Social unrest could erupt among the urban poor and marginalised in the West’s biggest cities as they lack sources of income amid the COVID-19 crisis, the head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Friday.
More than 80,000 people have tested positive for coronavirus in Italy since the outbreak emerged little more than a month ago and some 8,215 have died, far more than in any other country.
Francesco Rocca, an Italian who heads the world’s largest disaster relief network, said that as well as social unrest the risk of suicide is increasing among vulnerable isolated people.
“We have a lot of people who are living very marginalised, in the so-called black hole of society… In the most difficult neighbourhoods of the biggest cities I am afraid that in a few weeks we will have social problems,” Rocca told a U.N. news briefing.
– Reuters in Pandemic could spark unrest among West’s urban poor – Red Cross aid agency
[h/t Mark Walters]
I dunno. I just heard that last weekend in Chicago was less violent, not more violent.
Interesting. I wonder if that could be from the shut down of clubs/bars.
No, it is because the locals are acting like a bunch of uncle toms. They are heavily armed and not hurting anyone, that is simply them acting White.
The good news for them is it will be warm out when the shelter orders are over, and that will have them back acting like Africans in no time.
I don’t get your point. I must not be from Chicago. Seems pretty biased to me.
Brad. ‘Acting white’. Like jeffie dahmer and ted bundy and adam lanza. Because us white folk are plainly superior to them dark folk.
“Acting White”???
1. Justice Clarence Thomas tells black people they have the right to keep and bear arms under the Bill of Rights. Just like everyone else.
2. Maj Toure of Black Guns Matter conducting firearms training classes in the inner city. Stating that they have a right to keep and bear Arms as stated in the Bill of Rights.
3. Author and talk radio host Larry Elder. Who’s father told him, that the only civil right that mattered in the United States was the right to keep and bear arms.
4. A black high school student who when doing his chemistry homework with his white classmates, is told, he is “acting White”.
Is this what people mean when they say you are acting white???
Let’s not overlook Colion Noir. One of the most well spoken and reasoned thinking freedom loving Americans you could possibly find.
He’s a racist, guys, don’t overthink it.
hard to steal when everyone is at home and armed
Yep. Driving around on Friday at 9pm last night looked like midnight on a Monday. Maybe Chicago, et al needs a curfew until they can get a handle on the violence. You have to treat these stupid, violent kids like the children they are.
No, treat these stupid violent kids like adults and prosecute them to to fullest extent of the law. Better yet, if they kill someone because “they were disrespected”, etc. bring back the death penalty and enforce it quickly. That’s the problem today, there’s no accountability when these things commit a crime. They get a slap on the wrist and are set free to do it all over again.
#itstheweather
If in fact it does happen, place the blame where it belongs. Squarely on the shoulders of the “leaders” of these states who fiddled while the states burned. NOT on the people who are gonna be protecting themselves from the situation these “leaders” created!
So maybe everyone under 80 should just go back to work.
I agree this is unsustainable, but we can’t trust the information we’ve been getting. So much has been wrong. Younger people are dying as well.
More people will die from a collapsed economy than from the virus.
It looks dire. As a small business owner, my anxiety has been increasing by the day. The 2.2T “bailout” is a sick joke.
*I didn’t mean the above comment to say we shouldn’t go back to work. Just that we got some bad information, which everyone repeats.
“If it saves just one life, it will be worth it.”
Where have I heard that argument before?
“Trump claimed that 22 days ago, “everything was going beautifully” before the US got hit by what he calls “the invisible enemy.” He said, “22 days ago we had the greatest economy in the world, everything was going beautifully, the stock market hit an all-time high”
Facts First: While the market had previously set all-time records under Trump, on March 5, 22 days before Trump’s comments, the Dow dropped 3.6% or 970 points, then its fifth-worst single-day point drop on record, adding to a 3,000-point drop since its peak on February 12. That day’s fall in the Dow followed drops of 1,000 points and 800 points earlier that week.”
Do tell. If half bad as of 1918 will 1m dead is the US (when we go off easy by world aveafge)
Hmm, didn’t happen in the Great Depression. But it’s a nice meme.
“If half bad as of 1918 will 1m dead is the US…”
Let’s be real, that’s very, very unlikely. Not impossible but quite unlikely.
We currently have the most cases in the world at 120,204 out of 658,205 or 18.26% of known cases. We also have 1997 deaths out of a world-wide total of 30,449 or 6.56% and a fatality rate of 1.66%.
The next country with the most confirmed cases is Italy. 92,472 (14.05% of world cases) cases with 10,023 deaths (32.92% of world deaths) for a fatality rate of 10.84%.
So we have 1.29 times the cases of Italy but Italy has 5.02 times the deaths that we do and a fatality rate 6.53 times higher than ours. That’s not the disease. Something(s) else is going on here.
Let’s add Spain to the comparison. 72,335 (10.99%) cases and 5820 (19.11%) deaths for a fatality rate of 8.05%, 4.85 times higher than our death rate.
We have the most cases because for all the talk to the contrary, we have the most aggressive and best testing. Is it as good as it could/should be? Probably not but in this case we’re the tallest dwarf in the field.
In this case the *problem* is Italy (which I’ve laid out here before) and everyone focusing on them it distorting reality. Italy is a terrible country for this to get into in the first place and they are woefully unprepared to deal with it. Combined with the EU style response that, well Europe in general, had up front it’s going to be a bad situation for a country like Italy.
Spain’s not doing great but they’re doing far better than Italy. Why? They’re both Mediterranean retirement destinations for Europe… They both are EU members… We’re all in double digits for percentage of cases world-wide and ranks 4th right now for infections. So why does Spain have a 20% lower death-rate from this disease than Italy?
Probably demographics. Italy is 6th in the world for oldest population. Spain is 19th. We’re 61st and China is 64th. And which country is #3 for infections supposedly? The place where it all started which is reporting 81,394 (12.37%) infected with 3295 (10.82%) dead? China.
So you’re seeing high death rates in China, what a shocker, a country with a shitty medical system and a government that gives no fucks about it’s people, and Italy and Spain which have bad demographics for this particular disease.
Here in the US the real question going forward is: How big of a risk are obesity and hypertension? 42.4% of Americans are obese, another 31.8% or so are overweight and 1/3rd of us have hypertension. But, as the numbers above would seem to suggest: we also have top notch medical care and, generally, a government that prefers not to have a lot of us all die off at once.
The simple truth is this: If this disease is as contagious as it’s thought to be then it’s far more widespread than most people would like to think. If you figure we’re catching the people who are mostly high risk then we’re probably catching on the order of 16-20% of cases, expand that to the world and do the arithmetic on 20% and you get 3,291,025 people have this disease or have had it, meaning that it’s current fatality rate is something like 0.93%.
Yeah, that’s 5-9 times worse than the seasonal flu but it’s not going to end the world. It’s not even going to come close to doing what plague did to Europe back in the day.
So, I’d have to agree with the Honorable Gov. William J Le Petomane, a crashed world-wide economy will kill far, far, far more people than this virus ever could.
“So we have 1.29 times the cases of Italy but Italy has 5.02 times the deaths that we do and a fatality rate 6.53 times higher than ours. That’s not the disease. Something(s) else is going on here.”
Think I already posted the link on one of the threads, but “Italy” admitted they count anyone with confirmed Wuhan Flu, who dies of any cause whatever, is counted as dying from the virus. China will never tell the truth. The data is so faulty, we really, as a world community, don’t know what we are talking about.
