Good morning my Glibs and Gliberinas and what a beautiful morning it is as the US records lowest coronavirus related deaths in 2 weeks. If you go on the twittertardverse, you would think that we were all going to die and those damn knuckle dragging conservatives (defined as anyone right of Mao) wants everyone to die by reopening the economy.
They fearmonger despite the fact that multiple antibody studies coming out are showing that the virus was far more widespread and hence far less deadly than originally thought.
Missouri files a lawsuit against China
The Senate spends more money we don’t have.
Three million Americans are not paying their mortgage.
DC police probe sexual assault allegation against Biden.
Trumps shares post saying Durham indictments could come this week.
That’s all I got for today. I’ll leave you with a song and move along with my day.
China say “Show me how that work”
Oh, and Mornin’, Banjos.
Mornin’
They might win a healthy settlement but good luck collecting on it.
Maybe there’ll be a Chinese version of Obama and Missouri will get a pallet of cash. Stop laughing
Doesn’t China hold a massive amount of US debt? Why not have the fedgov repatriate that debt through cancellation and use it to pay out judgments.
This actually sounds plausible although there’d certainly be retaliation.
It’s a pittance compared to what we (ie the Fed) hold.
Looks like 1.1 trillion as of Jan 2020.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080615/china-owns-us-debt-how-much.asp
The Fed owns $2.5T outright and probably several trillion more thru banks that are subsidized by them.
Japan is the largest foreign holder of Treasuries at $1.3T
Well, if we owe it to ourselves it’s not a problem!
Yeah and closing six or seven Cabinet departments and firing all their employees won’t fix the fiscal mess either, but it’s a good first step.
‘fix the fiscal mess’ by ending borrowing and taxes. Pay for government by voluntary money. Donation not taxation.
Welching on a debt would certainly discourage any lenders from wanting to support US bond buying. At this point, however, what difference does it make? Just crank up the ol’ printing press and make that 4 T (or what ever amount the US owes) bill .
Just mint a few trillion dollar coins and we’re all good. Krugman was all for that a decade or so ago and that guy’s never wrong.
It wouldn’t be welching, it would be the same as taking assets to pay a legal judgment.
Why not? At this point U.S. currency has become nothing more than a faith based religion.
“nothing more than a faith based religion”
Are there non-faith based religions? Other than fictional or mock ones, that is?
Agnostics?
Agnosticism is not a religion.
Unitarian Universalism might qualify – IF you accept that it’s a religion.
I’ve become more annoyed with the description of “State is just a religion” as of late. There is something very inaccurate about it, and i’m trying to suss it out. I find it very interesting that even religious libertarians, are quite willing to deride the state as “Just like a religion” as if that is a bad thing. Once i have some good thoughts about it, maybe i’ll write them up for an article.
How about “faith in the state”?
How about “faith in the state”?
Yeah. That is what i generally think. Puting such a sure faith in the state, like it is a god. Also, there is very much an emotional side to it too. You see similar reactions to fans of Sports Teams.
Leon, in abstract, government can be a useful tool. Ann Coulter wrote at length (see book: Godless: The Church of Liberalism) about Left worshiping government. ‘The State’ is worshiped by religion rather than the religion itself.
Leon, meant ‘in abstract, government can be a useful tool.’ as a separate point.
even religious libertarians, are quite willing to deride the state as “Just like a religion” as if that is a bad thing.
At least from me, such a statement decries crass idolatry. It’s just that screaming “government is idolatrous” isn’t particularly damning these days. The non-religious roll their eyes, and the religious don’t really have a visceral hate of idolatry like they do for other sins.
Climate change
Oh, bugger off. I’m only halfway into my first cup of coffee.
😉
“Never pick a fight with someone who buys cow butts by the barrel.”
Ha!
There once was a herd of skinny assed cows…they were all named Pedant…
Sorry, Swissy. No joke, you’re one of my favorite people here, but right now I’m just flat out sour and bitchy. Don’t read too much into my comments this morning.
Sounds like someone needs a doob of some good stuff.
It would be easier to just impose a corona penalty tariff on all Chinese imports.
And less destabilizing to the Treasury markets.
A real currency war is the last thing we need at this moment.
I like this answer too.
Yea! Higher cost of living!
Incomes down, so lets raise the prices of everything we get from a major trading partner….huzzah!
How about letting companies fix their own supply chains? Nah, free choice is so overrated…
I haven’t been able to make the risk/benefit calculation work for trying new Scotches because of the tariffs.
1. What’s the current price of “free trade” with that major trading partner?
2. The cost of a tariff is always spread around – some hits the consumer, some would result in more American production, a lot would result in more business with places like Vietnam and India. In all those cases, China will feel the most pain.
3. I was just suggesting it as a way to collect after China loses lawsuits and refuses to pay – or even acknowledge their misbehavior. Until they change their behavior, I don’t want them to be “a major trading partner” even if that means slightly higher prices for crap at Walmart.
Exercise your choice and avoid products made in China. If you want to impose costs on everyone, then go, Monsieur Colbert, put duties on everything and keep the silver inside France!!!!
You want everyone to pay more for everything (just ask sloopy how much the truck fleets of the world need China at the present time) not just “crap at Wal-Mart” – and man, if that isn’t a snobby, classist statement, I don’t know what is.
Hey, I buy cheap crap at Walmart all the time! I’m just honest about it.
When the dust settles Walmart et al will still be buying from the cheapest producer. If its China so be it. If its locally then that’s where Walmart will buy.
Just as Detroit-made cars are being supplied from world wide producers. I really don’t care who makes things, only that I’m satisfied with the price and the quality.
Truck fleets,
youreveryone’s phone, everyone’s computer, which includes your car unless it is 20 years old, your appliances, heavy machinery, yeah let’s ‘bite that bullet’ and impose massive tariffs to ‘punish’ China, and encourage all production to move back home where it can comply with all California regulations! Murica! Dey tuk r jerbs! Buy American is an UnAmerican sentiment.Bah.
We’re having some tooling done there and Two-Scoops’ stupid tariffs are adding about $8K to the bill. We started the goddamn project well before the WuFlu bullshit.
But even with that it was far less expensive to do it in China.
Like they fixed their supply chains the first time?
Say what you will, but tariffs are about the only permissible way to fund the state. They’re also a wonderful strategic tool.
In other news, Missouri shakes fist at sky
Mornin’ Banjos
Mornin’
What will the DC cops find on a thirty years old case?
Big hair and mullets?
Corn Pop and Finger Bang were bad dudes.
A big point of evidence against the accusation is that Biden hasn’t bragged about it in his dementia.
He may have….who could tell?
Maybe Biden’s sleaze has a long shelf life?
You mean the department that couldn’t solve Seth Rich’s robbery gone wrong when it was a fresh crime scene?
Idaho- really?
Idaho mother’s arrest at closed playground area sparks protest
You have to each end out for them idahoans. Shifty eyes, and drive 65 in the 80 mph zones.
Yeah….and my Aunt and Uncles town too. Though Meridian has exploded with Cali folks. Spud could shed that light.
So she coordinated a park playdate with other parents, which you can clearly see in the video.
I understand her frustration but they should have ignored the boys in blue but instead inticed them to do it.
US Domestic Box Office April 17-19, 2020
# 1 Resistance (Jewish Boy Scouts who worked with the French Resistance to save orphans during World War II)
#2 Swallow (someone swallows stuff not meant to be swallowed)
# 3 The Other Lamb (cult with male leader and all female members)
There is no #4.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/2020W16/
“someone swallows stuff not meant to be swallowed”
Perhaps they’ll die.
Just needs to swallow a horse.
Starting with what part?
Inquiring minds want to know…
Whichever part will swallow the spider.
First day on the “suicide squad”. Average patient age for trach is 50. I was surprised to see that. Have a great day everyone!
So newly fitted collar, or did they go the nano-explosive laced last meal route for you?
Younger than I expected.
That is a fly in the ointment. Small sample size? Underlying conditions?
Hospitalizations seem to be more broad based age-wise than deaths.
I’m out of the hazard suit. 3 cases done, all went pretty smoothly considering we cobbled together an OR from spares rooms and parts. The three guys had no medical history. They will all probably recover, but it did surprise me that they were young and healthy. I’ll be doing this for probably a couple more weeks so I’ll get a better idea of the demographics.
I had a mental hypothesis that they picked the best prospects for healing from the procedure first.
But that’s just a computer guy’s speculations.
Love the “suicide squad” moniker. Classic hospital black humor.
Young and healthy, but substantially overweight?
We’ve been finding at our sites that obesity is not being considered a ‘medically compromised’ situation for patients like advanced age, COPD or heart disease, but that so many of the vented patients without those comorbidities are morbidly obese.
Convicted serial killer and Earth Day co-founder with Gaylord Nelson dead earlier this month.
deadorkicking.com/ira-einhorn-dead-or-alive/
That’s a ray of sunshine in these trying times *ducks*
Elected Democrat Gaylord Nelson died in 2005.
And don’t forget “Harvard Teaching Fellow”
Harvard, home of Soviet Crimson
Anyone think coincidence Earth Day Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s birthday?
Of course it is a coincidence, Comrade.
Thank you for that laugh.
I am the walrus
Administrative Professionals Day April 22, 2020
http://www.calendardate.com/administrative_professionals_day_2020.htm
It used to be “Secretary’s Day” and back in the Mad Men era was probably a lot more fun.
Changing name not just woke. Expanded people honored.
Administrative Professionals Day “highlights the work of secretaries, administrative assistants, receptionists and other administrative support professionals. In the U.S., the day is often celebrated by giving flowers, gifts, candy or cards to your assistant”
https://www.hallmark.com/administrative-professionals-day/administrative-professionals-day-cards/
Now that the one & only member of management who would remember that (and remind my boss) has retired, I fully expect I’ll never be recognized again.
Meh – First world problem. I feel extremely lucky to have a job.
No one notices sysadmin appreciation day either.
Transadmins get plenty of appreciation, though
::puts cake on UCS’s desk::
Or would you prefer flowers?
But today’s your day.
I’m afraid I didn’t bake anything.
Maybe you knew this – your day is 7/31.
I’d rather get flowers than cake. Did you grow any?
No.. 🙁 … I can’t even keep plastic plants alive.
Un Civil Servant’s plastic plants are alive?
*Makes note Un Civil Servant suspect unregistered agent Autons *
TBH, me too. Not the groping and chasing around the desk part but you get my meaning. Plus, being “essential” let’s me get my smug on.
Sorry I missed last night, GT,
Try this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XVdtX7uSnk
Noice! Can’t listen in my office, but I know it well. Will hunt up one of my faves from that era & post for you during my lunch break (during H&H thread.)
The combined stock capitalization of Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook now exceeds the total capitalization of all non-US stocks combined.
They also make up over 20% of the US stock market and drive the major index values.
In other words, tech is completely dominating market valuations, which normally indicates a bubble.
So those that go into debt once again to try to break away from their limited financial options due to their eighteenth century Prussian gender-queer theory doctorates by trying to LEARN TO CODE are just setting themselves up for failure?
LEARN TO PLUMB
But don’t forget to level.
Don’t be a square.
I have three dimensions, I’m a cube.
Your angles are all off trapezoid.
Nonsense, you know I’m all right.
Of course you are, would you cosine this loan for me?
Pffftttt, you’re definitely not normal.
This thread is en compassing more subjects it seems like.
We like protracted pun threads.
*MASS NARROWED GAZE*
Don’t like the platonic ideals of geometry huh? I agree until you add mass you aren’t dealing with reality, you’re off on a tangent.
My company is changing 401k companies shortly, so i was just looking thru some investment options. While I will dump most of my money into a total market index fund, so will be heavy in those, I was also looking to put a piece into a fund that doesn’t include those as a hedge. Not sure what all options are going to be available at this time, but the company we are moving to does have a large cap value index fund. So I might chuck some portion into it or something similar. Those companies are already included in a total market fund, obviously, but this will tilt me a little heavier to value. Eh, tough call.
I was also probably put some tiny chunk into a foreign fund.
My gold fund not only has recouped my losses, it has me in the black.
I don’t want to look at my 401k right now.
since mine just started with newCo in January, it is almost a platonic ideal of dollar cost averaging. Mine is almost back to level, with a few more paychecks of low market costs and it will be positive.
