WWIII -

A decade ago I read 3 books of a series of 8? called  the Worldwar series in fandom.   "In the Balance",  "Tilting the Balance" and "Upsetting the Balance".

I knew nothing about these books except for they were well crafted alternate reality books meaning . . . what would ACTUALLY happen if aliens attacked earth during WWII.  How would governments around the world already in a World War REALLY react.

The very first page stunned me.  It's about a solder who is driving down East Washington in Madison Wisconsin past Breeze Stevens and the author is describing what Madison was like in WWII.

WHAT?

Its a great series and we start to defeat the enemy by the 3rd book as they seem to REALLY like ginger and become addicted it.  It's like a Game of Thrones series with many many characters from all over the world and outer space and none of them are all good or all bad.   In fact there are some aliens that I really liked.

ANYWAY - it came to mind when I was thinking about our current situation which is we are in WWIII against an unseen micro enemy.  But our esteemed leader is NOT, I repeat, IS NOT a "war time" President except in his dreams.  Nice attempt.

What the President got wrong is that he is trying to fix the economy BEFORE the health issues which is totally backwards.  It's a guns and butter situation.  You cannot fix both at the same time.  One has to suffer according to Larry Brilliant (great name) the doctor that helped defeat smallpox and the Chairman of the board of Ending Pandemics.

He had a TED talk in 2006 he warned all that would listen that a pandemic was coning.  Obama listened and took steps creating the National Pandemic Response Team . . . before the current President disbanded it last year.

In the interview Brilliant had just gottin off the phone last week with a "very high government official who commented.  “How the fuck did we get here?”   

The very very first thing that needed to be done before anything was testing.  There is no human being in the world that has any immunity to this virus. That is the big problem, that is why testing is the tip top #1 thing to do and start AS SOON as another country shows problems, not 2 months later after denying it even exists and saying it was a Democratic hoax.

You don't know where you are until you can start REALLY testing. As of Sunday night America has no clue where we are because of a slow and lackadaisical government response.

He answered the question about  how long this will last and he had 3 criteria

1. "we figure out whether the distribution of this virus looks like an iceberg, which is one-seventh above the water, or a pyramid, where we see everything. If we're only seeing right now one-seventh of the actual disease because we're not testing enough, and we're just blind to it, then we're in a world of hurt".     we are in a world of hurt. 

2. "we have a treatment that works, a vaccine or antiviral".

3. "maybe most important, we begin to see large numbers of people—in particular nurses, home health care providers, doctors, policemen, firemen, and teachers who have had the disease—are immune, and we have tested them to know that they are not infectious any longer. And we have a system that identifies them, either a concert wristband or a card with their photograph and some kind of a stamp on it. Then we can be comfortable sending our children back to school, because we know the teacher is not infectious."

ME?  on a personal note. I'll know we turned a corner when the first Major League Baseball game is played . . .I'm a simple person

And NO - the President DID NOT CALL the virus a hoax.   He did say that any worries about

large scale infections in the US were a hoax by the Democrats who were trying to politicize it, and that the administration had done "a great job" in preventing that, as shown by the fact that there were only 15 cases in the US.

Quote of the day about Trumps constant fake news conferences

Fauci on Trump: ‘I Can’t Jump in Front of the Microphone and Push Him Down’

The trick is to get that curve of infected people to flatten out. THEN we know we have a handle on things.   As of 3/23/20 this is the chart for America.

those last 5 dots . .

7,800
13,700
19,100
25,500
33,300

Only one country in the world has leveled off and America is 1.5 months behind.  China had their first 1000 cases 1/21/20  America 3/9/20   

WWIII.

We will survive and the economy will return.

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ON A BRIGHTER SIDE -

JoJo Rabbit is an OUTSTANDING comedy about a Hitler youth.   No really, we watched it last night and BRAVO!!   It's actually a humorous love story.  It's won and has been nominated for an amazing amount of awards

https://youtu.be/JjsWr7gNUAU



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Cannabis sales have LEAPED  in the last week. Seems people are hoarding cannabis but more to the point - edibles sales jumped 18% last week while flower dropped 21%. 

In Illinois cannabis dispensaries are essential businesses and will stay open.  In fact all states that have travel bans cannabis dispensaries are essential businesses and most states now offer home delivery.

A review concluded that "combination of cannabinoids with opioids has been shown to "reduce opioid doses and "may be able to produce long-term analgesic effects, while preventing the opioid analgesic tolerance."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that U.S. opioid overdose deaths declined 2% from 2017 to 2018.  

Sales of aerosol disinfectants were up 518% last week compared to a year ago.  Rubbing Alcohol up 277%  perfume is down 17.7%  sunscreen down 17%   vegetable party platters down 7%.

I guess nobody is trying to impress anybody any more.

Be very safe out there!