Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[lineygoblue]

And now it turns out the drone strike at the Kabul Airport did not kill any bad guys. Only innocents.

The first time this administration does something right, will be the first time.

[lineygoblue]

France is recalling its ambassadors to both the US and Australia over this submarine deal?! Cripes, what a tantrum. They're angrier than China.

And why should France care? They'd be the first to surrender in a nuclear war.

[crashcourse]

Yeah rand Paul had a good line

https://twitter.com/i/status/1437815424226312202

[Kapture1]

Friday news dump


People in Mississippi are overdosing on ivermectin because rightwing media is awash in claims it's a miracle drug against covid. The easiest version of the drug consumers can obtain is intended for livestock to fight worms.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/mississipp...ry?id=79569021

7lb5l3.png


per the article, only 1 person was advised to seek additional treatment. A call to poison control to ask a question isn't the same as being poisoned or "overdosing"

[crashcourse]

I wish you would seek additional treatment

[Obi-Jon]

And why should France care? They'd be the first to surrender in a nuclear war.

It's all about the money. There's many billions of dollars in the sub technology deal that France was counting on and now won't get any of.

[Da Geezer]

What Jeff said but I don't see a constitutional issue if your employer fires you for getting an abortion. It's possibly a violation of federal law. You "maybe" have a case that since only women can be fired for having abortions, you were discriminated against because you were a woman, but that's not as clear cut a violation of the law as firing someone for getting pregnant. You have a constitutional right to free speech too but if your boss tells you to stop wearing your MAGA hat at work and you refuse, it's not a violation of your constitutional rights when he fires you. Unlike race, sex, and religion, politics aren't a protected class of citizens.

The grayest area is whether the federal govt can mandate vaccines. It's pretty clear cut that local and state governments CAN, as Jeff said, since 1905. The public welfare takes precedence over your personal indifference to spreading disease.

The best solution to this whole maze is for "political beliefs" to be added to the list of protected classes such as "...race, creed, color..." that cannot be discriminated against. This would have salutary effects, most particularly in terms of cancel culture. True, an employer might be prohibited from firing an employee wearing a MAGA hat, but how bad is that really? We would simply go back to about 2010 in terms of workplace behavior. One wonders what such a prohibition would do in higher ed combined with some form of affirmative action that attacks the lack of intellectual diversity.

"Political beliefs" would be hard to enforce. But no more so than "sexual orientation".

_______________________________________________
.
Oh, and the reason that vaccine mandates are not precisely comparable to abortion is that the SC found a constitutional right in the penumbras and emanations of the 5th and 13th amendments that supported creating a "right" found nowhere in the Constitution. That is the basic reason that Roe has to be overturned. Lawrence Tribe said so, and so did Robert Bork. The right of states to allow abortion arises from legislative prerogatives of the several states but is not a federal constitutional matter. The "why" is simple WRT Roe. There was no way to pass a national law allowing abortion, because the country didn't want it and the Congress knew it couldn't pass via normal constitutional processes. So the workaround became an activist court that "discovered" previously unknown "rights". This is why Conservatives want "strict constructionists" on the bench. Conservatives now have a 5-4 majority on the SC, the first conservative majority in my lifetime. The progs cannot abide this, because the court has been their super-legislator.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I'm noticing a widening gap between what COVID data represents and is presented to us by officialdom and how the human race behaves in the face of it. There are two groups: (1) Governments and PH officials, (2) The folks.

You have to be blind to not fully comprehend the global toll that SARS2 has taken on humans. Given that the data, as shitty as it is, probably undercounts that toll in whatever meaningful metric you choose to use. Importantly and as in one approach to dealing with the pandemic does not fit al, we have this patchwork of widely differing ways governments are dealing with the pandemic and a whip-saw effect on the folks. Trying to negotiate those varying approaches as well as the stifling effect high cost, low PH benefit mitigation measures are having is what is precipitating a significant drag on the economy.

Our first group - governments and PH officials - are routinely failing the citizens they serve. Sure, I get that "the data" isn't great, robust, accurate, whatever. to advance any particular pandemic containing strategy. Part of the problem is that over the last decade, we've become a data driven society where reliance on it in just about every political, health policy and economic decision is made according to it. Did the Allies have all the "data" that would assure success when they launched Operation Overlord onto the beaches of Normandy France? Probably not. I've already posted my approach to the pandemic is to routinely dismiss PH policy. I have my own ways to make it as it applies to me.

