... you can't go anywhere, but you can talk about anything.
Re-enjoy the sunrise, this time with coots. The photo was taken at 6:33 a.m. — 7 minutes after the other photo I put up today.
Here's the live stream of “At Home With Farm Aid." It was Dave Matthews last I looked. Others who will be playing from home: Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp. You may enjoy that. I like the home setting.
And one last extra, just to show you I got out on my mountain bike today, in a pretty place with plenty of social distancing:
Posts
354 comments:
1 – 200 of 354 Newer› Newest»book thread still active
I missed it when it first aired, but just watched it on demand.
The first episode of the new season of Call the Midwife was about an outbreak of contagious disease (diphtheria) and the need for people to be tested and quarantined.
Eerie.
I asked a question a couple of days ago that was tongue in cheek about falling while running. The question isn't, perhaps, all that tongue in cheek given that you are a late 60s "mountain" biker in this video. It is this- have thought through what you are going to do if you seriously injure yourself and have to go to a hospital where there might be coronavirus patients?
Meade's fishing video.
He got skunked, it looks like.
It is this- have thought through what you are going to do if you seriously injure yourself and have to go to a hospital where there might be coronavirus patients?
Blame someone else.
yes it aired originally in January on the bbc
The shaman and placebo effects have very real effects on patient's lives. I don't know if that anti-malarial drug that Trump touts is effective, but I bet some people think it is just because he touts it. Perhaps if they fell ill, they could be saved by the placebo effect. In any event, where's the harm?
Girl can send it.
Ann is fit and thin.
I don't know if the hydroxychloroquine/Zithromycin/Zinc regimen works at all- I still have doubts about it, but Fullmoon made a point today that the media seem to be in a blackout about it, which is suggestive that the ongoing studies do show a benefit, because you can be damned certain the media would grasp at any evidence it was ineffective, even if it was rumor offered by the guy who changes the linens in the hospital rooms.
can you believe anything they say increasingly less and less,
Neil and Donald
Spiritual poverty? Sure. But let's discuss the efforts to impoverish US citizens.
Let's start with the Governor of Michigan. She is acting by the textbook definition of "arbitrary and capricious" and the only goal one can surmise is to cause maximum pain. She believes she can order every Michigander to home confinement. She believes she can stop gardening. She is a Leftist Collectivist Fascist.
And many of us here have been predicting exactly these results. The Leftist Collectivists will not let a crisis go to waste. They are letting their inner totalitarians walk in the light of day.
I hope there are enough freedom loving people left to defy this bull shit.
OK, you're not even catching air.
What kind of weak bullshit is this?
Remember the old Buckley debates on PBS?
Althouse/Meade would double their audience with a well structured debate:
RESOLVED, The US Government should modify its "Shelter-in-Place" policy with a Phased-in re-opening of the work force while maintaining protectiions for vulnerable risk groups from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Something like that, maybe less wordy.
they meant to kill all hope
I came for big air.
And Meade is like, just quietly acquiescing to this and not trying to PUMP YOU UP to get big air.
Both of you should hang your greying heads.
Does unemployment cause higher mortality?
https://www.tilastokeskus.fi/isi99/proceedings/arkisto/varasto/mart0473.pdf
Short answer is yes.
Longer answer is yes and by a lot.
The people what dismiss the hydroxychloroquine/Zithromycin/Zinc as hoax or nor believing the science are anti science. There are doctors- experts- on the battlefield using this stuff on patients and reporting the results. It doesn't get more science than that. So the next time you hear a Bill Gates or a Zeke scoff you're seeing anti science in action.
Fuck them...
You GO Ann! Ever since I broke my left collarbone falling off my bike - it just doesn't have the same appeal and I can't relax at all while doing it.
Re-enjoy the sunrise, this time with coots.
That’s no way to talk about your commenters!
Exultet
https://youtu.be/kym7UbUDdyc
Exult, let them exult, the hosts of heaven,
exult, let Angel ministers of God exult,
let the trumpet of salvation
sound aloud our mighty King's triumph!
Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her,
ablaze with light from her eternal King,
let all corners of the earth be glad,
knowing an end to gloom and darkness.
Rejoice, let Mother Church also rejoice,
arrayed with the lightning of his glory,
let this holy building shake with joy,
filled with the mighty voices of the peoples. . . .
These, then, are the feasts of Passover,
in which is slain the Lamb, the one true Lamb,
whose Blood anoints the doorposts of believers.
This is the night,
when once you led our forebears, Israel's children,
from slavery in Egypt
and made them pass dry-shod through the Red Sea.
This is the night
that with a pillar of fire
banished the darkness of sin.
This is the night
that even now, throughout the world,
sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices
and from the gloom of sin,
leading them to grace
and joining them to his holy ones.
This is the night,
when Christ broke the prison-bars of death
and rose victorious from the underworld.
Our birth would have been no gain,
had we not been redeemed.
O wonder of your humble care for us!
O love, O charity beyond all telling,
to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!
O truly necessary sin of Adam,
destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!
O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!
O truly blessed night,
worthy alone to know the time and hour
when Christ rose from the underworld! . . .
. . . This is the night of which it is written:
The night shall be as bright as day,
dazzling is the night for me, and full of gladness.
The sanctifying power of this night
dispels wickedness, washes faults away,
restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to mourners,
drives out hatred, fosters concord, and brings down the mighty.
On this, your night of grace, O holy Father,
accept this candle, a solemn offering,
the work of bees and of your servants’ hands,
an evening sacrifice of praise,
this gift from your most holy Church. . . .
O truly blessed night,
when things of heaven are wed to those of earth,
and divine to the human.
Therefore, O Lord,
we pray you that this candle,
hallowed to the honor of your name,
may persevere undimmed,
to overcome the darkness of this night.
Receive it as a pleasing fragrance,
and let it mingle with the lights of heaven.
May this flame be found still burning
by the Morning Star:
the one Morning Star who never sets,
Christ your Son,
who, coming back from death's domain,
has shed his peaceful light on humanity,
and lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Couple of booters there and Ann didn't bail. Dope.
I take an English-language newspaper from Mexico. Interesting article today, says OPEC wanted Mexico to cut back on oil. AMLO said "No way!". So he was chatting with Trump, and Trump said "Heck, we're cutting back on fracking 'cuz the price is so low. Maybe they'll count our cut-backs in your favor. So AMLO announced that his good buddy Trump was cutting back American oil production so the Mexicans don't have to. I fear this will end in tears, but it's pretty funny that AMLO thinks Trump can cut back American oil production any time he gets in the mood.
See if you can follow this link May be a paywall
@ALP,
Ever since I broke my left collarbone falling off my bike - it just doesn't have the same appeal and I can't relax at all while doing it.
You think you've got it bad? I can't ride my stationary bike anymore since I got hit by that parked car!
(It's funnier if you read it in Rodney Dangerfield's voice)
Better???
It's the same link!
Happy Easter narciso.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/fdny-sees-huge-uptick-in-doa-ambulance-cases-as-covid-ravages-city
NYC isn’t counting near all of them, but jump on in, the water’s fine!
"arbitrary and capricious"
I saw them perform just outside Pittsburgh in a dive bar on a Tuesday night in the late '70s.
Mostly stuff like Kansas covers and maybe some Neil Young.
