Some Covid-19 thoughts by captaincrunch

Quote:
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
So, do you agree that the US 'should' be deployed all over the planet for 'national' defense?

Not at all.

Just easy to sing the Canadian national anthem and shit on American foreign policy when you live in Canada and don't have a single worry in your head that you're going to get invaded by a foreign power even though you have near zero for a defense budget, is all.

It truly must be nice.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, April 6, 2020 6:05 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Who Will Bear the Costs of Coronavirus?

Posted on Monday, Apr 6, 2020 1:45AM by Thomas Wells

www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2020/04/who-will-bear-the-costs-of-c
oronavirus.html

Among other things Covid-19 is a moral crisis. It requires suspending the usual rules about who deserves what, firstly because it is impossible for many of us to pay what we owe in these conditions, and secondly because of the priority of the humanitarian duty to save as many lives as possible. Nevertheless we must not forget about justice. In particular we must make sure that the costs of this crisis are not born disproportionately by the poor, those least able to afford the burden but also least able to escape it.

An economy is a complex web made up of the promises we are continually making to each other. Those promises may not always be perfectly fair, but they are generally quite precise. They tell us what is expected from us and what we have the right to expect from others, from what time to take our kids to school to how many months of unemployment insurance we can count on if we lose our job. The trouble is that our ability to keep our promises depends on other people and organisations keeping their promises to us. If any particular link fails, it can be repaired, compensated, worked around, and so on. But if multiple links fail at the same time we are plunged into a moral crisis wherein our usual moral scripts cannot provide guidance. We need suddenly to look up from our tidy little life-worlds and think from the perspective of the whole (even global) society.

Many people, including leaders of government agencies and firms, have clearly struggled to get their heads around this breakdown of business-as-usual morality. They still see things in terms of what is fair or not under the old rules about what people deserve. Hence their slowness to recognise that gig workers need unemployment benefits even if they never paid the premiums, and that the uninsured need to know their medical care will be (almost) free. This is perhaps not so strange. As leaders well know, humans are very sensitive to promise-breaking and free-riding, and in normal times there is nothing more toxic to the functioning of any organisation or community. Fortunately most governments and even some businesses have recognised the need for a more humanitarian moral compass.

But capitalism has left us unused to thinking in simple human terms, about meeting people’s needs simply because their needs are great. It is not enough to bail out the companies for the sake of the economy if we lose the people the economy is supposed to support. There is a grave danger that without even thinking about it we will impose disproportionate and even unbearable costs upon the poor.

While the virus rages, the poor are the least able to protect themselves. They are less likely to be able to work from home; less able to access protective masks and gloves; less able to afford care if they fall ill with it. Moreover, the very measures we take to increase our safety make them disproportionately worse off. Shutting down the economy shuts them out of work, and hence out of food and shelter since they often lack the luxury of savings. Having to compete with hoarders leaves them with reduced or more expensive access to basic goods and hygiene products. This is not a state of affairs that can be sustained for the many months needed until the virus can be contained.

It is bad enough for the poor in rich world countries. In the densely populated urban slums of India or Sub-Saharan Africa the prospects for the poor are many times worse. Many poor countries spend a couple of dollars per year per person on public health and have effectively zero virus-testing and intensive-care capacity.

Moreover, the problems of the poor are not merely their problem. Containing the virus is a global collective good. If we force the poor to choose between going to work sick and staying home unpaid and hungry we should not be surprised that they cannot afford the sacrifice we are asking of them. Neglecting the poor undermines everything the terribly expensive economic shutdowns are supposed to achieve.

The poor deserve a new promise: that they will be no less protected than the rest of society against this virus and that they will not pay a greater price in the struggle to overcome it. Radical border-crossing measures are needed and quickly, probably including something like a global basic income as well as an enormous expansion of medical care and ambition.

Covid-19 is a crisis in another sense. It is a moment when we get to choose one path or another. We can choose to stick to our old habits of first deciding who deserves to be helped (people like us) and then thinking about what to do. That would leave the poor to carry an impossible burden. Or we can choose to start from an assessment of the needs that people all around the world have in this time and then think about how we can best meet them.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, April 6, 2020 10:43 AM

No. Now is not the time to even think about discussing border-crossing, unless we're talking about putting up more wall.

Article fail.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, April 6, 2020 10:52 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
No. Now is not the time to even think about discussing border-crossing, unless we're talking about putting up more wall.

Article fail.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

I assume you are offended by this quote, since it mentions border-crossing:

Quote:
Radical border-crossing measures are needed and quickly, probably including something like a global basic income as well as an enormous expansion of medical care and ambition. Covid-19 is a crisis in another sense. It is a moment when we get to choose one path or another.

The "border" is between the rich and the poor. But if you are fine with the way things are, so am I. I will keep my land, my business, my wealth all for myself and you can keep your poverty all for yourself. It is the way things have been for thousands of years. Why change just because of covid-19?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, April 6, 2020 11:48 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
No. Now is not the time to even think about discussing border-crossing, unless we're talking about putting up more wall.

Article fail.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
I assume you are offended by this quote, since it mentions border-crossing:
Quote:
Radical border-crossing measures are needed and quickly, probably including something like a global basic income as well as an enormous expansion of medical care and ambition. Covid-19 is a crisis in another sense. It is a moment when we get to choose one path or another.
The "border" is between the rich and the poor. But if you are fine with the way things are, so am I. I will keep my land, my business, my wealth all for myself and you can keep your poverty all for yourself. It is the way things have been for thousands of years. Why change just because of covid-19?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

I'm pointing out that there are a million and one other ways to phrase it.

