. And I guess we won't even get into a rising China that gets all grabby about territory they say used to be their own when Russia still has huge tracts of land in the Far East grabbed from a weak China in the 19th century. Can we please stop the talk about how well Putin plays a poor hand? He's effing up royally.
Ah, our friends the Pakistanis. About all you can say good about Pakistan is that they could be a lot worse.
Taiwan is a free and democratic friend we should celebrate and support while China is a communist predator we should oppose (tips to Instapundit). America should help Taiwan become a center for global democracy promotion. Perhaps we can return the favor for the Wuhan Flu by "infecting" China with the democracy "disease." For Taiwan, given China's continuing military build up, short of fielding nuclear weapons, isn't going on offense with liberty the best option for survival?
Should Britain's army have a corps headquarters? For combat on the continent, sure, unless the British want to always attach their combat formations to an allied corps. A corps would provide Britain with a more independent military option. But--not to be rude--is the British army large enough to need its own corps?
What we've been doing with enforced social distancing using a lockdown strategy seems to have averted the worst Wuhan Flu death toll that the models predicted. Hopefully we can restart our economy when it is safer. And then we will need to examine whether social distancing could have been accomplished without the economic hit that the lockdown method required. Not that I'm saying that a reduced death toll proves the lockdown was unneeded. As I've said, an adequate plan resolutely prosecuted to completion is a superior approach to constantly shifting plans looking for the perfect approach. I just want to know where on the scale of adequate to perfect this strategy is. Tip to Instapundit.
Hey you do what you can at the time with what you have to work with. So I disagree with this complaint about Nixon's opening to China. At the time we had a common enemy in the form of the USSR and we needed that help to tie down Soviet forces in the east so they didn't point at NATO. We did solve the USSR problem. And now we have a PRC problem. That's how it works. Solving one problem is often the entry ticket for the next problem. And we clearly didn't abandon Taiwan to do that. Indeed, Taiwan went from being an authoritarian government to a free country since that Nixon opening to China. So there's that, too.
The Wuhan Flu press conferences work for Trump. No matter how much I may cringe at something Trump says, the behavior of the press corps just infuriates me. They just can't lose their urge to get Trump. Crisis be damned. Seeing stories about the "Trump-backed" Hydroxychloroquine as if his approval is the kiss of death for the "science" of it is kind of a silly take on that when 65% of doctors would prescribe it for Wuhan Flu patients, no? I mean, even Snopes had to admit the profiting angle was rather silly.
I mentioned losses Nigeria and Chad endured at the hands of jihadis and the announced counter-offensive. This is big if true: "The Chadian army said Thursday it had wound up an offensive against Boko Haram jihadists in the Lake Chad border region in which 52 troops and 1,000 jihadists were killed." I do worry that Chad defines any running local resident as a jihadi--and any local resident standing still is a well-disciplined jihadi.
Just a reminder that it is not anti-science to be anti-scientists for their anti-science BS. Shame on Nature magazine. It's the Wuhan Flu. This does not mean Asians are to blame for this. This does not mean Asians should be discriminated against. And if this coronavirus had started in Kansas there would be no wavering at all among scientists that it should be called the Kansas Flu. There are scientists. But there are also liberal activists with PhDs. The best quip about that linked issue? "That's what Xi said."
The Wuhan Flu and militaries or armed groups. Troops won't suffer too many deaths from this, as a generally young and healthy group. But morale and readiness will suffer. My thoughts here.
America is upgrading its penetrating bombs. Israel has them, too.
Yeah, I think America is better positioned to emerge from the Wuhan Flu with an advantage over China than those who think China can exploit a pandemic that started in China and which China hid from the world long enough for it to become a pandemic rather than an epidemic limited to China. And China's lies to try to put the blame on America is not helping.
While I think talk of Putin using his Syria intervention to make diplomatic inroads into the Middle East is overblown, did his feud with Saudi Arabia over oil prices wreck whatever he did achieve?
I do wonder if the Democratic Party think of Biden as the non-Sanders placeholder until the convention when they can junk the whole primary process and just select somebody else to run for president. This flies in the face of my longstanding view that Biden is the sacrificial lamb to lose to Trump without damaging any real politician preparing for 2024. The course of action probably depends on polling on Trump in August. Which depends on how well the media can damage Trump between now and then.
The Left, which is heartbroken about the lifting of bans on plastic grocery bags to combat the spread of the Wuhan Flu actually raging right now, don't understand why climate skeptics don't want to destroy our economy to combat potentially bad effects a century down the line.
In Iran, this "cure" is technically not worse than the actual disease thus far.
A "new, larger wave of locusts" in Africa. How many horsemen of the Apocalypse are we going to get this year?
I think the proper Czech response to the Russians is "Come and get it."
Moscow residents--perhaps 10%--fled the city for the countryside. Which could spread the Wuhan Flu to regions less capable of treating it.
Haha!
Tensions continue on the India-Pakistan border over Kashmir.
Did we overreact to the Wuhan Flu by shutting down so much of our economy (tip to Instapundit)? Or is a big shutdown the fastest way to get the economy going full steam again? As I've said many times, this is out of my lane and I have difficulty judging who is right.
Killing air defense radar. And please retire your usage of the acronym HARM. It's now AARGM.
Well that's good. But I thought we'd been training our pilots as they'd fight all along. Since the Vietnam War, anyway. Did something happen to Top Gun and Red Flag while I wasn't looking?
Social Justice League, Assemble! I'll stick with DC and Marvel for my fantasy world heroes.
That's my government ...
Well of course Russia and China are spreading lies about the Wuhan Flu.
India has signed a deal to purchase American anti-submarine helicopters.
