caulfield12

Fake News is not Essential!!! Well, one thing’s for sure, the US is giving the Chinese state-sponsored media another weekend’s worth of propaganda...taking the focus off all the problems within China. The protests with assault weapons out in public are particularly jaw-dropping, since only the police and military can legally have a gun here.

Recently, when one such woman had a change of heart about the charges she was paid to fabricate — this time against Dr. Anthony Fauci — she recorded (Jack) Burkman detailing the importance of the scam they were pulling. When pushed by the young woman (a former friend of Wohl’s) about the health risks of the virus — risks she felt Wohl and Burkman were downplaying — the latter articulated the desiccated heart of conservative thinking. To wit, Burkman: “Mother Nature has to clean the barn every so often…So what if 1 percent of the population goes? So what if you lose 400,000 people? Two hundred thousand were elderly; the other 200,000 are the bottom of society. You got to clean out the barn. If it’s real, it’s a positive thing, for God’s sake.” Tim Wise/Medium.com This is the beating heart of every Covid argument on this board. The 47% who aren’t generating revenues/taxes for the government or profits for corporations, to Mitt Romney. The Deplorables, to the Clinton campaign. To Obama, the ones “clinging to guns and religion” in PA. While it sounds exactly like something from a Hitlerian era treatise on eugenics...if you strip away rights/freedoms/we the people/don’t tread on me, it comes down to this simple conclusion. Older people die, so less government resources are allocated for Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. The bottom of society (well, we have to somehow keep Trump voters alive at least until November 3rd in order to vote in person) needs to be “cleansed” as well, the wheat needs to be separated from the chaff. This is actually a positive thing for society, not something to be feared or prevented.

That’s fine, as long as his wife/family are still supportive when he hits FA at 32 rather than 31...and ends up earning $30+ million less for his career. Not to mention lost future endorsement opportunities if he’s one of the few holding out at home. That kind of move doesn’t play well no matter how you spin it to the average American sports fan or consumer.

Great, except someone who’s not even a doctor (nor has she been confirmed even) blocked them, largely because Trump doesn’t like or trust Dr. Redfield (yet can’t fire him or Azar because it would make him look weak, apparently.) https://time.com/5836540/nancy-beck-trump-coronavirus-cdc-guidelines-reopening/ Let’s not forget that Jared Kushner inhabits a universe where he thinks his powers might be so expansive that an election can even be delayed, which, of course, hasn’t happened EVER...and where the DJIA is infinitely more important than 150,000 lives lost. Well, will you commit that the elections will happen on November 3?" he was asked. "It's not my decision to make, so I'm not sure I can commit one way or the other. But right now, that's the plan and again, hopefully, by the time we get to September, October, November, we've done enough work with testing and with all the different things we're trying to do to prevent a future outbreak of the magnitude that would make us shut down again,” he said. cnn.com

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/14/opinions/restaurants-will-need-a-miracle-to-survive-the-pandemic-dey/index.html Let’s say you do get your way, we just collectively say screw it...about 50% of the population or so is confident to go out eating, shopping, traveling, etc. How many of these independent restaurants that make up the backbone of cities across the country are going to survive in such an environment, where profit margins are already stretched so thin? Won’t we just end up more America, Inc., with only fast food franchises and a few mid or upscale places like a Ruth’s Chris, Tony Roma’s or Cheesecake Factory (struggling to pay rents) thrown into the mix? Are we now doomed to a world where Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Applebee’s, TGI Friday’s and Chili’s comprise the apex of fine dining? Restaurants run at terribly low margins with astonishingly high failure rates and often exploitative terms for our employees. Much of this is for sheer survival and not because of rapacious owners rolling in money. On the contrary, we restaurateurs fuel employment against all odds, and we're stuck in this vicious loop. But maybe there will be innovation in the aftermath of the destruction. Maybe not all our businesses are meant to survive this storm, to surface with stronger economics and with less excess capacity in the industry as a whole. Maybe it's time to reevaluate minimum wages, redraw tip credits and rethink the lack of parental and sick leave and social safety nets. Maybe this is true of all small business and even big business today. These are issues we have to confront as a society with our government. Now could be the perfect time to break with the past. ..... Our industry is irate that the precipice we've been driven to stems from mandated months of closure and that we face an incredibly uphill journey, with none of the assistance that big business receives. It is categorically not an intrinsic, reckless failure of our own making. After the trillions expended on buoying the stock market and on unlimited quantitative easing and corporate bond financing, shouldn't our government deliver for an industry that employs some 15 million and is #TooSmallToFail?