The man who shut down the world admitted his computer model presumed nothing at all would be done regarding the virus, and there were no updates to account for any changes to conditions.
We do not know the real magnitude of the threat, and accordingly, the real fatality risk. We have a set of numbers (prejudiced by lack of enforceable standards for reporting). We think we know how many people are infected, but without universal (and daily) testing of entire populations, we do no know how many people are actually infected. Without knowing the actual infection spread, we cannot trust projections based on the data captured to date. Instead, what we do have are claims that the virus might be really, really, really bad, and maybe it’s possible untold numbers of people will die. In short, collectively, the world population is reacting to ignorance as a precaution.
Basing world-wide decisions on speculation is futile because we could end up over compensating, or requiring the wealth of the planet to provide sufficient medical care. To make matters worse, there are rising expectations and demands to eradicate the virus, completely. We are truly the blind leading the blind, with severe penalty for being wrong.
New World order fear mongering. Get over it
Sam:
We actually do have some pretty good data coming off the cruise ships that have been quarantined.
In fact, that data would seem to overstate a few things because the central parts of the ship recirculate and poorly filter things. Where the disease can be transmitted by air, aerosol or landing on surfaces those conditions will exacerbate the spread/reinfection rates.
But, we’re never going to really have fully controlled data on this. We don’t really have that on any disease that’s not been the subject of actual bio-weapons testing.
“We actually do have some pretty good data coming off the cruise ships that have been quarantined.”
I think that, more correctly, we have some pretty good data regarding the spread of the virus on cruise ships. Without being able to replicate the exact conditions ashore, the cruise ship data is not suitable for making serious projections/decisions about the course of the virus. Any variation in conditions between the cruise ship environments (each itself different from other cruise ships studied) distorts the resulting understanding of the behavior of the virus.
All of which is to say, some data may be better than none, but “some data” may actually cause decision-makers to make critical mistakes. In the end, all the decisions may turn out to be wrong. But that does not endorse doing nothing.
The point is that criticism of any course of action is easy, but relying on “data” manipulations as somehow being “true North” to lead us out of trouble is likely to generate mostly false hope, which results is broad distrust of “the experts”. I.E. know the limitations to responses, and manage expectations in a way that neither encourages panic, nor promote false positives. We know too little about too much to be believing in a flawless course of action. A virus cannot be eradicated, and people will die from its acquisition.
“Without being able to replicate the exact conditions ashore, the cruise ship data is not suitable for making serious projections/decisions”
Sure it is so long as you limit your projections to what the data actually says and not what you want it to say.
Being on a ship and having this virus doesn’t change what the virus is or does.
You’re not going to get an accurate idea of spread within a non-shipboard population but you’ll get a pretty good idea of how severe/lethal the disease is across the studied population and that can be statistically controlled after the fact.
“…but you’ll get a pretty good idea of how severe/lethal the disease is across the studied population and that can be statistically controlled after the fact.”
Which returns us to the difficulty of accurately modelling anything from which we wish to make projections. As noted, the original model was bogus as it could be, yet the world turned itself inside out.
I have been around statistical models long enough to know how difficult it is to statistically control the projection of one behavior in one environment into a different environment. In the end, it is all assumption and presumption. Leave out one critical factor, and you get unpredictable results.
Long ago, I was involved in the re-entry of a large, unmanned, not designed for re-entry, space vehicle. My organization had decades of experiences with uncontrolled re-entry of objects, large and small. We has what was known as an earth model that had parameters refined to the point that we never missed a prediction whether the object would contact land, or ocean.
When the orbit of the object at hand was degrading to the point that the object would re-enter the atmosphere, NASA decided they were the undisputed experts at re-entering space objects, and pushed themselves forward as the public face of science in the matter of re-entering space vehicles. Now, what should have been obvious in the first place was that NASA had an earth model, too. The scientists as NASA and the Air Force compared models, and NASA dismissed the Air Force as amateurs. However, it was the Air Force, not NASA that had launched the vehicle in the first place, using the AF model of earth effects.
Upshot? NASA was wrong by magnitudes of error. NASA caused the returning vehicle to make several attitude adjustments prior to atmosphere. Air Force contradicted NASA vial non-public channels, pointing out that NASA’s statistically controlled adjustments would result in the vehicle breaking into large parts, rather than burning up in the upper atmosphere. NASA snickered at our scientists, but when the vehicle hit the atmosphere, they turned to the Air Force controlled ground stations to “find” the object, because NASA trackers “lost” the vehicle. As per Air Force prediction, rather than the object landing in the Atlantic, the vehicle landed in Austrailia (near the beach), and the bulk of the large debris landed in the ocean off the beach. Right now, nobody has the means to successfully model the spread of the disease.
Unfortunately, gathering sufficient data to make useful adjustments to the model built on cruise ships will take more time that we have to refine the models. I guess the virus isn’t called “novel” for nothing. We can develop models, but I would never ascribe the word “confident” over any of them for the next year.
Sam:
The point isn’t about modeling spread behavior. That’s basically impossible. The observable data on cities vs. rural even across various countries pretty well prove this already.
The point is calculating a lethality rate based on the population that’s had the disease and a statistical risk distribution for various cohorts from which other projections can be made in terms of response.
Morbid as that might be to some, it’s necessary. Once you have a decent idea of what percentage of infected people this kills in each cohort (which I think we do) you then start to have a way to get your arms around it in terms of response because you generally know how many people there are in each cohort.
From that you can make educated guesses about things like how many ventilators or body bags you might need and start to develop a range of scenarios. Yes, it’s got a lot guesswork because you don’t know how many people in that cohort will actually contract the disease but you start to be able to ballpark things and from that we can start actual triage work IRL.
No, it won’t be perfect but it can’t be. This isn’t a physics calculation. It involves unknowable things like individual human behavior which can influence the outcome enormously if the behaviors start to spread to others. In a lot of ways, which upon reflection is kinda terrifying, it’s a lot more like polling than I’d really like to admit and polling has a lot of “dark art” to it.
First, let me say I really appreciate this interchange. It is good exercise (at least for me), and informative.
As to modeling, unless we test everyone, everyday, we have little hope of arriving at a conclusion: “Of those we tested, and those who were found infected, the lethality rate is X. Since we haven tested the entire population daily for Y period, we have no idea how many are actually infected, how many have no symptoms and do not know they were infected, how many die of the virus undetected, how many are infected and recover.
The upshot is the “experts” should be frequent and adamant that the data is incomplete, and the conclusions are not representative of the actual infection behavior. Reports of virus behavior should always be accompanied with disclaimers that the data should be noted for purposes of being cautions, but not for purposes of predicting the ultimate spread and impact of the disease. Instead, what the “experts” are doing is feeding the panic.
SARS, MERS, Ebola, HIV, were all “novel” at the beginning. Yet, we did not see the kind of dangerous reaction on display today. The underlying message being broadcast is that the extinction of humanity is at hand unless we “do something.” And that “something” is always wrong, and never enough.
I am reminded of that old rubric: “Measure it with a micrometer, mark it with chalk, cut it with an axe.”
