We haven’t reached communist-level cut throat levels. But neither have we the peace we had a mere two months ago. Neighbor is already turning on neighbor, rating them out for taking a second walk outdoors, or for suspicions of anti-revolutionary ideas. Fear of death is turning us all into cowardly cry-bullies.
A sickness is spreading through Britain. The sickness of snitching. Police forces report a ‘surge’ in calls from people squealing on their neighbours for going for a second run or taking their dog out rather too often. It’s being called ‘quarantine shaming’. It’s the most shameful part of this pandemic so far. If we aren’t careful, this enthusiastic embrace of the Stasi tactic of spying and grassing on our neighbours could hurt Britain more than the virus itself in the long run.
Imagine it being a crime to walk alone in the sunshine.
“No, Briggs. You just don’t get it. Nobody cares about you. Die if you want to. But you might be infected! You might come closer than six feet to somebody else! You might then infect them! They might die!”
Might to the fourth power goes to zero faster than a car hitting a brick wall.
Residents snitch on businesses, neighbors amid shutdowns
Snitches are emerging as enthusiastic allies as cities, states and countries work to enforce directives meant to limit person-to-person contact amid the virus pandemic that has claimed tens of thousands of lives worldwide. They’re phoning police and municipal hotlines, complaining to elected officials and shaming perceived scofflaws on social media.
In hard-hit New York City, police arrested the owner of an illegal Brooklyn speakeasy where a dozen people were found drinking and gambling after someone called 311 with a tip.
The saying used to be in the City that snitches get stitches. Now they receive accolades. What was that advice of going to your brother privately, before running to rat him out to the media and police?
Germans snitch on neighbours flouting virus rules, in echo of the Stasi past
Law-abiding Germans are zealously helping police crack down on people flouting new social distancing rules aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus by reporting on strangers, neighbours and friends…
“We are getting tip-offs from the public about open restaurants or large gatherings of people in parks,” said a spokeswoman, adding officers were, as always, ready to deal with information from the public.
Forces around Germany are in a similar situation. Munich police took up to 150 calls every day last week from citizens reporting alleged breaches of corona rules, Spiegel Online said.
Maybe some kind of wall can be put up. Stick sunshine scofflaws behind this wall. Machine gun them if they try to go over the top.
Anybody in Germany have any experience building this kind of structure?
Taipei City Government to reward those who report mask litterers
The Taipei City Government announced Thursday (April 2) that individuals who report mask littering to the authorities would receive compensation while the people responsible for the offense would be fined NT$3,600-6,000 (US$120-200).
Paying neighbors to rat out neighbors. What could go wrong?
Scientists agree that the best way to keep from dying from coronavirus is being shot in the head.
DC mayor threatens jail time for leaving home during coronavirus
“Mayor Muriel Bowser is threatening residents of Washington, DC, with 90 days in jail and a $5,000 fine if they leave their homes during the coronavirus outbreak.”
Thieves and crack dealers get less. And I believe young male prostitutes. But those might be on retainer for Congress. I’m not sure.
Matt Hancock reveals he’s lost two people to coronavirus as he threatens to ban ALL outdoor exercise
The article pictures a woman sitting all by herself in a large open grassy area, where she has epsilon chance of catching or passing on coronavirus, is approached by two “police” officers.
Vermont orders Walmart, Target to stop selling non-essential items in the store
State officials in Vermont are ordering large retailers that sell critical items such as food and prescription drugs to stop the in-person sale of nonessential products such as clothing and electronics.
The directive, announced Tuesday by Vermont’s Agency of Commerce and Community Development, was addressed at “big box” retailers.
Whenever possible, stores such as Walmart, Target and Costco must stop the sale of nonessential items within the store and require online or telephone ordering, delivery, and curbside pickup instead.
Trivia question: In what other political systems does the government gets to decide everything you’re allowed to buy and sell?
