COVID-19

[Zed Head]

Nothing wrong with changing your mind.  Adapt.  Refusing to change beliefs even after new information refutes the old ones is an odd way of trying to create certainty from uncertainty.  Nothing is certain in life.  Lots of extinct tribes in the past.

So, watch the presser today, see if this guy is worth keeping, and change your mind if you think things will be better the other way.  Whatever way you started from.  Hanging on to old decisions for the sake of pride, doesn't make anyone look strong.  To the contrary.  

They're supposed to be up at noon, but nothing yet.

[Zed Head]

So, political views have disrupted life and families for multiple generations.  Can't fix that.

But, you can find humor in almost everything.  This is funny.  I just Googled " Sean Spicer" and picked the one with the good picture.  Can anyone, no matter what your views, imagine being this guy?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/sean-spicer-makes-his-surreal-debut-as-a-white-house-reporter

https://metro.co.uk/2019/09/17/former-white-house-press-sec-sean-spicer-enters-dancing-stars-lime-ruffled-shirt-life-10758206/

Edited March 21, 2020 by Zed Head

[Av8ferg]

If you study the Founding Fathers and read the federalist papers you realize that many didn’t believe the people could self-govern. They were students of history they knew the generally speaking that people’s self-interest will alway take precedent over the interest of others. All politicians are more interested in self than country. How is it possible all these politicians are millionaires. Biden has been in government for 3 decades and is a mulit millionaire. He got that “serving the people”....really. It was never supposed to be like that. If you have ever read The Peloponnesian War (Sparta vs Athens) you realize NOTHING has changed politically in this world. It blew my mind, could have been written describing this decade. The point is anyone who thinks when your fill in the circle on your vote that it really makes a difference they you are living in a false reality. You may have a few issues that are dealt with differently but generally there will be corruption and deception. We have NO good choices. If your read “The Next 100 years” by George Friedman I think it was in this book. He talks about how no Honest and Non-corrupt person can make it to the position of President. You have to compromise your values to get there and make deals to with power brokers to get there. Joe Biden can’t recall where is is 20% of the time. Anyone who thinks he’s a saint is living in a alter universe. This is why I’m not tied to any political organization. I generally trust no politician and accept that the power brokers in the world choose our leader by manipulating the public and funding the own who will play their game.
Bottom line....stop looking and judging them on your values. They are all dirtbags. I’ve met many of them. Met John McCain 3x and sat with him and 4 other people for 3 hrs discussing F-35 procurement. I wasn’t impressed when I saw who he really was and someone I previously respected. Only worried about his political power only and his political ties to Lockeed Martin.
We are pawns....we are nothing to the political elite.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Zed Head]

It's about to start.  Pick your favorite channel, turn it on, open your mind to new thoughts, see what happens...

The President is first.  He's mumbling...  Fauci and Carson, no Pompeo or Pence.  

People are buying more stuff than they do at Christmas...

Signed legislation providing medical leave to workers...at no cost to employers...

Pence is here.  He's up...  He forgot to praise the President...

So far no useful information.  Nothing a person wouldn't see by reading the newspapers.

Pence recommends donating to your local ministry...

Pence sounds more like a President than the President.  The missed opportunity seems so significant now.  He could well be the actual President right now.

A new guy is up Giroir.  Department of Health.  Talking about who should be tested...but not how they can get tested.

Fauci is up.  Good information.  Don't run to get tested if you don't meet the criteria.  It wastes PPE for medical workers.

FEMA guy is up.  New Yawka?  Maybe Bawstun.  Still pushing actions down to local authorities.  Go find it, we'll pay you back...

Carson is up...memories of the primaries...  feeling drowsy.....

Trump is itching to get the mike back...  and he's up.  Questions.

States and localities are on their own.  The Feds will not be facilitating anyone getting medical supplies.  Get it, fight it out, we'll pay you back.

Pence is back up, now he's making up stories about the President's greatness.

Funny.  The Presidnet restated the question from the press -  "when will we get masks?"  And nobody could give a straight answer.  Now the President reveals that he has recommended sanitizing the masks.  Genius!

Pence - go to your storeroom, see if you have N95 masks, load them up and donate them.  Message to the American people.  Seriously, check your closet.

And.. now the blaming of past admins comes.  Trump speaks.

Back to reality.  Apparently FEMA is the one that is the contact point for supplies.  But the FEMA guy can't give a straight answer.  

Trump back up - nobody expected this yada yada yada... rambling...

And finally Trump gets to complain about the media.  Better than yesterday, nothing extraordinary.  Same old...

