African Parks Shut to Protect Apes

Virunga National Park in Democratic Republic of Congo shut its entrance to visitors in an effort to protect the mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) that live there. It is not known if SARS CoV-2 (corona virus) can make the interspecies jump from humans to great apes, but it is certainly possible since the two share 95% of the same genetic material, and there is abundant scientific evidence that great apes are susceptible to human pathogens. IUCN has advised site managers to take precautions to prevent the spread of the infection that could exterminate already critically endangered species. The virus has killed 26,000 humans worldwide (3/26). Ebola virus is believed to have killed 5,500 gorillas in the Lossi Sanctuary between 2001 and 2005. Only about 604 mountain gorillas remain in the Virunga Mountains which border on DRC and Uganda. Their slow increase in numbers after tittering on the brink of extinction despite tremendous threats is considered a conservation success story of first rank.

Kabirizi's family, credit: N. Osborne

Even mild respiratory diseases in humans can kill gorillas. In 2009 human metapneumonvirus killed a mother gorilla and her 3 day old infant. Park rangers often wear masks when in close proximity of their charges. SARS CoV-2 has already made one species jump. Scientists think the virus may have jumped from bats to humans. There are unverified reports that the first virus cases in Wuhan started in a market where bush meat is sold. Chinese people have a reputation of consuming types of wild food that westerners consider abhorrent. Perhaps this unconfirmed story is why the racist Il Douche insists on calling the disease, the "Chinese Virus".

human village on the edge of Virunga NP, credit N. Osborne

Rwanda has also officially closed three of its parks that are home to apes. Uganda's remain open, but western countries from which most tourists come have stopped flights to Uganda. Gorillas and apes are a huge tourist draw, and most of the gorillas in the Virunga area are accustom to human visitors.  The park closures will certainly affect the fragile economies of the countries that are home to these precious few cousins. Virunga National Park revenue is expected to fall by 40%.  The IUCN has called for two precautions to be strictly followed by anyone who works with and around great apes: one is to maintain a distance of at least 7 meters (23 feet), and ideally 10 meters (33 feet). The second is that no one who is clinically ill should visit the apes.  Even persons not having overt symptoms can be infected and spread the disease.   Meanwhile, the gorillas are being monitored by their human custodians for signs of infection.

Judge Blocks Logging the Tongass

The largest in-tact remnant of temperate rain forest in North America, the Tongass, has been the target of loggers for decades.  A running battle has been waged by conservationists to protect it.  The latest skirmish resulted in a victory for environmentalists earlier this month when the Federal District Court for Alaska ruled that the Forest Service violated multiple environmental law provisions when it attempted to issue a broad management plan for the forest that would allow logging without individual site specific environmental impact assessments.  The Forest Service's attempt to promulgate a non-specific logging policy for Prince of Wales Island is part of the regime's larger effort to gut the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), which was signed into law by a Repugnant president. (Nixon)  This Act has been the mainstay of environmental protection policy for half a century.

The 16.7 million acre Tongass is the nation's largest forest and the center of debate over the proper use of federal lands--resource exploitation or preservation of wild lands.  With the widespread recognition of global warming as a major threat to the nation's future security--except among religious and political extremists--the debate has become more contentious.

In her ruling Judge Gleason, appointed by Barack Obama, wrote that the Forest Service management plan was insufficient to satisfy the requirements of NEPA and violated provisions of the Tongass forest plan and the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which protects the rights of subsistence hunters.  The plan for Prince of Wales island would have allowed 23,000 acres of old-growth and 19,000 acres of younger trees to be felled, plus the construction of 164 miles of roads.  Logging activity in the Tongass has fallen off over the years, and loggers constantly complain of the burden of environmental regulation.  The plan under review would have eliminated the need to conduct site specific impact assessments.  Trump officials have embraced the Forest Service approach “as a way to lock in logging over huge areas over vast lengths of time.” according to an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs in the case.  A temporary injunction was obtained against plan implementation in 2019 and will remain in effect until the case is finally resolved.

If Its Good for the Fish....

