Chris Christie's risky listy

"Good news Mrs. Reede, the Dow
 is up three hundred points!"

In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash, Chris Christie, the former governor of America's former punchline state, New Jersey (it's Florida now), waxed malthusian about re-opening the country. When asked if Americans will be wiling to accept a daily death toll comparable to 9/11, Christie said, yup. He isn't calling for, as he put it, "rock concerts and football games" but he is saying we're going to have to suck up and deal with catastrophic death tolls because the economy.

"Doctors, amiright? What do they know?"

-Not the Governor 

I guess. Anyway, Christie, who isn't the governor of anything said:

"We have to start restoring the American way of life and if we leave it up to the physicians and the epidemiologists Dana, then we'll be locking in our houses for another year...until we have a vaccine"

-Chris Chrstie describing listening
to experts in an incredulous tone

I'm not saying they're pro-9/11, I'm just
saying it was good for them. Politically.

Ok, no one's saying a year, but even if we were, the new report from the CDC is talking about a 9/11 per day. And he's a Republican, a party who famously spent the 2000's using 9/11 to justify everything from wars in the middle east to re-electing George W. Bush. We're still taking our belts off at the airports twenty years later. Why is re-opening our nation's many outlet malls and hair salons suddenly worth three thousand people a day? Like, can we seriously not give this whole thing another month?

New Jersey: "the second worst state."

-Chris Christie, actual quote

Evidently not. But it's not like he doesn't know what he's talking about. Christie pointed to his being the former Governor of the Garden State as a reason he's qualified to opine on what we should all consider acceptable losses:

"I've seen it in my own state here, the devastation and we're the second worst state in the country."

-Christie, talking in terms of 

COVID-related deaths, but I mean,

c'mon, he's just teeing them up

But he does own Pearl Harbor on
Bluray, so it's not like Christ Christie
doesn't understand sacrifice. 

Bash then asked him what would his message to the American people be if he were the President during all this:

"The message would be, the American people have gone through significant death before. We've gone through it in World War One, we've gone through it in World War Two, we have gone through it and um, we have survived it. We sacrificed those lives."

-Chris Christie, who survived World Wars

One and Two by not being born yet

Ok, couldn't find a shot of him standing
in front of an American flag, but here he
is as Governor giving a press conference
while a building burns down nearby.

"We sent our young men during World War Two over to Europe, out to the Pacific, knowing, knowing that many of them would not come home alive. And we decided to make that sacrifice because what we were standing up for was the American way of life. In the very same way now, we have to stand up for the American way of life."

-Chris Christie, presumably before an 

American flag waving in the breeze 

while the Battle Hymn of the Republic 

played softly in the background

Pictured: social isolation party.
Sure beats dying in a trench.

I-uh...I mean-I mean, what? That's not the same thing. If we could have stopped the Axis powers by spending a couple months wearing homemade masks, talking to each other over Zoom and cancelling Coachella, doesn't he think we would have done that instead? We're not asking people to risk their lives to stop the unholy alliance of genocidal, white supremacist fascists and a hyper-nationalist imperialist military junta. We're asking people to work from home if they can, watch Netflix and not play outside.

"The convenience of the many outweighs
the slow, needless death of the few."

-definetly not Spock

Christie's argument is essentially that these people are going to die no matter what we do, so why screw up the economy over it? Which is...what's the word? Monstrous? It's monstrous, right? And also, it's not true. Preventative measures aren't useless, they're just not guarantees. And they don't work if you don't follow them. We do know however, that ignoring the physicians and epidemiologists and re-opening too early will kill a lot more people, especially older people and people who have health issues or are overweight, Chris. So let's not be idiots here.

Yeah, you'd better mop that brow...

And yes, it's gonna suck, we know. No one wants this. The economy is going to be a mess for awhile. But economies recover, grandma might not. And besides, aren't there people with personal wealth in the billions of dollars? Maybe we could, you know, ask them to hand it to keep us afloat? Not calling for a redistribution of wealth, just a “hey one percenters, before we start letting our most vulnerable drown in their own mucus, maybe give a little back?” You know, for the greater good?

Look, at the very least I'm suggesting is that anyone calling for Americans to die for the good of the economy, needs to provide a list of let's say...I don't know, five? Five close family members they'd be willing to sacrifice to keep the goddamn Dow Jones up. And no cheating, actual loved ones, no distant relatives you only see at holidays.

What I'm saying is what's the economy ever done for us? I mean other than
make a few people super-rich. Then tank. Then need a massive bailout.

Muskin: Cruisepossible!