Look at some energy funds. At some point, everyone is going to get back to pre-COVID activity, and they’re going to need gas to do it. A lot of those stocks are down enough to make it a good value play.
We know that with the Russian investigation that the entire Left apparatus jumped onboard the witch hunt train. Will be interesting to see if GOP Senators will jump in board the retaliation. Trump wins either way. This is why his base likes him. Prior GOP presidents would have just said Thank You Mam, may I have another instead of fighting back with counter prosecutions.
Eh, I’ve heard prosecutions next week/month etc. for years now on the Russian hoax. And not a single fucking one actually happens.
I think we’re being played.
When the AG pimps for more surveillance, color me skeptical that he is signing off on prosecuting people that would expose even more surveillance abuse.
Lock her up! Lock her Up!
Yep. I await with baited breath for the actual indictments against Kim Foxx and her eventual imprisonment…damn, my face sure looks blue.
Er, I suppose I should have prefaced that comment as tangentially related.
The GOP Senators are complicit in the coup d’état only slightly less than their Democratic colleagues.
“You might have seen this high of a share in Houston after Hurricane Harvey, but it was always a local phenomenon,” he said. “What’s different this time is it’s national. To have 6% of mortgage loans in forbeareance, that’s about 3 million homeowners saying they can’t make their mortgage payments due to COVID-19.”
So a lot of banks made some risky loans, even after the ’09 lessons. Somehow, we’ll all be on the hook for them though.
They didn’t Properly gauge the risk of the government coming in and destroying their debtors employment.
You’ve also got a lot of states that said you can’t get foreclosed on or evicted for (shrug) months. Based on the standard reporting, I can understand that a lot of people thought it meant “mortgages on hold”. You’ve also got the unemployment backlog in a lot of places to add to that.
‘The Senate spends more money we don’t have.’
Remember when such bills originated in the US House of Representatives?
“There you go again”
/Ronnie
That would be the least of the sins committed against the Constitution.
“DC police probe”
What you did there… it was perceived.
RE: ‘They fearmonger despite the fact that multiple antibody studies coming out are showing that the virus was far more widespread and hence far less deadly than originally thought.’
‘Concerns with that Stanford study of coronavirus prevalence’
‘Also, remember that reputational inference goes both ways. The authors of this article put in a lot of work because they are concerned about public health and want to contribute to useful decision making. The study got attention and credibility in part because of the reputation of Stanford. Fair enough: Stanford’s a great institution. Amazing things are done at Stanford. But Stanford has also paid a small price for publicizing this work, because people will remember that “the Stanford study” was hyped but it had issues. So there is a cost here. The next study out of Stanford will have a little less of that credibility bank to borrow from. If I were a Stanford professor, I’d be kind of annoyed. So I think the authors of the study owe an apology not just to us, but to Stanford. Not to single out Stanford, though. There’s also Cornell, which is known as that place with the ESP professor and that goofy soup-bowl guy who faked his data. And I teach at Columbia; our most famous professor is . . . Dr. Oz.’
https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/04/19/fatal-flaws-in-stanford-study-of-coronavirus-prevalence/
Probably too dumb to understand the argument in this article outside of a layman’s understanding. And even if it’s not a good argument against the study and am just too ignorant to know why, I appreciate the push back. I absolutely hate the government’s reaction to all of this but I don’t want to be a useful idiot to my own ideology either.
Somebody please come along and comment if you have an educated opinion.
The key points seem to be:
1. They didn’t do any adjustment for age
2. They likely overestimated the accuracy of their own test
3. They haven’t (yet?) published the data, only their conclusions
“Our conclusions Are our data!”
I am waiting for someone to yell “SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS!”
That’s how they peddle AGW, which also uses shitty made up models that favor the worst possible outcome, whether really possible or not.
I got the gist, man. I was just wondering if anybody here could comment further on how neglecting to factor in those variables can alter the conclusions of those types of studies.
…Jesus,why am I so defensive this morning? Sorry if that came off as curt.
I’m logging off. I obviously have a problem with humanity in general right now and I’m taking it out on you guys. That’s not fair.
No worries. We’re all frustrated by this shit.
Triggered, Hippie?
Columbia’s J-School will save the reputation of the institution!
The Senate spends more money we don’t have.
Wealth is a state of mind.
The bill piles more money into an unprecedented government effort to relieve an economy and health-care system devastated by the coronavirus outbreak. More than 22 million people filed for unemployment benefits over the latest four-week period as businesses in most of the country remain closed to slow Covid-19′s spread.
Stop saying that!
The devastation was caused by politicians, who should all be hanging from lampposts.
“closed to slow Covid-19′s spread”
It’s been slowed. The curve’s been flattened. Whatever justification they had for doing this in the first place (which was pretty damn weak) is now completely gone.
Don’t worry, they’re already hard at work to modify the reason to keep things closed and the left will eat it up.
With an assist from “adjusting” the number of deaths each day.
I made that comment on the d̵r̵u̵n̵k̵e̵n̵,̵ ̵o̵l̵d̵,̵ ̵w̵h̵i̵t̵e̵ ̵g̵u̵y̵,̵ ̵s̵a̵u̵s̵a̵g̵e̵-̵f̵e̵s̵t̵ Zoom call.
If you have to make daily adjustments to your model, you have a shitty model. And instead of ‘adjusting’, you start off with a new model each time you mess with it.
I’m not talking about models – they are making up numbers of actual ‘vid deaths by lumping in people who were never tested.
“Im not dead yet!”
“You soon will be.”
Serious question: Why wouldn’t it be appropriate to re-iterate (and there might be a more appropriate term) a model on a frequent basis as new information comes in?
Shouldn’t each iteration come closer to reality (assuming genuine talent and honesty -stop laughing- from the modelers)?
Human fallibility. Even excellent modelers studying subjects with minimal emotional consequences have opinions on what might happen, and it’s unavoidable for those opinions to thumb the scales if you let it. Even then it’s unavoidable which is why peer review can be so valuable.
I do statistical modeling for a living (not in medicine or economics) and I feel my biggest strength is a general open-mindedness to eventual results of a model. And I’m not even close to immune to the above. That’s why “listen to the scientists!” is such bullshit. A good scientist wants to hear counter arguments. It only helps him/her.
If the feds are going to hand out money like candy to the banks and big businesses then I have no problem with them giving out money to small businesses and individuals. Screw it, we’re heading for the ditch anyway, we may as well just nail the gas pedal and see what happens.
RE: ‘Missouri files a lawsuit’
Grandstanding or think found loophole in USC Title 28, §§ 1330, 1332, 1391(f), 1441(d), and/or 1602-1611?
No loophole -> judge tosses out
They fearmonger despite the fact that multiple antibody studies coming out are showing that the virus was far more widespread and hence far less deadly than originally thought.
To be fair, these studies are not that accurate yet at distinguished this corona from other corona, I believe
There are several different antibody tests coming out. Some appear to be more accurate than others. The Stanford study from what I’ve read elsewhere did validation of the test they used and documented how it was done (haven’t had the time to read through through it myself). The Boston rando person one appears to use a test that the manufacturer explicitly warns about non-selectivity.
Another point is, does current coronavirus antibodies presence offer any advantage even if it’s not for SARS-cov-2?
Mornin’ Banjos! I remember when Dexy and his band of runners were going to be next big thing. The 80’s were a strange and wondrous time…
Mornin’
Eddie and the Cruisers, FTW!
…wait…
Ass Wednesday gives gorgeous glutei and callipygian colleens.
http://archive.li/HNzn4
the problem with ass Wednesday is you don’t always see their faces so it is hard to make an informed choice.
What if I pick 4 and she shows up to my house to band and is not that pretty?
hmm I say 12 42 53 61
The face of a goat? Win/Win!
Well, she should be wearing a mask anyway, so what does it matter?
Turn her around, put her hair over her face and go for the neck. You know, as usual.
25 for her candor.
56 is Tundra’s ideal date.
Hah!
Yep, that’s a starting lineup I could certainly get behind!
SJWednesday: We Want In On The Game Too
Latinx…all opinions arising from a person that unironically uses that term can be safely disregarded.
Can we call Asians Chinx?
I see a red flag coming. I’ll see myself out.
Lol your to stupid to know you are oppressed.
Or, hear me out, the students were right, and you were the one in denial.
No. The Racisim is so bad that they have internalized it to the point that they can’t even notice it! I mean, Asians probably have it worse off than black kids.
The problem – according to this moron – is with the students for not accepting her demand they see racism everywhere and anywhere, even if it doesn’t exist for them. Asians are discriminated against, but they are discriminated against by the people that peddle racial identity because Asians tend to be driven by a mentality where hard work and success is what matters, and that pisses off the marxists.
Dear god, this person gets paid to teach?
And refuses to acknowledge her students’ “lived experiences”
/tries not to puke at using that phrase.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-tran-ph-d-546439a9
Another, more current example of xer bloviating
We’re making vast and problematic assumptions about bodies, what they can do and what we want them to do. Workplace metaphors like these often rely on ableist ideas.
You’re intellectually crippled.
She gets paid to induct students into the cult, just as she was. What else is she going to do? Certainly nothing productive that ads value to society. She brings shame to her ancestors.
This evil person *wants* others to feel traumatized.
Kids, don’t believe your lying eyes! Believe me!
And then everyone that read the article stood up and clapped. So virtue, many signal! I hated this shit before but I’m starting to loathe it. They just can’t lay off for one hot minute while our society is hanging by a thread. It’s unconscionably reckless and stupid.
You should loathe it. It’s pure fucking Marxist evil.
Yep. If they can’t spread human suffering on the physical level, they’ll do their damndest to do it to your mind.
She’s gone to a lot of effort to become that misinformed and hateful.
https://everydayfeminism.com/kim-tran/
What a racket.
Do you think she really is a lesbian, or do you think she’s only into chicks for the additional victim cred?
She hates them but the hatred nourishes her. Along with clam-juice.
to resist seeing themselves as people of color who are oppressed.
I find the desire to be a victim disturbing.
Victimhood as moral high ground started in earnest many decades ago. I can still remember episodes of Phil Donahue where guests were arguing over who was a bigger victim, and therefore “correct”.
It’s a moral failing and leads to cultural rot.
Ugh. That’s about when I made a stab at a college education. It really ramped up in the early 90’s when Wifey#1 was getting her degree. The vitriol even then was remarkable. Those crazy Profs are the ones that us blue-collar guys paid for everyone to enjoy.
I find the desire for free money and status the most pedestrian trait of most humans. “Little Robin Red-Breast”.
As a white teacher who teaches Koreans in Korea…I’m quite happy with how I’m treated. Most of that is being ignored because of linguistic differences, though my Korean is good enough to read and to get around and order food and get cabs to take me where I want and other general stuff. No conversational ability though.
But no one treats me differently. I’m considered charming because I’m a weiguk (foreigner).
Koreans love American/Western stuff and we get treated well and are never treated badly, though when I first got here in 2009 blacks were much more rare than they are now. That indeed has changed over the past decade.
It’s hard to explain. Straffinrun, Sensei are almost certainly familiar with how that works in Japan better than me, though I imagine that it’s incredibly similar.
The fuck is wrong with people? America is a melting pot. Sometimes shit has melted in the wrong way and it needed to be corrected. Now the same people who hated that shit, with good cause, have recreated it. Assholes.
I assume this was covered but
Significant paper on the cost of misinformation. Basically, one standard deviation more viewership of Sean Hannity (denied seriousness of COVID) versus Tucker Carlson (took the pandemic seriously) is associated with in 20% more deaths at the county-level.
https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1252352368076718080
What I found particularly amusing is this followup tweet
It’s a good paper; they took pains to control for many alternative explanations and this really looks like a causal effect of misinformation to deaths. (Stuff your correlation isn’t causation one-liners: it’s a stupid line and researchers aren’t idiots and have taken stats 101).
If one thing was clear the last few year is that socials “science” research is full of shit and very biased.
