Corona Virus Disease/(SARS-CoV-2) II

[pzannucci]

6 minutes ago, Jeff Matthews said:

There's that and then, there's reality.  Here's reality:

 

The federal government was intended to have very limited powers.  In the days of wild frontiers and travel by horse, it made some sense.  Then, along came the industrial revolution.  Trade skyrocketed.  We couldn't live under 50 different standards nearly so easily as before.  Single standards are efficient.  Commerce demands predictability and efficiency to thrive.  If the feds didn't jump in and overstep to make this happen, we'd be a weak republic, like Mexico.

Sorry, from what I am seeing, it is all of our govt, not just the feds.  Better than going the way of Venezuela and socializing.  That really wouldn't have helped with the virus.  

 

Just vote to have term limits so that we can clean up the folks that gain too much power and money in office.  Also vote for someone who can figure out how to fix the CDC and FDA.  We need to turn around solutions quicker than they do, with their rate of error.

 

[Dave A]

7 minutes ago, sputnik said:

We all value freedom, you’re trying to draw lines of distinction that don’t exist.  That’s the methodology of extremists.

No you don't all value freedom. It is why conservative and Christian groups have to fight to even have guest speakers on college campuses. All the alphabet groups get to do what they want though and administrations look the other way when their Antifa students bust a few conservative heads. Then the administration says the conservatives can't have another event because antifa might show up and security costs are too high. Freedom means opposing viewpoints have as much right to be heard as yours and let adults decide which they choose to believe.

 

  Since this topic is now being discussed do you consider the Founding Fathers philosophy extremist?

[richieb]

1 hour ago, sputnik said:

Is posting links from Hillsdale College (promoted by Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin) spreading fake news?

Carl linked that for me, it was mine. Come at me, not him —

[Jeff Matthews]

4 minutes ago, Dave A said:

No you don't all value freedom. It is why conservative and Christian groups have to fight to even have guest speakers on college campuses. All the alphabet groups get to do what they want though and administrations look the other way when their Antifa students bust a few conservative heads. Then the administration says the conservatives can't have another event because antifa might show up and security costs are too high. Freedom means opposing viewpoints have as much right to be heard as yours and let adults decide which they choose to believe.

 

  Since this topic is now being discussed do you consider the Founding Fathers philosophy extremist?

This is the Age of the Internet.  There is abundant free speech, despite all those questionable attempts to censor at universities and other venues.

[Dave A]

7 minutes ago, sputnik said:

 

...and another thing per my earlier post, the “strings of manipulation” you mention are constraints to assure objectivity and transparency over unchecked propaganda and brainwashing.  That’s how Hillsdale and it’s wealthy promoters can avoid any intellectual challenge.

You seriously mean that? You mean a group of people in a "free" nation cant decide to do things with their own money? No one is forced to go there and no one is forced to pay for it either by taxation. And by what standard are they not objective and transparent?

[MeloManiac]

Many pages ago (!) I posted a picture illustrating that President Trump used a graph to show how well the US was doing in battling covid 19. In the picture, Belgium was listed as doing worst of all, even worse than Italy and Spain. I've noticed that some users here felt as being attacked because I mentioned 'fake news', or the thread being politicized. This was never my intention. I apologize for that. 

 

First, let me explain why I haven't reacted here sooner. I'm a highschool teacher, and since Monday, with the Easter holiday ended, teaching has started again. No, the Belgian schools are still closed, but like thousands of colleagues, I have been working hard to prepare online lessons for each of my 150 students. It's a lot of work, and for many,  homeschooling is a totally new concept. I've been working on this since the second week of the Easter holiday, and it will continue until the schools are opened again. Also, I have three teenaged kids myself, who are now being 'homeschooled' by me. My wife is still working outdoors, as a office assistant in law office. She's the only one at the office, the lawyers are working from home. My wife is working very long days and leaves early in the morning and gets back home late. So basically, I'm running a full time household and a full time teaching job...

 

Now, let me explain why Belgium is doing so bad, if you believe the numbers. First things first: Belgium has successfully 'flattened the curve'. We 've reached the peak more than a week ago and the number of deaths are steadily diminishing. 

Second: why these bad statistics? In Belgium, our count of deaths includes not just those confirmed cases of people who died of corona in hospital, but also includes ALL the deaths registered in the homes for the elderly (woonzorgcentra, WZCs). That's right, even if that person died of cardiac arrest, trombose, old age, no matter what, they are registered as corona-deaths. 