So did you see that Nicholas Cage is going to play that guy from Tiger King in a TV series? Well he is. And I bring this up not because I care about Tiger King-I've never seen it-but because somehow the new math is crazy plus crazy equals money. Take this for example.

Pictured: Actor Nicholas Cage, seen here
auditioning for every role he's ever been cast in.

Sure it is. It's about a 57 year old fighter
pilot, so he's what, a cyborg? Or a vampire?

Had you clicked, and I know you didn't, but if you had, you'd have seen that Tom Cruise is going to make a movie-wait for it-in spaaaaace! And, wait for it again-with Eeeeloon Muuuuusk! Cruise, best known for holding Katie Holmes hostage for a few year, is apparently also an actor. In fact, later this year he'll be starring in a sci-fi/fantasy follow-up that beach volleyball movie, Top Gun. And now in an equally well-though out move, he's teaming up with Elon Musk to film a movie in goddamn orbit.

Did I mention that he's famous for doing his own stunts? Cruise that is. Not because he enjoys putting stunt performers out of work, but because the spirit of L. Ron Hubbard watches over him and protects him from harm.

If you can't trust a man in a cravat to guide you
towards a clear thetan, who can you trust?

Eccentric is rich for bat-shit insanity,
which is super-in right now.

Musk, as you know, is the eccentric billionaire founder of Tesla, who, if he weren't incredibly wealthy would have been dismissed years ago as a crank. Huh? Unfair? I don't think so. Remember that time he shot a car at Mars? Or when he smashed the windows of his new electric truck to demonstrate how unbreakable they weren't? And if you or I started ranting about the dawning of a new dark age at South By South West, we'd have to do so on the sidewalk. Musk gets a concert hall that seats five hundred.

Oh, and his new thing is comparing shelter in place to fascism. Which...I mean, what is his deal anyway?

Because fascism means whatever you want it to.

Well, never seen alive again. Try not
to trip over his sun-bleached remains.

Ok, so why space? I mean, there's a lot that can be done with special effects, so why all the money and risk? Don't get me wrong, in many ways computer effects have ruined movies forever, but unconvincing CGI is way cheaper and safer than filming a movie at 1,200 miles above the earth, so why do it? The answer, I suspect, is something like why George Leigh Mallory said he was going to try and climb Everest: "Because it's there." Except, Mallory was never seen again and the trails on Everest are littered with corpses so...

"The Mission Impossible series has made
 over $455 million. What's science ever done?"

-NASA Spokesperson

And look, I'm not particularly concerned about Tom Cruise's well being. I don't wish him harm, but again, he's doing his own stunts while pushing sixty. But what about the film crew that has to go up with him? That's not part of their job. Space is dangerous. How many of Musk's SpaceX missions have resulted in fiery launchpad explosions? Why isn't NASA putting a stop to-oh...they are involved? NASA has teamed-up with SpaceX to launch Tom Cruise into space? Don't they...don't they have better things to do? Like, science?

You know, if anyone were going to shoot a movie in space it would be Tom Cruise and if anyone were to launch Tom Cruise into space to do it, it would be Elon Musk. I guess what I'm saying is that the intersection of hubris, insanity and disregard for the health and safety of others may well be the defining characteristics of twenty-first century America. Kind of makes you long for the sweet embrace of societal collapse.

"You finally really did it. You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you!
Damn you all to-wait...you know, actually this totally tracks."

-That guy at the end of Planet of the Apes

Today in targeted advertising:

Aw yeah-I love it when you
reinforce my worldview...so hot.

Well this is depressing, I was-huh? No, it's actually not about the pandemic. Not directly, but we'll get to that. Anyway, I was whiling the hours of isolation by watching nerd stuff on Youtube. Specifically I was about to watch some film editor explain why Rise of Skywalker was terrible. I, as I'm sure you know, already think it's terrible, but what's the internet for if not to confirm the opinions we already have and to offer a forum for fans to explain how they would have made a movie differently? Anyway I-wha? Yes, fine, and it's a global porn delivery system. Wow, everything with you is about porn...

Where was I? Right, the echo chamber. So the ad before the screed was-you know, just a side note, I hate being advertised at. Like, there is no better way to turn my option against you, your product or your brand, than to come between me and whatever it is I'm trying to watch on the internet. Anyway, the ad was for a concealed gun holster that lets you draw your gun uh...faster than other concealed gun holsters? I guess?

Finally, you don't even have to think before opening fire!

Pictured: re-open protestors in Kentucky
seen here brandishing assault rifles, and
probably diseases, in the State House.