Speaking of masks... (Dr. Rick) Bright (of BARTA) said that he would "never forget" an email from Mike Bowen, the hearing's other witness and the vice president of the medical supply company Prestige Ameritech, indicating that the US supply of the N95, the respirator masks used by health care professionals, was at a perilous level. "He said, 'We're in deep shit,'" testified Bright. "'The world is.'" Bright said he "pushed" that warning "to the highest levels" he could at Health and Human Services but received "no response." "I was met with indifference, saying they were either too busy, they didn't have a plan, they didn't know who was responsible for procuring those," he said in his testimony, adding 'A number of excuses, but never any action." Bright said that in a meeting on February 7, Health and Human Services leadership said they did not believe there would be a shortage of N95 masks. "My response was, 'I cannot believe you can sit and say that with a straight face.' It was absurd," he said. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/14/politics/key-moments-bright-hearing/index.html

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/05/13/frozen-years-potential-sars-vaccine-tested-coronavirus-cryogene-houston-baylor-college-medicine/3110750001/ Speaking of an imminently logical one (compared to hydroxychloroquine) that was right in your backyard, just waiting to be refunded after interest in SARs abated. Bill Gates and his foundation has also been all over this. The problem is the anti-vaxxers will take any breakthrough as a Gates/Soros-led attempt at world domination, somehow...well, just because he’s now the bogeyman behind everything. If it’s a Chinese company, 50% of Americans will think it’s a Trojan Horse trick to poison us and take over as top dog, replacing the US dollar with the RMB as the global reserve currency after staging a predawn paratrooper invasion of Lawrence with our defenses weakened, etc.

Which is exactly what’s happening in Dallas, San Antonio and Austin right now...until Gov. Abbott figures out some way to override their orders. Hasn’t exactly worked out well for Gov. Kemp in the showdown with the Atlanta mayor.

If they tried to put GPS trackers on Red Staters, they’d inevitably hack limbs off James Franco “127 Hours” style... ”Many years from now, would you be willin' to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!!”

Greg, you can get a haircut, Starbucks coffee, non-LGBTQ Subway sandwich and a reserved church pew if you simply hire these dudes! SHEPHERD, Texas — When Jamie Williams decided to reopen her East Texas tattoo studio last week in defiance of the state’s coronavirus restrictions, she asked Philip Archibald for help. He showed up with his dog Zeus, his friends and his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Archibald established an armed perimeter in the parking lot outside Crash-N-Burn Tattoo, secured by five men with military-style rifles, tactical shotguns, camouflage vests and walkie-talkies. One of them already had a large tattoo of his own. “We the People,” it said. “I think it should be a business’s right if they want to close or open,” said Archibald, a 29-year-old online fitness trainer from the Dallas area who lately has made it his personal mission to help Texas business owners challenge government orders to keep their doors shut during the coronavirus pandemic. “What is coming to arrest a person who is opening their business according to their constitutional rights? That’s confrontation.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/businesses-chafing-under-covid-19-121824076.html

“The chips are starting to crumble.” Eric Trump

Battlegrounds Biden Trump Spread Wisconsin 46.0 43.3 Biden +2.7 Pennsylvania 48.3 41.8 Biden +6.5 North Carolina 46.7 47.0 Trump +0.3 Florida 46.5 43.3 Biden +3.2 Georgia 47-46 Biden +1 Texas 43-43 https://www.yahoo.com/news/cnn-buries-own-poll-results-011348264.html Only after all of this stuff did we learn that CNN has a new poll out, under the headline, “CNN Poll: Biden tops Trump nationwide, but battlegrounds tilt Trump.” Polls are expensive, news organizations tend to hype them breathlessly to generate headlines in rival media outlets, Wednesday was (obviously) a slow news day, and politics is one of CNN’s core topics. Yet CNN seemed oddly unenthused about its own poll. And the story to which the homepage linked doesn’t mention that Trump had never scored higher in a CNN poll. True, there are lots of noisy data in the piece, most of which cut against Trump. But on the other hand the single most surprising and hence most newsworthy detail of the poll was that Trump holds a seven-point lead over Biden in the battleground states. The CNN story doesn’t even tell us what that figure is — seven points seems like a pretty big number — and downplays its own finding by noting, “Given the small sample size in that subset of voters, it is difficult to determine with certainty whether the movement is significant or a fluke of random sampling.” The headline of a different CNN news story about the same poll carries the headline, “CNN Poll: Negative ratings for government handling of coronavirus persist” over a picture of Trump looking downcast. This story, unlike the other one, mentions (but not till the fourth paragraph) that Trump’s approval rating of 45 percent “now matches his high point in CNN polling dating back to the start of his term.” Btw, Realclearpolitics.com average/aggregate numbers on a rolling basis, they had Michigan in the Biden column and actually added NC. An uphill battle if Trump’s fighting for his political survival in FL, NC and even GA, but still 5 1/2 months left to go. At the rate things are going, Biden can coast while sheltering at home up until September, and will have an appreciable bounce from his VP pick as well in August. But Trump will use that financial advantage to hammer him the next 3 1/2 months unless Bloomberg fulfills his promise. See below... https://theintercept.com/2020/04/10/bloomberg-hawkfish-biden-campaign/

