Saturday's child

I paid $1.88 for gas in Escondido yesterday coming back from chemo. Never thought we would see such a thing again. Of course, there is no where to go, but in any case, I will get there cheap.

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Certain red state governors, like Noem, Ricketts, DeSantis, Reynolds, Hutchison, Gordon and Burgum, like to talk about how their citizens don't need stay at home orders. The people of these states are obviously cut out of a better cut of moral fiber than the rest of us and will surely exercise personal responsibility that will make those sorts of orders moot.

So DeSantis allowed the beaches to open yesterday, at least in Jacksonville. See People make mad dash to Florida Beach that reopened during pandemic. The pictures are priceless.

icon sportswire - Getty

The people are obviously acutely aware of the need for safe defensible space and responsible social distancing.

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Trump got sore this week when New York attributed a whole bunch of recent deaths to covid-19. It doesn't look good for his numbers when people do that sort of thing. He thinks they padded their numbers. After all the people weren't even tested.

"I see this morning where New York added 3,000 deaths because they died," Mr. Trump said during his White House press conference, rounding down the number of new deaths. "Rather than heart attack, they say heart attack caused by this.

But you see, that's the thing, there aren't enough tests and people aren't getting tested because they can't. And he doesn't want them to test because it makes him look bad. And New York is following the direction of the CDC.

The CDC instructs officials to report deaths as COVID-19 deaths whenever the patient has either tested positive or, despite the absence of a test, presents circumstances from which presence of the infection can be inferred “within a reasonable degree of certainty” — such that its contribution to death is “probable” or may be “presumed.” This is drawn from CDC guidance, which directs that COVID-19 be specified in death certificates whenever “COVID-19 played a role in the death.”

He now says testing is the states responsibility. But the states say that they are not getting help promised to them by the federal government.  How the hell do we open things up when we don't even know where we are?

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You think of unbeatable records you think of Wilt's hundred points and twenty thousand broads, neither feat will probably ever be broken. But the Orange Comandante has definitely hit his own magic mark. President Trump made 18,000 false or misleading claims in 1,170 days. He could make Pinnochio blush with his prevarications. Cooperstown baby!

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One obvious result of this pandemic is that people are scared. No matter your politics or your religion. We are fearful. Some of us are scared of getting sick, some of us are scared of getting broke and some of us are scared of both. Senator John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana said something honest but slightly tone deaf the other day, and I am paraphrasing, we need to open the economy up and people are going to die.  Cost of doing business.

"When we end the shutdown, the virus is going to spread faster," Kennedy acknowledged. "That's just a fact. And the American people understand that."

I was thinking about this yesterday. Perhaps we could build little shrines to those saintly martyrs who knowingly sacrificed their lives by working during a pandemic so that the economy would start rolling again?