But really, we're doing epically better than Florida. Our governor is a horrendous asshole, but not a colossally dumb horrendous asshole like DeSantis. Abbott actually recognizes that it's in his best interests not to have a kabillion deaths. (Ken Paxton is in DeSantis territory, of course.)
Anyway, because my go-to comparison is so often Florida for familial reasons, I've been sobered into thinking we're middling. Florida is truly a more insane situation.
Utah is sort of screwed, too. Governor wanted cases below 500 by August 1 so testing dropped to 3000 per day and positivity went to 12%
Had my second not-COVID illness last week (a summer cold with a day of sleep) and unlike the first time, was able to get a test easily, with results in a couple days. It made me think we're getting better that this. Since it was mild, I'm disappointed it wasn't COVID.
What makes you think the thing you had in the spring wasn't covid?
Trump said on Fox news that's exactly why he's doing it. Unfuckingbelievable.
I keep seeing pictures of plexiglass partitions around desks in public schools. That has to be pure theater, no? (Not maliciously so, just completely ineffective.) I would believe plexiglass is helpful for five minute interactions, like the grocery store line, but not for sitting in a classroom for hours at a time.
Furthermore, I'm suspicious of mask-wearing for classrooms, as well: I'm guessing that the studies that show masks are highly effective are looking at 15 minute intervals at close proximity. Not sitting in a room with decades-old ventilation for seven hours.
Our school district just shared with teachers what is considered "exposure" for quarantining purposes, and it is so strict that I'm guessing it will barely ever happen. You basically have to blow right past every guideline: no mask, within 6 feet, for more than 15 minutes. As in, there is probably never a reason that any teacher will ever quarantine themself without having symptoms themself.
Pebbles had to have a COVID test yesterday due to an upcoming surgery. She is not impressed with me, the "nose test", the doctors, or the universe.
Me neither, Pebbles. I feel you.
Our schools will not tell us if someone in the Calabat's classroom tests positive unless they can confirm that they were within six feet for more than 15 minutes, which is an assumption that is going to kill us all when it turns out that it spreads through ventilation.
As I keep saying, despite all the jokes ("Airline food is bad! White guys drive like this!") the Post Office remains one of the most broadly popular public institutions in America. We'll see how the motivated reasoning does when old people aren't getting their prescriptions on time. (Sadly I suspect it will do pretty well.)
Paid for one of the serology tests in June, when that became possible. Said that I hadn't had it, and neither had my partner.
Is there any US data on school reopenings yet? Or is it all anecdata and projections?
13: Hmm. My memory was that you said your partner really had the whole thing - a day at least of terrible coughing and worrisome breathing, where you were contemplating what to do if it persisted. But two false-negative antibody tests are somewhat unlikely, I guess.
We really thought we'd had it. Fit the list of symptoms (which pretty much anything does, 'cause the list of symptoms is so fluid).
Same test, same household. Correlated errors so not two independent probabilities. Still unlikely.
What makes the errors correlated? That it's the same testing facility on the same day?
The biggest business entity is Amazon. But there are very many tiny and larger businesses that survive from USPS shipping of sales brokered by Amazon. DJT hates Amazon.
The thing I can't figure out is that (post election) private shipping is basically workable in cities, if inconvenient-- a mile or two to a pickup/ship point, postal equivalent of a bank branch or "currency exchange" (that is check cashery and billpay point for the poor). But in the countryside it's a disaster.
Possibly nobody cares, since there was no meaningful reaction to opioids as long as they were only killing rural people. Also there's no work out there, maybe rural people don't care about one more practical disaster as long as someone tells them they matter out loud.
18: Yes. And maybe the same nose-miner.
19: I think that the Republicans correctly see that the damage to rural areas won't be sufficient to cost them a state in 2020. But, yes, it's going to be a disaster for them.
But two false-negative antibody tests are somewhat unlikely, I guess.
Not that unlikely if she had the disease in spring and didn't get tests until June. Seropositivity doesn't last forever, especially not for milder (non-hospital) cases - it can vanish within 2-3 months, or even quicker. https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/studies-report-rapid-loss-of-covid-19-antibodies-67650
18: It was a blood draw.
Eh. Much as I want to have already had COVID and be fine after, even I am not trying to force the negative tests to mean that I actually did have it. We had a flu and then a cold since March. My new thought is that having such recent negative tests could mean that we can go to my very bored mom, and also get us out of the heat wave that starts tomorrow.
In Maryland, we seem to be getting over our post reopening spike. 7 day positive rate has been below 3.5% for a week, hospitalizations are back below 500 and daily new cases are down to where they were in early June.
Hopefully the school year won't screw everything. I haven't kept track of how many colleges finally abandoned the pretense that they can go back to students living on campus /in person teaching.
8, 11: the assumption here seems to be that if someone in a classroom is positive, everyone has been exposed, regardless of distance or mask. At least, the guidelines that the state put out call for everyone in the class to do the test+quarantine routine if there's an exposure event in class. The trickier edge situation is then when the student isn't the index case, but they're discovered to have been exposed.
Is W. going to endorse Biden? How about Romney?
I thought 28 was a joke and I was riffing.
chin up, scamp. You'll do better next time.
We're only as free as the 50-worst Republican senator.
Or 51st, I guess. Ties go to Pence.
I know that any hint of optimism means that I am personally responsible for a Trump victory this Fall, but I keep hoping that after the blue tsunami, we'll fix the broken things to better than they would have been. Like, if the USPS weren't being wrecked now, it might never get the importance to fix it and it would limp along under Clinton. But now that it must be addressed, the fix could include all the things, the pension requirement and personal banking and electrifying the fleet. I want an extreme pendulum swing, past where the straight line non-Trump continuum would have gotten us.
I too have had that thought. Incorrigible.
My thought is that the potential for civil unrest in November is too large to let me contemplate past that.
Optimism is like a safety blanket for me. I have to actively shake it off so that I don't descend into fantasy.
Maybe it's more of a hammock then?
39: And postal banking!
What DeJoy is doing at USPS is truly terrifying. I had planned to vote by mail in November, just as I did in the primary, but I'm pretty sure that I'll end up voting in person now.
41: Same here, but I've been a doomsayer on this for a long time.
We ordered absentee ballots here, but I'm planning on hand-delivering it to the Board of Elections during the early voting period rather than mailing it.
44: Was it hard to qualify to vote by mail? I've been assuming that I wasn't eligible.
Are you guys picturing this civil unrest in any detail? Do you have precedents in mind?
Are you guys picturing this civil unrest in any detail? Do you have precedents in mind?
I don't expect things to go exactly like this, but it's vaguely lurking in my imagination/nightmares.
I don't have any good idea what might happen.
The level of organization depends on who's involved. Rock-throwing crowds are pretty spontaneous if there's a place where people who disagree all congregate.
Newspaper distribution used to be subject to having your trucks stopped (by pulling up cars in front and behind and a few guys jump out) and your drivers and stock then damaged. Anti-abortion violence is another US template.
44: I'm planning to vote by mail, if I get my ballot in time. Senate primary election is in September. We have a few metal mailbox type things across town that you can hand drop your ballot in, so that's my plan. Town Hall is closer than my polling place. Then I heard that the a Trump campaign was suing and claiming that they were vulnerable to fraud.
47: what I love is that everyone got a letter asking if they wanted to vote by mail with a postage-paid application postcard this year. Super easy.
