Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

Discussion in 'SBAF Blogs' started by purr1n, Dec 26, 2018.

  1. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

    Staff Member Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2015
    Likes Received:
    89,778
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Padre Island CC TX
  2. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

    Pyrate Contributor
    Joined:
    Feb 23, 2016
    Likes Received:
    10,697
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    NOVA
    Home Page:
    Link to article, please! Not disagreeing (except for the last part about despotism), but you can't sorta-quote something without giving us the source.
     
  3. wormcycle

    wormcycle Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2016
    Likes Received:
    1,506
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Toronto, ON, Canada
    Extending lockdowns or closing again will not change anything. The states with very large number of confirmed cases per 1mln people, NY, NJ, MS, seem show the lowest numbers of new cases. It is still not the same as the # of infections but, with the level of testing steadily increasing, is better correlated now.
    Unfortunately, Florida, and other states just need to catch up to NY to get to the same level of immunity.
    All this Democratic/Republican governor stuff is just a disgusting, in effect lethal, play by the media that IMO is one of the main factors preventing states from sharing experiences and developing a common, workable approach.

     
  4. dark_energy

    dark_energy Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Sep 27, 2015
    Likes Received:
    1,040
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Forest
    Not a pandemic crisis specialist or anything, but giving a fine for people who violate pandemic crisis laws is justified when there are gross violations. I get a remark for everything I might do wrong here and this is totally fine. It is not about Me when we talk about global health hazards that spread. Hope they can curb that peak in your area.

    I am guessing that the leading state by high-tech solutions should be able to figure this out.
     
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2020
  5. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Sep 26, 2018
    Likes Received:
    3,451
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    SouthernCA
    I tried looking for it before I posted but could not find it... Just tried again right now as well - no avail. If you want to look and it helps, the picture at the top/heading of the article has a US flag draw in the foreground (flying in sky) with a Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore flag to the left and right of it.
     
  6. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

    Staff Member Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2015
    Likes Received:
    89,778
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Padre Island CC TX
    Maybe it's shit communications from government. I'm trying to figure out if barbershops are open in Ventura county, or how long the new shutdowns will last. Someone please go here https://covid19.ca.gov/ and tell me where I can find this information. Newsom made an announcement on July 30 or July 1 regarding new shutdowns, and I can't find it here either: https://www.gov.ca.gov/newsroom/

    It's so incredibly frustrating when government can't even get its information to its citizens, and that I need to rely on Google searches, which usually point me to the LA Times, where the content is behind a paywall.

    Also, lack of punitive measures upon individuals (unless you are running a business where the local authorities and inspectors can shut you down). Like this dude who died because some asswipe who was aware he had the Wuhan coronavirus (but no symptoms) decided to attend the same small BBQ gathering among friends. The victim who died, blamed himself - he was high risk with diabetes after all. However, I think most of the blame dies with the person who spread it knowingly (the ignorance excuse, that he didn't have any symptoms, is bullshit). I bet this kind of stuff happens a lot more than folks think.

    So rather than putting these assholes in the back of the line for the vaccine (which wouldn't do much anyway), maybe we should fine them $33,000, parade them on TV, and make an example out of them.

    I'm incredibly angry right now with Garcetti actually saying "“Gatherings of people you do not live with are not allowed” while protesters loom outside city hall. I'm going right out tomorrow with close friends, taking a photo, and posting it on Instagram with a "f**k You Garcetti".

    And WTF are Garcetti and Newsom not wearing masks on TV? That sets a bad example. Even Merkel (who is German, and those Germans really hate masks because they are improper culturally - impinge upon their image consciousness) wears a mask now.
     
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2020
  7. RobS

    RobS RobS? More like RobDiarrhea.

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2019
    Likes Received:
    1,419
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    .
  8. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

    Staff Member Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2015
    Likes Received:
    89,778
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Padre Island CC TX
    I'm too dumb. I don't understand this convoluted "Monitoring List for 3 days" and not on "Monitoring List." Can't they do Code Red, Yellow or Green?

    Why is there extraneous information that I need that only causes confusion? Do I was a citizen really care about the number of gowns and N-95 respirators issued?
     
  9. RobS

    RobS RobS? More like RobDiarrhea.

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2019
    Likes Received:
    1,419
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    .
    Agreed, it's unnecessarily complicated.
     
  10. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

    Staff Member Pyrate BWC
    Joined:
    Sep 24, 2015
    Likes Received:
    89,778
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Padre Island CC TX
    Big map of California on home page (without need to press on a link, among 56 other links)
    Counties color coded (red, yellow and green, which everyone understands)
    Legend at the bottom on what colors mean (simple table with colors at top, business types at left, and open, closed, or restricted)

    Optional: Upon clicking on county, criteria for county to move from red to yellow or yellow to green. Existing status, trends, and target.

