boscohorowitz
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“That sounds bizarre, except that’s what they did during the Plague, an actual disease with an actual death rate.”
As a writer, I of course admire Dr D’s literary style. Even out of context, the above pleases me silly.
There has to be a word in some language for the cognitive discomfort one feels, the strange surreality, when the absurd but logical things one expects to happen actually do.
“… 299,000 dead by today.”
Not that hard, maybe, when you turn entire cities into concentration camps.
For example: “By comparison, seasonal flu has an average mortality rate of about 0.1%, but is highly infectious – with up to 400,000 people dying from it each year.” Usa has probably about 30-40K of those yearly casualties. Does anyone here know anyone who’s died of the flu?
Facts don’t have to be hidden so much as obscured. Media can blather on about so much nonsense that 300K deaths in a few months wouldn’t be noticed. USA citizens have been thoroughly hidden from their own history by a large education system. It’s easy, apparently. Few people will ever declare the emperor’s nudity. They’ve seen what happens to freaks (like us) who dare proclaim such unofficial truth.
So yeah, I think a 300K death count is very feasible.
“The cure for this would be very, very high prices, so it’s only used for medical and we don’t get triple-packed in an Amazon box with 3 more boxes with 5 useless poppers each inside.”
Most of which could be eliminated by removing the need to have cargo survive a a week to a month at sea before reaching market.
Speaking as a disinterested lizard person, I’d say that a disease that kills off old people is useful for the current human condition.
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One principle that tends to get buried again and again is that this isn’t either/or. We’re not swapping out x deaths/difficult recoveries from coronavirus for x-etc. from flu or whatever for x deaths from coronavirus. We’re ADDING. It doesn’t matter if the flu/traffic kills x a year. We’re ADDING to that skull pile, straining healthcare services/human frailty that much more.
Not to mention what Twain said: “There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.”
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I see that it is now officially time to panic. How do I know? Major media platforms are now swarming with slogans like ‘Stay Calm and Wash Your Hands’. Which is good advice but means “Freak out!!!!” becuz the government has officially acknowledged the reality of kung flu.
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Meanwhile: “Therefore, he ordered her to be deposed.” “She has never been deposed under oath on this,” he continued. “She was interrogated, but not under oath, in a secret interrogation by the FBI three days before they exonerated her.” Additionally, he noted, this deposition will also be videotaped. “She can’t plead the fifth, right?” asked host Ainsley Earhardt. “She can’t plead the fifth because the statute of limitations to prosecute her for failure to safeguard state secrets has come and gone. She can’t be prosecuted for that,” he replied. “She could be prosecuted if she lies under oath in this deposition. She is represented in the deposition by lawyers form the Justice Department.” “The same Justice Department that would prosecute her if she lies under oath,” he added.”
The turning of the screw in Hillary’s case could/should have major impact on politics, period. The smell released should her head be pulled from her ass will be paradigm-shattering.
Comparing something new to the pre-existant doesn’t remove the pre-existant.
“So if you were in their shoes, what would YOU do?”
About what we see. Too little too late, too much too soon, none of it effective.
I doubt that there is much direct intentionality behind any of this. I think that amoral arrogant stupidity best fits the scenario we see. If you’re dumb enough to manufacture bioweapons, you’re dumb enough to be hoist by your own petard.
it’s a mess. Like kids left alone at home qwhile Mom makes a quick trip to the grocery for last-minute essentials.
Returned home to crayons and lipstick and glue all over everything, the parent knows better than to ask, “Who’s responsible?”
None of them are. They’re children. You can’t trust them to be responsible.
But we have trusted them to be responsible. Quite irresponsible of us.
“I see Julian’s chief accuser, Hillary is still above the law. Obviously Julian is below the law.”
Poor Julian.
As for Hillary, I suspect that she has to take a lot of narcotics just to smile these days.
As for Tulsi, while I have no hope in general, I note that the unique circumstances developing might do unexp[ected things to her candidacy. Some wild tail winds are forming offstage.
Actually, the current generation WILL handle the virus because it will be the survivors who have no choice but to carry on. They will become freakishly tough, those survivors, and write a line of history we’ll never know. The Greatesdt generation wasn’t alol that tough and the Wokesters aren’t all that weak.
The Greatest Gen (my parents) were colossal chumps who fell for a global swindle called WWII. The Wokesters are colossal chumps who fall for Save the Planet globalism. Hardly anyone from either generation met an “app” (same lexical root as ‘appliance’) they wouldn’t sdell their autonomy for.
As for the virus, it will do us about as bad the Spanish Flu did the parents and grandparents of the so-called greatest Generation. Both cultures were based on ever greater close-quartered integration of growing populations. Both were/are recipes for infectious epidemic disaster.
