My four year old thought it was the height of fun to stick a “do not enter” sticker on my butt. The joke’s on him, though. I already have a tattoo in the same place. Saw Sloopy’s morning post about Hank Steinbrenner. Apocryphally, he lived in the next neighborhood over from where we rented when we first moved to the area. There were several giant mansions on 5-20 acres of land, many of which abutted a navigable.. creek? canal? that went all the way to Tampa Bay (from 2/3rd of the way to the Gulf). Thinking back on it, I’m surprised we weren’t warned away by security with shotguns when we used to run/walk through that neighborhood. Once you were off the canal, home prices (and rents) fell appreciably.
We always used to wonder what would happen when the government truly embraced the idea of just printing money. I’m going to go put a down payment on a car with the first payment, and then just use the rest to pay it off. If they want to inflate the fuck out of things, I’m gonna buy durable goods cheap and pay for them with found money.
I did not see Trump’s name anywhere on my direct deposit. Fake news!
I feel like this is just setting the NYPD up for failure. Black man wearing a mask! Shoot him! Black man not wearing a mask! Shoot him! Our brave heroes in blue are screwed no matter what.
Wonder how the mill owner is going to get this covered as a COVID-19 related loss.
“My four year old thought it was the height of fun to stick a “do not enter” sticker on my butt.”
Why, is that a change in policy?
What’s even more disturbing is that a 4-yo would know that.
Kids learn by playing
Oh my!
“Abandon all hope ye who enter here” would have been a sterner warning.
Opera clap…
I assumed the wife was very insistent about certain…. uh… practices.
They say the virus lives longer on paper and other surfaces, right?
The mill owner simply decided to nuke the site from orbit… it was the only way to be sure.
And I would tend to agree with your 4 year old… definitely a “Do Not Enter — One Way Only” as far as I’m concerned….
‘Female Enemas For Pleasure And Punishment’
voy.com/231162/
No comments *here* about this one?
My “stimulus” was direct deposited today. Transaction description is “tax refund.” WTF?
It would be hilarious if it said Trump Bucks.
Diamond Don’s Bigly Bux
I was thinking about this as a template.
The law provides a tax refund in 2021 for your 2020 taxes. This refund is being paid in advance. Congress cannot just give you money.
This is how it was done during the Bush tax cuts after 9/11 I seem to recall.
So they’re giving us a tax-free loan rather than the other way around, for a change?
How gracious of them.
Also, this awakening was hilarious:
https://twitter.com/joyannreid/status/1250297852481294339?s=21
So for those of you that had big incomes last year and got laid off this year, you will still get the tax refund in 2021. You just don’t get a check now.
The IRS is using prior tax returns to guess if you will get a tax return next to send you an advance this year.
should be “get a tax refund next year”
Congress cannot just give you money.
What if my name was “The Kennedy Center”?
Sure they can! Here’s how it works.
Thomas Massie was contacted by a constituent who’d just received his fathers stimulus check, and his father passed away. The constituent jokingly asked him if it could only be used online.
Black man wearing a mask! Shoot him! Black man not wearing a mask! Shoot him! Our brave heroes in blue are screwed no matter what.
The true victims of that situation….
Women hardest hit!
(Am I doing this right?)
How dare you ignore the suffering of our Communities of Color! The colonialism of patriarchal white supremacy demands the acknowledgment of the deep structural inequalities of our society! The Islamofatphobia of Trumpofascism encourages the
climate change on the deep divisions within the legacies of slavery of Covid-19 deaths.
Trump’s signature looks nothing like his name anyway. I can’t even make out a “D” or “T”.
It says “King Total Authority”.
Signatures aren’t necessarily meant to look like your name. They are meant to be unique.
X
The 2K a month idea showed up in my Facebook feed. So I replied with the Onion’s video on the money pit. No response so far.
I always liked this one
“I always liked this one”
And well you should have, in my opinion.
Under their proposal, every American age 16 older making less than $130,000 annually would receive at least $2,000 per month, while married couples earning less than $260,000 would receive at least $4,000. Families would also be eligible for an additional $500 for each child, up to $1,500.
Damn, if a family of 4 is getting $60k a year from the government I wonder what the Kennedy Center is getting in this next bill.
Apparently, the plan is for the US to cross the historical finish line upside down and on fire.
So if my wife and I together made $250,000, we’ll make $298,000 per year with our stipend of $4,000 a month built in.
Poor neighbors who make $261,000, they get nothing! Now we’re much richer than they are. Thanks endless pile of money government!
That can be solved with tapering, like they gradually lowered 1200 Trumpbucks between 75k and 100k.
So the New York laws against wearing masks in public…? Just waved away by the Emperor?
Georgia waived their anti-masking law.
You can imagine how that was reported
Dammit, you beat me to it.
So now they can both wear hoods in public.
New York’s law has a loophole about the purpose being to conceal identity. Most Southern states with anti-mask laws do not have that loophole because KKK.
Okay, now I want to see a bunch of guys in Klan hoods obeying the new rules.
*chuckle*
That cunt Whitmer is giving an update, and said a “survivor” who met with the President thinks he “got it…by touching a gas pump” so THAT is why she needs everyone to stay home!
SCIENCE!
Ironic how those who proclaim to use “science” can’t seem to understand math.
What a petty little person. If the snow is going to do the job, then just lift the order. Whyfor can’t I be a jurnalist?
Even for a Dem politician, she’s particularly repugnant.
I’m guessing she has never heard of greenhouses.
She’s a communications major. Not surprised.
Or science.
can’t seem to understand math.
Or the scientific method.
Oh, they utilize multiple scientific methods:
1. Pay off the so-called experts and academics
2. Develop an issue, er, hypothesis, and create data to make it true (see #1)
She seems less than popular right now.
She’s not popular with me. I got in my truck after work and she was on the radio and while she was talking I got a text from a buddy who will be starting unpaid furlough tomorrow with unknown return date. I really wish I could have driven to Lansing today but I am one of the fortunate “essentials” who can go to work.
Almost everything I have heard about the Chinese Cooties so far could be prefaced with “IATOMA but…”
*Thank you Gender Traitor
::takes a bow:: My pleasure!
She’s also gave us {{{ }}}
A true treasure, that gal.
<3 <3 <3
“<3 <3 <3"
Zero, one, and two are less than three (as are many other prime numbers).
That’s a lame justification, just wear gloves or wash your hands after pumping and you’re set.
I do like how Oregon finally suspended their inane self serve ban for this. Now to make it permanent after it’s over.
I just grabbed one of the paper towels so I wouldn’t have to tough anything.
Touching a gas pump? Hasn’t everyone driven fewer than 20 miles in the last month?
Nope, as a true libertarian, I have defied my “nonessential” status and gone to work as normal.
So last night the 7 year old woke me up at 3am to share her nightmare and of course I wasn’t able to get back to sleep. So I checked TOS and found a nice article by Robby about the NYT attempt to excuse their laughable coverage of Biden’s accuser Reade.
https://reason.com/2020/04/14/tara-reade-joe-biden-dean-baquet-new-york-times-sexual-assault/
Because he’s the only person anywhere outside of the nutjob right wing media who is actually writing criticism of the press coverage, I went full rant mode. ‘Cause that’s how we roll. What follows is my insane tilting at the windmill of the national propaganda machine.
There is something else that you guys missed about this story.
This is the New York Times interviewing the New York Times. This is not some enterprising reporter from the Wall Street Journal doing a deep dive on why the NYT covered the story the way they did.
This is the NYT providing a response to criticism about their coverage. They picked their own reporter, and it is being covered the way they want it covered.
So when the reporter asks about Swetnick rather than Ford, it is no accident.
And when the reporter carefully avoids questions that directly get to the heart of the matter – like the Time’s year’s long goal of “getting Trump” and how this story fits in with those plans, or asking about specific examples of extremely slanted writing as Soave has pointed out – it isn’t by accident.
This is the Times trying to shape the narrative. This is them putting their best possible spin on the story.
Let that sink in for a moment. Their best possible spin for why they spiked a story for most of a month in order to dig up as much on the accuser as they possibly could is that it wasn’t a “hot story” and it wasn’t as important because Kavanaugh was a supreme court nominee and Biden is merely a presidential nominee.
This is the version that they want out there. Their best foot forward, in the friendliest possible forum, their own pages.
Thank you! I laughed at several outlets that, even while being critical of the NYT’s naked hypocrisy, treated this as if it were a legitimate interview. The “interview” was Ben Smith, NYT staffer, posing questions to his boss. How naive do you have to be to take this at face value???? Gee, you don’t think Dean Baquet would have told Ben Smith exactly what questions he was to ask, do you?
Also, the Timester admitted that they spiked the story at the request of the Biden campaign. And nobody batted an eye, which tells you how ordinary it is for the Times to take marching orders from the DNC.
Wow! I didn’t see that… Where was that one?
I overstated.
They merely edited the story at the request of the Biden campaign.
