O holy shittin’ kadoobles
I think Canada and Mexico need to “talk” fast - we’ll supply the resources, them the labor and get these walls built!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku5C9vpaG4k
Easter people! Easter!
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Two words...Talking Yam.
@Whitefire: Crazy USA President
Has there ever been a sane one?
@BigAl
I know it was a rhetorical question, but, I think Obama was the most sane individual in that office...IMHO.
@doG: I think Obama was the most sane individual in that office
Maybe. But it's not a high bar.
It's like Catch-22 isn't it. Wanting to be president should be evidence of insanity and therefore disqualify you. Who but a lunatic would want a job that makes himself and his family permanent targets for assassins?
@doG & Algebe
Typically the folks that make it through the political system to even be a viable major party candidate are the last people you actually want to be leaders. Especially in the US system. I think Obama is at least 10x better than trump, but even still, I could write a book on my gripes with Obama.
I feel the US has been operating as a plutocracy for quite some time. It started to ramp up in the early 80's. And has hit an extreme point in the last 2-3 years. The 1% in the US easily control over 50% of all the wealth. And thusly, easily control the federal government, helped in part by a bunch of voters buying in on the myth that big strong government = bad. That may be partially true in normal times, but in its place, the rich and the mega corporations have filled that power vacuum and those folks do not even get "voted" in. And these are not normal times.
We just got a world wide example where a robust, "strong" government is far better then the mockery of democracy the US is. China had the outbreak START in their country, and within a month from now, will have 1/10th as many cases and deaths the US has. Even though the US had 3 months to prepare. And was on the other side of the world. To put that in sport terms, lets use football/soccer:
The home team, (China) just sat on the bench for the first half to give themselves a handicap, and let the opposing team (USA) play w/o any defense. Then they jumped into action, and by the end of the 3rd quarter the score reads 20 China, 2 USA. Meanwhile USA is saying China is not playing fair, and that its China fault they are losing so badly.
I imagine the trump family is pretty used to death threats, long before trump ran for prez. Being president has nothing but benefied trump family enormously. And now they have a billion+ dollar security apparatus keeping that family safe. All paid for by the taxpayers.
Not to worry though, I would be extremely surprised if trump is voted in for another 4 years. Everything is pretty neatly stacked against him this time. One thing trump was right about, is covid-19 is going to cost him his job. (It just going to cost millions of americans their jobs too.)
On the bright side, I predict a massive economic recovery for much of the world in 2021. On a more dark note to this, a large part of that "economic recovery"will be due to the amount of medically vulnerable/elderly that die in this pandemic.
@Algebe
"Has there ever been a sane one?"
Technically, of course.
In reality, probably not. I'm basing this opinion on the premiss that one would need to be a few sandwiches short of a picnic to want the job. President Trump is of course the exception; he has lost the entire picnic basket.
There's also the problem of what passes for normal behaviour in a president. EG JFK and The Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile debacle. Let's not forget Ronnie Reagan; he was away with the fairies for a good chunk of his presidency and nobody seemed to notice. Either that or those Congressmen and Senators were as morally bankrupt as the current crop-------------they care not how loony or irresponsible a President may be as long as he's breathing.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Politics is based on one and only one principle; the ends justifies the means. Once that is understood, one is hardly ever surprised at the behaviour of a politician.
@Whitefire13
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Trump is off his tits if he thinks anything is happening in the US in Easter, except a massive nationwide response to tackle the catastrophic pandemic, that is now ripping through the US. Scroll down in that link, and note which country now has the most cases, and active cases, and the largest number of new cases globally. Click on the word Yesterday at the top of the chart. Any sane person in the states will be fearing Easter, and what it might involve.
The world might well be a very different one, in a number of ways, when this pandemic is finally brought under control. If the people I love are still alive then I will consider that the best result I could have hoped for, having a job, or an income, and all else is going to be secondary...
@Sheldon
"Trump is off his tits if he thinks anything is happening in the US in Easter---"
Wot? Have you only just noticed.?
Trump isn't so interested about April 12 as he is about November 3. Gotta keep them holy-roller votes coming in.