Thanks. There will be mass protests if Trump is declared the winner; I imagine something similar-but-different would happen if Biden wins, but that's less clear in my mind. The descent into unrest from there is too vague for me to think about: it could play out in far too many different ways...
My irrational response is to have moments of acute worry about not having a way to leave the country (place to go, game plan once there, asset transfer??? etc) if Trump is re-elected. This is visceral and compulsive and not shared by anyone around me except probably my sister, who still misses Ireland, and maybe one or two friends. I am well aware that it's irrational, so let me irritably ask you not to point this out.
I'd just be sure there was food in the house and any medications.
I have long expected sniper/bomb attacks on campaign rallies, but the pandemic more or less ending that sort of gathering wasn't an externality I'd factored in. Still, the far right is all in on disruptive chaos as a strategy and it only takes a handful of people to cause mayhem.
On the subject of ventilation, I've been told that if you have circulating A/C and use MERV-13 filters they will stop the airborne virus. They are a bit more expensive than the more-standard MERV-8. I don't know if this is true, though. At least it's not eating Tide Pods injecting Lysol.
I've been dismissive here about the idea of secession -- how to divide the military and the debt obligations if the split is hostile will be horrible, leaving much poorer and less capable remnants, a KGB and CCP dream come true.
But if T steals the election, along with volunteer violence and a speedy descent to a country that looks a lot more like Brazil or Mexico than I'd like, West coast secession plans will get put together I think.
Evolved nanobodies are an interesting idea- they're such stable proteins and such strong binders to CoV that there's talk of just spraying them in the air or in filters or in your nose.
Nobody is seceding and leaving me in a country run by shits.
The thing I don't get about the fear of civil unrest is 'and then what?'. Sure rightwing assholes will do it, but then how does that make Joe Biden not president after? The country is so big and so dispersed and even if it is bad, that doesn't mean that we're going to be so scared of violence that we'll accept Trump staying in office. I said this before, but it is the flip side of the mass protests. Sure, hundreds of thousands of people took the street. And then... the mayors are the same. The governors are the same. It just doesn't seem like mass protest or civil unrest directly changes the things that would have to change for Trump to keep power. They're parallel, but not intersecting.
If the fear is that people will get hurt and windows broken, then yeah. About as much or more as the George Floyd protests. But that's not a thing that changes almost everyone's day to day lives, or keeps a president in office.
To my mind, it would have to be armed occupation by rightwing militias of... what? And what's their threat? You can have city hall back if Trump stays in office? I don't see what they capture that would stop Trump from leaving office (much less the difficulties of holding on to their occupation for three months).
I think about this stuff, because if I could figure out anything, I'd want the good guys to do it non-violently for my causes. But I can't for my causes, nor for Trump-based civil unrest.
The threat is really easy to see. Tree of Life is just down the street.
The Brooks Brothers Riots worked because it was so shocking and there was such a focused target. And also because the Florida establishment wanted to give it to Bush. But if they hadn't, they'd have still been the election commissioners and would have arranged a different re-count.
So I don't understand what the fear of civil unrest is. That shitty armed rightwingers will hurt people. That's extremely likely. That it will undo election results certified by state secretaries of states? That doesn't seem likely to me at all.
Mass shootings are terrible and if there are many because assholes are mad Trump lost, that's even more terrible. But how does that make Biden not-president in January?
It doesn't. But it can make it hard for him to do any kind of reform or good policy.
Violence before the election might make it harder for Biden to win.
Trump can't cling to power through a literal coup unless he gets the military on board. So far they have resisted most of his constitutional boundary-pushing ideas, which was not always the obvious outcome.
I don't think this is going to happen, but the scary thing for me is the police rioting in support of specious claims by right-wing candidates to have won elections they didn't win. Close election, confusing litigation over it, right-wing candidate is seated or claims to have been, police shoot into protesting crowds until they disperse.
I've been trying to think if anyone would have standing to sue if there is some real last-minute monkeywrenching of the mail (like last minute rate hike or just an order to not deliver them). I guess state election boards that had planned on a regular
mail service?Based on rhode Island result today,, I suspect Thomas, Gorsuch and Alito would go along with almost literally anything. I think at this point there probably is nothing actionable. (Although if it were a Dem admin doing it to advantage Dems, it would be stopped in a heartbeat, probably 9-0.)
Sigh.
Brooks Brothers riots all over again, but with police using live ammo.
The police are a different story, much more pro-Trump and less concerned about norms against interfering in politics. So there could definitely be a lot of ugliness in particular places depending on how the election results go. But the reach of any single police force is very local.
I can see that happening, and then clashes like the early nights of George Floyd going on until it gets too cold or people get too tired. The actual resolution of the close election will happen in a court (unless the loser is too cowed to contest). Many months later, we'll find out who won (like that fraud case in Georgia? NC?).
I can imagine and agree that really awful rightwing unrest could happen if Biden wins. But I don't see how it can change how the country moves forward (since apparently very little ever does and I'm supposed to wait for electioning every two years).
I am Team Burn Shit Down, but get constantly told that it can't actually ever change things. I believe that is also true for the right, in the months between Nov and Jan.
Changing things for the better is hard. Actual nihilism is served more readily by violence.
Your fear of civil unrest is that police will shoot ballot counters while they count ballots? That they will shoot crowds gathered outside election centers, while people count ballots within? And the result of that is that the election officials will then crown their rightwing candidate without finishing the ballot counting?
That is a specific scenario that I suppose could change election outcomes. But if we are that far gone (possible! I live in a pleasant bubble.) that this is a widespread threat, then I can look forward to my hopes for America's dissolution.
I think the real concern is the stuff addressed here, but civil unrest (likes the Brooks Brothers Riot) would feed into that, pressuring/legitimating swing-state Republican legislatures. Snippet:
First, thanks to his epic failure of leadership in response to the Covid pandemic, Trump is a far more vulnerable candidate now than when I completed the manuscript. Second, as a result of the nation's failure to control the pandemic, an unprecedented number of Americans will be voting this fall by mail-in ballot. Both facts make the scenarios that I describe in the book all the more likely. I say this because Trump has already made it abundantly clear that he sees discrediting mail-in ballots as key to his strategy of contesting his possible loss. It's not hard to imagine how this could play out: Trump could enjoy a slim lead in the key swing states on November 3--a lead that vanishes once the mail-ins start getting counted in the days following November 3. And yet all the while Trump is pushing his insistence that only election day results should count; indeed, he brazenly declares that his disappearing lead simply proves his claim of mail-in fraud. Delays in the counting of these ballots increase the possibility that our key swing states--all controlled by Republican state legislatures--certify Trump as having won. And so, like in 1876, we can imagine Congress finding itself confronted with competing electoral certificates at its joint session on January 6, 2021.
I am Team Burn Shit Down, but get constantly told that it can't actually ever change things.
That's not right. Just about everything is flammable. So if people decide to Burn Shit Down it will burn.
I don't have specific scenarios in mind, and don't want to read the guy's book in the link I just gave because I'm sure the scenarios he sketches out would freak me out, but the bottom line is that the electoral college gives a lot of room for fuckery, and Trump is absolutely laying the groundwork for denying the legitimacy of Biden votes.
I don't think the courts take anything past the normal deadlines.
