TGO David

My 6-year old daughter announced this morning that her head hurts and her voice (throat) hurts. Granted, we go through this every Spring due to changing weather and seasonal allergies... but damned if it doesn't make my blood run a little colder just thinking about what else it could be. We're going to be monitoring her closely.

Folks, I think that it's pretty obvious that more strict measures of "social separation" are coming and we can largely thank the people who have thumbed their noses at the government's request that we self-isolate. The writing was on the wall when you saw national news reports of idiots partying on the beach for Spring Break, or the local news where other idiots were specifically partying on Lower Broadway in Nashville despite the repeated statements by epidemiologists that such behavior would hasten the transmission of COVID-19 and contribute to the overwhelming of our hospitals. Just yesterday it made the news in western Kentucky that a church in Murray, KY had foolishly ignored federal recommendations against gatherings of 10 or more people. https://www.wkms.org/post/murray-church-says-visitor-tested-positive-coronavirus#stream/0 Now all of the people in that building who shook hands with, touched the same things as, and yes even breathed the same air as the infected person have gone into the surrounding community and touched and coughed-upon a countless number of other people and things. They've gone grocery shopping, hugged and kissed their families, stopped for gasoline at the convenience store, visited elderly friends, etc. Every contact and subsequent contact just adds to an exponentially growing web. One person touches another who each then go touch two more, and then those six go touch two more... I think this virus is a curse on people who just suck at math and who are too belligerent for anyone's good. And since we're incapable of self-quarantine, we can logically assume that the government will do it for us. If you don't understand the concept of flattening the curve, how many ICU beds would you say are in Nashville? Vanderbilt University Medical Center (not the Monroe Carroll Children's Hospital) has 481 "specialty care" beds according to this report. https://www.ahd.com/free_profile/440039/Vanderbilt_University_Hospital/Nashville/Tennessee/ You can research other hospitals here as well, but bear in mind that those specialty care beds are not necessarily all ICU. Specialty care is any ward that is custom-designed and staffed for patients with unique care requirements. The actual number of ICU beds is going to be less. If you look at the ever-changing data from the CDC, even the low-ball estimates of patients who will require ICU attention for 14+ days over the next 6-8 weeks would easily overrun the capacity of hospitals in the US. That's why federal and state governments are scrambling to purchase specific ventilators ahead of what they fear will be crushing wave of patients that require them, and an insufficient current supply to care for them. But... this is all probably overblown. Folks should just go lick doorknobs and french-kiss each other because the government told them not to. Don't tread on me, and all that. I'd expect to see some sort of curfews and further restrictions on local transit soon. How they'd enforce it is pretty easy, in my opinion: Roadblocks and patrol cars pulling you over to determine why you're on the streets. Valid excuses would likely only be that you're getting groceries, medicines or other essentials, or that you have a medical/familial reason. That's just my guess. I hope I'm wrong, but everything so far suggests that flattening the curve and spreading out the impact of the virus on hospital capacity is what will do the most good in lieu of a viable vaccine. And like I said at the top, we clearly can't count on people to do these things by their own volition.

I hope all of Dicks stores shut down for longer than that. This isn't what you meant though, is it?

It's probably reasonable to assume that plans are being made to make the shutdown less of an option and more of a mandatory thing. I have no intel on this but common sense essentially dictates it.

Well, this report is public now so we can all do some reading and catch up I guess... https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/196234/covid19-imperial-researchers-model-likely-impact The article itself is worth skimming. The link to the report is in the last paragraph. As you'll read in the opening statements of the report itself: "Here we present the results of epidemiological modelling which has informed policymaking in the UK and other countries in recent weeks." I wonder if there are companies in certain relevant industries that were briefed on this recently before it was published publicly. I can only imagine that folks who work at those companies probably said things to their friends like, "I really wish I could talk about what I do at work" and then tried to suggest preventative actions that we all can read about now.

I hope this wakes them up an they vote some long-term parasites out of office and take back their state.

I've got more ammo than I'll discuss openly, so none of this caught me off guard. I picked up some more before the prices really went through the roof, just because I'd like to attend a class next month. I say this to qualify the statement that my anger toward CTD doesn't come from me needing something they are gouging for now. No, my anger for them comes from the fact that they are rapists taking advantage of the naive folks who didn't know this sort of thing happens and didn't know to prepare. Not every shooter today was even a gun owner in 2012. Bear that in mind.