Funny that they want to emphasize that hugging, kissing and touching women in ways that make them uncomfortable is not sexual misconduct. Al Franken will be thrilled to learn that. So will a whole slew of #metoo victims. And what was that spreadsheet thing that they were passing around? Definitely a few of those guys will be really happy to learn that they’ve been exonerated.
Robby, you leave out a lot of important context. And I don’t mean just picking “Kavanaugh was a running, hot story” as your pull quote over “Kavanaugh’s status as a Supreme Court justice was in question because of a very serious allegation. ” (Presidential Nominee vs Supreme Court Nominee being the differentiator here, as well as “public election” vs “senate deliberation”, both of which argue the opposite conclusion to that reached by the NYT)
But let’s talk about the context of the NYT. The NYT isn’t simply accused of treating a single story differently because of political bias. If this one story was all there is to it, there would still be plenty of reason to criticize. But they very openly stated that they covered the Russia Collusion story with the explicit intent of bringing Trump down. Their news editors (not editorial page editors!) held a meeting in which they said as much. And their news editors promised their staff that they would find another angle for focusing the newsroom on the objective of getting Trump.
This is important context – because spiking the Biden story isn’t an outlier, it is right in their wheelhouse.
And the even larger context isn’t that a single news organization is couching its coverage in purely political terms – although that would in itself be worthy of notice. No, the truly important context that is not just worrying, but actually quite threatening is that there are very, very few exceptions to this approach in the media today. Everyone of the left likes to point at Fox News (Faux) as some terrible propaganda machine… but did Fox indeed cover the allegations against Kavanaugh? Did they cover Trump’s open-mike blunder?
“Free Press” objections seem to hinge on the existence of places like Blaze Media, The Federalist and of course, Rush Limbaugh – these media outlets have an obvious political bias, therefore the real problem with bias is on the right, or so goes the objection.
Yet the Kavanaugh allegations did not come to light in the Senate. They were leaked from Chuck Shumer’s office after being passed to him by Feinstein. And it wasn’t a single enterprising reporter who got the leak, but a strategic decision by a group of press and DNC strategists as to how to handle it. Even though a single outlet handled the leak, several were in the room as the leak was made. And all of the national outlets handled the allegations in the identical manner. There were no national outlets expressing skepticism of some extremely dubious claims and actions.
Smash cut to Biden’s accusations… he’d been dogged by complaints of pawing on women, unwanted hugging and hair sniffing. But the press didn’t push him personally…. and the stories eventually were killed. Then he’s accused of rape – albeit not with a penis. By someone who claims to have made the complaint to his HR department at the time. (not someone who’s major claim of veracity comes from mentioning non-specific allegations to a marriage therapist decades after the fact).
In unison the national press buried the allegation. In unison they waited to mention it at all until after they had some version that they could call “debunked”.
The larger context is, this is how they treat serious allegations against “their guy”.
When Clinton stood accused of draft dodging, all 3 TV networks told me what Stephanopolis told them to tell me…. “He never got a draft notice”. Then, two weeks later when the draft notice was produced, all three networks told me “This is an old story. We’ve always known that he got a draft notice. But he never got a second draft notice!” Then, when that notice was produced, all three networks said it was old news, that we had always known there was a second draft notice. On and on, through several more rounds of revelations… each time the story that was “This never happened” became “we always knew that” two weeks later.
The larger context here is that within what we colloquially refer to as “the press”, there is one outlet that has a lean toward the republicans in Fox News. And that outlet is regularly scorned as a partisan hack.
Yet we have ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, SFC, The Tribune, even AP…. every single major news outlet isn’t just on the “leans Democrat” or even “fully left wing” side of things…. they are all blatantly partisan and clearly coordinating their coverage of most national political stories. They all use similar and often quite obviously crafted phrasing around major stories. And they all hew the party line.
What would it take to make a dozen national newsrooms all sit on a story like this for the better part of 3 weeks? All of them, at the same time?
It would take the same level of behind the scenes coordination that had all of the same outlets smearing high school student Sandman for standing still as a “Tribal elder” banged a drum in his face. This went on for days – only brought to heel because a couple of full videos of the encounter were published on the internet, proving the lie. Even in this environment, NBC attempted to shore up the smear by putting on the Tribal Elder in a morning interview with anchor Savannah Guthrie where he was guided through a defense of the story. The next day, the same anchor interviewed Sandman in an obvious attempt to bully the teen into publicly apologizing and accepting that he was the one in the wrong. The attempt only failed because the video was out there.
And yet… very few outlets were critical of this. When Reason.com is the major voice critical of a national story like this…. we have an issue with a functioning free press.
That is the real context here. This isn’t about whether or not Biden deserves a fair vetting of such allegations before they are published. Of course he does. So did Kavanaugh. And every time you report it as “serious allegations” or “credible allegations” being made against Kavanaugh, you are complicit in the con they are running. There were no serious allegations against Kavanaugh – as the extensive testimony and evidence proved. Yet because of the national media narrative, that’s how that story is being preserved.
This is national-scale propaganda. It isn’t simply political bias (which would be bad enough if it was unidirectional around the vast majority of the national press). When they all handle these stories in the same way, you have something much more serious happening.
This is the true context of having every single national outlet make the same decision about not reporting Reade’s accusations. Not that proper journalism demands that all such allegations receive cautious vetting (they should), but what the obviously coordinated responses to these allegations reveal.
Thank you, Cyto. If Robby does answer please download that as well. Great job and great memory of the B. Clinton brouhaha that was downplayed. Even I had forgotten that, which may not be a surprise but thanks for a challenge to the Times et al. Now we’ll see what the discounters will conjure up to ignore you.
I don’t think there has to be any “coordination”. All it takes is for them all to have the same mindset. And they do, because it has been fed to them in the schools they attended and in the circles they hang out with. They immediately know the “correct” opinion to have on anything that comes up, and without having to think about it.
Yeah, you’d start there.
But then you’d remember the Dan Rather story. Remember how he went down because he ran a story about George Bush being AWOL that turned out to be a fake?
Well, that was part of an actual, no lie conspiracy between all of the major networks. Matt Drudge had a story up 2 weeks before the Dan Rather story claiming that ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and CNN had all arranged to coordinate with the Kerry campaign to spend a week focusing on Vietnam. Each network would take a different day during that week to cover 1 story in depth about Vietnam, while the Kerry campaign scheduled an advertising blitz and campaign appearances focusing on Vietnam.
This was a called shot, two weeks out. And that is exactly what they did ….. until the Dan Rather fake AWOL notice blew up in everyone’s face. So the story about how every major network colluded with the Kerry campaign never went anywhere. But it was undeniably true, because Drudge had the particulars correct two weeks in advance.
This was even before Journolist.
No… there’s more here than a shared bias.
We also know that the leak of Ford’s letter was discussed in Schumer’s NYC apartment at 2AM the night before – the name that I can remember was Savannah Guthrie, but several major network players were in attendance. (I remember Guthrie because I was thinking “good lord, she has to be on air in a couple of hours after that meeting breaks up!”)
A story like “The nominee of the Democrat party stuck his fingers in my vagina in the offices of the Senate and the HR department covered it up and I was retaliated against” isn’t one that everyone just decides to sit on. That’s a blockbuster.
Yet nobody went to run down the story…. no one.
You even have Bernie bro’s in place at most of the major outlets. None of them won the day with their editors and got their story published.
No… there’s no way that we are looking at a simple “they are all proggies” situation. Sure, that’s a necessary component. But it goes way beyond that. The poll-tested phrasing that comes out simultaneously across all outlets begs to differ.
I’m sure some of that coordination in depth happens, but having been a grifter working my way through a corporation for decades, it requires far less coordination than you think. I see this happen all the time- we go into a meeting with 20 people, a set of people are aligned on some goal- like greenlighting a project. But we don’t know what the other people are going to say. So you go into the meeting and you riff on one another. Each person throws something out, to see if it resonates. Reason, after reason why this project is important. And every time an argument seems to get traction, two or three pile on with perspective from their end.
Twitter is the meeting room of the press right now. Hack after hack can toss various hot takes over and over, and the ones that gain traction get some data behind them, and then get a couple articles, and then all of a sudden the “Argument is old news” with a link to one of those articles as things roll on.
There needs to be some level of coordination because, in the age of identity politics, the rules and correct opinions are constantly changing.
^^^This this this THIS
I don’t even think it’s controversial to say they’re coordinating at this point. Claiming that they DON’T coordinate violates Occam’s razor. There’s just no way that every one of the alphabet soup networks, plus the AP, NYT and WaPo all spontaneously come out with the same narrative, even down to the same phrasing, within 12 hours of one another hundreds of times over a time spanning many years.
It’s obviously coordinated, because even if they could somehow all come up with the same opinion, there is no way they could come up with the same language, eg. “Easter worshipers”.