From the paper
Thus, to identify our effect of interest,we employ an instrumental variable approach that shifts relative viewership of the two shows, yet is plausiblyorthogonal to local preferences for the two shows and to any other county-level characteristics that mightaffect the virus’ spread. In particular, we predict this difference in viewership using the product of i) thepredicted fraction of TVs on during the start time ofHannity(leaving out Fox News) and ii) the localmarket share of Fox News from 2018, leaving outHannityandTucker Carlson Tonight. To generate cleanervariation in the first term of the interaction, we exploit cross-county variation in local sunset times, whichpredicts the likelihood that people turn their TV on at different points in the evening. The idea is simple:if people like to turn on their TVs to watchsomethingwhenHannityhappens to be on instead ofTuckerCarlson Tonight, the likelihood that viewers are shifted to watch Hannity is disproportionately large in areaswhere Fox News is popular in general. We show that, conditional on a minimal set of controls, the interactionterm is uncorrelated with any among a larger number of variables that might independently affect the localspread of the coronavirus. We then show it strongly predicts viewership in the hypothesized direction. Usingthis instrument, we confirm the OLS findings that greater exposure toHannityrelative toTucker CarlsonTonightleads to a greater number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Our results indicate that a one standarddeviation increase in relative viewership of Hannity relative to Carlson is associated with approximately 30percent more COVID-19 cases on March 14, and 21 percent more COVID-19 deaths on March 28.
I didn’t realize New Yorkers were so into Fox News.
Women like to “hate-watch” shows.
Fake news. I need proof anyone actually watched hannity.
“Stuff your correlation isn’t causation one-liners: it’s a stupid line”
You can’t make me question my predetermined conclusions you science denying Nazi haters!
“and researchers aren’t idiots and have taken stats 101”
Assumes facts not in evidence BIG TIME.
This.
/guy who broke the curve so thoroughly on “stats 101” (was a 300 level class in poli Sci) that he got an on the spot grad offer
Seriously though, if that class was all the statistical training social scientists receive
.. Woof! It was a survey class, at best, and even the grad school bound students were struggling big time before we shifted over to playing “find the p” in SPSS.
There’s just one small problem with all of this. And that is that, practically speaking, nobody is watching either Tucker or Hannity (or Wolf or Anderson or Maddow, etc.). The relative difference in their viewership numbers vastly overstates their absolute viewership. It is hard to believe that the 500 people watching Hannity in a county of 50,000 is the dominant causative factor in the actions of the population at large and in the actions of disease itself that, as far as I know, doesn’t watch any television at all.
?
What if the Lockdown Was All a Big Mistake?
– Dr. Ron Paul
FIFY
Don’t worry. We’ll get the lockdown right next flu season.
Good morning, Glibs time, Banjos. Glad for you it’s a beautiful mornin’ ahhh I think I’ll go outside a while An jus’ smile Just take in some clean fresh air boy
Mornin’
Random thought:
So we’re past the point where anyone reasonably thinks that this debt will ever be paid; it’s all just meaningless numbers being thrown around. What if, as has been suggested in various corners of the internet, the FedGov plans on canceling its debt to China as “punishment” for Kung Flu? What would be the fallout? Would it even make a difference?
It would completely destabilize the currency markets and drive Treasury interest rates higher.
Nothing good would come of it.
Yep, and guess who will have the world’s reserve currency.
Nerf, I agree with both of your statements, but might still argue that they won’t keep it from happening.
All of the possible courses of action now are “nothing good”, so this might be judged less bad than others.
I wouldn’t bet on it, but I don’t think it’s outside of the realms of possibility.
We owe China about 1.1 trillion so, I don’t know, would that make a meaningful difference?
“Officers at the Jonesboro Police department went through Mayven Doll’s entire Pornhub channel before arresting her and her husband”
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/amateur-porn-star-mayven-doll-21905599
Imma leave it to the Glibertariat to come up with something clever about that headline, right now I’m laughing too hard.
They wanted a rock solid case before entering it into the courts.
Police were just acting on a tip
Northeast Arkansas makes the news for something not involving a tornado. Now that’s big local news.
They didn’t have any recent porn “star” news they could run?
“news”
I would try something clever about their legal situation, but IANAL.
Bravo.
*widens gaze*
*applause*
This will probably be a financial windfall for her. Just ask Melissa Harrington, aka Midwest Melissa.
The cops in Omaha, NE discovered that some pics on her web site showed her naked in public bars and charged her with indecent exposure. Traffic to her site exploded and she made bank.
“Jonesboro Police plunge Mayven Doll’s dark depths.”
Our darkest hour
When the virus came here, it found a country with serious underlying conditions, and it exploited them ruthlessly. Chronic ills—a corrupt political class, a sclerotic bureaucracy, a heartless economy, a divided and distracted public—had gone untreated for years. We had learned to live, uncomfortably, with the symptoms. It took the scale and intimacy of a pandemic to expose their severity—to shock Americans with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category.
The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective. The United States reacted instead like Pakistan or Belarus—like a country with shoddy infrastructure and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering. The administration squandered two irretrievable months to prepare. From the president came willful blindness, scapegoating, boasts, and lies. From his mouthpieces, conspiracy theories and miracle cures. A few senators and corporate executives acted quickly—not to prevent the coming disaster, but to profit from it. When a government doctor tried to warn the public of the danger, the White House took the mic and politicized the message.
Every morning in the endless month of March, Americans woke up to find themselves citizens of a failed state. With no national plan—no coherent instructions at all—families, schools, and offices were left to decide on their own whether to shut down and take shelter. When test kits, masks, gowns, and ventilators were found to be in desperately short supply, governors pleaded for them from the White House, which stalled, then called on private enterprise, which couldn’t deliver. States and cities were forced into bidding wars that left them prey to price gouging and corporate profiteering. Civilians took out their sewing machines to try to keep ill-equipped hospital workers healthy and their patients alive. Russia, Taiwan, and the United Nations sent humanitarian aid to the world’s richest power—a beggar nation in utter chaos.
——-
Trump acquired a federal government crippled by years of right-wing ideological assault, politicization by both parties, and steady defunding. He set about finishing off the job and destroying the professional civil service. He drove out some of the most talented and experienced career officials, left essential positions unfilled, and installed loyalists as commissars over the cowed survivors, with one purpose: to serve his own interests. His major legislative accomplishment, one of the largest tax cuts in history, sent hundreds of billions of dollars to corporations and the rich. The beneficiaries flocked to patronize his resorts and line his reelection pockets. If lying was his means for using power, corruption was his end.
This was the American landscape that lay open to the virus: in prosperous cities, a class of globally connected desk workers dependent on a class of precarious and invisible service workers; in the countryside, decaying communities in revolt against the modern world; on social media, mutual hatred and endless vituperation among different camps; in the economy, even with full employment, a large and growing gap between triumphant capital and beleaguered labor; in Washington, an empty government led by a con man and his intellectually bankrupt party; around the country, a mood of cynical exhaustion, with no vision of a shared identity or future.
If Trump did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him. He’s like the monster from an old science fiction movie. He is the brooding, omnipotent insatiably lustful madman in their apocalypse porn blockbuster, always tying naked, squirming, panting, shamefully aroused
Nell FenwickAmerica to the gleaming cold railroad tracks.The Cartoon Villain who destroyed the world.
Yes, it’s clearly Trump’s fault that people with shitty lifestyles got fat and sick which made them more vulnerable to this disease. The man has god-like powers.
Trump said it was okay to eat two scoops of ice cream so I started eating two pints a night! How could the president do this to me?
Oh my God.
The crisis demanded a response that was swift, rational, and collective
Fuck you, technocratic totalitarian asshole!
This time, getting two out of three sucked. Bigly.
Yup. i had the same thought. Made me think of Hayeks “Individualism: True and False”. Fuck off indeed.
George Packer, the man who somehow is unable to put together the shittiness of his kids’ public schools with the spectacular incompetence of government. Such a true intellectual.
Damn, I was betting Frum.
So, finally, an admission that eight years of Obama set up U.S.A. for catastrophic destruction.
Why is it that the division of the country is always only one faction’s fault? The singular mention of “politicization by both parties” aside, this reads like a left-wing diatribe about how the righties are ruining the country. Spoiler alert: the bureaucracy was “sclerotic” and the political class was “corrupt” and the economy “heartless” well before 2016.
There has been no “steady defunding” of anything (except, perhaps, for private charitable endeavors). The government at all levels throws ever more money year over year after failing projects and heartless economic actors and sclerotic bureaucracies and corrupt political endeavors. Indeed, a big part of the problem is that more money cannot solve our problems and we have decades of evidence to prove it. More money just hides the problems. In just about every case where the government is fiscally involved, you can find a country (sometimes dozens) in the world that spends less than we do and gets more for it.
Indeed, the central problem of our society may well be the pervasive belief that more government spending is the solution to every problem.
I must really like the formulation “Indeed, the ___ problem (is/may be)”
a heartless economy
*rolls eyes*
Repost.
Meanwhile, a Glib in lockdown.
I thought your rat story was outstanding and this one is good too. We’ve only met on Zoom but I’m sure we’d get along famously IRL even though one of us probably “smells funny”.
Thanks, Festus. Despite the silliness of it, it took a while to get all the 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and Brave New World references in it. Cheers.
It was ?.
Ha ha ha! Straff – that is really good. If only our Top Men could be so well dressed!
far less deadly than originally thought.
Get a load of this science denier. ///Ifreakinglovescience
The Senate spends more money we don’t have.
Was getting low on toilet paper. Luckily I have cash on hand.
RAAAAAAAAAAAAACIST!!!
https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/21/wuhan-doctors-wake-fighting-virus-find-skin-changed-colour-12586039/
It will go back to whatever they’re genetically predisposed to when their livers recover.
Theory: The Drs. died and have been replaced with African body doubles.
When the only sanitizer you have is betadine, things can get out of hand in a hurry.
The question we all want to ask: Did their dicks also get bigger?
…if you can get that rumor to start spreading…
And then they were barred from McDonalds.
Random thought to Q’s random though.
Assuming a reset of some sort was possible, e.g we do a onetime redistribution of wealth / cancellation of debt under a certain value etc, but afterwords US goes libertarian (assume it would stay that way at least 50 years for the sake of this pointless thought experiment) say no more bailouts or subsidies of any sort, less currency manipulation, almost no welfare, say US circa 1910 for a tax/regulation/gov size level. What magnitude, if any would you find acceptable for this -loses, shifting money/property from someone to another? What % of your net-worth would you give up right now for 50 years of libertarianism?.
Hmm I think I need to think this experiment through more and refine it a bit…
“What % of your net-worth would you give up right now for 50 years of libertarianism?”
I’m guaranteed this outcome? Fuck, I’d toss everything but the bare essentials.
1) Freedom is generally worth it
2) I’d make it back relatively quickly in that kind of env
3) It would make the world a better place
Yeah the insane amount of economic growth that would follow a restoration of liberty would more than make up for it.
$74,268.
That is the current per citizen share of the national debt.
Heck, multiply it be 3, I will cover my wife and kid too.
The horror… the horror.
How in the living fuck can you say that “16 school crossing guards” were fucking essential when the schools are closed?
Asking risks getting answer. Really want answer that, assuming rationalization posted somewhere?
Get Fucked Ancaps
https://twitter.com/LaterCapitalism/status/1238388399121235968
I need a ruling. Does this mean the left can actually meme?
On this day, 150 years ago, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was born.
Here are full-color images of Lenin before and during the period when he led the Russian Revolution.
https://twitter.com/redfishstream/status/1252893460899733505
*swoon*
He slouches more than my 10 year old after a big bowl of pasta.
It means the commies still believe that utopia can be achieved.
Hahaha. That’s pretty good.
Nothing loaded, what was it?
“Does this mean the left can actually meme?”
No, a meme has to be more concise and clever than that.
The origin, meaning, and funniness of the memes aside, I’m getting a little annoyed at the pervasiveness of images getting re-encoded as JPEG a dozen times to the point where they look like utter shit.
Good morning, Banjos!
Nice to see you!
I gotta tell you, though, seeing Congress whip out the giant credit card and reading the mortgage story and all the medical updates makes me a tad miffed.
Possibly more than a tad.
Gee, I wonder how we could help small businesses and homeowners? Free money, right?!?
Oh well, fuck it all. Thanks for the fun song! It pairs well with the gorgeous day that is on tap here!
Have a great day people!
