Hello and welcome back to Pie ponders rambles… and all that jazz. Now, as some of the more perceptive of you may or may not have noticed, I usually do not make multiple posts on the same topic in a short time, but I decided to keep things a bit topical. Due to this factor, they are more rambles than ponders, because I take less than the usual time to polish the stuff. But when did that ever stop me?
There are many questions about the ChiCom Cold. How dangerous is it, how contagious is it, dangerous to who, if we are all going to die does that increase my chances of getting laid and so on and so forth. Most non libertarian talk is around the things collectivists like. Herd immunity, social responsibility, government response and so forth. Fewer are talking about the personal responsibility side of things. One way to talk about it is along the lines each person, based on risk profile and personal attitude towards risk should decide to isolate or not how much. The critics of this say one can only isolate so much, society must take care to isolate in general. This is all debatable. I am not going to debate it right now.
Another thing leftists say is generic nonsense that makes them feel smart and ethical like a society should be judged on how it protects the weakest and most vulnerable. This is again debatable, because everyone is worse off in the long term if you protect the vulnerable by hamstringing the non-vulnerable. And, even if you do subscribe to the former saying – I do not myself and consider it, like most left saying e.g people before profit, meaningless and devoid of substance – the question of how and at what cost still stands. Because, whatever your friendly neighborhood people before profit leftist will tell you, resources are limited and in the end everything has a cost which will not go away via magical thinking.
Even the most jaded of hardhearted bastard libertarian will not deny that, yes, the sick and old require some care, because, as Freddy Bastiat noticed, just because we don’t want government to do something does not mean we don’t want it done at all. Now, most of what you read up to this point is introductory and not really the point of the post. I will now try to get to the damn point a bit faster. While we – what is this we shit statist, amIright – can agree to protect the weak to some extent, I would put the question: do people have the responsibility to try their best not to be weak in the first place? I would say the answer would be yes, both in a libertarian and non-libertarian view, as this goes beyond politics and should be a general principle to follow in life.
Now I will take a moment here to get all the to be sure-ing and disclaimers out of the way: I am not at all saying that anyone sick or vulnerable is at fault. Many of them are not. But… a good number of them are. A lot of health issues in modern society are preventable. They are lifestyle issues. And this is where some responsibility should come in. The more society advances, the more the number of weak, sickly people will increase. For one, the life expectancy seems to increase more than the healthy life expectancy. This, while not 100%, can definitely be influenced by lifestyle factors. And while one can blame poverty or other socioeconomic factors, there is always an element each of us can influence, and many choose not to.
Contagious disease in an interconnected world with centers of dense population is something that is a given. It will not be eliminated. One of the factors that makes these worse is the health status, immune status and general condition of the populace. Among the things that influence this is general fitness, and this is an area where many people are significantly lacking, and it has to do with in part personal behavior.. And no, not only the poor. There are plenty people with good incomes who eat a crap diet because it tastes good, do not do any form of exercise because it is hard, they are unfit, overfat and more vulnerable to disease. And this only gets worse with age. Now, I think I used flexible enough language to defend myself of all sorts of accusation. Not all people etc.
I don’t want to sound too harsh (I kinda do though), but it is a general human reaction to seeing someone sick or weak and feel sorry for the poor fella. But few think wait a minute, maybe a lifetime of choices lead that person to that situation. While there are people who end up there through the luck of the draw and no real fault of their own, having people there due to lifestyle does nothing but greatly increase the number of people with problems and invariable increase the risk for the former. And this is a major risk factor. Because resources to deal with this will always be limited, and the fewer people who need them the better.
This is off course mostly admitted by governments trying to change habits due to pressure on public health systems and the like. In the end there are two ways to go: authoritarian or libertarian. Either people take responsibility or are forced. The world is moving to force. This, off course, rarely ends well. Obesity, whatever the fat acceptance movement may tell you, is an ever growing thread to health. Lack of exercise as well. Lack of strength, insufficient muscle mass, low cardiovascular fitness. All of it. Disclaimer: present company included, if it applies. Excessive fat, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance and all that cause a lot of issues. As people age, sarcopenia kicks in. It is an ever growing problem in the world.
This is not a purely theoretical musing. Even if you lean more collectivist than individualist, it is a fact that a society in which a large number of people are prone to illness is not a strong society. Although it may be that some prefer a weak society, as it is easier to control. But I assume there is a limit, a tipping point, a maximum carry capacity if you will. In the end, because some will inevitably not be able to prevent illness, those who can should. And I do not think they can be made by government law.
Which brings me back to covid, for which vulnerability is influenced by many of these factors – obesity is one, and general immune system problems which can be cause by several lifestyle factors, diet exercise etc. Many in these trying times tell low risk people you may not care but think of the high risk people. And now we finally get to the actual point of the post: is it not the case that some of these high risk people are high risk due to a lifetime of not taking care of their body? And why should they expect the world to suffer months long lockdowns to protect them? And what will happen with the next virus, when even more will be at risk? A robust populace cannot be comprised of individually weak people. To what point can we say get your ass out of that comfortable armchair in front of the TeVe and get it glibfiting, eat a bit less calorie dense low satiety junk once in a while, otherwise when a virus come don’t start bitching about your risk profile. Would the covid be less dangerous with a population with obesity rates closer to 5% than 50% and people with a general high fitness level? Probably. And the next illness that comes as well. Without even mentioning that lack of fitness causes many problems when there is no pandemic.
Now, I know, I am an evil man who judges people harshly. People can’t help themselves, they are stressed have jobs children, exercise is unpleasant they are tired and junk food is rewarding. Be that as it may. Oh Pie, like you are perfect or something! Far from it, have too much body fat and consume too much alcohol. But I do my best to keep things under control, I am fitter than average and if I get liver disease as I age, I cannot complain about bad luck. In the end, if most people gave an honest effort, results varying, it would be ok, but in my experience some simply don’t. The trajectory is not a good one. And we will be, as a group (yes collective), worse and worse off, until the shit completely hits the fan, if it has not already. Or maybe I am full of shit. We will see. Or not, depending on the breaks.
“This is all debatable. I am not going to debate it right now.”
Yes, you are.
I’m tired of virus talk. I’m thinking about skipping work to write a story inspired by old pulp magazine cover art.
But civil servants are essential!
My work for today has been reviewing and updating knowledge base articles no one ever reads.
I know no one reads them because the pages maintain a view count. Some have view counts as low as 2, meaning I’m only the second person to even open that article since it was put up. The first was probably the person who put it up.
Well it says right there in his name that he’s not civil, so there you go – nonessential! Go for it, UCS!
I’ve named a tropical city after a river in Romania.
Not in NJ.
Oh no! How will I survive?
Those mainly Team D furloughed workers may possibly make Murphy more likely to reopen the state sometime this year.
Honestly, most of the southern and western parts of the state should be open now.
It all should be open by now.
It should all have never closed.
