One of the most important books of the 20th century is One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.  It is a semi-autobiographical story of his life inside a Soviet Gulag.

There is a part of the book that has always stuck with me.  I believe I’ve mentioned it before.

Gulag rules said that prisoners could not be forced to work outside if the thermometer read lower than 40 below zero.  However, the lowest the thermometer ever read was 38 below, so the prisoners always had to work outside.

This lesson was driven home to me again in the HBO show Chernobyl, where the Soviets said it was safe to send people into the reactor to work because the dosimeters read 3.6 Roentgen.  That the dosimeters maxed out at 3.6 Roentgen was ignored.

China is no different than the Soviet Union in this regard.  If the number measured isn’t the truth, just report the number measured.

Keep that in mind when you see what the media is posting about COVID-19 in the US.

UPDATE: US now has most #COVIDー19 cases*

• US 81,946
• China 81,285
• Italy 80,589
• Spain 56,347
• GER 43,646
• Iran 29,406
• FR 29,155
• Switzerland 11,811
• UK 11,658
• S Korea 9,241

* # contingent on countries testing/reporting accurately.Source: COVID-19 tracker

— Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) March 26, 2020

Oddly enough, Bloomberg published this four days ago.

China’s Mobile Carriers Lose 21 Million Users as Virus Bites

China’s wireless carriers are reporting drops in users as the coronavirus crisis cuts business activity, with China Mobile Ltd., the world’s largest carrier, reporting its first net decline since starting to report monthly data in 2000.

China Mobile subscriptions fell by more than 8 million over January and February, data on the company’s website show. China Unicom Hong Kong Ltd. subscribers fell by 7.8 million in the period, while China Telecom Corp. has said it lost 5.6 million users last month.

This is not definitive of anything.

However, given other information I’ve reported on, such as China welding people into their buildings and anecdotal reports of people being cremated alive, it suggests that China is suffering deaths in the millions and infections in the tens of millions.

People who died or were executed don’t need cell phones.  Or the government cut them off to keep them from reporting on the fact that they were infected and/or sealed into buildings with other infected.

Now consider this.  Elon Musk reportedly purchased 1,000 “excess” ventilators from China.  How does China have excess ventilators when the rest of the world has a shortage?

If the government doesn’t intend to ventilate sick people and instead intends to let them die sealed into slum buildings, then they have “excess” ventilators they can sell for millions in cash.

So the media is reporting that the US has more confirmed cases than China, but that assumes that China is not surprising their numbers.

The US media really seems to be buying the Chinese propaganda on the spread of COVID-19 to make America and by extension Trump, look bad.

This is a grotesque state of affairs, but totally on-brand for our TDS media.

Here is the emergency order.

But truthfully, a lot of people still get to work normally.

Gun Stores are exempted from the “shelter in place” order.

Go buy boolits and pew pews

This is a video of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy:

Thank you, @GovMurphy, for keeping our communities safe. A safer society is one with fewer guns, not more. #StopTheCoronavirusGunSurge pic.twitter.com/nCYqUNxY9T

— Guns Down America (@GunsDownAmerica) March 25, 2020

Governor Murphy’s image of a safer society means that the police are armed but you, the common citizen without the magic fairy dust of government, are disarmed.

Keep in mind that this is the same Governor Murphy that allowed the release of criminals because of the Coronavirus.  Not to mention that New Jersey sits adjacent to New York which has both released inmates and is not arresting all but the most egregious criminals during the outbreak.

Robbery, vandalism, property theft, those won’t get you sent to jail.

A Jewish community deciding not to cancel their wedding during the lockdown?  They get to go to jail.

Murphy’s safer society means disarmed citizens cowering in fear from convicted criminals given a get out of jail free pass, and an insular orthodox religious community cowering in fear from the armed police because they got too many people to pray in one spot.

I don’t want to live in Murphy’s safer society.

Hat Tip Mike E.

There is a shortage of Coronavirus tests.

However, there is no shortage of tests to determine if you are a piece of shit infected with TDS.

I found another one.

If you like or retweet this, you are a sick piece of shit with TDS.

This??? pic.twitter.com/DNoLpCunTa

— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) March 25, 2020

Fred Guttenberg failed the test.

An Australian MP who has so far built here career on identity victim status decided to remind the Australian legislature just how hard the Coronavirus has been on women because sexism or something.

COVID-19 is a gendered crisis.

Nurses, nurse aides, teachers, child carers and early-childhood educators, aged-care workers and cleaners are mostly women.

They are on the frontline of this public health crisis and carry a disproportionate risk of being exposed to the virus. pic.twitter.com/uY56bDmlJ7

— Mehreen Faruqi (@MehreenFaruqi) March 25, 2020

Sure, the virus infects men at a higher rate and kills them at a much higher rate, but so what.

Yes, many nurses are women, but equipment and facility maintenance (including in hospitals) is overwhelmingly male, so are the hazardous waste and garbage disposal workers who have to handle all the infected biowaste that these hospitals are putting out.  Don’t forget the overwhelming male dominance of first responders like police, firefighters, and EMT’s.

Not to mention the factory workers and truckers making and shipping this sudden demand for PPE across the country.

Many people have a role to play in tackling this crisis, but apparently only women are suffering.

I guess asking the hospital maintenance men who are keeping the building in operation to work double shifts isn’t as bad as asking the nurses to work double shifts.

Maybe it’s just me, but this moment, this identity politics grievance-mongering just seems extra grating.

We are in the middle of a pandemic that threatens not just lives but the collapse of the global economy, and yet “women and minorities hardest hit.”

For the last couple of weeks the grievance-mongers have either been silent or ignored because of the enormousness and enormity of the situation.

(Except for the “China virus is racist” which seems to be ChiCom coordinated propaganda.)

For what it’s worth, it’s been a pleasant respite from all of that bullshit.

Hopefully, as society goes back to normal, we will remember what it was like not to hear identity politics grievance bullshit and normal people will start to tell the grievance-mongers to stuff their griping up their asses.

In a time of dire circumstances, we learn very quickly what is important and what is not.  It was made crystal clear in the last couple of weeks that the people who can make, ship and stock, toilet paper and hand sanitizer are infinitely more valuable to society than idiot celebrities and grievance-mongers.

Let’s not forget that in the post-Coronacrisis world.

Kathy Griffin sent out this Tweet:

He’s lying. I was sent to the #COVID19 isolation ward room in a major hospital ER from a separate urgent care facility after showing UNBEARABLY PAINFUL symptoms. The hospital couldn’t test me for #coronavirus because of CDC (Pence task force) restrictions. #TESTTESTTEST https://t.co/18fRiOBsdN pic.twitter.com/0sU9fHu4r0

— Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) March 25, 2020

I don’t think this is Pence’s fault.

I just think everyone in the hospital decided that a D-list celebrity who managed to ruin New Years Even in New York City for years on end wasn’t worth testing in an era of medical supply rationing.

You know what would be funny?

If she starts to bitch about needing a ventilator, send in her illegal immigrant gardener, dressed like Patch Adams, with an air mattress hand pump.

Some acts you only do once.