<a href="https://twitter.com/SteveDeaceShow/status/1249104530916233219?s=20> 1984 as how to manual</a>
book thread still active
Can't recommend The Proteus Operation. It had potential, but turned out to be a secret history, which I generally despise. To my mind Hogan's best book is still his first, Inherit The Stars, despite the Velikovsky stuff.
I read in the 80s, and I remembered it as being relevant to whatever thread was under discussion,
Tim
The key number is excess deaths.
It’s funny that some of the denialists have made the same point, evidently not understanding that
1) you need a statistical model to get a number (inevitably an estimate) for that
2) it includes folks who die of other conditions, such as the cardiac cases in your article
But, these are New Yorkers and we are solemnly assured that deaths in NY and NJ don’t really count.
I posed the same scenario a few days ago-- why, if one is concerned with distancing and not stressing the health system-- would one indulge dangerous activities like bike-riding?
Every venture outside for something like this increases everyone's risk by some unknown but >0
factor.
Narr
For Uncle Buckle, The Safety Buffalo
do results matter
The number of deaths per month is relatively stable, year to year. Counting excess deaths is amazingly straightforward, therefore.
Some people are stupid. Others suffer motivated reasoning. Some are both.
20,577 US deaths, per worldometer. With distancing in effect and working. Spain has almost as many, on a much smaller population, as has Italy.
I try to stay out,
"why, if one is concerned with distancing and not stressing the health system-- would one indulge dangerous activities like bike-riding?"
Because no one is actually serious about that. Anyway, here we are, sacrificing by staying in place, wasting trillions, and old people are out and about running non-negligible risks of getting close to infected people and non-negligible risks of injury that would cause complications.
narciso,
The way that NPR article reads you would think the results were reversed.
The MSM is actively, purposefully awful.
As if on cue, stupid motivated reasoning appears.
I fear there will not be enough room on Mt Rushmore for both Ken B and Tim in Vermont.
Well that settles it. We'll simply have to build a bigger mountain...which straddles the border so Ken B can have his visage carved on the Canadian side.
there are tradeoffs, but the failure to see what mass economic deprivation, and where it will lead, is kind of pig headed, it's david frumian, add to that the media's ongoing campaign to extinguish any effective treatment regime,
According to Worldometer, there have only been 1,780,271 cases of Coronavirus globally.
That sounds.....believable.
Birkel
I was pretty sure you didn’t know what a statistical model is.
And your dismissal of testing shows you don’t care about getting the economy on its feet either, not enough to think seriously anyway.
Alright.
we know well enough, not to take porn hub marshall's interpretation of data, at face value,
The Frantics
narciso: "...add to that the media's ongoing campaign to extinguish any effective treatment regime,"
It's not just the media.
Mention to any of those projecting eleventy billion deaths that there are treatments that appear to be effective and those folks begin exhibiting a degree of desperation that is quite surprising.
It's almost as if they have constructed an image of themselves that makes them vastly superior to the troglodytes around them and now, once constructed, they will be quite loathe to have the experience end.
Ken B: "Birkel, I was pretty sure you didn’t know what a statistical model is.
And your dismissal of testing shows you don’t care about getting the economy on its feet either, not enough to think seriously anyway."
Ah yes.
We have reached the point in this pandemic where the end is in sight and thus, Ken B is fishing about for the next virtue-signalling home base and he thinks he has found it by constructing a world where Birkel doesn't care about getting the economy back on its feet.
Well, I can't say I'm surprised.
Still photo: Wow. I would not want to live there but you do seem to get some good skies.
Video: Life is fine.
if you take a serious situation, and then extrapolate a catastrophic outcome, if measure a, b, or c, are taken, and you use a patina of statistics to justify it, how do you challenge it,
and as with the mann/oppenheimer sham show, you obscure the consequences of following this praxis, add to that,
of those following the real figures to the models,
Remember, dear readers, that people who advocate a policy position intend all of the natural and foreseeable consequences of that policy. Those, so far, include governors ordering the Korematsu-ization of every American citizen. Those include sweeping restrictions on every God given right recognized under the Constitution. Plus, we have to include the pain, suffering, and death that is inevitable and widely predicted because of deferred medical procedures, layoffs, bankruptcies, and so much more.
They cannot admit all the inevitable death and destruction they cheer. They have either tunnel vision, or they have a longing for power.
P.S. I do love it when people assume the skills, abilities, and knowledge I have. It's charming. But I don't have anything to prove to anybody. Rest assured you are not impressive.
Mike K. what was the name of the author of that historical fiction series you touted in the past, as the equal or near equal of Aubrey/Maturin?
Ken B. said, "The key number is excess deaths."
I agree. Since it's obvious that deaths are being credited to the Covid-19 virus that don't really belong to it, our best chance of figuring out the real effect is to compare with what would have been the expected number of deaths.
This is going to very year by year in the United States depending on the number of people in it and perhaps more importantly the age distribution.
According to the UN the expected mortality for the US for 2020 is 8.880 deaths per thousand.
If there are 329 million people in the United States that means an expected 2.921 million deaths from all causes in 2020.
We can prorate that per the number of days so far this year and find the expected number of deaths.
I'm still looking for the actual number of deaths so far this year in the US.
Drago “We have reached the point in this pandemic where the end is in sight“
Wow.
You are delusional.
Andrew wareham, he's got a couple of series,
Actually we could improve that comparison between actual and predicted if we were to exclude all deaths, like homicides and suicides, that it would be impossible for the authorities to directly attribute to the Wuhan Lab Bat Coronavirus, and only compare things that might possibly have been miscategorized. As in for instance predicted deaths for anything medically related to actual deaths for anything medically related.
Pearls before swine, mandrewa.
Those numbers must be unknowable for all except those who internet-brag about mad mathematical skills, yo.
this is his most recent series
Mandrewa
I saw some for NYC up through the end of March, with a huge spike in April. But not national.
An interesting question will be, will be, do a lot of immigrants leave this year. That would complicate things.
So the missus sez we gotta do a Livestream Easter Mass tomorrow? Okey dokey, I'll give a whirl, I reckon.
Expectations have been reduced. But will make the best of it.
Mark,
Thank you for that beautiful paean to our Lord. I am Orthodox—my Easter is not yet here. A weird cognitive dissonance, knowing I still have Holy Week to observe, while so many others are celebrating the resurrection...
Ken B.
Who is being delusional? If our “betters” adhere to the original goal—flattening the f-ing curve—then we are nearing the beginning of the end. I suspect that having tasted the heady elixir of total control, they will proclaim the need to reach a new goal. What some—perhaps you?—seem to be desperate for is a world with no Chinese virus deaths. How stupid. Equally stupid is the goal of no infections.
Here’s hoping that Texas and other states move ahead with opening back up—and their success and delirious joy at so doing renders impossible the efforts of the petty martinets to continue dictating every element of daily life to the rest of us.
“ Who is being delusional?”
Anne.
That's an answer, not an attribution.
The US has about 1 million skin cancer diagnosis per year with over 15,000 deaths. The key to survival is early detection. Caught early most skin cancer is highly survivable. However, skin cancer can progress rapidly if treated. For example melanoma can go from curable to 90%+ fatal in as little as 6 weeks. So we can expect thousands of additional skin cancer deaths this year because of government orders to shut down the clinics. If we include all cancers it is easy to see that hundreds of thousands of people may die from late detection. So all the "shut it down" people need to acknowledge that they are trading some lives for others.
There ain't no such thing as free lunch - and virtue signalling may kill more people than the virus in the end.