What happens when you slavishly follow the non-stop lies coming from the Antichrist in Office?  Answer: you poison yourself to death.  That is what happened to a Trump true believer in Arizona, who ingested chloroquine phosphate, an aquarium cleaner, because Il Douche told him the anti-malarial drug chloroquinine is effective against COVID-19.  The stupidity of Trump Believers apparently has no bounds.  A man and his wife were hospitalized after ingesting the chemical. Listed in critical condition, the wife survived; the husband died of cardiac arrest. There is minimal scientific evidence that chloroquine is safe and effective, but that did not sway these True Believers.  In the absence of a vaccine, other countries have tried using choloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in severe COVID-19 treatment as a desperate effort to save life, but there have been no controlled studies anywhere showing that it is safe and effective. There are reports from Nigeria that people have been hospitalized for chloroquine poisoning. There are, however, clinical trials in progress in response to some favorable anecdotal evidence. 

The couple was in their sixties, and lived in Maricopa County. Neither had been tested for corona virus.  The director of the local poisoning and drug information center said self-administering of an a chemical made for cleaning fish tanks was "incredibly foolish and dangerous".  So was voting for the Antichrist in office.  Apparently the victims were influenced by reading internet material about COVID-19, including misinformation from the Very White House. So US Person would like to repeat this public service message: AT PRESENT THERE IS NO KNOWN CURE FOR COVID-19.  The death rate in the United States from the disease is only around 2%, and mostly seriously affects individuals with compromised immune systems.  If you have symptoms, see a doctor, and do not swallow bleach or aquarium cleaner!

COTW: COVID-19 Is the Trigger Event

This chart reveals the underlying weakness of the "Everything Bubble" economy. The pandemic is the trigger event for a collapse that was coming anyway:

Empire State Manufacturing index was released last Monday with sobering news: the index turned strongly negative with the largest drop ever. This occurred before the near economic shutdown caused by fear of the spread of infection, as responses from purchasing managers were due before March 15th. It is undeniable that partial quarantines--aka "social distancing--for an extended period (eighteen months?) will make a weak economy built on debt, money printing, and asset inflation even worse.

Coronavirus is hardly a "black swan" event despite what the liar-in-chief spews from his propaganda pulpit* Pandemics have occurred throughout human history, the last worldwide killer occurring only a century ago. And now that non rich 'Mericans have voted decisively against socialized medicine (Thank you, Joe Gramps), they will reap the whirlwind and end up unemployed (Goldman Sachs: 2.25 million), if not dead.  Because capitalism does not solve social problems, it exploits them.

*Il Douche on COVID-19:
Jan. 22: “We have it totally under control”
Feb. 28: “This is their new hoax”; "One day, it’s like a miracle. It will disappear.”
 Mar. 9: “Last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. Think about that!”
Mar. 13: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”
Mar. 16: “You were surprised. We were all surprised.”
March 17: “I’ve felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”
March 18: “It snuck up on us.”
South Korea has tested 290K people, and its corona virus outbreak is largely under control. The US has only tested 60,000 and cases are exploding.  It took the Imperial College of London to shake the regime out of its capitalist stupor [chart above] Unmitigated, the virus could kill 2.2 million in the US according to the epidemiological study. That death toll is politically unacceptable, even for free market goons. The scientist who led the British study is infected with the virus.

'Toontime: The Rudderless Ship of State

credit: Steve Sack

The perps at the helm are good at one thing only: self-serving enrichment at everyone else"s expense.  Il Douche is collecting millions for his golf outings and VIP stays at his hotel chain.  The Repugnant chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold million of dollars in stock before the market nose dived thirty percent using briefing information about the severity of the pandemic and its likely economic impact, while publicly belittling the pandemic's severity. He gave the same month he dumped his stocks a speech to a group of “well-connected players” where he compared the coronavirus to the 1918 flu pandemic, while Trump was telling the American public that they had nothing to worry about. Burr was one of only three senators to vote against the 2012 STOCK Act, which banned insider trading by members of Congress.

Airlines, which spent about $47 billion buying back their own stock will get another $58 billion in subsidies from the 'free market' lunatics in charge of the Senate. The graft never stops.

credti: Adam Zyglis, Buffalo News

COTW: Virus & Panic Spreads

Latest: The stock market crashed again today, setting off a circuit breaker. The 'feel good' index, so often touted by the criminal in office, went below the level at which he was inaugurated! Like Ben & Jerry's, justice comes in different flavors.  West Virginia reported its first case of Covid-19 yesterday.  There are now confirmed cases (7803 according to CDC) in all 50 states. One hundred seven infected persons, at least, have died. (2%)

More: History can teach us; we ignore it at our peril, as the proverb reminds us. The deadly 1918 flu pandemic, misnamed the "Spanish" flu, actually began in Kansas among soldiers crowed into an army camp.  That pandemic had three waves of infection lasting 3-4 weeks among young, generally healthy soldiers, and 6-8 weeks in the general population. The virus mutates in adaptation to its host during each wave.  Today, China has already experienced the first wave of infections with the number of cases subsiding, and its scientists have detected two strains of the virus. The US is still in the midst of the first wave that may subside once warmer weather is prevalent.

