Beaches are bad, actually. They mean nothing, produce nothing, have no history, no language, no thought, no purpose. If you like the beach, you are the exhausted subject of late capitalism, literally the Last Man (or Woman).
OK, Buzzfeed, but the guy is in Oakland so one would think he would have half a clue about "Things That Happen At Beaches And Shores Other Than Annette Funicello Movies" that help keep his whole misbegotten state afloat.
It is unconfirmed whether this is the cause of his lament over beaches.
Beaches are bad, actually. They mean nothing, produce nothing, have no history, no language, no thought, no purpose. If you like the beach, you are the exhausted subject of late capitalism
The tragedy of soy. Kids, don't let this happen to you.
I'm at day 50 something of keeping my HOA's pool open. Seeing this morning that yesterday I received a forwarded email from out community management association from a lawyer for some other HOA, not ours, interpreting FL governor DeSantis' re-open orders in such a way that I should, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, close our pool because of the threat of lawsuits. Not the virus, per se, but potential lawsuits. The f*c**ng lawyers are gunning for more and more extra-judicial power and if this country doesn't wake up to the threat these SOBs present, well God help the next generation.
However, the fact that both show the capacity to smile gives me some sliver of hope for them. Maybe they're not permanently damaged Antifa drones already, just kids being kids. One can hope.
It is unconfirmed whether this is the cause of his lament over beaches.
I clicked to his page. The evidence is overwhelmingly affirmative. I'm sure he holds a similar aversion to gyms and athletic endeavors of every kind.
To his credit, though, this — "Beaches are bad, actually. They mean nothing, produce nothing, have no history, no language, no thought, no purpose. If you like the beach, you are the exhausted subject of late capitalism" — is the most nonsensically idiotic proclamation I've read this year, and that's saying something.
If there's annual prize for overweening gasbaggery, he's in the running.
About a dozen people were arrested blocking traffic on I-35 as part of a demonstration organized by Rent Strike ATX calling for the city to "shut down the economy which is willing to sacrifice us for its profits."
1. Can't pay rent or keep non essential unskilled job because economy is in the tank because of Kung Flu lockdown,
2. Solution is to shut it down even more, but government and everyone else give us free stuff for everybody with nobody working.
Bared midriff, short shorts, and knee-high stockings are, of course, a well-known signal of young females in their prime years of fertility on the prowl for a male whom they hope will spend all their money and move in with them without offering to pay any share of the rent.
Beaches are bad...
“Environments where I am no fun, feel insecure, and will fail to compete in mate selection should be banned.”
Jay: from the late lamented Richard Anderson blog:
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
I can no longer find it but over at Spiked Brendan O'Neill (PBUH) interviewed Heather Mac Donald (PBUH), who is skeptical about the Winnie The Flu lockdown. A commenter took her to task about how she thinks she's smarter than all the world's epidemiologists and her call to re-open society reduces to a simple servility to capitalism. But as Kipling pointed out, if we don't work we will die.
The following wisdom in the comments from one Max Watts...
--- One would have thought that a best selling author and fellow at the Manhattan Institute would have some kind of understanding of basic maths.
Does SARS-CoV-2 exist. Yes.
Does it have an R0 value of greater than 2 (which makes the spread exponential?) Yes, unchecked, its R0 value is 3-4. A value of 2 takes just 26 jumps to infect the entire population of the UK.
Do the current lockdown rules lower the R0 value. Yes.
There is a consensus that, if left to spread without social distancing/lockdown measures, the herd immunity threshold is approximately 60% of the population. Early estimates of case/fatality rates stated 1%.
--- The UK Government is a cabal of privileged, wealthy people, who want to get ‘back to normal’ as soon as humanly possible, as ‘normal’ equates to them bolstering their wealth.
--- There are [n] scientists, epidemiologists, etc., etc., advising the Government. Heather MacDonald has a single brain, which is superior to a body of experts, all over the World, numbering many thousands. We should be in awe of her.
The notion that the lockdown is going to cause more harm/deaths than a policy of letting SARS-CoV-2 run free is ‘off the reservation’ bonkers, and Ms MacDonald and her ilk need immediate help for their mental illness.
---
(and then this in reply to another commenter criticizing the above)
If they can do that, any incumbent can use the ‘created out of thin air’ ‘money’ that capitalism is predicated on, to fix any of the ills you may attribute to the pandemic.
That they choose not to does not negate the fact that they CAN [dear Max's all-caps, not mine].
Effectively, you are saying ‘no lockdown’ in order to preserve capitalism in it’s [sic] current form, which is evil, and predicated on paradoxes and fraud.
Common sense is evidently displeasing to some. Hence our betters with their cardboard above.
Countries that got in quick, generally islands, have been able to suppress the spread fairly easily. That simply could not happen if R was high. Not possible. There was a lot we didn't know at the start of this thing, but we do know that it isn't actually particularly infectious. Generally it requires personal contact -- the spread in NZ was almost entirely directly person to person at parties and similar.
"Early estimates of case/fatality rates stated 1%." Yes, but they were wrong.
It's the moving goal posts that do me in. First we need to take precautions in case it is bad. Then we need to flatten the curve. Now we are all cowering in fear to try and stop it totally Hint: it can't be stopped, unless you are a smallish island nation and you are prepared to stop international travel for a couple of years.
It's not like socialist or any other forms of government don't have economies.
...unless you are a smallish island nation and you are prepared to stop international travel for a couple of years forever.
FTFY
The disease will surely become endemic globally - except for those small island nations - and I cannot think that for most of them a visit is worth the two (or more) weeks of quarantine required for them to maintain isolation. Even at that, they will have the risk either of asymptomatic travelers (if they rely on symptoms appearing during the quarantine) or false negatives on testing visitors, either with or without quarantine.
