The Times, They Are A’Changing
Coronavirus has everybody a little spooked.
Over the years I have brought you stories from Fayette County, Texas. I have friends – Vickie, David, Cecil and Marsha – who happily live the urban life in the prettiest part of Texas. But, their county isn’t boring, and even the crooks are practicing safe behavior during trying times.
How to rob Tillie’s cafe: First, the cash register didn’t look safe and …. awww, just read it for yourself.
Thanks to David who had to send it to Vickie who had to send it to her other email account to be able to send it to me because their email is all screwed up in Fayette County this morning.
As long as everyone remembers this is due to Covid-19, and we are all in the same boat, it will still get messy. How do we set up soup kitchens when we can’t be outside & congregating.
I am happy to say online meetings are better than nothing (and if you keep video off, the bandwidth is more likely to be adequate ^)…
^ No one will have to know the only clean stuff you’ve got is “special” &/or doesn’t fit like it ought to. 😉
1time to bring in the 25th amendment…
2And the perps had the good sense to practice social distancing by hitting the joint while they were closed.
3When they’re caught, their lawyer oughta bring up that and the Lysol during the sentencing phase. Hell, using an unloaded gun during his convenience store robberies got H.I. McDunnough’s parole board to cut him a little slack.
Okay then.
The first mid corona virus crisis jumper is none other than the ***king moron* who makes the Lysol burglar(s) look like Rhodes Scholars. In a spectacular looping leap over preying menace Pence, others and a balcony railing, Donnie* out Donnie* dumbed his last dumb utterance with:
“We might not have to do it, but there’s a possibility that sometime today we’ll do a quarantine, short-term, two weeks on New York. Probably New Jersey, certain parts of Connecticut.”
What a maroon! He* must have missed the part where Merde-duh-Blowhole was ground zero for COVID-19 compounded by nearly as dumb as Donnie* Ron Duh-Santis trying to squeeze a few pennies out of spring break and keeping the beaches open to spread coronavirus from Floriduh along the entire east coast, down, up, back and points beyond.
Republicons, here is a message to you from the west coast. Do not try us. Until you teach your red state losers to hunker down and prevent spreading COVID-19, we are not sending our tax dollars to DeeCee to bail out your loser asses. Remember what you said to NY about freezing in the dark decades ago, then zip nada $ for hurricane Sandy? Guess what pay back is a Lady named karma. Kiss our grits, you’re on your own. #kogyoyo.
4P.P. fwiw, I like the Lysol bandits. They’re a huge step up from the Republicon criminals. The bandits may be criminals, but they’re not st00pid parasite host killers like the Republicons.
5Read article about “actual” death rate from not just the virus itself but from secondary conditions worsened by lack of resources. ( second report of similiar situation linked on bottom)
A small village in Italy in one of the worst hit regions reported a death toll of 31 from the virus with an overall death count of 135 from all causes.
A reporter checked past records nd found in past years for same time period that this village had on the average of 35 fatilities.
So assuming that there was no overlap of virus deaths with those normally occuring one comes to a tota of 66 (31 virus + 35 “normal”) this leaves approx. 69 “extra” deaths that are unaccounted for.
In this village that number of 135 is very, very close to 1% of total population.
Now one should be ble to say that traffic fatalities under lock down should be lower with dramatically less traffic. And traffic fatalities are included in total of average number of fatalities from previous years.
So either the number of fatalities attributed to virus is grossly under reported or number of prevemtable deaths has sky rocketed because of Coronavirus spread has streched health care to, and past, the breaking point.
Would be interested in seeing more of this type of fact checking to get real numbers of fatalities caused not just directly from the virus but from the secondary effect of the virus.
Second article reporting similiar pattern https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-italy-homes-insigh/uncounted-among-coronavirus-victims-deaths-sweep-through-italys-nursing-homes-idUSKBN2152V0
6The robbers were considerate enough to lock the door behind them…
7Let’s see he/they burgled a business, hosed everything down with lysol, and took $150 in cash, some useless checks, and ice cream. Is there a medicinal marijuana shop close by?