Coronavirus Delaware: Police Authorized To Pull Over Out-Of-State Drivers During Pandemic
Police in Delaware have been given the authority to pull over out-of-state drivers during the coronavirus pandemic. Delaware State Police say Gov. John Carney’s state of emergency declaration “authorizes any Delaware law enforcement officer to stop a vehicle driving within the state simply because it is displaying out-of-state tags.”
Once pulled over, state police say the officer will ask questions about the driver’s travel, who will then be told that “they are required by law to self-quarantine for 14 days while in Delaware, or immediately return to their home state.”
I used to be against spreading fear, paranoia, and hysterical effeminacy. Now I say bring it on. Let’s see how crazy we can make ourselves. We can’t let the Chinese beat us in total batshit insanity. We’re the USA!
Dr. Deborah Birx: This Is Not the Time to Go to the Grocery Store
Dr. Deborah Birx said Saturday that Americans should especially focus on social distancing guidelines in the next two weeks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
“This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the pharmacy, but doing everything you can to keep your family and your friends safe,” she said.
So you can’t buy good anymore. Food is for sucks. It’s Lent and time for fasting anyway.
Yep
The world as we know it has gone mad.
Delightful!
Birx is (a) a women who quite obviously slept her way to that MD. She fought the AIDS epidemic by having it spread worldwide, increase in deaths and finally spread everywhere because the government will fork out the money for treatment, life-long, and prophelaxis in case you stupidly sleep with someone not yet infected. I’m not sure why on the latter since spreading AIDS is cool, but it’s money, so…..and (b) is trying to start another round of hoarding and supermarket riots because there’s nothing good to watch on the TV or to do locked down, which is her fault you’re locked down. She’s providing entertainment. By the way, you have a better chance at long life caged with hungry male lion than with this horrible creature in charge. I am assuming she’s also a big promoter of perversion, having helped AIDS become mainstream and spread far and wide. You can look forward to lockdowns and hungar games until this woman leaves the planet for good.
While I still don’t understand how people go so stupid so fast (Trump among them–he’s using OBAMA DEEP STATE to run an epidemic—-how incredibly, unbelievably cowardly and STUPID), it’s obvious that giving humans a hamster wheel and a cage results in the Hitler phenomena coming back. If there was no God, humans would be extinct. In any other scenario, we SHOULD be, and may be in this scenario too. God may need to apologize to Sodom and Gomorra yet.
The STUPIDEST things are locking people up for surfing alone or sitting alone and putting them in a holding cell with 20 others. This is terminal stupidity. Said officers should be dropped on a desert island and left to live their very short lives because stupid SHOULD kill. It’s no wonder cops get spit on. They have it coming.
To those of you doing the happy monkey dance because you’re the hamster and loving this (you know who you are), Karma. I’d try “be careful what you wish for” but your IQ would need to be 100 points higher. Sad, but the Incas and Aztecs went the same way…..
The only way to stop this is to take every news anchor out there, including Fox News, and drop them on a deserted island with an alligator moat. No one is up to the job, so start restocking and figuring out how to get even with the snitch next door.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/04/06/chief-medical-officer-steps-down-after-getting-caught-ignoring-own-lockdown-advice-to-visit-second-home/
Karma lives!!!!! (At least in Scotland)
Yes, let the hate flow through us. It hastens the inevitable collapse. We’re either going full Stasi, or we’re going to have a civil war of Mao-esque proportions.
Me, I’m hoping for civil war. It’s the only future trend that shows a significant ray of hope for the future. We might win, after all. Whereas if we don’t fight, we know what the Left has planned for us.
The Star-Spangled Bummer
O say can you see, there’s nothing but fright,
We all fearfully bowed before he Virus so gleaming,
Whose gray globe and red stars through the perilous fright.
On the TV we watch the Doctors fitfully dreaming
At the Virus we stare, doom predictions bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our Fauci was there.
O say does that red starred virus ever yet wave
O’er the land of the locked down and the home of the slaves
Quarantine? Nope. To call this a quarantine is to destroy language.
According to the CDC: Quarantine separates and restricts the movement of people who were exposed to a contagious disease to see if they become sick.
This is a lockdown, which is unconstitutional in Ohio, anyway.