What they aren’t telling you about the death toll in Italy or really anywhere else is how many people are actually killed by KungFlu. The numbers reflect how many people that test positive and then die. But besides being very old (the average age in Italy is over 80), almost all of the people dying have other serious medical conditions. So if you test positive for WuFlu but then die of a heart attack, renal failure or anything else it is being reported as a KungFlu death on TV, but that’s not what really killed them. People are starting to realize this and bring attention to it. I’ve heard anecdotal evidence it’s less than 20% in Italy but haven’t had time to run that down yet.
It was apparent to people who were looking at the numbers that this wasn’t going to be nearly as serious as predicted (millions will die!) early on. The best numbers came from the cruise ships, since you had large numbers of people crammed into such a small area.
On the Diamond Princess the food service workers were the infection vector. KungFlu is mainly transmitted fecal/oral. Airborne it is much less transmissible. There was even a husband/wife in the same cabin where the husband was infected and the wife didn’t get it.
In foreign hospitals they figured out the best way to stop transmission is to religiously wash hands, disinfect all surfaces and wear a simple surgical mask (not N95) mostly to keep people from putting their dirty hands directly on their face. They would only isolate people for fear of infection if they spent 30 min or more in close contact with a known KungFlu carrier.
Right now, this hasn’t been much worse than a bad flu season. It looks bad when the TV news is breathlessly reporting every death and having selected Sob Stories about a young victim. But, remember every year thousands die just from the flu. In 2017-2018 the CDC said US flu deaths topped 80,000. Can you imagine if CNN had run non-stop coverage of every death? That is what they are doing now. The problem is that the average TV viewer doesn’t have the context to gauge how serious it is. After all ‘OMG another 300 died in NY’ seems bad, but on average over 7,800 people die in the US every single day WuFlu or not.
“Right now, this hasn’t been much worse than a bad flu season. It looks bad when the TV news is breathlessly reporting every death…”
The media will make this flu feel like it’s lasting longer. From a public panicking standpoint, a Cyber attack on the grid and losing internet would be a worse. But then what’s worse lot of bad info or little-to-no info? Best to be prepared, plan and prep.
@Biff,
“But besides being very old (the average age in Italy is over 80), almost all of the people dying have other serious medical conditions.”
Please clarify, as I was not previously aware that the average age of Italians is above 80. Or perhaps you mean the average age of those Italians who have succumbed to COVID-19 is above 80?
No, the average age in Italy is 47 and a bit.
“Biff’s” 3rd paragraph is correct. EVERYTHING else in this narrative is total BS. Another guy who 1st heard about the chicom flu on CNN approx. Mar1.
Apparently, Italy is like the Florida of Europe. I had no idea.
Italy recorded an annual average of 17,000 deaths from the seasonal flu (7,027, 20,259, 15,801 and 24,981 during the 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17 epidemics, respectively). So far, covid-19 has killed around 10,000.
So which is more deadly?
I Haz a Question,
The average of those dying in Italy is over 80. If you look at the graphs almost no one is dying until you get to the 50-59 age range. The vast majority are 70+, which isn’t surprising when you look at average life expectancy. In every age group almost everyone who is dying has one or more serious medical issues. So the idea that huge numbers of healthy people are getting struck down with this is false. The media is fanning this panic.
I’ve seen several references to the amount of people who have died that are 20-59 or 30-59 years old, when the amount of people under 50 who are dying is vanishingly small. They do the same with gun violence, when you see numbers of children killed quoted by anti-gun groups, their numbers include people 0-24 or 26 years old, because the vast majority of killings are committed by gang members in their late teens to early 20’s.
Getting back to the KungFlu we also need to address this panic over a perceived lack of ventilators. In China the survival rate once someone was put on a vent was 5%. Our survival rate here isn’t much better. So even if we run out, the death rate isn’t going to change much. Because most who get this aren’t hospitalized and most who are hospitalized aren’t put on a ventilator.
Overall the biggest way to protect yourself is to wash your hands anytime you touch something that might be contaminated. Also stay out of the hospital unless you are so ill that you can’t manage your problem at home. It’s looking increasingly like one of the main current infection vectors is hospitals, so if you don’t need to be there, stay away.
And then, we have this:
One guy, with a bogus computer model, shutdown the world.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/26/the-scientist-whose-doomsday-pandemic-model-predicted-armageddon-just-walked-back-the-apocalyptic-predictions/?utm_source=The+Federalist+List&utm_campaign=104669341c-RSS_The_Federalist_Daily_Updates_w_Transom&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_cfcb868ceb-104669341c-84012017
Come on, guys, Biff was saying the avg age of those *dying* in Italy from COVID-19 was over 80, not the general population. You knew that.
Last a crunched the numbers on this the average age of the dead in Italy worked out to 79.5. Which is close enough to 80 that I’m not going to quibble the point and, in fact, will say that Biff here has made an excellent point.
In fact, a lot of what Biff has said here is valid. However, let us take note of something here:
Deaths from heart-attack and other cardio-pulmonary issues, renal failure etc. can be indirectly attributed to this disease. All of those issues are circulatory issues in one way or another. That’s why they’re all linked directly to diabetes which is also considered a cardio-pulmonary issue. These are all interrelated systems and if they’re not in good condition and the overall group of systems is stressed by something like this disease then one or more of the systems may well fail. The exact cause of death might not be “coronavirus” but the person’s systems wouldn’t have been overwhelmed without the disease. This is why, if you care to look, you’ll find death listings like “renal failure, complication of unmanaged diabetes” or “heart attack, complication of unmanaged diabetes”.
I would agree that some more research needs to be done on this particular topic in relation to the current disease issue but at this point such an argument is academic to the point that it’s almost like saying “Well, technically he wasn’t killed by a motorcycle accident. He was killed by being impaled on rebar as a result of a motorcycle accident”.
This is exactly why I harp on the obesity thing in the US. People do not realize how dangerous being significantly overweight is. While you can break down the death stats to exact cause of death the real reason for a lot of it is because all those people were fat as fuck. Obesity is, regardless of what a lot of people would like to believe, a more serious risk factor for a number of poor health outcomes from stroke to heart disease to various forms of cancer than smoking a pack a day. That’s how bad it is for you. It’s literally one of the worst things you can allow to happen to yourself.
If you get this current disease and start that fight in a good position you’re likely to come out of it OK. If you start that battle in a poor position you’re far more likely to lose. Being somewhere on the “not in shitty physical condition” spectrum is a huge plus if you get this disease and you can’t really control if you get it or not.
“The exact cause of death might not be “coronavirus” but the person’s systems wouldn’t have been overwhelmed without the disease.”
We cannot know that without the Wuhan virus, a compromised person’s system would not have been overwhelmed by other factors. Could a common cold overwhelm this compromised person? Would the cause of death then be listed as “common cold?” In the end, all death can be ascribed to heart failure. This conflict in suppositions is what makes computer modelling so difficult, and inherently flawed.
“We cannot know that without the Wuhan virus, a compromised person’s system would not have been overwhelmed by other factors.”
Generally speaking we can have a pretty damn good idea based on the statistics we gather.
If you want to get super technical at this point we have a hypothesis that we’re testing.
However, if you want to stay super technical: We can’t “know” that this disease does anything at all or that we’ve even identified the pathogen. In fact, we can’t really “know” that pathogens do anything. Germ Theory is just that, a theory. By it’s very title we know it may be wrong.
Demanding absolute knowledge at this point, and really any point, is a waste of time and resources. Going full Al-Ghazali right now will probably have about the same utility as his bullshit did.