Which, I'm not the least bit interested in guns. In fact, I have open contempt for them and the people who-ok, not for the people who own them responsibly. But definitely for the people who carry them around when they go to Starbucks or when they gather at the Statehouse to complain about how oppressed they are by reasonable precautions that are keeping a pandemic from getting even worse, and how are they not being treated as terrorists? Is it because they're white? It is, isn't-wow, look at me, spiraling out about the pandemic again. Back to the cheery topic of guns.

What I want to know is how in the name of ninth century Persian mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi did the targeted advertisement algorithm arrive at the conclusion that I would be interested in a holster?

Pictured: Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, inventor of the algorithm

and my official lazy wikipedia research name drop of the day.

Even while seated! Which is about
 the most American thing ever.

The ad isn't just for any holster mind you, but for the Urban Carry G3. It's apparently the Cadillac of stuffing automatic pistols down your pants while retaining quick and easy access. It's sort of a leather pouch that tucks your gun below your belt line and then when you need to summarily end someone's life, you just reach into your pants, grab the leather tab and pull. The weapon is then catapulted into your hand in one smooth move that will totally never go wrong and end in disaster.

See? Video games have taught me something.

According to the video's solemn, steady narrator whose reassuring voice inspires confidence in these uncertain times:

"Rational gun owners carry not because it's a weapon but because it's a shield."

-Urban Carry G3's spokesvoice on 

how rational people totally carry

 firearms on them at all times 

You know, I'm not an expert on firearms, but I'm pretty sure they're weapons. A shield is a shield.

But if in fact you feel, as the people do in the video evidently do, that you might at any moment find yourself in a situation where the only reasonable course of action is to draw your concealed weapon and open fire, maybe re-evaluate your life decisions?

How many attempted truck-jackings at knife point happen to you
in say, a week? Is it more than zero? It should not be more than zero.

"Has this ever happened to you?"

Or don't. Look, I'm not here to tell you how to not get murdered, so let's press on, shall we? So next the narrator, in true informercial tradition, explains how "inconvenient, uncomfortable and difficult to conceal" carrying a gun around with you all the time is. This over footage of gun-toters struggling to drive their pick-ups with an automatic shoved in their waist belt which, I'm sorry, isn't that kind of the height of recklessness? A gun? In your pants? 

Pictured: a well-regulated militia, which is also
not something you should carry in your pants.

The rest of the ad is basically the voice gushing over the thing's features and how made in America of leather it is and I'm just...I don't know, look, there's a ton of gun violence in America and it's not getting better and far too many of us fly off the handle at the suggestion that we do something about it. Yes, we get it, an insane Supreme Court decision in the 1970's interpreted the second amendment to mean you can have a gun, but it doesn't mean you have to own ten guns. And carry them around with you. Again, in your pants. 

So I guess what I'm getting at is that the solution to gun violence is never going to be the easier concealment and quicker draw times of guns. That's the opposite of helping. It's like America's an alcoholic, and these people are trying to sell us a flask. Or we've got a gambling problem and they're taking us to Vegas. Oh! Or there's a pandemic and they want to throw a goddamn barbecue and then go to a movie. Lookit that: full circle.

"Ta-da!"

-everyone in this clip

Suddenly everybody's Christopher Gadsden...

From the city that brought
you the Garbage Plate.

I just want to be clear that being asked to follow simple and reasonable precautions to slow the spread of a super-contagious airborne pathogen that has killed tens of thousands of Americans isn't the same things as say, having your freedom taken away. I mention this because idiots. Specifically the idiots involved in Re-Open Rochester, a grassroots organization for dumbs that feel that their rights are being brutally stolen by shelter in place orders. Oh, and did I mention they're from my hometown?

Because they are. Fortunately it's only like a dozen of them, but still, it's disappointing. Anyway, they gathered outside the swankiest grocery store in the area's richest suburb to demand that everyone get back to work. Which is weird. Not only because grocery stores are already open, but because we're in the middle of a goddamn pandemic.

Seriously. It's open right now. They'll even put groceries in your
car for you. Speaking of which, get back in your car. Go home. 

Pictured: the air six feet from
Susan Barrett's mouth.

(source: for all we know)

One protester, Susan Barrett, a nurse, an actual nurse, pulled down her mask and vented her complaints along with, I presume, a cloud of microscopic globules of spit containing potentially any number of viruses, directly at local reporter Kayla Green saying (and spraying):

"We're closing down our country for something that, yes, is really, really awful, but I think right now the cure is worse than the disease."

-Susan Bar-seriously? A nurse?

Not saying they're bad parents, just
dumb parents. I don't think that's unfair.