When you use that term to something like this that isn't related to what the term actually means in the cultural vernacular, you are speaking to an audience that you're trying to sell ad revenue to, and you're not trying to appeal to a large audience and change minds.

Whether it was an intentional thing, or the author is just so pre-programmed with such phrases he learned in college makes no matter.

He is not going to change any minds using charged terms like that.

My charge is that the author never had any intention to.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, April 6, 2020 11:56 AM

Quote:
6IXSTRINGJACK:
How many aircraft carriers does Canada have again?

Easy to sit in judgement of the US when you can sit back and not worry about foreign powers messing with you because big brother is just a few clicks south of you.

Quote:
1KIKI:
So, do you agree that the US 'should' be deployed all over the planet for 'national' defense?

Quote:
6IXSTRINGJACK:
Not at all.

Just easy to sing the Canadian national anthem and shit on American foreign policy when you live in Canada and don't have a single worry in your head that you're going to get invaded by a foreign power even though you have near zero for a defense budget, is all.

It truly must be nice.

No witty retort, Kiki?

I mean, it really, truly must be nice to live in Canada and afford to have your government pouring all of that tax money into healthcare because your military budget couldn't even afford to buy a cup of Starbucks coffee everyday.

Truly, it must be really, really nice.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, April 6, 2020 1:26 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

It must be nice, indeed!

It's pretty easy to virtue-signal when most of your defense needs are covered by your neighbor to the south. (Altho, to be fair, Canada DOES have a military budget, it's about 0.5-0.8% of their gdp)

The same goes for the EU (NATO) which free-ride on the USA military budget. Also, Australia, Japan, etc.

But then, it WAS the USA politicians' decision to "defend our borders" in Serbia, Kuwait, Grenada, Ukraine, Australia, Vietnam, Nicaragua etc. And apparently with the blessing of the US population because every time I mention our wars in faraway places I get called a "Russian troll" or people wonder why I worry about "brown people" so much or I see knee-jerk support of our "deep state" which brings us these wars.

It is a SERIOUS flaw in the American political psyche to only think about "bread and butter" issues at home, without realizing how significantly an aggressive foreign policy limits our domestic issues.

USA military spending as a percent of gdp:

Has actually FALLEN a little, under Trump (data up to 2019) from 3.2% to 3.16%
Under Obama, was HIGHER (range 3.2%-4.7%) ... not because defense spending went higher but because gdp reduced.
Steadily dropped under Clinton (4.7% to 2.0%) the "peace dividend"
In 1962 was as high as 8.9%

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/military-spend
ing-defense-budget

Anyway, I thought it was interesting, there were no clear differences between Democrats and Republicans. High under Kennedy and Johnson (as low as 7.2%, as high as 9.1%), reduced under Nixon and Ford (starting at 8.3% and steadily dropping to 5.0%), somewhat raised under Carter (from 5.0% to 5.4%), significantly raised under "star wars" Reagan (as high as 6.3%) and then dropped under Clinton.
You know the rest.

It's not like Democrats were all peaceniks and Republicans were all warhawks.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

#STAYTHEFUCKHOME

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Monday, April 6, 2020 1:34 PM

Thank you Sigs, for not misinterpreting my point here.

I've always been against our military budget, our policing of the world, our imperialism, our interference, as well as ANY money and/or aid we give to any other country with either our tax dollars or firing up the printing press and destroying the value of the USD with it, dating back here to my original posts in the RWED under GWB.

But it NEEDS to be said that it's VERY easy to sit in a country outside of the US that is friendly with the US and judge our foreign policy when they get a free military ride out of us.

I'm glad you agree. It's bullshit. Both the fact that WE do it, and the fact that a bunch of whiny little bitches that don't live here complain about it and don't even consider the many possibilities of how different things like borders on the globe might look in a parallel universe where we didn't do it.

I'd reckon they wouldn't be huge fans of many of those alternatives.

What percentage of those parallel universes do you suppose they're sending their children to school to say the Chinese or the Russian or the German pledge of allegiance while gazing up at a much different looking flag with their hand over their hearts?

The one thing that I'm not at all concerned about right here right now is being invaded by a foreign power in the US. How quickly do you think all those virtue signalers would start balling their eyes out if we completely shut our borders, withdrew all troops, lined up our aircraft carriers and entire Naval fleet on our east and west coast, and stopped any and all foreign aid to them?

I think in 2020 the answer to that question is how fast would Xi take advantage of his new situation.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, April 6, 2020 1:50 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
How many aircraft carriers does Canada have again?

Easy to sit in judgement of the US when you can sit back and not worry about foreign powers messing with you because big brother is just a few clicks south of you.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Jack, I don't want to start an argument but I was talking about this WORLD WIDE HEALTH CRISIS, not military or national defense policies.

I think most of us in Canada know we don't have a large military budget and I am sure that some Canadians wished that we had a bigger one. But our economy and population will not necessarily support that. So we pick and choose where and how we get involved in other areas of the world.

And since we are still involved with "Commonwealth" then we are duty bound to help out Australia, UK and other Commonwealth nations if possible. Like WWI and WWII, which in both cases the US was late to the show.

So don't pitch a fit at me because Canada is handling this crisis better or so it seems than the US is.

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Monday, April 6, 2020 2:01 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
What percentage of those parallel universes do you suppose they're sending their children to school to say the Chinese or the Russian or the German pledge of allegiance while gazing up at a much different looking flag with their hand over their hearts?

Not very many.