That’s actually a great point. We went from “Wuhan Virus” on Tuesday to “Trump is a racist for saying Wuhan Virus” on Wednesday. With unanimity across all outlets. Something like that can’t spread that quickly without a channel. These people are working while the first outlets are using that terminology. They can’t be monitoring CNN all day to get the orders.
“We went from “Wuhan Virus” on Tuesday to “Trump is a racist for saying Wuhan Virus” on Wednesday.”
This is a perfect example of NOT coordinated stuff. One guy said, “Chinese flu is straight up racist” on Twitter, and then it took on a life of its own. Liberals piled on via twitter, and all of a sudden a couple of articles were being written.
Literally this is all the press has. They are 85% located in New York or DC. They aren’t out beating the streets for news. They are watching twitter. And when something sparks their imagination, or tickles their SJW bone, they riff on it- with a couple more twits and then an article, and suddenly a line has been drawn in the sand that other writers and Team Blue most defend at all costs. In complexity theory this would be considered an advanced form of Flocking Behavior- in general, birds try to keep distance from one another, so when external stimulus (like a nearing predator) occurs, a bird moves in a different direction, and the other birds, following the same simple rules go that direction, which pushes new birds to the outside of the flock, who respond to new stimuli and so on.
And FWIW, I see this on the Red side as well. It is just that Team Blue has about 1 Billion more journalists amplifying the signal.
The U.S. media is nothing but the propaganda/disinformation machine. That’s how I refer to it in these trying times.
What the hell would you know about the media being a propaganda machine? 😉
The Soviet media spent the second half of the ’80s reporting on the crimes committed by Stalin and NKVD. Of course, that was the time of Perestroika and Glasnost. I’m not old enough to remember earlier times. So, in my personal memory the Soviet propaganda machine was distinctly more fair and balanced than the one in the US.
So, the story that the NYT, in coordination with other outlets, refused to cover is not a “hot story,” and thus not worthy of covering.
Neat trick.
And then some guy had to go all-in with the “this is totally different because Kavanaugh was accused of something super-cereal while I don’t even know what Reade claims he did, but it surely wasn’t super-cereal.
Then you really, really have not read anything at all.
Ford’s allegation was not an “upped” allegation… .She alleged that at a high school party, Kavanaugh and a friend were horseplaying with her in a bedroom. They closed the door and Kavanaugh wrestled with her on the bed for a few moments, making her fearful. She described both boys as laughing. She claimed that he touched her boob over her clothes, but did not attempt anything further. She fled the room, leaving the boys laughing – which she took as evidence of their evil intent.
That is her “serious allegation”. 35 years later. She also specifies her best friend as a witness. Said best friend says she never met Kavanaugh and doesn’t believe the allegation. She also specifies other people who were there. All deny any such thing as ever having happened.
And despite the fact that Ford was not able to narrow down the date of the alleged incident beyond a two year period (try to refute an allegation that you were alone with someone you’ve never met… when they say it happened at some point, 35 years ago, on a single day over a two year period). well, Kavanaugh did indeed refute that. He produced a calendar of his activities over the period in question and it included every party he went to. The guy is apparently anal-retentive about his organization. It was pretty iron clad proof that he was never at such a gathering. You know, the one that her best friend also says she was never at.
That is the “upped game” allegation you are referring to.
Meanwhile, Biden stands accused of forcibly sticking his finger in the vagina of an adult woman who worked for him while he was in the Senate…. in the workplace. She also says she made contemporaneous complaints about the incident and that it was covered up, and her managerial responsibilities were removed in retaliation. There is at least some evidence that backs up the claims that she made such reports at the time.
Now, ask yourself this:
Why did you believe that Ford’s allegations were more serious and more credible? It is a belief that is ludicrous on its face.
Yet it is a belief that you held. A belief that you held strongly enough that you were willing to defend it in the comments section here.
Here’s the real question. Why did you hold such a belief. You are not stupid. Or illiterate. Or uninterested in political matters. You know who these major players are, and you followed the stories at the time with at least passing interest.
Yet your lasting impression is that Ford made serious allegations… and Reade did not.
This is the issue that deserves serious thought. Because you didn’t get those opinions by accident. And it wasn’t entirely by your own choice. Those opinions were pushed upon you with intent.
Now, the press spokesman for the DNC pressing that narrative isn’t very interesting or surprising. But you didn’t get those impressions directly from the DNC. You absorbed those impressions from the world around you… the media you consume lead you to draw those conclusions as a general impression.
Is this simply an unhappy accident? Is it due to some incompetence in the media?
That is where you should be turning your attention. You’ve clearly been mislead in a very stark fashion. Why? By whom?
Dude, that’s the length of a tidy little article. You should submit things here.
This was me at 3am. No lie. No exaggeration.
+! another XKCD fan
Seconded.
I don’t know why y’all are trying to parse this. It’s the NYT, a commie rag used to line bird cages. They have zero credibility.
You’re wrong unfortunately. There is a sizable population that still believes that shit.
Worse, most of them are also commies.
Like polls, the people in power believe this.+! another XKCD fan
The NYT is literally the most credible news organization in the United States. Credible as in “most believed in”. If you run a poll of “who is the most hard news organization there is”, the US is going to answer NYT.
This, despite their obvious bias, and widespread acknowledgement of their obvious bias.
I don’t know exactly who that is an indictment of, but it is pretty damning.
Sure, but you can’t beat their crossword, hands down the best damn crossword out there. Not even a close second. So I’ll cut them some slack for being mendacious commies. Life is nothing but trade-offs.
last week’s was weird; I normally finish the Sunday, but I couldn’t even get started this time
I had to go back a check, but I can see that, sometimes those all the theme answers are connected into one big pun-story can be hard to grok. Although I managed to complete it 10 minutes faster than my average for Sundays* so it’s probably a matter of where ones esoteric knowledge and the clues jibe.
*not so humble brag.
Great series of posts. Two immediate quibbles:
‘Yet your lasting impression is that Ford made serious allegations… and Reade did not.’
If by ‘you’ mean Glibs instead of general public, doubt it.
‘And yet… very few outlets were critical of this. When Reason.com is the major voice critical of a national story like this…. we have an issue with a functioning free press.’
‘places like Blaze Media, The Federalist and of course, Rush Limbaugh’ are minor while ‘Reason.com’ is ‘major’?
1. “You” was a specific idiot who posted that Reade needed to up her allegation game, but he was intended to be a proxy for the vast majority of left leaning people who wander near the middle of the road and have been drinking the cool-aid without knowing it.
2. I was specifically differentiating left-right politically motivated sites from news sites, and then being extremely derisive of all mainstream media by placing Reason.com as the largest mainstream voice willing to take on this issue. It was a bit of a backhanded complement to Reason, but that wasn’t the real objective. The real objective was pointing out that there are no voices willing to take on this obvious failing of the 4th estate. Also, I’m tossing a backhanded bone to Robby. He’s as equivocal and milquetoast in his critiques of the left as you can possibly get…. but you have to acknowledge that he’s pretty much the only one willing to put name to by-line on stories critical of the leftist media narrative. So despite the shaking knees he displays in his “to be sure” idioms, he’s got the biggest, hairiest pair in the media on this front. (and if that isn’t a serious indictment of the rest of the media, I don’t know what would be.)
Thanks.
Nice rant, though… Wish I could say I’m hopeful that folks will see through things – but just scanning Slashdot today and seeing folks outright defending China as better on THD has got me too depressed for the current and future state of things.
Ugh… .you still visit slashdot too? Every time I go over there I get a little depressed. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. It isn’t just the lack of expertise, the lack of traffic and the ignorance of the young folk… it is the super-high percentage of the low ID number folks who are hard-marxist types. Geez, you are in your 50’s or 60’s by now…. time to grow up!
Yeah, pretty much the same reaction. I skim over typically, but can barely bear to open the comments. The Berniebro (rsilvergun? something like that) and Europeans-who-love-telling-the-US-what-to-do (AmiJoJo) apparently have commenting as their day job, and they draw their flame wars with them so everything degenerates. And I think the low-ID sane folks have mostly left… so just the nutty ones post.
Every once in a while a breath of sanity creeps in… and usually gets downmodded annoyingly.
I’m just gonna go ahead and assume that the breath of sanity is us. And I’ve noticed the same usernames, so it ain’t just you.
And I’m glad you mentioned the Europeans. Good lord… every political anything they have to stomp in with their “Americans don’t know anything” attitude… usually followed by something that is completely wrong.
I try to keep my handle there free of politics as much as I can.
Great rant. Would read again. I would like to subscribe to your news letter. Also, I miss Fruit Sushi and I’m not afraid to say it.
“They say the virus lives longer on paper and other surfaces, right?”
I read the opposite. It doesn’t survive long on paper. It survives much longer on stainless steel and plastic.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666524720300033
“New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo orders all people to wear face coverings in public”
I am really wearing out on this nonsense. The Governor is not a one man legislature. He gives orders to state employees. To the rest of us he is just the hired help. He can make recommendations, suggestions, co-ordinate logistics etc but he cannot give orders that have the force of law to citizens.
