Thursday, April 30, 2020

By State

The deaths are heavily concentrated in a few states with large urban crowds.

More Data From CDC

Here. Alaska, Hawaii, Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas have no deaths through 4/25.  Curiously, North Carolina shows 0 deaths from COVID but the field is not blank, like the other states.

Data From CDC

Here.  The breakdown by age (through 4/25) is unsurprising, with 80% in the 65 and older ages.  There is a strong argument for these people self-isolating (and that means not in a nursing home) and keep the kids and grandkids away, but relative to other causes of death younger people have little to fear:





More Good News

4/29/20 AP:
NEW YORK (AP) — Gleaming new tent hospitals sit empty on two suburban New York college campuses, never having treated a single coronavirus patient. Convention centers that were turned into temporary hospitals in other cities went mostly unused. And a Navy hospital ship that offered help in Manhattan is soon to depart.

When virus infections slowed down or fell short of worst-case predictions, the globe was left dotted with dozens of barely used or unused field hospitals. Some public officials say that’s a good problem to have — despite spending potentially billions of dollars to erect the care centers — because it’s a sign the deadly disease was not nearly as cataclysmic as it might have been.
Nice map there showing cases and deaths by county.  Much of America barely touched.

Gun Makers Stepping Up

4/29/20 Fox News:
While it is something of a war without weapons, leading gun manufacturers across the country are stepping up to aid the fight against the spread of coronavirus.

Similarly to that of car manufacturers that have jumped to make medical equipment, and alcohol distilleries that have opted to make hand sanitizer, U.S. weapons plants have also turned their production plants to target areas in need of aid – namely personal protection equipment (PPE).
"SIG Sauer, Ruger, Smith & Wesson, and KelTec are among the companies in the firearm industry who have made efforts to fight Covid-19 by making and/or supplying PPE. The donations have been made to first responders such as police, fire, and EMTs, but also to healthcare professionals in their local hospitals," Eric Poole, editor-in-chief of Guns & Ammo Magazine told Fox News. "The response has been growing among companies as they learn how they can shift their capabilities."...

"The protective equipment we typically used prior to this was for hearing and eye protection in our factories and due to the fact that we test-fire products in our test ranges or at our training," he explained. "But because our manufacturing processes utilize some of the most advanced technology in the world, including some of the latest robotics and computer-aided design and prototyping, most of the PPE we typically use is related to maintenance and hazardous material abatement."

Furthermore, SIG Sauer's Oregon-based Electro-Optics division has been 3D printing plastic face shields to donate to Medical Teams International. The non-governmental organization outfits doctors and nurses on mobile coronavirus testing vans in the greater metro area of Portland. The company also said that it would be giving away these face shields to local healthcare workers and hospitals spanning Oregon, Arkansas, and New Hampshire in the weeks to come.

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

Our Unsuccessful Attempt at Jaguar Kittens


Amusing Picture From Our 2017 Northern Litghts Trip to Alaska


Some Commonsense, Please

From Shall Not Be Questioned:

All I’m Going to Say About COVID-19

Boy the COVID pandemic sure makes me want to go colonize Mars. Between the dripping condescension over people who make different risk/benefit calculations and conclude reopeners only want to kill grandma and the “But muh rights!” crowd, get me off, please.

They're Poisoning Our Wells!

“My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple,” Bill de Blasio tweeted late last night. “The time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period.”

This is Beyond My Level

If there are any virologists out there can you tell if this article makes sense?  He is not saying COVID-19 was a bioweapon.  He is saying it could have been made as part of virology research not so different from that being done elsewhere in recent years, which escaped from the lab by accident.

4/27/20 Newsweek presents a simplified version with comments by U.S. intelligence services with similar conclusions.
What followed was a fierce debate among scientists over the risks versus benefits of the gain-of-function research. Fouchier's work, wrote Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch in the journal Nature in 2015, "entails a unique risk that a laboratory accident could spark a pandemic, killing millions."

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

comparing flu deaths to covid deaths

I am seeing claims that Covid19 deaths exceed flu deaths.  https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html shows 61,000 flu deaths 


https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html 53,922 

Monday, April 27, 2020

More Good COVID-19 News

4/22/20 University of Chicago Medicine:
Doctors at the University of Chicago Medicine are seeing “truly remarkable” results using high-flow nasal cannulas rather than ventilators and intubation to treat some COVID-19 patients.