SIX, since our military and deep state "interventions" clearly have not benefitted the average person in the USA, or protected our borders, you do have to wonder WHY we intervened. If you look into history, you'll see that (with the glaring exception of WWII, the Korean war, and Vietnam) our wars were primarily for the benefit of transnationals. From our "interventions" in Central America so United Fruit could continue to turn their land into giant banana planations ("banana republics") and our NYC banks could acquire their banking systems to our military base in Northern Australia ("Asia pivot" under Obama) our wars have been primarily for economic or financial reasons. Some of them were to protect "our" resources abroad, some were to protect "our" banking dominance, some were to protect "our" shipping lanes, and most of our Mideast wars were to protect our petrodollar.

Yanno, if you have to enforce your trade at the point of a gun, it's clearly not trade that the partner considers "fair".

Quote:
The one thing that I'm not at all concerned about right here right now is being invaded by a foreign power in the US. How quickly do you think all those virtue signalers would start balling their eyes out if we completely shut our borders, withdrew all troops, lined up our aircraft carriers and entire Naval fleet on our east and west coast, and stopped any and all foreign aid to them?

I think in 2020 the answer to that question is how fast would Xi take advantage of his new situation.

Probably quite quickly. Xi seems particularly sensitive to shipping thru the South China sea and around the Strait of Malacca/Singapore. Also very sensitive about Hong Kong and Taiwan.

I think if S Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and SE Asian nations and Australia are really worried about that, they should set up their own defense system. Give them, yanno, five years to get their shit together while you gradually pull the plug.

Same with NATO.

Anyway,this is pretty far away from Covid-19 and only relatable because of military v health care spending.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

#STAYTHEFUCKHOME

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Monday, April 6, 2020 2:07 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
What percentage of those parallel universes do you suppose they're sending their children to school to say the Chinese or the Russian or the German pledge of allegiance while gazing up at a much different looking flag with their hand over their hearts?
Not very many.

SIX, since our military and deep state "interventions" clearly have not benefitted the average person in the USA, or protected our borders, you do have to wonder WHY we intervened. If you look into history, you'll see that (with the glaring exception of WWII, the Korean war, and Vietnam) our wars were primarily for the benefit of transnationals. From our "interventions" in Central America so United Fruit could continue to turn their land into giant banana planations ("banana republics") and our NYC banks could acquire their banking systems to our military base in Northern Australia ("Asia pivot" under Obama) our wars have been primarily for economic or financial reasons. Some of them were to protect "our" resources abroad, some were to protect "our" banking dominance, some were to protect "our" shipping lanes, and most of our Mideast wars were to protect our petrodollar.

I don't mean how many Americans sending their children to school, but those in foreign nations that benefit from our insane military presence. You seem to get that point with the rest of your reply, but didn't get it here, so I wanted to be sure you knew what I meant.

I won't argue at all about your reasons for the why. But that doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of countries in the world that benefit either directly or indirectly from our military, regardless of the true intentions behind it.

Imagine if Pearl Harbor never happened and we never joined WWII. That's the point I'm trying to make.

Quote:
Yanno, if you have to enforce your trade at the point of a gun, it's clearly not trade that the partner considers "fair".

Nope. I don't suppose it is.

Quote:
The one thing that I'm not at all concerned about right here right now is being invaded by a foreign power in the US. How quickly do you think all those virtue signalers would start balling their eyes out if we completely shut our borders, withdrew all troops, lined up our aircraft carriers and entire Naval fleet on our east and west coast, and stopped any and all foreign aid to them?

I think in 2020 the answer to that question is how fast would Xi take advantage of his new situation.
Probably quite quickly. Xi seems particularly sensitive to shipping thru the South China sea and around the Strait of Malacca/Singapore. Also very sensitive about Hong Kong and Taiwan.

I think if S Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and SE Asian nations and Australia arer eally worried about that, they should set up their own defense system. Give them, yanno, five years to get their shit together while you gradually pull the plug.

Yup. Like I said, you seemed to be catching what I was throwing with the second part of your reply, but didn't with the first part of it.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, April 6, 2020 4:08 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

My reply to the first part was "not very many". I understood what you posted.

Germans would not be pledging allegiance to Russia, and Japanese would not be pledging allegiance to the Chinese. The only two nations truly at risk of a mainland Chinese takeover are Hong Kong (which technically belongs to China anyway) and Taiwan, which China regards as part of it's sovereign territory.

The one thing about having mutiple regional powers is that the Vietnamese can play the Russians against the Chinese, the Indians can play the USA, Chinese, and Russians off against each other; the Italians are actually busy playing Russia and China off against each other, and Germany and France and Poland can form an alliance. I think it would lead to nations with similar interests coalescing together, if nothing else into bloc of "non-aligned" states, instead of being forced into a "with us or against us" alignment with the USA.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

#STAYTHEFUCKHOMEg

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Monday, April 6, 2020 6:31 PM

THG

Coronavirus: Boris Johnson moved to intensive care as symptoms 'worsen'

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

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Monday, April 6, 2020 8:47 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

CITIZEN! YOUR PAPERS, PLEASE! (immunity certificates)

Quote:
Some of the first talks of this has originated in the UK. The government could roll out immunity passports to Britons who have already contracted and recovered from the virus so they can reenter the economy, reported The New York Times. (Britain Looking at Virus Immunity Certificates but More Research Needed) https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/04/02/world/europe/02reuters-heal
th-coronavirus-britain-immunity.html

"(An immunity certificate) is an important thing that we will be doing and are looking at but it's too early in the science of the immunity that comes from having had the disease," health minister Matt Hancock said at a Downing Street press conference.

"It's too early in that science to be able to put clarity around that. I wish that we could but the reason that we can't is because the science isn't yet advanced enough," Hancock said.