If people dont start pushing back hard on this it is going to set a very, very bad precedent.
Here in PA, it was the head tranny who decreed it. Effective 4/19.
I’m taking my plague mask into work tomorrow to install the HEPA filters.
I work in health insurance, so I have to install HIPAA filters.
Yep almost all governors have consumed thhe legislative branches of their states under the guise of their emergency powers.
No debates, no votes, just say it and it be so.
The funny angle is that this is the same guy who was ranting at Trump for thinking he is the King because he said he would be the one to decide when to open the country up. Mere hours before issuing this royal decree.
The world really is beyond parody.
Same people who last week were ‘Bad Trump’ because Trump refused to order the states without statewide cower in place to conform.
“ but he cannot give orders that have the force of law to citizens.“
Apparently he can…all the other govs too.
And as RC pointed out I beleive since our culture is so fratured, that we don’t have a unified pushback it will be acceptable and cheerfully wanted
Or maybe if Trump does this to one of the governors.
He could just give Cuomo a swirly.
This is the real problem. I was thinking of doing some civil disobedience, but what is the point is everyone agrees with these edicts? Then I just look like an asshole trying to kill everyone with the virus of doom.
Yep – even if those orders directly conflict with existing laws the legislature passed.
See: The protests ini Michigan and Virginia.
I guess the power mongers never consider that at some point people will push back. They cant imagine that they will end up with their very own lamp post. I can hardly believe that fuckstick in VA hasn’t gotten his yet.
I think that, since reporters are gullible, easy to dupe sorts, they reflexively believe that everyone is as stupid as they are.
To illustrate……Georgia’s governor did this to ensure that no one gets prosecuted for wearing a protective mask. How did a Georgia TV station report this executive order? Why, like this, of course.
Strange… I sent IRS a check a couple months ago, didn’t take them long to cash it. Now I’m waiting, waiting.
Las Vegas Mayor pushing back…its local news report so not purely her but soundbites to make her sound callous
https://youtu.be/RjXR0cVEcU0
‘European countries easing lockdown restrictions are taking wildly different approaches.’
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lockdown-ending-europe
‘New species discovered during exploration of abyssal deep sea canyons off Ningaloo’ is longest animal alive (if it counts as an animal)
https://phys.org/news/2020-04-species-exploration-abyssal-deep-sea.html
Clearly you are not a fan of Sy-Sign-A-Phores.
/Attempting to channel Agile Cyborg
‘/Attempting to channel Agile Cyborg’
Don’t sell it sort. Defensible impersonation.
‘Clearly you are not a fan of Sy-Sign-A-Phores.’
Call back when it does or produces something people are willing to exchange money (whether money going to person, for-profit, nonprofit, not for profit)
star 60 times mass of Sun exploded 3,600,000,000 years ago. Light reached Earth 2016. Paper figuring out what it was published Monday.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-020-1066-7
Paper figuring it out made of past supernovas anyway…
Point.
I blame global warming.
Or a virus got into SN2016aps’ corona.
EXPERTSES!
While President Donald Trump commands the spotlight at White House coronavirus briefings – sometimes overshadowing and contradicting federal experts – America’s governors often take a different tack, letting state epidemiologists and public health officials lead the way.
Blah blah blah we fucking love science.
That’s nice. What other effects are there from locking the economy in the panic room? Who cares. Nobody cares if some billionaires lose their shirts.
So they are just saying what we all knew was true for a long time…represtative republics are dead and now unelected ‘experts’ are making laws.
“He said the crisis won’t be over until a vaccine is made available.”
So possibly never?
Never, ever, ever. Crawl back under your bed, plebe.
I think your kid is telling you something.
Lay off the coke.
Lay off the coke.
I thought you were fun, man!
Coke? Mr money-bags over here.
House Democrats have introduced legislation that would expand the federal government’s coronavirus relief cash payments to $2,000 a month until the economy recovers.
Fuck you. Payroll tax holiday, cut spending, and push governors to reopen states.
“It’s over when people know I’m 100% safe and I don’t have to worry about this. When does that happen? When we have a vaccine?” he said. “Until you have a vaccine, until you have the medical treatment, what do you do? How are you building the bridge? Well, it’s going to be a phased reopening.”
So it will never be over. Cuomo can go fuck himself.
The Maine Fire Marshal’s Office said no one outside of the mill was injured in the explosion. Some people who suffered respiratory issues were treated and released.
Are you sure they didn’t have Lil Rona?
Fake news!
Also, paywalled.
And my Donald Dollars direct deposit says “tax refund”. I certainly hope this doesn’t against my actual tax filing/refund.
See my post above. It is an advance on a tax refund/credit on your 2021 taxes filed in 2022.
I fucked that up. Refund/credit on your 2020 taxes filed in 2021.
‘We always used to wonder what would happen when the government truly embraced the idea of just printing money. I’m going to go put a down payment on a car with the first payment, and then just use the rest to pay it off. If they want to inflate the fuck out of things, I’m gonna buy durable goods cheap and pay for them with found money.’ https://thehill.com/homenews/house/492950-house-democrats-propose-2000-monthly-payments-to-americans?amp&__twitter_impression=true
‘I did not see Trump’s name anywhere on my direct deposit. Fake news!’ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/coming-to-your-1200-relief-check-donald-j-trumps-name/2020/04/14/071016c2-7e82-11ea-8013-1b6da0e4a2b7_story.html
Government-run redistribution of wealth would be acceptable if money redistributed voluntarily donated instead of borrowed or taxed. Donation not taxation.
Fauci told the Associated Press that the duration of the briefings was “really draining.”
“If I had been able to just make a few comments and then go to work, that would have really been much better,” he said. “It isn’t the idea of being there and answering questions, which I really think is important for the American public. It’s the amount of time.”
Standing there trying to pretend to care if the yokels can keep their shitty jobs or feed their dopey brats is really draining.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo orders all people to wear face coverings in public
Fuck off.
These fucking psychos have no intention of reopening the country anytime soon.
Buckle up folks.
House Democrats have introduced legislation that would expand the federal government’s coronavirus relief cash payments to $2,000 a month until the economy recovers.
UBI!
Next up, the Green New Deal.
So, semi OT thought for the day; if Trump sticks the landing on opening the economy, he is golden. Wins the election.
If Dems can stop that, along with not looking like they are stopping that, Biden wins.
Thoughts?
Yes
Agreed. And they (Dems) all know what needs to be done among them in their various positions of power, anything they can to halt/damage the economy.
Eh, there are a few more variables, mostly related to the likelihood of Biden spouting complete gibberish and drooling on himself in a debate.
“along with not looking like they are stopping that”
That’s the trick. Of course the Dem/Op/Media will run interference, but people are already starting to get pissed off about not working. Keeping the charade going without tipping their hand for six more months is not going to be easy.
Recent precedent: Impeachment hearings not officially impeachment hearings not sustainable (at least by them)
MADISON, Wis. (AP)
Yay!
Coonman extended his “nonessential business” closures two more weeks, to May 8.
Sununu keeps on trucking
Gov. Chris Sununu announced dramatic steps against COVID-19 Tuesday, including tests of all workers at long-term care centers in the two hardest-hit counties and $300 a week in extra pay for all front-line workers caring for seniors, low-income residents and the disabled.
The stipends for up to 25,000 workers will run $7.5 million weekly and should eventually be reimbursed with federal COVID-19 grants. Sununu approved the stipends at least through the end of June, reinforcing that economic restrictions are unlikely to be relaxed soon.
“The program will directly benefit front-line Medicaid workers in facilities, in home settings as well as in the community,” Sununu said during a briefing at the New Hampshire Fire Academy. “New Hampshire must strengthen its commitment to the workforce during this emergency.”
The initiatives came as State Epidemiologist Dr. Benjamin Chan confirmed four more deaths in New Hampshire from COVID-19 — three at Hanover Hill Health Care Center in Manchester and one at the Huntington assisted-living facility in Nashua.
There’s a little bit at the end about this Saturday’s rally in Concord.
Cool link bro.
Who knew criminals were essential? That’s the only reason they’re out and about right, right? RIGHT?!?!?!
Two men and a woman must answer to charges in Montgomery County Court for their alleged roles in break-ins that targeted Limerick businesses closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Gilmore-d too.
“front-line workers caring for seniors, low-income residents and the disabled”.
Prior to this event no old people died in nursing homes. That’s why this is so tragic. The $300 a month bonus should be retroactive, just in case.
Attn: This may or not be sarc/too early to tell who reads Glibs words of wisdom
FINALLY someone who is selling a freezer responded to me. Picking that up tonight and I’m going to load it up with beef and chicken (maybe pork, I dunno) tomorrow. I told my mom to go get animal, but she was 1 step ahead of me, as per usual.
I hear Pelosi has some nice freezers…
LOL!