Mornin’
morning Tundra
Hay Leap!
How are you and the family? How’s the experiment in homeschooling going?
Lol.
Hayday, it is!
HAY TUNDRA
Things are going really well, all things considered. A few rough patches here and there as all of us are dealing with different school/work things, but overall its not so bad. Parents have steady jobs and the kid’s school / teachers have been fantastic. We’ve been living ‘Old House in the Big Woods” life for a while – I read the news less and get on Glibs very rarely. But we’ve been doing lots of stuff together. We make soft pretzels every weekend (last week was a rye flour recipe everyone by the wife liked… so we won’t have that again). Playing more board games. I’m running both kids through a regular exercise routine because we are all a lot less active in normal activities.
How about you?
We’re well for the most part. There are days where having 4 adults under the same roof gets dicey, but overall we are doing well. Wife and I are both working, so that’s a major positive. I’ve noticed that my big customers are starting to skinny inventories a little, so I pray that this bullshit ends soon.
Daughter (HS senior) is probably having the toughest time of it. All those rites of passage are suddenly gone. Also, she normally makes type-A people look slothful, so this lack of activity isn’t good. Son is concerned that the internship he set up may not happen, so he’s pondering moving back to CO earlier than planned and working there. We’ll see!
I’m ready for this lockdown to end. When Governor Shithead lets the restaurants open, you and I are gonna hit that Mexican place you keep telling my about. I’m buying.
All the best to you and the fam. Come around more!
Good to see you Brother Leap!
LONE BILLION LITRES OF WINE AT RISK IN EUROPE, MEP SAYS
https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2020/04/one-billion-litres-of-wine-at-risk-in-europe-mep-says/
The french farmers are protesting Spanish imports again?
Like oil not enough storage
Did the Winos run out of money? I thought their gullets were bottomless.
I volunteer to help! SEND WINEZ PLZ!
Careful!
3 million Americans are not paying their mortgages right now
“Gov’t says I can’t work so I say I can’t pay.”
That sentiment stated, luckily I can still work (infrastructure development ftw). And student loan payments have been suspended until Oct. Those student loan payments add up to more than half again what my mortgage is. I should use this opportunity responsibly. Or buy a Waverunner.
Or, just keep making payments to get to debt-free faster.
Debt free will be a nice day. I’m over halfway there from my previous debt peak (when I started my mortgage)
Oh I am still paying the mortgage. Or did you mean the student loans? I didn’t try to pay it as it comes up as $0.00 due. Perhaps there is an option to pay anyway but I didn’t check.
There is an option to pay anyway. I haven’t been on public loans in a while, but I paid extra on them.
Today, in Silly Questions
If Half the Country’s COVID-19 Deaths Were in Montana, Would New York Shut Down?
According to The New York Times coronavirus report, as of Sunday, April 19, 2:48 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, there were 35,676 COVID-19 deaths in the United States. Of those deaths, 18,690 were in the New York metropolitan area.
(The New York metropolitan area is generally regarded as consisting of the five boroughs of New York City, the five New York State counties surrounding New York City–Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, and Orange–and the populous parts of New Jersey and Connecticut.)
That means that more than half (52%) of all deaths in America have occurred in the New York metropolitan area.
What makes this statistic particularly noteworthy is that the entire death toll for 41 of the other 47 states is 7,661. In other words, while New York has 52% of all COVID-19 deaths in America, 41 states put together have only 21% of the COVID-19 deaths. And all the 47 states other than New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have less than half (48%).
Now let us imagine that the reverse were true. Imagine that Georgia and North Carolina–two contiguous states that, like the New York metro area, have a combined total of 21 million people–had 18,690 COVID-19 deaths, while metro New York had 858 deaths (the number of deaths in North Carolina and Georgia combined).
Do you think the New York metro area would close its schools, stores, restaurants, and small businesses?
Would every citizen of the New York area, with the few exceptions of those engaged in absolutely necessary work, be locked in their homes for months?
Would New Yorkers accept the decimation of their economic and social lives because North Carolina and Georgia (or, even more absurdly, Colorado, Montana, or the rest of what most New Yorkers regard as “flyover” country) had 18,960 deaths, while they had a mere 858?
I think we all know the answer to that.
Who cares about the rubes?
Either way fox news is to blame
Maybe us rubes in them flyover states ought to think about that more than the New Yorkers. Maybe stop electing politicians that care more about bending the knee to the mania of the day than what makes sense for their people.
Of course they would. States with hardly any deaths have willingly closed up shop. I get the “oh let’s pile on NYC” thing but that is a stupid fucking question. C’mon Prager, you’re better than that.
In this current paic you are probably right.
Under normal outbreak conditions, not a chance.
I still don’t know why this is the time that opinioneers decided to engage in unison freakoutery.
Easy – to make this Trump’s Katrina. They even told us that’s what they were going for.
That doesn’t explain the shutdown all through Europe.
It wasn’t intended to.
Yeah, this is a panic. People are scared and politicians are craven.
Of course they would. New York City is Strong and its citizens would do whatever is necessary to support those ravaged areas of the country that they seldom visit or even think about. I mean look how the NY Yankees allow other American league teams to occasionally win the league championship.
They fearmonger despite the fact that multiple antibody studies coming out are showing that the virus was far more widespread and hence far less deadly than originally thought.
Four links in one coherent sentence. Banjos bringing the heat tonight/this morning.
Mornin’
SJWednesday: How To Defeat Your Own Argument In Two Easy Steps
I love the way it goes from “stop selling” to “Ima sell you some consultants” in two sentences.
Classic useless consultant tripe
I’d have some fun in one of his pitch sessions.
A consultant is someone you pay to tell you the time using your watch.
I like the way that “diversity and inclusion” flows into “privilege and equity”. It’s as clear an admission as I’ve seen that the whole “diversity” claptrap is just another branch of Marxism.
There have been a lot of comments on here about how all jobs are essential. This list is exhibit A of my rebuttal.
Your “DEI” nonsense is a luxury belief that will be one of the first things to go when actual hardship descends. It’s like the plastic bag bans; they obviously weren’t that important to begin with since even Cobalt Blue places like SF dumped them when it really mattered.
The Soviet Union held onto their nonsense thru quite a bit of hardship.
It all depends on who has the power when it all goes to shit.
Well, that and we’d be bombarded by articles from Slate and EF about how this was the best thing to ever happen to America and we can seize this crisis to finally smash the patriarchy.
https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1252596570308014080
That is a killer tweet. Scott Adams goes from genius to authoritarian prick with ease. It’s baffling.
I love Scott’s takes when I don’t hate them. When he talks privacy and guns it’s painful to listen to.
I actually thought he meant “they’d suck it up and keep going”.
And the idea of “male disposability. You don’t hear that from pundits too often.
I’ve it stated other ways.
If all the victims of the virus were in rural Appalachia or the deep south, it would barely make the evening news. Since NYC – the media center of the country – is hardest hit, it’s a national crisis.
If Half the Country’s COVID Deaths Were in Montana, Would New York Shut Down?
Absolutely disgraceful. Feeding junk food to already overweight and obese #NHS staff? I will forward this to CEO of
@NHSEngland
Simon Stevens personally and I can assure you he won’t be impressed especially as THESE foods a root cause of increased death rates from #COVID19
https://mobile.twitter.com/DrAseemMalhotra/status/1252861958652452864
Im with this guy
Dr. Malholtra must be wonderful to work with. Just accept the kind gesture and shut the fuck up.
Just one donut molecule kills!
It’s like nth-hand smoking and homeopathy.
An interesting segment on the Rubin Report on the virus, the shutdowns, and the reopenings with Marco Rubio (I know, I know):
https://youtu.be/rPXg525lgjs
Worth a watch of you have 24 or so minutes if only to get an idea of how a somewhat reasonable normie views what’s going on right now.
Leaders: your legacy isn’t built by quarterly earnings calls; it’s built by how you treated other humans during the life you lived. Be the leader who brings the conversation about privilege and equity to your team.
“We wear the chains we forged in life.”
Okay, Marley.
https://gearpatrol.com/2020/04/21/future-dusties-
bourbon-whiskey-increased-value-over-time/
6 Bourbons You Should Buy Before They Become Way More Expensive
I was pondering a bottle of wild turkey either 101 or rare breed
Goddamnit stupid phone
https://gearpatrol.com/2020/04/21/future-dusties-bourbon-whiskey-increased-value-over-time/
From the sidebar of that aritcle:
“We’re excited that our partnership which we began ten years ago has come to fruition,” stated Rabbi Sholem Fishbane, kashrus administrator Chicago Rabbinical Council. “Our members have shown great interest in the prospect of being able to enjoy a Kosher whiskey.
I like Wild Turkey 101.
I know precisely 0 about the state Unemployment system. I’ve literally never used it in my life.
But my 17yo got officially laid off from her part-time seamstress job. Her employer “filed” for her and the other girls, whatever that means, and evidently she’d made enough to “qualify”. So this debit card arrived in the mail, and apparently it’s going to get cash added to it – and not a small amount – through like the end of July. Like hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Surely there’s some logical cutoff, but I haven’t figured it out yet. I’m flabbergasted to be a household now that’s getting money from the state. My initial gut reaction is to think of it as a tax refund, since I’ve paid and paid and paid for years.
Just had to rant here for a bit.
The unemployment benefits are currently so high that it is more profitable for a large number of “workers” to not work.
I have said many times here that the rational actor takes the money and does not work (or works under the table).
That said, when government is the direct cause of your livelihood being snatched out of your hands (thus, food out of your mouth), they can fucking well pay for it.
I have said many times here that the rational actor takes the money and
does not work (orworks under the table).Yep, there is an entire sub-economy in my area devoted to this. Some employers known for paying cash under the table 11 months of the year and doing 1 month of W2 paychecks so the employees can still qualify for EIC.
Straff, I will read your story today. I was too tired last night to appreciate it.
But my 17yo got officially laid off from her part-time seamstress job – your kid works in a sweatshop? Jeez are you that poor or is gruel really pricy in the US of A?
It was an Artisinal sweatshop.
Well it’s the back room of a laundromat in South Georgia, so in one sense, yes. A local mom employs a bunch of the more talented homeschooled high-school girls to do alterations. They all make pretty good money, and have all figured out that this is a skill in their toolbox that they can trade for cash for the rest of their lives, while hanging out with their friends, too.
What part of south Georgia? My grandma’s family is from there – a bunch of them still live in Coffee County and in Lyons (near Vidalia).
For some reason I am reminded of the line in “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” what part of gerogia are you, South Central?
I don’t know why, one o them random things I suppose
Well, I’m sorta cheating on that – I’m using the world’s definition of South Georgia (outside of and South of Atlanta) not the real definition (below the fall line). So I’m not presently in that part of the state. But home is. Without being too specific, I’ll say that my home country is in the “legal” area for growing with a Vidalia trademark.
homeschooled high-school girls this sounds like an oxymoron
I just helped my wife file for the first time. I have zero heartburn over it because
1) in a just society, she’d have had extra money in her pockets that are now being diverted to this program; and
2) except for sovereign immunity and general injustice, she would be able to sue the state for her lost income since they shut her studio down.
I’m not gonna lose a wink of sleep over taking unemployment.
My wife’s job got shut down by state order, so she went back to working retail at her old job which is classified essential.
They are having trouble filling shifts because all the part time workers who got laid off are getting 600 bucks a week to do nothing.
I don’t want to throw around words like Weimar, but seriously WTF.
Talked to a guy I work with last week. His stepdaughter got laid off from her waitress job. She will be making way more on unemployment than when she worked.
The girlfriend is still waiting for her application to get processed.
My son is furloughed from the Levi’s store and can collect unemployment. He’s not going to.
Well, XX is still at Walmart full time and they’re still hiring. She’s at $12/hour now.
Mr. Mojeaux’s dudebropal is a chemist with his own company making…stuff. Chemical stuff, I presume. Anyway, he turned their shop over to hand sanitizer weeks ago is and is making serious bank–and that’s with him being careful not to raise his wholesale price too much. He’s a good guy and doesn’t think it’s “fair” to charge more. Me, I raised an eyebrow at his price sensitivity, but lately I have been inundated with people who want a “discount” (okay, 2 people in 5 days) off my regular prices.