No foreigners have been allowed into the country since the end of March. Chinese coming back from abroad, students, tourists...mandatory two week quarantines. Have been told this ban might last until October, or even January of 2021. So I essentially can’t leave to go home to the US for summer vacation and return to my family and job, at least as things stand now. First test will be renormalizing flights with South Korea, Thailand, Japan and Bali in all likelihood. Americans might be the last group cleared, along with the UK.

Much better than in a US public high school. Because we are one of the most expensive intl. schools in the city and have the most placements for elite universities abroad, at least of any major city outside Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai, so we are certainly prioritized compared to ESL/language teachers backpacking across Asia. But education is much more highly valued and teachers more respected across nearly every single Asian culture. That said, the last week or so out in public there are so few foreigners remaining we get stopped for documents and temperature checks nearly everywhere we go in public. There's a tangible fear of foreigners importing the virus....they don't know I have been here the whole time, so they probably believe many of us are sick from watching worldwide coverage. 90% of infections are related to locals and returning students.

That would put it at anywhere from a 6-12X higher mortality rate compared to the common/seasonal flu. We can split the difference and just call it 9X worse. It's going to be interesting to see the results here in Wuhan....attempting to test 11 million with the throat swab/nucleic acid antibody test before next Friday. It won't be 100% conclusive, since roughly 4-5 million left the city in the first three weeks of January (especially university students, who comprise 2 million of the seasonal population and are presumably all back in their home cities/provinces, would have a higher rate of contracting but much lower death rate).

The CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS May 7-10 among a random national sample of 1,112 adults reached on landlines or cellphones by a live interviewer, including 1,001 registered voters and 583 voters in battleground states, defined as the 15 states decided by 8 points or less in 2016 -- Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points. This is the first poll I've seen with Biden actually trailing in the battleground states...by 7 points. That said, do the math for 15 states with those numbers and you could have just 39 voters (on average) representing each of these battleground states (some with quite significant populations.) It would be Trump 303 and Biden with 262 and then another 18 "others." All of the major betting sites have the cumulative average as Trump at 49.9 and Biden at 41.7 (won't get into all the possible reasons for that, but it starts out with Trump having significantly more "hardcore" followers or for sure/certain voters.) Statistical noise, or a meaningful sign that the push to reopen is starting to resonate more and more around the country? It's pretty difficult to ascertain as of yet. We should know more conclusively by June 1st. https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/13/politics/cnn-poll-2020/index.html

We meaning all the residents of Lawrence or even Douglas County, all the residents of Kansas, all Americans. And do you really think Donald Trump actually CARES about YOU? Howard Stern knows him about as well as anyone in the media does... “The oddity in all of this is the people Trump despises most, love him the most,” Stern said on his SiriusXM show, the New York Daily News reported. “The people who are voting for Trump for the most part … he wouldn’t even let them in a (expletive) hotel. He’d be disgusted by them. Go to Mar-a-Lago, see if there’s any people who look like you. I’m talking to you in the audience.” https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/13/covid-19-finally-pushes-howard-stern-to-turn-on-friend-trump-and-his-maga-listeners/

We have 32.3% of the global Covid cases, 28.6% of the total deaths and yet comprise only 4.2% of the total population. Within the week, we’ll be ahead of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th worst countries combined...which are the UK, Italy and then Spain/France, which currently are neck and neck for #4/5.