 

Of course, by doing this - it is controversial - Belgium is 'cooking its own numbers'. Some say it is a stupid thing to do, others say it is a way of making sure the population is afraid and respects social distancing and all the other directives... In any case, it is a disgrace  that so many people in these homes of the elderly, including the caregivers, were left to die like this: masks etc were/are hidden from them for some obscure reason, and all of them die alone, away from their friends and family, because there is a 100% lockdown... It has already been decided that later, a parliamentary investigation will look into how this could happen, in order to prevent it will never happen again....

 

 

[Sancho Panza]

18 minutes ago, Jeff Matthews said:

Then, we would be invaded all the time by strong aggressors.  We would not be the world leader.  I doubt you'd like it, but who knows?

I doubt we’d be that weak. World leader? I’d love if we minded our own business.

[Dave A]

8 minutes ago, Jeff Matthews said:

This is the Age of the Internet.  There is abundant free speech, despite all those questionable attempts to censor at universities and other venues.

No censorship on Twitter or Facebook and no cooking search results by Google eh?

[Dave A]

3 minutes ago, sputnik said:

Where does their funding come from?

Alumni endowments and student fees paid in full without govt grants to do so. All that is there on their web site all spelled out in plain english. Voluntary transfer of wealth because they are a valued institution treasured by many who speak verbally and with their wallets.

[Sancho Panza]

Meanwhile, the uS Army has an Earth Day YouTube promo...

[Dave A]

6 minutes ago, Sancho Panza said:

I doubt we’d be that weak. World leader? I’d love if we minded our own business.

I think there should be a lot more of that mind our own business first too. I would amend that thought though to being a world leader is not bad if others want to be like you according to the wealth and freedom your system represents. Being the worlds policeman bothers me a lot however. Another thing the Founding Fathers taught against was foriegn entanglements

[Marvel]

Speaking of the original topic... this link is to a German site (it's in English...), that gives some valuable info in tracing the origin of the Corona viruses.

 

https://www.dw.com/en/did-coronavirus-really-originate-in-a-chinese-laboratory/a-53171292?dicbo=v1-2772e23e53c33518ee1cb4293aecacea-00564f50337ccc1f879878c757af5cb71e-gjqtmnrxgjsgcllegzstoljumqzwkllcgjsdklldgeztkojqgqzginlcmq

 

I think I still get the Hillsdale newsletter. They present articles and info that I disagree with on occasion, the same way that NPR does. They all help give balance to my understanding.

 

Cheers!

[billybob]

1 hour ago, 000 said:

I would love to know the name of that Eric Clapton song , I don't know his music very well , please enlighten me -

Lay Down Sally...?

[Marvel]

2 minutes ago, Dave A said:

I would amend that thought though to being a world leader is not bad if others want to be like you according to the wealth and freedom your system represents. Being the worlds policeman bothers me a lot however. Another thing the Founding Fathers taught against was foriegn entanglements

 

I had mentioned once before about my wife becoming a U.S. citizen... The day they had the swearing in ceremony in Atlanta, there were maybe 150 people at the ceremony, representing a multitude of countries. Many of those countries have been treated very poorly by the U.S. over the years. Still, they realized the good things about this country, about coming here and working hard and having a better life than their country of origin. Even with our problems and faults, in many ways, we are ahead of the game.

 

[sputnik]

13 minutes ago, Marvel said:

 

I had mentioned once before about my wife becoming a U.S. citizen... The day they had the swearing in ceremony in Atlanta, there were maybe 150 people at the ceremony, representing a multitude of countries. Many of those countries have been treated very poorly by the U.S. over the years. Still, they realized the good things about this country, about coming here and working hard and having a better life than their country of origin. Even with our problems and faults, in many ways, we are ahead of the game.

 

Nice post.  In many parts of the world, people still resolve their personal differences with machetes.

[geoff.]

Machetes, pfffft...

 

How pedestrian.

 

That’s what the second amendment’s for! 

[richieb]

38 minutes ago, sputnik said:

There, there.  Please understand that I wasn’t going at anyone - just pointing out that what one might call “fake news” depends on one’s world view.  Hope there are no hurt feelings.

Of course not. Thick skinned enough to hang here. No worries —.

[CECAA850]

12 minutes ago, sputnik said:

Politico has been of accused of bias both ways.  
 

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/politico/

 

[Jeff Matthews]

51 minutes ago, Dave A said:

We became the greatest nation because we followed what was laid done for us 200 plus years ago with a unique constitution that deliberately limited govt and not citizens. The Republic was designed to stop the accumulation of too much power in govt hands as they well knew about that under the King of England.

Interesting.  Let's follow the logic above.  "We became the greatest nation because we followed what we laid down for us 200 years ago..."  I thought the complaint was that we  were not following what was laid down to us 200 years ago.

[Marvel]

I would have placed NPR/PBS to be a little more in the center, considering how conservative I was in the past. But we all vary with that depending on the subject at hand, don't we?