High-flow nasal cannulas, or HFNCs, are non-invasive nasal prongs that sit below the nostrils and blow large volumes of warm, humidified oxygen into the nose and lungs.

A team from UChicago Medicine’s emergency room took dozens of COVID-19 patients who were in respiratory distress and gave them HFNCs instead of putting them on ventilators. The patients all fared extremely well, and only one of them required intubation after 10 days.

“The success we’ve had has been truly remarkable,” said Michael O’Connor, MD, UChicago Medicine’s Director of Critical Care Medicine.

Sunday, April 26, 2020

Today's Spam

These are difficult times, you will be glad to know that you are not alone. There is a simple way that you can make more money now with just a Blank ATM card, all that you need to do is to contact this email: cyberghostatmhacker@yahoo.com

T-Shirts Can Have Such Powerful Memories

That it does not matter if they holes, tears, or have shrunk from too many trips to the dryer, or too many trips to a pizzeria.  Like this one from my first full-time job at 18.

Friday, April 24, 2020

Hard to Believe

A prosecution for unlawful machine gun possession was granted cert by the Supreme Court--and the Justice Dept. filed a motion applying to vacate the judgment and drop the indictment.  (It appears that the defendant challenged the constitutionality of the indictment before this went to trial.)  Huh?

The argument that scared DOJ into dropping felony charges is that:

1. Federal authority to regulate machine guns is derived from their authority to tax them.
2. Since 1986, it is has been unlawful to make them for private ownership.
3. If they will not collect that tax, do they have authority to regulate their possession?

Apparently this is a side effect of ACA which required you to pay a tax for not being insured.  The penalty was reduced to 0 recently by Congress, so the individual mandate no longer has any basis, because it was derived from Congressional taxing authority.  It appears that DOJ has figured what that my friend Stephen Halbrook argued in U.S. v. Rock Island Armory (C.D. Ill. 1991) could sink machine gun regulation, very quickly:
As applied to machineguns alleged to be possessed after May 19, 1986, prosecutions may no longer proceed under 26 U.S.C. § 5861. This is because the National Firearms Act is part of the Internal Revenue Code, and its provisions — including registration of machineguns possessed after May 19, 1986 — are valid only to the extent they aid in the collection of tax revenue. Since BATF would not register and accept tax payments for any machinegun after May 19, 1986, registration of machineguns made and possessed after that date no longer serves any revenue purpose, and such registration requirements are invalid. Since 18 U.S.C. § 922(o) is interpreted to ban registration and taxation of machineguns under the National Firearms Act, § 922(o) effectively repeals such registration and taxation provisions. Congress has no enumerated power to require registration of firearms. However, since registration of firearms may assist in the collection of revenue, Congress passed the National Firearms Act in 1934 pursuant to its power to tax. Section 922(o) destroys the constitutional basis of registration.
The U.S. Attorney did not appeal that decision, likely afraid it would become precedent for the whole circuit.

Craig's List Time Machine

Film Developing Equipment (Boise)

Large developing tank holds 11 35mm reels $40 (comes with 8 reel holder)
Medium developing tank holds 4 35mm reels $20 (comes with 2 reel holders)
Small developing tank holds 2 35mm reels $10
Tank lids (2 plastic, 1 metal) $2 each (or free with a purchase of any tank)
11 metal 35mm film reels $5 each ($40 for all 11)
2 plastic 35mm film reels $5 each ($7 for both)
7 metal 120mm film reels $5 each ($25 for all 7)
1 metal 46mm film reel (for Kodak 127 film) $5
Metal tongs free  

I am old enough to have helped my father in the darkroom.

I Never Ceased to be Amazed at Human Evil

I have found a lot of train sabotage mass murders and a very large number of arson mass murders.  But this news story really takes the cake.  Someone lighted a tenement in New York City afire, killing six.  But several other nearby buildings also are set afire.  The police believe all were set for the purpose of burglary while police and fire departments were otherwise busy.

Everywhere I Go Now, I See Help Wanted Signs

Some make sense: restaurants advertising for cooks, presumably for to-go orders.  Many other signs make no sense.  Aren't they just going to rehire their previous employees?  Now I see why.  4/23/20 New York Times:
Before the coronavirus, people receiving unemployment benefits in most states got, on average, less than half their weekly salaries.

Now, as millions file claims, many are poised to receive more money than they would have typically earned in their jobs, thanks to the additional $600 a week set aside in the federal stimulus package for the unemployed.
So why go back to work?