8Micr and Jane & PKM:
9I was thinking along those lines as well. In the eighties, I knew lotsa guys who had stories about doing this kinda stuff. They were hilarious at the time. And I wouldn’t be surprised if when they get caught, the cops will find some souvenir they took, proving their guilt. They’ll have made a bong out of it, and giggled like hell every time they told the story while passing it around. And then the cops will giggle like hell every time THEY tell the story.
The checks aren’t useless; they have information (ABA/acct#) that can be sold or use themselves. Recently someone used a check from us to make their own micr encoded check, bought stuff at Sams with that check, Sams runs it through the eft machine they have and return it to the customer. Easy peasy! I filed a police report, but what comes through at the bank doesn’t even indicate which Sams it is. Keeps the lawyers in business!
10Micr and P.P., this is Texas, the nearest medical marijuana shop is across State lines.
11Jane & PKM says @4:
“In a spectacular looping leap over preying menace Pence, others and a balcony railing, Donnie* out Donnie* dumbed his last dumb utterance with:
“We might not have to do it, but there’s a possibility that sometime today we’ll do a quarantine, short-term, two weeks on New York. Probably New Jersey, certain parts of Connecticut.” ”
J&P, You may have missed where Donnei probably picked this up from.
Starting some time ago Texass Gov Abbott began making noises about quarantining incoming air passengers from…yep, NY, NJ, CT.
Starting at midnight !today! [this morn], hordes of DPS (Storm)Troopers are stationed at airport arrival gates to detain and interrogate all passengers coming from those three states; let that sink in.
These passengers will be required [or else detained, iirc] to fill out a detailed form stating all their personal info, previous locations, and intended ones. They are then made to agree that they will self-quarantine in one location, subject to periodic DPS surveillance.
Incredible as it sounds, that is now Texas law. Any of y’all from NY, NJ, CT have any thoughts on this?
I know these are unusual times, but I doubt that this is Constitutional.
It is certainly imposing a huge burden on [some, discriminatory] innocent interstate travelers. Think of someone who planned and budgeted a trip of a few days to Texas, now they have a two week stay before they can do what they intended.
Besides, IMO, this is just a dry run ahead of the coming police state and outright fascist goverment. Triggered by this health emergency and leveraged into the Rethuglikan wet dream of a total theoautocracy.
12To Tedinaustin
13I sort, kinda remember (I’m old now) the Armadillo World Headquarters floating above ground during shows there
Micr! Dude, been thinking about and missing you, man! Hope all and everyone you care about and you are doing well.
P.P., what you said and good friend Sandridge and others – we can disagree on fly specs, but the reality is wrestling Republicon moron to the ground,.
14Grandma Ada @10 says:
“they have information (ABA/acct#) that can be sold or use themselves”.
Exactly. A few years ago the numbers from one of my checking accounts were used like that.
The perps [I’m sure it was an organized criminal enterprise] made checks using my acct numbers and almost identical ID info; how they obtained it is still a mystery. They also created –fake drivers licenses–, presumably with the bogus ‘shopper’s’ photo.
Then they went on a shopping spree, to the tune of around $5,000 in a few hours, at 3-4 different stores around Sugarland [how do you spend ~$2,000 at a western-wear store w/fake chk&id and walk away?].
They hit a Walmart for ~$1,000 too. Then fucking Walmart realized in hours that they had been had by a fraudulent check passing ring, and came after ME!
Fortunately my alert local bank detected this scam within hours, blocked any funds, and notified me. I made out a Sheriff’s report, that went nowhere.
It was a major hassle for my bank and me, and Walmart had me jammed up for a while [the mf’n’ Walmart bastards knew they’d get nothing from the perps, so they leaned on me, innocent and 150 miles from the crime scene].
PS: The US Secret Service is the agency that handles this class of crime.
15Tedinaustin @ 11:
16From what I’ve gathered from Micr’s past comments, we’re both from Tejas, and I’m fairly certain his last one was for ironical purposes.