What we can do is go with the data that we have and are confident in. That data points in a direction that is worrisome but not terrifying at this point.
“What we can do is go with the data that we have and are confident in.”
Based on the impossibility of “normalizing” any of the reported data (too many political and reputational variables), we shouldn’t have, nor expect to have, any confidence in anything…at this point. We can say, “Based on what we think we know, this, that and the other appear to be useful/useless. Even the bizarre may lead up along a more productive path.”
The best we can do, is the best we can do, until a better way to do arises. Don’t panic, don’t attack, don’t expect miracles. Fact is, shutting down nations is not a sustainable protocol. At some point, we may be forced to accept that the Wuhan Virus will just be additive to all the other deaths from cold/flu viruses.
‘We can say, “Based on what we think we know, this, that and the other appear to be useful/useless. Even the bizarre may lead up along a more productive path.”’
Which could rationally and honestly be said of essentially any disease at this point in time, from Influenza A to Ebola to HIV to Covid-19. That’s the point.
No matter what outbreak of disease you’re speaking of the same holds true and if we’re really using the terminology you used earlier then we’re always going with “what we think we know” which ain’t really that much because, as I pointed out earlier, truly controlled studies on infectious disease are usually impossible and where they’re not impossible they’re unethical so, really, they haven’t been done. All we really have is observation of how things seem to work.
Or we could just admit that usually when we apply observation and statistics properly we learn stuff that’s useful even when we can’t, in a pure knowledge sense, say we “know” these things. Larger datasets are always better but are not always necessary so long as we go with what the data say and we avoid logical jumps to what we’d like the data to say.
Some are trying to stoke panic. Only believe info from trusted sources. I trust theConservative Tree House, Ace of Spades HQ, and Instapundit.
Oh, and legal insurrection.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/03/fake-news-real-panic-viral-tweets-that-hospitals-selecting-which-patients-will-die/
None of which are reliable sources. Instapundit is merely a source of sources.
We still have far more flu deaths (absolute numbers) while the actual mortality rate is likely much lower than current estimates.
CDC buffoons have an agenda to promote their worthless annual flu vaccine. They VASTLY inflate flu “stats”. Do your own search on CDC inflates influenza death rates. CDC swampies have, for years, blamed all winter respiratory and circulatory deaths on influenza.
I don’t agree with many of you here in this sentiment, that:
“This is isn’t that bad, it’s just the flu.”
I think that attitude is a recipe for disaster, both in lives and votes. Remember there is an election coming up soon, and perceived reality beats actual reality everyday, everytime, regardless of the truth on the ground. Now that’s not to say I agree with many of you about how bad it is. I don’t agree. But for arguments sake, let’s assume you are correct, that “it’s just the flu”. If 80,000-100,000 Americans die due to Corona, and Trump is seen as “not doing anything”, the stock market tanks and Trump loses re-election. This is simply a fact, no matter how hard you or anyone else argues. You can scream until your blue in the face about this being “just another flu”, no one will care.
Further, I believe that this isn’t simply “another flu”. I think many of you are just looking at raw numbers and making generalizations. First of all, the situation in China is absolutely catastrophic. I don’t have a link on hand at the moment but casualties could be in the millions. That’s not “just the flu”.
Also, though I too absolutely hate the media, you can’t ignore what a total shitshow Europe and in particular Italy is right now. The common cold/flu doesn’t stack bodies like that, that quickly.
Remember too, during the 1918 pandemic, many people also argued that “this is just another flu”, and the results speak for themselves.
I’ll also add that while the elderly are the ones most at risk, some of you younger folks might not care, but keep in mind those elderly votes are also typically more conservative. A thrashing of the elderly in this country could have terrible electoral consequences.
As I said in the other thread, I welcome this debate and consider it a good one. But I do not believe this is the time for the country to take its foot off the gas and simply let nature take its course. It is likely this virus will wane with warmer weather, as other viruses in its class do. If that does happen we’ll have some breathing space to improve the economy and brace the next wave until there’s a vaccine.
Perhaps, but the world was an entirely different environment 100 years ago, and any comparison between then and now is the classic “apples and orange”. We now understand virology and can map genomes. We have instant worldwide communications, and can make logistical decisions quickly to affect entire regions.
Not the same.
Yes, but I’d argue that’s a position of over confidence. Yes our technology is greater now, but we’re still a long way off from a vaccine, and hospitals are not equipped for an enormous influx of patients. Our tech/skills are better but it’s also something our modern world, both health orgs and governments have no hands on experience in dealing with, especially on this scale. Remember that the original SARS, bird flu, swine flu, while all similar, were not as contagious as Corona.
Speaking of mapping genomes:
https://nextstrain.org/ncov
Explore, fiddle with settings!
It was a lot easier to read when it only had a couple hundred samples compared to over two thousand now.
Last year, when I had the flu, I knew LOTS of people who also had it. This year I know of NO one who’s had it. Every case is someone-who-knows-someone-who-knows-someone. Do I trust all the news reports? We were going to die from the West Nile virus, AIDS, Ebola, global cooling, global warming, atomic bombs. Kathy Griffin the “comedian” raged because she had the virus and couldn’t get tested. Turns out she has an intestinal infection, not the virus. Do I trust the media?
I definitely don’t trust the media in large part either, but, their crying wolf routinely shouldn’t set us up to be taken out by this one. When this all started, I too wasn’t terribly concerned as I figured this would go the route of swine/bird flu. But the facts of how this disease spreads are just plain different. None of the previous outbreaks were as contagious as this one. The fact that you start to spread it before you show symptoms is quite alarming.
“I knew LOTS of people who also had it. This year I know of NO one who’s had it. Every case is someone-who-knows-someone-who-knows-someone.”
Same here. The scary part about the Mexican Beer Virus is that the head dude in charge recently said that he thinks it will end up being a 1% fatality rate. To put that in perspective, the “regular” flu has about a 0.1% fatality rate. Keep in mind, we have vaccines against the regular flu that supposedly work. That has the potential to be really bad until we have working protocols in place.
Remember that “contagious” and “viability” are two different things that together make up an overall contagion coefficient.
This COVID-19 has an R rating of about 2.5. Measles has a rating of 16. It’s six times as “contagious”, but dies quickly outside of a living host. But the CoV can live much longer on surfaces, and therefore has a greater “viability”. People are conflating the two.
Kathy Griffin?
Regarding a pandemic, why would anybody pay any attention to an entertainer like Kathy Griffin?
I would no more listen to her opinion regarding pandemics then I would Rush Limbaugh, both are entertainers who have zero medical training.
Of course, Kathy is not pontificating as if she’s an expert so I have slightly more respect for her.
An idiot would, however, conflate the two individuals. Kathy Griffin is a moronic skank while Rush Limbaugh is a damn smart fellow. Unfortunately his current medical problems have taken his eye off the ball.
I would not hold your breath waiting for a vaccine. We have never successfully developed one for any other corona virus that I am aware of. The same people hyping a vaccine for the KungFlu have been promising one for HIV for almost 40 years
I agree that this is worse than the seasonal flu. They could have managed this differently though.
If they would have had the people at the most risk from this self isolate we could have largely kept the economy open.