War ravaged Italy was hit hard by the 1918 pandemic.  Once again Italy is suffering more than its European neighbors.  Italy is densely inhabited with an aging population.  Coronavirus affects those with compromised immune systems the most. Italians are also world famous for their fondness for intimacy.  World health authorities are suggesting social distancing as a way to contain the virus' spread. Travel bans are also an effective method of containment.  Australia, despite having troops in Europe at the war's end, largely escaped the 1918 pandemic, due to shutting down its borders to travel in or out of the country.

The private medical industry was not very helpful during 1918, and we are experiencing that failure again.  Large swaths of the population were made ill by high doses of aspirin, the wonder drug of the day, which increased the death rate according to research done in 2007.  Throwing money at a for profit system will do wonders for companies' stock price, but produce nothing useful until at least two waves of infection have worked their way through the population.  The industry has not even provided enough test kits to allow comprehensive testing.  The fact that actor Tom Hanks (diabetes) and his wife were tested early for Covid-19 is because they were in Australia, which has socialized medicine and enough test kits.  Hanks was released from hospital recently, but his wife Rita is still sick.  US Person wants to thank a reader for this information.


{17.03.20}The map shows the locus of coronavirus infections in the US.  Typically, the nation's largest ports of entry are showing the most cases.  Unlike the EU, the US has not yet closed its borders to non-essential, international travel. Doctors estimate that for every reported case, there are 5-10 infections that go unreported.  Only West Virginia seems to be spared, but that is probably due to little or no testing, and unreported infections by the airborne virus. Worldwide more than 6600 people have died, with 73 fatalities in the US so far (2%).  Il Douche finally admitted the gravity of the situation in a press conference today. As a reward for his reluctant truth-telling, his biggest fan, the stock market cratered. (Down 12% in the worst day of trading since the "Black Monday" crash of October 1987). What Covid-19 tells us about the country is the sorry state of its national public health system.  Die-hard Malthusian zealots are hell-bent on preventing social medicine in the US, but profit driven companies have absolutely no incentive to stock free vaccines, medical supplies and equipment, or surplus hospital capacity.

Asking states and municipalities to pick up those left-behind is like asking the fox to count the chickens in the henhouse.  A Kentucky health official responsible for seven rural counties admitted to reporters, “We have no capacity when something like this happens,” referring to the coronavirus epidemic.  Budget cuts to the public health system have not been fully restored since the Great Recession of 2008.  State and local health departments have lost a quarter of their work forces.  Yet Il Douche had the ignorant temerity to tell governors to look for the own ventilators, hospital beds and other equipment that will be needed as the virus continues its parabolic course of infection.  An epitome of a free market mythologist, he has agreed with Democrats for emergency public funding to combat the spread of the corona virus, but as one Washington public health advocacy group recently concluded, “chronic under funding has presented a consistent obstacle” to the nation’s public health systems.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell by M. Ricolli, credit: WolfStreet Corp.

Giant Sabre Tooth Roamed South America

credit: A. manzuetti

A Researcher in Uruguay found in the storerooms of the National Natural History museum in Montevideo perhaps the largest Similodon skull ever discovered.  Scientists knew that sabre-tooth cats could grow large, but the skull indicates this particular Similodon populator weighed in at 960 pounds, or big enough to take down the largest Pleistocene herbivores approaching 3 tons in size, such as the giant ground sloth, Megatherium. An amateur collector dug up the fossil in 1989 and donated it to the museum. Imagine a fierce feline predator twice the size of an African lion equipped with eight inch canines--a horrific image from the collective unconscious!  The first arriving humans would have been all but helpless against such a massive apex predator. 

art credit: m. anton

During the Pleistocene, South America was home to three species of Similodon as well as jaguars, lions, and Arctotherium, the largest known bear on the planet.  The rapid disappearance of megafauna in the Americas has been a puzzle for paleontologists, but new evidence points to a combination of factors: human migration and climate change.  A cat as big as S. populator would need to feed on large animals like the giant armadillo that grew to the size of a VW car.  When those began to die off due to habitat loss and human encroachment, its fate was also sealed--a lesson for our times.