Yes, we had, and have, quarantines. Yet there were no lockdowns before.
Note: CDC says “were exposed,” not “might have been exposed.”
A complete difference of essence.
Sheri: The STUPIDEST things are locking people up for surfing alone or sitting alone and putting them in a holding cell with 20 others. This is terminal stupidity. Said officers should be dropped on a desert island and left to live their very short lives because stupid SHOULD kill. It’s no wonder cops get spit on. They have it coming.
Meanwhile NY’s bail law has freed a serial bank robber who robbed yet another bank after his release and a NJ judge has ordered the freeing of 1000 prisoners allowing officials to make the case why this one or that one might be a danger to society.
I told some people that I thought this thing was turning a corner – but models they said.
Yesterday’s new cases down almost a third and even new deaths fell the same day (albeit just a tic). It’s looking like we’re turning the corner on two wheels.
Re Britain’s Snitching Sickness
What else would you expect in a “nanny state” that tries to treat adult population like children … that’s how they’ll act. Tattletales.
Dale Carnegie in his “How to Win Friends and Influence…” applied this behavior reaction constructively.
For the UK, which does thing differently, consider perusing the following book:
“Bad Laws: An Explosive Analysis of Britain’s Petty Rules, Health and Safety Lunacies, Madcap Laws and Nitpicking Regulations”
by
Phillip Johnston
What began as the required ritual every time one met a military man
“Thank you for your service”
has now been extended to include Doctors and Nurses
“Thank you for your service”
but were it not for the existence of America’s enemies and those who become ill, our military would be inactive and our Doctors and Nurses would be unemployed.
Let’s not forget to thank the ill:
“Thank you for getting ill sick person. I hope your illness is such that it requires treatment by a Doctor in a hospital.”
Two words describe our system of government: Gerontocracy and Gynokratia.
The authoritarian impulse is only skin deep. Soon we’ll declare victory
and move on and surprise surprise the overall death rate will be no
worse than any other flu year and we’ll all share in that collective victory!
The only logical course being an end to disease spreading cash, real
time tracking to root out the infected, and vaccine compliance chips (location
to be determined we’ll all get to vote on that).
Couldn’t help but think of Ray Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian”
You can read the story here:
https://genius.com/Ray-bradbury-the-pedestrian-annotated
Looks like our main man has no immunity to p value nonsense:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/us/politics/trump-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage
The original study on that drug:
https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Hydroxychloroquine_final_DOI_IJAA.pdf
This is a great simple example of why not to use p values for making (any) decisions. I can’t believe these guys never even heard of multiple comparisons and adjusting for the same.
Meantime, in reality, there is a review by a couple of statisticians:
https://zenodo.org/record/3724167
Walt
I’d recommend “Wild in the Streets”
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063808/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ql_stry_2
Now that I think of it, it’s the story of Rehoboam!
Pandemic so bad Yellow Mountain China opens today with free admission!
Chinese scenic spot swamped with 20,000 tourists as coronavirus outbreak slows
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1krvkvi1zFw
Such a Pandemic!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=45&v=8kYuzZzirKA&feature=emb_logo
‘It’s all fake!’: Chinese official heckled by residents on visit to Wuhan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo81j6o97Z4
And so we pray and social distance and wait and pray and social distance and wait.
Dear God, Thank you for all of your helps. Amen.
Also, I am going to read Farenheit 451. Thank you, John B().
God bless, C-Marie
C-Marie
You’re welcome! I was unaware of the graphic novel nor of the back story to Fahrenheit 451 myself. I knew the back story to the Pedestrian from the TV anthology series Ray Bradbury Tales when they dramatized that story.
I’d read 451 almost 50 years ago. I don’t think I’ve ever reread it! (I have seen Truffaut’s 1966 film version.) I have reread Dandelion Wine and Something Wicked This Way Comes.