I told one “no” as gently as I could. The other I accepted his offer but told him it would be a very long timeline. He wrote back to say, “No, I need it quicker than that.” Dude, find somebody else. I cut 2/3 off your bill in exchange for a long timeline, but apparently you want good, fast, AND cheap. “I think it would be best if you found someone less expensive.” Translation: Fuck you, pay me.
Okay, I keep NOT hitting reply and using the bottom comment box to comment, but it keeps attaching the comment to some other comment. How do I get this to stop happening? I’m being very careful not to Gilmore and it’s Gilmore’ing me anyway.
And it’s attaching to the Same. Fucking. Comment.
I’ve found that if you do the “post, cancel, refresh” routine, then any new threads you try to start will be posted as a reply to the last comment you made. So in order to get rid of it you have to leave the page, and then come back for it to clear that cache.
Strangely it doesn’t stop you from making new replies to other comments.
That is exactly what I have been doing because I’ve been impatient about getting the 503/504 error.
I guess I’ll wait then.
By running multiple tabs, I’ve found that by the time my post reply tab is spinning and waiting for the 500 error, the comment has already registered, so I can freely close that tab and launch another.
I like
I wonder what percentage of people not paying their mortgages are veterans from the Great Recession who know that they can avoid foreclosure for months and months. And also that there is a good chance that the Feds will bail them out.
Who wants to be a sucker and pay their mortgage?
And seriously, if you have $0 coming in right now, the mortgage might be the smart thing to short. Like I said, I doubt you will be kicked out of your house, and that money is probably better to spend on food.
You won’t be kicked out. At least for awhile, anyway. Here in the glorious PRM, it takes about 12 months to boot someone, particularly if they know how to play the game (start with a short-sale, etc).
I’m concerned, too, about the rental owners. Preventing them from collecting or evicting, while they still have debt, is ugly.
2008 sucked. Get ready for a reprise!
My sister closed on a house just a couple weeks before the lock down. My dad and I were talking about whether the market will crash and she’ll lose a ton or whether there will be a shit ton of inflation and she’ll make out like a bandit.
Deflation in the near term, stagflation in the long term would be my forecast.
Where did she buy? Even in 2008, the homes in our are didn’t crater too badly and I suspect we’ll see the same this time.
New home construction is gonna be interesting. People are canceling their contracts and builders are gonna get stuck with houses again.
South Minneapolis (no way she’d risk her proggie cred by moving to a suburb). I think she overpaid, but what do I know?
The only positive I see is that it is near where she works.
Back then, even when I was laid off and then making peanuts as a security guard because it was the only job I could get for a while, we broke our asses to make the mortgage every month……only to find out that we were suckers for doing so. Why? Because we we applied for loan modification to try to reduce our payments, we were told that we didn’t qualify because we paid our mortgage every month, thus we obviously weren’t actually struggling.
If it happened again? Fuck yes I’ll stop paying the mortgage. Fool me once…..
Principles overboard!
Thanks for letting me pay your mortgage (indirectly) if that turns out to be the case.
Beto O’Rourke
@BetoORourke
So many of the doctors, nurses and cleaning staff in the hospitals that are literally saving this country — despite how badly bungled the President’s leadership has been — are immigrants. They came to this country for a better life and to make us a better America. And they have.
Beto O’Rourke
@BetoORourke
Who the fuck do you think is working on the farms and feed lots, in the packing houses and processing plants at a time where we are struggling to feed ourselves? Who is in the kitchen? Who is picking, preparing, serving the food we eat and cleaning up afterwards?
Did his servants get deported?
So Presidential
And these idiots ridicule Trump for his crudeness.
OK Bobby. Here’s a sombrero, go play in the backyard.
Have you ever wanted to buy somebody a toaster for their bathtub?
We watched that Prince tribute special last night. It was just kind of meh. But 9/10 of the commercials mentioned the China Virus. Companies are falling over themselves to look sensitive and caring, especially to the medical community. I wanted to take it easy and watch some TV and ended up more stressed out.
Agreed. Wife and I noted the same thing. I KNOW there’s a fucking crisis. That’s why I’m watching TV, to escape from unpleasant realities. Stop bombarding me with this shit. I don’t need any more ads featuring workers wearing masks, or with a bunch of clips of the company’s workers recording themselves in their homes.
How about those pleasant scenes of moms doing yoga with their kids at home, and people sharing a cup of coffee over Zoom? Because that’s exactly what it’s like.
iN tHiS tOgeThEr
Makes me want to throat punch.
Every Covid Ad is the Same.
DC police probe sexual assault allegation against Biden.
I woulda thunk Swiss would finger this teaser for a narrowed gaze.
Innuendo is fine….puns are NOT!
That whole article’s tone is, “We don’t understand why this is happening. Why is this happening? Why can’t you pay your mortgage?”
History is going to look at this as one of those “why did nobody see it coming” moments, despite the fact that most of us know that the collapse is imminent.
Common COVID-19 Talking Points And What They Actually Mean
Historians Now Believe American Revolution Never Would Have Occurred If Colonists Had Netflix
Future Shitlord Wants A Sammich
Brought to you by “Jerkmate. Never jerk off alone again.”
I thought you were joking and yet…
Stay home, stay safe, jerk off.
Words to live by.
I always assume someone at the NSA is with me.
That LTT is an excellent firearm, but the price was full MSRP pre-shutdown.
I wasn’t really researching them. That seller is one of my saved searches and it caught my eye. No more GB buying right now until some normalcy returns.
Blast from the past, guardian 2001
Zimbabwe’s president vowed yesterday to return the country’s crippled economy to a socialist command system, telling businesses opposed to the move to “pack up and go”.
Robert Mugabe said his government would strictly enforce the price freeze on basic foods imposed last week and threatened to seize any companies that shut down because the new prices made their production unprofitable.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/16/zimbabwe.andrewmeldrum
I wonder how that worked out for ’em
You obviously meant to say “Robert Mugabe, WHO Goodwill Ambassador…”
Indeed, the central problem of our society may well be the pervasive belief that more government spending is the solution to every problem.
Government money is just like magic pixie dust. You sprinkle it liberally on la crisis du jour, and PRESTO! your problems are solved.
(Sol-ved- two syllables, as Inspector Clouseau would pronounce it.)
One of the reasons I like Slate Star Codex, its author’s tilt to the left and self-admitted cowardice in the face of the social justice mob notwithstanding, is that unlike most of the rest of the “intellectuals”, he doesn’t fall back on the government money solves all problems crutch. There are real problems, many of them are structural, and the solution is NOT to throw more money at them. But goddamned if 3/4 of the idiots out there can accept that last part…
Well, I’m convinced.
“Americans should never have to choose between making their voices heard and keeping themselves and their families safe,” said Obama via a statement.
“We know that barriers to voting existed before this crisis, especially for young people and communities of color. Expanding access to vote-by-mail, online voter registration and early voting are critical steps for this moment— and they’re long overdue. There is nothing partisan about striving to live up to the promise of our country; making the democracy we all cherish more accessible; and protecting our neighbors, friends and loved ones as they participate in this cornerstone of American life.”
You guys should do another psa. Those seem to work well.
So he supports the protesters.
There are lots of things that would be nice if they never had to choose between. That doesn’t mean those things don’t happen.
Americans never had to chose between safety and liberty? What?
Jesus H Christ I hate that fucking guy
It’s the wookiee.
Fine. Then:
1. You must register to vote in person every year. You must present proof of identity and proof of residence. This can happen any time in the 12 months before the final election date.
2. All votes by mail must be sent certified mail from your address of record to the elections office of your jurisdiction. If you don’t have a permanent address or P.O. box in your name, then you have to vote in person.
3. Any ballots “found” without a demonstrable chain of custody from voter to elections office are null and void.
4. Ballots sent by mail are sent in double security envelopes. The inner envelope contains the anonymous ballot, the outer envelope contains a signed statement from the voter attesting that they and they alone filled out the ballot enclosed therein. One set of officials validates the signed statement and checks off the voter’s name on the roster then hands only the inner envelope to another set of officials who count the votes on the ballots.
5. If a ballot is received from a person who has, according to the roster, already voted, a fraud investigation begins immediately.
This would all be a lot easier without the secret ballot, but given the toxicity of our culture, maintaining the secret ballot is worth at least some risk to the integrity of the election. But the integrity of the election cannot take a back seat to all other concerns.
Presumably not in version of universal vote by mail preferred by she whose NPR interview sparked this discussion.
No doubt. The irony being that many places have even stricter rules for voting AND higher turnout.
There is no version of vote by mail that isn’t highly vulnerable to tampering. Mail in ballots are still “in the wild” and prone to ballot harvesting of one kind or another, even if they are mailed back. The certification and double envelopes do nothing for that.
Certified mail is still in the mail and can be intercepted and tampered with. The mail is a very weak chain of custody.
The certification and double envelopes do nothing to prevent interception and tampering, or just plain old “loss”.
Vote by mail should never be allowed, except for genuine absentee ballots picked up in person after showing ID. The same security flaws exist, but the volume susceptible to very weak ballot security would be much lower.
At the end of the day, you cannot guarantee against fraud while maintaining a secret ballot. The two are contradictory goals. The most you can achieve is to frustrate the would be defrauder as much as possible. Moreover, any system including in-person can be subverted by the officials running it. We must insist on as much integrity as we can afford, and no less.
I don’t think, however, that in-person voting is thoroughly advantaged over mail-in voting in this regard. Though, I like the idea of picking up ballots and envelopes in controlled fashion from the elections office.
I think we are in agreement. Vote by mail are far and away the most insecure way to vote. There’s no need for it, so why have it?
So that the unelectable can continue to fabricate enough ballots to retain their stranglehold.
The whole reason it exists in the first place.
Four antibody studies showing the virus far more spread AND first known death far earlier.
Edit fairy needs a : I think in there.
Banjos doesn’t need an edit fairy, Banjos is an edit fairy.
*refreshes for pic of Banjo in fairy costume*
You sure it wasn’t diabetes? 😉
I have no doubt if they keep looking they will find them in Dec. Then every death since Dec will be counted. They will get the numbers they want. What will be missing is the collapse of the healthcare system. Hard to explain that one.
Would not surprise me at all if they started to reclassify flu deaths as COVID. So a lot of people will have died of coronavirus, but look at the bright side – influenza has practically been eliminated!
They are already doing it. Flu deaths have crashed in a way that is historically . . . surprising.
As a white teacher who teaches Koreans in Korea…I’m quite happy with how I’m treated. Most of that is being ignored because of linguistic differences, though my Korean is good enough to read and to get around and order food and get cabs to take me where I want and other general stuff. No conversational ability though.
But no one treats me differently. I’m considered charming because I’m a weiguk (foreigner).
Koreans love American/Western stuff and we get treated well and are never treated badly, though when I first got here in 2009 blacks were much more rare than they are now. That indeed has changed over the past decade.
It’s hard to explain. Straffinrun, Sensei are almost certainly familiar with how that works in Japan better than me, though I imagine that it’s incredibly similar.
The fuck is wrong with people? America is a melting pot. Sometimes shit has melted in the wrong way and it needed to be corrected. Now the same people who hated that shit, with good cause, have recreated it. Assholes.
I’m considered charming because I’m a weiguk (foreigner).
I actually think this is far more common accross cultures than the “Fear of the foreign” that often gets played up. People are generally very curious about people who are different. Of course there is a faction here in the US that want’s to make innocent curiosity into racism. Generally i think people are open to “strange” and “foreign” people.
Immediate reaction is “I wonder what it’s like to have sex with him/her?”
Reminiscing about Thailand?
Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…
“The money is on the nightstand, thanks.” ?
As long as “the foreigner” doesn’t act like an obnoxious asshole.
And those people make headlines.
These people are completely ignored.
I think that volume has to do with it, too. A small pocket of Vietnamese immigrants is seen much more favorably than an entire quadrant of the city being populated by Central Americans.
People are very sensitive to being invaded/marginalized/overrun by an immigrating culture.
I also am charming!
And better than most, sadly, at being able to at least READ Korean. I get very upset with foreigners who don’t even TRY. YEESH.
I agree completely that ‘foreign’ and ‘different’ are inherently *sexy* traits. It’s been that way forever. Humans are humans, and we do indeed like different looking DNA. Every reason to desire such.