But I'm one of the folks in group 2 and the problem I have is I keep running into PH policy that is not well grounded in the facts and is disruptive in my life. Then there is the public fearfulness, greatly outsized, that warps the folk's perception of the risks of SARS2 and COVID. That promotes unjustifiable public cowering with that group looking askance to, say, people not wearing a mask inside a public place.

The one thing I'm seeing as the pandemic stretches into years not months is that the folk's are taking a much more aggressive approach to living their lives mostly ignoring or figuring out ways to evade the bio-states often unnecessary restrictions to our mobility and behaviors. Often, that aggressiveness gets out of hand. I'm seeing an increasing amount of it.

I worry about that. It's reflective of a breakdown in confidence in government and civil order. That is an unmistakable outcome when it comes to the SARS2 pandemic and it is well deserved here in the US. We need government. We need folks to follow sensible rules and to follow, for example, speed limits traffic signals because we don't agree with mask rules. As has been my position, I remain a strong advocate for vaccination but I think we've reached, at this point in time, about as good as it's going to get. Our government and the press need to stop haranguing us about that.

I'm doing my best to live in the face of mounting restrictions to mobility and figure out ways to get get past them. It's a challenge and I refuse to back down from it. I think that line of thinking is gaining traction in the whole of group 2. It, in part, explains this widening gap between the observed behavior of the folks in group 2 and the expected behaviors in the face of the pandemic as it is characterized by the so called experts in group 1.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Stock market is looking like it's about to have a very bad day. Some real estate developer in China, a company I'm not familiar with, is rumored to be on the verge of bankruptcy and it's impacting one stock market after another, starting with Asia overnight.

[Obi-Jon]

Shares of China Evergrande Group (3333.HK) plunged by more than 10% on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as fears mounted that the Chinese real estate juggernaut would collapse under a major debt burden, impacting shareholders, bondholders and potentially triggering turmoil elsewhere across global markets. The specter of a broader crackdown by the Chinese government on Hong Kong's real estate sector further added to concerns.


A buying opportunity on index funds if it continues to drop tomorrow.

[Kapture1]

gqGdH4Dr.jpg


Covid is only for poor people


while your child is forced to wear a face diaper 8 hours a day.

[lineygoblue]

And they are the crowd that calls the shots in Washington DC today. This group keeps Schumer, Pelosi and Trucker Joe employed in politics.

When you support the entertainment industry, these people are empowered to do whatever they want.

And yet, the "January 6th" people are a "threat"

[THE_WIZARD_]

Insurrection on Steroids!

[Jeff Buchanan]

The headline story in my NYTs news feed this morning? (Paraphrased) "We don't know how the US is doing with COVID."

FFS. 2y in and the world's or the US's researchers and scientists don't know where we are or where we're headed with the pandemic? PH Policy, as well as mobility and behavioral restrictions are being imposed by state and local authorities? The story starts out with a report on "encouraging trends:" as has repeatedly happened in the past, surges fade in a 2 month cycle that defies explanation, hospitalizations drop and deaths lag therefore often rising as new case numbers decline to then drop precipitously ..... rinse and repeat.

My post above applies. Hey, nobody is listening to the advice or recommendations federal and state officials are putting out there because no one trusts you. I don't know how the US claws it's way out of this. It's a very bad situation re COVID made much much worse by how the crisis has been handled.

Let's look across the pond at how European countries and the EU have handled it. First, new cases, deaths and hospitalizations are in some EU countries, Germany in particular, 10X less than in the US. TEN TIMES. WTF are these countries doing that the US isn't doing in managing the pandemic? Well, Other than the French, European citizens are rule followers (the Eastern European countries I'm excluding in this analysis)...... still even the French are doing way better than the US. Vaccinations are much more widely obtained among EU and non-affiliated European nations. Importantly, the entire EU has adopted a digital COVID vaccination certificate. You can't do shit within the EU if you don't have one and aside from some minor griping about the implications of these things, 90% of EU citizens have them. You want to go out to eat, to a football match, a concert? Forget it if you don't have a Digital COVID Certificate on your phone. All the EU countries have implemented track and trace apps; they work. Facts on the ground support that take.

Next Monday after 2y of postponing this trip due to the pandemic, I'm traveling to Switzerland via a 2d stop in Lisbon Portugal then from Switzerland to Barcelona where we board a cruise ship sailing back to Fort Lauderdale. It's a month long trip involving stops in 3 EU countries. For US passport holders, not one of these countries has the same entry protocols or travel protocols while you're in country. Spain is the least restrictive, Portugal the most. That's a problem but in general EU states have latitude to adopt or reject UEC recommendations. By-in-large EU countries are adapting tight control mechanisms to subdue the virus. It's working and American travelers wishing to travel to Europe are having a hard time doing that. Beyond those personal problems is a long list of COVID related issues that are stifling economic growth, worsening poverty and creating pockets of despair we're adults and children alike are dying because there is strife and no food.