UK Health Secretary: "We are looking at an immunity certificate. How people who have had the disease, have got the antibodies, and therefore have immunity, can show that, and so get back... as much as possible to normal life." pic.twitter.com/SVLV8U2YwG
— The Hill (@thehill) April 3, 2020

... In Germany, researchers are preparing a study that would see if people already immune to the virus could reenter the workforce and be granted immunity passports.
(Germany To Introduce Coronavirus 'Immunity Certificates' For Recovered Public)
https://www.newsweek.com/germany-antibodies-tests-general-public-immun
ity-certificates-1494934

In Italy, the conservative president of the northeastern Veneto region has proposed an immunity passport for people who possess antibodies that show they are resistant to the virus.
(In Italy, Going Back to Work May Depend on Having the Right Antibodies)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/world/europe/italy-coronavirus-anti
bodies.html

The former prime minister, Matteo Renzi, has called it a "Covid Pass" for the uninfected who can return to their normal lives.

If you have to show papers in order to live a "normal" life, there's nothing normal about it. So don't use "return to normal" as a phrase to make this sound more acceptable.

Another problem: nobody knows how long the antibodies circulate in your blood. A month? A year? Ten years? IF the immunity fades in a year, your certificate also fades.

They'd better make these certificates hard to counterfeit.

And finally, it really would compel people to get vaccinated, when (and if) they ever develop a vaccine, leading to a windfall for the vaccine developer.

It would be better to keep pursuing a successful treatment that you could use even on critical cases.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

#STAYTHEFUCKHOME

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Monday, April 6, 2020 9:24 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Nobody knows if those antibodies are actually protective in the first place. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. Some people were truly reinfected (not just relapsed) and AFAIK there hasn't been a study on it.

Nobody knows how high an antibody concentration (titer) you need to have to be protected.

Nobody knows how broadly applicable those antibodies might be to minor - or major - variations in the strains going around.

And of course, as you mentioned nobody knows how long they last. They could be like Noro virus (cruise-ship trots) antibodies that fizzle in a few weeks, and there you are, with another lovely case after you just got over your last case.

This is such a medically bunged idea at the least!

And then there are - yeah - the need to have those certificates on you as you go about your life. The enforcement, being stopped, or denied entry, or a return to your workplace. And there's the whole apparatus of testing, recording results, certifying IDs and so on. And all the mischief that goes along with that. Sheesh. "Never let a good crisis go to waste" indeed.

A good treatment, and I think a vaccine would reduce the risks to the same as 'the' flu (as a reminder there are many influenza viruses that go around every year that often occur at the same time! that cause illness). And everybody could decide for themselves what level of risk they'll tolerate with which course of action.

On a different post-COVID topic, no, I don't believe this will remake our economy. Too many people have invested too much money and are making too much money the way things are now. It could CRASH the economy, but so did 2008. And what changed after that?

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Monday, April 6, 2020 10:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
My reply to the first part was "not very many". I understood what you posted.

Germans would not be pledging allegiance to Russia, and Japanese would not be pledging allegiance to the Chinese. The only two nations truly at risk of a mainland Chinese takeover are Hong Kong (which technically belongs to China anyway) and Taiwan, which China regards as part of it's sovereign territory.

The one thing about having mutiple regional powers is that the Vietnamese can play the Russians against the Chinese, the Indians can play the USA, Chinese, and Russians off against each other; the Italians are actually busy playing Russia and China off against each other, and Germany and France and Poland can form an alliance. I think it would lead to nations with similar interests coalescing together, if nothing else into bloc of "non-aligned" states, instead of being forced into a "with us or against us" alignment with the USA.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

#STAYTHEFUCKHOMEg

You can't just look at it as "what would happen today". There's two different questions here. What would happen if we pulled out everything everywhere today, and what if throughout history, we had not played International Police To The World.

There has been a lot of power shifts over the decades. The only true constant has been the US Military presence, particularly in the last half century but dating back further than that as well. There is no doubt that a map of Europe would look quite a bit different today had the US not gotten involved in WWII.

Again, I don't want to make any mistake that I'm justifying our military budget and everything that we've done at all. I'm just saying that a lot of people in the world take for granted that their lives in many ways are the way that they are because of it. And I'm not talking about the brown people that we exploit and manipulate for oil. I'm talking about friendly nation states that probably wouldn't even be around today in the first place, but certainly wouldn't have been able to skate by on a shoe-string military budget to try to defend their borders if the US military didn't exist.

Canada and Mexico both benefit the most from this, naturally, since they are the countries who share our borders.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 8:00 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

America’s Pandemic War Games Don’t End Well

The lessons drawn from the 2001 "Dark Winter" exercise provided a stark preview of what the United States would face in 2020.

On June 22, 2001, a group of well-known U.S. officials and a handful of senior policymakers gathered at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland for a senior-level exercise that simulated a biological weapons attack—an outbreak of deadly smallpox—on the United States. Designed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies (now called the Center for Health Security) and the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the day-and-a-half-long “Dark Winter” simulation was conducted to gauge how senior leaders would respond to such an attack and included such high-level participants as Sen. Sam Nunn (who played the president), former White House advisor David Gergen (the national security advisor), and the retired career diplomat Frank Wisner (the secretary of state). But Dark Winter has since become legendary in senior policymaking circles in Washington for a different reason: It has regularly been cited by its designers and participants as the clearest exhibit of the spiraling stresses, and potential social collapse, that could be sparked by a public health crisis.