No ice cream for me. That’s a luxury.
We all know that they’re loaded with vodka.
So I guess the store near you isn’t imposing limits on beef and chicken?
On the one hand it prevents hoarding, on the other hand it makes people go to the store more often.
Don’t know yet; haven’t had room to put anything. That’s why I’m getting the freezer. The last time I looked, there was plenty of what I buy. If there are limits, that’s okay. I’ll go back through the line however many times. If they run out, I’ll go to a different store.
Big spike in New York” Coronavirus Death Toll”
They just moved their numbers from suspicious to complete fiction.
Good point. It is that, in addition to the usual fear-mongering.
Ass Wednesday wants to check your temperature.
http://archive.li/Z0RAs
Brett’s son will presumably need more stickers…
‘Female Enemas For Pleasure And Punishment’
voy.com/231162/
Not a bad collection.
PA Legislature pushes back… sort of
As the coronavirus continues to spread throughout Pennsylvania and non-life sustaining businesses remain closed, Republican leaders are pushing legislation to waive Gov. Tom Wolf’s order and open all public and private construction projects.
Last week, the House State Government Committee approved a bill in a 15-10 vote that would allow all residential and commercial construction projects to resume if workers take precautions to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and adhere to social distancing guidelines.
Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman, R-Benner Township, called the governor’s “one-size fits all” approach to shutting down businesses “a failure” and said businesses that can operate safely should be able to open amid the pandemic.
I feel like this is just setting the NYPD up for failure. Black man wearing a mask! Shoot him! Black man not wearing a mask! Shoot him! Our brave heroes in blue are screwed no matter what.
Failure? Screwed? I would think the NYPD is taking the opposite view.
Duck Season!
Keep it going – make sure another tourist never sets foot in NYC.
This applies to the whole state? Hikers in the Adirondacks? Upstate farmers? People in their cars?
Welcome to the side show.
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/9st-scrotum-crying-blood-tree-21767851
Now there’s a URL I don’t think I want to click… :shudder:
Not even for (FTA):
‘Alyssa Kelsch, who has auto-brewery syndrome, has a stomach that turns the food she digests into booze, which can result in her speech becoming slurred and her eyes glossing over while she bursts into fits of laughter.’
Hmmm…this makes it sound like we will reopen May 1. I want to hear the plan. I know all the festivals and fireworks won’t happen. Pools probably won’t open. I’m guessing they’ll enforce stricter occupancy limits at the very least.
https://www.nbc4i.com/community/health/coronavirus/dewine-asks-state-industries-to-come-up-with-plan-to-keep-people-safe/
I really underestimated the amount of planning that freedom requires.
If not rhetorical, considerations to be balanced addressed here: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lockdown-ending-europe
Freedom is so hard. Let’s just be China instead.
Do Governors Have Authority to Shut Down State Economies & Commerce?
In Indiana, state law says the governor can suspend businesses and a whole ton of other things during a state of emergency. However he is NOT allowed to put any restrictions on firearms. I guess selling them to Chicago is an essential business.
Actually they do and they have done so all across the country without challenge from the legislatures or the courts. It doesn’t matter what the law and the statutes say if they aren’t enforced and there is no outcry against a power grab. Most of the people bitching are saying the various governors haven’t gone far enough.
As long as people are scared there will be no pushback on this. What will happen when the fear passes and people realize they lost a business they spent a lifetime building….probably another story.
See Marvin Heemeyer.
OMG, this training is the most hysterical bullshit I’ve ever heard.
“Distance yourself from other people or animals. There are no known cases of COVID-19 being transmitted from pets, but it is recommended that you limit your interaction with thme.”
“If you have an emergency and need to call 911, be sure to tell the dispatcher that you have, or may have COVID-19. Put on a facemask before the first responders arrive.”
FFS. My Fitbit now has a Covid-19 tab…
And it doesn’t work?
It’s got links for info, including one to the WHO…
Portland Filled With Unemployed, Masked People Just Like Always
China Impressed By Michigan Governor’s Totalitarian Policies
/looks at watch.
Right on time.
If you want the economy to get going, you’re a ‘far right’ extremist.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/far-us-politicians-label-lockdowns-055727694.html
Video coverage of today’s protest in Lansing, MI
I like your avatar.
“I feel like this is just setting the NYPD up for failure. Black man wearing a mask! Shoot him! Black man not wearing a mask! Shoot him! Our brave heroes in blue are screwed no matter what.”
Screwed or aroused?
All this over what is not even equivalent to a bad flu season?
IT. IS. NOT. THE. FLUE!!!!
Is it the thermostat?
Yeah, but if we pulled this shit over the regular flu, the peeps would really have our hide! /your state governor
PETA’s Vegan Guide to ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’
Not the Bee.
“Don’t steal cars in GTA because that’s wrong.”
I throw turtle shells in Mario Kart.
*sobs uncontrollably*
Reminds me of this: https://reason.com/video/remy-violent-video-games/
At night I see the faces of every person I’ve ever blue shelled. They haunt my sleep.
Nothing says “Come join us” like harping about the moral backwardness of one of the most popular games right now.
Blathers would like to build a museum of fish and insects on your island. Don’t let him do it!
My wife and kids are really into the game. I don’t get it, but I’m not really into the social simulation games.
Anyway, you may be surprised to know that Blathers is an owl.
“Owls eat rodents. Here’s why you shouldn’t.”
I refuse to give them the attention that they crave.
“…by now, you’ve probably heard about Nintendo’s new game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons.”
Sure sure, I know all about it. How out of touch do you think I am, PETA?
**furiously googles new Nintendo game**
You will be shocked at how graphic and violent it appears to be.
I think we can all agree that Animal Crossing needs common sense net control.
There’s an HM-worthy Animal Crossing sexual subculture.
Here’s how I know PETA are unserious, attention whoring, cowards:
They publish nonsense like this instead of taking on the ChiComs’ animal torture markets.
Do they? I’m sure Hyp is furiously attempting to disprove you 🙂
South Dakota’s governor:
Would.
After me.
Those bugeyes don’t bother me, either.
Eskimo brothers does check out with your handle.
Definitely MILF Hunter material
ZARDOZ to the white courtesy phone please.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/dear-deidre/11378527/virgin-son-29-spouts-hate-against-women/
Dammit.
Is that him, or just a stock pic of an incel?
Either way… NO WAY!
A good father would give Winston’s mom a call.
He looks like he could be in one of those “polyamorous relationship” stories that involves four guys and one girl who weighs more than the four guys combined.
Georgia State Rep says Democratic party left him, now going to support racist Republicans he find more palatable.
https://twitter.com/RepVernonJones/status/1250432951143108609?s=20
Do you need more proof that the parties switched?
Twitter better remove that Russian bot before it steals another election!
I may have missed it if anyone has posted, but is there any cure for that gateway error on every post? I’ve tried every browser…
It’s not you. It’s WordPress.
We’re all having it. No browser changes help.
So it’s this or the unbearable page style bug?
That’s quite the dilemma, but Ima go with this. Click post, wait 5 seconds, refresh. If the comment isn’t there, wait 10 seconds or so and refresh again.
Nope.
I’ve heard that something called hydroxychloroquine is showing promise.
/got nothing
SHUT THE FUCK UP TRUMPTARD
DEG! I found your car!
Why do you keep torturing me with these links? Thank goodness I have my mantra “it is old and uncomfortable, you do not want it”
That’s all I needed to hear. I’m past being cool. Just let me have my muu muu and my thick DVT stockings rolled down to my ankles and my ginormous beige Velcro support shoes and I’m good to go.
*sprays vinegar into the air at contrails*
I hear you – I’m a middle-aged woman in comfortable shoes myself.
That’s “sensible shoes” young lady!
NO!
“Sensible shoes” is a lesbian dog whistle.
Birks here. Plantar fasciitis miracle cure.
Lol!
Comfort is for the weak!
I’m gonna visit you soon.
Speaking of cars, blackjack, did you get any leads on yours?
That looks good, except my TR-6 budget has less money in it than the current high bid.
Thanks though.
Would
Open scrotum. Surrender balls.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/13/prince-harry-will-give-hunting-meghan-does-notlike/
She must have the best pussy on planet Earth for him to put up with this shit.
Maybe it’s just because he’s a wuss.
Nah… he was the kinda badass army guy who complained because they wouldn’t let him get in the real fight.
If she’s hot enough and crazy enough, she’ll make you stupid. It happens.
I dated an actress from the telenovellas for a brief period. She was … spectacular. And a batshit crazy party girl. But so unbelievably hot that I deluded myself into thinking there was relationship potential there. Stupid, in hindsight. But it made sense at the time.
On the plus side, when she explained our status to me, she said “I just thought you have a hot body and I wanted to see what you look like naked”. I took that as a major win.
“I just thought you have a hot body and I wanted to see what you look like naked”.
Pics, or I call “bullshit!”
Imma go out on a limb and say you really don’t want to see pics of me naked….