What would, to assume a gender, zie on the left, of that most artistically taken photograph, prefer I use as an accoutrement to my gin and tonic or vodka and slimline pepsi, instead?
Also, what will happen about warble gloaming when zir's wish comes true and there's none left on the South Pole*??
---
*North pole doesn't count, for the same reason an ice cube melting in a glass of water with the meniscus above the rim, won't overflow. But you lot know that...
I hate sand too, for the same reasons, but it never occurred to me to announce “No beach 🏝 for you!” to everyone else. As long as you don’t get sand on MY car seats, frolic to your heart’s content with my blessing. I’ll even pack you a large picnic basket, as I certainly don’t want you coming back to my house for lunch and traipsing sand all over.
Peaceful coexistence IS possible!
Also, a lot of Gaia’s critters need beaches to lay their eggs. I don’t think that guy is a very good liberal.
P.S. Contrary to popular belief, you do not need a potting soil that’s 1/3 sand to grow succulents. A little extra perlite, a couple of handfuls per small bag of dirt, will work just fine. Granted the sand’s cheaper, but if you find yourself out of sand while in the midst of repotting a bunch of succulents, you’ll thank me.
Meanwhile, my favourite tankie, @clarasorrenti:
A) Came to the realisation that Comrade Stalin was a rum sort after all.
B) Pivoted career-wise from communist revolutionary to a most capitalist endeavour - some sort of BDSM thot.
It was all rather grim.
There are [n] scientists, epidemiologists, etc., etc., advising the Government. Heather MacDonald has a single brain, which is superior to a body of experts, all over the World, numbering many thousands. We should be in awe of her.
I love arguments from authority. Doesn't everyone?
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), the premier physicist of his day, held that lighter than air vehicles were impossible.
Conservation of parity was a cornerstone of physics - alongside conservation of energy - until 1956. Bye bye, cornerstone.
Experts all agreed that stomach ulcers resulted from stress, and laughed at two Australian physicians who thought - and later established convincingly - that they resulted from bacterial infection.
Bottom line: scientific issues are not decided by a show of hands. One hundred thousand experts' opinions can be falsified by ONE man with dispositive data.
Now I don't know where the truth lies vis a vis the corona virus and the relative efficacy of various policies and therapeutic/ prophylactic regimens. But I suspect that nobody knows that, because dispositive data are not yet to hand. We are all still navigating uncharted waters.
Bottom line: scientific issues are not decided by a show of hands. One hundred thousand experts' opinions can be falsified by ONE man with dispositive data
I'm sure this is a quote from someone but I'm unable to find an attribution. Anyway: "A man in posession of the truth constitutes a majority of one."
The motion also resolves to create a new SU Policy, entitled “Protection of Transgender, Non-binary, Disabled, Working-class, and Women* Students from Hatred in University Contexts”.
Named the ‘Academic Hate Speech Motion’, the motion sets to establish a new policy on hate speech within the University to include ‘incitement of hatred on the grounds of gender identity, disability, and socio economic status, including to trans, non-binary, disabled, working-class, and women*’.
Please note the "Women*" is in the text, the asterisk is not something I added, but there is no explanation as to what the hell it means, and they already have trans listed.
These creatures have now been forced into the depths of their dens, void of sunlight, and unable to photosynthesise into full fuck-boy form...At first it was a single hair...A stray pube, if you will, flown far from the nest...I have heard that Warner Bros. studio is keen to recast him as Hagrid’s left testicle, but I have not the heart to tell him.
One wonders if this applies Creatures Of Color unable to photosynthesise into full fuck-boy form, or only wypipo.
I do hope someone’s compiling these things into a handy pamphlet form. We can then sell them to would-be bands struggling to think of a distinctive name.
"A man in posession of the truth constitutes a majority of one."
Nope. He's still a minority. Until the Gods of the Copybook Headings show up...eventually...to do some long neglected pruning. People in possession of truth are most often just a nail sticking out that must be pounded down.
Unexpected Scrotum
Pile of Woke Poo
Borborygmus
Unloved Sausage Roll
Polygamist Women Dressed Like Ninjas
Spaghetti Hoops
Unsolicited Nudes
Piles of Inapt Words
Rainbow Kitten Surprise
Violent Logic
Niche Pornography
The Terrible Stains
Disarticulated Sex Dolls
Monet's Virtual Garden
Big Women from Borneo
Hairless Rubberbeing
Noisy Cock Anger
The Gratuitous Plurals
Faecal Disimpaction
Heath N. Bakwaddrr
In these days of troubled times a new menace arises.
Hmmmm. So London is divided into locational transport zones. That does strike me as being absolutely reasonable, but just the same, that was indeed fascinating to find out.
Aside from that, my main thought when seeing the link was still, simply, Dennis, is that you again?
“Generally it requires personal contact -- the spread in NZ was almost entirely directly person to person at parties and similar.”
Formulating a comment for Guido Fawkes's blog this morning, I happened to notice something. The UK is the second most densely-populated country in Europe with a population in the millions (i.e., discounting the likes of Monaco and Andorra), after Belgium. And, what do you know, Belgium's per-million death rate from Kung Flu is running at around 150% of ours.
“Everyone round me keeps signing off with 'stay safe'. I decline to, and offer a 'live dangerously' in return.”
One of my favourite bits of writing* in a videogame was in the intro to Mirror's Edge:
Once the city used to pulse with energy. Dirty and dangerous, but alive and wonderful. Now it's something else. The changes came slowly at first. Most didn't realize, or didn't care, and accepted them. They chose a comfortable life. ...
It's run through my mind more than once over the last few weeks. I love the conflation of dirt and danger with life and wonder. I'm naturally extremely risk-averse (I barely left the house for a week before the official lockdown, for example) but, possibly as a result, I understand how that attitude leads to staleness, dullness, and lifelessness. Life is dangerous. We need to at least accept that, if not embrace it. Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.
