Saturday, April 18, 2020

Stop the insanity!

The attached was not written by me, and I don't know the origins of it. But I thought it was worth sharing.

We need to do everything we can to make the world a better place
———

I think the thing most people don't understand is that the lock down is in place to slow the progression of the disease, NOT to eradicate it by end of May.

I think people are missing the point because they naively think the Govt. will somehow get rid of it so life goes back to normal. These are people who have ignored the global reality since January. This is the dangerous delusional thinking that some people are applying in their assessment of the situation when advocating we should stop the lockdown because they are literally only waking up to this thing now, or when we were initially shut down. So let's lift the curtain a bit.

1. Flattening the curve means slowing down the disease so that hospitals can cope with the sick. It does not mean eradicating the disease all together.

2. No government will be able to eradicate the disease this year. It's here until a cure or a vaccine is found.

3. A vaccine is at least a year away. That's April 2021. The earliest vaccine trials just started late last month. It takes 18 to 24 months to make, test & assess the efficacy of a vaccine.

*So 1 year is literally a Hail Mary.*

4. There is NO going back to normal. Your normal will not exist for at least a year. Economies globally will keep bleeding & we are likely to have rolling lockdowns until a vaccine is found.

5. Even when the ban is lifted, tourism & hospitality industry, and many others will not see an increase in business for at least a year or maybe two. Until a vaccine is found people will continue to self-isolate even when a lock down is lifted.

6. The only reprieve we are going to get is if we have thousands of people who have been infected & recovered & minimum deaths so that we have some level of herd immunity. That is also still a theory that is yet to be proven because some countries think they may be seeing people get re-infected. Even with that in place, normal is not feasible because fear still reigns & people will remain isolated until safety is guaranteed- cure or vaccine.

Refer to point 3.

7. The above is still 6 months away. *We are projected to reach our peak in September. That means, bleeding economy, rolling lockdowns, death & chaos until then.*

8. The decisions made in the lockdown like no alcohol & no dog walking or running & no e-commerce are not made with the privileged in mind. They are made with the masses in mind.

What you allow in the suburbs you must allow in the townships & these two things look very different in execution.

Now our government is doing the best it possibly can & they have certainly & definitively reacted much much faster than most developed countries.

Our progress is still far better than most & right now we're riding the dumb hope that somehow BCG gives us some fighting chance (still unproven).

*So please please we all need to do whatever we can to help our neighbours, help each other, and support our government & stop having delusional ideas about any level of normalcy at the end of this month. Adjust your projections & hunker down.*

*This is not a Joke & the shit is not even anywhere near any semblance of real yet.*

*Normal is dead for now.*

*Let that sink in.*

*But hope is very much alive!*

Friday, April 17, 2020

American exceptionalism


Although we like to think of it as exceptional, the true definition is 
 The actual phrase "American exceptionalism" was originally coined by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1929 as a critique of a revisionist faction of American communists who argued that the American political climate was unique, making it an 'exception' to certain elements of Marxist theory.

Which today is kind of funny given our relationship with Russia. 

So I was giving some thought to our current situation and the pandemic. 

As I listen to people - especially the trump supporters - I hear a lot of "we need to get economy open! We can take some amount of mortality, and besides it can't happen to *me*"

Which is patently absurd on every level. But in particular it's the belief that it can't happen to them. This virus affects every human. Doesn't matter, if you breathe you are susceptible. 

But then we're not different from everyone else. We have to better! Better economy. Better jobs. Better cars. Better religion. That's how this works, right?

In other cases, like 9/11, there was an element of exceptionalism that made some amount of sense. Patriotism. Pride. Everyone agreed that we gotta do the right things to protect ourselves.

There was an enemy and we were "better" than them and we vowed to beat them. Military industrial complex do your thing and chants of USA.

But for this it's different. There's no enemy. If we stand here and be defiant and make the economy strong but lose millions of lives then we are in some ways "better." Because we didn't do what everyone else did.

And if the person at the top just clangs the cymbals like a dime store monkey then it generates this weird sense of nationalism. 

So for what should be the gold standard for how to be best at fighting the virus, at finding good solutions, about using technology to track the spread, and finding solutions. 

Instead we're going to be at this for a long time. Never forget trump is in it solely for himself. And he doesn't care about you, me, or the legions of supporters. 

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

WWE ‘following appropriate guidelines’ during Orlando shows

I find this story to be weird. I mean, essential? really? But gov dimwitty thinks he has an idea what he's doing. And there's probably some odd connection because the front man (Vince) is friends with trump.

But stranger still is this: earlier in the day the xfl filed for bankruptcy. The xfl was fully bankrolled by...Vince. So he's shutting down one operation and essentially absolving himself of liability. Meanwhile he'll make money on continuing the wwe.

Ahhhh capitalism.


https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coronavirus/os-sp-wwe-orlando-tapings-20200413-wbnn2bngkzegbiq4sfyj5aemau-story.html

Monday, April 13, 2020

Nitwits. Self serving nitwits.


Earlier today, I was thinking about republican logic (TM).  


  • They are okay with people dying from this virus
  • They want to assert that “corporations are people too”
  • But yet they are unwilling to let corporations die, when they are impacted by the virus. And instead bail them out.

Tell me again how smart they are?

Oh wait they’re just in it for themselves. Nothing to see here.  Move along. 

Saturday, April 11, 2020

Fauci: Kids could get ‘infected’ if Florida reopens schools

I take from this that governor dimwitty here in Flori-duh is planning to reopen schools around May 1st, meaning that they'd be back in the classroom for about one month before the school year ends? Yeah, that's not gonna cause any issues in terms of logistics...and sure support staff and bussing will be back up and running with the snap of a finger.

And as for trump's comments ... forehead slap. I guess he is the supreme chancellor?

https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/04/10/fauci-kids-could-get-infected-if-florida-reopens-schools-1274822

Friday, April 10, 2020

Oh the irony.

The trumpster Fire was going on about absentee ballots being okay. But voting by mail isn't. Potato potatoe kind of stuff.

Anyway someone pointed out to him that in the primary he didn't vote *absentee* but rather by mail because of a technicality.

He sluffed it off of course and that he had to vote that way.

Later, someone else looked into it. Turns out his vote was mailed to mar-a-lago and someone picked it up for him and carried it to dc and then was involved in returning it.

That's ballot harvesting and may (or may not?) be legal in Florida. or dc. Or across state lines.

But in any case *that* is the bigger concern as far as voter fraud goes.

The irony. 😂

"Weird Al" Yankovic -This Is The Life Trump(MUSIC VIDEO)

This is a fun fan service(?) video.