Since the lockdown was pointless to begin with, and the only justification for it was to “flatten the curve” so the hospitals wouldn’t be overwhelmed, there is no reason why everything shouldn’t be open now. Except for the fact that the politicians don’t want to admit they were wrong for over-reacting, and they are reluctant to give up any of their dictatorial powers.
Good, maybe when the pubsec employees start feeling the pain then the idiot Murphy will feel the pressure to reopen the economy and put aside some of his authoritarian bullshit.
Only if they can help get rid of badorangeman. Otherwise, they get thrown into the basket of deplorables.
Civil servants aren’t even civil.
And they’re really bad at serving.
They serve themselves.
You should do that. The last few weekends I’ve pulled myself away from the Internet and did some drawing and painting. It felt great.
So your saying Pol Pot had some good ideas 🙂
I try to reserve judgement when I see people grocery shopping in the scooters. Some appear to have actual ailments or injuries that impair their ability to walk. Others appear to be lazy fat losers.
“shopping in the scooters”
And some are simply attention whores like my B-I-L…
…Oops did I actually post that?
How the hell do they fit in most Japanese retail establishments? Or are you talking BIL in the US?
The biggest impairment for a lot of them is the inability to walk because of morbid obesity. Hey, I’m just making an observation, not a judgement.
There have been times when I’ve had to wait for one of those carts. When I see someone using one due to obesity, I get a little pissed.
Youse want I should make them need it, boss?
*hefts tire iron*
The biggest impairment for a lot of them is the inability to walk because of morbid obesity.
Morbid obesity and bad hips and knees go hand in hand. Even if they drop 200 pounds, their joints are still wrecked.
When I sprained my ankle it didn’t even occur to me to use one (though I should have). Can’t buy much using them.
You haven’t seen a person riding a scooter pulling a cart behind them?
Have not have that opportunity, no.
(sigh) had
You can fit a lot in one of those. When Mrs. TOK sends me to the store, it’s usually when all the big items need to be replaced. Cat litter, paper towels, toilet paper, softener salt, and milk can all fit in one cart.
May I ask how you’re differently abled?*
*Simpsons quote asked in earnest; don’t answer if you don’t care to.
“is it not the case that some of these high risk people are high risk due to a lifetime of not taking care of their body?”
Yes, but there are also many due to age and genetics.
goddamit I thought I to be sured enough.
Maybe you don’t have the right hair? I’ve read that eating fruit on little balls of rice might help.
It has to be the correct type of vinegared rice, or it doesn’t count.
well barbershops open on 15th May in old Bucharest so there’s hope
As someone who both hates and sucks at essay writing, I am once again impressed at your work in a non-native language Pie.
Ditto. Good job.
Anyway, I’m dealing with this now. I can’t go to the gym, and there isn’t any home equipment in stock anywhere. I have some dumbbells, but not a complete set.
do what I did get a couple of plastic 30 liter jugs of water fill em up tie em with wire to a metal bar you found in your attic while cleaning and there ya go 65 kg bar for squats and deadlifts. Squatting is difficult you need to get it elevated enough to get on your back.
I’m sure I don’t have either of those things.
do you have a significant other? Lift that.
demi rose would be good to squat right about now
There are . . . other exercises I’d rather engage in with the spousal unit.
Exercise equipment:
https://www.coldsteel.com/products/machetes/latin-machete-plus-24.html
No pull-up bar? Pull-ups and push-ups will keep you going for awhile.
i actually don’t have a pull-up bar
I find the biggest problem is that I don’t have the ceiling height anywhere I could actually put up a pull-up bar.
…how tall are you/how short are your ceilings?
In the basement? Damn things are suspended, and I don’t like my feet to touch the floor when I do pull-ups (yeah, I know I can cross my knees, I’d rather not . . . ).
Or maybe I am full of shit.
Translate that into Latin so I can make us a Glib flag.
According to Google Translate: Aut fortasse sum plena stercore.
That means “Either, possibly, (I) am full (female) from trash.”
Yeah it does!
Well, don’t leave us hanging … are you or aren’t you?
We’re staying in lockdown in part because of a high school science project.
From the New York Times.
“daughter of a scientist at the Sandia National Laboratories.”
And somehow they found a way to blame it on New Mexico…
Like this?
Hmmm…SF’ed that. Should have been this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hgonW1Y7SY
I used to judge science fairs in New Mexico, there was quite a range in quality as you might expect. But crap there were always a handful of students who did amazing projects, they were usually offspring of parents who worked at Los Alamos or Sandia. It was a humbling experience, when I was 16 or 17 I was drinking beer and smoking dope, had no idea where life was taking me; these kids were in another league.
We banned plastic straws based on research from a 10 year old, so why not?
HOW DARE YOU!
And now we finally get to the actual point of the post: is it not the case that some of these high risk people are high risk due to a lifetime of not taking care of their body? And why should they expect the world to suffer months long lockdowns to protect them?
If one were inclined toward utilitarian arguments, one might ask, “How is crippling the economy and impoverishing a vast swath of the population going to enable *society* to better care for those who are weak and vulnerable?”
A good friend is an interventional radiologist – he puts people back together who have had their pelvises crushed in a car accident (for example). He goes in through a major artery and does work inside, usually consists of spraying a kind of coagulant because you can’t open up people who have internal bleeding or they’ll exsanguinate – in Tarantino-like fashion. He is a partner in a private practice, was Chief Resident at the Cleveland Clinic, etc. i.e. He’s the real deal. He’s also super-fit; surfs, skateboards, mountain-bikes, and he’s in his mid- to late-50s. He told me and another friend one time: “I cannot go a week in my practice without being required to do work on someone who has for decades been complicit in their own demise.”
In 2016, California amputated 10,000 feet as a result of diabetes. 1/3 of the US population is obese (and it’s a conservative definition, IMO). This trajectory is not sustainable for any nation. And pharma and medicine generally continue with symptomatic treatment because it’s profitable as fuck, rather than in having some hard conversations that include truths about medicine’s inability to treat lifestyle diseases.
I forget which one of the ancients said it, but the quote was something to the effect that a doctor not only shouldn’t – but can’t – treat or cure a man whose ailments are the product of a defect of his character. We’re conditioned to believe it is cruel to frame these things in such a way, but sometimes Truth hurts.
Faggot.
Many doctors follow that philosophy. You just don’t hear about them. Not only do they follow that philosophy, they do it cruelly.
Anyway, I’m torn. In general, I agree.
As one having a defect of character (that is not a jab; I know it, I own it), there are certain things that can’t be ascribed to one’s obesity (oh, let’s say, uh, pregnancy and other such girl problems), but that get treated as if they are.
Doctors have no clue about nutrition; dietitians are STILL following the food pyramid fat-is-evil MOAR CARBS model for diabetics. They don’t hand out diet drugs anymore.
But let’s say the treatment for diabetes isn’t just insulin, but a proper diet. The doctor SHOULD have sufficient (effective) knowledge of a proper diet. “Put down fork” is not helpful and what’s worse is when he says it with a sneer.