    Quite frankly, I am sick of the state government seemingly making up random shit as it goes along. The uptick has been happening for a month now. Why have barbershops and nail salons who were the last to reopen, presumably because they are supposed to be super high risk (I have my doubts), not closed? It's all super confusing.

    --

    And oh yeah, f**k you Garcetti. In case I forgot to say that.

    And f**k you Las Virgenes School District. The learning from home thing was a disaster. No fricking way I will submit a high-schooler to this shit for another year. I'd rather take them out for a year. Teachers were just unprepared for this and the admins didn't know WTF to do. School admin types are better at getting key LA Rams players, like Jared Goff, to visit the schools rather than actually administrating, planning, executing contingency plans. These people would be fired or furloughed if they worked in the private sector.
     
    Last edited: Jul 3, 2020
  11. robot zombie

    robot zombie Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    May 11, 2016
    Likes Received:
    1,408
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Ennui, FL
    Haha, I work in a private k-8 and I gotta say, you would be surprised. Our learn-from-home was pretty disastrous. There is no way parents are going to continue to pay full tuition for this. No clue and very poor planning. It is through this that I realized how low the level of tech literacy really is for most of our staff. And it's like these teachers have been so complacent in their ways, they just can't seem to adapt at all. Not so used to being challenged.

    Theme of the day, though, eh? It's super weird and frustrating to watch all of these people in charge of so many different things continually try to act like they know what's going on, when you know there's no way they do. And then the talk circulates of people doubting if they know what's going on. And a week or two later it's like SURPRISE, they didn't! And this just keeps happening everywhere.

    It's the kind of thing where you find yourself questioning how we ever got by. So much atrophy everywhere, just getting put to the blade and flayed out for everyone to see. I swear, most of the grief for people might be more rooted in seeing all of that, than the fear of the virus itself. It's the widespread incompetency that'll do us in. Even after the virus, it'll still be there. And maybe it always was... just wasn't so painfully obvious. It's like... a lot of people already thought our general ability to get things done right was pretty bad. And then coronavirus hit and that really nailed down how nobody ever really knows what the hell is going on.

    I'm trying to be hopeful that it will ultimately be a difficult learning experience in many areas of society. We might've just been due for a jostle like this to pull people's heads back out of the clouds and into the game. The hindsight is gonna be such a bitch.
     
  12. crenca

    crenca Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    May 26, 2017
    Likes Received:
    3,829
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Southern New Mexico
    Well stated. The nun who taught my 5th grade daughter's class, was tech illiterate at the beginning. However, in 6 weeks she was up to speed. The "religious" more often than not have the self discipline (and the time) for such a challenge. She had Google Classroom working well as a central organizing application, and had even built herself a jig to hold her phone so that she could effectively aim it down during Zoom meetings at her white board. I gave her an 'A.

    My other daughter's kindergarten teacher however really struggled. She relied too much on "ClassDojo", a glorified phone/messaging app, which she pressed into duty as central organizing app.

    Fortunately, our little Catholic school has good leadership and parental resources (several IT and engineering professionals with day jobs at White Sands/NASA) , and even if the Gov. closes the schools down because of this second wave, there will be full time instruction 5 days a week directly from the classrooms via video link next year - actually available to families who don't want to send their kids to school even if they are allowed to stay open.

    The local public schools are going to be very limited, even without closure.

    Again well stated. It has always been like this. Our own particular, and humanities general, "competency" is actually quite low, and our existence more precarious than we usually want to admit. One of modernities central myths is a religious like faith in Progress-with-a-capital-P. Our technological progress (which is quite real, but overweighted) and relative prosperity since WWII has created at least 2 generations who have not really suffered and thus don't really know how thin civilization actually is.
     
    Last edited: Jul 4, 2020
  13. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Sep 26, 2018
    Likes Received:
    3,451
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    SouthernCA
    I personally blame this for the rise of the Karens and the excessive moral gesturing we have in our society now. People who refuse to acknowledge or stare into the void that is the darkness and depravity of life and humanity and do dumb stuff instead in the process of playing ostrich.

    Not that Karen and moral gesturing people don't have valid points sometimes. Or that we have much of a leg to stand on farting around with fancy headphones all day, but at least that's kept to ourselves.
     
    Last edited: Jul 4, 2020
  14. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Sep 26, 2018
    Likes Received:
    3,451
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    SouthernCA
    People often question why I want don't want government doing more stuff or controlling, regulating, or whatever with more stuff. I ask how they can look around them and want government doing more stuff... It used to be gov could at least have or pretend to have some right or good intentions and only have crap execution (which still yielded crap results... but at least they got their feels in). Now it's just some "GO TEAM GO THROW BALL GOODEERRRRSSS!!!! polarization type crap mixed with confusion and incompetence on top of said crap execution.
     