*By Rhianna Pratchett, Terry's daughter. She's not a patch on her dad, but I can see him coming up with that one. Oh, and “Dirty and Dangerous” is definitely an album title.
“I do hope someone’s compiling these things into a handy pamphlet form. We can then sell them to would-be bands struggling to think of a distinctive name.
I thought Borborygmus was the bass player in Crossover Thrash Metal band Corpulent Flatulence. Borborygmus, having been rejected by Gwar, declared that band was too soft and understated. He caught wind of Corpulent Flatulence, audtitioned, blew them away and the rest is history. Rolling Stone, in it's annual Metal Review edition said the band stinks and Borborygmus is responsible for an ungodly bass rumble.
“Generally it requires personal contact -- the spread in NZ was almost entirely directly person to person at parties and similar.”
From today's Sunday Telegraph, here is Adam Kucharski, an associate professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and one of Britain’s leading epidemiologists (it says here):
"When we’re looking at things like super spreading events, typically they occur in quite close knit settings - offices, restaurants, parties, gatherings. Casual interactions outside don’t seem to be driving transmission.
What we need to untangle is whether that's a feature of the environment, or whether it’s due to the proximity and duration of the contact.
But in the UK, where people have been able to go outside, we’ve still seen a substantial decline in transmission. And biologically it would make sense - if you were catching the virus after going vaguely near someone in a park then we'd have a much bigger problem on our hands" (my emphasis).
There's your "majority of one thing" right there. The trouble is, approximately 90% of the population of the United Kingdom are scared of their own shadows at the moment; it also seems to me that a similar percentage simply haven't a clue as to the true scope of the legal restrictions imposed by the "Coronavirus Regulations" and are apparently convinced that we are "only allowed out once a day to exercise", that "you're not supposed to buy non-essential items" and other such gems of curtain-twitching, prod-nosed folklore. A smaller but still numerically significant proportion are still insisting on behaving as if there were some sort of toxic humour in the atmosphere, making it perilous to cross the threshold into the great wide open. It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that, if the Wuhan 'flu really were quite so virulent, we would all be under house arrest, the streets would be lined with corpses, and the army, clad in hazmat/biological warfare gear, would be delivering rations to the doorstep once a week.
H.L. Mencken's maxim is equally applicable this side of the Atlantic.
Band names:
The badlands of Wimbledon
Band Name
Bargain-Bin BJs
Beat Combo
Beating organ
Big Gay Ice Cream
Borborygmus--- noted as already taken
Disarticulated sex doll replicas
Disarticulated Sex Dolls
Ebola --- noted as already taken
Erskine May
Erskine May and The Wigs
Fetch the weasels
The folks at Big Vagina
Great Unused Band Name
The Hamster Curia
Hipster focused festivals
Impending Bollocks
Juul-puffing Mullets
Massive semen explosion
Maximum band name
Monet's virtual garden
Newsweek Producer
Niche Pornography
Nipples on a pumpkin
Patriarchal Appendage of Power
Pile of Woke
Pile of woke poo
Piles of Inapt Words
Polygamist Women Dressed Like Ninjas
pulsating massage function
Short Man Syndrome
Soft fruit
Spaghetti Hoops
Sticky situations
Store Bought Bison
Suburban Polygamist Ninjas
The terrible stains
Twitching meat.
Unacceptable Behaviour Team
Unexpected Scrotum
Unleash the Archers
Unloved Sausage Roll
Unsightly Toast Crumbs
Unsolicited Nudes
Violent Logic
Violent logic of whiteness
A wide berth
A wide berth and soft fruit
Woke Poo
Album titles:
A heavy dose of regrooving
Bargain-bin BJ's
Dadaist Jive
Ectoplasmic woo
Guerrilla Girls
Pile of Woke
Replicas
Unsolicited Nudes
Urine Wheels
My opinion of smart and famous people and such has fallen to such a degree that when you said “global humanitarian and rocket scientist”, while obviously sarcasm, I still had to click the link to know for sure.
Sure, you hear that one NASA astronaut puts on a diaper and drives across half of Florida to try to murder her rival and now all rocket scientists are not to be trusted.
Although, according to the preview, this comment is back to the old avatar.
I have no idea on avatars m'self, I just focus on getting the details correct for whatever I post.
I've noted that getting that done takes care of itself, where if there are random trivialities that pop up on occasion, then either a random triviality can actually explain and justify itself, or else it remains a random and superfluous triviality.
---What the Klingon has said is unimportant and we do not hear his words.
---Dr. Leonard McCoy
Now, if you have any actual details to actually submit regarding something to object to, some error somewhere, something other than mere empty objections, you certainly can let us see 'em.
In the meantime, as you haven't provided any supporting information, ever, you might have noticed that your remaining a third carrier of cardboard does at least make for a vague, sort of, supporting chorus . . .
The girl on the right looks as though she could have stepped straight out of a 1967 college campus. It's now over half a century later and still that hippy supinity is haunting higher education and ossifying the 'Larping' imaginations of the undergraduate and faculty. It's ironic that these youngsters are always (seemingly) predicated upon anti-conservatism and the notion of constant progressivist change in society, to the extent it has become a tradition with them, which (as Tolstoy once wisely observed) singles out the young rebels as some of the most thoroughgoing conservatives. She looks, thinks, and dresses exactly like her grandmother might have done in the 'Summer of Love', and yet if someone from 1967 had dressed and behaved on campus as her grandmother of 50 years earlier had done, she would have been ridiculed by the hippies for being incongruously conservative. Our society is becoming so saturated in irony we are in danger of drowning in it.