Now add “poor” on top of “obese” and the picture gets clearer.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. I personally do not want extra special care for something I did to myself, but I would like to be able to go to the doctor for a sinus infection and not be told it’s because I’m fat with utter disdain.
(I am saying this fully well aware I’m self-medicating my stress with sugar.) (I am also 52 and nowhere near diabetic and I see a cardiologist every year like clockwork and my cholesterol is only marginally edging up toward the high end of normal and I’ve never actually broken a bone and my DEXA scan was fine, so other than being fat–good genes? I guess?)
My point: A little more knowledge on the doctor’s part and a lot more treatment with gravity and dignity would be nice.
FTFY. Anyone saying otherwise is trying to sell something.
IMO, nutrition is so deeply personal, it can’t be understood as anything but in a general way.
Generally:
some people do better with low-carb, some people do better with veganism/vegetarianism, some people do better with low-fat, some people do better with… yada yada yada etc and so forth and such and thus et al
We are all mammals. The glucagon-insulin axis works the same in bears and humans. High-glycemic carbs trigger a very well-understood series of biochemical reactions, regardless of what your feelings on the subject are.
There is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate. Keep saying that to yourself until you understand it in the scientific sense. There is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate. As between the three macronutrients: fats, proteins, and carbs, one of them is unnecessary and the other two are essential.
It’s not that “no one understands” nutrition, it’s that the people who do are quickly demonized by an industry that has an absolute lock on both government and media. The entire world is addicted to processed carbs in both liquid and solid form and no one wants to hear they have to stop. We’re all addicts to a lesser or greater extent. A very small percentage of the population doesn’t have a “sweet tooth” and can have just one Dorito/Gummy Bear/doughnut.
Me! I have no sweet tooth! It makes people look at me and go huh…why no want sweets?
Though do have a beer tooth so I guess I am not truly in that camp.
Yep, owners/clients love to bring sweets and shit to the job site, and I have no desire at all to eat a cookie or donut or a greasy shitty Little Ceasars Pizza, sometimes they get pissy when I decline and tell me how their mother or grandmother made them. Fuck you don’t try and guilt me into eating something I don’t want. You want to show your appreciation stop by around quitting time with a six pack of a good hefe.
For me low-carb (the lower the better) is the only thing that works, and so much better paired with exercise. Actually, I could eat a shit diet and as long as I’m exercising regularly I’ll still lose weight. I just lose it faster with Atkins* and exercise.
I do know a couple of people who have to be on vegetarian/vegan diets for their health, so I’m not willing to say my way is the only way for everybody.
*I always say Dr. Atkins saved my life and not because of diabeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedus. My mental health improves markedly with fewer carbs. But as you say, we are all addicts to the greater or lesser, and me, the lesser.
I mean, the greater*. I am a huge sugar addict.
Actually, I could eat a shit diet and as long as I’m exercising regularly I’ll still lose weight. – i kinds doubt that, depending on the diet. Unless you exercise hours on end.
Sorry, Moj, but that’s a copout. Individual tastes may vary, but what is needed to be healthy for homo sapiens does not. If people have ethical concerns about eating meat to get that complete branch chain amino acid, then they should use spirulina, seitan, whey, tofu, or whatever other vegetable protein they can digest. Plenty of “good” fats to help with satiety – avocado, fish oil, flax, etc.
As always, diet is an experiment with an N=1 but most people aren’t doing that. They point to the “hopelessness” of it and simply keep eating shit. And lest this seem harsh, I know all about it. I’ve been over 2 bills and at my height, that’s carrying a lot of extra. It’s fucking hard because we’re completely surrounded by images, sounds, and constant urging to eat shit food and rink things that don’t sate us and in fact are designed chemically to make us hungry to buy and eat more.
The first step is cleaning out the kitchen/pantry, throwing the shit food out, and starting to eat as fuel for activity. You wouldn’t recommend that an alcoholic keep a stocked liquor cabinet around, no that an addict be sure to have plenty of prescription drugs and cocaine everywhere. “The Zone” is probably the most scientific approach to nutrition that there is. That book is worth the read.
I am not copping out anything. I am affording the benefit of the doubt to people who can’t/shouldn’t eat the way that is best for me.
I got over my new zealotry assholery about Dr. Atkins Is The Only Way and The One True Prophet a long time ago.
I really enjoyed this one, too.
Dr. Cate is an interesting chick.
I believe Chafed is a vegetarian. I know that OMWC is. I haven’t met Chafed, but it seems to be working well for OMWC.
He’s the most unhealthy vegetarian I’ve ever known.
Generally speaking, I afford the benefit of the doubt to a lot of people in the hopes that someone will do the same for me and/or because someone DID do the same for me.
It’s where a lot of my “but what about…” posts come from.
For me, low carb doesn’t matter as much as counting calories. If I’m counting calories, I can drop weight.
During these times, the hard part is trying to help support local businesses (restaurant meals very rarely provide calorie counts, and are even less likely to be low calorie), as well as dealing with the stress level of it (stress eating is a thing for me).
low carb is in the short term at least a caloric control method. Nothing more. It may have some metabolic benefits in the long term but people don’t look at 10 years as a weight loss period.
I’m stress drinking, but losing weight because I’m eating less. For lunch one day I just had pickles and gin. Dinner was rye whiskey.
I find it easy to believe that after a few tens of thousands of years of populations living in different climates with different available nutrient sources there might be some eveolved diversity in metabolic reaction to certain foodstuffs and nutrients.
Otherwise things like lactose intolerance make no sense.
I’m stress-and-depression eating, too.
lactose tolerance makes no sense actually. I blame the yamna .
What do you have against delicious, delicious cheese?
I have nothing against cheese. I eat the stuff daily. But lactose tolerance was not the norm for most of human existence. Also it is racist against Asians.
Without having really tried to do a strict calorie count, my experience has been that when my diet has more carbs and sugar, I put on fat. When it has more protein and fats, I lose fat. Now, maybe I’m just eating more calories when I have carbs and sugar, but I don’t think I am since when I have them on my plate I try to eat less. That said, I think portion control (and its good friend, eating more slowly) is still one of my major challenges.
My exercise has consistently been non-existent, so that’s not it.
I’m in the same boat. Exercise has been nearly non-existent. The variable with the strongest impact has been carbs. I’ve counted calories and not counted calories, but when I cut out grain carbs and sugar, I drop weight much more quickly and consistently than otherwise.
Best results have been on what I call the 18 plan. 18 meals per week with no grain carbs and no processed sugar. That leaves 3 meals, usually pizza night, pasta night, and a floater. To keep from feeling miserable, I eat a pretty high fat/protein diet.
Now I need to get back on the horse. I had been doing okay until coronageddon hit.
Me too. I’m not snacking at all, and portions are ok – no stuffing myself, but I’m eating too many carbs (comfort food).
I think all diets have figured out that soda and cake will fatten you up.
“Doctors have no No one has a clue about nutrition”
Doctors don’t and they don’t care. Their job is to sell drugs and surgeries. There’s no money in nutrition.