Whether they croak clutching a can of 1959 Schlitz or some New Age-named caffeine confection, hardly matters. Both generations were total chumps. Like us. We’re watching the tsunami approach our homes, and we don’t have highlands to retreat to.
“even now, there’s the means to do this”
Except the gasahol. Stupid concept: turn your food into fuel and pollution! I prefer poopane: turn your poop into fuel!
“Sanders will just keep promising free socialized Medicare for All, and food stamps for all, probably gasahol for all, free college, massive jobs program to put everybody to work. He runs his mouth like that day and night, and these kids and minorities and poor white trash are fool enough to believe it and vote for him.”
The thing is, even now, there’s the means to do this. But it would require the evil overlords (gotta call ’em something) to lose their wealth, position, power, etc., in a racket over 2000 years old and weirdly closely associated with Abrahamic religion: private-for-public banking.
‘private-for-public banking’: I think you can find this in the AntiLogos Dictionary. (I don’t write hashtags lest Zucker’s flying glove monkeys DisLike me for all eternity and steal my soul. Mongo just pawn in game of life.)
So it looks like this virus thingie (I still like Kung Flu best) has several new vectors: lateral time interactions. It can stay hidden but very infectious for days, it can charge in gang-busters, it can reinfect as a senile afterthought. This makes for a slow underswell that periodically blips as it passes by an island in its transoceanic journey but mostly is invisible until it reachers the coast and reveals a tsunami of infectious momentum.
As for this:
“People kill people. Doesn’t matter what color or nationality they are. The current top dog gets the blame but is soon replaced by the next top dog.
Eliminating “white people” or a nation only results in a new oppressor. Native Americans were slaughtering each other before the Europeans arrived and slaughtered them. African tribes sold other tribes to Europeans for slaves.
People are not responsible for what somebody did hundreds of years ago because everybody was doing the same thing. All we can do is try to be is individually compassionate today. We are not responsible for what people did hundreds of years ago, or for that matter, how they behave hundreds of years from now.”Please tell us something we don’t already know. Lord have mercy.
“Be careful for what you wish for bosco.”
What, exactly, have I “wished for”? I’m not seeing it. Here’s what I wish for: people would adress theuir resp[onses to a remark, not a void.
“The new cybersecurity centers are part of a new New York City public-private partnership called “CyberNYC” that is valued at over $100 million and officially aims to “spur the creation of 10,000 cybersecurity jobs and make New York City a global leader in cyber innovation.” ”
Tangential observation: jobs, no matter how high-paying, that pay cyber-cops to protect data, are resource-drainers. High-paid cyber-cop still gets to exchange his $$ for food grown by real workers somewhere cooked by energy resources mined by someone somewhere… exchagning less-than-nothing for something.
As China goes into quarantine shutdown, the world feels it: China makes real stuff. As USA goes into quarantine shutdown, the world will mostly feel growing relief from oppression, intimidation, burden.
Regharding politics and elections: in USA, these are very crowd-centric activities.
Methinks this is gonn be a political no-show year. Poor Donald gonna be stuck with the job no matter what.
“For a country like the USA, at 4 face masks a day, that’s 300-plus million face masks times four times a day (120 million face masks a day) times 30 days. That’s 14.4 million face masks.”
Not enough oxygen yet. That’s 1.2 billion face masks a day or 36 billion a month. That’s five times the entire gobal populace for one nation for one month. Well, a month is all it should take, but still. The logistics make solving Y2K seem easy. And they had years.
Oh, this one’s for Doc D: so it’s 1999 and the US Post Office had this y2k countdown clock whizzing milliseconds along like it’s just another budget deficit marquee albeit backwards.
“Is that thing Y2K compliant,” I joked?
“Gee, I dunno,” the guy said, far too seriously. I bought my stamps and left, humiliated and defeated by the public education system yet again. Yes, we grow them that dumb and yes, they handle our mail. I don’t weant to know what chatter is like in google headquarters cafeteria. I think I’d rather watch rats chew on Rubix cubes.
There is no organizing principle to this rant other thasn I got an iron infusion this AM and how have just enough oxygen going in my brain to be old and crotchety. If it makes any sense, blame thine own self.
I was at the hospital this morning. I’d guesstimate the increase in face masks and conscientious hand-cleaning was increased 300% per cent. The amount of ‘have a mask’ proferring locations was definitely increased. I wrapped my scarf around my face. I noticed almost all the mask-wearers were Asian, and I thought I detected one or two angry looks their way from people who looked rather ‘mur’can to me. How dare those Asians seek health-care and follow health care disease prevention protocol!
While it can be intriguing to ponder who the virus is the result of government military madness gone awary by accident or on purpose, I have no idea what we can practically do with such hypotheses. So, “USA” is perhaps invading “China” with evil viruses? If so, cute, but viruses don’t wear uniforms, and they follow orders no better than human soldiers do.