Takes a little longer to get to be close friends with the natives. It’s easy to be casual friends with them, though. If you’re an ass, they figure it out even if you aren’t a Taro.
You might not be surprised to hear that lots of people resist that notion.
https://mobile.twitter.com/niall_gooch/status/1252502382619103233
Confession Time ! I occasionally watch University Challenge on youtube.
It is, off course a major problem that not enough wymminz make it. In this year of all years.
BUTT you will say. It is mostly meritocratic.
NOT SO DAMN FAST, your friendly neighborhood feminist will inform your ignorant ass. Women often do no go because their appearance will be JUDGED on the INTERNET if they do. Fair enough.
SO FUCKING WHAT? You ask… Beats me. Not, to be fair to be sure, more comments are made on youtube about the aspect of the wimminz, most of them appreciative aka OBJECTIFYING. Plenty of comments are made obout the dudefolk, especially the goofy looking motherfuckers they got on University Challenge. But more about the women. But, overall, that is their fucking problem. ANd if it is disparate, so fucking what.
For one thing, many comments are from their sisterhood. Second, it is a fact than men make youtube comments on the appearance of women in youtubes.
Full disclosures: when there is an youtube with a pretty woman in it, it is one of the first things I notice. It does not mean it is the only or the main thing I notice. It does not mean that I don’t listen to what she is saying. It just means than my brain, as a reflex, goes hey she pretty. Now, I feel 0 need to comment upon the fact. Some men do. And while I often think in it unnecessary, meh really.
Which brings me to the point, or points of this longish comment. What is the issue and the solution? That all men change their behavior and stop any and all comments on the internet on the appearance of women? Why would they. If some women don’t like it, that is generally their problem. If people won’t comment, they still judge. You take part in a televised show, people will judge you on many things. If you can’t handle it, I am sorry but it is on you. That is part and parcel of the thing.
But my main point is that I don’t get this mentality. The general notion that if I don’t like something, whatever, I get to impose that on others. I cannot understand where this thinking comes from. Also tits over a c cup have no business on university challenge, and I only make thins comment because I assume no one will read this to the end.
Men, in general, are far more interested in trivia contests than women.
OH THE HUMANITY!!!!!!
The general notion that if I don’t like something, whatever, I get to impose that on others.
Yep. It’s the animating principle behind almost all SJW bullshit.
Did i miss a memo about this year?
“Also tits over a c cup have no business on university challenge”
And instantly this person destroy his credibility.
So yesterday we had a discussion about how Karens are going to be a big swing bloc in the election. It was generally agreed that Karens will break hard for Dems because Dems represent “safer at home/if it saves just one life/we CARE about you” whereas badorangeman (and by extension RepubliKKKanz) represent “we only care about money/we’d murder our own grandmothers to raise the stock market a quarter of a point”.
However, all of that is predicated on said Karen’s simp hubby still having his cushy WFH white collar job. Let’s say this drags on long enough that simpy gets shitcanned like the rest of the Deplorables. Now Karen’s brood, the only thing in life she truly cares about, is at risk. Does that change things?
Don’t Karens tend to swing back and forth anyway? I know in my ‘burb, the broads went for Repubs until this last time, where they elected a trust fund baby. Trump won here as well.
Maybe the bigger question is: was the suffragette movement a huge mistake?!?
*runs for cover*
“was the suffragette movement a huge mistake?!?”
The question that dare not speak its name… I’ve pondered the same thing and how it collides with various principles.
1) If we accept living in a representative Republic, what requirements are there for the franchise? Is universal suffrage fundamental?
2) Is it ethical to exclude a group from the franchise because of collective tendencies of that group and those tendencies being contrary to a particular goal?
The second part of question one is easy; universal suffrage is not fundamental. We already exclude certain groups (most notably felons). Question two is trickier. Collectivism is bullshit, however it would be foolish to ignore the reality that men and women *on average* are collectively different. There is a great amount of overlap in the distribution so NAWALT/NAMALT. However, again *on average* the things that women are hardwired to value typically lead to anti-liberty policy. If we use that as a reason to exclude them, then where does it stop? Blacks widely support candidates who are anti-liberty, should we exclude them too? What about Jews or mainline Protestants?
I’d be ok with going back to the whole “you have to be a net producer to vote”. If that means a net tax contributor, or a property owner or any worker in the private sector, I don’t know. But I will admit that our electoral system is littered with economic moral hazards.
1. Yes
2. No
The obvious way to reconcile the problem is to say “the government is not absolute, the majority does not rule in all things, I don’t care what you voted for — that’s not within your authority.”
For some reason, too many people believe that there is leterally no aspect of existence that is not subject to rule by [insert preferred -cracy here]. If it were possible to get people believe that shuch a thing as a private life existed, we’d be better off, but history indicates that’s impossible.
Which is why the question of constitutionality is never addressed when pols are pushing their grandiose public policies when that is what should be the first question.
Every time I consider veering off from universal suffrage, I return to the notion that there is no one I trust to decide who gets to vote. Universal suffrage gives me a vote, no matter how insignificant or often overridden it is. Much like pining for a restoration of feudalism or slavery, the ones who want it always fancy themselves on the in-power side not the out-of-power side. Just because “white male property owners” would include me does not mean a) that is the system we would get or b) that non-whites, non-males, or even non-property owners are right to exclude. And hell, does having a mortgage exclude one from being a property owner? The bank owns the house until I pay it off…
“The bank owns the house until I pay it off…”
The state actually owns it. Try not paying your property taxes if you doubt.
Yes. And non-property owners pay property taxes indirectly. Thus the folly, I think, of going by “property ownership” as a means test.
^this
I may be OK with “net tax contributor”, though I have little idea how one figures that out in a manner that isn’t incredibly intrusive.
I do loathe property taxes for that very reason. I now own my car outright but if I hit a rough patch and can’t pay the property tax on said car…? I guess I never owned it in the first place then.
As long as we have a state, I think you have to make it universal.
Leave it to You People®, though, to take a throwaway line and run with it! It really is why I love (almost) all of you.
Now do drivers licenses for women….
‘tendency’ factor higher for unmarried females or all females?
the things that women are hardwired to value typically lead to anti-liberty policy
Such as trading finding a man to be a provider for using big daddy government as the provider, causing an ever-expanding state.
should we exclude them
I’d say you should be a net tax payer in order to get the vote.
Blacks widely support candidates who are anti-liberty
Wouldn’t matter if any group supported anti-liberty candidate if we stuck to the government’s founding charter. “You want what? Oh, well the government has no authority to do that.”
“I’d be ok with going back to the whole “you have to be a net producer to vote”. If that means a net tax contributor, or a property owner or any worker in the private sector, I don’t know. But I will admit that our electoral system is littered with economic moral hazards.”
The franchise, dating back to ancient Greece, was not a right, it was a privilege and it was purchased with blood. First it was the landed, who mustered in the phalanx and fought shoulder to shoulder with their neighbors, in panopoly that they purchased and maintained. Then the landless poor of Athens purchased the franchise at Salamis, when they rowed and rammed and swarmed across the sides of the triremes to feed the fish of the Aegean with the enemies of the polis. They demanded the vote, because they had saved their nation from conquest and slavery. In our own country, black men did not whine and plead for the vote, they bled for it. 178,000 black men served in the Union Army. They purchased the vote in with hot lead and cold steel, at Petersburg and Fort Wagner. America was still deeply racist after the Civil War, but they held true to the ancient principles of classical republicanism: the franchise is extended to those who place their bodies between home and war’s desolation. Even today, every man is required to register for the Selective Service. Women are not.
I think that if I was setting up Libertarian Space Colony, the franchise would absolutely be restricted to those who both choose to fight, and who produce wealth in a free market. I think every other democratic system inevitably devolves into “bribing the public with the public’s money.” If you’re not willing to die in defense of the polis, and if you’re not willing to work hard and produce wealth to go into the treasury, then you’re not fit to wield power.
Bribing the public with their own money is a bad enough thing, but where we really start getting into trouble is bribing some of the public with other people’s money.
If Kipling isn’t the wisest writer of the modern era, I don’t know who is.
Chesterton seems to have gotten a few good observations in there, too. I like Chesterton’s Fence, though I think one needs to have a corollary to it along the lines of “that there is a reason for a policy is not, in and of itself, sufficient to overcome any attempt at reform”.
+1 Starship Troopers.
“Once the public treasury becomes the public trough…”
Is universal suffrage fundamental?
Nope. Every “democracy” has limited suffrage, generally to adult citizens. I see no principled reason why no further limits are unacceptable. Specific limits may be, of course.
I return to the notion that there is no one I trust to decide who gets to vote.
Yup. That’s the problem.
No one posting that ‘the vote’ should be limited to those who agree with whoever is posting the glib answer?
I’m not going to pretend that there will be votes during my administration, My title is God-Emperor.
If you are worshiped, then should be able to fund government with voluntary tithing. Donation not taxation.
Heresey and apostacy are severe offenses, and we will have cause to look closely at those whose faith appears to be lacking.
If you can’t force-choke then you can just suck it.
Karen doesn’t change her mind easily. Hubby would still have a job if BadOrangeMan had acted earlier and more forcefully.
Instead, I predict an uptick in the divorce rate.
“However, all of that is predicated on said Karen’s simp hubby still having his cushy WFH white collar job. Let’s say this drags on long enough that simpy gets shitcanned like the rest of the Deplorables. Now Karen’s brood, the only thing in life she truly cares about, is at risk. Does that change things?”
Absolutely. I work in a “soft” kind of business. All the women who work on this hall are married to men who work in finance, or engineering, or as doctors. One is married to a federal bureaucrat. They are all STAY HOME STAY SAFE because their husbands fat checks are still rolling in. They work for basically fun money, their husbands work goes to bills and investments.
Sorry to be an ass as I was responding to a long COVID topic on FB. Idiot responded with:
“I’m agreeing with it because I couldn’t breathe or do anything for a week and a half and it took me a month to be able to fully recover and not need my inhaler after having the symptoms! My heart wasn’t getting enough oxygen, I could barely talk, I couldn’t even cook my kid food without getting light headed and feeling faint. I couldn’t shower I had to sit in a tub. It’s legit torture for you.I texted my mom crying telling her I didn’t want to die and where I wanted my kids to go and they are my beneficiary on all my bank accounts. So until you or someone you know is laying in bed helpless praying every second just to be able to breathe normally and to not die. Stop commenting. You sound really dumb wanting to be injected with the virus”
ME: “Well. I got hit my a car six months ago and was in a coma six for 6 weeks before they put me into a medical coma…and had brain surgery and constantly have auditory hallucinations that baffle my brain and my memory.
It affects my everyday life and I continue to work and bust my ass off while dealing with all of this brain damage that I suffer through chronically.
Thank you for asking, though. I don’t bring it up as I don’t think it’s terribly important for others to deal with. My girlfriend and my brother were the ones who were at the hospital to help me deal with my inability to go to the bathroom or walk or break or stop my seizures which I still have to fight and deal with.
Thanks for your concern.
“So until you or someone you know is laying in bed helpless praying every second just to be able to breathe normally and to not die.”
So still ongoing for me? Thanks. Yeah, that doesn’t work on me because I still live through it. Thanks! It is a part of my life. It’s less fun than one would imagine. But I still am proud of my ability, to the best of it, to maintain as best I can, myself and my ability to work and think. Seizures are goddamn fun, aren’t they?!”
I bet that will go over well.
Did you send the pic of your skull pieces?
Bah. FB ‘friends’ aren’t.
Good rant!
If I may make my standard joke, if you were living in civilized Sweden you would go on permanent disability and not be forced to work.
You should have pointed out that your hospitalization does not give you the right to demand that cars be banned, because nobody should have to go through that.
US records lowest coronavirus related deaths in 2 weeks
Processes are random; this is what quality people call an excursion; in old TV language: do not adjust your set. If this were a control chart, we wouldn’t stop or tune our machinery because we suspect it’s just doing what it does. Think of it this way: as long as your car stays in the lane, there’s no need to jerk the wheel to keep it perfectly centered. But, as far as this system (virus data, make of it what you will) goes, it’s still very much in its lane.