Something like what happened in Minneapolis would prevent many in a city from voting and no one in a rural area or suburb from voting. One vicious murder and deliberately provoking crowd control.
75 is what I fear, too. We had previews of that in Bush v. Gore and 2016, with litigation on both sides dragging on and on. I do think that mail-in ballots received after election day would under normal circumstances be fine to reject, but these are not normal circumstances given that Trump has shot himself in the foot by screwing with the Postal Service.
Bad feeling that we're gonna look like Belarus in November
Just about everything is flammable.
After the glorious revolution, all buildings will be made from asbestos.
Dragging on and on for six whole weeks?
Our Supreme Court already has a case before it right now on whether the statutory requirement that ballots be received by election day rather than post-marked (except military?) is unconstitutional, and I won't be surprised if Trump's shenanigans are brought up in the opinion(s). I would hope that some serious forum shopping for similar cases in particular states is going on already.
I have been wondering what the in-person voter suppression strategy will be (assuming people make the obvious calculation about catching Covid vs. 4 more years of Trump), since they've put so much effort by now into signaling the postal sabotage. If more D voters try to head to the polls, will it be the usual closures of polling stations and long lines getting cut off early? More of that than ever? Other roadblocks, literal or figurative? How bad can it get?
The piece of this I can't get my head around is this: what % of the electorate more or less believes this is a normal election and democracy is functioning as designed, apart from the pandemic? (And, I mean... what is it like to be those people?) I guess we can split off all the Q followers as a first cut, but apart from that.
I'm assuming that the go-to plan is for USPS to screw things up, and then for the winners to claim that there's no avenue for relief. "Ballot didn't arrive by election day, doesn't count" "Ballot has to get postmarked before election day, wasn't postmarked at all, doesn't count.". Oh, USPS did this on purpose, and it's documented, live on video? Doesn't matter, what's done is done, the election is over and they don't count.
After the glorious revolution, all buildings will be made from asbestos.
One of the best encapsulations of the Trump era has been the surge in asbestos imports.
Totally unnecessary in technical terms, highly symbolic as a culture war issue, minuscule in quantity to the point of irrelevance economically, primarily benefiting illiberal regimes abroad: It's Trumpism to a tee.
We used to import most of our asbestos from Brazil, but they banned it in 2017 so now we get it from Russia.
85- I believe the legalese is that investigation of irregularities or pursuit of remedies "threaten irreparable harm to petitioner, and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he claims to be the legitimacy of his election."
Every time I read that I can't believe what transparent bullshit it is. If I say I want something and you don't let me have it of course I'm irreparably harmed because it was more difficult to get what I wanted, that doesn't mean I have the right to everything I want.
Since we're past 40 comments, anyone have thoughts on the Israel/UAE normalization? I'm generally cynical, but I don't have any interesting angles. I am tired and cynical and hungry.
Practically, to the extent that any of us have any practical effect on anything, should we be volubly encouraging everyone who can to vote in person, early if possible, fuck worrying about contagion? I have no faith at all in mail-in ballots now.
Practically, to the extent that any of us have any practical effect on anything, should we be volubly encouraging everyone who can to vote in person, early if possible, fuck worrying about contagion? I have no faith at all in mail-in ballots now.
It's tough because there aren't really any good options. Probably the best general option is getting an absentee ballot but hand-delivering it to the elections office or putting it in a secure drop-box, which places that do a lot of mail-in voting typically set up in convenient locations.
Since we're past 40 comments, anyone have thoughts on the Israel/UAE normalization?
It's a good thing especially if it really does mean Israel is going to drop the annexation threat, but unlikely to have much practical effect. Israel and the UAE already had extensive under-the-table contacts and ties because of their shared fear of Iran. Mostly it seems like a way to deflect from political embarrassments for all three parties: Trump and Netanyahu have both massively fucked up their COVID responses, and the UAE may be nervous about being too closely associated with Saudi Arabia under MBS's deranged and geopolitically isolating rule. Barry would know a lot more about the Gulf situation and any implications there, though.
44: Was it hard to qualify to vote by mail? I've been assuming that I wasn't eligible.
"Disability" isn't defined in the statute and the county clerk has no power to (or interest in) investigating why a voter marked that as the reason to get a ballot.
Like everything else, it's going to be state-by-state. I voted absentee in the NYS primary because Ratface Andy had them include "concern about COVID" as a valid health reason, but that's not necessarily in other states.
(Which was a good thing for the sniveling weasel to have done, to be clear. I'm insulting him on general principle, not because of that decision.)
Right, I was answering heebie's question for TX. On our application, you fill out your name, etc., and then just check either over 65, out of the county, confined in jail, or disability. No further explanation required. The TX clerks have been very up front about their lack of interest in questioning anyone's application.
I voted by mail in our primary. The election date is next Tuesday, but there's been a big push to get people to vote by mail (no excuse needed here, and there's an easy online form to request a ballot). The state also sent out applications to all voters age 65 and up, allegedly because they are most at risk for COVID.
We briefly had a court ruling that concern about COVID was a valid disability, but that order has been stayed. It may get upheld before the general, but no one is counting on it.
Of course, I forgot you two were in the same state.
Volunteering to be a poll worker is another good thing people can do, depending on available time and state of health/vulnerability. I considered doing this for the primary but didn't manage to apply before the deadline. I may do it for the general depending on how things develop. State employees here get paid time off to do it; I don't know how common that is in other states.
93 I think this is going to be the Trump Steaks version of normalization.
Moby, if you do change your mind about volunteering as a poll worker, let me know. The voting district I worked at could always use more people, and I could put you in contact with the judge who is, to put it politely, a constant source of narrative. Allegheny County does pay poll workers, but if you're there the entire time it's only slightly better than minimum wage. Stormcrow could also tell you more.
|| Just won an election-related case. Citizens petitioned to recall the mayor of a tiny town in the next county. Mayor sued to block the recall election (as permitted under the Recall Act). Nope, says trial judge. Ballot forms get certified a week from today -- the Mayor can appeal, but it'll be printed out, even if the Supreme Court ends up directing that the votes not be counted. |>
Following the governor's request, our school is only offering virtual education until at least October, so I guessed right on that one and don't have to make the girls feel they're missing out on anything. I've bought school supplies and still have two weeks to make them clean their workspaces. My girlfriend Odile is gradually moving more in here and we redid her (formerly my) office space, so she'll be doing her classes either in bed or in Mara's bedroom. I also need to buy a picnic table so that people can be outside working when we need even greater separation but something more formal than the hammock or the porch. Mara will be doing at least her first therapy session in-person and masked on the porch, though, which hits a certain wholesome/weird sweet spot.
I went to the doctor's office yesterday and then got a chest x-ray. There's no obvious lung damage (I do not believe I've had COVID) and my spine curvature isn't affecting my lungs, so we're definitely pursuing asthma/allergies as the underlying diagnosis. In my second day on a twice-daily inhaler and a stronger asthma-focused allergy medicine, things seem tentatively better. I made it on a 1.5-mile walk in the woods and was just as winded as I'd be on a hotter day with worse air walking the dog around the block. But I liked the nurse practitioner I saw and I think we're making progress at least toward getting me healthier. I am still glum and grumpy plenty, plus I hate that I've been missing the summer because I can't fucking breathe. I'll get a pulmonary function test done to see what the asthma situation is, but the first available appointment at the hospital was in October, so I guess it's a good thing that the interim interventions seem to be helping a bit.