So couple of things. First, we're not closing down our country, that's been sort of the problem all along. And second, the disease is a slow death drowning in your own mucus so no, the stay at home order is objectively not worse than the disease. Also, if you watch the footage you'll see kids. These assholes brought their kids with them and one of their dumb demands is that schools should re-open as well. Huh? Yes, as noted earlier, in the middle of a goddamn pandemic.

And look, I know that this is plunging us into what may well be another Great Depression. And I know it sucks for them to have to be at home with their own kids. I mean, their kids are truly the worst. But this sucks for everybody. And it sucks more for people currently suffering through it for weeks on end, and it sucks way more for people who die of it.

Huh, maybe they should have been smarter with their vote?
What? Oh, like these protestors aren't at least 90% Trumpies.

Pictured: Deborah Wallace, one of the
social problems she's complaining about.

"Obviously people who are at risk should take precautions? ...you keep everybody locked up forever, you face a lot of social issues and so I think we need to look at the whole picture not just this one, tiny issue of people getting sick. Not that that's insignificant, but it's small when you look at all of society. We need to look at the big picture here."

-Deborah Wallace, local protester

opining on the survival of the fittest

Look, I don't know Wallace's political leanings, but again, rich part of town, demanding that we sacrifice the elderly and infirm for the good of the economy? I'm betting that she's all about the needs of the many when it comes to re-opening retail and restaurants or whatever, but would lose her mind if anyone suggests that we re-evaluate how much of America's wealth is in the hands of the few.

They're not insignificant, but the 1% is small when
you look at all of society, right Deborah? So, let's get'em.

"Save our Livelihoods." I mean,
is it so hard to plan ahead?

I guess what I find infuriating, aside from the protest signs with all the letters scrunched at the end because they ran out of room, is the use of Revolutionary Way imagery. I mean, shelter in place isn't the same thing as a progeria-addled King thousands of miles away levying unreasonable taxes. It's what you do so you, your kids, your parents, the server you're berating because your fries are cold, and everyone else you interact with on a daily basis doesn't die horribly.

Like, waving Gadsden's "Don't Tread On Me" and thirteen star flags is nonsense. Poppycock even. Really they're just selfishly and shortsightedly endangering the lives of others, including their own kids; who again are terrible, but they don't deserve any of this. So if you see these people out and about, I suggest you boo them. Booo! And maybe tell them to save the Sons of Liberty crap for the next time someone tries to make it harder to vote.

Well why don't you dump some tea in the harbor over it?

Shut up shut up shut up!

So you know how you can't shout "fire" in a crowded theatre? Well you shouldn't and-huh? Oh, they were big rooms full of chairs all facing the same way and people would gather and watch a movie or a play or see a concert. You know, in the before time.

Yup, sat right next to each other, no masks or anything.
Just hundred of people...breathing all over one another. 

To be clear, it's ok to say it if the theatre
is actually on fire. Or full of gremlins.

According to my exhaustive research on wikipedia, the origin of that phrase is actually pretty messed up. It comes from a Supreme Court Case, Schenck vs. United States. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes used the analogy of someone shouting fire in a theatre as an example of unprotected speech. That is, things you're just not allowed to say, ever, despite the First Amendment, because saying them poses a clear and present danger to others.

Which, actually sounds kind of reasonable, but the unprotected speech Holmes' analogy was comparing to starting a human stampeded in the middle of whatever passed for entertainment in nineteen-diggities was protesting the draft. The World War One draft. You know, the one with all the mustard gas and trenches?

It was about a hundred years before the invention of streaming so
maybe dying in one of Europe's many trenches was preferable?

Pictured: not a protest so much as a bunch
of armed thugs violating shelter in place orders.
But they're white so evidently they get a pass.

(source: double standards)

Fortunately, this was later limited to instances where the speaker is trying incite people to break the law. Which is why you can protest wars. Although not pipelines. Because Republicans. But back to my damn point: could someone please tell the goon most of us didn't vote for to shut up and stop offering ludicrous, non-sensible medical advice? Because during a Homeland Security briefing on how researchers are testing the effects of disinfectants and UV light has on COVID-19, the President started offering his nonsense opinion on a subject about which he knows nothing at all.

Is he volunteering to insert one
of these to see what happens?
Because he is welcome to try.

"So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous uh, whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn't been checked, but you're going to test it? And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body. Which you can do, either through the skin or uh, in some other way. And I think you said you're going to test that too? Sounds interesting."

-Dr. President Trump

Undeterred by the rapid clicks of reporters' cameras trying to capture for posterity what must certainly have sounded like a man having a stroke, he went on saying:

Above: a tremendous number.

