I awoke this morning to an extremely ominous orange glow coming from my window. Pictures from a phone (like above) don't do it justice because the automatic filters change the color.

https://twitter.com/jachristian/status/1303736618436579328

Yep so it looks like that here.

My phone's weather app says sunny and blue skys with a high of 93 and a low of 57. It's much colder than normal right now because the smoke is blocking out quite a bit of sun. I'd take a picture of the sun if I could see it. Alas, it is completely blocked out.

This is what it looked like the day we actually had the fires. This smoke is blow-over from three other fires as the winds all seem to coalesce into the Bay-Area.

My girlfriend sent me these ones from her much better iPhone camera. The automatic filter took away the orange color and she added it back in with another filter. Go figure.

But that's not all!

She also sent me these!

Apparently one of the huge fires was created by a "gender reveal party". Now California and America at large is the laughing stock of the entire world. All you have to do is type in "it's a boy fire" into Google.

One of these idiotic explosions caused more damage than every one of these damn riots combined. So dumb.

At least people still have a morbid sense of humor!

That's a win in my book!

Speaking of stupid shit:

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally May Have Caused 250,000 Coronavirus Cases, Economists Say

You don't say? Here we go again.

The annual 10-day motorcycle rally held in Sturgis, South Dakota, which began on August 7 and ran until August 16, was attended by nearly 500,000 people.

The study's authors claim they used anonymized cell phone data to show that foot traffic at restaurants and bars, entertainment venues, hotels and campgrounds rose considerably in and around the Sturgis area.

Okay well lets not forget that the only reason that cell phone data is anonymous is because the API makes it anonymous. They actually know where everyone is at all times. I mean obviously not this person who did the study but rather Big Tech and the government. Never forget how fucking crazy that is.

The paper also attempted to determine the economic impact of the rally and claims that "if we conservatively assume that all of these cases were non-fatal, then these cases represent a cost of over $12.2 billion, based on the statistical cost of a Covid-19 case of $46,000 estimated by Kniesner and Sullivan (2020)"

LOL GOD

Do these fucking people even listen to their own words coming out of their mouths? $46k per COVID case? $12.2B in damages? Fucking morons. I got COVID too. Guess how much it cost? $0. Seriously though.

CHIEF CRITIC
Governor Kristi Noem issued a statement Tuesday afternoon to refute the validity of the study. “This report isn’t science; it’s fiction. Under the guise of academic research...

Well at least someone has some common sense.

“Predictably, some in the media breathlessly report on this non-peer reviewed model, built on incredibly faulty assumptions that do not reflect the actual facts and data. At one point, academic modeling also told us that South Dakota would have 10,000 COVID patients in the hospital at our peak. Today, we have less than 70. I look forward to good journalists, credible academics, and honest citizens repudiating this nonsense.”

Honestly I wonder how much longer all this lying and fear-mongering is going to last. A lot of people think it will stop after the American presidential election. Sounds about right, but you never know. I'd say we still have another year to go before the legacy economy is goes into full implosion mode and we find out where the bottom of this hole is. These California fires, power issues, and whatever else are certainly helping that along. Can I put in a vote for earthquakes? Earthquakes would be nice!

Ah look at that I was able to find the sun. Looks like the top of the smoke cloud is heating up and burning off like it has been doing recently. Move along! Nothing to see here.