Here's their current list from this URL. CTD are a bunch of profiteering assholes. It burns me up that they are still in business. https://www.cheaperthandirt.com/ammunition/rifle-ammo/.223-remington-and-5.56-nato/

Ouch. We need to take note of the retailers who are gouging. I saw that Cheaper than Dirt was up to their old bull#### again with a ~$900 case of Winchester 5.56. Seriously, #### these guys. #### them right out of business.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I seriously question how likely gold or silver will be as a currency if things collapse. I honestly think a "Walking Dead" style economy based on bartering supplies and the ability to provide useful services will be more likely. Gold and silver only have monetary value because we've assigned it to them over the centuries. You can't eat gold or silver.

S&W isn't the same company as it was years ago. Literally. They became an employee-owned entity then became part of a conglomerate and now are semi-sorta spun off from that. Any sins of their past are now firmly rooted in the past, committed by people who have zero to do with the modern incarnation. Bill Ruger proposed magazine capacity bans in 1989 and became known as the Benedict Arnold of gun control. Glock's problems are mostly in the past (unless you have a G44 that has fallen apart) and centered upon the company's previous hesitance to acknowledge reliability problems with the G22 and G23 that they ultimately acknowledge after coming up with corrective actions. That and Gaston Glock's family problems are a bit of a train-wreck, but that never really bothered me too much.

Just about every manufacturer has a skeleton of some sort in their closet. Ruger, Smith & Wesson, Glock, Sig... you name it.

Has Natchez started shipping to Tennessee? I remember when they wouldn't, so they have never been on my list of places to check.

Analysts criticized companies for having too high of a current ratio and challenged that those who did weren't using their current assets as efficiently as they could or leveraging their short-term financing facilities. So CFOs started letting companies run in the low 1.xx range and began carrying more debt, but that can become a perilous condition if cash flow suddenly and unpredictably begins to dry up. Which is pretty much what I suspect we're on the verge of seeing now.

I've been really busy the last 5-6 days so I haven't been on TGO much. That's why I am dredging up a post from several pages back, even though it was only posted yesterday. Anyway, I would offer a theory: You're seeing that people don't fit neatly into the boxes that political party lines tend to draw. I've never been more critical of Trump than I have been lately to my friends and colleagues, and that surprised some of them. They began to become aware of the same things you're describing, so we talked about it and I think it shocked them to realize how similar our thinking is about a lot of things when those things aren't evaluated through a purely political lens.

I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm head and shoulders above anyone in any category, at all. Ever. I try really hard to be the dumbest guy in the room. That said, the "room" I sit in every Monday through Friday (and a lot of Saturdays and a few Sundays lately) is full of some incredibly smart minds when it comes to medical knowledge. I really am not allowed to say anything that could conceivably be construed as being anything other than my own thoughts and opinions only and absolutely not the official position of my employer. So, this is just me saying: I have no reason to believe that this epidemic is being overblown and every reason to believe that it's not. I also believe that we really have no appreciation yet for how bad it could get here. As a country we got a really good advance warning from Asia and Europe. The travel restrictions that Trump administration put in place early bought us a lot of time compared to what the rest of the world got. The people who have opted to self-quarantine have likely helped slow the roll of COVID-19, but I think that's really all we can do. We're not going to stop it but we can slow it down and keep the outbreak from crushing our hospitals and forcing doctors here to make the sort of life and death decisions as they are in Italy. Our inherent belligerence as a nation is part of why we are a nation but it's also really unhelpful when the time comes for the people to acquiesce when the government asks us to not indulge in certain freedoms -- like partying on lower Broadway in Nashville during a worldwide pandemic. So, I think it is very likely that the government will soon change its posture from "asking" to "telling" and we will see a lot of restrictions on life as a result. All because some folks aren't going to have it suggested that they should limit their lifestyle until this blows over. I hope I'm wrong.

She has a damned good point.

Sounds like how I operate.

Because social media told us that TP was in shortage. Self-fulfilling prophecy. People are easily manipulated sheep.

The amount of stupidity I'm seeing on social media about the 2020 NRAAM being canceled because of COVID-19 is almost as epic as the amount of stupidity it takes for parents of kids who's schools are shut down to "self-quarantine" taking those kids out to the mall, the movies, etc. this week. Seriously, I think we damn near deserve this virus and some of us are getting in the way of Natural Selection by trying to force people to be smarter. Sort of joking. Maybe. A little. Maybe not.