It all comes down to how much we care about “society,” and how we define it. Do we place our own individual needs ahead of everyone else, and why? Is it more that our concerns (these days) don’t flow beyond the boundaries of our neighborhood, our local bowling league or our volunteer or church group? Is it simply a blowback to globalization...that we’ve been taught since at least the 1990’s that we’re all in this together as a global community, leading to inevitable “but why don’t we help OUR own people more?” conversations. We were talking in the office yesterday and my British co-worker pointed out that we were losing the forest for the trees arguing that Trump was xenophobic or racist or whatever label you want to put to it...yet it’s striking how much the consequence of that attitude (are you one of “ours,” or not?) is affecting the attitudes of so many around the world. We can’t even agree on what it means to be an American, and who has the “right” to be considered one. And it extends across the globe. Many Europeans today would prefer the EU collapse, rather than assist fellow member countries financially. Inward looking authoritarian is rising across much of the world. Is it really any surprise that the conflict within our own country is being mirrored right back at us, as the so-called leader of the free world? There’s a certain kind of American, now legendary the world over, who thinks that carrying a gun to Starbucks, not vaccinating their kids, denying their neighbors retirement, and denying their own families decent healthcare, is the pinnacle of intelligence, civilization, decency, and progress. The rest of the world, and the rest of America, has come to know such people as the American Idiot. The American Idiot, it seems, knows no bounds. Today, for example, their latest and greatest cause is to protest against lockdown, reopen a pandemic-ridden society where the infection rate hasn’t even fallen yet, thus ensuring that death on a mass scale becomes death on an historic one. The question therefore arises: are such people (for whom the idea of a society of equals, who people are to respect, care for, nourish, and protect) simply… sociopaths? I mean that in this sense: to the American Idiot, society doesn’t really exist. Everyone is an enemy, a rival, an adversary, cannon fodder. Come down with a deadly pandemic? Too bad for you. You must have been weak, and only the strong survive. This kind of attitude, which betrays a stunning indifference to everyone else’s life or death, is surely the essence of sociopathy. So: are we living in the age of the sociopath? And isn’t that one of the things the pandemic proves, despite all the feel-good stories of doctors and nurses? That many of us have become hardened to the point of indiffierence about life and death? But can you have a functioning society made of sociopaths — and if you can’t, what percentage of sociopaths does it take to destabilize a functioning society for everyone else? https://eand.co/how-freedom-turned-sociopathic-in-america-963048c59f8f

Imagine if there was ANY type of world geopolitical problem related to the Czech Republic and Slovenia... Would reporters (or the American president of the future) then get to ask Ivanka or Melania to respond for those respective countries? What were they doing in their twenties, let alone at the age of 2? Because the CBS reporter (Weijia Jiang) Trump went after has been (I’m going to repeat it) in the US since age 2 and is an American citizen. Her parents are retired and own a Chinese restaurant in West Virginia of all places. It doesn’t get any more American that that! Getting an education and improving one’s position through the financial sacrifice of parents...that’s the true American Dream, not coming over to the US on shady modeling/socialite work visas. She believed in the power of journalism so much she even became a reporter at the age of 13! Isn’t that the type of ambition we would hope our own kids would emulate, and possibly even praise? “Jiang graduated from The College of William and Mary in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a minor in Chemistry. She also graduated from Syracuse University in 2006 with a master’s degree in broadcast journalism. In 2012, she was inducted into the prestigious Professional Gallery at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. [13]

But, without the previous experience with SARs in 2002-03...which hit southern China and HK directly, such a response would never have been possible. This time around, there was a consensus pretty much immediately on following the strictest guidelines...with everyone adhering, regardless of which side of the protests they were on for months and months prior. Unfortunately, the rest of the world outside of SE Asia has yet to learn their lesson/s adequately...and probably won’t until the next pandemic hits. Plus, quarantine is much easier to enforce on an island by shutting down one road, bridges, ferries, subways/tunnels and HKIA.