Interesting posting by SF author Stephen Michael Stirling on Facebook:
Journals of the Plague Year: the NYC health authorities say that 1,891 people were dead in their homes and on the street in the city in the first eight days of April.
The normal figure for this time of year would be in the 150-200 range for that period; so that's 1,700 or so extra fatalities.
These may not have been Covid-19 in any individual case, but it's sure as shoot the way to bet -- and they weren't in the official pandemic death toll figures.
It makes you just a little more sympathetic to Ecuador, who've admitted that they're picking up hundreds of bodies from the streets of Guayaquil and burying them in cardboard 'coffins'.
[/unQuote]
Ken B
Has the Xanax helped?
It didn't take long for Yamiche Alcindor to reveal that she is just Jim Acosta with a bean bag tied to the waist.
Ken B,
Ha. You strike me as someone who is invested in the Panic.
My BIL (an actual pulmonologist/critical care specialist), my sister and I have been ruminating together on why so many people seem almost in love with the Panic. Entranced by it; terrified by it. As though Death by Chinese virus simultaneously holds a fascination and a horror that death by any other means does not. How else to explain people who seem not to give a thought to the threads by which their lives hang as they go about their non-virus days? All of the ways we are far more likely to die...
We have tentatively decided that perhaps the current Panic has stripped away the thin veneer of meaning from the lives of those who worship only themselves and the material. Faced with the abyss, terror is the rational response, I suppose.
How else to explain it?
For some of us, death (by any means) is not the worst thing that can happen to us.
Ken B: "Wow. You are delusional."
Interesting.
Ouch, Anne.
That was rough.
I mean, sure, Ken B is a cvnt but I'm not sure he deserved all that.
Just kidding.
Fuck that guy.
Anne, fine writing in this thread. Thank you.
Anne is not wrong.
Jalani,
Great catch. I have a lesion on my right outer bicep. Popped up a month ago. I called for an appointment and was told June 6th was earliest in-office appointment available. I stressed to the receptionist that it is an active lesion. She grudgingly advised me that I could do a televisit. How interesting. A poor-quality televisit for a speciality that relies on visual inspection. Had that lovely visit this past week. Fortunately, I have a very bright light I use for needlework.
Going in for a biopsy next Tuesday.
How many people are less aggressive than I about their health? How many are unreasonably terrified of “catching the virus” at a doctor’s office or the hospital? What absolutely disgusting, and absolutely foreseeable, consequences of our irrational response to this virus.
How many casualties will we have from non-virus causes that were completely avoidable. And will those who totally crushed our freedom of movement take any responsibility?
Anne: "How many casualties will we have from non-virus causes that were completely avoidable. And will those who totally crushed our freedom of movement take any responsibility?"
Self-annointed Saints do not concern themselves with the small things.
Nice sunset, eh?
Sheesh.
May all be well with all of you.
Anne 67, KenB 2
For those folks who you would think were interested in Canada:
Canada Population: 38 Million
No. of Covid-19 deaths: 653
That's about 17 deaths per million. That's not a lot.
I reckon the social distancing in Canada preempted the world wide pandemic, right?
Phidippus: "Nice sunset, eh?"
A perfect day here in Colorado....yet tomorrow brings snow.
Alas. I suspect our "sunrise" zoom gathering won't have much visible "sunrise" in it.
Birkel,
Rough? Do you think? I thought I was being a little too gentle. Good thing I moderated my tone.
Bay Area Guy: "I reckon the social distancing in Canada preempted the world wide pandemic, right?"
I am perfectly okay with Canada completely shutting down all activity until not a single person ever again contracts ChiCom Kung Flu Virus.
In very much the same way Ken B has made explicitly clear he is okay with defining "open markets" as trade arrangements where US product exports are under heavy tariffs while products manufactured elsewhere for the US market are under zero or small tariffs.
@Anne:
We have tentatively decided that perhaps the current Panic has stripped away the thin veneer of meaning from the lives of those who worship only themselves and the material. Faced with the abyss, terror is the rational response, I suppose.
Or, you know, maybe they just have a different opinion than you. Always interesting when someone's response to another's different opinion is to opine on how that opinion must be a result of their flawed character.
Farmer: "Always interesting when someone's response to another's different opinion is to opine on how that opinion must be a result of their flawed character."
Which is the immediate go-to for Ken B and Tim in Vermont.
Without comment from you.
Hmmmmmmmmm.
Oh, it was only rough for somebody who would read it and take it to heart. Ken B is safe from introspection.
How many regulars here are Christians? I have been lurking for a long time, but don’t really have a sense of it.
It is an important question. I studied ethics in seminary under Stanley Hauerwas. He is—or was at the time—a pacifist. A well-regarded, if controversial, ethicist. He certainly stirred our passions when he argued that a Christian must never resort to violence—even to protect the innocent. I did not agree with him—and still do not. Still, he said something that has stayed with me and shaped my thinking:
For a Christian, death is not the worst thing that can happen.
These are truly terrible words—in the old sense of terrible. What does such an ethic lead to? We have seen it. Nineteen Coptic Christians beheaded on a beach because they would not renounce Christ.
Indeed, what DOES it profit a man to gain the world, but lose his soul?
I can only hope that faced with such a choice, I would remain faithful.
Beyond that, I long ago decided that a few other things are worse than death. Among those, living on my knees before those who deem themselves my betters. Better to die on my feet than live with the shame of submission. And that includes submission to the petty despots who populate our politics.
I don’t advocate revolution. I am a conservative and love Chesterton’s fences. I will, however, disobey. And if I die from the Chinese Lung Rot, so be it.
J. Farmer,
Opinions are rooted in something, no? Experience, thought, emotion...all of which are shaped by character. Opinions do not spring, like Athena, fully formed from the godhead.
As I think I made clear, my family and I were speculating. Perhaps you have another explanation for why people seem to be losing their fucking minds about this virus, when they fail to do so over so many more consequential existential threats?
@Drago:
Which is the immediate go-to for Ken B and Tim in Vermont.
Without comment from you.
Hmmmmmmmmm.
I have studiously avoided in participating in any covid-19 discussions on this blog for weeks now. This thread reminds me why.
The key for folks - who actually care about their fellow Americans - is to focus on the risk and harm caused by the economic lockdown and how to support the brave politicians who are gonna take the plunge to ease the lockdown for low risk folks in low impact areas.
Gov. Abbott of the great state of Texas is courageously on the right track.
Be more studious.
Birkel, I think you hate me, God knows why, but you are speaking truth tonight. I am impressed, and actually rather humbled that someone of whom I thought so little can show such wisdom.
Birkel,
Don’t discourage Mr. Farmer. I find him refreshing. I do find it curious that he called me out, yet failed to note that Ken B called me delusional. Is being delusional a character flaw? Hmm.
Nonetheless, he has his blind spots.
I'm neither Christian nor pacifist, and have nothing of the martyr in my makeup.
I'm not tough and brave enough for thorough-going pacifism, or spiritual enough for religion.
Narr
A man's gotta know his limitations
J. Farmer,
Is worshipping only oneself and the material a character flaw? You seem to be assuming that. Interesting. I would think that someone who claims to be a rationalist (not saying this is you, just speaking in generalities) would be proud that they worship only the human and the material. Perhaps worship is a loaded word. “Are attentive to” only themselves and the material. How’s that?
Anne,
The brand of Smug that Smug brings to the party cannot be discouraged.