Major Victory: California Ammunition Background Check Enjoined

Rhode v. Becerra (S.D. Cal. 2020).  Preliminary injunction against enforcement of California's ammunition background check system.  Devastating decision on Second Amendment grounds that also explains the very complex procedure for buying ammunition, and not only why it unnecessarily burdens the rights of law-abiding citizens through complexity, at least in part because California now issues driver's licenses to illegal aliens:
Before a person can go through the main gate and start a background test, he
or she must prove citizenship. By itself, a standard California driver’s license or
identification card is not good enough to prove citizenship. If a person is relying on
only his driver’s license to buy ammunition, he needs a new California REAL ID compliant driver’s license (“DL”) or identification card (“ID”). Obtaining a REALID
card from the Department of Motor Vehicles requires more proof of citizenship
than the standard California card. California made two important changes to its DL
and ID in 2018. In January 2018, California began issuing REAL IDs to qualified
residents. Def.’s Opp’n, Doc. 34, at 8. At the same time, standard California DLs
and IDs started being labeled with a phrase, “Federal Limits Apply” (“FLA”) in the
right corner. The FLA label distinguishes standard California DLs and IDs from
REAL ID-compliant cards. All of this would be beside the point if it were not for
two more California choices.

One California choice complicating the picture is a 2013 state law known as
AB 60. Among other things, AB 60 directed the Department of Motor Vehicles to
issue California DLs to aliens who may be unlawfully present in the United States and reside in California.... To emphasize the point, all standard California driver’s licenses now look exactly the same, whether issued to a citizenresident or to an unlawfully present alien.
 The judge also points out that while Cal. DOJ still asserts that illegal aliens may not buy ammunition:
As California has declared itself a “sanctuary” state, it is not immediately clear what state or local officials would or could do if they did discover an alien unlawfully present attempting to acquire ammunition.
The system even fails to correctly identify prohibited persons, with 16% of citizens rejected from ammunition background check for various bureaucratic reasons (address mismatches, no firearms purchase in the last couple decades).  These can be fixed, very slowly with great effort, including notarization of the form.  In at least one case it took more than three months.

Those rejected were .030%.
There, 570 would-be purchasers were identified as “prohibited persons” (felons, fugitives, violent misdemeanants, etc.) and denied ammunition.  See Third Morales Declaration, Doc. 53, at ¶11. These are the people the laws are designed to stop. Unfortunately, once again, the Basic background check also rejected 342 other law-abiding citizen residents that the laws were not designed to stop.
And the one sure way to buy ammunition is to buy a gun.
The State suggests that an alternative option for buying ammunition is to purchase a new firearm....  Apparently, the idea is to encourage a resident to purchase a firearm as well as ammunition.
Yes, a gun control law that encourages gun purchase.

I return to same question that has bothered me all along.  If your gun control law works to keep guns away from criminals and the mentally ill, why do you need ammunition control as well?  The goal was clearly to make law-abiding gun owners give up their guns or leave California.

If you live in California, place your bulk purchase order from one of the bulk ammo sellers in the upper right corner of my blog now.  I am sure the state will appeal this and find some judge who likes this bureaucratic disaster to overturn it.

And the 9th Circuit has stayed the injunction pending a deep search of where the Sun doesn't shine for an excuse to  overturn this injunction?

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Startling 2012 Washington Post Article

Here.

Interesting Observation From

Will Durant and Ariel Durant, Our Oriental Heritage : The Story of Civilization, Volume I, 1:
Civilization is an interlude between ice ages: at any time the current of glaciation may rise again, cover with ice and stone the works of man, and reduce life to some narrow segment of the earth.
I saw this quote from Clarke's notes on some of his stories.  As becomes apparent, some of Clarke's early stories have billion year intervals of action.

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

reading The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke

As bad of a man as he was (he moved to Sri Lanka because the government was prepared to overlook his preference for little boys), he was a great writer with an amazing ability to imagine the future of technology.   I am reading a short story "Hide and Seek" (1949) in which television-homing missiles similar to cruise missiles play a part.

Good News for Idaho

The IHME projections now say 7 days past peak deaths and 12 days past peak resource--and we did not even get close to capacity.  We are now actually having one or two deaths per day.  Sad for those losing loved ones but in the larger scheme of things for almost two million people, pretty small. Projections now are 0 deaths starting May 12.

