Starlord

I'm very sorry.  Please try to keep us updated if possible and take care of yourself!

I'm very sorry.  Please try to keep us updated if possible and take care of yourself!

Are Cats Liquid.   Answering the question that won me the Ig Nobel Prize.  
 
A liquid is traditionally defined as a material that adapts its shape to fit a container. Yet under certain conditions, cats seem to fit this definition.

I'm very sorry.  Please try to keep us updated if possible and take care of yourself!

...what Starlord said.  Kick Covid's butt!

I'm very sorry.  Please try to keep us updated if possible and take care of yourself!

I tested positive.

I have a fever, wet cough and muscle pains.  Waiting to hear back from the doctor now on when I can get tested.

We use Teams at work. Most people don't have their video feed on. One thing that's superior to an old fashioned conference call is screen sharing of visual information, which we do all the time. We also conduct live training this way.  I recently completed two FEMA classes via Zoom, for example.

Well, George Clinton is definitely a fan of the Parliamentary system.

Would you like a link to her new documentary? 

Three things Christ promises he will never do: Won't leave you broken-hearted (Psalm 147:3), won't reject you (John 6:37), and won't leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5).
 
In essence, Jesus is never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.

STUPIDLY ASKED QUESTIONS
 
The questions below about Australia, are from potential visitors. They were posted on an Australian Tourism Website and the answers are the actual responses by the website officials, who obviously have a sense of humour. 
Q: Does it ever get windy in Australia? I have never seen it rain on TV, how do the plants grow? (UK).  
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die. 
 
Q: Will I be able to see kangaroos in the street? (USA)  
A: Depends how much you've been drinking. 
 
Q: I want to walk from Perth to Sydney - can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden) 
A: Sure, it's only three thousand miles, take lots of water. 
 
Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Australia? (Sweden)  
A: So it's true what they say about Swedes. 
 
Q: Are there any ATMs (cash machines) in Australia? Can you send me a list of them in Brisbane, Cairns, Townsville and Hervey Bay? (UK)  
A: What did your last slave die of? 
 
Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Australia? (USA)  
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe. Aus-tra-lia is that big island in the middle of the Pacific which does not... oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every tuesday night in Kings Cross. Come naked. 
 
Q: Which direction is North in Australia? (USA)  
A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions. 
 
Q: Can I bring cutlery into Australia? (UK)  
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do. 
 
Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA)  
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is...oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Kings Cross, straight after the hippo races. Come naked. 
 
Q: Can I wear high heels in Australia? ( UK)  
A: You are a British politician, right? 
 
Q: Are there supermarkets in Sydney and is milk available all year round? (Germany)  
A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of vegan hunter/gatherers. Milk is illegal. 
 
Q: Please send a list of all doctors in Australia who can dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA)  
A: Rattlesnakes live in A-meri-ca which is where YOU come from. All Australian snakes are perfectly harmless, can be safely handled and make good pets. 
 
Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Australia, but I forget its name. It's a kind of bear and lives in trees. (USA) 
A: It's called a Drop Bear. They are so called because they drop out of Gum trees and eat the brains of anyone walking underneath them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking. 
 
Q: Do you have perfume in Australia? (France)  
A: No, WE don't stink. 
 
Q: I have developed a new product that is the fountain of youth. Can you tell me where I can sell it in Australia? (USA)  
A: Anywhere significant numbers of Americans gather. 
 
Q: Can you tell me the regions in Tasmania where the female population is smaller than the male population? (Italy)  
A: Yes, gay nightclubs. 
 
Q: Do you celebrate Christmas in Australia? (France)  
A: Only at Christmas. 
 
Q: I was in Australia in 1969 on R&R, and I want to contact the girl I dated while I was staying in Kings Cross. Can you help? (USA)  
A: Yes, and you will still have to pay her by the hour. 
 
Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (USA)  
A: Yes, but you'll have to learn it first

Goldfinger soundtrack, by John Barry.
 
 

The theater industry has been on the ropes for years, pinched between the extortionist terms of the film distributors and their own business costs.  AIUI their only significant source of profit is the concession stand, where the the extortionist film distribution costs are passed down to the rest of us.  (In particular, the distributors offload all the risk onto the theaters, taking around 90% of ticket sales for the first couple of weeks of a movie's run, then allowing the theater to keep more of the box office takes for subsequent weeks... if the movie doesn't flop.)  I genuinely believe that the only reason theaters were still in business before the pandemic was the MCU, and it would not surprise me at all if the pandemic were to finish the job, forcing the distributors to either take over the theaters directly, or shutter them and go straight to streaming.
 
I mean, lockdowns are almost irrelevant in this case.  All theater restrictions could be lifted tomorrow and they could immediately release Wonder Woman 1984, Black Widow, Captain Marvel 2, and No Time to Die, for free, and I still wouldn't go.  Would you?  Sit in an enclosed room for two hours with a couple dozen unmasked strangers shoveling popcorn into their faces?  That's a hard pass for me.  I'm sure you could get some people to go, but not enough to get theaters out of the red.

Experts were calling for a couple of weeks of shutdown to buy enough time to start mass produce masks, gowns, and other PPE. To use the Defense Production Act to crank up producing millions of tests. And to set up contact tracing.
 
The president and the vice president, by their own admission on multiple occasions, were assuming that the virus would magically go away if we waited until the weather was a bit warmer. 
 
Yeah both the administration and the experts were looking to buy time. But they were looking to buy time for completely different reasons.
 
You still can't go into a Wal-Mart or a Home Depot and have a reasonable expectation that they'll have disposable masks for sale...NINE freaking months after the president knew there was a pandemic coming. Testing is still hard to come by and what little testing the feds did, they've scaled back. Contact tracing is still a dream by the people who want to control the virus rather than a plan being implemented by an administration which, by their own admission, wants it to spread.
 
The president, VP, and administration, as we were starting out, were intentionally withholding information from the public which the people could have used to protect themselves. And were also deliberately spreading disinformation about how deadly the virus is.
 
And none of that has stopped. The administration is still not telling the truth, as we saw last week with the congressional committee which dumped the weeks of White House data which it was sharing with Congress behind the scenes. 
 
The president is holding maskless events with no social distancing. Is saying there's a cure to the virus when one doesn't exist. Lying by saying a vaccine will be here in a couple of weeks and the military is prepared to distribute it around the country. The vaccine is at least six months away. The military hasn't even ordered the equipment which would be necessary to distribute the vaccine around the country, much less taken possession of the equipment. 
 
We can't even get into a discussion about what tool is being used to deal with the crisis, whether scalpel or chainsaw. 
 
This is not "dealing" with the crisis at all.
 
Welcome to Fantasy Island, where all your nightmares come true.

Death count isn't the only measure of risk at play.  You have overwhelming of hospital resources and lasting side effects for survivors for two more.
 
How do you measure the impact of a survivor who lives but has chronic fatigue and pain or other neurological problems for months afterward, possibly forever? Or the lasting effects of patients who recover but have systematic damage from being intubated for extended periods?