Nah… he was the kinda badass army guy who complained because they wouldn’t let him get in the real fight.
https://youtu.be/4ds0ewPpu7U
Nah, I’m going with ‘he’s a giant pussy’.
Harry’s probably sampled far more than the average guy but still she must have something going on down there.
The first time in recorded history that a girl kissed a prince and turned him into a frog.
French kiss?
Australian kiss …
So this is one of the only places I can say this:
Is anyone else absolutely flabbergasted by the whole THE FIRST RESPONDERS thing over this bullshit? The cops are doing less right now, not more. Maybe house fires have increased and the firefighters are working more. But maybe not. I don’t think the EMTs are overly busy, because most people going to the hospital over this are driving themselves in.
This shit isn’t affecting the first responders at all, because they’re all still getting their fat pubsec union paychecks while huge chunks of the country are losing their jobs.
It’s like you don’t even 9/11 compensation, bro.
Agreed on all counts. The only ones that deserve credit (and they’re not first responders) are ICU docs and nurses.
But they are the most essential of essential.
It’s complete bullshit, but par for the course these days.
It’s worse than that. Everyone with a blue-collar job is now a “hero”.
I know two firefighters, one here in the City and one forty miles out in the exurbs. Both have said that they are experiencing a general lightening of their workload since the panic began.
NY Times Editor Says Biden Sexual-Assault Article Was Edited after His Campaign Complained
PHRASING!!
It’s beyond me how anyone can read that rag and take it seriously.
They only have 3 modes. TDS mode, sucking democrat cock mode, and sucking communist dictator cock.
“The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond a pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden.”
More on that NYT thing:
https://twitter.com/_nalexander/status/1250466124531142656
How do we use them for illegal campaign contributions?
So, a current thread in the zeitgeist is that you are a neo-nazi if you dare to consider the cost of the shutdown and ponder the notion that it might be better that we don’t shut down and maybe a few more folks die.
But if we end up with less than a half million deaths attributable to this virus worldwide, I don’t think there will be a question at all that it wasn’t worth it. China had more fatalities from the flu 2 years ago (~800k).
I get the “it was a scary unknown” position that the leaders were put in…. How could they know if the experts who were claiming that it would kill 6% of the population were in bird flu mode, or in non-prediction of 2016/2017 mode? (remember when the flu was killing 8% of those infected in Mexico…. and it wasn’t the elderly? It was young, healthy adults dying at an alarming rate. Turned out to be a nothing-burger)
So political leaders really have no shot at “getting it right” beyond guessing that the dire predictions are always overblown. That way, when they are wrong everyone is dead…. so no repercussions….
But this time around? We had 80k deaths from flu in 2916/17. 80k. It looks like we’ll not surpass that number…. at least not by much if we do. And nobody even knew there was a bad flu season that year until they did a retrospective analysis.
Meanwhile, this cure has ruined people.. Millions of people. Absolutely ruined. A lifetime of work, flushed down the toilet. Families will be pushed over the edge by this. Families that were struggling but would have done well eventually will fall apart under the strain. Guys who were trying to get their lives back together and would have succeeded will end up living under a bridge, because this was one blow too many.
We can’t have that conversation now….. but we will. Once this blows over and the post-mortem shows who was wrong…. there will be a conversation.
Here’s the thing: all those people losing their livelihoods and nest eggs; they’re all little people. Small business owners? Pfft. Deplorables. All of them. They’re not even really people. Caring about them at all automatically makes you suspicious; thinking that they should be prioritized over “IF WE CAN JUST SAVE ONE LIFE” then you’re a straight up Nazi hater.
Once client classes of the politicos start feeling the pain (union members, lawyers, credentialed professionals) then they’ll actually start taking the economic damage seriously.
This has already proven to be true. Now that New York has completely botched the “flattening the curve” thing and look to be headed toward the back side of the peak, Cuomo is already talking up returning to normalcy.
Everyone is only worried about their own backyard. New York has a serious “screw everyone else” thing going on. And since the media is centered there, they are cheerleading the screwing. (yes, this from someone in South Florida where things were tidily under control until a huge influx of infected new yorkers blew out the curve)
Except for that wearing masks shit.
What’s the normal size for a bandana?
I wonder whether the idea that he economy is irrelevant here is the zeitgeist or if it’s just the belief of the most shrill among us. I see a ton of that shit on Twitter and Facebook and neither of those even come close to approximating the real world.
FIFY
I am not sure it will make any difference in the number of deaths. We are just slowing down the spread at the cost of destroying the economy which will, in the end, kill even more than the commie cooties.
Hot take incoming: Cowards Block Traffic In Michigan To Protest Coronavirus Lockdown Orders
This action is incredibly cowardly. They’re demanding the Governor keep open garden centers and hair dressers, yet the majority are unwilling to even get out of their cars to protest. If you want to force a store clerk to risk drowning in their own lungs so you can buy mulch, then you’d better be willing to face the same risk to protest for that right.
snip
Unfortunately, these folks will return to their rural areas and to rural hospitals which are ill-equipped for this epidemic. The selfishness is unreal to me. The only nice thing that anyone might ever be able to say about covid-19 is that maybe it will wake people up to a shared, non-partisan reality. It’s extremely cold consolation, however, when you have to wonder how many bodies it will take to make people wake up.
We’ve got a hero in the comments:
A resulting Great Depression from stay at home orders could easily kill as many or more compared to Covid 19. Many State Governors are picking winners and losers when shutting down their respective States. There has to be a point of diminishing returns on Stay At Home orders.
No not that fucker, this guy:
I would always, ALWAYS rather try and save lives by doing something than do nothing knowing people will die. The diminishing returns COULD happen, yes. But people are already dying of the virus and shelter in place is DEFINITELY saving lives, so I pick that.
This “logic” will make sense to statists.
If concentrating everybody in camps where only government-approved adults look after them can save even one life, don’t we have an obligation to try?
Remember 3 months ago when we would joke hyperbolically about them putting us all under house arrest for our own good? Yeah, those were good times.
The diminishing returns COULD happen, yes.
What an idiot. Of course the diminishing returns are absolutely baked in. Telling healthy people to stay at home is already a diminishing return escalation of closing non-essential businesses, which is a diminishing return escalation of closing high-risk businesses, which is a diminishing return escalation of licking down high-risk facilities like nursing homes.
shelter in place is DEFINITELY saving lives
Something which is taken as an article of faith, but for which there is exactly zero factual support. By far the most lives saved by shelter in place were saved to the extent it prevented health system overload. Once that happened, shelter in place had dramatically diminished returns, which are predicated entirely on either (i) the virus goes away entirely over the summer never to return or (ii) better treatments become widely available. I note that the current treatment regime built around chloroquine has been available for weeks, and I am aware of nothing better on the horizon (although who knows what is in development).
I don’t recommend this at all.
What they’re mostly doing is hurting the economy. I don’t know how much good the lock down is doing, if any.
Take for instance, the community I live in. There’s a high population of orthodox Jews here. They don’t obey the social distancing to any degree whatsoever. They were packed around the local synagogue and in other groups all over in groups of more than 10. They’re just ignoring it, period.
Then my immediate community is composed of mostly retirees. My wife and I a are the youngsters around here and we’re both over 50. The old folks are just completely ignoring it. My neighbors were having a a cookout Saturday and there was about 20 people over there, all of them older. I went to get the mail and one of them approached me and I just stopped and was sort of hoping she didn’t get any closer, I wasn’t wearing a mask to just go get the mail. She asked if we wanted to join them. I said ‘no, wife is busy with something, we probably won’t be over’. I’m not paranoid, but any or all of them could have it and they seem to be completely unworried about the entire thing.
When I’m out and about to the grocery store and stuff, I see about 50% of people obeying the social distancing, the rest are just ignoring it.
So they can crow about how much good this is doing, but most people are not following the social distancing, let alone wearing masks.
A) “What they are mostly doing is hurting the economy”
I wonder if that isn’t the goal
B)Most of the people I see wearing masks either have their noses exposed or the mask hanging under their chin.
One of my sisters is in full on stage 4 TDS, will hear no comments suggesting that kungflu might be overblown, and is so proud that she’s keeping all of her children inside and not letting them play with any kids in the neighborhood…. but she’s going to the grocery store every. single. day.
The rest of the world has gone crazy and I just want out of the fucking house. I’m capable of making an informed risk regarding the safety of myself and my own family and if people are so worried we might be some of those mysterious asymptomatic super-spreaders of the commie cough? Well, they can stay the fuck away from us and I can still go about my business.
I spent a good twenty minutes cursing and yelling “new normal? fuck off, slaver!” at the TV after Northam’s conference today. I’m about at my limit and from the comments I’ve been seeing from a lot of neighbors, they’re getting close, too.
“B)Most of the people I see wearing masks either have their noses exposed or the mask hanging under their chin.”
