Coronavirus

[unclevlad]

Well.  An interesting side effect here.

 

Just doing some shopping on Amazon.  One thing I was loosely considering was some small cups for espresso...so checking "tea mugs" as well.  What was interesting was *how many* items with Prime shipping were saying "arrives by May 9."  That's 3 weeks.  There were a couple that were sooner, but darn few.  

 

Amazon is clearly focusing on essentials...the bar soap, no problem.  Middle of next week.  Non-essentials...be ready to wait.

[Old Man]

1 minute ago, Duke Bushido said:

But if they should just _happen_ to have the majority of those idiots develop this virus, I hope that is held up to the public forever.  Even though it would be a self-solving problem, I would want it as a reminder for _every_ DeVos family stupidity that comes down the line.

 

Those people would happily die singing praises for DeVos with their last foaming breath.  Don't underestimate the loyalty of the GOP base.

[Duke Bushido]

Dont underestimate the blind-to-reason loyalty of _any_ political party's fan base.

 

I have yet to meet a devout pundit from _any_ angle who struck me as particularly sensible.

[Old Man]

I prefer to see evidence to back up bothsiderist arguments.  Near as I can tell only one rabid fan base is literally protesting the measures that are keeping them alive.

[massey]

13 minutes ago, Old Man said:

I prefer to see evidence to back up bothsiderist arguments.  Near as I can tell only one rabid fan base is literally protesting the measures that are keeping them alive.

 

You clearly haven't seen my Facebook feed for the last 5 years.

[Ternaugh]

26 minutes ago, massey said:

I'm really questioning how effective these lockdowns are.  "Essential" employees are still working, and at least here that includes people at fast food restaurants.  I got a bacon cheeseburger the other day at the drive through.  I gave my credit card, which could have been a bigger germ farm than that monkey in Outbreak, to the guy at the window.  Wearing gloves that had touched a thousand other credit cards, he ran it through the card machine that had processed every other card in the city, and handed it back to me.  I grabbed it with my ungloved hand and put it in my wallet.  Then I used that same hand to hold my tasty bacon cheeseburger and shove it into my mouth.

 

The drive through was absolutely packed.  I've never seen Whataburger so crowded as I have the last few weeks.  Every person who can't cook has lined up to interact with the same guy at the window.  Right now we're basically the people in zombie movies who do really obviously stupid things, and are then surprised when they get bitten.

 

 

My local* In-N-Out has two people wearing masks and taking orders from 6 to 8 feet away into tablets for the many cars in the drive-thru. The line then goes to the payment window, where the cashier, wearing gloves and a mask, will gladly accept a card by holding out the card reader pad so that you can insert the card and remove it (you are the only one who touches the card). The next window has your order, handed to you by a gloved and masked employee.

 

 

*It's about a 1/2 mile away, and sits in the parking lot of the supermarket where I usually shop. Many is the time that I've come out of the supermarket into the wonderful aroma of burgers and fries cooking, and wandered over to get dinner. I'm pretty sure that's no accident.

[Old Man]

My bad guys, I lost track of which thread I was in again.  Moving further political discussion to the political thread.

[Badger]

You had a senior moment?

 

Note: What a friend of my dad refers to his own mistakes.

[Old Man]

Moment, decade, it’s all the same. 

[Bazza]

 

[Badger]

Anyway, mentioned on the NFL thread but probably belongs here.

 

 

I do think we at least have to pretend we can gets things going sooner rather than later.  Doesn't mean we shouldn't push back as necessary.  But, it should be more a month-by-month take.  When you have people talking about 18 months?  Well, there is going to be a lot, a whole lot of suicides.  From both the quarantines driven to despair.  And the essentials who will inevitably break under the strain.  While it was somewhat, largely a necessity,  we have thrown any concerns of mental health completely out.  It isn't going to be realistic to have this go, indefinitely.  

 

 

Edit: For clarification, don't read too much into this.  Just an observation on how human nature works.

[Bazza]

cc @Pariah

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

Anyway, mentioned on the NFL thread but probably belongs here.

 

 

I do think we at least have to pretend we can gets things going sooner rather than later.  Doesn't mean we shouldn't push back as necessary.  But, it should be more a month-by-month take.  When you have people talking about 18 months?  Well, there is going to be a lot, a whole lot of suicides.  From both the quarantines driven to despair.  And the essentials who will inevitably break under the strain.  While it was somewhat, largely a necessity,  we have thrown any concerns of mental health completely out.  It isn't going to be realistic to have this go, indefinitely.  

 

 

Edit: For clarification, don't read too much into this.  Just an observation on how human nature works.