It is, after all, a global civilization and economy.
I think the virus will briefly make a weird retreat before swelling ominously like a tsunami before overhwhelming the medical systems of any polity it squares off with. From all the (few) solid data I know on how this thing spreads, I think the actual contagion rate in effect right now is much like Raul and others interpret from the data: basically unstoppable without global ubiqutuitous quarantine.
Here’s an interesting stat on cruise ships:
“Total worldwide ocean cruise capacity at the end of 2018 will be 537,000 passengers and 314 ships. Annualized total passengers carried worldwide will be 26.0 million (a 3.3% increase over 2017). Brand diversification of all operations is summarized below.”
That makes for a lot of conveniently offshore hospital beds for what appears to be a necessary 28-day quarantine/observation period before being let into less stringent quarantines for another week or two.
Basically twelve quarantines of half a million per month.
Why I mention this is beyond me. We’d never cooperate and it wouldn’t work anyway. What works is that you create a culture right away where for 4 solid weeks everyone acts like the plague is everywhere. You have to freeze people in manageable quarantine boundaries until contagion ceases, and that is that. (Which, fwiw, is what China IS doing, however incompetently or dishonestly. The strain on China of what little they’re doing is already pulling the dragon apart.)
For a country like the USA, at 4 face masks a day, that’s 300-plus million face masks times four times a day (120 million face masks a day) times 30 days. That’s 14.4 million face masks. Even if everyone behaved, that’s a big industry rampup for something needing action yesterday. And that doesn’t do much if foreign citizens come here and reinfect us. I read that China is the world’s largest manufacturer of face masks and they are already experiencing shortage-related issues.
Oh, and it’s census year.
Putting aside the usual entertainmernts of hysterical speculation, this thing looks like a genuine century-shaper. Happening right at the cusp of a historical turning point. Practically a hundred years on the dot since the Spanish flu thingie.
With weather that tends to destroy entire regional sanitary systems like we see happening in major, record-breaking floods in the south Midwest right now.
And so on… how do you stop a just-in-time global economy without trashing necessary supply lines? I don’t see it.
But at least I haven’t seen any ‘Xtian God is on OUR side” nonsense from the ‘mur’can profile. Wait till it becomes a religious thing.
Oh well.
So some racially bigoted violence will occur in the process here in the States. Ho-hum. This is America. Racially bigoted violence is a Slurpee flavor to us. I may get to kick the ass of some asshole kicking Asian ass for stupidity’s sake yet. I got a mean streak in me likes to stomp people what like to stomp people. Especially whwen they pull a gun. I’ve made one person pondere ating their .45. I made another guy realize that pointing a cocked double-barrel sawed-off makes me klaught and, apparentl;y, kinda scary to be near, so that person left. (Ah, being young had its moments.) I’d love to show some dumbass 2nd Amendment dildo what lousy protection a firearm is in real life. If it makes you feel safe, it’s already dangerous. Sorry, 2nd Amendment devotees, but it’s a dumb rule interpreted stupidly by both sides and it means nothing cuz we’re already drowning in guns and ammo. And then there’s the funny nonsense about walking around armed like it’s Baghdad, and calling yourself “just a law-abiding citizen”.
Likewise, the left dismissing them as “God, guns, and religion” feeble-minders. Apparently, some people prefer lawyers, guns, and money, America’s primary GDP these days.
P.S. Xtianity doesn’t make humanity reposible for Creation. Xtianity doesn’t even make humanity responsible for itself.
“Did you know the Chinese see the world the same way Christian religions do? G-d appointed man the master of the world! Must be the dumbest facet of religion: man declares himself G-d.”
Raul speaks the truth. Religion tends to take the role of God upon itself by claiming to know that a) god is real and b) it knows what God wants. One may object that, as a single Xtian, one doesn’t see thingsd this way. (I, as a single Xtian, certainly don’t.) But Xtuianity as a group entity mostly has. It’s in its own history.
Nobody’s taking a cheap pot shot at anything aexcept maybe you for roasting raul for pointing out an unfortunate and ugly facet of Xtianity (and humanity in general).
“• Hubei’s Coronavirus Cases Rise 10-Fold After Change In Diagnostic Criteria (SCMP)”
Funny. I was thinking today’s lead headline would be something like this.
This is what stupid looks like:
Hong Kong Supply Chain breaks at Beginning Link and End Link
“Usians are delusional; psychotically delusional…reality has escaped them completely…”
I want to discount the above with the usual remarks about hyperbole, etc., but sadly, the above is literally true, even the last 5 words. Reality? What is reality? I’ll say that, regarding human civilization/society, reality is what grows from the ground, flows in rivers, and falls from the sky, things modern usians experience at a Disneyland wii fii VR distance.
I’m tired of microbes. What about bugs?