Or, Why Don’t You Want To Be My Slave?
Somewhat related, the first item here.
Posted by: David | May 02, 2020 at 08:17
"Emotional labour" LOL
Posted by: Liz | May 02, 2020 at 08:44
Poor girl on the right looks like a 60s era Ozzy Osbourne.
Posted by: Frank | May 02, 2020 at 08:46
LOL
As professed ideals go, it’s awfully convenient. For the tools holding the cardboard and expecting applause, I mean.
And very much related.
Posted by: David | May 02, 2020 at 08:53
Or, Buy Me Everything I Want, Now And Forever.
Stunning and brave.
Posted by: [+] | May 02, 2020 at 10:44
OT:
"Gibson's Bakery awarded over $6.5 million in attorney's fees and expenses against Oberlin College"
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/07/gibsons-bakery-awarded-over-6-5-million-in-attorneys-fees-and-expenses-against-oberlin-college/
It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
Posted by: [+] | May 02, 2020 at 10:50
It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
Heh. Actions have consequences. For once.
For readers unfamiliar with the eye-widening saga, see this brief summary.
Posted by: David | May 02, 2020 at 11:02
Sorry girls. Only the hot chicks get a free pass. Now go make me a sammich.
Posted by: Dano | May 02, 2020 at 11:26
You have to wonder what the parents of these people would make of such sentiments.
I mean, are mommy and daddy proud?
Posted by: David | May 02, 2020 at 12:09
If they were pretty, the signs would say "Go Team, go".
Posted by: Mr X | May 02, 2020 at 13:30
If you abolish work, who's going to abolish ICE? Or do you do that first, then put your feet up?
Posted by: Sam Duncan | May 02, 2020 at 13:42
Not entirely unrelated, a thought leader weighs in - C&P lest it get memory holed.
OK, Buzzfeed, but the guy is in Oakland so one would think he would have half a clue about "Things That Happen At Beaches And Shores Other Than Annette Funicello Movies" that help keep his whole misbegotten state afloat.
It is unconfirmed whether this is the cause of his lament over beaches.
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | May 02, 2020 at 14:01
Beaches are bad, actually. They mean nothing, produce nothing, have no history, no language, no thought, no purpose. If you like the beach, you are the exhausted subject of late capitalism
The tragedy of soy. Kids, don't let this happen to you.
Posted by: pst314 | May 02, 2020 at 14:27
It's obvious why they want to abolish work - neither looks qualified to sweep a floor.
Posted by: aelfheld | May 02, 2020 at 14:38
Kids, don't let this happen to you.
I'm at day 50 something of keeping my HOA's pool open. Seeing this morning that yesterday I received a forwarded email from out community management association from a lawyer for some other HOA, not ours, interpreting FL governor DeSantis' re-open orders in such a way that I should, wink-wink, nudge-nudge, close our pool because of the threat of lawsuits. Not the virus, per se, but potential lawsuits. The f*c**ng lawyers are gunning for more and more extra-judicial power and if this country doesn't wake up to the threat these SOBs present, well God help the next generation.
Posted by: WTP | May 02, 2020 at 14:40
Silly girls.
However, the fact that both show the capacity to smile gives me some sliver of hope for them. Maybe they're not permanently damaged Antifa drones already, just kids being kids. One can hope.
Posted by: Burnsie | May 02, 2020 at 14:56
It is unconfirmed whether this is the cause of his lament over beaches.
I clicked to his page. The evidence is overwhelmingly affirmative. I'm sure he holds a similar aversion to gyms and athletic endeavors of every kind.
To his credit, though, this — "Beaches are bad, actually. They mean nothing, produce nothing, have no history, no language, no thought, no purpose. If you like the beach, you are the exhausted subject of late capitalism" — is the most nonsensically idiotic proclamation I've read this year, and that's saying something.
If there's annual prize for overweening gasbaggery, he's in the running.
And to think, he's a professional "journalist."
Posted by: Burnsie | May 02, 2020 at 15:16
And more to my point, no surprise to me that this guy is a lawyer...
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/05/01/us/grim-reaper-florida-beaches-trnd/index.html
Posted by: WTP | May 02, 2020 at 15:18
More from the no work front - RentStrikeATX!
Scroll through the whole deranged thing.
1. Can't pay rent or keep non essential unskilled job because economy is in the tank because of Kung Flu lockdown,
2. Solution is to shut it down even more, but government and everyone else give us free stuff for everybody with nobody working.
I don't see why the plan won't work.
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | May 02, 2020 at 15:27
The f*c**ng lawyers are gunning for more and more extra-judicial power
"Nobody understands the law but the lawyers, and they don't know right from wrong."
Posted by: pst314 | May 02, 2020 at 15:31
... this guy is a lawyer...
Great googly moogly, they are packed like sardines, they are going to be dropping like flies.
I am guessing this guy either needs glasses, or is not the sharpest knife in the marquee.
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | May 02, 2020 at 15:38
I am guessing this guy either needs glasses, or is not the sharpest knife in the marquee.
I like this plague doctor guy. It's like watching Midsomer Murders.
Posted by: Steve E | May 02, 2020 at 16:15
'Abolish reality'
Posted by: sH2 | May 02, 2020 at 16:37
Bared midriff, short shorts, and knee-high stockings are, of course, a well-known signal of young females in their prime years of fertility on the prowl for a male whom they hope will spend all their money and move in with them without offering to pay any share of the rent.
Beaches are bad...
“Environments where I am no fun, feel insecure, and will fail to compete in mate selection should be banned.”
Posted by: Squires | May 02, 2020 at 17:21
That's a text book picture of the so-so girl with the plain friend so as to look good by comparison.
Posted by: Ray | May 02, 2020 at 17:22
“Environments where I am no fun, feel insecure, and will fail to compete in mate selection should be banned.”