But sure, some people have a clue about nutrition. It mostly goes like this:
You need vitamins and minerals, so eat fresh food and get it. Don’t consume more calories than you can use (IOW, don’t get fat). And don’t consume a lot of empty calories, like processed sweets and other junk food.
Beyond that, yeah, lots of guess work.
I’ll accept that caveat. Yes a few things are known. Don’t eat more calories than you expend if you want to loose weight. etc. But beyond that….
The hard part is knowing how many calories you’re burning. I’ve seen similar rides (speed/distance/elevation it was the same route) counted as a different estimated calorie burn in every application. One of them was 300% higher then the others. If you’re looking for an easy way to fool yourself, it’s easy to do.
I round down and estimate I’m burning 0.
UCS: That makes it really hard to have a caloric deficit then. 🙂
Now add “poor” on top of “obese” and the picture gets clearer.
That’s one of the (many) confounding problems: if you’re poor, carbs are cheap.
my problem I see so many not poor who don’t do shit for fitness.
You can’t save people from themselves.
The vast majority of misery is self-inflicted.
Water is wet.
I realize that, like most things, but one must write about stuff
Someone was asking recently about choosing a primary care physician…when I moved 2 years ago I had to find a new one. The guy I picked had bad reviews online, but when you actually read the reviews the people were complaining about him being blunt (“telling it like it is”). He harped on his patients to lose weight and quit smoking, and was hesitant to write prescriptions. In this case, a doctor that wants to do the right thing but has lots of ex-patients who hate him for it.
Eh. Harping on patients to change their habits doesn’t work. Doctors shouldn’t waste their very limited time with patients on it.
That may have been the wrong word to use, I don’t know how he really was with those patients.
-2 Wendy’s feet
I’m tired of virus talk. I’m thinking about skipping work to write a story inspired by old pulp magazine cover art.
Do it. Hot buxom blonde hires private dick to bump her cheating hubby off. Screws him out of his cut of the insurance dough.
The plot is even more sordid.
I can’t wait. Pulp fiction is the best fiction.
Fair warning – I have never read any.
So I know between jack and shit about the conventions of the genre.
That’ll probably make it more interesting.
But the question is, who did it better? Faye Dunaway in “Chinatown” (1974) or Kathleen Turner in “Body Heat” (1981). Both were smokeshows at the time of those films, but Faye Dunaway was… whew. Special.
Neither. It was Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity.
Love classic noirs but I give the nod to Turner.
I only remember Barbara Stanwyck as the matriarch on “Big Valley.” She was definitely a pretty woman, but Audra on Big Valley (a young Linda Evans) was absolutely incredible. My first crush as a kid. I still think she’s one of the 10 most beautiful women ever. She was just… incomparably beautiful as a young woman.
Oh, Turner is hotter, but Babs was so damn good in that film. Do watch it if you have a chance.
I’ll check it out.
I’ll check
ither out.FTFY. Stanwyck was smokin’.
I stand properly corrected.
Fred MacMurray was playing an insurance salesman, not a detective.
You all are wrong. Stanwyck in the precode Baby Face.
Sleeping her way to the top!
To a deee-luxe apartment in the sky!
Thanks, Pie.
I think largely you are right. I am perfectly willing to ignore how other people live their lives, but you make an excellent point that their choices can sometimes eliminate mine.
That said, protecting the vulnerable while not imprisoning the rest has been done successfully in several places. I still place virtually all the blame for this on the State (as usual). There are a lot of unhealthy fucks through terrible dietary advice for the last 60 or so years, as well as major changes in the nature of work. I still don’t see too many fat-assed landscape or roofing crews.
I enjoy your musings. And I need to up my glibfit game, too.
jugs of water
I’ve got 14 yards of mulch in the driveway. That’s gonna be a decent workout later.
Also
That said, protecting the vulnerable while not imprisoning the rest has been done successfully in several places. – yes but that was not the point i decided to write on.
Does anyone else think that the media and the lockdown nannies in the lockdown indefinitely states are going out on a thin limb by already proclaiming that the states that are already opening are going to see massive death counts come this fall?
Because I think they are. I think they don’t like it, for obvious reason, and because they can’t stop it, they’re resorting to screaming at the sky. Haven’t we seen this before? It’s sort of odd that they were against federalism and then Trump said something and then all of the sudden they were all for federalism, and now they’re against federalism again.
I saw an article this morning even predicting that the red states will be begging the blue states for bailouts. Sure they will, if by that you mean the blue states are already begging the federal government for bailouts.
I was just reading about how South Carolina is opening, North Carolina is not thanks to their Dem Governor. Two states that used to be lockstep in most ways. It will be interesting if that situation goes on for a few weeks.
Did you see the one I posted this morning about the town on the TN/VA border where the TN side is open for business and just across the street on the VA side, all the shops are shut down until at least Jun 10?
I have to tell you, with some of these states, like VA putting now hard dates on when this shit will be lifted, it’s not about science or number, it’s about how long they keep this thing going for political reason. The goal is to call for all paper ballot 2020 election and scream that Trump wants people to die if the polls are open. Not sure what VA has to worry about though, they already said they’re just going to give their electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote.
Yep – now with the Carolinas, that situation will play out with a border hundreds of miles long.
“North Carolina respectfully yields to South Carolina.”
Yes. I would like to think they erred in political strategy by going more extreme.
Trump was already “moderate” on this issue and supported lockdowns.
It’s like a Price is Right bid. If you are against them, you have no choice but to go Trump anyway. Every one else is just about a higher level of severity.
Remember how the media were screaming that Georgia was choosing to condemn it’s citizens to death by reopening pretty much everything as of April 24? I guess the body count must be low since we haven’t heard about it in the news.
I have a colleague in Georgia who is a prominent statistician and he’s been examining Georgia’s numbers from the start. He’s generally been pro-panic from the start but is now starting to tear his hair out because of the “quality” of the incoming data. As the numbers come in each day, it’s clear that some numbers from a month ago are suddenly being folded in, other numbers come in that are logistically impossible and so on. It’s like the “just found a bunch of votes in the trunk of my car” or 125% voter turnout in some districts.
You can rest assured that no one in power is gonna let something as trivial as “numbers” cost them their jobs. At this point I have no idea whether this thing is the “black plague” or less deadly than the common cold. That’s the current state of the numbers: they convey almost no actual information of use. Which is just about the ideal for the ruling class.
Rest assured, when the famines hit, we fat dudes will survive long after the hard-bodies have wasted away.
Not if we hunt and eat you guys.
I just ordered another case of ammo.
I can’t run. But I can shoot.
Until they develop a taste for long pig.
I read a book about the famine in North Korea. It mentioned anecdotes that fit people died first because they had no fat reserves.
In Card’s Folk of the Fringe, there’s a story called “West”, a morbidly obese woman has to walk from the Smoky Mountains to Utah. The protagonist doesn’t think she’s going to make it, but she huffs and puffs her way for a few weeks and then by the time they get there, she’s thin and strong.