I understand the initial idea of a lockdown so the medical system isn’t overwhelmed. The problem with that is that those that need a ventilator don’t have much chance of surviving anyway (in China it was 5%). The other problem is that overall it doesn’t change the outcome. As soon as you lift a lock down the spread will go back to whatever exponential increase it’s R0 would indicate. This won’t change until you get a herd immunity of 66% from people who have been exposed/infected and built antibodies.
Much of this hysteria was based on an early model developed in England that predicted several million deaths in the US. Needless to say the author has made a drastic revision downward in the last few days.
Your thoughts on the politics of this are absolutely correct. No matter what happens they are going to blame Trump. They were even trying to blame him for the couple who drank fish tank cleaner and several people in Nigeria who took too much anti-malarial medication. No matter what happens it’s Orange Man Bad.
“A Phoenix-area man has died and his wife was in critical condition after the couple took chloroquine phosphate, an additive used to clean fish tanks that is also found in an anti-malaria medication touted by Donald Trump as a treatment for Covid-19.
Banner Health said on Monday the couple in their 60s got sick within half an hour of ingesting the additive. The man could not be resuscitated at hospital but the woman was able to throw up much of the chemical.
“Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure,” the woman told NBC.
She said her advice would be: “Don’t take anything. Don’t believe anything. Don’t believe anything that the president says and his people … call your doctor.”
And don’t believe the Doctors. They dont have the title practicing medicine for nothing
Anyone that stupid should have been shot decades ago.
Cops: we won’t arrest you this week
Jails: you can go home
Fed: here’s more money than most of you have ever had at one time
I feel the circus is coming to town.
I have this unshakable feeling that about 98% of the people who would be rioting in urban Hellholes were not working before COVID-19.
Wait ‘til the state budgets collapse and the EBT cards quit working.
Sinking feeling that may be part of the deployment logic in NY
Judge, that’s the least of our worries. Wait until the EBT card works fine but there is nothing left to buy with all the free money, because no one is working to produce anything. I have no idea how long it will take before the pipeline is empty, but there is no such thing as magic, if nobody goes to work, it will eventually empty, and the shelves will be bare for months, until somebody works to produce, grow, or manufacture something again. It may just get real hungry out there.
The dems shut down states under the guise of preventing plague but it’s tanking the economy. They hope a depression arrives in time for the elections. They’ve been looking for crash since 2016 to duplicate the results of the 2008 elections. Even if things improve and a cure arrives they don’t want a rebound until Joe wakes up from one of his naps in the white house.
They would accept a depression in exchange for power.
Absolutely they would.
Nancy Pelosi, “This isn’t a time to play politics.” Proceeds to do nothing but play politics.
GS650G,
In a heartbeat. In fact a depression would yield a two-fold reward to Democrats:
(1) Democrats would roust Republicans and take over the Presidency AND both chambers of Congress.
(2) Democrats would consolidate even more power in exchange for “security” as well as federal government promises of food and utilities to the masses.
Now that I think about it, I kind of wonder if the U.S. military did release this disease in China — at the (secret) request of Democrats.
“I kind of wonder if the U.S. military did release this disease in China — at the (secret) request of Democrats.”
Unbelievable. Dude, I want a drink from your fruit jar, you’ve got the good stuff!
Unbelievable. You’ve partaken of the same tainted jar and it fans the flames of your TDS and you cant see the irony.
Fascinating.
A righteous indignation from the party of genocide and slavery is always amusing to watch.
TDS?
Yes, I agree, Trump is deranged. His own statements provide the proof, especially when compared with reality:
“Trump said of the coronavirus: “You can call it a germ, you can call it a flu, you can call it a virus, you know you can call it many different names. I’m not sure anybody even knows what it is.”
Facts First: You cannot accurately call the coronavirus “a flu.” They are, simply, different viruses with different characteristics, though they share some symptoms the coronavirus has a much higher mortality rate.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday during an online chat with NBA star Stephen Curry that the coronavirus is “very much more transmissible than flu and more importantly, it’s significantly more serious” — with a mortality rate approximately 10 times higher than the 0.1% for the flu.
It’s also obviously untrue that there is not “anybody” who knows what the coronavirus is. Though it was initially seen as a mystery virus when it emerged in China, we knew its genetic information by early January.”
The guy is so clueless, he doesn’t understand the difference between a germ and a virus.
Don’t nobody tell him it’s a protein, he’ll become even more confused.
i was looking for the perfect place to plug this. and i found it. miner 49er, suck it. fauci has completely backtracked on his previous position. and the rest of y’all hysterics (and i do mean in the traditional hystrionic/ hysterectomy derivation) relax. where did “ron” come from, for the debate? suck it.
http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/2020/03/you-are-being-manipulated.html
we ~socially distanced~ in our work trucks last night, then enjoyed fine german air pistol practice from the garage. goin’ down to jarvis beach to defy baby groots orders. a perfect day to be chased on an electric skateboard. the bike path is barren.
More bad information. I’m not surprised. But if you can’t trust the so called experts, then who can you trust? This moment in time will make an interesting case study for years to come.
Well if the dems somehow orchestrated an operation to create this virus halfway across the world it sure is nice of Trump to indulge them by being so magnificently feckless and stupid as to ignore it for 2 months instead of doing anything.
More likely scenario…. China created a tailored bug, released it and watched their enemies get sick…. all the while selling them “Test Kits” that don’t work, which aids in the further spread of the engineered bug. After is plays out and World Economies start to recover China starts sending out the bills for all the fraudulent “Test Kits” they sold to the customers they CREATED. Best case? China makes Trillions, weakens the rest of the entire World, and faces Zero Repercussions. Worst case? Same as above but they get boycotted for a few weeks by a few Nations. Still Zero serious Repercussions.
As long as the pot and grocery stores stay open I doubt major violence in my region. That being said the stores are having a hard time keeping the shelves stocked. People could get stupid if this gets worse after a couple months.
After a day or two of no food, all Hell would break loose.
As the axiom goes, “We are all only nine meals away [three days] from anarchy.”
Of course, but I don’t see ports shut down, rivers or mountain passes blocked. What is apparent is that the system is under stress. People aren’t starving anytime real soon but who knows what the future holds. Also don’t forget the railroads are functioning fine, and they can move ridiculous amounts of food and goods from region to region.
Exactly, this is not a civilization killer.
The only reason we see shortages at the grocery store is because consumers are buying 3 to 4 times as much as they normally do because of panic buying. This means the shelves will be empty until the supply chain makes up the difference.
We will lose 1 to 2% of our workforce, and then just like grandma used to say, “there were a lot of jobs after that pandemic in 1919“.
Some of you may remember a time in our history known as the ‘roaring 20s.‘
Apparently you have NO idea what modern railroads are used for/do. IE: unit trains of coal cars, containers or fuel in tank cars traveling hundreds/thousands of miles. The days of the mixed frt are long gone. TRUCKS move goods.
miner, i doubt if dying octegenarians are vacating lucrative carrers. what in the actual fuck is wrong with you?
carrers is like a career in the auto industry.
Oh really. Manifest trains account for 1/3rd of all freight moved last year. There are plenty of cars to move grain and goods.
” TRUCKS move goods ”
Well, my local MickeyD looks out over the freight lines, and more often than not I get to enjoy my flapjacks and eggs with the trains moving past the window. And by a very large margin, what I see more than anything is flatbed train cars carrying TRUCK trailers, and I’m prettry sure they aren’t empty. It’s called Intermodal Transportation.
So, yeah, trucks move goods. But it’s the trains that are moving the trucks.