Yeah, I mostly just see makeshift cloth things or some type of bandanna type things, loosely fitted. We have the good ones. They are highly uncomfortable to wear for more than a few minutes.
Jalopnik fucking sucks and they have for a while. Spare me the politics and stick to cars, damnit.
It’s Gawker with cars. Of course it sucks.
And idiotic opinion polls. Dudes! I just accidentally bought a car with this, like stick thingy in the middle that does the gears or something, I guess. Should I just set it on fire for the insurance? Or should I try to sell it to a non-Millennial?
I didn’t even know it was anything to do with cars. Any quote I’ve ever read of theirs was so commie, I thought they were just a sister site to Jacobin or something.
Nah, just sister site to Jezebel and The Root – among others.
I won’t even bother telling that asshole to learn to code after he gets shitcanned.
Just let him be turned into Soylent Green.
“Unfortunately, these folks will return to their rural areas and to rural hospitals which are ill-equipped for this epidemic”
Classic. That will get those yokels to come around
“Please Daddy, don’ be cuttin’ me off! I’ll be a good bitch for ya Daddy! I won’t be disrespettin’ ya again Daddy! Pleeeeeeeease!!!!”
https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/who-trump-halts-funding-coronavirus
“LONDON — The head of the World Health Organization says it regrets the U.S. decision to halt funding.”
Do you regret helping China cover this shit up? Because I don’t think what you just said is going to help your situation.
Yay. Another WordPress fuckup.
I’m so sorry SP.
WordPress has been fucking up for years now, adding stupid shit for people who can’t be bothered to learn how to place a pic or learn Genesis Framework.
Anyway, as soon as I get some down time I’m changing my blogs over to Classic Press.
I get the “it was a scary unknown” position that the leaders were put in…. How could they know if the experts who were claiming that it would kill 6% of the population were in bird flu mode, or in non-prediction of 2016/2017 mode? (remember when the flu was killing 8% of those infected in Mexico…. and it wasn’t the elderly? It was young, healthy adults dying at an alarming rate. Turned out to be a nothing-burger)
I’ll probably be wrong, one of these days, but I listened to the hysterical shrieking, and the numbers they were throwing round, and instinctively said, “That’s ridiculous. Nobody’s going to fall for that.”
[insert pic of me, with jackass head superimposed on my shoulders]
The only thing that gives me any humility on this front is my widely and often repeated rants back in 2016 when Trump was leading in early RNC polling. “There is absolutely no way a single person is going to pull a lever for Trump in the voting booth when it comes right down to it. Answering a poll as a goof is one thing…. actual votes is another….. Trust me… there is absolutely zero chance that Trump is getting the nomination, let alone winning the election.”
-Cyto… at least 100 times in the summer of 2016.
I didn’t think he would win the nomination, let alone the presidency. But when I found out my (at the time) 17 year old daughter was following him on Twitter, I knew he at least had a real chance. She was just a typical apolitical teen, who would be left leaning if she thought about it much at all, and here’s Trump talking directly to her and managing to hold her interest on her phone. He completely bypassed the media gatekeepers.
I get the “it was a scary unknown” position that the leaders were put in…. How could they know if the experts who were claiming that it would kill 6% of the population were in bird flu mode, or in non-prediction of 2016/2017 mode?
Well, start by looking at the source of the early models, and see how it has done in the past.
If they had done this, they would see that the model that started the panic was put out by a guy in London who has consistently overstated the likely impact of a pandemic. By large amounts. But everybody swallowed it as gospel, in spite of his terrible track record.
And then, make sure to ignore the analysis done by the Oxford Evidence-Based Medicine folks, who took past early models of pandemics, compared them to actual outcomes (which were always a lot lower, and then applied this to the early models of the Commie Cough. They said it would likely be pretty much a bad flu season.
All the information they needed was right in front of them. And because they are weak and stupid, our leaders ignored and panicked. Because they are weak. And stupid.
For you afternoon posters, I’ve scheduled some Glib Virtual Happy Hours for this weekend.
Friday starting at 19:00 Eastern
Saturday starting at 20:00 Eastern
Whitmer threatens to extend lockdown because of protest.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/15/stay-home-protest-michigan-capitol-opposition-whitmer-order-coronavirus/2989230001/
I think there was a fleeting moment when Gauleiter Whitmer was being considered as a VP. She comes from a battleground state, and is a chick, which pretty much ought to get her on the short list.
Now, though? Putting her on the ticket would guarantee Trump carries Michigan.
Dig that hole a little deeper…
“Whitmer’s goal of saving lives”
Yeah… That’s the ticket!
And… there it is.
The only nice thing that anyone might ever be able to say about covid-19 is that maybe it will wake people up to a shared, non-partisan reality. It’s extremely cold consolation, however, when you have to wonder how many bodies it will take to make people wake up.
Scene: a street corner. It is autumn, and a bitter cold wind swirls dry leaves and trash round the ankles of a shivering Jalopnik writer.
Writer: GODDAMMIT. How come there isn’t anybody driving for Uber anymore?
*scowls at cellphone*
No Trump bux today. No surprising, though; I still haven’t received the refund that I filed for 5 weeks ago.
The other day I saw a guy put on his C-PAP mask (sans hose) before going into the store. Don’t think it’s going to work like he thinks.
@cyto: great writeup.
I get a ‘cannot determine status’ message. Weird, I filed my 2018 and 2019 taxes. Not sure why I’m getting that.
Same message and ditto on the filings.
I got a “no direct deposit on file” message despite them withdrawing directly from my bank account.
I’ve had any federal returns direct deposited for at least the last 10 years.
I’ve done the “screw you, New York” rant a few times. Well, have a look at the new USA version of the Covid map at JHU.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map
They have a county by county accounting. And you can animate the spread on the trends page. It is painfully obvious that NY and Los Angeles are the two armpits of America where the virus quickly spread. And then the areas that are closely connected to those locations get it…. so you see the whole northeast spreading around NYC, and then Miami after a lag. All those New Yorkers fleeing to their vacation homes down here. Thanks, assholes!
https://twitter.com/JameelHassan_/status/1249382278549078018
I’m not going to lie. I laughed at this.
Nèige, please.
That is an awful website. Crashes constantly.
And the visualization is woefully misleading. My county is rather larger geographically but has a proportionately small population thanks to the public lands lockup. It also has had 1 death out of a couple dozen confirmed cases. So the death rate looks like it’s through the roof and has a dark blue smear across the state.
Hong Kong still at 4 deaths with a similar population as NYC and a much higher percentage of the population living in high rises.
I only saw an animation of the spread globally, by country. Am I missing something?
An attempt to navigate the aid packages, taxes, etc.
https://taxfoundation.org/coronavirus-tax-tracker-covid19/
There is absolutely no way a single person is going to pull a lever for Trump in the voting booth when it comes right down to it. Answering a poll as a goof is one thing…. actual votes is another
I said pretty much the exact same thing.
I was completely astounded when he won that election.
I didn’t watch the election returns. I was sure Hillary would win. I woke up and checked the results and just started laughing.
Me too. I couldn’t stand the idea of watching the talking heads gloat about Herself, so I binged “Grimm”. Finally looked at 1AM. The memes of the sobbing lefties were already coming out.
I stayed up really late on election night 2016, just out of curiosity, as I had not been paying attention to the returns during the early evening. Thus I saw the whole thing unfold in real time. I was switching back and forth between networks, laughing my ass off at the shocked reactions of the various network stooges. When I woke up in the am, my wife put the news on and cried. I basically woke up giggling. I didn’t vote for Trump and assumed he’d be a disaster, but was really, really amused. The only thing approaching my level of can’t-stop-laughing during that 24-hour period is the first half hour or so of that Fyre Festival documentary.
Mrs. Dean wanted to watch the results come in, so we did.
Best time I’ve ever had watching election results.
I made the mistake of traveling to NYC and being present in my company’s newsroom for the returns, since Hillary was going to win, right? So everyone would be happy and I’d get a free party. Gawd that was a mistake. Plus, I’m pretty sure I pissed a number of people off by pointing out it was just the president, it wasn’t like their girlfriend dumped them.
I was up until HER called Trump to concede, drunk as could be on bourbon and falling out of my chair laughing my ass off.
I remember wifey going to the bathroom and when she’d come back I would say ‘Trump won Ohio’ or ‘Trump won Florida’. After he won NC and was up in Michigan and Wisconsin, I knew it was over. The sad faces on the mediots was more delightful than anything I could imagine. And then the sobbing at HC headquarters started. I must have rewatched that footage a hundred times and it never seemed to get old.
I remember the media fucks going ‘well, look down here in Dade county, there still might be a few votes for HER down here, maybe a few more votes for HER up there’, with looks of foreboding and sweat breaking out on their faces.
I’m astounded by this whole covid thing. First, I thought it would be a big nothing like ebola, zika, etc. Second, I never expected anyone to shut down the economy over it.
Yeah the store closings and banning of large gatherings are new territories.