Dark Winter (which stipulates a smallpox attack by an unknown assailant) is not COVID-19 (a disease inadvertently spread by human contact), of course. But the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic bears an eerie resemblance to the simulation: leaders hampered by an inability to address a crisis they hadn’t foreseen (“We’d have been much more comfortable with a terrorist bombing,” Nunn later said in congressional testimony); national decision-making driven by data and expertise from the medical and public health sectors; management options limited by the swift and unpredictable spread of the disease (and a limited stockpile of vaccines); a health care system that lacks the surge capacity to deal with mass casualties; increased tensions between state and federal authorities; the rapid spread of misinformation on cures and treatments for the outbreak (the only way to treat smallpox is to not get it); the difficulty of controlling unpredicted flights of civilians from infected areas; domestic turmoil sparked by political uncertainty (with sporadic rioting—quelled by National Guard units—in large urban areas as grocery stores are shuttered); and an increasing reliance on the willingness (and unwillingness) of individual citizens to self-quarantine to stop the spread of the contagion.

The Dark Winter exercise ended on the second day of the simulation after three long sessions—and purposely without resolution. But then, the exercise’s goal was not to predict the future but to dramatize the issues faced by the federal government during a nationwide health crisis. In this it masterfully succeeded, showing that what begins as a localized disease outbreak (of smallpox appearing in Oklahoma City and then in two other densely populated urban areas) can quickly become a crisis that envelopes the entire nation and the world: State borders become chokepoints crowded with those fleeing the disease, Canada and Mexico close their borders with the United States, and foreign nations restrict the travel of American citizens. There is no worst-case scenario, with the collapse of American democracy, but democratic institutions are severely tested and strained. After Dark Winter was concluded, the participants drew clear lessons from the exercise, focusing on the federal government’s lack of preparation for a public health crisis.

More at https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/01/coronavirus-pandemic-war-games-si
mulation-dark-winter/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 8:17 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

For the record, Dark Winter was held under GWB, a Republcian, and therefore a Preident that SECONDRATE hates. So we can discard this example because a Republican thought of it.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

#STAYTHEFUCKHOME

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 8:23 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Coronavirus: Boris Johnson moved to intensive care as symptoms 'worsen'

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

Where's your celebration gifs?

We know how happy this makes you to hear. Almost as happy as if you heard that Trump got it.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 8:29 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
You can't just look at it as "what would happen today". There's two different questions here. What would happen if we pulled out everything everywhere today, and what if throughout history, we had not played International Police To The World.

You can't take such a ahistorical view of the world.

The USA didn't need to invade the western end of the N American continent, or any number of Central, South-American, and Spanish-controled nations (Philippines, Puerto Rico, what was then Mexico) prior to 1917 because Russia (and later, the Soviet Union) didn't even exist back then.

Some say that w dropped The Bomb (twice), not to beat the Japanese but the blunt the Soviet advance into Japan. But the Marshall Plan ensured Germany's reconstruction and success under a USA-dominated system, as did the reconstruction of Japan. As far as our wars in Korea and Vietnam ... they seemed pretty pointless. Our Mideast wars were mostly about oil and the petrodollar. Our inteventions in modern-day South and Central America had nothing to do with the spread of "communism" but were meant to continue the sheer out-and-out exploitation of our southern hemisphere.

It seems to me that MOST of our "interventions" have to do with exploitative economics, and actually created more blowback than allies. And right now our problem with China is also primarliy economic. It's hard to replay history, but if the USA had supported various pro-democracy reformist movements instead of fighting them, we would be a "nation among nations" with plenty of friends ... not an empire... and probably better off.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

#STAYTHEFUCKHOME

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 8:46 AM

Once again, you're taking what I say and arguing something completely different.

I think I'm just going to drop this conversation now because when you do that it's pointless to communicate further with you.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 10:18 AM

THG

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

Hung out to dry

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 11:08 AM

Ted's TDS is probably actually a healthier alternative to Coompf Mania.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 11:22 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Human testing is beginning on a second coronavirus vaccine candidate after approval from the Food and Drug Administration, Inovio Pharmaceuticals announced Monday.

The company said the first phase of clinical testing is set to begin this week with a study of 40 healthy adult volunteers.

Each participant will receive two doses of the drug, INO-4800, four weeks apart. The initial immune responses and safety data from the study are expected by late summer, according to Inovio.

Preclinical data has shown “promising immune response results across multiple animal models,” the company said in the release.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/491498-human-testing-beginning-o
n-second-coronavirus-vaccine-candidate

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 11:36 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

To coordinate their response, some states with few modeling resources or home-state experts have used the IHME forecast that projects peak deaths and the resources needed. The White House relied on it in part to generate its estimate last week that the epidemic would kill 100,000 to 240,000 people nationwide.

Most epidemiological models look at different populations that interact in an outbreak — people susceptible to infection, those who are infectious and those already infected who go on to die or recover.

Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the IHME model embraces an entirely different statistical approach, taking the trending curve of deaths from China, and “fitting” that curve to emerging death data from U.S. cities and counties to predict what might come next.

For that reason, many experts saw IHME as overly optimistic when it was launched March 26. Few U.S. states or cities are taking action as drastic as what was adopted in Wuhan, China — the birthplace of the coronavirus pandemic — or even Northern Italy in locking down residents.

Another big difference between IHME and other models is a fundamental assumption about how effective social distancing can be. The creator of IHME’s model, Christopher Murray, said many state models assume that social distancing will only slow or reduce transmission to some degree. The IHME model, drawing from the example of Wuhan, assumes policies such as social distancing and stay-at-home orders, can effectively reduce transmission to the point where an epidemic — at least in its first wave — is actually brought under control by authorities.