There are fat guys who you should stay out reach of.
Donna Reed?
would
Greatest Mistake in History
I keep holding onto hope that will be how this goes down in history and how it will be remembered. If that is not what happens, we may as well accept that ‘a boot stomping on a human face forever’ will be the new reality.
You’re an optimist.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/05/05/metro/feeling-economic-pinch-massachusetts-residents-remain-resolute-battling-coronavirus-new-poll-finds/
1. It’s still cold there.
2. They aren’t called Massholians for no reason.
I linked it this morning because what happens in India may be mass starvation sooner than later. This crazy shit is getting out of hand.
They can all get IT jobs here. Oh wait, we’re out of IT jobs. They can go to Canada and get IT jobs.
Sorry, but this is just too precious to not share:
The reality of this unfurling rental crisis is not lost on politicians. Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota has put forward a bill that would cancel rent and mortgage payments for the duration of the crisis; the congressional rescue bill suspended evictions for federally backed rentals, though some building owners are not following the law; a number of cities and states have also imposed eviction moratoriums. And thousands of private businesses—landlords, real-estate investors, banks, housing trusts—are working out provisions to cut or delay tenants’ and mortgage-holders’ bills.
Canceling rent, radical though it sounds, would help low-income families keep their head above water, stabilize the housing market, and reduce the depth of the recession. But in some ways, even that radical-sounding demand is too small. This is not just a sudden housing crisis. This is a sudden housing crisis that has collided with a slow-boiling, structural housing crisis. Even before the viral recession hit, high housing costs were leading to homelessness, long commute times, food insecurity, and diminished household savings. The rents were too high. They are too high. And now the government must do something about it.
——-
The rent strike—which shifts losses from renters to landlords—will foment instability. But it is not an end in itself; it is aimed at forcing state and federal action. In New York, the hotbed of the rent strike, organizers are demanding that Governor Andrew Cuomo cancel rent for at least four months, freeze rents at current levels, house the unhoused, and increase investments in public housing. Omar’s bill would cancel rent and mortgage payments, cover landlords’ losses, and finance the purchase of rental properties to be used for affordable housing.
Even these measures fall short. The country needs a holistic, broad policy to aid and support renters, just as it has a holistic, broad policy to aid homeowners. Most rent-burdened low-income households do not receive federal rental assistance. Making subsidies an entitlement, received automatically if families meet certain income criteria, would help solve the affordability crisis. Encouraging construction in dense, wealthy cities would ease the housing shortage at the heart of the problem. Eroding the mortgage-interest deduction, investing in public housing, and committing the federal government to ending homelessness are crucial policies too. These changes would prevent rent strikes from being necessary in the future, and help ensure that all Americans have an affordable place to call home.
Speaking of crayon eaters, Annie Lowery is that thing.
If we just wave our magic wand and sprinkle lots and lots of federal
pixie dustmoney on this problem, it will go away.Cancel rent, and save the people. When will these buffoons learn there are two sides to every ledger entry?
Capitalism has failed. It’s time to try socialism and let our wise and benevolent leaders distribute necessities as they see fit in their great wisdom. People will just quit making things because there’s no dirty profit, you say? We’ll send in the tanks.
Do public high schools or liberal arts college even offer electives in Accounting?
It’s dull. Dull. Dull. My God it’s dull, it’s so desperately dull and tedious and stuffy and boring and des-per-ate-ly DULL.
+1 birthday boy Michael Palin
He’s not wrong.
I started out my college career in accounting “because that’s where the jobs are,” said my dad.
Anyway, I can do it. It’s marginally interesting to me, like solving puzzles. I just would rather not spend most of my life in the right side of my brain analyzing shit. I can do that on the side when I feel like escaping from LaLaLand.
I don’t recall one being offered at my private high school.
Oh, in answer to the actual question, mine offered bookkeeping. Extraordinarily helpful and useful.
. But in some ways, even that radical-sounding demand is too small. This is not just a sudden housing crisis. This is a sudden housing crisis that has collided with a slow-boiling, structural housing crisis. Even before the viral recession hit, high housing costs were leading to homelessness, long commute times, food insecurity, and diminished household savings.
Such a tragedy. Much of the lefts worldview boils down to “There’s this thing that sucks; This ‘simple’ solution would totally fix that”. Then when that “simple solution” doesn’t fix it they say “‘simple solution’ would have worked if it weren’t for the greedy property owners who stopped doing what we made unsustainable for them”.
Kulaks and wreckers and hoarders. If Yuri can sell chicken eggs to Natasha, then the perfect scientific system crumbles.
“…stabilize the housing market, …”
Misspelled ‘destroy’.
Crayon eaters indeed
Once there’s no housing market left, it’s a stable situation.
“Encouraging construction in dense, wealthy cities would ease the housing shortage at the heart of the problem.”
Alright! Build some Pruitt-Igoes, Cabrini Greens. It’s gonna work this time.
Why did the Atlantic decide to go to shit? They used to be somewhat interesting. I would think their tack to the hard left has landed them in an overly crowded field.
The plot is even more sordid.
Excellent.
It’s dull. Dull. Dull. My God it’s dull, it’s so desperately dull and tedious and stuffy and boring and des-per-ate-ly DULL.
What you need is a lion tamer’s hat. And a lion.
I don’t know where Ector County is – but some guys decided to open a bar – the County Sheriff showed up in a tank and the media to stoke the power boner.
There has to be more too than just opening up a bar…right? Jesus
Nope – West Texas apparently.
Well…firearms in the bar is what they used for the immense show of force
Yeah honestly……I can’t fault the cops there.
If people want to do nonviolent civil disobedience, that’s fine. If you want to open up a bar, sit there and drink, make the cops drag you out like a sack of cement, record it all, fine. But when there’s five of you strapped up, well…..the cops aren’t going to be Barney Fife with his one round, and frankly I don’t blame them.
I think it’s a tactical error. Camo and web gear and AR 15s is not what people should be wearing doing this stuff. People should get in their church clothes, and make the cops arrest peaceful unarmed people for exercising their rights. When you’re about to arrest guys who are carrying a loaded rifle, you bring something bigger to cow them into submission.
I mean shit, you try this in NYC the NYPD would have shot them all down like dogs and probably burned the bar down.
I fault the cops for showing up at all.
Law enforcers gonna law enforce.
I’d have a huge issue if those people were unarmed, or even if they had sidearms. I see at least three rifles, with web gear and sidearms. They brought guns to their civil disobedience action, the cops are just responding to the threat presented.
Protesting, even armed, is a separate thing from the deliberate act of getting arrested as a part of NVCD. NVCD is fundamentally a propaganda action, and it’s asinine to dress up like a discount danger ranger and carry a fucking carbine while you do it.
Imagine if those guys had all been wearing nice clothes, hair combed, sitting down and having a friendly drink together while keeping a six foot distance, and the cops had shown up with rifles. That’s a propaganda video that goes viral, that changes peoples minds.