They tested the waters, and the waters peacefully receded.”the people are docile.”
I’m beyond astounded. I feel like I’m in an episode of the Twilight Zone. This virus is nothing. The response is horrifying.
I don’t think the virus is nothing. I’m very concerned about it. However, almost all of the response is making everything worse.
How are you and your mom?
https://twitter.com/timkmak/status/1250431835282083843
That seems like a lot for one store.
https://twitter.com/jbendery/status/1250095418370916354
CWAA
As I have said many a time, he did NOT win. Hillary LOST.
Or as a friend of mine put it — “How much did America not want Hillary Clinton for President? Donald Trump, that’s how much.”
That’s good. And very true.
Even more astounding…. the opposition has been so batshit insane, and Trump has turned out to actually be not bad on several issues…
so he has my vote this time around. Angrily and with a reasonable amount of passion.
sheesh. This is bizarro world. You could have won a year’s pay off me on that one.
I posted as well on TOS and said that Trump wasn’t even serious, it was just a publicity stunt. That was when the 2016 presidential campaign had first kicked off. By the time he was steam rolling all the other candidates in primary after primary and making them all look like idiots in the debates, I said to my wife ‘the dude is a juggernaut, he looks unstoppable’. Told my co-workers the day before the election when they were all saying Trump has no chance, ‘he has a very good chance, it all comes down to PA, but it’s going to be very close’. They were all astounded that I was right.
“Maryland police issue ‘final warning’ for residents to wear pants to check mailbox
TANEYTOWN, Md. (WTHR) — When was the last time you wore jeans? Many are thinking of comfort first when working from home during the stay-at-home order in place due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, some Maryland residents are getting too comfortable.
The Taneytown Police Department in northern Maryland posted a reminder for its nearly 7,000 residents — one that you’d think should go without saying.
“Please remember to put pants on before leaving the house to check your mailbox. You know you who are. This is your final warning,” police said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.
Taneytown is roughly 50 miles northwest of Baltimore.”
https://www.wthr.com/article/maryland-police-issue-final-warning-residents-wear-pants-check-mailbox
To which I say
https://youtu.be/j2zlPNGuPbw
Fuck, there are Karens way out there in Taneytown?
Or, Taneytown police are so fucking bored because the worst crime they can expect is some dude not wearing pants to check the mail?
It could be both.
Let me ask ya’ll a question.
Do you think the recent presidential polls are accurate?
All of them are showing Biden 3-5 points ahead of Trump.
I seem to remember that at this same point in 2016, they had Hillary at 12-20 points up, with all the media declaring ‘no way to 270’ and all that bullshit.
I don’t see anyone making claims like that about Biden. And I say the polls are even farther off than they were in 2016. They are still oversampling democrats and I’m guessing that most Trump voters or those leaning Trump will respond to a pollster, who they will associate with the media. Who wants a bunch of crazed progtards showing up on their front lawn when the NYT posts their name and address online?
They are fake news.
I agree.
I do not see any chance at all that Biden is in the lead at all. It just doesn’t seem plausible. They were saying this before the crash of Covid-19, when we were suffering through the best economy in two generations.
It is absolutely implausible that the guy who says “put you kids in front of the record player at night” in a debate is leading anyone. I get that he had a structural advantage in the DNC primary system. But leading an incumbent who actually had his highest poll numbers of his entire term? Not plausible at all.
I get that people really are not paying attention, so Biden is going to get some name recognition love…. but come on people!
Plus, there’s no way to measure the “I’m a dude and I’m really pissed off about the way the Democrats treated Kavanaugh” angle, or the “I was really angry with the way they treated those boys from Covington High School”. That’s a significant factor in my book. As you can tell from my rants, I’m still pissed about those things. And permanently so…. I don’t want my son growing up in the world they are building… a world where your entire life can be taken away because you turned down the wrong crazy lady.
How long has it been since Biden has been seen by the public? Is it more the ideal of Biden?
That may be his only chance.
Obama ran as a Rorschach test… never saying anything. That way he could be all things to all people.
Biden needs to run as a ghost… not a real person. A name on a paper. If he stands next to Trump on a debate stage, he’s gonna look like a senile old man.. and perhaps unhinged and dangerous if he loses his temper like he did with the hardhat guy.
They’re resting their slim hopes on a few things.
1. They can keep the economy shutdown for long enough to keep economy numbers bad, while promising free everything to everyone, when they have no means to deliver any of it. The term ‘useful idiots’ really comes into play here.
2. They can keep Biden off the debate stage, period.
2. 100% mail in ballots, with a massive well orchestrated plan to cheat.
Living on the other side of the world the 2016 election results were being published during my normal day. I had pretty much girded my loins expecting Herself to be coronated. That was crazy to see it all go the other way in real time.
Good grief. I’m tormenting myself by watching the news. These fucking teevee reporters are LARPing around like they’re with the first wave at Normandy Beach.
They think it’s history happening.
The real history will be happening when they’re rummaging thru garbage for scraps because the economy imploded.
I hope everyone predicting economic disaster is wrong.
All of us hope that. But if they don’t lift there economy killing measures soon, I fear for the worst.
And I’ll put it this way. We’re over 50, so at higher risk. I don’t care, I’ll drive back to the office tomorrow and go to restaurants if it gets people back to work.
I wish I was at a bar right now.
#MeToo
Me, too.
But I think its highly unlikely this won’t be worse than the Great Recession.
The economy is just as leveraged. The downstream dominos (banks, etc.) are primed to fall. The exogenous shock is much deeper, more abrupt, and widespread than it was in 2008.
The Fed has nothing in its toolbox but helicoptering money all over the country. Dumping fiat money into a contracting real economy doesn’t solve the economy’s problems, it merely creates more and bigger problems.
I hate to say it, but the maniacal three year quest to dump Trump may finally succeed. There was pretty much one thing that could cost him the election, which was a bad economy. We’re gonna have it, and I have no doubt that the panic has been triggered and is being fed by people to get exactly that result.
I hate to say it, but the maniacal three year quest to dump Trump may finally succeed. There was pretty much one thing that could cost him the election, which was a bad economy. We’re gonna have it, and I have no doubt that the panic has been triggered and is being fed by people to get exactly that result.
I fear that they’re gonna get more than just an ejection of bad orange man….they assume they can just let off the economy’s throat and it’ll start breathing again.
I don’t think they care at all how bad the recession is. Remember, their motto is:
By. Any. Means. Necessary.
Naturally, they don’t think they will suffer in a bad recession. And to tell the truth, the DemOp machine that set this off probably won’t. Their useful idiots will suffer, but that’s what useful idiots are for.
“they assume they can just let off the economy’s throat and it’ll start breathing again.”
At this point, maybe.
But not for much longer. By election time, way too late.
It’s going to take time for new businesses to replace all those lost. For all those out of jobs to find work again.
But I have to tell you, the TDS is so terminal at this point, and I know it’s been said many times here before, they’d rather burn the entire country down than let Trump get re-elected.
My slim Hope is because the halt on the economy was imposed rather than organic that things will ramp up quicker but the longer this goes on, the more pieces will stop spinning.
If they wanted to “flatten the curve” so hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed, they did it already, and there is no point in continuing.
Yep.
“there is no point in continuing”
But orange man bad!
Seriously, that is what it’s coming down to. And their newfound addiction to tinpot powers.
Northam came right out and said (to my angry ears) “If we let you assholes back out of your houses, you’d just overwhelm the hospitals after all the work we’ve done to flatten the curve, so we’re going to keep you locked up a while longer.” Flattening the curve was just a bullshit excuse to lock us up.
You mean fake journalist is not essential? Maybe a few will survive via the print edition if that’s the only thing people can buy to wipe their ass on.
1000 tests ran in the last day. A grand total of…. 33 positive results.
Random tests or people with symptoms?
Not random, and given the restrictions on testing, I would wager that the vast majority were both presenting symptoms and had a higher likelihood (close contact with a confirmed case, high risk occupational setting, elderly, or hospitalized). Yet only 3.3% positive.
Out of a total population of ~4M.
Gustave lied, people died!
CURVED FLATTENED BITCHES!!!!
Now, go back inside so we can weld your door shut.
It’s finally nice weather here, 75 and sunny. The first decent day to work from home. Lots of out door breaks.
I’d really rather be back in the office next week.
What are you doing out there? You’re supposed to be inside! What’s that number where I can report rogue deplorables?
Not to gloat, but I began to suspect Trump would win early in the primaries. By the time he won the nomination I was calling him as winning against the Hildebeast. I was told I was crazy.
He is gonna win re-election too.
America’s Governor is going to take it.
The guy with a closet full of skeletons, who presided by any possible measure over by far the worst outbreak of Commie Cough in the country?
That governor?
The mafia looking guy from NYC. He’s gonna be a real hit in flyover, don’t you know?
They will re-adjust those numbers when the time is needed and all those people will have died of natural causes (with new data) and he will have done a fantastic job!