Sailer's Law of, er, Soyboy Journalism?
Posted by: Daniel Ream | May 02, 2020 at 17:37
That's a text book picture of the so-so girl with the plain friend [...]
Not so fast. These two could be trans and anyone who denies it is transphobic.
Oh this is fun.
Posted by: Steve E | May 02, 2020 at 17:40
“Environments where I am no fun, feel insecure, and will fail to compete in mate selection should be banned.”
Sailer’s Law of, er, Soyboy Journalism?
Heh. It would certainly explain an awful lot.
Posted by: David | May 02, 2020 at 17:46
I’m with Steve K on this.
The skinny one in the left doesn’t look quite right if you get my drift.
Posted by: John | May 02, 2020 at 19:41
1. Free healthcare
2. No work
3. No paying - No debt
4. Free the prisoners
5. Homes for all
Would this be a bad time to ask who is going to provide the healthcare and build the homes for all if no one is working?
I get the feeling that this platform may not have been thought through very thoroughly.
Posted by: Jay Guevara | May 02, 2020 at 21:21
Jay: from the late lamented Richard Anderson blog:
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
I can no longer find it but over at Spiked Brendan O'Neill (PBUH) interviewed Heather Mac Donald (PBUH), who is skeptical about the Winnie The Flu lockdown. A commenter took her to task about how she thinks she's smarter than all the world's epidemiologists and her call to re-open society reduces to a simple servility to capitalism. But as Kipling pointed out, if we don't work we will die.
Posted by: Jim Whyte | May 02, 2020 at 22:11
Found it!
https://www.spiked-online.com/podcast-episode/we-are-living-in-an-era-of-global-madness/
The following wisdom in the comments from one Max Watts...
---
One would have thought that a best selling author and fellow at the Manhattan Institute would have some kind of understanding of basic maths.
Does SARS-CoV-2 exist. Yes.
Does it have an R0 value of greater than 2 (which makes the spread exponential?) Yes, unchecked, its R0 value is 3-4. A value of 2 takes just 26 jumps to infect the entire population of the UK.
Do the current lockdown rules lower the R0 value. Yes.
There is a consensus that, if left to spread without social distancing/lockdown measures, the herd immunity threshold is approximately 60% of the population. Early estimates of case/fatality rates stated 1%.
---
The UK Government is a cabal of privileged, wealthy people, who want to get ‘back to normal’ as soon as humanly possible, as ‘normal’ equates to them bolstering their wealth.
---
There are [n] scientists, epidemiologists, etc., etc., advising the Government. Heather MacDonald has a single brain, which is superior to a body of experts, all over the World, numbering many thousands. We should be in awe of her.
The notion that the lockdown is going to cause more harm/deaths than a policy of letting SARS-CoV-2 run free is ‘off the reservation’ bonkers, and Ms MacDonald and her ilk need immediate help for their mental illness.
---
(and then this in reply to another commenter criticizing the above)
If they can do that, any incumbent can use the ‘created out of thin air’ ‘money’ that capitalism is predicated on, to fix any of the ills you may attribute to the pandemic.
That they choose not to does not negate the fact that they CAN [dear Max's all-caps, not mine].
Effectively, you are saying ‘no lockdown’ in order to preserve capitalism in it’s [sic] current form, which is evil, and predicated on paradoxes and fraud.
Common sense is evidently displeasing to some. Hence our betters with their cardboard above.
Posted by: Jim Whyte | May 02, 2020 at 22:25
The R > 3 meme is clearly absolute BS.
Countries that got in quick, generally islands, have been able to suppress the spread fairly easily. That simply could not happen if R was high. Not possible. There was a lot we didn't know at the start of this thing, but we do know that it isn't actually particularly infectious. Generally it requires personal contact -- the spread in NZ was almost entirely directly person to person at parties and similar.
"Early estimates of case/fatality rates stated 1%." Yes, but they were wrong.
It's the moving goal posts that do me in. First we need to take precautions in case it is bad. Then we need to flatten the curve. Now we are all cowering in fear to try and stop it totally Hint: it can't be stopped, unless you are a smallish island nation and you are prepared to stop international travel for a couple of years.
It's not like socialist or any other forms of government don't have economies.
Posted by: Chester Draws | May 02, 2020 at 22:51
...unless you are a smallish island nation and you are prepared to stop international travel
for a couple of yearsforever.FTFY
The disease will surely become endemic globally - except for those small island nations - and I cannot think that for most of them a visit is worth the two (or more) weeks of quarantine required for them to maintain isolation. Even at that, they will have the risk either of asymptomatic travelers (if they rely on symptoms appearing during the quarantine) or false negatives on testing visitors, either with or without quarantine.
Posted by: dcardno | May 02, 2020 at 23:15
David! Sir!! I have a question!!!!one
What would, to assume a gender, zie on the left, of that most artistically taken photograph, prefer I use as an accoutrement to my gin and tonic or vodka and slimline pepsi, instead?
Also, what will happen about warble gloaming when zir's wish comes true and there's none left on the South Pole*??
---
*North pole doesn't count, for the same reason an ice cube melting in a glass of water with the meniscus above the rim, won't overflow. But you lot know that...
Posted by: Xas7wcrg9e | May 02, 2020 at 23:21
"Beaches are bad, actually. They mean nothing, produce nothing, have no history" - Scott Lucas
"I hate sand. It's coarse, it's irritating, and it gets everywhere" - Anakin Skywalker
Posted by: Sporkatus | May 03, 2020 at 00:06
I hate sand too, for the same reasons, but it never occurred to me to announce “No beach 🏝 for you!” to everyone else. As long as you don’t get sand on MY car seats, frolic to your heart’s content with my blessing. I’ll even pack you a large picnic basket, as I certainly don’t want you coming back to my house for lunch and traipsing sand all over.