@ Grinseed
"Trump isn't so interested about April 12 as he is about November 3. Gotta keep them holy-roller votes coming in."
Absolutomundo
As with his every waking moment Mr Trump is interested only in Mr Trump. From my perception, the narcissistic fuckwittery of Mr Trump has already cost American lives during this current catastrophe. .
I sincerely hope that that enough Americans become sufficiently pissed of with him to give him a humiliating defeat in November .
I think it would also be peachy keen of a goodly number of the 41% who didn't vote last time would have a bash this time. I suspect that a lot of them are not Trump supporters. IE Because they are smart enough to know that the US political system is hopelessly corrupt and largely irrelevant to their daily lives. --Or that it was , until Trump royally fucked up the handing the present crisis. AND that his stunning ineptitude has probably cost American lives.
His April 12 goal of filling the churches is self-defeating for the “holy-roller” vote...talk about taking out your base!
Unfortunately, with the Corona Virus his approval rating is now about 50% He is on the news every day saying it is not as bad as people say it is and he has banned the doctor who kept interrupting him correcting his errors.
@Mrs Paul O
Trumps approval rating has gone up recently, to be expected, Bush Jr ratings went up immensely after 9/11. Trump's disaster approval bump is tiny compared to other disaster approval bumps. Bush jr went up 20-30% trump went up 10-15%.
Also of note, Bush JR did not enjoy the massive bump in ratings for long. Later in his term, when it started to become apparent how botched the afghanistan and iraq wars were, and how long term they are, his approval ratings slipped.
Covid-19 wont wait that long. This is not a 1 day event nor a war halfway around the world.
The body count and infection rate is only going to go up, and the outbreak areas so far only hit mostly highly democrat and blue states/areas in USA. This will spread to the red states, (already is,) and will spread to rural. When that happens, and small redneck town in middle of nowhere see's the local morgue refusing to accept new bodies, and mass graves being dug, I can guarantee you trump's approval ratings even among all but his most die hard base, drop.
Meanwhile, the blue side is getting increasingly pissed and fired up. It has been true for a while that "democrat" voters far out number republican voters for a while now in USA. Normally large chunks of democrat voters do not bother to vote, or get blocked from voting one way or another.
Mail in votes are likely going to be widespread in many states this election cycle for obvious reasons, you can toss out most of the republican voter suppression strategies they employ year after year in swing states with mail in ballots being used. Plus not being able to do large crowd rallies is going to hurt trump far more than Biden. USA's nov 3rd election will be a 1 issue election. That issue being how to handle the covid-19 pandemic. So far, trump is epicly failing and the consequences of this will be manifest in the next 2-3 weeks or so when US infection continue to rise.
*To be fair, democrats also practice voter suppression, gerrymandering, and other "cheating" of the system techniques. And both parties need the public vote to get in office, but really only serve the elite rich few.
Sooo, Boris has it. Not surprised really, the number of people he must need to interact with at the moment.
My cough all but cleared, but then flared up again yesterday, and this morning, now it seems to be easing again. 7 days symptom free. I'm rationing my wine, but have plenty of vodka.
Letter from work saying the government would pay 80% of my monthly salary, and the company would pay the rest in the event they needed to send any employees home. I've not got back in work yet!
Will text my boss tonight, but losing my job, and getting divorced in the same year is just too careless.
Edited typos.
@Sheldon
I'm glad you are healed
@Talyyn
Thank you, still have a cough in the mornings mainly, sent my boss a text giving him a heads up. So I need it to clear completely so I can go 7 days without symptoms and go back to work, as I'm getting a little stir crazy now. Haven't seen another live human in ten days.
@ Mrs Paul
"Unfortunately, with the Corona Virus his approval rating is now about 50% He is on the news every day saying it is not as bad as people say it is and he has banned the doctor who kept interrupting him correcting his errors."
Tragically true.
Huffpost Australia this morning Saturday 28 March.
"The United States hit a grim milestone on Thursday, becoming the country with the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide.
The US had more than 82,000 reported cases across all 50 states and US territories, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. It has now surpassed China’s and Italy’s coronavirus case totals, previously the highest in the world. The next highest case numbers are in Spain, France, Germany and Iran."
https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/united-states-has-the-most-confi...
