(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To The Last Post Of The Week From The Blog’s Favourite Living Canadian)

This was certainly a moment on Friday, and, no, I’m not talking about how El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago threw a multi-megaton hissy at Peter Alexander of NBC News, although that should disqualify him from ever appearing in polite society ever again, let alone representing the United States in any capacity except as referee in a celebrity mud-wrestling derby. I meant the lead up to that moment, when the president* decided to argue with Dr. Anthony Fauci about the use of chloroquine to combat the coronavirus.



Fauci: That evidence is anecdotal evidence. As the president mentioned yesterday, we are trying to strike a balance between making something that has potential of an effect available, at the same time we do it under protocol that would give us the information to determine if it is truly saving effective. But the information is anecdotal, it was not done in a clinical trial, so we cannot make a definitive statement about it.



Trump: Without saying too much, I am probably more of a fan of that than may be than anybody. But I am a big fan. We will see what happens. We understand what the doctor says is 100% correct, certainly. But I have seen things that are impressive. We will know soon. We will see. Including safety. But when you talk about safely, this has been prescribed for many years for people to combat malaria, which was a big problem. It is very effective. It is a strong drug. We will see...look, it may work, it may not work. I agree with the doctor. It may not work. But I feel good about it. That is all it is, just a feeling. You know, I am a smart guy. I feel good about it. We will see soon enough. We have big samples of people, if you look at the people. There are people in big trouble. This is not a drug that obviously I think I can speak for a lot of, from a lot of experience going because it has been out there for over 20 years. So it is not a drug that you have a huge amount of danger with. It is not a brand-new drug just created that may have a monumental effect, like kill you. We will know very soon. The FDA is working hard to get out. Right now in terms of malaria, if you want that you can get a prescription. By the way, it is very effective. It works. I have a feeling—I am not being optimistic or pessimistic. I think we should give it a try. There has been some interesting things that are happening. Some very good things. Let's see what happens. We have nothing to lose. You know that expression? What the hell do you have to lose?



"The information is anecdotal, it was not done in a clinical trial," Dr. Fauci said. Alex Wong Getty Images

You know, he’s a smart guy who has feelings so what do you have to lose? This, of course, just as well could be used to defend such therapeutic regimes as bleeding, boring for the simples, and voodoo. It is time for networks to stop televising the daily briefings from the Coronavirus SuperFriends live. They are vehicles for dangerous disinformation and for the president*’s re-election campaign. You get the sense that he’s getting juiced for them now that he can’t hold his mass rallies any more. But, mainly, people are told things at these briefings that at worst are perilously untrue. (Has he actually activated the Defense Production Act? Nobody seems sure.) And at best they provide false comfort for a nervous nation, which is what Alexander rightly was trying to get at when he served up that softball about frightened Americans. The president* responded by hitting himself repeatedly over the head with his bat. Somebody get the hook.

Jesus H. Christ on layaway, just cut the checks, will you people?

Congress’s being Congress about what clearly needs to be done to save the personal economies of millions of Americans, and what clearly needs to be done to save the general economy of the country, is reaching the critical point. Means testing is ludicrous. I don’t care if Warren Buffett gets a check as long as some server in New York or bartender does. The amounts being offered are inadequate, but not bad for starters. But there really isn’t time to go through the legislative song-and-dance on this. Rep. Maxine Waters has a good handle on how big the checks could be, and Senator Professor Warren has an overall plan for economic survival, including cancelling student loan debt. But cutting the checks is crucial, both to individuals and to small businesses. Do it now.

As Michael Brendan Dougherty of National Review has been saying on the electric Twitter machine: This is not welfare. This is relief.

Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: “We Don’t Fear The Water” (Chuck Perkins): Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.

Weekly Visit To The Pathe Archives: Here are some buses in England being sprayed to fight the flu in 1927. It doesn’t seem like the HazMat gear on the sprayers is up to the threat.

History is so cool.

A friend passed this video along as a cry for help against the inadequacy of the federal response to the pandemic. I am passing it along because it’s impossible to cope with the current situation without knowing the facts, and it’s unlikely that we’re going to get those from the White House for a while. It’s a report from Ground Zero in Wuhan, where they built two hospitals in two weeks, and it still wasn’t enough to keep their healthcare system from being overwhelmed. The one physician who says that Boston’s doctors are “standing at the gates of hell” is not kidding around. Watch the whole thing.

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Is it a good day for dinosaur news, The Guardian? it’s always a good day for dinosaur news!

Experts have discovered a fossil of the world’s oldest known modern bird—a diminutive creature about half the size of a mallard duck. Dubbed the Wonderchicken, the remains were found in rocks dating to about 66.8m to 66.7m years ago, revealing that the bird was active shortly before the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 66m years ago. “This is the oldest evidence of modern birds that we have so far,” said Dr Daniel Field, of the University of Cambridge, an avian palaeontologist and co-author of the research. “As best as we can tell, this fossil sits very close to the common ancestor of two major groups of living birds—the group that eventually gave rise to chickens and their relatives, and the group that eventually gave rise to ducks and their relatives,” Field said. The team says the discovery pushes back the date of the earliest known modern bird: the record was previously held by Vegavis whose fossils were discovered in Antarctica and dated to about 66.5m years ago.

Wonderchicken, of course, is not to be confused with SuperChicken. Both bring us happiness, but Wonderchicken lived then to make us happy now.

If you’re staying in and washing your hands like good little do-bee’s —or, for that matter, good little Doobies—then you’re all Top Commenters this week. I’ll be back on Monday with the latest from the blogging chair. Enjoy each other. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line and do what needs to be done. The shebeen never closes. Remember that.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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