Beginning September 14th, only Spain will let US passport holders in with a paper CDC Vaccination Card. The only proof of vaccination you can use in moist of Europe now is the Digital COVID Certificate and only EU citizens can get it. The tourism and lodging/general travel industry is up in arms over this. In response, the Swiss - and others may follow - allow you to apply for a digital Swiss Covid Certificate with proof of vaccination, recovery or a negative molecular or antigen test - only good for 72 or 48 hours respectively. In the case of being unvaxed, you have to get retested every three days, and this updates your certificate. For travelers to/within Europe that are not EU citizens this is a huge PITA ....... but it is how these countries are keeping COVID disease impact at minimum levels and easing restrictions. Too many people, and not just US unvaxed passport holders and people falsifying test results, were cheating the system and spreading COVID. .

Look, if we want normalcy here in the US to return at some level and protect against the bio-states from imposing more and more, off again, on again restrictions, the virus has to be controlled. It isn't here in the US. This shit is going to continue for years. I don't think we'll reach herd immunity, I don't think the virus will retreat and we should be planning for that. If it does retreat and stays subdued, great. Plan for the worst; hope for the best. How?

• Mandate vaccines either directly or through carrot and stick means that makes life just about impossible for the unvaxed. For those that have recovered, you're good as long as you can prove it.
• Adopt a Universal Digital COVID app that keeps track of vaccinations already administered or will be administered over time. You don't have one, you don't go inot restaurants, bars, events, none of that. Negative test results such test to be acceptable must be administered by a person trained to do that. It's too easy to cheat on self tests.
• Adopt one of the many trace and track apps that do this anonymously. They work to reduce viral spread - I have one on my phone to use in Switzerland when I get there.

Sound like a police state? It is but GDI, SARS2 isn't going to be subdued here in the US unless Americans step back from their typical resistance to governmental controls and mandates along with a fear of anything that smells of a tracking mechanism (surprise, you're already being tracked so get over it). In normal times, I'm all for limiting all of that. Slippery slope, you say? Well, there is that but without some sacrifice and keeping a close eye on overreach when it's not necessary, we're going to continue to be faced with surges that prompt these on again, off again restrictions to mobility and social interaction. I'm fucking tired of them. Get off your high horses - there's an identifiable and proven path to getting ahead of this thing. The US is way behind.

[Kapture1]

Look, if we want normalcy here in the US to return at some level and protect against the bio-states from imposing more and more, off again, on again restrictions, the virus has to be controlled. It isn't here in the US. This shit is going to continue for years. I don't think we'll reach herd immunity, I don't think the virus will retreat and we should be planning for that. If it does retreat and stays subdued, great. Plan for the worst; hope for the best. How?

• Mandate vaccines either directly or through carrot and stick means that makes life just about impossible for the unvaxed. For those that have recovered, you're good as long as you can prove it.
• Adopt a Universal Digital COVID app that keeps track of vaccinations already administered or will be administered over time. You don't have one, you don't go inot restaurants, bars, events, none of that. Negative test results such test to be acceptable must be administered by a person trained to do that. It's too easy to cheat on self tests.
• Adopt one of the many trace and track apps that do this anonymously. They work to reduce viral spread - I have one on my phone to use in Switzerland when I get there.

Sound like a police state? It is but GDI, SARS2 isn't going to be subdued here in the US unless Americans step back from their typical resistance to governmental controls and mandates along with a fear of anything that smells of a tracking mechanism (surprise, you're already being tracked so get over it). In normal times, I'm all for limiting all of that. Slippery slope, you say? Well, there is that but without some sacrifice and keeping a close eye on overreach when it's not necessary, we're going to continue to be faced with surges that prompt these on again, off again restrictions to mobility and social interaction. I'm fucking tired of them. Get off your high horses - there's an identifiable and proven path to getting ahead of this thing. The US is way behind.

I never seen people so scared of a severe flu that they want to strip people's liberties. Get them fired from their jobs because they are apprehensive about vaccine. And make sure they can't get hired anywhere until they get it. I'm sure that will work out exactly as you think with 0 consequences.


In terms of not being allowed out to eat, I can cook at home and save money in the process. Lets see which one of us survives.