58: I'm seriously thinking about moving to Canada. Would like to get Tim his US citizenship first but then look into an escape route. I like Montreal, but Tim doesn't want to move there, because he French is not good. Vancouver is crazy expensive. Toronto is a megalopolis. I think the Maritimes are beautiful, but I don't know what kind of jobs we could get.
98. Like bostoniangirl, I live in MA. I don't recall having to give a reason for my mail-in ballot. I just got it a few days ago (for the primary) and they will send another for the general. If one is worried about shenanigans, one can just not send it in and go to the polls or drop it off in town. Also, there are maybe 10 Republicans in this state, so no worries.
108: that was a change though. They are actively pushing for it because of COVID. I mailed in my request about a week and a half ago and have not gotten it yet.
I haven't been to Halifax yet, but it seems very appealing to me. Someone in my field just moved there, so maybe I'll have an opportunity to visit it. Nova Scotia was already on my radar as a possible "cold beaches in the summer" destination that would be cheaper than going to Scotland. But it's a pretty obvious place for a New Englander to move to in Canada and should have more jobs than the rest of the maritimes.
Nobody is going to Canada until I clear it and I'm not clearing it until I feel safe with the voters we have. Knock it off or I'll start ordering people to swing states, and not normal swing states like Wisconsin, but "stretch" swing states like Arizona or Georgia.
hydrobatidae might weigh in on the Maritimes if she sees this...
I had not added the "winter Covid case explosion" cherry to the top of the "civil unrest in November" shit sundae, but mmmm, maybe I should.
We definitely have cold water (although warming like the earth)(also Portuguese Man Of War unusually). Jobs? Who can say?
My anxiety is really spiking around the effects of covid on the economy. The Maritimes never really have a lot of jobs, especially 'good' ones, for values of 'good' around well paying and ambitious. It's pretty low key so you don't need a particularly well paying job so not bad in practice. The unambitious part is because ambitious people move away so people left here tend not to know what they have (or are realistic).
ANYWAY. Our economy relies on natural resources and tourism which are being hit hard by the closed US border and the lack of travel in general. Like since the bubble opened, tourism is up 30% here from earlier in the season but down more 90%+ from last year? We haven't had a cruise ship this year and last year, there were sometimes three at the same time, docked for a couple days.
So taxes etc are down. And then all the provinces have increased their spending to try to help. The universities that the college towns rely on are going remote but that's going to kill the towns. Plus none of the international students (ie where all the funding comes from now) are going to come back/are allowed back. So universities are just totally fucked. And the foreign workers to pick the crops have (the only cases of) covid. No one is buying lobster now. Oil is too cheap to support workers either offshore here or in Alberta.
I don't know. Halifax will do better than other places but I dread the toll on the restaurants and bars. And the universities. For sure we'll get some good music out of it, whether or not there'll be anywhere to play it.
Basically the Maritimes is totally reliant on the federal government. Even more than before.
Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.
There was a lot of discussion of the possibility that the disease is less transmissible in warm weather. Do we actually have any compelling reason to doubt this?
I had a business trip to Halifax 30 years ago. I don't remember much about it, except that I thought it was very nice. A quick Google suggests that a US dollar stretches pretty far there.
Yes. Please come spend money when things are normal again! There are tons of cute places that could use your money.
the foreign workers to pick the crops have (the only cases of) covid
So sad, so enraging, ad infinitum.
Brazil is engaged in massive pandemic incompetence. Possibly worse than the United States. There's no reason to suppose that incompetence doesn't overcome the possible benefit from the warmer season. (Google tells me it is much warmer in Sao Paulo than Quito. I find this confusing. Is it an altitude thing? How does weather work?)
119: There's only 7 cases do not that bad
I'm in Halifax right now! I love it, and would move back here in a flash if I could. (Grew up here, moved away for grad school/job reasons). Would rather live here than any other city in the world, I think. And there are zero active COVID cases in the whole province!
Hydrobatidae gave a great summary of the economy in the Maritimes. I'd add that outside of Halifax the population is shrinking, and the unemployment rate is very high (pre-COVID). But Halifax is an exception-- it's growing fast and has/had unemployment below the national average.
It's a great city for eating, drinking, and music, and hydrobatidae is right to worry about all of that, though I just spent a very nice evening eating and drinking my way across the North End. Lots of places were open and doing good business.
A thing to get used to: it's got around 400,000 people, which isn't all that big. But you're a 13 hour drive from the closest city that's bigger. (Well, 10 hours to Quebec City, which really is completely francophone.) That has advantages-- the music scene!-- but some downsides too, if you want to escape what can sometimes feel like a small college town.
107: Tell Tim it is perfectly possible to live a thriving and happy life in Montreal without a single word of French, so long as you life in the right neighbourhoods.
If pissing off French speakers makes you happy, the choice of neighborhoods probably gets wider.
[B]ecause of the unreliability of the available case count data, it is impossible to know whether people are more likely to contract COVID-19 in cold or hot weather at this stage. These data limitations may also affect analyses looking at whether other factors influence the spread of COVID-19. Here's why...
I was pretty shocked when I realized that the halfway point between Chicago and Halifax is... Albany. It's really far east! That did make me wonder a little about whether it was actually more convenient than going to Scotland.
an account taken from Black Powder Press on Instagram, link in comments, about what happened last night in Bend, Oregon. People did more than block the buses. They bodily tried to prevent their neighbor from being taken away.] https://www.instagram.com/p/CD2gMrphdSp/
When I got a text that ICE was detaining people in Bend, Oregon, my hometown, I rushed down. Everyone texted everyone they knew, and it blew up over Instagram, soon hundreds and hundreds of people gathered.
It's important that people know how hard we fought to keep the government from kidnapping our neighbors. We didn't just sit in front of the bus. We sat in front of the doors and blocked them. Feds pushed through us, claiming there was a medical emergency, and took one man off. They came back to get the second person, a man named Marco. People didn't let them through without a real fight.
People clung onto Marco, onto his arms and legs, onto the chains he was wrapped in, as the feds tried to take him away. Then people clung onto the people who were clinging onto him. Feds started throwing people to the ground. They peppersprayed people, including a man they knew to be in chains. They fought to pull off people's masks and goggles and they fought to pull people away from Marco. It went on for an eternity. Five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes? I don't know. We clung on, as best we could.
Eventually they ripped their way through the supporters and pulled Marco away. A line of riot cops in full gear, armed with wooden sticks, stood guard while they led him barefoot across gravel and glass, off into the woods.
They brought those two large busses to Bend last night. It seems unlikely that were only there to pick up two people. It seems likely that we, all of us working together, frustrated their plans. It's hard to celebrate, knowing that they took two people away. We fought, though.
It's possible to resist this. We can also see now that it's possible to win.
To the OP: I probably say "we'll mail the check, give it 5 to 10 business days to get through the mail". The other alternative is charging the client $25 for 2-day service from UPS. What happens when it starts taking a month or 6 weeks for regular first class business mail to make it a couple of states over? The cult members are going to blame it on AOC or some shit, but the people who actually run things in this country are not that stupid.
"To the OP: I probably say "we'll mail the check, give it 5 to 10 business days to get through the mail" a dozen times a day."