It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargained with...it doesn't feel pity of remorse or fear...and it absolutely will not stop.Ever.
perspective on the other thread
Narr,
The Divine does not require spirituality. In fact, I suspect He rather loathes it. The Divine requires only this: To act justly, to show mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
@Anne,
"How many regulars here are Christians?"
You can put me down in the "flawed Catholic" category. However, to avoid the nefarious and ossified public school system here in NorCal, i have spent a small fortune sending my kids to Catholic schools which has given them good educations, reasonably good moral training and, through the years, has rubbed off somewhat on me.
So, there's hope!
@Anne:
As I think I made clear, my family and I were speculating. Perhaps you have another explanation for why people seem to be losing their fucking minds about this virus, when they fail to do so over so many more consequential existential threats?
Beats the hell out of me. I don't have the slightest idea how to explain why a group of amorphous people are doing some amorphous behavior. I can't explain why, for example, we spend trillions of dollars and thousands of man hours combating terrorism given how few people have ever died from terrorism. I remember the Teri Schiavo case was a cause célèbre among conservative Christians. And that was a single person.
Given your "so be it" attitude, if you were to become infected, would you not have any concern about transmitting it to another person who may not be as resigned to death or a long hospitalization as you?
Birkel by the way - I was just kidding - I never thought "so little" of you ----- I have seen the guardian angels of the least of us in all their glory and your guardian angel is no less glorious than anyone else's
Farmer: "I have studiously avoided in participating in any covid-19 discussions on this blog for weeks now. This thread reminds me why."
Hmmmmm again.
Yet you chose to violate your self-imposed quarantine from such threads just long enough to comment negatively on a commenter whom you judged to be out of line....who is no where near as out of line as Ken B and Tim in Vermont have been.
So, whatever.
so Birkel, drink some coffee and keep commenting tonight, you are SAYING WORDS OF TRUTH
It requires a relationship with God, a subordination of what matters in life,
Farmer: "Given your "so be it" attitude, if you were to become infected, would you not have any concern about transmitting it to another person who may not be as resigned to death or a long hospitalization as you?"
Ah, now it makes sense.
Farmer is about 60% to Ken B mode. That's why he chose to disregard his self-imposed rules about commenting in threads such as this.
Death.
Long hospitalization.
Some hospitalization.
A Z-PAC and staying home.
A bad cough and terrible body ache.
Eating tomato soup with crackers while drinking a ginger ale because you don't feel like yourself.
But, you know, the medical authorities are resigned to the fact we're almost all going to catch this virus.
Best to bankrupt everybody before they need medical care, Ken B says.
@Birkel:
It can't be reasoned with, it can't be bargained with...it doesn't feel pity of remorse or fear...and it absolutely will not stop.Ever.
You really missed an opportunity there, Birkel. You should have ended with "Until you are dead! (which you're fine with)"
You're slacking. I expect better from you in the future.
J. Farmer,
See, that’s the thing. The “resigned to death or a long hospitalization” assumption. Well, that’s ONE thing.
The vast majority of people will not face death or a long hospitalization because of this. Period. Full Stop. It is irrational to believe that this virus presents an existential threat except to those who are existentially threatened by any respiratory virus.
A second thing. You present a binary. Either I submit, or I must be careless of human life. Now who is assuming a character flaw? If I were infected (suspect I already have been, actually; live in Cali, travel extensively on planes with many Chinese people...), I would stay home. Just the same as I would if I had the flu. Because, who wants the flu? And those who are especially vulnerable can isolate themselves. They are doing that anyway. Why should tens of millions of healthy people bring their lives to a screeching halt to protect a few hundred thousand vulnerable people—who will shut themselves away anyway?
That is irrational.
Althouse is never getting on FailArmy biking like that.
Farmer: "You really missed an opportunity there, Birkel. You should have ended with "Until you are dead! (which you're fine with)""
Hmmmmmm.
Make that: Farmer is 80% to Ken B mode.
Anne (to Farmer): "A second thing. You present a binary. Either I submit, or I must be careless of human life."
Hmmmmm.
Good catch.
I revise my earlier estimates to: Farmer is 90% of the way to full Ken B mode.
I'm stumbly humbly to bed.
Narr
Mumblyglumbly
No, Smug.
I stooped the quote because the death was implied.
I had you think the next thought.
It was a bonus prize to have you type the words.
My 10:29 was posted before Anne's talk of binary.
WTF, Drago?
@Bay Area Guy,
(Is this @ thing a thing?). You can remove the “flawed.” There is no such thing as “unflawed.” “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
That is sin in koine Greek: hamartia. Missing the mark. There is no one who does not miss the mark. On a daily basis. I thank God every day that He extends me the grace of overlooking my failure to live in His image.
Anne: "Why should tens of millions of healthy people bring their lives to a screeching halt to protect a few hundred thousand vulnerable people—who will shut themselves away anyway?
That is irrational."
Careful Anne. Any more comments like that and these cats will accuse you of having wanted the opportunity to load the bodies into the ovens.
Fortunately, Farmer will only go 90% that far.
Birkel: "WTF, Drago?"
The cold hard logic of space time.
Mea Culpa.
@Drago:
Yet you chose to violate your self-imposed quarantine from such threads just long enough to comment negatively on a commenter whom you judged to be out of line....who is no where near as out of line as Ken B and Tim in Vermont have been.
So, whatever.
Yes, I chose to take issue with one person's statement but not another's. Give me a demerit. Send to detention. Sorry, I wasn't aware you were keeping score. I figured that since every other commenter was pushing back on them, that might be enough. Next time I'll certainly be sure to check with you before commenting.
Farmer is about 60% to Ken B mode. That's why he chose to disregard his self-imposed rules about commenting in threads such as this.
It was a relatively short period of time between the situation is under control, there's nothing to worry about from covid-19 to how many thousands have to die to justify social distancing. Maybe you were one of the ones who've been right from the beginning.
And did my SARS South Park episode reference pass by everybody?
Tomato soup.
Saltines.
Ginger ale.
Thousands of people died?
What is this, a day of the week in any month of every year?
Well we must stop that immediately.
Numbers are hard things.
Farmer: "Yes, I chose to take issue with one person's statement but not another's. Give me a demerit. Send to detention. Sorry, I wasn't aware you were keeping score"
Hey tiger, don't get mad at me just because your momentary lapse of self-disciplined self-enforced exile from particular threads allowed just enough time to weigh in on one side with accusations against the other for which your side was a much bigger violator.
If you don't want people to notice you are being hypocritical, here's a suggestion: don't be a hypocrite.
It was just a beautiful day today here in sin free city - 76 degrees and mostly sunny. Spent the whole day barefoot, doing chores around the property. At mid-afternoon our U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, eight F-16 Fighting Falcons flew around the city at 300 ft. to honor the medical people and first responders on the front lines of the pandemic. They flew right over the house here. Just awesome machines. Merica!
bagoh20: "At mid-afternoon our U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds, eight F-16 Fighting Falcons flew around the city at 300 ft. to honor the medical people and first responders on the front lines of the pandemic. They flew right over the house here. Just awesome machines. Merica!"
I'm sure that was nice and everything, but lets face it. They aren't exactly the Blue Angels, are they?
I like Anne. She's a deep thinker on important things.
Happy Easter, folks! Keep your spirits up.
@Narr,
Sleep well. May a guardian angel bear watch over you.