This is effective propaganda, this is effective nonviolent civil disobedience. https://youtu.be/wN9wuQ5aUNg?t=152
Or, you know, the cops could have just said, “Hey, you want to play drunken Rambo at your local dive? Be our guest. Just don’t hurt yourselves.” and not even bothered.
You’re right. The protesters’ strategy probably isn’t the best one. But, really, sending a tank to bust up a bunch of guys drinking beer? Seems a little pointless.
The strategy of bringing your gun to a protest where you’ll probably be arrested seems like a dumb one – unless you don’t like that gun and never want to see it again.
^^ This
I’m just glad the cops didn’t go all Waco on them and gun them all down in the parking lot.
this is where the private citizens should have nuke branch of libertatianism comes in
I am guessing its this story….
https://www.cbs7.com/content/news/Bar-owner-and-protesters-arrested-in-West-Odessa-after-bar-reopens-570190961.html
I’ve been expecting that scenario to play out somewhere. Kind of the next step after armed protests at statehouses.
Sheriff should have ignored them though.
What business does a county sheriff’s department have even owning a tank?? I’d bet good money they used WOD asset forfeiture $$$ to buy themselves some big boy toys.
You can thank Congress back in 90 for that. The DoD 1033 program to draw down under the WoD…and then of course expanded to WoT
Best part….equipment is free except maintenance upkeep.
Hope you can understand that…I just reread it and I sound drunk.
I think they passed a bunch of them out after 9/11, as well.
Someone call James Garner.
Odessa: Midland without the class
Good stuff Pie. Ironically, gyms and pools are gonna wind up being among the last places to open, while fast food restaurants have been open the entire time.
Yes. I don’t expect any till mid june or later.
In response to yesterday’s posting — more Canen
I just watched The Cure, Adele, and Canen back to back to back. Canen was better that Adele.
Thank you for her!
Have I shared Rumer with you?
I think Suthen posted the first Canen link yesterday.
I spent too much time last night watching her videos.
Also Moonchild, although there’s a different vibe.
Today at Casa Dean:
The big saguaro next to the driveway finally opened a flower. A couple of things to look at: You can see on the left side of the trunk a couple of holes that woodpeckers knock in these things for nesting. All the arms have flower buds as well. This one has a “crown” of arms rather than a trunk that ends without any arms. When the ones with trunks flower, they look like they are wearing party hats. To the right in the middle distance you can see a palo verde tree all in yellow. Effing pollen factories they are, but they are pretty enough. The mountains visible in the distance past the palo verde are on the far side of Tucson, probably 25 miles away. The air here is usually incredibly clear; In the mornings when the angle of the sun is right, you can see reflections off windows and cars on those mountains. You can also clearly see the Kitt Peak Observatory buildings, which are at the top of a mountain nearly 60 miles away.
A close-up. Most of them have white flowers, a few have red ones or a mix of red and white. No idea why.
I recall when we first moved here, I about fell over when the saguaros flowered; I had no idea they would do such a thing.
i first read the big sausage next to the driveway
“I’ll bet you did! Whoa, eh?” {waggles eyebrows}
Saguros always look fake when I see pictures of them, like caricatures of real plants.
They really are kind of surreal, especially since there tend to be a bunch of them at one time. They look like trees drawn by toddlers.
It is impossible to go through life without having regrets. On the list of things I would go back and NOT do if I could….using saguaros for target practice.
In my defense it was a long time ago and they seemed to be in endless supply.
I agree that it is a trivial observation that the higher the overall level of physical fitness in a population, the hardier they are toward infectious disease. However, in the current pandemic, there are data that gives pause to the argument that obesity, HBP, etc. are the major drivers of death. For example, the Arab Gulf states have some of the highest rates of obesity in the world. One would expect them to be dropping like flies, yet that is not what the data shows. It seems to me that an aging population is more susceptible to death from Covid-19, regardless of overall level of physical fitness, than a population that skews younger.
Case in point, I remember reading that Jack LaLanne still did his daily 100 pull-ups on the day he died of pneumonia in his late 90s.
I don’t see the relevance of this.
The example is that respiratory issues seem to be dangerous for the elderly, regardless of their level of physical fitness.
sorry but when ya past 90 I mean…
That’s the point. Italy has an older population, Japan has an older population, even in the US, most of the deaths seem to be in nursing homes.
Yeah it hits the old hardest, but of the young people who have been dying of it, they seem to skew obese. Obviously there’s not hard data, but I’ve noticed that of the sob story “He/She was under 50!!!!!!” stories the media has put out, if theres a picture they are usually pretty overweight.
80% here. A fact the Governor is only now beginning to acknowledge.
And I saw that NY just added 1,700 deaths to that column.
He/She was under 50!
Yeah they pull that shit all the time. The other day we had a 40 year old ‘with no underlying conditions’.
Except for ‘unmanaged’ diabetes, heart problems and weight issues. But he was described as ‘happy go lucky’.
Fucking frauds.
Yeah they pull that shit all the time. The other day we had a 40 year old ‘with no underlying conditions’.
Except for ‘unmanaged’ diabetes, heart problems and weight issues. But he was described as ‘happy go lucky’.
___________________________
Yeah this story has that kind of thing:
https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/covid-victims-wife-warns-underlying-conditions-apply-to-most-americans/89-054e6379-0dce-4f43-9ddf-6ca04de8a81c
“Despite having mild diabetes and hypertension”
“Exercised every day, fit and active”
The problem, I think is that people grade on a curve. When you look at pictures and video of even 25 years ago, it’s like a different country.
This is the Atlanta Olympics https://images.app.goo.gl/zD2NA3yG5aQzXtPd8
If you go back even farther, it’s like a different species of people entirely. I was the Far Kid growing up. I was really really fat. My parents led me drink as much Coke as I wanted, and I had free access to snacks. We bought lots of sweets and I just grabbed it whenever. I was by far the fattest kid in every single class and party growing up. It wasn’t close. In middle school I was “the fat white kid” because I was the only one of the 650 kids that fit that description. When I look at kids today, and I worked with kids for a decade, there’s multiple kids in every group that are as fat as I was. Talking big guts, neck rolls, etc. It took me 20 years to finally get a handle of my weight.
So you get this guy whos 56 and has a hobby that involves him moving around a bit, and hes held up as some kind of paragon of fitness. Even though hes clearly overweight, and has two actual medical diagnoses. But “anyone who knew him thought he was healthy”.
But reality is what it is, not what you would wish it to be.
You gotta die of something.
Well I have seen multiple studies showing obesity is one factor for covid. Although some would indicate low vit D is worse.
I have no idea which data I can trust.
And that is the core issue.
It is a Gordian knot that is impossible to untangle. Low vitamin D often contributes to insulin problems, which in turn can lead to diabetes and obesity. Like everything worth studying, it is highly multivariate.