AZ does indeed go blue; FL, GA and NC revert to form as do other states looking a little swingy right now. Voter suppression in WI is even more blatant than 2016. The Republican legislature and state Supreme Court approve. Postal fuckery appears to yield a Republican victory in Pennsylvania. Hello, nightmare.
Or maybe it goes as discussed above, Trump claims victory on November 3 with many, many absentee ballots still uncounted. Can we put enough people in the streets to make sure that they do get counted? Can our counting procedures withstand a major party bent on disrupting them?
90, 93 I don't think it's a good thing but it's just a de jure gloss on a de facto reality. The UAE has been relying a lot on Israeli security companies and Israeli intel to monitor and suppress internal dissent. This has been going on for many years now. KSA has been doing much the same, I don't think there's much daylight between the UAE and KSA...yet though there have been some rumors (MBS just colossally fucking up everything he touches has a lot to do with this). But if you look you'll see they are both on board with this. This just means that the Palestinians can no longer rely on the empty promises and lip service they usually have gotten from KSA and UAE. Kristen Ulrichsen is my go-to guy on all of this. If you check his twitter feed you'll see a number of tweets about this. https://twitter.com/Dr_Ulrichsen
Further to 93 I do agree that it would be a good thing if Israel really does drop the threat of annexation. I very much doubt this will happen though.
I can also plot a 400+ EV for Biden/Harris, but that's not what worries me.
107 If I get this job in Canada I will definitely be pursuing Canadian citizenship.
106 Take good care, Thorn.
So Michael Cohen's book has some corroborating details for the existence of the pee tape. Something about Las Vegas golden showers.
107: his parents lived there in the 70's, but he grew up hearing that Rene Levesque poisoned everything, and now there's all this animosity toward non francophones.
His parents were from Winnipeg and have/had issues with bilingual expectations. Tim's industry used to be in Montreal, but it all shut down.
Can some British person explain the "A Levels debacle" to the rest of us? Bear in mind that the answer may be "No", because I've been hearing British people engage in discourse about "A levels" and "O levels" once a year for a decade without ever knowing what they signify or how they work.
What I think is happening: getting into a good university depends on how well you do on "A Level" exams. The exams were cancelled this year because of social distancing, but having an A Level result is essential for university admissions to happen, so the A Level Overlords have decided to assign each student a grade anyway based on an algorithm which heavily weights which school you went to, with inequality-reinforcing results.
O levels are OWLs, A levels are NEWTs.
Voldemort tried to kill everyone, so NEWTs were canceled?
139.2 is basically correct. You do three to six A-levels in your last year of school. The way you get into a university is basically: you go for an interview towards the start of your last year at school, they like you, they give you an offer (say, ABB), and then if you get those grades or better you have a place.
137: That seems more likely a reference to a Vegas place where that's done on a public stage, and there's already reporting that Trump went to that location with a bunch of people, but not for the show. (Anything to move books...)
143: Don't bring facts into a theological debate. America in 2020 is divided into two religions - those who believe in Q, and those who believe in Pee.
I saw a good tweet that explained part of the problem. The algorithm has a rigid prediction for each class? Each school maybe? Of how many students in each subject will get each possible grade of A-E and then U, which must mean failure. And it rounds down for fractional students.
So if you're a smart kid in a lousy school, where maybe one kid gets an A every other year, the algorithm predicts .5 kids getting an A each year. That's fractional, so whatever else the evidence about you, you cannot possibly get an A. If there are 100 lousy schools in the same situation, in a normal year you'd expect 50 A students in that 100 schools. This year there are guaranteed zero.
Here's the thread I'm working from: I don't know the tweeter, so I can't vouch for its accuracy, and it's complicated so I may have misunderstood myself.
Dammit, here: https://twitter.com/alexhern/status/1294200553661227008?s=21
Oh, the other thing is that for some reason I don't quite understand, smaller classes maybe? The rigid algorithm didn't get applied to some expensive private schools. How this worked out is that when the 50 missing A students from lousy schools were eliminated by the algorithm, there weren't 50 university spaces that would have gone to A students in a prior year but went to B students this year. Those university spaces went disproportionately to rich kids who didn't get downgraded by the algorithm.
But this mechanism I really don't quite understand, and I might have it wrong.
It sounds like giving places based on how much money their parents have.
Yeah, that's what's pissing people off.
That's how Aunt Becky got arrested, kind of.
Also, and again I'm figuring this out from twitter so anyone who knows should correct me, there wasn't any explanation of the process/algorithm before the results were released. There was a shocking number of kids who confidently expected to be able to get into university on the basis of teacher evaluations and mock exams, who got issued "grades" that kept them out of university, and only after the fact was it possible to find out how the system worked this year.
I hate to put everything on our UK contingent, but Matt? Ajay? Chris? Have I got this all garbled or am I close to right?
Also, what's an "O level"?
And how can the universities not just ignore the imaginary A levels and use other information?
In an O level, creating a patronus is extra credit, on A level, it's required for passing.
O level is a year or so before A levels. It's sort of "how well did you do in ordinary high school classes" whereas A levels are "how well did you do in the classes that determine university admission." In NYS, analogizing to Regents exams for O levels and then APs for A levels kind of works almost, but not exactly, and most states don't have anything like the Regents, so that may not help you much.
(Again, UK people -- I'm answering questions to avoid my real job, but I don't know what I'm talking about. Correct me!)
fwiw I know the tweeter LB cites and he is damn smart and thoughtful. Absent very good evidence I'd think he was right about this kind of thing.
The complete lack of preceding explanation was also a problem. And these exam results are hugely stressful for affected families even in normal years. This year people are absolutely furious. It's one of those scenes where grade inflation is a rivalrous good. Everyone is against other people's children getting better grades.
In this instance it is made much worse by the excellent results of private schools.
"O" levels (as were, they are now called GCSEs, I think) are the exams you take at 15/16, two years before A levels. They are taken in many more subjects - 8-12 - I think ttaM is being a bit scottish, or else just a bit dPhil-ish when he talks of six A levels - and after you have failed enough of them you are legally released from compulsory education.
"A" for "Advanced"; "O" for Ordinary. The Os were originally meant to be the kind of minimum certification for a completed secondary education.
My knowledge of the UK school system comes from hearing about Mrs. Lurker's nieces. The impression I got is that, at least for those who want to go to university, it's a miserable grind of one high stakes test after another.
Every time I hear about the UK system, I think to myself: Jesus, that's so stupid, it's hard to believe it's not American.
Although obviously, the US aspires to replicate that sort of thing.
Yeah, GCSEs or O levels you do at age 15 or 16. Kids tend to max out at about 10 of them, although historically I think 7 or 8 was the norm for reasonably able kids. A levels you do at 17 or 18, and those determine university entry. Historically, academically able kids did 3 of those, but with competition for places and exam inflation* I think quite a lot do 4 or more.
* this is the wrong term, I'm not one of those middle aged guys who thinks teenagers now are lazy and feckless and doing easy exams. I mean, that expectations around what counts as a good portfolio of A levels have increased, so kids do more of them, and are expected to get higher marks in the ones they do, than was the norm 20 years ago.
My understanding also, is that the algorithm is fucking over the less privileged. I have a friend who is head of the A level program (6th form, for UK readers) at his school and another who is a deputy head at hers. Both have spent all week dealing with the fallout.
bear in mind that my information is incredibly out of date. I took Latin and Greek O levels when I was 14, in, er 1969, and five more the next year, and the year after that was expelled so never took any A levels at all.