Seems a good day for cookies and some warm milk:
“And the only thing worse than it being measured by money is being measured by status and social connections, which is the Socialist system.”
No it ain’t. That would be truer of many other -isms before pissing on your favorite S-bush. Monarchism. Feudalism. Capitalism/corporatism were practically founded on friend of a friend of a friend connections. Like most everything else including getting a job in the real world.
Some people blame Trump. Some blame Russia. Let’s add socialism to the mix.
Status and social connections rule everywhere. Where do you get this half-cocked stuff from, Doc? Let’s throw a caste system in there next to the FED window while we’re at it.
“Honest question: what do you think is more dangerous, RussiaRussiaRussia or the coronavirus?”
The stupidity underlying both phenomena.
“Who supports those terrorists? Is it Turkey or the US?”
So many monies and munitions have been given that way that they might be able to run alone for awhile?
Today I have to visit the medical hospital megaplex that is Portland’s OHSU. I will be wrapping my scarf around my face in public places to set an example. (sounds kinda self-aggrandizing. But it’s true. The sooner people are scared of catching it, the less people will catch it. The panic wave will happen regardless, so… it’s a lovely soft crimson scarf with black houndtooth patterns. Now that’s self-aggrandizing.)
If I were Ms. Pelosi, I’d have torn up those speech notes too. About the only thing right those two have done to each other is to snub and belittle the other. Takes the load off of us to keep them properly mired in shame.
Being a crude son of a bitch, I’d like more teeny-weenie and sagging tit insults, though.
“I hear Nacy’s hang so low that when she wakes u they hit the floor before her feet.”
“I hear it’s so small the doctors tried to remove it as a mole.”
And so on…
MAJORITY OF DEMOCRATIC VOTERS ‘MORE LIKELY’ TO VOTE FOR BERNIE SANDERS AFTER IOWA CAUCUSES: NEW POLL
The way my tinfoil hat is cut, I want to go parzanoiac and see this as intentional,m that the DNC wants to rise Bernie up now in the spotlight so they can drag him down as a socialist and god knows what else, maybe even as a registered Democrat, a designatyion of shame indeed. 😉
But that’s probably because I can’t quite comprehend the level of stupidity the DNC has shwon for some time, a stupidity based on the old Herbertism from Dune: “Fear is the mind killer.”
So… they’re really that stupid, eh? This makes the GOP clowncar candidate lineup of 2016 resemble aline-up of movie-star handsome political geniuses made of raw charisma and moral fiber. It’s downright infantile.
Makes me feel like this:
“By the time people radically rebel in revolution against this tyranny, they’ll at least have some idea of What To Do after torturing and slaying anyone perceived as a fomer Do Teller.”
Surely a fear of this is part of why the Communist Part in China is so obsessed with maintaining control. They’re terrified of what can happen to them if reform happens too swiftly. They’re terrified of what can happen to the people.
But such terror doesn’t seem to give them the courage needed to face up to the corrupt cronyism at the core of their government. Not doing so guarantees they will face the music they so dread. I don’t think the CPC will last many more years. You can funny money economies but you can’t fake your way through a major epidemic.
People are dying. People are lying. People are trying. People are buying.
Well, it rhymes. More than one can say for both CNN and the WHO.
I think it is impossible for any of us to grasp how sensitive our global civilization is to disruptions that have real physical consequences. The (almost unconscious) belief is that Civilization is bigger than Reality. Almost everyone believes this concept in at least one of its many forms. Most people’s belief system is Do What You’re Told (except in secret). Those that Tell Us What to Do are naturally assumed by the Told that they will Do Something that will make everything more or less OK.
When they discover that the Tellers are much better at Telling than Doing, and simply can’t Do Enoguh nor Do It Right, the Told stop listening and being doing things. Not being used to doing other than what they’re tood, their actions mostly are inept at best and gruesome at worst. The pain from life ripping one’s head from its comfortable anal sinecure is intense, and people in intense pain tend to be irritable, a temper fit waiting to happen.
Our leaders strike me as no better than China’s, and not nearly as well equipped. China has authorianism hardwired into its structure and people. Cooperation for the greater good, even under oppression and chaos, is easier for them to maintain that here in l’etats unis, imo.
If the Chinese lose too much faith in their Do-Tellers, lord have mercy.
I call myself liberal so as not to confuse people. I don’t fit in anywhere but we’re a labeled society, a literally numbered people. I have mostly been a conservative in the true sense of the word, one who understands that people can’t live without social structures, and social structures are difficult to put together. The doing so tends to yield horrific side effects.
So I embrace, short term, the emerging, growing authoritarianism. By the time people radically rebel in revolution against this tyranny, they’ll at least have some idea of What To Do after torturing and slaying anyone perceived as a fomer Do Teller.
