A former champion of the quiz show “Twenty-One,” Stempel blew the whistle on that rigged competition, leading to exposure of the entire crooked game-show industry in the 50s. Much of America watched Stempel’s winning streak end with a loss to Charles van Doren in 1956, but the entire scenario turned out to have been scripted. Even the prize money was fake. Stempel had allegedly won $69,500 on the broadcasts, but that was all for show. He agreed to accept a lower amount as part of his negotiations with the show’s producers.

He might have been hailed as a hero for having exposed corruption, but was not, because his confession was a matter of revenge rather than conscience. The producers had made some promises to him as part of a crooked bargain which required him to miss a question intentionally. Those promises were not kept, so Stempel went public.

After the scandal, Stempel lived a quiet life in modest circumstances, basically forgotten until the early 90s, when Robert Redford decided to make a movie about the quiz show scandals. Stempel was portrayed by John Turturro in that film (“Quiz Show”), which brought him new fame, but pigeon-holed him as a hapless nerd.

Yeah, it makes good sense. In response to protests against excessive violence by authorities against black people, Trump says we need to use MORE violence. That should help quiet things down.

Given the source, it isn’t really necessary to say that this is utter nonsense, but for the record, there is no mystery, unsolved or other. An autopsy revealed that Lori Klausutis had an undiagnosed heart condition. The coroner concluded she passed out and hit her head as she fell. Although the head injury caused the death, she wasn’t struck by another person. Not that it would matter if she had been. When she died in Florida, Scarborough was in Washington.

In an earlier tweet, Trump asked, “Why did he leave Congress so quietly and quickly? Isn’t it obvious?” Scarborough had announced his decision to exit politics two months BEFORE Klausutis’s accident.

In other words, there’s not a single word of truth to the accusation. The incident had absolutely nothing to do with Scarborough. Trump is just plain nuts.

I’d like to know when Twitter is going to grow a pair, follow its own rules, and ban Trump? If not a full ban, moderate all his Tweets, and delete any which are dangerously false or misleading. The real problem is that Trump’s support base is filled with low-information crazies who will actually believe this nonsense.

(Answer to the Twitter query: never. Like the craven GOP senators, they are afraid of the career consequences. The Trumpites would all pull their accounts, and Twitter’s revenues would tumble.)

President Trump announces his latest cure for coronavirus:

“Let’s shake in a dollop of tickles, an ounce of regret, and a single shooting star, then stir counterclockwise for two shakes of a lamb’s tail and we’re almost there,” said Trump, clapping his hands with glee as he began pedaling a bicycle connected to a bellows in order to fan the flame below the vials.”

The President now claims that his bleach-injection cure was “sarcasm.” I’m pretty sure that: (1) he was totally serious, since he repeated the suggestions after he walked them back; (2) he undoubtedly has no idea how to define the word “sarcasm.”

But assuming he was really being sarcastic, a different thread on this blog had some good observations on that:

Throughout history, the one distinguishing trait of the great leaders is sarcasm in the face of human suffering.

Very true. Very few people realize how sarcastic Lincoln’s delivery of the Gettysburg Address was. And radio allowed FDR to roll his eyes all the time during his fireside chats!

April 14th. After Trump criticized the World Health Organization for praising China’s supposed transparency, he was asked about the fact that he did the same thing. His response: “I don’t talk about China’s transparency.”

But …

The stats: Coronavirus mapped and quantified.

ADDED 4/9: The USA’s # of cases held flat with the previous day (actually slightly down to 1,940 from 1,971).

The USA can be fairly compared to the “Big 5” European corona countries (France, Italy, Spain, Germany, UK), which together have a population of 323.4 million, which is almost identical to the population of the USA (327.2).

America has 435,000 corona cases, versus 575,000 for the Big 5
America has 15,000 deaths, versus 53,000 for the Big 5.
America has conducted 2.2 million tests, versus approximately 3.4 million for the Big 5.
America reported more new cases yesterday: 32,000-25,000
The Big 5 reported more new deaths yesterday: 3,100-2,000

The Big 5’s test numbers are estimated because of Spain. Worldometers has the up-to-date numbers for The UK, Germany and Italy. Worldometers has the wrong number for France, but the correct number can be calculated. France reports that 27% of their tests have been positive. Given their number of positives, they must have conducted about 418,000 tests. Nobody seems to know how many people Spain has tested, so my estimate of 600,000 for Spain is a total guess, based on assuming 25% positive tests, which is the average of France (27%) and the UK (22%).

US testing is still in the second tier. Germany has tested 15 people per 1000, Italy 13. The USA and France are about half that level. The UK lags far behind at 4 per 1000. Spain, as noted, is unknown.

UPDATED 4/9: BoJo, covid positive, still in intensive care, but now improving.

ADDED 4/8: Key coronavirus model revised downward, now predicts 60K deaths in US by August. The previous prediction from the same model was 81,000. You can find the data for your own state here. Click on “The United States of America” in green and white, and it will produce a drop-down menu of countries and states.

NOTE: this model assumes full social distancing in all 50 states until May 31, even though many states will be down to 0-2 deaths per day by May 1. I fear that many governors, seeing the numbers drop so dramatically, will rescind their stay-in-place orders, and that would create a new bump in the curve. I hope the forecasters are right in predicting a steady decline in fatalities after April 12th. That suggests we are nearly over the hump.

ADDED 4/7: This can’t be good. 51 recovered coronavirus patients test positive again in South Korea. For now, the KCDC’s director-general, Jeong Eun-kyeong, believes it is likely the infection was re-activated after remaining dormant in the patients, as opposed to them being reinfected. Either way, it strengthens fears that the contagion remains a hidden danger even after it appears to have gone — with whistleblowing Chinese doctors previously warning it is even deadlier the second time.