Those truck trailers will be moved by semi tractors. If you use it trucks brought it to you
Looking at ports and mountain passes is real fine if a problem is localized, but when it is global there is no place which is producing anything to ship!
Cows are on the hoof all over where I live. And the farmers as usual also around here our keeping grain in bins to sale. I’m not worried about food leading to riots, at least at this moment.
The solution is so simple… they need to ramp up production of those magic St. Louis ‘Violence Free Zone’ signs. Problem solved!
I don’t understand Europe. They’ve been thru Communism, Socialism, Fascism and they’re just sitting ducks (or sheep) in their homes. Waiting for the criminal gangs to take everything. It’s time to let people outside working on projects. Like the CCC in the 1930’s. Small groups of people working outside, scattered around town. Fresh air, sunshine. Good for body and spirit.
Victoria,
Agree about Europe (exceptions for Hungary and Poland). The ‘nanny states’ have bred passive, subservient populations. Even the temper tantrum of France’s yellow-vest movement was about the nanny-state not providing.
I do not understand why anyone puts such faith in government to care for them and protect them. Maybe it is because their governments take so much in taxes that the European people need to rationalize it somehow.
Agree also. If the weather permits, get outside. Sunshine and fresh air are greatly restorative and curative.
Victoria & LifeSavor,
People who study the Old Testament will often ask the question, “How in the world did the Israelites continually fall away again and again over the centuries after repeatedly witnessing God’s miracles, sometimes in magnificently powerful ways (parting of the Red Sea, pillars of cloud/fire, manna from Heaven, victory over Jericho, etc., etc.)?”
How, indeed. Even David (the apple of God’s eye) and Solomon (the allegedly wisest leader to have ever lived) each fell away and committed egregious acts against God after personally experiencing His blessing.
It’s because we are – by simply human nature – forgetful, and all it takes is two generations to nearly completely forget the lessons of the past, and require the pain of fresh lessons again. The students who would have been graduating this year were all born after 9/11…it’s nothing but a page in the history books to them, and they don’t know of a life without the TSA, groping patdowns, surveillance from cameras on public roads, the Internet, cell phones, cashless living, etc. My own generations (Gen X’ers born in the late ’60s to the early ’80s) have only heard stories of the previous Great Depression and WWII from our grandparents, and consider the Korean, Vietnam, and Cold Wars as things that were only footnotes and somehow “worked themselves out”.
All it takes is two generations for a society to forget the hard lessons learned by their predecessors. There is nothing new under the sun.
Haz,
My wife and I discuss exactly that, frequently. Two generation to lose perspective. Compound that with the educational system having become a liberal propaganda tool.
Just returned from a drive in the hills north of Allentown. It get rural pretty quickly up there. Passed a property with a prominent sign reading “This property protected by guns and God’s glory.”
I suspect those folk have good memories.
I would say the reason most people ignore the old testament is because it’s a sad record of a savage and war-like tribes’s efforts at genocide, fueled by fantasy claims of divine authority.
And the Old Testament’s approval and instructions for enslaving your fellow humans is immoral evilness incarnate. A cursory reading of Exodus 21 should shake the Jehovah worship out of any reasonable human.
Miner the bible states only a FOOL says in his heart there is no God. God created you and can/will do with you any way He wants. Right now He reaches out to you in love but that will change either accept Christ or HELL choice is yours. I pray you choose wisely
This is a reply to Miner49er. You might want to do more than a cursory reading of Exodus 21 and the rest of the Bible as I have. Your eternity rides on it. I used to consider myself an atheist until I actually studied the claims of the Bible. You may not believe in God but He believes in you. And He sent His Son to die in your place that your sin might be forgiven and so that you could have eternal life with God in Heaven. I will be praying that you honestly do so.
@Miner,
Texican is correct…one needs to read the entirety of the OT (preferably the Bible as a whole) to understand the context of any given chapter or book.
What you mentioned above is akin to referencing one particular week in the life of, say, my son’s life when he was a young teenager, and saying I’m a tyrant because I required certain things of him (household chores, respect for his mother, the grounding to his room that occurred as a result of his defiant verbal outbursts). However, if you looked at the overall arc of his life from infant to adult, and our interactions together as I strove to shape and mold him into a mature, compassionate, and industrious person, that single week would suddenly make a great deal of sense.
Miner,
Thank you for explaining the Old Testament to me. In the 7 years I spend in Seminary and the 7 years I spent in active ministry, I have never been so enlightened.
Gentlemen, thank you for your polite response.
I was unaware that Christians would pick and choose what portions of the Bible they would adhere to. I have always understood that it’s all the inspired word of God. In any case, I don’t have much respect for cafeteria Christians, those would take some of this but ignore that.
“ the claims of the Bible”
And there’s the problem, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And there is no evidence to support any of the claims in the Bible. The answer is always faith, a belief in things unseen.
Faith is not a tool to ascertain truth, faith is the most dishonest position one could have.
Regarding slavery, even in the New Testament Paul commands slaves to obey their masters, especially the cruel ones.
My only command to slaves would be to free your selves by whatever means necessary, there is no viable justification for owning other humans as property.
And why no commandments against rape, genocide, slavery or pedophilia? A very spotty moral code at best.
I need no deity to deliver me from a Hell they devised.
“The answer is always faith, a belief in things unseen.”
Yes, faith. The same faith as those who believe the universe was not created by God. The conundrum is called “The Uncaused First Cause.” Both believers in God, and disbelievers come to the same point: How did all this start? The answer for both is an unprovable, but firm faith they are each correct. (And that the other is wrong)
“And why no commandments against rape, genocide, slavery or pedophilia?”
It is untidy to proclaim truth through ignorance. The answer to your question is summed up in a single “commandment”. The inability of humans to be perfect does not invalidate perfect standards (although refusal to accept perfect standard is our human way of excusing our imperfection)
Once again, Miner, thank you for explaining the nature of faith and the appropriate use of Scripture. Inspirational.
It appears you have everything under control
Miner you don’t know the first thing about the Bible. You have an absolutely surface understanding like so many people on the far left.
Haz,
I especially liked the way you presented the “Uncaused…” argument. What was the name of that mathematician who developed the proof that no system can be validated from within itself? Goedel?
Sam, thank you for your response.
I haven’t really seen any evidence that the universe had a beginning as such, most scientists answer quite correctly ‘I don’t know.’
My position is that I have seen no evidence to support the claim of the existence of any deity, Zeus, Jehovah, Allah, Shiva, etc.
There is a good website, talk origins, that discusses the origin of the universe, one may find it enlightening.
I certainly would love to see some evidence to support these God claims, but so far no one has offered anything of note.
I would think that an omniscient, omnipotent and all-knowing deity would be able to easily prove their existence but so far the cosmos has been silent on the subject.
Of course, there are many 15th hand stories about some particular sky daddy or set of sky daddy’s being offered by humans but they all fail to offer any sort of proof of their fables.
“I haven’t really seen any evidence that the universe had a beginning as such, most scientists answer quite correctly ‘I don’t know.’ ”
My point, exactly. “I don’t know” undercuts all the speculation (called “the scientific method”) that there is/isn’t a God. To promote the theory that somehow a universe is without a beginning, is the shadow of the theory that God preexisted everything. To posit that the universe was created, or that it wasn’t created is a leap of faith.