 

While I would be cautious about fueling false hope, I agree that more positivism, more steadiness and support from their leadership, would be a boost to morale that people in general, and particularly in the United States right now, would benefit from. Realism can't be so inflexible that it crushes hope altogether.

 

As I heard from someone recently, the politicians can proclaim that the economy is "open" whenever they want, but it's the public who'll decide when it starts rolling back up again. If people are still afraid to go to department stores, restaurants, public entertainments, it won't matter whether they're declared open or not. If parents fear for the safety of their children in schools, those schools will stay empty. If people feel their financial situation is precarious after the lockdown, they won't be good little spending consumers until they feel on more solid ground.

 

Optimism has to be nurtured if society as a whole is to recover. But it still needs to be based on solid evidence, not the rantings of ignorant fools who think "freedom" means "the right to endanger everyone else."

[csyphrett]

10 hours ago, tkdguy said:

Do we have to report our stimulus checks to the unemployment office as income? One of my friends raised that question earlier today. 

You dont have to for the IRS, but you might for unemployment. They don't want you to have additional income at all

CES

[tkdguy]

 

[Bazza]

[Bazza]

 

School in Australia is continuing and is still open in some places, so American kids are getting behind. 

[Bazza]

[Bazza]

[tkdguy]

 

[BNakagawa]

http://www.anime-expo.org/2020/04/17/anime-expo-return-los-angeles-2021/

 

The summer supercons have all cancelled.

[Duke Bushido]

11 hours ago, Old Man said:

I prefer to see evidence to back up bothsiderist arguments.  Near as I can tell only one rabid fan base is literally protesting the measures that are keeping them alive.

Yes. 

 

The what-  thousand lunatics storming Detroit. 

 

Obviously the entirety of the majority of Americans required to put Trump in office.   Yep.  That's them.  That's the thousand people that out voted the millions of people against Trump.  Clear evidence that this is his fan base.  You can tel that everyone who voted for him is like this, because it's happening in thousands of cities all over the country, even without the help of DeVos. 

 

I should have known.  No knee-jerk punditry here. 

 

My neighbor attends the Baptist church.  She also voted for Dukakis back in the day.  Clear evidence that all democrats are Westboro lunatics., right? 

 

 

Trump left it up to the states!  That makes him a criminal genius!  It must be, because there is no existing evidence that he is pretending to be conservative and constitutionalist, and that both of those groups are heavy on the ide of states rights.  Nope.  Can't be it.  Trump's a Mastermind who planned all this out, in spite of every single thing said (and even demonstrated by Trump himself) that he is just a captial- M Moron being propped up almost _entirely_ by the back pressure of the twenty-year wave of crushing hate and dehumanizing commentary and action against conservatives of all stripe. 

 

Nope; that can't be it. We don't hate them.  Never.  That's why we can say they are all like these lunatics in Michigan.  Hats why we hit them in the face with bicycle locks and never, ever brag about it: because we are love; we are logical; we want to teach and change.   And the way to do it is conspiracy theory, dehumanization, and abject hatred. 

 

Not only is most of this stuff not even rational (but passed around with great zeal, as it serves our confirmation bias), it sounds _exactly_ like the "Obama is the anti-christ" stupidity way back then.  The only difference between this and that is who is currently "us". And who is currently "them." 

 

So anyway.... 

 

Lots of Corona virus we've been having this year...... 

 

I'm gonna go plant some tomatoes.  Please, leave me there. 

[Bazza]

[Cygnia]

[unclevlad]

12 hours ago, Badger said:

Anyway, mentioned on the NFL thread but probably belongs here.

 

 

I do think we at least have to pretend we can gets things going sooner rather than later.  Doesn't mean we shouldn't push back as necessary.  But, it should be more a month-by-month take.  When you have people talking about 18 months?  Well, there is going to be a lot, a whole lot of suicides.  From both the quarantines driven to despair.  And the essentials who will inevitably break under the strain.  While it was somewhat, largely a necessity,  we have thrown any concerns of mental health completely out.  It isn't going to be realistic to have this go, indefinitely.  

 

 

Edit: For clarification, don't read too much into this.  Just an observation on how human nature works.

 

Wasn't gonna reply there, as it's too off the subject of that thread.

 

I think we'll try letting people get back to work, by and large, reasonably soon.  At least in some places.  Others will take longer, but by late summer/early fall?  For back to work for most...yeah, probably.

 

But the big sports leagues are more complex.  If they'll accept playing the games with no fans, then perhaps.  But, what happens if there's a flare-up in, say, Boston?  Do the Chargers fly in to play the Pats?  There's so many ways that things can suddenly get disrupted that this part of things is going to be much harder.