- At least it doesn’t involve injections of household cleaning products. The Journal of Improbable Research discovers a beginning study by two Canadian universities on the potential treatment of COVID-19 with an extract from marijuana.
I didn’t have the heart to snark about why there are no solid results yet. I drilled down a little into the links, then drilled through the research jargon. If all the dots connect and it works, it will break down one enzyme and prevent it from combining with all the others to allow the coronavirus to enter cells.
- Up to about 10 years ago, the Christian Science church embraced a rigid anti-medical dogma. The practice of medicine is a fraud because all illness simply reflects a lack of fervent faith. I noticed a few news stories in 2010 explaining that faith leaders were ready to modify that tenet a bit and allow medical treatment. But then it dropped off my radar. No idea how it stands now.
I’m reminded of all that by some of the Trump faithful. Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit carries news of a barber who defied stay-at-home orders and opened shop. After all, the pandemic is just a hoax meant to make the president look bad. Seems the barber is now testing positive for the virus.
Back when I was a teen, satirist Tom Lehrer talked about 1965 – “…it has been a nervous year and people have begun to feel like a Christian scientist with appendicitis.” Which might just describe militants who get sick. Don’t know about their grandparents.
- Max’s Dad is funny and eloquent when he rants. This time he is pretty much fed up with the bully boys from the Michigan Militia, the governor of South Dakota who is bullying the Lokota Nation into accepting the virus, folks who refuse requests to pre-order before showing up at an ice-cream parlor then scream at employees and close the place, and an anti-social-distance hairdresser in Dallas who turns out to be a scam artist, ripping off donors to the cause. Title of the piece: Mean People Suck! Well, yeah.
- Libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara says closing a business for violating a stay-at-home order violates the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Besides, those business owners are not defrauding their customers. And aren’t those customers just as guilty of safer-at-home violations? Hey! Equal protection, folks! Sheesh.
- Wisconsin conservative James Wigderson watches as the state Supreme Court rules against the Governor’s safer-at-home order, then offers advice to fellow conservatives: Just wear the mask, already.
- Nan’s Notebook goes to market and celebrates that big deal, because she finally was able to get a mask.
- JoAnn Williams at Biased Unbalanced and Politically Incorrect describes the Son of God to a pastor who refuses to wear a mask to protect others because he can’t picture Jesus wearing one.
- North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz observes that enduring catastrophe used to pull us together and considers why tens of thousands of deaths do not unite us today.
- At Scotties Toy Box Scottie reads the arguments of an anti-lockdown militant and, in his own friendly way, performs vivisection on each one. Calm, friendly, patient as ever.
- How to explain the small, well-funded protests? nojo starts with a well worn proposition, in the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king, and pretty much demolishes the premise behind the adage. Seems ignorance doesn’t seek vision.
- Andy Borowitz reports as Trump expresses his forlorn wish to replace Fauci with the doctor who saved him from Vietnam.
- Green Eagle quotes Max Boot and goes back eight decades into history to find an analogy as my president blames the pandemic on too many coronavirus tests. It’s good comparison, but my favorite is the old familiar from my long, long ago childhood. If I close my eyes tight enough, nobody can see people dying.
- Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger considers Mitch McConnell’s angry reaction to Obama’s “hot mic” moment: his would be private characterization of Trump’s coronavirus performance as a chaotic disaster. Classless, says McConnell. Ted offers a succinct response.
- In Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson points out that, with the newest “Obama-gate” conspiracy theory, my president has gone full circle, ending up where he started with birtherism: making up accusations about Obama.
- driftglass reveals why Trump will use Obamagate to win in November.
- News Corpse offers a noble attempt to decode Trump rage at California voting: votes in predominantly Democratic areas should not count.
- Tommy Christopher watches local news in Las Vegas as Joe Biden explains why he has had to campaign from home, yet is still leading Trump.
- Jonathan Bernstein looks at Trump’s mercurial behavior and inattention to the coronavirus and wonders if he even wants to be re-elected.
- Vixen Strangely at Strangely Blogged shakes her head sadly as the President of the United States announces a new “super duper missile” – his words – as part of his new Space Force.
- tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors finds a Trump supporter who shows off his new Trump socks. They are being sold on Amazon. Well, you gotta make the best of opportunity, right?
- John Scalzi at Whatever is asked, since his own political views are clear, whether he ever considers, or even agrees with, opposing views.
- Julian Sanchez digs into the buried footnotes of an annual intelligence report and discovers, for the first time, instances in 2018 and 2019 of the US government illegally reviewing foreign wiretaps of Americans.
- Remember Lord of the Flies? It was the novel by William Golding about a group of kids stranded on an island and the inevitable savagery they end up inflicting on each other. Barbarity, oppression, group tyranny. A grim commentary on the human condition.
PZ Myers finds a real story from 1965 in which a group of kids actually did find themselves stranded on a remote, rocky, barren island for more than a year and what they did to survive.
- In The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser, Bruce analyzes a new outbreak in evangelical circles of coarse language, and considers how religious groups have defined, dealt with, and avoided taking the Lord’s name in vain. Thoughtful piece, and Bruce does have a sense of humor.
- Hackwhackers mourns the loss, and celebrates the life and music, of Little Richard.
– Podcasts –