@Everyone else:
Perhaps you missed it. My BIL is a pulmonologist/critical care/hospitalist. MD. He has at least a dozen Chinese Virus patients. He is completely confuzzled (a Hoosierism) by the Panic. And chagrined. And angry, even. Because he loves liberty, just as I do.
I am a scientist. I work in Big, EVIL Pharma. I did my doctoral work in neuropharmacology.
I am not uninformed on this topic.
There may be a pathogen—and a disease process—that merits a complete shutdown of society. I can’t think of one right off the top of my head, but I have an imagination. THIS IS NOT IT.
The current unpleasantness merits dissection. Why the Panic? What are we learning about those who would lead us? (And certainly, they are not a monolith.). What are we learning about our national character? What do we have to fear—not from a biological perspective, but from a political perspective? What ratchet is being tightened (if one is—that perhaps is a topic for debate)?
One need not posit nefarious intent on the part of most of those responding with PANIC! To this virus. One need only understand human nature. Nonetheless, those of us who know how precarious is our liberty must be ready to examine what is happening and what must be done to preserve the elements of life that we find more important than whether a rather humdrum virus keeps us in bed for a couple of weeks.
The South Park SARS episode happened under Bush II.
That was back when thousands of people were sick and thousands died.
(Corrected the date in my mind, and therefore the president.)
Bay Area Guy: "I like Anne. She's a deep thinker on important things."
Indeed.
On top of that, I don't think she is anywhere close to being a cold-hearted murderess as some might try characterize her.
@Anne:
The vast majority of people will not face death or a long hospitalization because of this. Period. Full Stop.
And what powers of observation will allow you to discern who is at greater risk than others. People don't walk around with their underlying conditions stapled to their foreheads.
If I were infected (suspect I already have been, actually; live in Cali, travel extensively on planes with many Chinese people...), I would stay home.
You can be infected and transmit the virus without being symptomatic.
mifsud was involved with these acts, as chris blackburn discovered
Just a brief interlude with reality here.
On April 11, 2020, thirty one days after the coronavirus made it's first confirmed appearance in the great state of Michigan, here is the Covid-19 death scorecard for the following contiguous counties, which are part of a substantial and interconnected industrial, tourism, and farming region (Berrien, Van Buren, Allegan, Ottawa, Muskegon, Kent, Barry, Kalamazoo, Calhoun, Cass) in southwestern Michigan: 1,976,000 population; 32 deaths.
Folks, this isn't even noise, let alone a signal. Yet, this region is subject to all the nonsense spewing from the feeble brain of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. People can't buy plants, shrubs and seeds at a garden center; they can't visit their vacation cottages; they can't go to the parks; their children are out of school; they can't buy child seats for their cars at Walmart; they can't go to their favorite restaurant; they can't put their power boats in the water, but their canoes are OK; they can't go to the beach to look at the sunset; they can't go into the grocery store if there are too many people there.
If you give these politicians power, they will abuse it. Why? O'Brien had a few thoughts in George Orwell's "1984":
"But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.”
Anne: "Perhaps you missed it. My BIL is a pulmonologist/critical care/hospitalist. MD."
They didn't "miss" it.
They don't want to engage at that level.
It's just easier to call everyone a callous killer willing to plow millions into the dirt for fun and profit.
@Birkel,
I am sorry I missed your SP reference. I never watch TV. But I wish I watched South Park. I gain enough cultural knowledge from osmosis to appreciate those guys.
@JFarmer,
I get that the tag line on the virus has been rapidly shifting. At least for some people. Some of us have been skeptical from the beginning. Because we understand infectious disease.
I don’t underestimate the effect of this virus on the vulnerable. Nor am I not cognizant of the fact that a rapid spread of a respiratory illness can catch our health system unawares—and that capacity is always a concern. I would say that initial caution was warranted. Certainly to the extent of protecting the elderly and the immune-compromised. (I work with leukemia physicians. No WAY would I put myself in a position to endanger those patients.).
I think a more measured response would have been far better—for our economic health and our MENTAL health. As my BIL said, “We are carpet-bombing when we should be using snipers.” What does that mean? I am not a policy expert, so I would leave that to those who do policy. But PANIC! Was the wrong response.
@Drago:
If you don't want people to notice you are being hypocritical, here's a suggestion: don't be a hypocrite.
Hypocrisy would be if I didn't apply the standards to myself. So, for example, you call people names but now want to be in a position to complain about other people calling names. And insult-slinging between participants here is a bit different than saying that covid-19 has "stripped away the thin veneer of meaning from the lives of those who worship only themselves and the material."
Not to mention, it was the only explanation she found plausible. I am not exactly sure on what basis Anne can claim that people's lives have a "thin veneer" or that they "worship only themselves and the material."
I admit it, I find that a much more interesting claim (and one worthy of investigation) than calling someone an asshole.
Fortunately, Farmer will only go 90% that far.
Actually Drago, I am quite capable of hashing out a difference of opinion with someone without the need to insult them or call them names. There's a lesson there for you. And others.
"They aren't exactly the Blue Angels, are they?"
You can send them by too. I can't get enough of fighter jets.
Farmer: "I admit it, I find that a much more interesting claim (and one worthy of investigation) than calling someone an asshole."
Which I've never done on this blog.
Nor will I.
Anne at 10:36 - I don't spend a lot of time with them, but I know a few nuns who - believe it or not - wake up in the morning, live their day, and at the end of the day, they have not sinned. EVEN NOW IN 2020.
Well, I know a lot of nuns, and I am not sure which are the ones who are not sinning on any given day, but you get my drift.
I know a lot of people. That is why my life is so difficult, it would be so easy to just make a living and ignore everybody. Maybe I should do that.
Thanks for commenting here, I am loving your comments.
Thank you Anne. You've lifted up the recent commentary here -- no, the usual commentary -- 1000 percent single-handedly.
A happy and blessed Palm Sunday to you!
Farmer: "Actually Drago, I am quite capable of hashing out a difference of opinion with someone without the need to insult them or call them names. There's a lesson there for you."
Why is there a lesson there for me?
Because when someone is pushing transparent ChiCom propaganda I point it out forcefully and supply the evidence?
Because when someone is pushing democrat talking points non-stop for years I make note of that?
Well.
As someone recently wrote: "Give me a demerit. Send to detention. Sorry, I wasn't aware you were keeping score."
its like strangelove
@Anne:
But PANIC! Was the wrong response.
I am not sure that "PANIC!" is ever the right response. Rather, I think we would simply differ in what is panic versus what is rational precaution.
I think a more measured response would have been far better—for our economic health and our MENTAL health. As my BIL said, “We are carpet-bombing when we should be using snipers.” What does that mean? I am not a policy expert, so I would leave that to those who do policy.
As I understand it, the lack of testing and contact tracing resources made the more measured response of mass testing and isolating the sick not a viable option.
Some of us have been skeptical from the beginning. Because we understand infectious disease.
And others who work in infection disease were less skeptical. Obviously, knowledge of infectious disease is not the critical point of difference. Are good faith differences of opinion and interpretations of the data not a possibility you are willing to consider?
@J Farmer,
Now you are just being an idiot. None of us know the health status of strangers. But the Chinese Lung Rot is not a special case. If I have the beginnings of the flu and I interact with an elderly person, a person with COPD, or an immunocompromised person, I have probably doomed them to a miserable several weeks—if not a stay in the ICU or death. That is why, when I am sick, I STAY THE FUCK HOME. Unlike 99% of the rest of the world, who go to work or whatever, anyway. Including you, I suspect.