Peaceful coexistence IS possible!
Also, a lot of Gaia’s critters need beaches to lay their eggs. I don’t think that guy is a very good liberal.
Posted by: Lady Cutekitten of Lolcat | May 03, 2020 at 00:35
P.S. Contrary to popular belief, you do not need a potting soil that’s 1/3 sand to grow succulents. A little extra perlite, a couple of handfuls per small bag of dirt, will work just fine. Granted the sand’s cheaper, but if you find yourself out of sand while in the midst of repotting a bunch of succulents, you’ll thank me.
Posted by: Lady Cutekitten of Lolcat | May 03, 2020 at 00:41
Mother's little helper.
Posted by: Darleen | May 03, 2020 at 00:55
Meanwhile, my favourite tankie, @clarasorrenti:
A) Came to the realisation that Comrade Stalin was a rum sort after all.
B) Pivoted career-wise from communist revolutionary to a most capitalist endeavour - some sort of BDSM thot.
It was all rather grim.
Posted by: lotocoti | May 03, 2020 at 01:23
"Beaches are bad, actually. They mean nothing, produce nothing, have no history" - Scott Lucas
Now producing nothing is an interesting metric of worthiness or otherwise.
Because unless one counts sewage, there is a non-negligible fraction of the population that flunks that measure.
Posted by: Jay Guevara | May 03, 2020 at 01:35
There are [n] scientists, epidemiologists, etc., etc., advising the Government. Heather MacDonald has a single brain, which is superior to a body of experts, all over the World, numbering many thousands. We should be in awe of her.
I love arguments from authority. Doesn't everyone?
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), the premier physicist of his day, held that lighter than air vehicles were impossible.
Conservation of parity was a cornerstone of physics - alongside conservation of energy - until 1956. Bye bye, cornerstone.
Experts all agreed that stomach ulcers resulted from stress, and laughed at two Australian physicians who thought - and later established convincingly - that they resulted from bacterial infection.
Bottom line: scientific issues are not decided by a show of hands. One hundred thousand experts' opinions can be falsified by ONE man with dispositive data.
Now I don't know where the truth lies vis a vis the corona virus and the relative efficacy of various policies and therapeutic/ prophylactic regimens. But I suspect that nobody knows that, because dispositive data are not yet to hand. We are all still navigating uncharted waters.
Posted by: Jay Guevara | May 03, 2020 at 01:48
Even with full information we still couldn't decide Jay.
Everyone round me keeps signing off with "stay safe". I decline to, and offer a "live dangerously" in return.
I value liberty rather more than most people, it seems. I'd disagree on the correct response even if I agreed on the risk.
Posted by: Chester Draws | May 03, 2020 at 03:31
Pretty sure any reference to the two in the picture as girls, women, chicks, dames etc. should be enclosed by quotation marks, if you get my meaning.
Posted by: HarvardR | May 03, 2020 at 04:34
Morning, all.
Ain’t it the goddamned truth.
Posted by: David | May 03, 2020 at 08:23
John
The skinny one in the left doesn’t look quite right if you get my drift.
Hmmn. Card conveniently covering bust and adam's apple, no hips, bulge in shorts. Dammit! I need to get my prescription checked.
Posted by: Ray | May 03, 2020 at 08:58
Ray,
Maybe that’s where our hosts unwanted sausage roll ended up?
Posted by: John | May 03, 2020 at 09:29
Peaceful coexistence IS possible
Evidently not with Karens/Democrats/Socialists.
Posted by: fnord | May 03, 2020 at 14:00
Bottom line: scientific issues are not decided by a show of hands. One hundred thousand experts' opinions can be falsified by ONE man with dispositive data
I'm sure this is a quote from someone but I'm unable to find an attribution. Anyway: "A man in posession of the truth constitutes a majority of one."
Posted by: fnord | May 03, 2020 at 14:06
Ain’t it the goddamned truth.
"Mum is in touch with this underground network of hairdressers who have been working from home"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52501417
Posted by: Liz | May 03, 2020 at 15:31
underground network of hairdressers
Heh. Maximum band name.
Posted by: David | May 03, 2020 at 15:37
Meanwhile at Oxford (the real one)...
Please note the "Women*" is in the text, the asterisk is not something I added, but there is no explanation as to what the hell it means, and they already have trans listed.
However, also at Oxford, what appears to be hate speech is OK if someone can't grow a full beard on command.
One wonders if this applies Creatures Of Color unable to photosynthesise into full fuck-boy form, or only wypipo.
Stop laughing.
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | May 03, 2020 at 16:02
Maximum band name.
Band name.
Posted by: svh | May 03, 2020 at 16:08
Band name.
I do hope someone’s compiling these things into a handy pamphlet form. We can then sell them to would-be bands struggling to think of a distinctive name.
All our fortunes will be made.
Posted by: David | May 03, 2020 at 16:21
In these days of troubled times a new menace arises.
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | May 03, 2020 at 16:21
"A man in posession of the truth constitutes a majority of one."
Nope. He's still a minority. Until the Gods of the Copybook Headings show up...eventually...to do some long neglected pruning. People in possession of truth are most often just a nail sticking out that must be pounded down.
Posted by: WTP | May 03, 2020 at 16:22
No doubt an someone will file for an injunction because racism.
Posted by: Fansworth M Muldoon | May 03, 2020 at 16:37
"I do hope someone’s compiling these things"
Here's a starter...