Those same data are graphed out quite nicely here. For the question at hand, I’d recommend looking at the cases-by-country presentation. Selecting first USA and then selecting NewDeaths/Day faithfully shows the 1433 from yesterday; it also shows data consistent with damping to the mean on the 21st: 2751. A useful way to read such trending is to assess moving averages, and the virus is no exception; select NewDeaths1WkAvg and you’ll see a more meaningful representation: a possible plateau, also known as an all-time high.
I’m not arguing any particular political narrative; I’m just trying to help people see the random walk of processes in almost everything in their lives and to assess it rationally.
Good points
I do wish there were plots that normalized for population density by county or maybe zip code. I think that’d be really interesting…
there’s an unhelpful link at the bottom to zip code: meager stuff
Apparently Resistance Isn’t Cool Anymore
Old: Resistance is cool and patriotic.
New: Resistance is ignorant and deadly.
Remember when resisting an authoritarian megalomaniac who through his elected office would infringe on your constitutionally protected rights and freedoms was really cool and celebrated by pop culture and the mainstream, legacy media? Yeah, that’s not a thing anymore. …
So protesting and resisting oppressive government was the really cool thing to do, right? In fact, if you don’t resist the tyranny, you’re not a real patriot, we’ve been told.
That is until patriots took to the streets this weekend to protest the arbitrary, illogical and heavy-handed restrictions imposed on their basic freedoms by certain governors using the coronavirus pandemic to justify their egregious use of executive power. That kind of resistance is downright unlawful and is going to kill people.
Let’s be clear, Americans are not protesting because they’ve been directed to stay home and only travel for “essential” reasons. They are not protesting because they’ve been forced into dire economic conditions due to the social distancing protocols. They are not protesting because they’re “greedy” and prioritize their paycheck over human life, as many critics have said.
Kind of like how all those “Dissent Is the Highest Form of Patriotism” bumper stickers vanished between 2008-2016
Proggie ex-SIL had one of these on her car during the Bush years
Then it disappeared. I asked why, since the wars were still going on (plus some fun new ones!).
Never got an answer (unless a scowl counts).
Obama didn’t start any wars. He just engaged in “kinetic military actions” and “smart diplomacy”. People from the affected regions were not available for comment.
Ah yes, “smart” diplomacy. I always got a laugh out of the leftist mania for affixing “smart” to their preferred policies – smart diplomacy, smart power, smart growth, etc.
If you have to tell someone that you’re smart, likeable, or in charge – you aren’t.
Exactly.
“kinetic military actions”
I think I saw that on PornHub…
All it takes is a good thrust to get adequate penetration into the enemy line.
(unless a scowl counts
Or dismissal. I think many actually didn’t/don’t know about it. For leftists, being anti-war only came back into vogue in January 2017.
NPR had a segment this morning about how the re-opening the state protests were tiny and insignificant, but Fox News was overhyping them to make them seem like something worth reporting and that was going to make the ‘vid kill everyone and they need to be shut down before we all die.
Self-described “ecosocialist” is VERY excited about economic misery.
Sick.
Replies are not in his favor
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis Announces Plan to Partially Reopen State
I did not see this coming.
I wish our ridiculous fuckhead would follow suit.
Even Cuomo is talking about re-opening upstate. Heck, Saratoga and Schenectady counties can even have their hospitals perform (some) elective surgieries! But only those two counties. Albany is still closed.
They must have decided that the pain isn’t going to stick to Trump.
Cuomo strikes me more as an older-school late-Kennedy liberal than as a true believer a la DeBlasio.
Yes but as the last couple years have proved he will go all-in on Green New Deal claptrap if he thinks it serves his electoral interests.
IOW he has no principles.
Cuomo clearly wants to reopen, but he also knows he will have massive union problems (among many other issues) as co-morbidity among those groups is high.
Only a complete hack would not want to open. Even a piece of lint can understand the trade-off isn’t worth it.
I’m sure it’s a complete coincidence that all of these things happened only after protests began. NPR assured me that the protests were insignificant, unpopular, and were just making things worse.
Based on your comment, an awful lot of people I’ve been interacting with over the past month are pieces of lint.
Yes, I was pleasantly surprised but I think he was getting a lot of push back from most of the state. I get to go back to work Monday with all kinds of restrictions and my workplace is still up in the air in the long run. If they don’t allow large gatherings for the foreseeable future we are toast. Such is the life of an unessential employee.
You’re essential to us. That should…um…count for something
HA! I know better than that.
I was legit shocked by that. Credit where credit is due; he did the right thing on this tiny little issue.
Oh it is not the right thing, it is just less wrong than keeping things shut down. His restrictions are much tighter than the citizen parole plan the Trump admin released.
AZ’s ridiculous fuckhead is dithering. What a weak man he turned out to be. Even though the peak of hospitalizations is very clearly in the rearview mirror, he can’t bring himself to rescind his ban on elective surgeries. He’s basically throwing gasoline on the burning village he is claiming to save.
Any coffee nerds here who can tell me how a v60 grind should be compared to what i got?
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hhZZSvYPsA_3OOfTFRUJKF420Ts2XLxU/view?usp=drivesdk
Pour over?
That looks pretty good to me. I think medium is the norm with that.
thanks.
Experiment and see what you like.
I got hooked on fine powder as a kid and it’s still my preference. Tends to make a bit stronger brew (which isn’t necessarily good depending on the beans and roast used) and can be “chewy” if a metal mesh filter is used.
Franklin County rejects Governor Jay Inslee’s stay-at-home order
Heh – using those pesky laws against our overlords.
Wait….you mean some possible representation is occuring? Smite it sulfur and brimstone! /Karen
The good news is that cheap food isn’t all that important.
Karen will be delighted.
Pelosi was on a morning show (I didn’t watch, but tape rolled on Squawk) saying “the Russians are still at work trying to undermine our elections” so “need funding…to protect the integrity” plus allow “everyone to vote by mail”
Most odious woman alive.
I saw some Twiterrati speculating that the Russians were funding the end the lockdown protests. They just can’t let it go.
What? Hillary died and I missed the headlines?
Are you sure Hillary qualifies as a woman rather than some eldrich horror?
Fair point.
But couldn’t the same be said about Pelosi? She certainly looks undead.
“That is not dead which can forever lie. ”
A we know that both of those two can lie as well and as often as anyone.
“protect the integrity” plus allow “everyone to vote by mail”
Pick one, you odious shrew.
A rare wines and spirits auction currently going on in Genoa. There are some choice Macallans in there for anyone who fancies paying $3000+ commision and shipping for a bottle of scotch.
Check out Lot 73. Relative value until you add commission & shipping. And if you like reds
More evidence that income inequality is bullshit. USDA is increasing SNAP benefits by 40% – given the number below, what incentive is there to work?
Background:
Currently, a household with two adults, 3 children, and no income can receive the maximum benefit of $768. However, due to reportable income and other factors, the average 5-person household receives significantly less, $528. These emergency benefits would provide the average 5-person household an additional $240 monthly in food purchasing power, bringing the average household up to the same benefit level as households already receiving the maximum.
I thought they already did that. Or at least the state SNAP program did here.
Next up, it’s no fair that those already receiving the maximum aren’t getting any additional money as food prices go higher.
Maybe the bigger question is: was the suffragette movement a huge mistake?!?
Election day conversation long ago:
Bartender: “No alcohol until the polls close.”
Me: “Seriously? They let women vote. Why not drunks?”
Bobby’s alright Bobby’s alright
He’s a natural born poet
He’s just outta sight.
Pro tip: if you get Romanian wine and come across Balla Geza Stonewine either Feteasca Neagra or Cabernet Franc, it needs to breathe more than you think. I opened a bottle like 36 hours ago and just now it has its full flavor.
I like to do that with pork chops. Just leave them on the counter.
Funny you say that, I came across a bottle of feteasca neagra months ago and based on the talk here I decided to pick it up. Popped it open and gave it about ten minutes, had a snort, and thought it tasted like battery acid. Kinda forgot about it for a day, came back to it, and it was a totally different flavor. A good one, I might add, but damned hard to find at the local stores here.
Get a decanter.
I have 2 already
At work thsi morning, in addition to handing out a mask, a meal coupon, and doing the temperature check, I was also given a bottle of hand sanitizer.
Made locally (ish)
By an artisinal distiller.
In a refillable bottle.
That has “non-sterile solution” written on the label for what must be regulatory reasons.
Even though it’s 80% alcohol.
And for some reason it has hydrogen peroxide in it.
I’d wager they have to get some sort of FDA* inspection/sign-off to claim a sterile solution.
*or other agency
they’ve drastically reduced oversight so long as you produce to a federal formula
I looked at a job yesterday that qualified that was 85% ethanol / 14% IPA
What does it taste like?
I haven’t tried it. It doesn’t say “denautred alcohol,” and all of the listed ingredients are edible, but I don’t trust whoever generated the label. However, I believe the GC-MS has some capactiy this afternoon.
They may have waived the denatured requirement. Otherwise the local distillery won’t be making anything drinkable for a long time.
The assholes at the FDA are sticking to the denaturing requirement. Many distilleries are ignoring it.
“We need Big Brother to beat this virus
Don’t let the civil liberties lobby blind us to the fact that greater state surveillance, including ID cards, is required”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/we-need-big-brother-to-beat-this-virus-5b0njl68r
Paywalled, but the headline is enough.
Hey I posted that yesterday.
I saw that headline yesterday and thought it was a parody.
Also, are you related with potatoe bolshevik?
I consider the USSR socialist, I do not consider Venezuela to be so. They have it I guess had different economy structures.
You guys don’t even know why the USSR failed, you don’t know anything about socialism. Also who said I wanted to be in charge?
https://twitter.com/BolshevikPotato/status/1252644365882671105
good thread on the socialism of venezuela. educate yourself count
Something about a road to hell and how it is paved…
including ID cards
So you’re down with voter ID laws?
I can just see the warning – for identification purposes, except voting.
Mortal Kombat is not just a good video game movie – it is a good movie, period.
Not only will I die on this hill, I will live here. I will raise my children here. I will grow old here and retire here and support local business here.
https://twitter.com/TheGingerarchy/status/1252751612617068545
gingers, man, go fig.
Did this troll even watch the movie? I could see someone treating it as a guilty pleasure, but it’s still objectively bad.
that is ginger prejudice
The first one was a decent video game movie. The sequel was just terrible.
Well, surprise, surprise, it looks like an autopsy has revealed a patient in the Bay Area died one month before the first recorded Wuflu death in the US. I’m sure this wasn’t the first death in this country. Which totally invalidates the lockdowns, but of course, we must persist with them because reasons. Science.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Santa-Clara-county-coronavirus-February-deaths-15217371.php
I don’t know that it invalidates the lockdowns per se. It does, however, point to them being instituted too late to be really effective.
That’s what I was referring to. The virus was running rampant in California by late December. So closing down on March 16th didn’t do anything to control spread.
It doesn’t do that either. The vast majority of the population still hasn’t been infected and remains susceptible. Utilitarian arguments against the lockdowns, except perhaps as icing on the cake, are flawed in that it accepts the premise. They’re still wrong even if the claims are correct.
There is no good empirical evidence that lockdowns work. Lockdowns implemented months after a contagious disease appears couldn’t be expected to do much other than causing widespread economic ruin.
And I would argue that general lockdowns are wrong regardless of their effectiveness.
The more people we found out had it without complications, the even less dangerous it is to those uninfected. It is already less dangerous than illnesses we basically ignore year over year.
You can sit there and make arguments based upon principles not followed by the public and be ignored, or look at the premise by which you are being dismissed and rebut that.
I don’t know that it invalidates the lockdowns per se.
The models that justified the lockdowns were built on the assumption that the first COVID infection in the US was the first confirmed positive COVID test in the US. From there, they built their curve showing peaks in late April.
Back the curve up a couple of months, and the peak was in February, before the lockdowns were put in place.
I would say it invalidates the lockdowns. Which can’t be justified at all if imposed on the backside of the curve, since they were put in place to flatten the curve. You can’t flatten a peak that has already happened.
I like my virus data like I like my gun data: just fuck off. If the governor can put you under house arrest for 99%, he can at 1%.