Were I an American I think I would be both murderously angry at Trump and terrified.
Huffpost US today:
"-------In New York alone, more than 500 people have died of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, and at least 1,000 people have died nationwide. More than 80,000 cases of infection have been reported throughout the U.S., with more than 30,000 of those cases in New York.-------
'----------“I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators,” Trump said. “You know, you go into major hospitals sometimes, they’ll have two ventilators. And now all of a sudden they’re saying can we order 30,000 ventilators?”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/new-york-coronavirus-death-toll-...
From an article in The NY Times: “The public radio station in Seattle, KUOW, has stopped airing Trump’s live briefings because the volume of misinformation he puts out cannot be corrected in real time.”
@CyberLN: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha .... tears in my eyes, pain in my side, falling, falling, falling......
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
This link is terrifying...Italy have also passed China with the second largest number of cases. I have now not seen another living soul for 7 whole days....though I speak to friends and family daily thank fuck.
Stay safe people....
Spent all day yesterday in the house. The virus has not made an appearance yet but I am preparing for it. I've covered all the windows and coated the ceiling in aluminum foil. I am scrubbing down the floor with bleach every three hours. The fumes are strong but I have had no side effects outside of a small nose bleed and red tinted tears. Oh! And a few blisters on my feet. The blisters aren't a problem though as I spend most of my time swinging from the light fixtures.
What was I talking about..... Sorry my eyes are burning.... I gotta go find a tissue.
@Cognostic
Have you tried drinking aquarium cleaner? A man in the US did that, and he won't be getting COVID-19 ever again.
@Algebe: LOL --- I imagine it tastes like monkey shampoo. I think I'll pass.
@Cognostic
"The blisters aren't a problem though as I spend most of my time swinging from the light fixtures.'
Quite right. However, to be fully effective you must be swing via large fish hook in your LEFT buttock , attached to Tuna strength fishing oil.
From experience ,the results are a bit over rated. Our parish priest used to make us to that as penance after confession. Exactly the same but different. With us it had to the RIGHT buttock, we had to be naked and swinging from the main incense fixture in the church, Father always insisted on watching to make sure we did it properly. He also took photos for his files.
Where is he now? Sadly , he became accidently run over by one of my mates dad's trucks, several times, in 1973. .
@Cranky: I can't use the hook. That's where I keep my spare bananas. But I promise to give it a try if I find myself swinging on empty some day.
@Sheldon:
Those data do look frightening. But I'd like to see the death rate adjusted to show how much of an increase there's been over the normal death rate, which is currently around 7.5 per 1,000 people per year. It looks like they're saying if someone had COVID-19 when they died, they died of COVID-19. That's not necessarily true for someone in their 80s or 90s with various underlying conditions.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/sp.dyn.cdrt.in
Algebe / Sheldon: I read it someplace ....
I've heard that they are counting many people as dying from the Covid 19 when they die of natural causes for the fact that the tests are not available and too pricey.
This was one of the factors elevating death reports.
Just refreshed that link, and for the first time in two days China are showing new cases.
@Sheldon
"Just refreshed that link, and for the first time in two days China are showing new cases.' -
----and you believe that why?
The last news I had about the PRC is that it had had been deliberately misinforming the world since the beginning of the crisis.
Sheldon: New Reported Cases: I am convinced that the Chinese government does not have a clue as to what is going on in their country. I believe a huge section of the Chinese people do not trust the government and are not reporting cases of illness.
Tier 7: The Marginalized
Who they are: Ordinary factory workers; owners of mom and pop shops; urban residents with odd jobs; wealthy peasants. There are probably 500 million people who can be considered Tier 7. Those in Tier 7 have the means to subsist in medium to large Chinese cities.
Tier 8: The Underclass
Who they are: Migrant workers in sweatshops; ordinary peasants. There are probably 400 million who can be considered Tier 8. Those in Tier 8 can eke out a living on their own.
Tier 9: The Destitute
Who they are: Long-term unemployed urban residents; impoverished peasants in far-flung rural areas. There are probably 100 million people who can be considered members of Tier 9.
I doubt we can trust any information coming from China.
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