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Reopening Plans

This CNN story seems to indicate that Republican states are going to reopen sooner than Democratic states, although perhaps with some restrictions such as masks in public places (perfectly reasonable until we crush the Chinese flu into a minor player in our health care system).  It looks like many are aiming at end of April.  Democratic governors are trying to blame this on politics--which it certainly is.  Democrats are terrified of people going from dependence on unemployment to working again, and even worse, a recovering economy causing Trump to steamroller Slow Joe.

Unanimous Jury Verdicts

If you don't live in Oregon or Louisiana, you probably think juries have to come to a unanimous decision about guilt or innocence.  Both states have long allowed 10-2 or 9-3 to reach a verdict.  Why?  Ramos v. Louisiana (2020) was just decided by the Supreme Court ruling that the Sixth Amendment guarantee of a jury trial includes that verdicts must be unanimous.  Why do these states have a different rule?  From Justice Gorsuch's opinion:
Louisiana first endorsed nonunanimous verdicts for serious crimes at a constitutional convention in 1898. According to one committee chairman, the avowed purpose of that convention was to “establish the supremacy of the white race,” and the resulting document included many of the trappings of the Jim Crow era: a poll tax, a combined literacy and property ownership test, and a grandfather clause that in practice exempted white residents from the most onerous of these requirements.
If one of those uppity black jurors refused to vote for conviction or for acquittal, no problem.  Oregon's reason dates from the KKK dominance period in the 1930s, and for the same reason.  This decision concerns some 2nd Amendment lawyers because of how it overturned existing bad precedents on this matter.

If you know the racist history of gun control Gorsuch's opinion is very good news and even some of the liberal justices agreed with him.  Best of all:
Really, no one has found a way to make sense of it. In later cases, this Court has labeled Apodaca an “exception,” “unusual,” and in any event “not an endorsement” of Justice Powell’s view of incorporation.

And the footnote is to McDonald v. Chicago (2010), which freaked out the left by saying states must recognize the 2nd Amendment as limiting state power.

This Was So Obviously Self-Parody That I Feared He Was Misquoted

But no.  4/18/20 New York Times.  Thomas Friedman rejecting the idea of reopening anywhere:
And as individuals, every person will be playing Russian roulette every minute of every day: Do I get on this crowded bus to go to work or not? What if I get on the subway and the person next to me is not wearing gloves and a mask? What if they sneeze? Do I get in the elevator at the office if there is another person on it?
Most of America does not have subways or c rowded buses.  Many of us never use elevators, much less crowded ones.  He needs to get out (of New York) more often.  Really, the goal is to destroy the economy: the Left's only way top Trump from getting re-elected.  Amusingly enough, no comment over there realized that he is describing an America that does not exist.  Flawless quote over at Instapundit:
Easy for those with no financial issues to tell everybody else they must cower in their homes.

Court Affirms Self-Defense Against Police Officers

4/16/20 Florida Today reports on a case where police not in uniform, who did not identify themselves, and grabbed a woman at her front door, ended up in a gunfight with the woman's uncle.  They charged him with attempted murder of a police officer. 
Prosecutors and Brevard County sheriff’s investigators said DeRossett opened fire at deputies who were arresting his niece on a prostitution charge.

DeRossett’s attorney’s argued that he did not know who the men were confronting his niece and that he was responding to her screams for help at the front door.

The shooting took place as the sheriff’s office investigated reports of prostitution taking place at the home Mary Ellis DeRossett, 47, shared with her uncle, DeRossett.

Gunfire ensued and Deputy Casey Smith was shot in the lower abdomen. He recovered from his injuries. Both Ellis, a convicted prostitute known as The Cougar, and DeRossett, then a security guard at Port Canveral, suffered minor gunshot injuries, reports show.

Monday, April 20, 2020

Fever Test Them at the Border

When the current shelter-in-place order expires, Idaho should check people at the border (and airports) for symptoms of COVID-19.  We cannot just prohibit entry (although I know some of you want that), but as a public health measure, we should make sure the contagious coming in, do not give us a fresh set of infectors.  I could see Gov. Newsom supplying cars and gasoline to the infected to make Gov. Little look reckless for allowing people to go back to work.

Bad Morning

I took my wife in for Covid testing.  It is more likely flu, which hits her very hard, but take no chances.

She seems to be getting better.  Results from test: Negative.  Must have been flu.

