MR. PRESIDENT, don't let the Deep State back in. We don't need credentials, we need knowledge. They're not the same.

RANDOM THOUGHT soon-to-be picked up by the Babylon Bee: All Americans living in cities and towns having populations greater than (TBD) must self-quarantine through April 15, effective immediately.

The U.S. Postal Service will not deliver mail during that period (except for tax returns not requesting a refund).

BERNIE SANDERS ON CORONAVIRUS:

This is outrageous!

Don't you people realize that if I were President, we could be having empty store shelves without having to have a disease epidemic to get them?

Taken from a comment following this Don Surber post.

'EARNED' INCOME VS 'APPROVED' INCOME: A license to kill jobs.

The lede for this post came from a bad dream nightmare, then along came the American Spectator article. The Spectator article isn't exactly my nightmare, which was more along the lines of Bernie Marxist doctrine: if it ain't approved, it ain't earned.

A NUMBER OF RANDOM THOUGHTS/LINKS ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS WUHAN FLU:

Let's get real; it's a problem, not a panic.

More perspective.

Here are some tracking sites that provide useful daily updates: USA Today; NBC News; ARS Technica; and Coronavirus Dashboard, by a very innovative young blogger. The latter two seem to offer the best data with the least hype.

The CDC site is nearly worthless. Mostly hype and nonsense; very little useful data.

And now for my thoughts. Fox News reports a World Health Organization official that roughly 80% of coronavirus cases will involve mild symptoms, which I take to mean not reported to any health authorities. Given that as a base assumption, let's look at the data (Corona Dashboard; 5 pm EDT, 14 March).

Globally there were 154,663 confirmed coronavirus cases. Of them, there were 5,794 deaths, 5,721 reported as serious (assumed to be hospitalizations), and 76,401 reported as recovered. The balance of reported cases (estimated as the number of confirmed cases less the numbers of deaths, serious, and recovered cases) is 66,747. If we assume the WHO rule (above) that 80% of cases go unreported, then the total number of coronavirus cases worldwide is 773,315 (154663/0.20), yielding a death rate of (5794/773315) ~0.75%

Using the same logic and Coronavirus Dashboard data, there have been 2657 confirmed cases, 50 deaths, no serious cases, 2,599 mild cases (estimated as above) and 8 recoveries. Using the 80% rule of thumb as above, the total number of coronavirus cases in the United States is estimated to be 13,285, which in turn leads to an estimated death rate of ~0.38%.

The CDC estimated death rate for seasonal flu (over the last 10 years) is ~0.13%.

I'm no medical expert, but I do have some intellectual curiosity, a modicum of common sense, an ability to analyze data, and these numbers tell me that the coronavirus panic we're experiencing is mostly hype promulgated by a biased (read that as 'hate Trump') media in coordination with a Deep State determined to maintain (if not increase) its control over American citizens.

NEVER GIVE IN to the Social Justice 'warriorship'.

HEINLEIN'S CRAZY YEARS have hit the mainstream media especially hard this election season.

CORONAVIRUS shows why 'Medicare for all' is a bad idea.

IT DOESN'T WORK BUT IT'S DOMESTICALLY PRODUCED, SMELLS GOOD, AND CHEAP: Who’s up for some official New York State hand sanitizer?

RETURN OF THE TURTLES: Thoughts on our present discontents.

POWERLINE'S WEEK IN PICTURES, this week aptly titled One Flu Over the Cuckoo's Nest, is so good I offer a sample of favorites:
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Don't miss the rest.

THE DEMOCRAT PARTY is wounded -- and dangerous.

The Democrats and the Deep State have spent the last four years constructing the greatest wag-the-dog spectacle America's ever seen in an attempt to cover up the malfeasance and criminality of the last administration, while preventing the current one from achieving too many victories. Considering that Brennan and Comey are still free and Obama and Hillary are still smiling, they've been remarkably successful. But the Mueller obfuscation and Schiff circus are behind us, the dance music of delay is dying down, and the Democrats' and Deep State's ability to keep pushing back their day of reckoning is coming to an end. If they don't win in 2020, they cannot keep justice at bay, regardless of how stacked in their favor it has always been in the past. And standing in the gap as their last-ditch prospect to save them from President Trump's re-election and spare them from long delayed judgment is none other than Corn Pop's archenemy. The one "reasonable" Democrat in the race who has already burnished his "moderate" credentials by fully embracing Bernie's Green New Deal, Warren's Medicare for All, and Beto's door-to-door gun confiscation. Nothing says "electable centrist Democrat" like "D'oh!" Biden's full tilt toward Marxist socialism. No wonder Chuck Schumer sounds like some injured animal in the forest, lashing out at tree branches all around him. That's what small, weak, dying creatures do when they know the end is near.

I'm hopeful their time in power is over and their time in jail is about to begin.

THE DIPLOMAD excoriates the elite arrogance of 'work from home'.

Demand journallists work without cell phones and see what happens....