You are obtuse. What makes Chinese virus different? The vulnerable are always with us. We endanger them all the time. Selfish people that we are.
My BIL’s first patient (a victim of the Biogen conference in Boston) is 5’11” and 430 lbs. He would have been fucked if he had caught the flu. Or bacterial pneumonia. Or hell, a bad cold. The care team had trouble following protocol because he was so big that they couldn’t move him. Do you honestly want to ruin people’s lives to prevent this guy from catching a virus?
Let’s flip the coin, Mr. Farmer. How many lives are you willing to sacrifice to suicide, divorce, child abuse, domestic violence, and disease that doesn’t get treated during thie Panic?
“Great catch. I have a lesion on my right outer bicep. Popped up a month ago. I called for an appointment and was told June 6th was earliest in-office appointment available. I stressed to the receptionist that it is an active lesion.”
You sound overly concerned about a lesion. Relax, it won’t kill you, will it?
Inga: "You sound overly concerned about a lesion. Relax, it won’t kill you, will it?"
The open borders crowd, ignoring the thousands of Americans murdered, raped and assaulted, checks in.
I'll bet those victims had no idea how lucky they were to have been killed or assaulted by someone with a "spark of divinity".
the thin veneer of meaning
What meaning is there to human life to the purely materialist? Any meaning that there is is only skin deep. And the existentialists eventually do not believe in even that.
At first they may profess that life has whatever meaning one gives it. But they eventually come to the conclusion that, being purely material, there is no inherent meaning to life. What you see is what you get. That's all.
We are, after all, nothing more than a collection of molecules, having thus no more significance than an animal or tree or rock or . . . virus. End result from the purely materialist perspective that does not admit of any transcendence to human experience is nihilistic despair.
Others believe that this isn't all that there is. That there is something more. Something beyond. Something bigger that us puny, imperfect humans.
Anne--J Farmer is very self-confident. I don't believe that anyone has ever persuaded him to modify any of his opinions on this blog. He just slices the baloney thinner.
@Drago:
Why is there a lesson there for me?
Because when someone is pushing transparent ChiCom propaganda I point it out forcefully and supply the evidence?
Because when someone is pushing democrat talking points non-stop for years I make note of that?
There is a difference between attacking someone's argument and attacking them for their motives which you claim to have divined. Calling something "Chicom propaganda" or a "democrat talking point" isn't a response. It's a dodge.
As someone recently wrote: "Give me a demerit. Send to detention. Sorry, I wasn't aware you were keeping score."
Recall that you began the exchange with me, not the other way around. You called me a hypocrite, yet another example of you wanting to make the conversation about what kind of a person I am instead of addressing the point I was making. Even if I was hypocrites, a hypocrite can say a true thing.
You sound overly concerned about a lesion. Relax, it won’t kill you, will it?
Did you read Jalanl at 9:32?
I know a few nuns who - believe it or not - wake up in the morning, live their day, and at the end of the day, they have not sinned. EVEN NOW IN 2020.
I would venture to guess that the good sisters would never dare say that about themselves. I'm pretty sure that they would all profess that they have sinned and that they frequently go to Confession.
Farmer: "Recall that you began the exchange with me, not the other way around. You called me a hypocrite, yet another example of you wanting to make the conversation about what kind of a person I am instead of addressing the point I was making."
You were being hypocritical.
It was noticed.
This upsets you.
I don't care.
Thats a rather pathetic view of life, isnt it, this why nietsche didnt look forward to his 'gott is totten' but dreaded it.
Ah, Mr. Farmer,
Sorry if I got a bit passionate. I agree—reasonable people can disagree. Educated people can have different opinions. Certainly.
When this started, and school was canceled, my sister was wrapped around the axle about it. (My kids are grown; all of hers are still in various stages of schooling.). I counseled caution. I advised her that we needed to get a handle on the situation, and perhaps a little early caution was better than late regret.
So, I concede your point.
My point now is at least two-fold. First, we have enough information to determine that this is not going to be a wildfire roaring through the community of healthy people, leaving corpses lying by the roadside. And yet, the response of many of our “betters” is to tighten the restrictions on our lives. This is frightening to me. Because I think many of these people are intoxicated by power (I admit, I am biased to believe that those who enter politics are a little excited by controlling others). The goalposts seem to be moving, from taking the pressure off of the health system to preventing anyone, anywhere, from contracting the virus.
The second point is that we should have been concerned from the beginning with the sequelae of an economic shutdown. And that those who accuse those of us who have been voicing that thought of being murderous assholes (and believe me, I have been accused of that) can just as credibly be accused of being indifferent to human life and well-being.
See what I mean?
Amadeus 48: "See what I mean?"
Yes. It's nothing new.
Anne: "As my BIL said, “We are carpet-bombing when we should be using snipers.” What does that mean? I am not a policy expert, so I would leave that to those who do policy. But PANIC! Was the wrong response."
Send my thanks to your brother. His metaphor is apt. And let him know that many of us here have been fighting the good fight right along.
As we start The Reckoning, one further question to be answered is why exactly a portion of the pro-panic faction was so eager to carpet-bomb. Sure, a number of them simply gave in to panic; others "followed the experts" and the "real calculations." "If it only saves one life!"--you know the whole insane drill. But that doesn't quite account for the eagerness of the carpet-bombers. And here I am not referring to commenters on this blog, but to real people, with real power out there in the real world.
On the part of officials, the lust for power combined with a panicky CYA-ueber-alles approach. One sniff of total control, and many governors could not resist. A portion of the public was eager to submit: hankering for security, careless with freedom. The pro-sanity voices were too weak, too disorganized. Even heterodox experts--Knut Wittkowski, John Ioannidis--had a hard time getting through. A number of experts fueled the panic--some in good faith, as far as I can tell, like IHME, others not--Ferguson in the UK, the Minnesota modelers supposedly advising the gov there; collectively, they failed to stop the bombing, when they should have known better.
So what we have here is not simply panic, or bullshit numbers, or naive credulity. What we have here is a systemic failure. That may be a bigger problem than the "epidemic."
Anne: "My point now is at least two-fold. First, we have enough information to determine that this is not going to be a wildfire roaring through the community of healthy people, leaving corpses lying by the roadside. And yet, the response of many of our “betters” is to tighten the restrictions on our lives."
Look at the Kentucky Governor just today, ordering people to stay out of church parking lots...while in their cars!
Of course, other parking lots can have lots of people in them...in their car or walking to the stores.
Just not the churches. On Easter.
Gee, I better not say anything about this Governor. Farmer will become upset with me.
Smug won't lose. Of that you can be sure. Now getting Smug to engage is nearly impossible.
Testing and tracing was impossible. Fine. So the answer was for the most vulnerable to sequester themselves because they are the most highly motivated to protect their own lives. Meanwhile the rest of us would deliver meals to the health compromised (I have done this with neighbors during these events.) and do our bests to follow best practices RE: avoiding spread.
Oh, and we would work so that instead of losing 30-50 million jobs in 3 weeks (with no end in sight except for in Texas) we might have lost a tenth as many. Those of us who could work from home would have, owing to prudence.
And the price tag would not be between 3 and 5 trillion USD in lost economic activity. Plus we would have avoided the 8.3 trillion USD promised to be spent by Congress. But then I am an optimist.
And I don't want to tell people what to do.
Farmer
Well done. Your calm, rational, polite explanations have sent them round the twist.
