Society's ChildS


Brick Wall

Lockdown fanatics scare me far more than Covid-19

Brendan O'Neill
Spiked
Fri, 08 May 2020 00:01 UTC
London police
© Getty
Their extremism is a menace to liberty and livelihoods. They must be stopped.

I know I'm meant to be scared of Covid-19. But I'm far more fearful of the lockdown fanatics. These people who are so blase about the halting of economic life, and who bristle at any suggestion that the lockdown should be eased, pose a graver threat to the future of the UK than coronavirus does. They are a menace to liberty, reason and people's livelihoods. Our society is taking steps to tackle Covid - now we need a huge collective effort to face down lockdown fanaticism.

The lockdown fanatics were out in force yesterday. No sooner had there been hints from Downing St that the lockdown might be mildly eased than they had taken to their computers and media platforms to condemn such reckless talk of restoring a small amount of everyday liberty. #KeepTheLockdown trended on Twitter. Labour Party people insisted the lockdown must stay. Labour has effortlessly moved from being the party that wanted to keep us in the EU against the will of the largest democratic vote in history to being the party that wants to keep us all in our homes despite expert predictions of the largest economic contraction on record if we don't get back to work.
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Bacon

Shuttered meat-processing plants coming back; new protections for workers

Chris White
Daily Caller
Sat, 09 May 2020 09:13 UTC
Smithfield
© Reuters/Shannon StapletonSmithfield, South Dakota processing plant
Meat-processing plants are slowly coming back online after health officials shut them down, yet there is still disagreement over whether these safety precautions are different than those the plants employed before the closures.

Processing facilities and health officials deep-cleaned, sanitized and placed plastic dividers between workstations to help prevent future coronavirus infections, said Sarah Little, vice president of communications for the North American Meat Institute. She told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the measures are similar to what plants were doing before they closed.

Processing plants are "implementing CDC/OSHA Guidelines. But they were doing that before the guidelines even came out," Little said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines plant owners were given after a rash of closings due to virus infections.
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Stock Down

COVID-19 unemployment may have an ultimately higher cost than the disease

A Political Junkie
Viable Opposition
Fri, 08 May 2020 19:00 UTC
unemployed covid-19 coronavirua
© REUTERS/Nick OxfordPeople who lost their jobs wait in line to file for unemployment following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at an Arkansas Workforce Center in Fort Smith, Arkansas, U.S. April 6, 2020.
With untold millions of workers around the world finding themselves on the wrong side of the employment equation thanks to governments' attempts to "flatten the COVID-19 curve" by shuttering the economy, a look at the impact of unemployment on physical and mental health is in order. After the Great Recession, many public health researchers around the world looked at the potential for links between the stress caused by unemployment and health. In this posting, I will touch on some of the research that has been done, showing us what we can expect from the COVID-19 related economic shutdown.
1.) A study entitled "Job Displacement and Mortality: An Analysis Using Administrative Data" by Daniel Sullivan and Till Von Wachter looked at the impact of job displacement on mortality among Pennsylvania's high-tenure workers who leave companies that are experiencing large declines in employment (i.e. mass layoffs affecting at least 30 percent of the company's work force). The study found the following:

"Our estimates suggest a 50%-100% increase in the mortality hazard during the years immediately following job loss. The estimated impact of displacement on annual mortality rates declines substantially over time, but appears to converge to a 10%-15% increase in the hazard rate. If these increases lasted beyond the 25-year window we follow, they would imply a loss in life expectancy of 1.0-1.5 years for workers displaced in middle age. In contrast, we find little effect of job loss on mortality for workers displaced near retirement age."

Comment:

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Shopping Bag

Geneva: 1,000+ Swiss line up for free food amid coronavirus lockdown


RT
Sun, 10 May 2020 04:55 UTC
food queue
© Reuters/Fabrice CoffriniPeople queue for bags of food and essential products in Geneva, Switzerland, May 9, 2020.
More than 1,000 people queued up in Geneva to get free food parcels. The anti-coronavirus measures that have been in place since mid-March have taken a heavy toll on the country's poor.

Hundreds of people turned out to get free food from charities in one of the world's leading financial centres, typically associated with wealth, on Saturday. As those gathered had to follow the social distancing rules, the procession stretched for more than 1.5km (a mile).

Those most eager to receive food assistance began lining up in a file starting as early as at 5:00 am, according to the Caravane de Solidarite association, the main organizer of the event. It's the sixth time the group has been doling out food since the onset of the coronavirus outbreak in the country, head of the organization, Silvana Mastromatteo, told AFP.

She noted that the number of those seeking assistance has grown with each time.
Queue 2
© Reuters/Denis Balibouse
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Windsock

Mexican president bets big against renewables

Irina Slav
Oilprice.com
Thu, 07 May 2020 10:00 UTC
CENACE
© Gobierno de MexicoCentro Nacional de Control de Energia (CENACE)
It sounds like a news report out of yet another dystopian novel: Mexico is halting grid connection for new solar and wind power projects. In a world rushing to produce clean energy, Mexico has suddenly stood out like a sore thumb. But, as usual, there's more to the story.