It’s too early to tell. Still tons of wild speculation. Anecdotally, the Physician I was doing the COVID trachs with noted most of the younger people that were effected by the virus had hypertension, but not obesity. Possible linked to the rennin angiotensin system. But who knows at this point?
Right. I’m not obese but I have idiopathic hypertension which is science for “you have HBP because you’re black/brown”.
Ok should that not be affected?
Ask HM, I was educated in public school so I have no idea.
Also my post was not 100% covid focused. But I seen plenty to think it is plausible better cardiovascular fitness in general does not hurt. Exercise is negatively associated with serious cases of covid and obesity positively. I can dig up some studies I suppose.
But I seen plenty to think it is plausible better cardiovascular fitness in general does not hurt.
My understanding is that many COVID deaths are due to heart failure. As your lungs fill up with goo, they take in less oxygen, and your heart works harder and harder to keep the body oxygenated.
I saw somewhere (here?) (you?) that it “looks” more like altitude sickness than a true respiratory disease.
Its a pretty standard disease progression for pneumonia and other respiratory/lung infections.
There has been some interesting speculation? indications? that the Commie Cough actually has a somewhat different progression – wrecking hemoglobin cells as they come through the lungs, which also causes a different kind of lung damage. Pneumonia is generally a secondary infection – after a virus or whatever has torn up your lungs and weakened your immune system, a secondary bacterial infection sets in. I think you still wind up with pretty much the same low 02 saturation and heart problems either way, though, but I’m not a doctor. I know a bunch of them, though (and we mostly dislike each other), if that helps.
That seemed to be some of that crying nurse video and her recounting some of the deaths…
When my Mom was in hospice many years ago, I read a book by a doctor (whose name escapes me now) who talked about the “ultimate reason” why most people die; lack of oxygen in their blood.
That was the “milestone” my Mom passed at one point that caused the charge nurse of the facility to call me and tell me to make the 300-kilometre trip to visit her one last time. The nurse wasn’t wrong.
Small sample size, but the top 5 underlying conditions statewide here in covid deaths are
I’m assuming climate is protecting the gulf states
Maybe, maybe not.
MERS is Covid’s sister coronavirus.
I thought SARS was the sister virus. The technical name of the current plague is “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
(SARS-CoV-2).” SARS was “SARS-CoV” and was also supposed to be zoonotic.
MERS is also a coronavirus, if memory serves, so I think we have what we need for a drawn out, acrimonious, highly pedantic, and utterly pointless argument.
I’ve been there in April when it hit 130 degrees – thought I’d die in a few seconds. That virus has no chance.
there are off course many facets to fitness.
And articles like this
https://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/iain-dale/quitting-junk-food-risk-dying-of-coronavirus/
and many similar, with the problem of who the hell knows what to trust.
But I think being fit cannot hurt and may help. And in the future, the number of unfit people a society can handle cannot be pushing much more than half …
Viking in that video of Laguna Beach…they let the girl go but stole her 76′ flag?
using Viking as a verb… nice
I don’t need commas!
So you don’t want these?
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
I thought “Viking” was originally a verb, when the menfolk would go raiding, it was called “going viking”.
yeah
Its in my Nordic blood I guess to use it as such
It’s just instinct at this point for Our Noble Heros in Blue to steal from people they arrest. Cash, cars, houses, businesses, guns, whatever.
So new garden is teeming with sprouts. Carrots made there way up yesterday, cucumbers are moving along and squash is happy. Scallions from the supermarket look like they have started to grow again. Wondering if the “sprouting” potato I took out of the pantry is happy buried deep and growing. That one will be time will tell.
Sadly, I think the ants have successfully invaded my lemon tree and ruined the budding fruit. Tomatoes are growing larger by the day though!
Inconsiterate insects.
You need some chickens.
Eat up the ants and provide eggs to go with those veggies!
Not sure if my neighbors would be okay with that. But should. Rabbits are the big worry here in the desert, but my pup gives em chase.
I still have two other sections that need to be filled with soil and seeded but I think I am going to make those winter veggies.
My dog found a baby bunny nest yesterday. It did not end well for the bunny. My wife was not happy.
womenfolk do not understand the harsh word of nature like the natural hunters – men – do
do not feed bunnies–they will remember, they will follow you, they will approach you, they will get very close.
We don’t feed them, there are just a lot of rabbits in our neighborhood and this one was dumb enough to drop it’s brood in my yard, where Sterling, destroyer of small animals makes his home.
Good dog.
I had a dog that would walk up behind me and nose my hand or bump me. I’d turn around to find some animal part in his mouth.
I think I’d be getting tomatoes on soon if the damn sun would shine more than a few hours a week.
I’m just going to build a damn greenhouse and install a massive amount of high output LED panels. That will fix the lighting problem we’re having.
squash – you voluntarily plant that?
Hells ya I do.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/justin-amash-could-cause-some-trouble-in-november/
TLDR; Amash could cause trouble, but don’t ask us for who cause we don’t know.
I like bacon. You like blood. I do not ask for any assistance on my bacony pursuits or it’s repercussions nor do I expect others to ask me for any assistance in their pursuits or repercussions. We can all be sanguine. Just stay off my lawn and I’ll stay off your grave dirt.
I wish most people though that way
Any important marker of health or wellness – blood pressure, triglycerides, HDL/LDL, resting heart rate, A1C, etc. – sits on a well-ordered continuum where at one end we have pathological, i.e. “sick”, then moving to the right we get to “normal” or “well” and then eventually we get to “super-wellness,” which is fitness. If you are fit, you have to go through being merely “normal” in order to get “sick.” Fitness is a hedge against the ravages of life. I suppose it is possible that some mutant bug could preferentially attack the fittest and leave the obese, drug addicts, and sedentary standing. I’ll take that fucking chance and bet on fitness every time because a real definition of fitness includes functional competence – that is, the ability to do ‘stuff’ with your body – and I’d rather die doing than live for 75 years hooked to a machine while I drool on myself. People too often confuse physiognomy (oh, s/he looks fine!) for health and don’t understand that health is just the integral of fitness. Fitness is a snapshot of your physical capability at a given moment in your life; health is that capability over time. i.e. your life. And it can be measured and graphed with a fair degree of precision and accuracy.
Because it’s an indicator of health. It might be wrong for any given individual, but it is generally an indicator and specifically, the only one we have with which to judge.
carrying excessive visceral fat is bad for your health and will in time wreck your markers.
often but not always the way a person looks is indicative of health.
crossfit – booo
Yeah, you guys got me. You both know way more than I do on the subject. I cede the field.
I must be out of it.
I connect to the webex, and hit the “call me” button.
Phone rings.
I go “Who’s calling me now? I’ve got a meeting.”
we have a choice between skyoe and webex and I prefer skype. Then again I am used to it, webex was brought in recently cause skype was clogged.
WebEx seems more stable for big meetings but less flexible for small ones.
Fair assessment.
I notice that the press has gone silent on Liberty University over the past month. Bringing the students back on campus wasn’t the extinction event the NY Times was hoping for.