Just as mine and Tim's did long ago when we still had the patience not to respond to stuff like cunt or obtuse with insults.
Those days are past. If I see a denialist Covidiot, I name it. Anne for example. Mockery is my preference now. (She can’t even get Easter right.)
So I say to Anne the same thing I said to Ward a while ago. See you in a few weeks and we'll check whose analysis is holding up.
Ken B: "If I see a denialist Covidiot, I name it. Anne for example. Mockery is my preference now."
And why not?
Farmer certainly approves of that.
But woe to anyone who responds in kind, right Farmer?
Ken B: Smug won't lose. But it is not very persuasive.
@ Anne
None of us know the health status of strangers, but we know that elderly people and others at high risk can get some protection from flu with a vaccine. We know that in January of 2020 none of our fellow citizens had any immunity to Covid-19, and that only a limited number to date have acquired it (despite the fact that everyone believes that the last respiratory virus they had was probably Coronavirus, like a bunch of first year med students who are certain they have lupus when they read the description of symptoms.)
We know that, as you briefly acknowledge, this virus showed features that warranted caution, but also that the CDC and FDA dropped the ball on testing. And we know that, unlike with the flu when we can prevent most transmission by STAYING THE FUCK AT HOME when symptomatic, this virus doesn’t give us the ability to know when we are transmitting it.
I suspect we’ve overreacted too and I have grave concerns about the economic effects and the overreach in curtailing civil liberties. Why do you assume that everyone who doesn’t see this exactly as you do is panicking?
@Mark,
Re: the nuns.
Who sins? I will not hazard a guess—except to say to someone who fears he is uniquely sinful that such an assessment is wrong.
I waver between believing that I sin every moment of my existence and believing that our loving Creator does not judge as nearly as harshly as we judge ourselves.
I thank God that He led me to the Orthodox Church. For someone such as I, who is prone to self-criticism to the point of self-loathing, the Orthodox perspective on human nature and sin is life-giving. We are all patients in a hospital—suffering from the dis-ease of sin—and our great physician, Christ, is returning us to health. And to our true nature—being God-like—having been created in His image.
we are ereminded this is not our world, that our sojourn is short but it looks moredefinitive.
Anne:
Apparently, good faith differences of opinion and interpretations of the data are not a possibility you are willing to consider.
That is why, when I am sick, I STAY THE FUCK HOME.
Given that you can have the virus and transmit it before symptoms arise, HOW THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT TO KNOW YOU ARE SICK? Since your brother-in-law appears to be the font of all knowledge, perhaps you should ask him.
Unlike 99% of the rest of the world, who go to work or whatever, anyway. Including you, I suspect.
Sure, Anne, nobody is as good and considerate a person as you.
You are obtuse.
Sweet of you to say so.
What makes Chinese virus different? The vulnerable are always with us. We endanger them all the time. Selfish people that we are.
You certainly seem to know something about selfishness. But on the question of differences, let's see. The virus is brand new and we don't fully understand the illness that it causes, we currently have no proven treatments for it, we have no vaccine, it's pretty contagious, and it puts enough proportion of people infected in the hospital to be worried about the capacity for healthcare delivery systems.
Let’s flip the coin, Mr. Farmer. How many lives are you willing to sacrifice to suicide, divorce, child abuse, domestic violence, and disease that doesn’t get treated during this Panic?
I'll tell you as soon as you tell me how many people would have to die of covid-19 before you think widespread social distancing is appropriate.
Anne would like to be able to go see her doc to have her lesion assessed sooner than early June. It’s worth very much to her to have her particular health issue put above the safety and lives of the many. I’d say that Anne needs to take the beam out of her own eye.
Cue Rocky theme.
There is a distinction between social distancing and flatlining every part of the economy.
The pastor that was? In the cross hairs in the tampa area is from south africa which has absorbed as much marxist ethos as the late madiba (nelson mandela) would allow.
@CStanley,
You are assuming facts not in evidence. I am not responding to “everyone who doesn’t see things the way I do.” I am responding to specific people, here, such as Ken B and Mr. Farmer, who seem to be panicking.
@Ken B,
Who is being insulting? Calling someone obtuse is not the same as calling them an asshole. Asshole is a noun. Obtuse is an adjective. I can be obtuse sometimes. If someone points that out to me, I am not offended. Perhaps they are right. Perhaps they aren’t. At any rate, calling me obtuse is not a value judgement.
And I don’t have Easter wrong. All of you do.
Oh, Inga. I just feel sorry for you.
@Amadeus 48:
Anne--J Farmer is very self-confident. I don't believe that anyone has ever persuaded him to modify any of his opinions on this blog. He just slices the baloney thinner.
As opposed to everybody else here who are constantly admitting error, changing their opinions, and admitting how wrong they've been about everything.
My apologies for being more interested in explaining why I think the way I do and reading why others think the way they do instead of me telling a person what kind of person they are.
“Since your brother-in-law appears to be the font of all knowledge, perhaps you should ask him.”
I’m not impressed with Anne’s brother in law, the pulmonologist, IF he even exists. A real pulmonologist wouldn’t make light of what this virus does to human lungs.
He just comes for the abuse, anne, he cant really tell us the consequences of the protocols he recommends to their logical extent. Your expertise in helpful in these matters
That 3-5 trillion in lost economic activity is just for Q1 and Q2 of 2020.
Those effects will be felt in every subsequent quarter so this is a drastic undercounting.
Mr Farmer,
You seem to be a bit hot under the collar. You have moved from dispassionate observation to ad hominem. Maybe you should have a drink. Or a cold shower.
Inga
Indeed.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I have had remote consultations with a doctor, several times, some ending in either a prescription or a request to visit. And the magical part is the doctor could see me. And my arm!
https://mobile.twitter.com/joesichspach/status/1248653376931258370
Michigan is a real bad place, glad I have never been. Pity those sad souls. Can you imagine the things people learn in a place like that?
“Oh, Inga. I just feel sorry for you.”
Oh Anne, maybe you should pray and show what a good Christin you are and use your strong faith to convince others that your opinion is more learned and rational than anyone else’s. I’m not impressed by Anne or her professions of her faith either.
makes perfect sense
Mr Farmer,
I believe I just used the words, “I concede your point.” So, does everyone on this blog refuse to admit when they might have been in error? Or are you just projecting?
Inga,
You need to go away. You aren’t even intellectually interesting.
I expected, as the cultural "volume" increased, that the ones who would go furthest in trying to spread the panic and apocalyptic visions of the COVID outbreak would be the super far-right, hardcore prepper crowd. I figured with the election coming up, there'd be extreme paranoia that this was Stage 1 in a Chinese plan to take over the world, or a mass culling of the unwashed masses by the Bilderberg set, or something similarly crazy. You'd see 'em load up their pickups and SUVs, head out to the hinterlands, and start fortifying shit and threatening authorities. Not that I really expected a widespread kinda movement - maybe only a dozen or so smallish family or townie circles participating - but enough folks (with enough evident weaponry, gear, etc) that the media would hit the "right-wing terror" panic button to give the Left a talking point to use, backed up by footage (including faked shit from movies, or other countries, or gun-ranges in Kentucky having a big=bore night, cuz that's basically how the media rolls these days).