The country's National Energy Control Center, or Cenace, announced it would suspend grid connections of new solar and wind farms until further notice earlier this week. The motivation behind the decision was the intermittency of solar and wind power generation, which, according to the state-owned power market operator, could compromise Mexico's energy security in difficult times. Cenace wrote in a document setting out the rules of the country's electricity market during the Covid-19 lockdown:
"The intermittent generation from wind and PV plants affects the reliability of the national electricity system, [impacting] the sufficiency, quality and continuity of power supply."
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Stormtrooper

COVID-1984:Tennessee patient arrested after leaving fairgrounds quarantine

Natalie Neysa Alund and Brett Kelman
The Tennessean
Fri, 08 May 2020 17:44 UTC
nashville fairgrounds
© Daniel MeigsThe Fairgrounds Nashville, Tennessee
A coronavirus patient was arrested Thursday after prosecutors said he jumped a fence and fled the Nashville Fairgrounds, where health officials are using enforceable quarantines in an attempt to control an outbreak at an emergency homeless shelter.

This appears to be the first case in Nashville of police making an arrest to enforce coronavirus restrictions enacted by the local government.

The Tennessean is not naming the man to protect his privacy and because the charge is a misdemeanor.

According to an arrest affidavit, a 39-year-old man was taken to the Nashville Fairgrounds on Monday and placed under quarantine by the Metro Nashville Public Health Department because he tested positive for the coronavirus.

Comment: Local news outlet WKRN further reports:
Metro police say 39-year-old Randle Kirkley has been charged with escape after jumping the fence at the Nashville Fairgrounds, where he was being quarantined for COVID-19.
39-year-old Randle Kirkley covid-19 quarantine tennessee
39-year-old Randle Kirkley
Police say the man arrived to the fairgrounds May 4, after testing positive for COVID-19. The fairgrounds are currently being used to house the homeless during the pandemic.

Police say the man jumped the fence and led them on a chase heading north on Nolensville Pike. He was arrested when they caught up to him at the Nashville City Cemetery.

Kirkley is being held at the Davidson County Jail and is in medical isolation.


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Stormtrooper

Police are complicit in politicians' disregard for the rule of law

Ryan McMaken
Mises Institute
Wed, 06 May 2020 00:00 UTC
militarized police
People of a certain age might remember the old John Birch Society slogan "Support your local police!" The idea here is that your local policeman is a liberty-loving buddy of yours who would only ever support just laws and constitutional mandates. Only those bad guys in the FBI or BATF would ever consider violating your rights.

Now, obviously that has always been a rather naïve fantasy, but the notion certainly has a long history of support among American conservatives. The idea that unionized, well-paid government employees sympathize with the common man instead of with the government that signs the cops' checks apparently has long made sense (for some reason) to conservatives and many others.

But thanks to the ongoing "state of emergency" and the fact that state governors, mayors, and health officials now rule by decree, we're witnessing more and more how local law enforcement officers have no particular interest in the rule of law, the Bill of Rights, or basic human rights of any sort. Police have been at the forefront of arresting business owners for the "crime" of using their own private property, using city parks, and engaging in other peaceful activities.

Comment: To be fair, there ARE a number of police who have become more vocal and resistant to the crazed lockdown measures we've been seeing. But how many of those - with conscience. dignity and some power - will be willing to stand up to the mindless and brute power of the authoritarian police state as conditions continue to deteriorate in the US?

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Yellow Vest

Tesla suing Alameda County and will move operations to Texas due to lockdown

Zachary Halaschak
Washington Examiner
Sat, 09 May 2020 14:55 UTC
Elon musk
© Youtube
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he was "immediately" filing a lawsuit against a California county that is not allowing his company's headquarters to reopen because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Making the comments Saturday on Twitter, Musk tore into Alameda County's interim public health officer, Dr. Erica Pan, and also said Tesla will move its operations in California to another state, calling the county's coronavirus restrictions the "final straw."

"Tesla is filing a lawsuit against Alameda County immediately. The unelected & ignorant 'Interim Health Officer' of Alameda is acting contrary to the Governor, the President, our Constitutional freedoms & just plain common sense!" Musk said.

Comment: More on Elon Musk and his response to coronavirus:


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Eye 2

Israel 'forcibly closing' bank accounts of Palestinian prisoners' relatives amid economic crisis and lockdown


HedgeAccordingly
Sat, 09 May 2020 05:19 UTC
israel palestine coronavirus
Palestinian officials said Friday that Israelis forcing banks in the occupied West Bank to close accounts held by the families of prisoners in Israeli jails to prevent the Palestinian Authority from providing stipends to them.

Israel has long objected to the Palestinian Authority's payments to the families of prisoners and those killed in the conflict, including militants, saying it rewards terrorism. The Palestinians view the payments as a social safety net for those living under decades of military occupation.

The apparent move to target banks comes as the Palestinians face a potentially severe economic crisis after weeks of lockdown to combat the coronavirus pandemic. It also comes as Israel vows to annex large parts of the West Bank in line with President Donald Trump's Middle East plan.

Protesters shattered the windows of several bank branches and set fires outside some of them late Thursday and early Friday as word of the new regulations spread.

Comment: The callousness of Israel towards the Palestinians knows no bounds.

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Handcuffs

California physician denounces 'tyrannical' lockdowns in impassioned speech


Conservative Fighters
Sat, 09 May 2020 00:01 UTC
Dr. Jeffrey Barke
A California physician is being hailed as a patriot after delivering an impassioned speech citing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in a sweeping condemnation of the coronavirus lockdowns imposed across America.

Dr. Jeffrey Barke stepped up to the microphone during a protest rally in Riverside County, addressing the crowd that had gathered to demonstrate against the economic shutdowns in his community and beyond.

Barke, a family physician and associate clinical professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, began by asking, "What if wearing a mask in public is not effective?"
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