Did you try to have pudding without eating your meat?
What does strike me about the exams that Ume's kids did were that they were indeed hard, but pointlessly so. They had to know a bunch of things with no understanding of the underlying subjects at all. It was a test of algorithmic competence, not of the capacity to think. I noticed this particularly in history, where they had lots of facts and no sense whatever of, well, history, of situations developing out of earlier situations, and long chains of consequence running through the ages. They seemed entirely
episodic. There was no sense of "Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer". (I do appreciate that this is itself a historical reference now)
No: I helped a friend who had run away from a school where we had both previously been incarcerated
I have cranky beliefs about the teaching of history which come down to believing that grade school children should be memorizing a whole lot of dates and reading a whole lot of oversimplified narrative history, not because dates are important or oversimplified narrative histories are true, but just to build a kind of general scaffolding to hang deeper, more mature education about specific issues and periods on.
When you don't have a vague general sense of anything, it's really hard to fit the specifics together.
I just think we need to teach them that the Civil War was about slavery.
I feel like maybe I should have saved half the Grab Bag post for today's post.
but just to build a kind of general scaffolding to hang deeper, more mature education about specific issues and periods on.
This makes sense. I remember how hard it was to learn to follow current events, because there were so many threads that I had no context for.
It would be nice if there were a "multiplication tables" level of memorization that happened at elementary school, just to make some touchstones to point to later on.
We got lots of mnemonics. The cause of the Civil War was three S: Sectionalism, Slavery, State's Rights. WWI was MAIN causes: Militarism, Alliances, Imperialism, Nationalism.
On the topic of historical knowledge: wasn't there some Islamic social leveling movement in North Africa, one of whose principles was limiting height of buildings? Maybe 16th or 17th century? What was it called? All the keywords I search on, I get nothing but recent events in Islam.
128: Here is the NYT account.
I thought the cause of WWI was Belgian neutrality.
Maybe I was misremembering stuff I read about the Almoravids, who mostly just didn't like ornamental architecture or minarets.
180: I'm pretty sure it had something to do with a butterfly.
Fucking butterflies. Its always the butterflies.
153 et seq. I have shared a short and lucid account of the present SNAFU at the other place if you're bothered enough.
Not visibly you haven't, I don't think.
I think still no? (I'm interested because my mother is doing the exact same recovery right now.) I see a post from you reposting something about the A-level mess yesterday, but nothing about your ankle since you originally mentioned it 7/23.
Question: Are we still supposed to be washing our hands very carefully? Because there's so much focus now on airborne transmission, I see things about how maybe we don't need to wipe down the groceries and the like, but I haven't heard anything about when we can go back to half-assing our hand washing.
Wait, where are you washing them?
I think we're at cross purposes here. I thought you were talking about the English exams scandal. If you want to know about fracture treatment, ask and I'll try to answer.
wasn't there some Islamic social leveling movement in North Africa, one of whose principles was limiting height of buildings?
This is apparently a firmly held belief of the Sultan of Oman - I don't know whether based on religious principles or aesthetics or what - and so you can't build anything in Oman over (I think) seven stories high. The Al-Bustani hotel is 12 floors and it needed a special exemption.
I was told this a while ago by a diplomat in country and it may have changed.
Oh, that makes sense. I have been grinding my teeth at how incredibly difficult it is to get someone treated for anything in the US, even when they're insured (I spent multiple hours a day for about ten days trying to straighten out my mother's situation), so I was primed to read an account of the NHS being significantly less of a nightmare. But not for any particular reason other than envy of your health care system.
The post on the A-levels disaster was a useful explanation of what happened as well.
194 We have an annual Gulf architecture symposium at my institution in which I participate and I'm friends with some Omani architects and architectural historians, one of whom is on staff here and I can say that it's definitely a cultural/aesthetic thing. Omani architecture is distinct and ancient and they want to preserve the character and history of their cities and towns. They have no desire to look like Dubai.
Whatever the reason, the results are good. Muscat waterfront still looks like a nice harbour town rather than Delta City.
The NHS is a long way from perfect, but it's also a lot better than nothing. In my case:
1. Once it became clear I needed serious treatment my wife dialled 999 (=911/112, the numbers are all converged here. Once it was clear that I was comfortable in bed they mobilised an ambulance with a two hour response time.
2. The ambulance team's assessment was that they didn't have the equipment to get me down stairs safely, so they called in a specialist team from Leeds (90 minutes away) which covers the whole region.
3. The specialist team got me out of the house and the locals took me to A&E (ER); I had x-rays, CT, and was in a bed on a general admission ward within two hours.
4. Next day I saw an orthopaedic registrar (one grade below consultant, no idea what you call them), who showed me the pictures, said that the bones were not significantly displaced so surgery was not required, specified the cast she wanted and after a while I was taken to get it fitted. (Had surgery been required it would have happened quite soon- later I met a guy who had smashed up his leg so badly he had eleven operations in two weeks, but he was walking when I encountered him (don't waste your sympathy, he was DUI.)). Next morning I was moved to a specialist orthopaedic ward.
5. Spent about a week there, saw a doctor every day, but more to the point also a physio team, who got me standing up with a frame. When they started discussing discharge options they offered either discharge home with visiting assistance or "intermediate care", that is residential rehab. V and I thought this was a no-brainer. I waited four days for a room to come free in a rehab unit and here I am.
6. I have been here about 10 days, with daily physio, and they're starting me on steps tomorrow. As far as this place is concerned I can stay here as long as I'm showing improvement- the unspoken assumption is about another three weeks. I saw a consultant at the hospital who looked at some new x-rays and was very happy with them. I am looking at getting the pot off on the 4th, when I will also see the consultant again. Soon after that I will be sent home and transferred to "community physio", but by then I am expected to be good to go at home, including stairs. An OT has been to the house and written a report that recommends a few minor adjustments in the way of rails etc.
7. I imagine that if all goes to plan I will have a final appointment with the doctors before they cut me loose. The community physio will continue as long as they think it's helping.
General Points: the whole system is visibly creaking from underfunding. Most of the work is done by care assistants on minimum wage, and the response time to patient call outs is longer than it was last time I was in hospital. But my only real complaint that can't be put on the government is the over-enthusiastic obsession with laxatives on the hospital ward, from which I'm still recovering; that is poor training.
I did O levels even before NW. Less than half the cohort actually took them - those that went to grammar or tech schools. Even less for girls as there were fewer girls' grammar schools. And even then our provincial grammar had boys who, after 5 years' "elite" education, only got 1 or 2 passes.
Only after the comprehensivisation of the 70s and 80s and the raising of the leaving age to 16 from 15 (my father left school aged 12) was it expected that everyone would sit exams at 16.
"The importance of Omanism in limiting publicly visible erections."
That does sound much more organized than what happened to my mother. Ambulance to the hospital and surgical repair the next day were both timely and competent, no complaints. Discharge from the hospital, on the other hand -- she had a choice between inpatient rehab and being sent home to coordinate followup care through her GP. Because she's eighty with emphysema, inpatient rehab seemed like a serious COVID risk, so she opted for being sent home, despite the bad leg being totally non-weight bearing for six weeks.