My position would be that everyone always has freedom of travel and association; individuals must assess the situation . . . . and pay the consequences such as they might be . . . . on their own.
I agree, but that argument is a guaranteed loser with 99% of the public. I agree with UnCiv – when the argument that they are making is obviously invalid on it face, point that out. Make an argument that they will reflexively reject, and they will reject everything you say, including that the argument they are making is invalid on its face.
no doubt; you are, of course, even more right that that:
thatevery Glib argument is a guaranteed loser with 99% of the publichttps://twitter.com/Bhold3531/status/1252966991813623808
The alternative is that we all die? This is why dealing with authoritarians like this is impossible. They don’t think, just say that the alternative is unthinkable so we Have to do it the way they want. It’s just an extension of the binary thinking of our politics.
Also “Guidelines are not being followed”. Yeah, because the people giving the guidelines don’t give a fuck about the people they are demanding follow them.
The executives of most states getting to declare themselves disaster-emperors is rather the bigger problem here. “Guidelines are not being followed” implies that it is the government alone, and not the people, who get to decide.
Yeah this whole “guidelines” thing irritates me. I have no issue with the bully pulpit, with an appeal to civic duty, all that stuff. Even from political leaders.
But they don’t get to hide behind “we are asking” and “guidelines” and “recommendations”. Either you are issuing legal orders, that have the force of law behind them and should be named as such, or you aren’t.
To my mind, an executive order does not get to have the force of law, even in an emergency. We have had plenty of time for the legislatures to convene and pass statutes.
VA legislature is meeting today. Of course, the proggie scum dominate it now, so they’ll just give Doctor Coonman, Doctor of Science Doctor his rubber stamp.
““Sweden has shut down the last of its Chinese state-sponsored teaching programmes as relations between the two countries deteriorate into hostility and mutual suspicion.
It is believed to be the first European state to close all its Confucius institutes and classrooms””
https://twitter.com/jessicadrun/status/1252594855861256225
“If anyone wants a good story no one is talking about, look into campus free speech issues with regard to Chinese Confucius Institutes in American colleges. Maybe cross reference the total lack of China criticisms in schools with such institutes.”
https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/1181933136676085762
Huh, William and Mary has one. My kids took a Chinese class on campus a few years back. Had no idea it was ChiCom sponsored/paid for.
My working assumption is that everything Chinese is ChiCom controlled, until proven otherwise.
Trump losing to Biden applying polls to electoral college.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/2020_elections_electoral_college_map.html
With all this nonsense going on, polls couldn’t be more useless right now. Not saying Trump won’t eventually lose to Senile Joe, but I think trying to prognosticate even two weeks into the future right now is pointless.
To me the big thing is the debates. There’s no way in hell the 2020 version of Joe Biden can go on a stage with Trump and emerge victorious. He can’t even do a 2 minute CNN video interview without rambling incoherently. The man is actually senile.
Maybe they’re gonna try to spin this lockdown out until November and run Uncle Joe as a front porch candidate?
In the unlikely event Joe is the nominee, there will be no debates.
I’m gonna go AKSUALLY here. No one is winning. To win you have to have 270. And that map just shows that the outcome isn’t decided yet.
At this same time in the last election, Hillary was up by 12-20% in all the polls.
Sure the guy had preexisting mental health problems, but this kind of stuff needs to be shoved in the faces of Karens and lockdownistas.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11449315/dad-coronavirus-lockdown/
There are tons of people with preexisting mental health problems, and I fully expect more more of those people to be pushed over the edge. We are constantly being bombarded with fear-inducing news, we’re facing serious economic uncertainty, and we are trapped in our houses. All the normal coping mechanisms such as going to the gym, hanging out with friends, going to the movies, and in some cases even going for a walk, have been taken away. How could that NOT cause widespread mental health issues?
Of course it will result in more suicides. It happened back in 2008 as well.
But who gives a fuck? It’s mostly white dudes after all.
As someone else pointed out, many will say: “Those people were already broken, and we can’t help them”, while still trying to pose as the comassionate ones who care about people over profits.
My good friends told me that suicides or domestic violence that results from house arrest are because those people are already broken. So the don’t count against the tally of all good things accomplished by the government.
My tally of good government things is still blank. When are they going to come up with one?
Your paycheck?
Most people who die from COVID are already broken too. But some broken people are more equal than others.
Now do “gun violence deaths”…
Friend of a friend on Facebook: “If you’re unstable enough to commit suicide over the loss of a job you’re unstable enough to commit suicide for many other reasons. “
So compassion. Many empathy.
Wow, that is some evil shit to say there.
Sure, unless that person is able to get the support he needs and eventually grows out of it and / or can find better ways to deal with his issues. Sounds like exercise was a release valve for him – but the state shut that down to show who is really in charge of our lives.
Don’t worry, Ezekiel, Biden’s Corona virus adviser says that we can… no we MUST all survive 18 more months of this, after which we can never return to normal. So, if you vote for Biden, this is what you are voting for. 18 more months of this and virtually no one will be employed outside of government employees, their ‘experts’ and their propaganda wing, the media. Mass starvation will have long since taken hold and society as a whole would be descended into chaos.
When these evil assholes started saying, years ago mind you, that Earth’s population should be reduced to 500 million, which amounts to 7 billion dead, no one took them seriously. We should take them seriously. We have to kill billions to stop this virus, and save the planet.
A couple weeks back I had an apartment manager go off the rails while I was at the building working. He was throwing stuff around his apartment, screaming all kinds of crazy stuff, and when I left had thrown a bunch of shoes and clothing out into the hallway as I could hear him ranting away inside his unit. The stress of this thing is bad enough for those who are mentally well balanced enough, if you already have mental health issues, these lockdowns are a form of torture.
One thing is that, unlike after 9/11, we’re all testy with each other. “We’re all in this together.” No, we aren’t. We are all alone.
My family has taken to venting with a collective round of profanity every time some useful idiots spews that nonsense on TV.
Because the left has, for the past 20 years, done their damndest to isolate their political enemies as bad people who deserve horrible things to happen to them. Why would I feel unified with people who despise me en masse?
Damn…
Lockdownistas I like
Deep State Flu. Even if the current one isn’t.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/11/24/cdc-inspection-findings-reveal-more-about-fort-detrick-research-suspension.html
This lady used to be in my congregation. I hate the shutdown, CommieCough, etc, but I also don’t like her and her contrived protests. She is not a sympathetic person but at least her kids weren’t hurt this time. https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/crime/meridian-woman-arrested-during-protest-after-refusing-to-leave-a-closed-playground/277-b5402046-8369-4cf3-b03d-35ff7a429263
I mean, Rosa Parks was a contrived protest too.
Why is it contrived? Seems that your opinion here is colored by personal animus, no?
I don’t deny my personal animus and my language was perhaps imprecise. Protest all you want, as is your right and it was not a contrived protest, but a contrived arrest. She basically asked to be arrested and then complains about it.
So the same thing Rosa Parks did. Broke the law, on purpose, with supporters recording it for posterity, with an organized plan to publicize it to sympathizers. Rosa Parks was a hardcore NAACP member, the daughter of civil rights activists, married to a civil rights activist. She wasn’t some innocent apolitical woman who blundered into history. She broke the law on purpose to call attention to injustice.
RE: ‘Missouri files a lawsuit’
Grandstanding or think found loophole in USC Title 28, §§ 1330, 1332, 1391(f), 1441(d), and/or 1602-1611?
No loophole -> judge tosses out
Prima facia accurate reporting on state of the betting polls
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/apr/17/bidens-2020-betting-odds-improve-harris-vp-favorit/
I don’t buy it – he doesn’t need her ‘help’ as a PoC and he carries CA regardless. And if she was going to be one heartbeat away from the presidency I’d fucking vote for Trump.
‘don’t buy’ which?
– Biden will pick Harris
– Today’s money favors Biden will pick Harris
It’s going to be Warren.
Regardless, if Biden wins, you can expect to be locked in your house for the next 18 months, minimum. It makes no difference, the choice of token vagina. Ezekiel Emanual is one of the most evil pieces of human dung to ever walk this planet.
Sure, pick the woman who he beat in her home state. Nuh-uh.
The VP pick has to deliver something that is otherwise doubtful. Whitmer would’ve been a believable choice until she self-destructed. Klobuchar helps him in the mid-west. Any plausible women in Florida for him to pick?
Whitmer would’ve been a believable choice until she self-destructed.
This pleasures me. I think she’s poison for this round, as I think she hurts the Dems in a swing state.
Klobuchar won’t take Biden’s place at the top of the ticket, but would be a tactically solid VP pick. The knock on her is that she won’t bring in the Bernie/AOC wing of the party, but they may address that with whoever they pick for the nominee.
Soon, Bernie will come out and appear in the public in a dress and say he’s transitioned already. And there you have your ticket. Nope, it will be Warren.
WHO votes WHERE
Harris and Warren aren’t from Kenosha: they don’t move the needle
Nope, it makes no difference. No one in flyover is going to be impressed. Of course, the dems can always hold out hope that the virus kills most of them rednecks. I do believe such sentiments have already been expressed by some of them on the Twatter.
one of us is projecting heavily
The question of who will be Biden’s running mate is purely academic. The question(s) should be (1) who will be the Dem nominee and (2) who will be his or her running mate?
The heroes in blue undoubtedly went home safely last night and, really, isn’t that what really matters?
What’s truly sad is a large number of people, maybe even a majority, would applaud this disgrace.
If this coronovirus were to marginalize the “Law and Order” republican wing, it might all be worth it….
The heroes in blue undoubtedly went home safely last night
Did they? No mask, no gloves, no social distancing. They broke every rule they were supposedly enforcing. They were enforcing the rules because not following the rules means you catch the Commie Cough and die.
Or maybe the cops thinks the rules are just so much horseshit and arrested her because it gives them a chubby. Love that somebody (who?) was videoing the whole thing.
arrested her because it gives them a chubby.
*dingdingding* Tell him what he’s won, Don Pardo!
I thought The Bee was supposed to be satire. There is no satire here.
Saying that just means that you want people to die.
Just got the news: 20% lay-offs coming by Friday.
Thanks COVID-19!
The Australian Stasi hard at work
She basically asked to be arrested and then complains about it.
Something something standing (in the judicial sense).
Sounds like civil disobedience to me.
Sounds like civil disobedience to me.
Dissent is
nottreason!I keep wondering why libertarians think its such a good idea for our economy to be dependent on Communist China for so many critical products and materials.
Do you have any specific libertarians in mind? Are you talking about the cocktail party crowd?
That ship sailed a LOOONNNNG time ago. About the time that unions, OSHA, and a ton of regulatory requirements made the cost for labor vastly more than what it is in a country that has 1.5bn people who work hard – and willingly – because the competition for jobs is fierce. The US will NEVER be able to compete with that and there’s no going back. China is an odd place. We should be leading from the front, where we have an advantage, and to the extent that Trump used tariffs to fight to protect US business IP he did the right thing. We should be engaged in negotiations to license tech and help the Chinese through their industrial revolution – there is massive opportunity there. But the idea that we’re going to somehow compete on the manufacturing side for cheap consumer goods is just nonsense. (That does NOT mean we should be sourcing priority nat’l security items through the Chinese if that isn’t already obvious).
The USA can replace a lot of that now because of automation. We aren’t going to see the old days anymore, where you have factories full of unskilled people. China can do it because they have a billion desperately poor people who will work for $1 a day in horrific toxic and dangerous working conditions.
But, what we can do with automation is almost limitless. You’re still going to create jobs, they’ll just be skilled jobs, because someone has to build, maintain, and program automation systems.
We can also move that unskilled labor to places more friendly to us, like India.
Unfortunately India has its own endemic problems. I’ve discussed doing business with friends who live there and grew up there, and they mostly dissuade me because of the ridiculous corruption and red tape.
“Speedy Trial” in India means you get to see a judge within a decade.
It’s all worth any trade-offs if washing machines cost less and I’m a free trader can be used…non-ironically.
I didn’t think Richard Nixon identified as a libertarian.
Less glibly, a policy of free trade is generally beneficial to all parties. The part where one side repeatedly cuts off their own nose to spite their face, while another side decides that communism is just a fancy synonym of mercantilism, is not so beneficial to all.