Starbucks opened its bathrooms to winos, and you won't believe what happened next

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Mr. Barista, unlock this door!

Mr. Barista, unlock this door!

Paying customers stopped coming.

pOWERLINE: Actually, you don’t need to guess, but in case you’re curious, we have some social science on the question, in the form of a paper from two researchers at Boston College and one at the University of Texas, recently posted to the Social Science Research Network. The paper is entitled “The Perils of Private Provision of Public Goods.” Here’s the abstract, which is pretty startling even without decoding it from academeze (my highlights):

In May 2018, in response to protests, Starbucks changed its policies nationwide to allow anybody to sit in their stores and use the bathroom without making a purchase. Using a large panel of anonymized cellphone location data, we estimate that the policy led to a 7.3% decline in store attendance at Starbucks locations relative to other nearby coffee shops and restaurants. This decline cannot be calculated from Starbucks’ public disclosures, which lack the comparison group of other coffee shops. The decline in visits is around 84% larger for stores located near homeless shelters. The policy also affected the intensive margin of demand: remaining customers spent 4.1% less time in Starbucks relative to nearby coffee shops after the policy enactment. Wealthier customers reduced their visits more, but black and white customers were equally deterred. The policy led to fewer citations for public urination near Starbucks locations, but had no effect on other similar public order crimes. These results show the difficulties of companies attempting to provide public goods, as potential customers are crowded out by non-paying members of the public.

The body of the complete article is even more explicit about the cost of Starbuck’s virtue-signaling, including “the new policy appears to have significantly reduced visits to Starbucks 

Aww, the poor guys. Next, they’ll discover that their reusable-cup program is scaring away panicked WuHUFlu customers. Oh, wait …

Encouraging news from the Sage of Tennessee

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Take off the gloves* and go to it!*or not

Take off the gloves* and go to it!

*or not

Self-help and Kung Flu: you can beat it with one hand tied behind your back

MARCH 8, 2020

CORONAVIRUS NEWS YOU CAN USE:  Masturbation boosts your immune system, helping you fight off infection and illness.

Between that and the protective effect of hard liquor, I feel like a lot of y’all will do just fine.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 8:00 pm

Billionaires, Big Pharma, over-paid doctors: all targets of Democrats' and their operatives with bylines

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Saving America

Saving America

Gates foundation working on home testing kits for Kung Flu. But, of course, the Orange Man is sabotaging a cure: “Trump cozies up to Big Pharma and the vaccine industry instead of promoting vitamin D and anti-viral herbs and spices”.

Add to the enemy list oil self-sufficiency and Trump’s policy of America First and bringing manufacturing back home and one might wonder what these people’s goals are and whose interests they’re protecting.

Not to worry, though, they are addressing more significant programs to save America, like bringing drag queens to kindergarten, debunking the myth of American exceptionalism in grammar schools and painting our roads and crosswalks with rainbows LGBT murals.

And where is Politico?

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toilet paper.jpg

Huddled in MSNBC’s studio, conferring with Yale psychiatrists and “foreign policy experts”, no doubt.

In early February, Politico condemned the Trump administration’s travel restrictions to China:

The Trump administration’s quarantine and travel ban in response to the Wuhan coronavirus could undercut international efforts to fight the outbreak by antagonizing Chinese leaders, as well as stigmatizing people of Asian descent, according to a growing chorus of public health experts and lawmakers.

The World Health Organization’s top official on Tuesday repeated concern that moves that interfere with transportation and trade could harm efforts to address the crisis, though he didn’t directly name the United States. Meanwhile, unions representing flight attendants, nurses and teachers criticized the administration on Tuesday for not being forthcoming about what kind of screening and treatment individuals will undergo, and some members of Congress say they’re concerned the efforts could stoke racial discrimination.

* * * * * * * *

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday that widespread travel bans and restrictions weren’t needed to stop the outbreak and could “have the effect of increasing fear and stigma, with little public health benefit.” Union leaders separately called for a coordinated government response and warned authorities against profiling people of Asian descent while addressing the threat.

The virus has sickened some 20,900 people worldwide and killed at least 427, almost all in China. The FDA late Tuesday granted emergency authorization to distribute a diagnostic test for the virus to public health laboratories around the country. The move eliminates the need to confirm cases by sending samples to the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta.

As spotted yesterday in a Twitter thread by Yossi Gestetner of the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council, who has further thoughts.

95% of the U.S. penicillin supply is made in China

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Be kind ‚— pretty please?

Be kind ‚— pretty please?

And high blood pressure and cancer drugs and most others. CT scan equipment x-ray machines, in fact almost our entire medical supply system has been outsourced to China. Here’s a thought: Obama lauded our friendly ties to that country, and claimed that they’d be there for us, fighting side-by-side, should a pandemic arise. Let summer, a high Chinese official suggested cutting off penicillin shipments to the U.S. if the trade war continued.

Computers, cell phones, military equipment, even shoes: all controlled by a country hostile to us.

I don’t watch television news (no television at all, actyually) and nine-minutes of Tucker Carlson is a new experience for me, but at the urging of another blogger I watched this. I make the same recommendation as that blogger.

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