Unexpected Scrotum
Pile of Woke Poo
Borborygmus
Unloved Sausage Roll
Polygamist Women Dressed Like Ninjas
Spaghetti Hoops
Unsolicited Nudes
Piles of Inapt Words
Rainbow Kitten Surprise
Violent Logic
Niche Pornography
The Terrible Stains
Disarticulated Sex Dolls
Monet's Virtual Garden
Big Women from Borneo
Hairless Rubberbeing
Noisy Cock Anger
The Gratuitous Plurals
Faecal Disimpaction
Heath N. Bakwaddrr
[Append as desired]
Posted by: PiperPaul | May 03, 2020 at 16:47
. . . if someone can't grow a full beard on command.
Ah yes, mildewface, aka The Bathtunb Ring.
Posted by: Hal | May 03, 2020 at 16:59
In these days of troubled times a new menace arises.
Hmmmm. So London is divided into locational transport zones. That does strike me as being absolutely reasonable, but just the same, that was indeed fascinating to find out.
Aside from that, my main thought when seeing the link was still, simply, Dennis, is that you again?
Posted by: Hal | May 03, 2020 at 17:09
“Generally it requires personal contact -- the spread in NZ was almost entirely directly person to person at parties and similar.”
Formulating a comment for Guido Fawkes's blog this morning, I happened to notice something. The UK is the second most densely-populated country in Europe with a population in the millions (i.e., discounting the likes of Monaco and Andorra), after Belgium. And, what do you know, Belgium's per-million death rate from Kung Flu is running at around 150% of ours.
“Everyone round me keeps signing off with 'stay safe'. I decline to, and offer a 'live dangerously' in return.”
One of my favourite bits of writing* in a videogame was in the intro to Mirror's Edge:
It's run through my mind more than once over the last few weeks. I love the conflation of dirt and danger with life and wonder. I'm naturally extremely risk-averse (I barely left the house for a week before the official lockdown, for example) but, possibly as a result, I understand how that attitude leads to staleness, dullness, and lifelessness. Life is dangerous. We need to at least accept that, if not embrace it. Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.
*By Rhianna Pratchett, Terry's daughter. She's not a patch on her dad, but I can see him coming up with that one. Oh, and “Dirty and Dangerous” is definitely an album title.
Posted by: Sam Duncan | May 03, 2020 at 17:24
“I do hope someone’s compiling these things into a handy pamphlet form. We can then sell them to would-be bands struggling to think of a distinctive name.
All our fortunes will be made.”
[Surreptitiously hides hastily-scribbled notes]
Posted by: Sam Duncan | May 03, 2020 at 17:29
I do hope someone’s compiling these things
The Hamster Curia
Posted by: pst314 | May 03, 2020 at 17:44
In these days of troubled times a new menace arises.
Her latest attempt to explain away her pathological fear and hatred of men?
Posted by: pst314 | May 03, 2020 at 17:45
I thought Borborygmus was the bass player in Crossover Thrash Metal band Corpulent Flatulence. Borborygmus, having been rejected by Gwar, declared that band was too soft and understated. He caught wind of Corpulent Flatulence, audtitioned, blew them away and the rest is history. Rolling Stone, in it's annual Metal Review edition said the band stinks and Borborygmus is responsible for an ungodly bass rumble.
Posted by: Steve E | May 03, 2020 at 18:02
Append as desired:
Store Bought Bison.
“Generally it requires personal contact -- the spread in NZ was almost entirely directly person to person at parties and similar.”
From today's Sunday Telegraph, here is Adam Kucharski, an associate professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and one of Britain’s leading epidemiologists (it says here):
"When we’re looking at things like super spreading events, typically they occur in quite close knit settings - offices, restaurants, parties, gatherings. Casual interactions outside don’t seem to be driving transmission.
What we need to untangle is whether that's a feature of the environment, or whether it’s due to the proximity and duration of the contact.
But in the UK, where people have been able to go outside, we’ve still seen a substantial decline in transmission. And biologically it would make sense - if you were catching the virus after going vaguely near someone in a park then we'd have a much bigger problem on our hands" (my emphasis).
There's your "majority of one thing" right there. The trouble is, approximately 90% of the population of the United Kingdom are scared of their own shadows at the moment; it also seems to me that a similar percentage simply haven't a clue as to the true scope of the legal restrictions imposed by the "Coronavirus Regulations" and are apparently convinced that we are "only allowed out once a day to exercise", that "you're not supposed to buy non-essential items" and other such gems of curtain-twitching, prod-nosed folklore. A smaller but still numerically significant proportion are still insisting on behaving as if there were some sort of toxic humour in the atmosphere, making it perilous to cross the threshold into the great wide open. It doesn't seem to have occurred to them that, if the Wuhan 'flu really were quite so virulent, we would all be under house arrest, the streets would be lined with corpses, and the army, clad in hazmat/biological warfare gear, would be delivering rations to the doorstep once a week.
H.L. Mencken's maxim is equally applicable this side of the Atlantic.
Posted by: Lancastrian Oik | May 03, 2020 at 18:09
Rolling Stone, in it's annual Metal Review edition said the band stinks
Borborygmus, in a desperate attempt to trade on the fame of Phil Spector, called his style the Wall of Smell.
Posted by: pst314 | May 03, 2020 at 18:11
I do hope someone’s compiling these things
Hmmm.
Band names:
The badlands of Wimbledon
Band Name
Bargain-Bin BJs
Beat Combo
Beating organ
Big Gay Ice Cream
Borborygmus--- noted as already taken
Disarticulated sex doll replicas
Disarticulated Sex Dolls
Ebola --- noted as already taken
Erskine May
Erskine May and The Wigs
Fetch the weasels
The folks at Big Vagina
Great Unused Band Name
The Hamster Curia
Hipster focused festivals
Impending Bollocks
Juul-puffing Mullets
Massive semen explosion
Maximum band name
Monet's virtual garden
Newsweek Producer
Niche Pornography
Nipples on a pumpkin
Patriarchal Appendage of Power
Pile of Woke
Pile of woke poo
Piles of Inapt Words
Polygamist Women Dressed Like Ninjas
pulsating massage function
Short Man Syndrome
Soft fruit
Spaghetti Hoops
Sticky situations
Store Bought Bison
Suburban Polygamist Ninjas
The terrible stains
Twitching meat.