To say, “I don’t know” is both honest and dishonest at the same time. Generally, it is a disengagement from the subject (dishonest). Rarely is it an acknowledgement that what a person doesn’t know needs further study/analysis (honest).
What we know about the observables in live is that “something” cannot proceed from “nothing”. The observables are “something”.
One of the basic theories of science is that without an outside source to intervene, every system suffers entropy, a tendency to disorder. Random chance cannot sustain an entity. Random chance cannot self-propagate into ordered behavior. An intellectually honest person cannot maintain that random chance in perfect sequence not only initiated the universe, but randomness keeps order at the same time.
The probability of randomness to put together the complex inter-workings of all the forms of life we observe defies the laws of randomness and probability we established as being useful tools to explain observable phenomena. No rational person would believe, or put forth, the idea that it is possible that randomness would eventually create circumstances where randomness creates a winning streak lasting billions of years.
There is order to the universe, question remains: “How did order come about, and what keeps order from descending into chaos?”
Thank you Sam.
“ no system can be validated from within itself”
Well so much for the Bible proving the Bible.
I don’t think there are any examples of what you call nothing, so something from nothing is a meaningless phrase.
And saying I don’t know does not somehow suddenly mean there is any deity, much less a white-haired old guy name Jehovah.
There is much physical evidence for the concept of the big bang, all matter in a tiny singularity, suddenly exploding into what we see now is the rapidly expanding universe.
What we do know is that there is no evidence to support the multiple creation stories in genesis.
Face it, there’s no evidence to support anyone’s creation myth, be at this king James version or any other ancient fables.
And honestly, if I thought I should worship a deity who commanded me to kill my child, that would be the height of a moral evil.
In Texas, there’s an excellent group, the atheist community of Austin that sponsors a show called ‘the atheist experience.’
Not to be disrespectful, but far too often I see in the Bible where this Jehovah requires humans to do his killing. If I were of a mind to worship a deity, it certainly would be a deity that could get his own killing done and didn’t need some human to carry out his commandments.
That’s the frightening part, at any given moment these self-deluded Christians or Muslims or whoever can pop up and say God commanded them to kill me and take my shit. Just ask the Canaanites or the Amalachites, if you could find some.
Unfortunately, Jehovah told his followers to kill all of them, except for the virgin little girls who they should keep for themselves.
Oh, I think I see now why there’s no commandment against pedophilia…
So maybe this whole God delusion is just humans looking for an excuse to do some really bad things to each other, how sad.
“Oh, I think I see now why there’s no commandment against pedophilia…”
There is one. Right out front. I don’t have to like it, or even agree with it. But the “commandment” is there. The existence of a “commandment”, however, is not the same as acting accordingly. Just because I do not act accordingly does not mean the “commandment” is not there, nor does it mean the “commandment” is invalid, useless, or harmful.
Atheists are an interesting lot. They are quite different from Agnostics/Gnostics. The fundamental position on God is not, “We don’t know, so we take no stance.” The Atheist position is “There is no God”. Which is self-contradictory. To know whether God doesn’t exist, Atheists must be capable of searching everywhere, all the time, simultaneously, and find nothing (kinda like Unicorn hunting). What sort of being would be able to search everywhere, all the time, simultaneously?
Without being able to search the entire universe, and even beyond, no definitive statement about there being no God can be credibly made. Pascal makes a convincing argument about the the existence of God. You pays your money and takes your chances.
A more honest position for Atheists to take is, “I reject the idea that there is a Creator. I reject the idea that there is any entity who is my Master, accept me.”
“The Atheist position is “There is no God”.”
Sam, that is not the atheist position, not at all.
The atheist position is that the extraordinary claim of the existence of a God (or gods) has not been proven. Just as a court of law does not determine innocence but rather lack of guilt, I find there’s been no compelling evidence presented to prove the existence of a deity.
I can go one step further, and say I would not willingly worship a deity that advocates the enslavement of humans and the slaughter of the innocent, as detailed in both old and new testament.
“The atheist position is that the extraordinary claim of the existence of a God (or gods) has not been proven. ”
I am sure that statement comports with the public face Atheists wish to sell the public, but rather than be neutral, Atheists are anti-, as in hostile toward the possibility God may exist.
My university education was considered classic liberal arts. I learned many things, but was trained in a skill. Part of the education was comparative religion. In the old days, we actually had to answer dissertation type questions in class, requiring significant research into the religion, and its major writings.
In studying the classic Western presentation of the Christian religion (which was not a classical Western construct) there were some interesting propositions, one of which is the master-servant relationship between God and Man.
Now, I am remembering pretty much only those things which were a challenge to integrate, so I will not do a complete survey on God-Man relationship. What really sticks in mind is that other religions had a somewhat similar theme woven into the philosophies, the Hebrew text had a notation that the created does not have authority over the creator. The text asked the question whether the Potter had the authority and right to create whatever type pottery that pleased the Potter, and that the pottery was not a part of deciding, or even making the pottery it was. Of the religions, that was the most stark statement of the relationship I remember reading. The upshot was that although Man has independent will to do as he pleases, Man has no authority, nor right, to tell the Potter what man will/will not accept. To be less than polite, the thrust of the matter was that Man declaring to God (the Potter) what the Man (pottery) will/will not accept/respect is no more effective than pissing into the wind, with all the accompanying effect upon the pottery.
Other religions has different ways (reincarnation, for instance) of presenting the conflict. The idea that one must struggle to raise oneself to higher whatever level of existence also had at the core the idea that there is a higher form, a form against which we compare our journey, a form that exacts penalties for not rising to the ultimate version of whatever. But I don’t remember any major religion that placed the individual above the ultimate form/existence. Essentially, all religions implicitly recognize something higher than self.
But what of those who believe there is nothing but the now, and the moment? Those who accept no superior entity? They, by default, are their own superior entity. Yet, their own superior entity cannot operate cause them to adhere to their own standards. Essentially Man is God, yet unable to prevent himself from failing to meet his own standards. Picking and choosing only those godly principles freely chosen and accepted, man-as-god is a failure. However, if there is no higher standard, no higher purpose than personal satisfaction, then being god-for-a-day really doesn’t matter. There is no eternal reward or punishment for either being god, or failing as god.
But, back to there is no proof of God as described in Judaeo-Christian beliefs. When was it accepted that there were elements of the universe called “atoms”? Up to the point of discovery, the atoms existed, and operated nicely within what we call universe, planet, life. And all along, the skeptics proclaimed that atoms did not exist because the existence had not been proven. Yet, the atoms, and what they presented to us in the form of the physical, was there all along to see, and discover. In the Judaeo-Christian system, everything we experience tells us there is a creator, a God who explains all that surrounds us. Randomness cannot have a mind, or a power to create, or an ability to keep everything in balance that we call Nature.
Thus it is that despite all philosophy to the contrary, we benefit most from proceeding in life as if God exists, even if we, the pottery, cannot accept that proof is available everywhere. If science could explain our existence, and that of the universe, science would be required to produce a second “creation”, which it cannot do. Back to the “Uncaused first cause.”
Mind bending stuff, that. It is easier, and more desirable, to dismiss it all under the heading of “unproven”, and go about our business, eh? Are we deceiving ourselves? What happens if we are wrong? Hurts my head.