Making China Pay

Their lies and delay in informing the rest of the world have led to greatest public health disaster of my lifetime.  The U.S. and state governments should sue the Chinese government in our courts for $2 trillion.  How will we collect?  The Chinese government and the private holdings of Chinese government officials amount to $1.1 trillion.  Repudiate those bonds.  This isn't a default; it is a confiscation of money they owe us.  Yes, they might retaliate.  They could attempt to destroy American industry by dumping products on the American market.  They might infiltrate our universities.  And if those did not work, they might confiscate American factories in China.  But if you invest in a totalitarian and dishonest country, you take your chances, 

How to Generate Class Consciousness

4/20/20 Bloomberg:
(Bloomberg) -- As coronavirus infections tore across the U.S. in early March, a Silicon Valley executive called the survival shelter manufacturer Rising S Co. He wanted to know how to open the secret door to his multimillion-dollar bunker 11 feet underground in New Zealand.

The tech chief had neve­r used the bunker and couldn’t remember how to unlock it, said Gary Lynch, general manager of Texas-based Rising S Co. “He wanted to verify the combination for the door and was asking questions about the power and the hot water heater and whether he needed to take extra water or air filters,” Lynch said. The businessman runs a company in the Bay Area but lives in New York, which was fast becoming the world’s coronavirus epicenter.

“He went out to New Zealand to escape everything that’s happening,” Lynch said, declining to identify the bunker owner because he keeps his client lists private. “And as far as I know, he’s still there.”
Anyone want to guess which side these guys backed in 2016?

Sunday, April 19, 2020

Retirement Planning for Downturns

We have had two very painful market downturns since I retired.  The first in 2018 we recovered from and then some.  The current one is a reminder not to panic.  I was down about $300,000 at one point; now only $100,000.  But in addition to the importance of not panicking, another lesson learned.  My Schwab account has a number of stocks paying decent dividends.  By selling mutual funds in my IRA, I reduce available capital and create taxable long-term gains.  I have now reshuffled to pull $400 a month less from my IRA and $400 less from my IRA.  The dividend income in Schwab is already taxable income and there is no loss of invested capital.  Now I deplete my IRA more slowly.

Latest Numbers For Idaho Looking Better

From Idaho Dept. of Public Health:
Heading down

Saturday, April 18, 2020

Tragedies That Make Shelter-in-Place Seem Not So Bad

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87093056/1904-06-29/ed-1/seq-1/
That's enough ugliness for the day.

Less Lethal Than We Thought

Lots of people are testing positive for COVID-19 who were never sick. 4/18/20 Wall Street Journal:

New Data Suggest the Coronavirus Isn’t as Deadly as We Thought

A study finds 50 to 85 times as many infections as known cases—meaning a far lower fatality rate.

Here is a 4/18/20 Newsweek article that isn't behind a paywall:
A study in a county in California suggests that the prevalence of people infected with the coronavirus is much higher than previously thought, potentially complicating decisions on whether to end widespread lockdowns.

Blood from 3,300 volunteers living in Santa Clara was extracted from a finger prick and analyzed at the start of April. The Stanford University study, which has not been peer reviewed yet and was posted on medRxiv, found that between 2.5 percent of 4.5 percent of people tested positive for antibodies.

Extrapolated over the county's population of two million, the data predicts that between 48,000 and 82,000 people could have been infected with the virus at that time. The upper estimate is more than 80 times higher than the official case count of 1,000.
 

Need Some Laughs?

At PowerLineBlog.  These were some of my favorites.



Thursday, April 16, 2020

Interestingly High Density of "Facts"

Family of one of the dead in the Mandalay Bay mass murder is suing Colt.  Their argument is that Colt knowingly designed it to be converted to full auto by replacing factory stock with a bump stock.  If the courts rule in the family's favor, pretty much every semiauto rifle in the country will be a machine gun.  The judge is allowing the suit to go forward based on this set of "facts":
The AR-15 rifle was designed as a military weapon called the M-16 and first saw use in the Vietnam War. Id. at 17-18. The M-16’s “selective fire” feature enabled soldiers to choose between fully automatic, semi-automatic, and three-round burst firing. Id. at 17. As the Vietnam War wound down, AR-15 manufacturers turned to the civilian market. Id. at 18. Rather than design a new weapon, the manufacturers removed the selector switch from the AR-15. Id. Redesign was cost-prohibitive, while removal of the selector switch was cost-effective and allowed marketing of the weapon’s military bona fides. Id. AR-15 exterior components like the stock, barrel, and rail system were preserved as removeable and interchangeable with M-16 parts (a feature the firearm industry calls “modularity”). Id. at 18-19.
If you know much about the AR-15 or M-16 you are doubtless shaking your head in amazement.