At which point it took literally weeks (from a week and a half to two weeks), and hours on the phone on all of the intervening days to get her any care at all. The surgeon who did her repair was eighty miles from where she lives, and no one closer would accept her as a patient. Her GP took most of a week to authorize home health aides and physical therapy, and then another week for the providers to do an intake appointment and actually start providing care.
Getting her up on a frame (I think that's the same thing as what we call a walker in the US) meant me buying one in a drugstore and the two of us figuring out what she should be doing with the help of Dr. Google -- no useful instruction from anyone with training. Other than that she's been in a transport chair purchased in the same drugstore.
It's three weeks since the accident now, and she's finally seen a therapist and home health care aides are starting this week, but she could have gotten badly hurt in the first week before I and my sister managed to bully people into agreeing to treat her.
IOW, it may be creaky and underfunded, but I envy the NHS.
Jammies is on his first day of virtual PD for the new school year. It's over zoom, but apparently all the coaches are sitting together in a room, none of them wearing masks. WTF.
Where does your mother live? If she's in the middle of nowhere, she might have similar problems here up to a point unless she was willing to go into rehab in the big city. Community care in the sticks can be a bit of a lottery. The hospital I was in is in a city of 500k, but it serves a lot of surrounding countryside, so if you want to see a surgeon you mostly have to come to town.
Small market towns might or might not boast a quasi-hospital facility where she could get rehab. Villages and farming communities, not so much. They'd certainly set you up with something, but it might not be very convenient.
She lives in Manhattan. Highest population density in the US. Our system is just horrific.
It's almost as cosmopolitan as Toronto.
207. Yes, it is. My treatment is, of course, free at the point of delivery.
Yeah, we've paid thousands for the care she's gotten already, what with one thing and another, and there's no way of telling what will be reimbursed by insurance. But the money isn't the worst thing -- sending a eighty-year old woman home with one weight-bearing leg, an untrained family member with no guidance providing care, and no immediate connection to followup care, was the really bad bit. Everything's pretty much fine now, but the first few days were quite frightening.
Yes, that looks like willful incompetence. Does nobody own the process?
The patient owns the process! It's the glory of our system!
In my experience, NYC medical care is especially bad and uncoordinated. Bay Area health care was much better, and health care in my current town has extremely long wait times and rationing but is pretty good and well coordinated when you actually see someone,.
Next day I saw an orthopaedic registrar (one grade below consultant, no idea what you call them)
I don't think we have this same kind of system grading hospital physicians from junior to senior. Or if we do it varies hospital-by-hospital and doesn't show up in titles so clearly. (In my state, hospitals are mostly not allowed to employ doctors, but while that's not the law in most of the country, I think it's still common for doctors to work in non-direct-employment arrangements at hospitals.)
That said, here as well I'm very conscious of the privilege of speaking fluently with a wide vocabulary, having contacts and simply understanding how shit works. It's easy to imagine people falling through the cracks with no malice on anybody's part.
215. I thought you had something called 'interns' which roughly corresponded to our Junior/Senior House Officers. If doctors above that level have no concept of seniority, who does the buck stop with and who do less experienced people go to for advice?
We haven't put it to the test, but my mother in NYC just joined a "geriatric practice" limited to patients 75 and up, which claims to be about coordinating this sort of thing. Certainly they were much better about walking her through the paperwork and appointment scheduling process than any doctor's office I've ever seen. But she hasn't yet needed any actual care.
Yes, there's a hierarchy of doctors. The senior ones with authority and permanent jobs, who are ultimately responsible for what happens, are called attending physicians or just "attendings". An intern is one who just got out of medical school last year and is still doing rotations in different areas to get a broad basis of knowledge. In between are "residents" and "fellows" who are now specializing in their chosen field but still seen as being in the training process.
Ok, then, US Attending = UK Consultant, US Resident = UK Registrar, US Intern = UK House Officer.
Right, I meant past the training process. I guess interns, residents, fellows are a big part of hospital work all put together though.
Yes, House Officers are still on rotation, but they have their MB/Bach, which is the qualification that allows them to call themselves 'Doctor'.
There seems to be a double standard in the US on whether interns and residents are addressed "doctor" - only in front of patients, not when it's just them and other doctors talking. Presumably about the level of deference they expect from patients. I'm not sure what nurses and other professionals say.
I'm not sure what a physician assistant is, but I've been seeing a lot of them lately. They have been useful in prescribing drugs and treatments, and generally useful in diagnosis -- except for one hideously erroneous diagnosis I got, which the doctor later reversed. (Funny thing: If somebody tells you that you have emphysema and it turns out you don't, it's really difficult to be angry. My wife and I did, however, spend five difficult days between diagnosis and proof that the diagnosis was wrong.)
Which reminds me that about 20 years ago, my wife got back test results that indicated her kidneys had basically failed. As with my emphysema, she had a medical history where kidney failure was a semi-plausible diagnosis. But when she detailed the actual number behind the grim diagnosis, it was an order of magnititude or two off of what it would have been even if it was a catastrophically bad number. I called the doctor and it turned out he had read the wrong number from the wrong column.
We almost aborted our first kid because of a lab error. The hCG level at our third appointment came back low which they said meant a miscarriage and we could abort to make it clean or wait until a miscarriage happened naturally. We decided to just wait and a few days later they called us back and said they'd mixed up patient samples and actually the pregnancy was fine.
The whole birthing medical complex is not easy to deal with, but that's the worst I've heard.
219: Fellows are usually specialist trainees. So, once you finish your residency in internal medicine, you can go ahead and do a fellowship in endocrinology or hematology/oncology. Or you can leave and be a general internist. There are now fellowships in general internal medicine for doctors who want to combine general medicine with academic pursuits.
Residents and Interns (especially Interns) are still called House Officers or House Staff in US teaching hospitals. It's an old style. I've never heard them not called "doctor". Medicine has very strong hierarchies but they have passed an essential hurdle. They are considered to be in post-graduate training, which is kind of funny as they just spent four years in post-graduate training in an American medical school. But an intern is Post-Graduate Year 1 (PGY1) and at the bottom of a new heap.
222: don't consultants switch back to "Mr.".
At the "public" hospital in our city everybody refers to everyone as Dr. blah blah, even the Ph.Ds. At one of the teaching hospitals in my system, it's very formal - although when those doctors are working on corporate management priorities (projects on readmission and the like) at the system level they are more likely to go by their first name. At my hospital, the physician in chief goes by her first name. There are a couple of crotchety old doctors who the head of HR addresses as Dr. Blah. She does not address the hospital president or the head of the physicians organization so formally.
225: sort of like a nurse practitioner only with less of a ho,istic nursing orientation - sometimes trained in medical schools and with less room for independent practice.
Is anybody else watching the DNC? I've seen most of the first hour. Precious few authentic or emotionally touching moments, but somebody did manage to chose John Prine's "I Remember Everything" for the Covid memorial montage, and that was a good thought. It feels like a million years ago that he died.
Now Kasich is on, and I want to throw things. This is why I gave up my TV in 2006. It's much better when I just watch clips of things on my laptop. But I'm not home right now and this place has a huge TV and I made the bad decision to turn it on....argh.
I am not watching -- interested, but planning on watching clips later.
I think there is something to be said for watching the intended presentation, but sorry that it's so aggravating.
I went upstairs after my walk to avoid it.
Where I work, nobody ever calls a PhD a "doctor", but the senior consultants get called "M.C. (First Name) ." It stands for Master Consultant.
