Miscellaneous Ramblings with Good Stuff
Hello,
Since it's been awhile since I posted, I figure I owe my faithful readers a recap of recent events. To both of you. Well, OK, just you. Alright, fine, I'm teaching the dog how to use the computer.
Impeachment went about as expected. I run hot and cold. Part of me says the Republican Party should have shut this down hard when it hit the Senate and promised anyone coloring outside the lines not only no funding but the exercise of every power within their grasp to crush those who didn't toe the line. Yes, the show of force would have been that important.
The other side of me recognizes that the longer the charade went on the greater the likelihood of Trump being ousted (all hail President Pence!), but it would have put on full public display the likes of Biden, Obama, Hillary, and the likelihood for the coup they attempted. It is that serious and I can't help but feel Washington, DC, closed ranks and chose the lesser of the evils in terms of what would affect them. The conviction of a sitting president may well have been a fair trade off to show the Country the depth of the Swamp.
In better news, Sig Sauer present the P210 Carry at the SHOT Show. For those unaware, the P210 has been the darling pistol of European militaries since the 1950's. If I can figure out the picture function here, I'll share. If not - shorter barrel, aluminum frame, wide thumb safety. It's going to challenge the 9mm 1911 Commander for premium single stack mid-bore carry pistol. Yes, I feel a disturbance in the force saying I will buy a gun this year despite my New Year's Resolutions.
Just for fun, I’m including a modern interpretation of what the same customer might have picked up seventy years ago (picture credit to Barranti Leather).
So, the Chinese virus de jour. Every 100 years - 1820's, 1920's, ... 2020's? Is our medical care enough to break the pattern? We've heard "wolf" cried so many times that it's difficult to take anything seriously, but there are patterns here which make a person pause. For the first time since the rules where put in place in the 1950's, the CDC is quarantining 195 souls off a plane from China. The first person to die from the Corona virus outside of mainland China was reported in the Philippines (and, if anyone wonders, I can testify first hand about the density in Manila). The BBC report that bloggers are being "disappeared" if they report on the disease. A hospital with 1,000 beds was erected in only 10 days in China - but everything is OK, right?
In the end, infections disease, especially viruses, are out of our hands. We have no drugs, our world is interconnected, and everything hinges on the incubation period, which seems to be unknown at this time.
Originally, it was suspected that "wet markets" would be the source of the next pandemic. Those are close in bazaars where feed, waste, and blood transfer between animals in close proximity as patrons buy the animals. This leads to cross-species contamination. With each jump in species, mutation occurs. Sooner or later, the mutation can live in a human host and all hell breaks loose.
Interesting point, more than one source says that this, for whatever reason, doesn't have the hallmarks of a wet market mutation. The incubation period is uncertain. The shorter the incubation period, the faster a virus burns out. The longer, the more hosts are infected and the harder it is to constrain. Sound like a bio-weapon to anyone? It does to many.
Now, if history is to be any indicator, this will be a whole lot of nothing. And, yet, we’ve been led to believe that a major pandemic is like a major asteroid strike - when, not if.
But,
Since it's been awhile since I posted, I figure I owe my faithful readers a recap of recent events. To both of you. Well, OK, just you. Alright, fine, I'm teaching the dog how to use the computer.
Impeachment went about as expected. I run hot and cold. Part of me says the Republican Party should have shut this down hard when it hit the Senate and promised anyone coloring outside the lines not only no funding but the exercise of every power within their grasp to crush those who didn't toe the line. Yes, the show of force would have been that important.
The other side of me recognizes that the longer the charade went on the greater the likelihood of Trump being ousted (all hail President Pence!), but it would have put on full public display the likes of Biden, Obama, Hillary, and the likelihood for the coup they attempted. It is that serious and I can't help but feel Washington, DC, closed ranks and chose the lesser of the evils in terms of what would affect them. The conviction of a sitting president may well have been a fair trade off to show the Country the depth of the Swamp.
In better news, Sig Sauer present the P210 Carry at the SHOT Show. For those unaware, the P210 has been the darling pistol of European militaries since the 1950's. If I can figure out the picture function here, I'll share. If not - shorter barrel, aluminum frame, wide thumb safety. It's going to challenge the 9mm 1911 Commander for premium single stack mid-bore carry pistol. Yes, I feel a disturbance in the force saying I will buy a gun this year despite my New Year's Resolutions.
Just for fun, I’m including a modern interpretation of what the same customer might have picked up seventy years ago (picture credit to Barranti Leather).
So, the Chinese virus de jour. Every 100 years - 1820's, 1920's, ... 2020's? Is our medical care enough to break the pattern? We've heard "wolf" cried so many times that it's difficult to take anything seriously, but there are patterns here which make a person pause. For the first time since the rules where put in place in the 1950's, the CDC is quarantining 195 souls off a plane from China. The first person to die from the Corona virus outside of mainland China was reported in the Philippines (and, if anyone wonders, I can testify first hand about the density in Manila). The BBC report that bloggers are being "disappeared" if they report on the disease. A hospital with 1,000 beds was erected in only 10 days in China - but everything is OK, right?
In the end, infections disease, especially viruses, are out of our hands. We have no drugs, our world is interconnected, and everything hinges on the incubation period, which seems to be unknown at this time.
Originally, it was suspected that "wet markets" would be the source of the next pandemic. Those are close in bazaars where feed, waste, and blood transfer between animals in close proximity as patrons buy the animals. This leads to cross-species contamination. With each jump in species, mutation occurs. Sooner or later, the mutation can live in a human host and all hell breaks loose.
Interesting point, more than one source says that this, for whatever reason, doesn't have the hallmarks of a wet market mutation. The incubation period is uncertain. The shorter the incubation period, the faster a virus burns out. The longer, the more hosts are infected and the harder it is to constrain. Sound like a bio-weapon to anyone? It does to many.
Now, if history is to be any indicator, this will be a whole lot of nothing. And, yet, we’ve been led to believe that a major pandemic is like a major asteroid strike - when, not if.
But,