I generally love and appreciate his literary style of writing but interestingly I saw Great Wide World Over There on his anthology show and when I finally hunted down the story, I found that his writing got in the way of the story
Great Wide World Over There :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AgAuqUGJGc
I think it’s a remarkable performance by Tyne Daly (love her husband too). The only issue I have it should have been made more of a period piece (1950s or 60s at the latest). His original story I believe was set in the 20’s or 30’s.
Here’s David Ogden Stiers in The Pedestrian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krxg8D0I2Xw
God Bless You
Enough cynicism!
Whatever you’ve read, nobody has been locked up in this country for being out when they are Not either: working, caring for the vulnerable, shopping for medicines or groceries. Nobody, so whatever you’ve read otherwise is simply untrue. The police have issued very few fines, literally. a handful. Maybe in America…
Somebody did steal a loaf of multigrain bread from my trolley at Sainsbury’s in Ongar though! That didn’t make the news. I thought it was quite cute. Made me smile. It really is the best brown bread, makes fabulous toast.
Our Father who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come
Thy will be done, on Earth as it i in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bead
and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever,
Amen.
Abide With Me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16vi5Zey1mk
Joy
Briggs just opened with an anecdotal story that happened to be about Britain.
He followed that with many stories about other countries. All of them we would understand to be anecdotal. (Unfortunately he did include a second British story from The Sun no less so maybe you felt picked on.)
My own comment about (anecdotal) police harassing people for being suspiciously present where they shouldn’t be happened in 1950 and ended up inspiring a wonderful short story and later a celebrated novel.
I guess somebody stealing a loaf of bread from you is rather cute. You should write a story.
Thank you for the Lord’s Prayer, you know it’s welcome any time.
As always, Cheers
Dr. Briggs,
You are not only a breath of fresh air, but a wonderfully sly satirist on top of data analyst. Thank you for joining, nay Leading (!), the voices observing the insanity and the civilization-level dangers lurking in the panicky response to this virus. What do the Leftists say, “never let a crisis go to waste”? Whatever it takes to centralize power in the hands of self-anointed “experts” works for their agenda.
May God Bless You as well, sir.
Lovely, Joy!! I looked up Sainsbury’s in Ongar online as I had no idea as to where you are. Very nice! And, I bake a great whole wheat bread too, with a bit of Buckwheat Honey, etc.
Thank you for the Our Father.
God bless in Christ’s peace, C-Marie
C Marie, your home baked bread sounds delicious. I expect it is also disappearing bread!
John B,
My mistake, but Briggs writes in foreign! He must learn English.
a bright side:
Citizens get a reprieve!
Death from serious health conditions is now on hold.
Oficially, the only way to expire now is from cov.
Celebrate responsibly.
Joy
I blame Noah Webster – I think Noah took the English English and reversed just about every rule for American English.
Back in 1994 I was in Europe with a mash of Brit, Scot, Kiwi and other English speaking Euros. I was trying to learn Czech and had a Berlitz Language Guide. As I’m reading the pronunciation guide, Berlitz told me that the d with the accent mark sounds like the ‘d’ in in duty or for Americans, the ‘j’ in jam. Huh?
So I wrote d-u-t-y in big block letters and took it to one of the Brits, asking him to read the word for me. He thought I was ‘punk’ing him. After much cajoling, he finally responded (to my ears) “Juty”. We finally went through as many ‘d(long)u’ words we could think of. “dJuke”, “dJuly”, “dJune”, “dJupe”. So “Dude” is “Jude”? The Beatle’s were actually singing “Hey Dude” all this time and we didn’t know it?
No, he said, “Dude” is “Dude”!
I thought about it the D problem, wait a minute, we say: “edJucate”.
We say “eDucate”. I blame Noah.
Then I found out about “tCHune”.
Ciao
John B,
At risk of causing an international diplomatic incident, Americans say “doodie”!
D,eu,ty is the right way to say it, of course!
Cheers.
Joy
Yep! Doodie – I love it! That IS what we say!
And it was all Webster’s fault!
My big faux pas was when this one guy was saying something and I said, “oh yeah! I forgot, you speak German!”
He laughed and said, “No! I speak Austrian!”
International diplomatic incident averted!
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