This is a for-real question because I don't understand the technology: Is there something about digital TVs that makes them constantly out of sync? I feel as though the various times over the past 10 years that I've been trapped in an airport or hotel room with a TV, as often as not the video of the actors' mouths are out of sync with the audio. Tonight it seems especially bad. I don't remember this being a common problem with TV when I was growing up.
Covid memorial montage
At the risk of appearing to be as cynical as I actually am, that sounds like a really effective piece of political propaganda.
As for the rest, well, fuck Kasich, but if he wants to side with decency for a change, we can afford to let him talk for a bit. Doesn't mean I have to watch.
238: "Paging Dr. Hammer. Excuse me, I mean... [drumbeat starts]
OK, I just saw this guy onscreen several times and couldn't remember who he was. I thought he was one of the obscure younger Kennedys. Apparently it was Beto. Shows what I know.
Amy Klobuchar actually made me smile. "He blamed the prime minister of Canada for editing him out of Home Alone 2. Who does that?!"
I still disagree with her on nearly everything, though.
I suppose it's a film editor? Maybe there's a special name for that?
Bernie's speech was actually fairly good. I believe that he believes it, which is more than I can say for a lot of the other pro speakers.
I'm still fuming about Kasich. It seems like a thumb in the eye of every woman. The heck with you, we need White Working Class Men (tm).
I knew Sanders was on because I could hear my son downstairs saying, "I am once again asking for your financial support."
We're watching because Amadea is a delegate. The speeches seem scripted and inauthentic in a way typical of these things, but at least they're short.
This format is certainly less painful to watch than the typical convention, with the exception of those stupid galleries of people clapping.
For counter programming, Guiliani is experimenting in seeing just how anti-Semitic you can be without using using the phrase "killed Jesus."
I feel bad for Michelle Obama. She didn't want to stay in political life. In another world, I don't think she'd be speaking at this convention, and I think that would suit her just fine.
At least her speech sounds like her. It's very polished and it's not aimed at people like me, but it is well done. I think it's going to resonate with its intended audience.
I found the thing worked quite well in the end. Flowed well and moved along without the interruptions of applause. I listened to it from the next room while doing other stuff on the computer and that was pretty good. (Had to get up and go tot the door a few times when I missed an intro and did not recognize the voice).
Started pretty boring, but as some have pointed out on Twitter, no more so than any other convention (actually less in my opinion). Michelle Obama's speech wa unsurprisingly quite strong, and I like Bernie's more than I usually do. And personally I'm ok, if not thrilled, with Kasich and the like having small roles. I contain multitudinous tents.
Almost none of this matters to anything, of course.
Did appreciate "His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that, he paid with his life."
Also Michelle's "It is what it is" after pointing out the DJT is in over his head.
The heck with you, we need White Working Class Men (tm).
It's the popular vote analog to the Senate that passed Obamacare. This is the United States. You want a majority sufficient to get something done, you've got to appease Joe Lieberman. The alternative -- well, we're living the alternative.
I guess I'm closer to being the intended audience. Thing worked fine for me. MO especially. Cuomo isn't his dad, but laid into Trump well enough.
Next time they should figure out a way to pipe thousands of people's audio through, one-way, to turn individual applause into a crowd. (Probably some kind of algorithm could filter out hecklers.)
210: I think part of that is tat if you stay within one health system on one medical record, you are ok-ish. But your mother was out of town and then tried to arrange follow up care at home.
Do we have any Germans or residents of Germany on the blog. I'd really love to hear what the day to day experience is like there.
228: None of the Scientists do, but the young Attendings did during a grand rounds presentation.
256.2 Doug I think. Maybe one or two others.
256.2 Yes, long-time resident, have been in Berlin since 2012 and Munich before that (with Tbilisi/Moscow in between).
I take public transport to work, so it's masks on train with nearly universal compliance. I went back to the office in early June, having been working from home since March 17, the day that schools also shut down. Schools came back in a limited way before summer break; the break ran from June 25 to August 10 here, but varies pretty widely among the 16 states.
Masking is required in all retail or other indoor businesses; again, compliance is nearly universal. One of the big drug-store chains even did ads featuring their stores with a Berghain-style bouncer keeping out anyone who didn't have the right look, i.e., a mask. Inside people were masked and dancing while making their purchases. It was a pretty funny ad. Many stores limit the number of people who can enter at any given time.
There is indoor dining, which I did a little while we were on vacation in far western Germany, but it worries me enough that I don't generally. It's still warm enough to eat outdoors if we decide to go out for a meal. Restaurants collect contact info from everyone dining in, including the time of the visit.
Public pools have limited the number of people who can visit at any given time, and there are sessions so that everyone leaves the pool at a certain time, and the next session begins an hour later. I do not plan on going, regardless. We have a lake nearby, but the main open area by the shore also looks like a potentially unhealthy place to be most weekends.
Movies will be open again soon, I think at half capacity. Music and theater are not back yet, I guess they are waiting to see. Soccer was back without spectators and continues that way. The leagues and the health authorities are still trying to work up plans that would allow spectators. Museums are open again.
Retail is definitely taking a hit; just on my path through the train station near work, a candy/gift store and a flower shop have both closed for good. I think the Starbucks is merely hibernating, and I think the shoe store was on its way out even before the pandemic. Over at Alexanderplatz, I noticed a lot of vacancies in the lower levels of the station. Two months of foot traffic reduced by 90% must have taken a toll; also, there must be something going on with the leases there because other places are not as affected.
Schools in Berlin opened last Monday. This is the great variable in the whole experiment. They are doing some distancing and some masking, but it really is very uncertain whether it is sufficiently safe. Nobody knows.
Numbers have been up, by local standards, for about three weeks now. Berlin has gone from 30-40 new reported cases daily (in a population of about 3.8 million) to 66 today but more than 100 some days last week. Currently, the 7-day rate is 13.4 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants. That's the second-highest rate in Germany, behind North Rhine-Westfalia at 15.3 and just ahead of Hesse at 13.2. Lowest is Saxony at 1.6 and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania (Baltic coast) at 1.8. Overall, Germany has been having about 1400 new cases a day in a population of 82 million. That's up by about a third from where it was in mid-July, so people are worried that it's on the verge of ramping up.
I realize this must sound close to idyllic by American standards. I'm also happy to blather on more about Germany if there's more you would like to know.
This is a for-real question because I don't understand the technology: Is there something about digital TVs that makes them constantly out of sync?
Don't think it's digital TVs so much as LCD. Rhythm games from the CRT era are generally unplayable as a result.
I hope Susan B. Anthony doesn't start to hang out with Roger Stone now.
259: Yes. What happens to someone who is injured, gets decent acute care and then needs rehab, home-care type services. Do you know?
Very brave of the President to signal that he's now for illegal voting.
262: I presume that that is going on the same as before though with some additional safety measures. I don't know anyone personally in this kind of situation, so I had a quick look at several web sites. The page for health services in North Hesse seems typical, if a bit vague. At the top of their page on "ambulant rehabilitation," which sounds like the kind of post-acute care you're talking about, there's a note that says, "We are back for you! For the safety of our patients and staff during the corona pandemic, we have re-structured our processes and taken the necessary safety measures."
My impression is that compared to the US Germany does much more in-patient post-acute care, a lot of it at facilities that specialize in exactly that sort of thing.