Source: https://www.nraam.org/ My Thoughts... As-if You Care... This should really come as no surprise to anyone given the number of other major events that are being suspended or outright canceled to quell the spread of the COVID-19 virus here in the United States, let alone the fact that Governor Lee has declared a state emergency for Tennessee, or that President Trump has declared a national state of emergency for the entire country. However, and as no surprise, there are still people who are imagining this into a tactic by Wayne LaPierre's minions to skip the annual voting and keep him in power. So let's think rationally about this for a moment if we dare. As most folks know, I think the NRA's leadership needs to be erased from stem to stern and replaced with new blood who put the Second Amendment and the true right of the people to keep and bear arms above all else. I am not a WLP fan, and I believe that the NRA is in a terribly weakened condition right now because of his shoddy leadership and just general fiduciary malfeasance on the part of the Board of Directors. That being said, a person has to surrender a lot of logical thinking to come to the conclusion that cancelling the 2020 NRA Annual Meetings in Nashville is some sort of scam, or to even think that the NRA could pull off postponing the event for a later date in the year. IF you have never organized a large event or sat on the board of directors of an organization that has, it might not occur to you that the NRA had paid a large sum of money to rent the Nashville Music City Center for the venue and that it was in turn charging its exhibitors large sums of money to come in and set up their booths. It might not also readily occur to you that exhibitors had by now established shipping, travel, lodging, and other logistical contracts in order to get their booths, wares, and people on site for the event. And it might not occur to nearby Tennesseans who could just drive an hour and be at the venue, that thousands of NRA members had also established contracts with airlines, hotels, arranged for days off from work, etc. to be there as well. But, last and certainly not least, you might have overlooked that the NRA announced this cancellation on March 12th, which is a hair more than 30-days ahead of the scheduled April 16th start date for the event. And that 30-days is generally the cut-off for cancelling any of those contracts that I mentioned above without substantial penalties. SO... maybe, just maybe, there were people at the NRA using their heads who came to the conclusion that it would be better to cancel this event now, than arrive at April 16th only to find that COVID-19 wasn't fully licked and that exhibitors and attendees were opting to stay home, or that some government entity has put the populace under quarantine and made that decision for them. I figure the only way NRA members would be even more pissed about the whole thing is if the NRA had pushed forward and then lost the ability to get a refund on all of the money... OUR money... it had spent to rent an empty building for an event no one could attend. But hey, maybe that's just me being practical and not assuming that Wayne LaPierre is hiding under every bed, waiting to steal our checkbooks and credit cards when we sleep. Oh, and as for that idea of rescheduling the event later this year? These things take months of advance planning and by the time March 12th rolls around on any given year, most venues large enough to handle a crowd like this have already booked themselves out for the remainder of the year. And of course the exhibitors have likely already set their plans for the remainder of the year as well. So, yeah... good luck with making a rescheduling happen. Maybe I'll see some of y'all in Texas for the 2021 meetings. Until then, don't forget to vote in the NRA elections. They won't cancel those this year. They'll just let you do it remotely. Kind of like they always have.

Trump has nothing to do with the virus and couldn't have stopped it. Entire governments are failing to stop it. What Trump has failed at is keeping his mouth shut, especially on Twitter, for the last four years. I've enjoyed what he did for our economy, but this current epidemic is probably going to unravel a lot of that. Or all of it. And why that's his fault is because it's one thing to put your country first and negotiate deals heavily in their favor, but it's another thing entirely to do that and then rub the losers' noses in it repeatedly to satisfy your own ego. Now that our economy is vulnerable and because we will be trailing behind the rest of the world in recovering from COVID-19, the rest of the world is going to have a head-start on rebooting their economies and will use it to work toward establishing an upper hand. Because their business leaders and government leaders hate the guy and hate having been subjected to the taunts of a Poor Winner. So, they're going to break it off in our economy's ass to teach Trump a lesson and try to keep him out of office for another term. That's my prediction at least. And I'm not anti-Trump. I'm just Pro "STFU Dude".

Headline: Coronavirus will bankrupt more people than it kills — and that's the real global emergency https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/coronavirus-deaths-trump-stock-market-pandemic-economy-bankrupt-italy-a9394891.html

Let's just say that I know a guy who works for an international medical company with an incredibly large workforce. They don't scare easily when healthcare topics come up, and they certainly don't spend capital budget frivolously. Because of their relationships with various tech giants, they manged to purchase and receive equipment within the last 10-days that normally takes 30+ days to obtain. It wasn't cheap and it's being used to expand their remote work capabilities far beyond what they previously were, and they were previously very adequate. Logical people might draw logical conclusions about our assessment of things. I mean their.