"And then I see that disinfectant knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that? By injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see it does a tremendous number on the lungs so it would be interesting to check that."

-The guy behind the wheel, making 

decisions that directly affect our 

lives-how has it come to this?

"Alas, poor York, he was just tremendous.
Everyone thought so, except the media. Mean
 people. Wouldn't let him have disinfectant."

I mean...what the actual? Somewhere under all that ridiculous hair does he think the stupid gibberish that falls out of his mouth will somehow coagulate into a cure for the pandemic? That he, a man exquisitely unqualified to run a casino much less the Government, is going to come up with a solution that's eluded doctors and scientists around the world for months. It's like his thought process is a living example of a million monkeys at a million typewriters except they're not even aiming for Hamlet, they're just hoping no one notices that he has no idea what he's even saying.

If this was just ruining the economy or starting a never-ending war we'd all just be rolling our eyes and waiting for the next President to come in and fix it (and then the Republican after them to take credit for it). But lives are at risk here. People listen to this man. Dumb ones, but people. And somewhere, right now, one of them is loading a homemade IV bag with Lysol.

Really the only question is do you want your lungs to
smell like citrus or cherry blossom and pomegranate?

Wait, is capitalism just re-sellers at this point?

Relax, the government has top men
working on it right now. Top. Men.

You know what's a serious problem? Our country's shortage of personal protective equipment and COVID-19 test kits. That is a thing that is real. What's not so serious a problem is our country's shortage of Nintendo Switches. But they have one thing in common: both are artificially scarce. Supplies because the Federal government is run by a gameshow host who is seizing them from states and piling them up somewhere, while Switches are in short supply because of bots.

Robots: they came for our jobs, our
little plastic discs and now our video
games. Enough is enough I say!

So to be clear, we're going to talk about the Switch shortage. Not because it's in any way more important than medical supplies, but because everything is terrible right now and I'd just rather talk about something less life or death. Oh, and when I say the shortage is because of bots, I'm sorry to say that's bots as in software, not actual robots running around and scooping up all the games consoles. That would probably be way more interesting, but let's make do with what we've got.

According to this article from Vice, jerks are using bots-that is automated tools that buy things online at speeds no human hoarder could possibly match-to buy up the supply of Switches, which were already hard to find. Not because they necessarily want to play Animal Crossing, but because they want to turn around on Amazon or eBay or whatever and sell them to people who actually want them, but for way more.

Pictured: way more. 

I realize the line between reseller and
retailer is somewhat academic, but at
least retailers generally put on pants.

Some people might argue that this is how capitalism works. That supply and demand determine the price. Others would argue that this is how parasitism works. These resellers didn't design, manufacture or distribute the thing, they just bought a bunch and resell them at a markup. Which, ok, that's how retail works, and look, I'm not defending retail as a thing but there's a difference between customers buying things through a supply chain and some rando inserting themself into that supply chain just to jack up the price.

"Need tickets? I got Oedipus Rex, Hadestown,
Antigone, I got'em all. Seventy-five dracmas."

-some ancient greek reseller

This isn't new, you might remember this same thing happened with the NES mini consoles a couple years ago, and it's not at all unique to video games. Resellerr have been puling this nonsense since the invention of tickets. But it's still among the shittier ways people make money particularly in the middle of a crisis that is sticking millions of parents at home with their children. Which I guess in many ways is the parents' fault...oh well, and I suppose I should say it's one of the shittier ways regular people make money. Billionaires on the other hand can do kind of the same thing, but way worse.

Ok mouse, I need you to guard this cheese,
but whatever you do don't...goddamnit...

Did you see this lunacy about those private equity goons who tried to buy .org? As in the domain that like every non-profit in the country uses? Yeah, last second tangent here, but some private equity firm, ironically calling itself Ethos Capital, tried to buy .org from the organization that hands out domains, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers or ICANN. Which, in additional irony is itself a non-profit. So there's exactly zero chance this wouldn't have come back to bite them in the ass. Cool idea, ICANN.

The good news is California Attorney General got involved and said no UCANN'T. The bad news is that this is a thing that can happen in our broken, broken system. If they did get away with it, Ethos Capital wouldn't have to produce anything, they'd simply own the thing non-profits need to conduct business and would be free to to charge whatever. I guess what I want to know is how far are we from pitchforks and torches? Five? Six months?

"I'm sure they weren't going to gouge us. I mean, they're Ethos Capital.
And if you can't trust private equity firms, who can you trust?"

-Göran Marby, ICANN President

explaining his well thought out plan