And even though I haven’t partaken in decades, and have no direct contacts in that arena, I’m purty certain I could make a few calls and be stoned by midnight.
That part applies only to me, casting no aspersions on Micr, who I think we all hope to hear more from.
If the thieves were serious, they’d have taken the toilet paper…
17Alaska now requires anyone traveling to Alaska to self-quarantine for fourteen days. Forms to fill out, and law enforcement is supposed to check.
18Slipstream #18 – Makes sense. That’s what at least one Alaskan town did in 1918 and nobody got the Spanish Flu and nobody died.
19Finally there is a NYT article which has detail about what went wrong with the CDC test kit early on. I got it from Slashdot (which links to an MSN version which avoids the NYT paywall)…
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-lost-month-how-a-failure-to-test-blinded-the-us-to-covid-19/ar-BB11Qo84
20… and 100 other reasons a failed business person makes for a failed leader. The linked article describes the failed efforts of a joint government/business failed venture to build portable ventilators which would be cheaper, less complicated, etc, etc, etc. Then enters the Romney business model of a large company swallowing the smaller company and the standard drop the ball government snafu. Now here we are with the coronavirus under IQ4.5* and his maladministration of failed business associates. Donnie* ordering GM to open and retool a plant they no longer own and declaring “I don’t take responsibility at all” sums up the grifter/business model. While Donnie* tries to lie his way out of this mess of mask, respirator, test kit, ventilator and other material shortages, imagine for just one minute what a Senator Warren or a Speaker Pelosi could and would do to kick their way through this mess. #25the45
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-us-tried-to-build-a-new-fleet-of-ventilators-the-mission-failed/ar-BB11RHeI?ocid=spartanntp
The Field Negro summarizes the Team Dump* Response Timeline:
21https://field-negro.blogspot.com/
Out here on the Oregon coast, local governments have told people to stay away, in fact have banned short-term visitors from staying in hotels/motels and campgrounds. After Governor Brown told people to stay home but wasn’t super specific (she’s done a good job overall), last weekend Portlanders and others flocked to the beaches (the weather was nice, esp. for March). Beginning on the north end of the coast (Warrenton/Astoria) told visitors to leave town, immediately. That movement spread south to my county (Lincoln). I haven’t read if it’s continued south, but wouldn’t be surprised. Our Washington neighbors to the north (Long Beach WA) have done the same. The point being we don’t have as many resources in our small towns – medical or supplies. It’s hard enough to find cleaning and paper products with just the locals. Anyway, last Monday our good governor got more specific and told people to stay put. All state parks and campgrounds are closed. Beach access points are blocked. We locals can still walk on the beach (ALL Oregon beaches are owned by the public), but must maintain proper distance. Our local beach is nearly deserted the times we’ve been there, with no more than a dozen people and a few dogs in the main 3/4 mile stretch. I’ll provide a few articles in another comment if you want to read about it.
22Everything has been shut down here, btw, except for essential businesses, such as groceries & pharmacies, exceptions made for places where 6′ distancing can be maintained, but they are closed to the public. Restaurants are strictly take out or delivery.
What caused the coast shut down.
https://www.wweek.com/news/2020/03/21/people-are-packing-the-oregon-coast-despite-warnings-to-stay-home/
The northern Oregon coastal towns tell visitors to leave. This is the part of the coast that is closest to Portland.
https://katu.com/news/local/vacationers-have-to-leave-says-warrenton-manzanita
Our local news
https://www.newslincolncounty.com/archives/243747
Also, the local brewery, Rogue, is (like many other breweries) now making hand sanitizer. It first goes to medical & public safety folks & the post office. Later to be distributed to the public as production ramps up.
23Hannah, it seems the Governors of CA, NV, OR and WA are the adults during this pandemic. Shall we form our own country? The New England states could do the same. Let the emperor without clothes rule the leftovers.
Sheltering in place is working here in NV, too. Even the essential businesses like supermarkets and pharmacies are showing nearly empty parking lots. People stocked up and are now staying home.
We’re thinking we may have the corner toward ‘normal’ by May 1st. Other states what are you seeing?
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