While the IHME original model relied only on Wuhan’s curve, the updated model now incorporates curves from seven regions from Italy and Spain where epidemics have also peaked.

The updated model suggested the total number of deaths would be lower, with an estimated 82,000 deaths from the first wave of infection, although the number could range from 49,000 to 136,000.

www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/06/americas-most-influential-cor
onavirus-model-just-revised-its-estimates-downward-not-every-model-agrees/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 12:37 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

LATimes
"White House press secretary, who never gave a news conference, is out"

And during coronavirus, too.

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 3:35 PM

British Columbia getting kudos from Federal Health Minister Dr. Tam for how we are dealing with pandemic.

When this hit for BC and such was all a matter of timing. Quebec kids had their Spring break the beginning of March, so they were slow to implement stay at home directives. Same thing for Ontario.

BC kids Spring break was around the middle of March, so we saw what was happening in Quebec and Ontario. We learned from their unfortunate mistakes as did Alberta.

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 3:38 PM

Gov. Cuomo to designate some parks as temporary burial sites as morgues, crematoriums and cemeteries can't keep up with all the dead.

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 4:00 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

I would hate to be in New York City, either as a resident or as a healthcare worker. But I especially feel for the healthcare workers. One roughly 500-bed hospital had almost 200 deaths in a 24 hour period. I can't imagine it. And I can't imagine going through this week after week.

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 4:08 PM

THG

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:

Gov. Cuomo to designate some parks as temporary burial sites as morgues, crematoriums and cemeteries can't keep up with all the dead.

No Brenda that's not accurate. An Island is being discussed as a possible site if it becomes necessary.

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 11:24 PM

Blanket apology for what I said about Gov. Cuomo and New York State. I heard something and didn't do any checking on it before posting.

So I humbly apologize.

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 11:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by THG:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:

Gov. Cuomo to designate some parks as temporary burial sites as morgues, crematoriums and cemeteries can't keep up with all the dead.

No Brenda that's not accurate. An Island is being discussed as a possible site if it becomes necessary.

T

Deep state describes dedicated, educated professionals.

I do realize that now THG. I have left an apology in the thread for my misstatement.

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 11:28 PM

Church sign seen in BC. Sign says, "For the Love of God. Do what Dr. Bonnie says."

Dr. Bonnie Henry is the Chief Medical Officer in British Columbia.

ETA: Just realized I made a small typeo in the phrase. But its still funny.

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 11:29 PM

Only 25 new cases of Covid-19 reported Province wide today. That is down.

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 11:38 PM

Interesting sidebar to all of this. With surface noises being almost none nil now the seismologists are having a field day listening to Mother Earth. They are hearing more 0.2earthquakes and magma flowing under the earth's crust. They may find more faults as well.

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Tuesday, April 7, 2020 11:40 PM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

You know, I really don't understand the impulse people have to get together in large congregations to pray, or the ministers who encourage it - or even insist on it, in these days of social distancing.

They must not know their New Testament:
Matthew 6:5-6: "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men....when thou prayest, enter into thy closet (private room, or inner self) and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret...."

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 3:22 AM

Kiki, I think what the church sign is talking about is people still being idiots about social distancing. I've not heard of any churches here in BC being open on Sunday for services.

Stanley Park in Vancouver is closing the park to cars, so people walking, biking and jogging can social distance more and still enjoy the park. Though Vancouver Park Board has admitted that their officers have handed out 1,600 notices to people who haven't been adhering to the chief medical officer's orders.

Think there are a couple of parks closed but not sure. They are being monitored. Park boards don't want to close them unless they have to.

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 4:20 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The WHO Ignores Taiwan. The World Pays the Price.
Taiwan was more prepared for the coronavirus than any other country, but the WHO puts politics first.

There is an island nation off the southeastern coast of China where public health officials saw the pandemic coming—and took action before China did. Nearly three months after reporting its first confirmed case of Covid-19, this country has only reported 348 positive diagnoses and five deaths. It was one of the earliest countries to be hit and has one of the lowest infection rates.

But you wouldn’t know any of this if you got your information from the World Health Organization. The country is Taiwan, which the WHO refuses to recognize as a sovereign state.

Despite early warnings from Taiwanese officials, the organization kept the island cut off from its global information networks. Now, it may be the rest of the world that’s paying the price.

For nearly half a century, the People’s Republic of China has effectively blocked Taiwan from joining the WHO. Despite never having exercised authority over the island, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officially considers Taiwan part of its territory, and forces international organizations—including the United Nations and its agencies like the WHO—to affirm its view.

Last weekend, the absurdity of this geopolitical paradox was laid bare in a news broadcast that quickly went viral. In a Skype interview, journalist Yvonne Tong of Hong Kong public broadcaster RTHK asked Dr. Bruce Aylward, a senior WHO official, if the global health body would reconsider Taiwan’s membership.

On Tong’s laptop screen, Aylward’s face twitched. He blinked for several seconds. Then he said he “couldn’t hear the question.” When Tong offered to repeat herself, Aylward cut in: “No, that’s OK, let’s move on to another question then.”

“I’m actually curious to talk about Taiwan as well,” said Tong. Aylward’s face disappeared—he had ended the call.

When Tong called back and repeated her question, Aylward replied, “Well, we’ve already talked about China. And when you look across all the different areas of China, they’ve actually all done quite a good job.” He thanked Tong and ended the call again.