Unacceptable Behaviour Team
Unexpected Scrotum
Unleash the Archers
Unloved Sausage Roll
Unsightly Toast Crumbs
Unsolicited Nudes
Violent Logic
Violent logic of whiteness
A wide berth
A wide berth and soft fruit
Woke Poo
Album titles:
A heavy dose of regrooving
Bargain-bin BJ's
Dadaist Jive
Ectoplasmic woo
Guerrilla Girls
Pile of Woke
Replicas
Unsolicited Nudes
Urine Wheels
. . . and that's just the first couple of pages . . . .
Posted by: Hal | May 03, 2020 at 18:44
The Lepton Conspiracy
Posted by: pst314 | May 03, 2020 at 18:49
Some of you clearly have way too much time on your hands.
I may start drawing up a list of chores.
Posted by: David | May 03, 2020 at 18:54
Young aspiring rapper murders postal carrier because he hadn't gotten his stimulus check:
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1256944630941138944
Posted by: pst314 | May 03, 2020 at 19:29
Rocket scientist and global humanitarian accosts transit worker, then sets fire to State of Illinois office building because he had not received his Social Security check:
https://cwbchicago.com/2020/04/prosecutors-man-outraged-over-missing-social-security-payment-set-thompson-center-fire.html
Posted by: pst314 | May 03, 2020 at 19:32
My opinion of smart and famous people and such has fallen to such a degree that when you said “global humanitarian and rocket scientist”, while obviously sarcasm, I still had to click the link to know for sure.
Posted by: WTP | May 03, 2020 at 21:15
Sure, you hear that one NASA astronaut puts on a diaper and drives across half of Florida to try to murder her rival and now all rocket scientists are not to be trusted.
Posted by: Uma Thurmond's Feet | May 03, 2020 at 23:58
You know who had rocket scientists? The Nazis. And Russia.
Both of whom stole all their ideas from African kings.
Posted by: Squires | May 04, 2020 at 00:18
Heh. I also worked rocket science, loosely defined, in my early years. The crazy ain't just a one-off from what little I've seen.
Posted by: WTP | May 04, 2020 at 01:02
Both of whom stole all their ideas from African kings.
Lol. Thanks, you owe me a new keyboard.
Posted by: Steve E | May 04, 2020 at 02:09
Steve E, are you Steve 2, The Stevening, returned to grace us with your presence?
If it, you bloody well ought to be.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn | May 04, 2020 at 03:05
“If *not* ...”
Just occurred to me that Torrent of Expletives would be a good band name.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn | May 04, 2020 at 03:07
are you Steve 2
Sorry no. I am only humble Steve E. I wear the brand of Hal (same avatar pic). I think I must have pissed off our host at some point.
Posted by: Steve E | May 04, 2020 at 03:58
I wear the brand of Hal (same avatar pic).
It is easy...
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | May 04, 2020 at 04:53
I wear the brand of Hal (same avatar pic).
...to avoid...
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | May 04, 2020 at 04:54
I wear the brand of Hal (same avatar pic).
...that embarrassment.
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | May 04, 2020 at 04:55
Does my profile pic come up?
It's quite a nice one of me.
Posted by: Chester Draws | May 04, 2020 at 05:40
It is easy...
...to avoid...
...that embarrassment.
What witchcraft is this? How do you have the image change?
Posted by: Steve E | May 04, 2020 at 15:13
And just like that it changed. Still don't know why.
Although, according to the preview, this comment is back to the old avatar.
Posted by: Steve E | May 04, 2020 at 15:15
Although, according to the preview, this comment is back to the old avatar.
I have no idea on avatars m'self, I just focus on getting the details correct for whatever I post.
I've noted that getting that done takes care of itself, where if there are random trivialities that pop up on occasion, then either a random triviality can actually explain and justify itself, or else it remains a random and superfluous triviality.
---What the Klingon has said is unimportant and we do not hear his words.
---Dr. Leonard McCoy
Posted by: Hal | May 04, 2020 at 18:59
I have no idea on avatars m'self, I just focus on getting the details correct for whatever I post.
Yes, and someday, but probably not, that might just happen.
Posted by: Farnsworth M Muldoon | May 04, 2020 at 19:50
Yes, and someday, but probably not, that might just happen.
Right on cue, thank you!
Now, if you have any actual details to actually submit regarding something to object to, some error somewhere, something other than mere empty objections, you certainly can let us see 'em.
In the meantime, as you haven't provided any supporting information, ever, you might have noticed that your remaining a third carrier of cardboard does at least make for a vague, sort of, supporting chorus . . .
Posted by: Hal | May 04, 2020 at 20:22
The girl on the right looks as though she could have stepped straight out of a 1967 college campus. It's now over half a century later and still that hippy supinity is haunting higher education and ossifying the 'Larping' imaginations of the undergraduate and faculty. It's ironic that these youngsters are always (seemingly) predicated upon anti-conservatism and the notion of constant progressivist change in society, to the extent it has become a tradition with them, which (as Tolstoy once wisely observed) singles out the young rebels as some of the most thoroughgoing conservatives. She looks, thinks, and dresses exactly like her grandmother might have done in the 'Summer of Love', and yet if someone from 1967 had dressed and behaved on campus as her grandmother of 50 years earlier had done, she would have been ridiculed by the hippies for being incongruously conservative. Our society is becoming so saturated in irony we are in danger of drowning in it.
Posted by: Kevin Riches | May 10, 2020 at 15:45