Unfortunately, Greg has transformed himself martyr-like into a living pinata, an apropos representation of roughly 35% of our fellow Americans. He, like they, won’t go away so easily or quietly. ( Just like coronavirus briefings.) As soon as you start ignoring them, something even more outrageous happens to drive the next media cycle. I spend literally hours each day now explaining that not all Americans agree with or believe about China whatever the President and people like Greg might argue. They simply can’t fathom how a leader could seemingly care so little about the people who are dying by the thousands each and every day. If America is (as they’ve believed for a lifetime) the #1 and best country in the world and THIS is the example being set, what hope is there for everyone else? Everyone currently is watching Trump’s treatment of that Chinese-American reporter (Weijia Jiang) on social media (end of Monday Rose Garden press conference)...and thinking all Americans are like that. We are talking hundreds of millions of people watching every single day and laughing/crying about what’s going on in the US. I’m close to running out of plausible counter arguments.

Greg, it’s still not over here in China after arguably 5-6 months, as we have always been operating on an early to mid November timeline for the very beginning of this whole thing. We had the most extreme, draconian, lockdown measures anywhere. Imagine every road/lane/alley into and out of your neighborhood had locked metal gates and police checkpoints. You’d just drive right through those gates like in a late 70’s Clint Eastwood movie, right? That your daily health status to even go out was determined by algorithms on a mobile phone application...which in the US 35% would absolutely refuse to use. Look at all these places with early success like South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong...other than Vietnam (can’t trust numbers that pristine), Taiwan and New Zealand, there are few success stories. And these are parts of the world that already experienced SARs in their lifetimes, which is why everyone is more than willing to wear a mask. It’s a sign or symbol of being responsible and concerned for your own health and especially the heath and safety of those around you. We might shut down a city of 11 million again...and I might have to retest just a couple of weeks after supposedly passing with flying colors...because, count ‘em, 17 local infections. Imagine shutting down the entire state of KS over 17 cases. The whole state’s population being tested. That’s how extreme things are...but haircuts! Starbucks! And you can simply forget your scenario of 3-4 business trips or otherwise in the winter...companies will cancel them to conserve resources in lieu of teleconferencing and 90%+ will be afraid to fly until there’s a vaccine. Unless they just get so desperate they say “F_____ it!” but that’s not going to be any of those 1%ers imploring everyone to go back to work to increase profits and make their lives more convenient again.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/texas-salon-owner-admits-view-171044053.html Saying that she thinks the PPP money is from “one of the loans,” Shelly Luther went on to claim that she doesn’t “know how I’m supposed to spend it,” adding that she is aware that there are a number of regulations and guidelines that come with the funds. “I didn’t want to put myself in deeper debt by spending it the wrong way, you know, and also having to close the salon,” Luther said. “So until I got further instruction on that, I didn’t want to spend it.” “And giving me $18,000 to spend when my stylists aren’t actual employees of mine, they’re actually subleasing,” she concluded. “So I wasn’t sure if I was even able to give them any of that money as employees because I don’t pay them.” Besides the widespread adulation she received from the right over her defiance of stay-at-home orders, which included praise from President Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) flying in for a haircut at her salon, Luther was also the beneficiary of a GoFundMe campaign that raised more than $500,000 on her behalf.

Yeah, we were just discussing this...coworker in France and one in UK picked it up on Reuters and BBC. So the question is how long does a test last? We tested Thursday to return this week. So...? Every day? Every week? Who pays? How realistic is that for a city of ten million plus when the United States can’t even do the test once for 10% of the entire population? We did nucleic acid and pharyngeal (throat) swabs...same tests again? Nose swabs? Antibody tests? It’s supposed to be district by district, and over the next 10-14 days. Wife had one set of tests a couple weeks after going back to work, hasn’t been tested again, pretty sure she went back March 30th so that’s now going on six weeks back at work with only being tested once. With nursing or assisted living centers, the cost for a “pretty good one” in Iowa is around $4500, and that’s with discount down from the $4800-5000 range, supposedly. What I worry about is when my mom needs full time, 24 hours per day care. The cost for that is around $6500-8000 per month, and that’s in one of the cheaper or more reasonable states. She has dementia/Alzheimer’s, mild diabetes and elevated cholesterol, but still gets around with a walker and has adjusted well and socializes a lot more after a rough first six months of transition. She lived on her own and drove a car up until age 89-90, so it was a momentous change for someone both stubborn and who valued her independence and privacy...her way of life ever since my father died about twenty years ago. All things considered, it would certainly be cheaper if she was at home (and I wasn’t in China)...but the old house has stairs/split level and her environment now is so much safer in terms of avoiding a fall.