The surreal exchange lasted all of one minute. But for Taiwanese people, it summed up a lifetime of gaslighting. During this outbreak alone, the WHO has kept changing how it refers to this country of nearly 24 million, going from “Taiwan, China,” to “Taipei” to the newer and bizarre “Taipei and its environs.” It also allowed China to report Taiwan’s coronavirus numbers as part of its own total, instead of reporting Taiwan’s numbers alone—a conflation that created headaches for the smaller nation. Some other countries enacted travel restrictions on Taiwan along with China, despite the former’s drastically lower infection rate.

When geopolitics dictate health policy, however, the most serious effects are rarely just economic. The WHO’s distortion of Taiwan’s reality has consequences that should be measured in human lives.

More at www.thenation.com/article/world/taiwan-who-coronavirus-china/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 5:58 AM

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Kiki, I think what the church sign is talking about is people still being idiots about social distancing. I've not heard of any churches here in BC being open on Sunday for services.

Stanley Park in Vancouver is closing the park to cars, so people walking, biking and jogging can social distance more and still enjoy the park. Though Vancouver Park Board has admitted that their officers have handed out 1,600 notices to people who haven't been adhering to the chief medical officer's orders.

Think there are a couple of parks closed but not sure. They are being monitored. Park boards don't want to close them unless they have to.

Oh, I understood that. It just reminded me of some megachurch in Texas defying orders to close, because ... idk. I wasn't clear!

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 9:29 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
Oh, I understood that. It just reminded me of some megachurch in Texas defying orders to close, because ... idk. I wasn't clear!

Governor Greg Abbott, Republican, has deemed churches and houses of worship essential, thereby allowing them to stay open. And that goes right to the objection that a lot of pastors had. They did not like it when the government said that worship services were nonessential. They really were offended by that. Churches with Republican majorities just don't like the government telling them what to do. The Churches with a majority of Democrats have shut down. And while the Texas Governor was keeping churches open, at the very same time he banned abortions. He knows what Republican voters have always wanted, but couldn't have because of an old Supreme Court decision, and he was finally able to give it to them, justifying it by citing a pandemic as the reason.
www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2020/04/01/texas-governor-says-attendi
ng-church-is-essential-but-abortions-can-wait-indefinitely/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 9:43 AM

A lot of people are going to die either way.

You keep everything closed up, it's going to be a lot of young people who die.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 10:31 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

You keep everything closed up, it's going to be a lot of young people who die.

You might be mistaken. Life and death during the Great Depression

For most age groups, mortality tended to peak during years of strong economic expansion (such as 1923, 1926, 1929, and 1936–1937). In contrast, the recessions of 1921, 1930–1933, and 1938 coincided with declines in mortality and gains in life expectancy. The only exception was suicide mortality which increased during the Great Depression, but accounted for less than 2% of deaths. Correlation and regression analyses confirmed a significant negative effect of economic expansions on health gains. The evolution of population health during the years 1920–1940 confirms the counterintuitive hypothesis that, as in other historical periods and market economies, population health tends to evolve better during recessions than in expansions.

Although social science is not physics, regularities in the past allow us at least some confidence in forecasting the future. Historical experience tells us that no particular increase of mortality is to be expected as a consequence of a recession beyond an increase in suicides which, although clearly important, is of small magnitude compared to the reduced number of fatalities from other causes.

While economic expansions bring with them increases in employment, greater optimism, and higher incomes (although not always and not for all sectors of the population), recessions are periods of pessimism, shrinking revenues, and social malaise. The Great Depression of the 1930s was a major crisis of social life, in which many people suffered reductions in income and deprivation, and consequent social unrest was widespread. Nevertheless, this was not associated with major declines in population health, which suggests that other mechanisms more than compensate the possible detrimental health impact of high unemployment and economic disruption. A better understanding of the beneficial effects of recessions on health may perhaps contribute to the development of economic policies that enhance health and minimize or buffer adverse impacts of economic expansions.

www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 10:48 AM

Things we didn't have in the 1920s:

DOW Jones portfolios via 401k that was supposed to cover retirement going up in smoke literally overnight.

A New Economy in the aftermath of this that will not very much resemble the old one because there is no way that it ever could. (Unlike the future decades that "proved" that war can be quite profitable for Americans, there will be no wartime economic boom to rescue the American economy this time).

Government mandated lockdowns forcing everybody inside.

Millions of jobs lost, with millions of workers that can't even apply for new ones because the state ordered all of the businesses closed.

50 years worth of some pretty terrible flicks depicting all sorts of violence, suicidal thoughts, and apocolypse scenarios bouncing around in the heads of people who are stuck home with each other panicking.

Terrible News Outlets that profit off of all of this and have the most captive audience in the history of news to continually pump the poison into their minds.

Drugs. Tons and tons and tons of drugs. All sorts of new ones that destroy countless lives even during the good times.

We've already seen quite a break down in society over the last few decades.

Most folk aren't mentally equipped for this. As long as things stay shut down, things can only get worse.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 11:02 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

We've already seen quite a break down in society over the last few decades.

Most folk aren't mentally equipped for this. As long as things stay shut down, things can only get worse.

The people in America who had that happen to them are white boys without a college degree. That would be YOU. Vote Trump! President Trump will make you feel better, but if you'd finished college you'd be a whole lot better off than if Trump gets elected President-For-Life. I'm just going by my experience as a not particularly articulate white boy who finished a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Texas at Austin. By the way, 3 years to graduate from UT Austin was much easier than 4 years at Sam Rayburn High School in Pasadena or in the US Army/Veterans hospital during the Vietnam War. That is just in case you whine about how unreasonable it is to expect white boys to go to college to get ahead in America.

What’s Going on With America’s White People?
Trump’s rise put a sudden spotlight on the troubles of white working-class Americans.
www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/problems-white-people-america-
society-class-race-214227

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 11:37 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

We've already seen quite a break down in society over the last few decades.