1. No.  Gen. LeMay asked for AR-15 testing for Air Force use before the Vietnam War.

2. The 3 shot burst was developed for the M-16 well after the Vietnam War.

3. Ads for the Colt AR-15 appear as early as 1964.

4. And a heck of a lot else changed as well, such as the bolt changes to convert from open bolt to closed bolt, which makes converting an AR-15 to full auto a non-trivial task.

So why did this judge accept this? To get a judge to dismiss such a suit, he is required to accept as true all plausible facts alleged by the plaintiff. Their truth or falsity is determined at trial, after defendant's lawyers have billed an obscene number of hours.  The suit against Lucky Gunner for the Aurora mass murder  left the bereaved parents with a $200,000 bill for Lucky Gunner's legal fees. I am sure they were happy the gun control groups helped them file that suit. 

Here the parents claim that the sale of armor piercing ammunition was a problem.  But any .223 will kill.  Armor piercing might matter if their daughter had been wearing armor, I suppose.


Why No One Takes CNN Seriously

Compare the headlines for the same event:
One is a factual description that looks to present a news story.  The other is essentially an attack.

Go to the Trump for President Page

Non-Existent page.  No, not a 404 error.  Much better.

Arsenal of Democracy Part 3

4/14/20 CNN:
Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a nearly $500 million contract with GM under the Defense Production Act to produce 30,000 ventilators that will be delivered to the national stockpile. 
 
GM said Tuesday that 600 ventilators will be shipped by the end of this month, with the rest of the government's 30,000 ventilator order completed by the end of August.
We seem to be past peak demand for them, but we will have enough for the next time the CCP screws up, if we lack the willpower to shut the Bamboo Curtain.

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Like the Scenes From the Films...

On the Beach and The World, the Flesh, and the Devil with the empty streets of S.F. and Manhattan.




City of the dead.

Gov. Little Extended stay-Home Order Through April 30

The order is here.  I am frustrated because I would like everyone back at work (it does not affect me, but many others are out of work); my house in a county with no cases and no dead is not getting many visits.  I understand why, I think.  The current projection is that we will be pretty much past the wave by then.

The Ultimate in Delusion and Self-Parody

From Outside Online, an article about an heiress who imagines she has returned to the oh so egalitarian Stone Age:
Until about ten years ago, Lynx also possessed no credit card, nor fixed address; her previous abodes—a tepee in Arizona, yurts in Montana and New Mexico, a snow shelter on the Lappish tundra—had neither electricity nor running water. This all changed when she received a modest inheritance from her mother’s estate in Britain that allowed her to purchase a remote five-acre plot some 12 miles outside Twisp. Now modernity, in the form of power outlets and a sink, is within easy reach, thanks to solar panels and a well that former occupants had installed on the land.

Postpartum Depression

I am saddened by how many of these family mass murders are by women who had recently given birth.  Some were clearly mentally ill when they did it.  One insisted that she had put her children into a trance on God's orders.  The "trance" was induced by strangulation and ax.

Another Fake Hate Crime

Reported in 4/13/20 Newsweek, no less:
"Every single one in this photo will get what is coming to them," read the ominous Instagram message sent to several students of color at the University of La Verne, east of Los Angeles, in March 2019. The accompanying black-and-white photo was of a group of outspoken students who were well-known on campus for organizing anti-racism protests. Seen in the photo: Anayeli Dominguez Peña, a Mexican-American graduate student and vocal social-justice campaigner. She had been instrumental in organizing numerous protests in the Decolonize ULV group she co-led.

All the cases remained unsolved—until March 9, 2020. After nearly a year of investigations involving multiple agencies, the LVPD said at a press conference that Dominguez Peña, 25, had faked the threats against herself and others in ten total separate "incidents." The same day, she was arrested on felony charges of making criminal threats and perjury, as well as seven misdemeanors related to electronic impersonation and filing false police reports.
If racism is so rampant in America, why the need to fake it?

The Way Lynching in the South is Usually Portrayed Needs Revision

This is not the first black lynch mob that I have found.

Taylortown, La. (1903)
11/2/1903: Murderer used an ax to murder three other blacks.  A white posse took him into custody; a black lynch mob took him away from the posse and hung him.  His explanation was that “he did it just for fun, and expected to have more fun in hell.”
Category: public
Suicide: no
Cause: mental illness?
Weapon: ax[1]