So, they’re going what they do. I’m betting that when the reopening states don’t start dropping dead like flies in the street, they’ll go silent on that too and to back to some other form of TDS.
Or to be elaborate, here’s what I think they do. They’ll go silent, but as fall and the election approaches, they’ll pull a thousand unsubstantiated predictions from ‘experts’ that if you don’t lock down and go all paper ballots for the election, we’ll all die from the 2nd way worstest mostest moar scariest wave of the pandemic.
That’s what this has been leading up to from the start.
The whole coronatardness is obviously theater. It is amazing to me what you can pull over on people if you get the scared.
I see music links above….
This bunch is worth a listen. Norwegians? Go figure. The vocalist is remarkable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMbbTQrC41o
Amazing Norwegian musicians
More amazing Norwegian musicians
In which the guv’nor gets a reality check…that is going to bounce: https://www.whio.com/news/local/coronavirus-pandemic-what-know-tuesday/MRDGEPY6YFFLPC4RLX4Z3OYCIA/
The state is below the state budget by$776.9 million. This is close to a billion dollar change since February, when the state was ahead of budget by over $200 million.
Heavens to Betsy! How on Earth did that happen?
“Hey, sometimes money just catches fire. Natural causes.”
At least he’s pushed to cut spending.
Karen hates Florida and is moving back to Jersey because the Governor didn’t Do Something!
Nowhere in the article do they compare NJ cases with those in FL or impact on the economy.
I’m really going to miss her and her constant complaints that Florida isn’t like back home.
Floridians are heart broken.
Don’t let the door hit you where the good lord split you.
Come back some time when you can’t stay as long.
I really wish they’d follow her around as she house-hunts without a hotel to stay in, without restaurants to eat at, and generally trying to get things done in our current police state. It would be hilarious. Maybe add in some sticker shock at house prices and property taxes – which will be going up soon.
Snowbirds. ?
BREAKING
lockdown should not apply to the queen’s men anyhow
Finally, that fucker is gone. If you were looking for “public health official 0” who set off this panic, you can stop looking now.
He should have been fired ages ago for incompetence. He has produced one shit pandemic model after another throughout his entire career.
Ms. Staats sounds like a real peach, too. I have to wonder if her husband knew she was banging the incompetent bureaucrat.
He knew, it was an open marriage.
“Well obviously these rules aren’t supposed to apply to ME! I wrote them, I know when it is and isn’t safe to break them. What’s your problem?”
Does her husband? Is this one of those “throuples” that were all the rage in the before times?
Even so, if she suspected her husband was infected, then she didn’t give a shit if she carried it to Ferguson’s house and infected him. I mean, I don’t either, but it seems kind of selfish on her part.
The guy is a known pusher of climate hysteria. What else would anyone have suspected?
I watched one of the YouTube talking heads break down this guy’s prior predictions and they were all off by a factor of no less than fifty, from mad fucking cow to SARS to swine flu the guy’s been disastrously wrong.
Within a few days after he published his first predictions, the Oxford Institute of Evidence Based Medicine applied his historical wrongness record to correct his predictions. If memory serves, what they came up with is looking pretty close to what we have.
And he just cost millions of people their jobs and life savings, and maybe more.
In better times, there would be a public flogging, right before they lynching.
Of course, you can’t blame our idiot leaders any less for listening to this crackpot. Might as well get your weather forecast from Al Gore.
But he’s an expert. AN EXXXPPPPEEEEEERRRTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!! #BelieveExperts
You’re failing our experts, you mean #BelieveALLexperts
“Finally, that fucker is gone.”
Gone where? He’ll be hired by the NYT and CNN in less than a week from now.
When they said an extra 600$ a week for people on UI, they meant it, Holy Cow!
Get while you can! Wanna come up the river a bit Bob?
Where are you thinking, Nevada side?
Teens are deadset on Cottonwood Cove. I think its annual passholders only though.
Or come down here, it’s pretty dead at the park Beach,
If not this Wednesday then in a couple of weeks will probably venture further down. I think AZ doesnt allow charcoal grills though
Could have fooled me, I BBQd steaks yesterday,
and I only use charcoal,
NJ is telling me I’ll get a big catch-up check eventually. May buy a shotgun if any are available.
Legitimate news
President Donald Trump now knows the price of the haunting bargain required to reopen the country — tens of thousands more lives in a pandemic that is getting worse not better.
It’s one he now appears ready to pay, if not explain to the American people, at a moment of national trial that his administration has constantly underplayed.
——-
A draft internal report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention obtained by The New York Times buckled the White House narrative that the worst of the pandemic is passed and it’s time to get going again. It found that the daily death toll will reach about 3,000 by June 1, nearly double the current number.
The data, combined with figures showing the pandemic getting worse in many states showed there is no real scientific case for reopening businesses, bars and restaurants. It underscored how governors — largely in the absence of a vast nationwide testing and tracing operation the administration has failed to build — are in many cases flying blind in reopening their states.
More tests = more results. And continue to act as if every “infection” results in certain, horrible, agonizing death. And please let’s keep using egregiously erroneous projections from people just pulling numbers out of their asses.
And, whatever you do, don’t ask yourself what it means if large numbers of people test positive but are not sick. That way, madness lies.
That is CNN.
— tens of thousands more lives in a pandemic that is getting worse not better.
Once again team “Follow the Science” does a great job of showing why they should not be trusted when they talk about science.
“…CNN…should not be trusted when they talk”
You could have stopped there.
The data, combined with figures showing the pandemic getting worse in many states
The population adjusted graphs show no such thing. Even deaths, a lagging indicator, are flat to down. That said, there are a couple of states that look like they are having an uptick, but I’m not seeing one that doesn’t have its peak in the past.
nationwide testing and tracing
Active infection testing is only relevant for treatment and for limiting contact with vulnerable populations. Contact tracing, at this point, is completely useless.
That chart is pretty close to a list of states by population density or major urban areas.
Interesting. Hadn’t thought of that.
I just like their population adjusted graphs. They do show testing rates, which are quite flat. I wish they would do the math on positive tests per thousand tests.
Quarantine the sick, shelter the vulnerable, and let everyone else get back to work FFS.
Why you want my grandma to die!?!?
Why do you want to make me go back to work?!?!
See statistician William Briggs on the subject.
https://wmbriggs.com/post/30624/
“from people just pulling numbers out of their asses.”
Even if they weren’t pulling them out of their ass there needs to be an explanation.
IOW, their first (or second or third) projection was wrong. They need to EXPLAIN why their projection was wrong and how they’ve corrected it. You can’t just ignore errors like they didn’t happen.
They can and they are because they have full faith the media and government will never ask a question about it.
Professor Neil Ferguson
I can’t remember for certain, but I think that was the guy I linked to last week, at some point. He did an interview with the MSNBC business channel, and spouted a bunch of despicable totalitarian bullshit that made me want to hunt him down and beat him to death with a shovel.
Isn’t that like every other two bit authoritarian?