The press can't resist trolling the President with responsibility questions.  Waste of time.  Just provides media fodder for the talking heads.  Trump keeps falling for it though.  Weird how he can't just say "I answered that yesterday".  More trolling from the press now, and the same answer from Trump.  Like watching a married couple argue...

And Trump ends with one last blast of blame, then leaves...

 

Edited March 21, 2020 by Zed Head

[Patcon]

@Av8ferg

I agree and to add to that, what sane person would step up for the abuse that would come your way if you tried to run for public office to clean things up? People digging through your trash, contacting your friends from high school, people making up stories from thin air. What good, moral person would sign up for that? Our political offices were never intended to be careers. Add to that millions in bureaucratic positions for 20-30 years that really run the show and you get what we now have . A huge leviathan!

[dhp123166]

4 hours ago, grannyknot said:

I don't need saving, if I catch it I catch it and regardless of all your prepping,  you are going to catch it too.  We are all on the same cruise ship together.

 

You are not wondering about these people, you're gloating about their pain and fear because you're prepped and they are not.

Fine, accept it.  Just stop enjoying it so much.

It rains on the just and the unjust alike.

Who is gloating? Nowhere in my written word is there language that would describe gloating. That is your interpretation based on what?

Maybe you are just projecting your habit of gloating onto me.

How does this sound, " Oh my God I am so scared, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna....go wait in line to buy toilet paper."

I would still have to be a born coward to be afraid of something as inevitable as death.

[Zed Head]

264 deaths in the US.  Not terrible.  You have to do the math yourself, they break it up by state.  The contagion rate is still pretty dramatic, due to testing or otherwise.  The number itself is big.

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

[Pilgrim]

Regardless of the politics, it does not help anyone to deny reality, to say that a virus will never get here, and to spout repeated falsehoods about the situation.  How many times do I have to hear Trump deny making any mistakes when first alerted to the virus, and then say that nothing like this has ever happened before, totally ignoring the Plague in Europe and the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic that caused roughly 675,000 deaths in the US? (And 50 million worldwide.)

Anyone can make mistakes. When a major problem occurs, mistakes will be made. But not everyone refuses to acknowledge having made any mistakes, no matter how trivial. Not everyone goes on a national TV broadcast and flatly denies responsibility for actions that are documented as belonging to them. Not everyone blames media and everyone but themselves for anything that goes wrong.

Without being more pointed, that's enough to lay out my total lack of respect for, and faith in, the current occupant.

Thank heavens for the experts and scientists who the administration has been forced to put on stage to speak to the American public. They do indeed know what they're doing, even if their statements are directly contradicted by the administration. The only people I believe are the scientists and experts who are doing the actual work. I automatically dismiss anything said by members of the administration, who adhere to the formula of spending 80% of their comments trying to quote the party line, and 20% kissing Trump's butt.

But here's the sense I make out of it:

- It's a virus. it's not going away, contrary to repeated assertions by Trump. We will be living with it for the foreseeable future, so our goal is to mitigate and manage it, not eradicate it, which has no historical precedent. (Even smallpox has not been eradicated, there was a small outbreak last year in a third world country.)

- If we develop a vaccine, that will not happen before early 2021. It can't happen earlier. However, we may find that other drugs already on the market have positive effects on this virus, and if so, we may get help from them this summer or fall.

- Long term, our goal must be to manage this virus like we manage the flu virus. There will probably be some buildup of immunity, but if it mutates (unknown at this time) there will be repeated seasons where we deal with it. A vaccine will be a critical part of managing it as an ongoing part of life.

That's the scientific part the way it lays out to me after 39 years of working with scientists doing genetic research.

As far as the lockdown, I expect that not to exceed 60 days (but more likely the end of April), because otherwise the economy will crater and thousands of businesses will fail. There will be a point where we have to open the doors and let people move around in some fashion just to preserve our economy.

Edited March 21, 2020 by Pilgrim

[Zed Head]

Pence's time...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/21/mike-pence-coronavirus-crisis

[Pilgrim]

I'm not a fan of Mike Pence at all, as I think he's a "weirdsmobile." But that aside....

I have to give him props for being a really solid public speaker.  He comes across as thoughtful, well organized and well spoken. He's certainly a great way to make coherent statements and keep the current occupant away from the mic.

[Zed Head]

1/2 of 60 person group might have COVID-19.  Two weeks later.  30 people from one event, apparently.

Odd that they don't tell what the meeting was about.  

https://komonews.com/news/coronavirus/skagit-co-investigates-cluster-of-covid-19-cases-linked-to-group-meeting

[Zed Head]

How do you tell a hangover from COVID-19 symptoms?

Big experiment about to start... Pretty sure some of those vectors will be coming back to my neighborhood.  Can't wait.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/spring-breakers-coronavirus-140609