ADDED 4/3: The Unemployment Rate Is Probably Around 13 Percent. It’s almost certainly at its highest level since the Great Depression.”

NEW 3/28: The data are beginning to reveal that covid-19 is much more dangerous for men. The data are consistent from country to country: men make up 72% of the intensive care unit admissions in Spain, 73% in France, 75% in Norway, 71% in the UK. While researchers cannot yet determine how much of the gender disparity can be attributed to behavioral components, it seems clear that the significance of the gap across cultures means that there must be some biological explanation.

NEW 3/28: Why is Germany’s death rate so much lower than everyone else’s? Nobody is certain. There are several possible reasons: (1) aggressive testing has identified many mild cases; (2) the average age of those infected is low – for example, it’s 46 in Germany, 63 in Italy; (3) they have a good healthcare system and an aggressive government; (4) the fatality numbers are not-apples-to-apples because other countries are routinely doing post-mortem tests on those who were not tested in life, while Germany is not. (When a corpse is tested positive, it adds to the infected total, as well as the total of those who had covid-19 and died – in effect weighing in a 100% death rate for that group.)

An MIT study, Will Coronavirus Pandemic Diminish by Summer?, suggests that 90% of transmission occurs within a narrow temperature band (37 to 63 F) and absolute humidity band. The scientists do not claim that transmission ceases outside those temperature and humidity bands, but that the spread occurs more slowly. If that holds, the Asian monsoon season, as well as the North American summer, should work against the disease.

Feb 26: “We have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, even going to work. Some of them go to work, but they get better.”

Feb 26: We’re going to be pretty soon at only five people. And we could be at just one or two people over the next short period of time..”

Feb 26: We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up..”

Feb 26: The 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”

Feb 24:

 


The Dow was at 27,960 that day. One month later it was at 18,592.

SCOOP’s NOTE: The altitude of Seoul is probably just a coincidence. It’s hard to imagine Trump looking up a fact. I base that on the Maynard G Krebs rule, which states that Trump’s reaction to “facts” is the same as Maynard’s reaction to “work.”

So FAR.

Trump loves a challenge. I’m willing to bet he can top it. If he gets four more years, I can just about guarantee it.

The US response will be studied for generations as a textbook example of a disastrous, failed effort. What’s happened in Washington has been a fiasco of incredible proportions.”

“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go to major hospitals, sometimes they have two ventilators.”

Trump said one thing the governors (and all of us) have to agree with: “This has to be managed by local government and by the governors.” That’s 100% correct as worded. Note that the phrase is not “should be” but “has to be.”

Cohen also pressed Fauci on Trump making statements that don’t “comport with facts,” calling attention to the president’s recent misleading suggestion that China could have revealed details of the outbreak “three or four months” earlier.

“I know, but what do you want me to do?,” Fauci responded. “I mean, seriously, Jon, let’s get real, what do you want me to do?

In a related story: Trump is losing his patience with Fauci. Why, there’s a shock! I wonder what the over/under date is for Trump replacing Fauci with some political ignoramus. Is Roy Moore available? Sheriff Joe? A newly-pardoned Roger Stone?

The Dow dropped another grand on Friday. It’s now about 550 points lower than it was on the day before Trump’s inauguration.

The Trump administration is asking state officials to hold off releasing unemployment numbers. As Trump likes to say, “I like the numbers being where they are.”

Mortgage Lenders Consider Plan to Suspend Payments Amid Crisis. One company, Bank of America, is already committed, and the Fed is taking action on Freddie and Fannie mortgages to suspend payments for those laid off during the crisis.

More light at the end of the tunnel: Although “there are no confirmed effective treatments specifically for COVID-19 to date,” a very small-scale French test (30 patients) has produced excellent results from a combination of hydroxycholoroquine and azithromycin. The Chinese are also reporting excellent results from the same combination. Although this combination has not been proven safe and effective through large scale clinical trials, it at least offers us a glimmer of hope.

BUT NOTE


Italy and Spain record their highest single-day death tolls

Remember those dolphins in Venice? Maybe not. Definitely not. (I was among those conned by this one.)

The State Department has warned Americans abroad to either come now or plan to say out of the country indefinitely. And of course they are also advising Americans now in the country not to leave because coming back may not be possible.

Light at the end of the tunnel (for the Northern Hemisphere). New study says ‘high temperature and high relative humidity significantly reduce’ spread of COVID-19. “An increase of just one degree Celsius and 1% relative humidity increase substantially lower the virus’s transmission, according to the data analyzed by the researchers.”

More light at the end of the tunnel? China reports zero new domestic virus cases for the first time!

Walmart to give hourly workers cash bonuses, seeks 150,000 new employees

This is how long coronavirus survives airborne — and on cardboard, plastic and steel, according to a peer-reviewed study

South Korea seemed to have the virus under control. How did they do it? Unfortunately, even they are experiencing a roller coaster ride, with numbers of new cases starting to creep up after many days of decline.

Trump Defends Using ‘Chinese Virus’ Label, Ignoring Growing Criticism.

WrestleMania 36 WILL happen on April 5, but without fans., and it will last two nights.

Studio Movies in Theaters Will Be Offered for In-Home Rental. “Universal Pictures said on Monday that it would no longer give theaters an exclusive period of roughly 90 days to play new movies, a break with longstanding Hollywood practice that could have wide-ranging reverberations. At least some competing studios are likely to follow.”

With brick-and-mortar stores closing, Amazon will hire 100,000 new workers.. The only aggressive employers now are going to be places like Amazon, Supermarketers, Netflix and the toilet paper manufacturers.

This can’t be good: Man who recovered from covid-19 has become re-infected. At this moment it is not possible to determine whether the virus re-appeared without additional exposure or if he was exposed a second time.