Instead, to my sorta surprise, the crazy right-wing (and left-wing) militia survivalist moonbats and comrades haven't materialized, at least not spreading doom, making headlines, or that sort of thing. I'm sure a few headed for the hills, but nobody cared. Instead we have squishy moderates and garden variety leftists acting like a virus is going to be the end of civilized society as we knew it, that EVERYTHING has to change, at least a little, and pushing the idea that statewide, mass commercial and industrial shutdowns are the only sane way to avoid a full-blown pandemic. Some are even arguing for Federal control of the shutdowns, and Federal control over what states can and can't reopen. It's madness. Yet here we are. The most hardcore of them are so anti-Trump that they refuse to admit the potential - hell, the proven efficacy of the HCQ-Zinc-ZPak cocktail (which is still my go-to choice if I get this flu, for the second time) - instead whining uselessly about how it's not been thru expensive, yearslong, error-prone clinical trials, hyping the (rare and generally minor) potential side effects, and claiming that Trump is poised to make billions in sales (when in fact, he might just make enough to afford a used 2003 Honda Civic with low miles). They'd rather scare people away from a known-good treatment, potentially costing lives, than just admit that maybe Trump had good instincts when the first clinical reports out of Europe and Asia showed up. I mean, it's not like Trump invented this fucking treatment! He just heard reports, clinically or via intel channels or whatever, that it worked and was a cheap way to start trying something, and low and behold those reports have so far held up and the damn thing works. But nope, for the hardcore TDS set, because it issued from Trump's lips before Sanjay Gupta or NAncy Pelosi had a chance to tout it, it is verboten and unproven and oh-so "anecdotal".
And meanwhile, we're all watching a mass media attempt to erase Chinese culpability for this crisis from our eyes and minds and memories. It's happening literally right before our eyes every single day.
Sometimes I wish I'd made more serious attempts to learn how to skateboard as a teenager. I sucked for a few tries and decided I wasn't as into it as my friends, so I kept on my bike. But maybe if I'd fallen on my head a few more times, I'd be blissfully blind to all this bullshit and not be extremely worried about where this is all taking us as a nation.
Actually, I have changed Farmer's mind. Or at least got him to change his statement of it, which is all we can really go by.
My theory:
People can understand two thousand deaths a day from a new disease.
They cannot (will not?) understand ~3 million deaths per year every year.
People similarly cannot understand what 3-5 trillion USD in lost economic activity means.
They cannot (will not?) understand all the foregone inventions and discoveries and happiness that is lost.
“Indeed.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I have had remote consultations with a doctor, several times, some ending in either a prescription or a request to visit. And the magical part is the doctor could see me. And my arm!”
Anne’s a smooth talker and has impressed the easily impressed here. I read her first two comments and immediately smelled BS.
@Anne:
Mr Farmer,
You seem to be a bit hot under the collar. You have moved from dispassionate observation to ad hominem. Maybe you should have a drink. Or a cold shower.
Unfortunately we are not conversing in real time. The move from dispassionate observation occurred after reading your comment where you said I was "just being an idiot" am "obtuse" and "Including you, I suspect."
I wrote the more aggressive comment before reading your next comment, in which you struck a more conciliatory tone and said, "Sorry if I got a bit passionate. I agree—reasonable people can disagree. Educated people can have different opinions. Certainly."
I accept your apology. And I hope you will accept mine as well.
Inga knows a thing or two about non-existent relatives.
I believe I just used the words, “I concede your point.” So, does everyone on this blog refuse to admit when they might have been in error? Or are you just projecting?
No, it's a function of the fact that I can't read new comments until I finish the one I am writing. That's why we appear to be talking past each other a bit.
“You aren’t even intellectually interesting.”
And you aren’t smart enough to be a good liar. Your entire spiel here is a fake. Your faith, your brother in law, your lesion.
"I'll tell you as soon as you tell me how many people would have to die of covid-19 before you think widespread social distancing is appropriate."
Red herring. This is not just "widespread social distancing". This is "widespread economic shutdown of multiple industries and mass unemployment of large sectors of the workforce".
And you know it.
@KenB,
Are you really that silly? Inspecting a skin lesion by televisit is very different from diagnosing pink eye or an ear infection. I love telemedicine. I have gotten prophylactic antibiotics for a tick bite, eye drops for possible pink eye, and prescription refills when caught unexpectedly without my usual meds. Wonderful! Efficient! Time-saving!
And certain things need face-to-face consultation. Such as dermatologic conditions.
I wasn’t really concerned about the lack of contact on my visit. I knew that the doc would want to see me, in person, because a video assessment is just too difficult.
My point, which you and the charming Inga seem to have missed, is that many people are not very aggressive in caring for their health. They will not advocate for themselves. How many of these people will suffer because they didn’t get care that they needed, because CHINESE LUNG ROT!!!!
But you don’t seem to give a shit about them.
Are we comparing BILs? Mine is a prof at a major medical school, former department head, and is director of a medical research institute.
Do I win a kewpie doll?
The way this outbreak manifested itself both in china and in the west, seemed bewildering at first why did the who behave the way it did. Well only the federalist and apelbaum that israeli data miner really even explored this. In that light as well as the cdcs willfull blindness ahaped the weakness of response.
The times riffed on plague literature instead of addressing why italy was affected.
You are assuming facts not in evidence. I am not responding to “everyone who doesn’t see things the way I do.” I am responding to specific people, here, such as Ken B and Mr. Farmer, who seem to be panicking.
As well as all the people that you and your family members were ruminating over, as you shared here.
But not everyone who disagrees with you, got it. Fine, but it’s a bit hard to think I’d be able to have a good fath discussion with you after that.
I believe that the faithful sisters, spouses of the Lord that they are, would not be so proud as to say that they never sin. They would likely also not be overly scrupulous. But in growing closer to the Lord, growing deeper in faith, they likely have the sight to see the imperfections in themselves that we overlook in ourselves. Most of the women religious I know would say that they do fall short here and there.
I also believe that God isn't too broken up about it. He's not going to bust them about it and will cut them a lot of slack. But given that Jesus said, "be perfect" -- and perfection is a tall order -- it is good for them to aspire to it.
Actually, I have changed Farmer's mind. Or at least got him to change his statement of it, which is all we can really go by.
There are plenty of times where I have conceded a point or admitted a lapse in judgement or a mistake on my part. But to get to that point, you usually have to discuss the difference in opinion. That alone is a struggle for many who comment here. For them, their preferred method is to read someone's statement and immediately try to determine what kind of dumb or evil person it reveals them to be.
Inga: "You sound overly concerned about that mentally ill illegal immigrant over there fondling a gun he just picked up. Relax, he won’t kill you, will he?"
And besides, surely if he DID somehow kill you, he'd be properly imprisoned for it, right Inga?
Inga: "you aren’t smart enough to be a good liar. Your entire spiel here is a fake. Your faith, your brother in law, your lesion."
4/11/20, 11:46 PM
Farmer: "Always interesting when someone's response to another's different opinion is to opine on how that opinion must be a result of their flawed character."
4/11/20, 10:06 PM
tsk tsk tsk
Let’s all weep for Anne’s lesion, shall we name it Harry? It’s such an emergency that Anne sees the dermatologist that she advocates for ending social distancing, which has been shown to be very effective at keep Covid numbers down, that she would risk countless lives to have her precious “Harry” attended to posthaste!
Inga: "Anne’s a smooth talker and has impressed the easily impressed here. I read her first two comments and immediately smelled BS."
To this day, Inga believes Trump colluded with Russia and Carter Page is a russian spy.
Discuss.
Post a Comment