    Last edited: Jul 4, 2020
  15. YMO

    YMO Chief Fun Officer

    Pyrate Contributor
    Joined:
    Apr 1, 2018
    Likes Received:
    10,517
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Palms Of The Coasts, FL
    So as I previously stated, my city, Jacksonville, FL, put a mandatory mask order down on the whole city/county (since Duval County and Jax are one and the same). When the mayor was discussing the max order with City Counsil, almost everyone was supported of it, except for my district's city councilman.

    He posted this on his FB page:

    Of course a few people are supporting his decision. I can't 100% say that he is wrong. However, some of his fellow City Counsel members did had Covid-19 and is super happy that we have a mask order in place.

    Someone of course posted this on the FB post:

    I was at CVS and Publix and I think 85% of the people that I saw were wearing masks. People are going to do their own thing no matter what. I could be wrong but you can get a police warning if you caught not wearing a mask.
     
  16. RobS

    RobS RobS? More like RobDiarrhea.

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2019
    Likes Received:
    1,419
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    .
    Stare into the void long enough and that is what you'll become.
     
  17. Azimuth

    Azimuth FKA rtaylor76, Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Nov 9, 2015
    Likes Received:
    6,839
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Nashville, TN
    Home Page:
    The virus spreads by someone who has it by water droplets from their breath. Anyone can have it and not show any symptoms up to 10 days and maybe even mild symptoms, like a headache or nausea. We don't know who has it. We have limited access to tests.

    So THE safest thing we can do to prevent the spread is wear a mask. It won't do much if you don't have it, but you MAY have it and infecting many others.

    And the death rate 2x worse than the flu and even 6x for the older generation. It is also spreading way faster than the flu due to the long the incubation period.

    So if we really care for each other, wear a mask. Mandates from cities are there to show how serious it is. Unless they want their hospitals inundated.

    The fact is, we've known ALL of this since April. We've had other countries as great case studies. And yet we, or only a few follow the guidelines of what we have learned. We might as well be a 3rd world country the way some of the politicians and news pundits act. Take this virus seriously. It is a non-political issue. It will get you no matter if your a Republican, Democrat, Independent, Black, White, Latino, LTBQ-IS, young, old, middle aged, etc.

    Listen to the doctors and scientists. This is not a drill.
     
  18. Kernel Kurtz

    Kernel Kurtz Friend

    Pyrate Contributor
    Joined:
    May 19, 2018
    Likes Received:
    1,680
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Location:
    Winnipeg, Canada
    Best analogy I've seen is if you go out on a cold day and you can see your breath. Those are the droplets you are exhaling all the time. They are still there on warm days too, you just can't see them. Put on a scarf or balaclava on that cold day and while droplets still escape, their range is greatly reduced. Masks work the same way.

    I'm grateful my province is doing very well so far with few new cases each day, and while we don't have a mandatory mask order here, I'd say about 50% of the people I see at the store are wearing one anyway. If our numbers take a turn for the worse, I'd have no problem if they were required.
     
  19. crenca

    crenca Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    May 26, 2017
    Likes Received:
    3,829
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Location:
    Southern New Mexico
    As a conservative, and not a idealistic libertarian twit like this guy, I will say he might not be 100% wrong, but he is 99% wrong. Even on the subject that really motivates him- the GDP growth rate and his stock investments- he is wrong when it comes to pandemics, jobs, and masks. It's good to hear that his' is a very minority opinion.

    I think we are past the point for this sort of nonsense. It's time for businesses to enforce "no shoes, no shirt, no mask, NO SERVICE!" (even in the face of real pushback from entitled twits who cry "my rights!" and make a scene), and for the government at all levels to back them up with fines/jail time for non-compliance.

    I was reading last night about the latest DOT 43 page recommendations for airlines. Masks, etc. However they are just "recommendations" and no enforcement from the DOT behind them is forthcoming. What a waste of 43 pages - might as well be a love poem for peace in palestine.
     
  20. haywood

    haywood Friend

    Pyrate
    Joined:
    Oct 22, 2015
    Likes Received:
    763
    Trophy Points:
    93
    The culture wars would be fascinating if we weren’t living in them. Ostensibly virtue signaling is about expressing what is popularly considered a progressive viewpoint, whereas “Karen” now has come to basically be used to say “shut up and know your place bitch”, like a liberal version of “get back in the kitchen”. Historically progressives were aligned with feminism but now they attack “white feminism” which aligns with the idea of a “Karen” and neatly shifts any heat the many, many white male progressives might have received for being colonial oppressors (or whatever term du jour is appropriate).
     

Share This Page