Most folk aren't mentally equipped for this. As long as things stay shut down, things can only get worse.
The people in America who had that happen to them are white boys without a college degree. That would be YOU. Vote Trump! President Trump will make you feel better, but if you'd finished college you'd be a whole lot better off than if Trump gets elected President-For-Life. I'm just going by my experience as a not particularly articulate white boy who finished a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Texas at Austin. By the way, 3 years to graduate from UT Austin was much easier than 4 years at Sam Rayburn High School in Pasadena or in the US Army/Veterans hospital during the Vietnam War. That is just in case you whine about how unreasonable it is to expect white boys to go to college to get ahead in America.

What’s Going on With America’s White People?
Trump’s rise put a sudden spotlight on the troubles of white working-class Americans.
www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/problems-white-people-america-
society-class-race-214227

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

lol. You're so full of shit.

My house is paid for, buddy, and I'm all stocked up and I have zero debts. I also don't have anybody living here leeching my supplies or dealing with their own pent up frustrations that will only get worse as the lockdowns continue.

I wonder how all those people with college debt they'll be paying off the rest of their lives that can never be forgiven with bankruptcy feel right now while their means of earning a paycheck have been shut off to them and they still can't even log into the website to file an unemployment claim three weeks after they lost their jobs. Do they still think that Bachelors Degree in Gender Studies was a good idea in April of 2020?

Oh, yeah.

Let's add to the list of things people have in 2020 that they didn't have 100 years ago:

Crippling Student Loan Debt that they'll never pay off, even in good times.

Crippling Credit Card Debt with 30% interest rates that they'll never pay off in, even good times.

(And very likely when the dust settles....) Crippling Underwater Mortgages that leeched out any equity they had in their homes, leaving them with 30 years of payments on a house that isn't worth as much as they're going to end up paying on the balance.

Whoopsie!

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 12:23 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

lol. You're so full of shit.

This is real case that came up 3 weeks ago. A Republican wants to give $10,000 to her son. She has 3 choices:

1) Pay $600 to a pawnshop every 2 weeks, which is $15,600 interest per year on a $10,000 loan.

2) Pay $500 to a quick loan shop every 2 weeks for 5 year, which is $65,000 to pay back a 5 year, $10,000 loan.

3) Pay $250 every week to her son or into a savings account for 40 weeks, until $10,000 has been saved, then give the money to the son.

Which option did the Republican pick?

Option 1. Then Option 2 after realizing that $600 every 2 weeks is more than $500 every 2 weeks.

After much questioning, I discovered that Option 3 would have also worked because the son did not need the money immediately. But Option 3 did NOT even occur as a possibility to the Republican until I had explained over and over.

What lesson did I learn? Republicans are stupid. Then I went to the quick loan shop and paid back the $10,000 loan from Option 2 and got a promise from the Republican to pay me back and never do either Option 1 or 2 again. But I know the Republican will forget and probably within a few weeks or months. Then the Republican will be right back in the same stupid predicament. Trump lovers are so predictably incompetent and slow to learn.

I should add that Trump lovers, the smarter ones, get into the same predictions as the dumber Trump lovers, but the details are more complex, yet still just as stupid as hell.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 1:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

lol. You're so full of shit.
This is real case that came up 3 weeks ago. A Republican wants to give $10,000 to her son. She has 3 choices:

1) Pay $600 to a pawnshop every 2 weeks, which is $15,600 interest per year on a $10,000 loan.

2) Pay $500 to a quick loan shop every 2 weeks for 5 year, which is $65,000 to pay back a 5 year, $10,000 loan.

3) Pay $250 every week to her son or into a savings account for 40 weeks, until $10,000 has been saved, then give the money to the son.

Which option did the Republican pick?

Option 1. Then Option 2 after realizing that $600 every 2 weeks is more than $500 every 2 weeks.

After much questioning, I discovered that Option 3 would have also worked because the son did not need the money immediately. But Option 3 did NOT even occur as a possibility to the Republican until I had explained over and over.

What lesson did I learn? Republicans are stupid. Then I went to the quick loan shop and paid back the $10,000 loan from Option 2 and got a promise from the Republican to pay me back and never do either Option 1 or 2 again. But I know the Republican will forget and probably within a few weeks or months. Then the Republican will be right back in the same stupid predicament. Trump lovers are so predictably incompetent and slow to learn.

I should add that Trump lovers, the smarter ones, get into the same predictions as the dumber Trump lovers, but the details are more complex, yet still just as stupid as hell.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

Meanwhile...

Your personal anecdotes about Evil Texas Republicans have no basis at all in reality and are not applicable at all to me.

Thanks for playing though.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 1:40 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by 1KIKI:
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:
Kiki, I think what the church sign is talking about is people still being idiots about social distancing. I've not heard of any churches here in BC being open on Sunday for services.

Stanley Park in Vancouver is closing the park to cars, so people walking, biking and jogging can social distance more and still enjoy the park. Though Vancouver Park Board has admitted that their officers have handed out 1,600 notices to people who haven't been adhering to the chief medical officer's orders.

Think there are a couple of parks closed but not sure. They are being monitored. Park boards don't want to close them unless they have to.
Oh, I understood that. It just reminded me of some megachurch in Texas defying orders to close, because ... idk. I wasn't clear!

It's okay Kiki. I know about the churches in Texas and in Florida holding services. Dumbazzes.

P.S., I also thought the sign was funny as Easter is coming and these signs usually have religious sayings on them.

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Wednesday, April 8, 2020 1:53 PM