Miner then when you die God will have choice when condemns you to eternal fire. Only a FOOL says in their heart there is no God
listening to people justify religion is laughable. Mythology. The end. Comparing it to people who don’t believe as a common understanding that “the beginning” cannot be proved is even more naive. Apples to oranges.
There is nothing after death, as there was nothing before. Quit justifying your fears as “faith”. You want to be rewarded. Plain and simple. So fuck off and keep it to yourself.
Prove it.
People have been buying guns LONG before this virus and will be long after. It is not about COVID. It’s about protecting self and country. It always was and still is. The virus might be a wake up call for some but nothing has really changed. The Dems still want an unarmed population with everyone subservient to them. This should be so completely obvious.
Think things are rough now? Just imagine if hilliary rotten clintoon and her first lady rapist husband were at the helm. Or if the self serving lord marshal b. h. obama and plugs biden were at the helm with a democRat controlled house and senate. Or imagine breadline bernie and the squad at the helm. It could be worse. Much, much, much, much, much worse.
After 9/11 I was going to donate a substantial amount of $$$ to the Red Cross, that is until I found out that the majority share of $$$’s donated went to administrative costs, and salaries…It was then I decided to withdraw my donation, and haven’t had any dealing with the Red Cross since…
The RC better be careful, lest they rely on the American people to function…
Might want to check your source on that claim, the American Red Cross spends about 90% of its donations on programs. Only 4% goes to administrative costs.
https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3277
If you want “trustworthy” give to Operation Blessing or Samaritans Purse. The Red Cross is up there with the Clinton Foundation(is that still a scam er thing)?!?
bit of a stretch. clinton and obama funds are straight commie.
red cross does some good. and while they’ve had their controversies, the disaster relief and training that they offer is pretty close to amazing.
i remember people being pissed when they found out that the money they donated to a specific disaster would be used as seen fit. some people.
my entire extended family (literally, other than myself) are volunteers for this organization. my brother was with their management for forty years, made big dough. pops was an instructor trainer for over fifty, made nothing. he taught me to hate management.
“i remember people being pissed when they found out that the money they donated to a specific disaster would be used as seen fit. ”
All the “relief” agencies operate the same way: spend current funds, fund-raise to replenish the coffers for the next disaster. Red Cross admitted it (accidentally) the rest simply stay quiet and avoid the matter altogether. In actuality, the technique is not nefarious, and makes total sense in the context of “relief”. If agencies waited until disaster, they would likely not have funds available in time.
and yet i knew half a dozen korean war vets that were incensed by this and refused to ever donate again. amazing guys, stubborn and arnery.
As most despotic regimes go the vomit sucking demoncrats want us dead. They seem to forget that works both ways
Your precious republicans want the same thing. Power and control. They don’t care about you.
Hey. Suspicious and to clarify the only reason i vote Republican is because i want Trump i hate politicians except for a few Republicans and no demoncrats at all
“Red Cross Worries About COVID19 Urban Violence”
But they’re fine with regular urban violence?
Depending on the state in question, with all of the firearms buying occurring over the past 4 weeks, the average thug may be thinking twice about holding up someone or breaking into any given home. The chances are better than they have ever been that the intended victim is armed in some fashion, especially inside their homes.
Yes, and no. “criminals” are not the sharpest tools in the shed. That said, watch and see how many reasonable people begin doing unreasonable things in the coming months/year… People cannot just shelter in place forever, especially the average person. When those good citizens start starving, they will turn on their neighbors.
The Spanish Flu erupted in a relatively young industrialized world. We have, by far, way more toxins than back then in our air, water, food etc. And way more inhabitants. The silence from China is telling, we could be looking at hundreds of millions by the time it slows, assuming it does. We arent even sure of the seasonality of this bug yet. It will likely be the gift that keeps on giving for many many months. Humans simply do not posess the immunity we need to stave this off.
ignorance spewed.
they had shag and wood in the water closets back then. open sewers, little knowledge of germ theory, doctors wore beards. exactly which environmental (emphasis on mental) toxins do you think are sanctuary (other than the big blue cities themselves) for this disease?
you’ll be okay, little bunky.
Ok Timmaay crawl back to your moms basement let the adults handle this.
The news has everybody looking at this crap, What is the other hand doing?
Why are all these states telling everyone to stay home? What do they not want us to see? I have seen no other news except covid-19. Has nothing else happened in the last month?
The DOJ finally just dropped charges against the “Russian troll farms”, putting the final nail in the coffin that was the Russia hoax. It was all show charges from the beginning so the traitors could say “see, it really was a conspiracy!” It also came out that the FBI and DOJ knew there was zero Russian connection when they handed off the baton to Mueller’s team. It was nothing but a CYA job from the beginning. Funny how the media, that spent years pushing this conspiracy theory suddenly has zero interest in it. Hmm.
“ The Justice Department is moving to drop charges against two Russian companies that were accused of funding a social media campaign to sway American public opinion during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Prosecutors said they concluded that a trial, against a corporate defendant with no presence in the United States and no prospect of meaningful punishment even if convicted, would likely expose sensitive law enforcement tools and techniques, “potentially undermining their effectiveness.”
And these brilliant folks never considered that before indicting them, right? It was a show indictment from the beginning in order to pretend that they were making progress against the enemy. Mueller’s team never expected them to show up and actually defend themselves. They did show up and Mueller’s team said they weren’t yet ready to prosecute. Then they kicked the can down the road and finally closed shop and got the heck out of Dodge. They left the DOJ to deal with it, who quietly let it go.
This was a blatant tactic to smear people and push a narrative without ever letting people defend themselves.
It looks like the media is finally coming around.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-those-who-died-from-virus-had-other-illness-italy-says
“More than 75% had high blood pressure, about 35% had diabetes and a third suffered from heart disease.”
Time to quit screwing around and get your diet in order folks.
Eat your veggies kids. Just you know don’t panic buy the store too much…….. ah who am I kidding produce has been the only thing I have never had an issue finding on the occasional scavenging excursion.
No, that information is being ignored by the MSM.
It’s really amazing to hear people complain about the government’s reaction to the Coronavirus. When these same people totally supported open borders. Stating they were not concerned about criminals or people with diseases coming and going into the United States as they pleased.
President Trump wanted to close the borders the day he took office in 2016. But he has been sued constantly ever since. Been called a racist and all kinds of other names. His detractors seem to be the real racists.
People who don’t care if their fellow Americans die from a illness brought here. Or from being raped and murdered by an illegal alien.
And now these same people are quite happy to have the civilian populations civil rights curtailed.
These same arguments were made back in the 1980s. The same folks demanded that people with AIDS or HIV be allowed to enter into the United States. Whether or not they had made arrangements for private medical care. Because the open-borders crowd don’t care if American taxpayer funds are used to take care of foreigners. To them it’s foreigners first and Americans last.
BTW
The open-borders crowd are Libertarians Liberals and the Left.
Were we expecting self awareness from that group?
It’s going to be interesting
For those interested in the statistical modelling of the Wuhan Flu, these two articles discuss the difficulties in projecting virtually anything (which is not the same as discounting modelling entirely). Even if you are not fond of statistics, or math, the two links are written in very understandable language. Point being? Don’t run around with your hair on fire because someone publishes a horror story projection.
https://www.econjobrumors.com/topic/we-cannot-trust-current-covid-19-models
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2020/02/17/los-alamos-experts-warn-covid-19-almost-certainly-cannot-be-contained-project-up-to-4-4-million-dead/
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